Platform	PlayStation 2
Available	March 13 (Japan)
Price	7,800 yen
Genre	RPG
Developer	Square
Publisher	Square

UPDATE 3/18: We've updated these impressions and removed all story spoilers so that more of you can go ahead and read them without fear of finding out that Yuna is, in fact, Tidus' mother. Also, further impressions have been posted by regular Tokyopia contributor Joseph Holley, so check them out!

Note: The following are my first impressions of Final Fantasy X-2 after playing through about 18 hours of the game including a little bit of what I think is the final dungeon. The percentage counter says that I have completed 50% of the game - the other 50% I assume are various sidequests that I have not chosen to complete or have not yet attempted.

Quite honestly, I didn't imagine FFX-2 would be this different from your typical Final Fantasy game.

Of course, the clues were all there. It's the first-ever storyline sequel to an FF game (unless you count Seiken Densetsu: Final Fantasy Gaiden as an FF game, which you really shouldn't because then I'd be wrong and nobody wants that). It stars three and only three playable characters, all of whom are teenage girls. The ability system is called the Dress Up system. And yet, even beyond these cosmetic changes, there are real differences.

The major one would be the mission-based gameplay. Rather than a linear exploration of the world map (which would be pointless), you have access to the entire airship map menu from the beginning and can go anywhere. Exploring all over the place, even where you're not supposed to go, can dig up hidden treasures and whatnot. But if you just want to move through the story (fair enough, considering this is supposed to be a Final Fantasy game), you'll find that that path is rather linear and short.

Okay, now back to cosmetics. This is an RPG about three teenage girls. They act like three teenage girls. Yuna is the popular track star. Rikku is the jailbait freshman. Paine is the goth. Paine has no back story as of yet but she probably sculpts or cuts herself or something.

The much-vaunted "Yuna Raider" jumping/climbing system is implemented poorly since often there is zero indication that a ledge is jumpable or climbable. Unjumpable ledges look exactly the same as climbable ones, and this reduces you to running around humping all the walls while hitting the X button, which wouldn't be so bad except FF games already force you to run around humping all the walls with the O buttons to find hidden crap. It does not affect gameplay in the slightest and is not fun.

The Dress Up job system is like FFV with no balls, and I mean that literally and figuratively. You don't have NEARLY the amount of customization that you did with V, there are fewer classes, and there are zero (so far) benefits to mastering a class. You can't use mastered abilities with other jobs; you have to Dress Up to different jobs in battle, incurring a time penalty. (And they don't even get naked. I mean, really. If I'm gonna be sitting there, at least let me see some skin.)

So in that sense, the battle system is interesting and somewhat new. But that doesn't change the fact that, to pull off this "Dress Up" concept of seeing the girls in seXXXy new outfits, Square took the already-polished job system from FFV and threw it out the window.

Really, speaking of which, the whole three-girls setup is done so outlandishly, from the Charlie's Angels poses (constantly!) to the skimpy outfits to the Dress Up system ad nauseum -- it's like a softcore FFX doujinshi except it's real. It's Final Fanservice Fantasy, and as funny as it is, it comes off as cheap, money-grubbing, and stupid. Sure, I laughed at it... but at what cost?

I mean, god... Yuna, Rikku, and Paine exchange girly little high fives while giggling about boys. I keep expecting that the next mission is going to be a sleepover where the girls run around in their father's old dress shirts and panties, eating Doritos, microwaving CDs, and making friendship bracelets.

All the music is dance music. Enough said. Uematsu-san, I'm so sorry I criticized your FFX soundtrack. Please come back. I found the J-pop themes to be just about as distasteful as the rest of the genre. Even more so because they were coming out of Yuna's mouth. The FFVI opera scene was moving and memorable, Yuna's impromptu concert on top of an ugly airship put me to sleep.

The game loses all of the exploration of FFX because the entire world is available at the very beginning, and plus you already know all of the areas except now you can jump, sometimes.

The story is vaguely interesting - Yuna and Rikku have become Sphere Hunters, looking for spheres that explain the disappearance of Tidus. No, scratch everything, because the story is kind of stupid. In fact, it's blatantly bad. The plot of Final Fantasy X was finished as is; this is sort of beating it to death.

It's like Caddyshack and Caddyshack 2. Watch them both. You'll see what I mean. Caddyshack 2 is funny, but totally fails in comparison to the original. In fact, it's only because Chevy Chase makes brief appearances in Caddyshack 2 that the movie is worth watching.

It is amazingly easy. I had my first game over at 13:06. And that was because I attempted a side-quest and ran into a God-Damned Demon Chimera. The final dungeon has been a piece of cake so far (except for one particularly difficult boss), but before I keep moving forward, I need to go find Holy. Wherever it is... in whatever of the many side-quests.

Saving graces. 1 -- Uh, overall it's kind of fun. The active time battles are fast and furious (though easy) and you level up so fast that getting new abilities is interesting enough. There are some laugh-out loud story moments.

2 -- The graphics are really great. FFX is two years old but damn, it's still amazing. Not even because of the technical quality of the graphics, which are superb, but because the levels are damned near beautiful works of art.

Overall, I'm thinking this: FFX-2 is as conceptualized: a quickie, cheap way to make some cash by reusing the graphics sets from FFX and most of the levels. Half the development time, half the staff. The brand-new battle system and mission-based non-linear gameplay do go a bit towards making up for the fact that FFX-2 is a wholesale recycling of old graphics and a shallow, hackneyed, tacked-on extension of a plot that was best left alone.

For me, however, the distaste in my mouth killed some of the fun I was having with the gameplay. I'm just some guy, though. Don't listen to me if you don't want to.

So I'd like to close with what I'd like to see out of Square now that they have lost any qualms about screwing with the integrity of their top series.

5 - Final Fantasy Xtreme Beach Volleyball. You knew that was coming so I figured I'd just get it out of the way. Bonus points if Krile, Rydia, and Relm are playable. Extra bonus points if you can play BOTH versions of Rydia.

4 - Final Fantasy VI-2. Tina becomes an OB/GYN, Umaro and Gogo have a child, and Edgar is gay.

3 - Roricon Densetsu. Like X-2 but with Krile, Rydia (young version) and Relm. Extra bonus points if there's an onsen scene.

2 - Final Fantasy VIII-2. Rinoa can't find Squall anywhere but decides not to go after him because he is a stupid jerk anyway, plus she was just using him to get to Selphie. Lesbian love scene -- in space.

1 - 8-Bit Theater: The Game. Some ROM hacker is probably working on this right now. Square should beat them to it.

- Chris Kohler
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