Final Fantasy II / Final Fantasy IV

Review by Evan G

This classic RPG from Square was one of the first titles for Nintendo's 16 bit system. This game follows the epic quest of Cecil from his Dark Knight days as the Captain of the Red Wings, to his consequential rise to become the savior of the planet. Along the way, you find many allies that all have different skills which you will have to harness. The active time battles make the game a bit more fast paced than NES rpgs, but the battles may seem quite standard for hardcore rpgers. My suggestion is that you fight every battle, because you will need every level you can, as this is more difficult than most rpgs of today (even though this translation was based on the easy version from Japan). Just note that there are things that were changed in this game compared to the Hardtype version from Japan. Some of these things were:

First off tons of items are not present. Plenty of healing items were taken out in favour of an all purpose heal item. Many names of items were changed as well, due to religious connotation (which I think is a bunch of crap, who cares if an item's name was changed to "White" from the original "Holy".

The secret developer's room that was in the Dwarf's Castle was taken out. I have no clue as to why this was taken out, as it was very neat.

The "Dirty Magazine" was taken out. There are obvious reasons for this, although it isn't like you see any boobies or anything.

The game was made easier. This was done mainly by making it take less experience to gain levels, and by making enemies less aggressive. Some enemies also don't cast some spells in this one.

Some of the character names were different. Really doesn't make much difference, if you ask me

Most characters had more abilities. Although most of the good ones were retained, it is somewhat disappointing that they were removed, even if the bulk were quite useless

Most spell names were changed. I don't know about you, but I think that Fire-3 makes a lot more sense than Fira. The same goes for FF8

The title screen is different. It think this was done to make the logo similar to FF1 on the NES, but perhaps I am wrong.

The Town of Baron is changed around a bit. I have no idea why that was done.

The dancers are slightly different. One of them removes her clothing in FFIV(J), which was removed for the American release. I guess American's like thier clothing.

There are a few minor story points that are left out. For instance, Kain has a long rant at the beginning of the game, which gives a bit of background on Cecil, Kain, and King Baron. There are also some other things that were translated differently, but they have no real effect on the overall story. It was mostly censoring swears, sexual content, and death. After playing the FFIV translation, this isn't as big of deal as one would think.

There are also some minor graphics changes. Most notably changed was the iron ball in FF2 was a blade in FFIV.

If you ask me, most of these changes do not really effect the game, with the exception of the lowered difficulty level, and item omission. The story is the same, except that it is worded differently. If you have the chance, I suggest you play through both versions, and give me your opinions.

And now for the review.

Final Fantasy II was one of the first games released on the SNES, and also was one of the best. This rpg featured one of the best stories ever in an game featuring so many plot twists that it never got tired. I believe that this is the best Final Fantasy game in the series, due to a great story that doesn't get melodramatic like in the later games in the series. Some might complain that this game is too linear, but there are still many secrets that can be found by someone who searches. The characters seem quite balanced and don't have the problems with characters that all have idendical strength in later games of the series. The graphics are dated, but considering it was released shortly after the SNES was released, this is to be expected. The sounds effects were ok, but nothing extremely groundbreaking. The music was a great example of how superior the SNES was compared to the NES. The music was simply amazing, although many songs were just different versions of the main map song. Nothing beat the first time you fought Milon Z. and hearing the great Elemental boss music. The controls were topnotch, although they don't demand too much. My only beef is that the pause button was too sensitive. Now on to the battles. This game was released before you knew exactly when your character's turn was about to come up, so it lead to more unpredictable battle tactics. Having five characters also allowed for more variety in battles. Every character has their strengths and weaknesses (ie Rydia has low HPs and Edge has low defence). If you don't spend some time getting experience, you will most likely be slaughter later in the game. Sometimes the game was a bit frustrating to figure out, but if you keep at it, you should get through. This is the only SNES game I have passed more than 10 times. That should speak volumes about the quality of the game. You should not pass this one up, even if it cost you a bit of money to buy it on ebay.

Graphics: 60

Sound: 80

Control: 80

Overall Score: 100%