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Noted for not just being a port of the original game, the game recieved a graphical update including full graphical backgrounds in battle mode and larger character sprites.<ref>{{cite web | author=IGN Staff| year=September 8th, 2000| title=Final Fantasy Goes WonderSwan Color| format= | work=IGN.com | url=http://gameboy.ign.com/articles/084/084736p1.html| accessdate=2006-09-03}}</ref> |
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Revision as of 16:30, 3 September 2006
Final Fantasy II (ファイナルファンタジーII, Fainaru Fantajī Tsū) is a console role-playing game developed and published by Square Co., Ltd. in 1988 for the Nintendo Family Computer. The game was never released outside of Japan in its original form. Enhanced remakes of the game were later issued for the Bandai WonderSwan Color (WSC), the PlayStation (as part of the Final Fantasy Origins collection) and the Game Boy Advance (GBA) (as part of the Final Fantasy I & II: Dawn of Souls collection). The latter two titles were finally released in English language form in both North America and PAL regions.
Final Fantasy II introduced many elements that would later become staples of the Final Fantasy franchise, including chocobos and a character by the name of Cid. It was also unique for eliminating the traditional experience-based advancement system, instead favoring a system wherein the statistics of playable characters increased according either to how much they were required, or how much they used.
Gameplay
Final Fantasy II features gameplay similar to that of its predecessor. The player is able to freely roam an overworld containing several towns and dungeons. A menu-based system allows the player to fit each character with equipment and up to two disposable items for battle. Magic spells are assigned to the character from item menu, and certain spells such as "Cure" can be used outside of battle. The player can also save their progress on the overworld or "save points" within dungeons. Within each town, a variety of weapons, armor, items, and magic spells can be purchased, and townspeople provide useful information for the player's progression through the storyline. One new feature is the "Word Memory" system. Throughout the course of the game, when in conversation with non-player characters (NPCs), the player has the ability "ask" about and "memorize" special keywords or phrases, which can later be repeated to other NPCs to gain more information or unlock new actions.[1] 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.
Combat
On the overworld and within dungeons, random encounters with enemies can be fought to improve each character's attributes. Final Fantasy II utilizes the same turn-based battle system seen in the original Final Fantasy with battle parties consist of four characters at a time. Three of these characters are present throughout the entire game, but the fourth position rotated amongst a variety of characters throughout its course. The game introduces a "back row" in battle, within which characters are immune to most physical attacks, but could be harmed with bows and magical attacks. In a similar vein, enemies could be arranged in up to four rows of two creatures each for a maximum of eight hostile creatures on screen at one time. Only the two rows closest to the player's party could be damaged with physical attacks, and by eliminating these rows the player could then physically damage back rows of enemies.
The game is unique in the series for not utilizing experience-based levels. Rather than earning experience points at the end of every battle, each character participating in battle develops depending on what that character does during battle. For instance, characters who use a particular type of weapon frequently will become more adept at wielding a weapon of that type, as well as increasing 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 attack.[1] Similarly, characters who frequently cast a particular magic spell will learn to cast more potent versions of that spell, while increasing and decreasing their intelligence and strength ratings respectively. 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.
Bugs
A handful of software bugs related to the game's advancement system remained in the released version of the game.[citation needed] The most notable of these bugs was the ability to cancel a previously issued command and still gain the statistic-increasing benefits of having performed it. The game's turn-based battle system gave the player the opportunity to input commands for all four members of the battle party at once. At any time before the command for the final character in the lineup was issued, the player could hit a button and return to the previous character to reissue a command.[citation needed] Since many statistics, such as weapon and magic spell proficiency, were based on how many times a particular command was used in battle, a little patience meant it was possible to quickly advance in proficiencies in the space of a single battle round.[citation needed] A similar problem manifested in the way hit point increases were granted, which allowed characters to attack members of their own party to increase their maximum hit points. These problems were faithfully replicated in both the WonderSwan Color and the PlayStation ports of the game.[citation needed] The Game Boy Advance remake eliminated the command cancel bug, though the hit point increase trick remained. Ironically, due to the inability to change equipment mid-battle in other versions which was made possible in the GBA version, a new bug was introduced with similar effects to the command cancel bug: one could equip a character with shields in both hands and repeatedly gain experience for them by making ineffective attack commands, and not only that, switch the shields to another pair of weapons afterwards and end the battle with them equipped to transfer the gained shield use experience to the new weapon type: the necessitated use of double shields also serves to double the shield experience gain rate, further enhancing the effect of this bug. Various other changes were made to the Game Boy Advance version, including regular maximum hit point increases outside of those gained as outlined above, were implemented to decrease the difficulty of the game.[citation needed] Also, since the cost of staying at an inn is based on how low the user's HP and MP are, one could drastically descrease the price of staying at an inn by healing themselves beforehand.[citation needed]
Plot and characters
The story concerns the adventures of four youngsters from the kingdom of Fynn named Firion, Maria, Guy and Leon. Their parents are killed during an invasion by the army of the emperor of Palamecia, who has summoned forth demons in his quest to dominate the world.
Fleeing the emperor's monsters, the four are attacked and left to die. Firion, Maria, and Guy are rescued by Princess Hilda of Fynn, who has established a rebel base in the nearby town of Altair. Eager to prove their value to the resistance movement, the three remaining youths undertake a variety of missions against Palamecia and join forces with a variety of allies not only to defeat the Emperor, but to locate Maria's missing brother Leon as well. Eventually, the quest is finished by the four reuniting and walking into the very pits of Hell itself to save the world.
Development
An early press release video of the game reveals that the series may have originally been intended to continue by using Arabic numerals rather than Roman numerals. The video also reveals a different logo for the game.[2] Because of the popularity of the series in America during the 1990s, Final Fantasy II was one of the first games to undergo fan translation, in this case by NeoDemiforce.[citation needed]
Musical score
Final Fantasy II was originally scored by Nobuo Uematsu, and it was Uematsu's 19th work of video game music. The game's music was arranged by Tsuyoshi Sekito for the WonderSwan Color, PlayStation, and Game Boy Advance remakes. The original score was released on CD together with the score of Final Fantasy in 1989. Arranged versions of some of the tracks were included on Symphonic Suite Final Fantasy, released the same year.
Unreleased English version
Following the successful release of the original Final Fantasy by Nintendo in 1990, Square Soft, Square's North American subsidiary, began work on an English language localization of Final Fantasy II. Assigned to the project was Kaoru Moriyama, whose later work included script translations for Final Fantasy IV and Secret of Mana. Although a beta version was produced, and the game was advertised in several Square Soft trade publications, the age of the original Japanese game and the arrival of the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, the NES's successor console, led Square Soft to cancel work on the Final Fantasy II localization in favor of the recently released Final Fantasy IV (which, to avoid confusing North American gamers, was retitled Final Fantasy II to reflect the jump in releases).[3]
Although a prototype cartridge of the NES Final Fantasy II was produced (with the subtitle Dark Shadow over Palakia), the project was, by Moriyama's own admission, still far from complete:
We had so very limited memory capacity we could use for each game, and it was never really "translating" but chopping up the information and cramming them back in... [Additionally] our boss had no understanding in putting in extra work for the English version at that time.
In 2003, when the game was finally released to English-speaking audiences as part of Final Fantasy Origins, it was released with a brand new translation produced under the supervision of Akira Kashiwagi. NeoDemiforce's fan translation of the game, similarly, made use of an original translation, as the existence of the prototype cartridge was not common knowledge at the time.[3]
Other versions
WonderSwan Color
| WonderSwan Color remake | |
|---|---|
| Publisher(s) |  Square
|
| Release date(s) | May 3rd, 2001
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| Platform | Bandai WonderSwan Color |
| Media | 32 megabit Cartridge |
Noted for not just being a port of the original game, the game recieved a graphical update including full graphical backgrounds in battle mode and larger character sprites.[4]
PlayStation
| PlayStation remake | |
|---|---|
| Publisher(s) | Square Co., Ltd. |
| Release date(s)
|
|
| Platform | Sony PlayStation |
| Media | CD-ROM |
![[icon]](./wiki.php?slug=File:Wiki_letter_w_cropped.svg){kind=small} | This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. |
Game Boy Advance
| Game Boy Advance remake | |
|---|---|
| Publisher(s) | /  / Nintendo
|
| Release date(s)
|
July 29th, 2004/ November 29th, 2004 December 3, 2004
|
| Platform | Nintendo Game Boy Advance |
| Media | 128 megabit Cartridge |
| This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. |
Mobile phone
| Mobile phone remake | |
|---|---|
| Publisher(s) | Square Enix
|
| Release date(s)
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| Platform | NTT DoCoMo 901i series, KDDI au BREW |
| Media | Paid download |
| This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. |
Reception
Gamespot gave Final Fantasy II, as part of the Gameboy Advance re-release as part of Final Fantasy I & II: Dawn of Souls a 7.2, noting its mostly outdated graphics but praising their length and bonus content.[5] IGN noted the great improvement in the translation of the story and the adding of later Final Fantasy features, such as being able to save anywhere in the overworld map without a tent or cabin.[6]
References
- ^ a b Square Enix staff, ed. (2003). Final Fantasy Origins instruction manual. Square Enix. pp. 15, 22. SLUS-05141.
- ^ "Final Fantasy II 2". Video Game Ads. 1990-01-01. Retrieved August 31.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|accessdate=and|date=(help); Unknown parameter|accessyear=ignored (|access-date=suggested) (help) - ^ a b Chris Collette. "Spotlight: Final Fantasy II". LostLevels.org. Retrieved 25 August.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|accessdate=(help); External link in|work=|accessyear=ignored (|access-date=suggested) (help) - ^ IGN Staff (September 8th, 2000). "Final Fantasy Goes WonderSwan Color". IGN.com. Retrieved 2006-09-03.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|year=(help) - ^ Bethany Massimilla (2004-11-29). "Final Fantasy 1 & 2:Dawn of Souls". Gamespot.com. Retrieved August 31.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|accessdate=and|date=(help); Unknown parameter|accessyear=ignored (|access-date=suggested) (help) - ^ Jeremy Dunham (2004-11-30). "Final Fantasy I & II: Dawn of Souls". IGN.com. Retrieved August 31.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|accessdate=and|date=(help); Unknown parameter|accessyear=ignored (|access-date=suggested) (help)
External links
- Final Fantasy Origins official site
- Final Fantasy I & II: Dawn of Souls official site
- Final Fantasy Wiki category list for Final Fantasy II
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