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about the game

Final Fantasy II was first released in 1998 for the Famicom (the Japanese NES) in 1988, as the second installment in what would become the long-running Final Fantasy role-playing game series developed by Square Enix (then simply Square). Unlike its predecessor, FFII had a more involved story about a group of young rebels fighting against the empire that has taken over their home. It also featured a unique level-up system, in which characters' stats increased depending on what they used in battle. For example, if one character used a sword the most, their strength would increase (as would their sword stat), whereas if a character cast a spell the more times they used it the more effective it would get. I personally always liked this feature, as the characters would end up being useful in the manner I used them, but your mileage may vary.

FFII also featured many more characters than the first game and a story beyond "save the crystals, save the world." (In fact, if you count the magicite in FFVI as crystals, this is the only game of the first six without any.) While three of the party members are the same throughout the game, the fourth changes as the plot advances, as the final party members either leave, get brutally killed, or betray them. This ended up being a tendency of the early even-numbered games in the series — I, III, and V focus more on gameplay and job classes, while II, IV, and VI have a heavier focus on the story. FFII also marked the first appearance of Final Fantasy standbys like chocobos and characters named Cid.

In the years since its release, Final Fantasy II has been remade a ridiculous number of times. The first rerelease was in 2001 and was on the WonderSwan Color, a Japanese handheld system. Though it did not appear in English on the NES (the game that came out as Final Fantasy II on the SNES was actually the Japanese Final Fantasy IV), it did come out packaged with Final Fantasy I for the PlayStation as Final Fantasy Origins in 2003 (2002 in Japan). The next rerelease came in the form of a Gameboy Advance remake, again packaged with FFI and called Final Fantasy I & II: Dawn of Souls, this time with a post-game storyline called Souls of Rebirth; it came out in 2004. The game next came out on Japanese mobile phones in 2005, followed by a PlayStation Portable port in 2007, with new dungeons. Finally, the game has been released internationally on the iOS, which is the operating system for the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad. (Really, I wasn't kidding when I said it had come out a lot of times. But hey, if you want to play it, you have a lot of options!)