#22. Final Fantasy II (SNES)
Love, hate, betrayal, drama, sacrifice, crystals, airships this game has it all. To this day the story of this game remains one of my favorite. Starting off with Cecil as a Dark Knight asked to do questionable things by the king of Baron and ending with a confrontation on the moon, the story covers many themes such as redemption, love triangles and sacrifice. Every character was fully fleshed out and you could easily understand their motivations.
On the gameplay front, we saw the introduction of the Active Time Battle system and characters each had their specific class. Rosa was a White Wizard, Rydia a Caller/Black Mage, Kain an easily mind-controllable Dragoon. I really appreciated that everyone felt different and had their own use in the party (except for Edward the worthless Bard of course).
The game clocks at just under 20 hours everytime I replay it and it's always a blast to experience.
Side note: I've played this game so many times that I started to notice how certain things were determined. One of those things was that the level of everyone on your final team (except Edge) was determined by Cecil's level when they joined the party. Knowing that, right before beating the Magus Sisters, I would kill off my whole party except Cecil and fight the puppet summoning enemies for a while. Using that method I'd get Cecil at a ridiculous level (around 60) and afterwards my whole party would join my ranks powered up and ready to kick ass.
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