I’m scared…

So, being the old school gamer I am, I just recently bought a PS2. Being used to SNES graphics, I was BLOWN AWAY by the graphics of some of these games, haha. Anyway, I have already played through Final Fantasy X and XII. I don’t know if I should play X-2. As much as I loved X, I hated the characters for the most part, and X-2 is certainly not plot based. It looks like the Frankenstein creation of Barbie doll J-pop fused with a crappy version of Final Fantasy. Kinda disturbing.

The thing I want to know: Is it fun? Is it worth the five bucks I can get it for at the game store or is it a complete waste of irreversible, precious time?

Don’t bother with X-2 unless you just want to stare at Rikku’s ass. It offers nothing beyond that, I’m afraid.

———- Post added at 01:39 AM ———- Previous post was at 01:34 AM ———-

Okay, I admit, the gameplay is good . . . but in an RPG, especially a FF, even the best gameplay needs to reward you with a good plot to give meaning to your actions. X-2 offers horrible voice acting, cheesy plot, ruination of once-good characters, and lousy ass new ones to boot. Stick to main numbered titles; SE’s sequels blow.

you just want to stare at Rikku’s ass.

its the only reason you need to play this game.

I’m a girl, so I suppose this game has nothing to offer to me, then. XD

That’s really disappointing on Squeenix’s part. Just because FFX was successful doesn’t mean they have to ruin it with a crappy sequel. The ending to FFX seemed pretty complete to me; Squeenix could have used all of that money to improve their creations after FFX. I don’t know what they were thinking. And I agree on Final Fantasy sequels sucking from my experience so far — I played The After Years and it was pretty bad.

That’s exactly how I feel, Strider X! X had plenty going for it without having to ruin what was perfect about how it ended. A sad ending is sometimes just fine for the story, and X is on that list!

The ending for X was perfect! Not many Final Fantasies had sad endings but I think that the ending to X was probably one of the most awe-striking and beautiful endings of all… yet there’s a YAY OMG LET’S FIND TIDUS, GIRLPOWERRR sequel. XD Square Enix is pretty bad about milking the cash cow for all it’s worth, aren’t they?

The only thing that I liked about X-2 is what happened to Spira after Sin was killed. I liked that new factions were created in order to try and fill that gap. But beyond the world changing, I hated the game. The Crimson squad storyline was weak, Yuna became this popstar thing that I didn’t like, Rikku became a whore, and the game ruins the triumphancy that X originally had.

To the producers defence, I will admit that they had a lot going for them. I do think that Yuna would be the right choice for the main character but she should have been scripted to face a lot of her own feelings. I mean she is the first High Summoner to truly kill Sin but she also has the choice to immeadiately assume rule of Spira (IMO) or not; she’s famous, so she has the choice of embracing her fame or rejecting it too. And Yuna definitely needs to re-discover herself because she is no longer a summoner; she knows nearly nothing outside of that role. There are a lot of paths that Yuna could take after Sin’s defeat that they never really explored in X-2.

The battle system is great (but different), the job system is awesome, the voice acting has improved and the graphics are still excellent for its time. With that being said, the plot is a little lacking. It just didn’t feel as epic as its predecessor. I liked the stuff with Shuyin and the original Zanarkand, but I couldn’t give a shit about the Crimson Squad. However, it was still nice to see what Spira had become two years after Sin’s defeat. The spilting up into rival clans seemed like a natural thing to happen. The side-plots with Maechen and other minor characters were also interesting, and nice bonuses for hardcore fans of FFX.

And yes, they made Yuna into a psuedo-popstar. Not only the abnormal clothes they gave her irked me, but her ability to sing. This isn’t even hinted to in FFX. Not to mention her singing voice sounds nothing like her normal voice. Rikku was always a whore. Just in this game she’s a more scantily clad whore. I liked Paine as a character; she balanced out the girliness of Yuna and Rikku well. But did they have to make her clothes all goth? Overall, I had a few issues with the all-female cast and their fanservice-y designs.

All in all, I’d say it’s definately worth the five dollars. As for time, it’ll take you around 30-40 hours if you don’t bother with getting all the percentage points.

The job system kept me in it for the most part, but they really could’ve done MUCH better than what they did with it.

Indeed, I agree with a lot of the other posters in that the battle system is really good, and to me it was honestly more of a challenge than FFX (at least the American version). That being said, there are some elements that I still found lacking, such as the final dresspheres and all the various garment grids you have to do side missions to get. Yes, the story’s dumb, but at least you can’t complain about having to follow that whiny prepubescent child Tidus around. And yes, getting 100% by doing all that obscure stuff is retarded. But just playing the game for the battles was fun enough for me.

You should give it a shot, I thought I would have hated it and ended up loving it.
Even if you don’t like the story the gameplay (best battle system of the series IMO) and amount of things to do makes the game a ton of fun.

I may be one of the few that like the story. A friend once told me that the story isn’t the "main point" of the game, it’s to showcase how Spira and the people are dealing with their society changing with the defeat of Sin. If you take it that way… it’s a nice game! About X’s ending, I agree. It was perfect the way it was so I just like to pretend that X-2 isn’t canon. >_>

I am also a fan of the story. But I think if you say that, people tend to regard you as if you had said that you read Playboy Magazine for the articles. The reaction is "erm, uh huh, surrrre you do."

I too was a fan of the story. I just didn’t like the fact I had to play as these girly girls that I already loathe. Payne wasn’t that bad though. If they weren’t acting like a bunch of preps trying to out-whore the other, the game might’ve been more enjoyable. The gameplay was pretty sweet though, I admit. I liked the idea of changing classes right in the middle of battle. It made things pretty convenient and easy for me.

If they weren’t acting like a bunch of preps trying to out-whore the other, the game might’ve been more enjoyable.

Wise words; this is exactly how I felt but couldn’t find the right words for it until now.

Wise words; this is exactly how I felt but couldn’t find the right words for it until now.

Wise words? LMAO. I agree.

Yes, very wise.

Sphere changing was cool but the battle system was wicked hard for me when I played. *shrugs*
Overall, I think I was misled by all the pop stuff. You might feel like a lesbian or weird playing this game.

For the most part, even it was fun and COOL at times the missions seemed kind of pointless/unnecessary/unrelated to ffx. I was only excited to the reunion and the whole storyline with Shuyin and Lenne, which left me hanging. Lenne was my favorite character and her story didn’t really develop that much. I wanted to learn more about her but now she is only an enigma forever. Adding to that, her voice that I waited SO LONG to hear made me do a double take and go "eww…"

Honestly I would have been happy either way if Tidus had died/disappeared or if he actually did become resurrected.

Final Fantasy X-2 is well worth the five dollars you claim you’d spend on it.

If you’d like proof, read some of the reviews from the GameSpot user base: Final Fantasy X-2 User Reviews for PlayStation 2 – GameSpot (http://www.gamespot.com/ps2/rpg/finalfantasyx2/players.html)

Also note that the game received an 8.1/10 from GS as well as a 9.5/10 from IGN.

I even had a glowing review by one of our very own Shriners that addresses the contrasting views presented in this topic:

You’ll hear a lot about how terrible this game is, but it isn’t. If you’ve been playing Final Fantasy games as long as I have, you will respect this game for daring to be original. It is a game you have mixed odds of liking. You have to understand exactly what you’re getting into first. If you expect more of the same from FFX, you will be very disappointed. However, for what it is, without being compared to anything else, it is rather exceptional, and is perhaps the best game in the Final Fantasy series. The main story path is rather short. You could probably finish it in 10 hours if you pushed a bit. However, the main path accounts for a relatively small portion of the game. There is so much optional content that you will easily get as much out of X-2 as any other game in the series if you try for it all. The story itself is based mostly around characters and revisiting the world to see how it’s changed. The conflict isn’t particularly epic and the villain isn’t very threatening. The game’s tone is extremely happy-go-lucky. That’s not to say anything is wrong with that. In fact, I’d go so far as to call it uplifting even. The dressphere system is a fairly neat take on the classic job system developed for FFV. Since you can switch classes on the fly, there’s no need for the game to include more than three characters (Don’t let people tell you that’s a weakness. It isn’t.). That gives plenty of time to focus on powering up those characters and figuring out ways to use them effectively. Combat itself is fast-paced and more fun than any other game that uses the ATB system. The new combo system allows you to string moves together for massive damage, and even stop an enemy’s attack. Learn to use the system and it’s pretty rewarding, especially against some of the tougher optional bosses. FFX-2 also has the most replay value of any FF game, due to the fact that it requires multiple playthroughs to see everything thanks to its branching story paths. It is literally impossible to see everything in a single game, and it’s very difficult to see the best ending if you just play through it once. The graphics, although not up to par with the most recent installation of the Final Fantasy series, are still fairly impressive and realistic looking. The soundtrack is mostly technopop, which provides a lighthearted feel to the game. The voice acting is impressive, but it can get repetitive and annoying – if you don’t have problems with "girl talk", then you should be fine.

All in all, it’s a very good package unless you’re a whiny teenager who has to see a heavy dose of angst in his games and hates anything with bright colors out of some retarded fear of being associated with anything immature people might see as childish.

Assuredly, you will get mixed reviews about any game, but most of these are entirely positive. For what it’s worth, I enjoyed the game, and I was 20 when I finished it for the first time. While I wasn’t crazy about some of the "girl power" scenes, any male who has ever had a girlfriend will be able to tolerate them — and seeing as you’re a female, I’d say you should be able to tolerate them more directly. The endings are good, the villains are good, the story incorporates religious overtones and neo-political conflicts, and everything is generally optimistic with some intriguing character dynamics at play throughout. Furthermore, I personally felt that the story really pulled through towards the end, with all of the unexpected spoiler stuff. And really, at least you’re aware of the final boss, unlike the tacked-on Necron fight in FFIX, which many of these kids laud over in that sub-forum.

Also, there’s a plethora of replay value to be had from this title. And there are some truly grueling tasks. Prime examples include: getting "Mission Complete" on every area in chapter five without use of a strategy guide; finding all of the baby cactuars hidden throughout the game; winning the Blitzball league given its new (and albeit worse) strategy-based game play mechanics; getting every monster to Oversoul for Shinra’s logs; getting a high enough score on the Gunner’s Gauntlet to win the Adamantite; and reaching floor 100 of Via Infinito and defeating Mr. T to realize the full extent of Spira’s corruption.

In summation, get this game. While opinions are mixed, most gamers are in favor of this game. If you don’t trust some random people on a forum, trust the people who review games as their profession (http://www.gamerankings.com/ps2/562386-final-fantasy-x-2/index.html). And really, what game in this century hasn’t received mixed reviews?

The game is only five dollars. That’s a sandwich at Subway, not even a meal at Burger King and McDonald’s. That’s four Pepsi bottles, or 24 bottles of water. Come on.

I get more out of a Subway sandwich than I did out of this game.

A Subway sandwich makes you want more, while FF X-2 makes you want to vomit.

Angsty teenage fatties.

And besides, I think a superfluous jab in the form of a one-liner at my comparison of value between a game you can easily spend 60 hours playing compared to a sandwich that you might get two meals out of — and in your case, possibly half — is hardly enough to dismiss great review scores from the most trusted professional video game critics in the world.

PS: lulz

It’s a good game, period. Despite some of the bile parts, there’s plenty of fun to suck out of this game, including many of the mini-games, a lot of fun sidequests and satisfying plots involving returning characters such as Dona & Barthello, Lucil, and Clasko, to name just a few. Plus an interesting cast of new characters.

ZOMG YES!!!! REVIEWZ MAKE A GAME GREAT DONT THAY?????//???/?

teknoblade, wasn’t that quote from prak?

also, to a post above (too lazy to quote) yuna can sing because she is in the SONGSTRESS DRESSPHERE. there’s no need to establish that she has a singing talent because the dressphere allows her to sing.

also, also, this game is great. most of the complaints about it basically boil down to, "ME MAN. ME LIKE BLOOD AND VIOLENCE. ME NO LIKE GIRLS GIGGLING CUZ ME BE GAY OTHERWISE"