Every girl needs a fantasy! (Final Fantasy X-2 (PS2))

Member Name: thehonesttruth

Product:	Final Fantasy X-2 (PS2)
Date:	04/04/05 (666 review reads)
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Much has changed in Spira over the last couple of years. Machina are no longer banned, temples are no longer sacred, and everyone, from the crusaders to the priests has had to re-evaluate their lives and their purpose.

Even the Noble High Summoner must find a new way. And so it happens that Yuna, heartbroken by the loss of her beloved Tidus, joins the Gullwings, hunting for spheres (videotape type things) that might lead her to her lost love. Helped by Rikku and Paine, she travels throughout Spira hunting for any clue that might help her task, saving people on the way.

This being squares first direct sequel, there are many who'll sneer and say that sequels are never as good as the original. I personally disagree. Although the locations, aeons, and characters are mainly familiar, the game play itself has been dramatically changed enough to warrant the sequel

Part of the new approach is the fact that are you are given free reign over spira from the start, with the Celsius, an airship that looks like a mixture of a souped up Harley and a London Taxi, at your disposal.

Captained by Brother, the campest man you will ever meet either in game or the real world, with a shop manned by Hypello and resident know all Shinra to help you with any questions, you're ready to rock.

And rocking is where the game begins. Or, more precisely, teenybopping. This game fails to make a positive first impression. Not only does it have an intro that just goes on and on, it chooses to have an all-singing, all dancing concert performance, complete with goons with guns and a cheesy track more suitable for an under tens disco.

Forgive Square their sins though, because after the intro, you're plunged straight into your first mission.

Ah, now there’s a change I forgot to mention. While other FF games were mainly story line based, FFX2 works on missions. You have a nice little mission screen (a map to you and me) on the Celsius that tells you where to go, what to do, and which things are important. In each of the five chapter of the game, you'll have two or three hotspot missions that you must complete in order to finish to game, plus several small secondary missions you can complete to get extra Gil, get your levels up, and get new dresspheres.

Dresspheres are a new thing for FFX2. They can be confusing at first, but the best way to explain them is a collection of different outfits that enable the user to perform a different job, for instance Black Knight, Warrior, Thief, Berserker and many more. Each dressphere contains different abilities, which you can set your character to learn, and although these do take time, it's worth letting your characters experiment with the spheres so they have a wide range of skills to bring to boss battles.

Changing between jobs is easy; you can easily to this from the main menu EXCEPT for during battle. To add to the confusion, we have garment grids, which contain different numbers of slots that you can equip with dresspheres, almost like a small portable rucksack where at a quick press of a button you can change jobs in battle but only within the limited number of dresspheres equipped to that grid. Changing dresspheres in battle brings up an impressive visual sequence of the ladies morphing, with the occasional glimpse of what could be a nipple to satisfy the men.

Battles are now in actual time, meaning you don't have as long to consider your moves, and meaning that you can be attacked by any number of fiends at once. While this makes it slightly harder as you don't have the advantage of time to analyse each enemies weaknesses, it adds a faster pace to the game and gets the adrenaline flowing much better than the old time turn based battles.

In terms of character development, Square has missed the mark slightly. Just how Yuna managed to change from a Summoner of strong faith and undeniable virtue into a bimbo and a sphere-hunting mercenary so quickly is beyond me. Rikku is just as much of an annoying tart as ever and some of the minor characters are just, to put it frankly, thick as pig excrement.

One character I do like is Paine. Paine is quiet, but she seems to be a deeply intelligent woman with a quest for deeper meaning. When the other to go off into new flights of bimbo fancy, it's Paine who brings them back down to earth with some scathing sarcasm of a few wise words.

Now, you might be thinking that so far the game sounds just a tad girlie, but just so you know there’s a fair few moments in it for the lads. For a start, all three girl heroes are attractive, slim, and flashing a lot of flesh. There are also scenes of girl on girl massage with definite sexual overtones, and cleavage, thongs and other glimpses of mother natures finest feminine form are there throughout the game. Okay, so you are essentially leading a team of girls in a series of not very macho battles, but there plenty to enjoy all the same.

FFX2 is a very fine looking game that presents a consistently colourful and bright world, realistic human characters, and great detail. Every hair on a characters head shines out with sharpness and clarity. Even the menus have polished design, with floating colours and rippling water effects in various menus. FFX2 is a superb graphical package that is hard to find fault with.

Musically, FFX2 has something for everyone. Each location has it's own distinctive music, as do various kinds of battle. For example, at the Zanarkind Ruins you might here something reminiscent of mournful bagpipes, whilst under Bevelle Gaol, you can hear the faint strains of Gregorian chant. Some of the music hits, such as Yuna's concert performance of ' A thousand words' (sung by Jade from Sweetbox) while other tunes, most notably 'What can I do for you' from the opening sequence, definitely miss.

Playing the game is simple using your playstation controller, with additional controls for mini games (of which there are plenty) or missions explained throughout the game as and when you need them.

Overall, although Final Fantasy X2 is not as strong on story line or originality as FFX, I'd definitely still recommend it as a game worth playing. Yup, it might be a bit girly, but I say thats no bad thing.

Thanks for reading.

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