FFII's role in the growing of the franchise.

[Linus]

Imagine this for just a second. If Final Fantasy II had flopped horribly in Japan, would our favorite characters ever have existed? Cloud and Sephiroth would just be doodles in Amano's sketchbook, perhaps. Maybe another series would have sprung up in Final Fantasy's place. Do you think when Square made Final Fantasy II that they were just looking for a quick buck based on the surprising popularity of the first roleplaying game, or do you think that perhaps they knew what they had control of from the beginning, an awesome staple in the roleplaying game genre?

[KoShiatar]

Final Fantasy's success in 1987 was unexpected, so if FF II had flopped, it would probably have been recorded as the so-and-so sequel of a good game. But we wouldn't be here discussing it, so we wouldn't miss the series because there would be nothing to miss.
Incidentally, there's a chance that the Dragon Quest series would have been hyped a lot more in the States, and now we would all be DQ fanboys in a DQ forum.

[Linus]

Incidentally, I love Dragon Quest. =D

[KoShiatar]

Is it any good? I only saw DQ 8, but I'm not sure it's my kind of game. What's your say?

[BG-57]

It would suprise me if they anticipated that it would be the first of 12+ sequels. Maybe modestly sucessful, but not that sucessful.

I doubt even Lucus himself foresaw that he'd be able to make more than three Star Wars movies.

[Morningstar]

Am I the only one that found DQ to be really friggin' hard? I've played DQI and DQII, and they were hella hard. Maybe I just sucked at them.

[Crossblades]

Am I the only one that found DQ to be really friggin' hard? I've played DQI and DQII, and they were hella hard. Maybe I just sucked at them.

DQ games are indeed hard. But they're still awesome

If FF II would have flopped, the rest of FF series would have never existed. We either would've gotten another series or DQ would've been a lot more popular

[Wolf Kanno]

Its too hard to say what would happen, I would think that JRPGs would probably be snuffed out and instead we would only have boring "infinite hours of stat tweaking for no smurfing point" western RPGs. I know FFIV would be a very different game cause FFII seems to be its heaviest influence.

[Chrisrj]

Since Final Fantasy was made because it was their final game(which was fantasy-based), I think it'd be ironic if their sequel ended up being their last game. :P

[The Man]

Later Dragon Quest games are easier than the early ones, in my experience. I didn't experience much trouble in DQV, and I haven't experienced much in DQVIII yet either, although I'm still only about twenty hours into it. But yes, the DQ series is well worth playing, though to date the only ones I've completed are DQI and DQV.

Some people here feel that FFII was the so-and-so sequel of a good game. I haven't really played much of either, so I can't comment.

[scrumpleberry]

I think they were just ridin' the wave, possibly while developing better ideas for FFIII and the job classes and all that. But it wasn't really a flop, and introduced significant character development and a more complex story.

[sdm42393]

As an RPG I think Final Fantasy II is amazingly smurfing awesome.
As a Final Fantasy, however, it's just so-so.

[eestlinc]

Standing on the shoulders of giants. FF2 blazed the way for so much that the franchise holds dear.

[black orb]

Imagine this for just a second. If Final Fantasy II had flopped horribly in Japan, would our favorite characters ever have existed?

>>> We would be playing Square's Tom Sawyer XII right now..

[Wolfen]

FFII introduced the side view without the boxed in menus and added more character development as opposed to the last game.