Mindhive

Final Fantasy X2 Preview

Update: Well gee. While I was sick, Jason beat me to the preview. Oh well, at least it looks like we agree.

Yeah yeah, I know, I know. But still -- recently, I have been feeling that something has been missing in my life. As the feeling grew and grew, I have positively identified it as the craving for hitpoints and mana. So, as I was passing the PS2 stand in Target (on my way to get something else), I simply could not resist -- my body moved by itself, and ordered the Target-drone to bring me the game. I have heard various things about FFX2, but, with a game like this, there is so much hype that the signal-to-noise ratio is simply too low. Thus, I decided to shell out $50 for the red pill, and check out the game for myself. But, since FFX2 is tied to its predecessor, FFX, let me talk about that game for a bit.

Unless you have been living under a very thick slab of basalt for the past 10 years, you've probably heard about the Final Fantasy series. Final Fantasy I was the first RPG to take the world (or, at least, Japan) by storm, spawning a whole new genre and many knockoffs. Final Fantasy VI (or 3 in the US) is touted by many (yours truly included) as the pinnacle of the genre -- multi-tiered storytelling at its best, graphics which were (arguably) surpassed only by one other game on the system, and soundtrack that is still beloved to this day. A Final Fantasy game of comparable quality was only produced years later -- and that game was Final Fantasy X.

FFX was revolutionary in a number of ways -- some of them purely technical, some of them quite substantial. FFX was the first Final Fantasy game to feature 3d environments, not merely pre-rendered ones. This wouldn't be important all by itself, of course, if the art weren't so beautiful. Crystalline forests, calm ocean beaches, twisted jungles, cold mountain passes, decaying ancient ruins... I think I spent half the time in the game just looking around and whispering "wow" to myself. Another unique feature of the game that made me say "wow" was the English voice acting. The surprising part about it was that the voice acting was very good. Ok, now I realize how this sounds, but trust me: the English voice acting in FFX was one of the best that I have heard in any game, and definitely the best that I have heard in any anime. It is one of the very few exceptions (Jin-Roh being the other one) where the American voice actors could actually do their jobs.

But, ultimately, the major innovation of FFX was its story. Unlike all the previous Final Fantasy games, FFX features a story which does not end on a happy, cheerful, victorious upbeat note. Yes, you manage to accomplish what you set out to do, but the sacrifices the characters have to make are quite severe, and, in the end, their lives do not change for the better. The world has been granted a second chance, but it has not been unequivoqualy saved; and many beautiful and priceless things were lost forever, never to return. It's hard to describe the story without major spoilers, but, in general, it feels deeper and somehow more adult than the previous Final Fantasies -- though it is, of course, less broad than the multithreaded story of FFVI, where each character has their own thread in the tapestry. Nonetheless, the story really makes you care about the characters (yes, even that stupid jock Tidus), in a way that makes you play the game not just because you want more HP or whatever, but because you actually want the characters to succeed. In other words, FFX is basically good literature. The quality of the story is enhanced by the way it progresses: you look at the world through the typical hero, Tidus, as he gradually learns that all the things he believed wholeheartedly are, in fact, completely false. It's really quite astonishing how different the story of FFX is from the standard "let's find the macguffin that saves the world" fantasy plot -- especially considering the history of the franchise.

Naturally, FFX is not all roses. Some of the characters (*cough*Tidus*cough*) are simply annoying; the beautiful graphics are at times ruined by PS2's inability to perform proper antialiasing and anisotropic mapping (which is important for TV-grade resolutions), and the battle system is the same old, same old. More importantly, the game's touted "flexible character development system" is just a scam: yes, it looks really twisted and branching on the overview screen, but, topologically, it's just a straight line. Furthermore, FFX suffers a bit from the usual bane of the genre: excessive monster battles, bosses with cheese powers that keep running away when you beat them, pointless sidequests that don't advance the plot, etc. However, the excellent story, graphics, sountrack, and voice acting of the game simply blow these annoyances out of the way. The game possesses a strange kind of integrity that is difficult to precisely define, but is a joy to experience.

By now, you can probably see why I was compelled to pick up FFX2. This game promised to break the most honored tradition of the genre: it was going to be an actual sequel. None of the previous Final Fantasies had anything to do with one another, besides the general game mechanics and the names of some spells -- actually, they were famous for it. Normally, I would weep for the loss of a major tradition; however, FFX was written so well that I actually wanted to see more. I was also a bit curious to see how the writers would pull off a sequel, since the original game ended on a pretty final note... However, given the talent that must have went into the original game, I was reasonably sure that the writers could somehow pull it off. So... how did my actual experience match up with my expectations ?

As soon as I started the game, I was once again forced to whisper "wow". After that, for a while I could do nothing but stare. Such utter and complete annihilation of every single shred of integrity, quality and basic decency of the original could not have been the work of a mere soulless marketing machine. Oh no. This took deliberate, directed, human effort. Computers simply aren't corrupt enough to handle such a job.

If you have played the original game, you surely recall the opening sequence. You take control of Tidus, the young blitzball star, as he navigates his way through adoring fans on the way to the game dome. After this, you see a stranger watch in silence as the entire city is destroyed by a tidal wave, and Tidus as well as you (the player) are forced to fight for their lives, not sure of what is happening or whether anyone you care about will make it out alive. Captivating stuff. FFX2, on the other hand, opens up with the Japanese version of a Brittney Spears concert. Oh, you wish I was kidding, but I'm not. The game goes downhill from there, as you're introduced to "Y.R.P." -- a trio of sickeningly cute young girls whom you'll be forced to endure throughout the entire game. Every five minutes or so, there's another cutscene where the Y.R.P. strikes a pose and says something horribly cheesy, such as "Looks like a job for Y.R.P. :-) :-) :-)" or "We're the best !", or something equally nauseating. I should point out that "Y" stands for Yuna, whose character was completely changed from the original -- a soft-spoken, introspective, and serious daugher of the High Summoner -- into a Brittney Spears with a gun. "R", of course, stands for Rikku, whose character, sadly, was not changed at all, despite all that alleged growing up that she did. "P" stands for Paine (yes, that's her real name, read it an weep), who is sort of a poor man's Lulu substitute. As far as I can tell, these are the only characters in the game that you ever get to see in your party. This isn't like all the previous games, where you could swap out the characters you hated. There is no swapping out, period. No escape.

The general style of the game suffers a similar fate. As far as I can tell, FFX2 has no story whatsoever. You just fly to random places in your airship (yes, you get it at the very beginning), and do random things. Occasionally, the game cheerfully informs you, in big letters: "MISSION TIME :-)" -- and then you are given a short description of some task you have to finish. You know, in case you missed it earlier, when the map description on the airship was telling you the same thing. It feels as if the game's designers dunked your head in the toilet: "see ? we care about you so little that we're going to go completely out of character and insult your intelligence, in one hit !". The story fragments (they never meld into a coherent whole, at least not in chapter 1) that follow a successfull mission conclusion (heralded by a gigantic "Mission Success !" screen) alternate between saccharine Hello-Kitty-grade cuteness and boring documentary notes. It's hard to tell which is worse. Perhaps it would be easier to bear the insulting writing and the bad character design if there were wondorous new landscapes to explore, but... there aren't any. FFX2 takes place in the exact same world as FFX, and, while it's still beautiful, the thrill of exploration is certainly gone. The few areas that are truly new (such as the cave on Besaid) feel like they have been grafted on by Viktor Frankenstein, M.D. The below-average voice acting certainly doesn't help.

There's one innovation in FFX2, and that's the job system. Your characters no longer have fixed character classes, and they can no longer upgrade weapons or armor. Instead, they have different job templates. Each job comes with its own set of skills (magic spells, weapon moves, thievery powers, etc.), and jobs can be switched at any time -- even (or, rather, especially) during battle. I don't really have a problem with the mechanics of this system: it's fairly innovative, and it requires nearly as much strategy as the Materia system from FFVII, given the varied geometrical permutations of the skill sets. Sadly, it's impossible to view the game mechanics separately from its implementation. You see, your characters don't really have skill sets. I lied. What your charatcers (remember: all female) do have are Garment Grids (tm), onto which you can place Dress Spheres (tm). When you switch Dress Spheres during battle, you are treated (I use the word loosely) to an animation that looks like it was taken straight out of Sailor Moon (sans the implied nudity), as the current girl changes from one outfit into another. Have you ever wondered what playing with your dollies feels like ? Wonder no more.

I could go on and on about the ridiculous premise of the game (Sphere Hunting (tm) ! Yey !), its complete lack of anything resembling a coherent plot, its color scheme (neon purple drenched in glitter ! yey !), but I'd rather not. I feel sick as it is. What I think happened here is that the Squaresoft corporate masters, hammered by their recent failures, gave their marketing team a direct order: "make a game that appeals to the female audience. Do it now. We need fresh blood". However, I would sincerely like to believe that female gamers, if they do in fact exist, have just as much dignity, intelligence, and plain old taste as the male gamers: that is to say, infinitely more than the Squaresoft marketers, who -- clearly -- utterly despise their target audience.

Does FFX2 get better in the latter parts of the game ? Who knows. Anything is possible, though some things are very unlikely. However, it would take more than a vague RPG craving to get me to subject myself to more of this game -- a game which manages to be condescending, stupid and insulting all at the same time.