| Farsala said: Surprise! Another Final Fantasy game. #2 Final Fantasy X Be aware of spoilers. You have been warned. To be honest, I think this game only beats out FFVIII due to recency bias, but here we are. Either way, I consider them both pretty equal. I am not sure where to start with this one, but I guess I will start with the characters. First we have the main character, that you can name who is defaulted as Tidus. Unlike a lot of game main characters, he is quite upbeat, outgoing and encouraging. He was after all a celebrity in his city. Right away, you can tell he is prideful. He is basically one of the fist isekai-ed main characters in a game. He comes from a high tech world and ends up in a much lower tech world. He meets an old friend called Auron. This guy is like the master, and much like Tidus he uses a sword. Auron is quiet, serious and to the point, because he has a goal to achieve. Already this pair is quite the cool combo, like master and apprentice, but there are more cool characters to talk about. Next is Rikku, who I had a crush on at first sight, same thing happened to Tidus. She can steal from the start and her overdrive can be quite overpowered. She is also a foreigner in the world much like Tidus. It resonates with me to this day as a foreigner myself. Next is Wakka, one of the most interesting characters because of his religious views. He apparently has such power in his figure that he can throw a playing ball to kill enemies. Beautifully voiced by Joe Dimaggio, who also voiced Bender in Futurama, he has such a cool buddy feel. Then we have Kimahri, as a kid he was my favorite. He is a blue lion with a horn. He uses a spear and can learn monster abilities by draining them. His level path on the Sphere Grid is always optional, because he starts in the center with a short path. You can make him into another beefcake powerhouse, a fast thief, or a 2nd rate mage. Since he is a little weaker earlier, the game also has a bit more difficulty when using him. Next is Lulu, a black mage with a scathing personality. She is nice but acts as the adult in the group. And lastly Yuna, a white mage summoner who develops her personality quite a bit through the game. These characters all go on a journey together to defeat the final boss. The final boss is ever present throughout the story, but he doesn't really talk. Instead he is like a natural disaster, wherever he goes, destruction is left in his wake. You learn quite a bit about this boss through the lore of the story and the world itself. Another major boss serves as the typical antagonist with weird obsessions, like one with Yuna. These characters all face internal and external issues throughout the story. As mentioned before with Wakka and his religious views. This game has interesting take on religion and some of the most interesting storylines about blind faith or someone's morals is tested throughout the story. For example, "You can't use technology, it is against my religion!" But what if that technology might save people? What if the leaders of your faith use technology, but tell you that you can't use technology simply to control you. These laws put into place simply to keep the peasants from getting strong while the leaders bask in the strength of technology. In fact the whole journey is called a pilgrimage, which of course has religious connotations. This pilgrimage is supported wholly by the elders of the faith. So much so, that they do not want anything about it to end. They want a cycle of a controlled world affected by periodic suffering, and a period of peace. This helps keep them in power because each time the final boss is defeated, they are validated through their methods. It is kind of like the cycle of life and death, and it makes one wonder how such a thing would handled in the real world. I think at least the world would be more consistent, united against the threat with a consistent population curve. Each time this threat is defeated, the world would rejoice and relax for a time. Makes one wonder if pandemics could be released to quell the population periodically by the elites. Back to FFX, of course one of the evil bosses wants to become this natural disaster and "free" people from their suffering. Another character is on the opposite end of the religious technology factions. She comes from a group of people who constantly use technology to kidnap summoners like Yuna. "Why?!?!?!?" the main character asks in one of the most moving scenes in all of video games. While kidnapping sounds like a serious crime, especially if they are kidnapping the "saviors" of the world, the main character soon learns that it is to keep the summoners safe. Because the pilgrimage always ended in the summoners death and at least one of their guardians. At this point the main character cares deeply about the summoner and his fellow guardians, but they couldn't tell him the whole truth. By this point we know of the main characters father, who also got isekai-ed into this world. So far he and his father had lead parallel lives with both characters believing that a happy ending was inevitable. Another revelation is foreshadowed with the opening scene and one of the best songs in gaming, from which the main character is telling his story. Up to that point we were all just playing the game in the past and finally when this scene shows itself again, I was like "Wait this seems familiar..." So it is revealed that in an epic scene that not only does the summoner have to be sacrificed but also the guardian will become the final boss. The main character has personal stake in this because he found out that his father is actually the current monster final boss. His father doesn't want to keep killing people, but he is a monster and has to do it. Thus, he wants his son to kill him, but the main character wants to end the cycle of suffering forever. He still wants to figure out the mysteries of this world, as he finds out he and his father came from a time 1000 years in the past. As stated, he came from a world that was technologically advanced further than present day Earth. He finally gets back to his city in the present and it is just ruins completely destroyed by a warring faction, it seems impossible for the main character to comprehend. Everyone is consistent with that information though, so he has to accept it. The main character being different and ignorant to this new world is genius because we can be put into his shoes quite easily. Back in the ruins of his city, he finds nobody lives there except the strongest of all monsters. So the ruins are quite preserved without much human interference. The opening scene again is quite brilliant because the main character looks upon the ruins of his destroyed home city and tells us his story. So at this point everyone in the game and everyone playing the game wants to know why and how he and his father were transported to this world. The ending of course can leave much to desired, but in the end, it is a satisfactory conclusion. The undead people especially can finally move on. There I go again, going on and on about the story and not talking much about the gameplay combat. The gameplay is very simple turn based combat, but the game is probably the best for strategizing against the enemy, since you can see when everyone's turn is in battles, as well as the affects of your actions. It is nice for using each character efficiently. Most important magics in the game series come back, but FFX adds special physical attacks too that can inflict ailments or dispel strong buffs. So the strength build characters aren't always just auto attacking. Again unexpectedly, I have to go. To be Continued... |
John DiMaggio.
I'm a little shook as a fan of Jake the dog and Bender (the robot) that I don't think I knew that he voices Wakka.
And FFX is a game that I replay every couple years....
