A milestone for the PS2. You can also own it too. *very long review*

User Rating: 8.9 | Final Fantasy X (Mega Hits!) PS2
By smbius | Review Date:
FFX was directed by Yoshinori Kitase, who also helped design FF VIII on PSX. FFX started development back in 1999. No online features so a broken promise there but that will be another story in itself. FFX marks the first FF in the PS2 world so character models are fully fledged human-like figures, as opposed to FF IX's super deformed models. This is the first fully 3D FF game. 2d pre-rendered backdrops are now a thing of the past, and what square give us is a beautiful believable world for you to explore. FF games have been known for their deep and subversive plots, and FFX takes a deeper route. The game begins in the city, Zanarkand - a city that never sleeps. Tidus, the star player of the local blitzball team must make his way to the blitzball stadium to take part in a crunch match. While all this is going on, a great entity known as "Sin" makes its way to the City. Sin is a dark force which is only capable of mass destruction and causing suffering to the people who co-exist in its world. Whilst making its way to the stadium, it tears apart everything in its sight, from huge skyscrapers to bridges, whatever gets in its way. Half way through the blitzball game, the stadium is attacked, and in a rather impressive scene, Tidus must escape from the carnage and after a few minor battles, you are hurled 1000 years into the future, and eventually, you'll wake up on a beach, in the world of Spira, where the game starts proper.... The game's battles take place either at boss battles, or at random battle events. Just like the previous installments, your party may have up to 3 characters at a time with a little twist - with a press of L1, you may swap the character on your current turn and replace him or her with any character that has joined in your quest. Although the battles are random, they are definitely more strategic and tactical. Enemy gauging is very clever. You will come across higher level enemies of various types makeing things challenging. Gone is the Active Time Battle which has been replaced by turned based moves. In addition, FFX hasn't opted for the extravagant 10-minute special moves, standard and summon attacks are much more to the point and has provided better pacing. As well as normal attacks, skills can also be learned to aid your quest, and these become vital for progression. Skills vary from a Dark attack, which is typically used to stop the enemy from getting a physical hit on your party, or Silence attack, which disables the use of Magic against your party. Not only do you have your standard HP/MP bar, but you also have an "Overdrive" gauge. Overdrives are executed once the gauge fills up. The bar fills up slightly once the character is hit, or later on in the game, you may change this so that the bar can fill up when your party wins a battle, or if you inflict damage on a fiend. Once the bar fills up, you may select your Overdrive (the character's super move) similar to the Limit breaks in earlier FF games. However, in order to deal great damage with your Overdrive, you must execute the given command correctly before the timer runs out. Correct timing rewards those who execute Overdrives. As always, battle victories receive Gil (the game's currency), as well as items like potions and spheres and even new abilities. In order to increase your characters statistics, Square has utilized a "sphere grid" approach. The sphere grid is similar to a huge othello style board, once characters gain ability points through battle, they may move about on the board. Each character starts off at a different end of the grid, and once they gain spheres such as Mana, Power, Fortune or Ability spheres, then they may use the correct sphere to activate the node which you are either standing on or in front of you. For example, if you gained 2 Sphere levels (spaces allowed to move across the grid), and moved on a Health Point node, then you may use a Power sphere in order to activate that node, and if there is, for example, an Magic Point node in front of you also, then you may use a Mana sphere. New abilities aid you on your quest via the sphere grid. Abilities such as Power Break and Triple Foul can be learned when you use an ability sphere on it's node. However, to gain powerful abilities for tougher bosses in the game, progression is encouraged. You may toughen up your character via random battles, but to get strengthen your characters abilities you will need to 'progress' through the stories and subplots of the game. FFX does away with tedious monster work where a player can level their character to rediculous levels (i.e. level 99) and simply kill a boss in one hit. Battles require skill, preparation, tactical strategies and sometimes a bit of luck. FFX is one of the very few RPGs where it utilises the speed-up/defense boosting abilities immensely - the "Haste" ability, which makes the character(s) speed faster than default, is almost a requirement when engaging later bosses, and to that, merit should be given. Changing from ATB to a quazi turned-based system takes strategy to the next level by anticipating the possible moves of the enemy. The level of customization involved in this game is quite staggering too. Once you progress far enough into the game, you learn the customize ability, which allows you to customise your weapons and armor to give them unique abilities which will aid you in battle. Weapons and armor have slots, which are used for abilities. For example, on the first slow of your weapon, you may use 20 power spheres to give it the "poison strike" ability, which allows your weapon to poison a vulnerable fiend with a regular attack. You may also use 3 holy waters to give it the "water strike", which is useful against fiends which are vulnerable to water. You can also give your armor special characteristics which help assist in making you immune to certain spells or attacks. For example, you can put an ability known as "Water eater" on an empty slot which allows you to gain Health Points if you are attacked by a water attack. An adept player will equip the correct ability according to the enemies he faces and can possibly use their enemy's attacks to their advantage. The possibilities of customization are tremendous and most seasoned FFX players will definitely not overlook this. In addition to doing away with the traditional levelling up, FFX is also the first FF game to feature voice acting. Voice acting is used extensively during the game, only one-liner NPCs dont use it, which is very few. The acting is done surprisingly well, Tidus's voice is sounds very enthusiastic and carefree, which suits his character perfectly. Yuna represents more of the ideal innocent type and the perforance of her character is very welcome. The designers of FFX have made Yuna a soft and gentle personality that blends in well with other characters leaving a convincing a pace of a young girl new to the outside world. All of the characters you come across have breath life in their performances. They all have deep but mysterious meaning and they all have a distinct individuality. The voice acting enhances alot of the dialogue you read in most RPGs. It also helps FFX draw the player into the game more, scenes can get very emotional depending the situation, and the voice acting doesn't detract from that feeling at all. It's like watching a movie. You wont have to concentrate on hours of text. The game becomes naturally passive and the game simply tells its story in a more meaningful way. This game also is quite the graphical powerhouse, it once again features excellent CG scenes, which push the story forward and put the player in absolute awe at times. The great thing about this game is, once you get to a certain point, you may attain "memory spheres", these are used to record in game and CG scenes that you've seen during your adventure, and theres little doubt you'll be watching these again and again such is the quality of the CG sequences and real time cut scenes. This game looks as great as it sounds. Square has developed the game with a beautiful soundtrack thanks in part to Nobuo Umatseu. The sound is always part of the experience, and rarely does it disappoint or seem misplaced. The sound and spell effects are also worth of mention. Whilst the main-game staggering, there are plenty of mini-games and side quests to take part in, you may want to search for each and every character's ultimate weapon. This allows them to break past damage limit and also allows your aeons break past their damage limit. You can also search for secret aeons, which can only be obtained by completing certain events. Or you can fight extremely powerful bosses created in the monster arena; however, if you wish to do this, you must capture every fiend from areas you've visited in the game, by purchasing weapons with the "catcher" ability and then simply killing the fiend. Once you capture all the types of fiends from a certain area, a monster will be unlocked to fight against created from all those fiends you've caught, this adds a certain Pokémon-esque gimmick to the game, which will keep you very busy and interested once the main game has been completed, of course, this adds replay value, which is important and sometimes non-existent to an RPG. FFX is also very reminiscent of previous FF games, with already mentioned summoned beasts (aeons), weapon names such as Lulu's Onion Knight will remind of pastime FF players of the Onion kid from FFIII, and the Godhand from FFVII makes an appearance. FF games have always been linear, and this is no different. The game carries you on a pre-set route and is one of the more linear titles in the series; progression is attained by simply getting from point A to point B with little in the way of diversion along the way. A little more freedom would have been a welcome addition. FF is not only a great RPG, but it's also an experience. A very well constructed game with a immersive plot, excellent graphics, good sound and plenty of game time, it shouldn't be overlooked. If you didn't like VII or VIII, then there is still reason enough to try out FFX as it is a very accomplished game, and if you give it a chance it could very well suck you in its glorious world. letmeplaybook.com

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