What is there to gain from talking about a ten year old game that everyone's already played? I like to think that a pair of fresh eyes can add new insight to anything, especially when said eyes have a lot of experience with the medium in question. I'd like to do this for anything I get to years after the fact, as a sort of experiment. Also, I'm going to assume anyone who reads this is familiar with the topic at had, so there will be spoilers. Now, let's get started.
Not having any a Super Nintendo or any kind of PlayStation growing up, I completely missed of on the golden age of JRPGs. My only experience with them was television commercials and magazine ads (I did play Pokemon like every other fifth grader in '98, but I didn't know at the time that that sort-of counted as a JRPG). I pretty much glossed over any information regarding them, since I figured I would never be able to play them.
But Final Fantasy X stuck out to me, for several reasons. When it first came out, I was in middle school, and I overheard everyone talking about how much they loved it, but no other details were given. In high school I spent my summers as a camp counselor, and we would bring our games with us to play in a nearby lodge during our time off. One night I was watching people start a game of Kingdom Hearts, and one counselor commented on the new designs for Tidus and Wakka. I started asking about FFX, how it was, if they liked it, etc., and one person said that it was the only game that's made him cry. I also noticed they said nothing about any of the other Final Fantasy characters that appeared in Kingdom Hearts, so I took that to mean Tidus and Wakka were a big deal to them.
For the next couple of years, I started dabbling in JRPGs, with few successes. Final Fantasy IV on the GBA made me realize that I don't like turn based combat. Final Fantasy Tactics Advance was a lot of fun, but only interested me enough to play through once. Tales of Symphonia remains one of my top ten games. I didn't go much further than those three, but what I had heard about FFX from people never left my mind, and it remained on my "Want-to-Play" list since. So I was glad to cross it off the list when I recently had the opportunity to borrow it.
The first thing that really struck me was how detailed the backgrounds looked. When I was supposed to be leading Tidus to his blitzball game at the very beginning, I opted instead to just look at the scenery. The citizens of Zanarkand walking amongst the semi-futuristic metropolis against the night sky really made it feel like this was a living, breathing world. A world whose scope I couldn't comprehend just yet. This feeling would re-emerge throughout my play through, and I think it's one of the game's greatest strengths.
And then I get sent to Spira, and the game stumbled a little for me. I was not a fan of having to wander aimlessly around the barren temple with no idea of where I was or what I was supposed to be doing. The friend who loaned me the game said the first part was to put me in Tidus' shoes and make me feel as confused as he would be. I can see her point, but I don't think it's something that should be done at the very beginning of a game. The first level of a game is supposed to get players interested. To do that you need to make them feel like their accomplishing something, not be shunted from place to place by a bunch of salvagers with no real goal in mind. That only takes me further out of the game.
That high-feeling/low-feeling contrast is something that would follow me throughout the rest of the game. For every part that I enjoyed, there was something I equally disliked. Take the combat. At first I was enjoying having to plan out my attacks ahead of time and come up with a special strategy for different enemies. But the more bosses I fought, the cheaper they seemed to become. I can't count the number of times I watched bosses go four turns in a row, healing all the damage I just did and reducing my party's HP to near death, leaving me to spend my precious turns futily healing them. Sure, I could use summons to fight, but then the bosses became too easy. After losing against Seymour Omnis within one turn, I decided not to spend the next hour in a single fight where I hang on by the skin of my teeth, and beat him with a single Overdrive from Anima. It was either lose consistently against an enemy, or take the path free of any challenge. I felt robbed of gameplay.
The story was also a mixed bag. While I was intrigued by the unseen political machinations of Spira, I didn't find myself really all that concerned with it. I believe that's because I honestly didn't care too much about the characters I was playing as. If I don't care about them, why would I care about their story? For contrast, look at Tales of Symphonia, a game I've said is one of my favorites. It too deals with false religion and a cycle of destruction, much like FFX. The difference here is that each character you play as has their own personal goals beyond saving the world. In FFX, each character seems the same. All they care about is helping Yuna. That's not a bad thing, but there's nothing to differentiate them from each other. In Symphonia, we got to learn about the character's ideals, quirks, and idiosyncrasies through conversations that happen in battle and in skits outside of cutscenes. The only character interaction in FFX outside of cutscenes happens to Tidus, and Tidus alone.
This sounds like I'm ragging on the game. I don't mean to, because despite individual aspects irking me, when I look back on it as a whole, I enjoyed the time I spent with it. The backgrounds and music are glorious, I was interested in Tidus' and Yuna's plight (just them, though), and finally beating those bosses that game my sich a headache was a great feeling. I also enjoyed how, by calling it a pilgrimage, the narrative tricked me into not realizing how linear your progressions from Location A to Location B was. I wouldn't say this is one of my favorite games, not even cracking the top twenty. But I want to play the sequel to see what happens next, so that's got to count for something.
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