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 PS2 Review by: Kazooie If history is any indication, a transition to a new platform for the Final Fantasy series can be fraught with controversy. The last platform change for Square's ridiculously popular RPG franchise gave us many cries of a supposed (but nonexistent) subordinating of game play and story to graphics and full-motion video. With a complete redesign of the battle and game play systems, a new real-time graphics engine, and full voice acting being introduced to match the higher capabilities of the PlayStation 2; there was plenty of room for error in Final Fantasy X, the latest entry in the series. Thankfully, while the handling of the voice acting isn't ideal, the other newly introduced concepts are some of the best the RPG genre has ever seen. Among the graphic improvements, also revamped are the environments; they're displayed in real-time by the PS2, as opposed to the flat pre-rendered locales of the PlayStation games. A roving camera follows the main character, Tidus, as he moves about; while it's out of the player's control, small radar in the upper left corner of the screen maps out the surroundings. The radar also highlights features such as exits and save points, and even points you to your next destination when appropriate. Thumbs-up for this ingenious addition--it prevents disorientation from the moving camera, as well as letting you know where to go and what's available to be explored. Most importantly of all, Tetsuya Nomura's outlandishly and ornately costumed characters are rendered in such realism that you feel you could reach out and touch them. Indeed, it's pretty clear that Square knows what they've accomplished, as a shameless amount of close-ups on the characters' faces show off details as meticulous as eyelashes, lips, scars, and even tears. As if this weren't enough, characters' facial expressions change in real-time, reflecting their fear, sadness, anger, or happiness. However, this part of the technology seems to be in its infancy: there just doesn't seem to be true range in the facial animation, with such actions as a smile ending up too subtle and barely noticeable. Indeed, Tidus (the main character) seems to display a stoned, glassy-eyed stare a bit too often. There's some room for improvement here, but this is an already great achievement to build off of. The CTB system is reminiscent of Final Fantasy Tactics in the way it orders characters' and enemies' actions based on their agility, and in the way that different types of actions (attacking, spellcasting, guarding) have different amounts of recovery time. In battle, a small scrollable window shows the order of the next 20 or so actors in the battle; in addition to the usual status ailments of the FF games, various delaying and quick-recovery techniques can affect a character or enemy's spot in the initiative order. The ability to bring any inactive character into the fray puts every character at your disposal and assures you're never without Yuna's healing magic, Lulu's damage spells, or Auron's ability to crush enemies' defenses. Of course, having all these options at your disposal gives the developers the freedom to throw enemies at you that would be cheap in any other RPG--even random encounters against regular enemies require the use of particular characters. Trying to beat on an armored enemy instead of using magic might not kill you, but it'll certainly make the battle take longer than it needs to. Be bull-headed and use unsuited characters against a boss, and you will probably get killed, especially later in the game. This is a big improvement over some of the previous games, in which simply sending in two tanks and a healer would beat just about anything. The summoned aeons, as mentioned before, also don't unbalance combat in your As if all this weren't enough, it's possible to customize aeons and your equipment by using items, much like the weapon upgrade system in Final Fantasy VIII. Stealing the items necessary to make a killer set of gear, or upgrade your aeons to godhood status, could be time-consuming projects at least. The people of Spira engage in a waterborne sport known as Blitzball as their sole diversion; a disturbingly well-developed Blitzball sub-game lets you assemble a team and ascend through the tournament ranks in exchange for prizes. In further addition, a chocobo raising mini-game, a side-quest that involves capturing the planet's various monsters, and other assorted side-quests accessible very late in the game create the titanic play value one usually expects from a Final Fantasy title, over and above the main storyline's 40 or so hours. At the very least, Final Fantasy X deftly sidesteps the pitfalls it could have fallen into--the new graphical engine and voice acting is handled competently. The game goes further, though, delivering a tightly crafted, touching story, and as if that weren't enough, the Sphere Grid character development system and redesigned battle engine are ideal in both design and execution. Final Fantasy 10 could have had a better plot, but it is still worth it. I give Final Fantasy 10 for PS2 a 10/10. 10/10
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