I had seen some people play parts of this in the past, and frankly I wasn't expecting to like this game. The setting didn't really seem like something I'd like, the characters were goofy, I wasn't expecting much. To my surprise, I ended up really liking this game. I think out of all the Final Fantasy games I've played, this one has the best world building. I completely understood not only the struggle the characters were going through but how their society evolved to reach that point and what their motivations were on a macro scale, I really like it. I also really like the combat and leveling system of this game; anytime a game branches away from the plain old EXP yields levels yields a stat boost system, I'm a fan. You can switch out party members on the fly based on the enemies? Great! There's a leveling system where you can branch off to prioritize the ability and stat upgrades you want? Great! There are a few downsides. Some of the characters were a bit goofy, particularly Tidus and Yuna, and I think most of that is due to their poor voice direction. Also, while the 'main' villain of Jecht/Sin is really interesting, I found Seymour to be horribly bland and vastly overstayed his welcome.

If the game was just Wakka, Yuna, Auron and Tidus I feel like it would be alot better. The other 3 guys literally add nothing to the story. Why is Rikku even there? I know Yuna and Tidus are just dumb teenagers but half their dialogue is just weird and awkward

The story itself is really interesting altough it seems they just gave up trying to make sense towards the end.

Combat is cool except it has the epic meme Final Fantasy of giving alot of debuff and attack options but like 80% of enemies are immune to everything.

I will break the kneecaps of whoever made the lightning dodge and chocobo seagull racing minigame.

Who wanna play sum blitzball tough?

This is in my top 5. It might even be #2 on that list (VI being #1).
It’s a sad, but ultimately beautiful story.
It’s convoluted like any proper Final Fantasy.
You just hate the bad guy the moment you slap eyes on him.
The VA is good. Not great, but definitely better than 90% of the games that era.
If you haven’t played it, you should.

The first time I played this game was the original PS2 American release when I was 6 or 7 years old. I got right up to the last boss, but was underleveled and gave up, then we sold our PS2 before I could try again. So it could be argued that a large part of the appeal for me is those warm fuzzy childhood memories I associate with it, and the lingering grudge I've held with that boss. However I do think Final Fantasy X has a lot of objectively strong points.

First, the presentation of this game was just two steps above anything else in early PS2 era. Hell, sometimes it feels more put together than XII. Now that I have an eye for such things, it's really interesting seeing how they mixed the use of the newer style full-3D environements and the classic style pre-rendered backgrounds. Even with the HD facelift making the difference in visual detail easier to see, the transistions are still very understated and natural.

Narratively as well, I feel like this is a much more cohesive experience than 6-9 and 12. Final Fantasy games tend to have a point in the plot where it kind of... scatters for a bit, or things will happen without any explicit context. I was a bit surprised to find that X was a lot more focused than my memory and experience with the series led me to believe it would be.

For instance, this is the only Final Fantasy I can think of where the driving motivation of the plot stays consistent and clear from after the short prologue to the end of the story — Tidus must escort Yuna on her quest to destroy Sin. Everything else revolves around that and never fully distracts from it. The context of what that objective means and what it'll take to accomplish it evolves, but the story stays well anchored in that core premise.

I even managed to get over my aversion to the main character's weird ass getup long enough to realize that he's actually a more compelling character than I remembered. Not the best of the series, but now that I'm older I better understand the nuance of his arc and the tumultuous relationship with his father that underpins his journey's motivation.

For whatever world-building and technical nitpicks you can levy at the plot, I at least argue that it's a very solidly presented one. Just don't go in expecting consistent technical details. The dreamlike qualities of the art and presentation are very much intentional.

It's unfortunate then that the translation and more specifically the english voice acting can be so inconsistent. Most people know the memes, of course. I don't find it actually to be as consistently goofy as its repuation has garnered, but having compared it to the original VO I think there were some fundamental directional issues with how it was recorded.

The English actors often seem to be replicating the cadence of the Japanese lines even though the structure of the sentences are very different, leading to many lines coming out very stilted and unnatural. It's possible that technical limitations either were the cause for this direction or exasperated it. However, I actually am rather positive on the castings themselves. I think the English voices match the personalities of the characters quite well. And the audio mixing is very solid, too.

Gameplay then is where I'm the most mixed on this title. Compared to other turn-based JRPGs, this is the best core system the series has presented: it's got the most tactical depth; it did away with ATB and geared the fights towards fewer but more impactful actions making them feel tighter paced; and in the early game, the stat scaling and progression mechanics promise to be more focused on smaller differences with bigger impacts....

But then you get to the last 20% of the game and the numbers start going haywire and the fights start relying more on obscure gimicks. It's not so bad that it feels fundamentally broken, it's just that the combat experience starts to swing around wildly. You'll find standard encounters that take more effort than bosses; bosses will become nigh-impossibly difficult without trial and erroring to sus-out the gimick; weapons you found at the start of the game will be the most cost effecient ones to continue using; and suddenly your White Magic healer will have the highest magic stat in the party and will double the damage output anyone else could hope to achieve despite the fact that you exclusively built her down the healing skill routes.

It can be really experience destroying... but there's also a weird satisfaction to it if you push through.

I can't recommend this game to general audiences because of this, but anyone with experience with older JRPGs and relish the kind of esoteric strategizing required should be able to get a lot out of the game.

Final Fantasy X might be one of the most linear FF games but it makes up for it with a story that has stood the test of time to be the best. Most of the characters are fleshed out incredibly well and its the game in the series to sell the romance. The great soundtrack is one of Uematsu's best, really punctuates the great story moments, To Zanarkand being one of the most meloncholic yet unforgettable songs. Combat is great, having a order timeline and the ability to swap party members mid battle introduces a ton of flexibility. Blitzball is alright, not as good as previous card games but it fits into the world so well. The only thing i dislike is the sphere grid, normally its a fine way to "level up" stats but going for the plat it becomes a real chore to fill it out completely. Otherwise the games still a Masterpiece.

Another blonde swordwielding himbo has been taking most of my free time so there's no way I'm finishing what's left of this in the coming weeks so I'll just say: love FFX. Had I done the main story and not much else, it would have been very close to perfect!

Unfortunately, the postgame was made by insane people for insane people. Everyone complains about the asenine minigames to get the Celestial Weapons but holy fuck, why did they feel the need to add unskippable superbosses in places you need to go to also get those weapons? Sure, it's possible to get these items during a very small window of time where you don't have to face them but you'd need a guide open during every waking moment. Even so, the particular bosses are more of a battle of endurance than anything else. It's just not worth the grind. I'd still like to actually 100% it but in an eventual replay I'd rather just play the original version with less superbosses and allegedly better faces.

Today I’m going to be reviewing Final Fantasy X out of Final Fantasy X/X-2 HD Remastered. Final Fantasy X is a JRPG that originally came out in 2001 on the Playstation 2, but the remastered version released on various platforms throughout the years starting on the Playstation 3/Vita in 2013 and finally hitting Xbox One and Switch in 2019; the PC version released in 2016.

The remastered version was largely handled by the Chinese studio Virtuos whom received some assistance from Square Enix - who also handled the publishing. The original version of the game was developed by Square. From my understanding, aside from upgraded textures and enhanced graphics, the remastered edition contains content that was previously only available in the international versions.

I happened to play the PC version. I never had any crashes and it was a stable and bug free experience for me. One thing I found interesting is that on Steam it has its own launcher and you have to select between X, X2, or the after stories, and then the game proper launches.

I have a lot to unpack here with this game, but before we get started, I feel that I have to say that I’ve never been so on the fence about whether or not to recommend a game. It was such a mixed bag for me. Because of that, I’m going to start with the huge elephant in the room, the difficulty.

Difficulty wise, this game is really hard. I’ve seen a lot of members of the Final Fantasy community claim that not only is it the best, or one of, but also the easiest game in the franchise. I honestly can’t attest one way or another whether this is true as I have only played this entry, 14, around half of 13-1, and a small smattering of X-2 back when I was a kid, but it is anything but easy if it’s your first time playing it and you go through it blind.

I’m actually pretty convinced that most of the people who comment that it is an easy game are doing so with the hindsight of having beaten it before, got the items that allowed them to easily cheese the bosses in a few hits, or they are REALLY used to building fantastic character builds.

Actually, speaking of cheesy items that allow you to beat bosses in a few hits, that’s sort of my main gripe with this game. To elaborate, whenever I hit the metaphorical wall on boss enemies and struggled, and anytime that I’d google, the general answer was “go make such and such awesome item that will give you an immunity to x status effect”.

That’s all well and good, except the part of the explanation which often gets left out is the fact that said items are usually only gotten through stealing off of monsters and the most effective way is to complete a side quest where you have to capture a number (think it was 10?) of each monster which will open up an arena that will then allow you to do so. Either way you are looking at a multiple hour grind there.

Me being my naive self, opted to just grind more levels each time I struggled instead of grinding out those items and doing the side quest because I wanted to get on with the story, and I mean, why would I need those items, the game is easy, right? I always persevered through it; until the final boss.

To backtrack a bit, I did once try some optional content that was highly recommended by a large segment of the community. There’s this powerful creature you can get to help you called Anima and I had done all the prerequisite stuff to unlock it. But as it turns out, it is blocked by a monster. The monster in question is low on health and pretty weak, but you are forced into using three specific characters for it (which is normally fine in and of itself), however said monster has a one hit kill that turns you into stone and makes said party member shatter so they can't be revived. I tried 7 separate times against it, but there’s only so much you can do when it kills your party members in one hit and they are non revivable.

This time there were two solutions offered. One was go grind out a minigame called Blitzball to get a character an awesome ultimate move (we’ll get to Blitzball in a few ranty paragraphs) or, “Go build a set of armor that blocks petrification”, which required grinding a specific item.

Anyway, I said nah, I’m not going to bother and started the endgame content with the final bosses. Which, wouldn’t you know it? The final boss of the game has the same exact move as that earlier boss, just reskinned. It was at this point at 52 hours in I decided to give up on the game entirely. Final Fantasy X is a difficult game, but only because a lot of the boss fights have really cheesy, cheap 1 hit kill mechanics.

One other thing worth noting, is that you cannot skip cutscenes. You can pause them, but you CANNOT skip them. So if you die at a boss with a long cutscene a lot, then you are going to end up with some of the game’s dialogue seared into your brain.

Disregarding the 4 or 5 boss fights I temporarily got stuck at, I’d say that the rest of the game is easy.

Well, other than the optional minigames. I had read and heard that the Chocobo Racing Minigame was such a hairpulling, RNG filled chore that I honestly just decided to avoid it entirely. There’s also a lightning dodging minigame that’s pretty hard to time. If you dodge 200 strikes of lightning in a row you get a prize! Then you have Blitzball, which is a sports minigame somewhat similar to football where you have two teams trying to score goals. Everyone on both teams have levels and level up the more you use them in matches. At one point in the story you are forced to do a match and you can choose to read up on how to play it. I did the tutorial for it (which is broken up into chunks) and still struggled to understand it. I ended up winning the match, but only after going into overtime with the butt-clinching score of 0 to 0.

I guess these don’t really classify as minigames and more as puzzles, especially since you are forced into them as part of the main story, but you have these trials you have to complete which are puzzles that revolve around moving spheres around and placing them in proper spots as well as occasionally moving blocks around. The first one was simple enough with trial and error. The others required a guide for me to complete. Funnily enough, I am of the belief that is why those puzzles are in the game, to help sell the game’s strategy guides because back in 2001 when it was on the PS2, there was no YouTube or any other real alternative to help out and no one will convince me otherwise.

I think that’s kind of my other problem with the game, all of the optional content just isn’t, at least in my opinion, fun.

Those personal grievances of mine aside, I think it’s a decent game with an amazing story. I found the story to be very engaging and unique. Most of the time I experience the story of something, whether it is in a book or a game, it shares similar beats with another story I have experienced before, but that wasn’t the case for me with Final Fantasy X.

I really loved the overall theme of having to decide whether to adhere to or let go of tradition.

I also found the companion characters to be some of the best companions out of any game I’ve ever played. They all had their own complete arcs, unique designs, distinct places in the story, and were just really pleasant. Plus, the voice acting for them, in the English Dub at least, fit them well. The voice actors really brought their A game. I’m a bit embarrassed to admit it, but one of the characters, Wakka, is voiced by John DiMaggio (Bender from Futurama) and it took me well into 20 hours into the game to realize that, and only because he sort of slipped into his Bender voice when the character got angry.

There’s a lot of strange mechanics at play in the game as well.

Leveling up has this sphere grid mechanic. Each character has their own place on the grid and you have to move around and select which spheres to unlock. So like, if you want to raise a character’s attack then you need a power sphere to place on the attack slot, but in order to move on the grid you need a level. One level equals one movement, and it costs to move back over places you’ve already been on the grid as well. The grid is massive and would take ages to entirely fill as each characters’ grids intersect. That’s not a bad thing tho, as that means any character can learn any other character’s moves.

There are two equipment slots for each character. One is for a weapon type that is unique to them and the other is for an accessory type that is unique to them. As you get farther into the game, you’ll eventually unlock the ability to customize certain pieces of equipment which allow for the adding of status effects that you can inflict on enemies.

There are also tons of hidden systems at work behind the scenes. I don’t really understand it all, and not a lot of people do, if even anyone properly does at all; as there are tons of spreadsheets of data for a lot of things. For example, there’s a hidden creature that you can recruit which can instant kill any enemy, even bosses, at the cost of you paying it money. But the amount of money it takes to do the move with that chance to instant kill is based on a hidden unseen metric of how much it likes you which also ties into how much you’ve offered it each time for doing that move.

There’s also a specific scene where you get to ride a snowmobile with a companion and which companion you ride with is based on which one likes you the most, but that metric is hidden from you.

Some of the boss battles allow for what is called trigger commands. Trigger commands are specific to characters. I found this to be creative as it sometimes allowed for an alternate way to handle a boss, like by activating a crane and crushing it for example. However, I also found trigger commands to become frustrating as for certain battles you’d need to do trigger commands to move away from a boss’s attacks and that trigger command would take your entire turn. I realize I’m being a bit vague there, but I’d rather not spoil anything.

On the flipside, you can switch between companions who are on the field and who aren’t without it costing you a turn. You can also always see the turn order which is a really nice touch, so there’s never any confusion about who moves when.

So… Would I recommend playing Final Fantasy X? That depends on you. It’s a game, not a book - and the farther into the game I got the more sour I became because I largely wanted to experience the story above all else. If you like challenges and grinding to break the game, then I’d say it’s definitely worth it. If you don’t like grinding, then I’d say maybe give it a pass unless you are dying for something to play with a REALLY good story (although there is a rumor of a Remake being released in 2025/26 so you might want to hold out and see if that is any easier).

Hot take: out of all the Final Fantasy games, this game and X-2 have aged the worst. They're essentially PS1 games that don't look like PS1 games, so it kind of messes with your brain a little. The highs are still high (Yuna's sending scene, the underwater date, the ending etc.) but the game has plenty of issues. The voice acting is awful, the pacing is weird, the writing isn't the best and it overall just feels really, really janky. I'm gonna be honest and say if it weren't for the nostalgia goggles I'm wearing at the moment, I'd probably rate this a little lower.

As I write this review I struggle to put into words why Final Fantasy X didn't click with me. It's a game where all the pieces are assembled to achieve a special outcome, but they never quite fell into place for me enough to coalesce into something I truly enjoyed. I know a lot of people hold this game in high regard and I was hoping to find something during my 40-hour playtime to elicit those same emotions in me. But, as the credits rolled, I walked away more frustrated than anything else.

Honestly, I had a whole host of notes taken for what I wanted to say about this game, but I'm not sure I have it in me to tear too much into a two-decade-old PS2 staple that is still looked back on quite fondly. I do think it's interesting that, in a bizarre way, FFX feels like it's aged a little worse than its PS1 predecessors, as you can tell they were a little uncertain with their footing on the more powerful hardware of the PS2. Final Fantasy XII would eventually show how much more ambitious games in this series could be during that generation. On top of that, a LOT of things about this game's presentation held it back, notably cutscene direction, a lack of exploration, and some truly awful voice acting. That's probably where a big part of the disconnect came from.

That, and to be honest I never really fell in love with the game's story. It's not terrible, and they built a very unique and interesting world (especially for the time), but the crux of the narrative falling on the shoulders of both the relationship between Tidus and Yuna and the relationship between Tidus and his father was not a strong enough foundation for me to gain real investment. With the former, I never felt their chemistry truly develop; Final Fantasy X was a bit ahead of its time in being an isekai where the main girl falls for the MC with little prompting. It certainly didn't help that I had just come off playing Final Fantasy 8, another game that featured a love story central to its events, but it felt much more compelling there.

As for the latter, I think I outright reject the bridge they attempted to build between Tidus and Jecht. From the outset, your character's father is portrayed as an alcoholic, emotionally abusive figure. The game REALLY pushes you to believe he wanted what was best for his asymmetrical doofus of a son; he merely didn't know how to show it. And you know what? With a bit more care taken in the writing, that could have easily worked. Hell, you didn't even need to go with the angle of his "tough love" approach; they could have simply had Tidus resent his father for disappearing and that would have done the job swimmingly. But instead, they chose to portray Jecht in the worst possible light before trying to walk it back, and considering this forms the emotional throughline of the ENTIRE story, you can see why that not working for me did a number on my investment in Final Fantasy X.

Okay, well I ended up tearing into this game a bit after all, huh? Let me reverse it by saying the saving grace in all this was FFX's battle system, which might be one of the best in any RPG I've ever played. It baffles me they ditched it after a single outing because it was such a welcome change from the ATB system and I love how quick and fluid swapping your entire team in and out was. The sphere grid was also a remarkable system in keeping progression through the game well-balanced and the overall challenge of the game reasonably high. The less said about the endgame slog, the Cloister of Trials, and the side content, however, the better.

I think it's important I acknowledge I ultimately did have some fun with Final Fantasy X, with the core gameplay carrying a huge chunk of that, but I did finish my time with this one wishing I connected with it more. Whereas I described FF8 in my review of it as being profoundly weird, I would describe FFX as being profoundly awkward. They were clearly getting their feet wet conceptualizing what a new generation of Final Fantasy might be, but for my take, this game sinks about as much as it swims.