1.5/5 ★ – ElementaryGaming's review of FINAL FANTASY II.

By far the worst Final Fantasy game. Just not fun to play, with map layouts that make no sense, a story full of high fantasy politics that isn't at all engaging, and a stat system that never quite feels right. Though the soundtrack is predictably great, especially the epic overworld theme. The pixel remaster itself is good and makes this game playable in a way it hasn't ever been before, but it's still an ancient-feeling RPG which isn't terribly fun to play and one which basically requires a guide in order to figure out where to go next. It's cool to see the relatively complex story from a time when virtually no games had such stories, and seeing a deep leveling system which would be perfected by later RPGs. But neither the story or the leveling system are very impressive by modern standards. The story features characters who die, but their deaths lack any real impact. The game itself feels unnecessarily obtuse in its mechanics, as well as very unevenly balanced when it comes to difficulty. The world map also feels impressively incohesive and some dungeon layouts feel random in nature. The sheer amount of empty rooms found throughout the game is a disgrace. If you miss the brief window of time that the blood sword is available via an obscure sidequest, the final boss becomes an immensely difficult battle that is only conquerable through tons and tons of grinding of specific spells. Your characters can have very high attack stats and it will not matter during this final battle, as most physical attacks will bounce right off him. Even with the 4X ability boost option turned on, grinding enough to defeat this final boss still takes far too long. It's all quite appalling and feels remarkably dated, in spite of the pixel remaster offering helpful ways to buffer some of these aspects. Final Fantasy 2 "walked, so that other games could run". Its influence is noteworthy as an interesting history lesson for the history of RPGs, but it's not a fun game in itself and not worth playing today, unless you want to get through all of the mainline entries in the series.