RPG Review #46: Final Fantasy Legend II

NuMetalManiak Oh no! Is it the day the world ends? 12/21! Just joking, heck, even four years ago it never ended. I was still in high school at the time. And you know what? I think the apocalypse will happen by human means, because us humans get way too smart for our own good and we may end up killing everything on the planet if we don't stop ourselves.

Oh whoops, I forgot I was reviewing an RPG. Here's Final Fantasy Legend II, and again, despite having the words final and fantasy in it, it is not a Final Fantasy game, but a game in the SaGa series. The second to be exact, also under the Game Boy. A lot of similarities between this game and the first Final Fantasy Legend, but given sequel tendencies, I liked the first one better and here's why:

Gameplay: Core gameplay aspects of Final Fantasy Legend appear again in this game. Standard 4-person turn-based combat, and each method of attack has a limited amount of uses before you have to get more. Lots of random encounters. In fact, it got annoying in this game. I would walk a single space sometimes and already there's another encounter. Some encounters can have up to 13 monsters and no way of running, which makes things real hard.

So what's new? Well, dying in this game is handled differently. You choose the 4 characters for the whole game here, so if one dies they don't need to be replaced (dead characters revive with 1 HP if not revived in battle). If everyone dies, the party is greeted by the god Odin who admires their fighting spirit and lets them back in the battle previously lost. He won't do this forever, as he's a boss late in the game, where beating him means losing is an actual game over. There is no House of Hearts or anything, and an Inn not only recharges HP, but equipment as well. Another new thing for FFL2 is the MAGI system. These have two functions, one involves boosting character parameters when equipped as well as provide special actions if used in battle. The other is actually for plot progression, as certain places are blocked without a certain number of MAGI. Finally, in what I think is a nod to the actual Final Fantasy II, certain NPCs can join as a fifth and temporary party member. They just function as extra characters but are helpful sometimes. The game's battles are pretty aggravating especially given their frequency throughout this GB game. Grade: C-

Characters: The character classes from the original Final Fantasy Legend make a return here, the humans, mutants, and monsters. Humans now gain stats via battling, just like mutants did. This means that max HP and other stats are gained while participating in battles. Mutants do the same but at a slower rate, although they can still gain special abilities as they did before by battling. And monsters can of course gain new forms by eating meat found by winning battles. There is one new class, the robot class. This unique class does not gain stats by leveling, but by whatever they have equipped. So their weapons increase their strength and armor increase defense. Their mana stat however makes them generally poor choices.

I guess I sort of like the amount of character classes available, as it allows for some interesting choices of tweaking. My preferred party for this game and the first Final Fantasy Legend was 2 humans and 2 mutants, for some control of stat gains. Grade: B-

Plot: There actually is quite a story to this as well, in that your lead character has this adventurous father called Dad who always jumps out of the house window. Oh and your parents are both clearly human, which can be quite hilarious depending on your character class (a monster with human parents, anyone?). The lead character then leaves Home Town (yes that's the name of your home town) along with three others, although their teacher, a monster known as Mr. S, follows for a short while before the next town (named First Town, and another town in the same world is named Second Town).

Basically this plot follows the main character on his/her quest to find MAGI, as well as follow his/her father (known as Dad). In First World (yes that's the name of the first world), they help the shrine cleric known as Ki help find MAGI and the base of Ashura. Hey wait a minute, wasn't Ashura one of the final bosses in the first Final Fantasy Legend. The party reaches Ashura's World, the second world and one that's a desert, and help out a person who looks like the lead's dad (his name is Mask) in defeating Ashura.

So Ki is ill afterwards and the next world involves going to the Giant's World, where there's giant things. In order to get the enemy out of Ki, they have to search the Giant's World for a way to shrink to get inside Ki's body. This story sure is strange. Next world is Apollo's World, with a seemingly benevolent guy as the head. The party helps out Lynn, who is some NPC, and the lead catches up with Dad at the next world, Guardian's World. They find out that Dad is a captain of the guardians and they deal with MAGI, but the place is quickly overrun, and Lynn is kidnapped. Dad helps out, and is seemingly killed by the kidnapper.

Next world, Venus's World, dealing with beauty, but exiling those who are scarred. Apparently that's the case of star-crossed lovers Flora and Leon. Flora is to marry some monster character named Nils, but Leon wouldn't have that, as he crashes the wedding, and then Venus tries to exile them all. The party then defeats Venus for good (this part got quite funny because my fourth character was a female named Mina, which is the civilian name of Sailor Venus, and this character was telling off THIS game's Venus!). The world that follows is Race World, where Apollo sponsors a dragon race. Afterwards is a world known as Edo World, with samurais! Also an obsession with bananas and illegal business as well. A detective girl by the name of Hana and a teachers known as Taro help the party out around here. The next world is known as Nasty World, and it's known as this due to its long and annoying dungeon of tough monsters.

Closer to the end of the game, we end up in Valhalla World, with, you guessed it, Odin. The world afterwards is Final World, where Apollo steals all the MAGI. Heck, I saw it coming, knew he wasn't a good guy anyways. Anyways, Dad is actually alive, and tells of the secret hidden MAGI Apollo never knew about in the Final World, so they get it and then confront Apollo at the Central Shrine that connected all these different worlds. There's an interesting way to win this particular battle by not actually hurting him, as he actually MELTS DOWN after a few turns have passed, due to him not knowing about the hidden MAGI. Afterwards, Dad is horribly wounded, lots of rumblings happen, and Isis (a goddess named Isis mind you, who is in NO WAY related to that ISIS, do NOT get the wrong idea) helps the party through the final dungeon to fight off two Arsenal systems to stop the shaking. Thankfully, that's the end of it, and everyone, including Dad, goes home, before setting off on another adventure. So, this still has the sort of ascension mechanic the first game had, although played differently, and quite a lot of plot shelled out with the NPCs and such. Grade: B

Music: Aspiration was my favorite track here, playing usually whereever Apollo is. But in general, I got rather tired of the music, especially the main battle theme and that awful dungeon theme. Grade: C-

Overall Grade: C

Did not do as good I'm afraid. This is mostly because of the annoyance of random encounters being ever-so-frequent in conjunction with some long traversals. The music wasn't all that interesting. What is good is the way to set up characters at the beginning, and the plot was quite interesting. Most of the big names seem to be taken from various mythologies, which is even more interesting.

Comments

Great review as always. - visitor

Great review!
Parents having monster kids sounds cool. Looks like I have to play Final Fantasy sometime. Since you recommended 1 over 2, I'll try that out. - FieryKnightFloyd

This is Final Fantasy Legend AKA SaGa, not related to the actual Final Fantasy. Also it's on the Game Boy. - NuMetalManiak

Oh. Okay then. Its time I got a Game Boy. - FieryKnightFloyd