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Final Fantasy H-2 vs. RedMaverickZero
Final Fantasy H-2 The coolest area of this entire game. And the plasma balls move up and down too! Nice touch!
Fenrir-Lunaris
Download: 394 KB
V.S.
RedMaverickZero
Play Time: 2+ hours and minutes
Review # 22 for RedMaverickZero The coolest area of this entire game. And the plasma balls move up and down too! Nice touch!
Them's Fightin' Words
    Everyone by now has heard of the game Final Fantasy H. I mean, the game has 3000 downloads and still going strong. And then the creator of the popular game decides "heck, if one is good, why not a sequel?". Yet, for some reason he hates it. Thinks of it as a wasted game on his game list for himself. But why? What was so wrong about FFH2 that made him hate it? Well, glitchy bugs and unbalance, but other than that it's fine. Ah heck, read the review.
Graphics
    In Final Fantasy H, the enemy sprites were ripped and so were the maptiles. Fenrir Lunaris makes a drastic change to this by going all out and making new graphics just for this game. (Although the Tonberry looks oddly familar... hehe.) Anyways, every graphic is detailed and beautiful, much like the majority of Fen's works.

Walkabouts were done with suberb detail. Every walkabout not only looked like what they were, but took it the next step up. For instance, the main character, Dart. He is kinda theif I thought. And he has the whole theif thing going for him. Bandanna and the crazy outfit. His walkabouts were stunning and so were all the others. So you're asking yourself by now, "Okay, if Fenrir hated the game, did he hate it's graphics?" I would certainly hope not. Because these graphics are right up there with his latest masterpiece, TimeStream Saga Second Edition. Which displays beautiful artwork and graphics. To say FFH2 has awful graphics is like saying Elton John isn't gay.

The battle graphics. Woo boy. These were EXCELLENT. Detailed far more than the walkabouts too. Every hero has the same stance though, which I thought was kinda lame. But other than that it was great. Perphaps the worst part about hero graphics which I have noticed in a lot of Fenrir's games is the lack of ligning up with hero graphics and weapons. He has mastered the artwork, but still needs work here. Other than that, the hero graphics are top notch. And the maptiles are beautiful. Everything is proportined perfectally so that it all looks like it's supposed to. Colors are easy on the eyes and everything is just a notch above what I considered Fen's best for such a short time period. I take my hat off to you for this Fen.
 
Storyline
    Final Fantasy H was a spinoff remake of the hit game Final Fantasy 1. Which had no storyline so in order for Fen to make a long game, he had to add a story. But that was the first game of the FF series. So... what of the next game? Final Fantasy 2 had a storyline that I am aware of. So that meant FFH2 had to deliver a story as well. Using popular heroes and villans found from FFH1 Fenrir gave them a bit more comedic appeal and a deadly sickness only the pacnea can heal on the ole Seraph. Whom in FFH1 was a great big evil dude who wanted you dead. Yet he helped you out in the first fight and there you saw his true strengths and powers. Yet this time around, Seraph is on your side. Or so you think. Okay, he is. And so is that crazy dude, Garland. Except this time, you are helping Seraph get better. To heal him from his fatal disease. And no it's not AIDs. Although that would be even funnier than a deadly Final Fantasy disease.

Anyways, you are Dart. A theivious dude who is an orphan. And so is Shade, Tyrvin, and Sorrow. Four orphans. What do they got to lose? They have no parents. Well, they don't really have much to lose but they have a crap load of courage and a whole lotta issues. But then it gets creepier. The boss of a bloody cavern place comes out and says that you are gonna die and that he killed Dart's dad. Yeah, that would make me mad. That's probally why you end up fighting the ole bastard. And not to mention the traditional "crystals of the elements" that you just happen to find in certain areas of the game. The story is great, just some things are really corny.
 
Gameplay
    I thought for a contest game that this particular game covered a lot of ground a did an excellent job doing so. Yet there were some pretty big problems with it. First of all, the scripts. I know that not many people are Scripting Geniuses and can't do too much in that area. But make up for it in other areas. Hince the teamwork in some games. Anyways, the major script problem would have to be in the bloody cave place where you find out about Dart's parent's murderer. These lil red clouds... they send YOU ALL THE WAY back to the entrance of this freaking thing. It's impossible to get past this without cheating or spending hours dodging these crazy things.

Yet that was one of the bad things about the game when there was so much good stuff happening at the same time. First of all, for the good stuff since the bad is pretty much done by my standards for this particular section. The game was a whopping 2 hours long. And it was a demo stage. Not many games today have a long demo stage, especially with this much graphical quality and area depth.

What I particularily liked was the job system. The scripts were kinda tangled around by the looks of it, but the concept was brilliant. Everyone starts out as one job and after each crystal you find every character gets more jobs. Such as in Final Fantasy 5 where you could find a crystal and "BAM!" you got like 5 more jobs a person. This way you could make just about any character any job. An awesome idea for strategy. Some characters such as the dwarf who excelled in attack power were better off in their natural job, but others like the summoning furry could change into a more powerful mage and dish out some powerful attacks. The concept behind this was simply divine. I am still left in question as to how Fenrir Lunaris managed to finish his entry at a good stopping point for this game. It had some great scripts and graphics. Would have taken an average joe like myself weeks to prepare even a few graphics. But Fenrir dished them out like a homeless person taking food at a Thanksgiving dinner!
 
  Battle
    As I said, some people can do many things with the OHR and are limited in other areas. Fenrir doesn't actually succeed in this area. His battles are not exactly what I call easy. Like my good friend BenJi, he makes everything way too hard. I mean the beginning of a game needs to have simple stuff and gradually get tougher. Am I right? I think I am. And it seems to work for me anyways. It's easier to program, easier to test, and hell, easier to play. Although the graphics are beautiful and the attacks will blow you away... The battles will make you shreak in pain. But the graphics keep your eyes focussed. Like I said, this isn't one of Fen's strongpoints.


 
  Map Design
    Fenrir gets a hero cookie here. Where his battles were too hard, his map design was genius. I say that the best looking map on this game was the factory/lighthouse/mechancial place. I never really knew what it was. But it looked cool as hell! The floaty plasma things and the puddles of plasma that hurt your character. Those were awesome. And everything was scattered and placed in the right places so that you explored the entire map, not missing a treasure in your view. Yet... as said, the scripts did not help this game too much.

In the Bloody Cave place, the little red clouds would float on by. When I played the first version of this game, they just phased you for a while and you kept going. But with the new version I downloaded on this fine January night it pissed me off. I barely skinned on by. The clouds sent you back, yes back! TO THE BEGINNING OF THE FREAKING DUNGEON!!! ARGH! Okay, I am clamed down now. But really... Fen, you could have just made them get in the way rather than piss the player off. Because if this is the stuff that made you hate working on the game then I can agree with you. This script is awful as hell. Fix it and this area of the game will be fixed a lil. And then we find.....-
 
  Balance
    BALANCE! Yes balance. Someone told me I was good at finding balance and balancing games out. I have changed a friend's game of mine from a craptastic game to something wonderful. That game will be uploaded to CP in the near future. Yet this is FFH2 not that. As mentioned, the battles were awful. And not only that, but they were unbalanced. Fights were hardly ever easy, they were always hard. ALWAYS. Which was kinda a drag. It's nice to play balanced fights every now and again. Yet, I always seem to be walking out on a limb when I think a game is.

For some reason, no one likes to even out their random battle scales. For what reason I don't know. I really wish people would just take what they think is balanced for their random battle rate and lower it by 2 to 3. At least then, they have a higher chance of it being balanced. Fen's maps were done very professionally. And they were big and expansive. Yet... the random battles killed it. Killed it like a opposum in the road with a semi truck approaching. Ka-Splat!
 
Music
    My computer doesn't play BAMs so I cannot judge this area...



 
Enjoyment
    I enjoyed this game actually. Why? I really don't know. All the negative things it's author has said about would have made me steer away you'd think. But they didn't. I loved the graphics and I loved the maptiles. And the comedic remarks from former "Big Bad Guy" Seraph made me laugh too. It's funny what old age does to a character. Not to mention sickness and disease. But anyways, the job system was real nice and made everything unpredictable. Which is nice in games. Endless possiblities are excellent in games such as this where you really have to use your brain to make the best of your moves. Such as, should I summon or should I heal? Will stealing work? All these questions pop in your head when you play this game and it's great. Challenging gameplay (within reason) is stuff that always draws me over to a game. And this game did a fine job of it. Just a few scripting problems (red clouds) are what made me angry.  
Final Blows
    Fenrir Lunaris. You are too picky. I have a friend who draws the funniest stuff. Yet for some reason he always crumbles up his papers and throws them away. Claiming they are garbage and not wanting anyone to view it. And you seem to feel the same way about this great game. Okay great is exaggerating a little bit. But still, this game was good and I really hope you plan on finishing it. Although based off it' current status on CP I don't think so. But all the same, I enjoyed it. And I know some people out there did too. Just fix those bugs and finish this dang game already!!!



Watch out Batman! Evil Tombstones come to drag us to our grave! Battle graphics at some of their best!

Watch out Batman! Evil Tombstones come to drag us to our grave! Battle graphics at some of their best!
Final Scores
Graphics: 10/10.0
Some of your best work Fenrir. I take my hat off to you. *Looks for hat.*
Storyline: 7.5/10.0
As all demos are, they are in the works of having a story develop. Yet for some reason, this game developed it's story rather quickly and nicely. Congratulations.
Gameplay: 3/10.0
2 hours of decent gameplay. Unbalanced random battles and same for battles in general. And those scripts drag it down. Sorry man, but this score can't be high...
Music: 1/10.0
My computer doesn't play BAMs so I cannot judge this area...
Enjoyment: 8/10.0
For some reason... I played this game through twice. And then again on this fine January night to find myself hating the new bugs and loving the graphics and story even more. Replayability is a very very good thing to bring to a game Fenrir Lunaris.
Overall Grade: C+
Final Thoughts
    Final Fantasy H-2 has a different mood from it's popular prelude, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't check this out. It's actually a good game and good way to spend your time. With the exception of a few scripts this is one of Fen's great games.  


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