Within the first few minutes of the game, you are introduced to a world that looks absolutely demolished. You are Tidus, the main character of Final Fantasy X, and as you sit there solemnly with six other party members around a small campfire, a lonely piano solo plays in the background. Everyone looks forlorn. It is a foreshadowing of what’s to come…and as Tidus climbs a hill to examine the wreckage around him, a voice narrates:

“Listen to my story. This may be our last chance.”

I have to tell you that within these first moments of the game’s introduction, I was completely hooked. The story does a Tarantino – even though you just caught a glimpse of what looked like imminent death and destruction, you’re taken backwards through time to actually play the story leading up to that point. And, just like a Tarantino film, most of the current events taking place hardly make any sense, but the best part about it is playing the game to find out what is going on.

Final Fantasy X tells a wonderful story of Tidus, a young and famous Blitzball player who is suddenly snatched from Zanarkand, his technologically advanced world, and mysteriously transported into an almost stone-age era where its people rely on religion and faith to help them through hard times. The people of Spira are constantly attacked by an evil force called “Sin,” and the only ones powerful enough to defeat this gigantic monster are the Summoners – men and women who are skilled at the arts of calling forth spiritual entities, the Aeons, to aid in their cause. Through a series of coincidences and events, Tidus eventually joins up with a Summoner and her party to help her quest across Spira to collect all Aeons in order to defeat Sin. What they encounter, however, is more than they ever imagined. As betrayal, conspiracy, romance, and other hidden secrets unravel during their journey, Tidus finally understands why he is brought to Spira. He puts aside his thoughts of returning to his homeland to help the Summoner for the greater good.

Plot: Absolutely phenomenal, in my personal opinion. Final Fantasy X is an exciting story that lives up to its reputation as a Fantasy genre but doesn’t copy or parallel any of the previous Final Fantasy installments, allowing it to stand out as yet another great game in the series to really enjoy. Even though Final Fantasy assigns a main character, you are not simply a hero running around with six other people behind you, killing bad guys. Your character develops relationships with the other characters, and there isn’t a single member of your party that is left out of the loop. Each character has his or her own little story, which increases the interest and curiosity as the game is played. There really is never a dull moment in the plotline.

Gameplay: Lots of fun, and definitely never boring. Final Fantasy X takes a new turn in role-playing, as it was the first Final Fantasy game in the series to have voice actors for each character. This makes playing the game all that more enjoyable, and it feels as if you’re really inside the story as it progresses. Each voice actor has his or her own personality to go with the character and it brings them to life. The advanced computer graphics enable each character to have more detailed clothing, facial expressions, and movements.

Although in almost every Final Fantasy game you might have to level-grind (increase your abilities and strength to defeat enemies), I did not find myself wasting time trying to increase my stats in order to move the story along. As the characters move forward, you gain enough experience to progress comfortably through the game. This is not to say that the game isn’t challenging – on the contrary, there are some very frustrating spots – but if you do need to level-grind, you won’t find yourself doing it constantly, which can get very boring, very quick.

Like the previous installments, enemy encounters (usually beasts and other creatures) are random as you journey through different parts of the world. However, the battle system is not “active,” as it was in Final Fantasy VIII or Final Fantasy IX. There is no bar that “charges up” as you wait for your character to execute an attack. The entire battle mode is a “wait” mode, where the enemy will not attack until you take your turn. There are some that miss the active time battles (ATB), while others welcome its absence. I, for one, quite enjoy this new “wait” system because it allows you to actually WATCH the battle taking place. I liked to watch Lulu cast black magic. I liked seeing Wakka hurl Blitzballs at birds and knock them out cold. I’ve noticed that in active time battles I’m too busy trying to think of a command to execute. As the enemy was happily tearing my team apart, I had to scramble to pick a magic or skill from the list below and would never have time to actually watch the fight. In Final Fantasy X, you have all the time in the world to execute a command, and then you can enjoy beating the crap out of your adversary. The extra icing on the cake is sporadic conversation between characters during battles.

Alongside the turn-based system, you also have the option of switching your party members during battle, which you could never do before in previous Final Fantasy games. I love this option because you have the choice to include all seven party members instead of being stuck with just three the whole way through. I remember always complaining: “Game over?? Game over?!? I’ve got three extra members just sitting off camera, waiting to fight!!! Where’d they go?” Now, obviously in the game you’re only allowed to fight with just three members, but if you’re stuck in a rut and getting beat pretty bad by some nasty monster (ahem...a Marlboro), then you can switch a member of your party with a stronger, more skilled member and then proceed to open a can of...well, you know.

[Hudson from Aliens: “Game over, man, game over!!!”] Hehe.

But wait, there’s more! As Final Fantasy VIII had “Limit Breaks” and Final Fantasy IX had “Trance,” Final Fantasy X has “Overdrives.” Below each member’s HP gauge there is an Overdrive bar that slowly fills up as your character fights in battle. Once this bar is full, you now have the option to unleash a powerful Overdrive attack on the enemy. Each member has his or her own Overdrive technique, and it’s a lot of fun to watch once you reach that point. As the game progresses, your characters can learn new and different Overdrives and you can even alter the settings of how the Overdrive gauge fills. For example, if one member of your party always heals people, you can gain the option to equip the Overdrive based on healing rather than fighting. The gauge will fill up a little each time that character heals someone. Other settings are gained throughout the game.

If you’ve played Final Fantasy VIII, you’ll remember how Zell’s Limit Break involved punching different buttons in a certain order, and how Squall’s Limit Break was about timing and pressing a button precisely when he was about to attack. Well, Final Fantasy X brings this aspect back into the Overdrives. Not only do you press a button and simply watch the Overdrive, but you also have to execute a series of button combinations or watch for the right timing with some members of your party. This provides a small challenge to the player, because if you don’t execute an Overdrive correctly, it won’t be as powerful.

Sidequests: Ah, of course, the sidequests. You can’t have Final Fantasy without sidequests. This usually involves smaller, optional missions (and games) the group can take to obtain various amounts of treasure, rare items, powerful weapons, and even hidden Aeons. Certain sidequests do take up a lot of time, but the reward is well worth the risk.

An example of one sidequest that takes a new spin is Blitzball. In the previous Final Fantasy games there were card games, but in Final Fantasy X you’re in a whole different ballgame (literally!) I wouldn’t normally call Blitzball a sidequest, but the more you play, the more rewards you reap, and it essentially becomes a quest to level up players, obtain rare items, and ultimately make your characters more powerful. I’m not going to delve into the specifics of Blitzball, but after I learned how to play, I thought it was tons of fun and I was relieved to avoid more card games.

An example of another sidequest is something that seems to be more intertwined into the gameplay as you go along. In Final Fantasy X, you encounter a group of people who speak a different language called Al Bhed. Naturally, you can’t understand them – until, that is, you find Al Bhed primers throughout the land. Collect all the primers and eventually you can speak the language yourself! How cool is that?

A third example of a small game that takes up some time (but well worth it in the end) is training a chocobo. Yeah, sure, chocobos are cute and fun to ride, but training one is a pain in the neck. I was pulling my hair out and throwing my controller around after a while – if you train your chocobo perfectly you get a very nice little treasure. Good luck racing yours against some crazy lady (who, I think, has TOO much time on her hands...but look who's talking) to achieve a time of 0.0. Ugh!!!

Puzzles: Final Fantasy X is not merely a quest to travel across the land, cutting things down as you go. In the mission to collect Aeons across Spira, you are met with a series of challenges in each temple that houses an Aeon. In order to obtain the Aeon, you must first prove yourself worthy by completing the “Cloister of Trials.” This is a very creative way to incorporate puzzles and a bit of problem solving into the game. Puzzles exist in different spots around the world as well, such as underwater caves and the Al Bhed bunkers. The interactive gameplay does not stop at puzzles and sidequests – for example, a walk through the Thunder Plains isn’t exactly a walk in the park. You have to physically dodge a bolt of lightning if you don’t want to get nailed by pressing a button at the exact moment you think lightning will hit. I ignored this at first, but constantly getting hit by lightning is annoying. I ended up dodging it quite a bit…and wouldn’t you know, dodging lightning actually leads to a little sidequest?

Gaining Experience: Quite a different method as well. This method is a brand-new idea that does not compare to Final Fantasy VIII or Final Fantasy IX. Each Final Fantasy has its own way of gaining levels and experience, which is great, and I think Final Fantasy X exceeded this expectation as well.

I’m going to compare Final Fantasy X to Final Fantasy IX for a second. In Final Fantasy IX, equipping armor, weapons, and accessories would give you a specific set of abilities. These abilities are removed once the armor is taken off, but if the garb is worn long enough, the ability will be learned and kept within the character’s profile. (This drove me absolutely nuts, by the way.) However, Final Fantasy X is not like this at all. Each character is allowed a weapon and a piece of armor, which can be changed at any time. Each weapon or piece of armor can give the character some boosts, such as strength +5% or magic +15%, etc. etc. Abilities are learned a separate way.

Final Fantasy X has a “Sphere Grid,” in which each character follows a...well...I’ll call it a “map of progress.” You cannot move forward on your sphere grid until you’ve gained experience points in battle. The more experience points you gain, the further you can move on the sphere grid. The sphere grid contains indentations where you can place different spheres – magic spheres, HP spheres, strength spheres, and so on. Therefore, as you gain experience, you can gain an extra 200 HP along the way, or your magic will increase by 5 points, etc. The disadvantage to this system is that the entire map is already pre-set by the developers, meaning that each character goes his or her own way on the sphere grid, learning separate abilities. This makes each character already locked in – one’s destined to be a thief, one is the black mage, etc. etc. To me, this is simply Final Fantasy tradition – there’s always going to be a white mage, a black mage, and a warrior. Towards the end of the game, however, once your characters are stronger, you can collect orbs that unlock the sphere grid. If you really wanted to, you could set your white mage loose on some thievery. It’s an interesting combo. This choice ultimately does not bind the characters into one specific category, but for the majority of the game they already are.

Oh, the graphics, the graphics. Come to mommy! This was a gigantic change from the previous PlayStation games, and man was it awesome. The towns and villages are intricately detailed and well-designed as your character runs about. The scenery is quite spectacular as it changes from beaches to forests, stormy plains to icy mountains, and large cities to charred battlegrounds. Most of the cut scenes in Final Fantasy X use the new 3-D graphics, facial expressions, and voices of each character, but like any Final Fantasy game, the real treat lies in the computer-animated cut scenes. These short scenes are as close as you can get to a movie clip, and they only get better in the games as time goes by. Final Fantasy VII had weeble-looking characters. Final Fantasy VIII got closer with their computer graphics as their characters resembled real people. Final Fantasy IX’s computer graphics got even better, but their characters looked a little like out of a cartoon. Final Fantasy X meets all criteria in terms of realistic, dramatic, and almost cinematic quality as the computer graphics and memory upgraded with the Playstation 2.

In addition to the wonderful graphics to go along with a great story, the music composed by Nobuo Uematsu is just absolutely breathtaking. Most of his music was done by piano – and I just love love LOVE piano, but I digress – so the emotional settings combined with some solo piano was absolutely beautiful. It’s a no-brainer: if you’re going to have a great story, you gotta have some great music to go with it. Nobuo Uematsu presents another masterpiece in his work by composing the music for Final Fantasy X.

I could hardly find anything wrong with this game until I read a couple reviews on it. A lot of people were annoyed by how much time the narratives took up, and some even argued that you’re watching the game more than you are playing it. After playing the game a second and even third time since its debut, I have noticed that the narratives do occur quite often. I do not mind this – I welcome a game with a big story – but some definitely like Final Fantasy to be a highly interactive role-playing game. While Final Fantasy X is interactive, it is almost like watching a bit of a movie, playing parts of it, and then watching a bit more. You do spend a lot of time watching small scenes, which you may or may not find to your dislike.

A lot of others have complained about the quality of the voice acting and even of the lip-synching, but keep in mind that this was a huge improvement compared to Final Fantasy IX, which had come out on the first PlayStation. Final Fantasy X was the first to debut on the Playstation 2, and if you consider everything else the game has to offer, lip-synching and the voices are pretty trivial. I personally was quite impressed, as I originally didn't even expect voice-overs.

Overall: I never got tired of this game. I’ve played it more than three times and I have enjoyed it every single time! As the new Final Fantasy games are released and new battle systems and plots are introduced, I’m glad I can still go back to Final Fantasy X once in awhile and enjoy its own unique style. There are definitely moments in the game where I laughed, and some where I cried – and come on, let’s face it; a video game usually doesn’t have that sort of effect unless it’s really good. Or it could be that I’m just a huge nerd.


Recommended: Yes