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Final Fantasy X review
Title: Final Fantasy X Final Fantasy X is a gorgeous game with a great plot and some interesting characters. In fact, it's one of the better Final Fantasies, coming right behind VI and IX in my opinion. Unfortunately, as good as it is; it still has several flaws that prevent it from being the best. FFX, if you've seen it, is simply gorgeous graphically. A lot of work went into creating the fully 3D environments that exist in the game; they blow just about everything else I've seen on the PS2 away so far. Character animation is fluid and very nice. Characters actually having facial expressions is used to its fullest. The CG movies have surpassed Square's usual standards, and look even better than the Final Fantasy movie itself. Graphically, it's just amazing. The battle system has been re-done. The ATB style is gone, replaced with CTB - Continuous Time Battle. No longer can you be attacked at any time if you wait too long; every person has a time to attack, and both the character's turns and the enemy's turns are in the upper right-hand corner for you to see. I rather miss the old system, as it provided a bit more of a challenge. The new system, though, is still rather cool, and with it comes the possibility that maybe, just maybe I'll see full-scale battles using twenty or more characters where I can anally control the actions of each and every independent character. Aside from strategy games, that is. As you've probably heard, leveling up has given way to, well, a new form of leveling up. Instead of gaining a few stats at each level, you activate one stat, ability, spell, etc. If you don't want it, you can pass on it. However, it really is just replacing one system with another. You still have to gain sphere levels to move around the board. At the beginning of the game, it's actually pretty cool. Everyone has their place on the board, and you have to use each character to get through battles. By endgame, it's tedious and a pain in the ass. In fact, you'll be running around for at least five hours trying to level up and get though a second sphere grid in order to do the final battles. I personally put the game down for a month and a half because I was sick of having to level up to fight a boss I should have been able to tackle at my current status. The sphere board also enables you to fully customize your characters; another trend I'm getting tired of. The beginning of the game is fun, because everyone has a niche and you have to use at least some strategy when you fight. As the game progresses and your characters can leave their areas of the sphere board, allowing you to make them into whatever you please, it takes away that fun bit of strategy. There are several mini-games that have been provided, each one more frustrating than the last. Blitzball isn't the fun sport it has been made out to be. One, it's extraordinarily time-consuming. Two, while the stats are straightforward, a random number is added/subtracted (+/- 1 to 4), effectively making any shot, pass, or tackle that should go through, wind up not going through. I got fed up after the fifth game and quit. One of the chocobo mini-games (Catcher Chocobo, to be precise) is infuriating, and I absolutely loathe both the Butterfly Catcher and Lightning Dodger mini-games. Normally, I wouldn't play them, if you want to get the best weapons in the game unlocked, you need to play - and beat - all of them. I won't give away the plot, suffice to say that it lends itself to the story very well, despite being somewhat standard. The key element here is character interaction, and it's skillfully done. Each character interacts with another in a smooth manner, and that makes these characters come alive. I cared for these characters; they were worth it. Even though the game itself detracted me, I still felt for these characters. Even when the game got in the way, these characters still shone through. Yes, even through the dubbing, which is surprisingly good. Yuna has more than a few awkward moments. Tidus gets off to a slightly rough start, but smoothes out at the end. In fact, he delivers a very heart-wrenching line just before the beginning of the final boss fights. Wakka's voice is excellent, Lulu's nice and frosty, and Auron... man, why can't dubbed anime be done by people like him? I might actually start giving dub tracks a listen if they sounded as good as he does. The ending is a sight to behold. Just... done perfectly. The ending and the characterization made up for any other flaws in the game, giving FFX a place to shine in my collection. A shame that there's the FFX International with additional footage I'll probably never see, though. I can't afford modification, and I sure as hell can't afford to shell out $80 (import price) for another copy of FFX.
Finally, a small opinion: This game needed two discs. Square packed this DVD nigh-full, and it shows. Many times my game would not be able to process all the stuff onscreen and skip slightly. This never affected the CG, but dammit, in-game cutscenes could be a bitch, and I won't even begin about boss battles. Summoning an Aeon in a boss fight usually caused this, especially against the more detailed bosses. Plus, I would have loved to hear the original Japanese dialogue, and two DVDs could have easily allowed the second audio track. While I know it would have been more expensive, a few more extras would have made it worth it.
So, tedious leveling up, evil mini-games, and skipping aside, probably one of the best games out for the PS2 right now.
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