Final Fantasy X-2

"What the hell Square, what the hell..."

Final Fantasy X was a beautiful game. There, I said it. I loved that game. Just about everything the game had to offer was simply beautiful. The storyline, characters, music, setting; you name it. It is for this reason, and this reason alone I suffered myself to play through this game's sequel. And damn, I must admit, I almost wish I hadn't.

Apparently Square decided to make a sequel that defied and mocked everything that was good about its prequel. If that was their goal, they achieved it. Brilliantly. Big success, mission accomplished. Final Fantasy X-2 came very close to making me question my allegiance to the series. What it did accomplish was adding several bumps (via ramming my head into a wall) to appear on my head. Now that I have made this claim, it's time to dissect the game and justify my opinion. Where to start...hm....how about this game's "story".

"Storyline"
One of my favorite things about Final Fantasy X was its intricate and involving storyline. It grabbed my attention, kept it, and left me thirsting to know just what the hell happened to Spira and its denizens. Namely, I wanted to see the future of Yuna, Rikku, Wakka, and the rest of the Final Fantasy X crew (sans, well, you know...). Right from the opening FMV, featuring our heroine Yuna, her cousin Rikku, and a new character, Paine, I didn't know whether to be confused, pissed, or horny. Seriously, let's slut up a popular character and maybe she'll become even more popular. Sound good, yes? No. It wasn't.

Yuna, as it seems, has lost all of her dignity and pride. She now shamelessly saunters about exposing herself to Spira. To add to the pointlessness, this game justifies Yuna's actions as being a result of her "spending too much time with Rikku". This raised an interesting question in my mind: when the hell did Rikku decide to act this way? I almost became embarrassed for these two brave souls who recently defeated Sin and saved their land from an eternity of a vicious cycle. And if these two characters aren't enough of an embarrassment, Square introduced party member 3: Paine. Dressed in black leather, with an attitude to accompany her attire, Paine becomes this game's Squall, if you will. Sarcastic and negative, Paine makes this cast seem complete. Completely stereotypical and cliche, that is.

The storyline itself was nothing special. Yuna just wants to live her life stealing the "Spiran" equivalent of video tapes from random people, but no, something has to threaten the world, and only Yuna can stop it. That's basically it. She starts off the story traveling with the "Gullwings" (ugh) as a "Sphere Hunter" (thief) because she seems to think this will help her find, well, you know...him. This doesn't seem to important to Yuna as she travels with her tramped-out friends completing odd-jobs and random-tasks for the off chance that she'll receive a three dimensional circle for her efforts. These tasks range from escorting a cargo cart through bandit infested paths to hunting down cacti all over Spira. Most of the story isn't even in the "main storyline" portion of the game. It's all side quests, and roughly 80% of the story can be completely bypassed.

Lots of things don't even make sense in this game. For example, Yuna, High friggen Summoner Yuna finds herself denied entry to Bevelle and bossed around by her superiors. "But wait! Yuna is the High Summoner! I thought the High Summoner had more authority than anybody else! And didn't she also save the world and defeat Sin? Shouldn't people be worshipping the ground upon which she walks???" Yeah, I thought so too. Apparently, Square didn't. They decided to reduce her from her glorious position as the leader of Spira to a sand-digger. And yes, that's a 'd' and not an 'n'.

Game play
Where to start...where to start... How about something positive about this game? Well, the battles were more intense, for one. Rather than taking turns attacking, you find yourself actually having to move quickly and time your strikes. This was accompanied by a chain function where more damage is dealt if characters strike within a short time of each other. This adds an interesting element of strategy to the game as it will force you to plan when you make your move, as well as what that move is. And now, on to the inevitable negatives.

Did you like the Sphere Grid? Yeah, me too. Wanna see it in the sequel to the game that used the Sphere Grid? Same here! Thinking that the Sphere Grid would actually make sense in a game revolving around...well... spheres ? So was I, but, once again, Square proves logic useless. The new, perky system is called the "dressphere" system. Not only are your characters not wearing a lot, but now they can change their clothes in the middle of battle, right before your eyes. AP points are now awarded to any given character based off of what dressphere they have equipped. In this way, you can learn new abilities to add to your wardrobe. Well, at least some characters can change their clothes. Others such as Wakka, Lulu, Kimhari, and whatever the hell the name of that annoying Yevon acolyte that followed you around was, seem to be incapable of altering their outfits. This is strange, considering Wakka no longer plays blitzball, Lulu is pregnant, Kimhari is now a leader, and that other one has undergone a drastic career change.

Final Fantasy X , I'll admit, was a little bit too linear. Although this didn't detract too much from the game, it certainly didn't add a hell of a lot to it. Square saw it differently. They saw it as an evil that prevented some people from buying the game. Naturally, one would think that a proper solution to this problem for sequel purposes would be to make the game slightly less linear, no? No. That wasn't the plan. The plan was to make the game as non-linear as possible, leaving you confused what to do next. The options, oh the options. And here I was thinking that the ability to make decisions was a good thing...Damn, I'm rethinking some personal philosophies over this game. Anyhow, this "pick a destination and go do things there" system allowed you to skip a lot of the storyline and miss out on a lot of what this game had to offer. Don't worry, you weren't missing much if you skipped all of this optional stuff.

Sound/Graphics and Things of That Nature
The graphics were about the same as they were in Final Fantasy X . The FMV's looked a little bit better, but that's about it. FMV's have always been pretty, nothing's changed here. The sound however....

Bleh. Bleh. I'm sorry, but "bleh" is about all I can say for this game's sound, particularly the music and voice acting. The music is much more annoying and pop oriented than in the previous Final Fantasy. In X, there were great tracks and several different beautiful pieces of music. In X-2, well, there wasn't. The music in this game was almost as annoyingly upbeat as, well, Rikku. The voice acting, again, was nothing short of "poopy". I didn't like the music. It sucked. (That's how Yuna would put it. Sad, huh?) Not only did a lot of the music completely blow, they made you listen to it constantly. The Celsius, the airship where you spend a significant amount of time, has one of the most horridly horrid musical tracks I've every had the displeasure of being subjected to constantly playing. Yuna didn't help this problem too much either, as Spira's messiah has decided to become a singing sensation. And her songs were sensational. Sensationally unfit for the previously established theme of Spira. But hell, it's not her fault; she can't help but sing when she rips off her gunner outfit mid-battle to don her songstress dressphere.

Overall
I rate this game a 4/10. Simply disasteriffic! I only recommend playing this game if you're a die-hard fan of the series and simply must know what became of Spira. Still, prepare to be either thoroughly disappointed or sexually intrigued. The story was inferior. The characters, although mainly the same, were very inferior. Hell, even Spira looked worse in this game. The music, the sound, the feel, everything. This game was a lame attempt to capitalize off of the success of Final Fantasy X , and it failed, horribly.

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 12/28/04