Final Fantasy X is a very addictive little game and different from other games out there.
You being as playing a character called 'Tidus'. He is a star 'Blitzball' player, which is a water sport purely invented for the game. The major city he lives in is a very materialistic, pleasure-seaking place until the day the city is attacked.
Tidus ends up floating on a shore line where he meets most of the rest of the crew that you will control. The village is the opposite of what Tidus is used to. They are religious and also claim that the city you came from was destroyed 1000 years ago. How can that be?
Yuna, Wakka and Lulu are the other characters you start with - they need to travel to the various temples around Spira (the world you live in) and since they will be passing a Blitzball tournement, they decide to take you with them - surely another Blitzball player will recognise you.
During the travel, the story unfolds and things become a little more complicated than the simple village you arrived at. There are people who won't obey the religion of the land, there are fiends in the land that you will have to defeat.
Playing the game is fairly simple, in theory. Early
battles are pre-defined and some only allow you to select one command. This is good to train you how to use the game. In the beginning, you are not given many options to play the game but as time goes on, various additions arrive.
Probably the most important addition is the 'sphere grid'. This adds to each characters personality and shapes each person wonderfully. After each battle, you are awarded 'AP' (whatever that stands for?) and this allows you to move each person on the sphere grid. Every circle on the grid improves your characters strengths. Some allow you to learn magic spells whilst others may increase your strength, defence or speed.
Each person starts at a different point on the sphere grid. It takes a long time to get very far on the board and this helps shape the personality of each character. Yuna for example, starts near the white magic section and Lulu starts near the black magic spells. It takes a very long time to get them to learn each others skills. It is possible to complete the game without completing the sphere grid. Lulu never had any white magic skills in my game, for example.
Moving through the scenery is simple enough, the camera is fixed however. It does scroll along a little, but never changes angle.
Enemy battles appear at random. Enemies are not visible on the map, nor on the screen in any way. The screen 'breaks' up and a battle starts. This is a little odd in a way but you soon get used to it.
Battles are more like a strange game of chess rather than the frenetic style of most fighting games. You get to choose off a menu what you want each of you characters to do, whether to attack, heal or cast black magic for example. You can fight with a maximium of 3 characters at a time. Some of the battles can be so difficult that you may appreciate the time to think about your next moves.
There are a number of interesting battles which include water battles which restricts which of the people you can use. There are distance enemies which some of the characters cannot hit with their normal attack. These all add good variation to the game without changing any fundemental aspect of it.
The storyline flows nicely and I enjoyed the plot. Travelling from temple to temple has its difficulties and takes plenty of time with sidequests to perform in the meantime. Unfortunately, the storyline is a little slow at the start but picks up pace as you get further and further into the game.
The music is fairly good and doesn't get irritating. Weapons can be customised and each character has good strengths and amazing weaknesses which really adds to the game.
Bosses are incredibly difficult later in the game, however you can summon an Aeon. These can help fight for you, but only Yuna can summon and as such, you will need to keep her from getting knocked out to be able to use these Aeons. Each visit to a temple gives you a new Aeon. You start with one from the temple in the village you start you experience in Spira at.
Irritating points are few: Cut scenes cannot be skipped which is annoying since they can be quite long before boss fights. There is a strange section before the final boss fight that makes no sense. If your three active characters are all knocked out, it is game over - even if you have the other characters in reserve.
Cut scenes are not really played in an accurate way. Each person pauses before talking, particularly strange when one person interrupts another. The first stops mid-sentence, then a little gap, then the interuption.
Some don't like the characters voices but I thought they fitted quite well. Tidus is a big-headed annoying teenager and he voice does match that. Lulu is dark and mystical and again her vocals are ideal.
The game seems very simple from the outset but quickly becomes a challenge.
Hours of gameplay are ahead of you, my first game had a clock of over 80 hours on the timer (the game keeps account of gametime, although it does continue to count if you pause).
Certainly a good starter to the Final Fantasy series if you have never played before. The story is quite good, the play allows you to think about what you are doing rather than just battling. It is also the first Final Fantasy to use voice actors which helps.
I highly recommend this game to anyone. It was a thought of mine that the game would be suitable for males that are simply into fantasy but that was quickly disolved. A very good game and worth a go - however easy as it is at the start, from the mid-point in the game it really becomes a steep learning curve. Just when you think you have mastered the game, along comes some very hard challenges.
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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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