Eyes on Final Fantasy Forums > Final Fantasy: Nerds in Paradise > Final Fantasy II > Is this any good?

[Laddy]

It's pretty good, not divinely life changing, but overall, it's a pretty good little game when you just want a game.

[,,,]

I only have experience with the NES version to speak of, but I recommend you avoid it like the plague. It is absolutely horrible. Don't listen to anyone who tries to excuse the "leveling" system, unless there were major changes made in the other versions, anyone who pretends it's even remotely tolerable is a liar.

[DarkLadyNyara]

There were changes made, yes. I can't say how extream they were, since I haven't played the NES version. But in Origins and DoS (more the latter than the former) I found the system not only tolerable, but fun. People have different tastes. Deal.

[Sephiroth1999AD]

In NES, the battles were horribly slow, and casting a spell on everyone (either all enemies or all allies) pretty much took forever since the spells were hitting one target at a time, and the game was displaying an effect information box between every hit. Leveling up HP and MP were very slow, and most of all, weapons and magic took ages to level up.

In FFII WSC and FFII Origins, the battle speed and group casting effects were greatly improved, and it was a lot faster to level up weapons. However, HP, MP and spells were still very slow to level up in those versions, greatly discouraging the use of magic.

In FFII DoS, HP pretty much increases on its own, so you don't need to worry about that, and the spells level up a lot faster. You still need to level up your party a lot, but it's clearly more tolerable in FFII DoS. Leveling up MP is still a bit of a problem there, but I usually solve that by raising the spell Sap on a high level and using it to drain the MP of my party members.

[Zeromus_X]

It's a good game, but it's incredibly tedious. Don't play it if you aren't accustomed to ancient dungeon crawlers.

[,,,]

And the mome rath DarkLadyNyara outgrabe

There were changes made, yes. I can't say how extream they were, since I haven't played the NES version.

Do you still lose strength for using magic, and lose magic power for attacking? That was what made the system completely moronic. You'll want at least one magic user, and in every dungeon your mage has the same options for each of the 34803465 battles you fight, none of the options good:

1. waste mp casting a spell that you don't need to cast, so that you don't have any left when you get get to the boss and do need it.
2. attack and risk having your magic power lowered.
3. waste an item you don't need to use.
4. run and hope this isn't a rare time it works, wasting the effort you've exerted fighting the monster so far.

Don't know about the other versions, but there was no "defend" option in the nes.

[DarkLadyNyara]

And the mome rath ,,, outgrabe

And the mome rath DarkLadyNyara outgrabe

There were changes made, yes. I can't say how extream they were, since I haven't played the NES version.

Do you still lose strength for using magic, and lose magic power for attacking? That was what made the system completely moronic.

In Origins, yes, Dawn of Souls, no. Again, personal taste.

Don't know about the other versions, but there was no "defend" option in the nes.

That's still true, but frankly, it doesn't bother me in the slightest.

[,,,]

I normally wouldn't care about defend either, but in this case it would give the mage something to do that isn't potentially detrimental. A system that makes it so that everything a character can do will harm him or the party is a stupid system, personal tastes aside.

When I played through I made two of the party members into magic users, so for each battle there was not one but two characters for which I always had to choose between wasting mp and lowering my magic power. twice the stupidity.