Was FINAL FANTASY II Actually That BAD?!

Masamune was in the original game just before facing Tiamat the second time near the end of the game.

The quality of life updates really help this game. Its still a shame that the bonus dungeon isnt around. I enjoyed the backstory of the destroy spell and the guy doomed to spend an eternity protecting it.

No it just isn't made for casual JRPG fans. Think about it, the people who hate Final Fantasy II...what do they think of other 8 bit JRPGs and what do they think about the SaGa franchise? Final Fantasy II is both of those. People say the Mastery system is "good in theory but bad in execution" are lying to themselves. They have redone the mastery system for Final Fantasy II 6 times,there's 12 SaGa games,The Legend of Legacy and The Alliance Alive (both were made by former SaGa staff members) if they haven't thought it has worked even a single time...they just don't like the Mastery system. Final Fantasy II "wastes your time" as much as any other 8 bit RPG. Ys I is only 6 hours long but it would be about 3 if it wasn't for the backtracking. People in the west legally only got Final Fantasy II in 2003 so it was going to be seen as archaic no matter what. Even judging it to the SaGa series it came across as archaic, it came out 4 years after SaGa Frontier II. 😊

The Teleport and Toad spells absolutely destroy 90% of the game once you get them. Both sre effectively instant-death spells, but you can access them much earlier than the actual Death spell, and work on far more enemies, even most bosses.

Fun Fact: FF9's pandemonium is the song you hear at 29:40, only slowed down.

Man came across this randomly. Instantly got my like and subscribe. The 333 subscribers is absolutely not reflective of the quality. Great audio sound and volume, good video structure. Good editing and background visuals. We need to get this guy’s stuff out there is this is top tier in my opinion. Good stuff man.

Cool video. While Final Fantasy 2 is not a game I'd really play for fun, it has some merit as paving the way for things that would come later, those things namely being Final Fantasy solidifying its direction away from the quirks of Final Fantasy 2 and the SaGa series. Maybe if Final Fantasy 2 was originally localized for territories outside of Japan and if it had been positively received then Final Fantasy and JRPGs would probably be a lot different.

I really like Final Fantasy II- I always have. I stick Maria in the front row and make her use swords. Make Firion a white mage, Maria a black mage, and Guy a support. I've never done the nonsense where you hit yourself to get stronger- I just play the game and only grind for less than 5 minutes when I'm in over my head in an area (which isn't too often). Darker story, great soundtrack, tight experience than be finished in under 10 hours. I like it a lot! This game gets way, way too much hate. Same with FFVIII.

i actually really like final fantasy 2, despite its flaws. I've beaten the nes version twice, and the pixel remaster twice. the battle system is actually a really unique, intuitive, and natural way to level up, despite its flaws. pixel remaster is the way to go, but if i had to pick flaws, the battle system obviously, lack of end game grinding/unique high level monsters to keep it interesting, lack of optional side quests which considering its an nes game is understandable, and the dungeon 'doors to nowhere' ugh. the music is just great. i love this game though. EDIT: another minor qualm i have with this game is the bosses. often times, the bosses are just higher level monsters that you eventually fight later in the game. in other ff games, they have unique bosses that aren't just high level monsters.

'The fantasy is missing as it is grounded too much in topics of war' That is such a bizarre statement it doesn't make sense to me.

28:37 Kain's last name in IV is also Highwind. Also the King of Tycoon in V is named Alexander Highwind Tycoon, though I'm not sure if his full name is ever mentioned in the game. The battle mechanics of this game really do feel like a prototype of the SaGa series sometimes.

I was always hesitant to try it because everybody bashed it. But I tried the pixel remaster and loved it!

I’ve been playing the pixel remasters and using the boost options. Holy crap has it made the experience so much more enjoyable. I remember playing the old versions on roms and they were brutal. I don’t care if they trivialize things a bit, I’d rather have a fun gameplay experience.

Nice work. Looking forward to the rest of the remasters.

I love how this game's leveling system is basically Skyrim, decades before Skyrim

My personal justification for those trapped dead-end high encounter chance rooms They're janitor closets, bedrooms, break rooms, jail cells, storage rooms, dining rooms, and everything with similar uses, but they've been emptied out after the construction of whatever dungeon you're in, and since then, infested by the Empire's Monsters. That said, if the dungeon is the Dreadnought warship or the Emperor's place or like, Pandemonium or Hell, it's probably left unfinished or meant to be a deliberate trap. In fact, that could very well be the case for the dungeon creators too, making it so Monsters' breeding grounds n nests can fit in there, because possibly they're hoping it'll trap hostile fellas. Like with Kashuon, the castle is probably deliberately trapped and bugged with all sorts of creatures in all sorts of useless rooms, and Gordon seems to not know much about the Castle. Masamune is a sword in nearly every game, and it's first seen in Final Fantasy 1 in the Chaos Temple 2000 years ago, found on a diagonal path before slaying a buffed Tiamat clone. Biggs as well as Wedge are found first in Final Fantasy 6, assuming we aren't counting naming FF1's party members, FF3's, or subsequent material in FF4, revealing Biggs and Wedge to have been part of the Red Wings with Cecil. Cid dying in this game is singlehandedly the worst thing about this game. In fact, it's only bad because of that. Dude didn't deserve it, he was just being a chill grandpa... That kid n his mom at Deist, the kid's apparently named Kain. This probably isn't the same Kain we see in FF4, I'd assume this is either hundreds of years after FF2 or that it's a sort of Marvel Earth-616 situation where different things happen differently. It's implied Leon left a sword in Fabul long ago. This also isn't the only game with a Wyvern, or only one Wyvern left, given Hiryuu is all that remains (ignoring any other wyverns that supposedly are elsewhere). The Emperor is slain, goes to Hell, defeats Satan and becomes the ruler of Hell, and returns as an extremely life-threatening extinction level event. The fact that Firion, Maria, Leon, and Guy are literally just four kids who lost their families in Fynn and almost died themselves really solidifies the message that anyone can be a hero if they simply choose to and put all of their willpower into making the world a better place. While Chocobos aren't in FF1, there are often depicted statues of them in royal castle areas. What that indicates to me is that because of FF1's events causing a bunch of time alteration, chocobos were once extinct and this is no longer the case. I wonder why Highwind got to be a popular last name. That said...anyways, thanks for the video, I myself love FF2 almost as much as FF1 and FF4, my other two favorites. After FF4, I'd honestly put FF1, 2, 6, 3, and 7 as my favorites so far. I also really enjoy FF5, FF8, FF9, and I also wish people hadn't treated FF2 like it was irredeemable garbage for this long. It's only coming around to be enjoyed now, but I also think it's awful because Cid shouldn't have been killed and that's a load of--

If nothing else final fantasy 2 is proof that final fantasy was always experimental. Honestly it's actually not terrible once you adjust to its oddities

Played it for the first time as the Pixel Remaster. After doing some grinding in the early zones, I ended up over leveled for most of the game. Not ridiculously powerful but strong enough to continue without much trouble. Additionally I would just hit optimize and my party would swap weapons. Eventually they all ended up skilled with most weapons.

Most importantly, FFII paved the way for SaGa which is an absolutely fantastic series. Minstrel Song and Romancing SaGa 3 ranks higher for me than most FFs.

People will drag FF2 for the exact same reasons they praise Morrowind and TES games. -use skills to level skills -spend hours grinding -open world go anywhere even if you arent supposed to yet -branching dialog and keywords -hitting yourself for HP is literally falling off buildings to boost acrobatics