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

Yeah, Brickroad mailed out an update schedule to everybody except you. It's really nice too! High-quality glossy paper, lots of full-color concept art in the margins. Shame you missed out.

It's actually a Dec LP I decided to start in Feb!

I'm trying to come up with a workable way to do the bulk of my writing during office downtime, like I did with the early FF1 LP. It's tricky because I have no reliable way of getting massive amounts of screenshots on my work PC. (Internet is blocked, flash drives aren't allowed, work e-mail has a cap on attachment sizes.)

Also I have quite a bit on my plate these days so even once I get rolling updates will probably still only be bi-weekly or so.

But you guys know I'm good for it, right? Right. We are cool.

I was just curious.

Okay. So. You guys want to see why it's taking these updates so long to write? Because I swear you will spend more time reading this LP than actually playing the game. Such is the depth of my committment to Final Fantasy II.


Our protagonist is Cecil, captain of the Red Wings, the royal air force of the kingdom of Baron. He and his men are returning from a successful raid on Mysidia, city of mages.

It's fun to point out that the actual trip from Mysidia to Baron is relatively short, requiring only a quick northwesterly jaunt across a narrow ocean. The mountain Cecil's ship is soaring over in the above screenshot is actually far to the east of Mysidia, and nowhere near Baron. As far as I can tell Cecil ordered his men to take the most indirect route possible, and furthermore to circle the globe a few times for good measure.

Because he's the Dark Knight. He's the GODDAMNED CECIL. Who's gonna argue with him?

I'm glad I got that lame-ass joke out of the way in the first update. We never have to speak of it again.


While Cecil's loyalty is beyond reproach, some of his men have misgivings about their recent orders. The crew feel as though their king has reduced them to the level of common robbers.

And we know what that means! Cue flashback!


One area where FF2's age really shows is its static message box. Text always appears at the same place at the top of the screen, even if that text would obscure its speaker. Future Square RPGs would fix this by opening the message box on the bottom in those cases, thereby fixing cases where the player is looking at mostly-empty screens like this one.

Cecil orders his men to deal with the black wizards standing between him and the crystal.


His men are more than happy to oblige.

In FF2, you know a character is dead when the game makes a loud *crunch* sound and then their sprite disappears. As the game goes on it becomes more and more important to make this distinction.

With the black mages taken care off, the lone white mage steps forward to take their place. (Instead of, you know, backing them up with healing magic or protection spells or what-have-you.)


That goes about as well as you'd can expect.


Rather than risk more deaths, the Mysidian Elder relinquishes his country's cherished crystal to the Red Wings. One of the soldiers bullies the defenseless old man into a corner, and Cecil steps forward to claim it.

Thus did the Crystal of Water fall into Baron's hands.


Believe it or not, Guilt Trip was supposed to be the most powerful black magic spell in the series. It was unfortunately cut from the game altogether, and oddly mistranslated in future titles as "Ultima".

As you can see, Cecil isn't immune to its effects. Like a kid caught drawing on the walls, he doesn't have a worthy answer for his deeds.

Back in the present, however, Cecil remains steadfast, at least in front of his men. Moreover, his bitchin' pep talk was the first time I'd ever encountered the word "moreover", which now that I think about it might not even be a real word.


Before anyone has the chance to argue be thrown overboard for insubordination, monsters appear and interrupt the conversation.


These fights happen automatically, and serve to display how much of a badass Cecil is. After taking only token damage from eyeball bites, Cecil retaliates by chucking bombs at them.

He doesn't actually have access to these items at any point in the game where they'd be useful. They do drop off of certain bitch-hard monsters in the game's final area, but said drops are rare and absolutely useless.


This downed crewman must have tripped over his shoelace or something, because he sure as hell didn't take part in the battle. Don't worry though; he's not dead. Note that his sprite's still onscreen.


This is as good a time as any to get Cecil's combat analysis out of the way!

~~~



Cecil - DKnight

Cecil is the most basic character in the game, and in a way, I'm glad he is. Remember, I was eleven when I first played FF2. My only prior RPG experience was FF1. Since Cecil is essentially just an FF1 FIGHTER, this was a very good way to for me to ease myself into this brave ATB-flavored world.

Command List:

• Fight: This is all Cecil can do, so you might as well get used to it! Fortunately his attacks are pretty strong, and are the primary source of damage through most of the early game.

While Cecil lacks variety, he makes up for with one fairly important strength: he's unkillable. A couple hundred HPs might not look like much, but Cecil's armor is so heavy that most attacks will be lucky to deal more than a single point of damage. For the first few hours, at least, there is no such thing as a Game Over. Just throw Cecil at a target until it dies. Even if the rest of the party has flatlined, Cecil can withstand any punishment and shell out however much damage you need him to.

~~~


With the monster threat dispatched, the Red Wings finally arrive at Baron. Two of the ships proceed to break airship landing convention by touching down in a desert and forest.


♪♪ Kingdom Baron ♪♪

As soon as he's out of earshot of his inferiors, Cecil attempts to plead Mysidia's case to Baigan, the captain of the guard. His protestations land on deaf ears, though, and he's whisked off to see the king.

Baigain leads Cecil through the castle's central chamber, past some tantalizingly out-of-reach treasure boxes...


...through a small hallway which seems to double as the soldiers' mess hall...


...and is told to wait in this tiny, unimportant antechamber which has no plot signifigance whatsoever.


As soon as Cecil's out of earshot, that weasel Baigan goes and tattles on him.


Nonetheless, Cecil is called in to deliver the crystal, having been denied even the opportunity to open the menu and see it sitting in his inventory.

It looks like Baigain is telling Cecil to give him the crystal here, but that's not really the case. Characters can't do anything on the map screen except wave their arms and bow their heads mournfully, so the game often has to describe their actions with text boxes. Sometimes very strangely worded text boxes.

They're like stage directions, only written by some manner of lesser ape. Possibly a gibbon.


Baigan "hand over the crystal" to the king, who dismisses Cecil from his royal presence. It looks as though Cecil's "rebellious air" will be overlooked, so long as he can keep his fat mouth shut!


Unfortunately, the poor, foolish Dark Knight chooses that exact moment to grow a conscience.


The king mistakes Cecil's lack of understanding for treason, and fires him on the spot. Dayum.

Remember this moment. It is very likely the only mistake the bad guys make in the entire game.


♪♪ Suspicion ♪♪

Now demoted to a common errand-boy, Cecil is given a mysterious Package to deliver to the village of Mist. Cecil attempts to approach the king, but a few of his flunky guards block the way and, wouldn't you know it, he's all outta LitBolts.

Cecil's bestest bosom buddy Kain suddenly appears, having apparently been eavesdropping just outside. When he attempts to stick up for Cecil he too is sacked. The two of them are then unceremoniously shoved out of the room.


Cecil's dirty little secret is that he's kind of a ninny, so he practically trips over himself apologizing to Kain for Kain's own mistake. It's not like Cecil asked Kain to get involved, or even knew Kain was nearby, or even that a character named "Kain" even existed until just now.

Kain seems curiously flippant about the whole ordeal, though. He's confident that the Mist directive will prove their loyalty to the king and they'll both be reinstated upon their return.


He even goes so far as to helpfully break the fourth wall, teaching Cecil how to walk around and talk to people.

See this? This was all the tutorial games needed back in 1991. No "do you know about timed hits?", no "teach me Mogster!", just a quick reminder that you're holding a controller, and then you're set loose.


♪♪ Kingdom Baron ♪♪

Kain instructs Cecil to use his newfound A-button-pushin' power to gather information from everyone in the castle. So let's do that.

Gee, looks like these soldiers are a bit torn on the subject of the king.


"But... how do you expect me to do that, when I can't boss airships around anymore!?"


The two stairwells outside the king's chamber lead down into these tiny magic classrooms, where you're taught the barest basics of spellcasting. This information isn't particularly useful since there aren't any spellcasters in the party, and won't be for at least two adventures.

I sure will be nice to Rosa, though. Every night. With my penis.

Aww yeah.


Buttons are pretty quaint by today's standards, but two decades ago this shit blew my mind right through my skull.

If you've been keeping up with the backstory here, I wasn't actually holding the controller for my virgin run through the game. My brother and I were at my cousin's place, and we were watching him play. I remember this part very vividly. Bro was in the bathroom, and when Coz opened this door I pretty much flipped my shit. I ran down the hallway and pounded on the bathroom door. Bro was all, "What!? What!?" and I was like, "He pushed a button on the wall and then the wall opened and he got three treasure boxes!" and then he was like "Nooooooo way!"

Nowadays I can (just barely) open this door myself without convulsing in pure ecstacy, but I admit I still get a kick out of the satisfying crash the door makes when it opens up.


The treasures therein are just about enough to get a standard Final Fantasy party off the ground. (The third treasure was a Tent.)

As a brief aside, though, FF2 is like the only game in the series where your party doesn't need any help off the ground. You'll see what I mean once we hit town proper.

As another brief aside, Square hadn't yet decided on standard Final Fantasy naming conventions. Healing items aren't yet called "Potions"; rather, they're named after the White Magic spells they emulate. And money hasn't yet settled down into "gil"; rather, we have the more videogame-y GP.

Okay, so this treasure room wasn't great.

The really good shit is secured behind an unbreakable NPC-shaped barrier. It was years and years before I realized you could open this door from the side. When I first accomplished this wondrous feat I already knew what lay beyond, and I was giddy with excitement for however many nanoseconds it took me to realize there was no way to squeeze behind the guard anyway.


Outside the western towers, Cecil finds the airship mechanics goofing off. It's probably the fault of these slackers that the Red Wings' navigation system was so scrambled on Cecil's return journey.


Sometimes the line between "character dialogue" and "stage direction" is overwhelmingly fuzzy. Is this soldier enthusiastically saluting his superior officer? Or is he merely socially challenged? The world may never know.


On his way back to his room, Cecil's girlfriend Rosa catches up with him. Remember, Cecil! Be nice!


"Nice" in Cecilville means giving a curt answer and then walking away. No, Cecil! Use your penis, like we talked about!


And with that, Cecil's reunion with the person he cherishes most in the whole world is over: he blows her off with a vague promise of lukewarm interaction at some unspecified later time.

Smooth.


Once he's shaken loose of Rosa, Cecil pays a visit to the castle dungeons, where the Mysidian prisoners are being held. They tepidly beg him to return the crystal he's stolen, but then he'd never be able to get his job back!

I'm most amused by the black mage in the last cell, because he implies that the king of Baron wants to wear the crystal around his neck on a giant gold chain like some kind of 16-bit rapper. Fresh!


Just outside the prison is a curious doorway in the southwestern corner of the castle, allowing Cecil access to the moat.


Unfortunately there's nothing to see out here except this suspicious little notch in the outer wall which serves no plot signifigance whatsoever. Also, Cecil's left arm and leg seem to have atrophied and fallen off somewhere.

Mere steps away from his tower and a good night's sleep, Cecil's other bestest bosom buddy Cid spots him from his vantage point up on the room. In a stunning display of concern for his friend's well-being, Cid asks how the airships he designed are holding up. Cecil proceeds to answer the question Cid didn't ask by explaining that he spanked some mages and old men, then ran off with their jewelry.


...actually, he doesn't. He just offers a blank text box, and the player is supposed to fill in the blanks. This is what's known as an implied conversation.

This kind of thing was probably done in the olden days in order to save cartridge space, but it's a storytelling convention I wish had stuck around. If this game were on PS3, this would be the fourth or fifth time Cecil would have had to describe his assault on Mysidia in excruciating detail in yet another unskippable cutscene.


Cid laments that the military ships he's designing are being used militarily, and then dashes off home.

Now's as good a time as any to talk about Cid. He joins the party at some point down the line, and is one of my favorite characters in the game. Of course, I had no way of knowing way back in the day that he was merely a small part of a much larger Final Fantasy tradition. The next game I played in the series was FF3-except-really-FF6, which featured a mechanically-themed character named Cid in a very small bit part. Since I was already used to hammer-swinging big-toothed party member Cid, I was pretty upset that this new stupid Cid was unplayable.

The next entry I played after that was FF7, where Cid was playable again, and all was right with the world.

But look at this from the perspective of a Japanese player, or a really nerdy North American player who knew how to import games back in the 1980s: Cid actually breaks convention here. He doesn't start it. Cid played only a tiny, airship-oriented role in the Japanese FF2 and FF3. FF3/6 Cid, the one I didn't like because I couldn't control him, was actually a return to form. I can imagine a player getting this far and being all like, "Wait, what? He's in the party now? That don't make no sense!" Except he would have said it in Japanese, so it would have sounded like "desu desu pantsu wai-chan!" or whatever.

I keep mentioning things like this because this particular title really switched up the FF formula, but your definition of "switch-up" and "formula" was wildly different depending on what side of the Pacific you were on. Is it any wonder this game has had more mechanically-unique versions than any other entry in the series, considering it meant something totally different to two absolutely disparate audiences?


Inside the barracks, Nameless Red Wing #1 is trying to drink himself into a stupor in order to forget about the atrocities he's committed.


Nameless Red Wing #2, meanwhile, is too busy lamenting the recent uniform change, which he felt was a major step down on the fashion ladder.


Nameless Red Wing #3 is either six years old, or is a sociopath making a futile attempt to fake empathy. Either way, I kind of feel like Cecil should have dumped him overboard while they were wildly off-course.

I wonder what this guy's military recruiter was like. "Son, you're in the air force now! That means you might have to give people cold pricklies sometimes. I know, I know -- it will make your insides hurt. But have heart! Because when you get home you get your choice of a lollipop or an ice cream cone. If that don't wipe those tears away, I don't know what will! Now get out there, solider! Get out there and have feelings!"


Nothing up on the roof where Cid was chillin' except an empty beer can and the very faint odor of wet paint.


Finally, having systematically conversed with the entire population of Baron Castle, Cecil makes it to his bedroom to get some shut-eye. Of course he sleeps in his helmet and full plate armor. Why do you ask?


After a few hours' rest, when he's sure nobody can hear him, Cecil finally voices his conviction to never murder innocent people again, not even if someone in a big fancy chair politely asks it of him. But will he be able to keep that oath!?


"Oh, shit. No, baby, when I said 'later' I didn't mean tonight. I mean, like, June."


♪♪ Theme of Love ♪♪

Rosa attempts to stand by her man, but Cecil does everything in his mortal power to avoid getting laid in this scene.

Actually, that's one of the more interesting points of FF2's romantic storyline. In most RPGs the hero and heroine hook up somewhere around the five hour mark, spend most of the game antagonizing each other, and then fall head over heels for each other during a particularly climactic and harrowing scene somewhere towards the end of disc two.

Cecil and Rosa, however, are already an established couple at the beginning of the game. His devotion to her is the fuel for a few subplots later on, and affects the motivations of supporting cast members in interesting ways. Next time you see someone snubbing his nose up at FF2's old and clichéd plot, kindly point out that the desert fever and Tower of Zot scenarios wouldn't have played out correctly if the leading couple weren't already established lovers, and that pretty much no other RPG ever has played its leading couple like that.

Then kick them in the teeth, because they said something not-nice about FF2, and therefore don't deserve teeth.

Cecil blurts out his whole tale of woe, presumably amidst a flurry of chokes and sobs. Rosa is correct to chastise him.


But, aw, shucks... Rosa still wubs her big blubbery crybaby, and is concerned for his wellbeing.

Incidentally, our cousin pointed out to us that it's way past midnight in this scene, and that it looked like Rosa showed up wearing her nightie. This, he informed us, meant she was here for a "booty call". We didn't know what that was, and I'm actually pretty sure I still don't, but I spent the next decade or so simply believing Rosa went through the whole game wearing bedclothes. This delusion persisted until she got a new sprite in Final Fantasy IV Advance, when I suddenly realized I was retarded.


Upon being harshly dismissed, Rosa exits cheerfully. The most basic reading of this scene is that Rosa is bipolar.


"I'm not the hero Baron deserves right now, but--"

"Oh come on, Brickroad. Really? Two Batman jokes in the first update?"


The next morning, Cecil and Kain meet up on the first floor of the castle to take the first steps of their long, perilous journey. They resolve to hit up the neary city of Baron for info'n'gear before setting out, and then...

...cue epic music!!


One area where FF2 consistantly outshines most of its Final Fantasy brothers is it's stunning soundtrack. This is one aspect of the game that is almost universally praised, even by people who don't deserve teeth aren't fans of the game. I mentioned in my opening post that this was the first console RPG in our market that really made a strong attempt at putting storytelling ahead of its other components, and the soundtrack goes a long way to selling that.

Anyone who stomps their feet and claims video games can't be art has never heard FF2's Main Theme.

This song works on so many levels. Perhaps one of its most powerful aspects is that it's slightly melancholy. Though it is undoubtedly upbeat, as is befitting of its station as overworld map music, there is something sad hidden in the melody which feeds off of practically every event in the plot.

Consider the following two statements:

1) Something tragic has just happened.

2) You are about to be dumped back out on the overworld map.

If you're not in one of FF2's many palette-swapped dungeons, chances that both of these statements are true hover around 90%. Not going with the traditional bold, happy overworld music helps remind the player that Cecil's is a quest of urgency. For me, having just come off of years of FF1, that made a world of difference.

At this time in my life FF1 was a checklist. FF2 was a quest.

But lo! There are further levels of brilliance here to be uncovered! Consider the following tracks from later in the game, both of which are variants on the Main Theme:

♪♪ Cry in Sorrow ♪♪ / ♪♪ Land of Dwarves ♪♪


The first song is played during sad story events. You hear this song whenver something tragic happens (#1, above), after which you are dumped back on the overworld map (#2, above). What this means is, all those heartwrenching scenes of sacrifice or failure are punctuated with a really sad song, followed somewhat quickly by a more upbeat version of that same sad song. The game is saying, "Yeah man, shit happens. That's life. Get back up. You're still in this."

The second song is played on the overworld in the Underworld, and oh my god that is one of the worst sentences I've ever written. Anyway, notice how this version of the track doesn't have a notable sadness to its melody. Though the team spends a large amount of time in the Underworld, much of it is spend chasing down subquests in exceedingly long dungeons. Which means a lot less actual story happens there, which means you don't need that small dose of pick-me-up. However, this version still has all the upbeat elements of the Main Theme, which makes it instantly recognizable as overworld music.

"Geez, Brickroad! When it took you three weeks to update your LP, we didn't figure it was because you were furiously masturbating to this one song!"

Okay, now, that's just crass. But fine. I'll get on with it.

♪♪ Main Theme ♪♪

So okay, the first thing you do in an RPG when you finally get control of your hero dudes in the real world is go poking around the menu screen. So let's do that.

For some reason it never bugged me that while you can clearly see Cecil's face on the map screen, it is completely obscured by his helmet on the menu screen. Although hopefully by virtue of my having pointed it out it now bugs some of you!


At first glance it looks as though the Item screen lacks the standard features of modern RPG menus, such as a sort function and a page to hold my special plot-related doodads. The latter is certainly true; as you can plainly see, the game dropped my Package right in with my Cure1 and my Tent.


If you scroll down to the bottom of the list, though, you can see that the "sort" and "drop" functions are actually represented by special items on the list. In order to save yourself a lot of grief later, you'll probably want to move your -Sort- up to the top where it's easily accessible.

North American players noted a few differences between this item screen and the one they were used to from FF1:

• You can move and drop items.
• There were no longer separate screens for items, weapons and armor; everything is streamlined into this single, user-friendly inventory.
• Equipping an item removes it from the communal inventory until such a time as it is unequipped.
• The game doesn't say anything when you try to use a plot item; such items are simply greyed out.

And for you young'un types, there are a few notable differences between this item screen and the one that became standard later in the series:

• There are no item descriptions.
• You have limited inventory space, which means it's impossible to carry "one of everything".
• Though your total space is limited, your number of stackable items is not; if you have 99 Cure1s and pick up a hundredth, it will simply begin a second stack. If you were so inclined, you could walk around with dozens of stacks of 99 Cure1s.
• -Sort- doesn't make any attempt to group up like items; it simply collapses your inventory into as many neat stacks and does away with any empty spaces as it can.

That last bullet point is actually a bit of a pain. If you get used to having your Cure1s in the topright spot, as shown in the above shot, and then use your last one, thereby creating a blank space... picking -Sort- will fill that space with whatever's nearby. Next time you buy or find a Cure1, it'll be at the bottom of the list, and you'll have to move it back where you want it manually, which probably means moving everything else manually one spot down.

In practice, though, it's actually difficult to completely run yourself out of even the most often-used items. In common practice, -Sort- will tend to put your consumable items up top, and leave your piles of useless equipment somewhere downwind.


There's a Magic menu, but neither Cecil nor Kain can cast spells, so it's useless to us for the time being.


The equipment screen is pretty standard, but there are a few things worth noting. First, characters in FF2 each have a dominant hand. Cecil swings with his right, and Kain with his left. This is mainly trivia, since the game won't allow you to equip a weapon into the character's off-hand. It only matters when you're working with bows and arrows. If you put the arrows in the character's dominant hand, you'll gain an extra point or two of attack.

The equipment screen also shows the character's derived stats: attack power, physical defense and magical defense. This is handy when quickly comparing equipment in the field.

This game came out before the invention of the "Optimal" button, which is fine, because that button is stupid and you're a chump for even considering using it. It also came out before the invention of using shoulder buttons to quickly flip through your party, so if you're equipping several people you have to back out to the main menu between each one.

The Equip screen doesn't matter anyway, as Cecil and Kain are both decked out in their kickass starting gear and there's nothing else for them to wear.

~~~

I didn't get a screenshot of the Status screen for two reasons: 1) I am a stupid, and 2) I actually don't know what most of the stats do. I could make reasonable guesses, but I think you guys are expecting balls-to-the-wall nerdcore numbers crunching here, and I just can't deliver on this front. Sorry!


FF2 also switches up how battle ranks work. In FF1 characters in the back rank took and received equal damage to the front rank, but would be attacked less. In FF2 all five party members receive an equal share of hits, but those in the back line take and receive half damage from physical attacks.

In most FF games that use this system you can put any character on any rank you want, as long as there's one guy in the front. FF2's setup is slightly more rigid; you can either choose to have three guys up front, or three in the back. The Change command is used to swap between these two configurations.

Right now Kain is in slot #1 and Cecil is in slot #3. Since odd-numbered slots are always on the same rank, how do we put one of them in the back row?


Like this! The Form command lets you swap the positions of two characters. By moving Kain into the empty slot #2, and then using Change, we can put Cecil in front and Kain in the back. Like God intended.


Finally we have the Custom screen, where you can change a few important game options. Battle Speed controls how fast enemies make decisions in battle. It starts at 3, but since I'm not a pussy I'm going to crank it up to 1. (But I'll crank it back down again in a few choice fights that become borderline unwinnable if they're moving too fast.)

Battle Message controls how quickly text boxes clear away during combat. This likewise starts at 3, which is the rough equivalent of eternity, so I'm going to dial it up to 1, which is merely a glacial age. I've heard rumors of a man who played FF2 with the Battle Message set to 6. He became an old grey man, with an old grey beard, before turning to stone and crumbling away to dust. Legend has it that his battles moved so slowly his SNES was able to communicate with passing whales.

You can set your Sound to "Stereo" or "Mono". Pick whatever one you want. Your TV sucked ass back in 1991 anyway, and you didn't even know what this meant.


HOT PINK WINDOWS, TALKING TIME!! WHADDAYA SAY!?

Jesus, did I seriously just babble on for ten pages about the menus? I think I might need psychiatric help.

♪♪ Welcome to Our Town! ♪♪

Kain wanted to gather gear and information here in town, but sadly, there's not much of either to be had.


No name changing in this LP. None. No. Sit down. I don't want to hear it.

I refuse to save the world with heroes named Fagface and Hotpants. Those are both seven letters anyway, so they won't even fit. Seriously what is wrong with you people. I still have scars from Ctrl-V'ing ○✗∆□☆'s name fifty times per update.

For every post I see lamenting the lack of name changes, or ignoring my decision and suggesting names anyway, or using names I didn't pick, or mentioning Namingway at all for any reason, or trying to break-but-not-really-break any of these rules by finding "clever" loopholes or workarounds... I'm going to tack on another week with no updates. And updates are going to be 10-14 days apart as it is.

I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "He won't do it. Let's push his buttons. It'll be giggle-mad funny." No. It won't be. I am a man of my word. I will push this motherfucker right on back into 2013 if I have to. People will get mad at you, and shivam will be all like "herp derp remember when this was a ff thread i sure don't". We will all of us become old grey men with old grey beards, etc. etc.

Their names are Cecil and Kain. Those names are bad ass. Deal with it. Someone get a picture of that sunglasses dog.


You know what's awesome? Walking around the map with someone other than your main hero! I'm looking at you, every Final Fantasy game with polygons!


You know what else is awesome? Blasting bad guys with healing magic, on purpose, and dealing damage. Not something we'll be doing anytime soon, of course.

The rest of the people in the training room pretty much just read the instruction manual to you, which I'm probably going to do anyway over the course of the upcoming updates, so let's not be any more redundant than we absolutely have to be redundant.


Stuff is hidden in pots and bookshelves sometimes! There was another Cure1 in the Inn, but I didn't get a shot of that one.


Sometimes buttons are hidden. If the button in Baron Castle blew my brain out of my head, this one shattered my pelvis and left me as a pile of jelly nervously squirming around on the floor. Solving this amazing puzzle nets you another Cure1, another Tent, and a Heal. (Heals restore status ailments; they're the equivalent of what would later be called Remedies.)


Some of the townsfolk are absolutely terrified of Dark Knights... probably because no one knows how emo they are when they're all alone in the bedrooms late at night, definitely not getting laid.


Another Cure1 for the stack!


Even if there were anything in this shop Cecil and Kain could equip (there isn't), and even if they weren't already wearing the best gear possible for this point in the game (they are), they still can't actually purchase any gear in Baron -- the goddamn weapon store is locked up tight! That seriously can't be good for business.


Okay, so Batman jokes are off limits. How about Star Wa--

"No."

But what if I just--

"No."

Okay, okay. Sorry I asked.

Don't worry, lady, I've been dutifully raiding every trash can and secret passage in town.


The Item Shop interface got a nice facelift too! You can still buy items one at a time, which is how we'd grown accustomed to it after years of FF1, or you can buy items ten at a time. Or...


...you can buy them ninety-nine at a time! Or really any other number you want. We spent a moment in silent awe thinking about all the time we'd spent buying HEALs in FF1, pushing the button over and over.

"You mean... we don't have to tape down the turbo button and come back after dinner any more? When... when will we find time to eat?"

(Lifes are used to revive dead heroes. Carrots are used to summon big chocobos, where applicable. Ether1s are used to restore small amounts of MP... and are so prohibitively expensive you won't be able to reliably afford them until the endgame.)


In one corner of town is the Serpent Road, which acts as a direct magical conduit to Mysidia. Which makes that unnecessarily wackyshack figure-8 airship route seem even more insane.


Of course, Mysidia is still all butthurt that we "murdered its citizens" and "stole its precious national treasure", so they won't let us come over to play. Sad face. =(


Another mysterious locked door! Is there anywhere I can go in this stupid town!?


Cid has a pretty impressive collection of aeronautics literature and a really really hot fireplace. Unfortunately he's napping right now, and his nameless daughter won't let him wake up and join our party. Rats!


Rosa's mother lives in a quaint little shack without any beds. She scolds you for being naughty in Mysidia, then asks if you would please break up with her before you drag her down into the depths of perversion and despair.


So I robbed her blind. Take that, future mother-in-law!



I was going to make an animated gif of this dancer, but honestly, she doesn't do anything impressive enough to warrant it. She kind of just turns around and shakes her ass at you for a few seconds. In other versions of the game she at least has the decency to strip first.



Finally, you can wade out into the city's water supply if you set your mind to it. Square hadn't yet got the hang of this whole "obscuring the hero's sprite" thing, yet, so Kain gets his head lopped off by every bridge he attempts to walk under.

The pool in the corner of town contains two hidden Tents. Here's one of them. The other... is for you to find!

(But here's a hint: it's on one of the two tiles the game won't allow you to walk on.)


Looting the town of Baron pads Cecil's inventory with just about what you'd need to take on a brief adventure with two heavily-armored knights. Actually, even if you're a novice player you will find these supplies to be far more than adequate. I usually don't ever use a single item between here and the first "real" dungeon.


♪♪ Main Theme ♪♪

There's a little bit of everything in the overworld around Baron: deserts, forests, mountains, rivers... oh, and this strange octagonally-shaped woodland that sticks out like a sore thumb to the southwest.



It's a chocobo forest!

FF2 is the first game in the series to make it to our shores that featured chocobos... which is cool, because there's a LOT to do with them!


The friendly white chocobo restores all your MP just by touching it, so if you have a white mage in the group and feel like sticking it to the man at the Inn by getting free heals, be my guest.


The alcove in the north of the forest can't be stepped into, and carries with it the distinctive odor of chocobos. I could do something with this, but I won't, because there's no need to yet and this udpate is already extraordinarily long as it is.


♪♪ Choco-Chocobo ♪♪

Finally, you can capture a yellow chocobo, also known as a "normal" or "awesome" chocobo, which enables you to run around the world map absolutely encounter-free.


Unfortunately there's not much to see in this area of the world. At least we were able to avoid a few encounters with Imps and nother tedious nobodies.


♪♪ Into the Darkness ♪♪

Most of the dungeons in FF2 are caves, but unlike FF1 (which was limited to palette swaps) FF2 is able to give each cave its own unique character. The Misty Cave is bathed in thick fog, and is characterized by curved cliff faces and deep holes punched through the topography.


♪♪ Battle Theme ♪♪

Battle time!

Like the other aspects of RPG-dom FF2 pioneered, the ATB system is cornered and unpolished. Though characters need to wait their turn to act, they do not have ATB meters, so there's no way to see at a glance whose turn is coming up next. There's no way to make a hero pass his turn without using it, either, which severely cuts down on the types of strategies you can employ.

Right now it's Kain's turn. So what can Kain do?

~~~



Kain - Dragoon

Kain is a fan favorite, and is one of the first indications that FF2 is going to be a new kind of experience. He offers just enough variety to add some spice to the very early game, and he's strong enough in the late game to be a unique and worthwhile addition to the party.

Command List:

• Fight: Kain's Fight command is perfectly adequate. It starts and stays about on par with Cecil's. However, there's no reason to ever use it.
  
• Jump: Ah, now here's Kain's bread and butter. Kain will leap into the air and land on an enemy. This deals more damage than if he'd just attacked, and what's better, he can do it from the back row without penalty. This attack is immediate, or as close to immediate as makes no difference.

With access to a strong, fast attack that aids him defensively, Kain totally overshadows Cecil in the beginning of the game. Later on, when the party is a bit more diverse, Kain's greatest asset is his unique style of defense. He's untargetable while in the air, he wears heavy armor, he's got a pile of HP and he can stand on the back line. He's not as invincible in the late game as Cecil is in the early game, especially not against heavy magic attacks, but he's damn near.

~~~

At this point in the game, Kain can Jump, land and deal damage before Cecil has time to queue up his next attack. This makes him over twice as powerful as Cecil is, in terms of sheer damage dealt. And what other metric is there to measure a character by, this early in the game?


Cecil has a trick Kain doesn't though: he can land critical hits. You'll know this happens because the screen flashes and he'll more than double his damage output. This is more than Kain can do, sure, but Kain still comes out ahead since Cecil's criticals are so infrequent.

Really though, this is all just pointless nattering. Both characters can one-shot any monster in sight with absolutley no problem. The Misty Cave isn't here to challenge our boys; it's here to bend over and receive them.


♪♪ Fanfare ♪♪

Monsters will sometimes drop items after battle, which is one of FF2's more notorious quirks. Some items can only be obtained in this fashion, and some of these are so unbelievably rare that it's possible to play the game a hundred times and never see one.

Fortunately the venn diagram of items that are both rare and useful is a tiny, tiny sliver. Unless you're some kind of insane completionist, this is nothing you have to worry about. (For my part, I didn't develop my insane completionist tendancies until well after my induction into FF2 -- by which time I didn't care. Go me!)


♪♪ Into the Darkness ♪♪

Mysterious voices in the cave urge the knights to go back, but they are a stubborn lot. Stubborn and greedy for treasure.


Notice how the treasure box tiles change to an "opened" state after you've ransacked them. That's a pleasant little touch I did not even notice at first all those years ago.


I want you to just drink in this screenshot a little bit, and appreciate the care and detail that went into the mapwork here. I don't mean the graphics, although the graphics do indeed have their own style of 16-bit charm. I mean the mapwork. I mean, really look at how this location is laid out, and how it fits together.

Where dungeons in NES RPGs are largely just colored rooms and hallways, this looks much more like an actual cave. There's a randomness to the walls and layers here. There are multiple levels of elevation. A thin layer of mist hangs in the air, and thicker masses roil in the depths below. This place wasn't built. It was made as navigable as possible by the people who had to use it, who laid down bridges and carved stairs, but by and large this is a god's honest cave.

Now imagine it's 1991, and you're not noticing any of this, because you're eleven and stupid and have a snotty nose. All you know is that something is way better about this cave than any other cave you've ever been in, but you can't place your finger on what. That's how subtle the paradigm shift from 8- to 16-bits is in some places.

If you've never tried to draw an RPG map before, you can take my word for this: it is hard to make a cave look like this. It takes hours. But it's one of the most effective ways to connect with the player's imagination in a way RPGs hadn't been able to do before. It's this kind of thing that allowed these games to tell stories and develop worlds while their forebears were stuck engaging you by juggling stats.


Just a couple more treasures for the road.


A few steps from the exit, the mysterious voice hassles the knights once again. It politely gives them the opportunity to flee like little girly men, if that's their desire... but they decide to press on. They have a Package to deliver. They're delivery boys.


♪♪ Boss Battle ♪♪

With that, the mist in the cave gathers around the knights, congealing into the game's first boss: D.Mist.

Before we talk about D.Mist, let's talk about this awesome boss music. Last year when I wrote my Final Fantasy Fanboy Gushfest, I named this my favorite song in FF2. It was a tight race, as it very nearly tied for first place alongside half the soundtrack, but in the end I had to go with my gut on this one.

I won't go into a lot of detail about how many asses this song kicks, because you can already read that here. (And then you can read the rest of that awesome blogtastical series here. It'll give you something to do during LP updates!)

As for D.Mist, as most boss battles in FF2, it is a gimmick fight. The monster will periodically transform into a pool of mist in order to evade damage. If you try to attack it while it's insubstantial...


...the dragon hits you with an icy counterattack! The damage from this attack isn't terrifying, but the amount of time it takes to scroll away the warning dialogue should be enough of a deterrent for anyone.

"Do not fight now!" (...wait wait wait...) "Fighting when mist will" (...wait wait wait...) "freeze you with Breath!"

You could negotiate world peace in the time it takes that message to go away. Sheesh.


The game prompts you when the dragon's about to transform back, which is helpful. Once this message pops up, you can safely queue up your attacks without fear of getting breath-frozen. Brozen.

Kain, in all his glorious awesomeness, has a neat little loophole in this fight: D.Mist is only flagged to counter regular attacks. Jump won't trigger it. So you can just have Kain jump every turn if you like. He'll still miss if the boss is in mist form, but you'd have to sit there and wait for the green light anyway, so you haven't really lost anything.

The really cool thing about this fight is that it would have been impossible without the ATB system. This battle introduces a sense of timing and a counterattack, which are just pipe dreams in a standard turn-based RPG system. Virtually every boss in FF2 makes use of this new horsepower in some way, and some of the tougher mooks do as well.

It's really not enough, anymore, to just pile on the damage and keep your HPs high. You cannot spam Cure4 and Nuke and hope to win. Those days are over. It's true you get a free ride for the first few adventures, but after that you either learn the system or the game punishes you. Hard.

(Okay, not so hard in this version as in others. But yeah, still kinda hard.)


♪♪ Fanfare ♪♪

Eventually D.Mist dies and you get some EXP. The obstacles in the cave thusly removed, the knights continue on to the village!


If you're the type of cat what likes to game the system for every advantage that can be eked out, you're going to want to strip Kain down to the skin right after the D.Mist fight. He's about to leave the party, see, and when characters do that in FF2 they take their equipment with them. When he returns later he'll be wearing all new stuff, so you can sell this in the meantime and turn a small profit.


♪♪ Main Theme ♪♪

With the cave behind them and the Village Mist ahead, it seems as though Cecil and Kain are on the fast track to getting their jobs back. Apparently this is a pretty short game after all, guys!

Next: "How sweet! Just like Anna's childhood."

Okay. Did you know this is the only version of Kain for whom Jump is consistently, unambiguously better than plain ol' Fight?

The Jump command was introduced along with Dragoons in the Japanese FF3. That game uses a standard turn-based combat system, so making the Dragoon's unique command was easy: on the turn you select the command they leap into the air, and on the following turn they land and deal their damage. In fact, there was a boss fight designed around the idea that you'd turn your entire party into Dragoons and spend enough time in the air that it couldn't land it's devastating super-attack on you.

Well, the SNES sequel didn't have the luxury of making things that simple. Now that there was no such thing as a combat round, there was no easy unit of measurement by which to keep Kain in the air. I bet there were long game balance discussions about this problem, in order to get it exactly right. I have no idea what the final formula ended up as, but whatever it was, they changed it for the better in the version of the game we got. See, in most versions of FF4 Kain jumps immediately, then stays in the air somewhere between "okay, that's long enough" and "way too friggin' long". This is particularly noticable in the Game Boy Advance version, where by the time Kain gets around to landing your other characters will have long since cut down all the bad guys. Unless you manage to luck into that bug that gives you two turns in a row, there's no possible way Kain can Jump once faster than he could Attack twice.

It's even worse in the DS version, where characters not only have ATB bars (which determines when they can enter commands) but also charge bars (which measures the time between when the command is entered, and when they actually execute it). Attack is one of the few commands that is actually instantaneous; Jump certainly is not. So not only does Kain have to spend a long time in the air, he has to wait a full bar before he can even get off the ground! If you rely on Jump for your damage in the endgame, Cecil and Edge are going to be running circles around him. (This is mitigated somewhat by the ability to give Kain the abilities of other characters. Cry is a fan favorite.)

In the SNES original, however, Kain jumps immediately and lands very shortly after. It's a little slower than if he were simply Fighting, but definitely not twice as slow; that is, it's not likely he could get in two Fights in the time it would take him to execute a single Jump.

The real benefits of Jump are all defensive, as I've outlined. There are trade-offs in every other version of the game I've played, bringing the move more in line with how it operates in the rest of the series. But in good ol' FF2? Put Kain on the back line and let him Jump to his heart's content. There's no reason not to!

That antechamber is just so bare. A couple of statues would really spruce it up.

I didn't know what anything meant when I first played. I didn't even know that the grey circle was for magic defense. Makes using magic harder than it should be, too.

That's one of the things that keeps me from hating FF2 too much - most of its characters are, at least outwardly, adults dealing with serious situations in adult-like ways. The plucky kids are used in this one as comic relief, not as afterthought main characters in belly shirts.


I have no idea whatsoever what type of person would be so obsessed with economic efficiency in a video game that he would do this.

I always kind of wished that they'd re-program the Mysidia fight to have you wiping out all six FF1 characters; it would have made for a nice transitional moment between the more generic versions from the NES game and the upgraded / twinked-out / more detailed SNES versions of those character archetypes.

Do you want to see a magic trick? I can make this pencil disappear.

One thing I think is awesome about Kain: All those Dragoons that come after him? They're all sissies that land feet first on the enemy.

Kain? Motherfucker is like "If I'm going to goddamn make sure that the last thing you see coming is the first thing I see coming!"

- Eddie

Is it too early to declare this the best Let's Play of Final Fantasy II [US] ever?

Not true. Cid in FF7 is just as much a badass with his Jump and Hyper Jump moves and goes in head-first. Although admittedly he doesn't do a sweet breakdancing move upon re-entry like Kain. The real wimps are the cast of FF6, who crouch down like they're hurt and let their ridiculously oversized weapons do all the work. Cowards. And everyone's favorite spear-totin' mouse in FF9 is far too dainty to actually get close and just tosses her spear. Come on, show some courage!

To be fair, the FF6 cast are basically harnessing the effects of some unknown relic that, for all they know, could send them flying off into the atmosphere like M at the end of the first volume of League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. You'd crouch too.

when I watched him play the game, my cousin would always make sure to take the time to cycle through every character in the party with the R button and make each and every one of them touch the fireplace, usually multiple times each.

it's good to appreciate the little things in life!

Nope, as this video shows all of Cid's limit breaks have him diving on the enemies such that the impact is him landing on his feet. His head is never in danger.

Nope, he goes feet first as seen in this video.

Perhaps you were confused by my definition. By "head first" I mean that he literally dives into them with his head. Neither Cid nor Kimarhi do this. I mean, look at that screenshot of Kain's Jump in motion and tell me where his goddamn feet are. The answer is "in the most badass position."

- Eddie

In later playthroughs, I'd always make it a point to switch characters every time they were obscured from view, so for example, Cecil would walk behind a pillar and Kain would walk out.

IT'S MAAAAAAGIC!

I see now what you're trying to say. I figured you meant the fact that he was going in face-first, which all three do. Thanks to the way attack is animated for Kain, however, it does look like his jump is a flying headbutt with no spear involved at all. Which is admittedly pretty high on the sheer badass scale, doing a headbutt dive on your enemy. I still say it's the bounce off and breakdance dismount that wins the day, though.

You know, for some reason, I've always found it oddly amusing that the prisoners from Mysidia are two black mages and one white mage, just like the ones the Red Wings killed in the flashback. Also, this is probably the only version where the Mysidia flashback actually has dialogue, if I remember correctly.

And yeah, it's definitely been a while since I've played this version, because I'm used to like 50 years passing before Kain comes down from above.