Platform: PlayStation 2
Release Date: December 18, 2001
Genre: JRPG
The Hall of Very Good
One of my favorite sports-isms is the concept of a Hall of Very Good. Sports each have their own Hall of Fames which enshrine the best-of-the-best players/managers/etc… This is where your Michael Jordan, Tom Brady, and Babe Ruths all eventually end up, they are real buildings with doors and windows and everything. The Hall of Very Good, on the other hand, is very much not a real thing, just a discussion point among specific types of fans of these sports.
My favorite thing about the Hall of Very Good is that it contains some of my all time favorite players. These are the guys I grew up watching. The Will Clark, Penny Hardaway, and Daryl Johnstons of the sporting world. Players with multiple all star games, among the best at their job for most of their careers, etc… In other words; really, really great players. Just not quite Hall of Fame worthy.
This brings me to the subject of this review: Final Fantasy X. Despite spending way too much time considering the sporting Hall of Very Good, I hadn’t, until FFX, spent any time considering what the video game version of that might look like.
Well, now I know: Final Fantasy X is a first-ballot Hall of Very Good in my book. Everything about this game is good. Story, graphics, characters, combat (which is actually great), etc… It all does its job and does it well. The thing that holds it back for me is that, other than the combat system, nothing here is great.
Summary
You play as a blonde, vaguely late-teenager-ish, giant sword-wielding Tidus who is definitely, 100% NOT Cloud from FFVII. Within the first few minutes you, a Blitzball star, are whisked away from your home into a seemingly entirely new, more primitive world. As luck would have it, you eventually run into a Blitzball team in this new world and bond over that. There’s even a very convenient plot point which explains why you know nothing about the world you find yourself in. Blitzball, by the way, is an underwater handball style game, more on it later.
You quickly find yourself in the middle of a much larger adventure to battle against an island-consuming force called Sin. Off you and your new companions go in a very linear Final Fantasy tale. It isn’t until near the very end of the game that you gain access to free travel throughout the various locations. Once you’ve done all of the grinding and side-questing you desire, you venture off to the final area to face Sin and win the day.
The plot here might be one of the weaker parts. Tidus is simply a companion on Yuna’s journey to confront Sin. Yes, the story adds some tie-ins specific to Tidus and his home world, but Yuna would still have proceeded on her journey with or without her blonde companion. Additionally, Tidus is a fairly weak lead. He doesn’t offer much in the way of personality and often comes off as a poor “stranger in a new world” audience proxy. Other characters are also a bit one-note, even if the game does go out of its way to show growth in that note.
Combat
This is the good stuff. FFX may have my picture perfect concept of turn based combat. The entire thing is super snappy which is a great starting point. Nothing about it is very complicated, you get your normal attacks, specials, and magic. There is enough there to allow for some very interesting boss fights, but not so much as to be overwhelming. One of my favorite parts is that you can instantly swap out one of your three active party members with one of the (up to) three on the bench. I always love a good mid-fight party swap and to allow you to do so without using an action is fantastic. This really opens up some fun combat combos and I was loving the strategies against bosses. Additionally, the game requires each party member to do something in a fight in order to gain XP. It can be attacking, using a spell, item, etc… as long as they took an action, they get XP.
Combat was easily my favorite part of FFX. Some of the bosses were annoying in a bad way, but there were only a few of them. Most were fun and challenging. Normal fights are mostly fine, a few of them, especially late, have you running into damage sponges which take way longer than is necessary without actually being difficult. Truly indicative of my experience with the game: I can’t praise the thing I like most about this game (combat system) without finding something I didn’t like as much (good combat system doesn’t always lead to good fights).
Side Questing
The side quests here are a bit unique. Unlike in other FF games before and after, none of the side quests really come up and slap you in the face. You can explore a bit to find some as you are making your way through the first time, but you really don’t have many random NPCs saying “boy, a lot of people sure have gone missing in that canyon across the way, I wonder what’s really going on there?” I had to look up the initial steps towards getting some of the ultimate weapons. A big part of the problem is that many of them start with something seemingly completely unrelated, such as going through Chocobo training or performing monster cataloging. I supposed this works for the people who wander off and do everything the game allows, but, silly me, I thought Chocobo training would simply allow you to ride Chocobos.
Elsewhere, Blitzball is the side-game in Final Fantasy X. It sure seems to be a divisive one. It is an underwater handball game that you can recruit players for throughout the game (by way of hiring them) and play. The gameplay is a bit boring for me, as you move and pass the ball around until you get the chance at a good shot. Hope your stats are better than the defender and goalie so you can score. The games take longer than I would like and aren’t a lot of fun. Unless you are one of the many who loved them, in which case; enjoy!
All Good Things
For me, nothing about this game stands out above the sea of JRPGs I’ve played over the years. It absolutely gets combat right according to my personal preferences, but otherwise it is the Will Clark of JRPGs. It is good, very good even, and I had fun playing it, but I can’t really make a sensible argument that this is a game on par with, say, Final Fantasy VI. Not that every game needs to be, but I spent most of my time wondering what the standout feature would be from this game, and I never found one.
I will say that oftentimes games grow in stature in my head the further removed I am from playing them. Maybe I will look back on Final Fantasy X in a few years and remember the cool boss fights, slick combat, and nice world it created and allow it entry into my personal video game hall of fame. For now, the only fictional building in my head FFX will be occupying is the Hall of Very Good.
