Wednesday, February 11, 2004

6) Final Fantasy X (PS2)
This is a special game to me. For one it was the first game let alone RPG that I picked up after buying my Playstation 2. Secondly, this was the first FF title developed for the PS2. I really didn’t know what to expect with this one once I heard that it would be a departure from the previous games in the series in that it would be fully acted (voiced). I was skeptical since I had seen far too many video games ruined by crappy dubbs, and didn’t want to see that trend continue with this one. Was the acting good? I’ll say that overall it definitely wasn’t bad, in fact I was impressed with the portrayal of several characters in the game. Auron and LuLu were the most impressive by far. Their characters gave a great sense of emotion and personality. As for the main characters Tidus and Yuna, their actors could have done a better job. Tidus tended to speak in a high pitched tone that at times could drive a person mad. He would give far too much emotion in certain scenes that didn’t fit the situation. Yuna’s voice actor on the other hand simply wasn’t able to give enough emotion duirng the most crucial moments, and certain scenes felt rushed or forced. Trust me, when you get there you’ll know. The famous “laughing scene” is priceless in terms of how pathetic it turns out. Aside from a few key moments that are ruined by bad voice work, the actors were still able to pull off an above average performance. Also the actors chosen did suit all the characters in the game. The dialogue for the most part was also quite good though the words do not always fit the mouth movements of the in-game characters well, but this is easily forgivable due to the great translation. I am glad that the translators chose to stay true to the original dialogue at the expense of the mouth synching, even if it does seem awkward at times. What would you rather have, a game with crappy toned down text that fits the mouth movements, or a game that has text that is as true to the Japanese version as possible that at times doesn’t fit the mouth movements? A true RPG fan would choose the second choice in an instant. Considering this is Squaresoft’s first attempt at developing an all voiced RPG, I give them a lot credit and am eagerly awaiting to see how their next project turns out, FFXII!! (I don’t have much interest in playing FFX2 since it’s just a gimmick and excuse to make some easy revenue for the company, or FFXI since its an online only game and therefore don’t consider it to be a true title of the FF series).
The battle system in the game is what you would expect from a typical FF title and the summon spells can be shortened for once! Yes, you don’t have to wait an entire minute to pull off a summon attack as you did in FF8 while you watch the same overdone, tedious cut scenes over and over again! You can even replace characters in the midst of battle, which was a great idea since it allows you to level up your characters faster (since everyone who participated in battle receives experience points if I remember correctly). In terms of character development, this game uses a system called the “sphere grid” which features a layout on an artificial maze-like board. All of your characters start off at a certain section of the board, and for every few steps that are taken with a given character, will allow you to acquire new types of abilities depending on what sphere you come across. So basically, if you really wanted to, a given character, lets say Tidus, could take the path of a white mage (Yuna), black mage (LuLu) and warrior (Auron), and learn the abilities and skills of all three of these characters. The choice is totally up to you. You may decide that you want to learn some abilities from all the characters and be well rounded, or may decide that you want to master all of the warrior abilities and nothing else, it depends on your strategy and battle preference. This Grid system allows the player to customize their characters extensively and is a great way to implement their development. It’s perhaps the best system to date for the FF series.
The game features an excellent story and great CG cut scenes that Square is known for. The graphics are outstanding and the character models feature a very high number of polygons that allow for realistic facial animations. Seriously, two years after beating this game and looking back on it, it is still one of the prettiest games on the PS2. It seems like no developers aside from Squaresoft, Capcom, and Konami, actually know how to develop games that reach the potential of PS2's graphics engine. The environments are all very well designed and will make you stare in awe as you pass through them. God knows how many artists and programers were needed to produce the vast world of this game. The music while good, was not as memorable as other FF games, perhaps because the tunes weren’t as catchy this time around and were used more towards creating a particular atmosphere, but still a solid OST non the less. While not the best FF game in the series, it is definitely among my favorites (from the one’s I’ve played which include: FFI,II,V,VII,VIII,IX,X) and one of the best RPGS on the PS2. Definitely go out and pick this one up if you haven’t already, you wont regret it!
Overall 8.7/10
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