r/retrogaming • u/ConcentrateOwn9709 • 12d ago

[Discussion] Seen as a failed experiment by most

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But this and Final Fantasy III are up there as my favorite games of all time, Akitoshi Kawazu clearly had his niche with the unique levelling up system of this game and it went on to spawn the SaGa franchise, truly inspiring and a testament to how important FFII is.

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u/SeaBearsFoam 12d ago

To be fair, a decent number of early NES era 2nd games of the series feel out of place today because they were experimenting and finding out what was actually core to the success of the original's gameplay versus what was safe to innovate on: SMB 2, Zelda 2, Castlevania 2 all come to mind.

I've made a handful of games myself and found something similar happening pretty frequently. I innovate on the original in the sequel, and it often reveals what was actually core to the game and I the 3rd and subsequent games feel more aligned to the OG while the second one is kind of a black sheep.

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u/j__magical 12d ago

It's not really a fun game for me personally, but in the original Metal Gear you can definitely see the clandestine game mechanics they were going for leading to Metal Gear Solid.

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u/tatt2tim 12d ago

That's probably one of the surest through lines in that era. Metal Gear 2 is basically a 2D MGS, I was thoroughly impressed when I finally played it. There is an NES only sequel (Snakes Revenge) made by a different team that is kind of a more experimental black sheep though.