Final Fantasy 2 (Pixel Remaster)

Platform: Nintendo Switch
Genre: JRPG
Developer: Square
Publisher: Square Enix
Director: Hironobu Sakaguchi
Designer: Hiromichi Tanaka, Akitoshi Kawazu, Koichi Ishii
Writer: Hironobu Sakaguchi, Kenji Terada
Composer: Nobuo Uematsu
Finished: 2024
Playtime: 21h 32m
Rating: 3/5

Final Fantasy 2 is sometimes treated like the red-headed stepchild of the series since it tried a few things that didn't necessarily work out. I haven't played the original version so I went into this with some pretty low expectations based on things I'd heard but I feel like the pixel remaster has sanded off the rough edges and I ended up liking this one quite a bit more than the first. To me this game feels like it set the direction for the series.

This entry adds a more in-depth story with actual named characters that you play as compared to the randoms that you create in the first game. The game also does away with the class and experience based systems of the first and introduces a system where you improve based on what you do in battle e.g. the more you use a spell the stronger it'll get. In the original this apparently lead to people just having their party punch each other in order to improve their health, strength, etc, etc. I didn't actually try this in the pixel remaster version so not sure if it's still in there. Apparently the original also took quite a lot of grinding to actually level things up but it didn't seem so bad in the remake. Kawazu continued with a lot of these mechanics in the SaGa series. I liked the system but it also meant that none of the characters were very distinct from each other since you could train them up to do pretty much everything.

This game introduced a back row in battle and also introduced Cid and chocobos to the series. The game also added an interesting system where you can learn different words from conversations that you can then use in other conversations. The biggest innovation of all has to be the series of over the top dramatic (borderline melodramatic) deaths and betrayals that happen throughout the story. From what I've played so far this has definitely carried on through the third and fourth games.

See you in hell

The story doesn't drag along and has its fair share of exciting and funny moments. It's straight forward and and has its own charm. I'm not sure if it was the first JRPG to do it but it seemed to introduce the great trope of the Evil Empire vs the Kingdom that we're still seeing a lot of today. The top moment has to be when the evil emperor you kill comes back, revealing that he is now the ruler of hell. You end up having to go to the underworld to face him as the final boss. I honestly can't remember much more about it since it's been a while since I finished it.

The extras are the same as the first pixel remaster - music player, bestiary and more of that tasty Amano concept art. I'm not interested in tattoos but some of the black and white Amano art would make some pretty sweet ones.

What I liked

What I didn't like