Gamer Corner Guides

Final Fantasy II is in many ways a more complex game than the original Final Fantasy, and its intricacies are less well known. I can't say that I know every in and out of the system's mechanics, but I have done a fair bit of research and have put together as much of that information as I can in this document.

Once again, the purpose of this guide is not to be overly technical, but rather to arm you with as much knowledge as you need to play the game to its fullest. Fortunately, while there are many more mechanics in this game than its predecessor, the basic action resolution system uses true percentages, which makes the numbers much easier to understand.

Battle Mechanics

The core mechanic of Final Fantasy II, which is used both for physical attacks and spells, is quite simple. Almost every attack is made in the same way. The attacker "rolls" an attack and the defender "rolls" a defense, each totaling up a number of successes, and the outcome is determined by the difference in the number of successes. Basically, every attack or defense has the same structure: a count, and a percentage. For physical defense this is your evasion and evasion %, for example. Whenever that attack or defense is rolled, that percentage is checked once per count. So if you have an evasion of 3×50%, you have three 50% chances to gain an evasion success. Your average would be 1.5 evasion successes, but the actual range is anywhere from 0 to 3.

Once you understand the basic count/percent mechanic, the system is relatively simple. An attacker gets some number of attacks, and each has a success rate equal to its accuracy. The total is the maximum number of hits the attacker can make on that attack. The defender then rolls some number of evasion chances, each with a success rate equal to its evasion rate. This number is subtracted from the rolled hits to determine the actual number of hits. If this number is greater than zero, the attacker does damage based on his attack score. Spells work similarly, but the two systems differ enough that I will cover them separately.

Physical Attacks

When you choose the "attack" command, you are making a physical attack. The numbers used in this calculation are pretty straightforward, and are all accessible from the status screen. If you are carrying something in both hands, you will make the attack with the item in your main hand. While you can hold two weapons in Final Fantasy II, you will only attack with one of them. When attacking, there are three main numbers you need to worry about: your attack, your number of attacks, and your accuracy. On the defensive side, the three attributes you're concerned with are defense, evasion, and evasion %. Once you determine how many hits you landed as described above, each hit deals a random amount of damage between one and two times your attack, minus the defender's defense score (with a minimum of 0). This is a physical attack at it's most basic level. However, there are a number of factors that also apply here.

• Critical Hits: There is a flat 5% chance that any attack you make will be a critical hit. Critical hits deal bonus damage equal to your attack score, and this bonus damage is not affected by defense. Thus, even with an attack of 20 you can deal damage to a 210-defense Green Slime enemy on a critical hit (and this damage will be exactly 20).
• Family/Elemental Attack: Several weapons are noted to be strong against monsters of a particular family, or monsters weak against a particular element. If you use one of these weapons against the correct monster type, you get a +20 bonus to your attack score. Note that if your weapon exploits both the family and elemental weakness of an enemy, you still only get a single +20 bonus. Weapons with an elemental affinity are not affected by resistances or the ability to absorb that element. The Ice Brand does normal damage against monsters that resist Ice. If a monster is weak to an element and also resists it, the +20 attack bonus still applies.
• Status Ailments: A few weapons inflict status ailments on the target, but you will most commonly find this effect on monsters' attacks. An attack can inflict one or more temporary status ailments or one or more permanent status ailments, but not a combination of both. The target rolls magic defense against the attack as if it was a spell, and the attack has a number of successes equal to the number of hits. If the attack achieves more successes than the target achieves defenses, the status ailment is inflicted. If the attack inflicts multiple status ailments, they are all inflicted at once. As a result, a high evasion or a high magic defense (or preferably both!) can be used to defend against status ailment-inflicting attacks.
• Drain Effects: The Blood Sword and a few enemies have a draining effect as part of their attack. Most of these effects drain HP, but the Parasite can drain MP. All drain effects work the same way. For each hit, even if that hit deals no damage, the target loses 1⁄16 of their maximum HP or MP (rounded down) and the attacker gains a like amount. HP drain is added to the damage shown on-screen, but you only absorb the drained portion, not the normal attack damage. Note that you can drain more HP or MP than the target has left, and you can drain either even if your own totals are full. Draining attacks have the opposite effect against Undead, draining the attacker and healing the target.
• Ripper Effect: There is a unique effect on the Ripper knife, but it is highly misleading due to a bug. Each hit made reports as doing 20 more damage than the weapon actually deals. In fact, the Ripper deals no bonus damage at all, and deals damage based solely on its attack score like all other weapons.
• Healing: The Healing Staff is a special weapon that heals the target in addition to harming them. This is due to a bug; the intention was only to heal the target. For more information, see the Healing Staff entry or the description of the bug below.

Magical Attacks

Magic works similarly to physically attacking, but the net "hits," here referred to as "successes," have various effects depending on the spell. Sometimes the successes determine how much damage is dealt, and other times they determine what effect(s) a spell has. Individual spell entries detail the specific way successes are interpreted, but the way they are calculated is consistent for all spells.

Magic successes are calculated similarly to physical hits, but the numbers involved are a bit harder to find. Every spell makes a number of rolls equal to its level, with a success rate equal to the spell's adjusted magic accuracy. magic accuracy's calculation is described below. magic defense and magic defense % determine how many defensive successes the target achieves, much like evasion % with physical attacks.

There are a lot more mitigating factors in using magic than there are with attacking. Here is a rundown:

• Calculating Magic Accuracy: Magic accuracy is calculated differently for PCs and monsters. Every monster ability has a predetermined magic accuracy which is used in place of the normal formula. For your own spells, magic accuracy consists of three components. First is the base spell magic accuracy, which is specific to each spell. If the spell is white or black magic, you then add your spirit or intelligence, respectively, to that number. Special abilities that are not black or white magic ignore this step. Note that items that use white or black magic do use the attributes of the character using the item to determine accuracy and power. Finally, you subtract the sum of any magic penalties you have from gear. While items do use the character's intelligence or spirit attributes, they are not subject to magic penalties from gear. If spell magic accuracy is less than zero, it is set to zero. Unlike other percentages, though, spell magic accuracy is not capped at 99%. (This is because of how targeting affects magic accuracy—it is possible that any given spell roll has a 1% chance of failure when it is finally made, but I have no way to easily tell.)
• Calculating Spell Power: Like spell magic accuracy, every spell has an inherent spell power. Unlike magic accuracy, monsters use the normal power ratings for spells they cast. PCs add 1/4 of their spirit score to the power of white magic spells, or 1/4 of their intelligence score to the power of black magic spells they cast. (monsters have no spirit or intelligence scores, so they always use base spell power). As with magic accuracy, this modifier applies to white and black magic spells cast using items. Special attacks have no power modifier.
• Calculating Damage: Damage spells work a bit differently than other spells. Their effects are not strictly based on successes—damage spells get a number of "hits" equal to the level of the spell plus the successes rolled. For instance, Fire 8 can score anywhere from 8–16 "hits." Most damage spells have no inherent magic accuracy, so a high spirit or intelligence can greatly increase their damage by increasing not only their power, but the number of hits. Each hit deals a random amount of damage between one and two times the spell's power. Like physical attacks, each hit has a 5% chance of being a critical hit and dealing extra damage equal to the spell power. Unlike physical attacks, this number is not reduced by any magical defense score (magic defense only prevents successes, it does not mitigate damage directly). This means that a damage spell's base damage ranges from its level times its adjusted power to four times that number. Elemental affinities have a significant effect on the power of damage spells, as noted below. Note also that healing spells and abilities use the same calculations as damaging spells to calculate the number of HP healed. Cure scores "hits" like any damage spell, and a high magic accuracy results in significantly more HP regained.
• Single-Target vs. Multi-Target: When you opt to target all enemies or all allies with a single spell, the spell's power and magic accuracy are decreased greatly. The adjusted magic accuracy of multi-target spells is halved, making effects less likely to land and buffs less potent. The adjusted power is also adjusted, reduced to 1/4 of its original value, rounded down. This means that multi-targeted spells are best used against groups of at least 4 (though the lower magic accuracy still limits spell effects quite drastically). As a general rule, multi-targeted damage spells should only be used against creatures weak to the spell's element, to minimize the drawbacks.
• Elemental Absorption: Some creatures absorb abilities of one or more elements. Any spell cast on a monster that absorbs its element will result in no effect except that the target gains HP. For damaging spells, the HP gain is equal to the damage that would have been dealt. For non-damaging spells, damage is calculated as if they dealt damage, using the spell's calculated power (most status ailment spells have a power of 5). If a monster absorbs an element, any weakness or resistance they may have to that element is ignored. monsters do not roll magic defense against spells they absorb, instead gaining the full HP of any successes rolled, as with the Cure spell.
• Elemental Resistance: If a creature is hit with a spell of an element that it resists, the spell's effects are greatly reduced. All success-based properties of the spell automatically fail, making creatures immune to status ailments that would be caused by spells they resist. Damage spells still deal damage, but with the minimum number of successes, and the damage is halved after being calculated. It is generally a waste of time to cast spells on monsters that resist their element. Two monsters both resist and are weak to the same element. The effect of this is that the monster is essentially weak against the spell, but damage will be halved as well as doubled, resulting in normal damage (albeit with maximum successes).
• Elemental Weaknesses: Spells of an element a creature is weak to will have a maximized effect against that creature. All spells achieve perfect success—any status ailments inflicted automatically succeed, and damage spells achieve successes equal to their level. Further, damage from these spells is doubled. As a result, even multi-targeted spells are quite powerful against groups of monsters weak to them.
• Casting Outside of Battle: Only 5 spells can be cast outside of battle: Cure, Life, Esuna, Warp, and Teleport. Further, these spells may only be cast when they would have some effect. These spells are resolved differently than they are in battle, with no variation in the number of successes. Magic penalties and bonuses from spirit or intelligence do not apply. See the individual spells for details on their out-of-battle effects.
• Spells That Are Not Resisted: Spells with a strictly positive effect are not subject to magic defense rolls. This includes Cure and Life (except against Undead) and all buff spells, such as Blink, Berserk, and so on.

Monster Behavior

Each monster has 8 ability slots that determine what it can do in battle. They choose an action randomly each round. The probability breakdown is 20%-20%-20%-10%-10%-10%-5%-5% from slots 1 to 8. Actions have been listed using this breakdown on the monster pages, combining like actions into a single percentage.

A monster will never choose an ability it can't use, so it won't for example choose a spell when afflicted with Amnesia or out of MP. However, a monster can cast any spell as long as it has any MP, even if it doesn't have enough to actually cast the spell. If a monster cannot perform any listed action, it will attack, even if "attack" does not appear in its ability table at all.

Rows

Both the player's party and the monsters they are facing are arranged into rows, and while the specific arrangements are different, the general purpose of these rows is the same. Spells and abilities are unaffected by row, but physical attacks can only target characters or monsters in the front row. Characters in the back row cannot make physical attacks at all, with the exception of PCs armed with a Bow. For these reasons, both your party's row setup and the order in which you attack monsters can be very important.

To change which row your party members are in, press Select when outside of battle. Characters in the back row will never be targeted with physical attacks, so their defense and evasion scores are much less important than front-row members. The only time your back row can be attacked is if every character in the front row falls in battle. At that time, the back row will automatically move to the front. As such, it is a good idea to have heavily armored or otherwise well-defended characters in the front row, and mages safely in the back. Since the only weapon type capable of attacking from the back row, the Bow, has massive magic penalties associated with it, this may mean that your mages cannot effectively attack. (They may still target monsters and level up their weapons, but such attacks will automatically be ineffective and miss.) Tactically, though, keeping your squishy mages out of danger is more important than adding their relatively weak melee attacks to the mix. Note that if a character is dead at the end of battle, he or she is automatically moved to the back row. Don't forget to check your rows after casting Life!

Monster rows are handled a little differently. Up to 8 monsters can appear at a time, arranged in four ranks of two monsters each. The frontmost rank and the one behind it are considered the "front row" for the purposes of physical attacks. Monsters in the third or fourth rank will not make physical attacks. Even if they have special abilities that can be used at range, they make no special effort to use them: if the game decides that a monster would attack, it simply skips its turn. If all the monsters in the front rank fall, the monsters in the front row will change accordingly.

Because of how monster rows work, there are a few strategic considerations when choosing targets. If the monsters in the back row are melee fighters, you can stall having to deal with them (perhaps having your mages soften them up while doing so) by attacking into the second rank first, then the first. Even if the second rank is empty, the monsters behind it are not moved to the front row. This is less useful when facing eight foes, since clearing out the first rank after the second will result in immediately being range of four new enemies. If on the other hand there are targets you want to kill quickly in the rear of the monster party, it is important to defeat the front ranks and get them into melee range as quickly as possible. Pay close attention to monster rows, and use them to your advantage whenever you can.

Other Battle Mechanics

There are a few other miscellaneous battle mechanics you should be aware of. These don't fit nicely into the categories above, but are no less important.

• Ambushes: Each encounter has a set chance at which the monsters may gain surprise on the party. The party's chance to gain surprise on the monsters is equal to Firion's agility score (potentially modified by armor). If both sides gain surprise, or neither side does, the battle begins normally. If only one side gains surprise, they ambush the other and can act for a full round before the other side gets to act at all.
• Turn Order: Turn order is heavily influenced by evasion %, with faster (more evasive) characters generally going earlier in the round. Each character and monster is given an initiative score which is equal to their evasion % plus a random number between 1 and 40. The character or monster with the highest initiative score goes first, followed by each score in descending order. Note that this does mean that shields make characters act earlier in the round.
• Fleeing: It is not possible for characters or monsters to flee from certain battles, as indicated on the random encounters and set encounters tables. If it is possible to flee and a character chooses to do so, the chance of success is equal to their evasion %. If they succeed, the entire party will flee. Any given monster can also choose to run, which always succeeds but affects only that monster. The base chance that they will do so is the monster's fear score (which is often negative). This percentage is increased based on the difference in total HP between your party and all remaining enemies. Each 32 points the party leads by adds 1% to the run chance. Thus, if the player's party have a total of 620 HP and the enemies have a total of 300 HP, the chance of any given enemy running is increased by 10% (based on a difference of 320, divided by 32). If the enemies have more HP than the player's party, the base run chance is not modified.
• Monster Targeting: Every monster ability has a target specified, either the full party or a single character. Single-target abilities, as well as physical attacks, are targeted entirely at random (though physical attacks never target those in the back row). However, the game's targeting algorithm has a distinct bias towards Guy and Maria. If exactly one of them is in the back row, the effects are even more pronounced.
• Temporary Status Ailments: All temporary status ailments have a chance of wearing off automatically at the end of any given round of battle, depending on the specific status ailment. Only one status ailment is displayed graphically or in the status box for your characters at a time, though, so it's hard to tell if any other ailments have worn off. Monsters give no indication at all whether they are afflicted with a given status ailment, so temporary status ailments are unreliable over the long term when used against them.
• Toad/Mini/Stone on Monsters: While the Toad, Mini, and Stone status ailments can be cured when the afflict your party members, they simply KO monsters. For this reason, Toad acts as the most accurate instant KO spell in the game, a fact that can be abused fairly easily.
• Unarmed vs. Shields: When you have nothing held in either hand, you gain the benefits of fighting unarmed. Unarmed attacks have a base accuracy of 80% and no magic penalty. The base damage of an unarmed attack is zero, but the user gains a +8 bonus to attack for each level gained (8 at level 2, 16 at level 3, etc.) However, you cannot equip a shield in one hand and expect to be considered unarmed. If you hold only a shield, you will attack with it as if it were a weapon. This is unwise, since shields have very low attack scores and no accuracy bonus. It may be useful at some points to equip two shields to double-up on the evasion % bonus and create a super-tank, but don't expect to dish out much damage like this. Also, be careful not to equip a shield in Leila's or Leon's L.hand, since both characters are left-handed.

Leveling Mechanics

There is no "leveling" in the traditional sense in Final Fantasy II. You will not earn basic experience points. Instead, you must level individual aspects of your character. In theory, you will become good at whatever you do most, but between some of the obscure restrictions and the way mechanics work, it doesn't always happen that way. I can tell you how to maximize your advancement with a minimum of cheating the system.

You have a number of attributes that advance during the game, but they all come in one of two flavors: there are raw attributes, like strength, and skills, like weapon skills and evasion. Skill advancement is much better understood mechanically, though the general theory behind attribute advancement is simple enough.

Note that if you are subject of any permanent status ailment (Darkness, Poison, Curse, Amnesia, Toad, Stone, or KO) at the end of battle, you will not advance in any skill or attribute. Make sure to heal these status ailments during battle whenever possible!

General Skill Advancement

There are three sets of skills you will want to advance: weapons (shields are included in this category), defenses, and magic. In all three cases, the mechanics are similar. After a battle, you may gain one or more points of skill progress in any given skill. When you gain 100 progress points, the skill increases by one level. Skill levels can get as high as 16, but from a practical standpoint you will rarely get a skill past 9 or 10 without going out of your way to do so. This is because of the rank system the game uses.

Every battle has a "rank" associated with it, which determines how quickly your skills increase. This rank is equal to the lowest rank of any monster involved in the battle. Rank acts as the baseline for skill advancement. Most advancement formulas have a starting point based on the rank of a battle minus the current level of the skill, plus some constant and one point for each use of the skill during the fight. What this usually means is that for any given rank, there is a soft cap on how far you can advance your skills. It is possible to skill up further, by taking more actions in battle, but it is difficult. Further, lower-level skills will increase more quickly than higher-level skills, especially at higher ranks.

The basic formula for skill advancement is simple: Rank + Uses + Modifier − Level. Rank is the rank of the battle, and Level is your current level in the appropriate skill. Uses means the number of times you attacked (for weapons and shields), the number of times you cast a spell (for magic), or the number of times you were targeted by a physical or magic attack (for evasion and magic defense, respectively). The modifier is a constant that is different for each type of skill. Specifics on the skills are as follows:

• Weapons and Shields: At the end of battle, you gain skill independently for the weapons & shields in each hand, based on the number of attacks you made during the fight. Note that the game doesn't check what you were using when you made the attack, but rather assigns the skill advancement to whatever you were holding at the end of battle. If you're holding two of the same type of weapon, both will add progress points, effectively doubling your rate of progress. The modifier for weapon advancement is +1, so the formula is Rank + Attacks − Level + 1. Attacking a rank 1 monster with a level 1 weapon will thus result in 2 points of progress for the first attack, and 1 additional point for each subsequent attack during the same battle. Note that weapons are subject to the target-canceling exploit mentioned below.
• Spells: Each of your known spells levels independently during battle, and you can progress in multiple spells during the same fight. The modifier for spells is +3, making the formula Rank + Times Cast − Level + 3. Casting a level 1 spell during a rank 1 fight will earn you 4 progress points for the first cast, and 1 point for each additional cast. It is thus prudent to mix up your spells during battle, since the first casting of each spell is generally worth the most progress. Magic is also subject to the target-canceling exploit described below. Note that magic spells cast outside of battle always gain 2 progress points per casting, regardless of level. You cannot cast a spell outside of battle unless it would have some effect.
• Evasion: Evasion is the toughest skill to level, and the game does not display your current progress (nor does it bring up a message when your evasion increases). You have no direct control over how quickly evasion increases, since it is based on the number of times you are targeted by a physical attack during a fight. Further, the progress modifier is −2, making the formula Rank + Times Attacked Physically − Level − 2. Being attacked once (at evasion 1) or even twice in a rank 1 fight thus won't grant you any progress towards your evasion—the third attack and each subsequent attack grant 1 point each. Obviously your evasion will level faster when you fight higher rank foes, but you can help level certain characters' evasion by putting other party members in the back row so they don't get attacked. Physically attacking your own party members does not count for the purposes of evasion progress, so there is no exploit to level this skill.
• Magic Defense: Magic defense has the highest progress modifier of any skill at +5. The formula is Rank + Times Magically Targeted – Level + 5, meaning that a single magic attack targeting a character with level 1 magic defense in a rank 1 fight will grant a whopping 6 progress points. Further attacks grant 1 point each, as normal. Note, however, that the game mis-handles "target all" spells—instead of counting them as magical attacks for all four party members, they are counted as Firion using a white magic spell. This is why Firion will occasionally gain points of spirit despite not using any white magic. Because spells and abilities are not affected by row, there is no way (short of killing off characters) to influence who progresses in magic defense. As with evasionthe game does not display your magic defense progress anywhere.

I mentioned an exploit above, which is well-known to Final Fantasy II veterans. I do not believe it is necessary to play the game, and I do feel that its use is cheap and should be avoided, but as a quirk of the system it seems worth mentioning. Attacks and magic spell use are counted as soon as you confirm the target, even if you cancel your next party member's action and specify a new action for the first character. You can select attack (or a spell), target it, then cancel over and over to level these skills effortlessly. It does take a while and is incredibly boring, but there it is. Because you need to cancel the next character's action for this trick to work, you cannot use it on your last character. Too bad, Leon!

So, now that you understand how you gain progress, exactly how do you gain levels? Well that's simple enough—at the end of battle, after progress is added, if it totals 100 or more for any skill, the skill level is increased by 1 and the progress is reset to 0. Because it is reset, you lose any excess over 100. Note that there is a bug with evasion and magic defense where the game will not display your new level immediately after you've earned it. It will appear after the next battle, however.

The following table can be used as a quick reference to determine which skills you are liable to gain in a battle of a given rank. In particular, you can maximize overall spell level advancement by casting spells lower than the listed level once each during a single battle. Once a given skill exceeds the listed number, it will not advance at all unless battles last for more than one round.

Attribute Advancement

Your basic attributes do not use a 100-point progress model, but rather may increase after any given battle. In all cases except HP and MP, attribute gains are limited to a single point per battle. There are eight basic attributes that level in this way. Three of your attributes have negative correlations, meaning that when you gain a point in one attribute, there is a chance you will lose a point in another. The correlations are strength→intelligence, intelligence→stamina, and spirit→strength. The chance of losing an attribute is fairly high, though it was apparently intended to be 1/6. In practice it can happen almost half the time.

• HP: In order to have any chance of gaining HP after a battle, your HP at the end of the battle must be at least 1/8 of its maximum value lower at the end of the battle than it was at the beginning. Thus if you have 800 maximum HP, you must lose at least 100 to have a chance to gain HP. This is true whether you began the fight at full HP or at 101 HP. The chance of gaining HP increases for each eighth of your maximum HP you lose. For this reason, counter-intuitive though it may be, it is often a good idea not to heal your characters during the fights in which they take damage. (Because you gain skill at a fixed rate when casting spells outside of battle, this is the best time to heal them at all but the lowest Cure levels.) You always gain HP equal to your stamina when your HP increases. Note that if stamina and HP increase after the same fight, you gain the HP before your stamina increases. Also note that you will not recover any of the HP gained when it increases.
• MP: Maximum MP is gained in a very similar fashion to maximum HP, except that the attribute determining the number gained is magic rather than stamina. As with HP, you can gain MP after losing at least 1/8 of your total in one fight, and the amount gained is equal to your magic attribute. MP can be difficult to level during short fights, since you can't use very much MP. You can use spells like Sap and Swap on your own party members to lower their MP pools quickly if you want to advance your MP faster, but this is a highly questionable activity. As with HP, try to avoid restoring your MP during a fight where you've used a lot of it.
• Strength: strength is a simple enough attribute to increase—simply attack physically. After each battle in which a character attacks, the game generates a random number between 0 and 45. If they attacked more than this number of times, they gain a point of strength. Despite rumors, wearing heavy armor has no impact on strength increases. strength is negatively corrolated with intelligence—sometimes whene you earn a strength increase, you will also be docked a point of intelligence. For this reason, your black mages should limit their offense to spells as much as possible. You can lose a point of strength when you gain a point of spirit.
• Agility: Agility growth is based entirely on your evasion %. Since agility increases evasion %, this is one attribute that will actually grow faster as the game wears on. Weapons & shields will increase your evasion % and lead to agility growth. You need at least 4% evasion % to have any chance of growth. After each battle, the game generates a random number between 0 and 255 and compares it to ¼ of your evasion % (rounded down). If your evasion % is higher, agility increases.
• Stamina: Stamina is tied directly to HP. In fact, its main purpose is determining how much HP you gain when you get an HP increase. stamina is gained in the same fashion as HP, though the minimum you must lose is slightly lower (1/9 of your total). Stamina also factors into your magic defense %. You can lose stamina when you gain a point of intelligence.
• Intelligence: Intelligence is basically the black magic equivalent of strength. If a character casts any black magic spells during battle, the game generates a number between 0 and 25. If they cast more than that many black magic spells, they gain a point of intelligence. Intelligence has a negative impact on stamina, and your stamina will sometimes decrease when your intelligence increases. You can lose a point of intelligence when you gain a point of strength.
• Spirit: Spirit is the white magic version of intelligence, though it is easier to increase. When a battle ends, the game generates a random number between 0 and 15 for each character that cast at least one white magic spell. If the character cast more than that many white magic spells, they gain a point of spirit. When a character gains spirit, they will sometimes lose a point of strength. This doesn't mean your white mage should refrain from attacking—just don't expect them to carry the load physically. You will never lose spirit when gaining a point in another attribute. Due to a bug, any spell used by a monster on the entire party counts as Firion casting one white magic spell, so he will sometimes gain spirit even if he doesn't use magic at all.
• Magic: The name may suggest some relevance to power, but in fact magic determines how much MP you gain when your MP increases. It also factors into magic defense %. Magic increases under the same circumstances as MP, though with a lower minimum threshold equal to 1/9 your maximum MP.

Calculated Attributes

Not every attribute is directly increased—a number are calculated from other attributes and gear. The formulas to determine them are listed here. Note that the three percentage attributes (accuracy, evasion %, and magic defense %) can never be lower than 0% or higher than 99%.

• Defense: Defense is simply the sum of the defense values of your head, hands, and body armor.
• Attack: If a character is holding something in each hand, attack is equal to the attack of the weapon/shield in his or her main hand plus one-quarter of their strength score. If the character is only holding one item, they instead add one-half their strength score to the attack of the item. When unarmed, you gain a +8 attack bonus for each level of bare hands skill after the first. (Bare handed attacks add half the character's strength score to their base attack, and have a base accuracy of 80%.)
• Accuracy: A character's accuracy is equal to their strength plus the accuracy of the weapon they are holding in their main hand. If they have no main-hand weapon, use the accuracy of the weapon in their off hand instead.
• Evasion %: A number of factors go into calculating evasion %. Each character has a base evasion % percentage equal to their agility score. From there, you add the evasion % bonus from the items held in each hand by the appropriate skill level for that hand plus one. So if you have a Sword with an evasion % bonus of 1 at level 2, you gain (2 + 1) × 1, or 3 evasion % from it. Similarly, if you have a shield with an evasion % bonus of 5 at level 3, you gain (3 + 1) × 5, or 20 evasion %. Finally, subtract the evasion % penalty of each piece of armor worn.
• Magic Defense %: Base magic defense % is 15% plus half the sum of the character's stamina and magic scores. It can be further increased by magic defense % granted by armor.

General Mechanics

There are a number of important game mechanics that are not related to battle or skill advancement. Those are covered here.

Trap Rooms

There are many doorways in the dungeons of Final Fantasy II that lead to empty rooms. They look similar to treasure rooms, but there are no treasures, and they have an extremely high encounter rate. I refer to these as "trap rooms," as they tend to have the most dangerous encounters in a given area. Generally, trap rooms have the same encounter list as the bottom level of a particular dungeon. In cases where trap rooms have different encounters than the rest of the map, this has been indicated on the map page. Monsters that appear on a floor only in trap rooms have their names in green. You can avoid trap rooms by only entering doorways that are indicated as being map exits or containing treasure.

Monster Treasure

Final Fantasy II has a unique drop system for monsters that works a bit differently than in other games. With a small number of exceptions, every monster has a table of 8 potential drops, and will always drop exactly one of these after battle. The unique aspect of this system is that gil is listed along with items on these tables, and monsters don't drop a set amount of gil besides. (Which means that if you ever get 0 gil from a fight, you should get items instead.)

The chance of getting any given drop breaks down to 20%-20%-20%-10%-10%-10%-5%-5% from slots 1 to 8, in order. Treasure breakdowns are listed on the monster pages, combining like drops into a single percentage.

Attribute-Boosting Armor

A number of armor pieces give a bonus to a particular attribute. This bonus is always exactly 10 points, but multiple bonuses to the same attribute don't work. Even wearing both the Giant's Helm and Giant's Gloves, you'll only gain 10 points of strength. As such, it is useful to mix-and-match these bonuses to make the most of them. Note that these attribute boosts can be used to exceed 99 in a given attribute, though the attribute will often be reset to 99 when it is increased. Simply re-equip the attribute boosting armor to increase the number. (The A shown as the 10's digit means 10, so "A9" is actually 109.)

Inns and Sanctuaries

In Final Fantasy II, inns have no set cost. Instead, it costs an amount equal to 25% of the total HP the party has to regain, plus 100% of the total MP the party has to regain. Since Cure converts MP to HP at a ratio quite a bit more favorable than 1:4, it is always a good idea to heal the party with spells before staying at an inn. You'll not only save money, you'll help level your Cure spell!

In a nice change from Final Fantasy, sanctuaries will restore your characters from KO free of charge. Simply speak to the statue within, and you're done.

The World Map

As in Final Fantasy, you can push B and Select at the same time on the overworld to bring up the world map. While the game never actually mentions this feature, it is only available when you have the Ring received from Scott. The map is an interesting "globe" display that scrolls around incredibly slowly. I use quotes around "globe" because the world map is just as flat, square, and impossible as it is in every other RPG. The reason it's shown this way is because, unlike most maps, the land masses from FF2 wrap around the map edges, making a square map look pretty weird. The world map is nonetheless useful for finding the route to nearby locations.

The Bug List

Like its predecessor, Final Fantasy II has more than its fair share of bugs. The below is not an exhaustive list, but it does include bugs that significantly impact gameplay and those that will affect your decision making during the game.

• Random Number Generation Bug: Final Fantasy II uses a flawed routine to generate random numbers. As a result, when generating a random number between X and Y, both X and Y are half as likely to be chosen as any number between them. This will generally decrease the frequency of rare events like skill gains, though the numbers I've discussed generally do not take this bug into account.
• Party Magic Target Bug: The game generally denotes "target everyone" internally with the number 8. Apparently this number gets used when determining who gains magic defense progress, because instead of any character getting it, Firion's white magic counter (8 bytes away) is increased. As a result, all-party attack spells can lead to Firion's spirit increasing.
• Target-Cancel Exploit: Both weapons and magic can be advanced easily by confirming the target of an action, then immediately cancelling and doing it again. It's boring and unnecessary, and you can't do it to your last party member, but it is one way to cheese past the tougher parts of this hard game.
• No Weapon Memory: Not so much a bug as a coding shortcut, the game doesn't know or care exactly what weapons you attack with during a fight. All advancement is simply given to the weapons you have equipped at the end of battle.
• Protect Bug: The Protect spell has no effect on any target except the caster. It's too bad since the caster is likely in the back row but hey, at least Blink still works.
• Ultima Bug: Final Fantasy II is the first game in the series to feature the Ultima spell, and gaining access to it is a major plot point. It works in a unique way, dealing the same damage regardless of level. Essentially, the spell gets 2 automatic successes with a chance for one more, and magic defense can mitigate these down to a single success. Each success hits for 100-200 damage (plus a bonus from the caster's spirit) against a single target. It appears that this underwhelming effect is intentional and not a bug, but Ultima is "fixed" in later versions of the game.
• Aura/Barrier Level 8 Bugs: The Aura and Barrier spells cannot grant their intended level 8 bonus. If you want to hurt Undead or protect yourself from Ice, well too bad! In addition, both spells list their effects in reverse order.
• Dispel Bug: No, this isn't a line I forgot to remove from the FF1 bug list. Once again, Dispel doesn't work at all. It was intended to remove elemental resistances in the same order as Barrier (and it shares the bug where the elements in question are listed in reverse order, as well as the one where it will not list its level 8 effect).
• Wall Bug: The Wall spell automatically blocks black magic up to its own level, but when it does so, the spell animations are shown as if the spell hit. A side effect of this is that the spells Toad, Break, Death, and Warp will remove monsters from battle if they would otherwise be stopped by Wall. No monsters cast Wall on themselves, but you can cast it on them to take advantage of this bug.
• Healing Item Target Bug: Items and monsters in FF2 don't actually use the spell system directly, but rather use a table of special abilities which includes the spell and certain specifics, such as target. All consumable items were given a target of "self." Unfortunately, that makes the Phoenix Down, Gold Needle, and Maiden's Kiss items useless in battle, since the status ailments they cure either prevent the use of items entirely or prevent those items from gaining any successes.
• Sap Bug: Sap is an interesting MP-damaging spell that reduces the target's MP to a fraction of its current amount. Unfortunately, whatever clever routine they came up with to calculate this fraction apparently only works on bytes and not full words. As a result, MP totals over 256 are hardly affected by Sap. Which is too bad, since that includes most late-game spellcasters!
• Imbibe Evasion % Bug: Imbibe is essentially the same as Berserk in effect, except that it also reduces evasion % by 1. There is no underflow protection on this effect, so a character with a 0 evasion % will have it set to 255% after drinking a Bacchus's Wine.
• Earthquake/Cyclone/Tsunami Bug: These spells are each more powerful when used against a specific monster family. However, they were intended to be be ineffective against a different monster family (Flying, Earth, and Flying, respectively). A bug prevents this second effect. Another bug causes these spells to ignore magic defense, so they will always deal full damage for their successes.
• Multiple Attribute Boost Bug: Some parts of the game imply that multiple armor attribute boosts to the same attribute should be cumulative, but they are not. If you have multiple armor pieces that boost the same attribute, you still only get a single +10 bonus.
• Attribute Boost Overflow Bug: The +10 bonus from some armor can push your attributes above 99. This new value does not display correctly (the tens digit shows as "A", hexadecimal for 10), and later versions of the game cap your attributes at 99 even with such a boost.
• Ripper Bug: The Ripper's damage totals display as 20 higher per hit. This extra damage was intended to completely bypass defense, making the Ripper a unique and interesting weapon. However, the effect is bugged and the extra damage is not applied (though it is shown on screen).
• Healing Staff Bug: The Healing Staff was intended to deal no damage to non-Undead monsters, but instead it deals damage and then heals those creatures afterwards. If the target would have been killed by the initial damage, the excess is added to the healing. Its effect against Undead is also bugged: the extra healing was supposed to deal extra damage, but this damage is never applied despite being displayed (similar to the Ripper bug). The Healing Staff's +20 attack vs. Undead still applies normally.
• Broken Weapon Bug: Several weapons can be used during battle to cast spells. With one exception (the Holy Lance), these weapons are not supposed to break when used. However, there is a 1/256 chance they will break anyway. Be careful with that Masamune!
• Middle Character Target Bug: Guy and Maria are targeted twice as frequently as your other characters by single-target monster actions. This is even more noticeable if one of them is in the back row, causing the other to receive half of all physical attacks directed at the party. This is a result of the random number generation bug discussed above, but has such a dramatic impact on the game that it deserves to be mentioned separately.
• Dual-Wield Bug: Even though the game animates an attack with your second weapon, you actually still only attack with the first weapon. Not that dual-wielding is useless—it's a good way to level up another weapon at the cost of defense instead of offense.