first look: final fantasy X

2024/09/23

something pretty important about me is that i'm a Baby -- i was born too late to really "be around" for the playstation 2, so despite its immense high quality library i've only had extensive experiences with a small handful. of course this includes the KINGDOM HEARTS games, a series which began with the PS2, tying in with square's final fantasy franchise -- particularly, it was neighbors with FINAL FANTASY X, and borrowed a chunk of its aesthetics due to the overlap in development.

after the pivotal success of their output on PS1, square's expansion into sixth-gen consoles was defined by FINAL FANTASY X. the same goes for sony itself with the expansion of the playstation brand, relying on the RPG series as a system-seller and benchmark for a given console's technical fidelity. naturally, the game sold silly huge amounts, standing as the best selling game on the entire platform -- if we pretend that games about cars don't exist.

my history with the final fantasy series pretty much starts with when i played through VII one time in 2020 on nintendo switch. i was not at all accustomed to its grindy turn-based combat which resulted in a frustrating impatient rush to beat the game and my use of cheats, which the port has built-in. a year later i tried out IX, and from what i remember i played up to the end of the first disc, but i just had a hard time playing regularly and getting used to its combat system. since then, i hadn't committed to any game in the series, but late last year i recorded some of FINAL FANTASY X for my ginormous kingdom hearts II video. i liked what i played, and even bought a copy of the switch port to coerce myself into playing it more, but i got too busy at the time and shelved it.

anyway now it's a year later and i restarted the game again and i believe i am in love.

i chose to play FINAL FANTASY X INTERNATIONAL, the japanese re-release of the game, since it includes any and all revisions to the game as well as a full english language mode. this choice was bolstered by the fact i now own an imported copy of the game, which i got because i just think it's neat, though also because this is maybe the definitive edition. the HD remaster contains Everything, for sure, but it's got such a cheapened look which just stinks for a game with such heavy reliance on graphical artistry. remasters can be faithful to the original vision, but that one just doesn't work, man.

when i say there's a heavy reliance on graphical artistry, i Mean it -- unless your heart is cold and made of bugs, it's easy to see in the intro movie alone that this game is pretty as fuck. it immediately sets a melancholy tone, which persists through the story, an aspect i kinda wasn't expecting. straight away, rather than some explosive spectacle or large-scale establishing scene, there's emphasis on the characters of the story, their emotions -- powered by the PS2's EMOTION ENGINE processor, because the PS2 was actually made exclusively to run this game and nothing else.

honestly, the emotional atmosphere of the game is mainly why i wanted to talk about it. you get slapped in the face with this tone, and it only continues as the storyline introduces itself. the whole premise is that our rambunctious protagonist TIDUS is sent hurdling 1,000 years into the future, into a completely foreign world only subtly reminiscent of his own, and he just kinda has to accept that i guess. rather than the typical tropes you'd expect from the "character-teleported-to-a-new-world" setup, the game starts out pretty slow and allows you to soak in some of tidus' complicated feelings. it's intensified by the uncharacteristically mellow background music in these early areas - you'd think that a tropical beach area would have upbeat tunes but instead the soundtrack is ambient and a little discordant. there's a few too many clouds here.

this kinda music wouldn't have been quite as feasible on the PS1, where square largely used sample-based sequencer music to save on space, so this is one of many of final fantasy X's prestigious technical showoff elements. despite this tech-demo nature, there is a formidable weight to how its used in order for the atmosphere to be communicated to the player. the developers made good use of the PS2's high-tech capabilities like this to effectively enhance the storytelling, and it's mind-boggling that despite the console now being long outdated, this shit still feels prestigious and advanced.

the environment isn't just pretty, it's god damn Tangible, aided by more gentle and relaxed moments like besaid village which sets early on just how lived-in this world feels despite how foreign it may be to tidus and the player. this kind of feeling reoccurs through the different places everyone visits on their pilgrimage, the motifs of fictitious religion and the legitimate tragedy you consistently witness helping make it all feel so valuable.

if you were to put it cynically, square were forcing cinematic emotion into their games, and at this point a common complaint about equivalent modern games is that they're just "playable movies" with too many cutscenes and not enough gameplay, notions that devalue the fact that games are the only way an audience can engage with a fictional world in this particular way. games are constantly compared to movies and this conversation is far from anything new, but final fantasy X provides emotional resonance separate from that of pure gameplay or pure cinematics. in some parts it perfectly balances the tone of the story with the mood of the world you travel through, regardless of realism. it's easy to feel it, in a way that no other game i've played nails quite as well.

final fantasy X gets its tone across through its grandure and embracement of contemporary tech, while something like kingdom hearts fucks around with all that. i thought these two might be comparable because of their overlapping development but they each take advantage of their medium of storytelling in totally different ways, the way kingdom hearts does it being this weird illogical holistic emotion-based storytelling i've gone over in the kingdom hearts II video. final fantasy is more traditionally coherent but both series absolutely have their heart in the same place.

this is obvious, i guess, from how the dialogue in both is as janky as it is, the same way shenmue's english dialogue was, not that it's lousy but that it was still such a new thing no one even knew how to properly do game voice acting yet. the ambition shines through, not despite of but due to its imperfection. if anything, final fantasy X has an awkward level of professionalism, with common TV voice talent appearing all over it. Sponge Bob is in the game, for goodness' sake.

even with those aspects, the traits of a high budget with state-of-the-art technology, it's not what everyone would call "perfect" now, but as game fidelity across the board is hitting a plateau it's important to keep in mind that games have never just been about how perfect or powerful or efficient they can be, which is a mindset that worms its way into every part of game fandom and even developers. final fantasy X is just a pretty ass work of art!!!