Final Fantasy X-2 (Import)

What would motivate a company who had just put out 11 consecutive games in a series without ever having a true sequel to go ahead and all of a sudden throw convention to the wind?

Perhaps money? Square had been hurting in the financial area, and with PlayOnline still struggling to get to its feet, they needed to look good.

Maybe it was to shed their image. Square had been known for taking a bullish, perhaps arrogant attitude towards the industry, trying to succeed where others had failed. Maybe it was time to show the public that with new people in charge, things would be different.

Or maybe it actually was just for the fans who really, really like Yuna, Tidus, and the gang.

Honestly, we'll probably never know. What we do know is that this is the first Final Fantasy to ever get a sequel, and that it will probably end up with mixed feelings. I think this is probably going to go down as the most divisive game in the Final Fantasy series. Either you're going to love it, or you're going to hate it.

New Friends and Old

You start the game off with your 2 familiar companions, Yuna and Rikku, and a 3rd who's new to the group. That's not Lulu from FFX, that's Paine. Together they form...Charlie's Angels! Er, I mean "YuRiPa". (Part of the Japanese culture. The young people are always referring to things by truncating the word(s).) Their group actually does have a name...but I'm not going to know what it means...if you're expecting that from me, you've come to the wrong place, my friend.

The story starts out with the motion captured Koda Kumi supplying Yuna with dance moves and a hit single (While her album is pretty good, poor Koda's getting overshadowed by her younger sister, lead vocalist in the group "Day After Tomorrow".) when the player finds out the real story...that's not Yuna at all!!! It's a rival! Someone has decided to steal Yuna's identity and have a little concert. Well, the gang all stops that, and Yuna does a little dance to celebrate.

This is probably the point at which gamers' opinions will diverge. Either you will put the game down and never pick it up again after that point, or you will happily soldier on. The hardcore will obviously play through the entire thing anyway, but reserve the right to complain.

Sequel = Less Clothing

Maybe the modelers figured, well, if X had them all mostly clothed, and XXX would have them be totally naked, then X-2 should probably be somewhere in the middle. Other than that, your guess is as good as mine when it comes to figuring out why a humble staff wielding summoner all of sudden goes through her closest and says, "Oh, guess I'll just put on a pair of these Daisy Dukes."

The job mode of FFX-2 has you changing outfits in battle and you get new classes by earning different dresses. You generally pick these up as plot and side-plot rewards. Based on their abilities, there are 18 distinct Jobs available in the game, but some of them are character specific.

To hammer this point home, your characters will not be wearing a whole lot of clothing at any point in time during the game. I think the Black Mage is probably the most dressed any of the characters is going to get. So if you think you're the kind of person that can get over the ridicule you're endure when someone walks by and scoff at that fact that you're playing an RPG as three scantily-clad women, you're in the clear. (And you know it'll happen.) If you passed on DOA:XVB, you're probably going to want to give this a rental.

FFX is to Linear, as FFX-2 is to...

SaGa Frontier. Well, you get the point, right? Where you were on a rail the entire time in FFX, you have a lot more freedom in X-2. You're given a map that indicates "Active Links". However, you also have stuff you can do at all the places that tell you that there isn't a mission there. Talk to someone and you'll find one. These will generally increase the % of story completion you've achieved.

However, most of these missions are really boring. I had one where I have Yuna dressed up as a Moogle, and I have to give balloons to 10 people who don't have them. Whoopty doo! Another has me going around the land and trying to boost PR. Maybe someone in Square Japan's PR department was feeling a little unloved that day. Unfortunately, if it doesn't involve actually advancing the plot, it feels kind of shallow.

Gameplay

If you get past the raciness of it all, what you'll find is a fairly deep, and yet, confused RPG. The job system is fairly nice, but a lot of it feels very FF7 to me. I have all these abilities but yet, I'm very, very limited in terms of items and such. I also think this is the only RPG I've played where routinely I pick up WAY better stuff off of monsters than I find in stores. What's the point of me buying anything?

Even at the lower levels, everything dropped so many potions, I didn't care about using them at all. Typically, I will hold on to all my items until I can't avoid using them, perhaps to the point where they become basically useless to me. Not the case in FFX-2. If I was hurt 35-50 HP, I'd toss a potion. I knew I'd find 3 or 4 the next time I killed something.

The job system is a lot like the Junctioning from FF8. Each class has a specific set of abilities and you power these up by using the class abilities in combat. When you gain a new ability, it'll alert you in battle, and any AP you earn for the rest of the battle will go to a predetermined skill (so don't think you're going to be "wasting" them.)

Naturally, these different classes all help out during a battle differently, so you'll have to make BIG adjustments for them in terms of attack speed, especially since the ATB system has returned. No more will you be able to plot 25 moves in advance.

The idea of switching jobs in the middle of battle sounds cool at first, but the fact that it costs you a turn in a real-time battle generally deters me from using it. The only time I'll switch out is when I'm encountering an enemy with a high physical defense, but a low attack. That'll just get too boring with one of the less burly classes, so I'll switch to a class more suited for melee combat at that point. Barring that, I stick to my guns until I'm outside of battle.

That makes the other little gimmick, "Result Plates" almost completely useless to me. You have little plates in which you can customize where each dress is in relation to another.

Imagine a tic-tac-toe board. To get from the upper-left to the lower right, I'd require you to cross two squares. So, if in the middle of the battle, you're a Gunner, and you want to get over to Samurai in the lower left, you'd have to spend two turns changing into 3 different outfits. While it may be pleasing to see, that's one part member out of commission for quite some time.

So, you can set the result plates up to take into account some strategy...my most often used class is this, so I want to put that in the middle, and these other classes I don't use so much anymore, I don't even need them on the Result Plate.

Interesting, but ultimately useless to me.

You'll notice I haven't mentioned the fact that you can jump around and interact in the environment in FFX-2. Well, that's just how amazingly big of a part it plays. To it's credit, they still haven't turned Final Fantasy into an annoying platformer yet. Although they must have really wanted to at one point...they still forced some annoying jumping puzzles into Xenogears after all.

Graphics

Pick any other game on any other system. They will all pale to FFX-2 in terms of sheer visual grandeur. The XBox may have the hardware. The GameCube may be optimized for gaming. Neither of them still has anything that will touch FFX-2 in terms of sheer impressiveness.

I played Panzer Dragoon Orta. That had some nice worlds. Wind Waker, Eternal Darkness...those had some good ones, too. Shenmue 2? I played it on the DC, so it didn't look that hot. But, in terms of effective cinematic elements (no, I don't mean cutscenes...I'm talking about film fundamentals and camerawork.) amazing backgrounds and overall graphical immersion...nothing on the market...nothing COMING on the market that I saw at E3 can touch FFX-2. Say what you will about the game itself...if you're the type that can buy a game for the visuals alone, and feel satisfied...sign up for a preorder now.

Sound

A good intro gets me every time, and on top of that, Koda Kumi's track, "Real Emotion" is pretty catchy. (On her album, though, I prefer the track, "One Night Romance".) So, that earns some high marks in the sound department from me. I also though the voice over work was pretty good, with the exception of Paine. Paine didn't sound "gruff" to me...just old.

I know Rick hated Rikku's voice, because he kept saying so when I was playing during the E3 stay, but I found her to be fine, as are the rest of the other cast members. The rest of the background music isn't too shabby. Not superb, but not subpar, either.

Replay

There some replay involved in that you don't actually have to complete all the side quests in order to finish the game. There's also the fact that you will most likely have to play the game more than once to get the uber-super-perfect ending to the game.

While some people may consider that kind of cheeseball, consider this...there are little "whistle events" in the game that will happen. You'll hit Circle when you hear whistling, or hit Circle to whistle. But there's nothing in the Japanese manual about this. You just have to know...THAT'S cheeseball.

It is possible to beat the game on one run-through. But to do so, you either have to be DAMN lucky (I don't mean thorough, I mean lucky, if you do events in the wrong order, your chance is blown.) or read a FAQ. I don't recommend reading a FAQ unless you're trying to beat the game in order to do a review. *grin*

Overall

I think this game is going to have people taking extreme points of view on the game, because I wavered so much in how I felt about it. Some times the super-sweet peppy attitude of Yuna and co/ would grate on me so bad I had to shut the game off. There are certain parts that will be as abysmally bad as the "Tidus' Forced Laugh" scene from FFX.

But the graphics and the promise of putting the pieces of the story together would call back to me. I can't hate FFX-2, and I can't wholeheartedly recommend it, either. So...I'm going to give it a thumbs sideways. I have to say, all in all, that the average gamer is probably going to enjoy it, and the hardcore camp will be split right down the center...kinda like FFVII.

Overall, I think the incredible graphics and the sense of grandeur that comes along for the ride bolster the game's average gameplay, and save it from being something mediocre. If you don't buy into the hype, you're probably going to find it enjoyable for the most part...although you will cringe.