Goddammit Final Fantasy!

Damn it. I did it again. I picked up another Final Fanstasy game. Dammit. The 2 'tactics' games in the series were an abberation, something mysterious and inexplicable like Stonehenge or the pyramids, probably dropped on the doorstep of Squaresoft by space aliens. Anyways, I started playing Final Fantasy X-2 recently. I'm not sure why. It's got kind of a Charlie's Angels meets Britney Spears meets an anime convention thing going on. The opening sequence of the game consists of a video of the game developers standing in a circle and pissing all over a pile of Final Fantasy games. Or at least it may as well be. Thankfully, I don't hold the series in high regards so the dumb junior high girl vibe of the game doesn't bother me so much. The lighthearted atmosphere isn't altogether unwelcome. It's a nice change from the usual overdone melodramtic stuff.

Someone buried Yuna in the pet cemetary.

Final Fantasy X-2 is maddening. It has some very good features that are overshadowed by several bad ones. For example, I love the character development in the game. It's pretty much the only thing keeping me playing it. Your characters can change job classes anytime, even during battle. You choose the order in which you learn skills in each job class. There are various additional classes that can be located throughout the game. It's a system where I can guide my characters as I wish and there are cool things to find and unlock. I love that. Now the bad: Why the fuck does combat happen in real time? The characters have lots of options and decisions to be made in combat and no time to think about them. So while I'm pondering whether to make Rikku a warrior or digging through my items menu looking for that Echo Screen, the enemies are beating on me. This encourages simple attacking each round because it's much faster. This also means combat is rather frantic (not in a good way) and it's hard to keep tabs on what the enemies are doing, who's immune to what and how much damage everything takes and deals. It's like a chef cooking a master gourmet meal for hours then taking a shit right in the middle of it. Squaresoft could fuck up a wet dream.

The mission system is cool though. The characters are treasure hunters travelling on an airship. You have a list of locations and a description of each one along with a mention of any missions that may be available there. Again, the player is allowed to choose their own way. Kudos. There's the good feature. Now the bad: minigames. Damn your black soul if you put racing games, shooting games or chess/othello board games in my RPG. This should not happen. I bought an RPG. I want combat and character development. Do not make me go through a 10 minute tutorial to play an hour's worth of a shitty, annoying little game to unlock the cool things in the game. If I wanted checkers I'd go to pogo.com. There is even a lesbian back massage minigame. (I'm not joking.) I can take the girls doing little high-fives and cheering. I could take the Yuna teen diva concert opening sequence. God help me I can even take Rikku saying inane things like "Oh poopie!" throughout the game. When you have Yuna riding some half naked blonde chick like a showhorse and pressing buttons to rub her back while she moans and groans...well. I was actually ashamed to be playing the game. There are probably twelve year old japanese kids who jack off to this stuff.

FFX-2: It's good!

It would be better if FFX-2 were actually just a bad game, but it's not. Therein lies the problem with all the games in the Final Fantasy series I've played. If they were simply crap games, I could toss them aside quickly and forget about them. But they've got lot of redeeming qualities and tons of potential offset by, in this case, poor game design. Goddammit Final Fantasy!