Final Fantasy X-2 Preview

by Zeromaz, 2002-01-28

Squaresoft is breaking a trend. They have never before made a direct sequel to their Final Fantasy games before. Each incarnation of FF has been a separate game set in its own world with never before seen characters but all that is changing now with the announcement of Final Fantasy X-2.

Final Fantasy X-2 started life as Final Fantasy: Another Lord in which there were going to be two versions made: The Yuna version and the Rikku version. They were two females in the original game that had feelings for the main character Tidus. Square decided to merge both games into one and thus Final Fantasy X-2 was born.

The setting of FFX-2 is two years after the original FFX. Yuna, and Rikku, are part of a group that hunts for spheres all over Spira, the games world. Spheres contain images and audio and are used to record memories, history and important events among other things. This time there are other groups that want to find these spheres themselves.

Technology, once banned in the world of Final Fantasy X, has come to the forefront. In the original FFX technology and man's dependence on it brought about a creature known as Sin that came and destroyed most of the world in the name of the ancient gods of Yeven. It was believed Sin was sent to teach the inhabitants of Spira a lesson but it seems that lesson is now being tossed aside like a pile of old rags.

There are now two new modes in the game: the Mission Select and the Active Link system. The Mission Select system will allow players to fly an airship that the party starts out with to many of Spira's locations and play the game in an episode format so the game will be less linear than FFX was. The Active Link system determines the way that the story will unfold depending on which episodes you played and in which order.

Some of the original characters have been seen in the background in pictures of the game. Lulu is now married to Wakka and they are expecting a child. Kimhari is now the leader of his Ronso tribe. There have been flashes of Tidus and some pictures of Summoning spells making their return. Even Bahamut himself has been seen. In addition there are to be up to eight playable characters of which only three have been announced so far: Paine, Rikku, and Yuna.

There have been some significant changes made to the games over world map. In FFX all one could really do on the overhead map was run and search until a random encounter hit you. Now in FFX-2 platform elements have been added so there will be much more to do instead of just running around and waiting. There will be more complex puzzles to be solved, jumping, mazes, and all sorts of Tomb-Raider like aspects to the over world map exploration.

Combat is also changing. Characters will be able to change Character Class in the middle of a fight to utilize skill-sets of that class. There has been no official mention of how many characters can field the screen at once or if the characters can switch in and out with their off-screen counterparts as they did in the original.

Square decided to return to using a modified version of the Active Time Battle system that was so popular in most of the FF titles up until FFX. Every action a characters takes will decrease some of the ATB gauge.There will also be a way for characters to make multiple attacks and possibly a combo system that will allow characters on screen to make an attack in unison on a target.

Not much else is known at this time but as Square Enix Inc releases news we will make sure to update you on it. Visit us again as details unfold.