Final Fantasy II (IV)

Final Fantasy II is the story of Cecil, a Dark Knight, on a quest to gather the sacred crystals of the world for his king. When Cecil questions his king about the morals of stealing these stones the story begins.

Final Fantasy II, by far the most entertaining RPG I've ever played. The main reason for my love of this game is the storyline. The way the characters interact with each other, grow up, and even make sacrifices to for the cause. Throughout the game you have the possibility of playing with a maximum of five characters in your party who vary in class from fighters, mages, thief, black belt and even a summoner. Each character has their own unique abilities that lend themselves to whatever the current situation may be. Square did a wonderful job of character manipulation throughout the game as party members join and leave your party at certain times all the while following their own feelings and agendas. There are never any unused party members that simply remain on the airship and wait for you to call them. This may sound strange by today's standards but rest assured that of all the party members you ever use the five most powerful will team up for the end and a good portion of play before that.

The battle system in FFII is a turn based but was the first to introduce the "Active Time Battle" system. This means that the monsters will not simply wait for you to take your turn, they WILL attack whenever they can. You can pause the game during battle if the need arrises but the ATB keeps your attention in the fight and forces you to make decisions quickly.

The graphics are quite good for a SNES game and coupled with music the characters are capable of expressing emotions even with their limited pixels. Also worthy of notes are the variety of locals and many dungeons to be explored. There are a wide variety of useful items, cool magic spells, powerful weapons, and monsters to summon for your side.

This is one RPG where I got wraped up in the story from the beginning. There are plenty of twists and turns to keep it interesting and I found that I could really relate to the characters and their situations. Truely the greatest RPG epic to date.

-wileee