Introduction

Hello again everybody, and welcome to another Let's Play of the Saga/Final Fantasy Legend series of games.

Today's offering is Final Fantasy Legend II which introduced a new character type and saw an overhaul of many core game mechanics from the original Final Fantasy Legend. It's also got much more in the way of a character driven plot than the original Final Fantasy Legend and indeed than many games of the era. It was one of the first gameboy RPGs that I played and as a kid it was hard as hell. As an adult, I enjoyed it more.

Like the other Final Fantasy Legend this game was retitled in order to cash in on the popularity of the Final Fantasy franchise as opposed to being used to introduce a new brand. So, we get this very boring box for ours as compared to...

The far more interesting Japanese box art. I mean, look at it. No chainsaw, but we've got a hero who's bristling with weapons, a cool looking robot, a dragon, and a half naked girl on the side.

A new version was released for the DS in Japan in 2009, although there's no word of it coming to the US. We can only hope to see it coming over as it includes a less obtuse system, encounters becoming no longer random, and 3D graphics.

The plot in this game revolves around Magi, which are not wise men but instead are remnants of the power of some ancient gods that can grant their possessors powers and abilities beyond those of ordinary men or monsters. More to follow about that, but it's enough to know that this game is going to involve lots of treasure hunting.

This is the party selection screen. I'm going to break down the party options here.

Humans

Humans are the primary race once more in Final Fantasy Legend but their mechanics have been changed a bit. Instead of advancing primarily through the use of potions Humans now gain stats semi-randomly after battles. Their stat gains are related to their actions in battle, however, making it possible to direct stat gains. HP gains, on the other hand, are still fairly random. A big change is that they can now use magic although they are restricted to using magic books rather than innate magic.

Mutants

Mutants are also making a return appearance with a few useful changes. They gain stats randomly in the manner of humans, but generally do so more slowly. While humans have 8 inventory slots mutants have 4 inventory slots and 4 ability slots. After battle mutants can gain new abilities but we now have some control over the process. The bottom ability in the menu is always the one that's replaced.

Monsters

Monsters are still much the same as they were in Final Fantasy Legend and change forms through eating meat, but the process of evolving them has become a bit more difficult since the number of variables involved has increased a bit. Not much to say, but at least there's more variety available.

Robot

Our newest character type is the Robot, and it's a welcome addition. Robots gain stats and HP through equipping weapons and armor and have an important quality that none of the other classes do. When a robot equips a weapon the uses of it are cut in half, but can be restored from resting at an inn. They're useless for magic but can perform very well as gun and weapon users. They've also got a few other quirks that we'll get to eventually.

The LP Premise

As I've mentioned before, this game has more plot than Final Fantasy Legend and less obvious glitches. As a result I'm going to be handling this one a bit differently. I'm planning on playing through the game twice, once to showcase the story and game mechanics and once to have fun and exploit the hell out of some of the more outrageous bugs and glitches. We'll handle that second one when the first is complete.

The first playthrough is going to be using all four character types, one of each. What I need from you, my readers, is a bit of help on party options and names. One name each for a Human, Mutant, Robot, and Monster, and corresponding genders for the Human and Mutant. Limit is four characters, no numbers.