After playing Kingdom Hearts (due to by obsession with Disney) and loving it I decided to move over to the Final Fantasy range. I was a huge fan of FFX and lost a couple of months of my life while playing it. So gripped on the story, I impatiently waited for the sequel to come out. When it finally did as much as I enjoyed it I was also extremely disappointed. Don't get me wrong, the graphics where exceptional and the story line was good too but the new battle sequence (with 'dresspheres, levelling up etc) was overly complicated and I refuse to replay the entire game over again for less than 5% to get the perfect ending. All that aside, there are loads of different elements to the game. Not the best in the FF series but still worth the time if you're a dedicated fan.

The biggest difference is all to do with battle. Unlike in FFX when you take turns in battling, FFX-2 has a real time layout. Each character has a time bar by their name and each time it reaches its peak you are able to battle again. The higher level your stealth is, the faster it tops back up. So when playing, Rikku is faster than the others because she is younger and faster. This works for the enemies too so if you just decide to stand there you will end up being destroyed. This means that the battle now has a mixture of strategy and quick thinking - which at times can be extremely frustrating as you don't have time to think about a plan.
Another element of battling is collecting dresspheres and garment grids.
Dresspheres enables the person possessing it to change into whatever it is. There are loads of different dresspheres and each gives you different abilities. For example, a white mage dressphere enables you to heal people and use other white magic. A black mage enables you to use elemental magic and other black magic. Each one has their own special abilities that others won't have and also have the ability to alter your personal stats up or down. Like when you wear the berserk dressphere your speed goes down. So you need to think very carefully about what dressphere you are going to use before each battle.
The garment grid enables you to change your dressphere during battle even though there are catches. The grid can hold between 3 to 7 dresspheres and they are all placed in different places. You can only jump one space from one dressphere to the other and each jump moves as one turn so you when going into battle or when you are particular areas you need to think about where you should place each one on the grid and which grid you should use.
Both garment grids and dresspheres are collected throughout the game. You collect some automatically while playing the main storyline. Others need extra time and attention and involve going out of your way. But they are worth the time as can help significantly at other times in the game.

> Controls <
The controls are pretty simple. You just use your R stick to navigate Yuna around. You press X to talk to people and if necessary reply too. When in battle you have drop down menu's to go through. Sometimes this is difficult if you know what you want and you need it now, not in ten seconds. Shortcuts for frequently uses abilities would have been useful.

> My view <
FFX and its sequel is my only experience to the FF range. From other fans that have played ones before I am told FFX/FFX-2 are both nothing in comparison to the others before it. However as I am new to it I have really enjoyed it. I would seriously recommend buying FFX before this one so you get a better feel for the story and a want, no a need to find out where Tidus is and help in any way possible. Plus get a true understanding to Yunas story. FFX-2 in no way as good as the first one but it was a necessary sequel which I still enjoyed and would play again. Now I'm just waiting for the next FF to come out this summer!