FFX

[Joker]

Awesome game is awesome. Barring Tidus' relatively whiny nature, and everyone fangasm'ing over Lu's enormous breasts, mind you.

Someday I'd really like to get a new NTSC-J capable console so I can finish FFX International. I bought it just so I could fight the Dark Aeons, and then my PS2 got the feckin' Disc Read Error and shit D;

Discuss.

 

[Nikkolas]

Second best story in the series next to IX.
Second best hero cast in the series next tO VII.

When it comes to the soundtrack, I've never been good at saying which FF had the best one.I'll say it's a threeway tie between VII, IX and X.

The battle system was okay but I prefer X-2's.

I actually don't like any of the heroes aside from Auron, Rikku and Wakka. But it remains that each of them had their own subplot and story to tell and be resolved and I appreciate that.

Most of all I like this game's lack of focus on any single enemy. There is no one main villain in X I wouldn't say. Yevon the religion, Yu Yevon the summoner, Seymour...they all had their own place in the plot which made it very intriguing for me.

 

[Dark and Divine]

I liked FFX very much! It's on the second tier of my favourite Final Fantasy games.

I liked the tropical feel of Spira, as well has the colourful characters and interesting locations.

The Sphere Grid in my favourite FF battle system, together with IX's.

The story was good and the ending was very good, though a bit sad. Too bad they've ruined its impact with FFX-2...

I also think that FFX's Aeons have the best design of all Summon Monsters in the series, together with XII.

To sum it up, FFX is a great game, imo. I enjoyed it very much

 

[Nikkolas]

Oh and I want to say I don't find the English voice-acting as bad as some people do. Admittedly Yuna's VA was off quite a bit (one of the things I think X-2 did better) but Auron, Jecht, Lulu...they were great. Some of the other voices were good too but those three were the best IMO.

 

[Tetsujin]

Too bad they've ruined its impact with FFX-2...

I always like to point out that you don't HAVE to bring Tidus back and instead Yuna can meet Tidus in the farplane in the ending and says her final farewell to him. =P

 

[Nikkolas]

Not to mention it all comes back to X-2 and X had different messages. In X, most everyone is bound to some sort of duty or obligation. So when Tidus gives up his existence it's because he had to no matter what he wanted.

In X-2, Yuna's speech to Nooj shows it has a very different moral. Losing to win is not victory. You should decide on your own life, make your own path. Rationalizing things as "we haad no choice" just leaves you with heartache.

So Yuna changed. She made her own choices now and lived her own life. The result was she got the man she loved back.

I think it's a far more inspiring message than X's "I'll die for you to live." We saw what that got you in Xenogears..Grahf and Krelian anyone?

 

[Masamune]

FFX:

Pros:

• 
  [li]Engrossing storyline and characters.[/li]
  [li]Some of the best FF character/world design.[/li]

Cons:

• 
  [li]Extremely linear gameplay.[/li]
  [li]Too much watching, not enough doing.[/li]

 

[Makoeyes987]

And really, FFX-2 can't "ruin" FFX at all since you don't have to play it.

And really, FFX-2 is not even bad at all. Its just so radically different in its message and presentation that its a bit jarring after coming from the somber experience of FFX, but if you take it for what it is, and enjoy the extremely engrossing, non-linear gameplay, it's actually very fun. It's almost the exact opposite of FFX in terms of its gameplay and style. It's story isn't as heavy but it's fun if you don't have hatred for its anime-esque style.

 

[Channy]

I loved FFX and X-2 both for very different reasons.

X shows to us again (like FFVII) that there's a huge cost to saving the world. VIII had a bit of an ambiguous ending considering Rinoa smiles down at Squall and the camera zooms away so we're lead to believe he's alive, and IX Zidane comes back.

X was heart wrenching in the similar way that we lose Aeris, we lose Tidus. Tidus and Yuna had a budding relationship that only just got to its fruition and then... he's gone. I loved it because it's real. It's not some pissy little fairytale where alls well that ends well. No. There's sacrifice to the endeavor.

However X-2 is that end to the fairytale which just ties everything up in a nice little bow. I liked both endings, but felt the one where she still doesn't get him back more heartwarming.

I'm probably the only person I know who doesn't like Wakka and Auron. Rikku I love, Lulu was a bit of a tosspot, and Kimahri was just... eh. Tidus and Yuna I liked because despite Tidus' whiney nature, he's maybe the most real. I don't know many 17 year olds who would just jump on the saving the world bangwagon and want to kill his neglectful father without a care in the world.

 

[Nikkolas]

I also have to say I've always preferred Yuna in X-2 to FFX Yuna. She's far more independent in X-2 while in X, she was pretty much used by everyone. Hell, even Tidus and the Fayth used her as she didn't know what would happen as a result of what they were doing. She obviously had suspicions but again, far too meek and doormat-ish to press the issue until it was too late.

I also give X-2 kudos for shoving the evolution, or in cases devolution, of Spira post-Yevon. It's intriguing to see how the world copes after its ruling power for a millennium falls. One reason I don't view Yevon as the pure evil some people think they were. Like it or not they kept the world generally unified and once they were gone, civil war almost broke out.

 

[ForceStealer]

I absolutely prefer FFX, but I still have to give X-2 credit for what I consider to be the best battle system in the series.

In X I really liked the Sphere Grid (I feel like it was handled much better than the License Board) and I LOVED that you could switch characters in battle without losing a turn. It made it so that my characters improved much more evenly (except Kimahri ).

The story, as people have said, was pretty engrossing. And I liked the way we learned everything with Tidus, I know that's not a new storytelling technique, but it was rather new for FF, I enjoyed it. I also agree that the voices weren't nearly as bad as people made them out be. There were klunkers of course, but usually delivery was a bigger problem than the actual voice.

After FFVII, its very hard for me to list favorite FFs as it rotates all the time. Sometimes it's VI, sometimes X, and sometimes IX, but X is still up there. I played it awhile after it came out and played X-2 immediately after it one summer. I think I lost 5 pounds that month, and I'd say that's a pretty good sign

 

[Tennyo]

Oh X, how I love thee. I've actually been having an ich to play this game again lately. I just absolutely love everything about it. The music is gorgeous, the story was engrossing and quite epic in it's climax, and I found it very easy to fall in love with the main cast. I also remember being wowed by the graphics, since back then they were among the best of the best. lol

X-2 was really cute, I thought, and the battle system was amazing. And yeah, I must admit that despite that I did find it a bit jarring when compared to X and there were parts of it that I wish were different or hadn't happened at all, but I still liked it.

 

[Max Payne]

I still don't see what was so great about the battle system.

 

[Channy]

I dunno. An inter job battle system that doesn't leave any one character confined to one class, able to change in the heat of battle, each with their own leveling system? I thoroughly enjoyed it as well. Some jobs like Songstress and Mascot were a bit of a toss, but others like Trainer, Dark Knight and Berserker were a nice change.

 

[Joker]

[quote author=Channy link=topic=718.msg31798#msg31798 date=1237420941]
I'm probably the only person I know who doesn't like Wakka and Auron.[/quote]See, I'm halfway there - I can't stand Wakka, partially because his name is SO CLOSE to my own, and partially because he's basically the token ignorant black guy (without actually being black, of course). Does he really have to punctuate every utterance with "ya?" Nor did I care much for Yuna. =/

But overall I loved Auron (that's my fuckin' BOI) and Kimahri, and I really loved Rikku - she combined the comic relief/in yo' face demeanor of Yuffie with this sort of shy coming of age thing, along with a touch of unrequited love for Tidus. Tidus, while whiny, came off as very real as well, so while I do find him annoying, you can't help but like him.

Sphere Grid was awesome...possibly my favorite growth system outside of Materia and Job Class (the ones in FFVIII/IX were bollocks). Much better than License Board, too. Simple and straightforward at the start, it gets a lot more complex once you get those two first LV1 Key Spheres.

Voice-acting really wasn't bad at all, imo. It certainly had its lesser moments (and sometimes the expressions on their CG faces were stupid, too), but overall it was actually quite good. And one of my favorite parts was how the entire story was essentially narrated by Tidus, tying in the whole "your story" bit at the beginning. I like the asides and inner monologue, particularly because it's audible and makes it feel more realistic.

Battle system was straightforward as well, and still exceedingly excellent. Summons were handled fairly well, though some of them were obviously easy to abuse (LOLOLOLANIMA). Yojimbo was epic, imo.

About the only thing the game was a bit lacking in was sidequests. There was plenty of "do this to get ultimate weapon" shit, and that's cool. But there really weren't any just plain random sidequests, really (like Timber Maniacs or Triple Triad, the auction house, Gold Saucer, etc), with the exception of the Monster Arena, which I actually love a lot more than the Colosseum from FFVI, particularly because of the bosses and shizzle.

X-2 can go fornicate itself with an iron stick. Rikku just became a 'tard, Yuna was still Yuna; Paine was quite likeable, imo, along with Gippal. But you never really gave a crap about Nooj or Baralai, or Leblanc and Co. Dresspheres = Job Class System + in-battle changing. That was nice...except the return to ATB wasn't as welcome (I would have liked fighting a LOT more if it had been the same turn-based system as X). This one had a wealth of pointless sidequests, and they even tied together for a real point, which was great!...except the actual sidequests were stupid and annoying. Lack of equippable items, barring accessories, was also kinda suck, since that's a cliche/expected/you better fucking give it to me part of RPGs. I could deal with the "ZOMG grrl powah" angle of the game a lot more if the exploration/fighting/etc was more enjoyable (and the story was stupid and you know it).

However...hour long battle with Angra Mainyu was pretty cool, and a real harbinger for things to come in FFXII (Gilgamesh <3).

 

[Ⓐaron]

Most of the cast of this game irked me, as did the linearity. The concept behind it was rather awesome (although not exactly novel; an evil religion in an RPG? that's sure never happened before) but it was ruined by a cast of characters I didn't particularly care for (Auron and Lulu being the exceptions). The sphere grid would have been an awesome idea if you could have unlocked the different paths much sooner in the game; that would have given you a level of customisation akin to that offered by any game featuring the Job system. Similarly, the linearity forced by the complete lack of a world map irked me. I've been playing the Zelda series again recently and one of the things I like most about that is the complete freedom to do virtually anything, especially early in the series. If you want to fuck about and do level eight before level one, there's really nothing apart from sheer difficulty stopping you (indeed, if you actually succeed at it, you'll have a much easier playthrough for the rest of the game). This is also one of the reasons I'm coming to love the Dragon Quest series so much - advancing the plot is actually up to you rather than being forced down your throat, you have to do exploration and you can trigger events more or less on your own. By contrast, in FFX you have to follow the preset order for the game for just about everything in it, which isn't terrible on a first playthrough but makes replay value almost nonexistent. As a gamer the only part that really stood out for me was after you got the airship and could do whatever - then it became completely nonlinear and you could do whatever you wanted, which was fairly awesome. The monster arena was by far the most intriguing part of the game to me.

 

[Alex]

Similarly, the linearity forced by the complete lack of a world map irked me

This was actually my biggest problem with the whole game. For no apparent reason it just bugged the fuck out of me.

 

[Joker]

Lack of free-roaming world map was annoying. Roaming around the world on airship/chocobo/semi-functional plane/submarine/flying school/spaceship was part of the fun, because you could find all kinds of random-ass places.

Randomly finding someplace due to map coordinates...not so epic.

 

[ForceStealer]

What I missed more about the lack of a world map was an inability to freely fly the airship, which one of my favorite moments of first acquiring the coveted airship in any FF game. Because, really, even the FFs with a world map were still linear. Yes, X is particularly linear, but none of them are really free-roaming (I guess XII is, kinda).

And free-roaming games have their place and I enjoy them (the problem with the older Zelda games is I never really know where the hell to go next. I remember being lost a LOT in OoT), Elder Scrolls mastered free-roaming in my opinion, becuase it was still easy to locate where you had to go.
However, I like the book-like linearity of FF games because linearity and story are often directly related and I enjoy sometimes to, essentially, play a book.

 

[Cthulhu]

Too much linearity - like in the TES games - can have its major drawback as well, since you'll never know where you want to go next - and just doing the main quest right away also seems like a bad idea, since those are usually the best quests, and the rest look lame after that.

 

[Masamune]

The nature of the plot doesn't really help, in that respect, as Yuna has an itinerary of each temple she needs to visit on her pilgrimage. But then, they could have facilitated this with alternative routes and such.

 

[Channy]

Well, that's why they fixed it with X-2, right? Giving you free control right from the get go, allowing you to complete the game in 10 hours or 100. Despite it being one giant sidequest (it seemed at times) I still liked that it had some plot to it. New characters, a small story for each character, as well as bringing back the old favs.

What irked me the most was Lulu's model for X-2. I don't care how hot she is or how big a fanbase she has, if she's gonna be preggers, she's gotta show.

 

[Joker]

Am I the only one who didn't think Lulu was all that attractive? Dark hair usually does it for me, especially with those legs, but...Iunno. I always liked Rikku best

That was one of my beefs with X-2, actually - they brought back all the old favorites from X, with the exception of Auron, Braska, and Jecht, who were all disembodied voices in the final fights at the end. Which was bullshit.

 

[Channy]

Well considering they weren't all that around in the first place it's understandable. Braska was the only real dead one at the time and he got a few clips through spheres... there's no more spheres for them to collect. >;

 

[Joker]

I know it makes sense...but I wanted moar Auron D;