I spent a lot of time playing this game. I never beat it, but supposedly, I’d gotten to the final boss so at least I got that under my belt. It’s not an easy game. It pounded me, mauled me, and beat me half way to death. It’s a brutal game. It’s a simple game. I liked it a lot, but not as much as Dragon Quest I+II or III.

It’s very much like the original Final Fantasy, where you picked your class, your friends’ classes, and then you go off and fight monsters. Except the classes here include Monster and Robot. Which is pretty cool. The battle system is pretty standard, but the way that they’re played it is a lot like if someone stripped the grid from Fire Emblem and just left the breakable weapons and magic(?!) behind. The level up system feels something like Final Fantasy II except you can’t bash each other. Leveling up feels random sometimes.

Graphics-wise, it’s like someone took Final Fantasy, stripped the sprites of all color and said “Here ya go!” They work. You can usually tell what most things are, although there are some oddities here and there sometimes with some tiles. Monsters are static and only display one of their kind, even when you’re up against 15 of them.

The sound in this game are good. I still can hear the overworld theme song. And the battle theme is coming back to me. Aw yeah. Sound effects are pretty standard stuff, though.

The story in this is largely forgettable, though. It’s just enough to get you to go “Alright, let’s go fight bad guys!” It all begins when Indiana Jones, your dad, jumps out the window because he can’t seem to grasp the concepts of doors while leaving behind some Magi thing. So, you grow up and you remember “Hey, I used to have a dad! I wonder what happened to him” and then you go look for him and get caught in something bigger.

I recommend it to fans of older Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest games, but I don’t think it has aged too well. It’s very difficult, even moreso than earlier RPGs. If that isn’t what floats your boat, maybe you’re better off with the DS remake or looking elsewhere.

Here is a 100% translation of Final Fantasy Legend II in Portuguese.

• Final Fantasy Legend II (U) [!].gb
• CRC32: 58314182
• MD5: 2BB0DF1B672253AAA5F9CAF9AAB78224
• SHA-1: 6AB6890E8F688BCD87E97886A1748A4D9D341909