I got this on Thursday (in another thread I said I may get it, so obviously that happened). I am actually enjoying it better than before. I never been one to go crazy over graphics (I never optimize PC games to perform it could be, for example), but yeah, what they touched up looks very nice.

I...I hesitate to say this, but I am even enjoying Blitzball now. I didn't like it at all back when it came out, but I think 13 years was enough time for me to let go of all the illogical nonsense that mini game is all about and accepted the fact that it's just based on stats. I still really wish it was more of an actiony mini game (it takes place in a HUGE SPHERE but there is only one level of field despite how it looked in that one FMV?), but it is what it is. I am actually enjoying recruiting players and building a team that wipes the floor against other teams. I even won the story based game! Yeah, not a big deal for most of you, but I always got SCREWED HARDCORE when I played the story Blitzball game. The best I did before now was I would get the game into overtime, then one of those Goers would punch Tidus in the balls and score out of nowhere. Also, I took the controls to manual and sucked at that. So, in a way, I felt like the Besaid Aurochs when I FINALLY WON THE MATCH!!

FFX and FFX-2 has always been a...sort of guilty pleasure games for me. They are in the weird area where I recognize the faults and poor game design choices (The Spoony One's Reviews do a good job highlighting some of these problems, if you are not a fan of the guy, take away the camera mugging and accentuating the negative and they are still solid reviews). However, the cast of characters are fun, and the universe of Spira is well thought out in a big picture sense. FFX-2 is pretty cheesy, but it is in an endearing way. It was never meant to be a super serious sequel to me, despite the title, but more of a continuation of a story set in a world that had big problems solved, but a lot of loose ends to tie up, both in a personal and public manner.

So that's two times I kind of ended up summing my opinions on the games/aspects of the games instead of actually talking about first impressions. So long story short is that I am enjoying the game like never before. I didn't even plan on picking up this edition any time soon, but I got it as a gift. I'm glad I did now.