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Following up on Final Fantasy I, I chose to move right into Final Fantasy II to see how much changed from game to game. Released just a year after it’s predecesor in 1988 (still before I was born), Final Fantasy II at its core retains very little from the first game. The leveling mechanics, the party construction, the magic system, everything was tweaked and changed.

First, that fun bit of trivia, Canonically Final Fantasy II was the second Final Fantasy game. However, neither Final Fantasy II nor Final Fantasy III were originally released outside Japan, so when Final Fantasy IV came to North America, it was packaged and released as Final Fantasy II. I do think it’s worth mentioning that I played the GBA remake, not the original Famicom edition of the game. There are some gameplay differences, but the big improvement for me is the pixel art, which takes its art direction more from the SNES titles, which is much more to my preference.

Final Fantasy II is quite different from its predecessor. First things first, there’s actually a somewhat coherent story to follow. Your party consists of 3 main characters, Firion, Maria, and Guy. Maria’s brother, Lyon starts the game in your party, but in the very first battle you’re subject to a total party KO, and Lyon is immediately separated. What follows is a tale of rebellion, as the party assists the Princess Hilda in her efforts to reclaim her throne from the clutches of the evil Emperor. Filling out that 4th chracter slot, however, is a rotating series of characters who will join and leave the party as they progress through the story.

These characters often adhere to specific archtypes, like Minwu, the white mage, or Josef, the Monk, or Ricard, the lance wielding Dragoon. These characters will join your party for a dungeon or two, then more often than not, sacrifice themselves, so the main party can escape and continue on their quest to take down the empire. There are some surprisingly emotional moments, especailly as you encounter their loved ones after their sacrifice. It gives the story weight and consequence, a much needed improvement over the first game.

Speaking of archtypes, Final Fantasy II completely abandons the job/class system from the first game. Now, every character can equip any piece of equipment, and learn any spell. There are no official or specific levels to each character, but now the more you use a specific equipment or spell, the more proficient that character becomes. You will find your characters naturally falling into roles, like the character who casts Cure the most raises their spirit, which improves their healing potency, but there’s absolutely nothing stopping you from teaching your brawler some spells, and then grinding up their skill to a point where they’re viable.

This level system isn’t bad, by any stretch, but I did find it quite jarring, especially with my background knowledge of how the Final Fantasy series embraces classes and jobs in some of the later entries. On one hand, I really appreciate the flexibility. I liked teaching Life to all my characters so they could help out in a pinch, while having one character as the designated ‘healer’. On the other hand, it made each of the characters feel less distinct. Guy, whose art is depicted with huge muscles can take the daggers and be a speedy little guy, and you can give Maria dual axes, and she’ll stop everyone who crosses her path. This system created a little bit of dissonance for me.

I found Final Fantasy II to be much more difficult than its predecessor. From what I understand, there is a cap on your equipment levels, as they grow depending on the level of monster you’re attacking, somewhat limiting your ability to grind. I did run into one difficulty spike where my normal attacks were doing nearly 0 damage due to the monster’s high defense, so I relied on my magic to get me through the normal fights, but I couldn’t make my way through the whole dungeon. I ended up sailing around looking for late game towns, bought much better equipment, then flew through the rest of the game with my MP stat now over-leveled.

The dungeon layout this time around was a bit more frustrating. The sprawling labyrinths are still here, but now they’ve added a dozen empty rooms to each one. When you go through a door and end up in these empty rooms, it only takes 3 steps to get out, but these rooms have their monster spawn rate cranked way the hell up, resulting in at least one, sometimes two battle encounters per empty room.

The world map is also more of a problem, especially compared to the first game. While Final Fanasy gated your progress so you could only explore certian areas until you got the next mode of transportation, Final Fantasy II lets you wander into zones that are way beyond your level. This is especially egregious as you’re told to walk around a lake outside of the starting area, and going just a bit too far west can result in a near instant total party KO. Go ahead, ask me how I know.

There’s also more back tracking. It felt like after every dungeon, you need to trek your party all the way back to the starting area to report back to the princess to get the next clue on where to go next. on that note, it was generally easier to know where to go in this game. Another quirk of Final Fantasy II is that occasionally, someone will speak a keyword, that you can ‘learn’, then ask your keywords to many of the game’s main NPCs. Between each dungeon, most of the local NPCs would almost explicitly where to go next, and only a few times did I need to look up which keyword I had to use on which NPC. I kind of like this system, I imagine it would have been much more impactful in 1988, making the NPCs feel more alive and living through the story instead of just delivering the same line throughout the entirety of the game.

Strangely, Final Fantasy II doesn’t feel like a Final Fantasy game. Sure, all the common hallmarks are there; Bombs and Malboros, Cure and Fire, Potions and Phoenix Downs. But so many of the systems feel removed from what Final Fantasy later established as their hallmark features. Now, I know every Final Fantasy is different in its own way, from Active Time Battle Systems to Gambits, to Materia, and so on. Each entry in the Final Fantasy series has aspects that make them unique, but I’d argue that from all the Final Fantasy games I’ve played, Final Fantasy II feels the least like a Final Fantasy game.

Trying to put myself in the mindset of 1988 without the literal decades of hindsight, I’d say that Final Fanasy II is a bold new direction for a sequel, but for all its ambition, it kind of loses some of the magic that made Final Fantasy an instant classic. Not to say that it’s a bad game, it’s a great JRPG, but as Final Fantasy game, this was just okay for me. I didn’t love it, but I’m glad I can finally say that I’ve played it.