final fantasy x-2: square enix's continuation fanfic
What's this, another game completion? Yup, I decided to go "screw it" to all of the sidequests that I had left in Final Fantasy X-2 and finish it before I go home tomorrow, just so that fact that I haven't finished it wouldn't be looming over me for a month.
What can I say about FFX-2? Well, first of all I was really only playing it to mock it and because my roommate had it and we thought it would be a nice way to follow up our FFX playthrough. I'm one who doesn't really see the need for X-2; I loved the way X ended bittersweetly with Tidus disappearing and thought that his scene rising out of the water after the credits was more symbolic than anything else. The way I tolerate the plot of X-2 is to think of it as a fanfic. It seriously has a lot of fanfic-like stuff in it when you think about it: Yuna gets a hot new makeover and a personality change as well, Paine is added as an OC of sorts and of course has a mysterious past, and the main villain is a look-a-like of Tidus. So yeah, in my mind FFX-2 is not canon, and it didn't really happen. I'm perfectly happy with FFX ending the way it did and don't really think a sequel was necessary. I feel bad for anyone who was expecting a serious game out of X-2, although you kind of get the impression that it's not a serious game right from the beginning when "Yuna" is dancing around at a pop concert.
And also: if you're making a game where the implied end result is that you're going to be able to reunite with Tidus once more, why the fuck do you have to make it so difficult to do so? If anyone was playing through the game without a guide, there would be no way that they would be able to get the "good" ending unless they just happen to be lucky and press X during certain scenes. I was using a guide (a 100% completion guide, actually, but I lost my 100% completion right from the get-go when I didn't know that you had to touch the Moogle in the very first scene of the game), and I still managed to fail to get the good ending because I didn't press X when Yuna and co. are in the Farplane after the final battle. Yep, one missed button press and you can lose the chance to reunite with your lost love. That is probably one of the most ridiculous things in this game.
Well, that and the character of Brother, who was often the source of my "WHAT THE HELL IS THIS GAME" outbursts. The fact that he's totally in love with Yuna kind of creeps me out, but at least he was the provider of "DANCING YUNA?!" which my roommate and I reference all the time now.
I feel like I have to make some kind of positive comment about the game, so I will say that I liked the battle system. I'm a fan of the job system (one of the reasons I like Final Fantasy V so much), so being able to change characters' jobs was a definite plus. Even if some of the outfits were ridiculous. But hey, that's the joy of the job system: getting to dress up your characters in ridiculous outfits.
Unfortunately I don't have any commentary for this game because although I did keep record of the best moments, I lost the files when my hard drive broke so I only have bits of commentary from chapter five. I will, however, say that there was a rather hilarious "FUN song" moment during this playthrough: "F is for friends who fuck Auron together, U is for you and everyone, N is for anywhere and anytime at all, down here in Zanarkand." I think most of the commentary had to do with making fun of Brother and the Hypellos ("Shave the Hypello?" "NO THANKS, THAT JUST SOUNDS WRONG"), or going "WHAT IS THIS GAME I DON'T EVEN." There was also something I said during the ending that my roommate laughed at for a good few minutes, just because of the way I said it: "We have to wait until after the credits so we can save New Game Plus data in case we ever want to play this ABOMINATION again."
And so, the standard game-completion rundown:
Favorite character (story): Paine, just because she was all "NO, I AM NOT GOING ALONG WITH THIS FOOLISHNESS, NO WAY" most of the time. I think at one point I described her as being the lovechild of Lulu and Auron, because she totally is.
Favorite character (gameplay): Paine again, since she was usually the highest leveled and by the end of the game she was my mastered Dark Knight so she was generally dealing the most damage.
Favorite location: Ummm I have no idea, generally all the places were reused maps from X except with worse background music. I'll just have to say Besaid Island and Zanarkand.
Favorite method of totally annihilating enemies: Darkness with a Dark Knight was pretty much what took out all the final bosses for me. The Dark Knight ability Black Sky was useful too, as was Level 3 Trigger Happy with a Gunner.
Preferred party: I think the party that I had most often was Yuna as an Alchemist, Paine as a Dark Knight, and Rikku alternating between Black Mage, Warrior, Samurai, and Dark Knight as needed. My early-game party was usually some combination of Gunner-Black Mage-White Mage or Warrior-Black Mage-White Mage. My end-game party was Yuna as an Alchemist and Rikku and Paine as Dark Knights.
Character with the best lines: If by "lines" you mean "ridiculous animations," then Brother totally wins that one. He had some great lines too, I guess. And I love Paine and her totally uninterested snark.
Favorite music: The soundtrack of this game is pretty lackluster most of the time, but I do like "Eternity ~ Memory of Lightwaves" and "Yuna's Ballad."
Highest leveled character: Paine, level 56
Lowest leveled character: Yuna, level 53 (she had an unfortunate habit of frequently being dead at the end of battles, so she ended up getting less experience than everyone else did)
Now, hopefully tomorrow when I'm home I'll be able to start my FFIV Let's Play, which should be interesting. I did a trial run when I was back home for Thanksgiving and did live commentary for about an hour only to realize that the video didn't end up recording properly... so yeah, that was a fail. But since the 20th marks one year since I first played FFIV, I figure now's a good time to do the playthrough, even if I want to do a FFVI playthrough just a little more.
What can I say about FFX-2? Well, first of all I was really only playing it to mock it and because my roommate had it and we thought it would be a nice way to follow up our FFX playthrough. I'm one who doesn't really see the need for X-2; I loved the way X ended bittersweetly with Tidus disappearing and thought that his scene rising out of the water after the credits was more symbolic than anything else. The way I tolerate the plot of X-2 is to think of it as a fanfic. It seriously has a lot of fanfic-like stuff in it when you think about it: Yuna gets a hot new makeover and a personality change as well, Paine is added as an OC of sorts and of course has a mysterious past, and the main villain is a look-a-like of Tidus. So yeah, in my mind FFX-2 is not canon, and it didn't really happen. I'm perfectly happy with FFX ending the way it did and don't really think a sequel was necessary. I feel bad for anyone who was expecting a serious game out of X-2, although you kind of get the impression that it's not a serious game right from the beginning when "Yuna" is dancing around at a pop concert.
And also: if you're making a game where the implied end result is that you're going to be able to reunite with Tidus once more, why the fuck do you have to make it so difficult to do so? If anyone was playing through the game without a guide, there would be no way that they would be able to get the "good" ending unless they just happen to be lucky and press X during certain scenes. I was using a guide (a 100% completion guide, actually, but I lost my 100% completion right from the get-go when I didn't know that you had to touch the Moogle in the very first scene of the game), and I still managed to fail to get the good ending because I didn't press X when Yuna and co. are in the Farplane after the final battle. Yep, one missed button press and you can lose the chance to reunite with your lost love. That is probably one of the most ridiculous things in this game.
Well, that and the character of Brother, who was often the source of my "WHAT THE HELL IS THIS GAME" outbursts. The fact that he's totally in love with Yuna kind of creeps me out, but at least he was the provider of "DANCING YUNA?!" which my roommate and I reference all the time now.
I feel like I have to make some kind of positive comment about the game, so I will say that I liked the battle system. I'm a fan of the job system (one of the reasons I like Final Fantasy V so much), so being able to change characters' jobs was a definite plus. Even if some of the outfits were ridiculous. But hey, that's the joy of the job system: getting to dress up your characters in ridiculous outfits.
Unfortunately I don't have any commentary for this game because although I did keep record of the best moments, I lost the files when my hard drive broke so I only have bits of commentary from chapter five. I will, however, say that there was a rather hilarious "FUN song" moment during this playthrough: "F is for friends who fuck Auron together, U is for you and everyone, N is for anywhere and anytime at all, down here in Zanarkand." I think most of the commentary had to do with making fun of Brother and the Hypellos ("Shave the Hypello?" "NO THANKS, THAT JUST SOUNDS WRONG"), or going "WHAT IS THIS GAME I DON'T EVEN." There was also something I said during the ending that my roommate laughed at for a good few minutes, just because of the way I said it: "We have to wait until after the credits so we can save New Game Plus data in case we ever want to play this ABOMINATION again."
And so, the standard game-completion rundown:
Favorite character (story): Paine, just because she was all "NO, I AM NOT GOING ALONG WITH THIS FOOLISHNESS, NO WAY" most of the time. I think at one point I described her as being the lovechild of Lulu and Auron, because she totally is.
Favorite character (gameplay): Paine again, since she was usually the highest leveled and by the end of the game she was my mastered Dark Knight so she was generally dealing the most damage.
Favorite location: Ummm I have no idea, generally all the places were reused maps from X except with worse background music. I'll just have to say Besaid Island and Zanarkand.
Favorite method of totally annihilating enemies: Darkness with a Dark Knight was pretty much what took out all the final bosses for me. The Dark Knight ability Black Sky was useful too, as was Level 3 Trigger Happy with a Gunner.
Preferred party: I think the party that I had most often was Yuna as an Alchemist, Paine as a Dark Knight, and Rikku alternating between Black Mage, Warrior, Samurai, and Dark Knight as needed. My early-game party was usually some combination of Gunner-Black Mage-White Mage or Warrior-Black Mage-White Mage. My end-game party was Yuna as an Alchemist and Rikku and Paine as Dark Knights.
Character with the best lines: If by "lines" you mean "ridiculous animations," then Brother totally wins that one. He had some great lines too, I guess. And I love Paine and her totally uninterested snark.
Favorite music: The soundtrack of this game is pretty lackluster most of the time, but I do like "Eternity ~ Memory of Lightwaves" and "Yuna's Ballad."
Highest leveled character: Paine, level 56
Lowest leveled character: Yuna, level 53 (she had an unfortunate habit of frequently being dead at the end of battles, so she ended up getting less experience than everyone else did)
Now, hopefully tomorrow when I'm home I'll be able to start my FFIV Let's Play, which should be interesting. I did a trial run when I was back home for Thanksgiving and did live commentary for about an hour only to realize that the video didn't end up recording properly... so yeah, that was a fail. But since the 20th marks one year since I first played FFIV, I figure now's a good time to do the playthrough, even if I want to do a FFVI playthrough just a little more.