Final Fantasy Legend II Review: Is it actually legendary?

The Final Fantasy Legend II is, as almost every RPG nerd knows, not truly a Final Fantasy game, but instead, the second entry in the SaGa series. The game introduces a lot of new, innovative ideas that build upon the original game. This game is a really unique RPG that takes a lot of things from the original and tweaks them in different ways to make a new experience. I, Brighton Nelson of RPG Ranked, will expose the good, the bad, and the Casey Jones in today's review: The Final Fantasy Legend II Review: Is it actually legendary?

Battle System - 7.5

Final Fantasy Legend II's battle system functions exactly the same as the first game's, but it is changed up a tad bit more if you decide to play a fan-patched version of the DS remake. In the DS version, you can combo moves with the powers of Love, Friendship, Hate, amongst other things. Having played both versions of the game, these combos make the game a little more flashy, but they aren't anything particularly special. This game has a pretty solid, simple battle system, made fun by the solid, simple customization system. The battles here never got too boring, but they were never all too fun either.

Story - 2

While the story contains more characters, worlds, plotlines and such than the original, the second legend has none of the mystery or impact of the first game. While collecting tens of relics could draw out an interesting story, this game's story is far too thin, even for the game's short runtime. While the story has two semi-decent plot twists near the end, they are too little, too late for this game's weak plot. While the first game was pretty paper-thin, this is atom-thin.

Characters - 2

Unlike the original, there's actually quite a few named characters here. While I applaud the game for trying, the characters here are so uninteresting that it's not even funny. While Mr. S is cool and the player's dad has a little bit of importance to the story, neither of them add nearly enough for me to consider this game far below the bar in terms of RPG characters.

Art & Graphics - 5

Since I primarily played the DS remake of the game, that's the art style I'm primarily going to be judging here. The standout art in this game was definitely the awesome artwork in the bestiary for the monsters. That had to have taken a long time to make all that art, especially for something many players won't really appreciate. So, that was a lovely inclusion. However, even by DS standards, the graphics in this game look a decent bit worse than the original Game Boy graphics. Even while the original definitely wins in this category, the remake smokes the competition in the next category, so I'm happy with giving both versions the same score overall.

Sidequests - 5

The DS version of this game actually has a good bit of sidequests, even if they're completely average in the grand scheme of RPG sidequests. There's a bonus dungeon full of traps and foes, plenty of monster entries to collect and add to your bestiary, and, of course, an extensive sidequest that involves increasing the power of the goddesses, which allow you to become far stronger than you could ever be without the goddesses. There's also plenty of relics to collect to prepare for the end of the story. While most of them aren't entirely sidequests, the fetch quest style of obtaining them sometimes makes it feel like it is. While these sidequests are nothing special, they're also memorable enough and adequate enough to not score below average, unlike many other categories in this game.

Music - 5

I don't remember disliking any of the music from this game, but I couldn't really lie and say that it was memorable. It was certainly a step down from the original's soundtrack... and I was incredibly surprised to see that this soundtrack was composed by the legends Nobuo Uematsu and Kenji Ito, because it sounded way too generic to be either of their compositions. I was quite disappointed by this soundtrack after I learned who was attached to it, but, I mean, it's still an average RPG soundtrack. It's not terrible, just not very good either.

Customization System - 8

While there's one more character type to play than the original in the Robot, I still believe this customization isn't quite a completely direct upgrade over its predecessor. But I'll get into that in a moment.

First, I would like to note all of the new additions that I enjoy. The Robot is a really cool character because his stats are modified drastically by equipment more than any other character at the cost of not gaining any stats through ulterior methods. The Robot is typically molded into an incredible glass cannon that wipes the floor with enemies at the cost of dying very easily, or into a tank that can easily outlast the rest of the team. Another great addition is that many characters join your party in the fifth slot throughout the game. While the majority of them are embarrassingly weak, some of them are quite awesome to have on the team. The last major addition I'd like to cover is only in the Japan-exclusive (but fan-translated!) DS remake. This version adds an extensive, interesting sidequest chain relating to the goddesses, and through this sidequest, you accumulate combo attack charges and stronger versions of the goddesses that randomly help you in battle. All of these things are fantastic additions!

Howerver, two major issues hold back this score from surpassing the original. The first is the set of changes that ruin the unique nature of the Human class. In the original, unlike this title, the Human was unique because you purchased stat upgrades for them at shops. This, along with the lack of abilities, made the class feel completely distinct from the Mutant (or Esper, in the remake). Now, Humans just gain stats twice as fast to make up for the lack of abilities, which just isn't interesting at all. However, as much as that sucks, the much more pressing problem is that the Monster system became much more frustrating in this title. Filling up the Bestiary and trying every Monster was very exciting and intuitive in the original. However, here, it is an absolute nightmare, and the gatekeeping behind getting your monster-of-choice due to the lack of monster types in certain worlds simply makes the system feel far more suffocating and annoying compared to the original, even if the monsters are more interesting overall. There's a lot of great additions, and the problems I mentioned are quite personal and probably don't pertain to too many people, so overall, the customization is pretty solid in The Final Fantasy Legend II.

Locations - 5

One of my favorite parts of the original game was its distinct and memorable locations, even if there were very few of them to explore. The Tower was a mysterious concept the first time around, and climbing into each of the four worlds was an absolute treat. So, imagine my excitement when I heard this game has more worlds and some pretty inspired concepts. The game goes much bigger, but at the expense of quality—this game falls right into the stereotypical sequel trap. While some worlds stood out, like Venus's World, the game just dragged on too long. The game tries to rely on setpieces over story, and while it's still fun to stumble upon new worlds as you climb the Tower, the worlds are just too long and too uninteresting to carry this long of a game, which is something the original didn't struggle with at all. On paper, this game certainly should have had better locations than the original, but, in execution, this game absolutely falters.

Quality of Life - 5

I already explained most of my problems with this game in the customization system section, but the only other thing I'd have to say is that there's some parts in the final moments of the game where you are pretty screwed if you didn't account for the fact you'd lose your relics. The final dungeon is an enormous difficulty spike, and it is incredibly hard to defeat the final boss if you weren't aware of that. You need to be completely optimal with every single piece of equipment perfectly ready to go for the final boss, which, in some ways, I enjoyed, but, in others, it just makes for a pretty frustrating final few hours. I enjoy difficulty, so that's not a big deal, but was just pointing this out as something of a warning. Other than that, it's just the jankiness of the monster system and how disappointing that was that leads this score to be so low.

The Verdict

Fun Factor: 5
Overall Score: 49%
Letter Rating: D

Final Fantasy Legend II expands on the original game, but not really for the better. While I usually love sequels that just take the original and make them bigger, a major part of the charm of the original was how compact it was. The original knew that it didn't have way too much interesting to say, but it gave everything in a brief bite of gameplay that made it absolutely work, even if it wasn't the greatest game of all time. However, Final Fantasy Legend II, even with it shooting for the stars to create something bigger and better than the original, ended up becoming a game that I was struggling to finish, even though it only took around 25 hours to complete the game and all its sidequests (I gave up on finishing the Bestiary, because that likely would have added another 25 hours minimum to the runtime). This game simply didn't have enough to even justify that length, and it really just rings hollow compared to the original. I'd recommend this game to people who are absolutely in love with the original and need more of it, but I still warn you that it is not going to blow you away.

Primary Version: SaGa 2: Goddess of Destiny (DS)