FF History Month: The Red-Headed Stepchild of the Series (FF2)

So, onwards with this task born entirely out of self-loathing for myself and my social life. Final Fantasy 2. What can I say about you? Well, for starters, I will throw you a frickin' bone and not call you the worst of the old-school FFs, although you certainly are odd and hard to deal with. You were fun to play, but ultimately, you still ended up dead last in my list for a bunch of reasons which I will enumerate below. So, without further ado, I give you Final Fantasy 2: The Review.

Obviously, Emperor Mateus used to be a part of Twisted Sister.

I'm not touching the graphics issue. We're already agreed that the original was mindblowing for its time, etc., etc. Here's the damn screencaps:

Before selling out.

After selling out.

So, sound. Well, actually, I'd have to say that this is the Final Fantasy that impressed me the least music-wise. I mean, the tracks were appropriately generic as in Final Fantasy, but somehow they lacked the catchiness of their predecessors. I litterally cannot, for the life of me remember one single piece of the score for the game. Not the field music or the battle music. Nothing. I won't say it was bad, but if you can't even make the tunes catchy, then you're clearly not trying hard enough. I give the music a C-. For effort.

Now, on to the juicy bits of this game, and the reason why it's considered the red-headed stepchild of the franchise. Well, the old-school ones at least, FFXII gets that particular honor among the recent 3D ones. As per usual, the bulk of the game is spent walking from point A to point B trying to stop whatever calamity will happen next from befalling the next town. As you walk, you kill monsters, and these monsters are battled in good, old-fashioned, turn-based combat. Now, here's where the formula gets switched up. Instead of having the traditional level up system where you kill monsters for experience, you go through a process which is called 'stat grinding'. Stat grinding, as the name implies, is the act of performing a particular action, say, defending, over and over to increase the stat that directly correlates with said action. Naturally, this made powering up your characters a lot easier, thanks to the fact that all characters had the ability to dual-wield anything, including shields. So basically, all you had to do was spend two to three hours maxing out your defense/evasion stat and casually strolling through the rest of the game as all the enemies in the game struggled to score a hit against you. Unfortunately, this had the side-effect of people criticizing the game because it was very easy to beef up your characters to godly levels and therefore taking all the challenge and fun out of the game. On gameplay, this one scores a solid 'A' for innovation. Also, it's fun to be overpowered. Screw all of you 'challenge gamers'.

Here's some Amano art to make this more colorful.

Finally, the part that makes or breaks an RPG for me, the story. I am... Not very impressed by it. It is like a plot taken straight out of a shonen anime. Now, it's not terrible. It's just very predictable most of the time, and really, quite a few of the plot twists that are supposed to shock you just fail to do so (I'm looking at you, Leon). In a nutshell, you play as Firion(el), Maria, and Guy; three friends who are on the run from the Palamecian Empire and embark on a quest to prevent it from expanding all across the globe. Along the way, you make new friends, lose some old ones, lose some of the new ones and pretty much just run from one town to the next just in time to see the Empire blow shit up magnificently. I don't mind the characters, because overall, they're pretty down-to-earth. No rousing speeches, no silly team pep talk (well, almost), just three kids trying their hardest to stop a madman hell-bent on conquering the world. My only true complaint, character-wise, is The Emperor. This is a guy who people keep building up for you throughout the whole game, and when you finally get to fight him, he's a pushover. And if you're well prepared, he's still a pushover in the final battle. But hey, at least he's VERY hammy, which makes his very few lines quite entertaining to read. My main gripe with the story, as I said earlier, is its predictability and just all-around failure to successfully impress you during the big moments. Naturally, this is still the second of a long line of FFs, but I still feel that a tad more effort could have been put into making the script work. I think the problem with this one, is that a lot of the backstory was presented in a tie-in novel which, really, no-one these days will be able to acquire, or be arsed to read, for that matter. The story lands itself a 'B-', because there are still some damn good moments in that game.

So, overall, this is a game which tried to innovate, but went too far and got struck down. In other words, the least interesting of the Final Fantasies. While certainly the lowest on my list, it is by no means a bad game. Good for playing over a long, lazy weekend.

Fefi's Personal Score: 7/10

'Fair' Score: 6/10 (More like a 6.5, but decimals are a no-no here)

A more 'modernized' version of The Emperor for Dissidia. Sadly, still rocking the hair metal look.

Next time, it's my (longer) review of FFIV, because my copy of III got busted and I only recently got my hands on a new one.

July is Final Fantasy History Month. Yes, I did just make it up.

So, due to unfortunate circumstances, I have been stuck in my house for the whole summer. On the one hand, boo for me. On the other, it has given me plenty time to appreciate all these video games I have at my disposal. Being the huge RPG nerd that I am, I decided to play through the first 6 Final Fantasies and see how they stacked up nowadays.

First up: Final Fantasy, the one that started it all.

Hold on to your long-johns, we're about to get retro up in this bitch.

I decided to play the updated PSP version, since the original had a horrible five cast limit per spell level, and that shit don't roll with me.

First up, the graphics. Naturally, the original graphics would not stack up very well nowadays, but back then, this was pretty damn cool:

Mind blowing.

And now, for the latest, and what I presume will be the last update, they look like this:

Pretty.

So, for what essentially set the ground for every other JRPG out there, the graphics are a-okay.

Next up is the music. It's naturally nothing too fancy, just your usual string orchestra crap which I must admit, is quite catchy when you get lost on the map and have no damn clue where to go next. The game also comes with the bonus dungeons that have bosses from the other final fantasies and their theme music also gets a nice tech bump, which makes these bonus battles all the more exciting (Gilgamesh, anyone?). So the music is par for the course in a FF game, fun and fitting, but ultimately forgettable unless you're a fanboy (like me!).

Gameplay-wise, the game follows the standard turn-based combat format. The higher your characters' speed stats are, the better your chances are of striking first and ending the battle without any major casualties. The magic system uses the more recent MP, uh, system instead of the original 'five casts per day' limit, which you had to use an inn or a tent to refill. This came as a big relief, since I like to cast the big, flashy spells on the grounds that they look fabulous and awesome. But as far as strategy goes, you can just make a team of physical attackers and just punch through the game in a heartbeat. Alternatively, you could take up the four white mage challenge and have fun until you reach the final boss, which is easily defeated by this setup. Naturally, game progression is as cryptic as can be, since there is no quest log or anything to remind you of where to go next unless you speak to every NPC to get vague hints, but I suppose that's half the fun of playing this game.
All in all, if you're not in the mood for this game, the gameplay can get to be a tad frustrating, so I can only say the fun that is had depends on the person playing it, but I'd give it a solid C+ considering it's a 20+ year-old game.

And finally, there's the 'story'. Technically, it has one, but since you have to piece it together from your tasks and whatever the NPCs tell you, it can be hard to make out. I'm not even going to say it's a spoiler, since it's such an effing old game. You start out accepting a quest to rescue a princess from a rogue knight, Garland, and eventually end up protecting the world from dying thanks to the work of the Four Fiends of Chaos, which are destroying the crystals that control the elements of the earth. After much hard work, you go back 2,000 years in the past to defeat... and this is what I consider to be quite the surprising plot twist, back when it was released, anyway... Garland! It appears he was summoned back to the past by the very Fiends you had destroyed earlier when you first defeated him and had trapped the heroes in an endless time loop and it is  up to you to end it by defeating him. Final battle happens, the loop is broken and all your hard work disappears, since technically, none of the previous events ever happened. Messed up shit, if you ask me.

So, my final verdict is the following: It's a game that is over 20 years old and is very fun to play on the go, hence all the mobile remakes. With all the little touch-ups it has received, it is more than bearable to play in this day and age. For the casual, non RPG hating, gamer, this means that it could be played and beaten with no major problems. For the RPG lover, it has more than enough bonus dungeons and difficult bosses to keep you entertained for the few days it'd take you to beat it. For the Final Fantasy fan, just get it, if you didn't already have it.

The Warrior of Light compels you to play this game.

Fefi's Personal Score: 8/10 (Actually, I love the damn thing)
Reasonable Score: 7/10