If you don't know the rules of these reviews please read this first.
Well, here we are guys. The end of an era. In my opinion, this is where the FF series was ruined beyond repair. As always, with a new console generation comes a new era of FF games. Hironobu Sakaguchi was barely involved in development of the tenth game. Yoshinori Kitase had just been promoted to series producer and with that came a new way to run things. Kitase gave Motomu Toriyama (one of the cutscene designers of VII and VIII) the role of director. Toriyama is known nowadays for his controversially linear approach to JRPGs, so with this game came a radical change to the gameplay. I'm just gonna say it right now: I despise this game. I hate the story, I hate the gameplay and I hate how it strays away from what made the series charming to begin with. Let me reply to the negative comments I'm gonna get right now- "Oh come on, the story is so emotional and the gameplay is just a fresh new direction for the series" - No, i'm sorry but i don't see it. Let's get this over with, I don't want to waste more time than I have to with this so called game:
The So Called Story:
This time around we've got the story of a young man named Tidus who after a weird supernatural incident is transported to a world completely different than the one he was in. After meeting certain people that help him out Tidus starts a journey to try to find out about what happened to him.
The story is God-awful. It just is, plain and simple. I'm aware that this one is a fan-favorite. I'm aware that this is one of those sacred things that no one is allowed to dislike without being accused of being overdemanding. So be it. The story in this game is full of plot-holes, it's inconsistent, it's unbelievably drawn-out and is just plain boring and uninteresting. My main problem is that there's no heart to it. There's nothing genuine about it. It's one of those stories that takes every generic JRPG plot element and crams them all together without any care in making it coherent. The characters don't help either. Tidus is very annoying and doesn't get any better as the game goes on. Yuna is just the generic altruistic summoner that sacrifices everything for everyone without thinking twice about it. The rest of the cast is barely worth mentioning since their development is either nonexistent or insignificant.
The only good thing I have to say about it is one of the sub-plots, which is about three characters that lived years before the main plot. The same problem with FFVIII shows up once again. These characters are way more interesting and their story is actually genuinely tragic. Why? Why couldn't the game have been about this story? I felt like Square was trolling me with how I'm missing out on such an interesting story.
If you're reading this and are interested in details about why I didn't like the story, message me on my Youtube account and we'll figure something out.
Overall it's a terrible story with awful characters.
2/10
The So Called Gameplay:
Like I said before, this is a huge departure from the previous games: gone is the world map, gone are the dungeons and gone are the interesting NPCs. The open environments have also been replaced by claustrophobic hallways that completely eliminate one of the key elements of a Final Fantasy game: exploration. I just don't get why would they do this. This is not innovation or evolution. They're just literally removing one of the main gameplay elements the series was known for. Because of this, the game doesn't even feel like what it says it is: The tenth entry in the main Final Fantasy series. The linearity is fairly well executed on its own merits but it's still very repetitive. Most of the gameplay is comprised of running and battling with an ocasional temple with puzzles as the only attempt at variety. The problem is that these puzzles are very drawn-out and don't have any logic to them. You literally just radomly place spheres in holes till you accidentally solve them. One particular puzzle that takes place in a moving maze is incredibly confusing, drawn-out and boring. I had to take a two day break because it frustrated me so much.
The character development system this time around is the Sphere Grid. I don't really like this system. This is basically the illusion of development control. After each battle, you get ability points and after getting a certain amount of points, the character gains a sphere level which can then be used to move one space in the Grid. Basically, the grid is a giant board full of nodes. Each node has a bonus for your character's stats, like "HP + 200" or "Strength + 4". This would be a great oportunity to give you great control over the character's growth, but there's one huge problem: the characters still have their pre-set stats and jobs. Why would I ever choose to significantly raise the physical strength of a black mage? Besides, the board is incredibly linear. You would think the board would have multiple ways to go, but instead you're just going on a pre-determined path without any deviation. Any alternate paths on the board are locked and can only be unlocked by a "Key Sphere", which brings me to another aspect of the grid: the actual spheres. After each battle, you receive various types of spheres that have to be used to unlock the bonuses from each node. A "Mana Sphere", for example unlocks the bonus from an MP node. There are other spheres that unlock any bonus of a certain kind without the need to move in the grid and even some that allow us to warp to any node instantly. I just don't get this system. Is it driven by choice or is it linear? Half of its elements contradict the other half. I'm sorry, Square, but you either give us control over development or you don't. You can't have it both ways. The only side attraction besides Side-Quests is Blitzball, our minigame this time around. It's boring, it's overly complicated and adds nothing to the game, it's just there.
Fortunately, there are good aspects to the gameplay: the combat is fast-paced, it's a nice throwback to the fully turn-based format from the NES era and a new feature that allows you to switch your party members mid-battle adds some strategy to the battles. Also, the very last puzzle of the game is radically different from the other ones and I found it to be enjoyable. It's not great, but it was a well made enough puzzle.
Despite that, the gameplay is just plain horrible. It doesn't know what it wants to be and lacks fun stuff to do.
3/10
The Audio:
For the first time, Nobuo Uematsu had assistance in composing the music. The new composers are Junya Nakano (Now known for the composition/arrangement of the FFIV saga) and Masashi Hamauzu(Known for being the main composer of the FFXIII trilogy). The soundtrack is pretty mediocre overall. There are a few good tracks, but most of them are forgettable or just plain bad. It should also be noted that this game doesn't have the main Final Fantasy Theme. Why, Nobuo? This is like making a Mario game without the classic Mario theme. You might say it's not important, but I disagree. You don't just ignore traditions like that. This, combined with a very different and mediocre instrumentation, results in a soundtrack that, for the most part, doesn't feel like a Final Fantasy soundtrack. The vocal theme song is just a mediocre and generic anime style song. I should also mention that this was the first game in the series to have voice acting. It's terrible though. Each voice is either bland, boring or annoying. With other games at the time that had much better voice acting, this is just another example of how lazy Square was with this game.
4/10
The So Called Graphics:
This game gets rid of the pre-rendered backgrounds and goes for fully 3d rendered environments to show off the PS2's capabilities, which gives place to some nice looking environments. My huge problem with the graphics is everything related to the character visuals. The body animations are very weird and consist basically of characters waving their arms awkwardly when they're arguing about something. The facial animations are also very lazy and there was absolutely no lip syncing whatsoever. I don't understand why the animations are so bad. Kingdom Hearts came out around the same time and was vastly superior in all of these areas. Inexcusable. Another thing that really disappointed me in this game was the monster and character design. The monster design, while not exactly bad, is pretty mediocre. Now, the character design is just plain terrible. It reminds me of characters from the Star Wars prequels. Almost every character in this game has impossible physical characteristics and ridiculous clothing, which really pains me to say, because I'm a huge fan of Tetsuya Nomura's character designs. All of these factors make it really hard for me to take the story and characters seriously, because everything looks fake and/or laughable.
5/10
I'm sorry if you think I'm being too harsh with this so called game but i didn't enjoy a single second of it. After FFIX this is an unbelievable disappointment. The story is terrible, the gameplay has an identity crisis and the presentation is really underwhelming.
I recommend everyone who would like a more positive review of the game to check my friend T-Man's review as his is probably the best positive review of this game out there.
Final Grade : 3.5/10
Join me next time as we skip over FFXI for reasons i explained in the rules blogpost which you can find at the top of this review, so we can talk about one of the most controversial games among the fanbase: Final Fantasy XII. See you next time.
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