Final Fantasy Legend II (Game Boy) Review

Final Fantasy Legend II (Game Boy) Review

Release Date: 14 December 1990

Date Played: 8 August 2022

Introduction: 

Final Fantasy Legend II is actually the 2nd game in the SaGa series.  In Japan, it’s known as SaGa 2: Hihou Densetsu, but was given the Final Fantasy name in the West to drum up extra sales despite the fact that it has nothing to do with the series. It was critically praised when it was released, and has gone down in history as one of the best RPGs on the Gameboy. Known for its high difficulty and odd gameplay choices, it nevertheless captured the hearts of countless gamers out there and is not only on many top 10 best Game Boy games lists, but has even been included in some 100 greatest games of all time lists.

Personally, I feel that the people who rank the game this highly are looking at it through rose tinted glasses.  As someone who never played the game when they were a child, I found the game to be frustrating, unfair, and rather grindy. To me, it has some huge flaws that keep it from being a very fun experience.

Story: 

There’s really not much of a story here, despite what the peanut gallery of the internet would have you believe.  After your father abandons you as a child, you set out to find him and to seek out the 77 MAGI stones.  These stones, if all gathered together, will spell armageddon for the world.  It’s your job to collect them all before the bad guys do.  

The plot feels rather pedestrian, as of 2022.  I’m not sure how well it stood out back in 1990, when most RPGs centered around gathering a bunch of crystals, or stones, or what have you, but it certainly doesn’t inspire much imagination.  In addition to this, you also have to restore Isis back to her former glory… Something else that didn’t really hold up over time…

Just to clarify, you restore Isis, the goddess, back to her former glory… not the terrorist group.  

Gameplay:

It’s a standard 8-bit JRPG. If you’ve played one from back then, you know what you’re in for. Gameplay consists of you wandering around an overworld and entering towns where you can talk to townsfolk, buy items, rest at inns, and get information about where to go next.  Out on the overworld and in dungeons, you experience random combat encounters.  These take place in turn based fashion just like you would expect. You select your weapon of choice, beit a sword or a spell, deck out your character with armor, and micromanage stat increases.  With a few exceptions, that I’ll mention next, it feels pretty much like any standard RPG from the time period… and that’s totally fine.  It’s a good formula that still holds up.

What the game does differently, is introduce several new systems that both improve… and ruin an otherwise standard fare.  Firstly, when you start the game, you pick your party of 4 from several different races/classes.  There are humans, mutants, robots, and monsters.  Humans are good with combat, mutants excell at magic, robots use guns, and monsters evolve into different(sometimes better, sometimes worse) monsters when you give them food. It’s a cool idea, and you’re free to build your party however you’d like. Want to be a group of 4 robots, go for it.  Secondly, the game does away with XP and instead implements the most incredibly frustrating system for leveling up I’ve ever seen.  Essentially, your characters just level up their health and stats randomly based on what weapons they use.  If you want to level up strength, use a strength weapon, and then grind for a few hours hoping that your strength will randomly go up.  It’s mind numbing, and I hate it.  Considering the game is very difficult, you’re going to be spending a huge amount of your time grinding… and with no guarantee that you’ll make progress, that can be a motivation killer. Your health points increase at random intervals as well. At one point, I played for over an hour without gaining any additional health for my team.  Lastly, all of the weapons in the game have a limited number of uses before they break. These usually range from 15-50 attacks worth.  But, even at the top end of the scale, that won’t last you too long.  So, you need to equip your characters with several backup weapons so they aren’t left in a helpless state when their main weapon breaks.  To top this off, weapons are expensive, and replenishing them constantly eats away at your money.  So, you’ll need to do additional grinding to keep a full stock of weapons at the ready. These 2 choices the developers made are baffling to me.  I really, really, hate it and I can’t imagine what was going through their minds when they greenlit the ideas.  Also, as an added jab to the ribs, the game loves to hide the entrance to most dungeons in a secret location.  An NPC will say something like, “it’s 5 squares south and 7 squares east from the giant cactus in the desert to the south.” That’s fine for a location or two, but it seems to be the order of the day for this game. Get out of here with that esoteric garbage.  It’s just another way to pad out the game and waste everybody’s time.

As for the random combat encounters, they are ample.  Very ample.  Perhaps the most I’ve ever seen in a game.  Oftentimes, you can’t take even a single step without getting into another fight.  Many of the combat encounters will have 6-15 enemies in them.  The enemies will come in stacks of the same type that are all queued up and blocking each other.   Say you run into a spider, skeleton, and a ninja.  Well, there may be 5 spiders, 5 skeletons, and 5 ninjas all in a row that you have to defeat.  It can be overwhelming and they all tend to attack your main character.  There’s nothing like being hit 6 or 7 times in a row before you really have a chance to act. Even if you can 1-shot an enemy, he’ll be blocking the enemy behind him from your attacks.  So, even if you’re super overpowered for the area you’re in, you’ll still be taking hits from the enemies because of them essentially being meat shields for each other.

Luckily, you can save your game at any time from the menu.  This is really helpful for gaming on the go, and mitigating any draconian garbage that the game throws at you. It’s one of the few saving graces of the game.

Presentation:

The game has some pretty great music, and I’ve seen some reviews where people say it’s their favorite RPG music of all time. Now, I’m not sure I would go that far, but it’s certainly catchy and fits well with the general atmosphere the developers were going for.  The overworld music and combat music are standouts and honestly deserve to be in a better game.  At least you’ll get to hear them a lot with all of the grinding you’ll be doing.

The game looks like a standard 8-bit RPG on the Game Boy.  I’m not really sure what else to say.  The enemy sprites are well done and can be interesting to look at, and the character models are cute and look a lot like Final Fantasy on the NES.  The overworld isn’t much to look at, and can be rather barren and empty at times, but the dungeons have some interesting detail here and there. 

Conclusion:

If this game eliminated the frustrating leveling system and weapon breaking mechanics, it would be much better.  But even then, it would only be a fairly average RPG in my eyes. Maybe I’m being a little hard on it because I don’t have any nostalgia for it, but it really didn’t do anything for me… This is very disappointing, because everyone says that it’s the best in the Final Fantasy Legend series.  Considering I still have the 3rd game in the series left to play, it’s imposing a sense of dread in me that I’m not at all thrilled about.  

I watched a review where the guy said that there was about 6 hours of story in this game, and around 9 hours of grinding.  I’m not sure how a modern gamer would consider this acceptable, nor am I sure how someone in 1990 would consider it either.  It’s just such a waste of your precious time.  Not being able to consistently level your characters when you grind, having to constantly spend all of your money to replenish your breaking weapons, running out of weapons in the middle of a dungeon and not being able to damage the overly unfair enemies, and the hidden dungeon entrances that require to to decipher coordinates are all a bit too much and really hurt the whole experience. This leaves me not only in a position where I wouldn’t recommend the game, but I will come right out and tell you to avoid it if you don’t have a strong sense of nostalgia for it.

Final Status: Played

Final Score: 4/10 (Bad)

Donkey Kong (Game Boy) Review

 

Donkey Kong (Game Boy) Review

Release Date: 1994

Date Played: 25 July 2022

Donkey Kong on the Game Boy, A.K.A. Donkey Kong ‘94, is one of the best games on the entire console.  When I first received it as a present back when I was a kid, I wasn’t too thrilled about it.  “Donkey Kong is lame… and old,” I thought to myself.  In the world of Street Fighter II and Mortal Kombat, who wanted to play some stupid arcade game from over a decade ago.  Begrudgingly, and mostly because I didn’t have anything else to do, I popped the game into my Game Boy and was greeted by the same opening stage that I had seen countless times.  After a few attempts, I had managed to play through the 4 stages of the arcade game, and as I saw DK plummet to the bottom of the screen, I was expecting the game to loop as it always does.  But, there before my eyes, the big ape got up, climbed back up the screen, grabbed Pauline, and escaped with her.  What greeted me next, was a totally different game. I was shocked, as were a lot of people who played it at the time. It never occurred to me that the opening 4 stages of Donkey Kong ‘94 were nothing more than a ruse to subvert your expectations before thrusting you into one of the best puzzle platformers ever made. The game that greeted me from that point forward was fresh, addictive, fun, engaging, and very memorable.  I look back on it with a huge amount of nostalgia, but even with those rose tinted glasses, the game holds up unbelievably well.  Just ask my 5,7, and 10 year old cousins that couldn’t put the game down.  That’s saying a lot, considering their tablets were right at hand. 

Gameplay:

After the 4 initial stages, you play through 9 worlds (with 97 additional stages) in an attempt to get back Pauline.  The premise is simple, grab the key and take it to the exit. Unsurprisingly, there are pits, spikes, enemies, switches, gates, conveyor belts, water hazards, climbing chains, ladders, and every other type of obstacle you could imagine that prevent Mario from having an easy time. Every stage is a puzzle that could involve pulling switches, using precise timing, to pixel perfect platforming, and everything in between. To assist him, Mario has a backflip as well as a headstand into super jump move that will allow you to traverse some of the more tricky sections.  Not only that, in each stage are 3 collectable items.  If you manage to get them all, you will be awarded with a casino mini game at the end of the stage that will grant you extra lives. Every 4 stages, you face off against DK himself (and sometimes DK Jr.) in another attempt to save your ever elusive girlfriend. Besting the ape not only gives you an opportunity to save your progress, but also to rack up some extra lives based on your score. The game can be tough at times, but always fair, and the insane abundance of extra lives is welcome.  It shouldn’t be uncommon for most players to hit the maximum of 99 extra lives before reaching the end of the game.  

Each world is based on a different theme and gameplay mechanic. You’ll go through the Big City, Forest, Ship, Jungle, Desert, Airplane, Iceberg, Rocky-Valley, and finally the Tower as you progress through the ever increasingly complex (and difficult) stages.  Luckily, despite the large amount of them you’ll encounter, everything remains fresh throughout the game’s duration, and there is a near perfect difficulty curve that makes you really feel like you’re getting better and never stuck too long. Although some of the puzzles can be a bit tricky and might take a few attempts to figure out exactly what you’re supposed to do, you’ll eventually have a eureka moment as well as a good sense of accomplishment for clearing the stage. Adding to the overall sense of satisfaction for playing through the game,  the sheer amount of ideas that Nintendo came up with for this game will send your head spinning. It’s such a simple set of mechanics, and they are explored to their fullest. Every stage feels fresh and unique, and the overall length of the game is ideal and never overstays its welcome.

The play control is also stellar and Mario’s movements aren’t clunky at all. Since there is an abundance of platforming, there’s always the opportunity to fall.  Doing so from a medium height will send Mario tumbling, go a little higher, and he’ll bonk his head and be stunned, go even higher… well, that will spell curtains for him.  You’ll need to master all of the little tricks that Mario can do in order to complete some of the stages. The programmers never throw too much at you all at once, and if you can focus, you’ll be able to succeed.

Presentation:  

The game looks fantastic for a Game Boy game and everything is clear and visible (especially if you’re playing on a GBA, Super Game Boy, or Gamecube adapter).  Donkey Kong has a great design and is always happy to display his ample…posterior after landing on his head or climbing the ladders to the next stage.  Everything else is charming and very reminiscent of the original Donkey Kong arcade game.  It looks like it’s supposed to, and that’s all you can ask for.  Not only that, this is one of the few games that has Super Game Boy compatibility, and if you decide to play it that way, you’ll be given a Donkey Kong arcade cabinet as your gameplay border.  Also, you’ll have some enhanced music to enjoy.  It’s a nice bonus, and little things like this are always appreciated.

Speaking of the music, it’s fantastic.  As with all Mario games that I can remember, the music is ultra catchy, memorable, and elevates the entire experience to a whole new level that most other games can only dream of achieving.  The composer, Taisuke Araki, really knocked it out of the park and it’s strange to me that his only other noteworthy composing work was for Wave Race on the Nintendo 64. I feel like his talents were underutilized and if he had been given more opportunities, could have been a well known composer in the video game community.

Conclusion:

Donkey Kong ‘94 is probably my favorite Game Boy game of all time. I still remember it tricking me with its opening stages… 28 years ago… and it’s a fond and nostalgic memory.  Replaying the game now, and actually beating it for the first time, I didn’t feel like the game lost any of its luster and it’s just as good as I remembered.  Actually, it’s better, because I recognize good game design now, and let me tell you, this game has it. If you dive into the peanut gallery of the internet, you’ll find a small contingent of fans praising this game and hailing it as a masterpiece. Although it seemed to be mostly forgotten shortly after it’s release, it has maintained almost universal acclaim. It is even listed in some of the “100 Best Games of All Time” lists. If you like Mario, Donkey Kong, puzzle games, platformers, or a good time, you should definitely play it.  I honestly don’t have a single bad thing to say about this game.  For a pure video game, it’s perfect.

Final Status: Completed

Final Score: 10/10 (Masterpiece)