SkylerBunderson's Final Fantasy X-2 review

Great review. Been a while since I've thought of this game. I keep wanting to go back to it and try for 100% completion, especially because the combat is (as you say) really fun, but then I remember that FFX-2 is essentially an officially endorsed fan fiction. Wakka bangs Lulu! Neither of them have changed clothes in eight years! Here's a new obligatory emo chick, with a really creative name (sarcasm)!

To be fair, I think Paine is more interesting and more developed than Rikku. She reads less "emo" to me and more just far more serious than anything else in the game. In a game as ridiculous as X-2 is, I think a character like Paine is a necessity.

I like FFX-2 but it really is a lazy game. Any new areas in the game are pretty dull, visually, especially caves. And Lulu was pregnant for the duration of the game, and gave birth at the end, but she never showed any signs of it. Was a new character model for an NPC really that hard to make?

Final Fantasy X-2 is one of the very few games I actually find embarrassing to play, which is too bad because I really liked the battle and job systems.

Roto, you capture my sentiment exactly. I literally turned beet red the first time one of my cousins walked in on me playing the game. It was like he'd caught me masturbating (that may have been less awkward, actually).

One of the things I really hated about X-2 was it mars one of the better Final Fantasy stories. FFX's ending was great because Tidus actually died instead of being saved by some nonsensical deus ex machina at the last minute. I wasn't predicting that; especially since that happened in VIII & IX. X-2 kinda ruins that by having Yuna go on a wacky adventure and some ghosts revive Tidus because Yuna was totally bummed about him being dead and all. But only because she defeated the evil organ player. I actually thought the game's 'bad' ending was better written (where Yuna is comforted that Tidus' "soul" or "spirit" has been watching over her or something). I guess that's what happens when you make sequels to games that really shouldn't have one.

Final Fantasy X-2 actually did nothing wrong. A lot of the confusion stems from one little phrase muttered in the ending of FFX-1. As some of you might be aware already, the localization team that translated FFX did so without modifying the mouth and facial movements of the characters, who were synced with the Japanese language voices. That being said, the localized script was modified so that it would fit the Japanese facial movements. This means that a lot of the script, while technically "correct," is missing a lot of the nuance and meaning that comes accompanied with Japanese speech.

In the Japanese ending, Yuna says to Tidus, "Thank you," as opposed to the "I love you" in the English version.

Final Fantasy X-2 is not about Yuna trying to resurrect Tidus, it's about her trying to find him again so that she can tell him the words she never did in FFX... But all of that was lost because of the localization team trying to make the English script match the Japanese face movements.

That's the kind of awesome revelation that could make fans' worlds turn upside-down.

//Zig

Still doesn't change the fact of the evil organ player. Or all the pop concerts. Or Rikku saying "poopy" every chapter.

Great review, even if it spent an overly large amount of time discussing the characters. If it wasn't Final Fantasy, I'd have gotten bored of it quickly. I, too, recall being embarrassed by the game's over the top glitz and pop crap, and as a result, never finished the game.