Is Final Fantasy 2 still worth playing? (and what version is the best?)
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- Опубліковано 1 чер 2024
- Do you want to know if Final Fantasy 2 (FF2 / FF2j) is still worth playing today? Check out this video to see if Final Fantasy 2 is for you! I also talk about which version of the game is the best, if you do decide to play this classic RPG!
❗ UPDATE ❗
On July 28, 2021, a new version of Final Fantasy 2 called the "Pixel Remaster" was released for iOS, Android, and Steam. As a result, the old iOS and Android version based on the PlayStation Portable remake has been REMOVED from Google Play and App Store. Check out my REVIEW of the new version here:
• Final Fantasy 2 - Pixe...
🛑 I’VE MOVED! Check out my new channel for retrospectives, reviews, and critiques here:
/ @altercatetv
Want to know more about what the original version of this game was like, and why I consider it to be the most important game in the series? Check out my Final Fantasy 2 retrospective:
• The most important gam...
All videos in this series:
▶ Is Final Fantasy 1 still worth playing? - • Is Final Fantasy 1 sti...
▶ Is Final Fantasy 3 still worth playing? - • Is Final Fantasy 3 sti...
▶ Is Final Fantasy 7 still worth playing? - • Is Final Fantasy 7 sti...
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🎦 You might like some of my other video essays:
▶ The original Final Fantasy (Final Fantasy I Retrospective) - • The original Final Fan...
▶ The most important game in the series (Final Fantasy II Retrospective) - • The most important gam...
▶ Final Fantasy’s last true RPG (Final Fantasy III Retrospective) - • Final Fantasy’s last t...
▶ The blueprint to Square’s success (Final Fantasy IV Retrospective) - • The blueprint to Squar...
▶ A great story trapped in a frustrating game (Xenoblade Chronicles Critique) - • A great story trapped ...
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#finalfantasy #retrogaming #rpg - Ігри
🛑 I’VE MOVED! Check out my new channel for retrospectives, reviews, and critiques here:
ua-cam.com/channels/6D4FlECbW_1KT_Z472LukQ.htmlfeatured
❗ UPDATE ❗
On July 28, 2021, a new version of Final Fantasy 2 called the "Pixel Remaster" was released for iOS, Android, and Steam. As a result, the old iOS and Android version based on the PlayStation Portable remake has been REMOVED from Google Play and App Store.
Check out my REVIEW of the new version here:
ua-cam.com/video/cLR1XzooW1M/v-deo.html
Thanks for watching! If you want to support me, you'll be doing me a HUGE favor if you click the "Like" button and leave a quick comment! 🙏😍
Check out my FF2 Retrospective if you want to learn more about what the original game was like: ua-cam.com/video/RWsJb_Y7zck/v-deo.html
Nothing beats old school FF! I got it back in 88 when it 1st game out. I was 11, now I have the pixel remastered and it brings back joy for me!
Yes. It was actually one of my favorite in the series. In the remakes the leveling system is faster and you dont need too much grinding to beat the game. The grinding was mostly optional, especially in the PSP remake that has an stronger boss than the Emperor of Light
Thanks for sharing! The PSP version and Pixel Remaster are very enjoyable imo! 😀
Bro, i hope this channel get many subscribers, because your kind of content is VERY GOOD! I hope the best for you :D
Wow, thank you so much! That means a lot to me 😍
Really love your videos on final fantasy! Hoping you do retrospecs on all of them eventually! Great stuff!
Thank you so much! Yep, I'm planning to do them all - working on FF3 right now 😀
New to the FF series, but a vet of 80s RPGs on PC and i played the Pixel Remaster.
I think i would have really enjoyed it back then as the leveling system is the type of thing i would likely have obsessed over as it'sso exploitable.
With the cold light of hindsight, i think the system needlessly complicates a game that isn't deep enough for it. I appreciate the weak stab at character arcs, although having all your characters having the exact same back story hobbles it.
Still, serious points for not being afraid to shake up the formula instead of just Second Verse, Same As The First.
I appreciate II honestly, if not because it forced me to clearly articulate what was wrong/right about each battle system in each mainline game early into my marathon. I think II was the game that started that marathon, since I had never played it before, and it definitely gave me *feelings*.
The story’s good, but I hardly count a game’s story in my rankings. It’s a GAME, not a movie, and if a JRPG can’t get the combat/gameplay right it’s a bad JRPG, simple as that. As much as I loathed II when I beat it back then, that experience forced me to look at each FF game a lot more critically & not settle for anything other than a fun game. (That’s also why IV and I are my 2nd & 3rd lowest rated main series games, but I know nobody agrees with my opinions on IV)
Thanks for sharing your perspective! What’s the reason why you don’t like IV’s gameplay?
@@Altercate IV’s the game I started with, and I have a lot of nostalgia for it. However, after revisiting it for my marathon I hated how little control I had in customizing my characters. Other than Rydia hunting monsters for rare summon drops, it didn’t really feel like there was any depth to character creation in IV, and the solution to every problem was “level up and get a new ability”. IV’s story is great, and as a game it functions just as intended. I just can’t justify ranking IV any higher when games like V & VI exist which give the player way more freedom to customize their party.
Informative video. Just what I was looking for!!
Thank you so much, glad I could help! 😀
@@Altercate hehe. I just started playing it on GBA emulator a few moments ago.
@@asdfgoogle Good luck! Let me know what you think of the game! 😀
@@Altercate haha. It's so addicting leveling up my stats 😅 so far the game is pretty neat!
@@asdfgoogle Yup, very addictive! 😂
its all about perception no game is objectively good or bad to everyone its like the old saying goes "one persons trash is anothers treasure"in other words a flaw for one may be a strength for another and thats definitely the case with II for me the major gripe the majority seem to have with II is its stat system but for me thats its great asset due to how breakable and exploitable it is so yeah perception
Very true! 😀
The way I look at it is that it comes off as a sort of prototype SaGa game which inherently isn't bad, it's like having a piece of history to see the foundation for specific ideas that were later refined to something great. Breaking this game with the leveling system is what was so fun playing it the first time (+ a solo monk Firion run).
Can't see this in your subscriptions feed (as opposed to the FF2 review a week ago), just in your channel.
Thanks for your comment! I actually decided not to notify my subs about this short video as I felt like my existing subs might feel overwhelmed with getting two FF2 related notifications in a week... 😂
Great video mate!
Thank you so much! Always makes me very happy to hear! 😀
The PSP version is legitimately a fantastic game. All of the grinding issues are completely nullified by the extra dungeons that even feature your 4th party member and your seemingly useless keywords.
When you add in the post game stuff from the gba version that feature the 4th party members that died in the journey you have a surprisingly complete game despite the original being made in the 80s.
I played it in GBA version, and I..... couldn't bring myself to finish it and stopped around get eaten by Leviathan. I like the proficiency system itself as it give the freedom of building the part any way I want, I go with Firion use Sword and shield with Black magic, Maria with bow and White magic, and Guy goes unarmed, didn't go far enough to get Leon but was planned to have him Dual-wield Spear and one more weapon (didn't decide yet).
The problem is, I got really frustrated with monster balancing and Dungeon design. Monsters goes from boring mobs to annoying threat real quick, combined with the proficiency system that calculate with monsters rank so the early game monsters became worthless until I got new spells and have to go back to level up them. There is no Defense command yet so I either have to beat the teammates or bonk some monsters which leads t reduced amount of practicing on actual goal. And I can't really just use them on current monsters either, imagine buying Holy tome from Mysidia and using it to deal 10-20 damage on rank 5 enemies, it will take forever and to not get rekt the others has to fight it normally too. I considered myself a slow RPG player who just walk around exploring and collect things so I fight random mobs a lot, this game gave me unpleasant feeling of fight mobs this much for the first time. Horrible Dungeon design just add cherry on top of that, as it's poorly designed to waste your time, just maze like Dungeons are normal but it's still not good, and those goddamn empty trap rooms are everywhere like it wants to punish exploring.
Also, one thing I like from this game that I didn't see people talking about is the Inn system. Most RPG just have fixed price on each Inn, FF2 make it that every Inn are the same by calculating missing HP/MP and scaling the price for them, the more hurt your party are, the more expensive the Inn is. There's no abusing early town Inn for cheap recovery or avoiding later Inn if not necessary, every Inn are the same in this game.
The defend command missing is the only gripe I have with the GBA version. Everything else is down to FF 2's faults, design wise.
I played and finished the first game, but when I start the second game feel so strange, some time look like my team aren't getting enough HP and MP, and some high peaks of difficult, stop before get the flame on the castle(I forget the name)
It's definitely a very uneven game! Which version did you play?
@@Altercate The GBA, I played on emulator on the phone I like the style, I liked the innovation but I think the thing of HP and MP could be related with the stamina and spirit stats or something like
@@tabrissousac9895 Yeah, the game system needed more work, to be honest. I would love to see another Final Fantasy with the same basic idea but done better!
@@Altercate ff11 😄
@@okanoz1539 Never had a chance to play FF11, unfortunately! 😣
Great video
Thank you so much! 😀
Cool video mate! You should cover the best one. FFXIII :D
Thanks bro! I will! 😂
"You should cover the best one. FFXIII"
Nice bait
"Does FF2 really deserve its bad reputation?"
Yes it does. That concept of having to beat the shit out of yourself to improve is one of the stupidest ever. And the only good thing about the dungeons is the idea behind the travels to them taking place. As game locations they're piss poor on design, with an over-abundance of meaningless dead ends, monster rooms and awful character sprite positioning to artificially harden traversing through them.
The leveling system does get balanced and refined within its own boundaries, but the very existence of it in its lowest technical form is what causes the issue in the first place. A bad system can be tweaked, but if its foundation is bad, it's still a bad system. The remakes don't change that (because they can't) so they can only try to improve it. We're in 2021, the year of the pixel remasters, and even a game balanced towards progression over repetitiveness and grinding is the least fluid when compared to the other two.
In the end, the game could be worth it for the story and if you want to have fun using a broken system to your advantage, but it's not for everyone. It's mandatory for Final Fantasy fans that take pride in knowing the entire franchise, but there are better FFs for the newcomers, and for fans of the system there's also way better implementations of it, like the Saga games (Romancing 3 and Frontier being the highlights).
Hitting yourself only inproves stamina. HP is not indicative of strength, inprovement, or overall progression. Hell, if you do nothing but increase your stamina and HP (something which was tweaked so you didn't have to stop and do that bullshit in the GBA remake onwards) it will only make the game harder in the long run.
Also hitting yourself was never the intended way to get even HP in the first place. Hitting yourself was intended as mostly an alternative way of getting out of some status effects. HP is increased iirc based on how critically you are hurt in a battle, which means the more you HP grind by hitting yourself the less HP you are going to recive naturally. The fact that you can do this by hitting yourself is either an oversight, or something they figured would be too boring for players to do enough of for it to be worth finding a work-around for. And the newer version adds additional HP growth based on how many battles a character has survived, making beating up your own party even more redundant and putting the HP progression of permanent-backrow characters more in-line with what you'd expect from squishy characters in other games.