Final Fantasy II (2021)

Final Fantasy II improves upon its predecessor in every respect and is a surprisingly good time even today.

First, the music is such a wild improvement over the first. Bangers abound with of course special shoutouts to the mysterious overworld theme and zany battle theme. In the Pixel Remaster visuals are often stunning. Imaginative character designs meet impressive visual effects, making for a real looker that resembles a particularly advanced SNES game ported to a PS1.

I was most surprised by the writing. There is a real, actual plot with real, actual plot twists, with one that even caught me off guard. Cities also feel notably more alive with people often changing their dialogue to reflect the current state of affairs.

And the gameplay! Wow, what neat systems. Moving about the world is notably more engaging due to the key terms and key items systems. It always felt worth it to run around and see what NPCs had to say about the crystal rod or what have you. Combat decisions are often interesting with progression tied to what you choose to focus on. Do you want a couple monks, a white mage, and whoever is around? No problem. Would you prefer to make Firion into a hybrid fighter/black mage? Totally! Even characters who initially seem ill suited to magic or fighting can be sculpted however you'd like. One flaw, however, is the game is a little too easy with even the smallest amount of grinding.

This was a total delight! I might even play this again someday to test out some other build.

12th game finished for 2026: Final Fantasy II.

I think that Final Fantasy II was an incredible sequel -- it took all of the ideas of Final Fantasy I and advanced and developed them in every way possible. The story is better and has a lot more meat and meaning to it, with characters and scenarios that actually have gravitas, and the world is more developed. The gameplay is really interesting with a sort of proto-Elder Scrolls leveling system that is based on what you do, not classes. They even take a swing at a rudimentary dialog system, where you "Learn" keywords and can ask characters about the keywords later. While it's not all it could be and has some annoying elements to it (you should just "Learn" the keywords automatically when people bring them up in dialog, instead of forcing a menu selection to "Learn" the keyword), it shows that they were trying to amp up the role-playing factor of Final Fantasy into something closer to the Ultima series than it was in the first one.

Even more of the things that define the nature of Final Fantasy show up in this game, like Cid and his airship and chocobos. Final Fantasy II really shows Square's confidence blossoming after the success of the first Final Fantasy.

In my review of the first one, I compared Final Fantasy to Mother/Earthbound 0, saying that it wasn't as sophisticated as Mother was. Final Fantasy II definitely takes many steps forward in terms of complexity and interesting stories and systems, to its great benefit.