THIS WEEK:
Final Fantasy X
DEVELOPER: Squaresoft
GENRE: RPG
SYSTEM: Playstation 2
-+ +PLAYERS: Single
DESCRIPTION: The continent of Spira has been plagued by the gigantic monster called Sin for over a thousand years. People called Summoners are the only ones that can send Sin into dormancy for a time, but at a terrible cost. The spiral of death seems doomed to continue on for eternity, unless a mysterious young man claiming to be from one thousand years in the past can change fate ...
REVIEW: Squaresoft does it yet again. While I'm extremely leery of the rumored Internet-only Final Fantasy XI, it's good to know that we at least got one more great game out of the franchise. I beat it within a week, but only because for that week all I did was wake up, play FFX, eat dinner, play some more, go to sleep at 2 or so, then repeating.
It does have its flaws; for starters, Squaresoft still can't do romance worth shit. Then again, it could just be that I wanted Tidus to end up with Rikku, but ah well. Also ... blitzball. Fucking BLITZBALL. WHY?!?!? WHY must Squaresoft continue to make these shitty and completely non-fun "games-within-the-game"? It wouldn't be so bad if you didn't start out with the biggest group of losers and rejects in all of Spira on your team. Fuck blitzball. Oh, and fuck Wakka too. Damn cowlicked religious fanatic motherfucker.
But regardless of that, FFX has a lot of high points too. For starters, the graphics are some of the best I've ever seen, and the voices are great too. Yes, they actually have voices this time around. The thing that amazes me is that the normal graphics look better than the CGI in the other Final Fantasies. And the CGI scenes are even better than the Final Fantasy movie. While there's still a good deal of technology, it's mostly in artifacts left from fallen civilizations, so it's way more fantasy than, say, FF7 and 8. The combat system has been retooled, and now you can switch out party members for others (useful if you get stuck with a front line of people with 1 HP each). There's shitloads of secrets, as usual, and a hidden boss called Omega Weapon that, sadly, is a puss. At least with Emerald and Ruby Weapon, you had a sense of accomplishment after you finally put their asses down. But anyways. What I like best of all is the new "Summon" system. Instead of the monster showing up, attacking once, and then leaving, you actually get to control their actions! With some of them, their Overdrives (i.e., Limit Break, Trance, about a billion other things) can do up to 99,999 damage (yes, they got rid of the 9999 limit). Plus, Lulu has huge fucking cleavage. Can't beat that.
Despite its few flaws, this is definately the greatest PS2 game I've played so far. Hopefully the rumors of a 'Net-only FFXI are false, and we'll get another installment of the greatest RPG franchise in existance.
