As I mentioned previously, I enjoyed Final Fantasy X quite a bit, sadly I found its sequel to be deeply flawed. I understand, and even applaud what Square was going for with FFX-2. They were aiming to make a more lighthearted, faster moving game, and in many ways they succeeded. Unfortunately, the effort is marred by extensive reuse of assets, a shallow story awkwardly divided into chapters, and a interesting, but flawed, combat system.
FFX-2's story picks up two years after the end of FFX and the apparent death of Tidus. Yuna and Rikku had a post pilgrimage career (job?) change and are now Sphere Hunters. They have been joined by Paine, a Lulu replacement. Sphere Hunters are basically adventurers who search the ruins of Spira for artifacts, many of which reveal secrets from the past. Meanwhile, Spira is undergoing an awkward time of change as the populace comes to terms with the events of FFX and the revelations about Yevon.
Yuna, Rikku and Lulu make up a Charlie's Angels like group called the Gullwings. They hunt spheres for fame, fortune and, in Yuna's case, clues to the location of the missing Tidus. Yuna and Rikku have had a drastic cosmetic makeover since the first game in order to fit in with the second game's more modern style. The Gullwings spend the first part of the game feuding with the Leblanc Syndicate, another group of Sphere Hunters, though they eventually join forces to fight the main evil in the game. The main plot revolves around the conflict between New Yevon and the Youth League, the two main power groups in the post-Calm world, over who will control Spira.
While the setup manages to be both lighthearted and politically intrigued, the story falls short in execution. This is largely a structural problem, the game is divided into chapters and once you move on to another chapter, many of the events in the previous chapters, like sidequests, are no longer available. This is a problem for three reasons, some important exposition is in these sidequests, the existence of the sidequests is not always obvious (some show up on the map, some do not), and it isn't always clear when you will trigger a chapter change. These problems have mechanical implications as well, sometimes proper advancement can be tough if you miss sidequests. These problems really undermine both the story and the mechanics of the game. I do not mind having some missable content in a game, especially when it makes sense from a story perspective, but most of this game is missable. Beyond the structural problems, the characterizations are not great, Yuna comes across as pretty shallow and goofy after being a much stronger character in the first game. Rikku is still Rikku. Paine is a bit more interesting, and is actually more connected to the overall plot than the others.
Another problem is the heavy reuse of assets from the first game. You will be travelling to places that you have been before and seeing monsters and people that you have seen before. While I understand the desire to reuse assets to control cost and time, it felt excessive in this game. It felt like most of the areas were repeats from FFX, and they hadn't done enough new with these areas to make them interesting again. Reuse of assets in a sequel like this is always a tough issue, so I don't want to beat up on it too much over this.
The final problem is the combat system, which is inspired, yet flawed. The combat system in FFX-2 is much more action-oriented that FFX's system, and features a job swapping, Dress Sphere System. Both of these additions are great ideas, I enjoyed the faster pace of combat, and loved swapping jobs on the fly to set up combination attacks. The execution, again, was lacking and it was ultimately frustration arising out of the combat system that caused me to walk away from the game. One of the first problems is the game's high random encounter rate. I know this was standard for the era, but this game came as we were moving out of that phase of JRPGs and it sticks out like a sore thumb next to the much more modern feeling battle system. For a more action-oriented game the costume changes (they are skippable) and some of the skills take way too long to execute. This can really break up the pace of the battle and often makes for a skill triggering after its need has been overcome by events. Related to that issue is the high occurrence of monsters with status effect powers, many of which are instant death or incapacitate. This leads to a lot of cheap game over screens. Finally, you can miss many of the jobs, either by not seeing a hidden chest or by not going on a side quest. Again, there is no real indication that this is going to happen, or that it has happened, adding to the frustration.
FFX-2 is not a bad game, I stayed with it almost until the end, and it has a lot of really good ideas in it. The combat system is a direct ancestor to FFXIII's system, which I loved, but wasn't quite up to the task. More new assets, or more clever reuse of existing assets would have been nice, but the game's biggest problem is its chapter structure. You can just miss too much of the game. I played this game this winter, immediately after FFX, maybe I would have like it more if there had been more time between them, or I had waited for the HD remake. It isn't a bad game, but you probably don't need to seek it out.
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