Made in 1988 originally for computer systems the game has been remade for many other systems such as Gameboy Advance, Nintendo DS, PlayStation and more.
Plot
Final Fantasy II begins as Firion, Maria, Guy and Leon are attacked by Palamecian soldiers and left for dead. Firion, Maria, and Guy are rescued by Princess Hilda, who has established a rebel base in the town of Altair after her kingdom of Fynn was invaded by the Emperor. Hilda denies their request to join the rebel army because they are too young and inexperienced. The three set off for Fynn in search of Leon; there they find a dying Prince Scott of Kashuan, Hilda's fiancé, who informs them that a former knight of Fynn, Borghen, betrayed the rebellion and became a General in the Imperial army. The party returns to Altair to inform Hilda. She allows the group to join the rebellion and asks them to journey north to find mythril, a metal which could be used to create powerful weapons. The party makes its way north to the occupied village of Salamand, saves the villagers forced to work in the nearby mines, and retrieves the mythril.For their next mission, The party is sent to the city of Bafsk to prevent the construction of a large airship known as the Dreadnought; however, it takes off just as they arrive. After retrieving the Sunfire, a weapon which can blow up the Dreadnought, they watch helplessly as an airship with Hilda on board is captured by the Dreadnought. When the Dreadnought is put down to stock up on supplies, the party rescues Hilda and throws the Sunfire into the airship's engine. Before escaping from the explosion, the party encounters a dark knight whom Maria recognizes as Leon.
On his deathbed, the King of Fynn tasks the party to seek the help of the seemingly extinct Dragoons of Deist. In Deist, the party finds only a mother with her son, learning that all but one of the Dragoons are dead, partly as a result of Imperial poison. After placing an egg of the last wyvern in a cavern, the party returns to Altair and rescues Hilda from the Empire a second time, before successfully reclaiming Fynn from the Imperial forces. They then travel west in search of a powerful magic item, joining forces with the last surviving dragoon on the way. The party returns to Fynn and sees that many towns have been destroyed by a cyclone summoned by the Emperor. The party calls upon the newly born last wyvern to take them to a castle inside the cyclone, where they confront and kill the Emperor. Back at Fynn, everyone celebrates the Empire's defeat, but a mortally wounded Fynn soldier arrives and reveals that Leon has taken the throne and plans to destroy the Rebels with the Imperial army.
The party enters the castle of Palamecia and confronts Leon. However, the Emperor reappears in the throne room in a new demonic form, revealing he returned from Hell with the intention of destroying the entire world and its inhabitants. The party and Leon escape Palamecia Castle with the wyvern, while the place crumbles and is replaced with the palace of Hell, Pandaemonium. Leon agrees to help the group seal the Emperor away. The party travels to the Jade Passage, an underground passage to the underworld, and finds the portal to Pandaemonium, where they finally defeat the Emperor.
The Dawn of Souls remake of the game for the Gameboy Advance includes an additional mission that takes place after the game, called "Soul of Rebirth". The story of the bonus mission follows several characters who died during the story of the game as they travel through alternate versions of several locations in the game and defeat another version of the Emperor.
Characters
Final Fantasy II features four playable characters as well as several secondary characters who are only briefly controlled by the player. Primary characters include Firion (Frioniel in the Japanese release), a resident of the country of Fynn; Maria, a soft-spoken archer and dedicated enemy of the Empire; Guy (Gus in the remake for the PlayStation), a simple monk who communicates with animals; and Leon (Leonhart in the Japanese release), a conflicted dark knight who is missing for most of the game. Five playable characters temporarily join the party to assist Firion, Maria, and Guy in their missions for the rebellion. These are Gordon, the prince of Kas'ion and a member of the rebellion; Josef, a villager in the town of Salamand; Leila, a pirate; Minwu (Mindu in the PlayStation remake), who is a White Mage with the rebellion, and Ricard Highwind (Gareth in the remake, but Ricard again in the later Dawn of Souls remake), who is the first Dragoon to appear in the series.
While Final Fantasy was mostly focused on gameplay, Hironobu Sakaguchi decided for the second installment to put more emphasis on character development. Care was taken to make the characters feel like real human beings, able to experience various emotions that the player could similarly feel, such as sadness or happiness. Final Fantasy II also had playable characters die as part of the normal storyline. Music composer Nobuo Uematsu was initially opposed to the creation of these death scenes, but eventually agreed with Sakaguchi's ideas. In terms of gameplay, once a guest character would die in a scripted event, the player would have no means to revive them or recover their equipment and weapons.
Final Fantasy II features an airship pilot named Cid; each Final Fantasy game in the series after II features a character named Cid as well.
Gameplay
Final Fantasy II features gameplay similar to that of its predecessor, Final Fantasy. The player can freely roam an Overworld Map containing several towns and dungeons. A menu-based system allows the player to outfit each character with equipment and up to two—often disposable—items for battle. Magic spells are assigned to the character from the item menu, and certain spells, such as "Cure", can be used outside of battle. The player can also Save their progress on the overworld. Weapons, armor, items, and Magic Spells can be purchased at shops, and townspeople provide useful information for the player's progression through the game. One new feature is the "Word Memory" system: when in conversation with non-playable characters (NPCs), the player can "ask" about and "memorize" special keywords or phrases, which can later be repeated to other NPCs to gain more information or unlock new actions. 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. Characters and monsters are no longer separated into separate windows in the battle screen as they were in Final Fantasy I, and players can see their current and total hit points below the battle. Players can also fight with less than four characters in their party, which was not possible in the first game. Final Fantasy II introduced the Chocobo, the signature Final Fantasy mascot, which lets characters ride to a location at great speed without being attacked by enemies. The recurring character Cid was also introduced in II; a character of the same name has appeared in every main-series game since.The ill-fated opening battle in the Famicom version. On the overworld and within dungeons, random encounters with enemies can be fought to improve each character's attributes. Unlike the original Final Fantasy, players could not upgrade their characters' classes. The game is also one of the few games in the series to not use experience based levels. Instead, each character participating in battle develops depending on what actions they take. For instance, characters who use a particular type of weapon frequently will become more adept at wielding a weapon of that type, and will also increase in physical strength and accuracy. Attributes include hit points, magic points, magic power, stamina, strength, spirit, agility, intelligence, and evasion. Players can also increase their ability to wield certain types of weapon, and repeated use in combat causes the ability to level up. Hit Points (HP) and Magic Points(MP) increase with their use; a character who takes a heavy amount of damage in a battle might earn an increase in maximum HP, while a character who uses a lot of MP during battle might increase their maximum MP. This experience system had several unintended consequences that allowed characters to gain much more experience than intended, such as players having their characters attack each other and repeatedly cast spells, thus causing their HP and abilities to grow extensively. Final Fantasy II uses the same turn based battle system seen in the original Final Fantasy, with battle parties consisting of up to four characters at a time. The game introduces a "back row" in battle, within which characters or enemies are immune to most physical attacks, but can be harmed with bows and magical attacks.
So as you can see with FFII, they introduced individual characters to focus more on story. Creating the character of Firion and the Emperor Palamecia made the story more intense as you had an actual character with a name and a personalitly to connect to. The villain also being apparent from the beginning, the Emperor Palamecia attempting to conquer the world, under his reign.
Notice some of the same elements exist, the turn based system, character job class, the Overworld and dungeon map systems. Shops and items and equipment. Modes of transportation, although in II they have implemented the infamous Chocobo, a giant bird described best as a combination of Ostrich and Chicken, this bird can actually be ridden to travel through the open map.
Notice as well they got rid of experience in the point of leveling the character, instead the character used a specific weapon or magic and as the character progressed with these they became masters in that specific class.
I would like to also like to bring to mind the character of Cid, as mentioned above from this point forward, Cid has been a character name used in every FF from this point forward. As we progress through our history of FF, I will point this character out and his importance in that specific game. In this instance he is an Airship captain.
So we are now past the first game, as we can see they are already growing the game, trying new things. Keeping some of the same elements and yet changing them so that the game is different from the game previous to the title. In my opinion this is the true element of Final Fantasy.
As some would like to point out, how can you have a game titled Final Fantasy and yet there are to this date XIII of them, with X having X-2 a direct sequel and XIII-2 a direct sequel to XIII coming out January 2012, they don't seem to be too FINAL.
Well the way it has been described, imagine the Star Wars universe in which you have a whole galaxy of planets, each with there own development there own story, the same is said for FF. FF I occurring on its own world, its own planet, but all under the same methos and mythology. Where as FF II is in fact on a different world that may have some of the same elements but is a completely different world with different characters and its own worldly disasters. As we continue forward, imagine the Final Fantasy being tied also specifically to the main character of the story. As I had the 4 Warriors of Light, they were all the main character that was there Final Fantasy, as such FF II is Firion's Final Fantasy. This is an important factor as we continue to move forward through gaming history to understand the machine that is Final Fantasy and why there will never be another FF VII.
Elements to take note:
Items
Shops
Jobs
Classes
Weapons
Equipment
Cid
Airships
Chocobos
Magic
World Maps
Dungeons
Turn Based Combat
** Also mentioned above in the gameplay**
the ability to save the game on the Openmap
To Be Continued with Final Fantasy III
So as you can see with FFII, they introduced individual characters to focus more on story. Creating the character of Firion and the Emperor Palamecia made the story more intense as you had an actual character with a name and a personalitly to connect to. The villain also being apparent from the beginning, the Emperor Palamecia attempting to conquer the world, under his reign.
Notice some of the same elements exist, the turn based system, character job class, the Overworld and dungeon map systems. Shops and items and equipment. Modes of transportation, although in II they have implemented the infamous Chocobo, a giant bird described best as a combination of Ostrich and Chicken, this bird can actually be ridden to travel through the open map.
Notice as well they got rid of experience in the point of leveling the character, instead the character used a specific weapon or magic and as the character progressed with these they became masters in that specific class.
I would like to also like to bring to mind the character of Cid, as mentioned above from this point forward, Cid has been a character name used in every FF from this point forward. As we progress through our history of FF, I will point this character out and his importance in that specific game. In this instance he is an Airship captain.
So we are now past the first game, as we can see they are already growing the game, trying new things. Keeping some of the same elements and yet changing them so that the game is different from the game previous to the title. In my opinion this is the true element of Final Fantasy.
As some would like to point out, how can you have a game titled Final Fantasy and yet there are to this date XIII of them, with X having X-2 a direct sequel and XIII-2 a direct sequel to XIII coming out January 2012, they don't seem to be too FINAL.
Well the way it has been described, imagine the Star Wars universe in which you have a whole galaxy of planets, each with there own development there own story, the same is said for FF. FF I occurring on its own world, its own planet, but all under the same methos and mythology. Where as FF II is in fact on a different world that may have some of the same elements but is a completely different world with different characters and its own worldly disasters. As we continue forward, imagine the Final Fantasy being tied also specifically to the main character of the story. As I had the 4 Warriors of Light, they were all the main character that was there Final Fantasy, as such FF II is Firion's Final Fantasy. This is an important factor as we continue to move forward through gaming history to understand the machine that is Final Fantasy and why there will never be another FF VII.
Elements to take note:
Items
Shops
Jobs
Classes
Weapons
Equipment
Cid
Airships
Chocobos
Magic
World Maps
Dungeons
Turn Based Combat
** Also mentioned above in the gameplay**
the ability to save the game on the Openmap
To Be Continued with Final Fantasy III
No comments:
Post a Comment