A brief digression

I'm like, way ahead of Matty in FF2 now, so I thought I'd try something a little different. This game isn't QUITE as absurdly easy as the GBA FF1, but it's pretty goddamn easy, let me tell you. So I was curious to see how fiendishly difficult the original was. Lo and behold, I managed to stumble across a rom of the original NES translated prototype! For those of you who aren't total losers like me and who don't already know about this stuff, Square briefly entertained the notion of bringing FF2 to the States after FF1 was such a success, but eventually decided to scrap that project in favor of bringing in games for the SNES (namely FF4.) But they DID make a prototype English-language cartridge-- translated by the same wonderful non-Anglophones that brought us "You spoony bard!," "Dragon attacks mist when breath!" and "Oh, my! Golbez took the Crystal"-- which was eventually leaked onto the Internet. I was terribly curious as to how this version would handle all the sex and violence that is rampant in the GBA FF2 (and presumably in the fan-translated FF2 rom I have lying around.) Plus, I get to read lines like this:

You did what to the who now?

Oh, please. We've all had enough of your bullshit, Minwu.

One great feature of this game is the ability to put the "<3">

Are the Rebellions fighting against those bastards who set us up the bomb?

Now to pay a visit to the king, who is "wounded" here instead of "recovering" (GBA) or "dying" (fan trans.)

It's true. Old people don't belong in RPGs, and almost inevitably wind up dead by the end of them, unless they're just there for comic relief. (See also: Tellah, FuSoYa, Galuf, Cid VI, Bugenhagen, Auron...)

As for the increased difficulty, I think this screenshot speaks for itself:

Maiden's Kisses and Golden Needles (Softs, whatever) in the GBA version are 500 GP. And Curse-removing shit cost FIFTY. Usually I expect a difficulty decrease to reduce the costs of items by maybe half, but this is ridiculous. And basically, if I don't have 2500 gp and I get petrified, I'm fucked, because Esuna doesn't cure that bastard either.

Surprisingly, and perhaps only because it was an early version of a script, stuff like this was kept in:

I mean, however many empires there might be, this is pretty serious stuff. I think that if this game had been released in the US, it would have been considered one of the NES's greatest games, regardless of the absurd difficulty. I've heard many people describe this as the worst Final Fantasy because of the battle system, and I just can't agree. To me, judging an RPG based on its gameplay is like judging Pamela Anderson by her acting skill-- I mean, sure, she's an actress, but is that REALLY the reason why you're watching Baywatch reruns? So what, you have to stab yourself with your broadsword in order to level up. But is that really any less painful than having a random encounter every 5-10 seconds?

Playing the game on the original system gives you a little bit of perspective on how this fits into the Final Fantasy oeuvre, if you will. I'm seeing a lot of FF12 in here, although that might be because both of them rip off of Star Wars so heavily in their plots. (Actually, I'm feeling the Star Wars vibe a little LESS strongly here than in FF12, probably through the lack of FMVs copying exact shots.) FF2 to me feels a lot like a proto-FF4, with its high mortality rate and revolving door of party members. We'll see how this goes as I get further along in both versions.