Last Wednesday I purchased a copy of Final Fantasy X-2 for the Playstation 2. I enjoyed FFX and thought I'd enjoy FFX-2 as well. I finished it last night. Click "Continue Reading" for my review. Rest assured, there are no spoilers.

Final Fantasy X-2 stars three young ladies, Yuna, Rikku and Paine. Together, they are called the Gullwings, a trio of sphere hunters. There's no linear storyline in the game, one can choose their own path which is pretty unique for a Final Fantasy game. However, I rushed through the game and completed it with only 54% of all the missions done.

The game is broken up into five chapters, each with their own set of missions. You revisit all the areas you went to in FFX but there are some new ones as well. One thing I disliked, though, was how the battle system worked.

You used "dresspheres" to change your outfit, and ultimately, your job in and out of battle. Each dressphere has their own set of abilities and stat changes. What irritated me though, was that it took a full turn to change into, say, a white mage dressphere to be able to heal somebody who's extremely low on HP. In that turn, the person would probably have been delievered the final blow. That has caused me problems quite a few times.

With that aside, I found the game rather lighthearted which is pretty good compared to other FF games. However, things take a really serious turn around Chapter 3.

One feature that sets it further apart from the other FF games is New Game Plus, which started in Square's 1995 hit Chrono Trigger. New Game Plus lets you save after you beat the game and restart it, but import all the abilities, items, money, accessories and dresspheres that you've earned in the first game. However, it doesn't import the character stats such as HP, MP, etc. so that's kind of a letdown. I was hoping to use it to finally reach 9999 HP.

My conclusion: I enjoyed the game but I don't think I should've spent all that money on it in the first place. I don't think it's worth the $49.99 retail price, and not the $40 I spent for it (Bought it from work on cost.) One suggestion is to rent it from Blockbuster or any other place for a week, maybe two. I beat it in 25 hours of gameplay, although I skirted half the missions.