WHERE MY (BLITZ)BALLZ AT?

Final Fantasy X

A Review

by Mighty Doom

            I recently played through a decent chunk of Final Fantasy X on PS2 and, being a fan of the series, felt the need to review Squaresoft’s purported masterpiece.  FFX is a difficult call in terms of overall quality, as its many advantages and flaws are so starkly separated.  Without a single unfavorable review across the board, so far as I’ve seen, it seems FFX has quickly become a favorite, though whether this is due to its merits as a game or the simple fact that it’s a Final Fantasy game on PS2, the most rabidly and blindly supported system on the market, is murky water indeed.

            The plot is fairly difficult to explain.  Let’s try a real-world scenario that will give you roughly the same idea.  Say the world ends tomorrow.  It doesn’t matter how it happens.  Maybe zombies destroy civilization.  Maybe George W. Bush gets his wish and nukes the known universe into the shape of an American flag.  Either way, it’s gone, and the only thing to survive in this recovering post-apocalyptic world is…EXTREME FOOTBALL! Yes, all anyone will think about anymore is Extreme Football, or maybe that new Extreme Dodgeball show Fox or whatever is planning, which actually might be a more appropriate comparison.  Religions will spring up around Extreme Football.  Entertainment will be limited EXCLUSIVELY to Extreme Football.  Oh, and there’ll be some magic and a big evil thing with fins, but those will be secondary to Extreme Sports.

            Final Fantasy X begins with Leonardo DiCaprio – I mean Tidus, our hero, an obnoxious jackass and rising star of the Blitzball world.  Blitzball, for all intents and purposes, is Extreme Soccer, but it’s played underwater (yes, people can breathe underwater – no, don’t ask why).  The first nine hours or so of the game revolve almost exclusively around Blitzball.  It goes like this: Tidus plays Blitzball; what appears to be a large whale/squid named “Sin” destroys the city; Tidus meets up with Auron, who looks quite a lot like Alec Baldwin, and both are subsequently absorbed by Sin; Tidus wakes up a thousand years later in a technologically atrophied culture and meets up with a Blitzball team (yes, Extreme Sports have endured for a thousand years); Tidus plays more Blitzball.  Add to this an obligatory romantic subplot with all the charm and wit of a John Cusack movie, and things aren’t looking too good.

            Eventually we meet the compassionate, weak-willed female companion (Yuna) and the ambiguously gay villain (Seymour), both of which have become Square trademarks in the past couple of years.  Fortunately, we have a couple of likeable characters to balance out the PRINCIPAL CAST.  Lulu, Final Fantasy X’s equivalent to a black mage, is fucking sweet, and Wakka, captain of the worst Blitzball team ever, despite his bland character design and his involvement with such an irritating plot device as Blitzball, is amicable enough.  On the other hand we have Auron, a walking stereotype.  What’s wrong with this guy? The world’s ending, so he thinks that’s an excuse to go around talking like Solid Snake, wearing a trench coat and high collar and carrying a bottle of sake? Gimme a break (of that Kit Kat Bar).

            FFX’s chief advantage is its tremendous graphics, possibly the best I’ve seen thus far on any system.  However, even this has its downside, namely camera angles; picking out tiny townspeople and treasure chests is an annoyingly slow process, and the game itself is just so stunning to the eye that one isn’t readily inclined to bother with talking to any secondary characters at all.  Ten hours in, and I still haven’t found an item shop.

            When all is said and done, Final Fantasy X is something like The Phantom Menace – often fascinating, sometimes truly outstanding in several areas, but essentially lacking the playability and depth of story and character that made Final Fantasy a unique series to begin with.  Despite its flaws, however, FFX is nonetheless playable, and certainly jaw-dropping from a visual standpoint.  It’s a decent effort, and not entirely misguided – at least not to the extent of Legend of Dragoon.  And, thanks to the geniuses that brought us Final Fantasy VIII, we have a plot that’s almost as compelling as, oh, say, floating high schools battling it out with one another using motorcycle squads.

THE GOOD: Beautiful to look at.  The battles flow smoothly.  Lulu kicks ass.

THE BAD: Cardboard characters.  Badly executed story.  A mini-game (Blitzball) that’s barely playable and figures far too prominently in the game as a whole.

THE UGLY: Seymour is sort of a cross between Dune’s Baron Harkonnen and Final Fantasy IX’s Kuja.  Possibly the worst combination of fictional characters I can think of.

DOOM’S FINAL JUDGMENT: B-