Final Fantasy II (FF2) is easily the best Final Fantasy for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). Much like the other two NES games (FF1 & FF3), the plot is hazy and very quick. The characters have no development and the point of the game is easily lost in its lack of detailed dialogue. This lack of dialogue is the reason that I feel this is a game that using a walkthrough to complete it is not sad and pathetic, because if you don't know the names of the cities or if you take a break for a couple hours, you cannot find/remember where you are supposed to go. The fun part of this game does not come from its story though. This game gets all of its credibility from its unique ability system and customizable characters.
     The four main characters are members of a rebel group that is trying to stop some evil guy... or something. The whole story is their quest around the world through dungeons, caves, more dungeons, and even more caves. The fourth member of your team doesn't fully join your team until the last very small portion of the game, allowing new people join your party off and on, some of which die just as fast as they join. If you play this game to absorb a complex story, you're going to be left as dry as a forgotten sponge in a very hot, dry place... I think that's pretty dry.
     So why would one want to even bother playing this game? The reason to play it is in its customizable features. Each of the characters, with the exception of those which you only temporarily have in your party, can be turned into whatever type of character you want, with only one limitation: you'd better know what types of characters you want before you get very far into the game, and you'd better have one decent magical fighter.
     There aren't any classes in this game. No black, white, red, blue, or any other colored mages. The characters are simply guys that can learn any magic you teach them, with a limit of sixteen slots for magic. You can find spells or buy them, but you have to use the magic item to teach it to one person. Another difference with this game and any other FF is that all magic spells level up by how much you use them. There aren't any Fire 3 spells or Curagas, there is Fire and Cure. The spells also all cost the amount of the level they are on, meaning, Cure level 1 costs one MP, Cure level 5 costs five MP. In addition, all spells cost the same amount, meaning, Cure level 1 costs one MP, Ultima level 1 costs one MP.
     Another customizable feature in the game is the characters themselves. Each of them can use whatever weapon they want. Then the character's ability to use that type of weapon increases, and the amount of times the character hits with that weapon increases. Basically, their ability to use certain types of weapons levels up, whatever level it is, is how many times they can possibly hit with the weapon. Also, weapons are automatically used with two hands. If you want, you can equip a shield to help your defense, but then the weapon becomes one handed, and therefore weaker. Also, you can use two weapons to have a better hit percentage, but attack power goes down, so it's mostly useless.
     Magic levels up, weapons level up, but the one thing that doesn't level up is your characters. Instead of leveling up, the characters' stats go up depending on what they frequently do. For example, if a character physically attacks very often, their power goes up. If a character's HP is reduced a great amount (being smacked around) his maximum HP goes up... as long as he is alive at the end of the fight.
     In my game through FF2, I ran into a couple difficulties, and a couple... whatever the opposite of difficulties is. To explain, my characters all became physically powerful. I don't like to use magic, so my guys got exceptionally powerful. The problem with this is that there is no level up system, and since I didn't use magic, my guys didn't have much MP, and magic is highly useful in this game. Magic is necessary for curing (because the only item good for restoring enough HP is the expensive elixir) and certain enemies are only hurt by magic and critical hits, so naturally, my powerful morons had to wait for critical hits in order to win.
     My personal opinion of this game is that the story is too basic, and there are some flaws in the system, but overall, it's pretty good. A remake of the game with better graphics, more detailed characters and storyline... no. In fact, just put the system into another game, and it'd be awesome. For such an early video game, it's surprisingly good and even has a better level up system than a lot of games today.

Goatbob's Rating: 
5.5/10 Lamps