Describing my attempts to play Final Fantasy II as anything less than frustrating would be a disservice. All the nonsense I’ve had to put up with has been insurmountable. I have to admit, I almost just skipped this entry due to frustration. I persevered and got about 1/3rd of the way into the game. However, more issues cropped up and so I put it on hold. With the end of Final Fantasy VI, I decided I wanted to finish the 2D era of games before moving ahead. To explain this delay, I have chronicled my adventures here.

Final Fantasy—first released in 1987—reached the English-speaking market in 1990. It has seen approximately 20 different releases over the years. My first encounter with it was as a child when I visited the U.S. for the first time. I’m going to go ahead and say that my first impressions were not great. I never left Corneria. I didn’t understand combat. The monster sprites kinda scared me. I was very young. And bad at games.

Not even including direct sequels and spin-offs, Final Fantasy has a long legacy. I’d recently discovered a fondness for RPGs I had forgotten. Where better to express that fondness than some classic games? So I decided to play the first 10 of the mainline Final Fantasy games throughout 2020. At least that was the plan, I’ve since decided to take my time. The first thing to decide on is which version of each game I was playing. And also all the work that is going to entail for streaming it.