Final Fantasy X is 13 years old this year, a number with which Square Enix seems to have a rather large obsession. With this though they have managed to create some wonderful games under the Final Fantasy title, popular amongst them, usually herald as one of the best, is Final Fantasy X! Bringing back Final Fantasy X was a wise move by Square Enix, it was also the most logical of the choices. Final Fantasy X was the instalment that brought voice over work to the game, giving characters another dimension and great facial animation at the time. The HD Remaster has revealed some of the little issues of the series however, some things ageing not quite as well as others.
Recapping for a second, Final Fantasy X is the story of Yuna, a young fledgling summoner on her quest to defeat the undefeatable Sin, bringing with it what is known as the Calm, a 10 year spam of peace until Sin is reborn and returns to wreak havoc once again. You view this adventure through the eyes of Tidus, a man who knows nothing of the world of Spira thankfully, so the other characters, especially Lulu, can provide detailed exposition. There is one huge tie that makes Tidus a great character that fits this game very well in a more twisted way than expected, but just in case you haven’t played this before I won’t spoil it. So you join up with Yuna, wakka, Lulu and the stalwart Khimari Ronso, the only person in the game with a last name, also a giant blue beast of a humanoid. Onwards does the journey through Spira begin, filled with level grinding, overdrive abuse, Aeon summoning, Blitzball and of course Seymour, everyone’s favourite utter bad-ass and resident complete psychotic! This game is seriously great!
Firstly the cutscenes have been done over to suit the 1080p resolution and they do look great on both the Playstation 3 and the Playstation Vita. Great on the Vita in particular with its OLED screen, it really does the game some great justice. The Vita version in particular has a couple of features specific to it.
Firstly the game looks stunning on the handheld and runs at a beautifully smooth frame rate, I never saw anything that would give away a struggle, loading times were very fast and the system handled it well with minimal battery use. It also had some unique features using the side touch pads on the system. Sliding your finger across the screen will bring up a menu when not in battle, the menu allows you to quick heal, which is extremely useful for travelling, selecting either items or magic will use the exact amount of magic or items to fix your party up without you having to manually trudge through the menu’s to get the job done.
Another use of this swipe is when Yuna is on the battlefield, you can immediately switch between the long and short versions of her summons, which is good mostly because these can take some time, especially with some of the overdrives. Aside from some User Interface updates, its smoother gameplay and visuals, everything about FFX is the same, also as with FFX-2. The best improvements for me has to be the updated facial animation for the main cast of characters, the NPC’s still have box face, which unfortunately has not aged to the games favour at all, highlighted more by the clearer and much better textures, the team have managed to fix up everything else.
Now Bravely Default, a game that showed Square Enix that, yeah shockingly everyone loves the traditional JRPG’s of yesteryear being brought forth into this generation to the point where, Square Enix publicly stated that they had lost sight of the way they created games and are now pulling back to create them the way they should have been. Final Fantasy X/X-2 shows that the turn based and ATB systems still work. The sign couldn’t have been clearer with Bravely Default, but the Final Fantasy X‘s system shines like a gem even nowadays, with its judgement turn based battle system.
The Vita handles this game perfectly, receiving a very hearty recommendation from me. The game holds up well after 13 years of wear and tear, but it is still great. Sticking true to my love of the game I reached Mt Gagazet and listened hard to the music, it works, the remastered soundtrack is great, and not everything is perfect with it, but its great stuff none the less, making me happy at least! Nobuo Uematsu is one of the greatest Japanese composers from Square Enix, alongside Yoko Shimmomura, creating some of the best JRPG music in the gaming industry. Showcasing a remastered version of his music in this game is a great homage to his work.
Final Fantasy X/X-2 HD Remaster is a great JRPG from back in the day that looks and plays formidably even now. It should be enjoyed now again just like I enjoyed it when I was but a boy. Fans of Final Fantasy and JRPG’s need to buy this collection now!