The Final Fantasy II

The Final Fantasy II

Develope: Square
TOSE (WSC, PS, GBA, PSP)
Publisher: JP Square
(Famicom)
Square Enix (PlayStation Portable)
Designer: Hironobu Sakaguchi
Akitoshi Kawazu
Writer: Akitoshi Kawazu
Kenji Terada
Artist: Yoshitaka Amano
Composer: Nobuo Uematsu
Series: Final Fantasy
Platform: Famicom, WonderSwan Color, PlayStation, mobile phones, Game Boy Advance,

Final Fantasy II , Fainaru Fantajī Tsū? is a console role-playing game developed and published by Square (now Square Enix) in 1988 for the Famicom as a part of the Final Fantasy series. The game was only released on this system in Japan, although enhanced remakes for the PlayStation and Game Boy Advance were released in North America and the PAL region. Other remakes were released on the WonderSwan Color and mobile phones. The most recent remake was for the PlayStation Portable in 2007.The game's story centers on three youths whose parents were killed during an army invasion. The invasion leader, an emperor, pursues world control using monsters and demons. The youths join a resistance to end the emperor's war.

Final Fantasy II introduced many elements that would later become staples of the Final Fantasy franchise, including chocobos and the recurring character Cid. It also eliminated the traditional experience point leveling system, and introduced a system where the characters' statistics increase according to how they are used or acquired.

Gameplay
Final Fantasy II features gameplay similar to that of its predecessor, Final Fantasy. The player can freely roam an overworld containing several towns and dungeons. A menu-based system allows the player to outfit each character with equipment and up to two disposable items for battle.[1] Magic spells are assigned to the character from the item menu, and certain spells, such as "Cure", can be used outside of battle. The player can also save their progress on the overworld. Weapons, armor, items, and magic spells can be purchased at shops, and townspeople provide useful information for the player's progression through the game. One new feature is the "Word Memory" system: when in conversation with non-player characters (NPCs), the player can "ask" about and "memorize" special keywords or phrases, which can later be repeated to other NPCs to gain more information or unlock new actions. Similarly, there exist a handful of special items that can be shown to NPCs during conversation or used on certain objects, which have the same effect. Characters and monsters were no longer separated into separate windows, and players could see their current and total hit points. For the first time, players could fight with less than four characters in their party. Final Fantasy II introduced the chocobo, the signature Final Fantasy character, who would let characters ride to a location at great speed without enemy attack. The recurring character Cid was also introduced, and as usual helped players gain access to air ships.
The ill-fated opening battle in the Famicom version

On the overworld and within dungeons, random encounters with enemies can be fought to improve each character's attributes.[4] Unlike the original Final Fantasy, players could not upgrade their characters jobs.

Attributes include hit points, magic points, magic power, stamina, strength, spirit, agility, intelligence, and evasion. Players could also increase their ability to wield certain types of weapon, and repeated use in combat would cause leveling up. Final Fantasy II uses the same turn-based battle system seen in the original Final Fantasy, with battle parties consisting of four characters at a time. Three of these characters are always present, but the fourth position rotates among several characters throughout the game. The game introduces a "back row" in battle, within which characters are immune to most physical attacks, but can be harmed with bows and magical attacks. Likewise, enemies can be arranged in up to four rows of two creatures. Only the two rows closest to the player's party can be damaged with physical attacks, and by eliminating these rows the player can then physically damage back rows of enemies.

The game is one of the few games in the series to not use experience-based levels. Each character participating in battle develops depending on what actions they take. For instance, characters who use a particular type of weapon frequently will become more adept at wielding a weapon of that type, and will also increase in physical strength and accuracy. However, trade-offs do occur in this type of development; that character's intelligence (magic power) may decrease with their overuse of physical attacks. Characters who frequently cast a particular magic spell will learn more potent versions of it, while increasing and decreasing their intelligence and strength ratings respectively, forcing players to choose which strength to build. Hit points and magic points increase depending on need; a character who ends a battle with only a small amount of health remaining might earn an increase in maximum hit points, and a character who uses the majority of their magic points during a single battle might increase their maximum magic points.[This experience system had several unintended consequences that allowed characters to gain much more experience than intended, such as cancelled character boosting commands still activating, and players having their characters attack each other and winning battles at very low life levels, thus causing their hit points to grow massively.