2025-04-13

Final Fantasy X

Is Final Fantasy X interesting? It’s consistently praised and always in the top of PS2 GOAT lists, but I never see anyone talk about it. Maybe it’s just a gap in my experience of reading opinions about video games online but I never really see any complaints or discussions or anything regarding the game, just a general “oh yeah X is a good one, now anyways about FF VIII…”. I’ve tried playing it before, but I never stuck with it past the first 10 hours. My ability to get through long games is purely a willpower thing, especially for games as good and well-balanced as this.

Before I first played, I only knew a few things: the combat is turn-based, and teedus does the funny haha cutscene. I would like to spend this review describing all the other cool good notable things that would have convinced me to play it sooner. Trying to put this into words is difficult, which probably explains why I have only heard people vaguely praise it.

Gamer game gaming

Final Fantasy X’s turn-based combat pretends to be boring and standard, but on closer inspection it has some really interesting quirks. Swapping party members takes 0 turns, and this universally defines how the entire game is played. You constantly have a chance to bring out any other character, without immediate punishment. In the early game, you will realize that you don’t need to keep the healer in your active party, and only swap in when you need it. Mid-game, you start learning the Sphere Grid and notice that everyone has a valuable skill like this. The party size of 3 is now a meaningful limitation instead of just tradition, and there is no urge to bench a party member for the whole game. The design of the Sphere Grid naturally pushes characters towards standard roles, but it silently gives you the option to pick up a subclass. Freedom of movement is only limited by items you find, naturally rewarding you for exploration and sidequests. In fact, getting Sphere Grid items can be transformative to character growth, in a way that few other JRPGs allow.

This theme of freedom extends to equipment too. Cold take: I never liked crafting systems, especially in the style of Minecraft and Rust. And while those games mostly influenced the “base building” genre, they have still defined what it means to do crafting. Final Fantasy X obviously predates this, and doesn’t even call its systems “crafting”, but it’s a very unique take on the system. Weapons and armor don’t actually do anything on their own, and just provide slots for abilities. Some equipment comes with empty slots, and you can add abilities to these slots by spending items. The most powerful abilities need extremely rare items, which gives just about every item in the game multiple uses, adding a second layer to the simple act of using items. Aeons and Rikku’s Mix also use a similar mechanic, if you’re into that sort of thing. The system is such a simple rule, but has a lot of depth just through how the game makes items available to you.

Systems like this remind me of how games are made, with a different team working on each system. It would be really difficult to increase the size of the production, while balancing the power of “using items in battle” and “using items for aeons” and “using items to customize equipment” and “getting items from sidequests/chests/shops”. That’s a lot of things to keep track of, for a potion that only clears a status effect! Games succeeding Final Fantasy X usually had to make the choice to increase or decrease their budget, drifting away from this goldilocks zone of mechanical coherence.

But then there’s Sensor. It’s an ability that allows you to see the enemy’s HP, elemental weaknesses, and a one-line hint about fighting them. Without Sensor, you have way too little information, so you have to switch to a character who has it, just to double check on something. You can scrape by without it, but that’s rarely possible for bosses. At worst, you’ll have your party wiped before figuring out a strategy, and without much information to go on. I don’t expect to have this information in every game, but Sensor (and Scan, the magic equivalent) is available enough to encourage you using it everywhere. The game is balanced around having this information, and it intends for you to spend an extra 5-10 seconds every fight juggling for it.

So, I cheated! The PC mod “Untitled Project X” has a lot of non-cheat features and stability fixes, along with toggles for permanent universal Sensor, and EXP share. In my playthrough, I enabled both of those toggles after about 5-10 hours. Before that point, I started developing a playstyle where I would swap out all my party members so they could all get EXP, and swapping in a token Sensor party member so I could figure out what’s going on. These cheats fall into the “don’t waste my time” category, as I don’t think the difficulty of the game is affected, it just cuts out extra time spent in menus. The 4x speed booster that comes in the HD remaster also counts, but the one to disable encounters goes too far. Since this all wasn’t in the vanilla release, you obviously shouldn’t assume the game is balanced around these features. But I recommend considering these cheats if you want to play the game today, it doesn’t really change anything about the game.

I also used a guide, which are sometimes considered a cheat. Making progress blind is the only thing fun about games in general, so it’s natural to conclude that a guide will rob you of a good experience. But if you only reference the guide after going through an area, to learn about all the stuff you missed, you’ll get a second chance at discovery. I basically did this for the whole game, backtracking or reloading saves in case I missed something, and oftentimes I did! I’m not sure if the game was intended to be played with a guide, but a guide will showcase the best a game has to offer. This approach did inflate my playthrough (Steam says 77 hours, felt more like 60) and I still didn’t do all the side content, but now that I’m aware of it, I know what’s waiting for me if I come back.

It’s not about the journey it’s about the destination or something like that idk shut up this is my story

The structure of the game’s world is also pretty weird. It’s all one big straight line, no overworld, no fast travel, just constant forward progress. There are inns and towns, but there are also large stretches of non-towns. In a typical JRPG this would feel exhausting, but somehow it doesn’t here. There’s not really a reason to need a refill for HP or MP, since you get some from leveling up (I don’t think its a full heal, idk). Getting to a new zone always comes with a cutscene and some character development, so there’s rarely downtime in the story’s pacing. The world is very ingrained with the plot too, where the place you need to go is also the most meaningful to the story.

(not really a spoiler, but this does come late in the game): There’s no better example than the Calm Lands, a genius piece of environmental storytelling. And I do mean environmental storytelling, not the stupid toilet skeleton crap. The environment of the game world, the level you enter, is introduced with its own story, and just exists with its soft grass texture and its beautiful piano theme. It is, by definition, a place that tempts people just like you to just stop and relax. And its introduction comes deliberately timed right after everyone reaffirms that they don’t want to stop. But there is LOTS of side content for you, with the chocobo and arena minigames on opposite sides of the massive area. I already liked the game before this point, but this made me realize how special it is.

I haven’t talked about the story much, but I don’t think I should. It’s a great story, the characters are fantastic, the world’s rules are mostly comprehendible, and it’s paced well. Not unlike every other All-Time Great JRPG, hence the dilemma of Final Fantasy X’s uninterestingness. Its imperfections are too small to complain about! There’s nothing to criticize! I’m going insane I gotta hate on something aaaaahhhhhh!!!

The dub maybe? I don’t know, it’s not bad. The casting is perfect, there’s occasional misread lines but nothing that ruins a scene. I hated the sitcom ass tone Tidus uses, but he has emotional range when it counts. Chalk it up to sloppy direction, which is fine considering the whole game has fully voiced cutscenes.

Final Fantasy X demonstrates an expertise in minimalism. The game is by no means small or shallow, but it keeps everything approachable and concise. Any handholding is done invisibly, through deliberate choices in level design, Sphere Grid layout, or chest rewards. It calls into question the nature of “difficulty”, is a difficult game one that keeps you from learning the rules? Would the game be any more enjoyable if all random encounters relentlessly wiped your party? Is the game actually baby easy because it doesn’t force you to fight every superboss? The additional difficulty and sidequests are available to those who want it, and the freedom from the Sphere Grid will let you experiment. But going down the main path, taking the most obvious steps, is still extremely enjoyable and very memorable.

I finally gave this game a shot after Final Fantasy XV left a bad taste in my mouth. One of my biggest complaints was its tendency to waste my time, be it with combat or story or sidequests. Final Fantasy X isn’t devoid of time wasters, but it makes sure every step has meaning, and the way forward is well communicated.

Score: 3/3. Final Fantasy is often “baby’s first JRPG” but I could recommend this game to anyone. Unless you really really hate JRPGs, you are missing out by not playing this game.