Final Fantasy II

Did You Know?

• Final Fantasy II features a Word Memory system where the player can memorize keywords from NPCs and repeat them to other NPCs to gain information or unlock actions.
• A novelization titled Final Fantasy II: The Labyrinth of Nightmares was written by Kenji Terada and illustrated by Yoshitaka Amano, published in Japan on March 20, 1989.
• Firion and the Emperor represented Final Fantasy II in the fighting game spin-off Dissidia Final Fantasy and its sequels.

Plot

The story of Final Fantasy II takes place in a fantasy realm split among several nations, most notably the Palamecian Empire and the kingdom of Fynn. The Empire, under its emperor, is aggressively expanding, crushing neighboring lands like Kashuan and the dragoon home of Deist. In response, a rebellion forms, basing itself at Fynn Castle. The adventure begins when the Empire attacks and destroys that castle and its town. The player controls four main characters: Firion, a capable young fighter; his friend Maria; Guy, who was raised by wolves; and Leon, Maria’s brother who briefly sides with the Empire. Supporting characters include Hilda, the rebel leader; Minwu, a mage loyal to Hilda’s family; Gordon, the heir to Kashuan; Josef, a villager from Salamand; Leila, a pirate who later joins the cause; and Ricard Highwind, the final dragoon. The main villain is the Emperor of Palamecia, a potent sorcerer who wants to rule the world and calls forth demons from Hell to help him. The four main characters are ambushed by Imperial Black Knights and left for dead. Princess Hilda, who has set up a rebel hideout in Altair after the Empire invaded Fynn, rescues Firion, Maria, and Guy. She refuses their offer to fight, saying they are too young and untrained. The trio then travels to Fynn looking for Leon. There, they encounter the dying Prince Scott of Kashuan, Hilda’s betrothed. Scott reveals that Borghen, a former Kashuan noble, betrayed the rebellion and now serves the Empire as a general. The group returns to Altair to tell Hilda. She then lets them join the rebellion and sends them north to find mythril, a metal for crafting strong weapons. They head to the occupied village of Salamand, free the villagers from forced labor in the mines, defeat Borghen, and obtain the mythril.

Development

After the first Final Fantasy proved successful, Square printed more copies than usual to raise money for a sequel, and production on Final Fantasy II got underway. Akitoshi Kawazu said the team wanted to try something different after the first game. The staff grew slightly but still numbered only about ten people. Series creator Hironobu Sakaguchi served as director, while Kawazu co-designed alongside Hiromichi Tanaka and Koichi Ishii. Masafumi Miyamoto, Square’s founder and former president, acted as producer. Programmer Nasir Gebelli returned from the first game, but his work visa expired, forcing him back to Sacramento, California. The team followed him there with the necessary equipment to finish production.

Yoshitaka Amano once again handled character, monster, and promotional art, creating monster concepts in black-and-white ink drawings. Kazuko Shibuya designed all the sprite art, though multiple artists contributed to the monster sprites. A key new addition was the Chocobo, which Ishii based on a chicken he kept as a child. He originally proposed it as a constant party companion, but Sakaguchi rejected that idea and made it a mount instead. Another Ishii creation, the Moogle, was cut because the story had no room for it, and its sprite was repurposed into a different enemy. Arguments broke out among staff during development because the constant addition of monsters prevented a final master build from being completed.

Kenji Terada returned as scenario writer. He noted internal resistance at Square to numbering the game as a sequel, since it didn’t continue the original’s world or story. The team decided to keep some elements, like crystals, while crafting a new narrative so players could buy the game without confusion. Sakaguchi said he came up with the initial premise after watching The Empire Strikes Back, borrowing the idea of a rebel group opposing an evil empire. Terada wrote his script after a young staff member asked for a story that would make him cry, so Terada focused on tangled human relationships. One new character, the engineer Cid, was designed as an intelligent, wise figure, much like Yoda from Star Wars, and would go on to appear in later games.

Release

Final Fantasy II hit Japanese store shelves on December 17, 1988, almost exactly one year after the first game. In Japan, it later saw re-releases on several systems, including the Wii Virtual Console on June 16, 2009, and the Wii U Virtual Console on December 11, 2013. After the original Final Fantasy succeeded in North America in 1990, Square's American branch started localizing the sequel under the title Final Fantasy II: Dark Shadow Over Palakia. Translator Kaoru Moriyama, who would later work on Final Fantasy IV and Secret of Mana, was put in charge. A beta version was finished, and ads for it appeared in Square Soft trade magazines. However, the project dragged on too long. The original Japanese game was aging, and the Super Nintendo Entertainment System had arrived, so Square Soft dropped the localization to focus on the recently released Final Fantasy IV—which, to avoid confusing players, they renamed Final Fantasy II. A prototype cartridge of the English NES version did exist, but Moriyama admitted it was far from done. He noted the tight memory limits made translation a matter of chopping up data and cramming it back in, and his boss saw no reason to put extra work into the English version. A fan translation later appeared, created without knowledge of the prototype. The game's first official international release came with the Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster series on Windows and mobile devices on July 28, 2021.

Reception

Square reported that the original Famicom release of Final Fantasy II sold 800,000 copies. By March 2003, total shipments of the game and its re-releases reached 1.28 million worldwide, with 1.08 million in Japan and 200,000 overseas. The PlayStation Portable version had shipped 90,000 units in Japan and 70,000 in North America as of September 2007. Famicom Tsūshin (later Famitsu) gave the original Famicom version a 35 out of 40, based on four reviewers scoring it 9, 9, 9, and 8. This tied it with Super Mario Bros. 3 as one of the three highest-rated games of 1988, behind Dragon Quest III’s 38/40. The magazine’s 1989 All Soft Catalog issue named Final Fantasy II among the best games ever and awarded it Best Scenario. Looking back, G4 called the stat-building system an “Innovation,” explaining that while computer RPGs had borrowed levels from tabletop games as a genre standard, FF2 removed levels entirely. However, G4 noted that what sounded novel at first ended up being a huge mess.