Final Fantasy X
- Final Fantasy X (2002 on PlayStation 2, 2013 on PS Vita)
Description official descriptions
Tidus is a young athlete who lives in a futuristic city of Zanarkand - "the city that never sleeps". He plays blitzball, a ball game where players throw the ball while flying around. Suddenly, a terrible disaster happens. A huge dark wave engulfs the city, spawning monsters. Tidus comes in contact with the mysterious creature, and as a result finds himself in a different world, a thousand years into the future. The civilization he is used to doesn't exist any more. He learns that the world he knew was destroyed by Sin, a terrible being that is believed to be indestructible. Tidus meets a young summoner named Yuna, and joins her as a guardian on her quest to put an end to Sin.
Final Fantasy X is Japanese-style role-playing game set in a world somewhat similar to South Asia. Only individual locations can be physically explored; there is no "world map" in the game, and exploration is fairly linear. Enemy encounters are random; the game abandons the series' traditional ATB (active-time battle) combat in favor of a Conditional Turn-Based Battle system, in which the turns of the participants are determined by characters' stats and actions, with turn order displayed in the upper corner of the screen.
The game also departs from the usual leveling up system. There are no character levels in the game: instead, experience points received after battles can be allocated by the player directly to upgrade the characters' parameters. Each character has his or her special "sphere map", with straight or branching paths containing spots that increase the character's personal statistics, or teach him or her active and passive abilities. The characters are given distinct class attributes, and it is possible top switch between all the party members during the same battle. Monster summons (called aeons in the game) now behave like playable characters, have their own hit points (HP), and can fight for the party until defeated.
Conversations that occur during cutscenes have voice overs, for the first time in the series. The game features various mini-games, the most prominent of which are blitzball tournaments.
Spellings
- Финальная Фантазия 10 - Russian spelling
- ファイナルファンタジーX - Japanese spelling
- 最终幻想10 - Chinese spelling (simplified)
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Credits (PlayStation 2 version)
561 People (537 developers, 24 thanks) · View all
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[ full credits ] |
Reviews
Critics
Average score: 92% (based on 53 ratings)
Players
Average score: 3.8 out of 5 (based on 239 ratings with 19 reviews)
The Good
- The graphics. While they can't make a horrible game good, they can make a good game great. In the case of Final Fantasy X, it makes a fairly good game better. FMVs are better than ever, and even the in-engine cutscenes are visually impressive.
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The ability to change characters and equipment during battle
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Pokémon-esque side-quest.
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The new sphere grid system of character improvement is an interesting addition, and allows the player to guide his character's development much more closely than most console RPGs to date.
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CTB is a good system for battles, now if only they could divorce themselves from random encounters
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The Fayth's sphere-swapping puzzles. They're not particularly challenging, but it's nice to have a few minutes of actually doing something in this game.
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Summoned creatures are more than just super-magic-attacks as in previous titles, but are actual playable characters with their own stats and skills that the player can improve and customize.
The Bad
- FFX might as well play itself. Conversations are scripted and offer little interaction, monster/boss battles require some strategic input, but are generally quite simple, and there are really no chances for the player to feel like he is guiding the story toward anything but the predetermined conclusion. -
Voice acting is almost always very good, but the lip-sync is set for Japanese, so the dialogue easily loses its dramatic edge for the same reasons Godzilla movies lose it.
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99% linear. The world map is gone, a mini-map shows you exactly where to go next, and Tidus and company are unable to return to previously visited towns until the latter parts of the game.
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The story is interesting and told well, but some of the elements that make the story fresh and interesting are dulled to anyone with a history of playing console RPGs. FFX's inspiration seems to rely heavily on the Breath of Fire series.
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Tidus isn't the sort of person most video game players would aspire to imitate.
The Bottom Line
Final Fantasy X is a forty-hour long movie (or longer) with some side quests and a few puzzles. It's worth playing through to the end once.
PlayStation 2 · by MA17 (252) · 2002
A fun, beautiful, exciting slap in the face of the "real-time only" game religion
The Good
I loved the fact that, despite the then-prevailing trend to make RPG combat a twitch-fest, the combat is turn-based with interesting tactical choices. I loved that you could switch team members during each fight so that everybody got experience - one of the bad traditions of console RPGs is presenting you a palette of interesting playable characters but forcing you to concentrate on only a subset. The "grid" for character development was original and interesting, but very confusing at first. The subgame was interesting but optional, both as it should be. The graphics were very pretty, the storyline interesting (if as predictable and over-foreshadowed as always in console RPGs).
The Bad
Like the other FF games (and really, nearly all console RPGs), the plot is too linear and you are more-or-less forced to follow a specific path. The only choices of path involve whether to pursue optional side-quests that become available late in the game.
The story is not in the league of Grandia or Breath of Fire III, but nor is it as unsubtle and formulaic as most of the genre.
The Blitzball subgame is an interesting idea; in actuality it's basically a soccer game, which fails to live up to the interesting 3D game it's supposed to represent. OTOH, a good interface and implementation of that 3D game would be hard to learn and use, and occupy way too much space for a subgame.
The Bottom Line
One of the best console RPGs I've ever played, ranking right after the classic Grandia mostly because there are no surprises in the story, and because while there are at least as many meaningful character development decisions, they only become available very late in the game. Most of its flaws are common to the genre, and it's a lot of fun.
PlayStation 2 · by weregamer (155) · 2003
Everything you Ever Wanted in an RPG.
The Good
Almost everything! The CGI animations are supremely breathtaking. There are secrets everywhere. You can play a sport anytime you want! Plus not to mention all their Super Cool weapons. And for the first time ever in the series, they talk with real voices. Plus they got a super cool TOUGH enemy from a past Final Fantasy Game...
The Bad
There were some minors that can be a MAJOR PAIN to others. Yes I did say there were secrets...and those secrets are tough to crack! All those Sigils and Crests are hard to find, not to mention what item you have to get to get those Sigils and Crests. The next few things bugged me. You couldn't pause during battle. It can be frustrating at times. Some puzzles are so hard you might blow your top like I did once. Puzzles as the Cloister of Trials at each Temple. Some battles are so tough like battling Seymour all those times. And Blitzball has some minor problems with me. It is a cool sport but if you tried to do a command like Passing the ball, you couldn't change your decision. If you don't read the entire Tutorial about Blitzball and go straight into a game, you will lose and wonder how and be mad at the same time.This is the ultimate thing that I had to get used to, during Blitzball, when the other team had the ball, you just watch until one of your teammates went to him. I wished you could move your characters when the other team has the ball. But I got used to it...slowly. There was one last thing that bugged me, IT WAS SEVERELY ADDICTING. YOU JUST CAN'T STOP PLAYING. I remember when I first got this game. I played from 9:00 p.m. to 5:00 a.m. because it was so fun! I kept saying I'll take it out after this next part but something always caught my interest and I kept going until my mom came out and yelled at me.
The Bottom Line
Play it. You'll absolutely love it. Read everything you ever get carefully and slowly. Oh and for gamers like me, watch out for what I said above.
PlayStation 2 · by Rey Mysterio (23) · 2004
Discussion
Subject | By | Date |
---|---|---|
Stealing from robots | St. Martyne (3648) | Sep 11, 2009 |
Favorite character | Jacob Gens (1115) | Feb 16, 2009 |
Favorite song of FFX | Jacob Gens (1115) | Oct 15, 2008 |
Mystery photographer | Jacob Gens (1115) | Mar 6, 2008 |
Thunder Plains | Donatello (466) | Dec 26, 2007 |
Trivia
1001 Video Games
Final Fantasy X appears in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die by General Editor Tony Mott.
Al Bhed language
During the course of the game you have to learn the "Al Bhed" language. The language in actuality is a simple substitution cipher. All the vowels equal other vowels (to make actual pronunciation easier), and the rest are the normal letters. Anyone that can do cryptograms can decipher the language right from the beginning of the game, without find all the Primer books. But finding the books makes it a lot easier to read the subtitles.
Cut content
There is an un-intended sequence at the beginning where you can defeat the monster that chases you into the ruins. Obviously they had a change of plans when developing the game. You can view this sequence by using a PS2 Gameshark and enabling high stats.
Music
Final Fantasy X is the first game in the (main) Final Fantasy series where the music is not exclusively composed by Nobuo Uematsu, only a modern remix of the prelude is present (not the actual prelude) and there is no trace of the traditional "a a a a a a g g" battle theme baseline. Although the battle theme of Final Fantasy VII & VIII does not start by this baseline, there is trace of it in songs herd during some important boss battles.
Also, it's the second game in the series where there is no presence of the Final Fantasy theme since Final Fantasy II.
References
While in the Besaid Village the first time, go to the Crusaders Tent. Talk to the first character in the door, and he'll tell you "I'm fixing a hole where the rain gets in". Obviously a few of the programmers were Beatles fans.
World map
As of 2002, Final Fantasy X is the only Final Fantasy game that doesn't have a world map with a character moving around. The world map is actually a menu with a locations to choose and a "search" option, that allows you to go to any location on the map.
Awards
- GameSpy
- 2002 – Z.Flo Award (for Yuna)
Information also contributed by Aaron A., Bregalad, Unicorn Lynx
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Related Sites +
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FF-Fan
A fansite that offers all kinds of information on the entire Final Fantasy franchise, including walkthroughs, game media, discussion boards and fan art. -
Final Fantasy Extreme
Site that contains movies, wallpaper, codes, guides, walkthroughs, and general information on the Final Fantasy series. -
Final Fantasy X
Official game website -
Final Fantasy X Memories
Alex describes why Final Fantasy X is a special game -
OC ReMix Game Profile
Fan remixes of music from Final Fantasy X. -
Wikipedia: Final Fantasy X
Information about Final Fantasy X at Wikipedia
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Contributors to this Entry
Game added by Syed GJ.
Additional contributors: Chris Martin, Unicorn Lynx, Exodia85, Bregalad, DreinIX, —-, Patrick Bregger, Thomas Thompson, FatherJack, A.J. Maciejewski.
Game added January 25, 2002. Last modified March 4, 2024.