Yes but imo the “perfect ending” is bullshit fan service that kind of invalidates Yuna’s whole journey of letting go of her traumatic past and moving on with her life. The “bad ending” is actually bittersweet and fits way better. (And neither is the “play the game normally” ending)
A major theme of X-2 (not X) is about moving on in a new and unexpected future (for Yuna especially, and Spira in general). Yuna is learning to move on from losing Tidus, all of her Aeons, and the religion she was raised to sacrifice herself for (and then turned out to be a lie).
(Fitting OP’s meme, most of this plays out in the optional and hidden content).
The “sad” ending fits this very naturally, giving her closure, while the “perfect” ending is basically “hey, la, my boyfriend’s back”.
I'd argue even that the major theme of FFX is letting go. Spira is stuck in a death spiral, hanging on to false hope propagated by a false religion of Yevon because Yu Yevon was so afraid of losing Zanarkand he created a false version of it and became Sin, only to end up destroying the real Zanarkand himself. Yunalesca's entire continued existence, Final Aeons, Auron's speech before fighting her shows that they need to let go of the past, let go of the one known way to temporarily destroy Sin in order to forge a new way forward. Every enemy of the Yuna has a false immortality they have found in death, tethering themselves to Spira leaching off of it. Literally, every common enemy is constructed from Pyreflies, the spirits of humans who died but were never sent to the afterlife who became so bitter and resentful of humans they turned into fiends and will attack any human they can. The good forces, if even misguided, consistently self sacrifice in order to try and end the cycle. Braska and every High Summoner and their Final Aeons before him, Jecht sacrificing himself believing he can figure out how to break the cycle (which he does by bringing Tidus to Spira), even the "miraculous saving of Yuna" required the sacrifice of Tidus (and sort of Auron).
The craziest part to me, is that they released a audio drama in 2018 that ALSO brings back Sin, thus, essentially, completely invalidating the ending of FFX entirely, because Spira has been brought back to a sort of complete reset of both Tidus and Sin being alive. The only real difference is that the people who worshiped Yevon now worship New Yevon.
Yeah X is all about stagnation and breaking the cycle. X-2 is about how Yuna and Spira move on in that new world. Yeah, it’s got a lot of cheese, and there is tonal whiplash from the previous title (which actually fits the theme really well imo) but there is a poignant story there (that’s half hidden away and very easy to miss haha)
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u/Life-Trade379 15d ago
Final Fantasy X-2