Final Fantasy II

Final Fantasy II arrived on the WonderSwan Color a year after the first game and brought with it the strangest progression system the series has ever had. Instead of experience levels, individual abilities improve according to how the player uses them: whoever swings a sword a lot gets better with swords, whoever takes hits builds up hit points, and whoever casts spells raises their level. On top of that comes the story of four young people from a city destroyed by the imperial army, and a keyword system that lets you talk to characters almost like in a text adventure, prying keywords out of them that open up further paths.

The remake sticks to the same philosophy as the previous entry. The graphics were redrawn in a more detailed style, character portraits gained more personality, the environments are more colorful and readable on the small screen, and the interface was rearranged so you can navigate your inventory and spells quickly even while playing on a tram. But the original's harshness stayed too: the dungeons are full of dead-end rooms, random encounters come often, and some progression segments reward patience more than cleverness. The musical score, including the famous rebellion march theme, is among the first things players remember from the console.

The second game was always seen as the black sheep of the family, and it was precisely the WonderSwan Color version that helped its reputation the most. Up to that point, practically nobody outside Japan had played it officially, and it was this version that became the springboard for later releases on other platforms, which brought the game to a wider audience. Looking back, it's clear just how much of an experiment FFII was, one that influenced the later SaGa series more than the main Final Fantasy line. Today it's worth trying mainly for how boldly it goes against the genre's established rules, and for a story that, as the first in the series, didn't spare its characters and wasn't afraid to let them die.