FFX's VA is considered to be very well done, save for some parts by Yuna and the infamous laughing scene. Both of which people blow out of porpotion in order to make the game sound awful.
How were the characters uninspired? Tidus was probably the first FF character that wasn't emo, and actually had trouble carrying a sword at first. He also liked women, instead of shying away from them. IMO, he was the most lively, realistic, and fun character of any FF. Every other character's backstory in FFX was brilliantly constructed and extremely interesting. The overall storyline is conisdered to be the most emotionaly powerful of the series, and IMO, had the most exciting twists.
The visuals were gorgeous, the battles were enjoyable, albeit a little easy sometimes, and the sphere grid system was innovative and worked out extremely well - also a reason to to replay the game. There were sidequests, ultimate weapons, hidden aeons, the al bhed language, blitzball, and several other things you could entertain yourself with.
I loved FFX, you don't have to enjoy it, but you could try to respect it more for what it is. There is an FF for everyone, personally I love them all. If one doesn't fit your tastes however, don't go shouting garbage like, "FFX was the beginning of Square's downfall in quality," that's just plain ignorant.
Koalakommander
FFX's VA is well done compared to Altier Iris (a.k.a. Ear cancer) but thats about all I can say for it. I don't care what they were trying to cast it as, three of the VAs were intolerable (the voices of Tidus, Yuna, Wakka) and Rikku wasn't much better. Tidus always sounded like an annoying little pre-pubescent pissant, Yuna was too airy, and Wakka was about biggest islander stereotype VA imaginable. Rikku was just shrill.
Tidus was uninspired because he did something that books, movies, and videogames have been doing for ages taking a celebrity or other important person of some type and throwing him into unusual circumstances. Would you care me to list some? He was whining half the time and being an imbecile another quarter of the time.
So far as the story is concerned it was decent but I've certainly seen far better, there were a couple of notable twists but nothing really mind blowing as I see it. It was constructed well enough but destroyed by pacing and the principal characters..if you were playing as Tidus's father instead it would have been considerably better IMO.
The visuals were good for the time but Tidus's design sucks, he looks plainly ridiculous and so was Seymour while we're at it, its not even close to FFVIII's character designs. The sphere grid was disappointing..it was like the rest of the game too linear, you couldn't even get off any particular progression path for sometimes well over a dozen levels at a time and the rarity of the special spheres and higher level key spheres made it more so.
FFVII, FFVIII, Grandia, Grandia II, FFT, Chrono Trigger, Legaia, Legaia 2..just a few progression systems I greatly preferred. Reasons being, they were more open, more in depth, more intruiging, or less arbitrary. FFX is in large part traveling around the sphere grid for stat boosts which if they were smart they would have done like every other JRPG out there (pretty much) and made them increase with level instead.
Side quests were limited for most of the game, I enjoyed blitzball (which puts me in the minority) but the hidden aeons and the rest were small distractions at best and for some time there blitzball was unavailable.
Simply put, the linearity, obnoxious characters (save Lulu, Auron, and Khimari), the dearth of real side quests for most of the game (doesn't begin to compare to even Grandia which is not known for the side quests), encounter rate, and generally uninspired gameplay make it a game that runs solely off of story (inferior to others in the series and many other games) and graphics which is not enough to save the game from mediocrity.
When S-E begins to deserve my respect again I'll show it, as is they merely run FF and DQ into the ground and screw their other franchises by putting them someplace they don't belong (in fact, they're even screwing DQ this way) or changing them entirely from how their fans expect them to be..often ending up with inferior games.
Linear games can work so long as they don't FEEL linear, poor or average characters work out fine so long as the VA and dialogue work, good graphics can help a game but can't carry it, and most importantly here the story much be more than FMVs and the combat and progression systems must be well implemented and more than an afterthought.
Final Fantasy X does not qualify on any of those counts which is why it broke any remaining trust I had in the Final Fantasy series (I played it after the relative disappointment of FFTA) and why I haven't bought another Final Fantasy game since, because theres more innovative and more well designed games out there by far and they don't get the credit they deserve.
Log in to comment