Unfinished Games: Final Fantasy X

I have a bit of a confession….I never finished Final Fantasy X. And it’s funny that I haven’t because it was the first Final Fantasy game that I played/bought.

I believe I was in the middle of playing, or finishing, the first Kingdom Hearts game, and that game was action in real time. Final Fantasy X was from Squaresoft just like Kingdom Hearts, so my 10 year old self assumed that they both must play the same. Man was I way off. Actually, now that I think about it, didn’t FFX come out before KH?

Any who, I’m pretty sure I don’t have to go into too much detail about FFX. Even if you haven’t played X you can probably figure out how it plays and the main story (Psst…..it’s “go save the world”), but for the sake of typing more and filling more space I’ll do a cliffs notes version:

Final Fantasy X is a turn based RPG in which you travel throughout the world of Spira fighting the evil forces of Sin. You play as Tidus, a pro blitzball player whom, through a series of REALLY unfortunate events basically time travels to the future. As you play through the game you’ll meet several other people who will help in the fight against Sin. To name a few: There’s Wakka , a blitzball player and devout follower of the Yevon order (his religion basically). Sir Auron the badass, a taciturn former warrior monk. Yuna, the daughter of a High Summoner who defeated Sin to bring about a time of peace and embarks on a pilgrimage to obtain the final aeon and defeat Sin for good. And Lulu, a stoic and self-possessed, but well-meaning Black Mage.

Now, even though I didn’t finish FFX, I still liked it, I really did. At the time I liked the voice acting, the graphics, the gameplay, all of it and it was on the PS2; the system that solidified my interest in video games. I can’t remember how many hours I put into FFX, not enough to finish it of course, but with rpgs you have to be dedicated to them so it must have been 25 hours at least. Hell, I still have my save file for it, sure I don’t have the game anymore but if I did, I’d probably got and finish it now (or attempt to). But that’s neither here nor there and I have to accept the (possible) ridicule of not beating X.

Some of you who read this may now be thinking, “Well that’s all well and good, but why didn’t you finish it? The article is called ‘Unfinished Games.’ Get on with it!”
Okay, geez, relax…and shut up.

Even after liking FFX as much as I did, after a while I started getting fed up with certain things. One of which is in almost every RPG to date….actually two things.

First: The random battles. Yeah I know. How can I be upset about random battles? It’s a frickin rpg, that’s what they’re supposed to have. But when I’m trying to get somewhere and for whatever reason there’s a time limit, or I’m running out of potions, or I’m just going to a save point…LEAVE me alone random enemies!! Especially when you’re trying to solve a puzzle. Your just running around trying to get from point A to point Q and every four steps the screen shatters and you have to fight Flan A, Flan B, and Flan C…AGAIN! Okay sure, you can probably take them out in 4 turns, but come on! I got places to be, worlds to save, and you want me to fight these guys where, 12 steps ago I killed their cousins/clones? Seriously?! On a positive note though, the battle and victory themes never get old.

Second: Boss Battles. Again, these are in every rpg….and almost, if not all games nowadays, but there’s always those 3-4 bosses that are stupid hard for no good reason. I remember fighting this one boss that looked like a giant bubble and it could change it’s elemental type whenever the f^*k it wanted. And you couldn’t run!

Yeah that thing.

Some bosses just had high hp and cheap attacks just for the fun of it. And me being the genius gamer that I am, never bothered with haste or slow, I always figured: “Why worry about stat bonuses when I can do damage? The boss is faster than me anyway, can’t waste any turns. Plus I have Cura.”

This third reason kinda goes back to my random battles issue. Remember those temple challenges you had to complete in order to get to the summon in said temple? They were called Cloister of Trial or something? Yeah, those got on my nerves too. The first one I ever did annoyed me so much that I thought I’d be stuck at that part of the game until the end of time, but the gamer in me said ‘screw that’ and I forced myself to figure it out. And by ‘figure it out’ I mean stumble around until a cutscene happened. I had a hard time with these when there were no enemies to be fought, so when random battles started happening I was silently weeping on the inside, but I still go through it.

Now I have one final reason for never beating Final Fantasy X. This reason was the final nail in the coffin for me when it came to progressing. (Warning: Profanity may follow)

HIM!

That mother fucker is the bane of my FFX career. This man…in one fight (or the same fight played several times), made me hate FFX. Now the first time you meet him in the game, he helps you in a boss fight, and he was badass. But I knew that something was off about him. He was way too overpowered in that fight to be an ally. His very appearance screams “BAD GUY!!” and when you do fight him, he’s a prick in every sense of the word. If I recall correctly he summons Anima during the fight. Fucking ANIMA!! And even after you beat her…him...it, the fight’s still not over. Maybe my lvls were too low at the time but I did eventually beat him, and I was happy…until you fight him again later on in the game.

I quit playing FFX when I got to that second fight with him, and I was fine with that, I was happier still when I found out that you fight him a couple more times after that.

You know what? Maybe I shouldn’t go back and try finishing Final Fantasy X. Maybe I should just leave that save file as is and continue my life as a gamer like I already have. I’ve seen the ending, I know how it ends and I’ve played X-2. Which, ironically enough, I still own and have beaten!! (Not knowing that I was at the last boss fight).