Final Fantasy X

The title screen comes into focus as movie style credits play over a montage of Final Fantasy X's characters sitting around a fire talking like they're in a Dockers ad. After the title screen you are given a choice of two sections. One is called Zanarkand and the other is called Besaid Island. What we know about the story pretty much shows that the Zanarkand section is the actual beginning of the game.

In Final Fantasy X you take the role of Tidus, a young man living in the futuristic city of Zanarkand. In this future baseball has been replaced by a sport called blitzball as the national pastime. Blitzball is much like soccer played in a giant zero gravity dome. As the first cut scene opens, a throng of people are crowding a stadium for a blitzball match set to some great rock music. Tidus is a star blitzball player and as he is enjoying his moment in the spotlight, a violent force is destroying the city. Outside the stadium, Tidus meets his father's friend Auron. Auron tells Tidus this force is called "Sin." Sin proceeds to unleash a giant squid monster and smaller winger tiger looking things upon the city. Auron tells Tidus they have to break through the waves of monsters and gives Tidus a sword. Totally going off on a tangent here, but doesn't anybody carry guns in these futuristic societies?

Well regardless, this is where you're allowed to take over. There's a battle with the evil hordes and you'll notice some things. First Final Fantasy's time based battles are gone. This is pure old school turn based fighting. And what I thought was particularly cool was the turn order was shown in a table on the right side of the screen. A very cool way to work strategy into the battles. Another new feature is the Overdrive bar. When the Overdrive bar fills up in a battle, you can unleash special Overdrive techniques on a monster. A screen pops up that shows a button combination and a time limit. If you complete the button combination in the time limit, your Overdrive is superpowered. After the fight with the giant squid, Sin takes a page from Unicron from The Transformers Movie and begins to devour the city. Everything is sucked into the void. End of Zanarkand demo.

There isn't a whole lot to do in the Zanarkand demo. It's more there to give you a small taste of the new battle system and to excite your senses with some wild cut scenes. These scenes were amazing, as Sin destroying the city is truly a sight to behold. However, for a more in-depth feel at playing the game, there is the Besaid Island demo.

Besaid Island is more of a tropical paradise than the bustling metropolis that Zanarkand was. On the island we meet some of the characters Tidus meets on his journey. Wakka, an islander. Lulu, a witch. Yuna, a princess. And Kimahri, her beastly protector.

Here is where we see much more of the beautiful polygonal environments that Final Fantasy X offers. Everything is very detailed on Besaid Island. The environments aren't very large, but they are detailed, living, breathing worlds. The monsters are also living, breathing, hulking beasts. The design on all of them is amazing. Also on Besaid Island you are shown the rest of the battle system. It wouldn't be a Final Fantasy without Summons and Spells, and Final Fantasy X does not disappoint. The Summons and Spells still feature cut scenes to accompany them, but they're nowhere as lengthy as they used to be, however they still can't be skipped. Final Fantasy X also has a Swap option for the middle of battles. Normally you are only allowed three people to fight in your party at any one time. But by using the Swap option, you can swap in any member of your party for another. Comes in handy when you know a certain spell could kill a monster quickly, or a party member is about to die.

Final Fantasy X seems to have finally found that balance between a new school look and old school play mechanics. And the most new school thing they could have done was adding voice acting to Final Fantasy. The small samples of the voices we've been given so far seem to fit with the character designs. And the people doing the voice acting seem to handle the dialogue well.