Final Fantasy X-2

"You've got originality, but at the expense of much quality"

We can begin our oversight by taking a quick look at Final Fantasy X. Most would say that a problem it had was its non linearity, or others might complain about its difficulty, length, and such. Some can look in it and find a great game, most of the hardcore FF gamers bathing in its wonderful side quests. Others may find it to be quite bad, but either one might purchase FFX-2, and look at in a different way. It's an example of trying to fix too much at once, most of which wasn't really too much of a problem to begin with.

As the first direct sequel to a game in the series, FFX-2 begins in a Charlie Angels type fashion, with Yuna and Rikku from the original FFX, and a newcomer named Paine. All of 'em are female, and these three are the only characters in the game. That's right, you guessed it. So a fake Yuna is doing a concert on stage in Luca, which leads to a battle between Yuna and this imposter. You can already tell that it's trying to be different from what FFX was, and that's not necessarily a good thing. The plot here is NOT something you see everyday in an RPG, and I don't mean that in a good way. You've got a political struggle between the Youth League and New Yevon, while in the meantime, Yuna is trying to relax herself and find clues to where Tidus disappeared to. It gets deeper than that, but it never gets that much better.

FFX-2 is a lot different from your average RPG in another way too -- that bein that you've got three characters in total. Each one of 'em is flawed. There's little wrong with Yuna, even if she tries too hard to be something that she's really not, and her personality change was a little extreme. As for Rikku, she was thought to be annoying for the most part by players of FFX, but I personally found nothing wrong with her there. Now, you can tell she's pretty desperate too, decked out in a top and a thong. While she was a crucial part of FFX, she plays very minimal role in FFX-2, other than "making sure Yuna has fun". Errr... that's a valid reason, when she really does little to nothing in the game except not act her age? Right. As for Paine, she's my favorite of the three because she's a good break off of Yuna and Rikku, but come on, you can't honestly play the game and learn her secrets that that's not a large collection of cliches.

Aside from those three, you've got a lot of people from FFX back, which is quite a problem. I would've loved to see a lot of 'em return as playable characters, but we've only got Yuna and Rikku here, so move on and get over it, ya? Well, there's Brother, for one. He spends the whole game just yelling about how he's the leader, just following in with what other people decide, and flirting with Yuna. I dunno if he's noticed, but Yuna is his cousin. I think he really failed sex ed. Everyone else like Wakka, Lulu, and Kimahri... they're pretty much the same as they were in FFX, with problems that you can predict they'd be having from the end of FFX. Getting past the characters, the script is terrible. I'm not even going to get into it, but it's mainly a large failed attempt at acting funny, when you have to wonder if at the end of it, it was all a big joke. Regardless, errors are common.

Most of the game is played out starting from the airship, with some important places that need to be taken to. Which is part of what I mentioned earlier -- remember how I stated that FFX-2 tries too hard to correct errors from FFX? Linearity was one issue, but this is just too much. After a few "missions" at the beginning of the game, "hotspots" appear across the map. Everywhere else can be completely ignored. If you want to rush through the game, you can just ignore almost all the places in the whole game, and finish everything in about ten hours at most. The whole game is a huge collection of side quests, and you'll even see at the back of the box, stating the "non-linear gameplay". C'mon, Square, that's another big fat joke.

The battle system in FFX-2 incorporates a job system, in another joke attempt to be humorous by Square. Jobs are accessed by "dresspheres" in a "Garment grid", each job obviously doing something different. Pressing L1 will take you to this "garment grid", where you change clothes right in battle. Very funny, Square. Really. However, lots of the jobs are screwed up. Classics like Monk,
Ninja, Mime, and Summoner are gone, and what they did to Black Mage and White Mage was horrible, in that they can't attack. It's a fast paced battle system; having characters that can't attack is very hard to forgive.

Ah, did I mention the fast paced battle system? Many would say that FFX's system was a bit too slow, but this is just pushing it. Every battle in the game can be won by using Gunner, Warrior, Dark Knight, Berserker, or any other strong attacking dressphere, and just mashing X all over the whole battle. Almost all enemies will go down in a couple hits, seriously. Even bosses can easily be defeated by just smashing 'em around a bit. That's another problem; a monkey could beat FFX-2 if you trained it to mash X. Unless you're going into the optional bosses, but come on, those are optional. Then again, almost all of the game is.

The side quests themselves, though, were one of the game's redeeming features. Some of them are actually pretty fun, especially the Via Infinito. You've got six all new bosses down there, three of which are extremely difficult (yeah, you heard me right). Mini games also don't disappoint -- the Calm Lands for one are packed with new mini games, and even though a few of them are complete rehashes of previous FFs (where have we seen betting on the dingo who will win a race before?), they're still pretty fun. There's Sphere Break, a rather fun and easy to understand mini game unless you've really got something against math. Quite a few of them can offer a good time.

That's just so long as you aren't trying to do everything that the game has to offer. This game runs on a percentage system, from 0% to 100%. Getting all the way to a hundred percent is one of the worst ways you can possibly waste your time, even if you buy a strategy guide to help you through it, or print a guide for the game or something. Things like resting in every chapter which is never even vaguely hinted at, watching all the boring ass scenes in chapter 4 which is extremely tedious and useless, and devoting an hour or two to digging in the Bikanel Desert to make a machina stronger, all to get 100% for an extra scene at the ending. And let me just say that once you do that, you'll feel you've thrown all your life out the window. That's something which you shouldn't even start at.

As for graphics, they're really almost exactly the same as from Final Fantasy X. Spira really has no difference from the original that's noticeable, so if you've played it, you won't even notice the graphics. But here's another issue that comes to mind; remember FFX's abundance of scenes? Some of 'em were actually quite breathtaking, and there's only one in FFX-2 that can even rival them -- that being the very first one. Stop this melodrama, Square, it's making me sick. So yeah, for graphics, think FFX, Yuna, and two Charlie's Angels wannabes, minus really any FMV scenes. The math all works out!

For music, this is the single worst soundtrack I have ever heard in a game with "Final Fantasy" on it. Hell, maybe even the worst RPG soundtrack ever -- I honestly couldn't believe this. The whole soundtrack runs on a pop influence, or when it's not doing that, a happy go lucky attitude for the whole thing. Paine, with that as a theme song? Get real. The battle theme is THE worst RPG battle theme I've ever heard. Chrono Trigger and Chrono Cross can stand aside; that is just sickening. And you'll be hearing it quite a bit too, so you'll be driven to the point of muting your TV when it's all said and done. You can't forget the absolute butchery of the classic chocobo theme. Not saying there aren't a few good songs here and there... "Ruin", for one, is surprisingly good, even if it plays once or twice during the whole game. Shuyin's theme is also quite decent. But you can say the same about having a few good songs for ANY other FF soundtrack. Regardless, this is the worst.

But there are two good things that can be said about the music, but not the soundtrack as a whole. I mentioned earlier that a fake Yuna sang in concert, in an FMV, and the song that she does (called Real Emotion) is surprisingly good. The same can be said about another song that's sung a lot later in the game, called 1000 Words. That's equally as good, but those are only two total occasions in the entire game. Sound is really no different than what you would expect, and not much of an issue in a PS2 game, really. Yuna's actress has improved quite a bit on her voice acting, but you can barely even notice that with Rikku annoying you all the time. Just couldn't get something pretty well done there, eh Square?

I've sounded like I'm bashing the whole game throughout the whole review, but it's not the worst game ever -- not even close. There are some parts of this game which can actually be quite fun to play through, and like I said, the mini games and side quests can be a really good saving grace, par getting 100%. But this is not an FF, it's just a cash-in with no real purpose other than to make money out of the deal. I can only hope more from FFXII, but FFX-2 tries hard to be original, and while it is that, it fails to grasp that quality is more important than originality.

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 08/02/05