FF2 spoilers. Not like it matters, there are barely any plot.

Initially, I intended to use FF2 Pixel Remaster as an immersion tool for learning Japanese and kanjis. But then I took nearly half an hour to look up new words and input them into Anki (flashcard program) just for the first line of the first textbox, so I decided, fuck it, I will stock up on more vocab and try again with the other Pixel Remasters.

I also remember having started FF2 a few times as a kid and put it down very quickly, which is impressive since kid me was willing to grind 99 for all jobs in FF3 3D (to imagine how boring that is, just think of TMR-grinding Earth Shrine manually since it's the exact same). So to make sure that I won't quit, I used a cheat table which allows me to level weapon/magic up quickly and decided to do dumb things.

Observations:

• Soundtrack:

Extremely good. I already liked FF2 OST before, and the remaster made it even better. There are only 2 tracks that I'm kinda ehh on and that's the final dungeon and final boss theme. For some reason I don't like the singing even if it makes sense.

• Sprites:

I liked the magic animations and how they look different when they level up which I will most likely never see with the levelling system. Character sprites looked great, better than the PSP ones IMO. Ultima is blue and doesn't look as ugly as in the other versions (and is actually very powerful even at low levels, unlike other versions where it's worthless).

• Gameplay:

Okay, I may have disqualified myself from having an opinion on this since I cheated, but while messing around I found something really interesting.

Nearly every bosses can be killed with instant death spells.

And FF2 have a lot of instant death spells. Teleport, Warp, Toad, Break, Mini, Death all instantly kills the enemy. After I found this out I had to try it and yes it nearly works on everything. Scary Behemoth in the way? Yeet him away with Teleport. Lamia Queen disgusing as the princess? Turn it into stone with Break. Showdown with the Emperor? Turn him into a frog with Toad.

It sadly doesn't work on the final boss, would have been hilarious otherwise.

Though this won't matter in normal gameplay considering that you need to use it a bunch of times to level it up and have any effect at all.

• Story:

Better than FF1 but it's still the 2nd game in the series so there of course will be problems. Like the main cast barely have characters, or Leon turning good and then decides to leave at the ending for some reason. The people that died for you are more interesting than the main 3, and they too don't have much characters.

Score: Okay~Good, not the worst FF game (that's FF1) but nowhere in the top half.