Final Fantasy X

Audacious as ever, Square's latest plot involves the tale about the destruction of the world as we know it. And it's up to the heroes of the game to put an end to the raining chaos from the true evil behind it all. Sin, a terrible entity from the sea is the shape of this spoken evil. Tidus is the blade-wielding hero. Their paths cross when the star Blitzball player, Tidus, attends his big game one night only to watch in bafflement as this immense creature named Sin floods his home city Zanarkand with death, and teleports Tidus to another dimension -- the land of Spira -- where he'll find that the same appearances of Sin is terrorizing villages in this present, that's supposedly 1,000 years after the time Tidus first encountered the creature. Tidus, and a band of allies, must now form and stop this creature before it destroys the lives, the hopes, and the dreams of everyone's future.

Known well for their ability to create visuals beyond belief, Square yet again struts their stuff with the almost photo realism of spectacular FMV clips. From scenes of wave crashes, explosions taking off, smoke trails binding, spirits illuminating, and the lifelike main characters taking action, every breathtaking scene will make you feel like you're a part of the game. Compared to the work done in the PlayStation One games, these upgraded movies are a much greater leap into the transition of fake and realism. You could almost believe that these movies ARE realism.

Just as for the in-game graphics as well, Square has done a divine job of creating believable settings so naturally true and fantastic. Each character seen in an in game cut scene is given a set of facial expressions, with lips, eyes, eyebrows, and even hair that adheres with their motions correctly. Except for the lips that continue to go on for a couple of seconds after the spoken dialogue is already over, everything else is done just fine. The towns and cities of the game are expanded with beauty of very nice rendered objects, from plant life, to grainy wooden planks, to even the dark and ambient of an area lit by a torch, anything you've seen in the past Final Fantasy games you could say is worked on much more, and in a greater way.

Final Fantasy X's battle sequences share the same tremendous graphic quality, and sometimes, even better. In high quality detail, the monster AI you'll encounter are sharp and explode with enormous amounts of detail and animation, much more than what was seen in the previous games. Of course, the pure eye candies of each fight are the magical attacks you'll throw at the opposition. Lighting effects that beam as an eye-opener, elemental attacks with their explosive power, and even the natural way the characters give it their all in battle are all animated in high magnetism.

Indeed, the battles of the game have been tweaked for the better, overall. Every fight sequence, while they remain in the turn based combat that veterans have come to know about and either love or hate, should be thankful that one of the new improvements of the game is that attacks move much quicker than ever before. Just one example would be how if Tidus were to attack one character, and not having to wait longer than a second, your next character in the order of who goes next can attack the same enemy. Each time a character attacks, the movements are so seamlessly linked together, and will make you feel like you'll want to finish the fights rather than running away from them every chance you get.

It's also amazing how the random battle sequences are much more rare throughout the gameplay. Unlike the previous Final Fantasies, you can walk a good amount of distance, and not encounter a single fight. But, while in attack mode, another change is the ability to switch characters in and out of battle. Simply put, you are able to perform the function as I said it; your party's maximum amount of attackers remains at three, but, if a certain enemy is best beaten with a certain character, you can replace one of your guys with another and right then in the middle of battle, attack them with the substitute just like that. A strategy aspect is a large part of combat in the game. There is a menu on the top right section of the screen that reveals who is next in order to attack, whether it be the enemy or the ally. Since thinking is a part of the fighting, finishing off the enemy that has a turn next is always a good way to end a fight, for example. And, knowing who to choose from which character can defeat enemies the best makes thinking, next to fighting, a major part of the gameplay.

Furthermore, like the previous Fantasy titles, a specific combat system is presented. Like the earlier job system, or even the junction system, for that matter, your characters in battle use a meter that fills whenever the party member induces or receives damage to or from an enemy. When the gauge is finally filled, you can then access an "Over Drive" menu, which lists the Over Drives you have at your command. The drive function, when activated, creates a combo system that has you press a certain amount of buttons, rotate the analog stick, or even match three colors in a row on three separate spinning wheels all in a limited amount of time to perform a devastating attack against the enemy. More so, your characters are given "Abilities" to thwart the enemy's aggression. As your characters advance more into gaining better status points, new over drives and abilities will become available. As such, the abilities used range from magical spells, inflicting ailments like darkness or silence on an enemy, or even the ability to learn another enemy's skill.

After a fight is over, your characters gain points, which upgrade to their Sphere level points. The Sphere points then are used within the Sphere Grid. The Sphere Grid is a menu system where you can manually upgrade your characters by using the Sphere points to attain the ability of actually transcending across the hundreds of laid out directions. In each portion of the grid, you'll find spaces to level up your magic points (MP), health points (HP), and other related stats like agility, luck, and defense. In these spaces, you'll then use another set of collected points, which are also received after battle. The random battles in the game are a requirement in order to advance through the grid area.

Walking or running in any of the game's moments for travel, whether it is in a town or not, a map is placed on the upper left hand corner of the screen, that not only gives the location of your character within the map's target view, but it also reveals where you're supposed to be heading next. The map is a replacement for the use of the overhead outside surroundings, and each of the game's locales are endlessly linked together, which may make the game more linear, but in trade, more realistic.

Aside from the regular exploration of enemy inhabited mountain passes, watery tombs, and sandy trails looking for a fight, there is much exploration to do within towns themselves. Buying new items and weapons to keep your party alive is a must in order to survive the game's length. Each weapon and armor item has pre-equipped abilities, and never does it matter which exact one is used, since the weapons this time around don't lessen certain status points. Instead, what the weapons and armor will do is add extra strength to them. For instance, certain weapons or armor can raise your HP, MP, strength, or defense, as such. And some can defend you from attributes like dark, fire, and ice attacks. Sometimes a weapon, or an armored item, has one, or more than one ability already, to go along with its original one. So, the better the equipment is, the more you're likely to defend and attack better throughout the later struggles of the game.

To go along with the purchase of weaponry, items in their own right will do as they always have done in the Final Fantasy series, which is to aid your character with their abilities. Potions, which raise your health, phoenix downs, which bring your characters back to life, and other items like antidotes; used to cure poison ailments, and echo screens; used to cure silence (the character is unable to use magic if silence is cast upon them) are some of the regular items you'll be using along the way.

Another of the main assets to Final Fantasy X is the puzzles and mini games within. Two consistent puzzles remain throughout the game. One of them is a process for gathering pieces from a type of secretive language. There is a race of humans in the game in which do not speak human, called the Al Bheds. While advancing through the game, you'll see that more of the letters of the alphabet will be revealed as you collect their volumes of language. With the entire set of the Al Bhed language, you can find out what you've been missing by initiating in conversation with any one of them. The other puzzle is one where you'll find yourself visiting temples often. To get through the temple, by collecting assorted orbs, you can access magically sealed doors that could not be opened any other way. Once you resolve the matter by figuring out where to place the orbs in the certain order they must be contained in, the path will be opened. But aside from puzzles, Square's new mini game, Blitzball, is a clever and entertaining new sport that seems to be a combination of both basketball and soccer. By passes, dribbles, blocks, kicks, interceptions, and more, Blitzball is a sport where players use math problems to solve the equation of how to score a goal. I know, it sounds confusing, but really, there's an entire logic behind the game.

One of Square's best skills is the way they can make music work. Original, addicting, and all around dazzling is the best way to describe the music within the game. The legendary Nobuo Uematsu, who has composed each of the soundtracks for the Final Fantasy series, is back again with a remix of some old songs, and then, many new ones, which are scattered across the game's menu systems, villages, inside buildings, in enemy territory, and even in battle itself. You'll find that the blend of an orchestrated rhythm with harmony at its best is yet again done very well, as always, in the latest Final Fantasy game.

Regularly throughout the gameplay, the in-game sounds work just as well as they should. Through walking, running, exploring, fighting, and everything else, wherever you are and whatever you do in the game, the sounds all react to Tidus's actions, and the sound around him is exact. Pacing the floors of wood makes a wood noise. In battle, the slash of the sword and an explosion from a fire spell are finely tuned when hearing them. Even standing right next to a burning flame or the flowing ocean water makes all the difference, for sounds that are crisp and clearly heard all throughout.

For the first time ever in the series, voice actors have been included to turn the game's characters to living, breathing, emotional bodies that can do more than just have you live the tale, but also know what they're feeling through it. It's easy to say that the voices chosen for Final Fantasy X are perfect. At first, it might seem a little strange, but the character voices will grow on you through time, and then it's easy to see that Square made the right decision when they said they wanted to use voice actors for the next Final Fantasy. Long time fans of the game series should have nothing to worry about.