Blast from the past! Final Fantasy X
Final Fantasy X was a milestone. With its world, characters and combat system, the game – released in Japan on 19 July 2001 – set new standards. The series hasn’t reached that level since.
Playing Final Fantasy X for the first time, I found myself at a turning point. It was time to say farewell to my familiar everyday life. That’s how profound Final Fantasy X felt to me in 2002, when it was finally released here ten months after its Japanese debut. Because the game is exactly about that: saying goodbye.
The story of Final Fantasy X leaves me with a feeling of having experienced something unique that’ll never happen again. Since then, very few games have evoked that feeling in me – The Last of Us and Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 among them. Square Enix itself hasn’t been able to reach this level since. All despite Final Fantasy XIII and Final Fantasy XVI relying on linear worlds, strong stories and systems reminiscent of the Sphere Grid too. Still, Final Fantasy X remains unrivalled. And to celebrate its 25th anniversary, I’m looking back on the classic.
A journey with many faces
Our story begins in Zanarkand, shortly before Sin – a massive, unstoppable monster – destroys Tidus’s hometown. Amid the rubble, Tidus suddenly finds himself a thousand years in the future, in a strange world called Spira. There, he joins forces with Yuna, a young summoner on a pilgrimage to gather the power she needs for the so-called Final Summoning – a ritual that can defeat Sin for a short time. The two are accompanied by a diverse party: Blitzball captain Wakka, taciturn Black Mage Lulu, cheerful Al-Bhed thief Rikku and mysterious warrior Auron, whom Tidus already knows from Zanarkand.
Source: Screenshot: YouTube/Shirrako
What begins as a classic save-the-world narrative turns into a multi-layered story about guilt, forgiveness and a specific question: how far will you go to preserve a lie? At every stage, things become clearer: Yuna’s pilgrimage won’t lead to victory, but to her certain death. And the budding love between her and Tidus, of all things, threatens to shake this centuries-old system around the Final Summoning to its core. Looking back today, all of this may seem familiar. But back then, it was revolutionary, and left a deep impression on me.
Characters with depth
At first glance, Tidus seems like your typical cheerful if naive hero. This archetype often feels too one-dimensional to me, too heavily geared toward being likeable. Fortunately, on closer inspection, he reveals more depth. He might look cheerful, but his monologues betray an inner conflict.
Source: Screenshot: YouTube/Shirrako
Tidus’s relationship with his father, Jecht, is also unusually complex. Jecht, a hero to the outside world, was a selfish alcoholic at home. And Tidus has to watch as everyone raves about Jecht’s greatness, even though our hero suffered at his hands.
Yuna, for her part, is willing to sacrifice her life for world peace, even though she knows that this peace will only be temporary. She sets out on her journey with a smile, rather than sinking into grief. It’s only through Tidus that she begins to question this injustice.
Source: Screenshot: YouTube/Shirrako
To me, the romance between Tidus and Yuna is one of the best in the series – maybe even in the entire genre. Unlike many JRPG couples who’ve known each other forever, I get to experience the entire journey here: two people from different worlds finding their way to each other. First as friends, then as a couple.
But the other characters are just as compelling. Rikku is the lively thief of the group, and despite her perpetually cheerful disposition, she admires Lulu of all people – her polar opposite. Lulu herself is a stoic Black Mage. She rarely speaks, but when she does, her words are often brutally honest. Her aloof demeanour belies a tragic backstory: she lost her one true love, Chappu, Wakka’s younger brother. It’s precisely this shared loss that initially creates tension between her and Wakka, before later bringing the two together.
Source: Screenshot: YouTube/Shirrako
Auron, on the other hand, is a warrior hiding a great secret. At a mere 35 years old, he’s officially the oldest member of the party. Yet with his grey hair and wrinkles, he looks much older – a typical JRPG cliché, but it’s cleverly subverted here.
Source: Screenshot: YouTube/Shirrako
Overall, all the characters are wonderfully written, and I can relate to them even today. Okay, except for Kimahri, whom I haven’t mentioned yet. In all honesty, I’d initially completely forgotten about him. A shame – the character had potential. It’s classic Final Fantasy: non-human characters remain underdeveloped. That was also the case in Final Fantasy IX.
A world that questions its religion
At its core, Final Fantasy X encourages players to question culture, society and religion. This is evident, for example, in Wakka’s prejudice against a certain ethnic group and its use of machines (Machina). This technology, not dangerous in and of itself, has been declared evil by the Church. It isn’t until Wakka is confronted with the truth that he begins to rethink his views. For a long while, he doesn’t realise Rikku and Yuna’s mother were also part of this group. Prejudices tend to stick around as long as they remain abstract and don’t come into contact with the real people they stereotype.
Source: Screenshot: YouTube/Shirrako
Main antagonist Sin embodies humanity’s collective guilt, manifesting itself as an endless cycle of destruction, atonement and false hope. As the story unfolds, we learn how this cycle came to be. Sin was created by humans during a past conflict.
This sets Final Fantasy X apart from other JRPGs, in which the player often has to defeat a god at the end. Maester Seymour Guado is another antagonist who, in his own twisted way, seeks redemption. He wants to control Sin and turn all the inhabitants of Spira into undead in order to put an end to death and suffering once and for all – a solution that may seem logical, but ultimately only creates another nightmare.
Source: Screenshot: YouTube/Shirrako
A wholly unique world
Spira itself remains one-of-one to this day. Game director Yoshinori Kitase wanted to break the stereotype of fantasy always looking like medieval Europe, and instead drew inspiration from Asian cultures. The result: an island world covered by oceans, with its unique style and a soundtrack by Nobuo Uematsu and Masashi Hamauzu, both melodic and atmospheric. It’s a shame that a setting like this hasn’t yet made it into a Final Fantasy game a second time.
The game also set new standards from a technical standpoint. It pushed the PlayStation 2 to its limits, especially with all those pre-rendered cutscenes, which remain impressive to this day.
Source: Screenshot: YouTube/Shirrako
Battles as tactical puzzles
The battles in Final Fantasy X feel like little puzzles. I analyse my resources, my skills on the Sphere Grid and my enemies’ weaknesses to determine the optimal strategy. The turn order is visible, so I can plan my actions in advance. This adds tactical depth.
Source: Screenshot: YouTube/Shirrako
Unlike in previous instalments, where enemies could attack even during pauses, Final Fantasy X uses a turn-based system. Time no longer matters, giving the game a more strategic feel. Limit Breaks return as Overdrives that can be customised individually. Another new feature is that you can swap out party members right in the middle of battle.
My summons (Aeons) are no longer simple special attacks; they can now be actively controlled and used strategically, say to block attacks.
Source: Screenshot: YouTube/Shirrako
The Sphere Grid: impactful choices
At first glance, the Sphere Grid looks like an ordinary skill tree, but it’s much more complex. Instead of traditional levels, I assign Sphere Levels and move up the board that way. All the while, I have to think carefully about where I want to go. After all, reverting choices will cost me too. Decisions carry weight, but they remain reversible. The board is fully interconnected, so every character can theoretically learn any ability. Empty nodes can be customised, for example, with extra HP or new abilities.
Source: Screenshot: YouTube/Shirrako
Skill trees later in the series pale in comparison. The Crystarium from Final Fantasy XIII boils down to three stats and offers hardly any real choices. Meanwhile, the progression system in Final Fantasy XVI is nothing more than a list of abilities.
Linearity as a strength, and minigames that make me cry
People often highlight the linearity of Final Fantasy X, but rarely as a negative – unlike Final Fantasy XIII. The reason: the pace is just right. Battles are fast-paced and locales are compact yet full of secrets. Minigames and puzzles only add variety to the gameplay.
Source: Screenshot: YouTube/Shirrako
Still, not everything’s perfect. To obtain Celestial weapons – the best in the game – you’ll need to complete a brutal minigame. For Tidus’s sword Caladbolg, I have to win a Chocobo race with controls so annoying that I end up throwing my controller into the corner in frustration more than once. And speaking of annoying controls, in-game sport Blitzball can also be a source of frustration. To earn Wakka’s World Champion title, I must either win 100 matches or finish in at least third place in the league or the cup. But all of that pales in comparison to Lulu’s Onion Knight. To get my hands on the coolest sounding weapon ever, the game demands I dodge lightning strikes 200 times in the Thunder Plains – without leaving the area or saving, of course. And how do I do that? Simple: just press the right button at the right time. Life is pain.
Source: Screenshot: YouTube/Shirrako
A sequel I never liked
Final Fantasy X-2 was the first game in the main series to receive a sequel. In it, Yuna searches for Tidus. Like Auron, he vanished into thin air at the end of the first game. It’s a Sixth Sense moment: both of them were already dead. What a twist! A shame, then, that X-2 actually undoes the moving finale of X.
To me, it was a slap in the face. After Aerith in Final Fantasy VII, Square Enix had once again shown courage in seeing an ending through. X taught me that life sometimes takes unpleasant turns that you just have to accept. The fact that X-2 then just busts out a deus ex machina in response – I just don’t get it. That doesn’t happen in real life. It’s as if the game hadn’t taken its own lessons to heart.
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