Fortunately for us, the good people at Square-Enix realised that Yuna's story was one worth continuing, and thus Final Fantasy X-2 (Ten - Two) was born.
Set two years after the events of the original, FFX-2 revolves around Yuna's life after the event that changed Spira forever. The people live in 'an eternal calm', free from the wrath of Sin. With the Summoners free from their fatalistic pilgrimages, a lot turn to Sphere Hunting as a way of life. And so, we're introduced to Yuna two years on, as part of a Sphere Hunting trio called the Gullwings. Together with Rikku and newcomer Paine, they travel around Spira looking for treasure spheres.
From the opening FMV, you'll instantly notice that this isn't the Yuna you're used to. The conservative, sensitive, quiet Yuna seems to have been replaced with a rather loud, rambunctious, pop-singer Yuna, and it's honestly quite jarring. It serves as a unique intro to the game, but if you thought it would stop there... you're wrong. The three main characters seem to have an uncanny urge to break out in song and dance at several places in the game.
Initially, the game seems heavily influenced by the whole 'Girl Power' theme, and it's often so cutesy and bubbly that you'll turn away in revulsion. Fortunately, the aformentioned is merely a pretense to a serious storyline that is just as involving as it's predecessor. In a similar fashion to Metroid Prime, players can experience as much or as little of the game as they please, depending on how many missions and how much exploring they undertake throughout the game's five chapters. This creates an incredibly freeform gaming experience that's a breath of fresh air in a generally overcrowded, copycat RPG market.
Missions that progress the storyline are marked on the area-select screen with the word 'Hotspot' for those who want to zip through to the end without experiencing all that Spira has to offer, although this isn't recommended. This reviewer attempted such a tactic, only to have it backfire when he approached Chapter Three with characters on very low experience levels.
Now, if you were expecting FFX-2 to be a straight sequel to FFX, you'll find yourself dazed and confused once you start playing. Making a welcome return to the Final Fantasy franchise is the realtime battle system. Every move you execute takes a certain amount of time to process, and after each attack you'll need to allow your character time to recharge their meter before doing another action. This adds another element of strategy to the game, because you can time your attacks to cause maximum damage thanks to the inclusion of a combo multiplier system.
Perhaps the biggest (and most shocking) change to the game's design is the Garment Grid and Dress Sphere system. As you progress through the game, your characters will earn Dress Spheres as rewards for completing certain objectives. These spheres allow your character to effectively change jobs and learn new moves, akin to the Final Fantasy Tactics games. By placing these spheres onto a Garment Grid, you can access new moves and abilities by passing through 'gates' between spheres as you change jobs during battle. These gates imbue your character with temporary abilities that can make the difference between victory and game over, and become important in the latter half of the game.
By equipping Dress Spheres and changing costumes to gain jobs such as Beserkers, Alchemists, Gun Mages, and Thieves, your characters learn new moves specific to that costume. Before battle, you choose which move to learn, and Action Points distributed during battle will accumulate until you reach your chosen move's AP goal. This system allows you to make characters as unique and individualised as you want.
Also found throughout the game are special Dress Spheres that allow Yuna, Rikku, and Paine to summon characters to aid them in battle. The way these are handled are similar to the Aeons of FFX, except these spheres allow you to control three different components of the summoned character.
If you feel the need for a break, you can try one of a handful of fun minigames, such as an action-adventure shooting game or a 'Simon Says' style button masher which requires inhuman levels of hand-eye coordination on the harder levels. They're all fun diversions and they're all easily accessible throughout the course of the game.
So far, so good, right? Well, here's where the game takes a turn for the worse, and it can be solely attributed to the continuing tradition of bad PAL ports from Square-Enix. FFX had large borders due to the PAL format's increased horizontal resolution and lower refresh rate, and FFX-2 is no better. Nearly ONE THIRD of the screen is taken up by this game's horrid borders, and the faux-widescreen output is really just the full frame squashed into the remaining 2/3 of the screen. There's no PAL 60Hz mode, there's no optimised 50Hz mode, and for such a high profile game, this is totally inexcusable. It's VERY rare to find a game released locally in such a raw and unoptimised state, and it really brings down what is otherwise an impressive game.
Regardless of technicalities, the graphics in FFX-2 push the PS2 to its limits. The renowned character models and special effects from FFX return in full force, and look even better than the original... however the lip-sync on the character models is still off. Textures are mostly crisp and clean, there are no polygon clipping issues with the many costumes, and the facial animation system allows characters to convey amazingly realistic emotions.
A large proportion of the game's environments are ripped directly from FFX (with marginal upgrades), and still look amazing by today's standards. The game's colour pallette is bright and cheery, filled with bright, vibrant primary colours.
One area where FFX-2 doesn't live up to the original is in audio. The brilliant and unforgettable FFX soundtrack is all but forgotten in favour of a J-Pop extravaganza sprinkled with a few half-hearted orchestral pieces. It suits the mood of the game, but in retrospect, FFX set the bar incredibly high, and the loss of Nobuo Uematsu's compositional talent really hurts the game aurally.
All of the voice actors from the first game reprise their roles with unwavering enthusiasm, and really make the game involving. Yuna's voice-overs for each level really help set the mood and get you involved from the start, as well as reminding you of events which took place there in the past.
As in every good game, the sound effects are functional and not over-the-top. Samples are clear, environmental ambience is fantastic in Dolby Pro Logic II, although everything else is primarily front-loaded.
Final Fantasy X-2 is a fun departure from the series, although the odd tangent which this story has taken might turn some gamers off. The main game should last about 30 hours the first time through, with the option to replay with all your items intact which increases longevity exponentially. If you liked FFX, you'll like FFX-2. For everybody else, you should give it a rent first; this game is definitely an acquired taste.
Loading...
