Ush's Videogames review thread!

As well as having a certain tragic gravitas for the plot, this set up is rather neat in that it gives the game a decent excuse to move all around the game world. Whilst Wakka is a blitzball player, and keeps Tidus around because he thinks Tidus can help his ailing team, Wakka is also a part-time Guardian and plans to go back to doing it full time soon. Hence, Tidus starts to interact with a young Summoner named Yuna- the love interest for the game- and her Guardians, offensive mage and all-around cynic Lulu and big blue strong troll-type thing (called a Ronso) Kimhari. Later in the game, Wakka returns to being a full guardian for Yuna, Tidus is invited to join in too, Rikku turns up again and joins up, and even Auron comes along.

Obviously, Auron being there is a major deal for Tidus who is completely alone and isolated and bewildered. Turns out Auron is rather famous, having been a Guardian to the successful summoner Lord Braska, Yuna’s father, who died defeating Sin ten years ago. Tidus is all rather shocked to find out that Braska’s other Guardian was Jecht; Tidus’ father. Auron isn’t saying much though, though his patronage of Tidus gives Tidus some credibility amongst sceptical friends (everyone rather worships Auron).

Although the game is about Tidus, there is strong plotting for just about everyone. Young Yuna gets a major share of plot time as she falls for Tidus, wants to believe his story and struggles to balance her duty as a Summoner against what the world of Spira really needs. Wakka is a strong devotee of the religion of Yevon, a faith challenged during the game. Wakka is also trying to get over the death of his brother, killed by Sin, and is desperately clinging to the hope that maybe Tidus really is from Zanarkand 1000 years ago, that somehow Sin connects then and now and that his brother is alive and well back then. Lulu was effectively Chappu’s fiancée and so has her own issues, especially with Wakka, and acts as the gloomy counterpoint to the world. Rikku is part of a ethnic group known as the Al Bhed (with their own language) who are often discriminated against due to their acceptance of technology (generally referred to as ‘machina’); the Al Bhed are desperately trying to stop the Pilgrimages which they see as a heartless sacrifice of summoners just so other people can live on in peace as others die for them. Probably the least developed is Kimhari, who is silent and unsympathetic for much of the game and whose plot mostly revolves around having left his people. Auron, of course, is a man with secrets to hide, and it is clear he has purpose with rejoining a new pilgrimage.

All in all, the characters are well developed and whilst Yuna is wimpy and Tidus a bit whiny, he is ten times more likeable than Squall in VIII, as far as whinies go, and some of his baffled cluelessness is genuinely endearing. Auron is probably the favourite of most, doing the whole ‘cool’ thing, especially for guys, whilst girls will probably favour either playful Rikku or practical Lulu (Yuna is just a mite too soft to be a role model). As well as good plotting these characters were well rendered graphically, especially with some high detail close-up shots, which execute this concept in a way that VIII tried to but could not due to technological limitations, IX had gone back the other way and gone cartoony, now X has done what they wanted before; realistic models throughout. That said, the CGI has not moved on much from VIII’s, and it’s just not quite so impressive any more. Also, Tidus looks disturbingly androgynous in the cgi for some reason.

Actually, there are several ways in which the game appears to be trying to do a similar thing to VIII, but much better. VIII had a character-based backstory that was rather clumsily played through. X has much to say about the story ten years ago of Braska, Auron and Jecht, but this is well-revealed through the use of discovered recordings, flashback sequences, and a phenomenon in the game where people’s memories become embodied, allowing Auron’s memories of his first time through to become present at various times. You do feel like you are piecing together a big story- but weirdly, many of the ‘spheres’ (like camera records) that give context to the plot cannot be discovered until late in the game, backtracking through earlier areas. They would have worked better being discovered first time though, I feel.

FF games tend to follow a similar pattern- explore a small area, explore a large area, and then via the means of some aerial vehicle have free reign to explore everywhere. FFX kinda stuffs the first two together. Tidus and co basically perform a world tour of everywhere, and then right near the end can re-visit the earlier locations via airship to open up lots more stuff. However, X has stripped this process down far more than earlier games. There is no world map, as you are used to in FF, moving between locations. All locations are linked simply by other locations forming natural ‘corridors’. The airship simply consists of selecting where you want to go via a menu. Some people really hate this, and I understand why. However, this harkens back to my point I made near the start, about dressing up simple things. Fact is, this is just the same as it always was in FF. In the early parts of FF games, wondering around the map might have seemed open ended, but you were still really doing the same thing- going from A to B to C, and if there was a secret between B and C, that’s still there in FFX, just inside a locations somewhere, not on a map. Likewise, airship portions in earlier FF games had you flying back to places on the map you had been to before, or maybe flying on to a final confrontation. They might as well have been selected from a menu. Final Fantasy has always been very very linear; X just doesn’t bother to hide it. Perhaps it should- as I mention, how these things are dressed is important. If you are linear, perhaps you should try and hide it. Personally, I thought the process was quite efficient. With all its plot, music, cgi and what-not, FFX is plenty padded to disguise its base mechanic. Lack of a world map didn’t really bother me.

Ok, so, enough FF context. I think you can gather from the above that I was actually fairly taken with the style and set-up. Chances are I’ve contradicted the views of a lot of people already. Now let’s take a look at the mechanics.

People who read my earlier FF reviews may remember what I feel about this. FF has done well in building a system entirely designed for computer play- it flows much better than KOTOR or Neverwinter Nights trying to adapt D20 online. But. From VII onwards, I have major issues with balancing. There is simply [far too much stuff in the system- too many elements, too many status effects. It becomes impossible to predict which resistances you need, so the tactic for the majority of boss fights is to fight them, lose, remember what did and did not work, reload and use that. Bleh. In reverse, because there are so many different status effects you can give out, the solution for any bad guy of vague importance is to simply make them totally immune to any significant status effect, which renders using them almost entirely pointless because so many things will just resist them., may as well just try and hit as hard as possible. And indeed, this is almost always the best tactic. I remember a decent FF fan movie about FF random encounters (and old bugbear that) that looked at Cloud’s inventory and noted his materia were set up to cause things like Sleep. Narration said “You have status effects loaded… they SUCK!” Glad I am not alone. I maintain that FF would do well to cut down on the amount of different things in it to be done. Make combat simpler and make better use of what is already there, rather than layering on more elements and status effects.

Also since VII a problem of timing has crept in; normally FF combats are in real time, with you being able to act when your bar fills; the longer your action takes the longer the bar, Go see my old IX review for more details on this, but there is basically a huge flaw in this system which renders speed of character almost irrelevant because the bars continue to fill during animations… a very, VERY weird scenario which means all you get for having, say, Haste cast on you is that your bar fills quick, but then you have to wait for the animation to finish by which time everyone else’s bar has filled too, which means your haste advantage is almost zero. The animation wasted all your fighting time. Huh? You should have been able to act, say, twice to an Unhasted person’s once. Instead, you seemed to act about 1.1 times. You are MEANT to act 2 to 1 but this animation flaw screwed it. It got worse in every FF game until IX and I cannot believe nothing was done about it.

Problem number three I had was the use of ‘gravity’ based attacks, or other similar effects that do more damage to you the more hit points you have. Again, check my earlier FF reviews as to more details about this, but basically all my game design instincts scream out against this concept that smacks of lazy thought and which buggers up the whole concept of what hit points do. It’s actually rather hard to clearly explain why these are such bad ideas, so I’ll just ask for people to trust me. It’s a broken mechanic and massively abusable, objectively speaking.

So, my three gripes with FF combat. How does X fare?

To the first, quite well. We have four opposed elements, one bonus element of Holy, and some non-elemental effects like Flare. Still far too many status effects and again bosses are simply immune so again they are pointless- and from the receiving end, Esuna (the counter-status spell) has become almost immediate to get so you just turn them off if inflicted almost immediately. Gah. Till, not bad.

To the second, FFX is fantastic. The combat is simply not real time; although it looks it, it is turn based, and surprisingly similar to FF Tactics, minus the grid for movement. Each action takes a certain amount of time, and a list of character portraits on the right shows who is moving and in what order, and shows when the current character would move next if he executed the action you currently have selected,. No time is lost due to animations, as all actions resolve immediately when selected, and so haste works absolutely as it should do. There is also none of the rubbish ‘magic or effects must charge first’ things that the real time system had, that made Magic so much worse and combat so much more boring. This change is really, really great and made X much better for me. Though that said… I should add that I found Magic hugely underpowered until right near the end of the game. Much better to hit things physically, and it costs no MP to do so.

To the third… bleh. Gravity attacks are still there and I still maintain they suck hugely. Ah well.

An excellent change also is that your entire party is always with you- you don’t have to select who comes with you. Although you fight with just three at a time, you can swap around who is in fighting and who is not mid-fight. Other than eliminating the ‘who is meant to be with me this time’ headache, it keeps the team dynamic working much better.

The age-old issue with Final Fantasy is random encounters interrupting your play all the time. The real crime is how very necessary they are- not only are they really annoying but you can’t even bypass them, should you find something that lets you do so, because you need the damn experience. I see the theory behind this but really it is very distasteful to implement and play through. It means you need to grind- breaking from the plot to pointlessly kill enemies just to level up- and it encourages bad play, cheats and exploits, and indeed FFX is exploitable in this area. People will do anything to shortcut such a tedious process. This is an area where KOTOR and NN are better. You can’t grind in those games- dead enemies stay dead, cleared areas stay clear. You get xp for killing what you do and also for achieving things, and the games are calibrated around that. FF would do well to look at that, and FFX has not tackled the issue. And yes, I do understand that XII has, but we’ll see. One day.

So combat was really not bad. The last mechanic to look at is the truly RP one, character development, in the form of equipment and stats/levels. Equipment wise, everyone has one piece of armour and one weapon; armour and weapon types are exclusively limited to one character, and have built-in abilities. Later on, you can customise weapons and armour by sacrificing acquired items to give your equipment desired abilities. This customisation process is, again, better than the one from VIII. However. I must say, it is very hard to get into; completely bewildering for a lot of time. Near the end of the game when you can customise powerful effects it is ok, but until then it is so con fusion about what might or might not be good that you soon find yourself wishing you could just buy the next biggest stick at the shop, like you always used to do in FF. It also disconnects the quality of your weapon from your money, as most of the decent stuff for customising cannot be bought, only acquired. FFX has the least use of Gil I have seen in FF, I think.

So, stats and levels? FF has the ‘sphere’ system for this- loved by many, but I am afraid my game design instincts came down against it. A fair idea but implemented badly.

To explain: There are no character levels, instead, experience for killing bad guys nets you sphere levels. There is a vast network of spheres called the sphere grid- really like the layout of a board game. Every character is at some point on the twisty turny grid, and can use sphere levels to move around it. You can then also use various sphere item types, claimed from dead foes, to activate spheres as you go past them, which boosts your character. So, activating a Hit Point sphere increases your hit points. Tjhere are also Strength Spheres, magic Point spheres, Magic Defence, Accuracy, Defence, Evasion… spheres for all the stats, and ones for abilities and spells as well. So instead of just getting a set amount of stuff for getting to level x or y, the theory is that your character develops organically, gradually, by moving around the sphere grid and picking up powers as you go along.

Fair theory. Nice try. But it is all a con! Most irritating of it all for me is that I think a lot of people have been successfully conned. The sphere grid is meant to encourage customisation and a more interesting development than simple levelling up. It does nothing of the sort. Fact is, nearly all the character start of at the beginning of paths that suit them. Tidus starts on a light warrior Path with powers like Cheer and haste along the way. Auron starts on the Knight path, with all the break powers familiar from the Job System of FFV and FFT for Knights along the way. Rikku is on the Thief path, Lulu on Black Mage, Yuna on white, Wakka on the Ranged parth., Only Kimhari has no distinct function, and even he only has one area to go to that is not covered by everyone else. And so whilst it looks as if it is all greatly customisable, the fact of the matter is that 90% of people will simply do the same thing- move in one constant direction along the path where the character started. Tidus will get all his light fighting powers, Auron all his breaks, Lulu all the Black magic spells, Yuna all the White… it is VERY inefficient to try and so anything other than move along the path and there is not one single motivation or reason to do so. So it’s not really any different to character/job levelling at all! You still just develop powers in your chosen area; sphere levels or old-fashioned levels, boils down to the same thing. Just to be even more silly, you get so many spheres to spend on the board that you just pick up every single one you walk past anyway; they may as well have cut that bit out and just have you pick up any power you move onto, rather than having to activate it.

There are very small areas of choice. And when you finish the path you are on, you can choose where else to go next, but even then chances are you’ll just swap around- have Lulu learn all the White, or Tidus learn Auron’s big powers. The actual customisation aspect is small. Fundamentally, the system is actually very linear. Big con!

It’s also badly scaled. The stat increases work fine but the HP/MP increases are flat rate. Increasing HP by 200 is a huge difference when you only had 600. By the time you have 9000, a 200 Hp increase is barely worth caring about. Besides, due to flaws in the game combat system, once you get past a certain amount of HP it’s all irrelevant anyway.

Incidentally, I am playing the International version of FFX, which has an ‘Expert Sphere grid’ available for subsequent playthroughs. This may use the concept better, with genuine choices involved. I hope so.

FFX has its fair share of sidequests and extra things to do; the Omega Ruins are the ‘super-dungeon’ of the piece for those who want more to do, and my International Version has the ridiculously overpowered Dark Aeons to fight against near the end if you so wish- in fact, they are often sitting in the way of important stuff for development, which is a right pain. Most significant side area is Blitzball, a large mini-game with its own rules, play style and development, Blitzball is so-so but its serious crime is that you have to do WAY too much of it- easily a hundred games or more to get the stuff you want, and no reward for individual games. In fact, most rewards for winning are irrelevant., With each game taking five minutes or so each, and also with each game pretty much unloseable once you work out the vibe (with Tidus, if he has the ‘Jecht Shot’, being effectively unbeatable once you stat him up a bit) it turns into a huge, pointless, demoralising grind. So annoying that it makes the impossible come true- the sequel does Blitzball better than the original. You will never see that sentence written about any other aspect of the sequel, trust me.

Well. Ok. I think I dealt with everything technical. I will just round off with mentioning something that bugged me that I referred to earlier- the plot is a bit fuzzy. The structure just about holds together, but there seem to be large parts that don’t make sense. I will list some of the things that got to me- extreme spoilers ahead! And things that will only make sense if you have played.

Tidus is meant to be from a representation of ancient Zanarkand. Why does he not know what a Summoner is, or what Magic is, when it is clearly stated that Zanarkand used Summoners? In fact, Tidus; set-up makes no sense. Tidus does not recognise the name ‘Spira’, or even Bevelle, that ancient Zanarkand was at war with, so clearly Dream Zanarkand is in a very different setting, so what world did he think he was from? Other than internal matches, who did the Abes play Blitzball against?

How the hell did Jecht get to Spira? That’s actually a very very significant event that is never explained; Tidus got there because Jecht made it happen, as Sin. No excuse for Jecht himself.

This whole ‘unsent’ business is very weird. Unsent are meant to become fiends. Yet many characters- Mika, Seymour, and of course Auron- are walking dead… just because they want to be? Well, I want ALL my characters to keep going around after death please, make life much easier. Doesn’t seem to have ruined Auron’s day any; he’s just fine after death. Better, even. I’m not entirely sure how Auron can be ‘killed’ at all. Plot seems to be conflicting with gameplay here.

The more I thought about the plot, the less it really seemed to work. But the compensation is that the game develops well despite that. The tone is sombre and quite mature for an FF game, with the constant pressure of the concept of the pilgrimage leading to certain death for the Summoner, win or lose, and Tidus’ efforts to change that, finally culminating with his own demise, even after the discovery that the concept of the pilgrimage is a fake one, and that it is the Summoners and Guardians themselves creating Sin anew each time. The music suits this downbeat mood very well, and the presentation is really very good indeed. Many FF games have a message; this one is about religious dogma and remembering to question things that don’t make sense even if they have been established as truth. Agree or disagree with the politics of the game it gets its ideas across well enough.

The final emotional moment of the game is Tidus’s dissolution; merely part of a dream of lost Zanarkand, he fades away once Sin and the mind behind it is gone. Irritating that we had the old FF “A-ha, but here’s the REAL bad guy!” stunt again- I don’t give a tiny toss about the disappointing blob that is Yu-Yevon, the final enemy. It was Sin that was built up; they should have stuck with it. But still, all done, Tidus fades away.

But hmm. I’m really not convinced by the whole Dream Zanarkand plot- as I outline above, the more you think about it, the less logical it seems. It’s shoehorned into the plot late on, and Tidus just seems to take it at face value, totally unlike his personality. Dramatically speaking, I don’t think it was necessary, nor do I think it added anything. Take it out of the game, how much difference? One less thing to confuse people, is all. Tidus’ appearance in Spira could be easily explained in other ways, and for the same emotional impact at the end… just kill him! He could have known it was coming, sacrificed himself whereas the idea before was that Yuna would have to this, and the whole concept fo the Farplane and so forth- effectively a visitable afterlife- means the final result would be no different at all. Hell, Tidus ends up with Braska, Jecht and Auron at the end. Jecht is particularly weird- both dead AND an ended dream. Work that one out, where should he be? It really does not do to think about the details of this game. Thiugh still… makes more sense than VIII!

So, there we go, a big review for a big game., That’s X. As all FF games are, it is imperfect- but it still entertained me greatly. For me, I’ll put it on a par with VII.

Cardinal Sins- Unskippable cutscenes. Some can be bypassed and some not- sort it out! Lengthy repeated combat animations count, too.

Unbalanced gameplay mechanics- come on guys, you’ve had loads of games to work this out now…

Rating: 8/10.

Summary: Somewhat flawed in both gameplay and plot, but still tremendously exciting- obsessive, even- to play through, in that unique Final Fantasy style. And they got the mood just right.

HOLY GOD...that is a lot of writing.

Anyways, nice work. I would probably not have took the time to do that...although Final Fantasy X is one of my favorite games of all-time.

I really liked Final Fantasy X-2 by the way 😛

And did I not say that you'd like FFX?

Yeah, you'd like FFXII a lot.

Me?

Lana y aren't u replyin to my message 🙁

...I don't generally reply to random PMs from people I don't know. Don't really care for them.

Ouch. 😛

USH are you writeing stuff down as you play the game or is your memory that good?

That is a very long review and I agree with most of what you said, but in the weapons, and armor part I think you were too nice on the game because I feel the weapon and armor were the worst part of the game and should have been totally redone. In an RPG I want a new weapon to make a difference but in this game you can use your first weapon all the way through the game, and changing your armor doesn't make much difference either.

*cries* i just sent you a huggy smilie!

*cries*

Always fun to read your reviews, Ush.

Yaaay!

Well, I did mention I was not happy with the weapons and I would have preferred something simpler, and indeed, they didn't seem to make a huge amount of difference, unelss you got the Ultimate Ones. But that wasn;t quite a big enough deal for me to make a huge fuss out of it. game mechanic wise the facade of the sphere grid got to me more.

Teehee.

I want to see how you tear apart FFX-2 (moreso than what you have to me over MSN, anyway).

Lana! 😱

I smell Estalker.

ADDENDUM REVIEW- FINAL FANTASY X-2

This is not a full review; it follows on from my comments about X, much as I did for KOTOR II after KOTOR. Extreme spoilers ahead again!

I mention that few issues split fandom more than the issue of which of the main games are good and which are bad. There is far less dissent aboht the spin-off games. They are almost always considered inferior- though I am a staunch defender of Final Fantasy Tactics.

I do not think there is any game more reviled in FF circles than X-2. Although even in this very thread we see it has a defender, the normally fractious FF community seems to really round this one area of X-2 being a disaster.

I think part of the issue here is that it dashed hopes. It was a sequel to a popular game- always hard. It was the first proper FF sequel ever done- a hard task to do. it was also the only FF game going in the time when, franchise wise, FF XI was an MMO and hence, basically, unplayable to most FF fans and not like an FF game anyway. X-2 was what people had to go on and it could never reach that hype.

However, the far larger part of the issue is that it is pants.

Ok, let's be fair here. it can't be THAT bad, can it? No, because it has the same polish and detail and effort of any FF game and it’s actually very difficult for such a well produced game to be a dire useless disaster. Still, on any relative scale... it's baaaaaaad. Why?

In the area I thought it would fall down hardest, it doesn't do too badly. See, X is a closed story. Although the setting is still there at the end, the entire storyline is done, Any unanswered questions are just due to fuzziness, not leaving the plot open, and besides which, X-2 answers no important ones. It's not like the original Star Wars, which told a story but obviously could have more to say. It's more like, say, Se7en. You could, literally, have another story with Morgan Freeman, but what actual point could there be in a sequel? It said and did all there was to be said and done.

So that in mind, the plot really isn't that bad. It is about Yuna, trying to uncover more of the past of Spira via the discovery of recording spheres, of which many are coming to light since the defeat of Sin. One of these spheres shows someone who looks remarkably like Tidus, drawing Yuna into the sphere hunting game. She joins up with an Al Bhed operation, centred around a new airship, run by Rikku's brother, called the Gullwings. She is joined in a party by Rikku herself and new tactiturn heroine Paine. The Gullwings fly around Spira looking for more spheres and answers about the past, whilst Yuna hopes to resolve more on this 'Tidus' mystery. Meanwhile, several new factions have grown up in Spira since the government structure was destroyed in X. There is a 'New Yevon', a 'Youth League' looking for revolutionary change, and a Machine Faction seeking to bring forward new technoloy since the old prejudice against them is dying out. New Yevon and the Youth League are both keen for Yuna's sponsorship, and all three are led by talented and charismatic people, whose past efforts when they were all friends are revealed in sphere form throughout the game in much the same way as Braska's, Auron's and Jecht's were in X.

The threat comes in the revelation of a vast and ancient machina called 'Vegnagun', buried under the old Yevon capital Bevelle, a relic from the war that destroyed Zanarkand, never used but capable of destroying the world.

Early arguments are about New Yevon saying that the Youth Faction wants to control Vegnagun, and vice versa. As the game goes on, however, the real threat comes from the long-dead Shuyin, a man from ancient Zanarkand of remarkable similarity to Tidus, also evidently a blitzball player (voiced by the same actor too)- it is he that Yuna saw in the recorded sphere. Devastated by the death of his girlfriend Lenne (similar to, but not the same as, Yuna), Shuyin attempted to activate Vegnagun during the war but was killed first along with Lenne. As outlined in my X review, death is a bit fuzzy in this setting, and the negative emotions of Shuyin have hung around to create an evil spectre of venegance that can possess people, and at this point in time plans to use Vegnagun again.

It's not a brilliant plot and it is rather old school FF- bad guy plans to destroy world, you stop bad guy. X itself had tried something a little different. But as I say, as a sequel to X would be very hard, the effort they've made here is not half bad. It’s quite dramatic and has its mysteries. And the voice acting- a problem with X I forgot to mention, because it seems all the lines were recorded individually, and so were delivered awfully, especially Yuna’s- isn’t bad, with the three faction leaders being positively charismatic. These things are certainly not the big issue.

It has a lot of links to X to satisfy continuity, it’s in the same place, for a start- this kinda works against it, of course, because 90% of the locations are the same. Most of the old crew turn up during the game, minus Tidus (non-existed) and sadly also Auron (dead), although Auron has a very brief voice cameo near the end giving advice in the final battle, and the Tidus vibe is embodied in Shuyin (more on that in a mo). Kimhari leads his tribe, Lulu has married Wakka and is pregnant… that kind of thing. The only new major character is Paine, and this is part of the vibe that the game only has three main characters, who you always control. Controversial, but in interesting idea to experiment with in a spin-off, and dramatic suspension allows you to accept that Yuna and Rikku are working up from level one again.

So far, so average. Where are the problems? Ok, let’s list them.

1. COMBAT RUNINATION. AHHHHHHH! What happened here? X switched to a sensible turn based system that worked fine. X-2 switches BACK to the real time system with all the ridiculous ‘time bar charges during animation’ nonsenses that make a mockery of fast effects in the game. And the charging for spells and effects is back. It’s awful! It feels such a terrible step backwards. I am assured that, in contrast, XII has moved forwards. The combat does at least have a pace to it- though that only means you die horribly whilst searching for the right option- and it does bring back concepts such as rear attacks or pincer attacks, but the whole ‘damage done depends on your relative position’ mechanic is clunky, and at one point I had an attack fail because there was no room for the animation to actually reach the target. What the bloody hell??! The character just got stuck there until the combat ended.

2. DUMB CLASS PROGRESSION. Back to levels in this game, Fair enough, all the pros and cons of that. But skills learning is done via ‘dressspheres’. These are a stylistic disaster for some- see below- but basically are just a ‘live’ version of the job system from FF II, V or Tactics. Live because you can change ‘dress’ mid battle to change job, though not just to anything;’ you lay out your job choices on a ‘garment grid’ that connects several of them up; you can get many different grids in game with various bonuses. It’s all a waste of time as changing jobs in mid fight is so much hassle and so much more boring that instead you’ll just concentrate on maxing classes you like and setting them before a fight. Anyway, just as with the job system, you get skills in your job simply by doing things- the more you do, the faster you learn skills. But having gotten the system working well already in V and Tactics, here they ruin it in two ways. First of all, attacks don’t get you any skill points. Item use does and class abilities do, which means to skill up at a reasonable rate you have to find ways to do anything in battle EXCEPT attack. The ideal battle is one that you can make last forever in an endless cycle of doing pointless stuff to get more skills, and not daring to attack because that will a. end the battle and b, get you bugger all skills. Madness- and also intensely dull. When will they stop giving design schemes that encourage people to act in such awful ways in game? Secondly, you DO get skill points for killing… but at a flat rate of one point per kill. So, killing a huge enormous killer creature of doom? One point. Killing a tiny irrelevant creature of nothingness? One point. So you get four times as many points killing a group of four crappy things, that takes you ten seconds, than you get for killing the big thing that took all your power and about five minutes. Just to make it worse, single foes never give enough xp either. It’s insanely unbalanced and means that the fastest way to level up is to go hunting in the… easier areas? HUH???! Again, from my POV as a person interested in system design, the set-up is sheer madness. The sphere grid in X had its linearity issues but it WORKED. It made sense. This doesn’t; it is a positive failure.

3. PRESENTATION SUB-PAR. The graphics simply are not as good. Most of the backdrops are re-used, the facial features don’t seem as good, the cgi scenes are fewer and less dramatic. There are also simply fewer graphical effects- X, for example, had a nice variety of combat transitions depending on situation, including a very pretty underwater one. This uses the same effect all the way. There just seems less TO it than a normal FF game. Related to presentation but deserving its own area…

4. CRAPPY MUSIC. X had great, ponderous, dramatic and emotional music. This has a couple of ok ones, and most of it is crappy second-rate guitar rock. There is almost no drama evoked by it at all. It could not be more different than X, and talking of which…

5. STYLE CATASTROPHE. Admittedly, style is down to taste. But this is… I mean, it’s hard to get across. X was, for FF, very mature, downbeat, thoughtful. It suited the setting well. But although this setting is similar, the style is more reminiscent of the powerpuff girls, or whatever. We really are talking manic, in your face, comic zanyness throughout. It features such dark and adult plots such as: Yuna in a moogle suit handing out balloons, the ruins of Zanarkand being turned into a tourist attraction and you shutting it down by breeding monkeys there, the sudden and impromptu decision to throw parties or dance around a lot to rock music, pushing a load of musicians into a lift… and other such moments of sheer drama. Sure, all FF games had their zany, kiddy bits, but here it is the ENTIRE game. Just about everyone I have talked to about this hated it. I am sure some don’t, but fact is, this is just the wrong setting for all that. Such an approach should- and often is-used in an different game. And in purporting to be a direct sequel to X, this is both weird and disastrous.

6. INCREDIBLY POOR SIDEQUESTS. Not just the crap DDR ripoff or remarkably boring ‘fun and games’ sideshow in the Calm Lands, but also things like the PR and Marriage quests that involve you going around randomly pressing buttons against every single character in the game, then trying to randomly decide which one of five response is the right to choose, with nothing but luck to guide you. It takes forever, and is not in the slightest bit interesting, or redeemable. And when you finally do it… you find out you have to do it again… FOUR more times in the game at various points. For no reason. It makes no gaming logic (boring, repetitive, no context, entirely luck based) or plot logic (no idea why that response works, no idea why you have to pitch to the same people five times per game as if they forgot everything). This is actually awful beyond imagining. I cannot believe something so bad found its way into an FF game. It makes the cruddy sidequests look good. Incidentally, the new game in it, Sphere Break, is ok, and the approach to Blitzball- via which you manage rather than play, all games are much faster, and each victory gives you a solid and useful reward, is actually better than X… but it’s all dwarved by the awful PR/Marriage stuff that it makes such a big deal out of. It is without a doubt the worst thing I have ever seen in any FF game.

7. UNENGAGING APPROACH. The approach is totally unlike any FF game before it- you can go anywhere you like in Spira from the off. Some areas have important plot events, some have optional bits. You must complete the plot events, you can complete the others. There are five chapters worth of events in all, and if you progress straight through you will lose a lot of stuff you can never do again. I guess it’s nice to tinker, but the lack of focus tires you, and you feel little motivation to do stuff, especially as you can miss big sections of important story background very easily. Also… you spend a good chunk of the game, not much short of halfway, doing nothing other than having zany antics. No plot at all; that all comes in rather late.

8. BORING CHARACTERS. New brash Yuna is, if anything, even less engaging than her old self. Crazy Rikku played well against the serious tone of the group in X, but here is just amplifying the annoyance. Deadpan Paine is deadly dull where Auron had been really rather cool. The decision to only have three characters cocks up when the three characters are… rubbish.

All of this turns a game that could well have been a “Meh, ok” from me into an “AHHHHHHHHHHH, why did you do this to me?” Added to all this are the aame old FF annoyances of random battles and what not. It felt a complete and utter chore to play through and finish. I just wanted to see the end, I didn’t want to ply through the last half of the game at all. It almost defeated me, to be frank, and no other FF game has done that. I have cursed he inadequacies of other FFs but never wanted to simply stop playing,. Here I did, and had it not been an FF game I would.

And so onto the ending, past the easiest end FF bosses I ever saw- Auron’s advice was not needed, much as it was nice to hear from him. You still have all the unanswered questions from X, plus some new ones of the weirdness of Shuyin being almost identical to Tidus (him having the same combat moves is a nice touch, even, but so strange not to flesh it out). And that actually even draws attention to some unexplained FFXness- Shuyin’s love Lenne was a Summoner. Any implication that Shuyin was a kind of template to Tidus, or there was a connection there, makes the fact that Tidus’ Zanarkand had no Summoners in it even odder. Though neither did it have a Bevelle in, where Shuyin died, so I guess it’s all just nonsense anyhow.

So, the controversy. Do certain (and rather contextless) things right in the game, and you get Tidus back in a post-credit surprise. You get even more in a 100% completion, apparently, though I got 95% and I do not think will ever manage the patience to go back and get more. So… nice touch or a total betrayal of the ending to X? I guess that depends on your approach, but to my mind there is an inevitability to it that I think X implied. Of course, X invited you to simply make your own mind up about his return, whereas X-2 nails it to your face, but then X2 fails to do anything subtly or with class at any point. What did it do to me? Well, rather like when Wakka was around or when I heard from Auron, it made me wish he had been in my party all game rather than these three wastrels.

Heck, that went on longer than I thought. Well, that’s X-2… very bleh. And also against my personal style, so I guess others will like it more than I did. And there are worse games, for sure. Much worse games. But I will have serious questions over the judgment of any who really think it is a better game than X. VERY serious. And of course, if we look at the FF fans… very few do.

CARDINAL SINS:

Unskippable cut scenes! Which they made even worse! Some are very much skippable- it seemed as if they introduced the mechanic. But a. it seems random which are and which are not, and b. you don’t score completion points if you skip a scene! AHHHHHHH! BURN THEM!

Broken gameplay mechanics- again, gone BACKWARDS from X! The mind boggles.

Rating: 5/10

Summary: All the effort of an FF game, but delivered awfully and with a rubbish approach that fairly much betrays all the ideas of the original. Add on a mark or two if the style is to your liking, but for sure it is inferior as a game

WOOOOOOW

so true such is the crap that was X-2

I think that was probably the most amusing review yet.

And you know very well what I think of the end of X-2 (the good/perfect one), which is why I pretend that it doesn't exist. Yaaaaaaay.