Final Fantasy has been part of the gaming landscape for so long that, despite never really playing any of the games, I've come to harbor a lot of sentimentality and nostalgia for the series' recurring elements like chocobos and moogles. I've only played two games in the series - FFVI, in which I lost momentum after getting to the World of Ruin, and now FFX, the first FF I've played to completion. After 50 hours and absolutely no grinding later, I had a pretty good time - more words below.
First, FFX's structure. It's linear. Really linear. I've read no shortage of criticism about FFXIII's hallway-fight-cutscene structure, and although I haven't played FFXIII, I'd be hard pressed to describe FFX as anything else. Note that this is not a defense of FFXIII or a condemnation of FFX. Frankly, I didn't mind the linearity one bit. I doubt I’m the only person who lost steam at the second half of FFVI when it opened up, and here I was perfectly content going straight from point A to point B, complete with a blinking arrow on my minimap.
I suppose there are "towns" in FFX, but they're more like pitstops. NPCs have the bare minimum of flavor text, and I feel like the second half of the game dispenses with towns completely. Later on, it seems like most NPCs exist only to say “Lady Yuna! Good luck on your pilgrimage,” and give you an item. You do still get an airship at the very (very, very) end, so you do eventually get to roam a little bit, even if it is by picking places from a list.
Next, the story. Things started out strong with the destruction of a city by a mysterious force, then maybe time travel, then some daddy issues, some blossoming romance, etc etc. It was entertaining enough for me to see it to its conclusion, but not without its issues. For one thing, most of the story beats in FFX are summed up by this screenshot:
Towards the second half, when the game starts revealing some of its mysteries, it also strains under the weight of its own lore. There were a few hours where everybody and their mother revealed themselves to be an unsent, only said unsent acted, looked, and talked just like normal people. There seemed to be no visible distinction between the living and the unsent besides some whispy particle effects. Maybe I missed something, but it completely undermined the lore behind the Farplane, sending the dead, and all that.
By the end game, FFX was throwing its glossary at me, and not only did I not understand most of it, I didn’t give a shit. Fayth! Dreams! Dreams of the fayth! Sin is Yu Yevon’s armor! A summoner who exists only to summon! It was all Al Bhed to me. I still can’t tell you why Sin exists, or why Tidus goes all Marty McFly, or any of that, but to their credit, Square finished strong. After 50 hours of pilgrimaging and godawful sphere puzzles and shitty minigames and That Laughing Scene, you get hit with that last FMV. When that orchestral version of To Zanarkand swells and Tidus puts his arms around Yuna, things like “good dialogue” and “consistent lore” don’t matter. Nothing else does.
Then there’s the gameplay. The CTB battles were fast and fun for the most part, but it took a hit in the late game because enemies are immune to just about everything. Slow? IMMUNE. Delay? IMMUNE. Dark? IMMUNE. Silence? YOU BET IT’S IMMUNE. A system that was ostensibly built around rearranging turns to your advantage becomes that much more standard, and that much less fun. I understand that slow and delay are inherently broken skills, but they were satisfying to use in the few boss fights that took advantage of it. My favorite boss fight was versus Evrae on the airship, in which the turn order shows when Cid will move. The player has to consider when to call Cid to move out of range, when the boss will attack, and can use Delay Buster to buy time. I felt that as later bosses were granted more and more immunities, their difficulty was increasingly tied to your party’s level. As someone who didn’t grind and did absolutely zero side content, boss fights took a long ass time, with the final boss fight going on for 45 minutes 'cause Yuna kept on getting OHKO'd.
A special paragraph is reserved for all the things that FFX does horribly, horribly wrong. The sphere puzzles are just the worst. Terribly designed with animations that make them take infinitely longer than they need to. Blitzball is awful. In theory, it’s an interesting fictional sport that blends real time action and stats that should play to Square’s strengths as an RPG developer. In reality, it just sucks to play, and the one mandatory match is prefaced with a bunch of tutorials, and the odds are heavily weighed against you. Then there are the unskippable cutscenes, with some of the longest scenes set right before some of the longest boss fights. And although it’s thankfully short, the section right before the final boss has godawful camera angles leading to moments like these: https://twitter.com/Mikerrrrr/status/681949565843562497
I’m running out of steam, so here are some random thoughts:
- Wakka sucks, and so does his accent.
- Lulu’s boobs were too much, especially with that victory pose
- The sphere grid (standard version, anyway) is cool, but a pain in the ass to "read"
- I’m so glad I didn’t care about the celestial weapons at all
- The OST is well-deserving of its status as a classic. To Zanarkand is one of the GOATs for sure.
- The Laughing Scene is not *that* bad in context, but the voice acting is wildly inconsistent across the game. Every character has great lines that often followed by another line with stilted delivery or emphasis on the wrong syllable/word.
- The HD Remaster on PS4 is fantastic. 1080p w/ 4xMSAA leads to excellent image quality, and the option to play with the original OST is aces. I’m not keen on some of the changes to the character models, but I think they look very consistent with the rest of the presentation.
