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

Not that far off, really. The spiked pauldrons are a bit kinky, but Cecil goes to bed in platemail, so...

This is a good point, and one that's been bothering me a lot recently. Most modern RPGs that I've played recently, especially the ones that are deliberately trying to ape old-school games, have regressed back to the "rooms 'n' hallways" school of dungeon design. Suikoden Tierkreis did it, Glory of Heracles did it, Arc Rise Fantasia did it, 4 Heroes of Light did it. It really annoys me that we've got all this technology at our fingertips but we're still running featureless corridors after all these years. Say what you will about Golden Sun or the Tales games (and I usually do), but at least their dungeons are interesting to negotiate.

So I played this game first on the GBA. In that, Cecil came packing a Dark command, which let him do some kind of evil Hadoken thing that hit everyone for meh damage at the cost of a few HPs. Is that not in this version, then?

Also, I don't like this game. I gave it an honest shot, but I expect I played it at the wrong time to be impressed (I think around the release of the newest consoles).

Nope, Dark Wave was taken out of the US version along with a lot of other things (which make people confuse it with the "Easytype" JP release, which took out a similar set of things). Speaking of which...

...I had no idea those bombs were still in the game at all; I thought they'd been dummied out with most of the other specialty items. I'm already learning things!


Meanwhile, it's kind of scary the extent to which not only do I not need to click these links, I barely need conscious thought as my eyes slide over the track names and they start playing in my head... (though sometimes it's the Celtic Moon version. Or the Orchestral Game Concert version. Or the FF 02/2002 concert. Or...)

I like that Rosa was extremely conscientious about ensuring that her shoulders would be guarded against attack from every possible angle, and then completely disinterested in protecting any other part of her body. But her shoulders? She's got that shit locked down.

As a fan of maps and cartography (even though I can't design a background to save my life), I definitely loved the mapwork done with some of FFIV's dungeons. And I agree with Tanto, too; hallways and corridors dungeon design is boring! I'm willing to accept it with randomly generated dungeons, but boring-ass map design's everything I hated about Okage: the Shadow King's dungeons and the PS2 Castlevanias.

Speaking of dungeon designs, Dragon Quest IX had some pretty nice architecture for some of its (non-grotto) dungeons. Gerzuun and Brigadoom are among my favorites.

Oh man, great work so far. You're right, I probably spent more time reading this than it ever takes me to get to Mist.

The bad part? I have to play this game now. I'm going to go eject Fallout 3 and start up a game of the PS1 version, because it's the only version I've never actually finished, and I want to share it with Maz, who's never seen/played this game before. I guess I could show her the OG SNES version, but I don't trust my battery, and the output is muddy on my good TV.

I'm also getting really tempted to get a PSP so I can play the upcoming rererere...release, among other RPGs I've missed. How does the TV-out look on and HDTV from a PSP?

EDIT: Oh, also great comparison of Kain from this version and the later ones. Up until I got to that, I was raging about how slow jump compared to fight, but then you taught me that it's not here, which I forgot. I look forward to some more version comparisons, because that's the stuff that's most interesting to me, having played all of them and getting some stuff confused.


This so hard. I was humming the Red Wings theme almost this whole update.

The Red Wings theme is pretty much one of the best tracks in video games ever.

So… I just now got the filthier interpretation of this.

Oh yes, the music. If there's one thing I still love about FFIV long after finding its monsters datedly monochrome and its field visuals 'FFIII with more colors', it's the music. I can hum just about any FFIV tune from memory, and I have my own CD of Celtic Moon.

Speaking of Celtic Moon, I'd love for its extended version of Dancing Calcobrena to make it into a game. Does the tune way more justice than its original form

You aren't alone. I first played it sometime between 8 and 9, after having played translations of 2, 3, and 5, and well... it didn't really live up to the hype.

Brickroad is very clearly exemplifying why you had to be there to really "get" the game. I'm almost motivated to find a copy and give it another chance, but I have enough of a backlog as it is.

Check out Brickroad, droppin' some transactional analysis up in this LP.

I was there and I STILL didn't "get" the game. I think I would have liked it more had we gotten II or III, but I liked the first Final Fantasy for its wonkiness and party-flexibility, which was stripped from FF2 in favour of a mostly-mediocre attempt at high drama that even my 13-year-old self found pretty meh.

Then FF3 came along and I was like "oh, now I see what they were trying for in 2 but just couldn't pull off." And then Chrono Trigger came along and I didn't feel the need to play another FF game until X.

You know what?

Nuts to the LP, Nich just justified this threads existence.

Mog butt-bombs like he just don't care.

OK, this moment? This opening? This is my goddamned Star Destroyer Moment. The moment where absolutely everything changed. The moment even Ninja freaking Gaiden, the king of cinematic gaming until that point, had never even hoped to reach. But this, the scene of the airship flotilla flying across the world with the Theme of the Red Wings rising in volume, is THE very definition of the "opening hook."

...and the funny thing is, it took me till FF4Adv to realize that it WAS a flashback. I always thought that the RWs were en route to Mysidia and already questioning their orders, but then followed them anyway. Then they got back on their ships and realized that what they had done was even worse than they had imagined. The yellow tint was there just because it was a serious, significant battle scene.

DRAMA!


And he is! He's very rude about it too >=(

And man, not only can I hear the castle theme running through my head, but also the sound effects, like the kt-iiiing for Crystal-related actions.

ITYM "spine" rather than conscience.

Which always amused me, seeing how there's two of them and only the one door.

I especially like that he goes "Sorry, Kain..." every time you approach him at the table on the East wing of the castle.

Except that you didn't go speak to him! Aww
And I'm just sad that you didn't get to discover the joy of switches and buttons yourself

Eh, I always open the door anyway, just to annoy the NPC



I always thought that he was so preoccupied and distraught with everything that's gone wrong over the day, that he's really not listening to her, and she's quick to catch on to this. He doesn't mean to be such a Squall to her, but in the last couple of hours he led the mightiest kingdom in the world on a questionable plundering mission, murdered innocent people, had some of his men injured, and was stripped of his rank by his beloved king. Wouldn't blame him if his mind is elsewhere right now.

He's the Otacon of Final Fantasy II. If he didn't want them to be used by the military, why'd he put freaking cannons on them?

Then again, I guess both he and Cecil should be thankful that the King didn't instruct the Red Wings to bomb the hell out of Mysidia (like they did Damcyan) before taking its Crystal.

And THIS is the second defining moment of Final Fantasy II. "Theme of Love" is the best and finest love theme (duh) Uematsu and his successors have ever composed for this series. Yes, the finest. Suck on that, "Aria de Mezzo" and "Forever Rachel." It may sound dated now, due to the instrumentation, but the composition is pure GOLD, and the orchestral version is exquisite. Its soft beginning, rising to a passionate chorus, speaks volumes of the relationship between the characters, and it a marvelous narrative aid to this particular scene. Because of it, we know that Cecil and Rosa really do love each other, and this is a particularly painful night for Cecil because he's so troubled by his current role that he can't even reach out to her.

There comes a point where "boy meets girl" start getting really boring. What's actually interesting is when boy and girl already know each other for a long time, and the story then becomes about the travails of a growing, adult relationship. Cecil and Rosa's romance is actually believable not because he comes to her rescue/she comes to his aid all throughout the game "to be together in the end," but because they already are together, and the difficulties they face are as simple as Rosa being held hostage with a giant crushing ball above her head, or as complicated as Cecil's failure to share his feelings in this scene.

...yes. I was 12 when I read this scene this way.

Actually, see above. Rosa desperately wants to get through to him, but he's as impenetrable as a wall. I always read that "Take care!" as though spoken through choked sobs. And Cecil knows this and regrets this, but is too self-centered to do anything about it.

Awwwww yeah. THIS, above all, is Final Fantasy. Accept no substitutions. 16-bit graphics and simple sprites don't matter, it's just you and your best friend venturing out at the crack of dawn to explore a whole new world, gates opening before you ponderously and guards hastily moving aside.

And all set to the heroic, majestic Prologue.

Never has FFII 's use of Prologue been outdone, nor outclassed. Not by FFXII, which tried real hard, but it was all nostalgia. Not by FFVIII and its military arrangement. Not by the half-dozen orchestral arrangements, be they string, brass, or even piano.

It seriously cannot be quoted enough.


I wouldn't call it "upbeat" as much as "uplifting." It's only during the ending theme variation that it's actually upbeat.


Oh, and even better. Zeromus "Final Battle" grabs the main motif of the theme and warps it and makes it terrifying. Or desperate, either fits the situation.

HELL YEAH! We're all ToastyFrog Jump!-retro style here!

So infrequent, that I stopped seeing them altogether shortly after Tellah joined up.

One thing about using Kain as a frontliner, though, is that his heavy armor and good damage output make him a very decent tank. My usual endgame formation puts him and Cecil up front, with everyone else flinging stuff from the back row. Which often gives good results, because two damage sponges makes for better protection than just one, and sometimes Kain's lances have magical effects (like casting White) with situational usefulness.

I always thought, "OH MY GOD THEY KILLED-- oh, wait. They only captured them. That's all right, then "

Hell, I'm used to timing Kain's jump so that, in the final battle, I'd queue up his Jump while Zeromus was still a giant floating hairball, and the actual attack wouldn't come down until I had already used the Crystal to transform ol' fish-eyes.

Spiked pauldrons are standard White Mage equipment. It prevents villains from grabbing a Love Interest by the shoulder and incapacitating her that way.

Which means Golbez probably punched her in the stomach or something instead.

BRILLIANT.

What about Final Fantasy XIII?

Well, there was Final Fantasy Adventure. well, it was a Final Fantasy game at the time anyways

spinoffs still count!!

Oh, be nice. You don't need to taunt Brick about his grammatical lapses that much.

I like the menu titled "Customizer". "Options" is a classic, but it's boring; "Customizer" sounds like it'll also give you +5 AGL if you equip it.

Ack! I swear I didn't notice that. I was just agreeing with him on the quality of the soundtrack, not... commenting on a typo.

There's a difference between hot pink and salmon. On that note, salmon windows plz.

Man, that Kain is one sexy piece of ass. Rosa totally doesn't get what she's missing.

(And is that... cameltoe?)

You're a good man who does good things.

I believe that's referred to as a "moose knuckle."

This being Final Fantasy though you never know.

The first time I played this, during that first cut-scene where your troops step forward to kill the black wizards? Cecil stays back a step for a moment, and I instinctively pressed up on the controller at the same time the game made him move.

And for a good 15 seconds or so, I was blaming myself for those mage's deaths... you can't make it out of the entire scene with that illusion, but man.

(also, fire dogs are one of the best damn sprites in the series)

It may be tiny, but I think it gets the job done.



Kain knows how to bust a move.

This moment is still for me the pinnacle of the Final Fantasy series. I used to start a new game just for this moment, then reset and watch it a few more times. The text (for the time) and the music were incredible, but there's something so magical about that background. Look at the moon, those trees, those mountains, it just begs you to explore. Such a great call to adventure. Terra marching to Narshe and the opening CG to FF7 both evoke the same kind of reaction, but nowhere near as well.

I can't look at this image without seeing sidepube. What else could that dark region by his cup be!?

I'm mostly trying to focus on the screenshots, and I'm finding it remarkable that I know FF4 so well that I can tell exactly which part of the game those are from.

Argh.

Meh, that whole Cecil helmet thing never bugged me too much. My guess is they just wanted to obscure his closeup face until the dark armor comes off.

Or someone really liked Ricard's FC FFII headshot and wanted to make a spiritual successor to that.