Now and again games come along that completely change the way you see things. In the summer of 2000 I whipped my sister's copy of Final Fantasy Seven and the rest of that summer is a bit of blur. I can honestly say I have never looked back. Every time there is a new FF game out I'm there, first in the queue and salivating on the pavement outside the shop. It still baffles me what I love so much about the Final Fantasy series but something inside the game encapsulates everything that is right about gaming.

Final Fantasy X-2 is the first sequel ever created in the series, a bold move when dealing with a multi million pound best selling series of games. Following on from the end of Final Fantasy X we rejoin some of the familiar faces as the introduction sequence reacquaints the gamer with Yuna and Rikku as well as a new face, Paine.

Those who played FFX will remember Tidus supposedly dying at the end, but it is soon revealed, through the cunning use of some spheres, that he may be alive. Yuna and Rikku have joined Brother and Buddy (also from FFX) and formed the ‘Gullwings', a group of sphere hunters travelling around Spira looking for… well spheres.

Elements of the original FF games can be seen in RPG's all over the world. It made turn based fighting and levelling up famous; although I'm not claiming they ‘invented' these concepts they truly put them on the proverbial gaming world map. X-2 brings a fight option where by the player can have it set to turn based ('traditional ff'), or active mode. This is essentially a free for all in which you can be attacked whilst deciding what move to do next. This brings a new level of difficulty to the game and allows for a more fast paced style to the fight sequences.

Other than that the game is your basic FF RPG style experience, with an experience based level up system where experience gained by winning battles results in the character's stats increasing. The harder the enemy is the more experience points are gained and the quicker the characters level up. This style has suited a vast majority of RPG games as a genre and continues to be effective, it's very much a case of it aint broke don't fix it.