Introduction

Full Story (Spoilers)

     The powerful Empire is intent on obtaining many of the world’s towns and treasures in their bid to rule the world. The rebels escape their wrath and meet up with Princess Hilda who with her subjects, are hiding in a small place in Altea, away from the Empire’s wrath. Frionnel, Guy and Maria set out on a great journey to put a stop to the Empire and restore peace to the world, once again. As the game starts off, you soon learn that the Empire seeks to build a warship that is fully intent to destroying much of the world and inflicting more force and influence to their rule. The warship is indeed a terrifying weapon, thus, Princess Hilda orders the rebels to obtain some Mithril to help make better weapons to combat the Imperial troops. After that, the rebels devise a plan to obtain a sacred flame from the Kingdom of Kashoun and create the Sun Flame that will be used to destroy the warship. After getting the flame from Kashoun, the rebels go outside and notice that the warship had intercepted Cid’s airship first and begin to attack Cid’s airship. The Empire then captures Cid and Princess Hilda and takes them as prisoners. The rebels catch the warship refueling and then they board the ship in hopes to rescue both Cid and Princess Hilda. After infiltrating the ship, they find Cid and Hilda in their cells and bust them open. Cid offers to escort Hilda outside and the rebels find the engine of the ship and use the SunFlame on it. Thus, in essence, the great warship explodes and the Dark Knight warns the rebels that they haven’t won yet. Somehow, the voice of the Dark Knight sounds familiar, but the rebels won’t find it who he is until later on. Escaping on Cid’s airship, the rebels and Princess Hilda head back to Altea. Back in the rebel headquarters, it is revealed that the King is dying and he orders Gordon to take control of the rebellion and Ming-Wu to unlock the sealed power and for the rebels to enter Dist and gain the friendship of the Dragoons. Gordon then tells you that the Empire has been invaded by the Empire recently and explains that the Hiryu could be of some use. The rebels head out for Dist and encounter a pirate named Raila on the way. She agrees to go along with the rebels in their quest. Once reaching Dist, the rebels find out that the last remaining Hiryu was poisoned by the Empire and they realize that they need a Dragoon’s pendant to communicate with him. The obtain the pendant from a nearby cave and then the Hiryu gives the rebels an egg to plant in the Spring of life, which is in the nearby Dist cave. They learned that a Dragoon named Richard left to get the spell Ultima before the Empire attacked and that he might still be alive. After finishing up the mission with the egg and the spring, you go back to Dist to learn that the Hiryu has died. The rebels head back to Altea and find out that Princess Hilda has been acting quite strange as of late. Gordon tells them to try and find out what is wrong with her and then Princess Hilda crawls into bed and tries to persuade Frioniel to join her. Frioniel notices that it’s not Princess Hilda but rather, a monster named Queen Lamia. After defeating the monster, the rebels find out from a messenger than the Emperor has taken Princess Hilda captive and is hosting a tournament at Paramekia. The first prize is the Princess herself. The rebellion group plans a sneak attack on the Empire while the tournament is going on and the rebels head off to the Arena. As the rebels enter the Emperor’s throne, the Emperor sends a monster out to fight the rebels and the winner obtains the Princess. After defeating the Behemoth, the rebels talk to the Emperor and oddly enough, the Emperor vanishes and two Imperial Captains and the Dark Knight will throw you into prison. Paul, the so-called great thief sneaks through and kills the white-cloaked Imperial guard near your cell. Thus, the rebels with the help of Paul, break free and rescue the Princess with the help of Gordon. They head back to Altea and a messenger informs them that the rebellion is planning to invade and retake Phin from the Empire. The rebels head to the throne of Phin and defeat the commanding officer, Gotus. The city itself is retaken and the rebels appear to have struck back at the Empire. After talking to Hilda and Gordon, they are given new orders to obtain the sealed power of Ultima. They tell the rebels that there might be some clues around Mysidia, so thus, the rebels head for Mysidia. After obtaining the sacred masks need to break the seal, the rebels then meet up with the Dragoon, Richard and they head to the Tower of Mysidia. As they reach the location of the seal, Ming-Wu risks his life to open it and dies in the process. After obtaining the sealed magic, Ultima, the rebels go back outside of the tower but in the meantime, much has happened. The Emperor, meanwhile, has unleashed a magical whirlwind to inflict damage across the land and it is impossible to enter, what to do now? The rebels head to Phin castle and they use the dragoon pendent on a mirror somewhere and the Hiryu egg hatches. The Hiryu and Dragoon are re-united once again and can enter the whirlwind to destroy the Emperor. As the rebels reach the top of the whirlwind, they encounter the Emperor and after defeating his minions again, they battle the Emperor himself. Afterwards, the Emperor proclaims himself as immortal but he dies and the rebels head off to Phin, seemingly victorious. The people of Phin celebrate as news of the Emperor’s death comes around but then a new threat arises as the Dark Knight has crowned himself the new Emperor! It is revealed that the Dark Knight is none other than Leonheart himself. After seeing Cid, the old airman dies off and the rebels head off to Poft and board the airship to Paramekia to encounter the Dark Knight. In the castle, they finally find Leonhard and as Maria tries to persuade him to join them once again, they are cut off by a rather familiar voice, the Emperor himself seems to not be dead. He then tells the others of his intent to make the world a living hell and bring total destruction to all. Richard the Dragoon holds him off while the others fly off in the Hiryu. Thus, you see Paramekia castle change into a dark realm known as Pandemonium. Back in Phin, the rebels learn that Pandemonium is not accessibly by air but rather, through a legendary back road known as jade. Far east of Mysidia lies the entrance to the road known as Jade. Leonhart now joins your party again and him and the others head off on their quest to defeat the Emperor. They pass through jade and encounter him one last time. As they defeat him, the Empire collapses and the world is brought back to peace and stability once again. Thus, the game ends happily ever after.

Analysis/Ratings
 -Graphics
 -Gameplay
 -Storyline
 -Sound
 -Fun Factor
 -Overall
 -Ratings

Graphics

     While not a huge jump from the original Final Fantasy, the graphics are still a nice upgrade on the original game itself. Nothing too fancy, although maybe Square could’ve done a bit more with the overall effort. The actual graphics are pretty good, though if you take a closer look at it, they aren’t that much better than it’s predecessor. The menus remain largely the same but the towns and dungeons have undergone a minor improvement. There isn’t too much more you could ask for in terms of graphics, considering this is a very old game but the only fault you could give it was the fact that it really wasn’t that great of a jump over the previous game. A nice variety of monsters exist within this game and the spell effects are generally pretty well-done, in my opinion.

Gameplay

     It does seem rather awkward to say the least as the leveling up and skills system is much different from the other incarnations of the Final Fantasy series. The game relied on a skill proficiency system in which the more a particular character uses an ability, the more better they become at it. Give for example, a character who frequently uses a sword as their weapon of choice. That character will be much stronger at using a sword-like weapon, then say an axe. As they gain weapon levels, they become more useful at certain weapons and so forth. Same goes with magic, the more a spell is used, the quicker it levels up to the next level and the more powerful it becomes. Not to mention that over time, your characters gain other important stats like agility, power and vigor for starters. As your character gets hit more often, he/she will obtain more max HP to work with as a compromise. The system itself makes sense, though in my opinion, it seems odd and I think it doesn’t work as well as it should in a game like this. One final interesting quirk to the game is that some words in the dialogue can be used as “key words” to learn and say to others to either enhance the overall dialogue with certain characters of the game or perhaps be a piece of a puzzle that is needed for you to solve. The gameplay has a lot of unique features, so thus, overall, it’s not terribly bad to say the least. Though, I’m still fairly certain that FFII could’ve been better off with a more straightforward and traditional variation of the usual leveling up system.

Storyline

     This time, we get a much more developed storyline than what we saw in Final Fantasy. Not only that, but a real plus is that for once, we get characters that have real names and are unique! Pretty cool eh? The storyline revolves around the Empire and their quest to rule the world, you’ve all heard that one before, of course. It so appears that 4 brave rebels, Frioniel, Maria, Leonheart and Guy, with the help of Princess Hilda and her loyal subjects, attempt to put a stop to the Empire and end their reign of terror over the world itself. Along the way, they meet up with other rebels as they attempt to escape the wrath of the Empire and hope to one day re-take their towns and kingdoms from the evil invaders of the Empire and restore peace once and for all. Finally, I must say that even though we get more unique characters, they seem to lack emotion and character development. A lot of the dialogue seems cheesy but that is to be expected for a very old game. So thus, the character development, while better than what was found in FFI, still seems to lack definite development. Otherwise, it's a pretty solid effort.

Sound

     Not nearly as good as FFI, in my opinion that is. While there are some pretty solid tracks, such as the battle theme and so forth, the overall music just seems to like the creativity and impact that the original Final Fantasy had. The music seems generic and there is no real excuse for that, considering that FFI had been so impressive for it’s time period. I wouldn’t go out of my way and say that the soundtrack in FFII is terrible, indeed there are some catchy themes from the airship to various towns and such. Although, I felt that aside from a few memorable tracks, the rest of the music seems to lack inspiration.

Fun Factor

     This game, like the other early FFs seems to lack the driving instinct of good replay value. I’m pretty sure the game would get pretty tiring and boring after a couple of odd playthroughs. The only real saving grace is the fact that the storyline is indeed more sophisticated and complex than the original Final Fantasy. The gameplay system seems awkward and it’s only intent seems to be merely on repetition. The more you do of something, say magic, the more powerful it becomes. Thus, you end up using the same magic spell over and over again to level it up to the next level and it does get pretty tiresome after awhile. Besides the decent storyline, the rest of the game doesn’t seem a whole lot of fun after a couple of tries.

Overall

     Not nearly as good as what FFI was, but not that much worse, either. FFII does a lot of things well but then it has it’s share of downfalls to say the least. The gameplay is indeed different from what you would expect from a typical Final Fantasy game but unfortunately, in the FF world, it just doesn’t seem to work very well. It seems to rely more on repetition than anything else and seems rather tiresome after awhile. The storyline is impressive, when compared to the dull plot of the original Final Fantasy and while the graphics aren’t a great jump from FFI, they are still not too bad. Although, the soundtrack, despite having a few very good tracks, seems to lack inspiration and it is not nearly as memorable as FFI was. Pretty good old-school RPG game, but in my mind, it’s not quite as good as FFI.

Ratings (Compare w/ other games)

GRAPHICS:	7/10	7	Slight improvement over FFI, though I felt that Square could’ve done a bit more with the effort in general.  The spell effects and monster animations are a bit better but despite that fact, it really wasn’t that big of a jump over what was found in FFI.
GAMEPLAY:	15/20	7.5	The gameplay relies a lot of repetition and doing the same thing over and over again to gain levels and stats.  This system doesn’t work as well as it should but that is one of the bigger problems of the game.  You end up worrying a lot over how your stats should be, since there are no definite character levels.  Thus, FFII had the potential to be much better in the gameplay department, still not too bad, otherwise.
STORYLINE:	17/20	8.5	Despite a lack of character development, the overall premise of the storyline is quite a nice improvement over FFI and now you get to see some pretty interesting twists and turns within the game itself.  Cheesy dialogue but what do you expect from an older game?  Solid effort overall.
SOUND:	8/10	8	Not terrible, merely decent but when you compare it to FFI, the soundtracks are not nearly as memorable and influential as what you would expect from the previous game.  There are a few good tracks but otherwise, there are a lot of music tracks in the game that seem rather rushed or not polished.
FUN FACTOR:	7/10	7	The game has a better storyline than FFI, although, the game lacks definite replay value.  Mainly due to the gameplay system in which it thrives on repetition.  Besides the pretty good storyline, the game doesn’t seem to be that much fun after a few tries.
OVERALL:	54/70	7.7	The game itself is decent but while it does a lot of things well, it seems to lack in several areas.  The gameplay is different but I find that it does get rather tiresome after awhile and lacks something special.  As for the storyline, it’s much better than what was found in FFI and the music seems to lack direction and inspiration, though it is decent.  Pretty good RPG in my opinion, not as good as FFI though.

Wonderswan Remake

     The Wonderswan remake consists of updated graphics and designed for a handheld system.

Cell Phone Remake

Japan
     Designed exclusively for the 900i series phones (Japan only), and released on March 1, 2004, an inexpensive download can make one of these phones play this game (similar to the Wonderswan remake).  Some other neat features include wallpapers, and character plays.  Visit http://www.square-enix.co.jp/mobile/ff/index.html for more information.  The phone itself can be found at http://panasonic.jp/mobile/p900i/index.html.