holoz0r's A-Z of Steam - Final Fantasy X-2 Remastered

Intro

My recent play through of Final Fantasy X certainly didn't leave me hungry for more of that universe. There's so much game; so much story, and importantly, a closed loop of narrative and story, that to me; could not be improved upon beyond some technological advancements to bring the game into the contemporary.

Those complaints are small - things like voice acting, texture quality and the fidelity of character models. So, when there was a sequel produced for Final Fantasy X, with the suffix dash two, I didn't know what to expect.

Back when the game was fresh, in the PlayStation 2 era, I wasn't exactly aware of its existence, apart from the fact that it wasn't seen as a "main-line" Final Fantasy game. I saw it on shelves in stores, but it was always out of reach.

Now, it is in my hands, and I've spent some time with the game... and well; given the fact that my impression prior to actually playing the game is that it was universally panned; I've got some things to clear up...

Story

FFX-2 is set many years after the conclusion of the original tale - and it is very much a sequel in the spirits of something nothing like the original tale. Here, there are a multitude of light hearted presentations of Yuna, Rikku, Wakka, Lulu, et al - in the aftermath of the events that ended Final Fantasy X.

It is hard to talk about much here without spoiling the events of FFX, so I won't. The mood and pitch of this game is much closer to the Yuffie DLC for the FF7 Remake, with loud, punchy, cheerful soundtrack, over the top voice acting, and a completely different mood in-game when compared to Final Fantasy X, proper.

There's a "linking" episode included in the HD Remaster of the game; which is called "Eternal Calm", it makes the opening scenes of FFX-2 a little more palatable, but the first two or three hours of FFX-2 is a reaction not so unlike "excuse me, but I can I see the manager of Final Fantasy?" - it makes no sense and you're in a familiar universe that gives the initial impression that the developers and people managing the intellectual property of the original title had found themselves a little too drunk on the success of the original.

Yuna and friends are now "sphere hunters", roaming the land of Spira to find spheres; that are orbs of ... matter (I guess?) that display visions of past events; along the lines of finding discarded VCR tapes in a landfill. It doesn't sound appealing at first; but Yuna has a sub-plot. She's on another one of those journeys; and she's looking for something that she constantly sees in the spheres.

This is, until somewhat through the game, where it feels like the dev team ran out of time, and decided to just go full circle to the start of the game once more... and leave you wondering exactly why.

It feels foreign, but you need to realise (and treat this) as an entirely separate game.

Then, you start learning about the mechanics, and well, from there, it all changes. And it changes quickly.

Battle Mechanics

There's so much to like here. Instead of navigating the sphere grid, you have "dress spheres", which are quite literally different costumes your character throws on to deal with different things. Each dress sphere is essentially an abstraction of a class; and it exists for every character in the game that can be controlled in battle.

In addition, you can very easily mutli-class (changing roles on the fly) by changing costume mid battle. This is accompanied with questionable objectification of the character models (who are all attractive looking young women) - but there's some limitations how to change roles or classes in battle.

If dress spheres are costumes, uniforms, or classes, then garment grids are your wardrobe. Each character can have one, and this allows the character to change between classes in a linear (or non-linear) fashion, so you could go from a Sword Wielding warrior to a Mage, while passing through a gate that grants +5 to magic.

It is all very esoteric, deep, and confusing; and at first, you think that you're getting given unlimited options, and then the rabbit hole goes even deeper.

Not only can you play one of the three main characters (Yuna, Rikku, and Paine), but through a riddicously deep mini game called "Creature Creation", you can outrageously do this to almost any monster that you encounter in battle, giving FFX-2 a Pokemon or Persona vibe, whereby you can control, tame, and harness the power of the enemy creatures in battle.

This adds such incredible depth to the battle system; which is also vastly changed from FFX. When I say vastly changed, I mean - it feels like an entirely seperate game, which is exactly what we've got on our hands here. FFX-2, while not only harnessing the good will of fans for the original game; is... an original game that stands on its own, and the scope is freakin' epic, enormous, and cavernous on the completionism scale.

However, this entire depth does not need to be explored in order to grasp the mechanics; but; you do need a solid understanding of how it works in order to succeed in combat. Combat is quite unforgiving, and you need to know what you're doing (and do it quickly) in order to do well in battle.

You can't contemplate different strategies in the moment, because enemies won't sit around and wait for you to kill them. They'll hit, and they'll hit hard. It's a decent challenge.

Visuals

Almost all of the game is delivered through in-engine sequences. There's little FMV to impress like the usual stuff that we see in Final Fantasy titles. Instead, there's a great deal of voiced sections, and; as the story goes... the collection of spheres, which overlay grainy scanlines on the parts of the game that convey narrative progression. An interesting visual bug I experienced on the PC version was that in many of the integral sequences, all I saw was a green screen; coupled with the sub titles. This definitely damaged my impression of the game narrative throughout the later parts of the title.

Visuals are improved ever so slightly on the original, and many of the same assets in the game are used as the original FFX. That's not a bad thing; but we get to see new fiend designs, new angles of familiar locations; and some increased fidelity. There's also the ability to explore some other areas that were not accessible in FFX; which expands the world ever so slightly.

Sound

There's good bits and bad bits about the sound in the game. The voice acting is very upbeat, almost to the point of causing irritation and pain. If you've ever heard the term "toxic-positivity", you'll know what I mean. Most voice acting is delivered with poor inflection, leading to much of it being unemotional and... just dull. Then there's some singing sequences; which range (pardon the pun) - from acceptable to terribly out of key. It ... doesn't ruin the game, but given how much this singing is somehow central to the plot, it makes the storyline fall apart.

Other Content

When you see the credits roll, after a much shorter time frame than your typical Final Fantasy title, you quickly realise why there's a whole bunch of extra content and zig-zagging around maps to find every last little intricate secret and mini game - to pad out the game for those who want to complete everything, and to justify what was likely a full RRP at the time of the release.

The core game and story is short if you go via the most direct route from A to B (which the game holds your hand along), but reading some guides seems to suggest that there's many more hours of storytelling and things to do as a part of the main story, which would take many more hours than my "speed-run" in comparison.

There's a monster arena; a coin game, and a bunch of other mini games along the way; but they're all unnecessary. They're fun - but they don't make you want to burn hours and hours of time like Triple Triad in Final Fantasy VIII.

In conclusion...

FFX-2 is a strange, bizarre and ... confusing game. It perverts a beloved character into something we didn't see coming. None of the interests Yuna holds in FFX-2 are things that are hinted at, suggested, or remotely touched upon in FFX, and it is difficult to believe in just two short years, given the events of the prior title; that she'd change so wildly. As a result, you can find yourself feeling violated, like watching an old friend be misrepresented by the voice of others.

The PC version of the game has some show stopping bugs, the green screen issue, and some random crashes, the worst of which occurred for me in the last dungeon of the game, long and far away from the most recent save point, and beyond some of the most difficult battles in the game.

Updated Final Fantasy Tier List & Links to my reviews

1. Final Fantasy 6
2. Final Fantasy 4
3. Final Fantasy 7
4. Final Fantasy X
5. Final Fantasy 3
6. Final Fantasy 8
7. Final Fantasy 9
8. Final Fantasy X-2
9. Final Fantasy 4: The After Years
10. Final Fantasy 5
11. Final Fantasy 2
12. Final Fantasy

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