I want to make it known that I think FFX-2 is mid in spite of the gaudy pop music and lighthearted tone. I'm not one of those joyless misogynistic freaks who hates the tone change of the sequel. I actually like it a lot and I think it fits well in a world rediscovering its identity post-theocratic fiasco.
FFX-2's biggest flaws are in its nonlinearity and heavy padding with shitty minigames and side objectives. I desperately wanted to like this game more than I did; diving into Yuna's character growth transforming a selfless martyr into someone who's finally trying to live for herself (and notably stumbling along the way, as anyone would) is FFX-2's greatest strength. Solving her identity crisis is baked into the game's systems - with dresspheres, the greater political conflict between New Yevon and the Youth League, and party members Rikku and Paine.
I unfortunately could not tolerate sitting through the awful open-ended chapter structure (as opposed to FFX's hallway storytelling which I much prefer) and poor side objectives. Rikku and Paine also don't get nearly as much character spotlight as they deserve - with Rikku basically unchanged since FFX and Paine being no deeper than her relevance to the much less interesting larger plot. I think the dressphere system in battle is nice but not nice enough to make me jump through hoops in order to get all of the cool hidden classes. Even with its much shorter runtime than FFX, X-2 finds ways to pad itself drastically.
The soundtrack is also way worse.
Maybe I'll come back someday, but I think I'm better off just watching the important cutscenes on YouTube.
FFX-2's biggest flaws are in its nonlinearity and heavy padding with shitty minigames and side objectives. I desperately wanted to like this game more than I did; diving into Yuna's character growth transforming a selfless martyr into someone who's finally trying to live for herself (and notably stumbling along the way, as anyone would) is FFX-2's greatest strength. Solving her identity crisis is baked into the game's systems - with dresspheres, the greater political conflict between New Yevon and the Youth League, and party members Rikku and Paine.
I unfortunately could not tolerate sitting through the awful open-ended chapter structure (as opposed to FFX's hallway storytelling which I much prefer) and poor side objectives. Rikku and Paine also don't get nearly as much character spotlight as they deserve - with Rikku basically unchanged since FFX and Paine being no deeper than her relevance to the much less interesting larger plot. I think the dressphere system in battle is nice but not nice enough to make me jump through hoops in order to get all of the cool hidden classes. Even with its much shorter runtime than FFX, X-2 finds ways to pad itself drastically.
The soundtrack is also way worse.
Maybe I'll come back someday, but I think I'm better off just watching the important cutscenes on YouTube.