Review: Final Fantasy X
It’s been overhyped, but can Square deliver despite unrealistic expectatations?
Tags: Final Fantasy X Categories: PS2 Reviews, Reviews
Posted by Craig "American Idle" Hansen on Aug 3rd, 2003
| Title | Players | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Final Fantasy X (title page) | |||
| Developer | Publisher | Genre | Online |
| No | |||
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“If you can’t win them over with characters, overwhelm them with spectacle.”
It’s a quote that’s made the rounds in Hollywood for years, being attributed at various times to Cecil B. DeMille, George Lucas, Steven Spielberg and Michael Bay, just to name a few. The quote seems most apt when applied to movies like “Twister” that some folks consider a special effects movie that doesn’t deliver enough character moments to be emotionally engaging.
In honesty, no one knows who first said it but even apocryphal quotes can make a point: sometimes entertainers prefer to overwhelm the senses when they can’t deliver substance.
Unfortunately, what that quote fails to take into account is that sometimes, entertainers can deliver on both levels.
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Cecil B. DeMille did it with The Ten Commandments. Lucas did in with the first Star Wars. Spielberg’s done it several times, most notably in Saving Private Ryan and Shindler’s List. As for Michael Bay, well…
At any rate, Squaresoft has also achieved delivering on both levels with their latest release, Final Fantasy X for PS2. Graphically, the game outshines everything else on PS2, including such impressive works as Metal Gear Solid 2 and Gran Turismo 3. Simultaneously, it tells one of the more subtle, engaging, character-driven stories to ever be delivered in the Final Fantasy series.
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Final Fantasy X centers around the story of Tidus, a blitzball superstar whose world is suddenly obliterated by a weird, gigantic flying monster known as Sin. Tidus awakes in a new reality where the world he knew is history … ancient history. Thankfully, he doesn’t have amnesia and knows exactly who he is, making the story not one of identity discovery but a “fish out of water” tale of a newcomer trying to fit into a land and time with which he’s unfamiliar.
The game has a wonderful opening, full of spectacle, which accomplishes the job of familiarizing the player with the game’s conventions on a slowly rising scale. While the destruction of the blitzball stadium by Sin has some unfortunate emotional resonance in light of the September 11 attacks on America, it’s different enough to avoid being off-putting. And it is impressive as spectacle.
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Nearly everything about the Final Fantasy franchise has been rethought this time out. Want examples? Coolio.
Remember the Active Time Battle system, variations of which have ruled the Final Fantasy series for several outings? Gone.
In its place is a more traditional turn-based system that allows the player to swap characters in and out of the battle at will (except for Tidus), creating a new level of strategy and allowing you to level up characters a bit more evenly than previous chapters in the series.
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Leveling up? Gone.
In it’s place, you earn the ability to move around a sphere grid where you can purchase power-ups to your characters that slowly add abilities and make them more powerful. It may sound odd on paper, but is quite visual and inventive in practice, again adding a whole new level of strategy to how you develop your character.
Tons of text dialog to read through? Gone!
Instead, nearly all interactions in FFX are accomplished via voice acting and … shock … it’s actually pretty darn good voice acting! In some cases, the US actors offer better, subtler performances than did the Japanese voice actors in the Japan release. Quite a distinction!
Random battles? Well, not gone but rarer than before; you can actually to some exploring of this beautiful world without being interrupted by random battles every five steps!
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Armor and weapons are different, too. Taking a cue from the well-received Grandia series, weapons and armor can now be upgraded and customized to an incredible degree, which means a highly-customized short sword can actually be more desirable than picking up a brand new, uncustomized long sword. Just as an example.
Aeons, which function as FFX’s version of Limit Breaks, are also more interactive than they used to be.
For all the changes, some things remain the same. FFX still offers a ton of minigames that can offer hours of fun all by themselves. And chocobos, a staple of the series, can still be found.
While the early hours of FFX are fairly cinematic and light on interactive gameplay, eventually the game settles down and becomes one of the more challenging to beat chapters in the series; unlike previous Final Fantasy titles, you can actually be fairly challenged by even minor encounters, which prepares you better for the ultimately challenging boss encounters.
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Without offering any spoilers, the story of Final Fantasy X is one of the more memorable of the series, perhaps even the best, and seems destined to overtake the well-received PSOne show-stopper, Final Fantasy IX as everyone’s favorite.
True, some retro gamers may still whine about FFVI being the series’ highpoint, but let them dig their SNES out of mothballs and shut the hell up. The PS2 era of Squaresoft games has finally arrived, delivering a game so good, you’ll swear you’re fantasizing.
Along with GT3 A-spec, GTA3 and MGS2, Final Fantasy X is an awesome game that is also a showpiece title. If any friend wonders whether PS2 can “keep up” with the power of systems like GameCube and Xbox, just pop this puppy in.
But be sure to put bibs on them first; drool stains on carpet are REALLY annoying.
| What Works | Score |
|---|---|
|
--Best graphics to date on PS2 at time of release --Appealing cast and epic story --Great gameplay |
10.0 |
| What Doesn't | |
| --Virtually nothing ... it's all great! | |
| Under the Shrink-wrap | |
| I usually resist offering up unqualified raves, but when it's earned, it's earned and ultimately Square earns every bit of the 10.0 we're giving it. After enduring 15 months of RPGs ranging from wretched to very, very good, Square finally offers up the first must-own RPG of the PS2 era. The company has rethought nearly every aspect of the Final Fantasy franchise, from the battle system to the use of voice acting instead of text and beyond. Nearly every change will be jarring but nearly every change is for the better. Much like Gran Turismo 3 A-spec and Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, Final Fantasy X is one of the three games most PS2 owners bought a PS2 to play. Under that pressure, Square doesn't balk and comes through to deliver perhaps the finest installment in the series. It's a crowded RPG market on PS2 this holiday season, but it doesn't matter ... this is the one you must own. | |
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Tags: Final Fantasy X
Posted by Craig "American Idle" Hansen on Aug 3rd, 2003 and is filed under PS2 Reviews, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can post a comment, or trackback from your own site.
