Original Release: Playstation 2, 2001. Version Reviewed: HD Remaster, Playstation Vita, 2013.
THE PLOT:
Tidus is the star player for the Zanarkand Abes. He's adored by his fans as he follows in the footsteps of his father, the great blitzball champion Jecht, though Tidus's feelings about his dad are decidedly mixed.
The tournament has just started when the city suddenly comes under attack by Sin, a creature as powerful as it is malevolent. Tidus manages to escape with the help of his father's old friend, Auron - but the creature transports Tidus away to Spira, a seemingly primitive world whose people mostly live in scattered settlements, wary of technology lest it call Sin's wrath down on them.
Tidus befriends Wakka, a local blitzball player. He's also smitten with Yuna, a young summoner. Her father defeated Sin in the past, and she intends to follow in his footsteps by facing the creature in the present. Tidus eagerly signs up to be one of her guardians, protecting her as she makes a pilgrimage to the various temples to gather aeons for the battle to come.
Tidus isn't the only one with his sights set on Yuna. Seymour, the seemingly devout High Priest of Macalenia Temple, wants Yuna to be his bride. It's a proposal Yuna feels pressured to accept for political reasons - but Seymour has an agenda all his own, one that threatens the lives of everyone on Spira!
 |
| Tidus and Yuna are drawn to each other. |
CHARACTERS:
Tidus: Even if I didn't know the series had moved past the 1990s, I'd be able to tell: This is the second game in a row in which the protagnoist isn't a broody loner. Tidus's initial characterization lines up with what you'd expect from a pro athlete, in that he's almost exhaustingly confident, upbeat, and energetic. It gradually becomes clear that this is as much a mask as the aloofness of Final Fantasy VIII's Squall. Tidus nurses a grudge against his father, not only for abandoning his family but also for his emotional abusiveness when he was present.
Yuna: For the second game in a row, the female lead is both more serious in nature than the protagonist and more weighted down by responsibility. Her sense of duty is so strong that she considers accepting Seymour's proposal, even though she has no feelings for him. The union of a summoner and the leader of the Guado would help to give the people hope, so why not? However, it's clear that she's drawn to Tidus, whose brashness allows her to forget her responsibilities for precious moments and just enjoy herself.
Wakka: He's generous by nature. He befriends Tidus quickly and wholeheartedly, and extends the same generosity to teen thief Rikku when she first joins the party. However, he's severely bigoted against the Al Bhed, a tribal people whose use of forbidden technology he sees as a religious affront. He gets past this hatred, mainly by being forced to interact with Al Bhed during the journey, and he eventually owns up to having been "a jerk."
Jecht: There are echoes of Final Fantasy VIII in that the game flashes back periodically to Tidus's father. Unlike VIII's Laguna, Jecht is not a likable character. His first scenes show him being emotionally abusive toward his son. He sneers at young Tidus's attempts to play blitzball, insisting that he'll never be as good as Jecht himself in a way that makes it seem that he feels threatened. When Tidus (a child) cries at his treatment, Jecht snaps at him: "Cry, cry, cry. That's the only thing you're good for!" Flashbacks of Jecht's own time in Spira indicate that he experienced personal growth during his journey, though the narrative wisely limits that to a handful of quick glimpses rather than extended sequences.
Seymour: Sin is a big monster in the sky, leaving the story needing a villain that can be more directly interacted with. This is Seymour's role. The High Priest of the Temple of Macalenia, he is mixed race, half human and half Guado. He grew up among the Guado, where he was treated with scorn because of his heritage. Though he eventually attained a high position, the wounds of his youth twisted him into someone willing to kill for power. While Yuna and her party want to stop Sin, Seymour wants to use the creature for his own ends - and the further his quest advances, the less human he becomes.
The Party: Kimarhi is a gruff, non-human Ronso warrior who jealously guards Yuna and whose first reaction to Tidus is to challenge him; if this was a Star Trek title, he'd be a Klingon. Lulu is a childhood friend of Yuna's, and she is also protective of her. She opposed Yuna becoming a summoner, but she still supported her decision once it was made. Auron was a guardian for Yuna's father, and he offers his services to protect her on her journey, which also allows him to act as a mentor for Tidus. Rikku, the thief, is even more outgoing and impulsive than Tidus; she's also Al Bhed, which creates friction with Wakka once he finds out. All are likable, though I personally found the party members in the PS1 games to be more interesting.
 |
| Tidus's party fights a mid-game boss battle, at about the point the combat becomes interesting. |
COMBAT AND LEVELING:
Combat feels disappointingly pedestrian at first. The system is strictly turn-based, with the main gimmick being the ability to swap party members at any point. Different party members are strong against different enemies: Tidus against fast ones, Wakka against flying ones, and Auron against armored ones; meanwhile, Yuna heals and spams summons when the fights get too tough; Lulu casts magical attacks; Rikku steals items and upgrade materials; and Kimarhi's effective against multiple enemies in the early game, though by the late game his most notable skill is dying if a monster so much as breathes on him.
The leveling system is a "sphere grid." I found it overwhelming at the beginning, though it ends up being much less confusing than it first appears to be. Short form explanation: specific types of spheres level up specific stats or skills. Moving along the grid uses up your AP (levels), but you can activate any nodes you are touching or that are direclty adjacent as long as you have the right sphere for it. This is frustrating in the early game, when a lack of spheres leaves you with a choice between waiting to level up until the right sphere drops or moving on - which means wasting AP when you backtrack later.
In the early game, I outright cursed the leveling system being made into a mini-game. Later, when I'd become familiar with the system and gathered a good supply of the major spheres, I came to enjoy it. Once you obtain special spheres that allow you to hope around the grid, there's a great deal of freedom to tailor characters. By the end game, I had: Auron armor breaking enemies; Tidus and Wakka doing massive physical damage each turn; Tidus and Yuna healing and buffing; and Lulu and Rikku casting magical attacks. Oh, and Kimarhi was on hand to keep the bench warm and to pass out towels and water after the battle.
 |
| Blitzball is hard at first, but it becomes easy once you start leveling up your players. |
MINI-GAMES:
This is a post-SNES Final Fantasy - which means that, yes, there are mini-games. Tidus's sport, blitzball, is much like the sphere grid. It's initially overwhelming and difficult; but once you understand it and start leveling up your players, it becomes enjoyable and actually rather easy. A tip for anyone wanting to basically break the game: recruit Brother once you get the airship and Blappa once his current contract expires. A good goalie also helps - but after I leveled Brother and Blappa a few times, I barely had to worry about defense.
Other mini-games are variable. I hated the fiddly chocobo training and racing, and I engaged with it only as much as I needed to in order to get Tidus's and Yuna's celestial weapons. Butterfly catching in the dark forest is less time consuming but just as annoying. As for dodging 200 consecutive lightning bolts in order to charge Lulu's weapon? Yeah... I'm gonna have to say "No" to that one. On the other hand, catching enemies for the monster arena is rather enjoyable, as is battling the ultimate monsters created from them, and I found a great deal of fun in Yuna's duels with a mysterious summoner mentor.
 |
| Yuna summons a new aeon during a difficult battle. Like most of the game, this is gorgeous. |
A GREAT-LOOKING GAME:
Final Fantasy X was originally released for the Playstation 2. I played the remastered version on the Vita; but based on YouTube videos, this was already a fantastic-looking game in its original release. In fact, while I'm happy with the HD Remaster overall, some of the PS2 character art is noticeably more expressive. In any version, this is an old game that doesn't really look like one.
Many Playstation 2 games have a washout effect, where colors tend toward blues and browns and detail tends to be a bit fuzzy. Final Fantasy X has a bright, vibrant palette and detailed environments that show that, even moving into a new era, the series was continuing its tradition of pushing hardware limitations. The fixed camera angles are really the only tipoff to the game's age - well, that and sometimes awkward voice acting and iffy lip sync (though in both cases, I've seen and heard worse from titles that came later; yes, original release of Xenoblade Chronicles, I am looking at you).
As has become the norm for the series, the soundtrack is rich and varied. Suteki Da Ne (Isn't It Wonderful?) is a flat-out beautiful song whose haunting atmosphere fits the story and characters, and which is repurposed to fine effect in the incidental score.
 |
| Tidus and Rikku lead a daring rescue in the story's best action set piece. |
OTHER MUSINGS:
Final Fantasy X is an excellent game... eventually.
I didn't particularly enjoy the first half. It looks great, and there are haunting moments. But all of the good early moments occur in cutscenes, while the actual gameplay seems like a giant backward step from the PS1 titles. For far too long, all you really do is move forward along linear maps, get into battles, and wait to trigger the next cutscene. I found myself reflecting that this would have been better if it had been the animated movie instead of Spirits Within.
This shifts after the first battle with Seymour. A party member is taken away from the group for a while, which forced me to rebalance my combat strategy. Though this involved grinding in order to unlock specific sphere grid abilities, it also marked the point that I fully engaged with the gameplay rather than merely tolerated it.
There was suddenly actual difficulty, and I had to make choices in my character leveling to offset enemies that I struggled with. The ability to upgrade weapons and armor had been unlocked several areas earlier - but only here did I start making use of it, when doing so actually became necessary. I'm not always a fan of difficulty spikes, but this one hits the sweet spot: Just enough of an increase in challenge to make it impossible to keep brute forcing through, but not enough of one to discourage me from wanting to play.
This is also when story and gameplay start working together. Even as the challenge increases, the story undergoes several major shifts, including a couple of important revelations. There's a moment of reflection, as Tidus absorbs the latest plot turn... followed in short order by an exhilarating action cutscene, which is itself followed by another great character bit.
Both story and gameplay remain engaging from there until the end. The final boss fight, divided into three stages, is excellent, tying good gameplay to the story's narrative and themes, and the epilogue is genuinely emotional.
I picked at the first half of Final Fantasy X over a period of roughly six months, with a few long breaks, because I just wasn't that engaged with it. I completed the second half in a little over one month, with that including a few marathon sessions, and I'm already impatient to start the sequel.
 |
| Tidus's party faces its final battle. |
OVERALL:
Despite how good it ends, I can't quite ignore how long time it took for Final Fantasy X to truly engage me. The first half often seemed like a decent animated film had been cut into chunks, separated by stretches of uninspired, overly linear gameplay. I loved it by the end - but for a shockingly long time, I struggled with continuing.
So my advice to anyone else who is struggling with the first half of the game: No, you're not imagining it, the early pacing is not good. But it's worth sticking with, because it evolves into a story worth experiencing and a game well worth playing. The narrative deals with themes involving sacrifice, family, and faith, and the gameplay grows to reflect both themes and story by the end.
But the time it takes for it to get there is something I can't ignore, which is why I'm rating it below the three Playstation 1 titles.
Overall Rating: 8/10.
Previous Release: Final Fantasy - The Spirits Within
Next Release: Final Fantasy X2 (not yet reviewed)
Previous Main Game: Final Fantasy IX
Next Main Game: Final Fantasy XI (not yet reviewed)
Review Index
To receive new review updates, follow me:
On BlueSky:
On Threads:
No comments:
Post a Comment