FFV was ****, the story was stale and the job system... power level every job for each character, revert to "jobless" and equip the most powerful armor/abilities. Proceed to spank final boss with a few yawns.
Thanks for ruining it for me. :shakes fist:
Though I think FFII takes the cake. Seriously. Play it normally : impossible to finish or even get past the first few story line hubs. No, instead you wait to get a 4th "NPC" that won't stick around, get into combat and then start attacking yourself... but wait... by pressing "Attack->Cancel->Attack->Cancel->Attack->Cancel" 99 times per character. After a few tedious hours of doing this, power through the entire game just auto-attacking trash and using Blood Sword to 1 or 2 hit bosses, even the last one.
The sad part is they could have actually FIXED FFII when they made the WonderSwan remake which was ported to Playstation and then to iOS and every other devices out there. You know, give it actual sane leveling mechanics, fix the damn Blood Sword glitch, etc.. But no, they left it as is, slapped 16 bit graphics and used the Final Fantasy brand to sell it.
I haven't played much of Final Fantasy II and V, but from what little I've seen, you might have a point. I assumed FFII didn't grow on me because I played it well past it's expiration date, and didn't have nostalgia to fall back on. V...well. I goofed around with it for an hour or so on an emulator, and it...I dunno...it lacked the magic IV and VI had. The characters weren't all that interesting, the music was sub par compared to the other SNES titles, and the graphics actually seemed like a step back from the previous entry. It didn't tickle my fancy, I guess you could say.
Though I would buy an iOS remake for two reasons.
1: to maybe see if I initially judged the game a little too harshly, and...
2, to throw in my support for the platform, which will hopefully lay the groundwork for VI, which, in my opinion, was the high point of the series.
At the very least, it could make for a nice little diversion.
Also, FF2 sounds quite a bit like the Gameboy Final Fantasies, which I actually liked. Granted, I had zero experience with RPGs back then, so I probably was easily impressed, and far more forgiving...
*sigh*. Not all the of the original Final Fantasies were great. There's a reason North America got FF -> FF IV -> FF VI and didn't get II, III and V. That's why our memories of SquareSoft are so good, they're tainted by us never having suffered they BS back in the days. Now we get most every **** title they put out, same as the Japanese folk. And we think Square went "downhill" when in fact they've always been standing there, just sometimes, they climb up for a peak at the view before going back down.
Everyone has their ups and downs, that's to be expected. They problem with Square these days is their valleys are even deeper, and their peaks aren't anywhere near as soaring.
This might be my curmudgeonly old man opinion, but I think Square's last big hurrah came and went with the original Playstation. Yeah, it marked the beginning of the downhill slide of the FF series, but it was also the generation they put out some of their best titles. Final Fantasy Tactics, Vagrant Story, Xenogears...they were grand, grand games.
Nowadays, I only look to Square-Enix only for the occasional Dragon Quest release, and seeing what good old games they'll be remaking next. Kinda sad, but they're not the company they used to be.