What language is this?

[James]

FFII tried something new, that should NEVER BE TRIED AGAIN.

Instead of leveling up, your stats improved or... um... de-improved depending on your actions in battle. If you lost more than half of your HP, your HP would increase. Same for MP. If you attacked, your weapon's experience level would go up (each weapon type was separate), and your power would go up. But your Intelligence and Soul would also go down. If you used magic, you Intelligence and Soul would go up (depending on the type), but your Power would go down. If you blocked an attack, Defense goes up. Evaded it, Agility goes up. Etc.

Oh, and each individual magic spell had a level too. If you used it 100 times, it'd go up in power. You wouldn't even really know it though, and it was tedious. The only times it matter were for Cure and Heal (Heal, because it would cure more status ailments).

So in other words, you really never had much to guage your progress on. You ended up finding some weak-ass enemies, and attacking your own characters just to improve their stats.

The story wasn't too bad, but the whole game just moved so slow wtih this kind of stat building. And for the most part - aside from a few, like weapon leveling, HP and MP - it didn't really seem to make much of a difference. In the end, I got fed up with building up my stats, that I rushed the final castle and killed the boss using these two special swords I found, that are in the game for the sole purpose of killing the final boss quickly.

And FFII is being released in the US very soon. It and FF1 have been redone to be in 16-bits (which they have been for a few years now when they brought them out on Wonderswan in Japan), and are being released as FF Origins on the PS1.