FFX/X-2

[maidenhaver]

Made my way back to these games with the HD remaster. Still my favorite sports game. Does the remaster change anything major? I didn't remember Rikku's chapter, from my last playthrough 20 years ago, just getting washed up on the beach, after the Sin attack. Was that chapter original?

[GhostCow]

The only thing that has been changed is the graphics. Also I guess you have the option to choose between both versions of the sphere grid. The international version is different and gives you more freedom.

[maidenhaver]

The music was also rearanged. I think it also asked me if I wanted to play blitzball with X-2s rules. I don't remember the difference. I just remember I thought X-2 was my favorite FF. I'll find out.

[GhostCow]

X-2 would have been awesome if it had been turn based. I really liked the dress sphere system. I never got very far though because the combat is **** and Payne is not easy on the eyes.

[BlueMemphis]

I ain't played FFX/X-2 in more then a decade but I'm 90% sure there was no rikku chapter prior to Tidus getting washed up, that definitely sounds new.

[Lich]

Same but I didn't care about Rikku as a character.

[maidenhaver]

I didn't think so. It was a real quick undersea level in old Zanarkand. Then Tidus get attacked by Sin again after Rikku tells him Zanarkand was sunk 1000 years ago. Tidus didn't find out he had time traveled until later on, now the remaster tells you in the first 10 minutes.

[Segata]

Same but I didn't care about Rikku as a character.

She has an interesting backstory

[BlueMemphis]

I didn't think so. It was a real quick undersea level in old Zanarkand. Then Tidus get attacked by Sin again after Rikku tells him Zanarkand was sunk 1000 years ago. Tidus didn't find out he had time traveled until later on, now the remaster tells you in the first 10 minutes.

Wtf is this pointless change? Actually no it's worst then pointless because it damages the narrative.
It completely eliminates the payoff to Tidus being temporally displaced, in the original Tidus genuinely believes he can get back to his zanarkand for a good portion of the initial story. Kinda silly now if he still acts that way when he sees its corpse that early in the game.

[Lich]

I didn't think so. It was a real quick undersea level in old Zanarkand. Then Tidus get attacked by Sin again after Rikku tells him Zanarkand was sunk 1000 years ago. Tidus didn't find out he had time traveled until later on, now the remaster tells you in the first 10 minutes.

Wtf is this pointless change? Actually no it's worst then pointless because it damages the narrative.
It completely eliminates the payoff to Tidus being temporally displaced, in the original Tidus genuinely believes he can get back to his zanarkand for a good portion of the initial story. Kinda silly now if he still acts that way when he sees its corpse that early in the game.

They were worried new players might get confused

[maidenhaver]

Half the fun was watching Tidus cry when people laughed at him for saying he's from Zanarkand. Then he tells the priests, they censor him from the blitzball tournament, and that's supposed to be when he learns he isn't on another continent, but stranded in the future. Or so I remember. All that's stolen from new players.

[KnightoftheWind]

Apparently Final Fantasy XVI includes a sodomite character with an explicit sodomite scene included (sex scene?), and it has seemingly been banned in Saudi Arabia as a result. In case there was any doubt Square Enix was pozzed, there is our confirmation.

Hope this ****** company gets the Bud Light treatment.

[MadPreacher]

Apparently Final Fantasy XVI includes a sodomite character with an explicit sodomite scene included (sex scene?), and it has seemingly been banned in Saudi Arabia as a result. In case there was any doubt Square Enix was pozzed, there is our confirmation.

Hope this ****** company gets the Bud Light treatment.

Everyone is a sodomite these days. If you have oral sex with a woman that's sodomy. If you **** a woman in the *** that's sodomy. I'm sure you had a point in your extremely ******** brain, but your retardation got in the way.

[Lich]

FF has always been pretty gay

[Lich]

Saudis don't play RPGs, they play only soccer games.

[maidenhaver]

FF has always been pretty gay

This is how the gays win. They add sodomy to a game and people who never cared about the game say "hmm yeah, [game] was always gay." **** you, gamers.

Saudis don't play RPGs, they play only soccer games.

FFX is an underwater soccer RPG.

[Lich]

This is how the gays win. They add sodomy to a game and people who never cared about the game say "hmm yeah, [game] was always gay." **** you, gamers.

The way to make gays lose is to stop making gay games, rather than claim how games that have always been gay actually aren't gay.

[maidenhaver]

You don't even play games.

[Oyster Sauce]

Tidus getting to finally tell his dad that he hates him is my favorite Final Fantasy moment.

Also there's no time travel in FFX.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Does the remaster change anything major?

The facial animations were botched in the transfer. Also, some of the remade models do not match the original vision. In the remaster Auron looks like a young man. Best to play an emulation of the PS2 original.

I'm 90% sure there was no rikku chapter prior to Tidus getting washed up, that definitely sounds new.

He might be thinking of the halfbaked implementation of dating sim mechanics, where there is a hidden affection meter with Yuna/Lulu/Rikka, and whoever has the highest stat gets a couple lines of dialogue during certain scenes, such as the snowmobile ride.

[Magick]

I ain't played FFX/X-2 in more then a decade but I'm 90% sure there was no rikku chapter prior to Tidus getting washed up, that definitely sounds new.

Immediately after he gets taken from Zanarkand (at the start of the game) he ends up on some sort of Al Behd ship where they go diving to some ancient ruin (I believe this ends up being the airship that you get later?) Rikku is with him but in her diver suit. He then gets sucked into the water again somehow and wakes up on Besaid beach and meets Wakka.

[TinyLittleBigGuy]

Half the fun was watching Tidus cry when people laughed at him for saying he's from Zanarkand. Then he tells the priests, they censor him from the blitzball tournament, and that's supposed to be when he learns he isn't on another continent, but stranded in the future. Or so I remember. All that's stolen from new players.

I don't think this is correct... I played the original version and pretty sure Tidus' monologue on the Al-Bhed ship ("2000 years?!?!") is the same. I don't think any new dialogue was recorded for the remaster - maybe this scene stuck out more now that you have the benefit of knowing the twist is that he didn't time travel? As a first time player I definitely recall thinking he was a time traveller, and most of what happens on Besaid wouldn't make a lot of sense if you didn't have that impression.

Tidus getting to finally tell his dad that he hates him is my favorite Final Fantasy moment.

Very moving moment, incredible catharsis. Honestly, as a fan of the entire series, X's story tempo, music, and aesthetics put it more and more on another level for me. Other than VIII (who's ending portion was way too flat), nothing comes close to hitting me in the feels like X. VII's melodrama doesn't do it for me anymore, and all the others in the 3D era really didn't get me invested in the characters the same way (though I never played XII).

FFII's austere pessimism still has charm, similar to IV's dark tone (along with the Kain-Rosa-Cecil love triangle); but even as an adult, everything in X still hits every time.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

I think FF10 is tied with FF9 as my favorite Final Fantasy. I loved the visuals of FF10, namely the monster designs (Anima!) and the magick particle effects, the faces of the characters in the cutscenes, and some of the wilderness environments such as Zanarkand, the Farplane, the river with the magic flowers, etc. But I was not keen on some of the slutty designs of the character outfits (namely the NPCs), and the cities/towns didn't stick with me that much. Whereas with FF9 I really loved the background art like the Ilfia tree, and especially the cities and cultures like Alexandria, Lindblum, Burmecia, etc, though the character models, monsters, and magick didn't look as good as FF10's. Soundtrack for both games is overall good.

Gameplay wise, FF10 could be actually challenging unlike the PS1 FFs (without being boring like FF12), though the false promises and the tediousness of the Sphere Grid is a minus for me. But FF10's gameplay was more engaging due to the way each character was useful in the battles. Wolves would dodge most physical attacks, but Tidus was fast enough to hit them. Flying enemies were out of reach of melee attackers, so you needed Wakka to hurl his weapon at it or cast spells. Tidus' sword would glance off of heavily armored enemies, so you needed Auron to shatter it. Etc. Wish this idea had been further built upon, with you needing to combo in different characters (like using gravity to bring down a flying enemy and then shattering its armor).

I liked the introspective, melancholic tone of FF10 and also the voice acting (more immersive than most modern JRPG dubs) and choice of music during cutscenes, but also found it easier to get invested in FF9 due to the likeable characters and the humor. But FF9 really loses interest after you return to Lindblum a few hours into disc 3, and the "battle for all existence" climax is a little too out there/hard to grasp given how the first two discs were about a war between two city-states/small kingdoms. Whereas FF10 stays within the scope it establishes early on. FF10 has a boring middle around the ice temple part, but the first and last acts are good.

I never played XII

Worth a play (emulate the PS2 version, not the so-called "remaster"). Probably the best movie in the series, with the best cutscene direction/cinematography and a good English voice acting and dialogue (though I guess there might be some hypocrisy on my behalf given how heavily editorialized the English localization is while I have complained about other JRPG localizations, but this is a rare case where it is really good and not ****). Some of the environments can look good at times, though maybe that is my nostalgia for 2000's bloom effects.

The music is too noisy. Too much going on too often. There are a few keepers, but overall I do not like the soundtrack.

Unfortunately, the game's combat is not fun. It does not have the fancy camera angles and presentation and characters doing cool leaps that the other FF games have, so it feels unglamourous watching your guys stand around doing weak autoattacks under a static camera. Purportedly, the game was supposed to be like the intro level of the game (where you fight with several Dalmascan soldiers) in that you were supposed to be commanding a lot of guys on the field (soldiers from the Resistance/officers loyal to Larsa and Al Cid? NPC adventurers like Seeq and Bangaa?) rather than just a small RPG adventuring party, but the devs were already pushing the game to its maximum and had to reduce the render resolution of the game, and then further reduce it by adding black bars/letterboxing for cutscenes, and couldn't fit more character models onscreen without it becoming really choppy.

Another issue is that story wise, the game was how the game was often boring/disinteresting. I overall did not feel super invested into the story. I think the main cast of 6 characters are overall dry. They're not charming or very likeable like prior FF casts, or even FF13's. Maybe it's the lack of humor or the characters being buddy buddy with each other. They feel pretty distant and mercenary-like, as if no one really cares about what happens to each other. I wish that the much more lively side characters like Larsa or Al Cid or Dr. Cid were my party members.

There are also three stretches where I got bored: the long hike to Raithwall's Tomb, and then to Mount Bur Omisce, and then to Archadia. Hours on end of just constant running and boring MMO autoattack fights, with little happening story wise or interesting minigames or discovery of fantastical towns to keep the interest up. Also, the creator Matsuno left during development, and the game feels unfinished. Whatever Vaan was supposed to do later in the story doesn't happen, so he feels like an aborted storyline, and the final act with the death star feels uncharacteristic of where the story was going. Feels like the new director came in and decided that rather than finishing the game as Matsuno envisioned it, to just tie up things immediately and went for a movie cliche rather than something proper.

[Gastrick]

This game was alright, if you do really want to play it, the original is much better. The remake makes the poor facial animations look visually offputting, and remember dropping it a few hours in. For the PS2 game, something to keep in mind is that the European version has more endgame content in the form of various super-bosses, so this is the version to get.

Apparently Final Fantasy XVI includes a sodomite character with an explicit sodomite scene included (sex scene?), and it has seemingly been banned in Saudi Arabia as a result. In case there was any doubt Square Enix was pozzed, there is our confirmation.

Don't remember this scene at all. Know many of the NPCs dress in a gay way here.

[Gastrick]

Amusing video that goes over various problems with the game (Tidus is a wimp, gravity-defying haircuts, etc.):

[Faceless_Sentinel]

Spoony criticized this game and showed how illogical and stupid its plot is.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

"Why didn't they fly the ring to Mt. Doom"? You can nitpick anything if you try hard enough. He's no better than cinemasins in that he engages in pedantry for pedantry's sake. You have to be willing to try to give yourself over to the story and they just don't. They just want to say "look at how smart I am haha". I remember him making FF13 out to be incomprehensible gibberish when it wasn't.

[Faceless_Sentinel]

"Why didn't they fly the ring to Mt. Doom"? You can nitpick anything if you try hard enough. He's no better than cinemasins in that he engages in pedantry for pedantry's sake. You have to be willing to try to give yourself over to the story and they just don't. They just want to say "look at how smart I am haha". I remember him making FF13 out to be incomprehensible gibberish when it wasn't.

There is special timecode for people like you:

You have to be willing to try to give yourself over to the story and they just don't.

If story demands you to turn off your brain to "give yourself over" to it, then it is a bad story.

I remember him making FF13 out to be incomprehensible gibberish when it wasn't.

But it is incomprehensible gibberish.

[Oyster Sauce]

Spoony criticized this game and showed how illogical and stupid its plot is.

This guy blast himself yet?

[Rand]

Spoony criticized this game and showed how illogical and stupid its plot is.

This guy blast himself yet?

Who cares.
He's effectively dead already.