Need info from you Final Fantasy people

I just finished with FFX and before I dicide whether or not to waste my time with FFX2, read the follwing gripes I have with FFX and tell me what things havn't changed in FFX2.

The battle system is no fun at all. As long as you just attack with the right person, most things die in one hit. There's even less of a challenge because there's a save point around every corner. I like the while random battle schematic but FFX goes way overboard. Battles come up every 5 - 10 seconds. I'm sorry but the story just isn't very compeling either and the story is the one thing I figured I could look forward to. Got a little interesting towrds the very end. And there are cut scenes every freaking 10 minutes! Im sitting there rolling my eye's half paying attention. I've never done that before. I'm not kidding I think half the the 60 hours I put in this game was watching cut scenes. Everyone only uses only two pieces of equipment.... Gil was pretty much pointless excepet for when you very seldomly came across someone selling a weapon with a rare attribute. My god this is the most linear RPG I've ever played. There is only one path and you cant diverge from it. Literally and figuratively! You can go back to old places either until you get to the very end of the game. You can't even change camera angles. This has got to be the first FF where there isnt even a overworld map to travel though! Worst use of the Airship ever. It seems like they are so desperate to invent some new way to level up every time. This Shpere grid is the most annoying yet...

That about sums it up I think. So how close is FFX2 to this. And also since FFXI and the rest are supposed to be on-line, are they any fun just single player?

While I won't say anything about FFX (mostly because my opinion is nearly a polar opposite of yours and I don't trust myself to remain civil), I'll mention that the majority of FF gamers were... displeased by X-2, shall we say? The term "pretty princess dress-me-up" comes to mind.

XI is online period, there is no other gameplay. That's the single player, you in the online world.

XI's the only online one, though. XII will be a proper single player FF game, coming out before Christmas at least.

My advice is to get an SNES, the PlayStation FF collection, or an SNES emulator and play FFVI. That's the best in many people's opinion, though pretty soon you'll probably have dozens of people flinging around their reasons for why any one of the twelve is "the best."

I'll go with Kaliero and not really say anything about FFX because as with him, my opinion is the exact opposite of yours...though I will say that of all the level-up system in an FF game, I liked the Sphere Grid the best. The only people I've ever seen not like it didn't because they couldn't figure out how to work it.

FFX-2 I found fun, but not anything to really take seriously, though my favorite FF character is from that game. It does have a good story (though as you didn't like FFX's plot, which I thought was excellent, you might not like it), though depending on how much you get done in the game, it wrecks the ending of FFX, and the plot doesn't really come into play until about halfway through the game.

Originally posted by Lana
I'll go with Kaliero and not really say anything about FFX because as with him, my opinion is the exact opposite of yours...though I will say that of all the level-up system in an FF game, I liked the Sphere Grid the best. The only people I've ever seen not like it didn't because they couldn't figure out how to work it.

Oh, I figured it out. And I did a really awsome job with it if I do say myself. 🙂 It's just really annoying to have to manually go and do that every time you level. Especially when after leveling all you get is a small evasion boost or something. It wasn't like you were really customizing the characters either cause it was pretty obvious which route each character should take (except for Khimari). It only gets interesting towards the end when you've traveled almost every spot on the grid and you then decide how you use teleport, return, and friends spheres and such.

Originally posted by Sai1
Oh, I figured it out. And I did a really awsome job with it if I do say myself. 🙂 It's just really annoying to have to manually go and do that every time you level. Especially when after leveling all you get is a small evasion boost or something. It wasn't like you were really customizing the characters either cause it was pretty obvious which route each character should take (except for Khimari). It only gets interesting towards the end when you've traveled almost every spot on the grid and you then decide how you use teleport, return, and friends spheres and such.

Oh, but you can customize your characters to hell with that.

I made Tidus a black mage once when I was playing, just for the hell of it.

And I really liked that you did everything yourself...much better than "you've gone up a level, your stats increase by this". It's all under your control. Of course, until you get towards the end and have tons of spare spheres, it's also a lesson in managing what you've got, but I definitely liked it a lot. Only thing I ever found annoying were trying to find damn level 3 key spheres, they were so hard to find. But between unlocking the locks and collecting items from monsters in Omega Ruins, I made my characters insanely powerful, and that's without even having all of their final weapons.

Originally posted by Sai1
I just finished with FFX and before I dicide whether or not to waste my time with FFX2, read the follwing gripes I have with FFX and tell me what things havn't changed in FFX2.

The battle system is no fun at all. As long as you just attack with the right person, most things die in one hit. There's even less of a challenge because there's a save point around every corner. I like the while random battle schematic but FFX goes way overboard. Battles come up every 5 - 10 seconds. I'm sorry but the story just isn't very compeling either and the story is the one thing I figured I could look forward to. Got a little interesting towrds the very end. And there are cut scenes every freaking 10 minutes! Im sitting there rolling my eye's half paying attention. I've never done that before. I'm not kidding I think half the the 60 hours I put in this game was watching cut scenes. Everyone only uses only two pieces of equipment.... Gil was pretty much pointless excepet for when you very seldomly came across someone selling a weapon with a rare attribute. My god this is the most linear RPG I've ever played. There is only one path and you cant diverge from it. Literally and figuratively! You can go back to old places either until you get to the very end of the game. You can't even change camera angles. This has got to be the first FF where there isnt even a overworld map to travel though! Worst use of the Airship ever. It seems like they are so desperate to invent some new way to level up every time. This Shpere grid is the most annoying yet...

That about sums it up I think. So how close is FFX2 to this. And also since FFXI and the rest are supposed to be on-line, are they any fun just single player?

And don't get me wrong, but you complain about everything, but you still completed such a huge, pretty complicated game ? I find that a bit strange.

(It took me longer than 60 hours btw.)

If you want more freedom on your PS2, check out Dragon Quest VIII : pretty impressive game.

Originally posted by who?-kid
Do you have any idea of all the secrets you missed ? I thought I had found quite a few secrets, until I read a walk through... wow...

And don't get me wrong, but you complain about everything, but you still completed such a huge, pretty complicated game ? I find that a bit strange.

(It took me longer than 60 hours btw.)

If you want more freedom on your PS2, check out Dragon Quest VIII : pretty impressive game.

There is a ton of side stuff, indeed.

I'd say average time in that game is about 50 hours. I've beaten it about 4 times and one of my files had more than 100 hours of gametime. And I still hadn't completed all the sidequests and mini-games.

Originally posted by Sai1
Oh, I figured it out. And I did a really awsome job with it if I do say myself. 🙂 It's just really annoying to have to manually go and do that every time you level. Especially when after leveling all you get is a small evasion boost or something. It wasn't like you were really customizing the characters either cause it was pretty obvious which route each character should take (except for Khimari). It only gets interesting towards the end when you've traveled almost every spot on the grid and you then decide how you use teleport, return, and friends spheres and such.

You don't need to do that everytime you level. What I did, since I'm a lazy bastard, was wait until I leveled 4 or 5 times, and than go and apply all the points. That way, you don't have to do it every 3 fights, and you're characters are noticeably stronger when you're done and gives a better feel of accomplishment than if you only gave them slight enancements after ever 3 fights.

To answer your original question, X-2 is a worse game. The battles are paced quicker, but the story takes way to long to get going. The sphere grid is gone, so you might like that aspect better.

Originally posted by Lana

And I really liked that you did everything yourself...much better than "you've gone up a level, your stats increase by this". It's all under your control. Of course, until you get towards the end and have tons of spare spheres, it's also a lesson in managing what you've got, but I definitely liked it a lot. Only thing I ever found annoying were trying to find damn level 3 key spheres, they were so hard to find. But between unlocking the locks and collecting items from monsters in Omega Ruins, I made my characters insanely powerful, and that's without even having all of their final weapons.

It's under your control but like I said before, the path you take is pretty much predetermined so it's not too much different from "your stats increase by this". All the abilities/skills that a character is geared for are along the same road. Even if you did want to go another way, the keys to do so were probably not available yet. And your always had tons of spare spheres. At least I did. You get them after every single battle. I willing to bet that practically every person had the same type of characters with the same skills/abilities the first time they played the game.

As for level 3 keys, I happened to have Khimari drop by Rikkus path just to learn steal on a whim. As I said before, this is the one character that has a few options. In that fight with Khimari against those 2 other Ronso, I had him steal a huge load of level 3 keys off them. Never had any more need for those after that.

Omega Ruins was absolutely rediculous in the frequency of battles. Litterlly every 5 steps was a battle. If I didnt have a weapon with no encouter I probably wouldn't even have bothered with the place. 😆

Originally posted by who?-kid
Do you have any idea of all the secrets you missed ? I thought I had found quite a few secrets, until I read a walk through... wow...
And don't get me wrong, but you complain about everything, but you still completed such a huge, pretty complicated game ? I find that a bit strange.
(It took me longer than 60 hours btw.)
If you want more freedom on your PS2, check out Dragon Quest VIII : pretty impressive game.

I don't know what percentage of secrets I found but, I'm not even interested in trying to find them all to tell you the truth. I like side quests and stuff but for this game I'm just not interested enough to bother looking for em. I assume I found the main ones like omega ruins and getting anima. Lame way of hiding stuff btw. Just randomly searching the map with that cursor while hitting the X button.

I completed the game game becuase I always complete my games (unless they're too hard and I just can't). But this especially goes for RPGs which are my favorites. And that especially goes for FF which is a series I grew up with. In all truth I'm likely to play through FFX2 and any other FF game as well. But throughout most of FFX the main thought going through my head was, "When is this gonna be over".
But hey, if I can play through the mistake known as FFVIII, I can play through anything. 😉

YES! The Dragin Quest/Warrior serries is the best RPG series. They know how to do an RPG right. Every aspect of of their games is great. If they fall behind FF in any way it will have to be story but their games are so fun you don't even worry about it (not that the stories are bad by any means). If it weren't for DQ/DW 8, I never would have even gotten a PS2 untill much later.

Originally posted by BackFire

To answer your original question, X-2 is a worse game. The battles are paced quicker, but the story takes way to long to get going. The sphere grid is gone, so you might like that aspect better.

What about stuff like having an actual world you can go around freely in and an Airship you can actually use. The linear pace of FFX is the main gripe I have with it.

Yes, I miss the open ended world map to walk around, unfortunately that's not in FFX-2 either, and from what I understand, won't be in any future FF games, which sucks.

X-2 is both linear, and open ended. You can go to several places at once at your discretion, because you have an airship at the start, but going through the main quest of the game is easy and straight forward, you always know where you're supposed to go next to keep the story moving forward, but you don't have to.

Oh yeah. And gil. Is it really necessary or do you wind up just amassing a huge hoard cause you don't really need it? In FFX I pretty much just used it to keep a stock of phoinex downs, softs, and other items.

Huge amount you don't need. Money has never been a big deal in FF games, it's always been easy to get, even in the early ones.

Bah, a post of mine disappeared.

And X-2 is weird, it's mostly side-quests and such strung together to form the main part of the game. Most of the stuff in the beginning you don't need to do in any particular order, though if you, say, don't do something in Chapter 1 and go back to it in Chapter 3, it might not be there anymore.

It's only really when you hit Chapter 3 and the plot really starts that it's more a case of "okay, now you need to go here to do the next bit".

Originally posted by BackFire
Huge amount you don't need. Money has never been a big deal in FF games, it's always been easy to get, even in the early ones.

You used it alot in earlier games. Upgrading weapons and armour was always necessary/very helpfull. Unless I'm remembering incorrectly...

Even then, you always had way more than you'd ever need.

Originally posted by BackFire
Even then, you always had way more than you'd ever need.

That certainly wasn't the case in FF1 where you had to actually buy those spells. 😆

In all the old ones, I've always amassed huge amounts of Gil by at least the halfway point. And I'm the kind of person who buys all new weapons for each character whenever he reaches the next town and keeps a constant supply of pretty much every HP/MP/Status healing item at around 15.

Plenty of RPGs have it like that, just because all the money comes from battling, and battling's what the game's about. Though DQVIII keeps my money to the bare minimum, so that I have to choose who gets the one new weapon I buy in this town...

I tend to not have a massive amount of money, but I also usually try and carry as much healing stuff as possible - it's not uncommon for me to have 99 Mega-Potions and stuff like that. Plus in FFX I'd be buying as much stuff as I could for Rikku's Overdrive, not to mention buying weapons and armor.