Do a simple search on Final Fantasy II, and you’ll get pics and screenshots of Final Fantasy IV instead. Do a search on the original NES Final Fantasy II that came out in 1988 however, and you’ll be greeted with lots of cursing and bile on the game. Not only was it hard, but it was also aggravating for a lot to play. Poorly-designed dungeons, an innovative-yet-broken combat system, missions and quests with too much unnecessary backtracking: no wonder it wasn’t localized in English until much later.

Which makes it a perfect target for picking apart the good things the second game brought. For all the pain it wrought on unsuspecting Japanese gamers in the late 80s and newcomers in the classic JRPG genre at around the time FF: Dawn of Souls came out (1999, I think), there was a shred of highlights that was borne from the second game in the legendary series.

i) It Cemented The JRPG Archetypes: Final Fantasy II marks the first time that characters are defined by their classes. Or their classes define their character. Main character Frioniel (or Firion) is a warrior class guy who helped build the “Hero” archetype which is then taken up by the likes of Cecil, Bartz, Locke, Zidane, and so forth. Maria is the frail-but-gentle female lead who acts as the group’s healer, paving way for successors like Yuna, Celes, Aeris, Rinoa, and so forth. Lionheart establishes himself as the bad guy gone good/antihero-type guy that Kain, Shadow, and so forth pick up in future FF games. Ditto for the Paramekian Emperor, the “evil ruler of a huge kingdom who wishes to control an ancient forbidden power, but ends up losing control” archetype who made way for ExDeath, Gestalt, and so forth.

I could go on all day, but bottom line is that FFII help set up the archetypes for future FFs (and even JRPGs as a whole) to come.

ii) It Brought A Moody And Twist-filled Story: Just a few minutes as you start the game, you and your close friends got your collective asses handed to near-death by the Paramekian soldiers and goons who raze your village to the ground. Oh yeah, and your parents are executed. One of your friends also turned on you just as soon as you thought things were rosy after defeating the Paramekian Emperor the first time. Six good guys died before you finished the game, all for the greater good. By today’s standard it doesn’t sound like much, but it was ambitious when it came to succeeding FF1’s story.

iii) It Made The Imperial Army Of The Universe Badass: Remember the Galbadian and Imperial soldiers in FFVIII and FFIX? They were pussies, weren’t they? It wasn’t like that back then; if you so much look or talk to Paramekian soldiers in FFII, it’s game over.

iv) It Introduced Chocobos, The Dragoon Class & Some Guy Name Cid: Believe it or not, it was FFII that introduced the yellow-feathered mascots that serve as fast-and-hassle-free transport across the game world, that special class that let you stay up in the air for a few seconds and jump down onto an enemy for a s***load of damage, and kooky engineers who built airships (most of the time, anyway).

v) It caused Akitoshi Kawazu to eventually create Final Fantasy Legend & Romancing SaGa: Square Enix’s Akitoshi Kawazu had a knack of blending in Western game design mechanics into RPGs and loves to add in his own quirky little mechanics, no matter how bizarre. Thanks to being an active participant in designing the whole of FFII, the whole skill-building-slash-leveling-up system in FF2 emerged. True, it is broken (you can just face one battle and power-level your party by making them target each other), but that didn’t stop Kawazu from doing his own projects that more or less introduce new things.

For instance, he and his own development team created the SaGa series. Wait, you might have remembered them as the Final Fantasy Legend series (marketing purposes, as the FF name was unanimously huge among RPG fans). You know, the one with the meat-eating mutants and varying character growth system that you might have played on the Gameboy. The Romancing SaGa series’ non-linearity progression and esoteric leveling-up system were also his baby that also got a cult status among importers, as the games never left Japan at all (until the PS2 remake of Romancing SaGa 1). Unlimited SaGa was also renowned, but not for the better.

Alright, so not ALL of his ideas were accepting and successful, but when he strikes gold, he really strikes it hard. Give the man credit; at least he’s trying.