I am working my way through the whole Final Fantasy serie, but was particularly excited about this one for some reason (probably because it’s the first with really great PS2 graphics!). I fell in love with Yuna before even knowing who she was, eh.

I am certainly no expert on video games (I just played Final Fantasy stuff) but in my neophyte opinion, it’s a great game. It has flaws, sure, but they are easily beaten by the good points.

First, because I already mentioned them, the graphics. WOW! The movies are great and beautiful of course, but then even VIII and IX were too. What’s really changed is the facial expressions in-game! It makes it so much more enjoyable! Of course, there’s a slight downside to this, and there are really lots and lots and lots of cut-scenes. Somebody on 43T joked that between the 10 hours of cut-scenes, the 2 hours of playing was fun. ;)

But the story is great, so it’s okay. It’s a tad complicated at first, but you really get into it, and start feeling for Spira and Yuna and Tidus and everybody else. The characters are great, fully fleshed, and they make a great team together. In the end, altough I still like Yuna very much, I think Rikku was my favorite! (My boyfriend really loved Auron, too.)

Two of the greatest things introduced in that game, in my opinion, were the turn-based battle system and the sphere grid. I don’t like fast-paced battles because I suck at it (let’s say it like it is!) so this way was perfect for me and allowed me to discover more about the various actions that could be taken (instead of the usual attack-attack-attack). I also really liked being able to switch easily between the characters. Also, the sphere grid was so exciting! It was my favorite part of the battles ;) I wanted to give everything to everyone, but of course that wasn’t realistic in the slightest. Anyway, my boyfriend and I had lots of fun planning who would become what.

I think this game also has a good “play-again” value, which is rarely the case with RPGs. Of course, it might be a bit tedious to get through all the cut-scenes once more, but there is apparently lots of side-stuff (we did almost nothing!) and the sphere grid allows you to change your characters’ strenghts completely.

All in all, a great game. Square tried some new things in it and I loved it! :)

I bought the game when it first came out, but I just beat it recently. The reason why I never got around to finishing it before was because I found the game somewhat boring and totally different from the previous PS1 Final Fantasy games.

Still, I gave it another chance and I came to appreciate a lot of the things that Square did with it. There’s a lot in the game to keep you busy (I didn’t finish all of the side stuff), and it’s incredibly difficult if you’re one of those people who just has to get everything.

At the same time, there are better games in the series (IV, VI, VII), so if you haven’t played them, I’d say go for the those.

I loved this game and spent countless hours playing it.