I was under the impression from most that this is one of the less-liked Final Fantasy titles, and some would even say the worst one. I don't know if I'd be willing to go that far yet - I've played plenty of Final Fantasy so far. At the time of writing the only singleplayer mainline games I have left to play are 3, 5, 12, 13, and 15.

Is Final Fantasy II bad though? Not really. It's simply the most average JRPG you'll ever play. It's inconvenient with it's backtracking. It's tedious with the way you level up stats and improve them. Then again, the core Final Fantasy gameplay loops are still fun at the end of the day. It's an odd conundrum because Final Fantasy II, especailly in the Pixel Remaster, wants you to like it, and vice versa. However it unfortunately never succeeds in doing that.

I don't talk spoilers here so I can't really delve much into the story - but one of the issues with Final Fantasy II is that there are only really 3 party members. The 4th slot of your party is a constantly rotating member that will swap in and out as you progress the game, until you get a permanent one... right before the final dungeon. Although some of these characters are clearly standard Final Fantasy classes/Jobs, such as Josef being a Monk or Ricard being a Dragoon, it doesn't really work.

When you play JRPGs, one of the appeals of the genre is collecting a party together from all different walks of life, who bond together to go on this journey. When you only have 3 of them who aren't really interesting in their own right, and others where you don't exactly know when they're gonna disappear on you forever as a playable character, it's really hard to get into it.

As a common theme, Final Fantasy II tends to really feel dumbed down in all aspects. The aforementioned party issue. A limited amount of spells you can teach each character. There's no levels. Stats level individually, and sporadically with no clear explanation anywhere (even online, I checked) as to what determines how these stats go up. And the main thing with Final Fantasy II - it's too easy. It's so easy to get your stats boosted to a point where you just wreck everything. Spamming and abusing Berserk only proves it further, since you can wipe anything in this game.

By the way, there's a weapon in the game that they hide via a specific interaction that is terrible on paper but will make the final boss fight trivial. Lovely. Did I do that? Yeah, of course, that's hilarious!

My opinion on Final Fantasy II may seem clear-cut so far. I was struggling here because I was trying to figure out why I like this game more than Final Fantasy I. The first game is more barebones than this, but there was something about it that did things right. Although II has a superior MP system to the first game, the first game didn't have you backtrack constantly, it established the core gameplay of Final Fantasy via proper JRPG mechanics, and it wasn't so easy.

What's weird is that I think Final Fantasy II would be a lot worse if it wasn't easy, and that's a core issue with the game. If you had to grind for the stats, which are hard to determine how they increase anyway, then this game would be dramatically unfun to play. At least the game being easy is fun to an extent, albeit boring at times.

Final Fantasy II does attempt a story - but as I mentioned earlier, many of these characters don't really have a personality, or aren't given enough writing or screentime to have one. They simply feel boilerplate. I think this game could benefit a lot from a Remake someday because the rebellion war plot idea combined with the game's failed attempts at emotional weight would hit pretty well in a voice-acted Remake where the story was extended and given time to fester. Final Fantasy II unfortunately has the issue many retro JRPGs have where you're just kinda shuttling from place to place as if you had a novice D&D Dungeon Master running a game for you, making you pick up special relics that are supposed to be plot relevant for a bit but not plot relevant in a session or two from then. The Ultima spell for example is made out to be something important, and you need a relic to get into the dungeon to acquire it. Yet once you do, they just add the Ultima spell as a learnable spell to your inventory and never talk about it again.

I usually cut slack for games that are really old. I am. This is me cutting slack. Final Fantasy II is the worst Final Fantasy I've played so far at time of writing, but it's not a bad game as some say. Instead, it's the most generic and average retro JRPG you'll ever play. Which hurts because I want to like it - Final Fantasy always makes me smile when I play it, and I kept waiting for Final Fantasy II to fully win me over.

If the phrase "this is one of the JRPGs of all time" was to be used unironically, it'd be to apt to use it to describe Final Fantasy II. So for scoring it, I'll go flatly in the middle of the 70s range and leave it at that.

Score: 75

I was under the impression from most that this is one of the less-liked Final Fantasy titles, and some would even say the worst one. I don't know if I'd be willing to go that far yet - I've played plenty of Final Fantasy so far. At the time of writing the only singleplayer mainline games I have left to play are 3, 5, 12, 13, and 15. Is Final Fantasy II bad though? Not really. It's simply the most average JRPG you'll ever play. It's inconvenient with it's backtracking. It's tedious with the way you level up stats and improve them. Then again, the core Final Fantasy gameplay loops are still fun at the end of the day. It's an odd conundrum because Final Fantasy II, especailly in the Pixel Remaster, wants you to like it, and vice versa. However it unfortunately never succeeds in doing that. I don't talk spoilers here so I can't really delve much into the story - but one of the issues with Final Fantasy II is that there are only really 3 party members. The 4th slot of your party is a constantly rotating member that will swap in and out as you progress the game, until you get a permanent one... right before the final dungeon. Although some of these characters are clearly standard Final Fantasy classes/Jobs, such as Josef being a Monk or Ricard being a Dragoon, it doesn't really work. When you play JRPGs, one of the appeals of the genre is collecting a party together from all different walks of life, who bond together to go on this journey. When you only have 3 of them who aren't really interesting in their own right, and others where you don't exactly know when they're gonna disappear on you forever as a playable character, it's really hard to get into it. As a common theme, Final Fantasy II tends to really feel dumbed down in all aspects. The aforementioned party issue. A limited amount of spells you can teach each character. There's no levels. Stats level individually, and sporadically with no clear explanation anywhere (even online, I checked) as to what determines how these stats go up. And the main thing with Final Fantasy II - it's too easy. It's so easy to get your stats boosted to a point where you just wreck everything. Spamming and abusing Berserk only proves it further, since you can wipe anything in this game. By the way, there's a weapon in the game that they hide via a specific interaction that is terrible on paper but will make the final boss fight trivial. Lovely. Did I do that? Yeah, of course, that's hilarious! My opinion on Final Fantasy II may seem clear-cut so far. I was struggling here because I was trying to figure out why I like this game more than Final Fantasy I. The first game is more barebones than this, but there was something about it that did things right. Although II has a superior MP system to the first game, the first game didn't have you backtrack constantly, it established the core gameplay of Final Fantasy via proper JRPG mechanics, and it wasn't so easy. What's weird is that I think Final Fantasy II would be a lot worse if it wasn't easy, and that's a core issue with the game. If you had to grind for the stats, which are hard to determine how they increase anyway, then this game would be dramatically unfun to play. At least the game being easy is fun to an extent, albeit boring at times. Final Fantasy II does attempt a story - but as I mentioned earlier, many of these characters don't really have a personality, or aren't given enough writing or screentime to have one. They simply feel boilerplate. I think this game could benefit a lot from a Remake someday because the rebellion war plot idea combined with the game's failed attempts at emotional weight would hit pretty well in a voice-acted Remake where the story was extended and given time to fester. Final Fantasy II unfortunately has the issue many retro JRPGs have where you're just kinda shuttling from place to place as if you had a novice D&D Dungeon Master running a game for you, making you pick up special relics that are supposed to be plot relevant for a bit but not plot relevant in a session or two from then. The Ultima spell for example is made out to be something important, and you need a relic to get into the dungeon to acquire it. Yet once you do, they just add the Ultima spell as a learnable spell to your inventory and never talk about it again. I usually cut slack for games that are really old. I am. This is me cutting slack. Final Fantasy II is the worst Final Fantasy I've played so far at time of writing, but it's not a bad game as some say. Instead, it's the most generic and average retro JRPG you'll ever play. Which hurts because I want to like it - Final Fantasy always makes me smile when I play it, and I kept waiting for Final Fantasy II to fully win me over. If the phrase "this is one of the JRPGs of all time" was to be used unironically, it'd be to apt to use it to describe Final Fantasy II. So for scoring it, I'll go flatly in the middle of the 70s range and leave it at that. Score: 75