To celebrate the 20th Anniversary of the Final Fantasy series, Square Enix will be releasing both the original Final Fantasy and the sequel on the PSP. Releasing this week will be the first Final Fantasy title with the second title releasing in July. The game will have several updates just like the first Final Fantasy title received. Final Fantasy II was originally only released in Japan and didn’t have an American release until Final Fantasy Origins released on the PSOne. Instead America received Final Fantasy IV as Final Fantasy II but we move forward.

Final Fantasy II tells the tale of an evil emperor and has summoned monsters from a demonic realm, which he will use to take over the world. Upon doing this an era of peace would come to end, and the world would once again enter into a world of chaos. After thousands of lives are taken by the evil demonic forces, a group of four young survivors rise up and take on the difficult task to stop the merciless emperor and bring about a new era of tranquility and peace to the land once again.

Final Fantasy II introduces many of the most familiar characters in the Final Fantasy universe. This was the first game that Cid and the chocobos were introduced in, which would later become a staple in the franchise. Since Final Fantasy II, there hasn’t been a Final Fantasy title that didn’t include a Cid character in someway. Of course, who could ever forget about the lovable chocobos? The big yellow birds have become an essential part in Final Fantasy for either transportation, gambling on or even just to look at.

One of the biggest differences in the game is the games battle system. Final Fantasy II introduces a back row in the battles. When you have your fighters in the back row the characters become immune to most of the physical attacks that enemies will be able to attack you with, but will still be vulnerable to bows and magical attacks. However, enemies will also be able to have several rows as well. When in battle only the characters in the front row can be hit by physical attacks but by defeating that row the other enemies will move up and allow players to inflict physical damage upon them as well.

Also different is the leveling up system. Instead of giving players an overall level up, which would in turn increase all the characters stats, you instead have to level up each individual move by using the technique in battle. So if your character is heavily based on physical attacks they will increase in physical strength and accuracy. However, they will also be adversely affected as well. The more players increase a characters physical abilities the character will in turn lose their magic power. This will also work the some on characters who use magic a lot where their physical strength will decrease as an affect of heavy magic use.

Not only are attacks and abilities dependent on battles, but also characters' health and magic limits. Based on the need of each, a character will adjust accordingly. So the more damage one character takes, the more health they will gain. So if you push a character to its limit and have them end battles with nearly no health left, they will gain large amounts of health due to that fact. The same works for magic. Many players have found it useful to attack their own party members when in battles with weaker characters just to level up their characters properly. With these unique gameplay options, it definitely adds more depth to the basic RPG leveling up formula.

Graphically the game will have the dame upgrades that Final Fantasy I has received, which is simply new 2D sprites and sharper drawings. The game does look nice but isn’t anything special by today’s standards.

Final Fantasy II offers a new look at the RPG genre even though the game is from 20 years ago. In case you missed out on the game on the PSOne and GBA, you should check out this new superior version.

Final Fantasy II will be released on July 22.