The password is Wild Rose. Remember it well.
Beaten: Twice, in 2004 and 2023
Version played: Gameboy Advance (Dawn of Souls), Switch (Pixel Remaster)
In most Final Fantasy fan polls, Final Fantasy II ranks at the very bottom. This is mostly due to a facet of its gameplay that never recurs in any other game in the series: your stats increase as you use related abilities. If you take damage, your defense and HP goes up. If you use magic, your magic and MP go up.
In theory, this is a really cool idea for a RPG. In practice, it is... lackluster.
I say all this to explain that I absolutely understand why people can't stand FFII. Grinding is absolutely miserable in this game. It is very common to just punch your own party members in the face to increase their stats. It is a deeply weird system.
And yet: I love Final Fantasy II.
Part of this is because, unlike its predecessor, it actually has characters. Sure, they don't have much depth, but I personally find it much easier to connect with even the barest sketches of characters rather than blank slates. FFII's final party member is a revolving door for most of the game — you get a ton of temporary party members, a lot of whom get killed along the way. But each one brings something new to the table, and I quite enjoy them all.
FFII was the third Final Fantasy game I played, after Tactics Advance and Final Fantasy I. I'd thought that a lot of my affection for it was just nostalgia, but when I went back to replay it in 2023, I quickly found that I just really like this game. It's dated, it's lacking in many aspects, but there's a lot of genuine charm to it that I really enjoy.
And you know what? I like the battle system, too.
I'd be lying if I named any character for their story, because this is not a game with character development. Even so, I've always been fond of the FFII cast. Firion, Guy, and Maria make a fun little team, and their various final party members add a lot of flavor. I like all of the party members, honestly — Minwu, Josef, Leila, Ricard, all of them.
I don't often seek out the FFII soundtrack to listen to it, but when I do I always enjoy it. Like the game itself, it's pretty straightforward and short, but even so there are some fantastic tracks. Some favorites:
I particularly recommend the Pixel Remaster soundtrack — the orchestrations are incredible. Pandemonium is a particular standout.
Even though I just played FFII recently, its dungeons didn't particularly resonate with me. I did enjoy them as I went through them, but the problem with the early games is that the dungeons are functionally very similar and don't have a lot of variety. FFII does break the mold with its countless empty rooms, but if you have a map, they're easy to avoid...
Like I said above: I get why people don't like this game's leveling system, but I've always really enjoyed it! I don't remember struggling with it when I played it in 2004. I may have done some grinding, but it wasn't excessive. I do appreciate the leveling boosts in the Pixel Remaster version (and I did use them) but even then I don't think it's totally necessary. Perhaps the original version on the NES was more punishing, but I wouldn't know.
FFII stands out to me for its dungeons more than anything else. FFI had a lot of varied dungeons, but when I played them both back to back via the Pixel Remasters, I enjoyed FFII more. It may have helped that I still have my guidebook for the Gameboy Advance version, so I never went into any of the many empty monster rooms in FFII... I'd probably feel differently if I hadn't had maps to guide me.
One final note I have is that I found myself using status spells way more often in my recent playthrough of FFII. The fact that the spells level up the more you use them made me want to try them all out, and I ended up using spells like Stop and Break way more than I usually would in other FF games. It was a nice change of pace.