Game Reviews: Final Fantasy X & Final Fantasy X-2
Played these two back-to-back throughout August and had rather non-standard experiences. Definitely not my favourite Final Fantasys (7 and 9 rock too hard), but they compliment each other far better than they're given credit for. For FFX, I took a more critical lens to question it's canon status with such blatant shortcomings, and for FFX-2, I found appreciation in how it broke conventions and succeeded in isolation.
We'll start with X!
It took me five years to finally gather the momentum to push through this and take it off my backlog, rivaled by few for it's longevity. A very different person travelled through Besaid than the one who made it to Zanarkand.
All in all, I'm left with rather tepid feelings. I can appreciate FFX, understand it's effects, legacy and place in the canon, but something hard to touch on is lacking.
It's gorgeous visually and musically, it's iconic, it's characters are memorable and the combat system is a great introduction into the JRPG. Despite that, I didn't fall in love like I did the PSX trilogy. The issue, it seems, is for a game centered around water, it's awfully shallow.
The cast has charisma, but everyone besides Tidus and Yuna is kinda just... there? Wakka is racist, Rikku is peppy, Auron is cool, Kimahri and Lulu are... stoic and they each have their adjacent tragedies, but ultimately they feel more like props than people for most of the game. Their backstories are fine, good even, but most of them never get their moment. Kimahri's people are slaughtered and he shrugs it off, Lulu never really opens up, Auron keeps secrets until the end and not much changes when he does, Rikku loses her home because "happy firework festival" and so on. I do like how Wakka was handled, slowly unlearning his devoutness and hatred of the Al Bhed through witnessing the systemic failings and the unrelenting charisma of Rikku, but still his blind duty to Yuna feels detached from this. FF7 had a similar issue, but it felt more episodic and focused when it did center it's characters. 9 had scenes that kept them feeling like friends, kept putting them in quirky situations, was full of optional cutscenes and fractured the party to allocate chunks of the narrative. 10 has none of this.
The cast has charisma, but everyone besides Tidus and Yuna is kinda just... there? Wakka is racist, Rikku is peppy, Auron is cool, Kimahri and Lulu are... stoic and they each have their adjacent tragedies, but ultimately they feel more like props than people for most of the game. Their backstories are fine, good even, but most of them never get their moment. Kimahri's people are slaughtered and he shrugs it off, Lulu never really opens up, Auron keeps secrets until the end and not much changes when he does, Rikku loses her home because "happy firework festival" and so on. I do like how Wakka was handled, slowly unlearning his devoutness and hatred of the Al Bhed through witnessing the systemic failings and the unrelenting charisma of Rikku, but still his blind duty to Yuna feels detached from this. FF7 had a similar issue, but it felt more episodic and focused when it did center it's characters. 9 had scenes that kept them feeling like friends, kept putting them in quirky situations, was full of optional cutscenes and fractured the party to allocate chunks of the narrative. 10 has none of this.
On this point of quirkiness, 10 feels a lot more serious, which combined with it's linearity, turns it into a one-way railway of set-pieces where all else was an afterthought. Luca to Macalania is quite literally a straight line with cutscenes. Beyond breaking Yuna and blitzball, the cactuar sidequest and calling Tidus "Titties", I can't recall any laughs. The wooden performances (despite otherwise talented casting) and general predictability of Heroes Journey X Star-Crossed Lovers X Fuck Organized Religion, the biggest moments of the story (outside of the ending, which is terrific) left me pretty emotionally sober. The two moods of play for me were cozy and headache.
Everything that isn't the story was frankly headache-inducing, so perhaps I should thank the linearity. My completionist mentality, as highlighted in my Yakuza 0 review, is a disease. I despised Blitzball, but I needed the Reels and Celestial Weapon. Chocobo racing is padding, as is maxing out the arena, as is dodging 200 lightning bolts, as is the post-game skill curve. Never has a JRPG so thoroughly demotivated me from wanting to see it all. Everything that can done post-airship and pre-Sin is challengeless tedium that trivializes the final dungeon, and thus I honestly feel FFX would be a better game without. Beyond that, enemy variety feels lacking, with every battle having a transparent path to quick victory that doesn't diverge in method until Zanarkand. The difficulty also is a little lacking, which is fine for accessibility, as the thrill comes from how far you can push it rather than mastering it, but ultimately every endgame fight was doublecasting as Yuna or Lulu, debuffing with Auron or Wakka and buffing with Rikku or Tidus.
I need to stop indulging in my headache, however, as FFX obviously has a lot of merit. It's world is incredibly lived in, and it's people meaningfully distinguished. It is truly Fantasy in it's scope, journey and variety of environments and cultures. I've been reading the Earthsea books while playing through this, and there are countless parallels to be drawn. You've got all these distinct styles of fashion and appearance, each drawing from their own fusion of religious/pagan imagery. He gets a lot of hate, but I do really fuck with Tetsuya Nomura's design philosophy. For as absurd as Tidus and Lulu look, the eye is distinctly Nomura, characters all distinct and appealing while rarely feeling sexually exploitative. The setting, even if less explorable, is unmatched by possibly any game in the series. I also adore the use of pre-rendered cutscenes and vistas into the 6th gen. This and RE1 run laps around everything in it's gen in terms of the scale and detail able to be applied, and it's a shame the practice was so sparsely utilized. The HD version also adds options to speed up the game and change encounter rates, which let the combat and traversal of large areas flow a lot smoother than most old JRPGs.
Perhaps in retrospect my feelings on FFX will shift for what it was able to accomplish and the praise thrown it's way. As of now, I'm still feeling a little burned by the experience and have taken little away but a much greater appreciation for 7-9. Besides, I still gotta play X-2 to truly clear it from my steam backlog, and that one, by the metric of being FOR THE GIRLS, may soften my stance and further romance me to the world of Spira.
Now for a change of pace! X-2, spread your wings!
Bountiful quantities of sauce! Style sauce and spaghetti substance in tandem a great meal make! The times of Theocracy, Tribulation and Titties (or Tidus if you're boring) have gone the way of the Pyreflies. Now, the victims sandbagged by systems of perpetuated oppression are granted the life they lost. This is FF11, as far as I'm concerned. There's the "Look, Wakka! Look, Kimahri! Look, callback!", but Yuna is blazing her own trail and taking shit from no one (while still loving everyone and spreading joy through her art and pragmatism). Yuna and Rikku were my two favourite characters in FFX, their narrative sopping with tragedy and loss. Rikku's people being genocided and tossed to the outskirts, Yuna's life for forfeit to a cycle bigger than her in service of the briefest of respites. But now the patriarchy has burned! These girls can go wherever, wear whatever and do whatever they damn please. With their pretty tsundere goth gf, they seek adventure in the most unlikely places, and through these small joys, help the people heal from their trauma and the shadows of war.
Reprieve runs through the streets of Spira. Where one was a death march, now I gaze at and Steam screenshot the ornamental architecture, the peach sands and crystal waters. Ignore the 20 screenshots I have of Paine in pre-rendered scenes where I thought she looked cool! They're for my video game Fruits magazine! The map being fully explorable from the start and greatly optional massively benefits it's structure and pacing. Regardless of the linearity of areas, they are each recontextualized as event microcosms. Rather than change layouts, events revolve around the linearity or openness. Mi'hen's episode revolves around the conflict between Chocobo purists and the normalized presence of Machina and the tensions brought about from it's function as a road. The Calm Lands becomes a giant carnival ground utilizing the space for various race-tracks and events. The Temples become contested whether they should still be held sacred in spite of the lies or left in ruin. Only Kilika and Gagazet are meaningfully changed, and it's because the conditions that prevented them from being changed/explored are gone. The episodic missions, while gamier, punctuate the experience far better and allow for the people to heal with the flow of time. Structure-wise, the Gullwings soar over X!
I hate that every review I've seen has made the Charlie's Angels comparison, bc it along with Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Hoodwinked and pre-Cars Pixar are childhood pillar films. I called it in the first cutscene with no prior knowledge, but alas, I am deeply unoriginal. Nonetheless, I will say it is affectionately and nostalgically Charlie's Angel's as fuck. The motorbike airship with the spy music, the dorky male fourth wheel (I love Brother sm, so endearing) and the endless wardrobe for every situation fills this specific chamber in my heart so well. That along with the comparisons I could draw to MySims Agents, between Shinra and Roxy/Jenny (sorry no one gets this, I will shut up!). I was legitimately shocked when I found out the implementation of the class system and the quantity of Dresspheres. Twenty outfits per, each styled to their motifs and personality. Personally, I'm the biggest fan of Rikku's fits, and naturally changed her class the most because of it. Top 5 gotta be Gunner, Festivalist, Psychic, Lady Luck and... Mascot because it makes every battle feel like this fucking video. The transitional screens are pristine, the pre-rendered cutscenes, while more sparse, look even better than X, and while the world is greatly shared, the nature of the game made it more intimate, made Spira feel just as much a character as any individual. Style-wise, the Gullwings soar over X!
By nature of decentralizing the narrative from the main cast and in line with the shift of the central motif from spreading hope to spreading love, individuals are given a lot more room to breathe. Repeatedly entering the Gagazet Hot Spring Commsphere grants around twenty separate cutscenes involving almost every named character, as well as a few gags. It's the first time Hot Spring voyeurism is desexualized and feels earned in a way it wouldn't have in X. The web of who we are given the time to care about is woven outward to O'aka, Claska and the other summoners. It naturally transitions from depth of world, narrative and party to depth of cast, community and intimacy. If X is an odyssey, X-2 is where you can feel at home in the world you stumbled through. The "friends you made along the way". In that sense, it's more relatably humanist, more anarchical more innately optimistic in the value it places in community and the unlikely family you find between you, your lost relative from the other side of a war, and a dejected vagabond who lived away from it all. I love how they are perfectly mirrored in the three male leads who, raised without love and dragged through wars, failed to accomplish the same mission the girls do. The party dynamic, in being more centralized and with the more joyous setting, is made far more believable. The central content of the game is watching them bond through adventure, through what one may rightly call X's side-quests that never were, so regardless of the lack of an arc or clear reason for working together, the application of camp, comedy and lack of in-group drama makes their friendship feel incredibly natural. Paine is charmingly cynical, never edgy or bitter as one might expect. Rikku contrasts this with her hyper can-do peppiness (I love the little stim she does with her hands when she gets eager). We have the joke and the relief. Between them, Yuna bounces between personas trying to discover how she will manifest when carved out of the marble of duty. She goes from the thing to be protected in X to the thing protecting. Occasionally a savior in line with her legacy, occasionally the most ready to display deviance. The players choices, to an extent, are her coming into herself. She is the leader but only because she is the best speaker, not due to any hierarchical advantage, both in their literal battle stats being identical and their demeanor. Rikku is too busy making fun for herself while Paine's stoic coolness takes priority. They have found their selves to which Yuna aspires while, by her bravery and will to grow, being herself aspired to. I also completely forgot, but Leblanc and her two cronies are such endearing Antagonists-turned-Allies and perfect for the type of story this is. Never malicious, just over-the-top foils whose entire shtick is straight out of a saturday morning cartoon. Jessie and James WISH they looked that good. Character-wise, the Gullwings soar over X!
The battle system, while simpler and a bit easier (which I could see a critique of this by merit of it being "marketed to girls"), makes the flow of combat more dynamic. The strategies for taking down non-boss enemies is greatly homogenous, possibly as a byproduct of the fluid roles and tight cast. You can win most battles by mashing X or kicking it on Auto, or you could play with the perpetually flux and stacking movesets you're granted every couple of hours. This may be hot, but EXP is far less annoying and time-consuming and grinding is much more clearly an option and lucrative. Praise the sphere grid all you want, but characters are locked into their roles until 60-80% through, while X2 breaks archetypes and defined roles (wink wink) in it's first battle. I'm gonna say it! Levelling with the Sphere Grid felt like levelling in YIIK! (The guillotines are already being mounted outside my apartment window). The return of ATB with Chrono Trigger reminiscent formations is, from what I've played, the most fun and fluid combat system in any FF game and never stopped being dynamic. It got a little obnoxious doing all the oversouls (but hey, at least auto-battle works) and with the superbosses, but only losers sell their happiness for achievements weeps tears in 75% average steam completion! The worst dungeons are already solved from the first game, and while the Chocobo Dungeon and Via Infinito are complete wastes of time, I like the depth given to the forgettable places like Bevelle and the Thunder Plains and the general more dungeon-crawler-esque design philosophy. Very fitting for a team of crime-fighting archaeologist girls. Mechanic-wise, the Gullwings soar over X!
I draw all these comparisons to X to be a bit facetious (and perhaps a bit of a hater) for how unremarkably safe I found X to be as a stand-alone. It was 7 without the scope and 9 without the reprieve, made accessible in a way that felt more at the expense of it's personality through westernizing and mechanically narrowing it. X2 however, while arguably it's own game, is the completion of X. It's the Comedy to it's Tragedy, the Heart to it's Soul, the Seasoning to it's Feast, the Feminine to it's Masculine, the Play to it's Work. Without X, X2 is contextless menialities for people with no history. Without X2, we end on unanswered promises and unknown futures. Eternal Calm shows Yuna's Ennui, her loss and trauma having stunted any chance at becoming. By centering the world around Tidus, the world ceases to be important with him gone, ceases to be perceivable and thus meaningful on the other side of revolution. Nonetheless, there is still life at the end of a journey, still a trail of crossed paths. An X2 is a crucial counterpart and tribute to the hundreds of worlds we leave behind through play, a reminder that we don't need to suffer or move mountains to be worth hearing about. Each person's journey through life is it's own story, and while Tidus gets his, a truly lived in world doesn't end with a credits screen. I didn't love how the true ending played out, but I was delighted to see Yuna stand alone as "The End" faded in, making it very clear it was her story and decision that was no longer our business. Rikku and Paine are absent, though as was suggested earlier, still have their own journeys they'll go on in the future. Overall, FFX2 accomplished exactly what I hoped it would (regarding letting Yuna have her day and a warming up to the underdeveloped aspects of Spira) and looked damn good doing it. May Spira live on wherever it is. Narrative-wise, the Gullwings fly off into the sunset wing-in-wing with the Bringers of the Eternal Calm.
Also the pre-final boss end game absolutely stunk! Just as bad but more doable than the first game! Only do Via Infinito, the Bestiary, the Chocobo Dungeon and max Experiment if you hate yourself and want to dilute the heart and brevity of the experience! Post-gamewise, the Gullwings plummeted into the ocean!