Popping the disc into the PS2, you are greeted with the familiar "Final Fantasy X-2 Project" that introduced us to Tidus and company in the previous game. A beautiful piano score plays while going through the pre-game credits and all the familiar names are there. All the names except one.
Nobuo Uematsu
We're left thinking this may not be a bad thing considering this title screen music is a nice thing to listen to. Then, the "New Game" option is selected, we get our last cold chill of anticipation and then...
Everything goes to Hell.
The music ranges from cheesey seventies-style pop to just God-awful guitar lead solos to the worst battle music in the history of RPG's.
Okay, the music is awful, but how about the gameplay?
The game starts out with you Rikku and Payne attacking a girl on stage who looks like Yuna for reasons we cannot figure out. She has stolen Yuna's dress sphere and the girls are trying to get it back. The game revolves around competing sphere hunter groups, who apparently don't like the idea of playing fair and whoever finds it first, keeps it. Don't think that Yuna and company are different. They are just as morally inept as any other character you may come across.
Which leads us to the characters in this game. It is like Final Fantasy X annoying Yuna and Rikku get even worse this time with a huge boost of Barbie and airheaded cheerleader stereotypes. Payne is tolerable with her tough girl image, but she is no Auron. Each character is introduced with seventies TV show type images, which are straight out of the comparisons we've already heard. It's a bad Charlie's Angels episode.
To add to the "hipness" that some idiot has tried to put into this game, you don't aquire gil or items or anything else. You "score" everything. Yuna has SCORED a potion. Rikku has SCORED some stolem item.
Someone should have SCORED a brain when making this game. Four hours into it and 11% completed, I don't know if this initial impression article will ever be completed by a giving it a full review. If I play this game for 50 hours, I may not be intellegent enough to write out a full review afterward. Every minute I play this game, I feel my IQ getting lower.
However, denvergentleman has gotten further into the game and says the game redeems itself.
"...when I first got the game and got around 4 - 5 hours into it I was ready to put it away forever. I thought that it was total crap.
BUT !!!! all that changed after I completed chapter 2 and got into 3. I am 15 hours into the game and I must say that it is awesome. The Story finally starts to make sense after a while and all the other things you just get used to after a while.
All I can say is just give the game a chance, dont put it down, even though I know that you will want to. Just keep playing and there are some good suprises heading your way".