Final Fantasy X‘s gameplay is a pretty big departure from the games that came before it. It completely forgoes the use of a world map, exchanging it for a rather linear path that leads you from one end of the world all the way to the other. Final Fantasy X is highly lacking when it comes to exploration, and that is one of its biggest downfalls. There is a lack of towns, NPCs rarely (if ever) have anything interesting to say, and there’s very rarely any reward for examining your surroundings. I can think of three secret locations in the entire game and none of them can be found until almost the very end. The lack of towns and exploration turns the game into a series of cliche set pieces that fall into the normal ‘ice area, desert area, plains area etc.’ all in long straight lines that provide nothing but battle after battle from one end to the other. In defense of this design choice, I’d like to point out that the plot is about the character’s pilgrimage, and side tracking when there is an inevitable deadline really would be disadvantageous to the world as a whole. Whether the sacrifice of gameplay to reinforce the story is a fair trade-off is up to each individual player, but for me personally, I barely give it a pass as the story left me interested enough to always push forward.
The long stretches of narrow land are broken up with the occasional temple where you must perform a trial to unlock your next summon. These locations, called ‘Chambers of the Fayth’, are fairly simple puzzles that break up the monotony, but actually feel like they are slowing your progress more than they are making it enjoyable. Luckily they aren’t very long, but I’ve never met someone who said they found these sections of the game entertaining.
In stark contrast to the exploration is the game’s combat. Final Fantasy X has some of the most well-balanced, well-constructed and strategically sound battle systems I’ve played in an RPG. The combat forces you to tag party members in and out of battle, taking advantage of each character’s unique skill sets to defeat all of the enemies you will face. You will often have to bring in one character to weaken an enemy’s armor before other party members will be at all effective. Another character’s skill set is based primarily around the manipulation of ‘time’ in battle, making it so that planning your turn order will mean the difference between life and death. I would honestly call the combat in this game perfect if it weren’t for the inclusion of one rather obvious and exploitable combat technique that you can obtain about ¼ of the way through the game. For the sake of keeping as much enjoyment in the game as possible, I won’t write it here for those who haven’t discovered it already. The strength of the gameplay really lies in its combat, especially the bosses, which along with the story, make for a memorable experience.
The game also provides a number of mini-games throughout, the most notable of which is Blitzball. Blitzball is an underwater sport that plays out like a turn-based combat system of its own. Taking part in this game can provide new weapons, abilities and other prizes for your party, and it goes as deep as letting you recruit players from all over the world to create the perfect team. Whether you are fond of it or not isn’t that important, because the game is only required to be played once (and whether you win or lose that match has no effect on the story either). If you do end up enjoying it, you could spend hours losing yourself in the sport. Other mini-games are usually one-time events that lead to ultimate weapon parts and include repetitive tasks, such as dodging 200 lightning bolts in a row and taking part in a completely optional monster arena that requires you to capture the monsters in the main game first. This can turn into a major time sink, so only completionists need apply.
Final Fantasy X HD does provide a few gameplay changes from the original however, namely the expert sphere grid and the inclusion of the dark aeons and Penance battle originally only available in the International version. The expert sphere grid is slightly smaller than the original, and is laid out in a way that allows for a bit more customization. For example, Khimari no longer has his own section, so from the very beginning of the game you can have him learn any combat style you’d like. Characters also have sphere grid sections that are easy to travel between, giving you the option to teach both of your mage characters both white and black magic instead of just their specified spells. Technically this was possible with the original sphere grid, but the way it was laid out made such exploration much more difficult and ineffective. The game also makes sphere grid development easier by providing you with abilities early on that make enemies drop spheres of a chosen type, so your progression is never halted by poor enemy drop rates like it could be in the original version.
The Dark Aeons and Penance fights fill the role of the sorely lacking ‘Super Bosses’ that have become a series staple by this point. Really these bosses aren’t challenging; they just take hundreds of hours of preparation before you will reasonably be able to fight them. Despite one hundred percent completing every other Final Fantasy game and all of the ‘endgame’ content provided in the original version of the game, I didn’t find these bosses at all worth my time. Speaking of which, the addition of these bosses actually put a bit of a hindrance on the original completion tasks. Unlocking one of your character’s final Overdrives (personalized special attack) for example, can’t be completed until you defeat one of these superbosses because of its poor placement, which is pointless because by the time you can beat the superbosses you will no longer need the stronger Overdrive. This is one of the few times that I really do prefer the original version of the game to its remaster. Speaking of things I prefer from the original, this is as good of a time as any to point out that the inclusion of the new loading screens instead of just fading to black between areas really hurt the immersion and pacing in the game for me, despite that never having bothered me in any other game I’ve ever played, so make of that what you will.
Final Fantasy X HD doesn’t provide much more than the original version of the game did over a decade ago. That being said, the game has aged decently and chances are if you liked it back then, you will still like it now. In my case I found the game highly enjoyable, but it had a handful of flaws I couldn’t overlook. If you already own the game on PS2, I really see no reason to buy it again unless you are a die hard fan who feels they have to beat all of the additional bosses. If you don’t own a copy of the game, I guess I’d suggest this version over the original because of a few minor gameplay tweaks along with the fact that it comes with Final Fantasy X-2 on the same disc for the cost of $40. The two games alone can easily build up 100 hours of gameplay, double that if you are a completionist, so it’s great value for the price.
Speaking of Final Fantasy X-2, that review will be coming in the next couple of weeks! So be sure to check back in for the final verdict.
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Review copy supplied by author.
This review is based on the PlayStation 3 version of the game.
