Final Fantasy X (2001)

Spirited FFXIII defender here! I always found it interesting how in the Discourse™️ FFX is mentioned as a similarly linear game that doesn’t get the same hate. Now that I’ve been playing the game for ten hours, the game does make a similarly linear impression on me. The only major difference is that you can choose to play Blitzball occasionally. Maybe this game opens up later, but surely, the word is largely based on first impressions, right?

Anyway, cool game, I’m enjoying my time!

It was the first FF game with random encounters that I got to play. At the first attempt they made me abandon the game but when I returned to it after playing FF7-9 they were no longer a problem.

I enjoyed the new turn-based system but the venerabilities mechanics made it feel almost like Shin Megami Tensei. I’m glad the game finally remembered for me, which attacks I should use on what enemies. And all the movements impacting turn order were an interesting addition to the fights. Most encounters were also quite short which is a good thing too.

I don’t have any strong opinion on the sphere grid system. On the one hand it allows you to almost endlessly customise your characters and on the other it allows you to almost endlessly customise your characters. This is good because if you are patient enough, you can make a warrior out of a mage but at some point characters stop being more powerful in what they are supposed to, but gain powers reserved for other roles. And then there’s Kimahri, who is useless throughout most of the game because he starts without any speciality.

The story was surprisingly coherent for Nojima’s writing and even made sense on the surface level. The characters didn’t though. I found silly most of the moments which were supposed to be profound because most of the dynamics between the characters made no sense to me. Some plot twist like the main villain being the main character’s father are just so dumb cliches which try to be shocking but are not even unexpected and further undermine the efforts made to make the story serious and engaging.

I enjoyed most of the locations in the game as they are usually unique and each of them has something interesting to offer, at least in terms of visuals. I am especially fond on the Thunder Plains and Sand Ocean. Too bad most of them is that they are just straight corridor. Luckly, they still contain some secrets to discover. Finding al-bhed primers throughout the game was a great fun and so was entering the Cactuar Village. I wish there were more places like the optional dungeon in this game. I also miss some real cities with things to do, but lack of them makes sense in the world where the story is set.

Even though I craved for more dungeons in this game I absolutely despised all the trial chambers. They are not riddles, as there is no logic to them. You just have to guess what was the designer thinking and there are no clues for you to do it. I’m glad I played it in the internet era when I just opened a walkthrough on my mobile. They must have been such a pain back when the game was released.

There are also other activities than exploring and fighting in this game, but most of them are not that fun. Blitzbal is just as bad as the card games from FF8-9, plus it’s packed with long animations. There are also many challenges which are so tedious to do that there’s not a slight chance to beat all the dark Aeons for me. Collecting monsters for the arena is boring but that would be something I could do while listening to a good audiobook or a podcast. Jumping over 100 lightnings or chasing butterflies and all of that other nonsense is unacceptable for me.

It’s a good game, though, unless you are going for completing 100% of it. In that case, prepare for suffering.

Very much enjoyed the story overall, and especially getting to play with summons regularly. My first Final Fantasy outing outside of XIV and I'm glad I chose this one. Although the challenge rose throughout the game and I was "forced" to grind it didn't feel punishing to do so and I even enjoyed the battles.

As expected from Square Enix the score and visuals in the remastered cutscenes were gorgeous.

I did somewhat resent playing the sports-ball bro, but I came to...tolerate him.

HA HA HA HA HA HA (IYKYK)

Final Fantasy X features a touching, more intimate story for the series with a lovable cast of characters, but is unfortunately held back somewhat by poor dungeon/puzzle design and overly linear progression up until the final few hours. It is the first in the main series to have voice acting and also marks a return to classic turn-based RPG combat which last appeared in Final Fantasy III.

As is obvious from my statement above, I really like the party of characters in this game. Nearly all of them feel like they get a proper amount of the spotlight without taking away from the others. It's a joy to watch them interact and bounce off of each other and I would gladly spend more time with them.

Yuna is an easy favorite for me. I really appreciated the way she's written. She remains firm in her resolve to continue with her pilgrimage, even as her faith in Yevon is chipped away at throughout the game. Her English VA is pretty solid throughout, though there are some moments that come off a bit odd and stilted because she goes a bit too soft with her delivery.

I went into this game kind of expecting to dislike Tidus. I've never been very into the overly energetic anime stereotype I expected him to embody, but while he certainly has some of that annoying "Never Give Up!" energy, he has a lot more going on beneath the surface. Without spoiling anything, I appreciated how his relationship with his father plays into the story and especially liked that even in the end, his feelings still seem the right amount of conflicted given what he's been through. His English VA is pretty solid throughout and even has some really great moments near the end of the game. I feel the need to address the infamous laughing scene here, which is way overhated in my opinion. The context more than justifies the awkward laughter.

I don't want to get too bogged down talking about all the main cast here, so I'll just say that some other standouts were Wakka and Rikku. Lulu was solid as well, but it felt like there was maybe more that could have been explored had she not been kind of sidelined in the second half of the game. Kimahri is probably my least favorite of the bunch, but even then, it's only because I found him kind of boring.

In service of the more intimate, character-driven story, the game is a good bit more linear than all of the previous Final Fantasy games. This was fine for the most part because I was enjoying seeing where the story would go, but it was still kind of disappointing. I kept waiting for the moment the game presented me with the world map and let me freely make my way to the next area, but it never truly came. You only are given the reigns to explore freely just before the final boss, and at that point I was ready to finish up the game. That said, just like with Final Fantasy IX, I can see myself returning to this to explore the stuff I missed because it seems like there's a lot there to dig into. It's just very backloaded.

When I saw this game had classic turn-based combat I got excited. The ATB system has its advantages but as a Pokemon fan from childhood, I always preferred the slower paced, calculated style that less games seem to opt for these days. The game also makes good use of the combat system by having many of the bosses be very puzzle-like. At times this approach was frustrating when it was less obvious how you were intended to tackle an enemy, but for the most part the game did a good job of communicating what you had to do.

Unfortunately, Final Fantasy X really falls flat when it comes to dungeon design. There are four or five puzzle dungeons in the game that all revolve around placing magic spheres into the correct holes in walls. On my initial playthrough, I found these to be at best insanely tedious. I'm sure they'd be worse on a replay. There's very little variety to be found among these and they are additionally bogged down by long repetitive animations of walls moving, Tidus placing the sphere into various locations, and in one of them, slow-moving conveyor belt platforms.

As with previous entries, the prerendered cutscenes in this game are gorgeous. They do a great job of highlighting the climactic moments of Tidus's journey and serve as some of the most memorable story bits in the game. The in-engine scenes are good enough for the most part, but there are some obvious growing pains from the transition away from the fixed angles of past games that result in some truly awkward and distracting camera work. Also, likely due to some sort of game engine limitation, you are unable to skip in-engine cutscenes, which makes retrying some harder bosses more painful than it should be when you have to sit through the same scene over and over.

I found the soundtrack to be decent enough, though a bit of a step down from the PSX games. This game certainly has some very high highs though! The music during the underwater date scene as well as the ending cutscene come to mind as highlights that I won't be forgetting anytime soon. I just feel that most of the environmental music is very average, at best. There are one or two standout battle themes as well. In particular, Seymour Omnis's theme is such a bop I kept getting distracted by how great it was during the fight.

The tenth Final Fantasy game marks a strong first step into the sixth console generation for the series. Though it executes much of what it tries to do quite well, it definitely isn't perfect, as the lackluster dungeons and overly linear "exploration" knock it down a peg in my eyes. I'll be moving on to Final Fantasy X-2 next, and if the reviews I've seen are any indication, I can look forward to that game destroying my favorite character from this game, Yuna. Woo.

Thunder Plains was actually pretty cool! I dreaded it at first having heard I'd need to dodge lightning strikes but it was actually kinda fun.

Also, watching Rikku skitter along the ground like one of the Lying Figures from Silent Hill 2 (which apparently came out only a few months after this game) was definitely one of my favorite moments in the game so far.

I played both the one on the PS2 and on the PC. I dont think there's a difference in both (?) but what I can say is that this holds up even against JRPGs of today's time. A 10/10 given that it's still playable up to this day.

The grind to 100% is a bit of a chore tho. Had to do the dodge lightning twice in my life. Never again.

Decided to use a mod that tries to replace the new HD version faces with the original ones because the new ones freak me out, even though I never played the original.

It looks much better so far but unfortunately causes some weird clipping like eyelids clipping over each other when Tidus closes his eyes. It's real creepy but still an upgrade over the alternative I guess, lol.

And here I am right back to my buuuuuuulllshit. PS2 forever.

Ok, there are two things coming into play here: First, yes, the PS2 casts a massive shadow on my gaming tastes. It's like, I dunno, I WAS GROWING UP AS A PERSON DURING THAT TIME. So yes, that's a factor.

But also I have the three big F's in me: Final Fantasy Fan. I have played every Mainline Final Fantasy from 1 to 13 (11 being the notable exception because a ps2 with stable internet connection in 2002? Who the fucking fuck could afford that?). I have played and replayed the three classics multiple times each. I have enjoyed the delights of the GBA ports while playing Dawn of Souls, IV, V and VI (Oh, Kefka). I played BOTH versions of Final Fantasy III, an old pirated rom of the original Famicom version (rough as fuck) and the DS remake. I have spent COUNTLESS hours grinding Gargoyles in castles, dragons in islands, Cactuars, dinosaurs and the like. I have fought Marlboros, flans, Bombs, Opera-loving octopods, witches, a long-haired twink with one wing, GOD HIMSELF...

And yet, one the best gameplay experiences of my life, my eternal love, my all-time favorite. X.

This game is perfect. The pacing, the level-design and scenarios, the character design, the colors, the gameplay itself, the mechanics, the sphere-gird, the change from ATB to turn-based, they deleted the World-Map and IT WORKS, IT IS ABSOLUTELY FINE. YOU CAN CONTROL THE FREAKING SUMMONS WAHSFHASFHLWJHEKL WHAT? What do you mean I can control FREAKING BAHAMUT? The inventory is meaningful and engaging, the weapons make all the difference. Man... how could they produce such a massive, tightly constructed game?

But on a personal level one thing stands out above everything else here: The story.

The story on FFX is just marvelous. It is a great-sad story of death and duty and life and love and its persistence. It tackles everything including resilience, the perpetuation of unjusts systems based on death and destruction, and of course, the impermanence and mutability of dreams. What example can I use? Man that is the easiest question of my life with this game, let's just take for an example the absolutely hard-breaking story of the mother of a son who sacrificed herself so her child can get a shot at obtaining the love of the people who will hate him no matter what, and the despair and grief that turns that act of sacrifice into a summoning of pain and anguish. AND THAT IS JUST A MINOR SUBPLOT OF THE GAME, FAM.

And that ending, man, that absolutely beautiful and sad ending that made us (including Nyxipuff) weep uncontrollably. Like, we all saw it coming, but I personally thought that there was going to be a swashbuckly last-minute twist that would allow them to be together. But no, there wasn't. Even dreams that come true can disappear into fireflies...

Best game of the franchise. Peak fiction. No notes.

Veinte años después en mi cuarta plataforma (ps2, pc, psvita, switch) completo el 100% de un juego de mi infancia y me quito una espinita que siempre había estado rondando por ahí.

Ha sido una aventura divertida, han sido momentos algo tediosos, pero siempre con ganas de ver hasta donde podía llegar. Farmear el primer ap para conseguir 99.999 fue muy duro, a partir de ahi fue muy sencillo y creo que valió la pena. Me sorprende que hubieran tantas cosas en un mismo juego que realmente no pudieses ver, en horas de contenido estaba muy por encima de lo esperado. Ha cambiado mi percepción de Wakka (que pasó a estar en mi main team) y de Rikku, que no era tan dificil de combinar.

En definitiva, se lo recomiendo a todo el mundo, además hay algunos "trucos" para hacer más fáciles el tema de sacar los turbos de wakka y conseguir rayos frecuentemente, es bastante genial.

Fantastic turned based JRPG with a lovely, memorable story and cast of characters.

Gameplay was a lot of fun throughout the experience up until the endgame, which I ended up skipping as it was very tedious and annoying. The game was just difficult enough to prove to be a challenge, but got a bit grindy in some parts when I was ready for the game to wrap up.

Voice acting left something to be desired, but it was made up for by an emotional story based around amazing characters. The interactions between the main cast was definitely the high point of the game.

After replaying the HD remaster and also having originally playing the first release on PS2 I can say that it FFX stands the test of time.

For fans of Final Fantasy VII, VIII, XV, The World Ends with You, Kingdom Hearts, and the new FF VIII Remake, this is the same character designer (Tetsuya Nomura.) Titles that Nomura are involved in tend to be more stylish, bold, futuristic, and contain lots and lots of BELTS.

Tidus, the main protagonist, is one of the strongest in the FF series, and we can see and experience his personal growth, as Tidus does all the voice over narration for his journey throughout the world that he becomes a part of, Spira.

I've been trying to finish off this game for weeks, and I finally did it today after several extremely frustrating hours with the final boss (more on that later). Playing this game was sort of a rollercoaster for me. At first, I thought it was fine, if kind of boring. I eventually grew weary of the game around the halfway point and was waiting for it to be over. Around the three quarter mark, I finally felt like I had a pretty powerful crew, and that made the game more fun. The last bit of the game really stretched on, and I was ready for it to be over. I freaking hated the final boss. And then, watching the final cutscene, I felt pretty pretty content. Overall, two stars.

I thought this would be a short review, but turns out I had a lot of thoughts. Here's my breakdown:

Story

It's probably surprising that for someone who really likes Final Fantasy, the story is never really what does it for me. I like some stories more than others, but as long as I'm working towards some overarching goal, I'm fairly content. This story was fine overall, but some of it didn't make a lot of sense to me. I always had questions (for example, why does everyone breathe underwater?). Confusing though it sometimes is, the story is definitely what drives the game. It felt to me like this game was a cinematographic event first and a video game second.

But whatever. You're on a quest to stop the recurring evil thing from causing trouble for a little white. It's Final Fantasy I all over again. Good enough.

Character Design

This was one of the things that gave me definite "meh" vibes right from the beginning. I just didn't really like any of the characters or their designs. Tidus, Wakka, and Lulu do absolutely nothing for me. Yuna and Auron are fine. Rikku is kinda cool. Everyone else is just sort of there.

Hallway Simulator

I've heard that Final Fantasy XIII is really bad for this, but X has it pretty bad too. Most of the game, you're just walking directly from point A to point B, with few branching paths, open areas, or interesting things in the way. It's extremely linear. You don't even get access to an airship until the very end, so you really can't go off on your own path at all during the game (or at least that's how it seemed to me... apparently I missed a lot of things, which I mention in the section about the final boss).

This was made worse by obscure progression prompts at a lot of points in the game. Often, you can't move forward with the story or into the next area until you do something very specific, which is usually talking to a specific character. It was so frustrating every time everyone was just standing around and I'd just talk to every single person, waiting for some cutscene to happen. Sometimes you had to speak to the same character multiple times before something would happen. Very annoying.

Puzzles

Puzzles don't feature prominently in too many Final Fantasy games, but they're a pretty important part of X. You enter a temple, and in order to get out, you have to figure out where to put these spherical objects you find along your way. I love puzzles in my video games, but these ones were pretty meh, for the most part. There was only one that actually stood out.

Battling

This is what I really come to Final Fantasy for: a good turn-based combat system. And overall, this one's really good! Instead of being stuck with a certain party, you can switch party members at will during a battle. You would think this would trivialize combat, but I thought it was actually integrated really well. You can also switch out weapons and armour at will, so if you find yourself unprepared for a certain battle, you can adapt on the fly, provided you can survive the turn it takes to reset your weapons. I also loved that you could see the turn order at all times and strategize around it. This feature was used a decade and a half later in Octopath Traveler, and I'm a big fan (though I never really caught onto how delays and action time worked until basically the end of the game).

The battle animations are much more efficient than in the PS1 era, so battling generally goes a lot faster. Every character did feel unique, and almost all of them got their chance to shine at various points in the game. I never really figured out how to use Khimari, but pretty much everyone else got a chance to be the go-to at different parts in the game.

The one annoying thing was how throughout the game there were random-encounter enemies that had more HP than some boss battles. That doesn't mean they're more difficult, but it certainly means they're time consuming. I don't mind random encounters at all, but when a single battle can last several minutes and drains a bunch of my resources, and you have to fight that exact same battle over and over, it gets super tedious. Another of the things that made me excited to see the end of the game.

Sphere Grid

Alright, one of the main features of Final Fantasy X. This game did away with traditional levelling up, instead placing all statistical improvements on a giant grid called the Ability Sphere. If I had to describe it in a word, I would say "tedious". It's kind of cool that you can customize your character and choose your branching paths, but 90% of the time there isn't an option; you're just following a set path of advancements. All this means is that instead of stats and abilities increasing automatically after battles, you have to take several minutes to go and increase yourself. Again, this is sort of cool 10% of the time, but most of the time it's just really annoying and adds several hours to the length of the game. Which brings me to...

Cutscenes

This was me after the 100th time I had to watch a cutscene, walk five steps, and then watch another cutscene:

Edit: This is supposed to be a Gif, where Tidus says "What is it this time?"

There are so. Many. Cutscenes. Don't get me wrong, I like a good cutscene, and some of them look really nice with the fancy new PS2 technology, but sometimes I just want to play the game for more than five minutes in a row without being interrupted! Based on the length of YouTube videos that cut together all the cutscenes in the game, I think it adds 10 hours to your playthrough. That's almost a quarter of your time spent with the game.

The worst part is that they're not skippable, even if you've watched them before. And many boss fights are preceded by lengthy cutscenes. So if you're having trouble with a particular boss fight (don't worry, I'm almost there), get ready to hear a whole lot of Tidus and Yuna whining about something or other.

That's right: for the first time ever, Final Fantasy has voice acting. Like most things in this game, it's fine. Not a ton of standout performances, but not a ton of cringe moments either. I think the worst part was the dead space between lines. You had to wait for the camera to pan up the next character before he or she would deliver the line.

Boss Fights

Okay, last thing. I think the best thing about Final Fantasy X is the boss battles. A lot of them are really unique and force you to come up with a good strategy to beat them. For example, Seymour Flux has a deadly combo where he turns you into a zombie and then casts full-life on you, killing a character instantly. Strategy: prevent zombie status. Cool.. I also really liked the Trigger Command: in some boss fights, you could interact with the boss or the environment. Working these triggers into the strategy was a lot of fun.

However, some of the boss fights felt like they were thrown in just because the developers realized the player needed a break from the movie. Like I said earlier, this game feels like a movie first and a video game second. Not every boss fight felt like it had a justified story reason for being there.

Furthermore, because every boss required a good strategy to defeat it, a lot of the boss battles at the end of the game felt almost impossible to beat on your first try. You can switch your weapons and armour mid-battle, so sometimes you can figure out the strategy and adapt on the fly, but the bosses are so beefy at the end that you're often wiped out by the time you have a chance to do so. Some bosses have one particular ability that can wipe you out in a single turn if you're not prepared for it. Combine that with the unskippable cutscenes I mentioned before, and redoing these boss fights gets reeeeaaal annoying. The emotions also tend to wear off when you have to go through those motions multiple times.

This was never worse than in the final boss fight. I'm going to put this whole section in spoilers, but it also includes my thoughts on optional content, which could have been its own section.

First, not only is the final boss preceded by about a ten-minute cutscene, but the game also gives you 10 new weapons and items before the battle (but after the save point). If you want to use any of those weapons and items (which you probably do) you have to completely rearrange your inventory and go through the ability sphere menu every single time you retry the final boss. I never timed it, but I think it took about 20 minutes just reset the boss fight. And that boss is borderline unfair.

I don't like looking things up when I'm playing through a game. After my fifth time dying because his second form did Blitz Blast twice in a row without even a chance at recovering, I looked up some strategies. Apparently the usual strategies take advantage of things I had never even heard of during my playthrough! Celestial weapons? Nope. Break Damage Limit? Never heard of it. Monster Arena? What the freak was that? Yojimbo? What the heck? I feel like the game did a terrible job at letting you know that these things exist, yet they almost seem necessary in order to beat the boss. I'm super down with optional content, but not if it becomes necessary in order to beat the game. I couldn't be bothered to spend hours looking for these things, so I just did it my own way (so yea, the optional content was exactly necessary, but still), but it was still annoying that I missed out on so much that could have helped me on my journey.

Sidebar on Optional Content, Continued from Previous Paragraph

I know I always miss some of these things when I play Final Fantasy, but usually I at least know that they're out there for me to find if I want to go exploring. I don't even know where these things could have been hidden, because like I said, the whole game felt extremely linear. I tried to explore as much as the game allowed me to, but obviously I missed out on some pretty major stuff. And I can't be bothered to look up where I could have found it all, because I am super done with this game.

Anyway, I did figure out my own strategy, and I was able to pull off a victory (only to be accosted by two more boss fights, both of which are very losable, and I would have been super pissed if I had lost at either point). I beat the game, and I am never going to play it again.

Sorry to all y'all that love this game 🤣

This game has some of the most fun gameplay out of the series. It is not too complicated like the later installments, or too slow like its predecessors. Fighting did not feel like a chore at all. The characters were amazing and memorable, which is a must in a good final fantasy game. I didn't really feel strongly for the protagonist, but the supporting cast was so memorable and well designed that I didn't mind. The story was just as I expected, a little wacky, but surprisingly I found it grounded enough that I could follow along. The ultimate romance is very fulfilling and earned which is hard to do in a video game. However, the game does have a lot of tedious designs that are insufferable. Non-skippable cut scenes, the mini-games are satanic, a bunch of grinding, and annoying difficulty curves. Other than that, this is one of the strongest entries in the final fantasy series.

Quite possibly the most perfect game to me. I love how the graphics feel and look, the settings, the backgrounds, the horizons. It's one of the rare games I actually keep the audio on for. I enjoy turn-based games that take a lot of strategy. I enjoy grinds for late-game content (though the Japanese/PAL version is even better for that lategame aspect). I love collectibles. It's one of the rare games I always finish when I start replaying, and I go beyond the basic story everytime. And, it's a game I find myself returning to over and over, even with how banal filling the sphere grid can be -- I keep returning. Plus, I enjoy Blitzball, even though once you understand some basics and what team members to get, it can be repetitive. I like repetitive :) I'm a grinder

Look: 10/10 Striking. Lots of blues and aqua vibes and colors I can just look into, horizons and lookouts and edges of maps. Yet still focused on a linear-enough path for me not to get too frustrated. Another whole world realized with my favorite era of 3D graphics. The world has a culture of its own, you feel like it truly has its history, and the buildings the sprites the equipment the ancient writings all carry this culture so clearly. What a fully realized concept Spira is. The Summons, and some of the enemies, are very cool looking, and still fit within this culture/world.

Sound: 10/10 The fact Wandering Flame is my go-to background music for when I'm trying to focus on a game with no or bad Sound (I came back to this review just to say that ha, I have Wandering Flame playing on repeat as I play the original King's Quest on IBM PCjr)... not to mention the whole soundtrack is frequent for-pleasure listens.

Play: 10/10 This was what I wanted from gaming back then, and mostly still true today--press X absentmindedly, pay attention to only the most epic aspects of the storyline, and spend as much time researching and digging through appendices/guides/bestiaries/lists/etc as I do actively playing the game. Now I'm craving FFIX, FFX-2 (which I only seem to want to play in retrospect/nostalgia ha), FFXII, etc.

Joy (now Feel): 10/10 Formative for me for what I look for in the feel and joy of a game... the purpose of gaming in general to me--basically ambient goal-achieving)

Attachment: 10/10 There are few games I've spent more hours in, and few games I've spent this much time in, and few games I know I will replay again (probly helps that I lost that Platinum Trophy account... future re-releases will get me re-motivated for the future versions of Platinum Trophies, I'm sure heh)

FFX is one of the titles that revolutionized the series and sparked your imagination for what could happen next. Stirring electro-orchestral music, gorgeous graphics, the series' first foray into all 3D, voice acting and emotional immediacy (the case boasts "Characters with voices" and "Real-time facial expressions"), X was a landmark that showed us what a game can be.

The game gets a lot of flack for the voice acting, but in hindsight and being mindful of the limitations, it actually isn't bad at all. Of course, John DiMaggio and the Aurochs could have practiced their whatever Caribbean island dialect they were shooting for, but it's fine. I actually think the real weakness across the game is Yuna, with the weird stuttery cadences and odd way she pitches her voice. I don't fault the VA so much though, because I guarantee about 80% of the awkwardness comes from trying to fit intelligible English sentences into the Japanese language speaking mouths, like old Godzilla films. You'd think they could have found a way around this, but I guess not. Seems the voice acting and language has a lot of weirdness going on (and is one of the speculated reasons why there's not a new script text-wise and the ability to play Japanese voices with English text in all the re-releases).

The battle system felt like a perfect hybrid of turn based and ATB fighting, but never felt boring like earlier turned based incarnations. The sphere grid was cool, but my characters all got way too powerful way too early.

More on that, I tried avoiding grinding altogether, but some of the side quests and a lack of a no encounters equip until late in the game, force a lot of battles on you and I just don't really ever run away from battles. I intended to play through this with no assistance at all, except I wanted to pick up the Al Bhed primers to understand what a lot of the game's dialogue was saying. But, that turned into me looking up other stuff. I guess I can't help myself. Anyways, that lead me down a number of side quests and a good amount of additional battles.

Which leads me to the Celestial Weapons and side content. The side content in this game is terrible. It's grindy, tedious, boring, needlessly exacting, and adds a lot of grinding, repeating tasks, and just total time sinks that detract from the main game. Not only that, but getting these weapons ruins the game in ways I didn't foresee. Yuna casting a 1 MP Holy that does 14,000 damage and gets heaps and heaps of AP, or Wakka doling out 38k on his normal attacks, just makes the game WAY too easy. When I say this, I mean just the storyline game, I was so frustrated after hours of butterfly catching and cactuses, that I skipped the monster arena and Omega Ruins.

So for me, I wound up with Wakka, Yuna, Rikku, and Kimahri's weapons. I got all the Aeons. Seymour Omnis lasted about two turns and an Anima summon. Jecht took a few turns, but also super easy. Dark Aeons (the Yu Yevon ones) could hit me for loads of damage, but died in mostly one hit from anyone, even a non-damage cap breaking character. And Yu Yevon was kind of a let down.

Oh and let's talk about the totally stupid fact that you're given permanent auto-life for the last battle, making everything after BFA basically just a less scripted story fight. It would have been nice if there were actual strategy to consider if the Dark Aeons one hit KO attacks actually kept you down and you had to worry about dealing w/ that.

I really do need to play X-2 without any guides or the internet. A friend gave me the PS3 X/X-2 HD remaster, so I'll worry about 100%ing these when I get to that. It makes me regret the side content and grinding I did in this one for now. Oh well, maybe someday there'll be a hard FF last boss.

In a fashion that is all my own, I continue my streak of playing a Final Fantasy game, but never finishing it! To be fair, I made it to the final boss fight on this one -- which is much further than any other FF game I've played to date. I hit a hard wall in difficulty and refused to go back to grind the levels I needed. This happens with every game in this series that I've tried, and it was finally through playing this one, I came to accept that the FF series is probably not for me.

However I enjoyed my time with this one and I can totally see why this is a fan favourite. I enjoyed the battle system more than the other games I've played in the series. Specifically the ability to switch out characters on the fly was a nice addition. The only tweak I would make is to allow the skipping of one character's magical summons. The animations can become repetitive and tedious after a while.

While the combat was better, but ultimately still just okay, the game had some real strengths. The characters are memorable, the music is gorgeous and the story is at times ham fisted but for the most part ends up being quite touching. That is a considerable feat given the limitations that the localization team had to work with and how nascent the medium was upon this game's release.

This is definitely the one to play if you're coming from the angle of a western style Bioware/lapsed DnD player.

Update: I did go back and finish the final boss, so I have finished A single FF game! Woo!

One of the last titles published under the SquareSoft name, Final Fantasy X is an interesting time to be had. Interesting not so much in quotes as that's really the best way I can describe it.

On one hand, you have a particularly goodish story delving into religious themes and philosophy that reflect on the characters (to a point) as they go on their venture. It all ties in very neatly to this concept of finding what you really believe in and evaluating what religion offers, because the followings of Yevon both impart legitimately beneficial uses and harmful overzealous cultlike philosophy.

It's not really as graceful as I describe it unfortunately, because it's paced like shit and the characters are obnoxiously simple for far too long a while for any investment. The dub makes things worse for sure (which has been said to death) but it's just not that well written.

On the other hand of interesting, you have the combat. The sphere grid, which is the progression backbone and customization route of FFX, is the best component. It gives a general track to follow for how your characters can level up but also giving you choices and meaningful opportunity costs to consider. The turn based gameplay is also very good, requiring more attention than your usual FF affair and having enemy optimization and decent balance.

But again, there's drawbacks here. The combat pacing is also trash, with a ridiculous amount of fights that go on for too long and are incredibly boring, optimization generally becoming a simple affair until the hard hitting bosses. The game's combat doesn't really turn into something special until the damn endgame where all of the best bosses are kept and test the system to its limits.

Other miscellaneous notes: The music is absolutely excellent, and potentially my favorite soundtrack of the FF series. The aesthetic is well worn if a bit dated at points. The cinematics are very well done though on most regards. Blitzball is trash, so are the rest of the minigames the game forces you through. It's a running thing with FF games but it's at one of its worst incarnations here.

Overall, FFX is a decent overall time that I do recommend trying. You might end up being far more charitable to it than I was. (6/10)

Spent half of my life playing this one. Over and over again.

Yeah I know about the flaws and I despise them. But I've spent to much time in Spira.

Really love this game with all my heart.

I‘ve got so many memories that are connected with it in some way. I dare say it kinda shaped some part of my personality.

With every time that I come back I get pulled in stronger than before. Still get goosebumps everytime I hear Aurons Theme, every time that Yuna dances for the dead and every time I hear those voices of my beloved characters again.

I never get bored of you my sweet Final Fantasy. You are - and will always be - a part of me.

See you soon.

It's been no secret that my experience with this game has been a rough one. As much as I hoped to enjoy it I cannot say I did. Rather than ramble for hours I'll leave the shorter version here. The characters (sans Rikku and Auron), themes, story, mechanics, romance (if you can call it that) philosophical and theological musings, as well as many many many other aspects of this title did not click with me. I do not think you are a bad person for liking this game but for me it was one of the least enjoyable gaming experiences this year. It's not you FFX, it's me...I did not expect to enjoy you less than FF13, but alas, as the poet once said "You can't always get what you want." The final straw was the crazy difficulty spike for the final boss rush that required me to go grind. I'll admit I lost my patience and turned on cheats for that section allowing me to level faster (I had beaten it legitimately before on a friend's file anyway.)

On the plus side, a lot of the music was nice. I also enjoyed seeing a few pre rendered backgrounds and old ps1 carryovers. And even though they were given terrible direction the voice acting was really charming in parts and you could tell they were earnestly trying. I always considered this a turning point for the series. Losing its creator I think dealt a wound it never has quite recovered from. Maybe one day it can return to the magic of a series that taught my teenage self that games could have gripping and moving narratives. In the meantime sleep well Tidus, Yuna, and the rest. I don't think I'll be waking you any time soon.