Ok, so a lot of people really dislike Final Fantasy X-2, and I've never really known why. Is it because of the graphics not really having changed from FFX? Was it because it was the first sequel in FF history? What about it's overall lighthearted feel being drastically different from the much more depressive first game? The fact that it's a big romance piece?
Oh, I know. It's the pop star class, right? Looking past the "Real Emotion" opener, which granted is a little odd, and a much different opener than the first game (I mean, Sin fucking obliterated Zanarkand in X's opener), what do people really have wrong with this game?
Note: From here on out, I will be discussing some of the ending of FFX. If you still haven't played, why are you reading a review of it's sequel. Go play it NAUWGH!
At the end of FFX, Tidus pretty much bit it. He was already dead, but had still been latching on due to Sin and the Fayth's presence in Spira. However, when they finally defeated Yu Yevon, those presences faded, and Tidus along with it.
X-2 opens with the concert, but it really begins with Kimahri Ronso, new head of the Ronso tribe, found a sphere of a young man who looked amazingly similar to Tidus. He gives it to Yuna, who then decides to go looking for more spheres to see if she can finds out what has happened to Tidus.
In doing so, she joins her cousins, former party member, Rikku, and the silent Al Bhed Blitzball god, Brother, as part of the crew of the Gullwings. The Gullwings are sphere hunters, doing just what their name implies, hunting spheres all across Spira.
The three are joined by new cast members, two Al Bhed's, a highly skilled navigator and best friend to Brother, Buddy, and the inventing prodigy, Shinra, and a new mysterious warrior, Paine. Paine is just awesome, and gets to make fun of Rikku a lot, which endears me to her. The fact that her past is half of the plot McGuffin for the game also plays a part.
The other half is the Pop Star class...I'm sorry, the songstress dress sphere, the magical items that imbue the heroines with the abilities of the original users of the spheres, be they mages, warriors, or whatever. The Songstress sphere comes from a former summoner named Lenne, who looks exceedingly like Yuna, and was in love with Shuyin, the man in the sphere image Yuna got from Kimahri.
The Lenne/Shuyin plot piece and Paine's past ran across each other just after Operation Mi'ihen in the Den of Woe. The results of what happened that day would eventually segment all of Spira into three factions, the Machine Faction, the Youth League, and the New Yevon order.
The job system in this game is much different from the job system in any other FF game, in that it allows you to change classes in battle. This allows you to change from a white mage to a black one in the midst of a boss fight, changing your stats entirely as needed. There are fourteen basic dress spheres, each attributing to a different job, three special spheres which are limit break forms, one for each girl, and three International edition spheres, found only in that title.
The battle gameplay is very reminiscent of the older ATB system that I loved so much, which kind of discarded the very well done one in FFX, but it did it well enough so that it wasn't an issue to me. The only problem with it is you didn't have a lot of time to strategize in battle. As such, you needed to plan for every type of enemy encounter beforehand. If you were going into Macalania Woods, expect strong magic monsters. If you were headed to Bevelle, expect Machina and Soldiers. You can also slow it down by changing what type of ATB you're playing. I suggest setting it to the wait mode while you navigate menus if you're going to play as mage heavy.
As this is the first 3D FF game I've talked about, I need to talk about the elephant in the room. That's adventure mode. The 3D FF games up to XII has had nigh on terrible controls outside of battle. This could be because of the usually fixed camera or because it had fixed paths or, because it made you jump around. That last one's the problem in X-2.
X-2 has you exploring catacombs, cliff walls, and ruins, all whilst looking for spheres. In those, you have to jump across platforms, and it isn't as fluid as it should be. The fixed cameras don't help with this, resulting in Lara Croft Splat Syndrome without the funny ending...sadly.
Graphically, the game barely looks better than FFX, but seeing how it was way ahead of its time, that's still saying they were superb. Outside of cinematics also looked really good, in that the characters faces didn't seem as blocky now, and battle sequences seemed to flow better. However, it had a freezing issue quite often during cinematics.
While I don't like "Real Emotion", "1000 Words" fucking steals the show. I can't really explain it unless you've seen it...so...here.
Ok...I know, really JPOP romantic...but, still...it's really, really pretty, and makes the whole pop-star class worth it. This was the comparable point of X-2 to the wedding sequence of FFX, and damn does watching that whole sequence just get me ready to kick some Seymour ass. This one on the other hand is just really, really pretty. If you don't like it, you're some kind of a soulless monster...seriously.
Most of the rest of the music is reused from X's locations. Macalania Woods is note for note the same, but a few melodies were remixed...a little. The voice cast is also pretty much the same...in fact, I don't think there were any major changes, and all of the new ones sound fine too.
All in all, the game is a pretty good package, and opened the door for sequels in the FF Series. It's because of it that we have games like Crisis Core and The After Years, so from a legacy standpoint, it's done a lot. Beyond that, the game didn't add much or change much at all.
So, what did you think? Can you answer any of my questions from the top? Why is this game hated so? It's a great game, so let me know.
-Sara
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