Game EXP: Final Fantasy X HD Remaster (NS)

 

Final Fantasy X/X-2 HD Remaster

Original Systems Released On: PlayStation 2

Remaster Systems Released On: PlayStation 3, PlayStation Vita, PlayStation 4, Windows, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch

Original Release Date: July 19, 2001

Remaster Release Date: December 26, 2013 - April 16, 2019

Publisher: Squaresoft, Square

Developer: Square Enix

Hmmm.  How so I talk about Final Fantasy X/X-2 HD Remaster, specifically Final Fantasy X as played on the Nintendo Switch?  Rather than do a full-on Game EXP review of a 20-year-old-game, I am going to go over what I found different about the series, what I did not like, and what I eventually did like mixed into both.  You know, like a review article.  And yes, there will be a handful of spoilers because that is the only way I will know how to talk about this game, even if it is in a rather messy, roundabout, and incoherent fashion.  That is just the way things go.

First, let us start off with the notable differences.  

I understand that from Final Fantasy VIII onwards, Square has wanted to have some type of innovation to the otherwise stereotypical JRPG mechanics.  Rather than create another Final Fantasy IX, Square went back to the more realistic models brought about in Final Fantasy VIII, changed the leveling mechanic, changed the equipment mechanic, and changed the typical world traversal and how you interact with locations in the world.  But they kept the grinding.   So many options and ways to grind in this game that I felt bordered on ridiculousness.

Leveling up here was somewhat different from other JRPGs in that you do not have classical experience points that count against a "Next Level" until you level up earning you additional HP and increases to your permanent stats.  Instead, you are awarded Ability Points (AP) that function similarly to experience points in that once you reach a certain number of AP, you gain a point to use on a single node on the Sphere Grid (see above).  One node might give you +200 HP, +4 Magic Defense, or you learn a new ability like "Cure 2," or "Steal"; there is a difference between abilities, skills, specials, and spells, but we will not get into that here.  For the most part, I really liked the Sphere Grid as there was a serotonin burst each time I would save up AP points and spend 3-4 of them at a time, increasing each character's stats and abilities in a way that felt like I was the one making the decision on how I customized each character.  Since this was my first time, I chose the Standard Option instead of the Expert Option because I did not know anything about this leveling system, but halfway through the game I was more than comfortable.  Once I reached the end of each character's grid and learned their final skill (exceptions abound in that statement) I then started moving people around to other character's grids that were not inherently theirs, like having Yuna move through Auron's grid to increase her strength (higher strength = stronger Aeon attacks), or moving Rikku through parts of Lulu's grid so she could learn Doublecast and Flare.  This was the most fun for me because again, I felt like I could further customize each character's skills, abilities, and stats.  I actually had to tell myself that I needed to just go and beat the game after grinding AP for nearly 14 hours (after losing to the final boss the first time) because of how satisfying it was to spend points on the Sphere Grid.

I think what took me the longest to get used to, probably more than halfway through the game was the equipment in that unlike most RPGs, you do not find a weapon with higher stats such as one weapon having higher damage than another.  What character-specific weapons and armor have are augmentations such as +10% HP, or Lighting Ward (Decreases the damage done by lightning attacks).  Both weapons and armor might have additional customization slots for you to add effects by using consumables.  Maybe I missed this tutorial at the beginning of the game while I was trying to figure out what was going on story-wise, but I thought that the "Customize" in the pause menu was about gameplay customization options like text speed and window color.  It was not until after my first loss to Seymour Flux at Mt. Gagazet (maybe 3/4 of the way through?) that I learned about armor customization and I struggled to outfit everyone with some level of Zombie Wards.  It was also around this time that I found out you could increase the stats and abilities of the Aeons Yuna summons.  Yes, part of this is on me with feeling frustrated and not knowing new game mechanics and maybe my overall feeling would change on a second playthough, but it is not like I am a newcomer to the genre or video games in general, so let us just chalk it up to me complaining then.  Some of the stronger abilities you could add to your equipment, like Half MP Cost, and Auto-Phoenix you could only add by using up consumables you had saved for nearly the entire game, or by grinding in the Monster Arena (since specific monsters drop specific consumables and the rarer ones like Twin Stars and Mega Pheonix you could farm by defeating the rarer monsters in the Monster Arena).

The Monster Arena was an area just over halfway through the game that would be populated by monsters you "capture" throughout the rest of the game, the caveat here is that you cannot backtrack to other areas as you would in other Final Fantasy games until the very end of the game before you go to the final area.  This meant that you would need to basically stop your story progress in the game to go back to all of the previously visited areas to "collect" up to 10 of every monster you previously fought.  Then you would bring these monsters back to the Monster Arena and, in short, release them so that you could fight them again.  This just felt like another form of the Chocobo ranching to breed a Golden Chocobo in Final Fantasy VII, something to pad the length of the game out.  Which I was not interested in.

The other mini-game that felt like needless padding was Blitzball.  I realize and fully acknowledge that I did not give Blitzball a chance after that first game.  It was just a game that I did not have fun playing and the thought of devoting even more time to this mini-game that was not integral to beating the game felt like another Golden Chocobo hunt.  With that being said, I knew that the only way to acquire Wakka's celestial weapon was to win the final Blitzball tournament; but I have talked enough about Blitzball.  I did not bother gathering anyone else's celestial weapons, partly out of spite that their existence I do not recall ever being mentioned in the game.  I never again played Blitzball after that atrocious first required time you had to play.  I know that there is a whole recruiting system (which I felt was never explained) and the only time I was given the option to inexplicably play Blitzball was at save spots.  I just felt that Blitzball was kind of shoehorned into the rest of the game to give you something else to grind towards, especially since it was required to earn Wakka's celestial weapon, which is something that I never did for anyone else either.  Celestial weapons were another grinding aspect of the game that I only knew about because I read about Blitzball, but I do not recall them ever being mentioned anywhere in the game, you either had to stumble upon it or read about it in a player's guide.

As far as battle mechanics go, I am a little mixed overall.  I like being able to swap in and out characters on anyone's turn, but I did not like that only people who attack or perform an action during combat receive AP.  By the end of the game, you have to swap in/out all seven characters for them to receive any benefit which just becomes cumbersome.  However, in the final area, I had a pretty decent system when going up against Adamantoise which would allow everyone to get in any action before it died:

• Auron: Armor Break
• Wakka: Mental Break
• Kimahri: Extract Power
• Yuna: Doublecast - Flare - Flare (Yuna had gear that granted her half MP Cost)
• Lulu: Flare
• Rikku: Mug
• Tidus: Attack

This tactic worked fine against stronger enemies towards the later half of the game, but against weaker enemies in the early game, getting everyone a turn in battle, sometimes wasting healing or buff spells felt like a chore and an easier solution could have been awarding people who did not participate in battle 3/4 or even 1/2 of the AP that people who acted earned.

One thing I really did not like about combat in this game was how easy it was to run away without any consequences.  If there was a battle I did not want to do, all I had to do was call Tidus up (if he was not already in the party) and have him use the special action "Flee" and the battle would be over.  Being able to escape battles this quickly and easily, made including difficult enemies like Behemoth King, Demonolith (or three of those assholes at once), and Barbatos pointless.  Sure, you would be awarded 11,000 - 35,000+ AP, but only if you killed them and a lot of the monsters in the final area had high defenses, resistances, and immunities that made fighting them difficult, so why bother if they were going to eat up time and Yuna's precious MP (to cure everyone after the battle)?  There are so many easier ways to grind for AP than trying to kill (and have everyone survive) a battle against a Behemoth King.  Yes, you would enter battle-after-battle against tough-ass monsters so that you could capture 10 to take back to the Monster Arena.

Something else I did not like about battles, and this felt like a feature more than a bug, was how dangerous battles felt at all times when I wanted to actually engage in battles.  I often found myself needing to heal everyone after almost every battle because monsters would damage 1/3 - 3/4 of a character's max HP and I would be afraid of entering a battle without characters as max HP out of fear of some special attack that would kill everyone in a single hit; this did happen a couple of times, which causes the traditional TPK game over. Thankfully this version of FF X, at least in handheld mode had a feature that let me swipe on a specific part of the screen that brought up the option to fully heal everyone either using items or (only Yuna for some reason) MP.

Lastly, in regards to stumbling upon things, was the airship mechanic at the end of the game.  Unlike a lot of Final Fantasy and JRPGs, you only gain access to an airship at the end of the game rather than halfway through.  This I did not actually mind because I oftentimes feel overwhelmed once the airship becomes available because then you have to parse out where you need to go from an entire world.  Final Fantasy IV did this right with the Black Chocobo only being able to fly over certain areas and land in specific locations, similar to the Tiny Bronco in Final Fantasy VII.  My issue with the airship in Final Fantasy X was that you could only fast-travel to locations you had been to unless you somehow luckily clicked on an X/Y coordinate that had a predetermined location associated with it, a hidden location if you will.  What was frustrating about this was that there was no indication either from other characters or on the map that there would be anything on the map where you could visit, so you were forced to hunt and peck until the game said that you found something.

You know what?  This article has ceased to be pleasurable to write as I feel like I am just complaining about so many different aspects of the game, and I have not even touched on how the game felt like random monster battles intercut with walking and cut scenes every 10-15 minutes, the Cloister of Trials puzzles, how Tidus et al are able to breathe underwater, the Al Bhed Primers, Cid's annoying-ass voice, any semblance of sorting by character in any of the equipment screens, some kind of meaningful character development for Kimahri beyond being told that he helped Yuna in years past, and if Ronso or Guado existed in Tidus' Zanarkand of the past and why he did not seem surprised at all by non-humans.  I am now fully realizing how much of this game I did not like or wished was addressed differently.

All of that being said, there were aspects of the game I did enjoy, believe it or not.  As mentioned above, I did like the fight mechanic where you could swap characters in and out with each character's turn.  This added a bit of strategy, especially when trying to have a specific character follow another character's turn.  I really liked the Aeon summoning mechanic, and how it would take all of the other characters out of the battle (which I realized was repeated in Final Fantasy XII).  I loved a lot of the music and if Nobuo Uematsu was going to leave the Final Fantasy franchise as the principal composer, this is a pretty great soundtrack to go out on.  I enjoyed the overall story for the most part and I was eternally thankful when it was revealed that Yevon was a cult that manipulated the world for their own gains, or you know, like a lot of religions.  Was the player at any point actually supposed to sympathize/empathize with any of the characters (Wakka, Lulu, Yuna) whenever they tried to reason about Sin's existence, because I grew tired of their explanations before Tidus even left Besaid.  Any time Wakka said something like "If we keep faith in Yevon's teachings, it will be gone one day," or when Lulu said "Sin is the punishment for, and the incarnation of, the crimes we have committed," it just made me roll my eyes back into my toes.  And bloody hell was Shelinda an aggressively annoying zealot.  

I do not know if the Eternal Calm cutscene or Final Fantasy X-2 deal with the fallout of Yu Yevon no longer "existing" because the entirety of FFX felt like this was the predominant religion in Spira with the Al Bhed being in the very small minority (maybe something like 80% Yevon, 15% Al Bhed, 5% Unaffiliated?).  And with the fall of Yu Yevon, what effect, if any, did that have on the existence of the Far Plane and/or the rest of those who were unsent at the end of the game?  Did the fact that Yuna et al. "defeated Sin" actually overshadow the fact that Yu Yevon was a parasitic entity and religion or was that even brought up?  What happened to the other summoners who were on their pilgrimage?  Will the people of Spira who did not witness the physical fall of Sin actually believe that Sin is now forever gone or will Sin Cults spring up?  I have so many questions about this.  It did actually kind of feel like FFX's take on religion harkened back a little bit to the revelation about the Lucavi in Final Fantasy Tactics, but that game ended (and began) with Ramza being branded a heretic nonetheless and I doubt that the same has/will happen with Yuna & Co. considering that Wakka, Yuna, Lulu all went from devote Yevonites to killing God in the span of a couple of weeks or months.

So, where do I stand with Final Fantasy X?  I am not really sure, to be honest.  The game looked and sounded great, the Sphere Grid was a brilliant way to further customize characters which were then modified for Final Fantasy XII and was the inspiration for leveling in Path of Exile, The Laugh was not as I was expecting, but I still had a lot of issues with a lot of the mechanics and the developer's expectations on the player.  I think I will close by saying that I am glad that I played Final Fantasy X, even with all of the aspects I did not enjoy, but it will not stop me from playing Final Fantasy X-2 and figuring out the whole fashion mechanic job system that I have tangentially heard about*.

~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian
This Has Come To An End

*P.S.  And also to find out how/why Lulu is not featured in FFX-2 because I am going to miss the belt-dress-wearing, living stuffed animal toting Black Mage.