Final Fantasy II (Super Nintendo, 1991)

Why I bought this game:
1, 2, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 12, and Tactics have been played and completed thus far. FF4 was left out and I've been wanting to see what the game was like. Knowing how I seem attracted to the music of Final Fantasy, I thought I may add to my growing collection. Note: I refer to this game as Final Fantasy 4 (FF4), since it's actually the fourth in the series.

Story (grade A-):
I found this game's story both good and weird. Basically, the story revolves around Cecil, a dark knight who works for the Red Wings of Baron. The Red Wings are a military-like force of airships. For the beginning 2/3 of the story, it's good. There are many twists and turns around that make you wonder what will happen next. The last 1/3 is where the story takes a turn for the weird end. Overall, it was an enjoyable story.

Gameplay (grade C+):
Like most any RPG, you often venture through forests, deserts, and grasslands to get between towns or to a cave, temple, or other special place. Along the way, random battles occur, which are used to gain experience (for levels) and GP (I refer GP as gil - it's what I'm used to). The lack of protection against status effects (e.g. paralyze, poison, and, most annoying of all, confusion (known as charm)) adds considerably to the challenge. One thing that would be of use is what changes a new weapon or piece of armor has, all changes. Equipping a new weapon may appear to lower the attack, but it may increase the attack count by 1 which actually makes it more powerful. Armor does the same, only it's the evasion (defence% - it's misspelled like this in the game). It is an old game so I do expect some limiting aspects of it. Restoring MP is also a pain - ethers restore little and they are extremely pricy. Fortunately, you can have hundreds of HP-restoring potions (late in the game, I've had 800 cure2's on hand and the final area uses up nearly 400 of these, ignoring any leveling I may do...). The damage limit of 9999 is an annoying one, but, unless your character's level reaches near the maximum, you're unlikely to see it, of which I find a nice thing - it makes the effort of reaching level 99 much more rewarding (and it takes countless hours of battles just to do that - I'm 34 hours in and only level 73, needing nearly 180,000 EXP when you get only 10,000 per battle). One thing I'd have liked to see is customizing the party. At the end, I'd like to have swapped out Rydia for Yang or reduce the party size to 3 or even 2 for fast leveling (Cecil, Yang, and Kain).

Sound (grade A-):
The music is done somewhat well. The battle music is the weak point - it doesn't really sound like a battle is going on, unlike FF6 and later. Otherwise, the sound is well-done, adding a great deal to the atmosphere. However, none of the game's songs are of any interest to me which I found a bit disappointing (this doesn't affect the grade).

Graphics (grade B+):
8-bit color is not attractive nowadays, but this game does very well with such a limited supply of colors. There could still be some more detail to the textures though. Overall, for the time the game was made, the graphics are excellent.

Overall (grade B+):
I'm somewhat satisfied with this game. It's the weak points in the game play that hinders the overall quality of the game. At least it comes with a good story and I didn't have to consult gameFAQs to get "unstuck" because I never got stuck.