A unique feature of BOF2 is that most of the characters have some special move that they can use when leading the party. For example, Jean can turn into a giant frog and swim through lakes and rivers, Spar will be able to lead your party through the otherwise impenetrable forests, and I will allow you to figure out the rest.
There are also Shamans that you can find and an old woman can join them with your characters to make several combinations, that can give your characters a new look and new powers. Good luck, these Shamans can be tough to find.
You also have the ability to start a town of your own. You then find people who want to join your town and they set up shops and give you information. Visit this town regularly to see it grow. Also the town itself has a secret in its well.
The battles in BOF2 are easy to control and also include an auto-battle feature that will take care of the enemy with physical attacks. The character animations are very fluid and the battle scenes are pretty well detailed. The graphics don't have the realistic quality that Final Fantasy 3 had, but they are good nonetheless. The music is the one thing that really needed some work, but if you get too annoyed you can go into options and turn it off. Also when you talk to some people a jewel appears in the dialogue box. This jewel shows you the undercurrent of the person's emotions, such as if they are evil, lying, confused, friendly, or truthful.
There is a lot to do in this game, in fact it took me 42 hours to solve and there was plenty that I had left undone due to time constraints. The story is full of subplots and mini-quests, including many dealing with the histories of your comrades. This storyline is very rich and long, you never know what your little party will be doing next. You even have the choice of what to do near the end, but be forewarned if you choose to wimp out and wait, you will get the bad ending.
The game does have some flaws such as a ton of typos, and sometimes it is difficult to figure out where to go next. Other than these small problems BOF2 is a must play for all RPGers. With a little more work this game would have been a major contender with FF3 as the best RPG.
An excellent job by Capcom and I hope to see more RPGs from them now that they have shown they can make good ones.
Until next time.........
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(2/96)