Review: Final Fantasy II

[EvilSpaghetti]

Final Fantasy II
Mobile Game Review

Title: Final Fantasy II
Developer: Square Enix
Publisher: Namco Bandai
Release Date: Out now.
Format: J2ME
Game Features: Take command of FINAL FANTASY®'s classic turn-based battle system that helped revolutionze the RPG genre.
Reviewed on: SE K800i

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Summary

FINAL FANTASY® II, the highly acclaimed follow-up to the original, is now available on mobile! Immerse yourself in the epic and beautiful tale of four war-orphaned heroes who become embroiled in the conflict between the hostile Empire of Palamecia and the rebel resistance. Featuring a leveling system that allows players to tailor their characters' growth, and incorporating a key term system that makes dialogue integral to game play, this game sparked the spirit of innovation for which the series has become known.
FINAL FANTASY II features the bitter and beautiful tale of four war-orphaned heroes who become embroiled in the conflict between the hostile Empire of Palamecia and the rebel resistance. Eschewing conventional leveling for a proficiency system that allows players to tailor their characters' growth, and incorporating a key term memory system that makes dialogue integral to gameplay, this game sparked the spirit of innovation for which the series has become known.

Review

Right then, this week a 23 year old NES game, Final Fantasy II has come to mobile, now I haven't played any Final Fantasy games since FFIX (Final Fantasy 9) on the PS1 or any JRPG come to think of it, so I was a little rusty when I started playing, but play it I did.

Many of you maybe thinking is this just another one of those MeBoy games and you'd be wrong it's a fully fledged mobile game, a game that goes from being a NES game to a mobile game can go one of two ways, a catastrophic mess or a huge success (yes I know that rhymes), strangely though Final Fantasy II goes straight down the middle, what I mean to say is, in some ways it's aged well and in some it hasn't.
Before playing Final Fantasy II one thing that sprung to mind was how the games old school NES controls would fit into today’s modern mobile button system and you know what? They fit in well. As for the story that hasn't aged either, in fact Final Fantasy II story could fit into any modern RPG and no-one would complain.
In terms of gameplay, it's a case of 'the good, the bad and the ugly', we'll start with the good, just like any RPG out there old or new, you'll find yourself exploring and talking and I love that sort of stuff in a game, exploring the games many locations and interacting with the games vast amount of NPCs was for me the best part of the game, don't worry, you're probably thinking that talking to all the NPCs means that you'll have to remember key things that they say, well you don't thanks to the games ability to remember any key note picked up during conversation for later use in the game, sadly this is where things take a turn for the worse, yep, you guessed it, it's time for the bad, well when I say bad I mean it's bad but not for everyone, the battle system is that same as it's always been, choose your attack, choose your target, unleash the fury, which is all done with the D-pad and '5', pretty simple, no problems there, it's the upgrade system were newcomers to the game will start having issues, it's rather complex, over time they'll pick up the ins and outs of it, but it will take some time, veteran players won't have an issue with it.
Now for the ugly, it's the visuals, they show their age, even if they have had a little revamp, okay they may give the game the retro look but they're just a little boring, that said the battle graphics aren't bad.

Conclusion

Final Fantasy II isn't a bad game, it just that it is a very old school JRPG, fans of the series will love it, newcomers will find it intimidating, but for me it's a game to sit down and enjoy a good few hours of play.

Screenshots

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Graphics: 6/10
Open world graphics are a tad boring, battle graphics look good.

Sound: 8/10
Better than most.

Gameplay: 8/10
Battle system is simple but upgrade system is complex.

Story: 10/10
Still great 23 years on.

Overall Score: 8 out of 10

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[EvilSpaghetti]

Next review: WordCrafter.

[EvilSpaghetti]

Update: Review will be up tomorrow.

[elmind]

Sorry to comment, but you gave some "negative points" with bad reasoning:

Graphics: 6/10
Open world graphics are a tad boring, battle graphics look good.

Contrast that to those of the NES, then with those of WonderSwan Color, then with PSOne and, lastly, with Game Boy Advance.

At least 8/10, in my honest opnion.

Gameplay: 8/10
Battle system is simple but upgrade system is complex.

The upgrade system is anything but complex. It works on the "Most uses" for weapons and magic, while attributes are upgraded by needs (Health if you get hurt often, Evasion if you get targetted often, Accuracy if you attack often, etc.). I figured that in my first playthrough, that was in GBA.

I dare to say that the upgrading, however, makes the game TOO EASY. You can simply unequip weapons, equip one shield on each and battle against every enemy on the way or grind a lot to rack up points enough to kill almost ANY BOSS in one turn! (and, yes, I did that already)

Also, nice device you reviewed on. Most SE are amazingly powerfull.

[EvilSpaghetti]

Sorry about the delay in the WordCrafter review, it'll be up within the next few days.

[the_dead_man]

Well reviewed

[wintercurrants]

Really intersting!