'Final Fantasy X-2.5' Is The 'Star Wars Holiday Special' Of Video Games

Readers can dislike the Star Wars sequel trilogy, the prequel trilogy, or even both, but even those bastard entries in a series that's mainly composed of bastards now enjoy Lucas' Disney's very trustworthy seal of approval. The same cannot be said about The Star Wars Holiday Special, a movie (?) so egregious that George Lucas made it and then put actual money into preventing people from seeing it. We're yet to see a similar event in the history of cinema, but we have a surprisingly similar story in the video game world, that of Final Fantasy X-2.5 ~Eien no Daishō~.

To explain what makes X-2.5 so, uh, special, we need a summary of the two games that came before it. Though popular among many, FFX divided the community because it seems to have tried to have the general unlikeability of the main cast of characters fly under the radar by featuring a protagonist so obnoxious he makes everyone else seem cool in comparison.

Despite the criticism towards its characters and its corridor-shaped world design, Final Fantasy X sold so well and entered the hearts and weird fantasies of so many that Square Enix made the series' first decision of giving it a sequel. The result is Final Fantasy X-2, a game that does away with Tidus, the aforementioned awful protagonist – and surprisingly doesn't get better because of that. Long story short: Yuna, Tidus' girlfriend, abandons her life of sanctitude and goes looking for him on a quest that conveniently requires her to change her outfits a lot to become more powerful. FF X-2, the Tidus-less sequel, also sold well but proved even more divisive than its predecessor. This seemingly sent mixed signals to the devs, as they decided to make a sequel that has Tidus, hell yeah(?), but also his gruesome death. Yeah, in 2013, Square Enix released the FF X/X-2 HD remaster. Inside the package, fans from everywhere outside of Japan would find both a very well-made remaster and lots of joy. Japanese audiences, however, would find the aforementioned remaster, but also hell. Together with the discs, Japanese fans would find Final Fantasy X 2.5, an official continuation of the story in audiobook format. 

The idea of an official story sequel written by Kazushige Nojima, the writer of the other games himself quickly enticed Western viewers, and they promptly found a translation. In this translation, we find out that the big world-threatening monster that we spent an entire game killing in a way that ensured he wouldn't come back is coming back, and that's not even the dumbest part. We also learn that the main character, a Blitzball legend, mistakes a mine for a blitzball, kicks it and the ensuing explosion has his head flying off.

If that's not way beyond anything we'd want in a PG-13 game, the plot has the head of Tidus landing on Yuna's lap, and even goes on to describe the expression on his face in great detail.

Fans immediately began to consider the likelihood that the translation was a not very elaborate Internet troll but nope, this was the work of Kazushige Nojima, the writer of the original game himself. FF X-2.5 became such a widely reviled curiosity amongst fans that Square Enix never even bothered to make an official port of the game translation for Western audiences.

Top Image: Square Enix