22, live in North Wales. I've done quite a few reviews that aren't on Ciao here: http://www.gamesboo...
22, live in North Wales. I've done quite a few reviews that aren't on Ciao here: http://www.gamesbooksfilms.com :)
Member since:19.06.2003
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It's around twenty years since Squaresoft released an NES role-playing game that was said to be their 'Final Fantasy' of success – the games subsequent popularity has since lead to the release of more than twenty follow-ups, sequels and spin-off's. The series tenth anniversary was marked by what is generally seen as their magnum opus – the spectacular Final Fantasy VII, which finally allowed the series to move out of the considerable shadow cast over it by Enix's Dragon Quest, and in doing so, introduced the world to the 'modern' RPG.
If anything, the global success of FFVII seemed to intensify Japan's love of RPG's. In 2006, highly-respected Japanese gaming magazine Famitsu compiled a list of readers' 100 favourite games, which threw up some interesting results. Firstly, the stable we now know as Square-Enix held no less than eight of the top ten places; four Final Fantasy's and three Dragon Quest's among them. The biggest surprise however, was the game adjudged to be better than all others in history, was Final Fantasy X.
For a number of reasons, I found this rather disquieting. FFX is not the best game ever; neither is it best RPG. For that matter, it comes nowhere close to being even the best Final Fantasy game. And before I hear any cries of anti-FF bias, I will explain now that my favourite game on any format happens to have been a Final Fantasy. But if at some point you realise that graphics do not make a game great in themselves, you'll find what is perhaps the series least satisfying entry since 1992's Final Fantasy V.
And that is not to say the game is awful of course – far from it; it has many of the hallmarks that make Square's series so enduring; peerless presentation and visual splendour, assured controls, a tried-and-tested battle-system and a great deal of longevity. FFX contains much that is comparable with Final Fantasy VIII – the most evident references are the spell names and the remarkably similar music, but the similarities run deeper. The focus in both cases seems to have been on the technical side of things, with a greater complexity of menus and options disguising slightly shallower gameplay, with a more clinical set of characters and a direct examination of their emotions and squabbles rather than the bigger picture. So, depending on whether you enjoyed
the depth 'n' detail of the eighth instalment or preferred the more-rounded gameplay of the others may determine how much you glean from FFX.
Final Fantasy X, first released in 2001, follows the quest of a Summoner named Yuna as she embarks on a lengthy pilgrimage aiming to rid the world of the evil entity known as 'Sin'. Her quest largely involves visiting temples so as to amass the backing of various mythical creatures known as 'Aeons', with her final task being to summon the 'Final Aeon' – said to defeat Sin but also end her life. The story is played out however from the perspective of Tidus, a spiky-haired blonde youngster (where's that been used again?) who becomes a guardian to Yuna, making for the inevitable 'will they, won't they?' love interest.
So what is it like to play? Well, as with most games of this ilk, battling and exploration are the two dominant themes. It's the most linear Final Fantasy I can remember in terms of the gameplay progression and the choices you are given – perhaps because it doesn't feature a World Map. The removal of this long-standing facet was a brave move on the part of the developers, but it ultimately does the game no good. After a time, it begins to feel as though you're playing an incredibly lengthy, vacuous platform game, with very few real traps to evade and the only points of interaction being the occasional passer-by and the odd treasure chest. A recurring pattern develops, seeing you traverse lots of monster-filled paths; reaching a random safe house; chatting with some innocuous people and then on to the next temple – the severe shortage of actual towns is uncharacteristic of the series and as a consequence, the varied communities we are usually able to immerse ourselves in are merely skimmed over. In fairness, the temples themselves do provide some surprisingly-cerebral (though often frustrating) block-pushing challenges, and outside of the main adventure, Tidus is able to partake in 'Blitzball' competitions (imagine turn-based American-football underwater and you're somewhat close) which are mildly diverting in the short-term and nicely conceived. Though allusions are made as to the goodies and side-quests you may uncover by backtracking, the reward factor simply isn't great enough to warrant such arduous treks.
Exploring in the field of play is highly staccato as well; there are points where you can barely move three feet without instigating another (often long-winded) cut-scene. Cinematically speaking, these sequences are nicely shot and really show off the games graphical clout, but quite often they bear little or no significant relation to the main story. The most notable 'improvement' FFX was said to possess was voiced dialogue, but because the majority of the characters are either whiny or insipid (another trait it mirrors with FFVIII), such scenes slip into the realms of the mundane. The English translation is punctuated by a host of broken sentences and uncomfortable annunciations – part of the advantage its non-dialogue predecessors had was that you could picture a Cloud Strife or a Squall Leonheart without a weird, high-pitched voice, but short of a mute button, you aren't afforded that luxury here.
The battle-system is one of the more successful elements in Final Fantasy X, again mimicking FFVIII with its own version of the 'Guardian Forces' idea in the form of 'Aeons'. These creatures can be summoned into battle by Yuna, and can actually be controlled independently for the first time. The likes of Shiva and Ifrit make a welcome return and showcase a range of fantastic-looking special attacks, and can even learn new abilities of their own, though as certain Aeons (such as Bahamut and Yojimbo) are so superior to standard attacks, a rather disproportionate emphasis is placed on using Yuna in your party, plus it is quite strange that you can kill certain bosses with one hit simply by bribing one of your Aeons to deliver a killing blow. Though fairly frequent in their occurrence, the turn-based battles move along at a pleasingly brisk pace; noticeably quicker than other RPG's and the inclusion of a new bar listing the order in which allies and enemies take their turns is a nice bonus.
The biggest change to the make-up of the game is that, strictly speaking, it has no 'level-ups' – these have been replaced by a 'Sphere Grid'. Using orbs and experience gained from battle, the player can move each playable protagonist around a giant board, increasing their individual stats and learning new abilities by lighting up the nodes on the grid. Despite my initial reservations, it's undeniably a very clever idea, and in the early stages where you are able to make many moves in a short space of time, it is very satisfying. However, the freedom it appears to grant the player is a bit of a pretence, as ninety percent of the time you will have to follow a set route of upgrades, with many potential detours being blocked off until later in the game. Because of the complexity of the Sphere Grid, you will occasionally have to backtrack over already-lit nodes, and due to the large quantity of 'empty' ones, your experience points will on occasions grant you nothing in terms of character expansion.
If you can overlook the minor gripe of the screen borders, Final Fantasy X remains one of the prettiest games of its era, even if some of its environments and locations hardly inspire on basis of design alone. All of the major protagonists look stunning; they are all truly individual in appearance and all lavishly detailed. The FMV sequences are utterly jaw-dropping; they're incredibly sharp, smooth and extremely well-defined – even though it was released in the comparative early days of the format, FFX is still at the very peak of anything witnessed on a PS2.
The musical score is also typically strong, lending a real ambience to the locations you visit. It has a great, chirpy battle theme that will get you humming along to it in no time at all, and the boss theme also cranks up the anticipation and tension admirably.
Despite the apparent 'complex for complexities sake' theme that plagues FFX, it is relatively easy to get into in the early stages, helping the player to grasp (and adjust to) the numerous changes brought about for the series first PS2 outing, and for the first twenty hours or so, things move along at a good pace. However, quite without warning, the difficulty cranks up significantly – at one stage I had to set aside four or five hours simply for fighting monsters so as to be competitive enough to tackle a boss, and this becomes a recurrent theme in the second half of the game.
The final nail in FFX's coffin is its needlessly complex equipment system. Whilst in the path, weapons were judged simply on how much damage they could deal and you were lucky if they came with some special attribute. Here though strength and defence are judged (if at all) by percentage and most weapons and armour has to be customized to get the most of them. The problem is, this 'upgrading' usually requires a lot of items and there is such a large volume of equipment within the game, that it is not always easy to suss out what to spend your hard-earned Gil on. I can't understand why such an idea wasn't tested on a smaller scale, for example an 'accessory' option, rather than forcing you into assigning attributes to your major kit that might become obsolete soon afterwards.
Ultimately, it's hard not to be a bit disappointed with Final Fantasy X, due to a combination of immense, unfulfilled hype and that it has a multitude of problems that its older siblings didn't suffer from. The only real plus-point the generation jump from FFIX can be said to have brought is better visuals – in all other key areas, it is inferior to the classics that went before it. It's still a quality title, and provided that you have a preference for big-budget role-playing games, there's a good fifty or sixty hours worth of play within. It's just you get the nagging suspicion that alterations were made in areas that didn't need change, and that 'complex' concepts have appeared where 'simple' ones would have sufficed. A jigsaw puzzle of promising ideas, though Squaresoft lost some of the key pieces along the way, meaning FFX is destined to feel unfinished.
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
an ace review but I got no E's at all otherwise u wud have got one from me, my brother & me love FF but I liked 7 best but still rated this one as well Pen x
tayloa22 02.09.2007 13:34
For me Final Fantasy 7 is still the best.
dudeglove 08.08.2007 04:07
Minus points for giving the plot twist away, dear boy. I thought the first two/three hours of this game were pretty superb, especially when you don't really know what the hell is going on (Has Tidus gone back in time? Is he in the future? What's with the funky Al Bhed language? Is it all a dream?). RPGs are inherently linear and the only real "freedom" you get in this game is by level grinding in between the plot sections (unless, of course, you don't want to finish the game). It's been the same in every other FF installment and all those World Maps just serve to unfairly stretch out the space between the good bits (and masquearade it as that hackneyed word - gameplay). Plus, the voice acting is a welcome departure from all the slightly dull Clouds, Squalls and whatever that jerk with the tail was called in IX (now that game REALLY sucked). Umm, so anyway. I disagree, but I guess nothing will ever truly top VII. Good review, but don't be so quick to give away the plot! For me that was the best part of the entire game. That and killing the Dark Aeons.
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Final Fantasy X-2is the first-ever direct sequel to appear in Square's legendaryFinal ... more
Fantasyseries of role-playing adventure games. Here the emphasis is placed squarely on the all-female trio of adventurers who make up the player's role-playing team. ...
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Advantages: | Exceptional Graphics | Lots of sub-quests | Will take you hours to complete Disadvantages: Cut scenes are too long | Can be frustrating | will take you hours to complete
sandemp 26.07.2005 (26.07.2005)
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Review of Final Fantasy X (PS2)
Advantages: PS2 = Great selection of games XBox = great power Disadvantages: PS2 = easily breakable XBox = no FFX not as good selection of games as PS2
Organics 06.01.2004 (08.01.2004)
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Review of Microsoft Xbox
Jun 3rd, 2007
exceptional by (7%):
very helpful by (93%):
