Final Fantasy X

Pros • Gameworld is full of engaging distractions such as chocobo training and monster collection • Strategic, engaging, and satisfying battle system • Wonderful, well-told story with depths and themes seldom plumbed in electronic entertainment • Character improvement has never been so satisfying and engaging • The most beautiful and artful computer-generated visuals anywhere • Interesting and well-developed characters, complete with good voice acting • The beauty and fantasy of the gameworld provide the player with a constant sense of discovery • Outstanding soundtrack	Cons • Look, I'm a seasoned game reviewer and I could, in the interest of demonstrating my critical perspicacity, split some microscopic hairs, but the only real shortcoming in Final Fantasy X is that "blitzball" is no fun
Bottom Line The most beautiful work of electronic entertainment ever created. Final Fantasy X truly is an electronic entertainment magnum opus. It tells a moving, mythological tale, garbed in the glossiest technicolor dreamcoat that computer graphics have ever fashioned. With well-developed, sympathetic characters, and a world of truly surpassing "Fantasy," it grants the participant a constant sense of wonder and discovery, continually awing and inspiring with its art and aesthetics. The turn-based elemental (fire melts ice, water shorts electricity and vice versa) combat system is complex, strategic and satisfying, and the character development scheme rich enough that neither becomes tedious, even after fifty hours of random battles, especially since each new area brings wondrous and awful new fiends to o'ercome. True, at times, one is simply pressing "X" to keep the movie playing; but, wonderfully, the "Fantasy" never ceases, and there are only rare moments where the actual "game" gets in the way of the experience.

Even if you, like me, consider Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within to have been a failure as a movie, and even if that project did no more than contribute skills, knowledge, and technology to Final Fantasy X and to future games like it, this alone would make every penny and every second spent on its creation well worthwhile. Final Fantasy X transports its participants into and moves them gracefully through a world of spectacular "Fantasy." The world is complete: characters rich, culture vibrant, landscape verdant, religion moving, destruction imminent, and everything so beautiful.

It is that beauty which is first evident. There are rendered cut-scenes in Final Fantasy X so astonishing that they will simply still the autonomic nervous system of the sensitive viewer; hearts and lungs just stop before them. But, unlike PlayStation One Fantasies, the glory does not fade into grainy dreariness during gameplay. Every second of the near fifty hours that it takes to complete the game is astoundingly colorful and beautiful. The world, and particularly the characters, are drawn onscreen in glorious color.

Those characters are rich and sympathetic. Their faces exhibit real-time emotional response. Their voices are well-chosen and, although there are lines that I'm sure the actors wish they had tried a few more takes to get a little more right, those voices contribute richly to the impact of Final Fantasy X. It is true that we are getting a slightly diminished experience because the lip synching was done for Japanese, but the overall good voice acting, and painstaking localization, makes this overlookable.

Final Fantasy X does share with the Final Fantasy movie one flaw of pacing, and that flaw is that the response of characters' faces and bodies, and especially their voices, happens a little too slowly, a little too turn-based, if you will. One character speaks, then a pause, then another, always a little too slowly. The capricious flow of actual interrupting and interrupted human speech and group dynamics just aren't there, and anxious gamers will find themselves reading the sub-titles and pushing the "X" button to get on with things before the characters can deliver their so-perfectly-enunciated lines.

This sense of pushing the "X" button to get on with the show does recur in Final Fantasy X. One moves, completely linearly, from one small area to another, in straight, undeviating lines, guided always by a big red arrow pointing the way forward; stopping every second or third area to press "X" and open a chest (still with that console RPG convention that any treasure chest you find, even if it is in someone else's kitchen, is yours to open and the contents to add to your inventory). Many areas have a person or two to speak to: Push "X" to interact, and each little area will have at least one random battle, win it, push "X" to go on until you get to the boss at the end of the area, beat it, push "X" and move into the next spectacular cut-scene. But, even though one is so corralled and shepherded through the game, the beauty, richness, culture, and story that the gameworld reveals piece by marvelous piece provide an overwhelming and enthralling satisfaction of discovery. So, although there are times when the game does seem to get somewhat in the way of the Fantasy--especially since even though the game is extremely well balanced, there may still arrive moments where the player is forced to wander around seeking random battle encounters in order to strengthen characters enough to defeat the next boss, and double-especially since "blitzball," the main mini-game, the beloved sport of the lead character is quite simply dull and annoying--the game and the Fantasy do mesh together in an exquisitely beautiful way. It is exceptionally difficult to turn off a PlayStation 2 with this disc in it.

And, Final Fantasy X has a strategic, and entertaining battle system that doesn't get tiresome even after the hundreds of random battles one must face, especially since the experience points one gains in those battles are then put to use in a very engaging character upgrade scheme that leaves the development of each character up to the player (or at least provides the illusion of such). There are also many mini-games and tasks which can be explored that will keep even the most obsessive Final Fantasy Freak occupied for months--especially since the relationships between the characters can develop differently according to some key player responses. This game truly is everything Final Fantasy Fans have been hoping it would be. It is clear-cut reason enough for them to purchase a PlayStation 2.

Final Fantasy X is a magnificent accomplishment. It features a game system rich enough to challenge and enthrall any experienced gamer, and Fantasy sublime enough to draw in the most hardened doubter of videogames.

Final Fantasy X is ...marvel...no, already used it...

Final Fantasy X is ...glori...no, used that too...

Final Fantasy X is ...astound...no...

...beaut...

...unsurpa...

I have quite simply run out of superlatives.

Final Fantasy X is super duper!

Info & Screenshots