Why This Game Ended Up Here
I could sing the praises of the Dressphere system for ages; however, the story is just so awful that the battle system simply cannot allow me to place it any higher. Throughout the game I suffered through way too many scenes that tried too hard to be Charlie’s Angels. Two of the cutscenes were basically music videos (with subpar music at that). Even the shift in the story to save the world from Vegnagun failed to save it as it not only came in far too late after all the ridiculousness, but it was also a rather somewhat basic story in comparison to other Final Fantasy titles.
Then you have the whole ending/completion percentage thing going on. It was a great concept; however, I felt highly cheated that all I received for my 100% completion was an extra cutscene that was just an additional conversation between Yuna and the revived Tidus and not a nice pretty extra FMV cutscene. Just like in Final Fantasy II, I do not enjoy this kick to my nuts at all and was quite a lot of time wasted for a very subpar reward.
And speaking of Tidus becoming revived at the end, what a way to completely set fire and negate the emotional ending of Final Fantasy X. In that ending Tidus, whom in reality is nothing but a dream, disappears. The first person he encounters is his father whom, after an entire game of hating him, having to fight and kill him–the two finally reconcile and put it all behind them. All of the power and emotion of that ending is then later turned to crap . Instead of Yuna coming to terms with her love being gone forever, she spends the entirety of Final Fantasy X-2 trying to find him once again making her strong emotional stand at the end of Final Fantasy X completely meaningless.
With these issues, I can’t place Final Fantasy X-2 any higher than here, despite my love for the Dresshpere system. I place far too high of an importance on story to say this game is any better than the other Final Fantasy games that remain.