Final Fantasy II

For the game originally released as Final Fantasy II in North America, see Final Fantasy IV.

Final Fantasy II (ファイナルファンタジーII Fainaru Fantajī II) Originally released for the Nintendo Family Computer in Japan in 1988, there was some initial talk that either Nintendo of America or Square Soft (Square's North American subsidiary) might localize the title for American audiences as had been done with its predecessor in 1990. Such a project was announced and an early prototype cartridge was produced in 1991, but the game was ultimately canceled in favor of the more recent Final Fantasy IV. The game was never released outside of Asia in its original form. Enhanced remakes of the game were later issued for the Bandai WonderSwan Color (WSC), the PlayStation (as part of the Final Fantasy Origins collection) and the Game Boy Advance (as part of the Final Fantasy I & II: Dawn of Souls collection), and the latter two titles were finally released in English language form in both North America and Europe.

Final Fantasy II is notable for being one of the first story-intensive RPGs released for a console system, and for being the first game in the series to feature many elements that would later become staples of the Final Fantasy franchise, including Chocobos and a character by the name of Cid. It was also unique for eliminating the traditional experience-based advancement system, instead favoring a system wherein the statistics of playable characters increased according either to how much they were required, or how much they used. In other words, a character who frequently cast magic spells would have their proficiency at casting increase faster than a character who specialized in physical attacks. Although abandoned by subsequent installments in the series, a similar system was adopted by the SaGa series, also produced by Square. As a side-note, this game was actually designed by Akitoshi Kawazu, who later designed the SaGa series, rather than Hironobu Sakaguchi, creator of the series.

Because of the popularity of the series in America during the '90s, Final Fantasy II was one of the first games to undergo fan translation, in this case by NeoDemiforce.

Final Fantasy II was originally scored by Nobuo Uematsu, and it was Uematsu's eighth work of video game music. The game's music was arranged by Tsuyoshi Sekito for the WonderSwan Color, PlayStation, and Game Boy Advance remakes.

Gameplay
Final Fantasy II is unique in the Final Fantasy series for not utilizing experience-based levels. Rather than earning experience points at the end of every battle, each character participating in battle develops depending on what that character does during battle. For instance, characters who use a particular type of weapon frequently will become more adept at wielding a weapon of that type, as well as increasing in physical strength. Characters who frequently cast a particular magic spell will learn to cast more potent versions of that spell, as well as increasing their magical power rating. Hit points and magic points, similarly, increase depending on need: a character who ends a battle with only a small amount of health remaining might earn an increase in maximum hit points, and a character who uses the majority of their magic points during a single battle might increase their maximum magic points.

A handful of bugs related to this advancement system remained in the released version of the game. The most notable of these bugs was the ability to cancel a previously issued command and still gain the statistic-increasing benefits of having performed it. The game's turn-based battle system gave the player the opportunity to input commands for all four members of the battle party at once. At any time before the command for the final character in the lineup was issued, the player could hit a button and return to the previous character to reissue a command. Since many statistics, such as weapon and magic spell proficiency, were based on how many times a particular command was used in battle, a little patience meant it was possible to quickly advance in proficiencies in the space of a single battle round. A similar problem manifested in the way hit point increases were granted, which allowed characters to attack members of their own party to increase their maximum hit points. These problems were faithfully replicated in both the WonderSwan Color and the PlayStation ports of the game. The Game Boy Advance remake eliminated the command cancel bug, though the hit point increase trick remained. Various other changes were made to the Game Boy Advance version, including regular maximum hit point increases outside of those gained as outlined above, were implemented to decrease the difficulty of the game.

Battle parties consist of four characters at a time. Three of these characters are present throughout the entire game, but the fourth position rotated amongst a variety of characters throughout the course of the game. Final Fantasy II was the first game in the series to allow a friendly character to be placed in the "back row" during battles. Characters placed in the back row were immune to most physical attacks, but could be harmed with bows and magical attacks. In a similar vein, enemies could be arranged in up to four rows of two creatures each (for a maximum of eight hostile creatures on screen at one time). Only the two rows closest to the player's party could be damaged with physical attacks: by eliminating the two closest rows the player could then physically damage back rows of enemies.

Throughout the course of the game, when in conversation with non-player characters (NPCs), the player has the ability to "learn" special words 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, which have the same effect.

Story
The story concerns the adventures of four youngsters from the kingdom of Fynn named Firion, Maria, Guy and Leon. Their parents are killed during an invasion by the army of the Emperor of Palamecia, who has summoned forth monsters from hell in his quest to dominate the world.

Fleeing the emperor's monsters, the four are attacked and left for dead. Firion, Maria, and Guy are rescued by Princess Hilda of Fynn, who has established a rebel base in the nearby town of Altair. Eager to prove their value to the resistance movement, the three remaining youths undertake a variety of missions against Palamecia and join forces with a variety of allies not only to defeat the Emperor, but to locate Maria's missing brother Leon as well. Eventually, the quest is finished by the four friends reuniting and walking into the very pits of Hell itself to save the world.

Characters
Final Fantasy II was the first game to have an actual main cast of characters with names and histories. The first three characters can never be changed, whilst the fourth character is always changing.
 * Firion is the main character. Orphaned by the Empire, he wants to get revenge on the Emperor, and so joins the rebels. He is a man of few words, usually letting his actions speak for him.
 * Maria is Firion's childhood friend, and the main female lead. Like Firion, she rarely speaks, but she is looking for her lost brother, Leon.
 * Guy is a friend of Firion and Maria. He speaks in a stunted manner, and has the ability to speak to animals. However, this is unique ability is rarely used.
 * Leon is Maria's older brother, and a Dark Knight. He went missing during the attack of Fynn.
 * Minwu is a White Mage and Hilda's personnal mage. He joins the party a few times, and has access to great magics.
 * Josef is a miner, and helps the resistance gain mythril. He joins the party only for a short time, but he contributes greatly in the end.
 * Gordon is, in his own words, a coward. He ran away from Fynn when it came under attack, and now feels terrible for it. However, he eventually learns to make a difference.
 * Leila is a pirate who trys to rob the party, but is easily defeated. She repents, and decides to only attack the Empire instead.
 * Ricard is the last Dragoon of Deist. Having been stuck in Leviathan for ten years, he is unprepared for the world outside.

Unreleased English version
Following the successful release of the original Final Fantasy by Nintendo in 1990, Square Soft, Square's North American subsidiary, began work on an English language localization of Final Fantasy II. Assigned to the project was Kaoru Moriyama, whose later work included script translations for Final Fantasy IV and Secret of Mana. Although a beta version was produced, and the game was advertised in several Square Soft trade publications, the age of the original Japanese game and the arrival of the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, the NES's successor console, led Square Soft to cancel work on the Final Fantasy II localization in favor of the recently released Final Fantasy IV (which, to avoid confusing North American gamers, was retitled Final Fantasy II to reflect the jump in releases).

Although a prototype cartridge of the NES Final Fantasy II was produced (with the subtitle Dark Shadow of Palakia), the project was, by Moriyama's own admission, still far from complete:

"We had so very limited memory capacity we could use for each game, and it was never really "translating" but chopping up the information and cramming them back in... [Additionally] our boss had no understanding in putting in extra work for the English version at that time."

In 2003, when the game was finally released to English-speaking audiences as part of Final Fantasy Origins, it was released with a brand new translation produced under the supervision of Akira Kashiwagi. NeoDemiforce's fan translation of the game, similarly, made use of an original translation, as the existence of the prototype cartridge was not common knowledge at the time.