Well having a broken 360 had one good side effect and that was that I dug up my PS2 to play a copy of Final Fantasy X, and I loved it. Final Fantasy X's ending did to me what watching Gray's Anatomy does to my sister in law so I looked it up online to see if there was anything, such as an alternate ending, that I had missed. It was online that I discovered that, lo and behold, FFX was the very first Final Fantasy game to have a direct sequel. The next day I went out to a used record store and found copy for $7, brought it home, and dove right in. FFX-2's cover art [http://www.ffshrine.org/ffx2/coverscans/ffx2_us.jpg] and opening video [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdmJlbK-_r4] did not inspire confidence. I am going to assume you have played FFX, if you haven't then you must be here for me, and I can't blame you.
The Set Up
It's been 2 years since Sin's defeat Yuna has been living a quiet life in her hometown of Besaid. The fall of Yevon has all but split the populace of Spira into 2 factions: New Yevon and the Youth League. New Yevon is basically Old Yevon with promises of being less evil and the Youth League is basically a bunch your standard anti-establishment young folk. Both groups want Yuna's support since shes's a huge celebrity, what with the whole world saving and everything, but she's reluctant to join either side since they would just use her to sway their numbers. One day her cousin Rikku shows up and hands a sphere of what looks like Tidus trapped in a cage. Yuna immediately gives up the quiet life and joins up with Rikku to find more spheres and hopefully more about Tidus.
The Game
This is, and arguably FFX was, Yuna's game. And to prepare for her role as Main Character she has studied at and graduated from the JRPG Unversity of Heroes where she majored in Silly Outfits [http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_f8FjsPLFGZk/Su-l0JVWi1I/AAAAAAAAAA0/cggxKnEfimQ/s1600/yuna1.jpg] with a minor in Running Like a Spaz. I know these are petty gripes but she runs with the motions of an excited 8 year old hunting Easter eggs. As Yuna you are a member of the Gullwings, a group of sphere hunters who mosey about Spira in their airship The Celsius, which looks like a cross between a lobster and a hot rod, doing various missions but very little actual hunting of spheres.
The Celsius serves as your mission hub, allowing you access and transportation to various missions, a store, and a place to sleep. I was somewhat curious about the sleeping arrangements since the beds are in the same room as the bar/store and there are 3 beds and up to 10 people staying on the ship. That's gonna get awkward no matter how you slice it, especially when you throw in a chocobo or 2. The missions are all varied with most ending with some sort of boss fight for what is a Final Fantasy Game without the combat? Well, it would be alot of walking about talking to people...which is also what some missions entail.
At one point you have to pick which faction to kinda join up with. All this really does is unlock a couple of sidquests for that faction and block off the sidequests for the opposing one. If there was an impact on the story I didn't see it.
The Combat
Gone is FFX's standard take-your-time turn based combat. FFX-2 uses the Active Time Battle (ATB). The difference between the two is that when playing FFX your enemies sat there patiently while you decided what to do and in FFX-2 they continue smacking you about while you poke about your inventory looking for the damn antidotes you seem to have misplaced. Thankfully you can change the combat to Wait Mode which stops all the action while you pick abilites/items/targets. The sphere grid leveling system is gone (Awww) and is replaced by basic increases in stats each time you level up. As much as I liked the sphere grid I think that removing it for the new dress sphere system was a good idea.
Dress Spheres are essentially classes your characters can assume. Dress spheres are kept on various equipable Garment Grids [http://www.freewebs.com/yuna_g-unit/1079081301garment_grid.jpg]. You must keep in mind that you can only switch to nodes adjacent to the one you are currently using, so planning ahead is a factor. This system adds great flexibility and variety to the combat without any of the tedious grinding to level up a character you rarely use. Need a healer? Have Yuna switch to the white mage dress sphere. Need more health/defense? Switch to the Dark Knight. The fight is too easy and you need some one to dance around and waste time? Switch over to the Songstress! Tired of thinking, using strategy, and you want to dress like a tart? Switch over to the Lady Luck Dress Sphere [http://www.freewebs.com/ffx2_yuna3/Ladyluck.jpg]!
What This Game Did Wrong, Very Wrong, and Horribly Wrong
Rikku and her, aptly named I might add, brother Brother have such terrible dialogue, voice acting, and motions during cut scenes you want to tear out the lungs of one of them so you can smother the other one to death with them. Would being smothered by lungs be considered irony? I'm not sure. Normally I can let stuff like bad voice acting slide but I liked Rikku's character before this game and Brother is just that annoying. Only Yuna, Paine, and maybe Buddy are not horrible when they talk.
Just about all the maps in this game are airlifted straight out of FFX, and any new content is mostly bland corridors for you to run down.
All the mini-games, and there's plenty, are terrible, tedious, annoying, tedious and annoying, or all of the above. The only one I enjoyed was the one I have seen the most bitching about and that's Sphere Break, but then again I've always like math so what do I know.
The story. I'm perfectly fine with hidden items and treasure in a game. They are a reward for my thoroughness at exploration. One of the hidden treats you find in a game should NOT BE THE MAIN STORY. A hidden side-plot? Sure. A look into a character's dark past? Definitely. But never never important plot information unless it leads up to a twist in the story the player has a hand in creating. This game is broken into 5 chapters, and there is no going back once a chapter is complete. So if you missed, in lets say chapter 2, who the bad guy is or, in chapter 3, why the bad guy is trying to destroy the world then you are shit out of luck. You just have to go fight him because the game tells you to.
The good ending. No, not the ending itself and I'm not going to spoil it for you or even tell you specifically how to get it. There are something like 5 different ways this game can end. Getting the good ending is the main reason I bought this game but to get it, and I am not making this up, you have to push X at certain times during 2 different cutscenes. The game does not tell you this, or vaguely hint that user input might be fortuitous at those specific times. I only knew about it because I looked it up on my 2nd play through.
Chapter 4 is just terrible. The vast majority of chapter 4's content is you talking to people over a video phone. I can't imagine what kind of boring person thought that was a good idea for a video game, I can only hope Square fired them.
Also, as a last complaint, I can think of at least twice where during a cutscene a treasure chest is plainly visible but when the scene ends you are immediately whisked away back aboard the Celsius. Screw that.
So..umm..should I buy it?
Admittedly this game probably did more things wrong than it did right. But one of the things it did right was the character Yuna. Sure in FFX she didn't show much emotion or liveliness, but she was basically marching to her death. Sacrificing herself to bring a brief peace to her world and keeping a brave face to give hope to the people. This made it all the more potent when she finally broke under pressure and the temptation to quit and showed some of that pent-up emotion. This game shows her trying to live for herself and, for once, have some damned fun and it does a decent job of that.
As for a recommendation I am not entirely sure. The combat is very well done and the story, if you find it, is intriguing. I thought Yuna's character was good enough to hold up a sequel but if you disagree then this game is not for you. If the idea of diving back into Spira for about 30 more hours sounds utterly irressistable and you can forgive some rather glaring flaws then pick this game up. Like the title says, I paid seven whole dollars for it so that is probably coloring my opinion a bit. Had I gotten FFX right when it came out, beat it, then waited for FFX-2 to be realease and paid $50 for it I think this review might have been angrier.
The Set Up
It's been 2 years since Sin's defeat Yuna has been living a quiet life in her hometown of Besaid. The fall of Yevon has all but split the populace of Spira into 2 factions: New Yevon and the Youth League. New Yevon is basically Old Yevon with promises of being less evil and the Youth League is basically a bunch your standard anti-establishment young folk. Both groups want Yuna's support since shes's a huge celebrity, what with the whole world saving and everything, but she's reluctant to join either side since they would just use her to sway their numbers. One day her cousin Rikku shows up and hands a sphere of what looks like Tidus trapped in a cage. Yuna immediately gives up the quiet life and joins up with Rikku to find more spheres and hopefully more about Tidus.
The Game
This is, and arguably FFX was, Yuna's game. And to prepare for her role as Main Character she has studied at and graduated from the JRPG Unversity of Heroes where she majored in Silly Outfits [http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_f8FjsPLFGZk/Su-l0JVWi1I/AAAAAAAAAA0/cggxKnEfimQ/s1600/yuna1.jpg] with a minor in Running Like a Spaz. I know these are petty gripes but she runs with the motions of an excited 8 year old hunting Easter eggs. As Yuna you are a member of the Gullwings, a group of sphere hunters who mosey about Spira in their airship The Celsius, which looks like a cross between a lobster and a hot rod, doing various missions but very little actual hunting of spheres.
The Celsius serves as your mission hub, allowing you access and transportation to various missions, a store, and a place to sleep. I was somewhat curious about the sleeping arrangements since the beds are in the same room as the bar/store and there are 3 beds and up to 10 people staying on the ship. That's gonna get awkward no matter how you slice it, especially when you throw in a chocobo or 2. The missions are all varied with most ending with some sort of boss fight for what is a Final Fantasy Game without the combat? Well, it would be alot of walking about talking to people...which is also what some missions entail.
At one point you have to pick which faction to kinda join up with. All this really does is unlock a couple of sidquests for that faction and block off the sidequests for the opposing one. If there was an impact on the story I didn't see it.
The Combat
Gone is FFX's standard take-your-time turn based combat. FFX-2 uses the Active Time Battle (ATB). The difference between the two is that when playing FFX your enemies sat there patiently while you decided what to do and in FFX-2 they continue smacking you about while you poke about your inventory looking for the damn antidotes you seem to have misplaced. Thankfully you can change the combat to Wait Mode which stops all the action while you pick abilites/items/targets. The sphere grid leveling system is gone (Awww) and is replaced by basic increases in stats each time you level up. As much as I liked the sphere grid I think that removing it for the new dress sphere system was a good idea.
Dress Spheres are essentially classes your characters can assume. Dress spheres are kept on various equipable Garment Grids [http://www.freewebs.com/yuna_g-unit/1079081301garment_grid.jpg]. You must keep in mind that you can only switch to nodes adjacent to the one you are currently using, so planning ahead is a factor. This system adds great flexibility and variety to the combat without any of the tedious grinding to level up a character you rarely use. Need a healer? Have Yuna switch to the white mage dress sphere. Need more health/defense? Switch to the Dark Knight. The fight is too easy and you need some one to dance around and waste time? Switch over to the Songstress! Tired of thinking, using strategy, and you want to dress like a tart? Switch over to the Lady Luck Dress Sphere [http://www.freewebs.com/ffx2_yuna3/Ladyluck.jpg]!
What This Game Did Wrong, Very Wrong, and Horribly Wrong
Rikku and her, aptly named I might add, brother Brother have such terrible dialogue, voice acting, and motions during cut scenes you want to tear out the lungs of one of them so you can smother the other one to death with them. Would being smothered by lungs be considered irony? I'm not sure. Normally I can let stuff like bad voice acting slide but I liked Rikku's character before this game and Brother is just that annoying. Only Yuna, Paine, and maybe Buddy are not horrible when they talk.
Just about all the maps in this game are airlifted straight out of FFX, and any new content is mostly bland corridors for you to run down.
All the mini-games, and there's plenty, are terrible, tedious, annoying, tedious and annoying, or all of the above. The only one I enjoyed was the one I have seen the most bitching about and that's Sphere Break, but then again I've always like math so what do I know.
The story. I'm perfectly fine with hidden items and treasure in a game. They are a reward for my thoroughness at exploration. One of the hidden treats you find in a game should NOT BE THE MAIN STORY. A hidden side-plot? Sure. A look into a character's dark past? Definitely. But never never important plot information unless it leads up to a twist in the story the player has a hand in creating. This game is broken into 5 chapters, and there is no going back once a chapter is complete. So if you missed, in lets say chapter 2, who the bad guy is or, in chapter 3, why the bad guy is trying to destroy the world then you are shit out of luck. You just have to go fight him because the game tells you to.
The good ending. No, not the ending itself and I'm not going to spoil it for you or even tell you specifically how to get it. There are something like 5 different ways this game can end. Getting the good ending is the main reason I bought this game but to get it, and I am not making this up, you have to push X at certain times during 2 different cutscenes. The game does not tell you this, or vaguely hint that user input might be fortuitous at those specific times. I only knew about it because I looked it up on my 2nd play through.
Chapter 4 is just terrible. The vast majority of chapter 4's content is you talking to people over a video phone. I can't imagine what kind of boring person thought that was a good idea for a video game, I can only hope Square fired them.
Also, as a last complaint, I can think of at least twice where during a cutscene a treasure chest is plainly visible but when the scene ends you are immediately whisked away back aboard the Celsius. Screw that.
So..umm..should I buy it?
Admittedly this game probably did more things wrong than it did right. But one of the things it did right was the character Yuna. Sure in FFX she didn't show much emotion or liveliness, but she was basically marching to her death. Sacrificing herself to bring a brief peace to her world and keeping a brave face to give hope to the people. This made it all the more potent when she finally broke under pressure and the temptation to quit and showed some of that pent-up emotion. This game shows her trying to live for herself and, for once, have some damned fun and it does a decent job of that.
As for a recommendation I am not entirely sure. The combat is very well done and the story, if you find it, is intriguing. I thought Yuna's character was good enough to hold up a sequel but if you disagree then this game is not for you. If the idea of diving back into Spira for about 30 more hours sounds utterly irressistable and you can forgive some rather glaring flaws then pick this game up. Like the title says, I paid seven whole dollars for it so that is probably coloring my opinion a bit. Had I gotten FFX right when it came out, beat it, then waited for FFX-2 to be realease and paid $50 for it I think this review might have been angrier.
