Final Fantasy II (J)

Getting Started

As this is a Japanese-only title, the first thing you'll encounter is a title screen in Japanese. Press the Start button (Enter) to begin. The menu text is all in kanji and kana, so familiarity with the game's original NES menus will help a lot - but even without that, the layout is similar to that version. You start in a town and must talk to NPCs to advance the story. The core loop involves exploring towns and dungeons, fighting random encounters, and speaking to key characters to receive clues or keywords.

The battle system is turn-based and uses Final Fantasy II's unique stat progression: instead of experience points, your attributes improve by performing related actions (e.g., casting spells increases MP and magic power, getting hit raises HP and defense). Enemies appear randomly in dungeons and on the world map. Your party is limited to four characters, and you can equip weapons, armor, and magic from the shop and inventory screens (accessed via the A button confirm). Navigation between locations is done on a top-down world map.

Since the menus are entirely in Japanese, a good approach is to refer to an online menu translation guide or a walkthrough for the original NES version - the WonderSwan port uses the same structure. Save your game at inns or using the save points found in some dungeons. Be prepared for a higher difficulty curve compared to later Final Fantasy games; random encounters can be brutal early on. The keyword system (a feature unique to FFII) requires you to ask NPCs about specific words to advance the plot - this can be tricky without understanding the text, so rely on external resources if needed.