Final Fantasy X

Good old Final Fantasy X, the furthest game in the series I've done, and the one that took me the longest to get to. An early PS2 title that I've heard mixed things about, and wanted to see what all the noise was about.  Sadly, I wouldn't get to experience it until the PS3 remaster, but hey, better late than never.

FFX follows the plot of a young man named Tidus who is a star Blitzball player in his town of Zanarkand.  One day during a game, a giant water monster comes out of the ocean and fucks shit up.  During the escape, Tidus' guardian Auron says the creature is named Sin and seems to have some connection to it.  Eventually when trying to escape, the 2 get sucked into sin and Tidus awakens in a world called Spira.  In Spira, there is a religion that explains that Sin is a beast that arises once every few years to fuck more shit up, and people go on a journey to destroy it.  On top of that, it's revealed that Zanarkand was obliterated by Sin 1000 years ago.  So Tidus tags along with a group of people to try and find a way to not only destroy Sin, but to return home.  

Also, these folks must of really loved Kiros from FF VIII to use his victory pose as their prayer.

When it comes to the characters, they all have very simple personalities, but they are different enough to make them stand out from the others.  When it comes to the voice acting...*laughs like a madman*

For the longest time, the gameplay is the thing I was most curious about since it was completely different from the others.  When I finally got to experience it, it quickly became my favorite battle system in the series.

To summarize, the ATB bar is replaced with a turn order seen on the right, and different commands have a different rank from 1 - 7.  What ranks determine is how long the cool off period a character has until they can move again, and the game shows you the results of your actions before you perform them.  The lower the rank, the sooner they attack.  So a rank 1 attack essentially allows the character to perform an action as soon as they finish their current one, when a rank 7 causes them to have to wait a good while to move again. This stuff allows you to plan out all of your moves before making them, and try to find a strategic way to win the fight with little to no damage.  Next comes the enemies.  In earlier games, the main focus on fighting enemies was to blast them away with your strongest attacks.  That doesn't work here.  Every enemy is a different type be it flying/magic/speed/armor class, and every character specializes against a certain type.  For example, Wakka has the easiest time dealing with flyers while someone like Auron deals with the hard shell enemies that the others can't quite cut through.  What makes X unique from the rest was that you had a main group, but you can only use certain characters from the group.  Here, you got the entire party and can tag out to another party member on a whim.  

Now for the growth system which is probably my favorite thing about X.  The Sphere Grid is a giant board split into 7 different sections.  7 different characters, and each has their own section of the grid, and their sections are designed around what class they are.  When characters level up, they obtain a sphere level.  By using sphere levels, you can move around the grid.  Not only that, but you obtain different type of spheres when you win battles.  By placing these spheres you win on top of marked areas on the grid, the character will gain that stat up.  For example, you may find a Str+4 spot on the grid.  By having a character by this grid place a Strengh Sphere on that panel, their attack will go up by 4.  

The true beauty is that each character has their own set class and special abilities that make them stand out from the rest.  As stated earlier, Auron has the ability to break through hard shells, and Wakka can crush all flying enemies like nothing.  Where the grid really shines is you can have characters leave their section of the grid and have them enter others to get those buffs.  For example, Auron is a tank.  He has the highest HP/Atk/Def out of the entire party, but at a cost of being the slowest party member.  Having him go down Rikku's route who is the Thief will not only give him thief abilities, but he'll gain such a jump in speed that he becomes absurd.  It's a giant experiment where you can have anyone go anywhere and learn all the special commands others learn.  So having White Mage Yuna with Black Magic is GG.

Structure wise, FFX is a lot more confined than the others.  In the others, you had a giant open world where you'd explore all these different areas.  In X, it's one giant road you follow that enters all the different areas with next to no exploration.  This may be a turn off for some, but I don't personally mind it.

As everyone knows, you can't skip the cutscenes.  Normally I wouldn't mind, but I agree that every screen having 2 or 3 cutscenes that can range from 5 - 10 minutes is annoying.  Also, original soundtrack is best soundtrack.  Thank you PS4/PC for giving us the choice between the 2.  Also, never forget that you want to be a blitzball when you grow up.

Overall, I enjoyed X quite a bit and was glad to play it.  Sure, I prefer the open ended world and would like to skip the cutscenes, but we can't have everthing.  on the other hand, because of the overall structure of the game, this is a perfect example of an RPG that if you have a weekend to kill and feel like playing an RPG, then pick this up.  The game is only roughly 20 hours long with about 11 hours being cutscenes, but it's not that bad.  Now if you decide to do post game, expect it to jump to at minimum 60 hours.  Fuck the ultimate weapons, and fuck catching 10 of every enemy in the game.  Then the boring grind fest that is the Monster Arena which can suck it.  But  I'm just rambling at this point.  If you want to try this, do the main adventure and ignore post game.  Let me know what you guys think of it.

Wait, what do you mean there's a sequel?  No there's not...That's just crazy...There's no sequel to this.  Why would they ever do tha....FML

Yunalesca. Meh.