Just FYI, I am one of the few people who, at 12, decided to play this first having no idea it was even a sequel. I loved it because my mind had to fill in the context and when I then played the original, I was like "OH DANG so they were like that before?". I don't recommend it now, but 12yo me fell in love with the series here.
That's really interesting! I love hearing stories about people entering franchises at wierd points and learning to love them all the same. I know someone who's first Kingdom Hearts was 358/2 Days lol.
About the story being about Yuna moving on, There is a scene that you can get if you press X on the cutscene that plays when chapter 5 ends, the one where Yuna and the girls are walking away. If you didn't do this in an earlier cutscene when yuna was stranded in the farplane. the scene you get really concludes yuna's arc very well. If you want to see it, look up "Final Fantasy X-2 Sad ending". To summerize, Yuna hear's Tidus's Whistle, looks around, and his spirit appears behind her, holding her like he did before he faded away. She realizes that Tidus was with her the whole time, even now. She tells him that she's not worried anymore, that they will always will always be connected. Tidus vanishes, and Yuna says the last words she said to him before. Either thank you or I love you, with a smile, and then leaves. This really does feel like a conclusion the game was always heading towards, but they couldn't commit and added the tidus coming back scene last minute. I'm happy that Yuna and Tidus can be happy together, but that ending feels more thematically fitting.
yeah I've always felt that's the best ending to yunas story. thematically it's consistent with X's ending. of course the fan in me wants them to be happy together so I'm glad that can happen but man the "Yuna moves on" ending is so consistent with X's themes it makes me upset the novel exists.
Not to mention that if you actually want the "Perfect Ending" you have to do a lot of relatively out of the way stuff to even get the option to want Tidus back, all of which are permanently missable per playthrough It's honestly really cool
I prefer the ending where it's Yuna moving on. Tidus was a dream, let's be real. The sad ending matches the bulk of X-2's story, because most of it is about Yuna respecting the past, but finding her way forward and making peace with it in the end. Why would the developers otherwise make the happy ending where Tidus comes back so hard for the player to even see? Also, they left room for the happy ending reincarnation to not even be the same Tidus from X, where he is a new dream or something, or from the same cloth as Shuyin, but that could be my own interpretation. Essentially, the Fayth was supposed to die off completely, but at the end of the original X, you see Tidus balled up in the water, alluding to the fact that something could still be creating versions of him. Either way, I was just fine with the sad ending concluding Yuna's character arc for X-2, and I wasn't less happy for her, because it made total sense - Tidus was never real.
"Hey, you know that guy The Completionist? Let me know if he ever makes a video on this game." Don't worry, I don't think he's going to be making videos much longer.
hmm Strange I got 100% by getting all the specific spheres to do pine secret quest and doing all the mission objective. you can skip the cut scene every story level all the location have its own unique quest do them all and get all these spheres.
The Besaid theme for X-2 really has that feeling like you’re coming back to your hometown for the first time in years- everything has changed but so much is still the same.
To me the line Rikku says in Zanarkand Ruins "Oh yeah, it does sound like Issaru" always read as her saying "Oh yeah that does sound like Issaru's voice" not "Monkey sounds similar to Issaru" as it does in the Japanese.
IIRC, the reason Shuyin sees Yuna as Lenne is because Yuna's Dancer dressphere contains Lenne's soul (which is why Yuna's Dancer outfit is the same as Lenne's), and Yuna is sort of able to channel her soul when using the dressphere. As for why Shuyin looks and fights like Tidus, when the fayth created Dream Zanarkand I think they were preserving the memory of the city and its people, and populated it with dream versions of people from Zanarkand. Shuyin was from Zanarkand, and Tidus is the dream version of him.
So... this is sort True and sort of not true. It's stated, I think in an interview, that Dream Zanarkand has its own people. Like they can have kids that never existed in real Zanarkand. So, rather then Tidus being a version of Shuyin that was preserved, I'm pretty sure he was made in Dream Zanarkand too intentionally help break the cycle in Spira. They likely used Shyuin as a base, as in his time in actual Zanarkand he seemed pretty outspoken against the War using Summoners the way they do. Meaning he was likely, as Tidus, too follow a similar path.
Shuyin’s body was part of Sin’s Fayth up until the Mushroom Rock campaign wounded Sin. Shuyin’s body exited Crystal Stasis after Sin was defeated and was later found by the Crimson Squad
I always felt that after a thousand years the fayth's memory begin to get vague so Tidus was a poorly remembered copy of Shuyin, however we find out he is also his own person now. The reason the fayth didn't give Tidus a girlfriend is because his relationship with Lenne was a secret.
19:22 - When you get your first Special Dressphere, you also get the Unerring Path Garment Grid. It's literally just two connected nodes, which makes it really quick and easy to go straight to a special form.
It is, but essentially, you can go straight into ultimate mode and unlimited power over and over. It's cheap and broken but fun. True worst stats. I think actually none just a blank excuse to go super sayin in 2 seconds. Riku's is my favorite. Paine's is second. Yuna's is aight.
X-2 is so underrated. the job class system is so fun with this one, and the remake added more jobs to the west. if you are someone that likes maxing out games, this is the one for you. 100% takes A LOT
My FFX/X-2 platinum trophy is my pride and joy. I hope FFX/X-2 gets a remake in my life time or even a spiritual successor with the same battle system as FFX-2.
A game that requires you to read ALL THE FUCKING DIALOGUE IN THE ENTIRE FUCKING THING WITHOUT MISSING ONE FUCKING WORD is an awful game for completionists.
@@darkenkil4416 Fucking this man. I loved getting 100% on X, but I missed one stupid optional cctv cutscene of a balloon floating and it locked me out of 100% on that playthrough. I like X-2 but the platinum is total aids
I loved 13. The combat intrigued me, trying to figure out how to stagger every opponent was fun. The first few hours, I was just powering my way through, but when I started experimenting with the teams' roles more and more I couldn't stop. And the story started gripping me more the further I got. Also, the further I got, the more invested I got into each character. But the first few hours were definitely my least favourite FF start. I hated it at the start and was convinced I wouldn't get past 10 hours.
Gameplay wise, 13 has some issues tbh, it's a very nice and unique gameplay, but the gameplay felt unfinished, and 13-2 actually does a much better job at it imo. But the graphics, the story, the characters, the universe of 13 are the reason this game is my fav ff ever. I highly recommend - if not to play it - at least to watch a youtube movie of it if you're into that, there are some great ones out there.
As has been proven many times over the years... Just because someone wrote a good story in a certain world doesn't mean that they're only full of good ideas when it comes to expanding that world or characters... That being said, I literally laughed out loud while you were talking about the 2.5 book, so that's worth something.
They made it pretty clear in the game that Tidus is not from Zanarkand from 1000 years ago. Tidus is from dream Zanarkand, which is a recreation of Zanarkand from 1000 years ago, but there's no confirmation that everyone is a one-to-one recreation on each and every person.
Pretty much. It's implied that the people living in Dream Zanarkand are descendants of the original inhabitants - or rather, their memories/spirits. Thus Tidus is a reincarnation of Shuyin, just as Yuna is the reincarnation of Lenne.
I assumed the Zanarkand dream was originally a one-to-one recreation of the original, but after hundreds of years, the dream began to slowly drift. It's why the fayth wanted to help Tidus and friends to destroy Sin. They didn't want to lose themselves completely. As for Tidus, you could say that since Lenne's soul became a dress sphere, she didn't have a version of herself in the dream, causing Shuyin's dream-self to become more bitter and insecure, eventually becoming what Tidus was at the start of FFX.
While I'm not saying you're incorrect with the info provided here, I'll disagree that they made it clear. The whole "Zanarkand but not quite it's actually out to sea" thing is peak convoluted Final Fantasy "Huh??"ness.
@@Mayeur000DonzThere might actually be some hints in optional dialogue but I don't think it's downright stated "Oh yeah there's a dream version of your home floating above Baaj temple and Sin hangs around there usually"
@@candle340 reimarnation is the wrong word here. Tidus certainly is a reflection of Shuyin. I don't think the game establishes an actual link beween Lenne and Yuna though. Yuna has her dresssphere so she sorta looks like her but that"s it.
X-2’s unironically one of my favorite Final Fantasy games- maybe even just one of my favorite games- to me it feels like such a perfect followup to X that shows how a world and the people in it move on from only knowing tragedy that just so happens to play out through magical girl dress up and J-pop haha
Hey it’s been awhile since you’ve posted I see. I hope the best for you and that you may return with more of your retrospective content. I know there’s a limit to final fantasy games but maybe you can do even more franchises besides just final fantasy? Either way, wish you well dude me and the ol lady have really been e joying your content
I love x-2! It deeply influenced 10 year old me (yes, I wanted to be Paine more than anything), YRP foreverrrr ❤ it's not a perfect time, but it's a heckin fun time!
10-2 was one of my favorite final fantasy. There was like a "badass women" trend in the early 2000 with charlie's angels, the resident evil movies, ect. And i was there for it
Hell yeah, late 90s/early 00s girl power media was fire. So fun. Charlie's Angels, Milla in Resident Evil, The Powerpuff Girls, Final Fantasy X-2, The Spice Girls, Super Gals! (anime), even Avril Lavigne.
@@noctissama3146 No, now we have women pretending to be men, we like women heroes for different reasons that we like male heroes, the male heroic fantasy is separate from the female heroic fantasy(but they do have similarities, wich is why shows like Buffy, and a lot of early-mid 2000s "girls" shows(totally spies, Winx, Witch) actually had a sizeable male audience, and why shonen/shoujo manga usually have an almost 50/50 split), while japan and other countries still remember this basic reality, the west has knowingly decided to ignore it.
@@qaztim11 theres nothing wrong with masculine women, and the media needs more reprensentaion of actual masc women. im sick and tired of people like YOU saying that theres something wrong with a mascline woman
If we ever get a FFX-3.... I sort of hope it just treats 2.5/Will as if it never happened. I'd personally enjoy a next-generation sequel which followed new characters in a Spira decades in the future. I'd also enjoy a sequel where we explored the lands outside of Spira, expanding on X-2's theme of "forging a new path" in the process. If a theoretical X-3 did continue off of Will's ending... I probably would play it, though with some trepidation. Anyways, I really enjoyed this retrospective! Excellent work, as usual, BrandoSP ^_^
NGL I loved how X-2 took a buffet style approach to story. You have everything place in front of you and can decide what order you want to do things, if at all
7:09 Not just the dressphere but her entire garment grid, which is how LeBlanc turned into Yuna. Dresspheres don't alter the users appearance so drastically on their own.
So here's what I was wondering....was Yuna a legit pop star already or did Leblanc have her garment grid long enough to build up enough of a career to get booked at a huge arena with a sellout crowd?
@@starhew2868Yuna already had the reputation of being the "Hero who saved the world," or more accurately the summoner who finally ended Sin forever. With that reputation, you hear they wanna throw a concert, a person would be curious to attend, even if they end up being a terrible singer.
The infamous "Price of Eternity" X.2.5 novel has been translated in a few languages. I've had the opportunity to read the french translation and I can now proudly say that the book sits at the top of my shelf as the worst piece of litterature I've ever had the displeasure of reading. truly something that has to be read to be believed.
The novel is NOT Japanese exclusive. It's been translated (officially, I mean) into a few languages. I have it myself in Spanish and I know it is in French too
My theory on why I think the game in so hard to get the "official ending" is that it was intentional because they knew everything afterwards was such dog water that they were trying to save everyone from the pain from looking into it any further. Still love the series. Thanks for blasting me with nostalgia from the video and the FFX one!
36:25 Wasn't it that they translated Rikku to reference the voice talking to them sounding like Isaru's voice? At least, that's what I thought when I played it.
Yeah, the actual conversation is: Yuna - guesses password. Issaru - OK, um, what is the meaning of life? Yuna - Is that you, Issaru? Rikku, yeah, it does sound like Issaru.
You are spot on about the CGI of X in 2001. The first time my roommate and I played through X, the transitions from gameplay to FMV would usually get a verbal exclamation of "whoa!" or something. It was stellar and those FMVs are still freaking incredible compared to many games these days.
Maybe an unpopular opinion, but I think 10-2 game play wise is the most fun out of all the FF games. Collecting the dress Spheres and max leveling them for each character was a blast. As well as hunting for the incredibly hard/ hidden ones like the Lady luck dress Sphere, where you fight with actual dice. Maybe it's nostalgia but I remember the fondness for this game specifically. And I've played every final fantasy to date 😅
I listen and sleep to Lightwaves and the music box version still to be blunt.. Fell in love with this game in grade 5, felt hella empowered by it and it crafted a lot of my attitudes … Bless this video 😭
1. Rikku saying “that does sound like issaru” makes complete sense. The question he asks is “what is the meaning of life”. You already gave the password of monkey before this section plays out. 2. The Yeavon guards in Kilika; You’re told why they’re there before, during, and after that sequence. Not sure how you missed that. 3. 100% is easy, this game has NG+ and all your % carries over. There is also 110% available, so you don’t have to do everything just most. Other than that solid video homie, solid takes.
10-3 should be about braska, Auron and jecht. Imagine from humble beginnings. They don't really get along, then through tough battles becomes friends until the end. Then see Auron visit tidus as a child. Be so heart breaking to have to fight Auron as jecht to become the final aeon and save him and spira.
I'd be down for a new cast of characters as long as it's not too far in the past or future. I love the world of Spira and it would be a shame if it was barely recognizable
I disagree. We already know most of their story, so there would be pretty much nothing to surprise us with. The game would largely be repeating a lot of things we've already seen in ff10. I can't deny part of me would be interested anyway, but I don't think there's anywhere near enough there to sustain a long game.
@@ahumanbeingfromtheearth1502 remakes of older games seem to be the trend nowadays and those sell like hot cakes even though we literally know the whole story. A next-gen prequel followed by a proper remake would make a lot of sense. There are lots of plot points that could be fleshed out
@@YustinJ420I think it would work if the two pilgrimages werent so close together. It’s only been 10 years after all, basically all of the locales would just be the same, theit journey also seemed to be quite a bit less eventful, no sin fights/raids, Braska never gets involved with the maesters or kidnapped by the al bhed, they all know Braska dies at the end. you’d only get so much time out of the character dynamic before it’d get stale imo.
I cannot begin to express the bittersweet nightmare that was FFX-2 with the official PiggyBack guide and trying to get 100%. Honestly, there was about 6 minigames I just COULDN'T max out and it broke me. And if there's anything I hate with the fire of a thousand suns, its FF minigames. Its like 60% side stuff. Whereas in most games its like "ok, main story segment done time to do a little side stuff before movign on," in X-2 its like "ok, lots of side stuff done time to do the little story stuff that remains this chapter." It feels so odd. The game is such a mess but there's some good in it too.
Yes. I absolutely loathed Chocobo Catcher and the Butterfly game in X. The mini games make you just want to throw your controller in anger and frustration!!!
@@Whyteroze28 IKR. Some FF games I honestly deduct a whole point out of 10 for their ghastly minigames. Like for example, FFX is easily an 8, but it gets a 7 for is celestial weapon minigame nonsense and blitzball haha I'd give X-2 a 7.5 but because of most of the side stuff/minigames, its a 6.5.
I love this game more than 1000 words can explain. ❤ And I still have my Eternal Calm disc I got from the Official U.S. Playstation Magazine with Paine on the cover (and more information about her).
Great retrospective but saying you don't care for either Real Emotion or 1000 Words should be a crime. Both hold up so well even after all these years.
Morning Glow from Final Fantasy X-2 Vocal Collection: Yuna is another gorgeous variation on Eternity ~Memory of Lightwaves~ with vocals and lyrics. All of the instrumental version (including the magical, luminous Eternity~Band Member Performance~) are also flawless and gorgeous, like really really really gorgeous. And if Epilogue ~ Reunion~ doesn't make you cry when you finally achieve the Good Ending, wait til you get to the astonishing melodies in Wind Crest ~The Three Trails~ from the International Version. RIP my eyes from so much crying.
The timing of this video is so funny to me. I just went and bought the switch version of this game along with 7 and 8 after watching your first retrospective video on this game. I open UA-cam a few hours later and here is part 2 of that video.
I love that you pointed out that one of the ways you might know the answer to the riddle in the Zanarkand ruins is just by knowing Isaaru's voice cuz, like, yeah that's exactly what I did lol. I'm a big ol English voice acting nerd so I recognized Quinton Flynn's voice right away. Otherwise, yeah, that's a bit of a translation blunder on their part.
I dont think so tbh. When Rikku points out that it does sound like Issaru, that could be just them framing it from the option the player picks "Is that you Issaru?" Then Yuna says his name as if to ask if thats him, and then Rikku adds hey that does sound like Issaru, confirming what Yuna said. I think it still fits. Not in the original context of course, but i dont see this as a mistranslation.
I feel that some context / details are missing when summarizing the novel. Yuna and Tidus go away and at some point start arguing. Out of frustration Tidus mistakes a bomb for a blitzball. Yuna faints in shock. When Yuna wakes up to a dead Tidus she brought him back but also undid literally everything about FFX. Yes she brought back Sin. Tidus didn't come back the same. She brought back a Tidus with his unresolved daddy issues. The "in love with somebody else" line in the audio drama is referring to the version of Tidus she lost on the beach. Does this excuse the novel and audio drama? Lol no
what? that not how the novel went, Yes she brought back Tidus but later on the island which was besida more then 1000 years ago she learned from other summoners at the time the true extent a summoner can controlle pyrfile to bring things into existen so pyrfile became a deus ex machine and it also explain how Yu Yevon created Sin with the pyfrile from the farplan. The thing is he told Yuna, if Tidus ever remeber he died he disapear for good. So she distance from him not to lose him, thats why the line, i am in love in someone else refer to making him go away or else he would remember he died and puff gone.
@@Wakka1993yeah it's still stupid. and the thing about pyreflies has been around since X because we know sin is made of pyreflies and we know you yevon made sin. pyreflies being powerful isn't new. what's stupid is what they do with them in the novel. the novel just shouldn't exist.
@@chrisdaughen5257 just a random bomb for all we know. the novela has yet to be translated officially or by fans. all we know is from some people who instead of translating it summarized it.
@@chrisdaughen5257 If i remember it was a bomb that looks like a blitzball left behind i guess from wars who knows, Tidus and Yuna had a little fight and Tidus klick the blitzball bomb out of furstration and boom and Yuna just faint. If you ask me it was just stupid to make Tidus and Yuna fight even to beginn with lol.
..... I have been burned so many times trying to 100% x2 in one play through... since the ps2 release. Even with the official ps2 guide with pictures and step by step. The HD version, I've tried one walkthrough, and mixing 2 or three to confirm I'm doing everything right... But still, I'm missing percentages. You're right. This is one of the games we're it's not worth it to 100%... but I can't stop it's an obsession at this point 😂 Enjoying your video dude, good job
I 100% completed the game once following a very specific guide. Never again. UA-cam exists. Just watch a video of the ending. Real Emotion and 1000 words, I'm not going to lie they are catchy as hell and I enjoy them.
Final Fantasy X 2 is like a direct to DVD Disney sequel. It's fun to revisit the world and see what characters are up to after the events of the first game but fails to capture the magic of the original.
As soon as you said 100%, I stopped what I was doing and slowly turned to my monitor with wide eyes. 14 year old me with 50 printed out pages of a guide trying to get it to only notice I was a % behind at 65%. Soul crushing.
The second you said: "Eternity Memories of Light an waves had no business going that hard," I came here to type out my agreement, Then you let it play, and the nostalgia came flooding in, I adore this song, but I hate the way it makes me feel. Melancholy, and the sadness of nostalgia.
one of the best channels on youtube! Fun story: this was my first Final Fantasy game. I rented it from the video store as a kid when I was young because the cover art grabbed me so much. I loved the character designs and wanted to know more, not realizing this was a sequel. This was one of the first games I ever bought a strategy guide for just because I loved it that much. The funny thing is, I never beat it. I bought my own copy of the game, and immediately after the 1000 Words scene, when the old man is telling you his big lore dump, he would just hang on one of his lines. I redid it over and over and it never progressed past that. And now, I still haven't set the time aside to replay it and finally get past that point. But watching this video has really given me the motivation to try and beat this game again and relive those experiences that defined myself growing up. I remember singing 1000 Words to my mom because I loved the song so much. And it was one of the first songs I had on my iPod. Watching this video was such a cathartic experience for me, and I can't wait for the next one. Thanks BrandoSP. :)
ayo basically me. I rented it because it looked cool, had little to no idea wtf was going on with the world, but did indeed have a good time for the short time I rented it
Hello. First of all, thanks, I'm really glad people still enjoy and watch my videos. Complex life circumstances have made me unable to upload any videos to UA-cam. I'm not dead, but I won't be able to post anything in the near future. I don't know how long. I'm still making videos though, and one day hope to post them, but I don't know when that will be. Understandably, because of the nature of UA-cam, even when I do post them, I could be completely screwed in terms of the algorithm and my channel could never pick back up. If I come back and they do well, then that's great. If they don't, then I guess everything up to now was just luck, and I never had the sauce in the first place. Hope to post new things one day. Hope you'll watch them. Till next time.
@@ThBrandoyou definitely have the sauce. Sometimes what you find interesting is missed by others as they might not have a deep connection to it like with this video. It’s up to you whether it’s worth your time or not. It however isn’t because you are bad at what you do. I love this kind of content on UA-cam and I was always excited to see you in my feed. I hope you conquer whatever complications life is dealing you and find the passion again. But if you don’t, totally fair, thanks for providing joy for the time you did. Hundreds of thousands of people have had a better day because of you!
@@ThBrandoHope those life circumstances improve or allow you to still put more videos up in the future! Either way great work & thank you for the videos so far
hey ! hope ur all good !! Came to check for some new vids and nothing new :O Hope to see you come back at some point as I love the content :) (if thats what you want to do of course!)
I always assumed Rikku's "that sounds like isaaru" was just remarking on yknow, hearing Isaaru's voice. If you hadn't told me here that it's a saru isaaru pun I never would have guessed! I'm willing to bet the localizers probably misinterpreted it that way too and overlooked the pun.
I Stan the “Tidus is made up from the base of shuyin.” It makes perfect sense, Tidus is a dream, dreams have some level of logical interpretation. Tidus was just the dream interpretation of shuyin.
59:49 I relate so much to this. Used to get so wrapped up in the melancholy of saying goodbye forever to characters I'd grown to love in a story, wanted so badly to have something more. But now we look at properties like Terminator or Alien, which lasted way beyond the point of sensibility and now the only reason we'd want to see more is to see if they can finally quell all the uncertainty these unneccessary extensions provided.
X-2 is certainly not without its faults. While I like the magical girl inspired elements, the fanservice makes me deeply cringe. Some songs are great, but others are...let's just say their chocobo theme is probably the worst in the series of all time. And a lot of the dialogue makes me want to shut the game off. But it's also FUN to play--they mastered the job class system here, and I love getting to see Yuna front and center. It's not a perfect game, but I ended up enjoying it way more than I expected to. Also, listening to you describe the plot of the book and audio drama sent shivers down my spine. Yikes. When I was younger, I also used to hate it when stories ended. Growing up, playing games like the FFXIII series and watching new Star Wars content taught me that sometimes it was okay for things to end. The new entries kept lessening the impact of the ending to the original content. So I didn't play Lightning Returns and I don't watch the new Star Wars films, and I think it was the right decision for me. If a X-3 ever happened, I think I would skip it. We don't need a sequel at this point.
You are not the only one who thinks that. Some stories are not meant to end happily. The ending of X was legendary. It was bittersweet and poetic in a way. Honestly I tried playing this one but I couldn’t stomach it. In some ways it kinda sullied my original experience with X. But like you said in fiction you decide what you want to experience or not
the ONE thing i never understood about ffx-2 is that they changed almost every enemies names. seemingly for no reason. also machina being weak to thunder in ffx and absorbing thunder in ffx-2 was a weird change
Fiends in Spira are souls of the dead who didn't find peace. Before the Eternal Calm, Summoners used to send the dead into the Farplane who mostly died due to Sin. After that ended, one could argue that the new Fiends are instead based on Sin's leftover pyreflies so what we're essentially fighting are a new set of fiends. Machina were probably developed to overcome their previous weakness.
I can't believe they contrived Tidus back into life just to kill him again then cuck him unceremoniously. Like. Does Nojima hate Tidus? Unless they wanted to do the equally horrid "I push you away to protect you" plot I don't know why else they would take the story in this direction. Wait, no, that's totally why they did it. Sin "somehow" returns so Yuna's gonna go sacrifice herself and breaks Tidus' heart so he doesn't stop her or do it himself. After that it's just a "choose your cliché" on how it all plays out.
You know what would be an amazing plot twist? If it turned out that "Tidus" and "Sin" were all just dreamt up by one Fayth that refused to move on, and so desperately tries to recreate the plot of FFX in order to get a nostalgia trip going for Yuna and stay relevant. Yuna realizes that it's all just a farce and refuses to participate in any of it; by rejecting "Tidus" and refusing to dwell on the past, "Sin" also just sort of disappears unceremoniously. Granted, we probably still have an angry Fayth to put down before it tries to destroy the world, but at least Yuna is clearly learning to move on.
@@imveryangryitsnotbutter I don't know about the details of that awful novel or audio drama, so that sounds harsh on Tidus, but that doesn't sound like the worst idea. Now if this plot came straight after X-2, that would be soooooooo much better.
You should probably have listened to it and have basic knowledge of the other story before saying that, she didn't cuck him, or imagine anything, and this video was probably the least genuine explanation as to what actually happened ever making it sound worse than it was. He went into how tidus died again and was brought back, he completely skipped over all the details and nuances about how he came back again he also completely skipped over how sin came back. they're very similarly related, and tidus doesn't know he died again and Yuna doesn't want him involved and finding out because she could lose him again, so to protect him she leaves, and lulu even basically call Tidus an idiot for not seeing through Yunas words and motive. to the plot of will, potentially X-3, and the novella story, this video was the laziest and disingenuous recap of everything I've ever seen. weather it makes the plot good or more interesting is up to you, but this video was absolute crap at explaining anything properly.
@@Ronin11111111 Yeah, the FFX-Will referred to it as a strong "Beckoning" that brings the dead back to life entirely(?) as others including dead NPC families coming back to life at the moonflow, as well as the dead shoopuff, Yuna knows what's going on because it's basically how she brough Tidus back to life, but the plot ends on why would someone bring Sin back. With Tidus chasing down Yuna with Auron's "Daughter". and thats where it ends. So it'll be a pretty weird and hit or miss story for people, but nowhere near as atrocious and nonsensical as this guy tried to make it seem, since the groundwork was pretty well thought out.
I think that FF10-3 plan was created based on the crappy common Japanese belief that the best part of your life is over when you stop being a teenager. The idea that they would become a power couple who could lead the world together sounds too fantastical to the majority of Japanese writers
I doubt this is true for Final Fantasy. Fran and Balthier are a power couple that consists of adults. Locke and Celes as well. The recent Final Fantasy 16 game is featuring the main character and his childhood crush being a power couple after being reunited in their adult years.
Sadly everything post FFX greatly cheapens the experience, meaning, and characters arcs in FFX. The bizarre novel and audio drama are the worst culprits, but X-2 doesn't get off the hook either. This video illustrates this point really well
If they do make a X-3, I sincerely hope they completely disregard the novel and audio drama. X-2 was already divisive enough with the directions it took.
22:16 "We're all trapped in a maze of relationships / Life goes on with or without you" - Shihoko Hirata, Pursuing My True Self (Opening Theme of Persona 4)
I confess I *am* glad I 100%-ed X-2 (carefully using guides, but I do that anyway) but only because my first playthrough I messed up and couldn't complete the Den of Woe storyline and thus didn't have all of the context for what was going on with Shuyin and the Crimson Quartet, Paine's full backstory, or why she would or did care so much about these guys. I do prefer the Good Ending over the Perfect Ending, that final cutscene is very "thanks I didn't ask and like the ambiguity of you just being rebirthed by Besaid's waters tyvm", but I concede the Sad Ending really is the most thematically resonant. I just can't help getting choked up when Yuna realizes the fayth *did* bring him back and the sheer joy of finally, no-caveats *winning.* They really got me with these two I'm not gonna lie; I didn't understand as a kid but as an adult I'm really touched by their love story of giving each other hope and teaching each other to live for themselves before anyone else. Also I confess I *am* the weird strawman you addressed who chose to play X-2 before X, but! That's because I did play them both a little as a kid and had stronger memories of liking the story of X-2 better but *bombing* at the gameplay, so I wanted to give it a try as an adult first before replaying X which I remembered less but understood the gameplay better. (I did the same with Dragon Age: played Inquisition all the way through, then got halfway through Origins, and then played all of II, then finished Origins. It's a pattern and no I don't understand it either. Maybe it's the same reason I read a plot synopsis before I watch a movie lol)
Final Fantasy X there is no such thing as trying not to 100% every time I played that game. I always ending up wanting the celestial weapons all aeons, but I'll tell you this I ended up getting ptsd from the chocobo balloon challenge race....
Tidus returning was a thing since X. His being reborn and swimming up is the last scene of X. They even reuse the cinematic at the beach reunion. So don’t believe it “came out of nowhere”
You already mentioned about the theme of the game being about moving on but i'm surprised you didn't discuss one of the alternate "sad" endings that tackled exactly that where Yuna accepts that Tidus is gone and was able to move on showing how much she has grown during her entire journey It may have gone down as one of the saddest endings in the franchise but it would have given one of the most powerful message and was very thematically in line with both games the happy ending just doesn't sit right with me and i felt like it was just the devs giving the players a bone to not spark an outrage
found your channel yesterday. march 6 2024... yes im from the future in New Zealand xx and i watched your whole XIII series and X now this hahaha. subscriber i am
I think the characters still have some stat Differences even as the same job so there still not identical. The much bigger difference is the animations that the characters have in each class. Since its not full turned based like 10 it can actually make a big difference. While it might not matter a lot of the time in harder content it can mean the difference in Winning or dying. For example rikku as a gunner does a twirl with the guns before firing which makes her much worse as a gunner than yuna or even Paine.
The characters have the same stats, but different EXP growth, Paine levels up faster per example, some Dresspheres are unique for each character though (Mascot, Festivalist, and their limit break Spheres for example). Also I didn't even know the animations had some kind of impact gameplay wise, so tbh I feel like it is an FFXII situation where a lot of people exaggerate how much the tiny animation difference matters, if I run the game blind, don't even notice that and manage to beat all the content fine, with the difficulty coming from the fights and not slightly slower animation speeds that is all I need to know.
@@madlaz9575 like i said most of the time its not a big deal but when your trying to do the secret end game dungeon and a enemy can hit you for 50000 damage or cast ultimate ect the animation difference can matter ive literally had riku die before shooting something before it reached her because of the twirl i mentioned earlier
The moment you introduce a character named Shinra who ends up having ideas about harnessing the lifeforce of the planet as energy you basically open the floodgates for them "FF7 and FF10 share a universe" discussions. Ultimately I'm in the camp of they share a universe. It's just a neat thing to me. Also, Tidus comin back basically out of nowhere is like the opposite of how KH basically built up that Roxas, Xion, TAV, and Naminé[her sorta less so]would come back through like three games before KH3. Their returns were built up, X-2 Tidus is just...boom, there he is. And then X-2.5 is fucking...boom there he goes cuz he's fucking stupid. And then boom...there he is again.
This video was awesome it's great to see such great and though content about a series that's so near to my heart also moonbow is amazing I can't stop listening I lover there rendition of beside island
I believe it’s a real dark thing that we consider bad/ambiguous endings to be objectively better than happy endings, nowadays. This is why I love X-2: you get to see the fruits of your labor and earn a happy ending to the colorful death-march that was FFX.
Just FYI, I am one of the few people who, at 12, decided to play this first having no idea it was even a sequel. I loved it because my mind had to fill in the context and when I then played the original, I was like "OH DANG so they were like that before?". I don't recommend it now, but 12yo me fell in love with the series here.
That's really interesting! I love hearing stories about people entering franchises at wierd points and learning to love them all the same. I know someone who's first Kingdom Hearts was 358/2 Days lol.
Same. It was my first Final Fantasy game and I really enjoyed it for a lot of the same reasons
About the story being about Yuna moving on, There is a scene that you can get if you press X on the cutscene that plays when chapter 5 ends, the one where Yuna and the girls are walking away. If you didn't do this in an earlier cutscene when yuna was stranded in the farplane. the scene you get really concludes yuna's arc very well. If you want to see it, look up "Final Fantasy X-2 Sad ending".
To summerize, Yuna hear's Tidus's Whistle, looks around, and his spirit appears behind her, holding her like he did before he faded away. She realizes that Tidus was with her the whole time, even now. She tells him that she's not worried anymore, that they will always will always be connected. Tidus vanishes, and Yuna says the last words she said to him before. Either thank you or I love you, with a smile, and then leaves.
This really does feel like a conclusion the game was always heading towards, but they couldn't commit and added the tidus coming back scene last minute. I'm happy that Yuna and Tidus can be happy together, but that ending feels more thematically fitting.
yeah I've always felt that's the best ending to yunas story. thematically it's consistent with X's ending. of course the fan in me wants them to be happy together so I'm glad that can happen but man the "Yuna moves on" ending is so consistent with X's themes it makes me upset the novel exists.
When I played it on ps2 for first time, that was the ending I got
Not to mention that if you actually want the "Perfect Ending" you have to do a lot of relatively out of the way stuff to even get the option to want Tidus back, all of which are permanently missable per playthrough
It's honestly really cool
yeah to me it should have been the real ending
I prefer the ending where it's Yuna moving on. Tidus was a dream, let's be real. The sad ending matches the bulk of X-2's story, because most of it is about Yuna respecting the past, but finding her way forward and making peace with it in the end. Why would the developers otherwise make the happy ending where Tidus comes back so hard for the player to even see? Also, they left room for the happy ending reincarnation to not even be the same Tidus from X, where he is a new dream or something, or from the same cloth as Shuyin, but that could be my own interpretation. Essentially, the Fayth was supposed to die off completely, but at the end of the original X, you see Tidus balled up in the water, alluding to the fact that something could still be creating versions of him. Either way, I was just fine with the sad ending concluding Yuna's character arc for X-2, and I wasn't less happy for her, because it made total sense - Tidus was never real.
"Hey, you know that guy The Completionist? Let me know if he ever makes a video on this game."
Don't worry, I don't think he's going to be making videos much longer.
Unfortunately he is. Hope this bozo gets stupped ("a" for the "u" and "b" instead of "p").
Shinra saying, "I know everything," lives rent free in my head. It was an inside joke whose origin I forgot for a decade
He's just a kid😂😂
i know... everything
hmm Strange I got 100% by getting all the specific spheres to do pine secret quest and doing all the mission objective. you can skip the cut scene
every story level all the location have its own unique quest do them all and get all these spheres.
@@tiefblau2780I think you may have replied to the wrong thread
The Besaid theme for X-2 really has that feeling like you’re coming back to your hometown for the first time in years- everything has changed but so much is still the same.
That’s why I love the game
To me the line Rikku says in Zanarkand Ruins "Oh yeah, it does sound like Issaru" always read as her saying "Oh yeah that does sound like Issaru's voice" not "Monkey sounds similar to Issaru" as it does in the Japanese.
IIRC, the reason Shuyin sees Yuna as Lenne is because Yuna's Dancer dressphere contains Lenne's soul (which is why Yuna's Dancer outfit is the same as Lenne's), and Yuna is sort of able to channel her soul when using the dressphere. As for why Shuyin looks and fights like Tidus, when the fayth created Dream Zanarkand I think they were preserving the memory of the city and its people, and populated it with dream versions of people from Zanarkand. Shuyin was from Zanarkand, and Tidus is the dream version of him.
Nice
More or less
So... this is sort True and sort of not true. It's stated, I think in an interview, that Dream Zanarkand has its own people. Like they can have kids that never existed in real Zanarkand. So, rather then Tidus being a version of Shuyin that was preserved, I'm pretty sure he was made in Dream Zanarkand too intentionally help break the cycle in Spira. They likely used Shyuin as a base, as in his time in actual Zanarkand he seemed pretty outspoken against the War using Summoners the way they do. Meaning he was likely, as Tidus, too follow a similar path.
Shuyin’s body was part of Sin’s Fayth up until the Mushroom Rock campaign wounded Sin. Shuyin’s body exited Crystal Stasis after Sin was defeated and was later found by the Crimson Squad
I always felt that after a thousand years the fayth's memory begin to get vague so Tidus was a poorly remembered copy of Shuyin, however we find out he is also his own person now. The reason the fayth didn't give Tidus a girlfriend is because his relationship with Lenne was a secret.
19:22 - When you get your first Special Dressphere, you also get the Unerring Path Garment Grid. It's literally just two connected nodes, which makes it really quick and easy to go straight to a special form.
All day
Every day
And the lowest-stat version of the Special Dressphere.
It is, but essentially, you can go straight into ultimate mode and unlimited power over and over. It's cheap and broken but fun. True worst stats. I think actually none just a blank excuse to go super sayin in 2 seconds. Riku's is my favorite. Paine's is second. Yuna's is aight.
@@enoyna1001Worst stat version? Are there other ones or something? First time I hear of that
@@PixelHeroViish The stats of the special costumes depend on the amount of nodes a Garment Grid has.
X-2 is so underrated. the job class system is so fun with this one, and the remake added more jobs to the west. if you are someone that likes maxing out games, this is the one for you. 100% takes A LOT
My FFX/X-2 platinum trophy is my pride and joy. I hope FFX/X-2 gets a remake in my life time or even a spiritual successor with the same battle system as FFX-2.
A game that requires you to read ALL THE FUCKING DIALOGUE IN THE ENTIRE FUCKING THING WITHOUT MISSING ONE FUCKING WORD is an awful game for completionists.
Not really, if you want that sistem you better play V. X-2 is not great at all. and completing it is tedious as fuck
@@darkenkil4416 Fucking this man. I loved getting 100% on X, but I missed one stupid optional cctv cutscene of a balloon floating and it locked me out of 100% on that playthrough. I like X-2 but the platinum is total aids
Remake?
hope you're okay! can't wait for your next vid, just rebinging them right now❤
You sir, have singlehandedly gotten me to go back and give 13 another chance and now you're putting another game on my plate
ive tried to go back to 13 3 times over the years. its always still shit.
I loved 13. The combat intrigued me, trying to figure out how to stagger every opponent was fun. The first few hours, I was just powering my way through, but when I started experimenting with the teams' roles more and more I couldn't stop. And the story started gripping me more the further I got. Also, the further I got, the more invested I got into each character. But the first few hours were definitely my least favourite FF start. I hated it at the start and was convinced I wouldn't get past 10 hours.
very sorry to hear that
13 is this game's mechanics but streamlined.
Gameplay wise, 13 has some issues tbh, it's a very nice and unique gameplay, but the gameplay felt unfinished, and 13-2 actually does a much better job at it imo. But the graphics, the story, the characters, the universe of 13 are the reason this game is my fav ff ever. I highly recommend - if not to play it - at least to watch a youtube movie of it if you're into that, there are some great ones out there.
As has been proven many times over the years... Just because someone wrote a good story in a certain world doesn't mean that they're only full of good ideas when it comes to expanding that world or characters...
That being said, I literally laughed out loud while you were talking about the 2.5 book, so that's worth something.
They made it pretty clear in the game that Tidus is not from Zanarkand from 1000 years ago. Tidus is from dream Zanarkand, which is a recreation of Zanarkand from 1000 years ago, but there's no confirmation that everyone is a one-to-one recreation on each and every person.
Pretty much. It's implied that the people living in Dream Zanarkand are descendants of the original inhabitants - or rather, their memories/spirits. Thus Tidus is a reincarnation of Shuyin, just as Yuna is the reincarnation of Lenne.
I assumed the Zanarkand dream was originally a one-to-one recreation of the original, but after hundreds of years, the dream began to slowly drift. It's why the fayth wanted to help Tidus and friends to destroy Sin. They didn't want to lose themselves completely.
As for Tidus, you could say that since Lenne's soul became a dress sphere, she didn't have a version of herself in the dream, causing Shuyin's dream-self to become more bitter and insecure, eventually becoming what Tidus was at the start of FFX.
While I'm not saying you're incorrect with the info provided here, I'll disagree that they made it clear.
The whole "Zanarkand but not quite it's actually out to sea" thing is peak convoluted Final Fantasy "Huh??"ness.
@@Mayeur000DonzThere might actually be some hints in optional dialogue but I don't think it's downright stated "Oh yeah there's a dream version of your home floating above Baaj temple and Sin hangs around there usually"
@@candle340 reimarnation is the wrong word here. Tidus certainly is a reflection of Shuyin. I don't think the game establishes an actual link beween Lenne and Yuna though. Yuna has her dresssphere so she sorta looks like her but that"s it.
As soon as you said memory of light waves, a tear came to my eye
X-2’s unironically one of my favorite Final Fantasy games- maybe even just one of my favorite games- to me it feels like such a perfect followup to X that shows how a world and the people in it move on from only knowing tragedy that just so happens to play out through magical girl dress up and J-pop haha
It's my second-favourite FF game (IX being first) and was actually my first FF game ever.
fave ff twinsies
best battle system
Agreed I haven’t played every single FF but this one was my personal favorite.
Hey it’s been awhile since you’ve posted I see. I hope the best for you and that you may return with more of your retrospective content. I know there’s a limit to final fantasy games but maybe you can do even more franchises besides just final fantasy? Either way, wish you well dude me and the ol lady have really been e joying your content
I love x-2! It deeply influenced 10 year old me (yes, I wanted to be Paine more than anything), YRP foreverrrr ❤ it's not a perfect time, but it's a heckin fun time!
Kween
"And then he explodes into goo while Yuna passes out from shock."
Ngl, I lol'd
10-2 was one of my favorite final fantasy. There was like a "badass women" trend in the early 2000 with charlie's angels, the resident evil movies, ect. And i was there for it
Hell yeah, late 90s/early 00s girl power media was fire. So fun. Charlie's Angels, Milla in Resident Evil, The Powerpuff Girls, Final Fantasy X-2, The Spice Girls, Super Gals! (anime), even Avril Lavigne.
Totally spies, charmed, hocus pocus. One of my favorite trends was the starring of three powerful women/girls.
Unfortunately that trend died and now we only have feministic badass women
@@noctissama3146 No, now we have women pretending to be men, we like women heroes for different reasons that we like male heroes, the male heroic fantasy is separate from the female heroic fantasy(but they do have similarities, wich is why shows like Buffy, and a lot of early-mid 2000s "girls" shows(totally spies, Winx, Witch) actually had a sizeable male audience, and why shonen/shoujo manga usually have an almost 50/50 split), while japan and other countries still remember this basic reality, the west has knowingly decided to ignore it.
@@qaztim11 theres nothing wrong with masculine women, and the media needs more reprensentaion of actual masc women. im sick and tired of people like YOU saying that theres something wrong with a mascline woman
I’m glad you addressed the eternity song. Literally for years that song is on my playlist.
If we ever get a FFX-3.... I sort of hope it just treats 2.5/Will as if it never happened. I'd personally enjoy a next-generation sequel which followed new characters in a Spira decades in the future. I'd also enjoy a sequel where we explored the lands outside of Spira, expanding on X-2's theme of "forging a new path" in the process. If a theoretical X-3 did continue off of Will's ending... I probably would play it, though with some trepidation.
Anyways, I really enjoyed this retrospective! Excellent work, as usual, BrandoSP ^_^
Nah, clever writing will make it all Canon and cool.
Dunno man, seeing Tidus explode with a blitzball might be hilarious.
NGL I loved how X-2 took a buffet style approach to story. You have everything place in front of you and can decide what order you want to do things, if at all
such a good comparison!! love it!
7:09 Not just the dressphere but her entire garment grid, which is how LeBlanc turned into Yuna. Dresspheres don't alter the users appearance so drastically on their own.
So here's what I was wondering....was Yuna a legit pop star already or did Leblanc have her garment grid long enough to build up enough of a career to get booked at a huge arena with a sellout crowd?
@@starhew2868Yuna already had the reputation of being the "Hero who saved the world," or more accurately the summoner who finally ended Sin forever.
With that reputation, you hear they wanna throw a concert, a person would be curious to attend, even if they end up being a terrible singer.
@@AkaiAzulyeah, Yuna is basically Taylor Swift (but actually deserves her popularity) in Spira.
Holy shit no way I have been rewatching your videos waiting for your ffx-2 and IT'S FINALLY HERE!! Thank you so much for making these videos!
Come back Brando! We miss you! 😢
The infamous "Price of Eternity" X.2.5 novel has been translated in a few languages. I've had the opportunity to read the french translation and I can now proudly say that the book sits at the top of my shelf as the worst piece of litterature I've ever had the displeasure of reading. truly something that has to be read to be believed.
The novel is NOT Japanese exclusive. It's been translated (officially, I mean) into a few languages. I have it myself in Spanish and I know it is in French too
My theory on why I think the game in so hard to get the "official ending" is that it was intentional because they knew everything afterwards was such dog water that they were trying to save everyone from the pain from looking into it any further. Still love the series. Thanks for blasting me with nostalgia from the video and the FFX one!
Miss your video hope you're healthy today been a long period of time since your last video
X-2 has the best ATB of any FF imo. This battle system is piff.
36:25 Wasn't it that they translated Rikku to reference the voice talking to them sounding like Isaru's voice? At least, that's what I thought when I played it.
I thought the same thing too.
Yup! sounded like Isaru lol. Thats why she said it!
Yeah, the actual conversation is:
Yuna - guesses password.
Issaru - OK, um, what is the meaning of life?
Yuna - Is that you, Issaru?
Rikku, yeah, it does sound like Issaru.
At the very least that's how I interpreted Rikku's line when I first heard it
@@Whyteroze28Fun fact, even if you don't pick that option, the other girls point out the voice sounds familiar
You are spot on about the CGI of X in 2001. The first time my roommate and I played through X, the transitions from gameplay to FMV would usually get a verbal exclamation of "whoa!" or something. It was stellar and those FMVs are still freaking incredible compared to many games these days.
Maybe an unpopular opinion, but I think 10-2 game play wise is the most fun out of all the FF games. Collecting the dress Spheres and max leveling them for each character was a blast. As well as hunting for the incredibly hard/ hidden ones like the Lady luck dress Sphere, where you fight with actual dice. Maybe it's nostalgia but I remember the fondness for this game specifically. And I've played every final fantasy to date 😅
I listen and sleep to Lightwaves and the music box version still to be blunt.. Fell in love with this game in grade 5, felt hella empowered by it and it crafted a lot of my attitudes …
Bless this video 😭
Literally just started replaying this as i saw this video posted 😂 its an underrated guilty pleasure imo
1. Rikku saying “that does sound like issaru” makes complete sense. The question he asks is “what is the meaning of life”. You already gave the password of monkey before this section plays out.
2. The Yeavon guards in Kilika; You’re told why they’re there before, during, and after that sequence. Not sure how you missed that.
3. 100% is easy, this game has NG+ and all your % carries over. There is also 110% available, so you don’t have to do everything just most.
Other than that solid video homie, solid takes.
10-3 should be about braska, Auron and jecht. Imagine from humble beginnings. They don't really get along, then through tough battles becomes friends until the end. Then see Auron visit tidus as a child.
Be so heart breaking to have to fight Auron as jecht to become the final aeon and save him and spira.
That was the 10 sequel I always wanted. I remember hoping that X-2 would be exactly that game as a kid. What we got was... not that.
I'd be down for a new cast of characters as long as it's not too far in the past or future. I love the world of Spira and it would be a shame if it was barely recognizable
I disagree. We already know most of their story, so there would be pretty much nothing to surprise us with. The game would largely be repeating a lot of things we've already seen in ff10. I can't deny part of me would be interested anyway, but I don't think there's anywhere near enough there to sustain a long game.
@@ahumanbeingfromtheearth1502 remakes of older games seem to be the trend nowadays and those sell like hot cakes even though we literally know the whole story. A next-gen prequel followed by a proper remake would make a lot of sense. There are lots of plot points that could be fleshed out
@@YustinJ420I think it would work if the two pilgrimages werent so close together.
It’s only been 10 years after all, basically all of the locales would just be the same, theit journey also seemed to be quite a bit less eventful, no sin fights/raids, Braska never gets involved with the maesters or kidnapped by the al bhed, they all know Braska dies at the end.
you’d only get so much time out of the character dynamic before it’d get stale imo.
I cannot begin to express the bittersweet nightmare that was FFX-2 with the official PiggyBack guide and trying to get 100%. Honestly, there was about 6 minigames I just COULDN'T max out and it broke me. And if there's anything I hate with the fire of a thousand suns, its FF minigames.
Its like 60% side stuff. Whereas in most games its like "ok, main story segment done time to do a little side stuff before movign on," in X-2 its like "ok, lots of side stuff done time to do the little story stuff that remains this chapter." It feels so odd.
The game is such a mess but there's some good in it too.
Yes. I absolutely loathed Chocobo Catcher and the Butterfly game in X. The mini games make you just want to throw your controller in anger and frustration!!!
@@Whyteroze28 IKR. Some FF games I honestly deduct a whole point out of 10 for their ghastly minigames.
Like for example, FFX is easily an 8, but it gets a 7 for is celestial weapon minigame nonsense and blitzball haha
I'd give X-2 a 7.5 but because of most of the side stuff/minigames, its a 6.5.
I love this game more than 1000 words can explain. ❤ And I still have my Eternal Calm disc I got from the Official U.S. Playstation Magazine with Paine on the cover (and more information about her).
Don't lose it, you'll wish you hadn't.
Great retrospective but saying you don't care for either Real Emotion or 1000 Words should be a crime. Both hold up so well even after all these years.
Morning Glow from Final Fantasy X-2 Vocal Collection: Yuna is another gorgeous variation on Eternity ~Memory of Lightwaves~ with vocals and lyrics. All of the instrumental version (including the magical, luminous Eternity~Band Member Performance~) are also flawless and gorgeous, like really really really gorgeous. And if Epilogue ~ Reunion~ doesn't make you cry when you finally achieve the Good Ending, wait til you get to the astonishing melodies in Wind Crest ~The Three Trails~ from the International Version. RIP my eyes from so much crying.
The timing of this video is so funny to me. I just went and bought the switch version of this game along with 7 and 8 after watching your first retrospective video on this game. I open UA-cam a few hours later and here is part 2 of that video.
I had days where I would just pop in the disc to let Eternity: Memories of Light & Waves play.
This is pre UA-cam days I'm talking about.
I love that you pointed out that one of the ways you might know the answer to the riddle in the Zanarkand ruins is just by knowing Isaaru's voice cuz, like, yeah that's exactly what I did lol.
I'm a big ol English voice acting nerd so I recognized Quinton Flynn's voice right away.
Otherwise, yeah, that's a bit of a translation blunder on their part.
I dont think so tbh. When Rikku points out that it does sound like Issaru, that could be just them framing it from the option the player picks "Is that you Issaru?" Then Yuna says his name as if to ask if thats him, and then Rikku adds hey that does sound like Issaru, confirming what Yuna said. I think it still fits. Not in the original context of course, but i dont see this as a mistranslation.
I feel that some context / details are missing when summarizing the novel. Yuna and Tidus go away and at some point start arguing. Out of frustration Tidus mistakes a bomb for a blitzball. Yuna faints in shock. When Yuna wakes up to a dead Tidus she brought him back but also undid literally everything about FFX. Yes she brought back Sin. Tidus didn't come back the same. She brought back a Tidus with his unresolved daddy issues. The "in love with somebody else" line in the audio drama is referring to the version of Tidus she lost on the beach. Does this excuse the novel and audio drama? Lol no
what? that not how the novel went, Yes she brought back Tidus but later on the island which was besida more then 1000 years ago she learned from other summoners at the time the true extent a summoner can controlle pyrfile to bring things into existen so pyrfile became a deus ex machine and it also explain how Yu Yevon created Sin with the pyfrile from the farplan. The thing is he told Yuna, if Tidus ever remeber he died he disapear for good. So she distance from him not to lose him, thats why the line, i am in love in someone else refer to making him go away or else he would remember he died and puff gone.
@@Wakka1993yeah it's still stupid. and the thing about pyreflies has been around since X because we know sin is made of pyreflies and we know you yevon made sin. pyreflies being powerful isn't new. what's stupid is what they do with them in the novel. the novel just shouldn't exist.
Ok, but what was with the bomb? Was it just a random bomb in the water? Or was someone trying to kill Tidus or Yuna in the novel?
@@chrisdaughen5257 just a random bomb for all we know. the novela has yet to be translated officially or by fans. all we know is from some people who instead of translating it summarized it.
@@chrisdaughen5257 If i remember it was a bomb that looks like a blitzball left behind i guess from wars who knows, Tidus and Yuna had a little fight and Tidus klick the blitzball bomb out of furstration and boom and Yuna just faint. If you ask me it was just stupid to make Tidus and Yuna fight even to beginn with lol.
I'm glad Yuna and Tidus had their "Happy Ending". It's too bad we didn't get a extended universe. WE NEVER GOT A EXTENDED UNIVERSE.
Apparently they tried but uploaded some shitty fanfiction instead of the real story
31:55 Yes! Yes it does! It gave me such a nostalgic vibe!
..... I have been burned so many times trying to 100% x2 in one play through... since the ps2 release. Even with the official ps2 guide with pictures and step by step. The HD version, I've tried one walkthrough, and mixing 2 or three to confirm I'm doing everything right...
But still, I'm missing percentages. You're right. This is one of the games we're it's not worth it to 100%... but I can't stop it's an obsession at this point 😂
Enjoying your video dude, good job
Wait wait wait, what do you mean by "Former Nintendo CEO used to wave a katana around the office"? Is there some lore I am missing?
I 100% completed the game once following a very specific guide. Never again. UA-cam exists. Just watch a video of the ending. Real Emotion and 1000 words, I'm not going to lie they are catchy as hell and I enjoy them.
Final Fantasy X 2 is like a direct to DVD Disney sequel. It's fun to revisit the world and see what characters are up to after the events of the first game but fails to capture the magic of the original.
Except the battle system was great and that alone makes it better than most of the other Final Fantasy games
Agreed, for me X-2 is good just by the battle system being so fun. Some of the music is good too like the main menu theme!
Except that X-2 has a dramatically better battle system than X, making it much more fun to play and complete.
The Final Fantasy Development Teams chart/data you pull out in these videos is a REVELATION. The series just makes so much sense after looking at it.
As soon as you said 100%, I stopped what I was doing and slowly turned to my monitor with wide eyes.
14 year old me with 50 printed out pages of a guide trying to get it to only notice I was a % behind at 65%. Soul crushing.
Ok this video took me places I miss being in life....I really love the community and the games. now I will go on and watch all your other videos.
I love this game with my whole heart ❤
The second you said: "Eternity Memories of Light an waves had no business going that hard," I came here to type out my agreement, Then you let it play, and the nostalgia came flooding in, I adore this song, but I hate the way it makes me feel. Melancholy, and the sadness of nostalgia.
Been waiting for this!!! Love your videos.
one of the best channels on youtube!
Fun story: this was my first Final Fantasy game. I rented it from the video store as a kid when I was young because the cover art grabbed me so much. I loved the character designs and wanted to know more, not realizing this was a sequel. This was one of the first games I ever bought a strategy guide for just because I loved it that much. The funny thing is, I never beat it. I bought my own copy of the game, and immediately after the 1000 Words scene, when the old man is telling you his big lore dump, he would just hang on one of his lines. I redid it over and over and it never progressed past that. And now, I still haven't set the time aside to replay it and finally get past that point. But watching this video has really given me the motivation to try and beat this game again and relive those experiences that defined myself growing up. I remember singing 1000 Words to my mom because I loved the song so much. And it was one of the first songs I had on my iPod.
Watching this video was such a cathartic experience for me, and I can't wait for the next one. Thanks BrandoSP. :)
ayo basically me. I rented it because it looked cool, had little to no idea wtf was going on with the world, but did indeed have a good time for the short time I rented it
I was with you giving X-2 a fair shot since it's my favorite next to X, but saying Real Emotion isn't a banger? You soil Kumiko Koda's good name!
Your videos are some of my favorites to relax to, where you at big guy
Hello. First of all, thanks, I'm really glad people still enjoy and watch my videos. Complex life circumstances have made me unable to upload any videos to UA-cam. I'm not dead, but I won't be able to post anything in the near future. I don't know how long.
I'm still making videos though, and one day hope to post them, but I don't know when that will be. Understandably, because of the nature of UA-cam, even when I do post them, I could be completely screwed in terms of the algorithm and my channel could never pick back up. If I come back and they do well, then that's great. If they don't, then I guess everything up to now was just luck, and I never had the sauce in the first place.
Hope to post new things one day. Hope you'll watch them. Till next time.
@@ThBrandoyou definitely have the sauce. Sometimes what you find interesting is missed by others as they might not have a deep connection to it like with this video. It’s up to you whether it’s worth your time or not.
It however isn’t because you are bad at what you do. I love this kind of content on UA-cam and I was always excited to see you in my feed. I hope you conquer whatever complications life is dealing you and find the passion again.
But if you don’t, totally fair, thanks for providing joy for the time you did. Hundreds of thousands of people have had a better day because of you!
@@ThBrandoHope those life circumstances improve or allow you to still put more videos up in the future! Either way great work & thank you for the videos so far
@@ThBrandohope to see you soon king 🙏🏽🙌🏽
hey ! hope ur all good !! Came to check for some new vids and nothing new :O Hope to see you come back at some point as I love the content :) (if thats what you want to do of course!)
Every time I see you post a video I get so hyped bro KEEP IT UP KING
I always assumed Rikku's "that sounds like isaaru" was just remarking on yknow, hearing Isaaru's voice. If you hadn't told me here that it's a saru isaaru pun I never would have guessed! I'm willing to bet the localizers probably misinterpreted it that way too and overlooked the pun.
I Stan the “Tidus is made up from the base of shuyin.” It makes perfect sense, Tidus is a dream, dreams have some level of logical interpretation. Tidus was just the dream interpretation of shuyin.
"opens up with Yuna in a J-pop concert" yeah and it slapped
It was actually pretty dam catchy, but I played the games back to back. I had to restart because I was jar dropping difference in tone
59:49
I relate so much to this. Used to get so wrapped up in the melancholy of saying goodbye forever to characters I'd grown to love in a story, wanted so badly to have something more.
But now we look at properties like Terminator or Alien, which lasted way beyond the point of sensibility and now the only reason we'd want to see more is to see if they can finally quell all the uncertainty these unneccessary extensions provided.
This was my first FF so yes, there is random people like me that played FF X-2 before X haha
Same, altho it wasn't my first FF.
Same here
Man i hope you genuinely know i love your videos so much and i can't wait for the next one
X-2 is certainly not without its faults. While I like the magical girl inspired elements, the fanservice makes me deeply cringe. Some songs are great, but others are...let's just say their chocobo theme is probably the worst in the series of all time. And a lot of the dialogue makes me want to shut the game off. But it's also FUN to play--they mastered the job class system here, and I love getting to see Yuna front and center. It's not a perfect game, but I ended up enjoying it way more than I expected to.
Also, listening to you describe the plot of the book and audio drama sent shivers down my spine. Yikes. When I was younger, I also used to hate it when stories ended. Growing up, playing games like the FFXIII series and watching new Star Wars content taught me that sometimes it was okay for things to end. The new entries kept lessening the impact of the ending to the original content. So I didn't play Lightning Returns and I don't watch the new Star Wars films, and I think it was the right decision for me. If a X-3 ever happened, I think I would skip it. We don't need a sequel at this point.
Fan service makes you “cringe”
You are not the only one who thinks that. Some stories are not meant to end happily. The ending of X was legendary. It was bittersweet and poetic in a way. Honestly I tried playing this one but I couldn’t stomach it. In some ways it kinda sullied my original experience with X. But like you said in fiction you decide what you want to experience or not
This dude unlocked a memory for me when he said dirge of Cerberus I remember liking that game
the ONE thing i never understood about ffx-2 is that they changed almost every enemies names. seemingly for no reason. also machina being weak to thunder in ffx and absorbing thunder in ffx-2 was a weird change
Fiends in Spira are souls of the dead who didn't find peace. Before the Eternal Calm, Summoners used to send the dead into the Farplane who mostly died due to Sin. After that ended, one could argue that the new Fiends are instead based on Sin's leftover pyreflies so what we're essentially fighting are a new set of fiends. Machina were probably developed to overcome their previous weakness.
I have literally fallen asleep to both BESAID songs and ETERNAL. PLUS THE I'LL GIVE YOU SOMETHING HOT IS AMAZING
I can't believe they contrived Tidus back into life just to kill him again then cuck him unceremoniously. Like. Does Nojima hate Tidus? Unless they wanted to do the equally horrid "I push you away to protect you" plot I don't know why else they would take the story in this direction.
Wait, no, that's totally why they did it. Sin "somehow" returns so Yuna's gonna go sacrifice herself and breaks Tidus' heart so he doesn't stop her or do it himself. After that it's just a "choose your cliché" on how it all plays out.
You know what would be an amazing plot twist? If it turned out that "Tidus" and "Sin" were all just dreamt up by one Fayth that refused to move on, and so desperately tries to recreate the plot of FFX in order to get a nostalgia trip going for Yuna and stay relevant. Yuna realizes that it's all just a farce and refuses to participate in any of it; by rejecting "Tidus" and refusing to dwell on the past, "Sin" also just sort of disappears unceremoniously. Granted, we probably still have an angry Fayth to put down before it tries to destroy the world, but at least Yuna is clearly learning to move on.
@@imveryangryitsnotbutter I don't know about the details of that awful novel or audio drama, so that sounds harsh on Tidus, but that doesn't sound like the worst idea. Now if this plot came straight after X-2, that would be soooooooo much better.
You should probably have listened to it and have basic knowledge of the other story before saying that, she didn't cuck him, or imagine anything, and this video was probably the least genuine explanation as to what actually happened ever making it sound worse than it was.
He went into how tidus died again and was brought back, he completely skipped over all the details and nuances about how he came back again
he also completely skipped over how sin came back.
they're very similarly related, and tidus doesn't know he died again and Yuna doesn't want him involved and finding out because she could lose him again, so to protect him she leaves, and lulu even basically call Tidus an idiot for not seeing through Yunas words and motive.
to the plot of will, potentially X-3, and the novella story, this video was the laziest and disingenuous recap of everything I've ever seen.
weather it makes the plot good or more interesting is up to you, but this video was absolute crap at explaining anything properly.
@@landmine36 Wait, so my initial assumption was actually right? Ok, it's just lame then, not atrocious, thanks for the details.
@@Ronin11111111 Yeah, the FFX-Will referred to it as a strong "Beckoning" that brings the dead back to life entirely(?) as others including dead NPC families coming back to life at the moonflow, as well as the dead shoopuff, Yuna knows what's going on because it's basically how she brough Tidus back to life, but the plot ends on why would someone bring Sin back. With Tidus chasing down Yuna with Auron's "Daughter". and thats where it ends.
So it'll be a pretty weird and hit or miss story for people, but nowhere near as atrocious and nonsensical as this guy tried to make it seem, since the groundwork was pretty well thought out.
My wife has never experienced FFX-2, but I shared that song with her prior to our wedding and it was given the green light to use in our wedding.
I think that FF10-3 plan was created based on the crappy common Japanese belief that the best part of your life is over when you stop being a teenager.
The idea that they would become a power couple who could lead the world together sounds too fantastical to the majority of Japanese writers
JFC that makes way more sense now and it's awful
I doubt this is true for Final Fantasy. Fran and Balthier are a power couple that consists of adults. Locke and Celes as well. The recent Final Fantasy 16 game is featuring the main character and his childhood crush being a power couple after being reunited in their adult years.
Looking forward to watching this, and re-watching it several times I'm sure.
Sadly everything post FFX greatly cheapens the experience, meaning, and characters arcs in FFX. The bizarre novel and audio drama are the worst culprits, but X-2 doesn't get off the hook either. This video illustrates this point really well
I could watch your final fantasy retrospectives all day, keep up the good work! I hope to see you continue to cover the other games!
If they do make a X-3, I sincerely hope they completely disregard the novel and audio drama. X-2 was already divisive enough with the directions it took.
22:16 "We're all trapped in a maze of relationships / Life goes on with or without you" - Shihoko Hirata, Pursuing My True Self (Opening Theme of Persona 4)
I confess I *am* glad I 100%-ed X-2 (carefully using guides, but I do that anyway) but only because my first playthrough I messed up and couldn't complete the Den of Woe storyline and thus didn't have all of the context for what was going on with Shuyin and the Crimson Quartet, Paine's full backstory, or why she would or did care so much about these guys. I do prefer the Good Ending over the Perfect Ending, that final cutscene is very "thanks I didn't ask and like the ambiguity of you just being rebirthed by Besaid's waters tyvm", but I concede the Sad Ending really is the most thematically resonant. I just can't help getting choked up when Yuna realizes the fayth *did* bring him back and the sheer joy of finally, no-caveats *winning.* They really got me with these two I'm not gonna lie; I didn't understand as a kid but as an adult I'm really touched by their love story of giving each other hope and teaching each other to live for themselves before anyone else.
Also I confess I *am* the weird strawman you addressed who chose to play X-2 before X, but! That's because I did play them both a little as a kid and had stronger memories of liking the story of X-2 better but *bombing* at the gameplay, so I wanted to give it a try as an adult first before replaying X which I remembered less but understood the gameplay better.
(I did the same with Dragon Age: played Inquisition all the way through, then got halfway through Origins, and then played all of II, then finished Origins. It's a pattern and no I don't understand it either. Maybe it's the same reason I read a plot synopsis before I watch a movie lol)
Final Fantasy X there is no such thing as trying not to 100% every time I played that game. I always ending up wanting the celestial weapons all aeons, but I'll tell you this I ended up getting ptsd from the chocobo balloon challenge race....
So glad to see an upload. I found you and binged all your work this weekend! Great timing
Tidus returning was a thing since X. His being reborn and swimming up is the last scene of X. They even reuse the cinematic at the beach reunion. So don’t believe it “came out of nowhere”
You already mentioned about the theme of the game being about moving on but i'm surprised you didn't discuss one of the alternate "sad" endings that tackled exactly that where Yuna accepts that Tidus is gone and was able to move on showing how much she has grown during her entire journey
It may have gone down as one of the saddest endings in the franchise but it would have given one of the most powerful message and was very thematically in line with both games
the happy ending just doesn't sit right with me and i felt like it was just the devs giving the players a bone to not spark an outrage
As much as I understand Yuna letting go and moving on, I don't care. Fuck that noise and give me my happy ending
This video made me feel old. I can’t believe it’s been that long since it came out.
I still prefer the "sad" ending because Yuna choosing to move on from Tidus fits FFX's ending way better.
Yah it's just how live is death is forever, we have to live with it
I find Yuna should have turned against Spira and resurrect Sin.
found your channel yesterday. march 6 2024... yes im from the future in New Zealand xx and i watched your whole XIII series and X now this hahaha. subscriber i am
Bro where you at?
Literally laughed out loud when you talked about that one scene in the sequel novel
I think the characters still have some stat Differences even as the same job so there still not identical.
The much bigger difference is the animations that the characters have in each class.
Since its not full turned based like 10 it can actually make a big difference.
While it might not matter a lot of the time in harder content it can mean the difference in Winning or dying. For example rikku as a gunner does a twirl with the guns before firing which makes her much worse as a gunner than yuna or even Paine.
The characters have the same stats, but different EXP growth, Paine levels up faster per example, some Dresspheres are unique for each character though (Mascot, Festivalist, and their limit break Spheres for example).
Also I didn't even know the animations had some kind of impact gameplay wise, so tbh I feel like it is an FFXII situation where a lot of people exaggerate how much the tiny animation difference matters, if I run the game blind, don't even notice that and manage to beat all the content fine, with the difficulty coming from the fights and not slightly slower animation speeds that is all I need to know.
@@madlaz9575 like i said most of the time its not a big deal but when your trying to do the secret end game dungeon and a enemy can hit you for 50000 damage or cast ultimate ect the animation difference can matter ive literally had riku die before shooting something before it reached her because of the twirl i mentioned earlier
@@procow2274 I guess that is fair, it still feels like there are more impactful things like gear, or dresspheres, etc.
That opening music video is bad ass, I still sing it, if your cool, so do you.
46:52
This didn't age well 😅
3:26 Eternal Calm was actually released via the US Official Playstation Magazine in prep for the X-2 release!
The moment you introduce a character named Shinra who ends up having ideas about harnessing the lifeforce of the planet as energy you basically open the floodgates for them "FF7 and FF10 share a universe" discussions.
Ultimately I'm in the camp of they share a universe. It's just a neat thing to me.
Also, Tidus comin back basically out of nowhere is like the opposite of how KH basically built up that Roxas, Xion, TAV, and Naminé[her sorta less so]would come back through like three games before KH3. Their returns were built up, X-2 Tidus is just...boom, there he is.
And then X-2.5 is fucking...boom there he goes cuz he's fucking stupid. And then boom...there he is again.
Awesome I just binged all your other ff videos the other day and now a one is already here keep up the good work
Hey bro are you still doing videos?
Yeah, it's been nearly a year. I'd love to see his retrospective on FF16
This video was awesome it's great to see such great and though content about a series that's so near to my heart also moonbow is amazing I can't stop listening I lover there rendition of beside island
I believe it’s a real dark thing that we consider bad/ambiguous endings to be objectively better than happy endings, nowadays. This is why I love X-2: you get to see the fruits of your labor and earn a happy ending to the colorful death-march that was FFX.