Don’t misjudge this as a lack of depth, though, as FFX-2 has a surprising amount of meat on its bones. For what is essentially an anime reconstruction of Charlie’s Angels, FFX-2 houses plenty of hidden items, accessories, side-quests, and secrets among its 5 chapters. Whether you’re planning to play this game for the first time, or are picking it up as a returning veteran, these tips are here to give you a bit of a head start and make your playthrough as pain free as possible.
10. Love and embrace the New Game+ feature
One of the biggest hurdles for first time players is the existence of the hidden/true ending, only obtainable once you reach 100.0% completion. Each little percentage is obtained by completing various quests, discovering hidden secrets, and completing (at times) rather obscure tasks. Due to how each chapter is structured, many of these are outright missable. And even following a walkthrough with a fine tooth comb can leave you a few points short of that perfect run if you’re not careful. In many cases, this is extremely annoying. And if you haven’t got a previous save to return to then you are flat out of luck. But in this game, your progress is saved & carried over for your next playthrough. And you can then make the opposite choices to gain new items and see parts of the game you previously missed. New Game Plus also transfers over all your Garment Grids, Dresspheres, and accessories. So there really is no reason to stress too much on your first playthrough!
9. Paying off O’aka’s debt early
You’ll come across O’aka relatively early in Final Fantasy X-2. And once you choose to house him on your ship, a new objective will be tied to him from then until the end of the game. You’re required to pay off his 100,000 Gil debt, at which point he’ll offer insane levels of discount on his items – giving you ample opportunity to max out your Gil as much as you see fit. During chapter 2 you’ll want to have at least 10,000 Gil saved up before heading to Guadosalam. Save your game, and then speak to the Innkeeper who will sell you some data for 10,000 Gil. Your next move is to then sell it to a specific person in town based on the information the Innkeeper gives you. If he says “It’s the last person you’d expect”, then choose to sell the info right back to them, netting you a whopping 90,000 Gil profit. Now feel free to buy 99 of everything from O’aka, and then sell it to Barkeep, before repeating the process. This will both pay off his debt, and net you the Millionaire achievement.
8. Gain AP by not spamming attack
In Final Fantasy X-2 you can learn various abilities from your Dresspheres by earning AP during battle. You gain AP for nearly every action you take during battle, as well as a small amount of AP from the enemy itself upon victory. If you’re used to previous entries in the series, you’ll know how spamming the Attack command is the easiest way to beat random battles. However in FFX-2, that’s actually a detriment to your AP growth – as you gain no AP from just using Attack. You’re going to want to get used to avoiding Attack and instead using magic, skills and even items each turn. Sure, you’ll be using more MP. But healing in this game is plentiful, and it’ll definitely pay off in the long run. Later in the game you can get the Treasure Hunter Garment Grid, which gives you the Mug command in battle. This will execute an attack, give you a chance to steal, and award you AP. So it’s a total no-brainer.
7. Get a set of AP Eggs ASAP
Following on from the previous point, you can make earning AP even easier by obtaining an AP Egg accessory for each of your party members. These can be obtained as a Tournament prize in Blitzball, as well as in the Chocobo Dungeon. It will take a bit of time to get used to how Blitzball works in this game, especially compared to how it was in FFX. But once you’ve figured it out, you can gain a number of rare and useful goodies, one of which is the AP Egg. When equipped in battle, this will triple your AP growth. So mastering Dressphere abilities will be a breeze.
6. Fiends are optional but extremely OP
One of the additions to FFX-2 is the Creature Creator, accessed by talking to Shinra aboard your ship. During each chapter you can use Pods in each location in Spira to catch fiends, which you can then train and use in battle. Creature capturing is an extremely in-depth system – and is also entirely optional. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t useful. By leveling up, capturing, and then releasing specific fiends, you can unlock special battles in the Fiend Arena – giving you early access to certain enemies, and in turn item drops. When using Fiends in your party, you can equip them with accessories and Dresspheres just like a party member, and then use them in battle. More often than not, these Fiends will have higher stats than your party. And they’ll usually have powerful abilities too, allowing you to breeze through large portions of the game.
5. Access Special Dresspheres by using Unerring Path
Each member of YRP has their own Special Dressphere that they can access once they’ve changed to every Dressphere “node” in their equipped Garment Grid during battle. Special Dresspheres have higher stats, and can break damage limit, making them great for taking out tough enemies. The Unerring Path Garment Grid is perfect for this because it only has 2 nodes, meaning that you’ll only need to change Dresspheres once to activate the Special Dressphere. You can get it during chapter 1 in Macalania Woods by speaking to Tromell 4 times.
4. The Alchemist Dressphere
Among the game’s many Dresspheres, few are as busted as the Alchemist. You can use the Alchemist’s Mix command to combine 2 items in your inventory to create powerful concoctions that can fully heal your HP, deal damage, and even make you totally invincible. Note that the full list of mixtures is extremely extensive. But this system also makes sure that each item, no matter how common, has its use. For instance, mixing a Potion and Hi Potion gives you a party-wide heal of 1000 HP. Alchemists can also learn abilities to give you various commands that let you use items for free, which basically means that by grinding this Dressphere you can have options to heal your party at no cost. The Alchemist Dressphere can be found from Chapter 2 in the Calm Lands.
3. The Dark Knight Dressphere
The Dark Knight Dressphere is used primarily for its Darkness command, which consumes HP to deal damage to all enemies. You can offset this by having a White Mage in your party to heal up your Dark Knight, ready for another onslaught. The widely recognized endgame party of FFX-2 is a combination of 2 Dark Knights and an Alchemist. Your Dark Knights are there to spam Darkness, and your Alchemist will be using its Mega-potion or Elixir command to heal them at no cost to your MP or items. You can find this Dressphere from chapter 2 in a treasure chest in the Bevelle Underground.
2. You’re rewarded if you never run from battle
In Final Fantasy X-2 there exists a powerful Garment Grid called “The End”. Its full potential is only achieved if it’s wielder has never run from a battle during that playthrough. Even without this little prerequisite, it still comes equipped with the Break Damage Limit and Break HP Limit auto-abilities, which can really come into play during later levels – or when using powerful skills like Ultima. If you manage to pass through all the nodes during battle, you’ll gain access to the Finale command. This deals 99,999 damage to a target – but only if its user has never run away from a battle. To get this Garment Grid, you’ll need to oversoul every enemy in the game i.e kill enough of each enemy to fight it’s oversouled version. Once done, speak to Shinra who will give you this powerful grid.
1. Catnip + Trigger Happy
This trick was nerfed in the HD and International versions of the game, as quite rightly it was deemed to be too game breaking. But if you’re on the PS2 version here’s something fun you can try. Basically, the Catnip accessory made you always hit for 9999 damage with every command if you were in critical HP. You could pair this with the Gunner’s Trigger Happy command to deal thousands of damage at once, pretty much cheesing every fight in the game. In the HD/International releases, Catnip was changed so now it also gives you Berserk and Slow status. But if you’re playing on an original version of FFX-2 then feel free to completely break the game. You can get the Catnip accessory in Cloister 40 in Via Infinito.
