Small correction about Agility. I erroneously said that Agility increases were based on how often you evaded, which isn't true, it's based on your evasion percentage. For example if Firion has a 65% evasion he has a pretty decent change to get an Agility increase at the end of combat.
Deathball, what you didn't mention is that shields also increase Agility when it's equipped and stays equipped. The higher the Evasion, the better your Agility increases.
In Pixel Remaster from what ive seen it works like this: You get a small max HP increase for one character every 2nd-3rd battle or so regardless. You get more HP and Stamina up if you get big hits in battle and survive(this includes hitting yourself). Using a weapon increases that weapon types dmg and hits for the character using them, plus you might get strength boost when winning battles. Using magic increases your magic lvl, intelligence, spirit and MP, depending if youre using white or black magic. You get agility boost every now and then when you keep blocking/evading enemy attacks, how high that will be will depend of the gear you put on your characters and it shows the percentages. Gaining HP is a lot easier in the pixel remaster version than others. This system is very versatile, you can make any character specialize in any type of situation, a frontline fighter, a mage or a healer, or maybe be proficient in all if you really want to grind them. This system was refined even more in FF3 with the addition of the class system, also found in FF5. However there are certain limits, for instance the starting area enemies only increase your weapon levels to 3 or so before it becomes very slow, if you want to keep advancing them, you need to find more powerful enemies. In the Bestiary this is listed below the monsters name, as a monster rank. The higher this number is the more powerful the foe is considered and a higher boost you can get, until a certain limit(I think the hard cap is lvl 16). This is different from other versions, where it didn't matter which level of enemies you face, you could still advance or use the drain trick. I guess they wanted to balance it around. In short, the more battles you do and the harder enemies you face, the more powerful your characters become, steadily. In the Pixel Remaster this has been made considerably faster and easier. You should gain a stat boost of somekind every other battle or so, considering the enemies you face are on your level. This game basically keeps you on an average level for your adventuring area, as long as you don't avoid battle too much. There shouldn't be much trouble on that front. You still need to grind spells if you want them to be powerful, though. Lvl 5 fire spell for instance does very poor damage when multi targeting, but better on single target. The spell cost increases with how powerful you make it, for example lvl 3 fire costs 3 MP, while lvl 10 costs 10 MP to use. Warning for new players: In the first mission where you are send to Fynn to locate Scott, DO NOT talk to the imperial troops stationed in Fynn, they are very powerful, and will attack and murder your party. Also do not venture much north or west of Fynn to the swamps and beyond, the enemies become SIGNIFICANTLY harder there for starting characters. Once you get Minwu, who is good at keeping the party alive, you can try that area if you want to power level and boost your characters more, though it is rather unneccessary as this version is easier. Some of the enemies in that area, mainly magicians and ogres, have a chance to drop decent new spells or even some equipment. The area that wraps up from northwest to the southeast of the map does come more deadlier the further up you go(It eventually leads to the hostile Palamecian Empire territory, the huge desert, and enemies there are very hard to handle for starter groups). Also later some types of enemies can poison, stun, blind or turn party members to stone just by hitting them, so Id keep leveling spells Esuna and Basuna(better lvl of Esuna heals more serious conditions) or have a steady supply of curing reagents in the backpack to cure them. Sometimes physical attack will deal 0 dmg on enemies, cause your melee weapons or weapon levels are too weak and the enemy defense is high, in such a case(first instances you see this is on some turtle like monsters, slimes and imperial officers) try using offensive magic on them to deal decent damage.
When I first played through Final Fantasy II, I used the old fan translation of the NES version by NeoDemiforce. For my second and third playthroughs, I used the PSP version. For my last playthrough, I used the Pixel Remaster version on Steam.
This is one of the best Final Fantasy games in the series and really up there with the likes of FF5 with how much customization and flexibility you have with managing the characters. If you want to make Maria a dual axe wielding manic who fights on the front lines with the fellas...no problem. If you want to make Furion play the back row assassin with a bow and mix of black/white magic...no problem. Unlike other RPGs stats like Intelligence or Strength aren't tethered to an assigned class where those get preferential treatment over others during leveling up and allows you to mix and match however you want which gives it great replay value and a whole lot of fun. When people criticize or talk bad about this game, I truly believe it's because they've never played through it themselves and just repeat what others have told them about it. The other thing is don't just keep pressing buttons to rush after the battle...read the notifications. Not to say you'll figure out everything on your own without a guide like this video but you'll absorb a lot if you just pay attention to what you're doing and what's happening with each improvement. The game will reward you time and time again with each playthrough. 😎
You voice and cadence REALLY REALLY lend themselves to how-to's and tutorials. May I recommend that you do a few? I'm subbing to you rn, if you do a couple tutorials I'll 100% watch them. I like your style. Hopefully you develop this!
This is very enlightening and stunningly underrated! If there was one flaw it was that you seemed so unsure about yourself. Just work on saying uhm/uh and it'll be perfect! Other than that this video is awesome 😎.
Thank you for the criticism. When it comes to videos like these I should make a script to read off of instead of going off the top of my head to help with the pauses and all the ums and uhs.
I understand that. When I was looking up more info on this games mechanics, I found a lot of contradictory info. Maybe it's because the NES version and the newer versions are so different I could never find a definitive, "Yes this is how this mechanic works." Now it seems, after the Pixel Remaster more solid info has come out. I'll update my list of sources in the description, so people can see some more up-to-date info that's probably more accurate.
likewise. slowly learning the weaponskill leveling mechanic and spells system. i do really with they would of went with the psp look on all the games in the remaster. its so nice!
Black magic skill grinding is harder than weapon skill grinding. Getting the Magic Tactics trophy/achievement in the Pixel Remaster version is a challenge.
Increasing agility here is such an oxymoron in practice. In my every gameplay of ff2 when maxing stats, agility is ALWAYS the thing that will max up on the very last. Heck, leveling up evasion is more practical of "polishing your agility" because the method is how much your party member being targeted for physical attack. Which you can exploit it by changing order from which party member you want to increase evasion to front while letting the other 3 to the back, either grinding their bow levels with their least effective hand to deal minimum damage as possible, hit themselves with their bows, or not. Agility increase here is super randomly chosen. Equipping 2 shields to make 99% of evasion is just adding some chance to the most chaotic randomly chosen stat increase that is agility, but you'd better let your party member naked and have 99% than never. Agility here is actually teaching players patience and luck rather than actually telling them about how agile are you to dodge this attack.
Thank you! I haven’t watched the video yet but I love this game’s levelling system (despite what the critics say) and I’d love to know how it works, so I’ll definitely try watch this later. Quick question; are any of the versions you covered equivalent to the GBA version in its levelling mechanics? Edit: thanks for clarifying, for some reason I thought it was different in the GBA and PSP versions
Square Enix could do a future remaster of Final Fantasy I-VI, using the high resolution graphical assets of the last 2D version before Pixel Remaster, and at the same camera angle as Pixel Remaster or wider. Final Fantasy III would have to be upres’d from scratch. It would reinstate the content from Finest Fantasy for Advance and later, except for Final Fantasy III. There could be Final Fantasy Modern Remaster, Final Fantasy Mode 7 Remaster, or Final Fantasy HD-2D Remaster.
They should’ve changed the dashes to x’s or asterisks to more effectively communicate that it’s the amount of times you can hit/dodge, would’ve been a lot clearer as to what it means
Quick question about weapon levels. I just started the PR version and nearly all my weapons, including bare handed, are at level e. Do I need to get better equipment or fight stronger monsters to rise to higher levels? Thank you!
I. Playing the pixel remaster and for some reason its not showing my weapon xp bar fill up after a fight or on the statues screen. I'm playing on ps5 also
Weapon levels are kinda weird.You're probably fighting some weak enemies that are dying too fast. You get weapon XP based on how much you use them in battle, so if you're fighting some really weak enemies and they're dying in one hit you won't really get any XP after your level is high enough. Also the cap is Level 16, so if you're at 16 it won't go any higher. Also if you want to grind weapon XP the enemies called Captains are great for weapon XP
Only 4 minutes in and already have heard so many, "Don't know", "I think"", "Maybe" type statements that this comes off as probably one of the last videos you would probably want to get information from and from what I saw so far, defiantly comes off as not worth continuing as well as what appears as if it would be complete waste of the remaining 23 minutes the video has left.
I understand. When I was searching for info about the mechanics I found a lot of contradictory info so it was hard to say with 100% certainty this is how this works. This game has systems that work very differently depending on which version, and some resources I found were written in 2003.
Weapon levels increase the more you use them, so you're most likely killing enemies too fast. there's an enemy in Fynn called Captain that is probably the best enemy to grind Weapon Levels
The more important thing than how many attacks you get in each fight is what rank an enemy is. The earlier enemies in the game are rank 1, so you get 1 weapon XP per attack. Later enemies go to much higher ranks so you get more weapon XP per attack. But the problem is is that the higher your weapon level gets the more XP you have to get to actually gain the XP. As a rough example (not exact figures): Three goblins (rank 1) vs Maria with a spear (level 1) solo. Three turns so 3 XP. It takes 10 XP to get to level 2. Three goblins (rank 1) vs Maria with a spear (level 8) solo. Three turns so 3 XP. However since her spear level is level 8 she needs more than 3 XP to get past the initial gap to start gaining XP. So you might need 24 XP to get 3 effective XP. EDIT: Also Evade attempts is an actual stat you can gain in battle. Sometimes you'll see a message that says you gain evade, that means that number went up one point.
Using this formula it's pretty much impossible to get any weapon experience from Goblins after a certain level because they'll always die too fast even with weak weapons equipped. This is why Captains are a great way to grind Weapon lvls since they are rank 5 and if you equip some weak weapons you can easily get the hits you need to continue getting weapon XP until you get to 16
@@deathball39 You can attack your own party members to gain the experience I believe. But that just becomes pointless grinding when you could just advance the plot since you don't really need to be THAT strong. Also going west of Fynn you'll start running into Wizards, Turtles, and various other enemies who can drop some really good equipment and spells once you have strong enough magic to kill them (Ice is good for killing the turtles).
The PSP and GBA version are pretty much identical. The only real difference is the PSP version has the Arcane Labyrinth but when it comes to gameplay and how stats are obtained they're essentially identical.
I never really needed grinding in 5. I only ever did a significant amount at the very end to “complete” the builds I had going, and that ended up being overkill for the complete joke that was the final fight
I see why most say FF2 was there most hated game. The best way to level is attacking your own party. I'm trying to get through the nes version but I think I will skip this and move to ff3. I enjoyed ff1 but this is just terrible.
30 ummm min video uhhh could have ummmm been ten uhhhhh minutes with a script and some re recordings of you not saying unmm. I dont know every ten seconds. Kinda made the vidoe unwatchable for me. Sorry.
Someone correct me but this version doesnt seem to have the degradation of stats like the original... such as building too much strength lowers your intelligence and intelligence degrades spirit... also originally hp and mp only goes up by getting hurt or using magic... its kinda unfortunate that they made it so easy for noobs in my opinion... still a great game though
![Mega Man Speedrun in 18:08 [CURRENT WORLD RECORD]](/img/n.gif)
Small correction about Agility. I erroneously said that Agility increases were based on how often you evaded, which isn't true, it's based on your evasion percentage. For example if Firion has a 65% evasion he has a pretty decent change to get an Agility increase at the end of combat.
Deathball, what you didn't mention is that shields also increase Agility when it's equipped and stays equipped. The higher the Evasion, the better your Agility increases.
In Pixel Remaster from what ive seen it works like this: You get a small max HP increase for one character every 2nd-3rd battle or so regardless. You get more HP and Stamina up if you get big hits in battle and survive(this includes hitting yourself). Using a weapon increases that weapon types dmg and hits for the character using them, plus you might get strength boost when winning battles. Using magic increases your magic lvl, intelligence, spirit and MP, depending if youre using white or black magic. You get agility boost every now and then when you keep blocking/evading enemy attacks, how high that will be will depend of the gear you put on your characters and it shows the percentages. Gaining HP is a lot easier in the pixel remaster version than others. This system is very versatile, you can make any character specialize in any type of situation, a frontline fighter, a mage or a healer, or maybe be proficient in all if you really want to grind them. This system was refined even more in FF3 with the addition of the class system, also found in FF5.
However there are certain limits, for instance the starting area enemies only increase your weapon levels to 3 or so before it becomes very slow, if you want to keep advancing them, you need to find more powerful enemies. In the Bestiary this is listed below the monsters name, as a monster rank. The higher this number is the more powerful the foe is considered and a higher boost you can get, until a certain limit(I think the hard cap is lvl 16). This is different from other versions, where it didn't matter which level of enemies you face, you could still advance or use the drain trick. I guess they wanted to balance it around.
In short, the more battles you do and the harder enemies you face, the more powerful your characters become, steadily. In the Pixel Remaster this has been made considerably faster and easier. You should gain a stat boost of somekind every other battle or so, considering the enemies you face are on your level. This game basically keeps you on an average level for your adventuring area, as long as you don't avoid battle too much. There shouldn't be much trouble on that front. You still need to grind spells if you want them to be powerful, though. Lvl 5 fire spell for instance does very poor damage when multi targeting, but better on single target. The spell cost increases with how powerful you make it, for example lvl 3 fire costs 3 MP, while lvl 10 costs 10 MP to use.
Warning for new players: In the first mission where you are send to Fynn to locate Scott, DO NOT talk to the imperial troops stationed in Fynn, they are very powerful, and will attack and murder your party. Also do not venture much north or west of Fynn to the swamps and beyond, the enemies become SIGNIFICANTLY harder there for starting characters. Once you get Minwu, who is good at keeping the party alive, you can try that area if you want to power level and boost your characters more, though it is rather unneccessary as this version is easier. Some of the enemies in that area, mainly magicians and ogres, have a chance to drop decent new spells or even some equipment. The area that wraps up from northwest to the southeast of the map does come more deadlier the further up you go(It eventually leads to the hostile Palamecian Empire territory, the huge desert, and enemies there are very hard to handle for starter groups). Also later some types of enemies can poison, stun, blind or turn party members to stone just by hitting them, so Id keep leveling spells Esuna and Basuna(better lvl of Esuna heals more serious conditions) or have a steady supply of curing reagents in the backpack to cure them. Sometimes physical attack will deal 0 dmg on enemies, cause your melee weapons or weapon levels are too weak and the enemy defense is high, in such a case(first instances you see this is on some turtle like monsters, slimes and imperial officers) try using offensive magic on them to deal decent damage.
Damn thanks for this, somehow stumbled across this comment and answered a few of my current questions without having to look anything up 😅
I did wonder what Rank meant in the bestiary but now i know thank you
When I first played through Final Fantasy II, I used the old fan translation of the NES version by NeoDemiforce. For my second and third playthroughs, I used the PSP version. For my last playthrough, I used the Pixel Remaster version on Steam.
This is one of the best Final Fantasy games in the series and really up there with the likes of FF5 with how much customization and flexibility you have with managing the characters. If you want to make Maria a dual axe wielding manic who fights on the front lines with the fellas...no problem. If you want to make Furion play the back row assassin with a bow and mix of black/white magic...no problem. Unlike other RPGs stats like Intelligence or Strength aren't tethered to an assigned class where those get preferential treatment over others during leveling up and allows you to mix and match however you want which gives it great replay value and a whole lot of fun. When people criticize or talk bad about this game, I truly believe it's because they've never played through it themselves and just repeat what others have told them about it. The other thing is don't just keep pressing buttons to rush after the battle...read the notifications. Not to say you'll figure out everything on your own without a guide like this video but you'll absorb a lot if you just pay attention to what you're doing and what's happening with each improvement. The game will reward you time and time again with each playthrough. 😎
You voice and cadence REALLY REALLY lend themselves to how-to's and tutorials. May I recommend that you do a few? I'm subbing to you rn, if you do a couple tutorials I'll 100% watch them. I like your style. Hopefully you develop this!
Thank you I really appreciate that. if you have any requests I'll gladly take them.
Idk would you consider doing something like FF7 materia?
This is very enlightening and stunningly underrated! If there was one flaw it was that you seemed so unsure about yourself. Just work on saying uhm/uh and it'll be perfect! Other than that this video is awesome 😎.
Thank you for the criticism. When it comes to videos like these I should make a script to read off of instead of going off the top of my head to help with the pauses and all the ums and uhs.
The Toad stat ailment helps in fisticuffs skill grinding in the Pixel Remaster version.
I have to say, all the "I think" and "I'm pretty sure"s in this video are not very confidence-inspiring
I understand that. When I was looking up more info on this games mechanics, I found a lot of contradictory info. Maybe it's because the NES version and the newer versions are so different I could never find a definitive, "Yes this is how this mechanic works." Now it seems, after the Pixel Remaster more solid info has come out. I'll update my list of sources in the description, so people can see some more up-to-date info that's probably more accurate.
This was very helpful, thank you 🙏🏻
Super helpful, thanks!
The spells are the easiest for me to figure out since you just have to use the spells. The rest are A bit more confusing(playing the pixel remaster)
likewise. slowly learning the weaponskill leveling mechanic and spells system. i do really with they would of went with the psp look on all the games in the remaster. its so nice!
Black magic skill grinding is harder than weapon skill grinding. Getting the Magic Tactics trophy/achievement in the Pixel Remaster version is a challenge.
Increasing agility here is such an oxymoron in practice.
In my every gameplay of ff2 when maxing stats, agility is ALWAYS the thing that will max up on the very last. Heck, leveling up evasion is more practical of "polishing your agility" because the method is how much your party member being targeted for physical attack. Which you can exploit it by changing order from which party member you want to increase evasion to front while letting the other 3 to the back, either grinding their bow levels with their least effective hand to deal minimum damage as possible, hit themselves with their bows, or not.
Agility increase here is super randomly chosen. Equipping 2 shields to make 99% of evasion is just adding some chance to the most chaotic randomly chosen stat increase that is agility, but you'd better let your party member naked and have 99% than never.
Agility here is actually teaching players patience and luck rather than actually telling them about how agile are you to dodge this attack.
I just have to say ty to ff2 for inspiring the skills system in xi
This game turned into the saga series
holy cow- the NES had the best music! who knew? ill have to get 1
it has some of my favorite FF tunes.
Thank you! I haven’t watched the video yet but I love this game’s levelling system (despite what the critics say) and I’d love to know how it works, so I’ll definitely try watch this later. Quick question; are any of the versions you covered equivalent to the GBA version in its levelling mechanics?
Edit: thanks for clarifying, for some reason I thought it was different in the GBA and PSP versions
The Final Fantasy Origins PSOne version of Final Fantasy II is similar in gameplay to the NES version.
Square Enix could do a future remaster of Final Fantasy I-VI, using the high resolution graphical assets of the last 2D version before Pixel Remaster, and at the same camera angle as Pixel Remaster or wider. Final Fantasy III would have to be upres’d from scratch. It would reinstate the content from Finest Fantasy for Advance and later, except for Final Fantasy III. There could be Final Fantasy Modern Remaster, Final Fantasy Mode 7 Remaster, or Final Fantasy HD-2D Remaster.
They should’ve changed the dashes to x’s or asterisks to more effectively communicate that it’s the amount of times you can hit/dodge, would’ve been a lot clearer as to what it means
What sucks is they removed the glitch there was in the Final Fantasy Origins version.
Quick question about weapon levels. I just started the PR version and nearly all my weapons, including bare handed, are at level e. Do I need to get better equipment or fight stronger monsters to rise to higher levels? Thank you!
Fighting stronger monsters is the simplest way. Look at the monsters rank in the Bestiary. Higher, the better.
I wonder if the stats in the GBA version are the same as in the PSP version?
they indeed are.
I. Playing the pixel remaster and for some reason its not showing my weapon xp bar fill up after a fight or on the statues screen. I'm playing on ps5 also
Weapon levels are kinda weird.You're probably fighting some weak enemies that are dying too fast. You get weapon XP based on how much you use them in battle, so if you're fighting some really weak enemies and they're dying in one hit you won't really get any XP after your level is high enough. Also the cap is Level 16, so if you're at 16 it won't go any higher. Also if you want to grind weapon XP the enemies called Captains are great for weapon XP
@Deathball yea thats what I'm doing. Doing 2 minutes of auto auto attacking. Then switching to black mage to kill him faster to get a level
Only 4 minutes in and already have heard so many, "Don't know", "I think"", "Maybe" type statements that this comes off as probably one of the last videos you would probably want to get information from and from what I saw so far, defiantly comes off as not worth continuing as well as what appears as if it would be complete waste of the remaining 23 minutes the video has left.
I understand. When I was searching for info about the mechanics I found a lot of contradictory info so it was hard to say with 100% certainty this is how this works. This game has systems that work very differently depending on which version, and some resources I found were written in 2003.
Any tips on the weapons part cause after a while there is a stand still. Like I said the spells seem to be much easier than the weapons is
Weapon levels increase the more you use them, so you're most likely killing enemies too fast. there's an enemy in Fynn called Captain that is probably the best enemy to grind Weapon Levels
The more important thing than how many attacks you get in each fight is what rank an enemy is. The earlier enemies in the game are rank 1, so you get 1 weapon XP per attack. Later enemies go to much higher ranks so you get more weapon XP per attack. But the problem is is that the higher your weapon level gets the more XP you have to get to actually gain the XP. As a rough example (not exact figures): Three goblins (rank 1) vs Maria with a spear (level 1) solo. Three turns so 3 XP. It takes 10 XP to get to level 2.
Three goblins (rank 1) vs Maria with a spear (level 8) solo. Three turns so 3 XP. However since her spear level is level 8 she needs more than 3 XP to get past the initial gap to start gaining XP. So you might need 24 XP to get 3 effective XP.
EDIT: Also Evade attempts is an actual stat you can gain in battle. Sometimes you'll see a message that says you gain evade, that means that number went up one point.
after looking around I seem to have found the formula for Weapons.
# of attacks + opponents(average) battle rank > level of weapon skill.
Using this formula it's pretty much impossible to get any weapon experience from Goblins after a certain level because they'll always die too fast even with weak weapons equipped. This is why Captains are a great way to grind Weapon lvls since they are rank 5 and if you equip some weak weapons you can easily get the hits you need to continue getting weapon XP until you get to 16
@@deathball39 You can attack your own party members to gain the experience I believe. But that just becomes pointless grinding when you could just advance the plot since you don't really need to be THAT strong. Also going west of Fynn you'll start running into Wizards, Turtles, and various other enemies who can drop some really good equipment and spells once you have strong enough magic to kill them (Ice is good for killing the turtles).
Just got 16 x 99% in evade and magic invade and I feel invulnerable.
Is this information correct for the nes/famicom version?
Why am I having flashbacks to FF8 draw system....
They should never have removed Yoshitaka Amano's art !!
Where does the GBA version come into play here?
The PSP and GBA version are pretty much identical. The only real difference is the PSP version has the Arcane Labyrinth but when it comes to gameplay and how stats are obtained they're essentially identical.
Huh I still confused my firion stamina can't increase anymore did you know why it happens ???
I play the PSP version
If it's not at 99, it could be down to just rotten luck. All stat increases are random so you could just be having really bad luck.
The middle installments of the first two Final Fantasy trilogies are grindy.
I never really needed grinding in 5. I only ever did a significant amount at the very end to “complete” the builds I had going, and that ended up being overkill for the complete joke that was the final fight
This game is AOK. After every you have to fight on average every 8 seconds and it gets very very very annoying
Man I hate the leveling system in here, it's way too confusing (albeit cool for it's time)
I see why most say FF2 was there most hated game. The best way to level is attacking your own party. I'm trying to get through the nes version but I think I will skip this and move to ff3. I enjoyed ff1 but this is just terrible.
It's definitely not for everyone. No shame in not playing a game you aren't enjoying.
This was a terrible system put in place to level. ugh.
30 ummm min video uhhh could have ummmm been ten uhhhhh minutes with a script and some re recordings of you not saying unmm. I dont know every ten seconds. Kinda made the vidoe unwatchable for me. Sorry.
Someone correct me but this version doesnt seem to have the degradation of stats like the original... such as building too much strength lowers your intelligence and intelligence degrades spirit... also originally hp and mp only goes up by getting hurt or using magic... its kinda unfortunate that they made it so easy for noobs in my opinion... still a great game though