Final Fantasy II
Final Fantasy II is a fantasy role-playing video game developed and published by Square in 1988 for the Family Computer as the second installment of the Final Fantasy series. The game has received numerous enhanced remakes for the WonderSwan Color, the PlayStation, the Game Boy Advance, the PlayStation Portable, iOS, Android and Windows. As neither this game nor Final Fantasy III were initially released outside Japan, Final Fantasy IV was originally released in North America as Final Fantasy II, so as not to confuse players. Following enhanced versions for iOS and Android in 2010 and 2012 respectively, the game was re-released again as part of the 2021 Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster series.
| Final Fantasy II | |
|---|---|
Cover art featuring main protagonist Firion | |
| Developer(s) | Square |
| Publisher(s) | Square |
| Director(s) | Hironobu Sakaguchi |
| Producer(s) | Masafumi Miyamoto |
| Designer(s) | |
| Programmer(s) | Nasir Gebelli |
| Artist(s) | Yoshitaka Amano |
| Writer(s) |
|
| Composer(s) | Nobuo Uematsu |
| Series | Final Fantasy |
| Platform(s) | Family Computer
|
| Release | December 17, 1988
|
| Genre(s) | Role-playing |
| Mode(s) | Single-player |
The game's story centers on four youths whose parents were killed during an army invasion by the empire of Palamecia, who are using hellspawn to conquer the world. Three of the four main characters join a rebellion against the empire, embarking on missions to gain new magic and weapons, destroy enemy superweapons, and rescue leading members of the resistance. The Game Boy Advance remake adds a bonus story after the game is completed.
Final Fantasy II introduced many elements that would later become staples of the Final Fantasy franchise, including chocobos and the recurring character Cid. It also eliminated the traditional experience point leveling system of the previous and later games in the series, instead introducing an activity-based progression system where the characters' statistics increase according to how they are used or acquired. Despite being advertised as a sequel to Final Fantasy, the game includes no characters and locations from the first game. Final Fantasy II received little attention from non-Japanese reviewers at its initial release, though its remakes have garnered favorable reviews.