This could've been my favourite game, but...

[Peter_20]

Alright, I started playing Final Fantasy about six years ago, when a friend of mine introduced me to FF9.
I was hooked at once, and immediately wanted more of the series.
Then, one day, I stumble upon FF2, and find it interesting: the game was pretty epic for its time, and it also had a cool level system.

To tell you the truth, I REALLY like the first three hours of the game.
The reason?
Because at that time it's not yet become excessively hard and confusing.
I LOVE the first parts of this game, and if only the game were progressing the same way, this would without question be my favourite FF game. Seriously, I like the first parts THAT much, the cool level system being an important reason.

However, as I mentioned, the game falls into darkness later on.
It starts with the Warship part, because that's when everything starts getting frustrating: you're stuck in there, stuck in a dungeon that's placed in the middle of nowhere, and you can't warp out, and you can't even easily leave the very area where the Warship has landed.
You're stuck in there, and you have to deal with monsters.
Lots of monsters.
Nasty, nasty, NASTY monsters that always, always AMBUSH you.
First we got the Stunners, those bastards who keep paralyzing you by using regular attacks (grr!!!).
We also got the infamous "BUT SUDDENLY, A MONSTER APPEARED!"-treasure chests, and of course they are guarded by überstrong enemies.
How about this Gigas guy near the end of the warship, the one who guards the Ice Shield?
He just appears in this chest that's placed next to lots of other chests, and you'll most likely die, and then you have to restart the whole thing anew.
Either that, or level up like crazy for three hours, preferably using the level glitch, or else it'll take FOREVER.

The game keeps going on like this.
Right after you've finished the Warship, you're thrown over to this Dist Cave, and in there you'll frequently encounter GIGASES, the very SAME enemy that slaughtered you big-time only twenty minutes ago.
What is THAT?!
And they appear in groups too, and of course the dungeon is confusing as hell at first.
But wait, it gets even worse: the Mysidia Tower.
Oh dear, this is the most frustrating dungeon I've ever played.
It's a friggin' scyscraper, and every level is a huge maze.
And yes, you guessed it: at the VERY END of the dungeon you open this GUARDED TREASURE CHEST, and you die, and you start over, and same thing happens.
Again, again and again.
You level up for three days and try again: you still die, because the enemies start using cheap spells like DETH 8 on your party.
And so on forever.

How the hell could anyone survive this game without abusing the State-saves?
You just don't - you need State-saves in this game, or else the game will almost literally kill you.

[MurderfaceX3]

TOO MUCH WRITING!!! /Cry!

[Ender]

How the hell could anyone survive this game without abusing the State-saves?
You just don't - you need State-saves in this game, or else the game will almost literally kill you.

This might be the most-frustrating FF to play "out of the box." If you don't have a handle on the stat/level system you're in for a rough ride. In that case, I agree, save-states are a must.

But I don't think for somebody who knows the stat tricks it's that tough at all. In fact, battle-wise, for me, it's one of the easiest FF games. You don't even have to cheat with the select-cancel trick to get what you need to get through most of the battles rather easily. Focus on raising your agility/evasion, and you'll rarely get hit. I never got ambushed after the first half of the game, and in fact rarely ever took significant, life-threatening damage except for a few select sub-bosses at the end.

Where the game fails for me is this:

you're stuck in there, stuck in a dungeon that's placed in the middle of nowhere, and you can't warp out, and you can't even easily leave the very area where the Warship has landed.
You're stuck in there, and you have to deal with monsters.
Lots of monsters.

The shear number of battles you have to endure in this game, easily more than one every eight "tiles", just kills the game IMO, as well as this:

Oh dear, this is the most frustrating dungeon I've ever played.
It's a friggin' scyscraper, and every level is a huge maze.

To me, this wasn't just Mysidia Tower, this was every cave and dungeon in the game. They weren't caves or castles or dungeons...they were giant mazes, mazes that beared almost zero resemblence to what they were supposed to be.

Only Pandemonium transcends the maze-like nature of the rest of the dungeons. Though it is still maze-like in a lot of respects, it's still a very solid level IMO. Just not enough to redeem the game for me. "For it's time" I can see how this game could be appreciated. The foundation for the story is very sound, and makes the player feel more "invested" in the events he/she is playing through. And I like the stat-building system since I'm big on experimentation in my FF games.

If I could update-and-remake one FF game, it would be this one. Expanding the story and developing the characters more with the time and programming space they have available for today's games, and fixing the level design/layouts and battles (fewer, more-difficult battles > lots and lots and lots of easier ones) could do wonders for this game IMO.

[FuzZerd]

uh oh. I just got to the warship the other day :P

personally I found the begining of the game to be too easy, but thats probably because I used the "cheap" attacking yourself trick to gain hp. and after that I rarely got hurt much until I made it too casheon castle. where gordan would practicly get killed in a single hit!

[Evastio]

How the hell could anyone survive this game without abusing the State-saves?
You just don't - you need State-saves in this game, or else the game will almost literally kill you.

Sadly enough, that is true, but in my case I used the Quick Save.

Unless you use the levelling up cheats or go through a crazy amount of battles.

[vorpal blade]

My god, the monsters... eight on four fights... early in the game, while looking for Fynn I wandered too far and encountered gigas mages of something and got creamed worse than milk. Monsterboxes, empty rooms, mazes, arggh! And I actually beat it!? Musta been the fact that the GBA lets me save anywhere...

[boys from the dwarf]

i think in general. FF2 is a good game with too many flaws and annoying things.

[Peter_20]

i think in general. FF2 is a good game with too many flaws and annoying things.

Couldn't agree more on that.
In fact, if it weren't for the damn excessive amount of battles you have to endure all the time, then this would, as stated before, most likely beat FF3 and perhaps every other FF game in terms of gameplay; that's just me, though. :P