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Final Fantasy II (1988) review
by Uneducated_Reviews

Given the number of infamous opinions people seemed to have with this entry I search for starting tips to make my experience more "unpleasant" truth to be told I find some of them pretty useful but I also discovered that this black sheep was not what people said it was.

At first, I was pleasantly surprised of the amount of plot this game starts with, unlike its predecessor you'll unravel a lot of things and a lot of things will happen, this was the thing that I liked the most, the main cast is basic and somehow dull but the supporting cast is pretty good, I was genuinely moved by some of the plot twists within this game, also is safe to assume that this was the basis for a lot of things that happen in later entries.

Gameplay-wise is were things start to shake a little, before I continue, I have to say that this game has an exploit that power-ups your weapons and magic and is completely broken, I did use this exploit but mainly to fasten up the grindy parts of this game, and balance things up, this way I wasn't OP but I didn't have to grind, my advice is that you use it wisely to have fun and a good challenge. The part that is not fun in the gameplay is its individual growth nature, in order for you to upgrade your attack you have to attack, to have defence, get hit, and so on, is not that great but isn't terrible, if only they did it different with the HP and MP, if you want your HP go up for example, you have a good % of your total HP to go down, if you heal yourself before the battle ends your opportunity to grow up that stat will disappear, same with MP, when you get like 100 of MP you have to make a lot of spells in each battle for the system to recognize that you can upgrade it, this translates to slow and repetitive grind that can at times kill the mood this game has

 As far as character design and environment design they're pretty good and the music is amazing too, I loved some tunes, particularly the overworld and the 1st boss battle theme, this one is incredible. For all things considered, FF II is superior to its predecessor in almost every therm, I can see why it has a bad wrap but it is also way too misguided and unfair. If you want to try this game please give it a go, my recommendation is that you use the "attack" exploit with moderation to have a nice balance of fun and challenge.
«Constantly dying and enjoy it»
«Underrated»
«That ending!»
«OST on repeat»

Other reviews2

The PSP version gets rid of many problems but it's still very meh