So since it launched in the states, I've been playing FFX and X-2 near daily x_x
I'm finally done!
I went in really familiar with FFX. I had played it maybe 3 previous times back in middle school and high school. I was actually introduced to Final Fantasy through this game. I bet that line has some people's alarm bells going off, and maybe they should. One of the major fundraisers for my middle school actually involved magazine sales. Of course, I decided to subscribe to the gaming-related ones. The short of it is that not long after, with one of the issues I got a PS2 demo disk in the mail. The two demos I ended up putting the most time into were FFX and ICO. I've still never played the later in full, haha. It feels needlessly dramatic, but that little demo disk...who knows where I would be now without having run into it.
I really did like FFX a lot. A lot of what I had played before that were either PC FPSes or Nintendo platformers. I think it was the first rpg of any sort that I had ever played, unless you want to count something like Zelda. In a way it was a gateway game into a lot of other titles, including most of the other FF entries, other obvious japanese rpg series like Tales of and tri-Ace's titles. Even got me interested in more "western" rpgs, starting with Knights of the Old Republic (the Star Wars license helped convince freshman-high school me, haha) and then into Fallout, other Bestheda titles, Diablo, Baldurs gate, NOX, Guild Wars. And I also grew to love Intelligent Systems and MonolithSoft rpg entries as well. And I am just now getting back into first person shooters, and I hardly ever play platformers anymore, while still introducing myself to new rpgs with companies such as Falcom and, maybe soon, Gust. So those are the circumstances upon which I revisited FFX. I've broaden my experiences since then, so I was unsure how much I would enjoy it now.
I don't want to write a review, everyone here is familiar with the game. There's something that I really enjoyed and still enjoy about the simplicity of the primary gameplay of FFX. The game doesn't introduce layers in a needlessly obtuse way. No rows, no time gauge. One weapon and one armor. I don't know a good way to rationalize enjoying it without coming across like some sort of simpleton, but I guess I will try. It's very nice to be able to have everything at your fingertips from the get go. There's really nothing to learn about using the system itself. Instead, everything you learn and the strategies you put into place is entirely in response to what you encounter in the game. I suppose the one exception of this is the ability to "stock" overdrives for a difficult encounter, the
strategy that even the most clueless of people know to give a go if they are having trouble. It's just too bad the game is simply too easy for the most part. I didn't really run into anything sweat-inducing until the Gagazet summit boss. Some bits of the battle system could be quicker. Guarding takes just ever so slightly too long for its intended use, and backing out of a menu was also a little slow. I also never really bothered with summons because they both take too long to show up, and by the time I swapped some characters in for training, the battle is practically open anyway.
As an aside, I find myself actually pretty disappointed with the summons, in retrospect. I would have never said this ten years ago, but I sort of wish they just functioned like a sort of spell as in most of the other earlier titles. Teaching aeons most skills and leveling up their stats is a waste of items and time.
I had my first go with the expert sphere grid and actually really liked it a lot. I can't find a similar image for the expert grid, but the standard one just doesn't offer as much freedom as some might be led to believe.
(mostly a series of straight lines)
On the expert grid, having the common question of "which way do I take
now?" was the good kind of frustrating. Having the additional freedom to make Yuna into a Black Mage, make early game Auron even more powerful, and turn Wakka into a useless tofu chunk was really appreciated. If the customization options for weapons and armor were open a little bit earlier, then I wouldn't have many issues left about character progression at all. The other "new" addition were the Dark Aeons and Penance. I was actually highly disappointed by those. I was going through the typical leveling procedures in anticipation of taking them on, and in the process was fighting Nemesis. During so, I summoned Yojimbo, and accidentally one-shotted the guy.
Yep. I then proceeded to do that 5 more times. I don't know what I wanted. The easy solution would just be to
not use Yojimbo, but winning with an arm behind your back when you're just keeping your "I win" button pocketed is never fun for me. It's the same reason I don't do No Sphere Grid, or 3-hearts Zelda, etc. I dunno. It's just the way my mind operates. I love tackling hard modes, where I have to use every trick in the book to scrape by and earn a victory, but imposing something of my own design is just never ever as satisfying. I was actually soured a bit on the whole endgame because of this. All those minigames and time at the arena for nothing except trophies, blah.
As for story beats, I guess I didn't feel much of anything. I suppose I was too familiar with every scene and line of dialogue to have much of an opinion. I didn't feel anything particularity good or bad about it. Some of the bits seemed a little ham-fisted, like the scenes at Home, but others I felt nearly as genuinely about as before, such as Operation Mi'ihen and the early events at Kilika. The ending is still something I enjoy. I typically like bitter-sweet endings, and this could have been a perfect place to end this plot-thread, though I am not entirely upset it ended up continuing. Some of the low-polygon models still look fairly bad, but it's not too hard for me to put my expectations in line for a re-master like this. The music differences didn't really hit me negatively or positively. I guess I ended up enjoying the new battle theme, which I suppose is the most important one to come to peace with. All in all, I found myself enjoying the old soundtrack more, but I will never be able to know if it's just due to familiarity or is an actual preference.
FFX-2 I think suffered a little more when it comes to my intial opinions surviving the remaster, haha. The whole looser theme is still a bit jarring, I find myself rolling my eyes whenever the three girls end up high fiving and jumping around all goofy and such. Yuna's new character I can understand, being that she, for the first time in her two decades, can finally live without the weight of the world on her shoulders. I feel like Rikku's ditzy-ness is a little exaggerated for no real reason, though. In X she just seems like a somewhat dim-witted but well meaning younger adult. Now it's all "oopsies poopsies". Just a little bit groan inducing. I love Paine's purpose as a tie for the 3 major other characters, but it doesn't feel like she has much character of her own. But then again, we've don't have as many games to have gotten to know her. It feels like the "Someone's gonna get hurt" persona is unneedlessly cast on her. I find her significantly more enjoyable in later phases of the game when this is less pronounced, and not for reasons of having transitioned to that, if that makes sense. Though no one should be playing "for the story" anyways.
I don't have much to say about the battle system that's too enlightening. It's the most fun the ATB system has been and is maybe my favorite job system. Though I need to replay Tactics Advance because I remember liking that title an unreasonable amount, oddly enough. I just wish I wasn't so obsessed about maxing each dress-sphere before moving on to a new one so that I could have seen more variety, but I won't blame the game for that
. I do wish the special dresspheres were done somewhat differently. I
never used them outside of their introduction. I didn't use the creature creation stuff much. I guess I just didn't find the concept engaging. Or maybe more properly worded, it's not what I seeked out of this game, so I didn't give it much of a look.
X-2 feels like a series of attractions for too long, I think. Do you remember this area? How about this person? This thing? Sell balloons, chase this guy. Here's another minigame. Nothing of any weight happens until the end of Chapter 2. I'm not just talking about story bits, but it's also the first area that isn't a retread of the first game (well, second if you count the new Gagazet area). Then Chapter 3 finally starts to head things in the right direction until the
insufferable Chapter 4. Finally the "end-game" of X-2 is significantly stronger than X's. Optional dungeons, including a cool and challenging 100 floor marathon. Minigames such as digging and chocobo catching that actually lead to new encounters.
And X-2 Last Mission blew my mind a little bit. First off, it's actually hard. Well, at least to start out. After 200 hours of coasting through familiar encounters, I suppose something new and different was a little bit of a jolt I needed. It was like the mix of Digimon World 2 and Dark Cloud that I never knew I wanted. The story bits were throw away so I'll just ignore that, other than saying that's mildly disappointing, but not the reason people should try it out in the first place. The Last Mission rewards strategy and planning. You can only carry an absurdly low number of items and it's awesome. You can no longer fall back on the old rpg standby of simply hoarding everything. Anything you pick up has to be important, you have to have a plan for it. You have to know what you have available and you have to know the capabilities of the monsters you're engaging at the moment. I struggled mightily though the first 40 floors, scraping my way, using the room-dividers to always get the proper jump on the enemies. THIS was the sort of difficulty I was looking for and didn't find in the FFX endgame. I had to use absolutely everything available to me in order to progress. I ended up losing a lot of my dressspheres at the floor 40 boss and bit the bullet to use the restart item. I found that both the increased familiarity with the game (as well as the extra levels, never hurts) made the game significantly easier from there. I did, however, look up a guide to find the tonberry room hidden in the top of the tower, and in the process, broke the game balance by using the rewarded copy item to quadruple the level of my main dressphere, but it was fun while it lasted! That trophy as well as the elevator locks every five floors are needlessly obfuscated, so I didn't really having any misgivings about just using a guide for those. The elevators unlock by doing random things such as dropping items and attacking the air, so normally you'd just have to go down the list, which isn't engaging at all. A minor blemish on what was a really fun experience. I also like that the 3 mini bosses on each of the 20 floors is tackled in a slightly different way. I won't go too much into detail since I bet a few other people will be tackling it soon, but I had to use a different strategy for each of them. However, by the time I was at the final boss I was not threatened by the game, so I have no idea at all about how he's
supposed to really be tackled.
Both of these titles sit in my top 5 Final Fantasy games. I find myself liking them a lot more than any of the PS1 titles and I'm not really sure why. Some of the tedium in FFX, especially at the end, was more obvious on revisit, and the shallowness of X-2 outside of the primary ATB gameplay was more apparent as well. Last Mission was a really pleasant surprise! I guess that leaves the audio drama...well, it wasn't quite the trainwreck I had expected it to be, but it does feel completely unneeded. It is really interesting that it has an open ending, however. It does have an interesting, more dismissive, viewpoint on the main cast we'd come to know up until that point.
And with that, to not play an RPG for a couple weeks x_x.
...after I finish Dragon Age...and then Dark Souls 2 in a couple weeks haha.
