Played to completion on Nobara Linux. No issues detected.
It's perhaps surprising, or maybe it was just the natural progression of things in the 1980s, but FFII isn't just a carbon copy of the previous game that turned out to be a huge hit for Square. It would have been easy for them to simply take the formula and do another game just like it, but with a different story. Instead of doing that, they heavily changed some fundamental things, clearly still experimenting with what they'd want to do with the genre.
An evil Palamecian empire is waging a war of conquest. Four youngsters, Firion, Maria, Guy and Leon, are almost killed during an attack on their home and, sans Leon, are rescued by Princess Hilda, who is running the rebel organisation from the town of Altair. The trio asks to join the rebellion, but are denied. So they decide to go look for Leon, who is also Maria's brother, in the city of Fynn. Instead of finding Leon, they find important information that prompts Hilda to let them join the rebellion, and she tasks them with looking for precious adamantium for the blacksmiths.
Here's one of the very big differences in comparison to the first game. FFII feels much more story-driven. Hilda and other people give you very clear quests and goals to complete. You constantly know where to go, and there's a very clear progression in the narrative. This progression even shows on the world map as well as the locations of the people, as they move to different locations after some quests have been completed. There's no ambiguity about what you need to do, as you are always on the trail of finding a way to defeat the evil emperor.
The 2nd, and perhaps the biggest change, is in the game mechanics in terms of character progression. While you still need to fight to get better, there's no typical XP-based levelling system or even base character classes. Instead, you are given blank slate characters who can use all the weapons, armour, and spells. You improve the skills by using them, so if you want the character to get better with swords, you use swords; if you want the character to be a better mage, you use spells. In the original, you gained more hit points by receiving damage; in the remaster, you have an option to improve hit points after a specific number of battles, but you can also improve them by taking damage. It's a completely different kind of system from the first game, and I do believe it might be a unique one to FFII in the Final Fantasy series.
I wouldn't call it a great system, as it is extremely easy to game it. Especially with the auto-attack system these remasters have. For example, if you want to quickly get the max spell points, you can just find a location with easy enemies and set everyone to cast spells like stop or mini, which won't kill the enemies and hit auto combat. Rinse and repeat a couple of times, and you have your spell points maxed out in no time. This improves the used spells as well. Instead of buying higher-level spells, you improve spells by casting them, so with this auto-combat trick, you'll be getting the best versions of the spells you like the best in no time at all. Especially with the skill boosters found in the remaster.
Speaking of skill boosters, unlike in the first game, you can actually die a bit more easily in FFII, even with boosters on, if you happen to wander into an area with enemies way above your scale. But if you just mostly follow the storyline as it's presented to you by the quest givers, FFII provides a similarly easy experience should you so choose.
Firion, Maria and Guy are the main group of the story. You do get various other characters to fill in the fourth slot, but they hang around only through their respective bits of story. And speaking of story, after finally killing the emperor, you find out that Leon, Maria's missing brother, has been working for him all this time and has now announced himself as the new emperor and plans to continue the campaign of terror. Maria is certain she can talk sense, so the trio is off again.
As they confront Leon, the true emperor, the one who was killed not so long ago, he rises from hell to take his place as the rightful ruler and opens the Jade Passage, the way to the Pandemonium that is the hell he intends to rule from. So, now with Leon tagging along, the group kills the emperor again and finally, cue the end credits.
I do think Final Fantasy II is a couple of steps forward and a couple back. The bigger focus on the story is great, and the story flows well. But then there's the character progression, which isn't quite as clever as it could be. Sure, it is more interesting than in the first game, but it is still just another type of grind.
Still, FFII is a solid JRPG. It holds up well to the end, perhaps just because of how simple a game it is from a modern perspective. Pixel Remaster is available for PC, consoles and mobile devices. You can get it from Steam, where it's on sale often enough.
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