The mere mentioning of a direct sequel caused a lot of commotion amongst Square fans. Final Fantasy X-2 broke the previous trend of having every single Final Fantasy game be a story of its own, with its own set of new characters, storyline, and even graphics. At a time when many thought Square Enix was going mad, this game made people turn their heads, be it for good or bad.

Final Fantasy X-2 tells what transpired after its elder, Final Fantasy X. The story takes place 2 years after Yuna, Tidus, and friends defeated Sin. At last the eternal calm was at hand. People could finally go about their lives and live for themselves. They controlled their own destiny. Although things seemed okay, Yuna was distressed. Since there were no Aeons to worry about, Yuna traded in her summoning job for a new one: sphere hunter. Sphere hunters, as the name may tell, are people who travel the world in search of magical spheres that contain lost memories. So with the help of her cousin Rikku and a new, debateably homosexual cast member Paine, Yuna sets out on a journey to answer deep questions and learn of Spira’s best-kept secrets.

You go girl!

The general concept and theme are really polarizing factors among series fans discussing FFX-2. But when looking behind all its “girl power” themes, one would find a pretty decent RPG to play.

X-2 uses a vastly different battle system than its predecessor. The spheres are back, but in the form of a new system called “Dress Spheres.” These special spheres are the key to unlocking our femme fatale’s various job classes. In order to equip a Dress Sphere, one needs a Garment Grid. These allow players to hold a certain amount of Dress Spheres at any given time. But here’s where it gets much more entertaining: each Garment Grid has special bonus on them. So as players change through various job classes, they can increase a given character’s attributes and sometimes even grant her other spells that her job using normally doesn’t have. Every dress sphere is plotted on the grid; once a girl transforms into all jobs on it and light up every part, she can activate an even more powerful sphere called a “Special Dress Sphere.”

Each gal has her own unique Special Dress Sphere that allows her to unleash major pain. (But remember, one must first find the Special Dress Spheres in order to use it.) To increase the power of a Dress Sphere, characters will earn learn Ability Points after battle, which allow players to select whichever new move a girl should learn from that job class. Non-battle gameplay mechanics changed a bit as well, with Yuna being able to jump around a bit.

One gripe about battle would be that watching the cinematic transformation of job classes over and over again becomes a little repetitive. Even with the game’s fast pace, that aspect gets a little old.

Kick yo’ @$$!

Graphically, Final Fantasy X-2 is pretty much the same as FFX, but the world and play itself are pretty different. FFX was very linear and didn’t give that many options in terms of where to go, at least for the majority of the game. X-2, however, gets rid of that problem. The airship Celsuis allows the party to travel to various parts of Spira with a touch of a button. You create your own path in the storyline and get to decide where to go next. The only catch is that the party must go to each of the “hot spots” on the map that reveal more of the story. But that doesn’t mean it’s best to just jump to every single hotspot; completion of side missions contribute to the goal of getting the “true” ending.

FFX-2‘s music is good, for the most part. The first cinematic sequence has Yuna singing a song composed by Jade from Sweetbox that really sets the game up with its female theme. Also, the battle music has familiar tunes to the Final Fantasy series and themes based off of FFX.

With the good, there’s also the bad here. Even though there is a sense of freedom in this game, it sometimes was a little too “free,” and that caliber of non-linearity made this reviewer feel like he was playing one huge mini game instead of an actual game. The storyline is…passable…but it really could have been better. The fact that this game can be completed in 15 hours doesn’t help either. It is cheap now, though, so perhaps it is a good add-on for the series, considering the new price.