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Like a lake, this game is deeper than you think.

It’s remarkable that Final Fantasy was originally supposed to be Hironobu Sakaguchi’s final game creation. Now, the Final Fantasy series is one of the longest running game titles in video game history. Such is the case, when you make a game over and over, there tends to be some redundancy. Fortunately for Final Fantasy II The Anniversary Edition on PSP, the redundancies aren’t too great.

It’s hard to tell if Square-Enix is looking to brush everyone up on the history of Final Fantasy, or if they are just hoping to profit off of one more re-release of another game. Whether they were looking for a quick profit or to make this version of FF available to PSP owners, the clear fact is that this game has never looked better. What started life as an 8 bit ground breaker has now evolved into a jaw dropping PSP treat. The visuals have been updated to maximize the wonderful resolution of the PSP’s screen. The in-game headshots are created by none other than Yoshitaka Amano, which needless to say is a real treat.

The audio has also received a big time overhaul. No more of that shoddy, digital score that haunts the memories of our 1980’s gaming experience. Now the music is smooth and peaceful in the calmest of times, and quick and bouncy when the action heats up. On the outside, this game is very, very solid and pleasant to hang around. It’s the kind of game you want to be friends with and have over for dinner.

Unfortunately this game has a gloomy side as well. Either the mechanics were simply overlooked or purposely left iffy just to let us know that Square-Enix still calls the shots. The experience system hasn’t been refined enough to let players choose how they want to play, instead it’s flawed to the point that you must use the spells you don’t care for otherwise you will lose the use of them. This makes leveling up tricky and frustrating. This game seems so well balanced in most areas that when you find the areas that are unbalanced it seems so much worse. An example is the fact that the monsters that you encounter dungeon crawling are so much harder than the ones you find on the surface.

Also, this may just be a personal opinion, but I am beginning to think that voice-over acting should be mandatory in games now. The technology is there, the talent is definitely out there, it just seems unforgivable in today’s day and age when a game comes out with an infinite amount of text to read. Some of us have grown lazy and don’t want to do all that readin’. I mean, if we did wouldn’t we have our noses buried in books instead of controllers? I mean come on! If you’re going to play games you’ve got to go all the way with it.

Other than a few clunky areas of the game, it’s really an awesome re-make of a classic game. The PSP’s screen never ceases to amaze me, and this game really does it justice. If you grew up playing these games like I did, it’s really amazing to see this game go from its 8-bit origins to something this beautiful.