(Edited)
With the Playstation 2's better disc drive and graphically capabilities Final Fantasy X looks incredible, and still holds up even to this day as one of the better looking games on the system. Even with the real-time gameplay being better than what the FMV's had been on the PS string of games the FMV's overshadow everything from the ninties, rendering them useless for some. While the graphcis are well defined and magnificint the gameplay and story-line are what really drives this game to its true achievement.
With IX giving you the ability to use four characters in battle it seemed like X took a step backwards with only three characters. Not quite, given that you can now switch out any character in your party for another, as long as they're not KO'd/Petrified. This not only gave the game more options for the battle system it also gave the player a better chance of winning certain fights. Taking advantage of this system is easy as well, in that you can just switch out a character let them give a Potion to another character and then switch them out, giving them full experience, making the leveling up process that much easier.
Yet the levels aren't what they used to be, levels now consist of moves you can make on a sphere grid, a gigantic grid full of spheres/circles that have a certain attribute you can unlock for your characters stats. Taking the leap forward with this let the game be that more enjoyable, since now you don't have to worry about getting to level ninety-nine you can TRY to access every node on the grid, which is a feat in itself.
While the gameplay and battle system were more polished and vastly improved as well as revolutionized the story line is what gave this game the reckognition that it has now. Being probably the darkest of all of the games in the series because of its emotional backing and themes of religion the games story will live on in you months, perhaps years, after you've finally finished it. While the game has a deep storyline you can relax on the reading that was involved in the previous games. Now with voice acting the game allows you to be as lazy and illeterate as possible without sacrificing anything associated with the story (you still have to read some things in the game....like every other thing in life.)
As wonderful as the game is, as mentioned above, it does have its share of flaws. Its most noteable being the absence of endless wandering around a world map, a staple has now been undone on the series it seems like. Other flaws are minor, including the voice acting and lip movements, which nobody should care about really in a game.
For all that it includes and gives Final Fantasy X lives up to its name in every respect. That will give you at least fifty hours of enjoyable and immersive game play.