Final Fantasy X

released on Jul 19, 2001

Final Fantasy X is the tenth main installment in the FF series and the first title released on sixth-generation consoles. It was also the first game to feature fully three-dimensional areas rather than including pre-rendered backdrops, and the first to include voice acting. Final Fantasy X tells the story of a star blitzball player, Tidus, who journeys with a young and beautiful summoner named Yuna on her quest to save the world of Spira from an endless cycle of destruction wrought by the colossal menace Sin.


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Had a speed replay of this using the remaster speed ups and boosts, and it made me marvel at 14-year-old me for getting through this without guides, because I felt like I must have been missing some obvious with upgrading something, because I was so underpowered. I was obviously under level because of the nature of the playthrough, but I shouldn't have been that much lower.

Anyway, the main reason for playing again was to see how the story holds up, and there is a lot that I really like here, the themes and emotional depth, and cast of characters work very well.

I do think the fact that it's a ps2 games holds it back quite a lot though. There are some very strange directional choices, most scenes have this oddly slow stilted pace to them, or just odd bits of extraneous dialogue. And some very poor acting for some of the characters. It's a shame because the heart of the story is one of the series best, but this stuff does get in the way for me.

It does also feel like an unusually brief story for a FF game. I remember thinking the same at the time but playing it this way really did emphasize that there's not that many twists and turns along the way. Really did surprise me when I realized I was already in Zanarkand. I know it has some very extensive side and super boss content to explore, and it would have been good if some of that stuff was more integrated into the main story.

Es el primer final fantasy que jugué por recomendación de un amigo y me gustó mucho. Ya conocía un poco sobre los mundos de Final Fantasy, pero me sorprendió para bien la cantidad de temáticas que mezclan en un juego. Los personajes me gustan mucho, tienen carisma, aunque en algunos momentos se notan "demasiado japoneses". El sistema de habilidades me resultó bastante interesante, me gusta que los jrpg innoven en alguna mecánica clásica del género.

Vaya pedazo de juego, le doy mis dieces a la historia principal, a las OSTs y al sistema de combate junto a sus habilidades ingeniosas. Pero si se quiere llegar a pasar al 100% de este, ahí bajaría mucho mi nota, porque se requiere de mucha paciencia y MUCHÍSIMO vicio a la hora de lvlear a todos los personajes

A minha porta de entrada para a franquia e eu com absoluta certeza comecei no jogo certo. Eu to completamente apaixonado por TUDO do jogo. Os personagens, a musica, a historia, a dinâmica entre todo mundo e a vastidão que é o universo da obra. Vai virar o meu mais novo jogo de estimação, em que eu volto a cada 2 meses pra rejogar e aproveitar de tudo que me é oferecido.

PS: Vai tomar nesse teu cu Seymour, eu e a rapaziada de Taguatinga Sul vamo te acabar na muqueta seu fdp

they don't make them like this anymore, man. everything about final fantasy x bleeds unfettered confidence and an uncontrollable optimism for games as a medium of art and entertainment alike; not only did kitase and his posse clearly believe video games could Be More but they were doing everything in their power to make those dreams corporeal, to make the future of games become a "here and now" rather than some distant aspiration that video games could one day hope to touch. it's really funny how hallmark western titles like braid or the last of us that would come in the ballpark of a decade later were lauded as "games finally being art," or kojima's insistent and insensitive portrayals of sexual assault in metal gear solid v to apparently "validate" games as art suggest an insecurity in the form, a need to prove itself, when squaresoft in their prime knew games were something special and were putting in all the legwork they could to make people see that and had been doing that since the eighties.

though i treasure final fantasy xvi, i can't help but look at it as having fallen to the same insecurity i alluded to in the aforementioned western titles - which makes ffx's confidence in itself and celebration of its own achievements all the more commanding of respect and admiration. yoshi-p wanted a return to a more conventional fantasy setting so he neutered a lot of the whimsy and off-the-wall wackiness from final fantasy for a grim-and-grisly dark fantasy setting inspired by the hot-button fantasy stories of the era such as game of thrones and god of war. what did kitase do whenever his fanbase demanded a return to a traditional european fantasy setting? he acted in direct defiance of that and instead looked to the folklore, customs, cultures and traditions of east and southeast asia (in particular okinawa) and started from the ground up, sculpting every aspect of the game to make something unlike anything final fantasy had ever seen or would ever see again. that even bleeds into its storytelling - sure, final fantasy x gets a lot of flak as the "goofy" one due to tidus's infamous laugh (fuck you it's one of the best romance scenes in all of final fantasy) or its loud-and-proud nature as a product of the turn of the millenia, but i think this is probably final fantasy's most gripping and eloquent political narrative... even and especially in comparison to the more "serious" political final fantasy games such as tactics, xii and (again) xvi. while a lot of political narratives in jrpgs tend to more broadly broach abstract ideas about classism, imperialism and war, final fantasy x's politics are rooted firmly in okinawa's historical relationship with mainland japan and the ties therein with institutional religion in modern-day japan. it's an aggressively japanese game in just about every manner, to the point where i can't help but wonder if there's a tie between ffx being the laughingstock of the series in the mid-to-late 00s and the really racist hatred of japanese games in the west during the seventh console gen... hmm

speaking of the seventh gen and onward it feels like every single way that developers try to flex the power of their hardware and their grasp over it is just graphics, graphics, graphics, to the point where we're getting diminishing returns and the games just flatly don't look all that great because they're bereft of visual direction and identity. i'm not really gonna do much talking about x's graphics (although this is STILL probably one of the best-looking ps2 games, especially those fmvs - oh my god!)... again, compensating for something, forgetting what makes games what they are. like yeah, games are a medium of art capable of conveying powerful messages and emotions like any other medium, but games are fun too! and man, what a better way to flex the capabilities of the recently-launched playstation 2 by making final fantasy x a GAME's game on top of all the shit it has to say as a story. there's so much shit to do in this game, man. it seems like every other nook and cranny has some minigame, sidequest or post-game content for you to sink your teeth into, squaresoft just packing all this random bullshit into this game because they COULD. like fuck, did you know there's a butterfly hunting minigame in the macalania lake? i sure as hell didn't until this playthrough!

i can't help but mourn what games have become and the state of the industry over the past decade and some change. square enix is a shell of its former self between its unbelievably slimy business practices and the increasingly-cynical nature of its output and middling quality of its games. final fantasy x seems like a relic of a bygone era that we can never return to, a reminder of better times, and a testament to the potential that video games in the AAA sphere have broadly failed to live up to.

but - true to the game's main message - final fantasy x also acts as a reminder of what games can be, what we can hope for and expect out of games, and a reminder that games are not inherently as rotten as the industry nowadays would lead you to believe. who knows? i certainly don't, but i also don't want to just give up and accept the stagnation that games have broadly been reduced to, or resign myself that this spiral of cynical corporate product-pushing is all that there is.

and i don't have to, really. the glory days of the aaa sphere might be over, but making games (and sharing them) is easier than ever. the titans of tomorrow are getting their start now with nothing more than their passion for the medium and a desire to connect with people whose passion matches theirs. ultimately, that's what brings people together to begin with: shared convictions, shared faith, shared ideals and shared love for their favorite things in the world.

and when that love brings people together and unites them in a common belief, thus enabling them to exert their will upon the world at whatever scale their numbers and determination allow for... things change. isn't it wonderful?

All time favourite. You're going to cry, you always cry....