Final Fantasy II
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Final Fantasy II<tr><td colspan="2" style="font-size: 100%; text-align: center;"> </td></tr>
| |
|---|---|
| Developer(s) | Square Co., Ltd.
<tr><th style="background-color: #ccccff;">Publisher(s)</th><td>Square Co., Ltd.</td></tr> |
| Release date(s) | December 17, 1988 |
| Genre(s) | Role-playing game |
| Mode(s) | Single player |
| Platform(s) | Nintendo Entertainment System, WonderSwan Color, PlayStation, NTT DoCoMo FOMA 901i, KDDI au BREW, Game Boy Advance
<tr><th style="background-color: #ccccff;">Media</th><td>2 megabit cartridge</td></tr> |
- For information regarding the game originally released in America as Final Fantasy II on the SNES, see Final Fantasy IV.
Final Fantasy II (ファイナルファンタジーII Fainaru Fantajī Tsū?) is a console role-playing game developed and published by Square Co., Ltd. in 1988 for the Nintendo Family Computer. The game was never released outside of Japan in its original form. Enhanced remakes of the game were later issued for the Bandai WonderSwan Color (WSC), the PlayStation (as part of the Final Fantasy Origins collection) and the Game Boy Advance (GBA) (as part of the Final Fantasy I & II: Dawn of Souls collection). The latter two titles were finally released in English language form in both North America and PAL regions on the Sony Playstation as Final Fantasy Origins.
The story concerns the adventures of four youngsters from the kingdom of Fynn named Firion, Maria, Guy and Leon. Their parents are killed during an invasion by the army of the emperor of Palamecia, who has summoned forth demons in his quest to dominate the world, and the youths join the resistance to end his war for evil.
Final Fantasy II introduced many elements that would later become staples of the Final Fantasy franchise, including chocobos and a character by the name of Cid. It was also unique for eliminating the traditional experience-based advancement system, instead favoring a system wherein the statistics of playable characters increased according either to how much they were required, or how much they used.
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[edit] Gameplay
Final Fantasy II features gameplay similar to that of its predecessor. The player is able to freely roam an overworld containing several towns and dungeons. A menu-based system allows the player to fit each character with equipment and up to two disposable items for battle. Magic spells are assigned to the character from item menu, and certain spells such as "Cure" can be used outside of battle. The player can also save their progress on the overworld or "save points" within dungeons. Within each town, a variety of weapons, armor, items, and magic spells can be purchased, and townspeople provide useful information for the player's progression through the storyline. One new feature is the "Word Memory" system. Throughout the course of the game, when in conversation with non-player characters (NPCs), the player has the ability "ask" about and "memorize" special keywords or phrases, which can later be repeated to other NPCs to gain more information or unlock new actions.<ref name="Origins"> (2003) Square Enix staff: Final Fantasy Origins instruction manual (in English). Square Enix, 15, 22. SLUS-05141.</ref> Similarly, there exist a handful of special items that can be shown to NPCs during conversation or used on certain objects, which have the same effect.
[edit] Combat
On the overworld and within dungeons, random encounters with enemies can be fought to improve each character's attributes. Final Fantasy II utilizes the same turn-based battle system seen in the original Final Fantasy with battle parties consist of four characters at a time. Three of these characters are present throughout the entire game, but the fourth position rotated amongst a variety of characters throughout its course. The game introduces a "back row" in battle, within which characters are immune to most physical attacks, but could be harmed with bows and magical attacks. In a similar vein, enemies could be arranged in up to four rows of two creatures each for a maximum of eight hostile creatures on screen at one time. Only the two rows closest to the player's party could be damaged with physical attacks, and by eliminating these rows the player could then physically damage back rows of enemies.
The game is unique in the series for not utilizing experience-based levels. Rather than earning experience points at the end of every battle, each character participating in battle develops depending on what that character does during battle. For instance, characters who use a particular type of weapon frequently will become more adept at wielding a weapon of that type, as well as increasing in physical strength and accuracy. However, trade-offs do occur in this type of development; that character's intelligence (magic power) may decrease with their overuse of physical attack.<ref name="Origins"/> Similarly, characters who frequently cast a particular magic spell will learn to cast more potent versions of that spell, while increasing and decreasing their intelligence and strength ratings respectively. Hit points and magic points increase depending on need: a character who ends a battle with only a small amount of health remaining might earn an increase in maximum hit points, and a character who uses the majority of their magic points during a single battle might increase their maximum magic points.
[edit] Bugs
A handful of software bugs related to the game's advancement system remained in the released version of the game. The most notable of these bugs was the ability to cancel a previously issued command and still gain the statistic-increasing benefits of having performed it. The game's turn-based battle system gave the player the opportunity to input commands for all four members of the battle party at once. At any time before the command for the final character in the lineup was issued, the player could hit a button and return to the previous character to reissue a command. Since many statistics, such as weapon and magic spell proficiency, were based on how many times a particular command was used in battle, a little patience meant it was possible to quickly advance in proficiencies in the space of a single battle round. A similar problem manifested in the way hit point increases were granted, which allowed characters to attack members of their own party to increase their maximum hit points. These problems were faithfully replicated in both the WonderSwan Color and the PlayStation ports of the game. The Game Boy Advance remake eliminated the command cancel bug, though the hit point increase trick remained. Ironically, due to the inability to change equipment mid-battle in other versions which was made possible in the GBA version, a new bug was introduced with similar effects to the command cancel bug: one could equip a character with shields in both hands and repeatedly gain experience for them by making ineffective attack commands, and not only that, switch the shields to another pair of weapons afterwards and end the battle with them equipped to transfer the gained shield use experience to the new weapon type: the necessitated use of double shields also serves to double the shield experience gain rate, further enhancing the effect of this bug. Also, since the cost of staying at an inn is based on how low the user's HP and MP are, one could drastically decrease the price of staying at an inn by healing themselves beforehand.
[edit] Plot and setting
[edit] Characters
Firion - A resident of the country of Fynn. One day, while escaping from a group of dark knights, Firion and his 3 friends are knocked unconscious. He later becomes the leader of the group, and, essentially, one of the top commanders of the Rebels.
Maria - Friend of Firion and guy, as well as Leon's sister. She, along with Leon, Guy, and Firion, are knocked unconscious while escaping from Fynn. She doesn't speak much, but is quite the magician, often turning the tides of battle.
Guy - The "brute" of the group. Guy is a real buff attacker, as well as a good tank. Guy barely ever speaks, and when he does, it is often in short, easy to understand sentences. He also speaks the language of beavers.
Leon - Brother of Maria and friend of Guy and Firion. He is knocked unconscious and brain-washed by the Emperor of Palamecia. He is the infamous "Dark Knight", and later declares himself emperor. Distraught by the return of the Emperor, in repentance, he joins Firion and the others to destroy the Emperor once and for all.
Hilda - Former princess of Fynn and leader of the Rebels. She issues commands to Firion and the others.
[edit] Setting
[edit] Story
The story concerns the adventures of four youngsters from the kingdom of Fynn named Firion, Maria, Guy and Leon. Their parents are killed during an invasion by the army of the emperor of Palamecia, who has summoned forth demons in his quest to dominate the world.
The game opens with the four bieng attacked by high-level imperial soldiers and left to die. Firion, Maria, and Guy are rescued by Princess Hilda of Fynn, who has established a rebel base in the nearby town of Altair after the Emperor's capture of Fynn. Hilda denies a request by Firion that he, Maria and Guy join the rebel army on the ground of them being too young and inexperienced. Eager to prove their value to the resistance movement, the three set off for the besieged Fynn, where the four find an ailing Prince Scott of Kashuan, Princess Hilda's fiance, in the basement of the rebel-friendly local pub. Scott dies of his wounds from the battle of Fynn against the Emperor, but not before giving the party his wedding ring that he was to wed Hilda with. The three adventurers return to Altair and present Hilda the ring, who after an emotional reminescance of Scott, allows them to join the rebel movement.
Having proved their worth, the party is charged with journeying to the mountainous northern parts of the world to find mythril that the rebels need to make weapons that can measure up to that of the Empire's. Before leaving, the party is joined by the white mage Minwu, who healed the party at the beginning of the game. The four sail across the ocean to the eastern continent and make it north to the mountain village of Salamand, which is under siege by the Empire and forced to mine mythril for the Imperial army. There they meet Josef, the hero of the town, who informs them that the men of the village are being forced to mine mythril in the Semmit Falls.
Eventually, the quest is finished by the four reuniting and walking into the very pits of Hell itself to save the world.
[edit] Development
An early press release video of the game reveals that the series may have originally been intended to continue by using Arabic numerals rather than Roman numerals. The video also reveals a different logo for the game.<ref>Final Fantasy II 2. Video Game Ads (1990-01-01). Retrieved on August 31, 2006.</ref> Because of the popularity of the series in America during the 1990s, Final Fantasy II was one of the first games to undergo fan translation, in this case by NeoDemiforce.[citation needed]
[edit] Musical score
Final Fantasy II was originally scored by Nobuo Uematsu, and it was Uematsu's 19th work of video game music. The game's music was arranged by Tsuyoshi Sekito for the WonderSwan Color, PlayStation, and Game Boy Advance remakes. The original score was released on CD together with the score of Final Fantasy in 1989. Arranged versions of some of the tracks were included on Symphonic Suite Final Fantasy, released the same year.
[edit] Unreleased English version
Following the successful release of the original Final Fantasy by Nintendo in 1990, Square Soft, Square's North American subsidiary, began work on an English language localization of Final Fantasy II. Assigned to the project was Kaoru Moriyama, whose later work included script translations for Final Fantasy IV and Secret of Mana. Although a beta version was produced, and the game was advertised in several Square Soft trade publications, the age of the original Japanese game and the arrival of the Super NES, the NES's successor console, led Square Soft to cancel work on the Final Fantasy II localization in favor of the recently released Final Fantasy IV (which, to avoid confusing North American gamers, was retitled Final Fantasy II to reflect the jump in releases).<ref name="Cancelled">Chris Collette. Spotlight: Final Fantasy II. LostLevels.org. Retrieved on 25 August, 2006.</ref>
Although a prototype cartridge of the NES Final Fantasy II was produced (with the subtitle Dark Shadow over Palakia), the project was, by Moriyama's own admission, still far from complete:
| We had so very limited memory capacity we could use for each game, and it was never really "translating" but chopping up the information and cramming them back in... [Additionally] our boss had no understanding in putting in extra work for the English version at that time. |
In 2003, when the game was finally released to English-speaking audiences as part of Final Fantasy Origins, it was released with a brand new translation produced under the supervision of Akira Kashiwagi. NeoDemiforce's fan translation of the game, similarly, made use of an original translation, as the existence of the prototype cartridge was not common knowledge at the time.<ref name="Cancelled"/>
[edit] Other versions
[edit] WonderSwan Color
| WonderSwan Color remake | |
|---|---|
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| Publisher(s) | JPN Square |
| Release date(s) | JPN May 3rd, 2001 |
| Platform | Bandai WonderSwan Color |
| Media | 32 megabit Cartridge |
In 2000, Bandai announced a color version of its WonderSwan handheld aptly titled the WonderSwan Color. Enhanced remakes of the first three Final Fantasy games were revealed as part of the console's lineup.<ref name="IGN">Craig Harris (September 8th, 2000). Final Fantasy Goes WonderSwan Color. IGN.com. Retrieved on 2006-09-03.</ref> Final Fantasy II was subsequently shown at the Tokyo Game Show the following year and was officially released on May 3, 2001.<ref name="WSC 2">David Smith (March 29, 2001). TGS 2001: Final Fantasy II for Wonderswan. IGN.com. Retrieved on 2006-09-04.</ref> A special Final Fantasy II edition of the console was later released bundled with the game.<ref name="bundle">Wonderswan Gamer (January 19, 2006). Final Fantasy II Boxset. Wonderswan Gaming. Retrieved on 2006-09-04.</ref>
Noted for not just being a port of the original game, the game received a complete graphical update including larger character sprites, redone music and Yoshitaka Amano character portraits, and full graphical backgrounds in battle mode. Menu shortcut keys and a run button are also included as new features.<ref name="Buttons">fastbill1. Final Fantasy II. PortableReview.com. Retrieved on 2006-09-04.</ref>
[edit] PlayStation
| PlayStation remake | |
|---|---|
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| Publisher(s) | JPN Square Co., Ltd. EU Atari
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| Release date(s)
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JPN October 31st, 2002 |
| Platform | Sony PlayStation |
| Media | CD-ROM |
- Further information: Final Fantasy Origins
Released both individually (in Japan only) and alongside Final Fantasy I in a collection entitled Final Fantasy Origins (or Final Fantasy I+II Premium Collection in Japan), the PlayStation port of Final Fantasy II was based on the WonderSwan Color version. Most of the changes instituted in that version of the game remain in this version. However, there are a few differences. Although the graphics are basically the same as in the WSC version, the higher screen resolution of the PlayStation means that most have been improved to some degree, with more detail. Tsuyoshi Sekito also remixed the soundtrack to Final Fantasy IX quality to utilize the audio capabilities of the Sony PlayStation and also composed a few new tracks like the ones used in the opening movies.<ref>Triche, Stephen (2002). Final Fantasy Origins. gamevortex.com. Retrieved on 2006-03-08.</ref>
In the Japanese language version, the script has been changed to include kanji. Character and magic name lengths have been increased from four to six characters, as well. Saved game data takes up one block on the PlayStation memory card, which means that up to fifteen games can be saved onto each memory card, a major improvement. The "quick save" feature of the WSC version has been excised, but in its place a "memo save" feature has been introduced where game data can be temporarily saved to the PlayStation's RAM. This data remains until the system is turned off, or its power supply is otherwise interrupted. There are also full motion video cutscenes and omake. The game is now bookended by two full-motion, prerendered video cutscenes. An "omake" (or bonus) section has also been made available. It includes a bestiary, an art gallery, and an item collection that are unlocked as the player progresses through the game.<ref>Unicorn Lynx (July 11th, 2003). Game Trivia for Final Fantasy Origins. mobygames.com. Retrieved on 2006-03-08.</ref> Also, new "easy mode" has been introduced wherein shop prices are lower, experience levels are gained more quickly, and stats increase more rapidly. This mode is optional and is chosen at the start of the game.
[edit] Game Boy Advance
| Game Boy Advance remake | |
|---|---|
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| Publisher(s) | JPN/ Image:Flag of the United States.svg/Image:Flag of Canada.svg Nintendo |
| Release date(s)
| JPN July 29th, 2004 Image:Flag of the United States.svg/Image:Flag of Canada.svg November 29th, 2004 EU December 3, 2004 |
| Platform | Nintendo Game Boy Advance |
| Media | 128 megabit Cartridge |
Another fairly extensive list of changes accompanies the Game Boy Advance release of Final Fantasy II as part of Final Fantasy I & II: Dawn of Souls.
The difficulty level of the Game Boy Advance version most closely resembles the "easy mode" of the Final Fantasy Origins. Unlike that version, however, there is no option to switch back to the original difficulty level.[citation needed] Similarly, the redirection of "ineffective" hits, which had been optional since it was introduced in the WSC version, is now mandatory. Graphics are more or less identical to the PlayStation version, although the GBA has a slightly lower screen resolution than the PSX. Changes to the battle and character development systems were also made, including the elimination of the "action-cancel" bug, removal of stats decreases, and implementation of regular maximum hit point increases (in addition to increases due to hitpoint depletion as true of other versions).
This version of the game also featured a completely original feature found in none of the other contemporary remakes. Once completed, a bonus storyline entitled Soul of Rebirth would be accessible to the player, featuring a number of characters who had been killed off during the course of the main story. The game only features 4 areas and most of the time will be spent training up for a 2nd encounter with the last boss. An Ultima tome can be achieved but it requires the killing of the extremely powerful Ultima Weapon.
The game was delayed in release because of several bugs discovered at the last minute.<ref>Anoop Gantayat (July 2nd, 2004). Final Fantasy Pushed Back. IGN.com. Retrieved on 2006-09-03.</ref>
[edit] Mobile phone
| Mobile phone remake | |
|---|---|
| Publisher(s) | JPN Square Enix |
| Release date(s)
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| Platform | NTT DoCoMo 901i series, KDDI au BREW |
| Media | Paid download |
In 2005, Square Enix released a version of Final Fantasy II for two Japanese mobile phone networks. Graphically, the games are superior to the original 8-bit game, but not as advanced as many of the more recent console and handheld ports. Square Enix plans to release this version of the game for North American mobile phones sometime in 2006.<ref>SQUARE ENIX TO SHOWCASE ALL ENCOMPASSING LINE-UP AT E3 2006. Square-Enix.com. Retrieved on 2006-04-24.</ref>
[edit] Reception
Gamespot gave Final Fantasy II, as part of the Game Boy Advance re-release as part of Final Fantasy I & II: Dawn of Souls a 7.2, noting its mostly outdated graphics but praising their length and bonus content.<ref>Bethany Massimilla (2004-11-29). Final Fantasy 1 & 2:Dawn of Souls. Gamespot.com. Retrieved on August 31, 2006.</ref> IGN noted the great improvement in the translation of the story and the adding of later Final Fantasy features, such as being able to save anywhere in the overworld map without a tent or cabin.<ref>Jeremy Dunham (2004-11-30). Final Fantasy I & II: Dawn of Souls. IGN.com. Retrieved on August 31, 2006.</ref>
The Dawn of Souls release was called the Game of the Month for March 2004 on the Game Boy at IGN.<ref>IGN Staff (November 30th, 2004). GBA Game of the Month: November 2004. IGN.com. Retrieved on 2006-09-03.</ref>
[edit] References
<references />
[edit] External links
- Final Fantasy Origins official site
- Final Fantasy I & II: Dawn of Souls official site
- Final Fantasy Wiki category list for Final Fantasy II
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