"One to be born from a dragon..." -- Let's Play Final Fantasy II

Having gone through the trouble to import the EU version, and playing it to completion, I can attest that the turn order bugs are fixed.

I do miss the music and graphics of the SNES EasyType version, though...

Last time I played the SNES version I believe the slyph cave and clearing out the cave on the way to the land of summoned monsters gave just enough XP for me to get wall before the first trip to the moon. Granted, I got every chest, and never ran from a fight.

Actually, the only place I ever need to grind in this game is when you first get Rydia as a child, since she starts at level 1 and getting all the goodies on the first floor of the waterway and having her not get one-shot generally means she should be level 4-5 when you start, in my experience. I don't think this increases your later levels at all, since Cecil becoming a paladin resets his level to 1 and I believe Rydia's level when she rejoins is fixed or based on something else.

One thing I love about this version of the game is it has, IMHO, the best tempo of any RPG, ever. The extra end-game content is hard when you first get there, but not unbeatable if you play careful and smart. And you never really feel overleveled if you don't go out of your way to make it so.

Though I've played through this game a dozen times at least, I haven't played the original version in the past decade, so I may just be remembering it too fondly in this reguard. I've never had to grind to keep Rydia alive for the final fight, but I know people claim it's nessessary. Again, I do make it a point to get everything so that may be enugh XP to make the difference.

In that case, could it be that we aren't intended to go into the Land of Summoned monsters immediately after upgrading the Falcon? Maybe the developers put the optional Summons there (and elsewhere) to be fought much later in the game, when natural progression would've given you the skills (Wall/Asura, Lit3/Odin) to actually defeat them.

This game is the #2 most mind-blowing video game of my formative years, after Super Mario Bros. It hasn't aged as well as the other SNES Final Fantasies but that's because the features it introduced became standard issue.

The GBA EU version is my favorite to play today, but that's partly because I turn the volume down and play the soundtrack in my mind in its unadulterated state.

I always grind for Wall because those summons aren't interesting if you wait until later to get them. In particular, Leviathan and Sylph are great inside the giant(as is Bomb if you're lucky enough to have it).

I do agree, it'd be perfect if only it had the music restoration patches both FF5A and FF6A have...

I'm in the unpopular group that likes the DS version the most, since it was designed to screw with the minds of people who had already played FFIV.

"Hmm, I know this character will permanently leave my party soon, so I better not use up this one-of-a-kind upgrade on them" says the savvy player, "I am a savvy player".

And then the savvy player is punished by being screwed up of a MUCH BETTER upgrade later in the game. And Final Fantasy 4 tents its fingers and smiles, with malice in its heart.

"All according to plan" thinks the game.

Man, Sylph is my go-to summon all the way to Zeromus. Low mp cost, moderate damage, plus light healing. It doesn't get any better.
It also screws with players who legitimately want to crack open and explore those systems by only allowing three NG+ too, so pretty much everyone loses. IV DS is a really good game, but that one decision pretty much killed my desire to ever replay it.

Thanks for the reasons for why you like FFIIUS better than FFIV GBA. I keep waffling on whether to pick up the GBA version, or just get FFIIUS on the VC, but if the extras don't add much, I'll probably stick to VC, and play through it again.

Yeah, that sort of things drives me insane, I'm not a huge fan of powerful missables, especially with only being able to use NG+ 3 times, that's just dumb, and is why I have no desire to play the DS version.

FFVA is great because I'm not nearly familiar enough with the original game to even notice any little changes B')

Does Rydia still have spells other than Slyph, Virus and Nuke after you get out of the tower? I've never cast them (maybe Psych every now and then) if so.

Never played this since I've found I enjoy reading about Final Fantasy more than playing it, so I'm looking forward to it!

It's not. There's a very particular way XP works for out-of-party characters.

But that's for a later post.

The regular spell doesn't do that! I've only found a handful of enemies throughout the game that you can Psych more than 1 MP from.

What EasyType?

So that's where the superdeluxe Zeromus in FFIVA came from.

Final Fantasy IV is the game I've played more than any other. This should be fun.

Meh, I liked Final Fantasy IV DS for one run, but as stupid as that New Game Plus limit is, it's not that big a deal when I realized I didn't really wanna replay it after the moon anyway. The real problem with FFIV's NG+ is when it comes to your hard-earned equipment, and that problem is that almost none of it carries over.

If you want to make the most of your NGP, you'll have to grind your ass off against the deadliest moon monsters to get their super rare tail drops to get the ore to make the only equipment that will carry over. Yes, including the dragons and that one-armed red robot asshole that likes to blow himself up all over you. Way to suck all the fun out of game wrecking, Square-Enix. =/

I came by FFIV way way WAAAY after I started playing RPGs. By that time I had already played FFX, and it seemed like too much of a step backwards. Even today I can't fully apreciate it - I HAVE toughed it out to the very final boss (not naming it in case you've been living in a box for the past twenty years) but found out I was underleveled (I don't like ATB battles much) and didn't want to grind until I was ready.

Incidentally: I think that, of this entire forum, I am the only one who fell in love with RPGs over a game as bad and unoriginal as Digimon World 3. If you gave me a version with sane loading times, I'd play it in a heartbeat.

Actually, the more I hear/read/watch about FF4DS, the more it seems like Squex was so focused on creating a remake for the hardcore, game-breaking fans, that it ended up as frustrating and subversive just for the hell of it, missing the point of what made the original fun, and catering only to a minuscule subset of fans that tolerate being screwed over.

But what kind of developer would do such a thing?

I think I'm with Loki on this one. I played FFVI as a child but not FFIV, and now feel that all the great things IV does (narrative! characterization! THE MUSIC!), VI does even greater.

Not only that, but I was playing IV for the second time a month ago and thought it was okay. A bit linear and optionless, but decently paced. Now I'm in the middle of playing FFIII for the first time and am loving it! So for me FFIV doesn't compare terribly favorably either forward or backward.

But! I am very much looking forward to viewing this game anew through Brickroad's rose-colored eyes. He has given me a new appreciation or two for FFI and I'm hoping he can do the same for his favorite game in the series.

Yay, Let's Play!

Well, since everyone's relating their initial FF4 experiences to kick this LP off... I was still horrible at reading when FF4 came out. I'd watched my brothers play other RPG's like Ultima and Dragon Warrior, but FF4 blew my mind. I loved that the hero's looked villainous, and I thought Kain's being able to jump on enemies made him the coolest guy ever. It's a shame I barely understood the game. I saw the airship flying in the intro while Cecil spoke, and just accepted it as a boat sailing, and I made many erroneous plot assumptions. Coming from 8-bit RPG's, even little stuff was amazing, like how actively Kain moved, or having Rydia summon a monster in battle for storyline purposes. I know a lot of people see this game as simple, but to me, it's as refined as the purity of the FF experience can get before it starts adding on extra stuff (often awesome... but extra).

I didn't get back to this game until after FF7 was out, and my memory of the game was far off, but I still loved it to death.

Also, regarding all the discussion of the DS version... Am I the only person that was fairly indifferent towards it in relation to the others? I had no gripes with it, and the cinemas were more often good than bad for me.

I lost interest in FFI pretty quickly, but when I went over to my cousin's house one day and laid eyes on the copy of FFII he was borrowing from his friend, I knew it was true love~

he was stuck on Milon at the time and so mad at the game that he agreed to let me borrow it (even though it obviously wasn't his to lend out). when I saw him again a few days later I'd made it all the way to the underworld, and that just made him even madder! it was glorious.

I don't think it's anywhere near FFVI's level, but I've still got such a fondness for this game, forever.

Some of us here might be interested in this forum about the inner workings of FF4. It drives me a little nuts how the different versions of the game have all these little peculiarities in their algorithms and equipment.

FF2us is my preferred version. I'm with Zef all the way on this - you aren't alone!

Totally agreed. Given Brick's methodical deconstruction of the different versions of FF1, I'm hoping that some of those peculiarities will be discussed in context...in this very thread!

I will dare to disagree with Brickroad and Zef: I love the GBA version, in large part because its localization was so much better than the SNES version. It was the first time I actually understood the causal links between different portions of the plot. In the SNES version, characters just kind of did stuff and went places and it was never really evident why; in the GBA version, they actually talked about what they were doing and the things they said were in coherent English. It's nice.

I also really, really enjoyed the post-game content that TOSE added. Most of the optional story bits are really fun and novel, and I love that Edward is a total beast capable of inflicting debilitating status ailments on enemies with every basic attack. The only things that keep it from being a definitive version of the game in my book are the ATB glitches (fixed in the EU version, incidentally) and the rough audio. I hope the PSP version builds on the GBA game.

I have to admit, I kind of think of the GBA game as the "official" version. Buggy ATB aside, I love that it has all the abilities and a better translation and the bonus content.

Still, I like that Brick is doing a "Final Fantasy II" LP, because it's the version I know and love, and it's totally worth doing to talk about the translation and quirks of this version.

(Side note, how hard is it to find a GBA player these days? I kind of want to play FFIVA on my TV now.)

Oh, yeah, totally. If you wanna break FFIV over your knee, this is the version to abuse. This LP is gonna be rad.

I played the GBA version, and quit around the time I hit Barbariccia on account of apparently being about twenty levels under the ideal point. The plot didn't grab me enough to make me keep going, but I'd like to see where this goes anyway.

The GBA script is essentially a sanded-down version of the PlayStation script, which is rich in coherence and style.

Amen to that. The PSX version was my first time with the game and it's probably still my favorite. Either that, or the DS version is simply because of how difficult it is. I can't say I particularly like the SNES version all that much.

That's one of the fights I remember being a huge stumbling block for me on the DS version too. I thought the DS script (possibly almost the same?) was quite good too inasmuch as I finally "got it." The only GBA version I picked up was V, but now I kind of wistfully look at the GBA IV and VI.

I think I'm the only person who didn't have a serious problem with the DS game. I mean, it was tough and threw a few curveballs, but if anything I thought it was easier, for a few reasons...

- Discount for bulk purchasing. Seriously this is the best thing ever.
- Tweaked experience curve: Rydia was learning -aga spells by Elban Cave, and that was with zero grinding. In the typical play of the original for me, she isn't learning the third tier until the endgame.
- Making Edge not only not suck, but AWESOME. And it was so simple too: Make shurikens dirt cheap. Combined with the bulk discount, I had him setup with 99 of the things right out of the gate and was able to keeping him in the back row the entire game being great.

Man, now that I think about it, FFIV DS was pretty great. I'd still have to give it to the GBA game though for the extensive new endgame and allowing me to beat up evil with bratty twins, music, and the power of ACHOO.