FFX-2: Replayed, finally giving this game the 2nd chance I felt it deserved, which took a damn long time since I started it. I can't remember WHEN I started it actually, but I finished it before the New Year, that's gotta count for something!
...I missed the good ending cause of the "Press X rihgt at the end!" BS. Not sure if I'll bother refighting the final for that, I highly doubt its worth it.
Anyway, thoughts after this replay?
NOTE: A LOT OF THIS IS WELL KNOWN, and its me reflecting as a second look at it.
Well, first off, I should note I didn't rush the game til Chap 5, at which point I felt doing extra stuff was kind of just wasting time. Unlike my first playthrough, I didn't feel underpowered against anything I fought (I often relied on Floral Fallal and such, to get through)...but quite the opposite, I felt too strong. I ended the game at level 50~ this time around, with 66% of the game done.
The end result is...the game is annoying if you don't do side quests, and trivially easy if you do. Dark KNight + Alchemist combo is an auto-win in so many cases. I'm sure optional bosses will have a say otherwise, but they're optional super bosses; they don't count! As a result, the game went from "annoying" to "dull." The battle system had potential, but in the end, it all goes to waste. Its not that enemies don't challenge you so much as you don't have a reason to care about synergy. You spam good stuff, you win.
After replaying the game, I can definitely say its below average. It is flawed, and kind of fails on that "Fun" factor. I look at the game and question HOW it could have failed on it; it had all the tools it needed and used them. A remotely interesting battle system, unique use of jobs, a strong setting it builds upon, good characters from FF10...
Then I remember something constantly said about games in the past:
"Their heart was in the right place, but they didn't think things through entirely."
This was said about FF2 and VPDS as two games I can think of. And its true; you look at these games, and you can definitely see what they were trying at, and it shows some degree of willingness and ambition...just the game wasn't put together appropriately for whatever reason.
FFX-2...I feel is the total opposite. Here, they had the ideas, the concept, everything needed to make at least a decent game...but they didn't have any sort of love or effort for it. They just viewed this as a cheap attempt to make money, and did mnimalist work, then said "Wait, that's not gonna work, we need something to hook the fans!", so they removed half of Yuna's clothing, and 80% of Rikku's, then made the game all about skantily dressed girls playing dress up, and called it a day.
It really shows little respect for FF10. Ok, its not quite as bad as, say, DIrge of Cerberus, which jackhammers things that just don't fit in with FF7, openly contradict stuff that happened in FF7, what have you, but its still pretty bad in this regard. Yes, you're in Spira, that's clear, and yes, you're playing as Yuna, 2 years later. They did show an appropriate style of the setting...but that's about where it ends.
Yuna and Rikku have not even half the quality of their characters they had in the first game. Yuna's often acting out of character; I don't buy the "Tidus rubbed off on her!" thing, cause Yuna had a strong self image in FF10, even if Tidus influenced her, she wouldn't act the way she did in FFX-2. I'm sorry, but that was forcing out character traits in Yuna to make her an ADVENTUROUS GUNGHO FEMALE!!! when she clearly was NOT that. Rikku...they lowered her IQ by 20, and removed the two important factors of her character from FF10: Tidus and Wakka. Her interaction with those two are what made Rikku actually likable and fun in FF10...but here, she comes off as a Moronic Genki who you want to strangle every other scene, basically existing just to contrast Paine, whose "Female Squall" (this isn't even an exaggeration; they openly stated they wanted Paine being a female Squall.) Right there, we have a weak dynamic of 3 females, who are the only primary characters. Toss in a HORRIBLE character to be "Charlie" in this Charlie's Angels RPG, "Mr. Generic McGeneric" as your pilot, and a wise ass kid, and well shucks, WE HAVE AN AWESOME TEAM FOR THE CELSIUS!
Now, the game didn't need to be as good on writing or characters as FF10; that's a tall order to ask for. But it didn't even achieve a fraction of that. At very least, I would hope the characters were in character, and reflected their original selves well enough...but no, they felt like they were written by a fanfic here. I suppose Wakka and Lulu were in character, but they have so few scenes, there isn't much time TO screw them up, and they should be happy about that.
Next off, the battle system...I covered it mostly before. The game has all the tools needed, but it just kind of implements them by saying "they're there." You never feel a need to really LEARN the battle system; you could totally ignore the ability to change jobs mid battle, and just treat it like FF3, and the game would be unchanged. I know its not fair, being a game that came out years later, but FF13 is a contrast here; the game made you LEARN its battle system, and how to make use of Paradigm shifts. The system was there and you used it. How much...depends on your playing style. BUt stuff in FFX-2 like chains felt more trouble than they were worth to use, so you just take advantage of them by accident ("Oh hey, I happened to time that right, yay!"), and the impact isn't as big as you'd like.
There's a few other things that point out that this game didn't really care about truly being a sequel to FF10, but rather, just being a cheap cash-in with FF10 slapped on to swarm a bunch of fans in. A big one is, for example, the music.
Remember how I brought up VPDS having "Heart" but poor implementation? Well look at the game. Yeah, a lot of the game reuses VP1 music...but honestly, that was part of its charm. The VP1 music made you go "Yeah...this game is VP" even if it didn't look it. It kept VP's style, at least, just lacked its quality. And the music that was new was at least similarly styled as the old ones, so they fit in.
FFX-2 didn't seem to use a single theme from FF10. Now, FF10 wasn't the GREATEST OST OF ALL TIME, but it had its fair share of damn memorable songs. FFX-2...has one of the worst OSTs in the series. The pure J-pop style is atrocious, and just further gets the point across "THIS IS PURE FANSERVICE. LOVE IT CAUSE YOU PLAY AS HOT HALF NAKED WOMEN!" Oh sure, there was...a brief instance of the Chocobo theme in there. I will give Eternity credit...but Eternity was one of the few songs that felt like it had the FF10 style of music, and strayed away from that super upbeat J-pop style. And I guess Zanarkand Ruins was catchy and a nice background piece.
But was it too much to ask for to, say, have one of FF10's two major themes in there? Most notably, the melody used in "Somewhere the Dream Will End" since that song IS Yuna's theme, in effect, you'd think a game about Yuna would have that song play in some manner. Its completely absent though.
The game tried to reference FF10, but it was cheap ways of "Oh 2 years ago, you did this!" and what not. Very little about actually building off the themes FF10 had, tossing in genuine cute easter eggs FF10 had, etc.
For a "spin off" game that got both Heart and Mind right? Crisis Core. Ok, on paper, game doesn't sound too special, but its executed about as well as that idea can be, and the game doesn't try to be more than it is, just tries to use what's there to its potential. At the same time, it certainly shows it wants to incorporate FF7 into it, rather than distance itself like Dirge of Cerberus did, or "Wants to ignore it but can't" the way FFX-2 did. The game is filled with references to FF7 either easter eggs like Carpenter of the 7th Heaven, or genuine plot link ups, like being able to replay all of Nibelheim from Zack's perspective, *AND* seeing it portrayed in an accurate manner (as opposed to being retconed to hell.)
I guess if we were to look at games like puzzles:
Crisis Core was a moderate puzzle, but all the pieces were in place, and it was finished; as a result, we get a decent picture.
Valkyrie Profile DS was a puzzle of 40 pieces meant to be done by a 5 year old, and it was finished...so we get a cheap, cartoon drawing of fluffy bunnies and happy squirrels, which is fine, except its being marketted towards a much higher age group.
FFX-2 had a complicated puzzle, which would have had a brilliant picture...if it was finished. BUt they bothered to only get the border done, and work maybe an extra layer from the border, then said "Yeah, that's enough, its just faster to leave it that way!"
Dirge of Cerberus is a puzzle that they spilled all the pieces out, found 2 that fit together, then walked away, going "Yeah, no one will notice this isn't finished. PEOPLE WILL BUY IT ANYWAY!", having NO FUCKING CLUE what it actually looks like when its done.
...yeah, FFX-2 still retains its 4/10 rating or whatever it has. I don't HATE the game, but man is it subpar. As I said, it had all the tools needed to make a genuinely strong game, but decided FANSERVICE had to be its number 1 factor, and everything else suffered strongly as a result.
