I always wanted to play this cause of it´s reputation as one of the greatest final fantasy games out there, but I didnt have a ps2 back in the day and only recently got access to one.

I´ve heard a lot of great things about the game´s story, but I find it absolutely horrible: Dumb clichès and one ridiculous line after another, Im really struggling to get through it because as a final fantasy game does, it takes it´s sweet time to get going. I have to sit through these cutscenes that might have been mind-blowingly gorgeous at the time but just look kind of ok now, trying to skip as much dialogue as I can without missing story advancement. After about 15 minutes of cutscene I get to actually play, but although I enjoy the combat system and character progression the battles are kind of boring and not very challenging at all.

On top of that the hole thing is terribly linear and I really dislike the aesthetics. I have 3 aeons now and Im almost at the next temple and it is not getting any better, so here is my question to you guys: Will this lame story actually pay off with incredible twists near the end that will make me care about these characters and not roll my eyes at every single cheesy line or should I just stop now?.

To make matters worse I picked up FFX along with FFX-2 and FFXII and I booted XII just out of curiosity. It turns out that the opening cutscene and first 10 minutes of gameplay got me really excited about it cause it seems to fix all the problems that I have with X (open world, story seems interesting and moves along fine, etc.).

Thanks a bunch for any non-spoilery wisdom you could throw my way, and keep in mind these are all just my personal opinions.

Do yourself a favour and play Persona 3: FES or Persona 4 instead. That is my advice to you as a fellow 'I tried to like this game but it was just dull' FFXer

FFX-2 > FFX!

I really disliked a lot of stuff about X. X-2 being completely insane and ridiculous was perfect and the battle system was waaaaaaay better, in my opinion.

I would say that the story never really pays off, though that's not really fair because there's no way it could have when I dislike all the characters involved in it, I guess.

I could not get through X, mostly for the same reasons you aren't currently enjoying it. I actually loathed all of the characters in the game. If you don't like cheesy lines, I hate to break it to you, but it only gets cheesier as you go on. XII is much better. There are a total of two characters I dislike: Vaan and Penelo. Vaan is the main character, but luckily, he becomes inconsequential later in the game.

Ultimately, it depends on what your goals are in playing these games. I plan on revisiting X to complete it when I finish XIII because I want to be able to say I've completed every game in the series. If you don't care, then you probably won't find any redeeming qualities in the remaining hours of X.

How far did you make it in? The game spends a decent amount of time setting up the world before things start going. Also unlike FFXII which is more of an ensemble game, FFX is really Tidus and Yuna's story so if you can't learn to like them, you're outta luck. Keep in mind that, despite their initially cheery and bright exteriors, they both get darkened up a fair amount as the story progresses.

You are definitely at a disadvantage, coming to this game having already experienced better graphics. I hold a lot of nostalgia for FFX, since it was the first real FF game I played (Mystic Quest aside).

My advice? It's okay to hate the main character somewhat. He's pretty unlikeable unless he resonates with you. But it does get better after about the 5th Aeon, as Tidus is forced to do some growing up by events, even if he bungles through it pretty badly at first.

It's also okay to dislike the dialogue in most cases; when it's just Tidus and Yuna talking, it can be pretty execrable. When you get closer to the full cast, they add a lot more. If you can't handle a little bit of cheese in the dialogue, then you're in for a slog until you get an airship, basically. after that, if the combat interests you it'll be much smoother sailing.

@Rattle618: If you don't like it by now, you're not going to like it at all. My advice, pack it up and play something else. I loved it myself, but it doesn't sound like it's for you.

Final Fantasy X is one of my favorite games so I'm probably not the person you should get advice from. But things do get more interesting the further down you go. And as long as you've passed the laughing scene after you get Auron, you should be fine. But why play a game if you're not having fun? If you're not enjoying it, just take the loss and find something better.

If your not invested into the story and characters this game properly wont pay off your you since that was the defining aspect on why i really loved playing through this several times.

I enjoyed it at the time but then that was 10 years ago.
 
It was the first PS2 era and not to mention voice acted Final Fantasy game, so expectations were completely different.
 
Edit - don't touch X-2 unless you enjoy, or at least can accept, tropes of anime. I really couldn't enjoy it.

I agree with the suggestions that you should probably shelve it. X-2 probably won't do it for you either, since it's story is pretty forgettable, but much more light hearted. I say to just move on to XII.

@KittyMeggerz said:

If your not invested into the story and characters this game properly wont pay off your you since that was the defining aspect on why i really loved playing through this several times.

This was the case for me as well. I loved the game and the gameplay but the main reason to play was to see the next part of a story I found the be fantastic. If you don't find that stuff engaging, OP, the game may just not be your thing.

i think the main reason people think highly of it is because it's the last final fantasy game that actually feels like a true part of the series. it was also really cool at the time to have an ff game with voice acting and such dazzling cutscenes, and, thought a lot of the game is laughable, in the end the game touts an interesting storyline and an epic (enough) adventure.

@NegativeCero said:

I agree with the suggestions that you should probably shelve it. X-2 probably won't do it for you either, since it's story is pretty forgettable, but much more light hearted. I say to just move on to XII.

XII is really the Final Fantasy from the PS2 that people should play. (That's not to say I didn't enjoy X or X-2, though)

@killacam said:

is because it's the last final fantasy game that actually feels like a true part of the series.

What are you on about? Care to elaborate? I don't see how it's any more a "true part of the series" than XII or XIII.

If you hate X, you should really play X-2. As long as you go into it with the attitude of: "This is the most hilariously stupid thing ever" you will enjoy the fanservice-heavy J-Pop stylings of Yuna's adventure. If you want a legitimate Japanese RPG with a great story and great characters...? Don't play that. Play like... Persona 3.

@BoG said:

I could not get through X, mostly for the same reasons you aren't currently enjoying it. I actually loathed all of the characters in the game. If you don't like cheesy lines, I hate to break it to you, but it only gets cheesier as you go on. XII is much better. There are a total of two characters I dislike: Vaan and Penelo. Vaan is the main character, but luckily, he becomes inconsequential later in the game.

Ultimately, it depends on what your goals are in playing these games. I plan on revisiting X to complete it when I finish XIII because I want to be able to say I've completed every game in the series. If you don't care, then you probably won't find any redeeming qualities in the remaining hours of X.

i liked lulu and auron in 10.. and i feel the same way about 12 :D.. I dont know why people liked 10 so much, I honestly only played it when it came out so much because i was like 14 and had only played 7 8 and 9 before hand.. I will still say 10 is bad and 13 is one of the worst ever made,,, 9 will always stand on top for me!

I'd suggest getting through it just so you can play X-2 (the best final fantasy). But yeah, overall X is very much a product of its time; It and MGS2 were really some of the first console games with mind blowing cinematics. I remember enjoying it, but it has been nearly ten years since I last played it.

@Galiant: not really.. it should be pretty obvious what i mean to anyone who played the first ten

@killacam said:

@Galiant: not really.. it should be pretty obvious what i mean to anyone who played the first ten

I did play the first ten games (although I haven't completed them all, but that's besides the point), so how would I know what you mean when you say that the tenth game "feels like the last true part of the series"?

I don't know anything about what you feel about anything, so no, it's not obvious. Don't act like your opinion is a well known fact or something.

If you can't actually explain what you mean by that statement then I will just dismiss it as nonsense.

Pretty much all of you guys are confirming my suspicions, so I think I will:

1. Read the rest of the plot of X on the interwebz.

2. Stay as far away as I can from X-2.

3. Dive into XII.

Thanks everyone!

@Rattle618 said:

Pretty much all of you guys are confirming my suspicions, so I think I will:

1. Read the rest of the plot of X on the interwebz.

2. Stay as far away as I can from X-2.

3. Dive into XII.

Thanks everyone!

It's a shame, but considering your tastes then yes, this is the way to go.

Hey, at least it has awesome cutscenes.

I didn't really play it for the story, I mostly played it for the combat system which I thought was great.

@Galiant said:

@killacam said:

@Galiant: not really.. it should be pretty obvious what i mean to anyone who played the first ten

I did play the first ten games (although I haven't completed them all, but that's besides the point), so how would I know what you mean when you say that the tenth game "feels like the last true part of the series"?

I don't know anything about what you feel about anything, so no, it's not obvious. Don't act like your opinion is a well known fact or something.

If you can't actually explain what you mean by that statement then I will just dismiss it as nonsense.

are you just blindly playing through these games? do you stop to consider what about them is different, what is new, what works, what doesn't? the vehicles through which a story is told? these details are not constants, nor are they to be mindlessly accepted!

@Rattle618 said:

Pretty much all of you guys are confirming my suspicions, so I think I will:

1. Read the rest of the plot of X on the interwebz.

2. Stay as far away as I can from X-2.

3. Dive into XII.

Thanks everyone!

The thing is each game has things that make each of them different. I played FFX just this year, and yeah it's story is kind of crazy in a dumb way. If your really not feeling up to it try another one. 12 didn't really tickle my fancy when it came out, but I was thinking about giving it another go. Some really like it because it's story is a bit more grounded and mature in ways. It's combat is interesting, and the world, structurally seems so much more coherent and alive that any other FF game. Also I need to finish X-2; does anyone know how to beat Shinra?

@Galiant said:

@killacam said:

@Galiant: not really.. it should be pretty obvious what i mean to anyone who played the first ten

I did play the first ten games (although I haven't completed them all, but that's besides the point), so how would I know what you mean when you say that the tenth game "feels like the last true part of the series"?

I don't know anything about what you feel about anything, so no, it's not obvious. Don't act like your opinion is a well known fact or something.

If you can't actually explain what you mean by that statement then I will just dismiss it as nonsense.

Yeah, how can there be a "true part of the series" when they are all kind of different, including the first 10.

@Galiant said:

@killacam said:

@Galiant: not really.. it should be pretty obvious what i mean to anyone who played the first ten

I did play the first ten games (although I haven't completed them all, but that's besides the point), so how would I know what you mean when you say that the tenth game "feels like the last true part of the series"?

I don't know anything about what you feel about anything, so no, it's not obvious. Don't act like your opinion is a well known fact or something.

If you can't actually explain what you mean by that statement then I will just dismiss it as nonsense.

are you just blindly playing through these games? do you stop to consider what about them is different, what is new, what works, what doesn't? the vehicles through which a story is told? these details are not constants, nor are they to be mindlessly accepted!

@CaptainCharisma said:

And as long as you've passed the laughing scene after you get Auron, you should be fine.

Oh God! It still haunts my darkest nightmares.

@Nottle said:

@Rattle618 said:

Pretty much all of you guys are confirming my suspicions, so I think I will:

1. Read the rest of the plot of X on the interwebz.

2. Stay as far away as I can from X-2.

3. Dive into XII.

Thanks everyone!

The thing is each game has things that make each of them different. I played FFX just this year, and yeah it's story is kind of crazy in a dumb way. If your really not feeling up to it try another one. 12 didn't really tickle my fancy when it came out, but I was thinking about giving it another go. Some really like it because it's story is a bit more grounded and mature in ways. It's combat is interesting, and the world, structurally seems so much more coherent and alive that any other FF game. Also I need to finish X-2; does anyone know how to beat Shinra?

@Galiant said:

@killacam said:

@Galiant: not really.. it should be pretty obvious what i mean to anyone who played the first ten

I did play the first ten games (although I haven't completed them all, but that's besides the point), so how would I know what you mean when you say that the tenth game "feels like the last true part of the series"?

I don't know anything about what you feel about anything, so no, it's not obvious. Don't act like your opinion is a well known fact or something.

If you can't actually explain what you mean by that statement then I will just dismiss it as nonsense.

Yeah, how can there be a "true part of the series" when they are all kind of different, including the first 10.

yes, the first ten are different, insofar that each new game works to progress the series and what it has strived to do since its inception. tweaks/updates/level-ups are not the same thing as complete and utter dismemberment of the very systems which define the series (aka interesting narratives that are accomplished concurrently with gameplay, battle mechanics/systems). the former of these is just not present in most recent titles, and, on top of their disjointed methods of storytelling, they are the only ff games with radically different battle systems. bad thing, good thing, to each their own. but the point i'm making is that if they were released under titles other than final fantasy, i think significantly fewer gamers would be so quick to relate them to the series compared to how many would if one of the preceding ten were released under another brand.

@killacam said:

yes, the first ten are different, insofar that each new game works to progress the series and what it has strived to do since its inception. tweaks/updates/level-ups are not the same thing as complete and utter dismemberment of the very systems which define the series (aka interesting narratives that are accomplished concurrently with gameplay, battle mechanics/systems). the former of these is just not present in most recent titles, and, on top of their disjointed methods of storytelling, they are the only ff games with radically different battle systems. bad thing, good thing, to each their own. but the point i'm making is that if they were released under titles other than final fantasy, i think significantly fewer gamers would be so quick to relate them to the series compared to how many would if one of the preceding ten were released under another brand.

The fundamentals of the battle system are always there: Choose commands from a menu. The specifics around that are more often than not unique to each title, some altered more than others.

I don't agree with you, I don't think FFX is "the last true part of the series", and I fail to see how that would be an obvious point to anyone who's played the first ten games. It's just your personal take on it, not a universal truth.

@Galiant: @killacam: Clearly "choose commands from a menu" isn't the only fundamental of the ff battle systems. That's a given in pretty much any strategy based game. Also, the specifics around that aren't unique to each ff title, and until X they followed a pretty logical path in that the original battle system was iterated upon and improved in meaningful ways. When he's saying that X is the last true part of the series, it is really the same as saying that after ten, the additions made were either not meaningful, or broke what worked with the system originally. Of course it's not a universal truth, lets not be stupid here, but its something that is pretty generally agreed upon.

@Galiant: No dude, there is information out there.. a large gaming media, where people discuss things just like this. Check it out, it's available to anyone! It makes it so that most people can hear something, gauge the validity of it, and escape the unending suspicion that everything is made up. "Are you just making this stuff up?" These kind of queries must just fill your day. I have to help you escape from this personal hell.

My first time wasn't so great...

@Rattle618: I wouldnt do that because honestly I would say you are JUST getting to the point where the plot and events start to get really interesting. Not long after that the world opens up and not long after that you'll find some challenging bosses. It sounds like a lot of the people who are criticizing the game in this thread never got through it, and I think it would be a real shame if you stopped just as it was about to get good like a lot of other people. Honestly if you've sunk that much time in it already I think you owe it to yourself to finish the rest of the game.

@Galiant said:

@evanbower Stating your opinion is fine. Saying that your opinion is "generally agreed upon" without any facts to back it up carries about the same weight as debris floating about in space...how could you possibly know what the general consensus is? Did you ask everyone who ever played the Final Fantasy series? Or did you see a couple of people in forums agree with you and conclude that it is now "generally agreed upon"? Who's to say people who disagree with you even post on the forums you read?

again, the FACT that FXII largely deviates from past titles is largely understood/obvious, and most people with minimal amounts of forebrain function don't need quotes from the jrpg journal of scientific discovery in order to get there. how can you not see this!? tell me. please. now. explain your lack of analysis. do it.. do it. and back it up with some credible sources else i dismiss it as opinion.

@Galiant: nice "moustache"

I remember being stuck at the fucking tank at the ice lake for forever.

When it came out it was amazing, not played it since release, i wonder if my opinions on the game changes if i played it again.

@Draugen said:

@Rattle618: If you don't like it by now, you're not going to like it at all. My advice, pack it up and play something else. I loved it myself, but it doesn't sound like it's for you.

My advice as well. I love it because I have nostalgia for playing it as an impressionable young preteen.

I loved FFX, one of my top games of all time! No idea why as i understand its bad points (the laughing scene, being one of the worst gamign story moments ever, but also kind of unforgettable. For the wrong reason!) Coming to FFXII, we really didn't get on...maybe my expectations where too high, after the especially long wait in Europe. Its all opinion though, and if you are not having a good time now, you will not later on. I love the story, and as people said, maybe it is because to me it felt like the last proper FF game!. Hell I have amazing memories of that game!