I just played through it for the third or fourth time, and just killed Nemesis for the first time about an hour ago, so I figured I’d write one. I’m on the NTSC version, so no Penance for me. He seems more like a long fight than a hard one though, and from what I’ve seen on youtube, he doesn’t look like much of an offensive threat, so I’m not losing any pride for not killing him, even though hunting down super bosses is one of my favourite things to do in RPGs.
The first thing I want to say is… there is just not a lot wrong with this game. I’d love to be able to write a balanced review where I can touch on as many bad points as good points, but I just don’t have anything to work with here. I’m not saying I didn’t throw my controller at the TV a few times at the ridiculous shit I got myself into, but I’d have to be a really touchy bastard to say the game actually messed up anything important.
One thing I do feel like mentioning is the difficulty. First of all, Confuse. The name is misleading. It doesn’t really confuse your characters. It just makes them straight up ignore their enemies and kill their own party. That’s not my problem though. My problem is that there’s a handful of “fiends” in the game that can hit your entire party with it in one shot. If you don’t have confuseproof on at least one character, this is usually an instant game over. Yunalesca, Great Malboros, Frost Sprouts, and Spirits are only some of the monsters that can do this, or something similar. I lost over 2 hours of progress at one point because I was killed by a Spirit ambush, through no fault of my own.
On the other hand, the game would’ve benefited from making most of the fights a little bit harder. Maybe I’ve just been playing RPGs for too long, but most of the monsters were one-hit kills and didn’t require any tactics beyond “He’s flying, use Wakka.” That kind of one-dimensional strategy seemed innovative the first time I played the game, but now it just seems… underwhelming. My point is, the game alternated between “way too easy” and “you’re dead.” It never really made me worry about the outcome of my actions, and I guess it was kind of a let down in terms of challenge.
Aside from that, Final Fantasy X is perfection. One thing that always stands out about it, for me, is the atmosphere. It’s hard to describe in words. The graphics are seamless and the designs flow into each other so well that they really do create a world believable enough to want to spend 200 hours in it.
It’s not just the graphics that are great though. The music fits the scenery so well that it becomes part of the world too. The droning, chaotic tune that plays as you trek through the Sanubia Sands is a perfect example. Or the icy track that plays behind Macalania. I don’t even know how a song can be described as icy, but you can almost hear in the BGM what you’d normally see with your eyes. The voice acting plays a role too. It’s not great, but it works well enough with the setting to create a convincing world that’s really hard to want to leave.
I don’t really know what to say about the story. It IS really good and it does do justice to the world it takes place in, but I don’t really want to get into it. Play the game.
The sphere grid is one of the more innovative leveling systems I’ve ever seen. Your characters gain stats and abilities more gradually than in most other games, which I liked. I also enjoyed that you could modify the grid itself late in the game to give your characters even more power-ups if you were especially hardcore about it. One thing I didn’t like is that the game kept throwing luck spheres at me when I didn’t even have enough fortune spheres to use the ones that were already there. I don’t really care that much, since I still have no idea what luck even does, but I found that strange.
Well, I’m done. I could say a lot more, but I’m tired of typing and thinking. Peace out.