Final Fantasy Legend II (3): Getting hard to play

After expanding on the first half of the Final Fantasy Legend II unique formula, i.e. its sometimes puzzling complexity, it’s now time to cover the second half of this formula, which is encompassed by a single word: DIFFICULTY. Nerve-racking, unsettling difficulty that was high then, by all 8-bit standards, and so much higher now, in these current times of games playing on rails and RPGs stuffed with auto-battle modes.  

This high level of difficulty may originate, once again, from a desire to create a series as different from Final Fantasy as possible. If the original, NES-hosted entry of the Final Fantasy series was a tad harder than its PSP remake, it was still a fairly easy RPG, in which field encounters were rarely threatening and boss battles could be dealt with smoothly providing that you grinded enough beforehand. As a whole, levelling-up was a regular and measurable process that took place throughout the whole game and every obstacle one encountered could be overcome with the right amount of steady grinding; this was one of the most prominent staples of 8-bit RPG and often translated into the old RPG wisdom that if one didn’t shy away from field battles, one would always be powerful enough to take down bosses—and if not, a bit of extra grinding would certainly do the trick. Things are not as easy in FFL2, though. The game strays from the aforementioned ‘rewarding grinding’ staple by introducing a system of random levelling-up: instead of piling up XP after every single battle until your characters reach the next level, their various stats increase every once in a while, preferably after you’ve been using certain abilities or weapons. As a result, there are no levels to speak of, and you instead gain a certain amount of points in your various stats, including your HP that can be raised up to 999. The specific triggers for each stat’s increase are not crystal-clear, and I would lie if I said that I figured out entirely how the whole system operates. This makes the levelling process far more gruelling and definitely tests your patience, as you have to soldier through battles while never being sure that they will reap any kind of reward in terms of stat increase. As far as I’m concerned, I found that process to be curiously addictive once I got into the rhythm of it, and it’s worth noting that it does work beautifully when one put the necessary effort into it (I lead my whole party all the way up to the big 999 in the late stages of the game), but one has to admit that it’s not exactly intuitive and user-friendly. It also involves a higher level of planning and strategy that your average 8-bit RPG as far as levelling-up is concerned: instead of simply going with the flow and facing ever-stronger field enemies as the story progresses, one is encouraged to backtrack regularly in order to level-up more easily, since the levelling process is tied to the use of weapons and abilities and not to the strengths of the foes. This certainly makes the whole levelling affair so much more taxing, and I can very well imagine that some players used to the simplicity of Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy in that regard were disconcerted and annoyed by FFL2’s approach. It forces the player to be instrumental in the levelling process, to plan it and strategize it to some extent, which involves amongst other things purchasing weapons solely for training purposes and backtracking in order to face weaker enemies that will have the grace to die faster, thus speeding up the levelling process; and while this is undoubtedly a ground-breaking approach, one has to admit that it doesn’t exactly make the said levelling process easier. 

However, there is no escape as far as levelling-up is concerned. Whether you like it or not, you will have to grind in FFL2, and quite a lot to boot. The game dutifully respects the 8-bit RPG ‘metric piles of grinding’ trope in that regard, and to make sure that the player won’t wriggle their way out of it, it forces on the said player a deadly combination of Sudden Difficulty Spikes and Reduced Inventory Space. That vicious combo unfolds as such:

—The SDS: every couple of worlds, the game throws at you a sudden increase in difficulty so sharp that it qualifies more as a Mont Blanc-like peak than as a mere spike. As one may expect, such peaks are usually linked to the presence of a boss that you have to beat to a pulp in order to progress further—more on that ominous subject later—and as one may also expect, such peaks will corner you into forced level-grinding. To make matters trickier, these peaks are cleverly and viciously scattered along your progression in a seemingly random fashion: instead of having to grind invariably at the end of every single dungeon to take down the resident boss à la Dragon Quest, which thus allows to fall back into a comfortable grinding routine, the player never know when they will hit a wall and have to engage into a crazy level-grinding marathon. Now that’s a way to keep the player on their toes if I ever saw one, and FFL2 shamelessly flaunts its refined, nearly sadistic mastery of it. 

—The RIS: as though the aforementioned Alps of Difficulty were not enough to make sure that the player will level-grind diligently, the game reinforces this obligation by allotting them an uncomfortably tiny inventory space that will forever prevent them to stock up piles of powerful weapons, pieces of gear and healing items and force their way through the obstacle, should they have wanted to operate that way. I already mentioned in the first paragraph how arduous the level-grinding process could be, due to the particular way the stats increase; but they were always loopholes at hand to allow the cunning player to reduce the amount of grinding needed—like the fact that you can raise a Robot’s Defence stat by loading it with pieces of armour, or the fact that some weapons can deliver incredibly strong blows when their use counter is down to the last five or so uses, which makes them perfect for taking bosses down. Or rather, there would be such loopholes at hand, had the inventory space not been so ridiculously small—undoubtedly the uncanny result of a match made in hell between technical limitations and sadistic game design. You’re granted eight slots for each one of your four characters, which have to accommodate everything— and I mean everything: weapons, pieces of armour, healing items, spells and other abilities learned throughout the game, you name it. On top of this, you are allotted sixteen extra slots to keep other items and abilities—slots that cannot be accessed in battle, as one may expect. Suffice it to say that this strict space allowance sharply hems in the gameplay by forcing the player to carefully consider the inclusion of every single item in the character inventory, and to a lesser yet still significant extent in the general inventory. As a direct—and dire—result, one has to rely quite heavily on good ol’ level-grinding to work their way up to the top—literally. 

As a whole, the amount of grinding one has to put into FFL2 is nothing short of staggering. I don’t think I’ve ever grinded that much while playing an RPG, not even during my Dragon Quest IX solo run: of my fifteen-or-so hours spent playing FFL2, a good ten hours were devoted exclusively to grinding—mostly for levels but also, occasionally, for money. To make matters worse, this abundant level-grinding, for all the time and energy it takes, won’t turn your party into a team of super-buffed, nearly invincible warriors: even levelled-up to the fullest, your party will still struggle to overcome obstacles and progress further. The most blatant example of this is undoubtedly the Boss Fights: they are hardcore, epically difficult affairs that will test your patience and sangfroid and push them to their limits. They are the kind of brutal showdown that will wipe out your whole party and that you will finally win after an ultimate, desperate attack from your last—barely—alive party member. To sum it up, those Boss battles are nerve-rackingly HARD. Of course, that also make them incredibly rewarding: taking down a Boss in FFL2 is one exhilarating experience, in which pride and relief blend giddily. Never in my gaming life did I feel so strongly that I unconditionally deserved my victory after having toiled and sweated and ground my way through millions of field battles just to stand a chance against one of these formidable foes. 

Overall, making your way through FFL2 is anything but a walk in the park. If anything, it’s more akin to a trudge through a dense jungle: it’s an arduous, gruesome and often taxing process which requires a lot of toiling and reaps little reward. Never in this game will you have that pleasant feeling of being powerful and able to breeze through enemy lines and slaughter bosses at ease—a feeling that you could get in Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy with the right amount of grinding. In FFL2, you will struggle from beginning to end in spite of all your best grinding efforts. The game makes its duty to constantly throw you off balance by virtually any means possible: whether it be the random Difficulty Peaks, the uncomfortable lack of inventory space or the near-obligation to backtrack if one wants to level-up efficiently, there is always something at work threatening to tip you over the edge and making you feel at all times slightly uneasy and restless. Sleek mastery is but a sweet, distant dream when one plays FFL2, and comfort is never to be reached: every time you think you might have finally gotten a solid grip on the game’s rules and pace and be now on solid, stable ground, there will be some form of setback to show you that you actually don’t master anything and that the game rules supreme. As a matter of fact, I nearly gave up a couple of times during the course of my playthrough, so discouraged and disheartened was I to see my constant efforts amount to nothing in terms of mastery and to be repeatedly roughed up by the game. The only reason why I soldiered through the whole thing is that I really loved FFL2, despite its relentless, nearly sadistic difficulty. I’m really glad I forged ahead, and I don’t regret a second of my time spent playing that game. I even found a peculiar charm to its intense difficulty: there was some oddly thrilling realism to the whole thing, with its heavy focus on grinding and barely making it through boss fights, and it turned this technically modest 8-bit RPG into a full-fledged epic adventure. Travelling through parallel worlds while having never fought in your whole life would certainly not be an easy feat to achieve in the physical world, and FFL2 emulates that notion with gusto, succeeding in making the player feel like a genuine hero when their quest is finally over. 

But for all my love for FFL2, as well as the love of other masochistic gamers that helped turning it into a cult classic of the 8-bit era, it’s hard to deny that this excellent game is anything but popular as far as the West it concerned. And of course, it absolutely has everything to do with its deadly combo of Complexity and Difficulty. Here is a game that doesn’t meet you halfway, or at any other point for that matter: it’s relentlessly demanding and challenging, daring you to grind your way through it and beat it. FFL2 is the gaming incarnation of your typical bratty, rebellious teenager, playing aloof and hard to get and daring you to love them, all the while secretly expecting that you will indeed do so. This is obviously an approach that seduced Japanese gamers—always ready to toil dutifully and to go the extra masochistic mile in order to beat a game—if the enduring popularity of the SaGa series in Japan is to be believed. It didn’t work so well with Western gamers, unfortunately, and FFL2 remained rather obscure in the West, to be adored only by the most dedicated and grinding-loving RPG aficionados. 

However, it’s never too late to rediscover a true cult classic. FFL2 is a fantastic game that manages to convey a truly enticing atmosphere despite the technical limitations of the 8-bit era, and also affords the luxury to introduce a couple of ground-breaking innovations that remains fresh and original even to this day and to present the player with a fantastic challenge. It’s a true masterpiece of the 8-bit era and a genuine work of love, with all its pixels and its heart in the right places. I can only encourage any RPG aficionado to give it a try, for this is clearly a shiny, beautiful gem of a game. Thanks for reading, and be my guest anytime!