Final Fantasy X is a typical Sqaure game. You take good graphics, great music, a fairly typical though an entertaining combat system, a compelling story, and a magical world, throw them into one, and add a few new things here and there.
To start off, the story. I'm not going to go into ANY details, for ruining this story is ruining the game. The story is what makes this game great. Everything else about it is good, but nothing to put it above the rest of the market. The story is long, and will compel you to play. Or, compel you to watch. For every one minute of play time you get 2-5 minutes of ingame cutscenes and FMVs. But, in this case, it isn't a bad thing.
The gameplay is you typical turn based affair, with only 3 members of your party in battle at one time (Though you can switch who ever has priority for another character right in the middle of battle, and the switched charater can act right away). Each character and enemy takes turns attacking and casting spells in order to defeat their opponent; but you already knew that, right?
You are also required to do some exploration, which is not to open though not too linear either. Nothing to complain about.
Instead of the classic 'gain experience and level up' formula that has been the standard for generations, FFX features a new sphere grid system. Everyone of your party members is on the same massive spere grid, though in differnt locations.THere are hundreds of spaces all over the place, each connected by paths. Some spaces are empty, while other contain new abilities, stat upgrades, etc. As you win battles your characters will each accumulate movement points. These can be used to move around on the sphere grid. One point = One space. When you are next to or on an upgrade or ability you need to use the correct sphere to activate it. If you don't have the right sphere, the node remains dormant, and you get nothing until you use the correct sphere.
The music in this game is fantastic, but would you expect anything less from Square? The music always adds a nice mood to the game when needed or picks up pace during a battle. My only qualm with the sound department is the voice acting. While most of it is excellent, a few lines are pretty stale, and Tidus, the main character, is yet another 'nails-on-chackboard' speaker. But the good outweighs the bad.
The in game graphics are pretty good for a PS2 RPG, but what really amazes are the FMVs. You are treated to these hyper-realistic scenes enough to satisfy, though still leaving you yearning for more. You mainly view in game cutscenes, which look nice and happen quite often (Take all the cutscenes in MGS2, add a few hours worth more, and then break them up into tolorable lengths) You are stuck with fixed camera angles, which work very well for the most part. Sometimtes you will be unable to see certain areas or chests due to the angle of vision, but it works.
The minigames in this range from okay to great. The main focus is obviously Bliztball, an odd sort of underwater football/soccer/basketball. It isn't that entertaining, and is rather hard to play due to some bad camera work, but it gets points for creativity.
If you don't mind putting the controller down and watching something just as much as playing, then this game will make you very happy. If you are a fan of RPGs I would recommend it, and for eveyone else, rent it to judge for yourself.
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