User Rating: 4.8 | Final Fantasy X-2 PS2
By Egonga | Review Date:
When you think about Final Fantasy, what is it that makes the games great? The driven, focused storyline which involves a dark and sinister evil that must be overthrown? The tactical battles which require skill and strategy to gain victory? An in-depth magic system that provides ample depth to customize your character to the way you want them? An emotional soundtrack that compliments the story? FFX-2 is a bit of an oddball, because not only is it the first sequel to a Final Fantasy videogame, it's also the first Final Fantasy that features none of the above. For a bit of a change, the game introduces a more free-form RPG than it's predecesors so that you, the gamer, can decide what to do next. Unfortunately this has been executed with little skill. You can move away from the main storyline, if you wish, to take on side quests, but what's the point? Most of them involve abysmal mini-games that are by no means a match for it's predecessors. Want to pass balloons to people? No? Good choice. Then instead why don't you go and try to sell tickets, bargaining with people by selecting one of 4 options. If you get it wrong...which there is no way of telling beforehand...then you lose. Who needs Blitzball when you can sell tickets to people? This would be forgivable if the main quest was solid and strong. Sadly this is not the case either. Missions mostly consist of walking around a dungeon fighting monsters and climbing stuff, until you reach a "Sphere". At this point you'll have to face some sort of boss, most likely Logos and Ormi, who you face about 9 times in a row as boss characters. I don't mean one after another instantly...no even this game has standards...but usually at the end of every dungeon. It is somewhat varied...perhaps a common soldier will be with them, or you'll face one of them alone. But the fact of the matter is that it just feels lazy and sloppy when you have to face them over and over and over again. The "plot", which is a lighter, happier story than most Final Fantasies is unveiled when you collect spheres during missions. However, it's so paper-thin that you'll be wondering if this is Final Fantasy at all. The music, too, is light-hearted and "bouncy", totally removing any sense of danger within the plot. It's all "Let's go have fun in hot pants!" The battle system is a stark contrast to it's prequel, Final Fantasy X. There things were completely turn-based, allowing for strategic battles that you really felt a part of. Here, however, it's virtually real-time, with enemies attacking you ferociously while you fumble about trying to find a heal spell. Most battles are hardly scientific, with the player most likely to find a system (eg. Yuna uses Darkness Dance, Rikku uses Pray and Paine attacks) and just repeating over and over until they move on to a boss. Combined with the lighting-fast gameplay you're likely to become bored and numbed by such a system. The "Dress sphere" system itself, however, is excellent. If the actual battle system managed to match the greatness of the game, I'd be singing it's praises. Basically each character is highly flexible in their choice of "class", meaning they can switch from Black Mage to White Mage with a press of a button. The more time they spend using a skill, the better they become and as such better abilities come you way. Each character is better at the others at something (Paine is more powerful than Rikku, who in turn has better magic) so you can set your own roles for them and as such they feel more personalized. Overall, Final Fantasy X-2 is a poorly executed game which fails to live up to the great name of Final Fantasy. It tries to seperate itself from previous installments by making it seem different, by changing a lot of the game. They've accomplished this, but not in the way intended.

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