[James]

Bump.

I've just recently gotten into Chapter 3 of 5 in FFX-2, so I thought I'd give an update.

As I said before, you can play and beat a mission, then turn the game off and feel like you did a whole lot. This is still true, and can really slow down your advancement through the game. But one thing I want to touch up on is the battles.

When I'm playing, I'm finding myself fighting A LOT of random battles, instead of progressing through the story. The thing is, I'm CHOOSING to do this. I could easily just rip through and take the challenges that come across, but I actually LIKE fighting random battles.

While sometimes tedious, the key is that they're typically fun. The frantic action and the various skills make battles go really fast. And with the great job system, you'll always be getting new skills for your jobs, and/or levelling up and getting some good items. The bottom line is you actually constantly feel like you're accomplishing something while fighting. In other RPGs, the battles can feel fairly tedious or drawn out with very little payout. So the real reason I'm progressing through the story so slowly, is because I'm having so much fun just building up my characters.

Also, by the end of Chapter 2, you'll have two accessories: One to eliminate random battles, and one to increase them. So even if you're not a big fan of the random battles, you'll have the option to moderate them soon enough.