Final Fantasy X

aka: FF10, FFX, Finalnaja Fantazija 10, Zui Zhong Huanxiang 10
Moby ID: 5673
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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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Directors
Sound Producer & Music
Main Programmers
Image Illustrator
Program Supervisor
Battle Programmer
Menu Programmer
Character Designer
Chief VFX Programmer
Real-Time Graphics Director
Art Directors
Monster Designer
Chief Sub-Character Designer
Battle Motion Director
Field Motion Director
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Chief Art Designer
3D Map Director
Field Programmers
[ full credits ]

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 92% (based on 53 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.8 out of 5 (based on 237 ratings with 19 reviews)

It's not a game, it's a work of art....

The Good
First off let me say that I've never played ANY of the previous Final Fantasy games before. I have no clue how they worked, or how this one matches up to the previous ones.

I do know that after playing FFX for a day or two, that it is the most gorgeous, intense, and incredible game I've played in a while.

The plot of the story encircles Tidus - the star Blitzball player from the Zanarkand Abes. After the being known as "Sin" attacks Zanarkand, Tidus is thrown 1000 years into the future - to a land known as Spira. He eventually ends up with a beautiful summoner named Yuna, and is then wrapped up in her quest to defeat Sin.

The graphics in this game are breathtaking. The movements of the characters are fluid, and ultra-realistic. The Aeons summons alone are enough to make our jaw drop. But what I found that set the game apart, is that in most cases, you can't tell when the pre-generated cutscenes stop and the in-game engine takes over. The cutscenes' quality is equal to that of the FF movie that was released last year, and the transition between cutscene to in-game in flawless.

The sound is fantastic. This is the first FF game to feature full audio voice for all the main characters, and the localization team did a top-notch job with the translation. Although I find Tidus' voice a little whiney, I think it sounds great. The music, although repetative in the battles, is great as well.

The controls, once you learn them are extremely intuitive. You can either use the analog joystick or the D-pad to control you character.

The gameplay itself is a blast. One of the newest features to the series, is the ability to "hot-swap" your characters while in combat. This makes for more strategic planning of your battles and allows characters with healing abilties to jump in - heal your wounded - and then jump out as well.

Another interesting change is the sphere grid. Gone are the days of experience points. It's little complex but the jist of it is this. You have a HUGE grid of spheres, that allow to you branch out and level up your character. You advance in spheres by defeating creatures in battle, and you level your characters up by collecting spheres that you collect at the end of each battle.

Overdirve stirkes are also done well. In most cases and Overdrive strike happens when you've battle enough creatures to fill you Overdrive bar which unleashes a very powerful attack. But the way the attack are done is cool. Instead of just hitting a button, you have to do a certain pattern on your controller. For instance when you use an overdrive attack with Wakka you have to line up 3 colors on a slot machine type display. The quicker you line them up the more damage you do. Or with Kilmarhi's attack you have to do a certain sequence of button pushes, and the faster you complete the sequence, the more damage it does. I find this technique is very cool. I means that overdrive attacks don't automatically hit your opponent with your full strength, the same as real life, your strongest attacks might not do the damage you hope for.

The Bad
Not much so far. It's an awesome game.

The Bottom Line
Bottom Line: If you've never played an RPG before and you happen to own a PS2, then this game is for you. If you've ever seen screenshots, they don't do the game justice. The plot, controls, graphics, sound, gameplay, are so finely tuned, that it's impossible not to like the game.

A must-buy for any RPG lover.

PlayStation 2 · by Chris Martin (1155) · 2002

A true masterpiece

The Good
Being the FF title in next gen I was skeptical like everyone else about how it would out. Final Fantasy X is a timeless classic with a deep storyline relatable characters and conflict rivaling Final Fantasy VII. New changes include a sphere grid leveling system and turn-based strategy like Xenosaga. Both welcome changes to the usual grinding of leveling up via experience points. The graphics engine also push the PS2 to the limit. The environment feels so alive and CGI really makes Final Fantasy games what they are today. But what really makes or breaks games are emotion, attachment to the characters and music above all else and thats when you bring in Nobue Uematsu. He has complied possibly the greatest soundtrack of all-time in Final Fantasy X. And lets not forget about the story, with so many plot twists and turns and depth into everybody's backstories makes it so hard not to love (almost) everyone.

The Bad
I know every main character can't be a hard ass like Cloud or Squall but Tidus was a little too whiny through the first 1/3 of the game for my taste but he tends to grow on you. The difficulty level in Final Fantasy X also worried me. It seems with the new Sphere Grid system the game is a little too easy until about the second battle with Seymour. Every RPG has to have puzzles I know ut the Cloister of Trials was just laughable. It felt more like a choir than a brainteaser, especially in Bevelle. Every RPG also has to have mini-games and side quests and most of those were just stupid like blitzball or chocobo riding. Blitzball may have been more fun from a first person view perhaps? I know these things lead to bigger and better aspects of the game, but it just feels forced upon you. I know all these things are small but can scare some people away.

The Bottom Line
Minor quibbles aside, this game came out seven years and is still one of the best games I've ever played and most definitely the best RPG. Since the PS3 isn't backwards compatible or never had a PS2 in the first place I suggest picking one up cheap on ebay because this the single best reason to pick one up.

PlayStation 2 · by Jacob Gens (1115) · 2008

After Megaman X we get... Final Fantasy X !

The Good
Well, it's Final Fantasy X. After having some very great experience with other Final Fantasy titles, I wanted to play this too. I buy my PS2 only for this game (I have a couple of other games now, but this is the main one). And yes, it was worth is.

Final Fantasy X is very innovative. Battle are no longer ATB, but CTB - That mean turn per turn system. Each attack consumes time, depend of the attack itself and of the speed of the characters. So a quick character's turn will come more often, like in ATB, but you have all your time to set your commands, like in the original turn per turn system. This new system add a lot of strategy, and make the game more enjoyable. It works very great. Also, the level up system is kinda particular. It take places on a sphere gird, and your character can move from sphere to sphere and activate them to rise their stats and learn new attacks. Each characters have its default sphere range, but can also overpass it with key spheres and overflow in the whole sphere gird. This system, while not the best system ever seen in the series, is great, and make levelup very addictive.

The overkill system was a particularly great innovation. When you kill a monster with a brutal hit (I don't know the exact requirements, but you have to use a weapon or spell that is it's weakness or do a critical hit), the icon "overkill" will appear, and you'll got more EXP and items after the battle. So you see the extra challenge that is to overkill bosses, that often leave rare items. One flaw is that you'll get more EXP from weaker monster that are easier to overkill, but often easier monsters doesn't give enough AP even when overkilled to compete again stronger monsters, so that doesn't ruin the game by allowing the player to rise its levels with weaker monsters.

Overall, the game is a lot about game play. It's not one of those RPGs with great story, great graphics and boring battles. It is FAR of it.

By the way, the story. It is definitely a bit below the average Final Fantasy plot, it is a bit too linear. But it is still interesting. Sin, an enormous monster, is attacking the town where Tidus lives. Then, he'll wake up at a totally different place. After a while, you'll be rescued by people that make you figure that you town was destroyed 1000 years ago, and that looks to have much more experiences with that Sin. They're all about praying a god called Yevon in the hope to banish Sin forever, but it doesn't really work. You have to travel to figure the truth out. Also, this is strongly related to aeons, the summons of FFX. I'll let you discover more in the game.

One thing that take a great place in FF10 is the graphics. Square did everything to use the PS2 are wisely as they could. While fighting, each character is so much detailed, they all have their own style, and so you'll never be bored to fight monsters again and again. The magical effects are also soo well done.

There isn't any longer difference between cutscenes and gameplay. Yes, there is a few pre-rendered cutscenes, but most cutscenes aren't prerendered, because they didn't need to, the graphics are detailed enough. Now there isn't only pre-rendered background like in FF7-9, but a mix between real 3D environments (large maps) and pre-rendered background (small maps). This works pretty well, and thank to the 2D plan on the upper right corner, you won't get lost.

The characters are all dressed up very strangely. But when you grow used to it, you'll eventually love them. They even talk while fighting ! This leads me to another stuff, the acting. It is welcome, while battling to have voice of the characters. Yuna and most NPC have horrible acting. Tidus and Rikku, while okay, could be a lot better. Auron, Wakka, Kimari and Lulu got perfect acting. I think the acting of characters is better in Japanese, so I don't really care to evaluate the game, that is from Japan.

Another thing I liked is seeing the spirit of the monster leaving its body when defeated through some light spheres. You'll see those "spirit light spheres" (not sure it's their official name) very often through the game. Overall, adding the fact that the save points are called "save spheres", and among the sphere gird, the game seems all about spheres (there is also spheres involved in puzzles you have to complete through the game). This is kind of strange.

FF10 have a wide choose of great music, especially the battle theme. I think it is one of the best battle theme over the whole FF series, it won't get on your nerves are battle themes did in older FFs. However, for the first time in the FF series, there is also a wide choose of horrible music. Not only Nobuo Uematsu (the traditional FF composer) did the music, but Junya Nakano and Masashi Hamauzu too (these already worked on Front Mission - Gun Hazard). The last two did a couple of great songs and a lot of horrible song each, while the first tend to keep his good old traditional style (well, he did some bad stuff too). The "Song of Prayer" (aka Hum of the Fayth) is quite amusing, it was a great idea to input a such song in a game, and let it take a place in the gameplay. (in the case of you doesn't know, this is a song related to aeons).

The game is pretty challenging. It isn't too hard, while it can get hot on some bosses. At the beginning, it will see really really easy (that is until you reach Mi'hen highroad). After that it will be hard, but not ridiculously. Any beginner in RPGs could beat the game without suffer its lack of overall experience. However, there is a lot of side-quests. I've heard half of the game is about side-quest, if you do them all. I completed the game with practically no side-quests myself, so don't be afraid, the game isn't that hard. But if you want challenge, you cannot miss this title. It has some optional bosses that looks really impossible to beat, killing your party in one single attack. You'll need a FAQ if you want to complete some of the side quests.

The Bad
While FFX has so called great graphics, I still have something to complain about. When fighting huge enemies in dark places, the camera will zoom in order to see the whole enemy, and you characters becomes so small, and adding to the fact that the screen is dark, you won't recognize them, and you'll mess up in your commands. That flaw is annoying.

The pseudo hardrock "Otherworld" steamed theme you'll hear at the beginning and during the final battle incredibly suck. The "Big Boss theme" is also a bunch of pseudo hardrock, but with no melody, only distortion guitar and bass chords, it also suck. And the normal boss theme isn't really bad, but too "dramatic". While the music is great, the theme isn't really appropriated to a boss theme. Overall, there is some unforgivable things about the soundtrack, considering its from Square.

And yeah, the characters have "real time facial sentiment" when talking. It sure is enjoyable a lot to see the character look close to real when talking, but a simple small mistake and they look totally ridiculous, and this happen several times through the game, especially to Tidus. Look at the beginning when he first got his sword, or latter he's fed by Rikku. Doesn't he looks absolutely ridiculous ? (those are just example I had in mind). Also, they will sometime move in a way that looks great, and then after repeating that exact movement 3 or 4 times, they'll appear ridiculous. Such things doesn't happen in battles, but on the field. I'll never repeat this enough, in battle, the characters looks perfect in all their movements, and also on most cutscenes on-field, that it is a shame that a little number of them are somewhat wrong.

Oh, yeah. It will sometimes happen to you to die after one hour of more of leveling up, and that is quite frustrating. Unlike in the Dragon Warrior games, you cannot keep your experience and items with half of money, and unlike Final Fantasy 4-9, save points are quite rare (because, if they weren't rare, it would allow you to always restore your health and mana, and then the game will become too much easy). If you played the 3 first FF on the NES, you'll be used to that, because it pretty much the same story. Fortunately, there is a save point right before almost every bosses, so you won't have to level up AND fight boss while not saving, as in the first 3 Final Fantasy games.

Finally, there is a last flaw. You'll way to often get weapons (or armors) after battle, and you'll have easily 30 weapons per characters, additionally you often got poor ones (or strong, but not interesting enough). The game allow you to modify your weapons to get your own effects, that is great, but each random encounter will frequently give you useless new weapons. They better give more rare items allowing to improve items (that would become less rare).

Those small flaws apart, there isn't really anything bad about FFX. And I could write much much more into "the good", but that wouldn't be very useful, since other people already did it.

The Bottom Line
YES, it's great ! You won't found anything bad except the few lines above, and you'll found much more fun that what I can say in some lines in "the good". It was one more great RPG experience to play this to me, and the game has all it has to be interesting : Originality, innovation, traditional stuff from older FFs, side-quests, challenge, great graphics, great music, nice storyline... What do you want better, after all ? Thank you, Square !!

PlayStation 2 · by Bregalad (937) · 2007

[ View all 19 player reviews ]

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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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.