Working as Intended

It's been a lot of fun playing through X again and making incredibly stupid comments about all the things it contains over the past fortnight. One again, many many thanks to friends and random passing-by sillies for all the positive and constructive feedback! A few people have been wondering if I'll still tackle FFX-2 after this, as I briefly mentioned it in the very first entry. Indeed I will. Oh, that'll certainly be a different experience!

But that's not now (unless you're reading this after I put up X-2 stuff, in which case, disregard, you freaky person from the future!), so let's just focus on finishing this awesome little game, shall we?

As with VIII, there'll be a big write up of my thoughts and blah blah blah at the very end.












When we last left Tidus, I he was busy being horribly lost inside the bizarre and nonsensical labyrinth that is Sin!



SUDDENLY!!




WHAMMO




You know, I think I'd be crazy not to investigate the creepy teleporting symbol on the suddenly appearing and falling down tower of madness that came out of absolutely nowhere!




I think we just found our final battleground, ladies and gentlemen.



Well, if it isn't everyone's favorite shoopuf hitting, beer-swilling, giant demonic whale guardian~




So Jecht was expecting them to uncover an ancient airship, fire up its newly discovered energy cannons and essentially blast their way into Sin and through the giant nonsensical, biology-imploding innards?

Wish I had that level of clairvoyance, let me tell you!





You think your son's bad? Just wait until you see Vaan!




Uhhhhhhhhhh...

Are we talking about the same thing here?





I dunno, I thought it was pretty funny!




Still the master at expressing your emotions, I see.




Yes. Let's. I've got places to kick and asses to see!

Wait...





Awww, it's touching moments like this that really bring the family together~




"Save it for Dissidia, pipsqueak!"




Wait... everyone on Spira has still been singing the song all this time?

Shit! Uh... You can stop now guys. Seriously! Your services are no longer required!




Yu Yevon mustn't be all that and a bag of chips if it takes him over 10 years to assimilate someone into Sin.

Just look at the Borg. They can do it like that!




This would be more touching if we weren't here to kill the poor guy.




Well I'd certainly hope attacking family and friends wasn't considered 'yourself', man!




"Nobody out-melodramas me!"





Bring it on.




AW HERE GOES




I KNOW NOW WITHOUT A DOUBT THAT KINGDOM HEARTS IS LIG-*gunshot*




During all this, Jecht stumbles awkwardly towards the ledge.

Are we sure he's powering up, and isn't just... y'know... massively drunk?





Welp, that was an anti-climatic way of defeating the major antagonist of the game.

Oh well. Liquor, anyone?





Why's everyone standing around for? Jecht's obviously gone forever. We should totally be leaving!

Yes, this is clearly the thing we must do!




We're not leaving, are we?




Alright. Then let's get some music up in this bitch!




Rock!




Well maybe this won't be so bad aft---




















































































































































































Wait...




WHAAAAAAAAAAAAA?!

































































Well that makes one of us then!
You were indeed an amazing horse.

That's cool, that's cool. It must be something really awesome then! We'll have have some DRAMA while we wait~

Well, okay.
That said, Yu Yevon's still a fucking tick.




Goodbye Auron ; ;
























And so Final Fantasy X has come to a close~ As all my little blabs and blahs through the 19 entires have already shown, I'm a big fan of the game. Even a decade later it still holds up extremely well. To the point where I'm not even all that sure where to begin discussing what I liked and disliked.

I guess the characters and plot are a good place. X has the same pros and cons that a lot of other Final Fantasy games have, in that while the entire cast is easily likable and you see them a lot, there are a few that really could have been explored or developed s'more. Kimahri would be by-far the best example of this, as... really, you could remove him entirely and it wouldn't affect the plot or most of the characters in the slightest. It's something that also reflects in the gameplay, as he doesn't have his own Sphere Grid path like the others. He's entirely a tag-along guy. Not to say he's awful or anything, as the few moments (Gagazet, ect) he has are actually quite good. It's just that he could've been so much better developed.

For a Most Triumphant Example of character, I'd have to go with Jecht. He doesn't appear much, but when he does it's a delight and the character was given a great deal of respect. It would have been so easy for the writers to just villainize him as the typical Evil Father to Tidus, but instead they went down this path where he was remorseful for what he had done (or hadn't done, rather), and yet by the time he really managed to articulate it, he was so far away from anyone that it went unheard of for over a decade. Right up until just before he was sent to the Farplane.

Auron was also a good example. Again, it would have been easy to shoe-horn him in as the typical 'super-mopey mysterious badass' type, but instead he's just a very justified world-weary guy. He still has a good sense of humour, and really doesn't do anything that'd qualify as brooding. He was a great subversion to the way-too-common JRPG warrior character boringness.

And I suppose you can't talk about character without talking about how they were represented. Since FFX was the first in the series to receive voice-acting, it was put under a lot of scrutiny by many players. It certainly isn't perfect, but I think pretty much all the voice actors did a great job. The issue lies more with that they had to sync up with the lips of the Japanese version, which often meant weird stutters or lines being digitally sped up to occasionally bizarre speeds. Yuna going, "Okay" would sometimes just come out as "ok" in about 0.5 seconds. It was just a necessary evil at the time.

I still don't really know what to make of the whole 'Tidus being a Dream of the Fayth' thing. I mean, the game actually does go to lengths to explain it and have it make sense, but it just seems to complicate a story for no particular reason, except for the really bittersweet and incredible ending. Which I'll freely admit I got a little teary-eyed watching, so... I'd probably put that entire story arc on my good side just for that. The relationship between Tidus and Yuna throughout the game made the ending, which just further shows what VIII did wrong with Squall and Rinoa's complete lack of chemistry or romance.

As for the rest of the themes in the game, I thought they were all wonderfully touched on. The Spiral of Death, while it got a bit anvilicious at times, really helped carry a sense of dread and constant ambition to defeat Sin for the player. The spirital/religious aspects were also nice, with various people having their own explanations for things like the Farplane. It's a nice change of pace from most RPGs, where anything stated by an NPC must be taken as gospel!

Actually, before we go, there's a part of the credits to the game I found rather amusing.


LOLZ

I don't think there's really much else to discuss. To me, FFX is one of the best games I've played, and while a lot will disagree with that, I say nuts to 'em. It's not perfect (what is?), but it just manages to encompass everything I enjoy about the Final Fantasy series, and video games in general, really. Atmosphere, character, complete respect for the world it's created, personality, and so on. It gets extremely melodramatic at times, but that just kind of adds to the charm.

I guess we'll have to see how the sequel fares now, won't we?

But that won't be for a little while yet.

I need some rest after tackling this behemoth of an RPG.

That said, if anyone wants to throw any ideas for job set-ups for the X-2 bunch, I'll be happy to take 'em.

In any case, there's nothing left to say, except...




Toodles~!