FFVI World 2

A world, ruined

So, Kefka is a dick, and the world sucks. He ruined everything. And if someone complains about it, he just kills them too. Which, you know, sucks. But he's an megalomaniac, and a dictator. Did you expect him to be rational? And, on top of all that, He's a JRPG villain from a 90's game. If he weren't insanely over the top, we'd all be wondering what's wrong.

Plot

The World of Ruin, as its called, doesn't have a linear plot, but rather a set of per-character stories for all the various party members you go find. Some of them are good, some of them are forgettable. Ok, so most of them are pretty good. But, without a guide, finding all of them would require just ... roaming around the world until you find something or someone that starts up a quest. I get that this is pretty typical of the kinds of games we were getting at that time, but without any help, it made it harder going.

Combat

The combat is more of the same, but giving you a chance to unlock your characters top-tier abilities, as well as train them with multiple magicites. That, combined with moving the stat boosts to relics (as opposed to armor/items in armor slots), provides for the opportunity to make some truly silly power combos.

Music

I can't keep saying this, but wow. I've yet to play a Final Fantasy game where the music didn't impress. The trend continues.

Pacing

As noted, World 2 is ... rather non-linear. So its paced however you want it to be. That being said, I found that as with all the other 8/16bit entries in the series I've played (1,4,5,6 at this point), it reaches a point where I'm ready for the game to be over, and then I have to grind a while to be actually ready for the ending.

Difficulty curve

So, a thing I've noticed is that the final dungeon / final boss in Final Fantasy games see to have a difficulty cliff as opposed to a curve. When you can wreck the entire last dungeon with ease, and the boss flattens you 3x in a row, that's not a curve people, that's a wall. This happened to me. I handled the warring triad, no issues. Even got so far as handling the tower thing. Then Kefka pushed me face in. So I did it again. And again. And then I decided I wasn't enjoying it and stopped. I know the solution (hint, its "go grind more") but I don't know that I want to bother. At least not now.

Done, but not finished

So yea, I'm done with this game. I didn't "finish" it, but I got all I want out of it. Good enough for me.

Time

As expected, this took me a bit over the average (average of 35, I was close to 40)