Final Fantasy X-2 is Squaresoft’s first attempt at making a full blown
sequel to an installment in the long running Final Fantasy series, and
can be summed up on one simple equation: Final Fantasy X + Charlie’s
Angels = Final Fantasy X-2. In Final Fantasy X-2 you play as Yuna,
Final Fantasy X’s summoner extraordinaire. The story picks up two years
after the end of Final Fantasy X and the defeat of Sin. With the Calm
now settled over Spira, the people have become obsessed with unlocking
the secrets of Spira’s past, so they may piece together the history of
their world. This is being done by recovering spheres from a thousand
years ago and older. If you remember the spheres from Final Fantasy X,
then you know they are magical orbs that play back video that has been
recorded into them. In other words, they are sort of like a T.V., DVD
Player, and the DVD all in one. The people who hunt for spheres are
called Sphere Hunters, and after being shown a mysterious sphere, Yuna,
Rikku, and their new friend Paine have teamed up Brother and some other
Al Bhed to form their own group of sphere hunters. While the Al Bhed
simply wants to sell the spheres, Yuna’s goal in acquiring them is a
much more personal one. How the story progresses beyond this point is
entirely dependant on what missions the player decides to undertake and
complete. That’s right missions. Final Fantasy X-2 is divided into five
chapters each with their own levels or missions. There is no roaming or
traveling in this game like in previous Final Fantasy titles. You
simply move from one mission to the next. You have a choice on what
missions you want to do though, because unlike previous Final
Fantasies, Final Fantasy X-2 is almost entirely nonlinear. A good 90%
of the games content is purely optional, but skipping over it isn’t the
best idea, because you will be missing out on some important details to
the story, such as Paine’s past. You will also find the final dungeon
and final boss to be extremely difficult to beat without the rewards
you acquire by doing the optional missions. You have the air ship
available to you from the very beginning of the game, and with it you
have access to every location in Spira. What ending you get, and what
takes place during it, will also change depending on how close you are
to achieving one hundred percent completion of the game, as well as
what missions you finished. This is both a good and bad feature,
because on the one hand it lets the player take control giving the game
much more of a sandbox like feel. The player is able to progress and
explore and his/her own pace, and do things as he/she wishes, allowing
the experience to last from anywhere between 10-50 hours or more.
However, the downside to this is that because it is impossible to get
one hundred percent completion in one play through, the player will
always be missing something. Be it because they chose to pass it up, or
because they chose to do something that closed off the option to do
something else. For this reason the story is never as strong as it
should be, and players will more than likely still have questions and
be left unsatisfied when they have beaten the game. Final Fantasy X-2’s
game play takes a huge step backward when compared to its predecessor,
Final Fantasy X. The sphere grid is gone and has been replaced with the
old linear level system of character advancement, leaving players with
very little control over how their characters advance. The Final
Fantasy Job System has been revived in Final Fantasy X-2 and comes in
the form of dress spheres. How this works is you can equip each of your
three characters with a sort of mini sphere grid, some of which provide
stat bonuses for the character equipping it. Once the grid is equipped
you can fill the empty slots on it with dress spheres. The dress
spheres you place in the grid determines what jobs that character can
change into during combat. That’s right, during combat. Unlike previous
Final Fantasy titles that had the job system where you changed jobs
outside of combat, in Final Fantasy X-2 your characters may change jobs
on the fly both inside and outside of combat. This makes for some
interesting encounters and is definitely a positive feature, which
could have been even more positive if Final Fantasy X-2’s battle system
wasn’t a complete mess.
Final Fantasy X-2 uses a variant of the old Final Fantasy Active Battle
System. In this system each monster and character has their own attack
gauge. When the gauge is full the character or enemy may input a
command and attack its target. However, there is the twist. The delay
that used to be in effect while you were sifting through your inventory
and menus, and kept you from getting annihilated while you chose what
to have your characters do, has been eliminated. This means that as
soon as the attack gauge is full and the command to attack has been
given, the enemy or character will attack. This allows you and your
enemies to chain attacks together for massive damage. This makes the
pace of battle a very frantic and frustrating one, because enemies
attack rather quickly and too frequently. You can’t take the time to
strategize during combat, or sift through big inventories, in Final
Fantasy X-2, because if you do then even the weakest enemies in the
game will tear you to shreds. It should also be noted that there is a
lack of balance in the enemies you encounter. Players can be running
around a zone doing just fine, but then suddenly come up against a
massive enemy they can’t touch, which will K.O. their entire party in
only a few attacks. This is annoying to say the least, and only
exhibits an overall lack of polish.
The additional problem Final Fantasy X-2’s battle system creates is
that there is a delay gauge that appears when using a spell or ability.
This gauge must be filled in order for the ability or spell to be
executed. This takes many precious seconds to happen, during which time
the enemy can usually get several attacks in, dealing a healthy amount
of damage to your characters. Once the gauge has been filled and the
attack carried out, whatever ability or spell you were waiting to
execute just feels underpowered both in the damage it deals and in the
visual effect displayed. For this reason the caster classes are largely
useless, because the melee classes can attack more frequently for less
damage, dealing more damage over all, in the same amount of time it
takes for a caster to cast their one big spell. The jumping system also
makes a return in Final Fantasy X-2. Veterans who remember Final
Fantasy VII will no doubt remember this feature. Sadly, the jumping
system worked much better in the previous Final Fantasies that it was
in than it does in Final Fantasy X-2. Rather than simply hit circle to
jump from platform to platform, in Final Fantasy X-2 you must be at the
appropriate spot on the platform and time hitting circle just right
when you get to that point after you have a running start. The camera
usually gets in the way here and makes finding that point a challenge.
What’s even worse is that once you do find that point, getting your
character to jump only seems to happen to when the game wants it to,
rather than when it is supposed to, or when you want it to. Overall,
this only exhibits a recipe for frustration and makes Final Fantasy
X-2’s platforming sequences a royal pain in the bum. You can look
forward to playing through the same platforming areas and same
environments over and over again as well, because graphically,
everything in Final Fantasy X-2 has been ripped directly from Final
Fantasy X. Practically everything from character models, to
environments and locations, monster models, and spell effects is
identical to what you saw in Final Fantasy X. The new characters are
just modified avatars of the old ones and the same goes for the new
locations, with the exception of the temple atop Mount Gagazet, which
you visit in the games beginning. The temple is both beautiful and
stunningly gorgeous to look at. It’s a shame that there is nothing else
like it in the game. Yuna and Rikku have both been given a visual
makeover. Yuna’s character has completely changed from how she was in
Final Fantasy X, while Rikku remains the same. The new character Paine
looks good, and is often the cynical voice of sanity for the trio.
Sadly, all three girls constantly suffer from either a distinct lack of
clothing, and/or looking completely ridiculous regardless of what job
costume you choose to have them adorn.
The pre-rendered FMV sequences Square has become known for also return
in Final Fantasy X-2. There is notably less of them than there was in
Final Fantasy X. However, they look better than those of Final Fantasy
X by leaps and bounds, and show just how much technology has advanced
in the few years since Final Fantasy X and X-2’s release.
Unfortunately, these sequences don’t come at the best times. Many of
them arrive when the games story falls completely flat. For instance,
there is a recurring motif in Final Fantasy X-2 of “the world is in
danger! Let’s save it by singing a song and dancing.” After this you
are treated to a beautifully rendered scene of the girls singing and
dancing to pop songs while the rest of the world puts down its weapons
and becomes friends again. It’s campy girl power to the max, and will
have most rational gamers looking for something that will allow them to
hurt themselves.
Sound wise Final Fantasy X-2 is fantastic, but definitely different
from what fans have come to expect from a Final Fantasy title. There
are only the faintest hints of the old tunes everyone knew and loved in
Final Fantasy X, and much of it has been replaced by music with a
distinct 70’s pop flare reminiscent of Charlie’s Angels. That’s not to
say that the more laid back and mundane tones Final Fantasy has become
known for are absent, because they aren’t. They are just fewer in
number than expected. This isn’t to say that any of it is bad either,
because it’s not. Final Fantasy X-2 has one of the best sound tracks of
any Final Fantasy title, and has what is probably the best closing song
of any Final Fantasy. The song “1000 words” is nothing short of
memorable and fits into the game perfectly. All of the original voice
actors return to bring the cast of characters alive. Along with the new
actors added to the cast, they all do a superb job of bringing the cast
to life and making an already large likeable cast even larger. You will
really be able to get a sense of the characters thanks to their talent.
For instance, one of the chants you will hear at the beginning of a
battle will have Yuna saying, “gimme a Y,” while Rikku shouts, “gimme
an R,” and then the ever sarcastic Paine says flatly, “gimme a break.”
There is also a ton of extra content available in Final Fantasy X-2 to
keep players going when they are tired of questing. Blitzball returns,
but is watered down and more hands off this time around. You can
capture Chocobo’s again and take part in a number of faire like
activities in the Calm Lands. Along with a few others, there is also
the Gunners Gauntlet. This is a mini game that has Yuna running down a
stretch of land shooting and killing monsters in real time. You get
more ammo, as well as new types of ammo on the way, and your goal is to
reach the end point within the time limit while you rack up a certain
number of points by killing enemies. It is highly reminiscent of
Squares old Horror RPG Parasite Eve, and is a different type of mini
game than what is usually found in a Final Fantasy. Despite the
problematic camera and clunky controls, it’s a lot of fun.
Overall, Final Fantasy X-2 isn’t a bad game. It just suffers from an
overall lack of polish and being forced to stand in the shadow of one
of the greatest RPG’s the Playstation 2 has to offer. If you can get
the full ending, or “perfect” ending as people call it, you will find
it to be extremely satisfying. Unfortunately, this ending is almost
impossible to get without a walkthrough, and can’t be done in one play
through, which detracts from the experience. After all, players who
couldn’t stick it out for the first play through aren’t going to be
sticking it out for a second one. What Square should have done is make
the “perfect ending” the standard ending, so that the story would come
full circle and complete itself, and then make a series of alternate
endings and joke endings that aren’t variations of the games current
standard ending. Also, given the changes Square made in Final Fantasy
X-2, it would have helped if there was tutorial level at the games very
beginning to explain everything. Instead, there isn’t one, and players
will find themselves simply thrown into the fray, which is very
overwhelming and doesn’t make a good first impression. Also, Final
Fantasy X-2 is so nonlinear it lacks direction in most cases. This can
make it rather frustrating to play without a guide, and the frantic
mess that is the game’s battle system is doesn’t help either.
Final Fantasy X-2 is impossible to recommend to anyone who hasn’t
played and/or beaten Final Fantasy X. This is because by playing Final
Fantasy X-2 you spoil Final Fantasy X, and you won’t understand the
games world and story. In the end there are only two groups of people
that Final Fantasy X-2 can be recommended to. These groups are those
who played Final Fantasy X, loved it and want more, and those who
played Final Fantasy X and weren’t satisfied with the ending. If you
can get the perfect ending, then Final Fantasy X-2 should cure your
itch for a better ending for the cast of characters so many love, as
well as for more Final Fantasy X. However, just know that the Final
Fantasy X-2 experience won’t be as good as the Final Fantasy X one was.
