This review contains spoilers
Final Fantasy X opens with Tidus telling you that this is his story. But is it?
If you watched the story unfold from an outside perspective, or even read a basic summary, it probably wouldn’t seem so. Yuna is the one going on a pilgrimage to defeat Sin, Tidus is just along for the ride.
Of course, there are more characters than just Tidus and Yuna. Each of the seven party members has a story that gets told over the course of the game. Seven (technically eight if you count that one time you control Seymour) is on the lower end of the spectrum of party members for a Final Fantasy game, but this more focused cast allows each of the members to actually shine. Except maybe Lulu, I would have loved some more Lulu content.
The gameplay also supports this. Unlike the PS1 games with their clear protagonists you always need to have in your party, X lets you use any 3 out of 7 party members, similar to VI which doesn’t have a clearly defined protagonist.
Yet the notion that Tidus might not be the main character seems absurd to me. Not just because he’s the 3D model walking around the map, but also because the story begins and ends with his time in Spira and because throughout most of the story, we can hear his thoughts about what is currently going on.
I already mentioned that I enjoy the individual characters’ stories, but the overarching story is also great. Probably the most anti-authoritarian Final Fantasy story yet?
The world itself is also amazing. It has the traditional FF mix of Fantasy and Scifi, leaning a bit more towards the Fantasy again this time, but unlike usually it’s not medieval European fantasy, which makes it really stand out.
My only issue with the story is Seymour. There’s not even anything really wrong with him, he just feels so, I don’t know, underutilized? Here narratively matters for the section between Guadosalam and the Calm Lands but even then, he’s more of a secondary thing to the main plot and then after that you still fight him two more times but outside of the actual fights themselves, he wasn’t really on my mind.
There’s also a bit more to him when you do Baaj temple but since we’re only ever told about him being discriminated against for being half Guado half human and never actually shown any kind of racial discrimination other than anti Al Bhed discrimination (which also has a very significant religious factor so I’m not sure if it even counts) that also fell a bit flat for me.
The combat starts out amazing and stays that way for a long time. ATB is finally gone so combat can feel smooth again and the change to the turn order makes things even more smooth and opens up new tactical possibilities. Every character has a clear purpose and figuring out strategies for each enemy is fun. The addition of Sensor as a weapon ability is also great, allowing for more insights into the enemy which encourages tactical fighting.
Unfortunately, in the lategame, this kind of breaks down. At a certain point of strength, most characters just become generically useful. When every encounter can be solved by Lulu doublecasting Ultima or Auron hitting something for 15 thousand damage, I don’t really need to bother with strategy anymore. And a lot of enemies are even immune to Sensor and Scan! It’s like the game is explicitly telling you “Don’t worry about strategy, just become really powerful”.
The Aeons past Shiva are kind of a microcosm of this. Valefor, Ifrit, Ixion, and Shiva all have their strengths and weaknesses but Bahamut, Anima, Yojimbo, and the Magus Sisters are all just generically powerful. You could basically summon the Magus Sisters for every lategame encounter and you’d be fine.
Yojimbo is kind of interesting because he makes “you can beat any encounter by just grinding enough” even more literal. Just give him enough money, kill anything, then grind the money back.
Because of this and for pacing reasons, I eventually gave up on doing the endgame stuff like the Superbosses. Some of the minigames needed for celestial weapons are also pretty awful.
Another big issue I have with endgame content is how much of it basically requires a guide. The worst example of this is probably Baaj temple, which requires you to have solved all the destruction spheres which are sometimes really obscure and if you didn’t bother with them when you initially encountered them like I did, you might have to fight some Superbosses now if you want to try again. At least you can just give Yojimbo a bunch of gil to deal with this.
The underwhelming endgame content wasn’t enough to make me dislike the game towards the end though. The final dungeon is great, the ending is amazing, and I love this game. Just don’t bother with optional endgame content and you’ll be fine.
Last but not least I must of course mention the music. It’s obviously great as usual. This is the first soundtrack not composed entirely by Uematsu and it’s great to have some more variety, especially tracks like Otherworld.
If you watched the story unfold from an outside perspective, or even read a basic summary, it probably wouldn’t seem so. Yuna is the one going on a pilgrimage to defeat Sin, Tidus is just along for the ride.
Of course, there are more characters than just Tidus and Yuna. Each of the seven party members has a story that gets told over the course of the game. Seven (technically eight if you count that one time you control Seymour) is on the lower end of the spectrum of party members for a Final Fantasy game, but this more focused cast allows each of the members to actually shine. Except maybe Lulu, I would have loved some more Lulu content.
The gameplay also supports this. Unlike the PS1 games with their clear protagonists you always need to have in your party, X lets you use any 3 out of 7 party members, similar to VI which doesn’t have a clearly defined protagonist.
Yet the notion that Tidus might not be the main character seems absurd to me. Not just because he’s the 3D model walking around the map, but also because the story begins and ends with his time in Spira and because throughout most of the story, we can hear his thoughts about what is currently going on.
I already mentioned that I enjoy the individual characters’ stories, but the overarching story is also great. Probably the most anti-authoritarian Final Fantasy story yet?
The world itself is also amazing. It has the traditional FF mix of Fantasy and Scifi, leaning a bit more towards the Fantasy again this time, but unlike usually it’s not medieval European fantasy, which makes it really stand out.
My only issue with the story is Seymour. There’s not even anything really wrong with him, he just feels so, I don’t know, underutilized? Here narratively matters for the section between Guadosalam and the Calm Lands but even then, he’s more of a secondary thing to the main plot and then after that you still fight him two more times but outside of the actual fights themselves, he wasn’t really on my mind.
There’s also a bit more to him when you do Baaj temple but since we’re only ever told about him being discriminated against for being half Guado half human and never actually shown any kind of racial discrimination other than anti Al Bhed discrimination (which also has a very significant religious factor so I’m not sure if it even counts) that also fell a bit flat for me.
The combat starts out amazing and stays that way for a long time. ATB is finally gone so combat can feel smooth again and the change to the turn order makes things even more smooth and opens up new tactical possibilities. Every character has a clear purpose and figuring out strategies for each enemy is fun. The addition of Sensor as a weapon ability is also great, allowing for more insights into the enemy which encourages tactical fighting.
Unfortunately, in the lategame, this kind of breaks down. At a certain point of strength, most characters just become generically useful. When every encounter can be solved by Lulu doublecasting Ultima or Auron hitting something for 15 thousand damage, I don’t really need to bother with strategy anymore. And a lot of enemies are even immune to Sensor and Scan! It’s like the game is explicitly telling you “Don’t worry about strategy, just become really powerful”.
The Aeons past Shiva are kind of a microcosm of this. Valefor, Ifrit, Ixion, and Shiva all have their strengths and weaknesses but Bahamut, Anima, Yojimbo, and the Magus Sisters are all just generically powerful. You could basically summon the Magus Sisters for every lategame encounter and you’d be fine.
Yojimbo is kind of interesting because he makes “you can beat any encounter by just grinding enough” even more literal. Just give him enough money, kill anything, then grind the money back.
Because of this and for pacing reasons, I eventually gave up on doing the endgame stuff like the Superbosses. Some of the minigames needed for celestial weapons are also pretty awful.
Another big issue I have with endgame content is how much of it basically requires a guide. The worst example of this is probably Baaj temple, which requires you to have solved all the destruction spheres which are sometimes really obscure and if you didn’t bother with them when you initially encountered them like I did, you might have to fight some Superbosses now if you want to try again. At least you can just give Yojimbo a bunch of gil to deal with this.
The underwhelming endgame content wasn’t enough to make me dislike the game towards the end though. The final dungeon is great, the ending is amazing, and I love this game. Just don’t bother with optional endgame content and you’ll be fine.
Last but not least I must of course mention the music. It’s obviously great as usual. This is the first soundtrack not composed entirely by Uematsu and it’s great to have some more variety, especially tracks like Otherworld.