Game - Final Fantasy X-2, Day 75
Hours Played - 5 hrs
Starting Point - Beginning of Final Fantasy X-2
Current Goal - Play Final Fantasy X-2 for a couple of hours and form a highly opinionated opinion of it. Try to play it no more than about five hours at most.
What Happened - So I said I was going to start FFXII next, and I'm going to really soon. But then I decided to do a one-shot single day couple hour post over the strangeness of Final Fantasy X-2. My current plan is to only play this around five hours and then never look back after I type up this post and details. So..let's get this over with.
Final Fantasy X-2 is the very first official Final Fantasy sequel in the series. By sequel of course, I mean directly a sequel to a previous title. X-2 is supposed to continue a brief time after the original X ended. I've already played a little in the past, and I believe I know the majority of the story that goes down. So let's just play a little and see if the opinion changes as I go.
The game opens up with a cutscene (of course), and we're at a Blitzball stadium! So we might start something like the last one....Nevermind. Turns out they are having a concert there right now. As things are starting up, we already see one familiar face pop up. It's Rikku! She's saying something about team is in position. Let's find out. At this point, there's no idea how far into the future it is, but it's funny to see all this technology literally flying about the stadium. Guitarists on flying platforms playing electric guitars. Main stage is a giant drum buddha-looking robot. Yuna appears on top of the stage in her summoner outfit. Next thing I know, the outfit changes into something else entirely. Then Yuna...starts dancing and singing. Rikku is dealing with guards at one point, and the third yet mysterious lady is dealing with guards elsewhere. Find out quickly enough that her name is Paine. The two of them get up to the main stage and fighting begins! (My favorite way to summarize this scene is this: The game opens up with a Britney Spears number ala Yuna and friends.)
So I get immediately thrust into the battle system. It seems simple enough, but they've changed it a bit since the last one. They've gone from turn-based back to the Active Time Battle (ATB) system. Characters are all actively fighting and moving about this circle that is the battlefield. It's really fast and moving for sure. I'll go more into it later, but either way, it's a quick battle against Yuna and the two guards with her. Rikku is obviously a thief with her steal ability, and Paine seems to be a warrior with her massive sword. I just quickly attack everybody on the field and beat them. After the battle concludes, Yuna runs off and out of the stadium. I chase after her and try to catch up. I have to fight several guards along the way, but they're nothing special. I make my way around, but Yuna has disappeared. Then, we are cornered by a couple of guys who start to attack us when...things happen!
Yuna appears again, but now she has guns and is in a different outfit. She leaps over the two guys and starts firing at them. As she lands, she poses dramatically with Rikku and Paine, and then the screen throws up a Y R P name. So...they go by that it seems. After that, the two guys charge at us, and another battle starts. One's a big guy with a huge shield, and the other is a taller guy with a pair of guns. Nothing much to say right here, but Yuna has come in as a Gun-based class of sorts. This battle felt all jumbly and quick with characters just bobbing around, but the two guys are easily beaten. With their defeat, the Yuna from before comes up and tells the group that they are quite persistent. The group yells something at her about giving Yuna her Garment Grid back. The singing Yuna changes into a different lady and throws back whatever it was. Then...another battle!
This opening bit is just shooting through here, and I'm getting to learn things on the fly more or less. As the battle starts, it tells me to push L1 to do something. I hit it and come to find out that you can change your class mid-battle. This detail...I like. I change Yuna from Gunner (what she currently was) into a Songstress. When you change your class mid-battle, you get a little cutscene of the character flashily transforming her outfit from the current class to the new one. It seems like a big pile of fan service...not that I mind. The Songstress class is a class that causes status effects to the entire enemy group through dancing and singing. At this point, I only have the Darkness-causing Dance, but I quickly make use of it. With Darkness in effect, the enemies are quickly beaten. With their defeat, they run off, and the girls start to head after them when they realize...Yuna is a little preoccupied. She's dancing in place and can't seem to control herself. Regardless of this, an airship seems to fly in to pick us up and MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!
When we get back on the ship, it seems that quite a few characters are back for the adventure. Brother (Rikku's brother) is here, and he says something about wanting to see Yuna dance...Yeah, I feel like Square Enix seemed to forget Yuna and Brother's relation. That or they found it okay for cousins to enjoy one another's company. It's kinda creepy. Anyways, something seems to be going on, and he yells some stuff in Al Bhed. (Which I get to re-learn...yaaay...) A kid dressed in a funky outfit is introduced as Shinra (DUN DUN DUUUUUUUN) and is one of the bigger new characters. The group tells him about Yuna's dancing incident and asks him what was up with that. Apparently, this kid invented the Grid Garments (item they mentioned earlier), and he's some sort of genius. After that, I get to start exploring the ship and filling myself in on the details.
So far, this game feels really rushed and pushing me into things. It jump starts, gets going, and doesn't want to stop. I guess that's all beginnings in a game really, but I wish it'd ease me in a bit slower. I go talk to the Shinra kid and find out he has all the tutorials. I quickly look them over and try to grasp all I can for the moment.
Like I previously stated, the game has changed from turn-based in FFX to a slightly-altered version of the ATB system. The two biggest things in FFX-2 are the Garment Grids and Dresspheres. Simply enough, Dresspheres are the different jobs/classes you can play as. The Garment Grid takes a bit more of an explanation. The Garment Grid is a grid (OBVIOUSLY) that you place Dresspheres into. The Garment Grid allows you to change your jobs mid-battle, but you are limited to however many slots are on the Garment Grid. The initial one comes with quite a few slots, and I can easily fit all the current Dresspheres in it. Apart from just holding Dresspheres, some Garment Grids come with special abilities and upgrades that are attached and usable while it's equipped. Each character can equip any Garment Grid separately, but they share the same layout that is on it (job layout). Some Garment Grids come with "gates" on the lines connecting the dresspheres. Passing through the "gates" activates temporary boots in battle like upgraded spells or buffs.
Apart from the Garment Grid, there isn't a lot of other details to go over. You can chain attacks together in this (due to the nature of ATB), and a higher chain will result in more damage. Of course, you have to be quick to really chain the attacks together. The elements of magic from the previous title are still present here (Fire, Blizzard, Thunder, Water). According to what I looked up, there are fourteen different Dresspheres in the game and also three special dresspheres. I don't know much about the special ones, but each character has a special one that can be activated by travelling the entirety of their Garment Grid in-battle.
As the final note for the "gameplay", they did do one thing correctly...They reinstated actual levels. Rather than having zero definition of a character's level, you have an actual number now! It's nice to have some form of a number for sure. Levels simply boost their general stats though, but it's nice to have an idea. Each Dressphere has its own selection of abilities to learn, and you learn them by having them equipped and using them in battle. You can actively select the skill to learn from the menu, so you can learn pretty much whatever in whatever order. You are limited on some skills to keep you from skipping weak things for their more powerful versions. (Example, you have to get the regular spells first before getting the -ra and -ga spells.) Overall, this is probably one of the stronger points in this game. The job system it uses is actually really nice and better than the previous title. However, now it is time to move right along.
Among the things Shinra has, he also has a listing of all the current sphere videos I have. There's already one available, and it's detailed as "why Yuna became a Sphere Hunter." I quickly load up the video and find out why things are the way they are. The video contains footage of a person who looks and sounds an awful lot like our departed ghost-friend Tidus. (I forgot to point out the spoiler at the end of FFX credits. You see Tidus swimming up and out of random water somewhere...Yeah, screw you Square Enix.) So basically, this video has lead Yuna to believe that Tidus is still alive somewhere. So now she's joined with the Gullwings to try and find more spheres with evidence like this. So...yeaaah, that's what this game is about.
From all the minor details during this opening bit, I've learned that it's been two years since the "Eternal Calm" started and a lot of things have changed. Yuna and company are part of some group called the Gullwings. They're a group of Sphere Hunters. Sphere hunters are just one of the many new products of this everlasting peace from Sin. They go around and hunt "treasure spheres" all over the place. These old spheres tend to hold old video recordings from the past and other things. It isn't said at any point, but one could assume that a sphere with valuable and relevant information is likely to be worth quite a bit. Paine is quickly introduced as a sphere hunter who joined the Gullwings shortly before Yuna did. Finally, I learn by talking to Brother that I get to re-learn all of the Al Bhed language! Yaaaay...Luckily, it throws out Al Bhed Primers like free candy in this one. After talking with him, I've already got 4 of the 26 Primers. Every character I talk to gives me a little bit of information, but nothing else felt relevant for the post really. (I also didn't take notes nor did I care about them!) That's enough of the background stuff for now. It's time to move right along!
Our navigator, named Buddy, tells me that he can't find any new spheres at the moment and suggests I go rest. I head to our tavern/inn area and sleep it off. (Yeaaah, the airship has a tavern basically.) It quickly jumps over and informs me that they've found a new sphere. I head to the bridge and find out the next sphere is at Mt. Gagazet! We head on there and are dropped off at floating ruins above Mt. Gagazet. Just as we touch down, trouble has already started. Yuna is about to fall off of the floating ruins, but the other two quickly pull her back up. Brother is talking to them through some radio system and is freaking out right now. He's all worried about Yuna at a creepy level really. Once we get past the bit of drama, I find out that exploring in X-2 is a bit more platform-y than previous titles. You can climb up at certain spots or jump over gaps. You can even fall into gaps for collecting treasure or exploring other paths! It's an interesting change but nothing more. I quickly work around the ruins and run into an old friend from before.
It's the lady from the beginning, and she finally gives us her name, Leblanc. She's a sphere hunter as well, but she calls the group a bunch of amatuers. Rikku quickly points out that she followed us though. Well, Leblanc and her group aren't going to take that so BOSS BATTLE TIME! We get to re-fight Leblanc and her two purple minions. (Fat shield guy and tall gun guy) The battle started off okay, but at some point, they got the upper hand and were just going to town on me. They managed to actually kill one character, so I had to revive her. Lucky for me, I looked around the airship a bit and found some treasure with a Phoenix Down. After the revival, I quickly turned the flow of battle.
At this point, it feels like the flow of battle is overly fast and forces you to just constantly "Go go go!", or you'll get left behind. For an RPG, it's not very fun if I feel like I have to pause battle to have time to consider my next move. As for dressphere changes, I mostly just changed Yuna around while I kept Rikku a thief and Paine a warrior. I had Yuna jumping between Gunner and Songstress though. The Songstress's Dark Dance is pretty useful and at least kept them from hitting nearly as often. After I finished off her two cronies, I quickly put an end to Leblanc, and the battle was a success! But the war had only started...
With their defeat, they quickly run off and ahead of us. They plan to grab the treasure sphere before we can! Screw that though, I'm going to get it first! The game throws up a MISSION START, and I get six minutes to quickly get ahead of them and get the sphere first. Six minutes doesn't feel like a lot of time to run around and make it to the top, but it does stop during battles thankfully. I get interrupted by several battles while trying to navigate the place. With the ability to jump gaps, you can explore all forms of places. At least, I would have had I not been hindered by time. I was busy enough trying to find the end of this place that I skipped several chests along the way. Leblanc's group also set up several ambush points on the way up, so I'm further delayed by those.
As I reach the top of the ruins, I'm sad to see that I had more than enough time to make it. As it turns out though, none of the time mattered at all. (Storywise) The trio of idiots are stuck and hanging from a ledge. They have no way of getting up, and I'm allowed to walk straight past them...Fun fun. As we reach the top, the game quickly informs me that I'm not alone here. Atop the middle chamber leading to the sphere, there's a large spider monster waiting for us. BOSS BATTLE TIME! This battle went pretty fast though, and I had little trouble overcoming the massive spider thinger. I kept Yuna as a Gunner while the other two were their starting classes. (Already mentioned above.) There's not much to comment on this battle overall. I just kept after the beast and easily beat it. With it's defeat, we run into the chamber it was guarding and claim our prize.
We grab the sphere, and the group wonders if it's worth anything. Leblanc comes in and claims that the sphere is a pile of junk. She tells us that we can have it and walks away. With the sphere in hand, the mission is complete, and the group returns to the ship...without letting me explore anything more. (Find out later that I can't return either...THANKS GAME.) They hand the sphere to Shinra so that he can analyze it. It also turns out that Brother had jumped off the ship when he thought Yuna was in danger. As Yuna, I go over to comfort him, and that was basically just a bad idea. Brother tries to sneak in a grab, but Rikku beats him for that. As that concludes, the sphere is ready to view, so I go to watch it. Turns out...it really just just garbage. The sphere contains just random footage of old Zanarkand. A guy there mentions something about meeting a lady. Luckily, the sphere isn't completely useless because it can be made into a dressphere! Thus I obtain the Black Mage class! Woo!
With all of that cleared up, it's time to find more treasure spheres! Buddy, the navigator, tells us that a few spheres popped up on their scanner, so I have my choice between the two. One is in Besaid, and the other one is in Zanarkand. All of the locations have a star rating for difficulty, and in this case, Zanarkand is a much higher difficulty than Besaid. Buddy suggests we hit Besaid first. However, in this title, I have most (if not all) the locations (that I know of) unlocked from the start, so I can basically just go wherever I want whenever I want. Before heading to Besaid, I decided to do a bit of exploring first. With the whole map available, I decided to hit one of the low star locations first. With difficulty in mind, Kilika Island seems like a nice start so I head there.
The first and most obvious thing about Kilika Island is that it is intact now! (Upon visiting locations, Yuna gives a brief explanation of changes and etc.) Yuna narrates how the place was rebuilt some time ago by a group called the Youth League. I explored the town briefly enough and found quite a number of treasure chests available to me. Unfortunately, I couldn't go into the nearby forest to level, so that made this trip somewhat of a waste. (Was planning to get some levels.) For the most part, there wasn't really anything notable about Kilika apart from the repaired status. I did meet a pair of old faces though!
Dona and Bartholomew are living here, but they are having a small problem between them. They are conflicting over differing beliefs. Dona is with the Youth League, and Bartholomew is with New Yevon. The two factions are currently at odds with one another and disagree over things. Dona doesn't say anything more though, so I make my way back to the airship and look for a new location. Although we just came from there recently, I headed back to Luca to see what's up. (Luca is where the concert was at.) As soon as I get there, I'm immediately thrown into a mission!
I quickly find out that this is less of a mission though and more of a "What was Yuna doing during the beginning bit?" The group didn't want any problems occurring while trying to get Yuna's Garment Grid back, so they had her dressed up in a Moogle outfit. While the other two infiltrated the concert, Yuna was waiting outside to keep from being spotted and listening in for the code words I guess. As I'm moving about in the Moogle suit, a guy approaches her and tells her to hand out balloons to everybody. I had to give away at least ten balloons to everybody in the town square. This was just a short run about though and easily completed. After giving all the balloons away, Yuna overhears that the concert has started. The group is currently in position and doing their part. From here, the rest is already known though. With the backstory mission completed, I'm awarded a new Garment Grid and MISSION COMPLETE! With the mission done, I decide to look about Luca to see what else is going on. There's not a lot to see or do at this point though.
The game is split up into five separate chapters, and each chapter has new things available while also locking other things. It's one of those fun factors...If you aren't careful, you can miss out on things with no way to go back. Alongside that lovely thought, the game comes with a percentage score as well. Basically, as you do and complete things, it reflects through your total game percentage. I've already looked up some of the details for it, but I won't be revealing them here. Suffice it to say, if you want the best/true ending, you'll have to hit a fairly high percentage, if not 100%. This can be easily screwed up though, so for those who don't want to miss that, you'll probably want to keep a guide on hand constantly. Back to the game for now.
As I explore Luca, it's pretty obvious that this place has probably changed the least during all this Eternal Calm business. Everything is basically the same here, but there are a few new things to keep you occupied. By a few though, I guess I only truly mean one thing. There's a new in-game game called Sphere Break. I'm not going to bother with the details, but it involves coins, numbers, math, and being fast about them. If you are really that interested, you can look up more about it yourself. Before leaving the area though, I went up and checked out Mi'ihen Road. There's still fiends all about, but the Al Bhed have put up machina to fight off the fiends. An unfortunate side effect of the technology acceptance is also apparent. Nobody really travels the road with vehicular services able to take you from one place to another. Chocobos are all but gone from here now. Sad times...Well, I take in the time to get in a few extra battles for experience and money. Not much to comment there, so I'll head on with the game.
Of course, by "head on with the game", I meant I'm going to explore a bit more before moving along with the main story. X-2 has a fairly short main story (or so I read), and a lot of the content in the game has to do with all the side missions. The side missions are basically all the story outside of the main story and has to deal with all the old characters, new characters, warring factions, problems with people, and much more. It sounds kinda lame...but it might work for some people! Moving along, my next destination was Djose Temple.
Djose Temple is now home to a group of Al Bhed that are doing heavy research on old Machina. The idea is to research and upgrade the current machina. Then, with the knowledge gained, they plan to try and make new machines out of the process. They're also trying to promote the word Machine over Machina. They're trying to eliminate the negative thoughts instigated by Yevon teachings by SLIGHTLY changing the word. From what the NPCs around said, it is somehow working. People come here to apply as a digger for this Al Bhed group. If you pass the application process, you are allowed to go help dig in the Bikanel Desert for old machina buried in the sands. I head in to get signed up, but before I get the okay, I have to be interviewed by the Al Bhed leader of this group. This consisted of a few small cutscenes of him looking all of the ladies up and down. He seems to recognize Paine in all of this, but nothing is mentioned past that.
After I get the okay from that guy, I head down Djose Highroad and make my way to Mushroom Rock Road. Once there, the group spots Leblanc's minions. They appear to be up to something, so we have to follow after them. I have to sit through a small scene where Yuna and co talk to the Young League, but after that, MISSION START! I'm following the two bozos as they run through Mushroom Rock Road. I also get to fight off minions to help out the Youth League somehow. I eventually follow these guys into a small cave area where they're messing with a weird gate of sorts. They spot us though and run off while dropping important-looking spheres. I pick them up, and I get to learn about this mystery cave. I have to collect some "Crimson Spheres" in order to open the sealed gate and access its juicy contents. There's another little scene between the group and a random old character, but honestly..he wasn't much of a character in regular FFX. Therefore, I don't plan to give him anymore time. Back to the ship!
Seeing as I've wasted enough time, I head for the next story objective at Besaid Village. When we land, Yuna gives the normal narrative bit. She hasn't been here since she left and blah blah blah. Upon entering the village, we immediately meet with an old friend...Wakka! They talk about things briefly, but the most notable thing that comes up is Wakka's current parental status. He's about to become a father! And guess who the mother is? It's Lulu. His biggest concern is not knowing how to act like a parent. When Rikku mentions to act like his own parents, Wakka says they died long ago and doesn't remember them thanks to Sin. After that little bit, Wakka suddenly grows silent and seems to have something else in mind. He heads off to go check something out, so we go find Lulu next. I quickly locate Lulu and start talking with her. The only funny thing mentioned here is how Rikku says she doesn't look pregnant. (She doesn't...They didn't change her character graphics at all. Lazyness!) She asks the group to walk with her for a bit, and they head a small ways outside of town.
Lulu asks why Yuna ran off, and she shows her the sphere with the video. Kimahri found the sphere on Mt Gagazet and gave it to Rikku. Rikku gave it to Yuna and then the rest of the story happened. Lulu notes the resemblance of the person in the sphere, but she says that something seems off about it. Regardless, she is glad to see Yuna changing but reminds her to not forget who she is. Lulu believes that people will most likely try to use her if she isn't careful. After that, we stay the night in Besaid. One nighttime nap later, we wake up and learn that Wakka has gone off somewhere. The only clue he gave was inside some sort of cave. And who takes the case? We do! MISSION START!
First off, we have to talk with all the people about town for clues. It's mostly a lot of little stuff, but when you put it together, you get something like this. Basically, there very much is a cave nearby, but you can't just go inside. You need to acquire a few ciphers to gain entrance. There are four of these around Besaid, and although I have clues to where they are, I still have to go look for them. From there, I leave town and start finding these ciphers. The townsfolk gave good enough clues that most of them are easily found. On top of that, many of them are directly labeled on the map with a giant pink square. After locating the four ciphers, I go to find the cave. As it turns out, the cave in question has a large mechanical door. The ciphers were simply the numbers needed for the password to open the cave door. Once inside, we spot Wakka at the very front and ask what's up.
He doesn't ever directly say what is going on, but he does admit that this cave is supposed to hold a sphere. He won't say what's on it, but it is important enough that he has come this far for it. Paine hears the word "sphere" in all of that and says we are getting it regardless. So we head on into the cave, and what a cave it is! /end sarcasm It's an insanely small area with nothing much to explore other than reaching the back end of it. When we reach it, there is very much a sphere there for the taking, but we aren't about to get it for free...BOSS BATTLE TIME! This was a grand example of another spectacularly easy battle. Maybe I'm just over leveled at this point, or maybe this game isn't supposed to be that hard. Either way, the dragon we fought here was incredibly easy, and I put him down without any real trouble. With the sphere acquired, I'm immediately given access to the White Mage dressphere! Woo!
I head back to the entrance of the cave, and the group takes a look at the sphere. Unfortunately, the sphere is useless (outside of the dressphere) and only seems to contain random shots of areas around Besaid. As they leave the cave area, Rikku asks Wakka about the sphere he was looking for. He said that the sphere was supposed to contain an image of his parents. His parents were killed by Sin long ago, and he can't remember what they looked like. Chappu had claimed to find it when they were young, but he never showed it to Wakka because of an argument the two had. Wakka never asked him about it and never thought about it until recently. The whole parent thing got him thinking about it, and he went to investigate that cave. Chappu used to play there as a kid, and he figured that maybe the sphere was there. As he went inside to look for it, he started to think...Maybe he didn't want to see his parents! He already had an image in his head he always used to think of in hard times. Unsure if their real faces would be different, he decided he didn't want to know and would be happy not knowing. He's still unsure about the dad thing, but he thinks he'll figure it all out. He's still unsure of how to go about it, but NOT OUR PROBLEM! MISSION COMPLETE!
From here on, I didn't really have enough time to complete more story-based missions, so I set about to try and do a few more side mission things. The next spot that was highlighted in the location list was Bikanel Desert. Might as well check out this digging business! I head for there next. The first thing to happen is our drop off in the middle of a damn desert. Rikku leads the group about and seems to know where she's going, but then we get lost. Next thing I know, the group ends up passing out. Oh noes...but then we are picked up by a group of Al Bheds! The explanation here was that they moved the base of operations due to an incoming sandstorm. Rikku was heading for the old location and would have probably never found the new one. Ah well, not much more we can do about it than be glad to be alive.
Currently, we have to wait around for a couple of things. We can't board the airship currently because of a sandstorm, and we are waiting for the person in-charge to give us full permission to dig. She shows up, we get permission, and a new mini-game is unlocked! MISSION START!
It's nothing really special though. I'm carried onto a random part of the desert by a hovercraft and have a minute to look around. The map in the corner has several X marks on it, and they mark where treasure is. Apart from regular stuff, there's also a required piece of treasure to get that is vital to a successful dig. Of course, you only get a minute to look around and have to return to the hovercraft before the time expires. So...you don't get much time to explore. There are some fiends to deal with as well, but there's nothing super hard about it. I managed my first round pretty easy though and MISSION COMPLETE! I can redo the mini-game as often as I'd like. The rewards given out are a bit of Gil along with any items I can find. I tried it a second time, but the rewards were kinda meh. I didn't feel like wasting any more time in the desert, so I returned to the airship to explore elsewhere.
The next location I made my way to was Guadosalam. Unfortunately, there's nothing much to do here at this point. I do learn a little bit of story elements, but nothing worth going crazy over. After the whole latest Sin incident, a lot of people blamed the Guado for what happened. Yuna says they weren't wrong to blame them for that, but it still wasn't the right thing to do. The Guados ended up leaving Guadosalam, so it became an empty place. Sphere hunters have ended up setting shop here because it's a nice middle area of Spira. It also seems that Leblanc has set up her sphere hunter organization here as well. She's laid claim to Guado Manor and nothing much more to add for Guadosalam. I head back to the ship and aim for another location. This time...I went to Bevelle.
Ah Bevelle! I was never truly able to visit it last time, but I can visit it now. Of course, there's really not much to do at this point. Bevelle has become the home of the New Yevon faction (of course). As previously stated, New Yevon and the Youth League are currently at odds with one another. I do learn that there was something up between Yuna and the New Yevonites. It seems there was some sort of strange meeting between her and the leader. He had asked her to marry the current high minister or something like that. However, the group recently kicked him out because he was trying too hard to go for a power grab. Since the change has occured, Yuna's deal fell through. She wasn't planning to marry him regardless though, so it doesn't really matter! The new leader explains that New Yevon just wants to help people adjust to the current times. Without Sin being a problem, they are trying to adjust to peaceful times without the constant overhanging doom of Sin. There's not much I can do in Bevelle right now though, so I leave here.
And with that, I'm calling it. I'm a little under the five hour mark, but I don't really care. It's close enough to stop because otherwise I'll go over. I'm ready to start Final Fantasy XII! No point wasting anymore time with X-2. I don't plan to post a full review of FFX-2 though since I didn't play the full game. However, listed below, I'm going to make a Pros and Cons list to explain what I think is good and bad about the game based on the small amount of time I played. I'll say right now that it hasn't been the best experience, but there's some niceties about it regardless.
First off, let's cover the Pros!
- THE PROS
- Fights are nice and fast like FFX.
- The overall system is interesting and nice. A LOT simpler than the Sphere Grid.
- Levels are back! No more weird unknown about how far along you are.
- There are several classes in the game, so you can customize your team to the fullest!
- Customization is easy and learning new abilities is also easy.
- The game has more than enough for you to do, and it's all fairly optional unless you want a better ending. (I mentioned above how a certain percentage is needed to get the better endings.)
- You get the airship from the start, so you have immediate access and full freedom of exploration.
- Fans of the previous game will find it nice to see what has happened to Spira as well as the many, many characters from FFX.
Now that lists the pros of the game for me, but with a pros list, you inevitably get a cons list. I'm afraid that my cons really outweigh the pros list.
- THE CONS
- From the very beginning, the fights feel almost too fast. You almost have to play catch up or just fully pause the game to consider your course of action.
- Beyond classes and accessories, you can't customize your character very much. There's no armor or weapons included. Of course, this is for good reason, but it'd be nice to have at least some control over this.
- From what I looked up, there's not much to do if you just play straight through the game. This means that the game is more about doing side missions than the main bit. This means you spend more time talking with and learning about random NPCs than anything. This is good for people who just absolutely LOVED the assortment of random people in FFX, but I found a lot of them pointless and annoying after a while...So yeah.
- The underlying focus of this story is that Yuna loves Tidus. Every narration bit she does refers to "him". He's supposed to be gone, but what I read about the plot summary suggests otherwise...if you get 100% on the overall game completion.
- There are multiple endings based on your overall percentage. For me, getting anything less than 100% is lame, and the different endings without 100% aren't worth my time! It's also incredibly easy to miss some of them since some of the percentage is as simple as "comforting Brother" or "sleeping in the tavern every chapter". Overall, not a big fan of that.
- The music in this game feels incredibly weird in comparison to earlier entries in the series. I'm even talking about FFX! The music is more pop-based than anything. There's none of the good classical music or cool rock pieces. Simplest way to say this, the music is lame.
- The characters are even worse than they were previously. Even good characters aren't any good now! The girls are a just too girly. The biggest problem is that it seems like Yuna and Rikku have both changed to a worse degree. Brother's just gone weird in this game. He's obsessive over his cousin Yuna. Won't say anything more past that.
- My final con for this is obvious but will say it anyways. This game is obviously only built for a fan of FFX. I'm not just talking about an average fan either. I feel like FFX-2 is for the incredibly large super fan of the first title. Would recommend anybody else to just skip past this.
If I were to summarize everything I said there, it'd go something like this...
Final Fantasy X-2 has brought some new ideas into the Final Fantasy series, but the game just feels really bad from the start. The opening piece and character's personalities feel just awkward, stupid, and fairly warped for already known characters. My name for this title is "Final Fantasy X-2: Girls' Night Out!" because that completely summarizes how I feel about this. It isn't a bad idea to have a sequel to finish up loose ends to the series, but a lot of it just seems weird in comparison.
The most redeemable part of this game is that the garment grid and dresspheres add an interesting aspect. They brought back character levels and more control over your character's builds. Beyond that though, a large portion of it just feels bad. I don't like the idea of multiple endings in general in gaming. I can accept it when it seems more relevant like "I was a bad person. I get THIS ending." or "I killed everything in sight. This is my reward/ending." For FFX-2, you get an ending based on how much of the game you played. I do not approve of this. I realize the whole point of the game is to work on the issues surrounding Spira currently, but I shouldn't have to do random bullcrap events to earn a single percent. It's just...bad game design.
I'm not going to tell you to NOT play it, but I would suggest pretty much any title in the series over X-2. There are better Final Fantasy titles out there, and I really hope I'm about to go into one! Final Fantasy XII is coming up very soon, so I'll hopefully have my first post ready to go next week! Look forward to it! I would like to thank anybody who took the time to read this and headed my words on FFX-2. You can play it regardless, but just be warned now...it's not great. That's all folks.
Ending Point - Celsius (our airship) Bridge.
Current Party -
- Yuna - Level 10 - White Mage
- Rikku - Level 11 - Thief
- Paine - Level 10 - Warrior
Next Goals - Start Final Fantasy XII.
~May the Crystals Guide Me~
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