Review

Mildly more story going on than in the first Final Fantasy, though that feels a bit like we're in a weird middle. Because there's not actually enough going on to be interesting. I think I'd rather we exist in the FF1 land where the story is an afterthought and it's mostly just about waltzing around fighting stuff. I guess I like that we actually speak with the emperor a couple times throughout the game, rather than the typical space flea from nowhere approach these villains usually take.

Didn't like the world in this one. I thought it was sort of interesting that with the fact that the world is round, you're actually just dealing with one landmass the whole time. But there were so few notable locations that it all felt very samey. Additionally, that you get the boat relatively early means you can basically go anywhere in the game at that point. So there was no late game landmass locked off due to the lack of airship or whatever. Always nice to have something to look forward to.

The leveling system is the most notable part of the game, of course. I played the Pixel Remaster with the nice little XP modifiers you could turn on. I turned that shit all the way up and coasted through the game, because I couldn't be fucked. I like that your spells change animations as they level up. That's an interesting idea. And in particular it's nice because your earlier spells don't become totally obsolete. (Though they still kind of do once Ultima, Holy, and Flare arrive.) I don't like how you really need to go out of your way to level up the spells, though. With the martial stuff, it seemed reasonable the rate I was getting those skills leveled up. But even with the boosts basically all the way up, it was still a pain leveling spells up. Can't imagine doing that with the base XP. In particular was very annoying with spells you have less reason to cast all the time (Esuna, Slow, Haste since you get it later). So it's an interesting idea that I think if done well, could be quite fun. As it is, it mostly gets in its own way.