Game #43: Final Fantasy Legend II (Game Boy) - Father Found

Game 43

Title: Final Fantasy Legend II
Released: November 1991 (December 1990 JPN)
Platform: Game Boy
Developer: Square
Publisher: Square
Genre: RPG
Exploration - Top-down
Combat - Turn based
Series - SaGa

An intro!

I've been looking forward to this game for a while. The first in the series was my only Game Boy game growing up, and while I knew more were being released, I didn't travel nearly enough. Also, the SNES released the same year. So, I dropped Game Boy altogether and never looked back, until recently. I've actually been exploring the Game Boy library as a side project, and plan to play through them all. I'm keeping the RPGs set aside in chronological order, so each game experience on this blog will be as fresh as possible.

Straight to character selection

Right away, I could tell that this title had more polish, leveraging on the previous game I'm sure. We have humans, mutants, and monsters (still rather pathetic) returning as selectable characters, and the addition of the robot class. I chose to first start with a human female. Humans now increase stats the same way mutants did in the first, although slightly faster. Increases seem based on actions taken in combat: stat based weapons increase the corresponding stat, spells increase mana, and HP seems to increase on its own. Monsters continue to live off meat, and often fall to a weaker state before rising back to the level of the party. Robots are a new breed that don't evolve with battle. Instead, they get stat boosts based on equipment. Armor greatly increases their defense, and weapons will either increase strength or agility. The key weakness to their design is their mana stat, which doesn't increase. Mana doubles as magic attack and defense.

Almost done with the boring stuff

The scrolling intro described Magi, a great power left behind by ancient gods. After character creation the scene above shows the main character's father stealing away into the night, but first he left a piece of Magi behind. An undetermined number of years later he still has not returned, so Celd decides to set off in search of him. She said her goodbyes to her mom and teacher, Mr. S. The latter gave her a bit more story about Magi: 77 pieces exist that form the statue of Isis, an ancient god. Each Magi has a special use, and the one I received is called Prism.

That's convenient

Mr. S told me to assemble an additional three members from the rest of the students. I chose one of each class: female mutant, robot, and a slime. My party fully assembled, I left my hometown. Mr. S stopped the party on the way out. He joined through the first cave, which was rather uneventful. There was a boss-type monster waiting at the exit, but he went down in a single use of fire by Mr. S. Additionally, Having a mutant with Flame at this level seems too good. The mutants are the only class with inherent magic abilities. They have four slots for abilities, learned and lost randomly. Unlike the first, only the last slot is replaced each time in order to allow the character to permanently keep up to three skills.

*Plop*

The first town, aptly named First Town, was obsessed with someone named Ki at the Shrine of Isis to the west. In the tavern I learned of Ashura: a power hungry demigod looking for Magi. Ashura's base was to the north near the Pillar of the Sky, which connects this world with others. The tavern also had a music box where it's possible to listen to all the tracks in the game. A standard inn provided healing services at one gold piece per hit point. Staying also restored charges for mutant abilities, and weapons on robots. Weapons normally have a max durability, and degrade by 1 with each use without any way to repair them; however, when equipped on a robot they lose half their durability, but uses get restored at an inn. Immediately I thought, "infinite charges on weapons," but the weapon is reduced by half a second time when unequipped from a robot, so the net gain isn't much. I bought some armor, especially for my robot, and moved on to the shrine.

Artist rendering of Till-bot at this point

Ki, a cleric with the power to heal (is this rare?) directed me to a big rock to the south where Magi might reside. While I found some, most of the chests were empty. The Magi recovered appeared to be stat boosting, so I equipped them to each member. In the Magi menu there are options to equip or use the Magi, but only the Prism did anything useful. I ended up chasing the culprits out the back, but they escaped, killing some guards on the way out.

Strangely no sugar coating here

When the party broke the news to Ki she joined us to assail Ashura's base. A second town on the way provided a respite before I steamrolled through the base. Seriously, the early game is a bit of a joke. After beating another easy boss-type monster waiting for the party, the base started to collapse. As we rushed out I picked up three more Magi, some elemental ones that I figured enhanced my affinity with those spells. Escaping put us directly in front of the Pillar of the Sky. Ki stayed behind in her world while I pressed on to Ashura's desert world.

Each world is locked until enough Magi are gathered

Ashura's world began with a Desert Town overrun with scamps, thieves, and vagabonds. The party was waylaid inside the town multiple times. Through some bribery I learned where Ashura was holed up. I upgraded my armor, and tried to follow the directions given by the barkeep. Seven steps south of a cactus and seven east were much harder to follow in the sand storms because the ground continuously moved the party. Clumsily we made our way south. There was a town outside Ashura's tower, but it wasn't of much consequence. The tower climb was fairly easy, and I found a masked man named Mask that joined my party. Now, up to this point I was feeling very confident about getting through this game without much trouble. Then I came to Ashura. Being the first monster to cast mass damage spells my party members fell quickly. Before Mask could get a cure off on himself, he also fell. Till-bot was the final member standing, and delivered the final blow at just 40 HP.

Never to be seen again... wait, was that Celd's father?

Ashura gloated that minions were micronized, and would invade Ki's body to extract the Magi residing inside her. She wasn't doing too well when I arrived, completely catatonic. I was directed to the world of giants for a solution. The giants world was once ruled by giants, but no longer. Rumor had it they found a way to reduce their size. Asking around town revealed that a shopkeeper was getting giant armor. I confronted him about his source by sneaking into his shop from the side. He directed me to Johnny at the tavern, who revealed I needed to find a different colored block to enter the giant's town.

Oh yeah, I also found my dad

Even though my original goal was to find my father, he wouldn't come home without recovering all the Magi. He warned about others like Ashura, seeking them only for power, and they had to be stopped. Thus concludes night one.

It's a rather enjoyable game. I'm sorry for the slow posts, and the rather short one here. I've already completed the game, and well into The Bard's Tale, so hopefully I can catch up to my current game soon without slowing down how often I play. In any case, I wanted to get something out this week instead of delaying once again. I'll have the follow-up post(s) soon.



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