Final Fantasy X

The Good
Back when Sony made better business decisions for their PlayStation brand, they realised that it's not only the hype and technical specs selling a system, it's also carried by a company's most successful game franchises. Just to compare the PS2 and PS3, a fully-fledged Final Fantasy game for the PS3, though announced, is still missing in early 2008, almost two years after the console's release. When FFX hit stores in 2001 it was a mere year after the PS2 had started selling in Japan.

Game designers at Square (which then was "only" Square and not Squareenix yet) realised that they had to take the series to the next level. Graphically they certainly succeeded. Final Fantasy X plays in an oddly anachronistic world that appears to mix sci-fi, elements of the legend of Atlantis and the Bible and contemporary culture, all set before a colourful and lush tropical backdrop. For the first time in the series, the entire game world is rendered in real-time 3D, getting rid of the until then standard overworld map. For their time characters and scenarios were breathtaking in terms of design as well as technically. How much attention was paid to the overall presentation can easily be seen in another first for the series, a voice-over.

Diving into the world of FFX, the experience feels entirely fresh. Its world is interesting, the characters and architecture visually exotic, the cutscenes and overall FX as stunning as players have come to expect from the Final Fantasy franchise, and then some. The story, a religious quest to redeem a world that is flawed in the eyes of the evil opposing it, greatly benefits from the overall oceanic feel.

The Bad
Although visually absolutely stunning in 2001, FFX's gameplay fails to bring as many innovations. Before tactical real-time combat made its debut in FFXII, FFX took a step back and exchanged the then standard ATB system in which characters' turns in battle were determined by a decreasing and refilling time gauge. Battles in FFX are strictly turn-based instead, a feature which hadn't been used in the main series since Final Fantasy III. New elements include being able to exchange characters in-battle and small quicktime events to further empower special abilities, harking back to the team roster and special abilities from FFVI. All this, however, doesn't really make combat a lot more dynamic. If anything it feels even simpler because weary fighters can be exchanged for fresh ones and a sort of ticker on the top of the screen constantly provides players with information on how to best beat the monster they are up against.

The battle system in combination with character development makes the game feel sluggish sometimes. All characters possess only two item slots in which only items from a predetermined class can be placed for each character. Although weapons get customisable later on, very little ever changes about the characters' appearance. Furthermore, the Sphere Grid used to level up characters by spending ability points to move a counter and unlock new abilities or boost old ones appears needlessly cryptic and labyrinthine. One might argue it is little more than a glorified and overcomplicated ability tree.

Stepping away from the series' pre-rendered backgrounds allows for a more immersive feeling while travelling the world. However, this doesn't change anything about the fact that paths are still largely laid out for players to tread. Linearity and formula in general have been and still are a problem of the FF series. This becomes apparent in FFX because gameplay especially in the beginning is often a mere sequence of walking a few steps, fighting a random battle and engaging in one of the many and long-winded talks or cutscenes. While the game certainly gears up later, newcomers will have to muster some patience. As mentioned before, the story is carried by its exotic setting and diverse plot elements - sadly, the characters aren't always that interesting. The hero is an RPG standard, clueless, blade-wielding youngster with daddy issues, his mentor a silent swordsman, his best friend a lovable oaf and his love interest a mild-mannered, staff wielding enchantress. (Or summoner in this case.) The sometimes awkward English dubbing doesn't help much.

The Bottom Line
Final Fantasy X makes a bold effort to be for the PlayStation 2 what Final Fantasy VII was for the original PlayStation and the series. Graphics, design and music are without a doubt worthy of the series but it seems as though too much effort went into those areas because gameplay as such is lacking interactivity. As such FFX is a mediocre console RPG, albeit on the high level players have come to expect from developer Square.

The Good
The most noticeable aspect of the game, right from the start, is just how beautiful the game looks. The project took years to finish, and you can tell a good part of the time was spent polishing the character models and making the world feel real. Then again, ever since the games moved to 3D graphics they have always had a very real feel to them... it's something to expect when the name "Final Fantasy" is put on the label. Don't forget how great the video clips are, too.

It is also important to note that, while it has already had nine games before it, not including the handheld incarnations or Tactics, Final Fantasy X still maintains a very fresh and fun feel. Most other franchises that have managed to hit the tenth game have all failed in this aspect considerably, Might and Magic 10 gets an (dis?)honorable mention here. For example, instead of making miniscule or NO changes to game play, Square ditched the Active Time Battle system it has had for the longest time and used a turn-based system instead.

While on the topic of the new battle system it is important to point out that I did not welcome the idea of a turn-based battle system from the start. "Turn-based? How lame!" Instead of being a boring and simple system, it's very well thought out and fun. You also have monsters that have weaknesses to specific characters and while you can only have three characters active in battle, the game allows you to swap an active character with one of the ones that are sitting out. As for the summoned creatures this time around, they're called "Aeons" and instead of existing as flashy versions of spells they are actual controllable characters during battles complete with spells and abilities.

The characters in this game are also characters that you grow to care about as the story progresses. They have depth, the voice-actors who portray them do an excellent job most of the time, and you rarely have difficulty believing the characters would do/say what they do. This is a nice change from Final Fantasy 9, where the only character I could say I grew attached to was Vivi. As far as experience levels and making your characters more powerful goes, the old experience system has been changed slightly. Now you gain "ability points" and at certain amounts of AP you gain "sphere levels." With each sphere level you gain, you get to move the character along a grid and activate abilities as you go. It sounds restrictive, but there are several ways you can hop on to a different grid or activate "hidden" abilities.

The story is also enjoyable and keeps you interested, although it could have used a little more fleshing out and back-story.

The Bad
The thing at the top of the "don't like" list is the very small amount of side-quests in the game. Those side quests themselves are small, or consist of doing very tedious things... like dodging 200 lightning bolts to get a special item. A lot of those tasks also don't have any clues giving you reason to do them, and I only know to do them because of playonline.com, Square's online strategy guide.

Resulting partially from the lack of several side quests, the game is also incredibly short. When you get to the final battle after only 40 hours it is sort of disappointing... not to mention the final battle is totally anti-climatic. Meaning, so easy it is impossible to lose. Fortunately you have plenty of difficult ones just before it.

The musical score gets a minus as well in this game, because there are a lot of themes that any Final Fantasy fan will recognize as simple remixes of previous games' music. Some songs were original, but enough of the music was remixed to make me disappointed.

Another minus, although it's not a big one, is that when you finally get the airship, the way you fly anywhere is by selecting the destination from a list. There's no soaring through the air with fun music going on in the background in this Final Fantasy... although I get a feeling it could primarily be because of budget and time constraints more than design.

The Bottom Line
This is one of the many RPGs any RPG fan will want to add to a collection. Final Fantasy fans will not be disappointed either. It has enough of the old mixed with the new to make existing fans happy and to create new ones. The voice acting is above average, everything is very pretty, and it rarely gets boring.

You can expect to see the same recurring names as in the previous games, familiar monsters, Shiva (who has never looked better!), and a multitude of other things fans like me will be looking for. These familiar things are combined with enough new things to keep Final Fantasy alive and kicking, unlike most other franchises that hit the double-digits.

Go get it, play it, and get ready for the next one... because if the next one is going to look any better I can't wait to see it.

The Good
The beaches of Besaid, beautiful, I could feel the wind in my hair and I could see the saliva dripping of the fangs of the monster I was throwing my Blitzball at. But seriously in all the previous final fantasys you could choose where you went and then we get Final Fantasy X which escorts you around with a nice red arrow at the top of your map saying don't find your own way just follow me." I mean correct me if I'm wrong but i don't think Tidus sees a big red arrow showing him where to go, so why should we and Blitzball gets tiring after about the fifth game since you must admit it got a bit repetitive.......throw, kick, swim etc. Maybe the creators should be concentrating more on the gameplay rather than the crashing waves and the sand between the toes.

The Bad
See above =)

The Bottom Line
If you like graphics above gameplay then this is a premium choice.