Let me start off by saying that without this guide you will miss out on a lot in Final Fantasy X-2. On the cover it says "Take Your Game Further", and they mean it! It's not impossible to beat the game without the guide, but it's near impossible to complete the game with 100% completion points without it.

The guide is put out by BRADYGAMES and written by Dan Birlew. As far I know I have the regular strategy guide. On my guide it says "Signature Series". There is another strategy guide out there, for the most part is the same, but is the limited edition version. The limited edition version is suppose to have awesome artwork in it of both Final Fantasy X and Final Fantasy X-2 and some other extras.

My Likes & Guide Basics:

The guide offers 347 pages of important information pertaining to the game. On page three it opens up with a cartoony picture of the three main characters (The Gullwings), along with some history on Spira and some of the major events that happened in Spira in Final Fantasy X. I like this for the fact that even a person who hasn't played the first one (X aka 10, hence X-2, meaning 10-part 2) can get the gist of what's going on.

The next few pages introduce the girls individually and then they get into garment grids and dresspheres and the abilities gained from them. It's great that they show each available garment grid, what they look like, and what they do. As well as showing every dressphere you can get, what it looks like, what it's best suited for, and what abilities you must learn before you can learn other abilities. They also have a grid on the page showing the Alchemist, where you can look up what items to "Mix" and what results you'll get.

They have a poster as well. The poster is located inside the book. It shows the three girls in their rather humorous dressphere, the Mascot. On the reverse side it has a bigger display of the "Mix" grid for the Alchemist, a layout of the Lady Luck Reels that go with the Lady Luck dressphere, and the Blue Bullet abilities that go with the Gun Mage dressphere.

The next part describes the Battle System, which is everything from controller functions, the menu, chapters, battles/combat, magics and their properties and just about anything else you need to get yourself started.

After that you get a basically complete list of accessories, their description, effect, and what price you can buy or sell them for, if you can even buy them. Next you have the list of items, items shops, and key items. The guide tells you everything you need to know about these things.

This brings you up to page 64. Now we're getting to the meat and potatoes of the whole thing. This page tells you about the chapters, missions, hotspots and a little about the story percentage. Then it goes right into your first mission.

Yuna's story begins again in Final Fantasy X-2, in Luca. It shows you a picture of the town/city along with an action checklist to the side. It shows you the fiends you can expect to encounter here. Then below it gives you step-by-step instructions on how to complete the tasks on the checklist. Below this, if there is a boss fight they will give you tips on how to defeat the boss, along with a picture of the boss, how many hit points it has, how much experience points and ability points you'll be rewarded, what items you can steal, how much gil you can pilfer, and how much gil and what items you can expect the boss to drop and leave behind for you after the battle. If there are items to be collected they will also give you an item checklist as well.

Basically you go through the bulk of the book like that completing missions, using a kind of cheat sheet, which even with this I still found the game to be quite challenging at times. I'll also comment about how the book didn't ruin everything for you. They don't really spoil the game and reveal everything about the story before it unfolds. For anxious people like myself though, it can sometimes bug you.

It's nice how the game helps you out by telling you what commspheres to watch in chapter 4 and in what order and what ones count toward completion percent.

From pages 249 to 256 is the 100% Completion Guide. It tells you what you have to do to obtain the proper percent, but gives no instruction like the Walkthrough. It's very basic and like a checklist of sorts and shows you on the right of that what percent that should bring you up to by doing all the things listed.

From pages 258 to 314 it's all about the mini games. It will give you the run down on everything from Sphere Break, Let's Go Digging, The Calm Lands Publicity Campaign and the mini-games that go hand in hand with that, along with the "There Goes the bride" mini-game, Chocobo Ranch, Gunner's Gauntlet, Gunner's Gauntlet: Cloister of Trials, Lightning Rod Towers, Cactuar Hunting, The Great Mi'ihen Mystery, Blitzball (players stats and optimal points needed to raise their stats), and how and where to obtain all the Al Bhed Primers so you can understand what the heck they are saying at times.

The last part of the book is the Fiends & Enemies section. It names off almost all the fiends and bosses that you'll face during the course of the game. It gives the name of the enemy, a picture, what chapters you'll find them, in what locations you can find them, enemy stats, elemental affinities, immunities, defense effects, item and bribe information. Yes, all very handy to have.

My Gripes:

Oh, where should I start. Let's start off with a true confession. I totally screwed up the game....twice, even with the guide book! Part of the problem is because I'm a dumbass, but the other part is due to the choppy way the guide was put together. See, when you read the Walkthrough you get step-by-step instructions, which is great. The only problem is that this is not good enough, you also have to turn towards the back of the book and look at the 100% Completion Guide.

My first time going through the game doesn't count because #1, I didn't have a disk to save my game and the nice people at Target didn't bother to tell me that when you buy a Playstation2 it doesn't come with that and has to be bought separately. Personally, a good salesperson should be able to sell snow to Eskimos. Target should have been more informative, but that's another story. #2. I didn't have the guide and was anxious to play the game and chose New Yevon, instead of the Youth League. By the way, you need to go with the Youth League to obtain 100% completion.

My second time attempting the game which was really my first real attempt, I made the mistake of not sleeping in the cabin during what I believe was chapter three. This was partially my fault because I was stupid and saved over chapter three when I got to chapter four thinking I did everything correctly. But, when I got to chapter five I was sadly mistaken when I found out that I couldn't see the little scene with Brother and Barkeep that you can only view if you've slept at least once during every chapter. This also counts towards your percent. So I went and trotted my butt back over to chapter two which was the furthest I had saved since my screw up and started all over.

They don't tell you in the Walkthrough to go to sleep, every time a new chapter begins. They don't remind you, nothing. You only see this in the Walkthrough in the beginning of chapter one and never again in the Walkthrough. They tell you to remember to do it, but you assume they'll tell you when and remind you. Days or weeks might pass between chapters. You will only see the reminder to sleep in the back of the book in the 100% Completion Guide, but who knew?

My third time screwing up the game, (second time screwing it up if you count it by real, honest attempts) I had worked my way from chapter two all the way up to chapter four when I realize something else is wrong. Guess what? I didn't walk ALL THE WAY to the top of the chocobo ranch and a commsphere was never set up! I was devastated! I was so ready to quite the game right then and there and put it up on eBay and sell it and never look back again. I was cheated from 100% completion by .2%. If that isn't sad, I don't know what is.

At that point I just could not force myself to go back to the beginning and do it all over, YET AGAIN! I played the game through instead, incomplete. With my 99.8% completion the "perfect ending" has eluded me. I saw the "good ending", which is well...good, not perfect. If only I had looked at the 100% completion part towards the back of the book. Who would have known something so simple as walk all the way to the back of the ranch could have such an impact on your game. I just don't understand why they couldn't put such pertinent information in the Walkthrough.

Some of my other gripes about the guide is how they could have been so much more thorough. Such as, I almost missed out on the Thunder Spawn Garment Grid, which is located in Luca. They don't talk about it in the Walkthrough, like usual, but they also don't bother mentioning it in the Item Checklist. The only way you knew how to find it is by looking at the map and spotting it in the corner of one of the docks.

I also would like to know how you get the Garment Grid The End. I might have missed this, but I don't think the guide tells you where to get it. I'd also like to know what ability is Finale, which you can perform from acquiring this particular Garment Grid.

The Gunner's Gauntlet was a big pain in my butt. I beat Beclem and called it quits with my high score being only 518. I never could do the one in the Besaid Temple. I don't know if the book made a mistake or if it just wasn't listed in the accessories section, but I couldn't find a Frost Ring listed. There was no Frost Ring on the accessory list, but it named it on the map in the cloister trials. I wonder if they meant to call it a Snow Ring and instead called it a Frost Ring. I was unsure of what it did and whether I was missing out on something good.

The other things that aggravated me were that there was no map or complete list of items for Clasko's Maze. I hope I didn't miss anything, but I'll never know.

The guide also doesn't list the Ability Points required for each ability to be learned.

The grid for "Mixer" is hard to read in the book and on the poster as well. I have an easier time reading a road map on a road trip, not the end of the world though.

The fact that they didn't seem to mention that if you talk to Lian and Ayde after you watch the final scenes at Mt. Gagazet you get a Garment Grid and I don't believe it was the one they name in the item checklist either.

The book never mentioned that when you open the chest with the 50,000 gil in the Calm Lands and then walk up to the father, he'll ask you if you saw his money and if you answer him yes he gives you an item too.

Last but not least, the fact that even though they say no spoilers on the final boss, which is a pretty obvious guess anyway, they could have at least told you to steal the Hero Drink from the final boss.

The thing that really, really got me was the fact that they didn't tell you how to defeat the Paragon and Trema in Bevelle's Via Infinito. That had me stumped for a while. They didn't even bother to tell you that the two boss fights were back to back, or that Trema drops the Iron Duke accessory when you defeat him. The Iron Duke is an extremely helpful item too.

They made a few typographical errors as well. Like on page 118 on the right it says "Exit the Den Of Woe and climb out of the ravine. As the Gullwings proceed towards New Yevon headquarters, two guards tell the girls to move quietly...." The thing is you're actually proceeding towards the Youth League headquarters. Another funny one was when you look at the free agents for Blitzball they list a player as Jaialai, yet you get a player named Hi Alai that has the same stats and max stats. In the game Shu is Shu, but the guide spells the name Shuu. These errors aren't crimes, but it says to me that, "we here at Bradygames just slapped this together for you and were kind of in a rush. Hope you don't mind."

My Tip: Keep looking back at the 100% Completion Guide towards the back of the book. Don't attempt to go after the Paragon or Trema until you are at level 99 and have the Mascot dressphere. If all else fails, bribe the Paragon and get some dark matter for it. Then use a stamina tonic to double your party's Hit Points. Assuming you are using the Higher Power Garment Grid, that way you can break the HP limit. Then at least have Paine go around the Garment Grid so she can break the damage limit. Have Yuna using Regenja and Curema, while Rikku uses Curaga from her white mage abilities and Paine uses her Cactling Gun. You'll find Cactling Gun very effective.

Final Thoughts:

I'll say it again, just like a broken record, the guide is a must have. I thought it really could have been put together better though. For a game that has so many little things that have to be just so, the guide should have been the same way and very thorough. Even though the guide ticked me off to no end in some ways, I have to admit that I would have been truly lost without it.

Thanks For Reading!

Recommended:
Yes