The final dungeon in Final Fantasy 2 is called Pandemonium, and I now consider it to be one of the most challenging sections of any old school RPG. Pandemonium is a 10 floor dungeon, but you had to traverse an 8 floor dungeon called the Jade Passage to even get to Pandemonium, with no rest stops or towns or even access to a save point in between. So basically, FF2's endgame is a gargantuan 18 floors of the most difficult and punishing random encounters that the bestiary can provide. Add to this the fact that items don't stack, limiting you to a 50 item inventory and Pandemonium turns into a punishing test of resource management.
Like most retro role playing games, Final Fantasy 2 has an unreasonably high frequency of random battles. For 18 floors, I counted my steps between random battles and the furthest I went without fighting was 6 steps, and that only happened twice. The fights are brutal, just see above. This is a random battle that I received probably a dozen times in Pandemonium. 3 Fenrirs, 2 Frost Lizards and a Great Malboro. Final Fantasy vets would immediately go for the Malboro, fearing it's ability to inflict you with any and every status effect within the game, but the Fenrirs are the deceptively deadly ones. They cast Muddle, a status effect that makes you attack your own party, you know, the party that you've been building up all game, the ones with all of the ultimate weapons? It's a terrible handicap that makes you spend elixirs and ethers post-battle.
The final boss is the Emperor, and you start to see some of the foundations for the more memorable moments in future Final Fantasy games. The final asshole is an Emperor just like in FF4 and FF6, the airships and steampunk themes start creeping in, and the final battle is in space! The Emperor here is tough, but I used a Blood Sword, a strategy that not all retro Final Fantasy fans use, but I swear by it. Every Final Fantasy game released before 7 has some version of a Blood Sword, a relatively weak weapon that heals the user the equivalent of the damage it deals. The damage output of these swords becomes obsolete quickly, but I find wielding one, (especially in a game like FF2 that allows your characters to dual-wield) slightly tilts the math in your favor. Firion never requires healing, ever, he restores every turn, leaving me with just the burden of managing three party members' hit points instead of four. Firion is in charge of resurrection too, as he is the guy most rarely killed. Also, I suspect this but have found no confirmation, but I think The Emperor is designed to go after the party member with the highest HP, so I had very little trouble with him. He damaged Firion every turn it seemed, and I was able to keep his health at a comfortable level.
Just like the original Final Fantasy, FF2's real final boss is the dungeon you must defeat in order to get to the final boss. The Emperor survived just eight rounds against a team that I wasn't particularly confident in.
I know for certain that I will never play Final Fantasy 2 again. It is in no way harder than FF1, but the original has so much history behind it, the story of how it saved one of the most influential game developers from going bankrupt. Final Fantasy 1 is important, FF2 wasn't even released in the United States until well after Final Fantasy 8 had come and gone. FF2's stat system sucks, it's too easy to exploit and almost forces a player to give up on offensive magic altogether. I will however, take a little credit for beating what is probably the worst game in the entire series, twice.
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