Final Fantasy X is simply one of the best RPGs you can play today.
Pros:
+A riveting and engaging story, with plenty of twists and turns
+One of the best battle systems out there
+The ingenious Sphere Grid system is a smart, strategic way to level up
+Inventive monster and environment design
+Absolutely amazing music
+Graphics that still hold up today
+A long, well-paced experience
+Plenty of extras and side-quests
Cons:
-Cut-scenes can't be skipped, which will make repeat playthroughs rather cumbersome
-The story takes some time to really start, so some patience is needed
Review:
By now, most people recognize the ubiquitous Final Fantasy series. There are few series as expansive or well-known, and there's a reason for that. For many years, FF has kept evolving and changing, never staying exactly the same while retaining a sense of familiarity. Final Fantasy X is a sweet reminder of how phenomenal the series really is. With an epic story, awesome battles, great graphics and incredible music, FFX is a complete package.
You play as the Blitzball hero Tidus (Blitzball is much like team handball if it were played in water), a rather arrogant and childish young man who lives his life freely and without worry. One night, however, his city of Zanarkand is attacked by a massive beast called Sin. An enigmatic man, who was his father's friend, saves him from the attack, but it requires him to jump into a sort of warp. This warp transports him far into the future, and the man has disappeared from his side. Confused and alone, this starts a journey that he could never have imagined in his wildest dreams.
The story's progression and narrative is fantastic. It starts off slow, so many will have to grit their teeth before it starts to take off, but the detail and attention put into developing each character makes it a trifling matter. It can be argued that Tidus is too childish in the beginning, and on many fronts, that's true. However, he matures as the story goes on and becomes a character you truly start to identify with. It's the same for the other characters. They are all charming and superbly written, and Seymour, one of the main antagonists, is one of the best villains in gaming history.
You mostly go from point A to point B through most of the game, which means it's mostly a linear experience. You will, however, be able to revisit worlds later on. Every locale is stunning, the attention to detail, the beautiful variety of colors and themes, it blends perfectly to make every place unique and unforgettable. For instance, you will journey through lightning-filled plains, a beautiful island village, and a religious city much like the Vatican. You will actually remember the names of every location, and that's a feat.
In terms of gameplay, FFX is a traditional role-playing game. There are both towns and monster-infested areas. You can find shops scattered around the world, where you can buy healing items and an assortment of weapons. When out in the wild, random battles will crop up and you'll have the cIassic selection of attack options. If you lose all HP, you lose. If the enemy loses all its HP, they lose. Each character has a unique set-up of attacks and skills (at least at first), so some focus on magic while others are more attack-oriented. One radical change in FFX is how the battles flow. Instead of the active time battle system of the older games (ATB), each fight is segmented into turns. Every move affects how the turns stack up, so powerful attacks will make a character's turn move down the line, for example. This system ultimately makes FFX the most strategic mainstream FF in quite a while.
Another big change is how your equipment can be customized. Instead of each weapon and armor having concrete stats that can't be changed, you can use the game's customization system to add special stats to a piece of equipment (like +10% defense boost or the Poison Proof ability). It's definitely an aspect of the game you will either love or hate. However, if you want more choice in your games, this will be a welcome change to the formula.
The changes don't stop there. Leveling up has changed considerably. Every character now has their own section of a so-called Sphere Grid. Every time they level up by defeating enemies for experience points, they gain a sphere level. These can be used to move one step along the grid. You can then use special spheres to activate each part of the grid, such as an HP +100 grid piece or Evasion +4 grid piece. You can pretty much go whichever way you want in the grid, as long as you don't run into any locked grid pieces (where you will need special lock spheres), so you can shape your characters as you want them to be.
The final major change is how you perform super attacks and summon. The super attacks (which are in most recent FF games) are in the form of overdrives. A character's overdrive bar will fill slowly according to special prerequisites (which you can customize as well), and when filled up, every character can perform a unique overdrive attack. This will deal heavy damage on the enemy, and is a good way to finish off a tenacious foe. You can also summon magical beasts (which have been present in every mainstream FF game) that are called Aeons. Only Yuna, a special summoner, can summon these creatures, and you can completely control their actions this time around, in contrast to former games where they only performed specific attacks. One noteworthy aspect is that when summoned, all party members retreat as long as the Aeon is in the battle. This adds to the sense of power they possess, and there's some strategy behind choosing when to use them, and when to trust in the party's power.
It's important to get a hang of all of the game's intricacies, since the enemies won't let you get off so easily. They all have their own secret weaknesses and strengths, the most prominent of which is the staple elemental system. Many enemies are weak to certain elements, while they are strong against other elements. Some are also damage-resistant, or possess some other sort of defense. It's necessary to test out your different moves, and it makes the battles all that more fun.
The enemies themselves are all varied and incredibly well-designed. If you see an enemy, you'll immediately remember every other encounter you've had with the monster, and since some of the enemies are variables of a core monster type, you can use your information of one enemy against another. The bosses are even more grandiose, ranging from small but powerful to huge and imposing. Some battles might even take over 30 minutes to finish, giving a truly epic feel to every encounter.
The graphics lend much to both the enemy design and environments of the game. At the time, FFX was a breakthrough in graphical prowess. The full motion videos (FMVs) still put many high-definition games of today to shame, and the in-game graphics are fantastic as well. Character animation, movement and texture is both realistic and incredibly detailed. The world is stunning, colors abound in every pixel and there isn't one bit of texture pop-up or inconsistency. It still looks good today, and will look good 10 years from now as well.
One aspect FFX manages to simply stun in is sound. Firstly, the voice-acting for every character is both believable and very well-performed. Every character has their own personality and the cut-scenes, long as they are, are never tiresome thanks to the superb voice-acting. The music is simply amazing. FFX has one of the best musical scores in gaming and it's an absolute masterpiece by the composers Nobuo Uematsu, Masashi Hamauzu and Junya Nakano. Simply listening to it will make you want to play the game, and that can't be said about many other games out there.
FFX is a very long game, taking about 80 hours for the normal gamer to finish. The pacing of the story, quality cut-scenes and wealth of extra stuff to do will keep the game fresh from beginning to end, and it's well worth playing the game again to experience for a second or even third time. For instance, there's a whole "game" inside FFX, but that is blitzball, the sport Tidus became famous for. It takes a lot of patience to get into it, but when you do, it will become a vital part of the FFX experience. It's much like blend of strategy and sport gameplay, and is far deeper than you'd think at first glance. One slight problem in the replay value is the fact that the cut-scenes can't be skipped, making the beginning of the game a difficult obstacle to get through for return playthroughs, but as previously mentioned, the story is so well-told that it won't really matter in the end.
Even about 8 years after its initial release, FFX is still an unbelievably fantastic game. With an awesome story, amazing graphics, incredible score and cIassic gameplay, FFX is an adventure you will never forget. Get it, experience it, cherish it. This game is a masterpiece.
Story: 9.8/10.0
Gameplay: 9.9/10.0
Graphics: 9.3/10.0
Sound: 10.0/10.0
Replayability: 9.2/10.0
Final score: 9.9/10.0