Narcissist Kuja
08-20-2005, 03:10 PM
The Final Fantasy series has come a long, arduous way from the last ditch effort to save a company that was about six months away from going under. With ten regular installments in their series under their belt, a few spin offs including the someone what dubious Final Fantasy Mystic Quest, a movie, and an online Final Fantasy game that was ramping up, Square decided to go in a bold new direction and create the first sequel to one of their previously free-standing games. It seemed that the world of Spira, the setting for Final Fantasy X, begged to be revisited after cataclysmic defeat of Sin and Square did not baulk at task of taking this well developed world and completely and totally making a fan boy mockery of it by releasing what is arguably the worst mainstream Final Fantasy title yet.
It really is the concept of Final Fantasy X-2 that is it�s biggest hindrance. Yuna and the fun-loving Rikku return in this installment as members of the Gullwings and are accompanied by a new character named Paine. The Gullwings are sphere-hunters that scourge the ruins of Spira looking for spheres to help rebuild Spira�s past now that Sin has been silenced forever. The problem with this new Yuna isn�t that she�s more assertive or that she�s looking for evidence that a certain blonde-haired blitzball player hasn�t disappeared, but more that her overall character is so different from the one previously seen, that it defies reason. As you control this new, somewhat ditzy and irritating version of the determined young woman from the first game, you�ll notice that she�s almost intolerable to be around despite her noble quest to find her lost love, Tidus. Add to this the overall, nauseating theme of �girl-power� and you have a game that I wouldn�t even recommend renting, let alone buying. Now, just so there isn�t any confusion, this reviewer is all for female empowerment, but not at the expense of the quality of the game. This game really does seem to be more a fan service to all of Square�s female fans that�ve complained that Square never featured a female protagonist despite the plethora of strong female characters in almost every Final Fantasy except this one.
The game play of Final Fantasy is somewhat redeeming due to the hyped up version of the ATB (active time) system that causes you to think on the fly and doesn�t pause the action just so you can select a healing item or spell. This alteration makes the battles more hectic and gives a more action orientated feel to the battles. However, replacing the truly ingenious sphere grid system is the dress-sphere system, further playing into the �girl-power� Charlie�s Angels-esque feel to the game, and further blowing any credibility the game could have had from the outset. Clad in often skin-tight, trendy clothing, the way to build each of your ladies� abilities is to have them equip �dress spheres� to �garment grids�. The dress spheres are essentially jobs like White Mage, Dark Knight, Songstress and more that attach to specialized grids equipped by each of the characters allowing them to cycle through jobs and change in out of them on the fly as appropriate to the situation. While this new addition of changing jobs on the fly is very neat and extremely useful in the game, it doesn�t change the fact that the garment grid is completely ludicrous and stereotypical. It�s bad enough that Final Fantasy X-2�s all female party essentially behaves like Barbie�s back-up dancers, but to throw in this system of job changing based on clothing is almost insulting.
Visually, Final Fantasy X-2 is a beautifully done as any Square game, so there�s little to complain about in this department. You visit familiar places and new locations as you tour from Hotspot to Hotspot on the Celsius, each of them well rendered and detailed in a manner that has come to be expected from a title bearing the moniker Final Fantasy. Character models are equally well done and for all its frivolousness, the changing from dress sphere to dress sphere is greeted by an intro animation for each character that is nothing short of breathtaking and captivating, despite whatever distaste you may have at the system itself.
Audio on FFX-2 is not quite as good as any of Square�s predecessors. The entrance of butt-rock to is slightly irritating, but for the most part the real downer is in the new character Paine. Since there is a significant amount of spoken dialogue, you�d think that the voice acting would have been better, and given that the voice acting in FFX wasn�t terrible, it was to be expected that the performance of each character would not be intolerable. This would be an erroneous assumption considering that the flat, emotionless delivery of Paine�s lines is almost painful to witness. While I understand the whole �gothic� look to Paine indicates that she is a somewhat troubled young lady, is there any reason to deliver her lines without inflection or anything resembling talent? No, I didn�t think so either.
RPGs have a hard time with replay value and considering I�d be hard pressed to give you enough reasons to play the game through the first time, it�s not easy to come up with adequate replay points. There is the fact that the game essentially has three endings that you may want to explore with a small added bonus for watching the Good + ending then you if you miss a 100% completion the first time around, you may want to fire the game up again. Although, it�s my opinion that if you can stomach the game once, you should just get a perfect completion that time through because chances are you won�t be so eager to pop it into the console again anytime soon. You should also wash your hands after playing it because you wouldn�t want to accidentally touch a good game after handling FFX-2 since you may contaminate it with �fan-service�.
To be fair, I�m really busting on FFX-2 here and there are some good qualities to the game. Yes, it is great to be able to revisit some of your favorite locations and catch up with all the different people of Spira. You saved their very existence from an intolerable and eternal punishment at the expense of your one true love, so it�s understandable that you�d take some joy in revisiting them. As previously mentioned the game is really lovely to look at, and if you�re into the whole �Charlie�s Angels� feel of the game, then you�re going adore this newest installment into the timeless franchise that�s spanned four generations of home gaming consoles. However, I have to say that I didn�t enjoy the game much, and I didn�t find Square�s first foray into the world of sequels to be a worthwhile venture.
It really is the concept of Final Fantasy X-2 that is it�s biggest hindrance. Yuna and the fun-loving Rikku return in this installment as members of the Gullwings and are accompanied by a new character named Paine. The Gullwings are sphere-hunters that scourge the ruins of Spira looking for spheres to help rebuild Spira�s past now that Sin has been silenced forever. The problem with this new Yuna isn�t that she�s more assertive or that she�s looking for evidence that a certain blonde-haired blitzball player hasn�t disappeared, but more that her overall character is so different from the one previously seen, that it defies reason. As you control this new, somewhat ditzy and irritating version of the determined young woman from the first game, you�ll notice that she�s almost intolerable to be around despite her noble quest to find her lost love, Tidus. Add to this the overall, nauseating theme of �girl-power� and you have a game that I wouldn�t even recommend renting, let alone buying. Now, just so there isn�t any confusion, this reviewer is all for female empowerment, but not at the expense of the quality of the game. This game really does seem to be more a fan service to all of Square�s female fans that�ve complained that Square never featured a female protagonist despite the plethora of strong female characters in almost every Final Fantasy except this one.
The game play of Final Fantasy is somewhat redeeming due to the hyped up version of the ATB (active time) system that causes you to think on the fly and doesn�t pause the action just so you can select a healing item or spell. This alteration makes the battles more hectic and gives a more action orientated feel to the battles. However, replacing the truly ingenious sphere grid system is the dress-sphere system, further playing into the �girl-power� Charlie�s Angels-esque feel to the game, and further blowing any credibility the game could have had from the outset. Clad in often skin-tight, trendy clothing, the way to build each of your ladies� abilities is to have them equip �dress spheres� to �garment grids�. The dress spheres are essentially jobs like White Mage, Dark Knight, Songstress and more that attach to specialized grids equipped by each of the characters allowing them to cycle through jobs and change in out of them on the fly as appropriate to the situation. While this new addition of changing jobs on the fly is very neat and extremely useful in the game, it doesn�t change the fact that the garment grid is completely ludicrous and stereotypical. It�s bad enough that Final Fantasy X-2�s all female party essentially behaves like Barbie�s back-up dancers, but to throw in this system of job changing based on clothing is almost insulting.
Visually, Final Fantasy X-2 is a beautifully done as any Square game, so there�s little to complain about in this department. You visit familiar places and new locations as you tour from Hotspot to Hotspot on the Celsius, each of them well rendered and detailed in a manner that has come to be expected from a title bearing the moniker Final Fantasy. Character models are equally well done and for all its frivolousness, the changing from dress sphere to dress sphere is greeted by an intro animation for each character that is nothing short of breathtaking and captivating, despite whatever distaste you may have at the system itself.
Audio on FFX-2 is not quite as good as any of Square�s predecessors. The entrance of butt-rock to is slightly irritating, but for the most part the real downer is in the new character Paine. Since there is a significant amount of spoken dialogue, you�d think that the voice acting would have been better, and given that the voice acting in FFX wasn�t terrible, it was to be expected that the performance of each character would not be intolerable. This would be an erroneous assumption considering that the flat, emotionless delivery of Paine�s lines is almost painful to witness. While I understand the whole �gothic� look to Paine indicates that she is a somewhat troubled young lady, is there any reason to deliver her lines without inflection or anything resembling talent? No, I didn�t think so either.
RPGs have a hard time with replay value and considering I�d be hard pressed to give you enough reasons to play the game through the first time, it�s not easy to come up with adequate replay points. There is the fact that the game essentially has three endings that you may want to explore with a small added bonus for watching the Good + ending then you if you miss a 100% completion the first time around, you may want to fire the game up again. Although, it�s my opinion that if you can stomach the game once, you should just get a perfect completion that time through because chances are you won�t be so eager to pop it into the console again anytime soon. You should also wash your hands after playing it because you wouldn�t want to accidentally touch a good game after handling FFX-2 since you may contaminate it with �fan-service�.
To be fair, I�m really busting on FFX-2 here and there are some good qualities to the game. Yes, it is great to be able to revisit some of your favorite locations and catch up with all the different people of Spira. You saved their very existence from an intolerable and eternal punishment at the expense of your one true love, so it�s understandable that you�d take some joy in revisiting them. As previously mentioned the game is really lovely to look at, and if you�re into the whole �Charlie�s Angels� feel of the game, then you�re going adore this newest installment into the timeless franchise that�s spanned four generations of home gaming consoles. However, I have to say that I didn�t enjoy the game much, and I didn�t find Square�s first foray into the world of sequels to be a worthwhile venture.