I don't actually hate X-2.

grimloch

/Puts up riot shield and takes out anti-Retrogamer spray.

I'm expecting a barrage of abuse, slagging and maybe even a punch when I'm on the street for this little number.

Not too long ago, I was bored and said to myself:

"Feck it, I'll play X-2 for a while to pass a few minutes."

Now this quickly turned into a 2 hour session of the game and I found myself thinking, for the first time ever: This isn't actually sh*te. Plus I intend to restart and complete the game at my earliest convienance.

I'll lay out my reasons for liking the game in point form to make it easier for you lot to critiscise me later. I won't expand on any of my points too much at this moment in time as I don't want this post going on for too long.


1. The battle system

It was fast paced which I loved and there was a bit of strategy involved getting the attacks to stack.

2. Dresspheres

Wonderful is all I can say. I absolutely love job classes. It was also handy as you could change dresspheres without too much hassle if needs be.

3. Storyline

I won't go into it too much as I haven't played enough of the game to make a proper statement about it. However I will say this much: One of the things I thought was pretty good about the game was the rewards you got for completing the side-quests/sub-plots thingies. If you put time into them, you received a fairly interesting bit of storyline or something worthy of the time you put in.

I like being rewarded for putting time into something. What made me dislike the game, at first, was the fact that I was lazy and didn't properly complete the side-quests and as such I ended up with unfinished plotlines.

I will make no attempt to defend either Brother nor will I try to speak in favour of what passed for "music". The same applies to that opening sequence.

I'm not saying it's a wonderful game or anything like that but as far as I'm concerned, its a very fun,rewarding, light hearted and quirky game and it doesn't fully deserve the critiscism it gets.

I apologise for the length and I will ask you to use spoiler tage when necessary as I, or some others I'm sure, haven't completed the game as I said earlier.:D

Laguna

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I still hate it...:p

Nah, seriously, it's not a complete loss of a game, I feel my disappointment with it comes from the fact it's such a departure from what a Final Fantasy game is, I can't vouch for anyone else when I say this of course, but I also felt it was a bit of a cynical "Charlie's Angel" marketing ploy to get more girls playing the franchise too. As a game, I'd give it 7/10, as a Final Fantasy game however, I couldn't give it more than 4/10.

Retr0gamer

Are you joking me. You're lucky I don't know what you look like because if i saw you I'd smash your face in

Seriously though I stopped playing this game halfway through due to disinterest and it takes an especially bad game for me to do that.

There's one of two things that an RPG needs to have so it can be good, either a great battle system and be fun or have a rivetting storyline. FFX-2 had neither. I hated the battle system. It felt like a step down from the excellent system in FFX. Classes are nice but too many were totally useless and far surpassed by others.

I didn't finish the game so can't really comment on the storyline other than what I did see was dire and disinteresting. The sub quests were a waste of time and added nothing to the story overall, i didn't really care about a bunch of annoying freaks getin together for a performance or whatever that subquest was about.

What really annoyed me was how they changed a lot of the characters. Rikku was handled well in FFX and I never found her annoying but her voice really grates in this game and they make her out to be a bimbo rather than the happy go lucky free spirit in FFX. Worst still is Yuna. In FFX she starts off as shy and a bit timid but later we find out how strong a character she is. In FFX-2 she is just an out and out ditz. Don't get me started on Squall the second, Paine. Moody for moodys sake and just plain annoying.

Frankly it was a piece of fluff and a commercial exercise by Squaresoft even more vile than FFVII Advent Children.

Zapp Brannigan

Retr0gamer wrote:

Seriously though I stopped playing this game halfway through due to disinterest and it takes an especially bad game for me to do that.

.

Patricide

I agree, if i knew what you looked like id make you play through 7 and 8 again and then if you were still considering that X2 wasnt terrible then id smash your face in.

grimloch

Retr0gamer wrote:

There's one of two things that an RPG needs to have so it can be good, either a great battle system and be fun or have a rivetting storyline. FFX-2 had neither. I hated the battle system. It felt like a step down from the excellent system in FFX. Classes are nice but too many were totally useless and far surpassed by others.

I'm the other way. I thought the X system was fairly sluggish and I for one found the fairly fast paced action in X-2 to be a welcome change. Patricide mentioned VII and VIII. Now there are two fine examples of sluggish and slow paced battleing.

The dressphere was a wonderful bit of planning as far as I'm concerned. It was the nest best thing to actually switching party members mid-battle. I find myself constantly changing classes in battles when the need arises and I think this makes things very interesting indeed.

Retr0gamer wrote:

The sub quests were a waste of time and added nothing to the story overall, i didn't really care about a bunch of annoying freaks getin together for a performance or whatever that subquest was about.

Ha. I'll take your point about that one but it was really the exception to the rule I think. Alot of the sub-quests or whatever we're calling them added quite a bit of interesting and relevant storyline. What originally put me off was me being a lazy bollix and not completing them properly and as such ended up with unsatisfactory storylines. I at least found it interesting

Regarding characters, I'm of the opinion that X-2 still maintained her happy-go-lucky attitude and general outgoingness (I can't think of the proper word there) although her hyper activity did make me want to inflict violence upon here on more than one occasion.

I can't say I really noted anything about Yuna really apart from that appaling good-goody thing they introduced but I liked Paine despite her being a touch on the emo side of things. She also on more than one occasion told Rikku that she was being a twat and I liked her sarcastic remarks too.

Basically I never have as much fun with the FF games as I do when I'm playing X-2. Some of the other games are possibly superior in terms of substance and so forth but the fun factor is often lacking. Somethimes I want to play a serious game for good storyline and when I do I turn to the likes of VI. When I want a light hearted game that I'm frequently rewarded in I turn my attention to the likes of X-2.

Crucifix

grimloch wrote:

Basically I never have as much fun as I do when I'm playing X-2.

I hope that's a hyperbole, I really do.

grimloch

Crucifix wrote:

I hope that's a hyperbole, I really do.

Jesus H. Christ! Not a hyperbole no but a blindingly foolish typo. I'll edit it out now.

Retr0gamer

I will be giving FFX-2 another go again in the near future but it's more loyalty to the brand than anything else.

With regards the battle system i found it very like the ATB system in FFVII and FFVIII which i never liked in the first place. I really like my battles to be tactical in an RPG and i just found these games to be more button mashing affairs with not much thought needed for battles. This probably explains my love for Grandia, Xenogears, Baten Kaitos and FFX which have easy to master be extremely deep battle systems.

Looks like you and I are again on different sides of the fence when it comes to our RPG preferences

saado

It's ok buddy, I love FFX-2, very fun and enjoyable game, I completely ignored the story, but the gameplay kept me interested right to the end and then another playthrough too.

also, xenogears' battle system got very repetitive, love the game butit got old quick I prefer the battle systems in chrono Cross and Shadow Hearts/SH2, or something more tactical like Disgaea or Phantom Brave.

Retr0gamer

Xenogears had massive robots in it which was enough for me

saado

Three Words: Disc Two; Pendulum

Flex

Hey, just wondering, did they always have a sequel to FFX planned, or was this something that they decided on after FFX had finished to give it a happier ending?

Retr0gamer

It was never planned. Hironobu Sakaguchi had practically left square a year before FFX was completed and this gave Square free reign to make a sequel since the creator hadn't got any say in it. Sakaguchi always stated that he would never do an FF sequel. After the disaster of spirits within Sakaguchi got demoted to such a low position that he had no choice but to leave. Crazy japanese business practises.

Iofur

grimloch wrote:

/Puts up riot shield and takes out anti-Retrogamer spray.

I'm expecting a barrage of abuse, slagging and maybe even a punch when I'm on the street for this little number.

Not too long ago, I was bored and said to myself:

"Feck it, I'll play X-2 for a while to pass a few minutes."

Now this quickly turned into a 2 hour session of the game and I found myself thinking, for the first time ever: This isn't actually sh*te. Plus I intend to restart and complete the game at my earliest convienance.

I'll lay out my reasons for liking the game in point form to make it easier for you lot to critiscise me later. I won't expand on any of my points too much at this moment in time as I don't want this post going on for too long.


1. The battle system

It was fast paced which I loved and there was a bit of strategy involved getting the attacks to stack.

2. Dresspheres

Wonderful is all I can say. I absolutely love job classes. It was also handy as you could change dresspheres without too much hassle if needs be.

3. Storyline

I won't go into it too much as I haven't played enough of the game to make a proper statement about it. However I will say this much: One of the things I thought was pretty good about the game was the rewards you got for completing the side-quests/sub-plots thingies. If you put time into them, you received a fairly interesting bit of storyline or something worthy of the time you put in.

I like being rewarded for putting time into something. What made me dislike the game, at first, was the fact that I was lazy and didn't properly complete the side-quests and as such I ended up with unfinished plotlines.

I will make no attempt to defend either Brother nor will I try to speak in favour of what passed for "music". The same applies to that opening sequence.

I'm not saying it's a wonderful game or anything like that but as far as I'm concerned, its a very fun,rewarding, light hearted and quirky game and it doesn't fully deserve the critiscism it gets.

I apologise for the length and I will ask you to use spoiler tage when necessary as I, or some others I'm sure, haven't completed the game as I said earlier.:D

I loved it...in fact am going to go play it right now!

Flex

Retr0gamer wrote:

It was never planned. Hironobu Sakaguchi had practically left square a year before FFX was completed and this gave Square free reign to make a sequel since the creator hadn't got any say in it. Sakaguchi always stated that he would never do an FF sequel. After the disaster of spirits within Sakaguchi got demoted to such a low position that he had no choice but to leave. Crazy japanese business practises.

Thats odd that it wasnt planned since FFX had that bit with Tidus at the end. I remember that movie 'Spirits within', didnt like it at all, I couldnt figure out why they didnt make a movie based on one of the games tbh, wouldve been much more successful. How much did they lose on that movie? $120 million?

Retr0gamer

That bit at the end was added to the international version of FFX which was the version released in America and Europe. That was after work started on FFX-2.

Flex

Ah I see. That makes sense I guess. thanks Retr0gamer

PAINLESS

What few pros there are cant compare to the tidal wave of cons..
vegnagun looked the bizness but was a load of crap... if we had've seen him fire at least once durin the game and see the destruction it was supposedly capable of it wouldve made it a better final boss. at least we saw sin wiping out kilika and kickin the crap outta operation mi'hen. the one thing that got me from the off was how girly everythin had become.. rikku and yuna clapping their hands and jumping up and down at the prospect of a sphere.
the only reason i forced myself thru this to get 100% was i was convinced there would be something somewhere that would redem it (finding tidus). even cid was reduced to bein a doddery ol fart instead of the strong al bhed leader he was. and the le blanc syndicate reminded me of team rocket.
i didnt know sakaguchi had no part to play in this but now its pretty obvious.
i did like the dressspheres tho and paine was interesting as was the lenne and shuyin thing. but the game was thrown together using the same maps with little mods thrown in it lacked the drama of x and i reckon square just got greedy and thought they could get away with palming us off with this crap.

bring back sakaguchi san.

Retr0gamer

Sakaguchi san has his own company now, Mistwalker Studios, that is currently making RPGs for the xbox 360 and the nintendo DS. It will be interesting to see how what they are like. He also has Nobuo Uematsu on board for music.

Merrick

... I liked the battle system. That is all I have to say on the matter.

kdoc

Well being a huge FF fan when X-2 came I was really looking forward to playing it. FFX was amazing and I couldn't wait to see the world again and hear how the characters were getting on. Put together X & X-2 are 100 hours worth of amazing RPG gaming.

Alot of people slag the game saying it's crap and a cheap money makers etc but come on guys, it is a hardly a bad game, I mean when you concider all the crap thats out there, and most of the people slagging it havn't played it, or have finished it and slag it because the read someone slagging it in some "up their own arse gaming mag".

im...LOST

I liked it.Good(ish) story,I liked the battle system but I felt that the game was far to easy.I think that it may have been the easiest last boss that I have ever beaten....seriously.

elekid

I liked it too. It was meant to be a fun, light-hearted off-shoot of one of the main games in the series and that's what it was. I wouldn't consider it a "proper" Final Fantasy but I enjoyed it on its own terms.

I loved the fast-paced battle system and the dress-sphere system, it reminded me of the class system from FFV, which I really liked. The sidequests were good fun too though a few of the "win the mini-game" variety were a bit annoying. I even liked the music in the game, it had some nice, emotional songs like "1000 Words" and the battle music was an interesting change from the norm.

It was refreshing to see rpg characters having a bit of fun for once instead of the usual gloom and angst you get. I don't think Yuna was too much out of character, I thought she acted like someone who was suddenly tasting freedom after being brought up with a huge burden of responsibility on her shoulders, while still remaining honest and dutiful. Rikku could be a bit over the top at times but I liked Paine a lot, she got some very funny, dead-pan lines.

Vokes

Despite the so-so soundtrack, i think that 'Eternity (Memories of Light & Waves)' is one of the standout tracks of the entire series of Final Fantasy games.

Simply awesome.

Retr0gamer

Memories of Light and Waves is an excellent track but the rest of the soundtrack is god awful except abyss of the farplane. 1000 words is a disgrace. It's a song with more cheese than the dairylea factory. Eyes on Me reputedly resides in this factory as well along side every Celine Dion and Mariah Carey album.

funky penguin

I liked it mainly because of its lack of Tidus.

I hate that guy.

HomesickAlien

if you dont mind the cheese and the crappy music it's a ok game, just not a great final fantasy game. other than that its a harmless timekiller.

seriously though, did anyone really expect it to be the Godfather part 2 of games?

grimloch

funky penguin wrote:

I liked it mainly because of its lack of Tidus.

I hate that guy.

He's certainly one of the arguments against the voice-acting in the games. He sounded like such a weener for the whole thing. Good enough character spoiled by a bad choice of voices.

HomesickAlien wrote:

seriously though, did anyone really expect it to be the Godfather part 2 of games?

Perhaps I've gone mad but wasn't that the boring and worst one?

Retr0gamer

grimloch wrote:

Perhaps I've gone mad but wasn't that the boring and worst one?

Yes you have gone mad.

I expected FFX-2 to be a whole lot better since it was building upon one of the best RPGs ever and was made by one of the best RPG developers.

grimloch

Retr0gamer wrote:

I expected FFX-2 to be a whole lot better since it was building upon one of the best RPGs ever and was made by one of the best RPG developers.

Firstly it was good: Fact.

Secondly I think it's a pretty hard task to make a sequel out of something that has already ended and been tied up fairly well at that. They could hardly have continued with an extension of X, done in much the same way.

RikkusLover7

I had no idea that so many people hated it so bad. I really really like it. I guess I could with ease that Im its biggest fan. Although I guess I have no room to talk since I only started my sicotity with 10. Although I do want to play 7 really really bad!

Memnoch

The problem with X-2 was that it was a follow up to X. X is the only RPG that is up there with VII. It had an amazing battle system, great and fun minigames, and a compelling, moving story line. These were the things that drew the masses to vii in the first place.

X-2 in comparison had absolutely no depth, either in the charecters or in the story. The dress-spheres took away a lot from the previous level of customisation offered in X. The music was horrible. I mean I can go on endlessly but I think the main problem is as I stated at the start. X was so frikking amazing that X-2 needed to be a special game in it's own right to compare, instead it was just a hollow attempt to cash in on it's predecessor, and like so many soulless hollywood sequels, this game was more Blade Trinity and Matrix Revolutions than Return of the king.

grimloch

Memnoch wrote:

The problem with X-2 was that it was a follow up to X. X is the only RPG that is up there with VII. It had an amazing battle system, great and fun minigames, and a compelling, moving story line. These were the things that drew the masses to vii in the first place.

That's just the thing, people look at it and expect a continuation of X and then get pissed off when they see something a bit quirkier than they were used to. X had a boring and sluggish battle system, X-2 is much more fast paced and with the exception of spell-casting, pretty well thought out.

Memnoch wrote:

X-2 in comparison had absolutely no depth, either in the charecters or in the story.

I'm going to repeat what I said earlier on but plenty of the missions give quite a bit of depth to the storyline. The same character depth that we saw in X wasn't achieved but to call it 'nothing' in comparison is a bit of exaggeration.

RikkusLover7

The only thing I can really say is that I disagree, I was completly fine with the story and charecter. I liked the battle system and I liked all the different things you could change into with the dressspheres. The mini-games were pretty fun however I did not like spherebreak.(Mainly because I suck and I cant beat Shinra:p ) Though the dresses were fun to expierment with some were not very useful and it takes almost the whole game to fully complete one. Well thats all I really have to say!

300lenouveau666

i agree. actually, it is a rather good game, the music at the beginning was sh*te, but "1000 words" i quite like and the FMV is a killer.

odhran

All I can say on the subject is meh. I had no really strong feelings for the game either way.

PAINLESS

the game had only a few proper fmv's in the whole thing,,
the intro, yuna jumping with guns, yunas dream, 1000 words, meeting shuyin on the farplane and the ending.?
have i left any out? this left me annoyed because i love it when the game switches from normal gameplay to an jaw dropping fmv.. so it lacked substance.

what made X cool was the sheer drama and how dark the storyline was the tragic life of a summoner the world living in fear of sin the annihilation of operation mihen the discrimination against the al bhed, the near extinction of the rhonso, the yevon conspiracy the albhed home being destroyed.. and they still threw in a half decent love story into the mix. X-2 had little or no drama in comparison. the youth league and new yevon thing was like watching the bleedin dail.. the shuyin lenne love story was interesting but empty.

the characters werent as interesting or as varied. No hard big "weapon" bosses like the dark aeons in X (i know the dark aeons were in X-2 and we had to fight them but come on most of us took weeks to take out the likes of dark anima whereas the dark aeons in x-2 were integrated into the story(as in you needed to beat them to continue not like the dark aeons in X where you had to look for them) and had to be beatable and relatively stress free) the only one that comes to mind was that guy in the desert angra mainyu. he put up a good fight but still paled in comparison.

I'll give it the battle system. i like fast paced and varied. via infinico was quite challenging aswell ( see how far you get w/o cat nip!). but overall the game lacked those essential qualities we look for in a final fantasy..

grimloch

PAINLESS wrote:

the game had only a few proper fmv's in the whole thing,,
the intro, yuna jumping with guns, yunas dream, 1000 words, meeting shuyin on the farplane and the ending.?
have i left any out? this left me annoyed because i love it when the game switches from normal gameplay to an jaw dropping fmv.. so it lacked substance.

By that logic VI had no substance whatsoever based purely on the fact that it contained no FMVs. IV aswell I suppose.

BeerWolf

I seriously hated FF X / X-2. To me it had to be the only BAD part of the whole FF series.

Dind't like the sphere system, and I most certainly didn't like the frilly ditzy Garment system in X-2...

Voices, Tidus sounded like someone was squeezing hits nuts, Yuna talked as if something having something up her ass, and Wakka's the equivalent of Jar Jar Binks in StarWars.

Only good thing was the graphics, nothing more.


Should FF XIII turn out like another X-2 I'm seriously breaking my fanship from the entire series for good!! :rolleyes:

PAINLESS

grimloch wrote:

By that logic VI had no substance whatsoever based purely on the fact that it contained no FMVs. IV aswell I suppose.

VI and IV didnt have any because they COULD'NT have any.X-2 hardly has that excuse.

what little fmv's it had were still of pretty high quality. and we're comparing it to X mainly because theyre on the same generation console therefore it should've been on par with X at least in terms of graphics. VI and IV were snes games and worked within those boundaries..
thats like sayin VI's graphics were crap compared to X's.

look at the amount of fmv's in 7,8,9 and X and compare the no to X-2.
fmv's help break up the game and give more weight to the games overall beauty and substance. VI was a great game but you could hardly call it beautiful.

grimloch

While I don't particularly agree with you it's not really something worth arguing about. You like plenty of FMVs to break up the game, I wouldn't care if they were there or not.

Stoichkov

I thought X and X-2 have been the weakest in the series so far. Way to easy, unlikable characters and disappointing storylines. I cared about midgar, the gardens and alexandria, I wasn't really bothered with the fate of spira.

I feel the main reason some people like X and X-2 is because they were the first ffs they played.

In fairness to X it had a brilliant new battle system but X-2 had nothing new.
No story, no soul, no summons, nothing.

In respect to fmv, I'm not a graphics whore, if it's a good game, that's all that really matters, but in ff I love the fmv scenes. I think they're an integral part of the story telling. A slick fmv reallys sucks you in, just think of the amazing intro to ff8, Queen Brahne summoning Odin in ff9 or weapon attacking junon in ff7. I'd be very disappointed if they did away with fmv.

bohsman

Inspired by the OP I decided to play X-2 again having stopped after my house was broken into and my PS2+memory card stolen and never bothered playing it again. Think I lasted around 20 hours before not caring anymore, I still think X was a class game that I didnt put down for a week after buying it.

funky penguin

Stoichkov wrote:

I thought X and X-2 have been the weakest in the series so far. Way to easy, unlikable characters and disappointing storylines. I cared about midgar, the gardens and alexandria, I wasn't really bothered with the fate of spira.

I agree here with X. It never got me moving. I couldn't care less in Spira was destroyed, but my heart raced in that final battle against Sephiroth....(plus I had never seen Clouds final limit before, so imagine my surprise!)

However, X-2 got meh moving. I don't know why. It could be the piano solo piece on the title menu screen. Anyway, thats just my feeling on the matter.

GK¦ Ixion²

The game in itself wasnt too bad.
The new battle system was definately a progressive step IMO.
And the dress sphere thing wast bad either.
But the story never made me feel anything but ill. It was sooo cheesy and girly i wanted to vomit.
I couldnt help but miss the brilliant storylines and motivated characters from all the other FF's.
Gone are the imposing enemies such as sephiroth. Replaced by enemies that couldnt fight their way out of a paper bag and never ever made me feel threatened.

Let us now pray to Square that such a travesty shall never again emerge.

grimloch

Sephiroth was not an imposing bad guy. He was a whiny git who goes off the deep end over an identity crisis.

GK¦ Ixion²

Yes maybe, but he had a purpose. And he did more than his fair share of damage.
Whereas in X-2, the main enemy wasnt even slightly evil or malicious. Traits that i think should be a prerequisite for the "bad guy" in any given storyline.
X-2 didnt evoke any real emotion in me. I felt numb playing the game and slightly irritated TBH. The lack of drama and 3 unchangeable 1 dimensional characters destroyed what could have been a good game.

grimloch

So did Sin. Sin wrecked the gaff. Sephiroth didn't really achieve anything.

I don't think Sephiroth had even the slightest hint of menace about him. He was a wuss who had his mother fighting for him a good bit of the time.

I've managed to forget a good bit of this game but the statement about all three of the girls being one-dimensional is just flat out incorrect.

GK¦ Ixion²

Oh dont get me wrong i loved FFX. And i thought Sin was cool aswell.
But FFX-2 is another case altogether.
The characters were boring.Yuna was an exception to some degree.
Paine being the worst case. No real personality at all. Barely even a character to speak of.
And they made Rikku into a moron that just jumps up and down making girly chants(her character in a nutshell).nothing like her old self in X. As a game FFX-2 performed well. But it failed to live up to the dramatic storylines and interesting characters that most of the previous FF's adhered to.

poobum

i got 100% in x-2....yes dat means finishing 2 times!!! hassle! but realy it was just to easy....i remember u cud get some item dat let u do 9999 damage per hit.... equip it to yuna n use trigger happy....der ya go game over! it was rediculously easy like... the game seemed to be realy relying on side quests! i mean realy! and wasnt happy with ending...but i did like the game i have to admit dat! the battle system was ok...i liked the dress spheres...it was entertaining! as a solo game with no previous ties to final fantasy like diff name and company producing it or whateer...i dont think it would be considered so bad! i thinkits just what it was SUPPOSED TO LIVE UP TO!!! which it realy didnt!