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Title: Final Fantasy X-2 Official Strategy Guide by Dan Birlew ISBN: 0-7440-0285-0 Publisher: Brady Games Pub. Date: 15 November, 2003 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $15.99 |
Average Customer Rating: 2.91 (32 reviews)
Rating: 2
Summary: Missing A LOT
Comment: I've just completed Final Fantasy X-2 with a little assistance from the strategy guide. The strategy guide does have it's pluses. The bestiary is a good tool to use when you start bribing fiends and when you need to defeat a boss or tough fiend. Some of the mini game sections are very in depth and can be crucial to getting certain rare items. Some of the maps are very important to have also, unless you want to spend hours completing a relatively unimportant mission. Also, the completion guide is good in guiding you to get the perfect ending.
This guide left way too much out for it to recieve a good rating however. A few MAJOR things: They list all the Garment Grids and Accessories that are available to get in the game but do not list how to get all these items. To get the most powerful garment grid in the game you need to make every fiend oversoul where it's possible. They fail to mention this. There should be a whole mini game section for this. I played FFX and used the guide my second time through and this is very similar to a task in FFX, which the same author did a much better job of providing for. They fail to show you where you get other grids and accessories that seem very important.
Overall this guide left out too much and seemed rushed. You'd be better off using gamefaqs.
Rating: 1
Summary: Disgusted!
Comment: I was fortunate I didn't follow this guidebook.
After reading it, I was disgusted with the publisher and author.
It's very obvious they didn't put enough effort in making this guide.
Compared to the Japanese strategy guide (FFX-2 Ultimania), they really should be ashamed of themselves. The Japanese authors spent 10s of 1000s of hours replaying the game to make sure what they wrote are without any mistakes and contains ALL the information the readers need.
But this book is not only full of mistakes, it's missing important information (such as a guide to the underground dungeon) and doesn't have enough references between chapters.
It doesn't even tell you where to get each accessary or item, they just listed them, and pretend that's enough.
Don't trust those descriptions on the back of the book, this guidebook will only misguide you.
Rating: 1
Summary: NOT a strategy guide
Comment: I cannot believe some of the high ratings people have given this book. This is by far the worst guide I have ever read. There are so many things wrong with it I can't even imagine how anyone would see it as worthy praise. I can't even see how Dan Birlew would allow this to go into print with his name on it.
First of all, there are several instances where it does not give important information. As any one of the other bad reviews will tell you, there is an amazing item in the game that can only be found by talking to some guy in Kilika in every single chapter . . . and the book doesn't tell you this until the last chapter. A little late, don't you think? But that mistake has already been pointed out, so I don't want to beat it to death. However, there are several other important oversights.
Take the "Blue Bullet" skills, for instance. The book lists all the skills and the enemies from which you can get them, but it doesn't tell you HOW to get them. For example, it does not tell you that a Malboro only uses "bad breath" after its health has been affected ten times. Also, it does not tell you that support skills like "mighty guard" and "white wind" can only be learned when the enemy is confused. I wasted so much time trying to get these enemies to use their skills on me and finally had to resort to online guides.
Also, the book says that the only way to get the Mascot dressphere is by getting all 15 "episode completes" in chapter 5, but it doesn't specifically say how to get these "episode completes." The first time I went through the game I only sold 9 out of 10 of Tobli's tickets because the guide said the only reward for selling all ten was an item. Not until later did I learn that 9 out of 10 wasn't good enough for an episode complete. The second time through the game I skipped some annoyingly long CommSphere scenes in chapter 4. The book said that this prevented 100% completion, but it did not say that it prevented episode completion. 3rd time through I skipped animations that I had already seen twice . . . that's not allowed either, apparently. You'd think the book would tell you if you had to sit and watch the whole scene.
But wait; there's more. There is a dungeon in the chocobo ranch that the guide never explains how to open. It does say that at the end of it you can get an important item, but that's all it says. Never is anything mentioned about how to get through this difficult dungeon or how to open it. Along the same lines there is a dungeon in Bevelle with normal enemies that are tougher than the final boss. All the book says about this dungeon is, "characters should be at level 99 with over 9000HP." One would think that specific strategies might come in handy for such difficult enemies. After all this is suppose to be "STRATEGY" guide.
But even if the book isn't giving me all the information, at least the info it is giving me is correct, right? Wrong. Almost on ever page there is some sort of misprint in text or organization or maps, and these are not little mistakes. They are huge and are immediately obvious to anyone who plays the game. For instance, there is an enemy called a Node that will give you a very important item if you defeat it. The book says it has 30,000 HP so I figure I'd give it a shot. An hour later the enemy is still alive after pummeling it with my strongest spells, so I Scan it. Turns out it has 300,000 HP not 30,000. What a difference one zero can make.
And as long as we're pointing out the mistake in calling this a "strategy guide," I'd like to call into question the strategies that it does list. Quite often, the strategies are overly complicated or require levels that characters haven't yet reached. Spending time leveling up characters is not strategy; it is merely a substitution for strategy. Heck, I don't need a book to tell me that being level 99 is better than level 30.
In conclusion, this book is NOT a strategy guide because it either does not list any strategy or the strategy it does list is questionable. This book is NOT even a walkthrough because it skips important steps. It is obvious that no one at Brady Games actually tried to use this guide. If they had they would have realized that this book is nothing more than a waste of 347 pages and a waste of 16 dollars. I do not advice anyone to buy this guide! If you are reading this review you obviously have the internet, so use an online guide. These guides are copious and constantly updated by input from the users. Perhaps if everyone starts using these online guides the competition would hold the official guides to higher standards.
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Title:Final Fantasy X-2 ASIN: B00008URUA Publisher: SquareSoft Pub. Date: 18 November, 2003 List Price(USD): $49.99 Comparison N/A, buy it from Amazon for $39.99 |
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Title: Final Fantasy X Official Strategy Guide by Dan Birlew ISBN: 0744001404 Publisher: Brady Games Pub. Date: 17 December, 2001 List Price(USD): $14.99 |
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Title: Final Fantasy XI Online Official Strategy Guide (Fall 2003 Version) by Michael Lummis, Beth Hollinger, BradyGames ISBN: 0744002869 Publisher: Brady Games Pub. Date: 07 November, 2003 List Price(USD): $19.99 |
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Title:Final Fantasy X ASIN: B00005TNI6 Publisher: SQUARE ENIX USA INC. Pub. Date: 21 December, 2001 List Price(USD): $49.99 Comparison N/A, buy it from Amazon for $19.99 |
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Title: Xenosaga Official Strategy Guide by Dan Birlew, Bradygames, Laura M. Parkinson ISBN: 0744002397 Publisher: Brady Games Pub. Date: 21 February, 2003 List Price(USD): $14.99 |
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