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Bascially the Dawn of Souls port all over again

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 31 / 34
Date: July 24, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Final Fantasy II Twentieth Anniversary Edition. A Playstation Portable port/remake of the classic NES/Famicom game.

NOTE: This review is ONLY for the Playstation Portable port of the game, not for the game itself. If you want to read my comments on the actual GAME, I'll give them in another review at a later date.

INTRODUCTION:
The Final Fantasy series knows no equal. From the glory days of the NES, this has been the best damn RPG series around. It has more than stood the test of time, with countless sequels, side-stories, clones, ports, and everything in between. The original game was released in Japan for the Famicom by Square in 1987, with a sequel following not long after. Numerous ports of the game have been released over the years, most recently the Playstation Portable Twentieth Anniversary port.

OVERVIEW:
The Playstation Portable port of Final Fantasy II was released in the summer of 2007. This port features improved graphics, play control/equipment settings, bonus dungeons, bestiary, and several other extra additions.

REVIEW:
Final Fantasy II is a decent RPG, though nowhere near as good as the original. And the recent ports have been kind to the game. However, I expected more from this Playstation Portable port of the game. This is exactly the same of the Game Boy Advance Dawn of Souls port just with better graphics and very few improvements over the earlier version! At least the GBA version included FFI also, in one package.

NOTE: This review is for everything that has been altered/added/etc. from the original game, and some improvements that have been made from port to port. Most of these same changes exist in the Playstation One and Game Boy Advance version, as well.

THE GOOD:
-SEMI-MODERNIZED GRAPHICS. The original NES game had pitiful, blocky graphics that looked weak, even by NES standards. This game uses new, better-looking hand-drawn graphics that are far superior to those on the game's original system. Simple but not too overblown, the game looks better than ever. And this particular port looks even sharper than the PS1 or GBA reissues.
-MODERNIZED GAME ENGINE. Attacks against a dead target are redirected, correcting one of the biggest, most annoying bugs of the original game. Several other little things have been tweaked as well, nearly all of which for the better.
-ABILITY TO DASH IN TOWNS. It was a bitch to get around in towns in the old games since your character walked so slow. Finally, that's been fixed! This is an optional feature, but you'll always want it on.
-ITEM/WEAPON/EQUIP MENUS GET A REVAMP. These menus were cumbersome and difficult to navigate in the original game, which is fixed here. The game even includes an "optimal" setting, to instantly equip your character with the best-possible equipment you have. Similarly, stores will tell you who can equip what weapon, and whether its better/worse/etc. than your current equipment.
-BONUS CONTENT. Numerous bonus features were added to the game when these ports were made. Bestiary of all the monsters you've battled, new dungeons with bosses from other Final Fantasy games, and plenty of other little extras make the old experience new again. This PSP port even features an extra dungeon not seen in other ports!

THE BAD:
-THIS IS EXACTLY THE GAME AS THE GAME BOY ADVANCE VERSION! If you already bought Dawn of Souls for the Game Boy Advance, don't get this version. A sharper picture, better graphics, and a single new dungeon aren't reasons worth buying the whole, exact same game again. I was glad to see the new dungeon put the "spoken word" system to better use, but it still doesn't redeem this port.
-DOES NOT INCLUDE FINAL FANTASY I. This is ONLY the second game. All other recent ports have BOTH of the first two games. That means, at $30 MSRP, this is the WORST VALUE of all of the ports. The PS1 and GBA versions can be gotten for cheaper, and they have both games. And unlike FFI, FF2 DOES NOT work as a stand-alone game. It's easily the weakest of the first six Final Fantasies.
-EASIER THAN THE ORIGINAL VERSION. Not necessarily a bad thing, but die-hard gamers will argue that a lot of the tweaks ruin the challenge.
-WHY DIDN'T SQUARE DO MORE WITH THE GRAPHICS? Why didn't they do a full three-dimension style port, like they did with the DS version of Final Fantasy III? They should have done that instead of just rehash the previous ports.
-NO "EQUIP EQUIPMENT AT THE SHOP" OPTION. This means you have to buy equipment, exit the shop menu, equip it, re-enter the shop, and then sell your old equipment. One of Square's other games, Super Mario RPG, included this "equip while shopping" option, and it really made shopping/equipping a lot nicer and easier. Why can't they use this option in Final Fantasy?

OVERALL:
This game deserved better for its twentieth anniversary. If you already own Dawn of Souls, don't get this game. Even if you don't own this yet, Dawn of Souls is cheaper AND it includes Final Fantasy I as well. Only buy this version if you don't own a GBA/DS and therefore can't play Dawn of Souls. This PSP port is, certainly, the best port to date, but it's a bad value.

EDITION NOTES:
This reissue is recent, so most game stores will have it.

Another Classic Reborn Again

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 15 / 16
Date: July 24, 2007
Author: Amazon User

A remake of Final Fantasy II is, like the remake of the first one, hard to review. It's a good game for the time of it's release, but a lot of its elements just don't hold up well by todays standards by any means.

Let's clarify one thing, however, the original Final Fantasy II you find on the Super Nintendo is actually Final Fantasy IV. The real Final Fantasy II was not released until the Final Fantasy Origins on the Playstation, which it was then packaged with the first one. The game was also released a second time on the GBA in a package called Dawn of Souls. This is the third time the real Final Fantasy II was released in America. The unfortunate thing is that even when it first came to the states in the Origins release, it was dated, and they didn't do much to it in Dawn of Souls and now we've already got a third release of the game, and they still haven't done much to update it. In a sense you want to forgive the old gameplay mechanics. When the game was originally released (in Japan) it was the standard for the time. However, in some ways you wish that Square-Enix would've done more to update this thing.

The game gets off to a fantastic start, at least. It begins with an entire village being burned down as the Emperor continues to take over the world. As the village is burned to the ground, four youngsters managed to escape and are then pursued by the Emperors knights. They're far too weak to take him on and just barely escape death. They're then given the chance to help a resistance group bent on stopping the emperor. For those who played through the first Final Fantasy, Final Fantasy II is a big step forward for the series. Your characters, for one thing, actually have names and talk. While the game doesn't focus too much on the storyline, it's nice that there's some exposition, as well as a sense of direction. In the story department, Final Fantasy II is certainly not bad for the time in which the game was originally released. Final Fantasy II's driving force (that either kept you there or drove you away) was the gameplay.

Final Fantasy II was, much like the first one, entirely turn based. That means battles are pretty long and slow. Again, it's standard fare for the time, but it's actually not so bad even by today's standards. It's completely simple, you enter in each characters command then watch them carry it out. The battle system throws in some interesting (and somewhat annoying quirks). For example, a character placed in the back row takes less damage can only damage the enemy with a bow or by using magic. If a character in the back row is using a sword he/she will miss all the time.

Final Fantasy II also breaks tradition. While most RPGs have a level up system of some kind, Final Fantasy II has no such thing. So how do you raise characters? By using them in battle. Depending on what they do, certain stats increase. A character who keep using physical attacks for example, will eventually see an increase in his strength. If you keep taking damage your defense and HP will increase. If you keep using magic, your magic will increase. The game will tell you when stats go up. This system sounds like its awesome, but it has its drawbacks. For one, when certain stats go up, other stats go down. For example, when your strength increases, your magic might go down. It's almost impossible to have a well balanced character if that's what you're going for. It's also annoying because your stats don't increase that fast and it's sometimes hard to gauge just how much time you'll have to spend increasing your stats.

Your weapons and magic have levels though. Keep using a spell and it'll eventually level up. Keep using a certain weapon type (swords for example) and it'll eventually level up. The purpose is simple: A weapon at a high level will hit an enemy several times and the chances of missing become slimmer. Once you give a certain weapon to a character however, you might as well keep them with it. Weapons and magic, like your stats don't increase often or fast, and lower level weapon types often miss a lot.

For some RPGers, this huge focus Final Fantasy II puts on increasing the stats of your characters while leveling up their magic and weapons spells fun. However, at the same time, its dreadfully time consuming. Final Fantasy II isn't a long game per se, but you'll spend a ton of time just wandering around and raising stats. It's also to no consolation that the game is very challenging. And when I say challenging I'm not kidding. The random encounter rate here is ungodly high and its way too easy to get lost when going to your next destination. The good news is you'll know when you get lost: the enemies are too much of a challenge and will often kill you in one shot. The problem, however, is this completely takes the fun out of exploring. Just going as little as five steps in the wrong direction on the world map could be fatal, and what's worse is that the game often doesn't tell you what direction to go. So if you're not accustomed to losing in battle, prepare to do so here. You could try running away, but even if you select for your entire party to flee, you'll often fail. Likewise, most of your enemies will attack before you do.

It's the gameplay that can make or break Final Fantasy II for you. With the challenging difficulty and unbalanced character raising system, some gamers who were introduced to the series with later games (particularly the Playstation era games) will find themselves in frustration. This may be on the PSP, but beneath the surface this is still an old school NES RPG complete with all the limitations and challenges. So it isn't unrealistic to expect the same limitations and challenges, and this in and of itself could completely turn some gamers away.

On the bright side, the PSP version is the best looking version yet. It doesn't take the PSP to its limits, and it's still 2D but the artwork and designs of the monsters and towns is pretty good. So it isn't an overhaul in graphics, but it still looks pretty. Unfortunately, for some, this isn't enough to save the near 20 year old gameplay. The game also sounds really really good, and the reworked soundtrack here sounds even better. It's a fantastic piece of eye-candy on the whole.

The problem with Final Fantasy II is that it's the third release here in the states and it really doesn't add a whole lot of new stuff that you can't get in the GBA version: Dawn of Souls. The fact that you also have to buy this separately from Final Fantasy I doesn't help its situation any.

In the end, if you haven't experienced Final Fantasy II and you absolutely have to, I highly suggest going to your local used game store and picking up a copy of Dawn of Souls on the GBA. It may not be as pretty as the PSP version, but you get it for cheaper and you also get the first Final Fantasy included with it.

Pros:

+It's really pretty
+Great sound
+Not a bad story for the second Final Fantasy
+Exhausting gameplay, there's a lot to do

Cons:

-The character raising system makes it impossible to have a balanced character, and it's also very time consuming
-The challenge may be a bit too steep for fans who began with later Final Fantasy games
-If you've got the Dawn of Souls remake or even Final Fantasy Origins, the PSP version doesn't offer enough new content to justify another purchase, and even if you haven't played the game before, the GBA version is cheaper and includes two games

I will not waste my time criticizing or insulting Square Enix...

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 1 / 38
Date: July 24, 2007
Author: Amazon User

...as 1) it is unlikely to change, and 2) Square Enix probably revels in the reviews of shock and repulsion that it regularly receives. Instead, I will focus on its raucous hatchet jobs, which, after all, are the things that turn once-flourishing neighborhoods into zones of violence, decay, and moral disregard. The nitty-gritty of what I'm about to write is this: Its idea of indelicate, unsavory Lysenkoism is no political belief. It is a fierce and burning gospel of hatred and intolerance, of murder and destruction, and the unloosing of a noxious blood-lust. It is, in every literal sense, a puerile and pagan religion that incites its worshipers to a pernicious frenzy and then prompts them to defy the rules of logic. As I noted at the beginning of this review, no one likes being attacked by what I call obtrusive scapegraces. Even worse, Square Enix exploits our fear of those attacks -- which it claims will evolve in the coming days into biological, chemical, or nuclear attacks -- as a pretext to block streets and traffic to the extent that ambulances can't get through. If you think that's scary, then you should remember that what Square Enix is doing is not an innocent, recreational sort of thing. It is a criminal activity, it is an immoral activity, it is a socially destructive activity, and it is a profoundly impractical activity.

If Square Enix truly believes that the Earth is flat, then maybe it should enroll in Introduction to Reality 101. This makes me fearful that I might someday find myself in the crosshairs of Square Enix's evil, pestilential codices. (To be honest, though, it wouldn't be the first time.) Some people don't seem to mind that Square Enix likes to etiolate its enemies. What a cantankerous world we live in! I conclude this letter with an appropriate quote: "Under different circumstances, Square Enix's bootlickers might have ended up as churlish, resentful wonks drifting the streets -- petty vandals pressing tracts crammed with conspiracies into the palms of startled passersby." I believe we all know who said that, don't we?

Play it again for the first time, well, again...

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 4 / 4
Date: August 11, 2007
Author: Amazon User

The early Final Fantasy games only got better with each proceeding installment, and Final Fantasy II improved somewhat on the first game that started the most popular RPG franchise, well, ever. Like the first Final Fantasy anniversary game to get released for the PSP, Square has re-made Final Fantasy II for Sony's portable; updating the graphics, adding a few extras, and leaving the somewhat stale gameplay intact. The graphics and animations have been updated for the modern age, and they look gorgeous on the PSP's screen. Not to mention that the loading times are noticibly shorter than they were for the first Final Fantasy anniversary game, but the buggy leveling system and the constant, random battles are by far the game's biggest annoyance, and really bring down this port. Not to mention that not too long ago, Square ported re-makes of the first two games in one cartridge as Final Fantasy I & II: Dawn of Souls for the GBA, which retailed for the same price as either of the two PSP games. Sure the graphics are updated, yet somehow, Dawn of Souls was more enjoyable. If you don't own Dawn of Souls or any of the previous Final Fantasy collections and you're craving some old school RPG action on the go, you could do a lot worse than this. Then again, if you're more used to the Final Fantasy games or RPG's of today, chances are you probably won't dig this too much.

What a difference compared to the first

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: August 17, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I never bought the previous releases. I know it has been released on the PS1 (and therefore compatible for PS2 and PS3) and for Nintendo Portable. I understand they are better value because they include both FF1 and FF2. Unfortunately, I dont have time to play in consoles anymore and I dont own a Nintendo portable, so buying this was a no brainer even though I paid more than my other cousin gamers.

I have finished playing ff1 and I am more than halfway through ff2. This is a more polished game than ff1 when it comes to story. ff1 lacked character interaction, and the story plot was very lacking. The story is important in rpg games. Playing turn base, random encounters, menu driven battle can be boring if the plot does not give you purpose to go on and keep exploring.

The story has some elements that are almost a ripoff of Star Wars. But it does give you focus. It is very clear where you should go next.

Another thing I found improved was the dungeon design was a little better.

Battle is still handled by pulling down actions through a menu while the game waits on you. Pretty standard on JRPG, and no surprise since ff1 and ff2 are the granddadies of all JRPGs.

One thing I love is that your character can dual wield weapons (one weapon in each hand).

the leveling is kind different from most JRPGs. Characters dont level but skills do. It is like a Oblivion light system (even Oblivion had levels for the character). It works in that you level your weapon and spells by using them. So it is better to focus on a weapon and some spell to take them to the maximum power.

There is a flaw in the system when it comes to increasing HP and MP (health and mana points). You only increase HP if you get hit and lose HP, you gain mana points by using mana points. So you will say, 'well, that is what random encounters are for'. I would answer yes, but the system does not work because 99% of monster you meet in random encounter die in one hit. It is possible to kill all monsters in your first turn without the monster having the opportunity to hit you. And if you dont get hit...yeah, your HP does not increase.

Because of this flaw, your HP and MP increase rather slowly, specially your MP. I had my MP not increase at all because I would save my mana for the boss encounter of the dungeon and would kill only with physical attacks. So this led me to find the well known cheat in ff2. I will tell you the cheat because I found it necessary to survive the bosses (the random encounters offer no challenge like I said above and this can give you a false sense of security until the boss chews your party like a light snack). To increase in power, I would fight outside of town. When my party entered a random encounter. I would not attack the monsters, but I would attack members of my own party. I would take their health down to halfway before I proceeded to kill monsters. This garanteed HP increase at the end of battle. To increase MP, I would cast spells until MP went halfway. Besides, casting spells repeatedly helps level up your spell as well so it is win-win. then you back to town and rest, so you can recover your MP in the cheapest way.

Overall, I am enjoying this game. It looks great on the PSP. The spells effects do look on par on visuals to a newer game. So, if you are PSP lover all the way and never played this game. Then I would say buy it. It is better than FF1 (although I would get FF1 so you can experience how JRPGs started).

Edit: I finished the game. So I am going to adjust my view on the random encounter. The random encounters do become more difficult on past 2/3 of the games, so you start leveling better. I still would do the cheat early in the game so you dont get surprised by the ramp up in difficulty. You still have to do this since the fourth character in your group changes as the story progresses. Whenever I got a new fourth character, I would spend some time leveling him/her up. Otherwise, if you move on with the story, the character would quickly die in the random encounters.

My last suggestion is do not forget to get the Blood sword from the thief, Paul, before leaving to fight the cyclone. This sword makes all boss fights, even the last boss, a cakewalk. I am serious, the last boss will drop so fast that you wil be like "!!!!". I found that I did not have to take any weapon or spell to its maximum power as long as I used this sword. After beating the game, you can reload and try to beat the boss with a fork if you like.

Take my advice!

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 3 / 17
Date: August 24, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I started the game thinking "Okay, this should be fun!" although i was horribly mistaken. THIS GAME IS HORRIBLE! As soon as I started, i was confused with the lack of instruction. I began to run out into the woods and eventually died since there was no map. Get this: there is a map but you have to read the manual to discover you have to press O and SELECT. Great.... I found that out half way through the game. I learned also most of the information that they "forgot" to tell you is in the manual.

Also, there are these magic portal things that take you to places when you say a word. wtf! where did it take me. It was very frustrating since there was no explanation of this in the game. I felt so frustrated that I wanted to throw my psp out of the window, but then i thought the best way to take out my anger was by writing a review.

I'm only assuming that it is mandatory to play the first Final Fantasy in order for the second to make sense but I'm not going to pay thirty more bucks for the first one. I bet it is just as confusing. Oh, and i can't forget the music playing in the background. MUTE YOUR PSP! It is a continuous loop and gives you a headache.

Past the confusion, the gameplay is alright but it does not make up for anything. So please, take my advice and don't buy this game. I love Role Playing Games (rpg) yet this one I hate. Buy a different rpg, just not this one!

interesting

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: December 23, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I found this game to be much like the first final fantasy anniversary addition how ever the game play is more intense and interactive. I can't wait to buy the follow up game Final Fantasy tactics!

Remake of the old school

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: December 27, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Yeah, just cut the game down as much as you ant, but it is still one of the best games out there, yeah it has the same old graphics and the same story line but if any of you played this when it came out like me, then you do not have a reason not to buy it. The worst thing about the old ps version was the video graphics, they fixed that, same old game play same great game

20th Anniversary Remade II

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: March 11, 2008
Author: Amazon User

A year later in 1988, Final Fantasy II was released for the Famicom and we never got to experience it until 2003 under Final Fantasy Origins. Well, the PSP version of the game is better than the GBA version and trust me it is the more nervewracking of the two PSP remakes. For one thing, it has a unique way of leveling characters which can prove to be quite innovating for the player. Nonetheless, the game can either be easy or hard depending on how you want to play the game. In my opinion, this game is for those that not only never experience Final Fantasy II or are hardcore fanatics that know what this is all about. Other than that, this is a very good game and regardless I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

A MUST HAVE FOR RPG PLAYERS!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: July 03, 2008
Author: Amazon User

Great game!
Hours of replay value.
I was playing this game, and It has last me about 3 months playing at least 3 to 4 hours a day (Haven't finished the game yet); whever I get the chance.

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