Characters
Final Fantasy II features four playable characters as well as several secondary characters who are only briefly controlled by the player. Primary characters include Firion (フリオニール, Furionīru?, "Frioniel" in the Japanese release), a resident of the country of Fynn and the main hero; Maria (マリア?), a soft-spoken archer and dedicated enemy of the Empire; Guy (ガイ, Gai?, "Gus" in the remake for the PlayStation), a simple monk who communicates with animals; and Leon (レオンハルト, Reonharuto?, "Leonhart" in the Japanese release), a conflicted dark knight who is missing for most of the game. Five playable characters temporarily join the party to assist Firion, Maria, and Guy in their missions for the rebellion. These are Gordon (ゴードン, Gōdon?), the prince of Kas'ion and a member of the rebellion; Josef (ヨーゼフ, Yōzefu?), a villager in the town of Salamand; Leila (レイラ, Reira?, "Reila" in the Japanese release), a pirate; Minwu (ミンウ, Min'u?, "Mindu" in the PlayStation remake and "Ming-Wu" in the Japanese release), who is a White Mage with the rebellion, and Ricard Highwind (リチャード・ハイウインド, Richādo Haiuindo?, "Gareth" in the PlayStation remake and "Richard" in the Japanese release), who is the first dragoon to appear in the series.
While Final Fantasy was mostly focused on gameplay, Hironobu Sakaguchi decided for the second installment to put more emphasis on character development. Care was taken to make the characters feel like real human beings, able to experience various emotions that the player could similarly feel, such as sadness or happiness. Final Fantasy II also had playable characters die as part of the normal storyline. Music composer Nobuo Uematsu was initially opposed to the creation of these death scenes, but eventually agreed with Sakaguchi's ideas. In terms of gameplay, once a guest character would die in a scripted event, the player would have no means to revive them or recover their equipment and weapons.
Firion and the Emperor of Palamecia (パラメキア皇帝, Paramekia Kōtei?) (named Mateus (マティウス, Matiusu?) in Kenji Terada's novelization of the game) are the respective hero and villain representing Final Fantasy II in Dissidia Final Fantasy, a fighting game featuring characters from across the series. Firion is voiced by Hikaru Midorikawa in the Japanese version and by Johnny Yong Bosch in the English version; Mateus is voiced by Kenyu Horiuchi in the Japanese version and Christopher Corey Smith in the English version. In the PlayStation's opening FMV of Final Fantasy II, Firion is also voiced by Yukimasa Obi, while Maria is played by Noriko Shitaya, Guy by Kenta Miyake, and Leon by Takayuki Yamaguchi.
Read more about this topic: Final Fantasy II, Plot
Famous quotes containing the word characters:
“No one of the characters in my novels has originated, so far as I know, in real life. If anything, the contrary was the case: persons playing a part in my life—the first twenty years of it—had about them something semi-fictitious.”
—Elizabeth Bowen (1899–1973)
“Children pay little attention to their parent’s teachings, but reproduce their characters faithfully.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“Philosophy is written in this grand book—I mean the universe—
which stands continually open to our gaze, but it cannot be understood unless one first learns to comprehend the language and interpret the characters in which it is written. It is written in the language of mathematics, and its characters are triangles, circles, and other geometrical figures, without which it is humanly impossible to understand a single word of it.”
—Galileo Galilei (1564–1642)