This review contains major spoilers for the game. This review assumes the viewer is familiar with the plot of FFX. This review does not take into account content from Final Fantasy X-2 or Final Fantasy X ~will~
Originally I was fairly dismissive of Final Fantasy X. Primarily because back then I never liked Tidus, finding him to be an idiot anime hero with nothing likable about him. Also I was an idiot who liked Squall *shudder* back then because he was dark and brooding. So recently I had the opportunity to play FFX on my old PS2 and I have formed a proper opinion of the game.
Now onto the review proper, but addressing a previously brought on topic, Tidus is honestly one of the more likable main characters in the franchise (not saying much though). Over the course of the game, (and perhaps due to an increase in tolerance), I’ve actually grown to rather like Tidus’s character. I like his optimistic outlook and the contrast with his bright happy-go-lucky personality with the cynical world he is in. It’s almost as if the developers intended the contrast between Tidus and Spira, only to brutally subvert our expectations later on in the ending. If anything, the only thing I dislike about Tidus is how he follows the “Hero’s Call to Adventure” guideline a bit too much. You have your standard Refusal to The Call and all other tropes associated with the Call to Adventure, that Tidus doesn’t really bring much new to the genre.
The other main character in the game is Yuna, and boy is she boring. She’s naive and stubborn to a fault, while being an extreme doormat most of the time. Her scenes are generally boring, if not, uninteresting, partially due to the weak voice performance, but mostly because Yuna is a fairly dull character to begin with. She isn’t one-dimensional, but there aren’t any defining characteristics about her beyond “If it’s for the good of Spira, then I must…” and other similar lines of dialogue. Really, Yuna is only good for gameplay purposes (This girl is seriously OP) and one particularly well done scene which I’ll go into detail a bit later.
As for the other characters, Wakka is my favorite out of the bunch. His character is definitely over-exaggerated a bit, but I did like his character development from religious aficionado to someone seriously quesitoning his beliefs. And he’s just a fun character all around without feeling like he doesn’t belong in the setting. As for the others, Auron is okay, albeit a “generic badass” type, while Rikku and Lulu are fairly forgettable.
The villains are all one-dimensional, and in the case of Seymour, very strange. It is amazing absolutely no-one aside from Tidus even suspects him of being villainous. Jecht is interesting, but we don’t get much exposure to his character even with all the optional Jecht spheres. Yunalesca and Yu Yevon are equally forgettable, being introduced really late into the story despite being major players. And Auron is an idiot/victim of bad writing for not warning anyone of the dangers ahead he might as well be a villain by proxy of his incompetence.
As for the plot itself, the actual story is fairly interesting, if having a few plot holes/inconsistencies. However, the things that hamper it are mainly how the story is presented, ie the writing and dialogue. The writing is fairly sub-par with some really cringe-worthy moments in. Dialogue is equally sloppy with the added “bonus” of the voice acting artificially sped up at times to match the lip flaps.
Occasionally you do get really nice snippets of dialogue, but most of the time you have the drudge through hundreds of lines of poorly written lines that really come across as an attempt at being dark or edgy but come across as being pretentious and dumb. The best lines in the game are the simplest ones, where the bulk of the emotion is conveyed in the scene itself, and not being described to the audience.
As for the cinematics, they’re all very well done. A particular favorite scene of mine is near the final boss where Yuna keeps summoning the Aeons only to have them possessed by Yu Yevon and having to defeat them. The emotions on Yuna’s face conveys the weight of the scene so well. You know and feel her distraught as she is forced to battle the Aeons she bonded with (except Yojimbo, bastard never Zanmato’d anyone for me). And this is conveyed without a snippet of dialogue.
However, we come to another of FFX’s faults. The scene conveyed may be well done, but you’re distracted from the stupidity and plot holes from the story itself. In the aforementioned scene, Yuna is summoning Aeons because the fayth told her to summon them in the battle against Yu Yevon. My quesiton is “Why?”. If she’s trying to lure Yevon out, why does Yevon only give up once Yuna runs out of Aeons? Why wouldn’t she give up after knowing her first few summoning attempts failed? How does Jecht know all this? And other plot holes. It boggles the mind how such a beautiful scene can have such lousy and poorly justified context. But it happens.
On a more positive note, the pacing of this game is fairly good, although slowed to a crawl around the Calm Lands section. One reason I’m not into JRPGs much is due to the slow pacing early on which makes it difficult to keep on playing for hours. FFX has fairly good pacing, with the plot constantly being spearheaded at the players enough to keep them interested in the game to see how it all unfolds.
The backstory and world building is done fairly competently. Yes you do have exposition fairies out and about, but the exposition is done well enough you wouldn’t mind much. Spira is indeed an interesting setting and I do wish more developers would consider a medieval Asian fantasy setting more often than yet another medieval European Tolkien fantasy for a setting. One thing I rather liked is that, in the airship maps or in certain cutscenes where you see Spira from space, Spira does look like a realistic world which people might inhabit, rather than some strange fantasy world with no backbone to it.
The music in the game is fairly well done. Although Suteki Da Ne and all its subsequent remixes can be really grating considering how the game loves to overuse this song. The Boss Battle theme is similarly boring and uninspired, although, it does highlight how excellent Challenge is, given how rarely it plays. The title screen music is very well done, and is my personal favorite music from the entire OST.
Gameplay wise, FFX plays well, albeit with some really baffling design decisions at times with regards to obtaining Celestial Weapons and that terrible sequence with the icicles. The fixed camera does hamper a few sequences, namely the Cloister of Trials sections. All the minigames are awful. Blitzball is fun in concept/if you have high level teammates, but is otherwise a drag.
In conclusion, FFX is a competent game. Story is interesting although hampered by poor writing and weak villains. Gameplay and Music are largely decent save for a few missteps. Overall, a solid effort.
6/10
Better than the mess that was FFXIII
Also FFX-2 Yuna is an improvement over FFX Yuna.
↧