Final Fantasy X-2

The Good
Final Fantasy X-2 is the first direct sequel in the Final Fantasy series. In this review I'll assume you know a little about the mighty Final Fantasy series of RPGs, because if you don't, you should play them but for sure not start with this game ! (if this is your case you must without a doubt check for older games in the series, they are absolutely awesome despite their age and are way better than this). Now for Final Fantasy veterans, let's continue...

Back when that game were released, I haven't finished FFX yet so I wouldn't rush on it anyway, and everyone who played that games told me how badly it sucked. Most people seemed to badly hate this game, so I considered it wasn't worth playing, after all I loved FFX and I didn't want to ruin that. (although reviews on the net doesn't look as bad as what most of my friends said).

But a few years later, after I finished FFX a second time, I was still curious enough to play the game (copies are a lot cheaper than when the game was released). I basically played the game to see how bad it was. But I was almost surprised to see it's not that bad. It's definitely by far not as good as previous FF games, but I never excepted it to, and maybe that's why I don't hate that game as much as most people do.

Anyway when it comes to the good points, I should mention the battle system is pretty interesting, ATB system is back (CTB was very good in FFX, but ATB was also very good in FF4-9), for people that doesn't know what this means, there is again a time meter for all of your characters that fills with time and allow you to do an action when it's full.

The job system from FF3 and FF5 is back too (for those who have played them), but this time it's slightly different, and you can change jobs (called vetishperes) during battle, which is cool (the drawback is that being used to this makes FF3 and FF5 harder...) The jobs you get are a mostly classical jobs (insert color here mage, fighter, thief), and a few brand new jobs too. Also, black and white mages can't attack physically at all, which encourages job switching during battle.

While Final Fantasy X was extremely linear (and in fact I liked it that way), Final Fantasy X-2 claims to be unlinear. In fact I'd say it's half unlinear, as the game take places in 5 acts, and you still have to do them in order. But you're not forced to do all available missions, and you can do them in any order. That's cool, but the price for that is a flat storyline (see below).

The graphics are pretty good too, and detailed (although way too much ripped of FFX). A couple of music songs found in the game are really good.

The Bad
The most interesting thing to do in a RPG, among with battles and story, is to discover a new world. Unfortunately FFX-2 sets up in a world the player already knows (unless he has never played FFX, which isn't likely the case). So there is few really new to discover of course there is brand new dungeons, and some places have really changed (Kilika comes to mind), but aside of that you'll be disappointed how unexciting it is to go through the exact same places again but just with a different goal.

As much as the story is unlinear, it's really flat, boring and almost pathetic. You take the control of Yuna, Rikku (from FFX) and Paine (not from FFX). As you should probably known if you finished FFX, Tidus has disappeared as he was a dream all along, and of course, Yuna who loved him is not very happy about that (this is understandable). 2 years later, Yuna finds a sphere (remember those sphere in FFX that can hold videos ? They are back here.) with a guy that looks like Tidus. She somehow joins with Rikku, her brother Brother and the unknown Pain to form a group called the Gullwings in order to go sphere hunting.

At the same time Spira seems to go into war again as there is political parties that fight against each other aggressively. Your goal : To find Tidus! In fact I didn't understand the story, I feel like I completely missed something here (maybe this is due to the fact I didn't play the game very frequently (to to it not be attractive enough), so I forgot some parts of it).

Considering how the stories of previous Final Fantasy games were awesomely awesome (in fact is was their #1 selling point), this is kind of degrading to them to give them a sequel like that. Sure, a bad story doesn't make a bad game (gameplay is more relevant), but it will make you less likely to turn on the PS2 with the game in question when you're bored. I sometimes almost found myself thinking "oh no, I should play FFX-2 half an hour before doing my homework". This is backwards as it would supposed to be.

The graphics are detailed, but not only all backgrounds and characters are from FFX (only Yuna, Rikku have their models changed, and a few new characters have appeared like Paine and some others), but almost all enemies and boss are just ripped off FFX. They made little effort here, but in the end it ends up all right because latter places to discover didn't exist in FFX, and later bosses aren't from FFX.

Although a couple of pieces of music are really good (title screen theme is awesome), most of the music heard in that game is complete crap. The battle music is disastrous, and most other songs tends to try being that modern pop style which is annoying to hear.

Again how awesome the music of previous Final Fantasy games is, it's really a scandal they couldn't give anything better here. Sure Uematsu (composer of FF1-9 and half of FF10) isn't at square any longer, but who cares ? The ambient style of FFX was different, but good too, and there is plenty of good video game music composers around (the music of most non-FF Squaresoft games aren't by Uematsu at all, and still are very good if not even better).

The ATB system seems to slow down terribly when your characters are wounded, which is NOT good, since you'd want to heal them as quickly as possible. Sometimes the bosses can attack 5 times while one of your girl only attack 1 time, which is unfair. Even with that the game is easy except some later bosses which can be annoying. I still had to look at some online FAQs to be able beat the last boss.

Also Brother seems to seriously hangs on Yuna (in addition to being incredibly stupid), but they are cousins aren't they ? Does Squaresoft promote incest or does they just not remember relations between their own characters ? This is terribly bad.

The Bottom Line
I played Final Fantasy X-2 basically to see how bad it is, and in fact I ended up being surprised because it's not all that bad. But definitely it's not a must-have hit like almost all Final Fantasies released prior to this, and it's merely an average game at best. It's playable, but definitely not great at all.

Also, the length is shorter than in FFX, playing FFX takes about 35-40 hours, while this games only lasts 25-30 hours (depending on how much sidequests you do, I guess I did a good 70% of them personally, but I haven't checked any walkthrough). Ironically, playing FF7, 8 or 9 on the "old" PS1 would take about 80-100 hours for each. Square seems to release shorter and shorter games. For me it's not that much an issue, as I wouldn't want to play FFX-2 for much longer anyway, and if I want truely awesome games I know I shouldn't buy them from Square anymore, yes, time has changed.

But while it definitely isn't a very good game, it's not the worst of Final Fantasy series as some people says. I personally find that at least Final Fantasy II for the NES (that most people haven't played, or not on the NES at least) is far worse, so FFX-2 is at least the second worse of the series, which isn't that bad. '2' should really a cursed number for games.

Even if you are a fan of FFX and haven't played this yet, I'd suggest playing FFX again once more, it'd be just as much fun and you don't have to buy an additional game. If you are very curious and see a copy for cheap, I'd say go for it, but be warned that the story is crappy and uninteresting, that most things are ripped from FFX and that only the battle system is any good. If you decide to not play this game, I can't say you really missed anything.

The Good
Good... bad... good... bad... it is not the right way to refer to it, but more as innovative, and from various points of view, too. One thing this game managed to break is its independency from the series. Every Final Fantasy game was always a standalone world for itself, with no general connection to one another. This one becomes the first true sequel to one of those game, more correctly, to Final Fantasy X. The story of Final Fantasy X didn't left us hangin' as much as it was a deep, touching and overly sad, but done marvelously at that very design pattern. However, Squaresoft obviously had in mind to leave it open and, with all the art and world done, they could focus on making this game a mission based plethora of quests. But they had to make a story to it, something that would still somehow keep the two major characters from the prequel in the center of event, driving this story until its conclusion.

Well, the whole game starts kinda... off balance and very silly I sensed the eruption of feelings in me wanting to throw it outside the window, along with the console and liquid crystal display. However, hours have passed and new opinion came to me, and the way events were unfolding, I couldn't help but to notice the game was patching itself up with every new move. Bottomline, the story was intriguing (and would be even more if I didn't have all the game's cinematics on my hard drive long time before). The ingame menu and all those stuff that looked complicated at first are actually not, and shouldn't take more times to adjust than the ones in FFX took you, but some may still be left unexplained which can drive you crazy if you cannot find even mentioned it in the manual either.

As the first battle started, I had no knowledge of what the heck is happening so I kept just pressing and pressing as if that would make a big deal of it. The thing is, the battles are incredibly neat and fully real-time (you can only pause them partially if you want, though), and it very depends how your characters are turned, and whether they strike from the front, side, or back. Both fiends and your characters will be changing positions on occasion, but you cannot move them yourself, it's in the heart of the battle, g.

The music this time wasn't composed by Nobuo Uematsu, and if you go listening to this game's soundtrack before playing this game first, it may well seem as a music from 1960s you can see in easy James Bond movies whenever they made cars go faster than actually. But as you play the game, it's quite alright, and gets a cool feeling for a change. Not to mention that "1000 no Kotoba" and "Real Emotion" are both great songs, even better when you see Yuna performing them in the pre-rendered cinematics.

And hey, this Final Fantasy game is way great for the fact you only have three characters and you don't get any new ones and can easily upgrade all three at once. Just shows how you don't need 12+ characters to make a good game.

The final boss battle is kinda neat. You can reach it and then fight first couple parts of the boss and then go exploring and finishing side-quests, and filling in the story bits, and then return to face the final boss again. But the final, three-battle boss is easy to pass if you're leveled up enough, little harder if you went just to grab the ending. The last of the three, if really a great battle. I dunno why, but seeing Shuyin (who looks similar to Tidus) fighting Yuna was really... well, there was something in that particular fight I liked though can't explain, 'cos generally, Shuyin character didn't seem too bright, and he played poorly his 1000 years of torment and suffering. Square could work a little bit more on his dialogues and attitude, though.

The Bad
For a company such as SquareSoft, obvious bugs are intolerable. Probably the most obvious is the animation display of dresspheres. It is equivalent to summons in FFX, where you could see full animation, short one, or turn it off. Same thing in this game, only whichever you try, you'll be seeing full animation. Kinda makes you not wanna change the dresspheres too often, ya.

The whole setting and, new as well as old, characters were neat, except LeBlanc. Man, that cow alone could make this game so much less appealing you cannot imagine. And to boost up the annoyance, you'll have to confront her and her two goons more than once. Don't you just hate when you win some boss battle just to realise that you didn't win but only show off the enemy.

The ending is good but not so good at the same time. Since square focused on replayability level with this game, they made a couple of endings that you cannot see quite all at once, and doing a replay is not something people do with long RPGs (or if they do, then they are really to be admired). Luckily, I downloaded all the game's cinematics and saw all the endings, and I must say that they could easily glue the true ending right after the credits or after the normal ending and it would still look perfect. But no, they force you to replay and hope to capture all 100% of the story. Tsk tsk tsk, Square, always having extra time to complicate on their games.

The Bottom Line
Yuna's now put in the role of heroine, quite a gunslinger looking one, too, not so shy anymore. Rikku's there, joyful as ever, always boosting up the atmosphere, and Paine is a new, mysterious and sexy, just to add up to the trio. You'll be able to visit any place now as you'll be flying most of the time, and when on board, you will never lack tears to shed because Brother will be there to constantly give you a hard time being serious gamer.

So, if you played the prequel, this is a logical step to undergo. Otherwise, there isn't much meaning in playing this game alone. Sure, it's different and all that, but you miss a big picture if you didn't play the original. Good move would be to have 'em both or none. Better both, 'cos FFX was really something to mark the era of PlayStation 2.

The Good
The storyline is amazing. Be a sphere hunter, travel Spira to do missions win and get a sphere! How sweeter can life be? You can change the way you look and attack by using dresspheres which are awesome. The CG animations are so cool especially the way Shuyin looks and Vegnagun. The music is phenomenal. 1000 Words really made me relaxed and just be all nice and calm.

The Bad
The number 1 thing that annoyed me about this game was that it was very easy. I beat all of Vegnagun and Shuyin without a save sphere. Even Omega Weapon was easy. Most of the boss fight's attacks will do 100-400 damage. You'll be lucky of Vegnagun even did 500 or Shuyin doing more than 100. some CG animations made laugh. Baralai was the one that made me laugh. His face was all brown like a brownie. Blitzball is entirely confusing and not appealing to me anymore. There are a lot of endings which I don't like. One more thing, it was pretty dull for me that they don't say any of the aeon's name or say Tidus. They just keep saying him. Just say Tidus! You don't have to pick Tidus' name in this game so just say Tidus! And the way Lenne looks....it scared me when I first saw her face.

The Bottom Line
Go out and get this game. But if you've never played FFX or don't know what aeons or that blonde dude with the unsual clothes are, don't play this until you play FFX.