Scattered Thoughts: FFX HD Remaster

I did a quick scan through my Steam and game collection just now, trying to find games that I thought were above average but which featured superbly annoying lead characters, and didn’t come up with much. I enjoyed Assassin’s Creed III more than most people, but even I found Connor Kenway to be channeling a bit too much of angry teen Anakin Skywalker for comfort. Dante in the Devil May Cry games can be somewhat egregiously overbearing, but for the most part his excessive YOLOSWAG fits into the universe of those games. I’m sure there are other examples that I’ll remember as soon as I post this, but for the most part, developers with enough talent to make exceptional games generally manage to create lead characters that are at least bearable if not downright likable.

Which is why it's weird how Tidus is a poorly-executed character in almost every way. His character design is ridiculous to look at, his voicework is annoying at best and grating at its worst, and his dialogue is often eye-rollingly boring. The modern iterations of the Final Fantasy series are, of course, no stranger to having bland lead characters surrounded by a vastly more colorful/interesting supporting cast. (At a glance, I’d place FF7, 8, and 12 in this category; I hated pretty much everyone in 9 and thought the cast of 13 were all pretty snoozy.) But Tidus is a particular sore point for me in that he’s both more annoying than Cloud/Squall/Vaan while appearing in the game that I enjoy more than probably any other game in the Final Fantasy series. And hey, I get it: he’s a cocky kid that’s grown up in the shadow of his father and is tremendously confused by his passage to another, unfamiliar world. You can make that character interesting and relatable, but I don’t think Square did a great job with that here.

All of which is an incredible shame, because FFX is a pretty fantastic game that could’ve been made immeasurably better with a somewhat less flippant lead character. It’s obvious that the nearly mute performances of Squall and Cloud didn’t particularly work very well in their respective games, but Tidus flips that switch in the opposite direction, and by the thousandth unskippable internal monologue that you sit through here (“Wow. This situation really made me think...a lot...about Zanarkand...and what we’ll find there. And my old man. My old man...thinking about him really makes you think, doesn’t it.” REPEAT TIMES A BILLION), it’s difficult to resist the urge to reach through your screen and throw a Silentstrike blitzball at him.

Luckily, his supporting cast is unique and varied and almost universally likable. Yuna’s probably the weakest link among the rest of the crew, with her halting vocal delivery and unconvincing crush on Tidus (a shame this couldn’t have been made more believable in the 40 hours it takes to complete the main story, but then, he is Tidus), but she’s endearing in her own way. The rest of the crew is altogether more interesting than the leads (even if they did try to double up on the mysterious laconic warrior type with Khimari and Auron; Khimari probably could’ve been written out of the story without too much of an impact), but even they don’t get the kind of full unraveling of their personal stories that they seem to deserve.

But those stories, and the game’s plot, are at least moving and interesting. It’s an interesting approach to a narrative: the world of Spira is not in danger of ending, but is trapped in an epic cycle of destruction that leaves everyone in almost constant terror of an attack by Sin. (That name is a bit on the nose, but at least it’s accurate of what he represents to the Yevonites.) That broad stroke is married well to the fairly intimate stories of each of the characters, almost all of which rely on familial issues. Tidus’ and Yuna’s fathers are both a large part of the reason that they’re fighting Sin, Seymour’s parents were both part of the reason that he became a villain, Wakka mourns his dead sibling, Rikku fights with Cid and Brother, etc. It’s all nicely subdued compared to the Extreme Yelling Olympics that JRPGs sometimes indulge in, and to date it’s still one of the only game endings that has actually managed to make my room suddenly get a little dusty.

Beyond the story, though, the sheer amount of content in the game is kind of astonishing, especially in the realm of optional content. I managed to beat Yunalesca in around 40 hours of playtime, skipping all but the mandatory blitzball matches, but there’s still dozens of hours of other content to explore, whether it’s the monster hunting, optional bosses, the Omega Ruins, hunting down the Celestial Weapons, etc. Right now I’ve been working on that stuff for around 15 hours or so, and it’s a testament to the core fighting mechanics that I’m not bored of running around the Omega Ruins to level up my characters, even after I’m well past the point of being able to kill everything in there in one hit.

Those fighting mechanics are a bit of an oddity in FF terms, in that FFX has a purely turn-based combat system, which isn’t exactly a common choice for RPGs nowadays or Final Fantasy games historically (most of them had ATB systems after the SNES generation, if I recall correctly); even FFX-2 quickly switched back to an active combat system. It’s curious to see the ways the designers had to fiddle around as the game progresses to make the difficulty still relevant as your characters become overweeningly powerful; anyone who’s lost a group to a Great Malboro’s ambush-breath knows that the difficulty spikes aren’t always necessarily. Pure turn-based systems that don’t involve any scaling of enemies seem like they need to incorporate a fair amount of randomness to ensure that challenges are still challenging after your characters are super-powered, but randomness itself can be immensely frustrating.

At any rate, I managed to beat the storyline’s end boss in just a couple of hits, so it’ll be interesting to go back through the monster arena to see how to deal with some of the super-challenges that are tucked away there; I never bothered much with it on the PS2. I have a feeling that getting all of the necessary gear to seriously compete in there will require a bunch of item farming, but c’est la vie. I don’t know if I’ll necessarily have the stamina to sit through all the way to Penance or Nemesis, but it’s fun to finally have the option to go after the dark Aeons and the rest of the superbosses that weren’t in the original American release of the game.

(Unfortunately I made a major mistake early on in not getting the destruction sphere from Besaid Temple before making it to the end game; learn from my mistake if you haven’t played this yet. There’s now a Dark Valefor in front of the temple that’s greatly frustrating my ability to get in there, which I need to do to unlock Anima, which in turn I need to get the Magus Sisters, which in turn I need to get to unlock Yuna’s Nirvana weapon, which would otherwise be one of the easiest weapons to obtain. Tidus and Rikku are both hitting for around 70k damage a pop, though, and Auron’s got his weapon too, so hopefully I’ll be able to bring him down sometime soon.)

But, yeah, I like FFX a lot, and this new HD Remaster has been a great way to re-experience the game. No one’s going to confuse this for Uncharted or anything, but the graphical upgrade is pretty nice (especially if you go back and compare it to YouTube videos of the PS2 version). And having it on my Vita has been wonderful; it’s fun to have nearly instant access to the game to run a few fights or a blitzball match without having to worry about booting up a system. There are some framerate issues here and there, but nothing significant or pervasive. I don’t know if I’ll dive into FFX-2 after I get done here, but FFX is worth the price of admission all on its own.

What a wonderfull write up Rorie. Makes me want to go out and get that Hd collection. It would be cool to see you do more of this in the future.

Oh Rorie, just slap a a review score on this and throw it up on the front page.

I don't know about anyone else but because I picked the correct option to Yojimbo's question when obtaining him I never had a problem with any of the dark aeons or super enemies. Without even spending that much money I only ever had to reload a fight 2-3 times to get Zanmato and render the post-game content easy.

@brendan: I'm tempted to do that for Dark Valefor just to get him out of the way. But I'd like to try and do it "for real" at least once!

I think he just gave it a 4 out of 5 puppies.

You can one hit Dark Valefor with Wakka's overdrive attack reels if his strength stat is high enough, if you don't have that you can use auto-phoenix and auto-life and grind him down because he does not attack every character on each turn.

It's funny just how infuriating Tidus' getup is, his stupid asymmetrical shorts and the half jacket irritated me from start to finish. He started growing on me as a character after the twist, though.

I always found it strange that they let the player name Tidus. This in turn forced them to write around his name whenever he's mentioned. It was kinda clumsy and awkward in my opinion. When I first played FFX, I found it disappointingly linear. There was no overworld , the airship travel was relegated to a series of nodes, and most paths diverge into small branches for extra pickups. It was kinda surprising when I found out later on that the endgame is packed with content.

Oh yeah, I heard that they added a new Sphere Grid layout in this version. Any thoughts on that?

P.S.: That Evrae fight will forever haunt me. It took me half a year to get past that. Not even the final Seymour fight was as difficult. Oh and the seagulls too I guess.

I've reconciled at just how outrageous of a character Tidus was. I refuse to let his drag down my thoughts on what is a very solid entry to the FF series.

My favorite thing about the game was trying to "break" the Sphere Grid, and take characters down paths they were not intended to. It added a very fun wrinkle, especially for additional playthroughs.

I forgot to get the besaid destruction sphere as well but I was able to beat dark valefor by getting yojimbo in overdrive and paying all my money so that his odds of using zanmato were high and he instantly killed valefor (I had to try this several times). It defeats the purpose but I really wanted to get anima and the magus sisters.

FFX is definitely among my favorites in the series. Great combination of solid characters, an interesting story, fun combat, and lots of side content. X-2 was fun in it's own way, but came off as sort of a bizarre choice for the first sequel in the series. I can see myself buying this collection down the road at some point when it gets cheaper.

@rorie: Did you play much of X-2 when it first came out? I know its jarring change in tone from its predecessor turned a lot of people off of the game almost instantly, including myself. Now that I'm older though I'm thinking that its super campiness might be a better fit for the excessive insanity of JRPGs.

Also after all these years how does the laughing scene hold up?

Hmm, he's definitely used his all-party attack on me without being at full Overdrive before. I hear that the easiest way to do it is to HasteGa, Quick Hit, and just summon an Aeon before every turn of his. I might have enough speed to pull that off at this point. I don't have Wakka's Celestial yet, alas.

I think I played through it all back in the day, but I don't remember specifically. But I'll probably try it again sometime soon!

The laughing scene is still awfully cringy.

I also wholeheartedly agree with Rorie's take on both how... Star Wars prequel-y the Tidus/Yuna romance was executed on, and also on how the bittersweet ending still made me teary despite that.

I WILL 100% ffX-2 JUST TO GET THEM BACK TOGETHER GODDAMNIT.

@rorie: He will do an all party one-hit kill not on overdrive but it is not every turn so if you have armor with auto-phoenix on all your characters or use auto-life he cannot kill you so long as you have enough phoenix downs to survive long enough to take him down

@coloursheep: Hmm, interesting, I'll see if I can try that out!

The laughing scene gets way too much flak. It makes sense in the context of the story. It's supposed to sound fake, that's the whole point of the scene. Tidus is depressed and is forcing his laughter to appease Yuna. By the end of the scene they are both having a legitimate laugh and it sounds fine, not great, but passable.

Thanks! I like writing, just a matter of finding the time to do it.

I remember having a conversation with someone claiming that the scene was intentionally bad. I didn't, and still don't, agree with him, but it was an interesting point of view on the scene.

I've spent the past week doing all the extra stuff after getting the airship. Just need Wakka's celestial weapon. Did you have a hard time getting 0.0.0 in the chocobo training? I punched my vita (accidentally) because of how frustrating it was.

completely agree on tidus not being so great,and that comes from someone who thinks FFX is the best FF in the series.ive always wondered how much more amazing this game would have been if tidus wasnt so horrible.

It took me around 150-200 tries, I think, but I had the advantage of having done it before on the PS2. Luck is definitely a pretty big factor; even before the race starts you can usually tell how many balloons on the first hill you'll be getting instead of the trainer, and if I wound up getting less than four of them before the first turn I'd usually just put the Vita down and try again when the race was over (thank god it auto-completes if you give up). Flag placement and a bit of luck with avoiding the cheap birds at the end of the second section and right before the finish line are mostly what determines your final score. It's annoying but it's not as hard as Khimari's, at least to me. Good luck!

The FFX laughing scene for the uninitiated:

At the time I first saw this scene I was still in my early teens and living with a family that couldn't pronounce Mario correctly and had no interest in learning. Let's just say the impact of this scene on me was playing video games on a much lower volume for a long time.

Tidus actually didn't bother me that much. IMO the voice acting was horrible all around (even Bender couldn't save Wakka's horribly translated dialog). The thing I liked about Tidus is that outside FMVS (where he looks more female then male) he actually looks like a dude, something that Final Fantasy games generally avoid on their protagonist lol. Also the plot around him was kind of interesting too. His father issues were irritating, but the plotline around the big plot twist was pretty cool.

@dallas_raines said:

I think the creation of FFX's Tidus and Kingdom Hearts' Sora, together, are the low point in character design for Square. Just that combination of stupid-looking shorts and way-too-busy shirt/vest/whatever. The character designs from Square have been better since that period, but you still get some characters whose wardrobe is just way too loud.

On the plus side, at least we're occasionally getting stuff like Bravely Default which looks great, though it's hard to tell whether anyone at Square genuinely likes that style, or they just had little choice in the matter since the whole purpose of the game was to be a deliberate throwback to very early FF and DQ games. Also it's a pity that the in-game characters in Bravely Default are all kinda chibi, as a much prefer the proportions in the concept/promo art for the game.

@coruptai125:

It is so strange for me to see how little people understand that the laughter in that scene is supposed to be forced and fake, yes the laughter sounds terrible but it is on purpose. You may not like the scene, that's fine, but it is not a problem of bad voice acting.

@coloursheep: I can't speak for anyone else but it seems obvious beyond the point of confusion that the laughter isn't meant to be genuine, I don't think confusion over that is what makes people dislike it.

I don't really want to sidetrack a discussion about the game as a whole by focusing too much on one part though. I loved the game when it came out, it was even one of the first console games I ever owned and I dove into the game, moving through it at a pace I doubt I've matched for any JRPG since. As I've gotten older I've gotten more critical, especially of the writing, but the game sill mostly holds up and is overflowing with content.

Rorie, you should really play FF X-2. Do you like GRRRL Power? Exceptional amounts of silliness? The Final Fantasy job system? Super fast ATB combat? Because that's a thing.

I actually just got this HD collection with my PS3, and I'm interested in playing these games... right around whenever I finish FF XIII.

Thanks for the write-up Rorie, I very much like reading these. Even if they're for games I couldn't give two shits about. We need more RPG-Bomb representation.

I saw all the media and Famitsu scans back in the day when FFX was coming out and couldn't bring myself to care. Everything about that game looked boring and derivative, but oh-so-pixel-perfect pretty. Sure Tidus was a very big part of that, but he wasn't the only reason. It felt like visual pandering? Is that a thing? I'm making it a thing if not. It insulted my eyeballs by saying "see all these colors, and these belts, and magical particles and shit!? How can you NOT buy this!?"

Suffice it to say, I never bothered playing the PS2 version back then. But I figured I'd try this new version just because, and it's still superbly boring and derivative. I guess this port is a faithful representation of the original game then if it can make a person who liked it remember why he liked it, and a person who didn't care for it, remember why he didn't care for it. Mission accomplished Square Enix?

Great write up! FFX and FFX-2 was the last FF I played and my favorite for sure. FFVIII is also up there for me so I may be a subscriber of the even numbered FF theory. Anyways, I ended up filling the entire sphere grid (probably one of the best and most creative leveling system), getting everyone's ultimate weapon (even Lulu's, my eyes were very dry afterwards) and ended up dumping 120+ hours in this game with a Tidus that can quick attack for all 9's. I didn't realize they had added some new challenges/bosses that wasn't released in the american version previously so I might have just found a good reason to pick this up!

Ramblin' Rorie strikes again! And at the worst possible time: just quit my day job and have nothing but time to kill. I could see waaaay to many hours lost to following down this old well again. Loved this one on PS2, and the side content was indeed mammoth. I barely touched any of the hidden bosses because they got so dang powerful. Only one I ever beat was some bird creature that would wipe out any of my party members in one hit, but would somehow always miss attacks on my Yojimbo summon.

I played the crap out of FFX, even though I only played through it once. Nice things have consistently been said about this rerelease and it may just be time to give it another go.

The cast of XIII was probably my favorite cast aside from VII.

@csl316: If you liked the original games I think I'd recommend the remasters. Remasters can only do so much so you end up getting some striking visual inconsistency with clunky or stilted animations being all the more noticeable against a better looking backdrop. Some outfits and accessories also look flat and poorly designed characters like Isaaru look as bad as ever but the game overall is actually not bad to look at.

The additional content that was unreleased in the U.S. is also exciting and makes the game somewhat fresh. The soundtrack has also been redone but with the original soundtrack being as good as it was that might not be a huge sell for you.

@rorie: Yeah I did the exact same thing with the besaid destruction sphere, I just zanmatoed that dark aeon so I could get all of Auron and Yuna's stuff. I figure its not a big deal since dark Valefor is the easiest dark aeon so when I go to finish all the rest of them off I won't feel too bad about it. I definitely recommend it for just this one boss.

I'm at the point where I've finished the sphere grids with 2 and a half characters and I'm starting to lose steam, I might end up taking a break.

Same here, Lightning being my favorite character in the series pushes XIII very near VII though.

You should just call these "Rorie n' Bits" and post it on the site. Kinda Like Kibble n' Bits.

@rorie FF characters have always been hit / miss, with not enough character development at times.

While I don't have any issue with characters with angst and memory issues, since those are used to guide the players themselves, I find the delivery of Squall is a little bit more grating than Cloud and Tidus.

Nevertheless, if you really wanna play some games with good / quirky character development, you might want to try the Shin Megami Tensei (SMT) series. The recently re-released SMT Nocturne on PSN, is really intriguing. it has a really amazing world building (more like destruction from the start), with atmosphere and setting uncommon to RPGs, it also has very interesting cast of characters (some progressively become more demonic). You should try the game, but it's real hard, ala Dark Souls' hard, you need to exploit enemy weakness to survive.

I'd somehow manage to scrub this scene from my memory. OH GOD, WHY DID I CLICK PLAY????????

I only played through this once back on the PS2, so it was obviously a long time ago....but I'm sure I managed to get everyone's ultimate weapons and Anima/The Magus Sisters, despite accidentally leaving the destruction sphere behind at Besaid. Actually, now I think about it, I could never get Auron's Ultimate weapon, but I got everyone else's and I definitely got the two summons. Is there a way to do it without the Destruction sphere?

Good write up Rorie. But you're still a bad person for hating IX. I'd say the main party (Zidane, Vivi, Garnet and Steiner) are some of the most developed characters in Final Fantasy. You should definitely try out X-2 though. That game is really goofy and enjoyable as long as you don't go in expecting it to be anything like X.

Nope, you need all of the destruction spheres to obtain Anima. I think you can get the Magus Sisters without her though, since you only need to beat the Bahamut summon battle to get one of the keys needed.

Vaan was not the lead character in 12. He was some junk cipher that was shoe-horned in. Asche and Baasch are the leads.

And Rorie you are a monster for not liking anyone in FF9's cast. Especially Vivi. You monster.

Glad to hear you still enjoyed it. I'll have to pick this up sometime and see how it sets with me now. Tidus was always terrible, but I have a feeling he holds up (with me) better than Squall or Cloud.

And I wonder if this doesn't have something to do with the game being a product of Japan. I can't readily recall any Japanese RPG (aside from maybe the Persona games?) that does a convincing job at portraying a romantic relationship (not that western games are much better). The worst offender I can think of is Lost Odyssey.

Handhelds have definitely become my platform of choice for any lengthy JRPG or visual novel. Just fits the platform so well.

More Rorie write-ups in the future please!

Just platinum'd FFX a few nights ago!

I actually really liked Tidus. I didn't find him whiny. I was expecting him to be super whiny because when I went into the game that's all I had ever really heard about him beforehand. I just beat the game about two weeks ago for the first time ever and was surprised with the quality of the game. Including the voice work (translation is a whole other issue). I really don't get the hate for the voice work and one thing that really grates on me is how people share that video of the laughing scene and judge the voice acting (and probably Tidus' character as well) entirely on that. It's supposed to be super fucking awkward and weird. He's forcing laughter. That scene is always taken out of context. Although there are moments when the voices kind of speed up for no reason, usually with one word replies. Someone asks Yuna a question and her response "YES" takes like 1/16 of a second to come out. It's super weird but I think that's something that happened when they edited the voices, it doesn't sound natural.

I really liked how, when you're able to hit more than 9,999, the damage you deal increases at an alarming rate. I think I read somewhere that Stregth stat is exponential while the Magic skill isn't. I was hitting 99,999 in no time with Kimahri (my main damage dealer and most useful guy). One thing that is super weird about it thought is that Yuna was hitting for 99,999 before Auron was. With her dinky little staff.

I just started FFX-2 the other day and the combat is so much more enthralling. It took me an hour or two to actually adjust to the system. It's blazing fast and I find it much more interesting how you can switch jobs on the fly like a Paradigm Shift in FFXIII. I think it's a very fitting sequel so far, the entire game being Yuna's "FUCK YOU" to the world and not giving a shit any more. The game doesn't take itself seriously and that's what I like about it.

I agree with you though - FF9's cast was THE WORST. Man what a boring group group.

@liquidprince: I agree, XIII had a really balanced and unique cast that worked together well.

I think part of it is also how much cinematics and characterization in video games have evolved in the last 12 years or however long it has been. Compared to Naughty Dogs' work with Uncharted or The Last of Us, the cutscenes definitely feel rudimentary and amateurish with weird animations, lack of sound effects and wooden voice acting. Of course the translation is partly to blame as well. That said, I think the overall story and characters are done pretty well and the way things are slowly revealed make you think back to scenes early on in the game and see the motivation to certain lines or actions from characters that you didn't quite understand at the time.

Huh, I must've got the destruction sphere before leaving Besaid then, but maybe I left something else behind as I definitely remember trying to get back in there but not being able to get past Dark Valefor.

You are a monster too!

FFX-2 is a fun time. Really enjoyed the combat/job system. And the story does actually pick up and become a real sequel about halfway through.

FFX's pure turn based system is what I consider to be the best fighting system of any JRPG I've ever played. I think the explicit turn order allows for much greater strategy as compared to the "wait for the bar to fill" systems. I hate almost everything else about FFX (well except the opening cinematic which is still great) but I love the fighting.

It's pretty much the opposite of FFXII, where I like the world and the characters (although the main character is still somewhat of whiny, effeminate teenage boy), but I absolutely, utterly despise the MMO-inspired battle system.

@rorie : From Twitter we know you did the Chocobo ultimate weapon task. Did you bother with the dodge the 200 lighting bolts? All of those ultimate weapon tasks to me exemplify what was going wrong with JRPGs and maybe even Japanese games in general around that time. At some point, they stopped asking "is this fun?" in favor of just coming up with things for the player to do, entertainment value be damned.

I bought this with the intention of really sinking my teeth in and unfortunately FFXIV on PS4 basically happened at the same time and killed my interest in this again. Doesn't help that I have a loathing hatred for Tidus.

I still really like Tidus as a character, but good to know you enjoyed the rest of it.