Final Fantasy 2 Makes It Really Easy To Cheat

I'm still in the early phases of my quest to play every single Final Fantasy in a row, and right now I'm carving my way through FF2. This is the only retro Final Fantasy that I have never beaten, which is odd, because in FF2 it is really easy to cheat. 

One of the things that makes Final Fantasy such a great franchise is that every installment introduces a new battle and leveling system. Some are preferred over others, but the variety makes each game really unique and difficult to compare to other RPGs. Final Fantasy 2's system is weird as shit, and the first thing you'll notice is that there aren't any levels. Instead of levels, your stats increase based on use, for example, the more damage you take, the more your HP increases. 

This stat-leveling-through-exposure format allows for shameless exploitation. As soon as the game begins, you can max out your HP by attacking your own party members. Approaching the first boss with 9999 HP is completely possible, and all you have to do is attack yourself to increase your stats. Spells work the same way, the more they are used, the more they level. Hurting yourself and then healing yourself is easiest way to get ahead in this game, making typical grinding non-existent.

There's also a player benefitting oversight that can be found in every single port of FF2. It's easier to explain this with an example, so let's say for instance that you want to level Fire1 to Fire2. Fire1 must be cast 25 times to gain a level, so instead of wasting 25 turns in a bunch of battles to achieve this, all you have to do is select the spell, select a target, then cancel and repeat. Your spells actually level based on how many times they are chosen, not how many times they are cast. You can get Fire1 to Fire16 without taking a single turn in battle, just by picking it, canceling the action, and then picking it again a few dozen times. It can take a little while and be really boring, but you don't have to max everything out to coast through this game.

Final Fantasy 2 feels like one giant experiment and it's easy to see why Square never returned to any system similar to this one. FF2 is different and unlike FF1, it actually has a story but it lacks any sort of difficulty whatsoever due to it's poorly thought out stat system. Maybe I didn't finish FF2 as a child because it was really dumb, not because of how hard it was.