#ff10-2

Character: Rikku

Version: Thief

Series: Final Fantasy X-2

This is the last Final Fantasy game on the backlog (and at June 2016, the game that has been on there the longest), and I’m going to miss talking about the series’ nomenclature at the top of every post. This one must surely be the most egregious, being Ten Two, distinct from Twelve; a very rare direct FF sequel to a game which had a satisfying if bittersweet ending and did not in any way need a sequel at all.

This game is bad. I’m not going to pretend otherwise, and that’s not a spoiler for the end of the review- from concept through to execution, no part of this product is good. Two years after the events of the first (or, uh… tenth?) game, Yuna finds proof that a certain someone might still be kicking around, and so becomes a Sphere Hunter to follow that rabbit hole as deep as it will go. For those lacking the context, this is the Final Fantasy equivalent of going around garage sales buying up old VHS tapes to hopefully find someone who taped that lost episode of Doctor Who.

Honestly the whole package feels cheaply made and rushed and really just like it only exists because someone at Squenix realised graphics technology had become powerful enough to believably render girls in bikinis and they needed an excuse to do that. It’s flimsy and naff and feels like a Wish knockoff of the original game, using just enough of the same assets to ape it without directly infringing on the copyright.

Gone is the entirely bespoke Sphere Grid method of levelling characters, replaced with a… completely bog-standard Lv1-100 system that has almost no customisation whatsoever. Rather than strategically choosing the best character to swap into battle in a given moment, all three characters are functionally identical under the Dress Sphere system, which acts like a mid-battle class change. You can put monsters on your team now! I don’t know why. Battles are somehow active and hectic but also a sluggish mess, no longer the tactical style employed in the original title, now favouring a return to the old ATB system with added faff. New girl Paine (who I suspect is only here because they couldn’t convince anyone that Lulu would hop around in a swimsuit) is instructed to use the Power Break ability when her turn comes up, and then… proceeds to stand still for another twenty years charging it up before she can use it, even though it was already her turn.

All of the music has been entirely remade from the ground up, with not a single track carried over from the original. Series composer Nobuo Uematsu was not involved at all here, citing his work on other projects as a conflict in the schedule. Running around familiar locations with music that is somewhat similar but not quite right REALLY adds to the knockoff feel, and I suspect his conflicting schedule was ‘holy smokes I will work on literally anything else so I don’t have to waste my time on this’. The music is honestly awful, technically competent but tonally disastrous, and I hate it.

Fin or Bin:

Despite all its flaws, there is still yet something compelling about the game, and I’m not talking about the bikinis. I have tentatively called Ten my favourite FF game before, and it is just fascinating to watch it be so wholly mutilated- to see the same world done in as many wrong ways as could be imagined. I had to see more, I just had to keep going, and that technically makes this a Fin- but I got as far as seeing the ruins of Zanarkand which since the first title have been turned into a tacky tourist destination, and Yuna remarks how it hurts to see something so beloved and meaningful be turned into cashgrab slop, and the sheer lack of self-awareness on display was injurious. I really wanted to get through to the end just to say I had done so, but I think I’m pulling the ripcord.