Final Fantasy X

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.

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
I loved Final Fantasy the moment I laid my eyes on Final Fantasy on the PlayStation. It's been years since then and Square could still do the magic they could.

Right from the beginning of the game, you are introduced to the whole group. (Of course you can't see all of their faces or know their names) You hear a narration of someone telling you "This may be our last chance" and that can draw you in instantly. The game begins on a ship and there are people all waiting for you. You take the role of Tidus, a star player in the game of Blitzball. You begin to sign autographs and such and then the first FMV comes on and you are blown away.

The FMV's look amazing. Every little detail is there. From all the faces in the crowds down to the drops of water on Tidus' eyes. The rock music in the back is a nice touch. I have heard that Nobuo Uematsu wrote the piece and he does a terrific job at making it a rock song. You watch everyone play Blitzball and then you see a man in a red coat standing where you couldn't normally stand facing this HUUUGEEE thing coming out of the water. He begins to walk towards the stadium where Tidus and everyone is playing. Well wouldn't you know, everything begins to fall apart. Statues are broken, blasts are fired, people are running. Everything is just truly detailed. It just blew me away.

After all the commotion, you wake up on an island and someone throws a ball at you. (The nerve of some people huh?) You meet up with some interesting characters and is introduced to the island of Besaid. Some time afterwards, you are introduced to your first puzzle to solve. It's not hard but believe me there are harder ones. You are introduced to some more characters who will be your allies and begin a pilgrimage to stop the all evil Sin.

What I like about the game so much is the story. Tidus is this mysterious character where you as the player, don't know much about him. How did he get to where he is, who are his parents are just some of the questions I've asked so many times. Sometimes the story is just so good I just can't stop smiling and going "Yes Yes Yes!!"

The graphics are something I couldn't take my eyes off. They actually have facial expressions now! Yes a character can look sad or happy and you can tell! It shows how much Square is pushing the PS2. For once, for ONCE the characters can actually talk! Yes TALK!! This makes the game a lot more fun because you can see if they have an angry tone in their voice or a happy one. The voice acting isn't that bad either. It's actually pretty good.

The enemies are another thing. Some of them are just so cool you want to be like them. Seymour especially, is one of them. He doesn't look threatening, doesn't seem threatening, doesn't sound threatening, (And would you expect someone so respected to be evil?) and next thing you know, you're against him. It is truly amazing. Some of them only have small roles and yet they have such an impact on you. One enemy in particular you meet for about 5 minutes and battle her. You think you wouldn't know much about her in 5 minutes but you know as much as you know about Tidus and the crew. It is truly amazing. Even Sin is interesting. He seems unbeatable and is feared throughout Spira and here is a group of people who say they can take down Sin and make him stay away forever. It is truly suspenseful.

Blitzball is one of those games you got to get into to have a good time. I got into it and DOMINATED. Once you begin to play Blitzball it is a little complicated but if you continue playing and signing new players on your team you'll love the game.

Final Fantasy X is just one of those games you couldn't stop playing. It just keeps drawing you in and in.

The Bad
There were some things that bugged me.

The story of how Tidus got to where he was and how he came to exist is just plain confusing. I couldn't follow at all. There is one particular thing you have to do in the end and I never knew why I had to do it. This is another problem I had that concerns Tidus, they should've never given the option to change Tidus' name at the beginning. It would've caused less confusion among the gamers. I have heard COUNTLESS people pronounce Tidus' name Tee-dus.

The sidequests are just too much and too complicated. To get the Sigils and Crests for your characters' Celestial Weapons is very complicated. You actually have to get something to start collecting the Sigils and Crests! You also have to find the Celestial Weapon to power it up with the Sigils and Crests! How complicated is that?! You can find the crests in treasure chests in Spira which is easy but the Sigils are tough. Tidus, Wakka's, Lulu's, Auron's and Riku's were so complicated and frustrating I actually threw my controller at the floor. I won't spoil it but I'll say this, be good at Blitzball, have a controlled temper, be good at dodging lightning bolts in the Thunder Plains, and learn how to find things you wouldn't normally find.

Bliztball is one of those games that is tough in the beginning. I thought I had the worst team in Blitzball and everyone dominated us. Somehow, I managed all that and began to beat everyone. I found one player who helped us out a lot. Some things that I found weird about Blitzball was how did they stay that long under water? Is the water fake or something? They never really explained it.

The game ending is a bit over dramatic. At many points at the end I rolled my eyes A LOT.

The Bottom Line
Final Fantasy X is just one of those really cool games you can't stop playing.