Final Fantasy II (ファイナルファンタジーII Fainaru Fantajī II) is the second installment in the Final Fantasy Series. It is notable for being one of the first story-intensive RPGs released for a console system, and for being the first game in the series to feature many elements that would later become staples of the Final Fantasy franchise, including chocobos and a character by the name of Cid. It was also unique for eliminating the traditional experience-based advancement system, instead favoring a system wherein the statistics of playable characters increased according either to how much they were required, or how much they used. In other words, a character who frequently cast magic spells would have their proficiency at casting increase faster than a character who specialized in physical attacks.
Although abandoned by subsequent installments in the series, a similar system was adopted by the SaGa series, also produced by Square. As a side-note, this game was actually designed by Akitoshi Kawazu, who later designed the SaGa series, rather than Hironobu Sakaguchi, creator of the series. Because of the popularity of the series in America during the '90s, Final Fantasy II was one of the first games to undergo fan translation, in this case by NeoDemiforce. Final Fantasy II was originally scored by Nobuo Uematsu, and it was Uematsu's seventeenth work of video game music. The game's music was arranged by Tsuyoshi Sekito for the WonderSwan Color, PlayStation, Game Boy Advance and PlayStation Portable remakes.
- http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Final_Fantasy_II