Thursday, February 10, 2022

PS2/PS3/PS4 Game Review: Final Fantasy X-2

 Final Fantasy X-2 was supposed to be a Yuna-centric sequel to find our good lad Tidus after the ending of Final Fantasy X.  What it envelopes is looking into spheres that may look into Tidus and a male figure that looks like Tidus, but it leads to an adventure that digs deep into the past of Spira. To this day, this game gets crucified for its fan-service type gaming as it leads with the aforementioned Yuna, but FFX star Rikku and newcomer Paine.  Is the game rightly crucified? Is the game a bit unworthy of the claim? All that and more below!

Positives:

1. Active Battle System- This is probably the best takeaway from the game is the active battle system and its ability to succeed in this game I believe probably was the spring board to games later on to the active battle system.  This was a great plus as opposed to the turn based games of the past.  I felt that Square did really well overall for this.

2. Music- I was going to put this as a neutral but in the end it goes to the positives but only just.  It's not a favorite soundtrack of mine, but it isn't bad.  The battle theme and boss theme are okay, but the worlds maps music are the best.  So that overall is why the game's music is the main plus.

3. Chapter 4 Song- One of the best songs I would say done on Final Fantasy but probably the signature of the game other than the battle system is the fact that this song was done.  The way that this song was done was exemplary and it does really amazingly well with all the graphics and it makes it worthwhile overall to play for that moment.

Negatives:

1. Story- Good golly the story is just so awful.  I just don't get how they made it that way.  I get the idea of trying to find a lost loved one but make something of it after that.  Make the story meaningful.  Square doesn't do any of that in this game.  I felt that this game, which has the active battle system, use of the past worlds would have been so much more and could have been so much more open but instead it was just bland, and honestly just bad.

2. Fan Service- Okay look, I am for making characters look amazing but there comes a point where it just becomes fan service and this easily was fan service to the characters.  To me it makes me feel like.. they are already beautiful and we already know Yuna and Rikku are fantastic leaders and role models.  I don't see the need to provide fan service and try to attract male viewers to them and also LeBlanc, and it just looks porous.  You can make them amazing, fantastic characters, leaders and just have a good story.

3. Side quests: For as much as I thought FFX was arduous on this, FFX-2 is just ridiculous on it.  I get they are a big point to the game but it feels that this game just missed the mark on them and it became boring for lack of better words.  I kept expecting the game to burst to life with the story, quests and side-quests and it just didn't do well at all.  I also wouldn't recommend the re-calibration of the lightning towers because that is just ridiculous.

4. The NPC's- For the record, NPC's means Non-Playable Characters, and honestly I just thought this game has mediocre at best NPC's.  It's not anything great, LeBlanc is meh, Nooj is meh, same with Baralai and others.  I just never got any major appeal to them and honestly they came up well short.  It's so unfortunate that this happen while other games had good NPC's.

Overall Rating:

I cannot recommend FFX-2 to anyone, and here's the reason.. it's legit just fan service to have.  I didn't enjoy much of anything about the game.  The story isn't good, the quests nor side-quests are good either.  I feel the battle system was the only good thing to this game and it is highly unfortunate overall that this was the only good thing about the game.  Very rough game that deserves only a 4 out of 10. 

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