26/07/2014

Final Fantasy Legend II (1): When complex and difficult are a game’s middle names


My thirst for retro games, which was awakened by my playthrough of Final Fantasy I, is not quenched yet. It’s quite the opposite, in fact: peeking into that world of past glories revealed a whole richness of games to savour—to my uttermost delight, shall I say. Those wide 8-bit pastures may be a tad dry now, but they are still enticing for a European gamer that unfortunately missed many of the best releases of that time—one of those best releases being Final Fantasy Legend II

Final Fantasy Legend II was developed and published by Square, and was released in 1990(jp) and 1991(na) on the original Game Boy; like many RPGs of that time, it never reached European shores. Despite its name, it has nothing to do with the mythical ongoing RPG series that famously rescued Square from bankruptcy a few decades ago—so much so that it is more like the polar opposite of Final Fantasy, if anything. But more one that later. FFL2 is actually the second installment of an independent series, and the fact that it is misleadingly named after the Final Fantasy series in North-America is the result of a not-so-subtle marketing ploy from Square: by tying that brand-new game series to the respectfully successful Final Fantasy series, they could expect a good reception and increased sales. (The first game of the Seiken series famously received the same treatment and was renamed Final Fantasy Adventure for its north-American release.) Anyway, Final Fantasy this is not: the original name of FFL2 is SaGa 2: Hihou Densetsu, i.e. SaGa 2: The Treasure Legend

The SaGa series is a highly interesting one that deserves a bit of development. Born in 1989 with the release of Makai Toushi SaGa on the Game Boy (rebranded The Final Fantasy Legend in North-America), it counts nine games, spans three generations of consoles and is still ongoing nowadays, albeit at a quite placid pace. What fascinates me the most about SaGa is the fact that despite boasting some respectable longevity and being the offspring of the highly respected Square, it has always been a very confidential, nearly underground series as far as the West is concerned, never reaching the peaks of fame claimed by other Square offerings like the Final Fantasy and Seiken Densetsu series. However, SaGa is quite popular in its home country, which prompted Square Enix to release DS remakes of FFL2 and its sequel, the aptly (re)named Final Fantasy Legend III, in 2009 and 2011—needless to say, these remakes never graced our shores and probably never will. Oh, well. Anyway, the idea of discovering a relatively unknown offering from Square is a strangely compelling one: how on earth can a two-decades-old series from one of the most renowned game developer under the Eastern gaming sun be so utterly confidential? Well, there could actually very good reasons for that, if the whole series follows the template and philosophy of FFL2.

It’s hard nowadays to find any relevant information about the rationale at work behind the creation of the SaGa series in the late 80’s; but I wouldn’t be overly surprised if the series had been devised from the get-go as a polar opposite of the Final Fantasy series. The first two installments of Square’s most famous and beloved franchise had been released by then, to great critical acclaim, and they had established a template of sorts for the series they belonged to—as well as for the 8-bit RPG realm as a whole, for that matter. A rather simplistic template it was, however, that didn’t allow for much complexity and non-linearity, but was so successful that it was unthinkable to alter it in any significant way in future installments. If Square wanted to indulge into developing a more elaborate and layered gameplay, the only alternative was to create new series with different rules; and this is very likely how the SaGa series was born in 1989. 

FFL2 is so radically different from Final Fantasy that it nearly comes across as a tongue-in-cheek parody of Square’s ubiquitous bankruptcy-rescuing series, a light-hearted attempt at subversion that gently takes the piss out of everything Final Fantasy stands for. The decision to rebrand the game as a Final Fantasy-related offering involuntarily adds an extra layer of irony to the situation; I smile ruefully while thinking of all the poor souls who purchased this game while expecting an experience similar to FF1 or FF2. Whether they ended up being supremely disappointed or pleasantly surprised is left in the limbos of video game history, but one thing is sure: what you’ll get by playing FFL2 is an experience like no other, even to this day. 

Before diving into analysis, I feel compelled to express my innermost feelings about that game. To put it simply, I really adored FFL2. It provided me with a game experience much deeper than I had expected—in fact, it’s fairer to say that I was amazed by this game’s unexpected depth and elated by its sheer originality. I certainly got more than I bargained for in these two departments, as well as in others, including head-scratching complexity and nerve-racking difficulty; but more on that later. 

When it comes to graphics, the game is decent enough and on par with the releases of that time, at least when outdoors are concerned. Indoors visibly got a bit more love: some temples are particularly beautiful with a high level of detail, and they manage to create a truly engrossing atmosphere; the gateway between the different sections of the game world is also quite stellar, in more ways than one. It’s also worth noting that despite being mostly unspectacular graphically, FFL2 is totally devoid of any kind of glitch in that department: there is not the slightest hint of flickering—an affliction that famously plagues other Game Boy cult classics of that time, like Ducktales or Gargoyle’s Quest— nor is there any kind of slowdown or skipped notes in the music. And talking about the music, it’s just splendid. The main theme, which is called “The Legacy” and plays when you’re roaming the overworld, is a gorgeous and intoxicating piece of ear candy that gloriously evokes a sense of freedom and adventure. The rest of the soundtrack is fantastic too, with themes offering a wide variety of moods ranging from peaceful to uneasy and stressed. There is a certain grandeur to that soundtrack, which doesn’t feature any cheesy, bouncy or mellow track: your typical village theme, for instance, is totally absent, and you instead keep hearing the heroic notes of “The Legacy” every time you set foot in a town. All in all, when it comes to the overall presentation, this game is a typical 8-bit offering, albeit with a top-class music that shines despite the technical limitations of that time. It has this very special 8-bit charm that retro gamers love so much and that can hardly be described in words: an enticing blend of forced simplicity and ravenous enthusiasm to always try new things. And try new things it did, indeed: if FFL2 hardly pushed graphical and sonic boundaries except in a few selected spots, it certainly did so when it comes to gameplay, o yes precious. 

I’d love to elaborate on this boundary-pushing, but I won’t do so right now. See, I was initially planning to write a single post about that great game, but I quickly realised that this would turn out to be a very long and stuffy post indeed. I thus decided to cut it that huge cake of a post in three slices to make it easier to digest, and I will now wrap up the first one of these slices. In the second post, I will elaborate on the complexity of FFL2, before tackling its difficulty in the third and last post. I’ll be back soon! As for now, thanks for reading, and be my guest anytime!

3 comments:

  1. I was always quite interested in these "Final Fantasy Legend"s but never played any of them yet (dat backlog!). I always welcome complex and/or hard games so I will be following very closely your next "slices"!

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    1. Final Fantasy Legend II is definitely complex by 8-bit and even 16-bit standards, and hard by every standard—especially today's. From what I've understood, it is by far the most complex and difficult entry of the Final Fantasy Legend trilogy on the Game Boy, but also very likely the most interesting... I also own FF Legend III, which I will play sooner or later. We'll see if it it compares favourably with its elder!

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    2. I see... Well, that looks promising! I'll wait for your other posts about Legend II and see if I give it a shot before the end of summer.

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