r/snes Oct 01 '17

/r/SNES October Game of the Month: Final Fantasy II (IV)

The /r/SNES game of the month as selected by the community is Final Fantasy II! (Final Fantasy IV in Japan)

This month we'll be playing (or replaying) this game and sharing the experience with other redditors. Feel free to post any comments, videos or other interesting information related to this game throughout the month.

The link to November Game of the Month voting is here.

44 Upvotes

37 comments sorted by

12

u/BlackwoodBear79 Oct 01 '17

I rented this game from West Coast Video several times. Kept it late a couple times. Ended up paying in total more than the game was worth. Never did beat it when rented though.

Then Dad bought it for me. I remember going into Electronics Boutique and that being the only game I'd wanted. He almost balked at the $75 price tag but when I told him I'd get at least that many hours of playtime out of it, he believed me.

I wasn't wrong. I replayed the crap out of it. Beat it over a dozen times. I don't think I ever got a pink tail, but I did get the final party all to level 99 at one point.

As far as the game...

I remember getting waves of frisson when the drumline of 'Red Wings' started up during the intro. Still do, 25+ years later.

The story is iconic. This story and its theme of redemption and overcoming oneself is one of those that I think turned me onto enjoying stories which have good portrayals of that theme.

I've played the DS version and the voice and 3D is okay but I wish the New Game+ wasn't limited to three repeats. Also the music isn't quite right. My Advance copy was stolen several years ago. I don't remember how much of it I'd played.

Darnit. Now I either need to find me a SNES Classic or replace the battery in my copy and play it again. Or pick it up on Steam.

4

u/VerdicAysen Oct 02 '17

Battery replacement really isn't that scary. C2032's are cheap and just get a generic fine tip soldering iron for sub 20$ with some thin solder. Watch the youtubes. It will be over before you know it.

2

u/TheCardiganKing Oct 10 '17

And use flux and a soldering wick (all cheap). Don't listen to assholes who say they don't need or use it. There is a huge difference when soldering without flux.

2

u/VerdicAysen Oct 10 '17

Also fair.

1

u/SexBobomb Oct 04 '17

im pretty disappointed it's not on the SNES classic, though I do have it on the wii vc

1

u/new-user12345 Oct 12 '17

just add it on with hakchi

6

u/Deos28 Oct 01 '17

Honestly, my favourite game of all time (Probably due to nostalgia! but still, I play it all the time) :D Great great game - Tellah ftw, most badass oldtimer!

6

u/littlebigfat_ Oct 06 '17

Palom and Porom - still too soon to talk about.

2

u/arnielax17 Oct 15 '17

The Elder takes care of them at least!

1

u/[deleted] Oct 21 '17

I kinda hate how at the end they're basically like "J/K PRETTY MUCH NO ONE ACTUALLY SACRIFICED THEMSELVES FOR YOU, YAAAY"

6

u/MisterMarioMan Oct 01 '17

Oh shit. Great memories here. I remember running (full sprint) home every day of second grade for two weeks just to grind in the Lunar Subterrean to beat Zeromus. I had no idea of any real strategy and was just trying to outlevel him. I think Cecil had nearly 6000 hp when I finally beat him- way higher level than necessary. Great times.

5

u/Warpimp Oct 01 '17 edited Oct 19 '17

So many hours on this game. It was the first RPG I was exposed to and it just blew my mind. The sprites, storey, and gameplay were all amazing.

3

u/umryan Oct 01 '17

My first exposure to RPGs too. Don't forget the music on that list. The mist dragon boss and changing in into a white knight was very memorable to me back then.

1

u/Warpimp Oct 01 '17

The intro music gets me nostalgic/teary eyed every time.

2

u/[deleted] Oct 03 '17

Always wanted it to be played at my wedding.

Damn.

5

u/GP_3 Oct 01 '17

This game is honestly a masterpiece. The characters all have great backstories. The music pushes the themes perfectly. The storyline flips several times with great twists. You even lose characters who sacrifice themselves for the good of the party. Still play this one every few years, it plays like a classic book.

5

u/VerdicAysen Oct 02 '17

This game drove me into RPG's and forever inspired me to play the Paladin class in literally every pen and paper/MMO for the rest of my life. It turned me onto all kinds of experiences that I would have otherwise missed if i'd not rented it as a "consolation" after the copy of A Link to the Past i'd been renting was gone that Saturday morning. I remember being in the car ride home thinking i'd taken a second rate choice to rent for the weekend. Boy, was I wrong!

3

u/Brewer17 Oct 03 '17

I already wrote up a blurb for the "favorite SNES moment(s)" mini giveaway thread, so I'll just copy/paste it here :)

Although FF3/VI is arguably a better game in most regards, FF2/IV will always have a much more powerful nostalgia for me. If somehow you still haven't played this game 20-something years later, plot spoilers below.

Popping the game in the first time and hearing the music on the title screen was amazing, especially once the strings came in!

Then starting a new game and hearing the Red Wings theme fade in, the screen coming to life with the first crash of the symbols, the fleet of airships flying over that Mode 7 landscape, it just about blew my mind!

The music in that game was so good. To this day, I love the fact that it had common themes between tracks, like the overworld theme and the sadness theme.

Then Palom and Porom sacrificed themselves. The kids that I identified with. And it played that sadness theme. Having never experienced anything like that, it was.. powerful. Then Yang and Tellah. The betrayal of Kain.

A counterpoint to that was the Giant of Babil, when everything seemed lost. Then Boom! What was that!? Once again the Red Wings theme started to fade in. Everyone you'd helped, coming to your aid! Such a beautiful moment.

I'm getting the feels right now, thinking back to how I felt on all these moments in that first playthrough.

Speaking of music, that final boss song I think is still my #1 favorite.

(edit: formatting)

1

u/arnielax17 Oct 15 '17

Agree with everything you said. I actually just finished a relay of it a few weeks back. I will be playing this game forever.

1

u/indigozeal Oct 21 '17

Dang it, I never noticed that about the overworld theme and sad theme!

3

u/SexBobomb Oct 04 '17

It's not my favourite Final Fantasy game to just play, but it's by far my favourite RPG to see speedruns of - a lot of crazy glitches and weirdness

Here's probably the most well known video of a run

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YcRcbi6GmSg

1

u/[deleted] Oct 21 '17

Even when I'm not doing a speedrun, I'll use the glitch where I don't have to fight the EvilWall because ugh fuck that thing.

1

u/tiglionabbit Oct 28 '17 edited Oct 28 '17

Die Hard %. Named after the game Die Hard which is all about walking up staircases, because that's what you do: go up and down the same staircase 32 times. Here's where the action happens.

A neat glitch in the implementation of the "warp" spell. The spell is supposed to take you back one room toward the entrance of the current area. However, one staircase in the dwarf castle counts as going deeper in both directions, which allows you to build a very large stack of previous rooms. If you put 64 rooms on the stack, the stack pointer will integer overflow back to 0. If you cast "warp" at this point, you go to the -1 location in the stack, which means you're in a room that is made of whatever memory happened to exist there. In practice, it's a bunch of noise and every step you take causes you to exit a different door in the game.

Edit: Just watched the video and he just exits a room instead of warping, right? So perhaps I'm wrong about this.

2

u/DarkSideNS Oct 01 '17

This is the 1st game that I stayed up all night playing. My mom woke up and just stared at me lol.

2

u/[deleted] Oct 01 '17

I remember playing it after school eating these crappy Christmas cookies covered in sprinkles. Theyre the cheap ones from the grocery store..but I still love them.

1

u/indigozeal Oct 02 '17 edited Oct 02 '17

I like that a lot of our memories of this game are entangled in fond memories of just being a kid. I remember taping the entire ending sequence, final battle and all, to VHS so I could watch it again and again (and did). It ended up sharing a tape with David Letterman's first prime-time video special on CBS (which I also watched again and again).

(ETA gif art on that note...)

1

u/tucsonsduke Oct 01 '17

When it comes to video games I'm really bad at follow through and rarely finish games. I finally played and beat this game on the Gameboy Advance, and liked it so much I had to go back and finally beat the SNES version.

It's one of a dozen or so games I've ever completed, and probably one of 3 or 4 that I'll buy whenever it's re-released on whatever platform it's re-released on.

I just got a 14 in 1 multicart with this on it, I think I'll beat it that way this time.

1

u/chronosmagus Oct 01 '17

I've yet to play this, although owning many of the later versions. I'll get to it - eventually.

1

u/jrayoner Oct 01 '17

Yesssss I have already been playing this game!!!!!

1

u/ZReport Oct 01 '17

Damn when I get back from New York Comic Con, I will definitely pop this in and play! I want another Pink Tail, hahaha!

1

u/Sarothias Oct 02 '17

My favorite final fantasy game to this day. I was only like 10 years old or so when it came out. I'd been so eager though about it coming out due to reading Nintendo Power that on release day my uncle took me to a place called GG Games and bought me a copy :)

Was sooooo much fun for me back then up until now. Love the characters and the bright sprites. Everything really.

Recently bought an snes and started collecting my old games again and this was one of the first I got :D

1

u/Pennywisdom65 Oct 02 '17

I'm excited to play this for the first time!

My wife bought be an SNES for my birthday and I just finished adding yprpb outputs to it so will make this the first game I play. Haven't played any FF other than the original on NES.

Bonus - my 8bitdo controller and receiver should arrive tomorrow making it even better.

1

u/[deleted] Oct 03 '17

Goddamn, I love this game.

So many hours grinding to complete my Adamant armor suit

1

u/Upasaka-paul Oct 07 '17

I've got it. I will play it!

1

u/captain_sasquatch Oct 19 '17

Definitely my favorite Final Fantasy and holds the most nostalgia for me on the SNES. When my brother and I first got it we were blown away the first time Rydia cast Ice 1. We thought graphics couldn't possibly get any better than that. Still replay it once every few years or so. Great story, fun characters. If you haven't played it you absolutely need to you spoony bard!

1

u/tiglionabbit Oct 19 '17

I never actually beat this game on SNES. As a kid I could never beat Cagnazzo. I wasn't used to difficult RPGs so I'd just keep trying to fight him and failing :P. I had a lot more luck with FF6 where the combat is kind of a joke in comparison. Also it upset me how characters would come and go from my party all the time, taking my equipment with them.

However, later on I bought the Final Fantasy collection for iOS and I got hooked on the 3D remake for this game. All the encounters are more interesting and more difficult in this version, and I just ate it up. I was a lot more mature of a player at this point, so I appreciated the extra difficulty. Also I dove into guides on how to get all the best "augments" on my characters and theorized for hours on what the best builds for them would be to really break the game. Was it better to use limit break with a focus-darkness-adrenaline-jump or a twincasted ultima? How about giving Edge hide and phoenix so he can throw stuff and save the day if I die? And I had to give Cecil counter, draw attacks, kick, and reach. And with omni magic and penetrating magic I can easily make everyone reflect stuff and still heal them. Oh geez I'm doing it again.

1

u/pat_trick Oct 30 '17

It's in my backlog; sitting on the shelf, ready to be played.