Background: I have played most of the Final Fantasies, including FFVI (released as III on SNES in the US), which definitely showed that 16 bit RPGs can mix excellent gameplay and a compelling story. I did not play this one when it came out as Final Fantasy II.

The gameplay for this FF is your usual RPG fare of random battles and an ATB bar. However the ATB system is broken. There were many times in battle where my characters were completely skipped over, so their bars would just refill. Even more often, I would enter a command and the game would either take awhile to execute the action (after I entered in commands for others and they acted before the first character) or just completely skip the action that I entered. Always in battle, the game does not respond right away to buttons being pressed, so commands are even more delayed.

The story was alright. I did not find myself really caring about any of the characters (as I have in most). There was no loving relationship between any of them either (a kind of Cloud/Aeris or Squall/Rinoa relationship). The ending seemed to just have that "slapped together at the last minute" feeling.

I did enjoy acquiring the summons and ultimate weapons (for the few characters that had them). However, once getting them and having the characters at 50+ levels, the final boss is incredibly easy compared to most of the monsters found in the final dungeon. And the game is still very short after all that. I find no incentive to do the Lunar Ruins.

If this was your first FF back in the SNES days, then I understand why you like this one so much, but after VI-X (well VI-IX really) the bar for an excellent RPG has been significantly raised.
Background: I have played most of the Final Fantasies, including FFVI (released as III on SNES in the US), which definitely showed that 16 bit RPGs can mix excellent gameplay and a compelling story. I did not play this one when it came out as Final Fantasy II. The gameplay for this FF is your usual RPG fare of random battles and an ATB bar. However the ATB system is broken. There were many times in battle where my characters were completely skipped over, so their bars would just refill. Even more often, I would enter a command and the game would either take awhile to execute the action (after I entered in commands for others and they acted before the first character) or just completely skip the action that I entered. Always in battle, the game does not respond right away to buttons being pressed, so commands are even more delayed. The story was alright. I did not find myself really caring about any of the characters (as I have in most). There was no loving relationship between any of them either (a kind of Cloud/Aeris or Squall/Rinoa relationship). The ending seemed to just have that "slapped together at the last minute" feeling. I did enjoy acquiring the summons and ultimate weapons (for the few characters that had them). However, once getting them and having the characters at 50+ levels, the final boss is incredibly easy compared to most of the monsters found in the final dungeon. And the game is still very short after all that. I find no incentive to do the Lunar Ruins. If this was your first FF back in the SNES days, then I understand why you like this one so much, but after VI-X (well VI-IX really) the bar for an excellent RPG has been significantly raised.