Here’s the deal, out of sheer boredom I got off my ass and finished FFX last night and let me just say my jaw dropped. If you look on gamefaqs you see that FFX is the #1 requested PS2 game, and as I recall that’s been the case since it was released, well what the hell are all these people thinking?!? FFX has got to be one of the worst games I’ve played in year and people are telling me that of all the fine games Square has made over the years they picked this piece of crap as the basis for their first sequel? FFX isn’t fun, hell at the end its almost a bloody chore to finish and this is the game so many people seem to love? I enjoyed FF3J (Not the one with Terra, the old NES one) more.
Now I know what some of you FFX fanboys and fangirls are thinking, that I’m just some raving lunatic (considering how little sleep I got last night you might be right), but hear me out. Just a word of warning, this rant does contain spoilers, but since it would break up the flow of my ranting I won’t tag them. I will however try to group them up in a plot section, which you can just skip if you don’t want the story spoiled. There’s also swearing, I’ll try to keep it to a minimum, but there’s still a bit.
Sphere Grid:
I don’t think words exist to describe how much I hate the sphere grid. Sure it’s a different approach to leveling up your characters, but the bloody thing isn’t balanced. Each characters has their own “path,” the only problem is that you if actually follow it half the characters and up so fucking weak as to be near useless. Take Yuna and Lulu, sure they’re wizards, they’re supposed to be weak, but for crying out loud, there’s so little hp on their path that I finished the game under 2500 hp. Then there’s the fact that the good abilities are locked up behind rows and rows of locks and seem to be placed totally randomly. I was playing with Qp’s game and he hadn’t really used Yuna, but when I boosted her I managed to make it all the way to Holy, the thing that doesn’t make sense is that I didn’t have any of the null spells, which either means that its possible to accidentally skip whole sections of a path, or that holy, the best white spell, isn’t even on the fucking white mage’s path. Then there’s Tidus who’s so pathetically weak if you go down his path without first going to the center to pick up some strength ups that’s its not even funny. Oh sure you can go back, but since the cost of a sphere level seems to be based on how many you’re accumulated so far and not how many sphere’s you’ve unlocked going back basically means sacrificing a level that you’ll never get back. So not only is the sphere grid massively unbalanced, but it’s also the best way to permanently fuck up a character I’ve seen in years.
Sure at the beginning you gain power really fast, but by the end of the game your stats go up so slowly it feels like you’re leveling up for nothing and since the end of the game is when you actually need to get stronger the whole grid leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
Weapons:
Damn the weapon system annoys me, you pay a fucking fortune for a weapon with an ability you want, but in order to equip it you need to sacrifice a weapon that’s better in ever other respect. Weapons have no impact on the damage a character does beyond the fact that it boosts some of their stats. I am the only one who finds that doesn’t make sense? I mean seriously, what’s the point of getting the best sword if you can just take a crappy one with 4 slots and make an identical one yourself. Oh and don’t get me started on the bloody customized system, just about every ability you want to give a weapon either costs you an item you can’t afford to lose, or one of these strange monster items you have no idea where to get much less if its any good. Short of mugging every fucking monster in the game and making a list or checking on gamefaqs there’s no bloody way of knowing were to get some of these items. It’s a great idea, its just poorly executed.
Encounter Rate:
What the hell is this damn game, Phantasy Star III, cause except for that game I can’t remember the last time I had an encounter rate anywhere near so fucking high. Now its not the fact that you seem to get fights every 20-30 seconds that annoys me, you had that in PSIII and I still played it, but it’s the fact that unlike PSIII fights take bloody forever to finish, especially in the later dungeon where some monster can kill your entire party even if you’ve got 7000 hp and everyone’s full. Seriously, it feels to me like Square realized that that game would only last 20 hours so they jacked up the encounter rate to try and pad the game with fights. I’m the kind of guy who actually likes level boosting, but FFX just had too many damn fights.
Bosses:
Bosses in this game are almost as bad as some of the early bosses in Xenosaga, doesn’t matter what level you are, they’ll still mop the floor with you. No serious, 95% of bosses in FFX are pathetically easy, but the other 5% are just fucking insane, not because they’re actually strong but because they never seem to stop attacking. I was fighting the last boss and he hit me with two count them two overdrives in a row. Now I don’t mind when a boss is hard because he’s strong, but if the only reason they’re hard is because they get to do two virtually instant kill attacks in a row then what’s the point? I might as well be fighting Dark Cloud (FF3j) with his stupid flare wave attack that hits everyone for 4000, at least he only attacks one every round. When the total amount of damage a boss can do in one round is more than 10000 damage to everyone even with shell/protect doesn’t that seem a little cheap? I won’t even start on the stupid Pylons with the last boss that seem to regenerate the same round I kill them, leaving me to wonder what’s the point of killing them.
Pointless Events:
People have complained that draining magic in FFVIII was a waste of time, and no matter how much I love the game I’ll admit that it was, but FFX takes the art of wasting time to a whole new level. The end of the game is packed with events that seem to have no practical purpose other than to take up time. I mean seriously, can someone explain to me what’s the point of running around a small square room picking up cocoons and trying to dodge ice spikes that come up from the ground, much less with you need to do this in order to get to the last boss? No really, I’d love to know, cause I couldn’t figure it out. Then there’s the end of the game, you’ve beaten the last boss? Congratulations, now we want to you fight 6 to 10 more fights, don’t worry you can’t actually lose these; you have a permanent auto-life on all your characters. For fucking crying out loud, did they really have to put us through this, I mean fuck, what’s the point. The end of the game is just long for the sake of being long.
Plot:
Ok this is the last section. Now I have to admit that there’s like a 3 hour block of game time towards the end that I didn’t seem, but people have told me what I miss so I can safely say that most of the stuff here is fairly accurate.
Now we know that Tidus was only a dream, but if Tidus was a dream then Jecht has to be a dream since they know each other. However we know that Jecht is Sin, but since Jecht is also a dream, then by correlation we can determine that Sin must be a dream. It makes sense, Jecht is a dream and is Sin, and inversely Sin is Jecht and is a dream. So the solution is simple, kill the damn fates and you kill Sin. No need for a messed up mystical journey of self-sacrifice. I found the romance plot between Tidus and Yuna to be weak and uninteresting, nowhere near as good as the one between Squall and Rinoa.
Conclusion:
All in all the game left me with a sour aftertaste. The plot, while interesting, seems to ground to a halt when you get Bahamut, and the later areas are just a chore. The calm lands began to try my patience and Mt Gagazet (sp) pushed me over the edge. The game play is overall on the weak side and doesn’t have any of the depth of other FF games. The sphere grid was an interesting idea, but lets face it, it doesn’t really work. The only reason I can see for making a sequel to FFX is so horny teenage boys can drool over the female characters. Oh surprise surprise, they are, lets see, all female party wearing sluty outfits, it’ll be a hit.
If Xenogears is the best game I never want to play again then FFX has got to be the worst game I never want to play again.
Anyway that’s my two cents, feel free to agree or disagree with me if you like.