This game was ahead of its time.

[三Akiyama]

I still love it dearly.

[Castor Troy]

It's my first time playing it. Really fun so far. I'm not sure if I'm a big fan of the leveling system, but it is different.

[三Akiyama]

I love how you could make any character into whatever you want it to be. White Mage Firion? Sure! Maria using two axes? No problem!
Though in the Pixel Remaster they made leveling up stats way too easy, to a point where you can full auto the whole game and still win.

[Deathraven13]

Yeah the game is great, instead of grinding levels you could shape the characters the way you want + it's open world.

On the PS2 version I have Firion with max agility and he dodge everything, even the final boss can't hit him.

Having the option to go to higher danger zones is really great, for exemple Palworld do that and you can collect good rewards earlier by sneaking around since you can find loot and chests, here if you could reach "misidia" you can buy a lot of good gear and farm one ennemie to get money to buy higher gear so you could be pretty OP early on.

It's great, it remind me of Vagrant Story since there is no levels in that game too and your actions can improve your character.

[Axel Arden]

it's like skyrim leveling decades before skyrim. i really dig it. ff2 wasn't the only NES sequel to suffer from being ahead of its time -- castlevania 2 was also (and still is) panned as being a bad sequel, but a lot of its concepts were later used successfully in symphony of the night.

[三Akiyama]

I haven't played a single Castlevania game, sorry.

But yeah, I love games in which you level up stats instead of... well, your level. It's much more fun, imo, to shape your characters the way you want them to be (and it allows for special challenge runs) than having set characters which can only do one thing or another.

[SC_Nikki]

Always loved FF2! It intrigued me from the very first time I saw screenshots of it on an old site called Final Fantasy Fever. I was so obsessed, I collected all the monster sprites from RPG Classics and ripped them myself from the WSC and GBA versions. Even made a fangame of it to learn RPG Maker MV!

[Castor Troy]

Originally posted by nockturn:

it's like skyrim leveling decades before skyrim. i really dig it. ff2 wasn't the only NES sequel to suffer from being ahead of its time -- castlevania 2 was also (and still is) panned as being a bad sequel, but a lot of its concepts were later used successfully in symphony of the night.

That's a good point. I never thought of it that way, but Elden Ring does have a very similar leveling system.

[三Akiyama]

Most games from the SaGa series (also made by Square Enix) also have a kinda similar gameplay.

[Q1]

A lot of people don't like the systems in the game, but I think that's just wanting it to be typically old school RPG

[三Akiyama]

The systems are a huge part of why I like it so much!
Though I also liked the story. It was really dark for such an old game - death is the main focus of the game, which is quite rare in FFs even today.

[Arrion-Dar]

Originally posted by nockturn:

it's like skyrim leveling decades before skyrim. i really dig it. ff2 wasn't the only NES sequel to suffer from being ahead of its time -- castlevania 2 was also (and still is) panned as being a bad sequel, but a lot of its concepts were later used successfully in symphony of the night.

You know, except Skyrim's leveling system is fleshed out better, and feels less tedious.

[三Akiyama]

So you're telling us that a game made in 2011 has better mechanics than one made in 1988? No way dude!