Final Fantasy X-2 Retrospective: The Power of Fanservice (Spoilers)

Note: Hey guys, I know this isn't nearly as good as my other reviews, but honestly I don't think there's much to analyze when it comes to this game... the good is obviously good and the bad is obviously bad, there aren't many layers to dissect like there were with the other games so far, if that makes any sense. Either way, if you do enjoy these retrospectives I think you will at least be relieved to know that this one is shorter than usual.

Final Fantasy X-2 Retrospective: The Power of Fanservice

Well then, I guess it's finally time to rip into one of the most controversial games in the series... and I think a lot of you may be disappointed to hear that I actually think the game is pretty decent. Is it as good as it's predecessor? Oh hell no it's not even remotely close, but then again anyone who thought it would be (even back before it was released) weren't thinking very logically. FFX had a very conclusive ending, even more so than a lot of the other games in the series, and really didn't warrant a sequel. Hell, two of the main characters in the game died (well technically they were never alive to begin with but let's try to keep this simple) and the world's biggest problem was completely destroyed and the 'eternal calm' prevailed. The story was done yet Square decided to cash in on the rather popular game anyway... a trend that they would continue to repeat to the point where even the mere mention of a sequel causes a groan to echo through the waves of the fan base.

All that rambling aside, this review is going to be quite a bit shorter than my previous ones (At least I hope it is.. I don't feel like I have much to say about this one oddly enough) especially since a lot of what I have to say was already covered in my last review. The graphics remain completely unchanged, the game's world has only a couple additional areas and the voice acting is at about the same level as the previous game, so I don't feel the need to touch on any of that again, all that really leaves to talk about is the game play changes, the new music and the story... okay that's a lie.. It's me after all and there are a couple things in the games presentation that I will nitpick at before we move on, one of which can make or break this game for many players. (Oh, and of course this 'review' contains spoilers)

Presentation and Fan service:

One of the most frowned upon aspects of this game is the dialogue and poor script...and you know what? I agree 110%. This game's dialogue is so dreadful, so absolutely jaw droppingly bad that I am actually EMBARESSED to have other people in the room while I play this game. I'm not exaggerating, hearing Yuna (who was previously a rather reserved and caring summoner) say things like, Oh Poopie! or spending multiple minutes in a bathing suit talking about her breast size with other women in a hot spring made me cringe and cry on the inside in ways that only true fans can understand. Seriously, I bashed FFV for it's cheesy writing in a review that I wrote a few years ago for this site (if for some reason you DO go read it know that most of my opinions about the game have changed since I did this challenge and I think much more highly of the game now, though the dialogue is still something that really bothers me.) In fact, I believe my exact quote in the review on THAT game was, I never again want to hear my hero say 'Yo Ho Ho and stuff! Time to cast off!' before sailing in the ocean and my god I would give anything to have Final Fantasy V's level of stupid dialogue in place of FFX-2's.

The fan service has also been cranked up to a level that I'm surprised didn't shame the creators, everything from cheesy J-pop to costumes that could fit any sort of fetish you may have really pushes this game into a category all it's own, and it distracts greatly from the core experience which would hold up enough to at least be considered decent if it weren't for all of the other added bull crap.

Speaking of the J-pop songs (sung by Yuna of course) this is another area that people seem to really thrash into. I've got to admit, the opening IS rather off putting... but If I'm going to be completely Honest, the '1000 Words' segment.. in my opinion is extremely well done. I actually get goosebumps watching this scene every time... say what you will about me for that but I've got to admit that I think it's very well crafted.

The only other thing I really have to say is that the presentation in this game feels extremely lazy. Since the game is set in the same world as the last and it's only been a couple years since the last games release, I really do understand the reusing of models, especially for areas and characters that already exist, but it's the little things that matter, the most obvious example I can think of being the fact that they didn't make Lulu a model to reflect the fact that she's pregnant, when all that would take is editing the current model. It doesn't help that the game even points out this laziness if you talk to Rikku during the scene, where she says, She doesn't LOOK pregnant. C'mon guys... pointing out your own flaws doesn't make it any less lazy. On top of that, the few additional areas in this game all look extremely generic and seem to be based off very similar hallway like structures, so almost every area added to this game (with the exception of the Final Dungeon which IS pretty creatively designed I must admit) uses the same basic textures.

Another notable thing about FFX-2 is that for the first time since I've written these reviews, I get to talk about a game's music that Isn't composed by Uematsu. I feel that the soundtrack in FFX-2 is servicable, there are a few notable tracks that stand out and I find rather enjoyable (the Title Screen and Final Boss theme stand out in particular) and the music throughout fits the feel and style of the game, that being said it doesn't hold up when compared to the soundtracks in the rest of the series, but that's not a fair comparison to begin with, so take that as you will.

Story/Characters:

I have been thinking for a long time about what I wanted to say about the story.. and I realized if you strip away all of the fat there really isn't much too it, so I will summarize it as simply as I can. Yuna joins a group of sphere hunters (so.. treasure hunters.. only that look for recordings instead of treasure) Because she finds a sphere of someone who looks exactly Like Tidus. She continues looking for spheres in hopes of finding Tidus is alive still, but instead learns that it is a sphere of a man from the REAL Zanarkand named Shuiyin who has been dead for 1000 years, but is still a powerful unsent whom is trying to use a giant robot called Vegnagun (which is hidden beneath Bevelle) to destroy the entire planet, and of course it's up to Yuna and her friends to stop him.

There we go, that's the games entire plot, I spoiled a couple of small plot twists along the way with that summary, but really everything else that this game gives you information wise is completely unnecessary. Honestly, I thought the main story of the game (though clearly pulled right out of the creator's asses because the world of Spira wasn't meant to have another world ending threat besides sin) is actually pretty decent and holds up well enough. It establishes a motive for Yuna to continue with the journey and gives a sense of danger to overcome.

Where this games story falls flat is in the way it's told and the countless hours of game time you will spend NOT following the main storyline. The majority of this game's content is in it's sidequests and because of that you will be taking part in a lot of little substories that really add up to nothing in the end because they were all made to be completely optional. This lack of focus however doesn't necessarily hurt the pacing because you can do as much or as little of the sidequesting as you'd like, but more on that later. The worst part about this game's story is once again the missed potential. There could have been an actual interesting conflict between the two world religions that are fighting for supremacy, and the game actually makes you pick a side throughout the story, but you never learn anything about either world view, and you find the leaders of each are working together to defeat Vegnagun anyway which makes the entire exercise completely pointless. The game TRIES to play on the fact that the major world religion was proven to be fake, but there is very little backlash because of this and it feels very unrealistic.

This game also suffers from many a plot convenience, in fact the entire game seems to only move forward BECAUSE of these conveniences so there's no reason to try and point them all out. Everything from a 'Sphere wave detector' too having to collect enemy uniforms (that you see in EVERY AREA IN THE GAME) from three very specific locations really hammers this nail right into the coffin.

The characters in this game haven't changed much from the last, your main Party consists of Yuna, Rikku and a new character Paine (Who is essentially just the goth replacement since Lulu had to be written into pregnancy). There are a couple other characters worth mentioning but not really delving into, so this should be pretty short:

Yuna: The returning star from the previous game, but her attitude has completely changed. Instead of the quiet, reserved and sweet girl she once was she is now a bit hyper active and even arrogant at times. It's a bit of a betrayal to see her acting this way and many fans of complained about this already so let's move on.

Rikku: She is exactly the same as the last game only with more revealing clothes. Moving on.

Paine: The new gothic girl/swordsman. Really she's only hear to fit the whole Charlie's Angels/Power Puff girls vibe the game's got going, that and you needed a new swordsman. They use Paine as the main link between the religious leaders of new spira and the sphere hunters and she works rather servicably in that regard.

Leblanc, Logos, and Ormi: A Rival sphere hunting gang that is only notable for being the main reoccuring (and COMPLETELY non-threatening villians) You will see them in almost every area of the game and you will fight them far more than 10 times (I stopped counting after that). They are a joke of a rival group, but I almost think that was on purpose.

Nooj, Beralai, and Gippal: The three real world leaders that are working behind the scenes to destroy Vegnagun. They are rather important to the movement of the plot but really add NOTHING to the story, so It was once again a bit of a waste to not use them as much as they could, because of this I see no reason to go into their characters with any form of depth.

The only part of the story that there's left to talk about are the multiple endings. Without giving them away there are three main endings, one if you lose (or take too long) during the final battle. One if you win, another if you push 'X' at the right time during the ending, and one more if you get 100% completion. Oh my god it's time to bitch about the 100% completion. I have no shame in admitting that I used a walkthrough to play this game all the way through. I used the OFFICIAL walkthrough even, and I followed it word for word and guess what? I STILL DIDN'T GET 100% The task is so damn cheap and annoying. You have to get every correct piece of dialogue and go to every single area at the exactly correct time to get the .02% of your completion totals. Trust me, the 100% is NOT worth your time.

That's all I really have to say about the Story and the Characters, so I guess I will move onto the gameplay now.

Gameplay:

Despite all the negativity listed above, the gameplay is where this game begins to shine. Unlike Final Fantasy X, this game gets rid of the linear structure by allowing you to go to any location at pretty much anytime. This leaves you to complete your missions (or not complete missions if you want to skip the large amount of side quests) in whatever order you'd like too. The game is even kind enough to give each location a rating for how difficult the enemies will be there so that you don't bite off more than you can chew. There are a few problems with this however.

The free flowing nature of this game really helps to emphasize how empty the world is as opposed to making it feel more alive, which I think is the opposite of what the game designers were trying to do. You often see them crowding areas full with NPCs (all of which who are still as uninteresting as the last game) but this just brings more attention to how few characters they actually have models for.

The exploration may not be all that exciting to players who played the last game however as there are only a VERY small handful of new locations, and most are extremely bland and don't bring much too the table.

The real point of this game's open ended nature is to allow you to participate in the numerous side quests and mini-games. It would take pages upon pages to dissect them all so I will summarize the best I can. This game will have you doing everything from selling concert tickets, to making monkeys mate, to digging for treasure in a desert, to catching chocobos... not to mention the return of a modified blitzball and sphere break. This game always leaves you with something interesting to do. Though these quests vary dramatically in what you are doing, how difficult and/or tedious they are and how fun they may be, the amount of variety is still worth applauding.

Lastly I will talk about the Combat. My opinion on the combat is rather middle road... the system itself is very well constructed and a great contrast from the last games turnbased nature. This game goes back to the ATB system of older Final Fantasy Games, except now things move at a pace where attacks can actually overlap and create chains. On top of this you have the ability to change dress spheres (this game's version of the familiar job system) Mid battle. So though you can't mix and match job ablities like in previous games, mid combat you can tell your warrior to change into a healer if you'd like to keep your team alive. It's much like the paradigm system in Final Fantasy XIII... only here you actually get to control all of your party members directly and you can switch each character's job individually. My one gripe with the combat is that it's not very balanced. It stays balanced for about ½ of the game's length before you unlock the Alchemist and Dark Knight Dresspsheres, which gives you a game breaking combination, something that I've shown great distaste for in past reviews and it's no exception here. I beat the last boss by merely holding down the 'X' button... my two dark knights spamming the 'darkness' ability and my alchemist constantly using the 'Mega-Potion' ability. It's rather sad that they didn't take more time to balance the game because a lot of the jobs were VERY fun to experiment with and a lot of the boss battles actually required strategy and were challenging.

The dresspshere system also allows for one of the coolest ability learning systems in an RPG ever. When you change a job you get to look at a list of the abilities that it has, and instead of learning them in order, you can actually choose what abilities you want to learn and when, really allowing you to customize your experience and ignore abilities that aren't useful to you. It's a great system that I'd love to see in other games.

Conclusion:

Despite not being the strongest entry in the series, or even remotely as close to it's predecessor, I am willing to admit that I think this game gets a bit more flack than it deserves. I do truly understand the fan service and bland story being enough to push people away from it completely, but there truly is a good gaming experience underneath all of the awful cheesiness. The truth of the matter is, some people just won't be able to get past the games flaws, and in this case, it's something I wouldn't be able to argue, some of the choices truly are absurd, but if you can get past all of that this game holds up better than you'd think, in fact, I think it holds up better than a few of the main games in the series. So hate this game or not, you aren't going to offend me, but if you've been on the fence and you can find it cheap (which I'm sure you can) I'd say at least give it a try, just know what to expect when you pick it up and you shouldn't be TOO disapointed.