Review by Mitora

"The story and visuals are a dream, but the gameplay is a NIGHTMARE!"

INTRO: Okay, now. Many whiles ago, I finally got Final Fantasy X. Even though it is a far cry better than Final Fantasy VIII, it still seems to be average, like a few flaws that plague my mind.

Well, anyways, on with the review.

STORYLINE: Nice plot! The plot focuses around 17-18 year old Tidus, an experienced ''Blitzball'' player and lover of the waters and seas and the other plot focuses on Yuna, a girl brought up to be a summoner. Even though it still has the ''Save the World from a Super-Villain theme'', the plot has still been captivating and it is not overly melodramatic like some recent FF games,

CHARACTERS: Interesting Characters. Tidus and Yuna, unlike Cloud, Tifa, Aerith, Squall or Rinoa, are indeed more tolerable and more interesting. There are also some other characters as well (even non-human characters!).

GRAPHICS: Nice and pristine. Even though the NPCs look blocky in some scenes, it still not ruins the graphics. Plus, Tetsuya Nomura also proves he has REAL artistic abillity here! Amazing!

SOUND: Mmmmmmm, mixed feelings......

I love the soundtrak (Nobuo Umetsu, Junya Nakano and Masashi Hamauzu are GREAT PERFORMERS). The sound effects ammaze me as well. Feels like you are actually there!

But the problem is the voice acting (and yes, I have the JAPANESE version). A lot of the voices did not match the characters that well (Yuna sounds like she is 12 years old!). Oh well....*sighs* I still like games where you could imagine the characters speaking instead of actual VA.

GAMEPLAY: It sounded interesting. No active time, Summons fighting for you, learning skills that are outside the characters' boundaries. Sound interesting, ne?

But in my opinion, this is where FFX goes downhill. The battle is in a sphere-like battlefield and it's seem like such SLOOOOOW PACING. Then, after a while, your characters get to learn the same old techniques that were ''out of their boundaries'' for a while, but that makes every character have the same, freaking abillity. Talk about hardly any distinction from one character's style from other character's style. *sigh*

If that is not enough, there is NO MAP in the game (UGH, GREAT! NOW WHAT AM I TO DO?). Instead, you get to ''fly'' all over the world (think Valkyrie Profile). I'm suprised that Enix and Tri-Ace did not know about that bit there. And don't get me started with the dungeons! That is a stressful story there.

FUN: Mabye if Square ''tweaked'' the gameplay a little more (eg. make characters stick with a certain thing, a WORLD MAP, FUN dungeons, etc.) and had a faster pace, Final Fantasy X would be perfect!

CHALLENGE: VERY HARD. I'm so far into the game, but is not easy, due to the gameplay and forcing myself through tough as nails territory, I'm so suprised that I have seen so much! *falls and almost faints*

OVERALL: Final Fantasy X was not a bad game at all. It was intriguing storywise, likeable characters and lovely music, but the super-impossible gameplay bogged the game to an average rating. However, if things were cleared up some more, I'd give it an even higher rating.

WOULD MITORA PURCHASE THIS GAME: I did and I'm basically gotten though it, but please, you need A LOT of patience, so you won't get so dang frustrated.

Reviewer's Score: 5/10 | Originally Posted: 12/16/01, Updated 12/16/01


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