Did a bit of an odd thing with this, put some hours into it, and even though I appreciated the dressphere's as quite a fun concept, there's just something about the combat flow and management I wasn't quite clicking with.

One issue I found odd was the framing of a lot of the fights, made it oddly difficult to parse all the information. Also, the "platforming" that was added was very bad even though it's not really that big of a deal.

So, I knew I was going to struggle to have the patience to see this through, as I'm not really feeling it at the moment, and to make things worse there's some endings that are locked behind some completion stats which I wasn't going to do well on.

But I really wanted to see how things play out, as it'd been on my mind to get round to for years. So I’ve watched a youtube edit of all the cutscenes with the important gameplay bits inbetween. I wouldn't normally think doing that would be worth writing anything about it afterwards, but considering that I think the main draw is the story, combined with feeling like I at least got a good sense of the combat and loop of the game, it left me wanting to write some thoughts down.

I think this game has been hard done by in perception because of its initially much lighter/comedy and campy tone. This is probably the most queer-friendly Final Fantasy game, (hope that’s a fair observation from a cis-het dude) and even though I don’t really vibe with it so much myself, and a lot of the humour I think is just bad, I think it's great they did this.

The idea people seem to have that this is an unserious Final Fantasy seems so far off. The story of Spira trying to figure out how to move forward after the events of the first game, and falling into factions and conflicts is a very believable story to follow on from the original.

The story of Yuna's personal growth and journey to put her own thoughts, beliefs, desires first in light of who people expect her be is really strong. I think it's kind of meme'd on but Yuna's "I don't like your plan, it sucks" line is genuinely so powerful and brilliant.

I can't quite decide on the fact that there's multiple endings though. In some ways I feel like getting the super-happy ending almost undermines Yuna's growth in the game by giving her, her the fairytale dream boyfriend back. But on the other hand, it works with her attitude of "no more sacrifices, there's a better way of doing things."

Then I watched the last mission add-on cutscenes as well, and I was taken aback by the maturity of the story and how much it resonated with me.

By all accounts I've seen, not fun game to play. But the story of the girls getting back together for the first time in months, then getting into arguments and realizing they've already grown apart and coming to terms with that. Really hit home to an extent I wasn't expecting.

So I can’t say I’ve truly engaged with all the game’s systems, as I haven’t played deep enough into it to give it a fair enough shake. But I think where it matters this is an excellent sequel to X and stands with it as part of the same piece.