a level-up system that, while flawed, was about twenty years ahead of its time,
Uh I'm pretty sure the Saga/FFL series used it throughout the 90's. "Ahead of its time", maybe, but not by 20 years. And not a good execution of it, more to the point.
an awesome villain,
Please tell me this is something from Dissidia. FF2 Emperor is bland as hell and has like three lines. Leon is better (you can at least see hints of an anti-hero that a game with a non-terrible story might have been able to execute well) but still highly unsatisfying.
FF2's plot is bad. It has more of it than FF1/3, yes, but that only makes the game worse, since it means you spend way more time walking back and forth between Altea/Altair and Paloom/Poft/Bofsk/Salamand/Kashuon for like half the game.
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