Final Fantasy X
Final Fantasy X is a
role-playing video game developed and published by
Square Enix. It is the tenth installment in the
Final Fantasy series and the first game of the series to be released on the
Sony PlayStation 2. Introduced in
2001, it was once among the
top twenty best-selling console games of all time, and has sold more than 7.93 million copies worldwide.
Set in the
fantasy world of
Spira, the game's story centers around a group of adventurers and their quest to defeat a rampaging force known as "
Sin".
The game is significant in the
Final Fantasy series in that it marks the transition from entirely
pre-rendered backdrops to fully
three-dimensional areas with the PlayStation 2's 294 MHz processor. It is the first in the series to feature a wide range of realistic facial expressions, as well as other technological developments in graphical effects, such as variance in lighting and shadow from one section of a character's clothing to the next.
is also the first in the series to feature
voice-over actors, as well as the first to spawn a direct
sequel,
Final Fantasy X-2.
Final Fantasy X introduces other significant advances in the
Final Fantasy series. For instance, because of the implementation of voice-overs, scenes in the game are paced according to the time taken for dialogue to be spoken,
whereas previous games in the series incorporated scrolling subtitles.
Final Fantasy X features changes in world design, with a focus placed on realism. The gameplay makes a significant departure from past games as well, incorporating several new elements.
Like previous games in the series,
Final Fantasy X is presented in
third person perspective, with players directly navigating the main character,
Tidus, around the world to interact with objects and people. Unlike in previous games, however, the world and town maps have been fully integrated, with terrain outside of cities rendered to scale. When an enemy is encountered, the environment switches to a
turn-based "battle area" where characters and enemies must await their turn to attack.
In line with previous
Final Fantasy titles, players are given the opportunity to develop and improve their characters by defeating enemies and acquiring items, though the traditional
experience point system was replaced by a new system called the "Sphere Grid". The game was initially going to feature
online elements, but these were dropped during production, and online
multiplayer gaming would not become part of the
Final Fantasy series until
Final Fantasy XI.
Field map
|
An example of navigation on the field map |
Final Fantasy X's gameplay differs from that of previous
Final Fantasy games in its lack of an interactive
top-down perspective "world map" navigation system. Previous games had featured a miniature representation of the expansive areas between towns and other distinct locations, used for long-distance traveling. In
Final Fantasy X, instead, almost all game locations are essentially contiguous and never fade out to an interactive overworld map. Regional connections are mostly linear, forming a single path through the game's locations, though an
airship becomes available late in the game, giving the player the ability to navigate the world of Spira in a matter of seconds.
Map director
Takayoshi Nakazato has explained that with
Final Fantasy X, he wanted to implement a world map concept with a more realistic approach than that of the traditional
Final Fantasy game, in-line with the realism afforded by the mechanics of the game's dominant 3D backgrounds, as opposed to that offered by pre-rendered backgrounds (which he refers to as "pseudo 3D environments").
Battle system
|
A typical battle with a boss |
Final Fantasy X introduces the
Conditional Turn-Based Battle (CTB) system in place of the series' traditional
Active Time Battle (ATB) system. Whereas the ATB concept features real-time elements, the CTB system is a turn-based format that pauses the battle during each of the player's turns. Thus, the CTB design gives the player an indefinite period of time to select an action. The CTB system also allows characters' and enemies' attributes and actions to affect the number of turns they are allowed and the order in which they occur. The game provides a graphical timeline along the upper-right side of the screen, detailing who will be receiving turns next, as well as how various actions taken (such as using the magical spell
Slow on the enemy) will affect the subsequent order of turns.
Character-specific special abilities (known as "
Desperation Attacks" in
Final Fantasy VI, "
Limit Breaks" in
Final Fantasy VII and
Final Fantasy VIII, and "
Trances" in
Final Fantasy IX) reappear in
Final Fantasy X under the name "
Overdrives". In this new incarnation of the feature, most of the techniques are interactive, requiring
fighting game-style button inputs or precise timing to increase their effectiveness. Furthermore, the game introduces Overdrive Modes, which allow the player to designate what circumstances (such as receiving damage, slaying an enemy, or being the only living character on the field) cause the Overdrive meter to fill.
Final Fantasy X allows the player to control only up to three characters in battle at once, but an innovative "swapping system" allows the player to replace any of those characters with one of the characters on the sidelines at any time. When all seven of the game's regular characters are available, this means that three characters are active and four are on the sidelines. The player is encouraged to switch active characters frequently based on two factors of gameplay. First, those characters who do not take an active role in the battle will not receive
stat and ability bonuses.
|
An activated Overdrive awaiting button-inputs |
Second, each character has specific strengths and limitations for most of the game:
Yuna has the greatest skill at healing with
White Magic and can use
summon spells;
Rikku is adept at using and stealing items; Tidus can use time-altering magic and accurately strike agile enemies;
Wakka can inflict negative
status effects and accurately strike flying enemies;
Auron can pierce enemies' defenses and has the greatest physical strength;
Kimahri can use
enemy skills and, like Auron, pierce enemy defenses; and
Lulu has elemental
Black Magic spells best-suited for use against enemies associated with an opposing element. Specialized enemies are generally much more difficult to defeat without the appropriate character, so the gameplay encourages users to make significant use of all or most of the available characters at various times.
Final Fantasy X introduces an overhaul of the summoning system employed in the previous eight games in the series. Whereas in previous games a summoned creature would arrive, perform a single action, and then depart,
Final Fantasy X's summons (called "
aeons") arrive and entirely replace the battle party, fighting in their place until either the enemy has been slain, the aeon itself has been defeated, or the aeon is dismissed by the player. Aeons have their own stats, commands, special attacks, spells, and Overdrives, and in addition to providing powerful attacks, they can be employed to guard the party when fighting difficult bosses, as the enemy must first kill any summoned aeon before it can damage the party directly. The player acquires a minimum of five aeons over the course of the game, and several additional aeons can be unlocked by completing various sidequests.
Originally,
Final Fantasy X was going to feature wandering enemies visible on the field map, seamless transitions into battles, and the option for players to move around the landscape during enemy encounters.
Battle art director
Shintaro Takai has explained that it was his intention that battles in
Final Fantasy X come across as a natural part of the story and not an independent element.
However, due to hardware and system limitations, these ideas (later dubbed the "Active Dimension Battle" system) were not used until
Final Fantasy XI and
Final Fantasy XII. Instead, a compromise was made, whereby some transitions from the field screen to battle arenas were made relatively seamless with the implementation of a motion blur effect. The desire for seamless transitions also led to the implementation of the new summoning system seen in the game.
Sphere Grid
|
A portion of the Sphere Grid |
Final Fantasy X's leveling system, the Sphere Grid, is unique in the
computer role-playing game genre. Instead of characters gaining pre-determined statistic bonuses for their attributes after a certain number of battles, each character gains a "sphere level" after collecting enough
Ability Points (AP). Sphere levels, in turn, allow players to move around the Sphere Grid, a predetermined grid of several hundred interconnected nodes consisting of various stat and ability bonuses. Items called "spheres" (obtained from defeated enemies, treasure chests, and event prizes) are applied to these nodes, unlocking its function for the selected character. In this way, the playable characters' development resembles a
board game.
Producer
Yoshinori Kitase has explained that the purpose behind the Sphere Grid is to give players an interactive means of increasing their characters' attributes, such that they will be able to observe the development of those attributes firsthand.
The Sphere Grid system also allows players to fully customize characters in contrast to their intended battle roles, such as turning the magician Yuna into a physical powerhouse and the swordsman Auron into a healer. The
International and
PAL versions of the game include an optional "Expert" version of the Sphere Grid; in these versions, all of the characters start in the middle of the grid and may follow whichever path the player chooses. As a tradeoff, however, the Expert grid has noticeably fewer nodes in total, thus decreasing the total statistic upgrades available during the game.
The world of
Final Fantasy X is known as "Spira". It consists of one large landmass divided into three subcontinents, surrounded by small islands. It features diverse climates, ranging from the tropical
Besaid and
Kilika islands to the temperate
Mi'ihen region to the arctic
Macalania and
Mount Gagazet.
Although it is predominantly populated by humans, Spira features a variety of races. Among them are the
Al Bhed, a technologically-advanced but disenfranchised sub-group of humans with spiral-green eyes and a
distinct language. The
Guado are somewhat less human in appearance, with elongated fingers and other subtle differences. They also have a natural propensity for magic and conjuring monsters. Still less human in appearance are the large, lion-like, one-horned
Ronso, the frog-like
Hypello and the cactus-like
Cactuars.
Spira's wildlife population introduces several new concepts into the series. Although most creatures are drawn from real animals, such as cats, dogs, birds and butterflies, a few fictional species appear, such as the gigantic, amphibious
shoopuf and the
emu-like
chocobo. Both are used primarily for transport purposes. Most other unusual creatures encountered in
Final Fantasy X are
fiends.
Spira is very different from the mainly European-style worlds found in previous
Final Fantasy games, being much more closely modeled on
Southeast Asia, most notably with respect to vegetation, topography, architecture and names. Character designer
Tetsuya Nomura has identified the
South Pacific,
Thailand and
Japan as major influences on the cultural and geographic design of Spira, particularly concerning the geographic locations of Besaid and Kilika.
He has also said that Spira deviates from the worlds of past
Final Fantasy games most notably in the level of detail incorporated, something he has expressed to have made a conscious effort to maintain during the design process. Though a southeast Asian theme is dominant, like other games in the franchise,
Final Fantasy X borrows elements from many other cultures, featuring references to
demonology,
Hindu,
Norse,
Arabic and other
mythologies.
Psychology is also represented, with
Carl Jung referenced by the
aeon Anima.
Spirituality and metaphysics
|
A screenshot of the Farplane, resting place of the soul-like pyreflies |
The most distinctive, basic features of
Final Fantasy X's
cosmology are
pyreflies, luminescent "bundles of life energy" that emerge from the newly-dead and wander the land.
If left to their own devices, they usually cluster together and form into
fiends, dangerous monsters that take a variety of forms and return to balls of pyreflies when defeated. The vast majority of enemies in
Final Fantasy X are fiends. In rare cases, pyreflies maintain enough cohesion and sentience to become
unsent, beings that appear human but are actually the lingering remnant of a dead individual with a purpose left unfinished.
One of the tasks of a
summoner in
Final Fantasy X is to help guide stray pyreflies to their final resting place, a mystical domain guarded by the Guado and known as the
Farplane. They do this through a ritual dance known as "
the sending". The other chief function of summoners is to summon
aeons, fierce magical creatures created when people sacrifice their lives to encase their souls within statues, becoming
fayth. Fayth grant summoners the ability to summon their respective aeons, which are described as "dreams of the fayth". Summoners are charged with the duty of defeating Sin, a gigantic monster that has plagued Spira for a thousand years, capable of wiping out entire towns and armies with ease.
Spira's human population is deeply religious and centered around the
temples of Yevon, a millennium-old religious organization that has gained enormous influence. The Yevonite temples consider Sin a divine punishment set upon people for their pride in the use of machines (or
machina, as they are called in the game),
[Tidus: Yuna, why does Sin always come back? / Yuna: Sin is our punishment for our vanity. And it will not go away until we've atoned. (Final Fantasy X) Tokyo: Square Enix, 2001] and forbid the use of advanced technology. However it is eventually revealed that the highest priests, known as the
maesters, have become increasingly corrupt and unfaithful to their own doctrine, making use of
machina to increase their power.
Summoners go on
pilgrimages to gather aeons and increase their powers. They are accompanied by
guardians, trained fighters whose duty is to protect the summoners and assist them along the way. The end of the pilgrimage is in the sacred ruined city of
Zanarkand, where summoners acquire the
Final Aeon, the only known power that can destroy Sin. It is revealed late in
Final Fantasy X that the fayth for the Final Aeon is actually created from one who is personally close to a summoner, requiring a guardian of each summoner who defeats Sin to sacrifice his or her life.
[Yunalesca: You must choose the one whom I will change... to become the fayth of the Final Summoning. There must be a bond, between chosen and summoner, for that is what the Final Summoning embodies: the bond between husband and wife, mother and child, or between friends. If that bond is strong enough, its light will conquer Sin. (Final Fantasy X) Tokyo: Square Enix, 2001] Additionally, using the Final Aeon against Sin costs the summoner's life as well.
[Tidus: Why couldn't they trust guardians to protect summoners... The Al Bhed had no right stopping their pilgrimage! / Rikku: The pilgrimages have to stop! If they don't, and they get to Zanarkand... They might defeat Sin. Yunie could...but then she... Yunie will die, you know? You know, don't you? Summoners journey to get the Final Aeon. Yuna told you, didn't she? With the Final Aeon, she can beat Sin...but then... If she calls it, then the Final Aeon's gonna kill her. Even if she defeats Sin, it will kill Yunie too, you know? (Final Fantasy X) Tokyo: Square Enix, 2001] However, even this measure is only temporary: after a few years of peace, known as "the Calm",
[Tidus: What's the calm? / Lulu: The Calm is a time of peace. It comes after a summoner defeats Sin, and lasts until Sin reappears. (Final Fantasy X) Tokyo: Square Enix, 2001] Sin returns, thus requiring the process to start anew.
Characters
|
Yuna performs "the sending" |
The seven
playable characters in
Final Fantasy X are
Tidus, an energetic and upbeat
blitzball star;
Yuna, a reserved and soft-spoken summoner who always puts others before herself;
Kimahri, an exile of the Ronso tribe who remains silent for most of the game and is devoted to protecting Yuna above all else;
Wakka, an amiable blitzball player and devout follower of the Yevon order, who has been a friend of Yuna's since childhood;
Lulu, an often cynical and harsh, but well-meaning,
Black Mage, who develops a romantic link with Wakka;
Auron, a taciturn and matter-of-fact ex-
warrior monk; and
Rikku, a perky Al Bhed girl with extensive knowledge of machinery.
The primary antagonists of the game are
Seymour Guado and the other maesters of the Yevon religion, while the rampaging Sin serves as the primary source of conflict. In addition, there is a vast supporting cast of named characters, who — along with the main characters — feature voice talents complementing their principle roles, as well as the myriad incidental characters that have traditionally populated the worlds of
Final Fantasy.
Character designer Tetsuya Nomura took particular care in each of the characters' designs. For example, Nomura based Yuna's overall design on Okinawan kimonos. When he learned that the character was to perform the sending dance, he wanted to give her outfit something that would flow. For this reason, the specific style of kimono he chose for her was a
furisode, a kimono bearing long sleeves. Additionally, he adorned her dress and necklace with images of the flower also called
Yuna (
Hibiscus tiliaceus), and her name carries the meaning of "night" in
Okinawan, a direct contrast with Tidus' Japanese name,
TÄ«da, the Okinawan word for "sun". Nomura has explained that while all these subtle details may be unnecessary, he does not want his designs to be without explanation.
For minor characters, sub-character chief designer
Fumi Nakashima's focus was to ensure that characters from different regions and cultures bore distinctive characteristics in their clothing styles, such that they could be quickly and easily identified as members of their respective sub-groups. For example, in her words, the masks and goggles of the Al Bhed give the group a "strange and eccentric" appearance, while the attire of the Ronso lend to them being able to easily engage in battle.
Story
Final Fantasy X begins late in the story, with the main character, Tidus, waiting with his allies outside the ruined city of Zanarkand. From this
in medias res beginning, Tidus proceeds to narrate the series of events leading up to his present situation, and this extended flashback spans most of the game's storyline. The flashback begins in an unruined Zanarkand, a high-tech
metropolis and Tidus' home city, where he is a renowned star of the fictional underwater sport
blitzball. When Zanarkand is suddenly attacked by Sin during a blitzball game, Tidus — along with his long-time mentor, Auron — is sucked into the creature and awakens to find himself alone in the ruins of a deserted temple.
Tidus is rescued by Al Bhed divers in the area, and one of them, Rikku, tells him that his city had been destroyed a thousand years ago. He has little time to dwell on the significance of this news before Sin attacks again, separating Tidus from the others. He eventually washes up on the tropical island of Besaid, where he meets Wakka, captain of the local blitzball team. Impressed by Tidus' skills, Wakka asks Tidus to join his team in an upcoming tournament in
Luca, suggesting that he may meet someone he knows there.
Tidus is introduced to Yuna, a young summoner who is following in the footsteps of her deceased father
Braska, who temporarily vanquished Sin ten years prior. Braska's guardians were Auron and
Jecht, Tidus' missing father, who had been assumed dead at sea ten years earlier.
[Zanar: I was in a coffee shop, running away from home when I heard the news. Our hero, Jecht, gone, vanished into thin air! .../ Zanar: Anyways... Ten years later, the Jecht Memorial Cup tournament is today! (Final Fantasy X) Tokyo: Square Enix, 2001][Tidus: Sounds like him, but it can't be him. / Yuna: Why not? / Tidus: My old man, he died. Ten years ago, off the coast of Zanarkand. / Yuna: I'm sorry. / Tidus: He went out to sea for training one day...and never came back. And no one's seen him since then. / Yuna: Why, that's the day that Jecht came to Spira. It's true! I first met Jecht ten years and three months ago! (Final Fantasy X) Tokyo: Square Enix, 2001] Tidus also meets Lulu and Kimahri, who, along with Wakka, are to serve as Yuna's guardians, journeying with her on her pilgrimage to the ruins of Zanarkand. There, she plans to acquire the power to summon the "Final Aeon" and use it to defeat Sin.
|
A screenshot of Yuna's guardians launching a rescue attempt at her wedding with Seymour |
The party travels by boat to
Kilika — where Sin is encountered yet again, devastating the town — and then to Luca. After the blitzball tournament, the party encounters Auron, who joins the group. Not long after, following an encounter with Sin where an entire army of
crusaders are wiped out, they are joined by Rikku, who is revealed to be Yuna's cousin.
[Rikku: Hey, do I look like Yunie, you think? / Tidus: (Huh?) / Rikku: Well, my dad's sister is Yunie's mother, you get it? (Final Fantasy X) Tokyo: Square Enix, 2001]The party also encounters Seymour Guado, leader of the Guado and a maester of Yevon. Although he initially presents himself as an ally â€" even joining the party for a single battle and under the player's control â€" it later becomes apparent that he is a madman who wishes to merge with Sin so that he may use its power to kill everyone in Spira in what he believes to be an act of compassion. For this reason, he attempts to force Yuna to marry him, so that he may become her Final Aeon, and thus become Sin.
[Seymour: Death is a sweet slumber. All the pain of life is gently swept away... Ah, yes. So you see... if all life were to end in Spira, all suffering would end. Don't you see? Do you not agree? That, Yuna, is why I need you. I will take from you your strength, Yuna, your life, and become the next Sin. I will destroy Spira! I will save it! (Final Fantasy X) Tokyo: Square Enix, 2001] Although Seymour is killed after his first battle with Yuna's guardians, he becomes an unsent and attacks the party again many times.
Around the same time, Tidus becomes increasingly fond of Yuna, but discovers, to his horror, that if she completes her pilgrimage and uses the Final Aeon against Sin, she will die. Aware of her fate, Yuna intends to give her life to provide the people of Spira with the Calm, the brief period of peace that follows Sin's destruction. Complicating matters further, Auron reveals to Tidus that his father Jecht is alive, but no longer human, having now himself become the unwilling embodiment of Sin.
[Tidus: Is he alive? / Auron: It depends on what you mean by "alive." He is no longer human. But then... I felt something of Jecht there in that shell, couldn't you? You must have felt him when you came in contact with Sin. / Tidus: It can't be... / Auron: It is. Sin is Jecht. (Final Fantasy X) Tokyo: Square Enix, 2001] Tidus resolves to find a way to free his estranged father and permanently destroy Sin without sacrificing Yuna's life.
As the player approaches Zanarkand, Tidus learns that both Jecht, himself, and the Zanarkand they hail from are "dreams", summoned entities akin to aeons.
[Tidus: Wait...this is a dream. / Fayth: Precisely. / Tidus: A dream? Are you crazy? I don't have time to be dreaming now! / Fayth: "You're wrong. It's not that you're dreaming. You are a dream. (Final Fantasy X) Tokyo: Square Enix, 2001] Their city,
Dream Zanarkand, was created one thousand years earlier, when a conflict known as the "Machina War" led to Yevon, Zanarkand's ruler and a powerful summoner, taking desperate measures to preserve its memory.
[Fayth: "Long ago, there was a war.... A war between Zanarkand and Bevelle. Bevelle's machina assured their victory from the start. Spira had never seen such power. The summoners of Zanarkand didn't stand a chance. Zanarkand was doomed to oblivion. That's why we tried to save it—if only in a memory... The remaining summoners and the townspeople that survived the war... They all became fayth—fayth for the summoning." (Final Fantasy X) Tokyo: Square Enix, 2001] He had his city's surviving people become fayth so that he could use their memories of Zanarkand to create a new city in its image, far removed from the warfare on the Spiran mainland.
Sin was also created at this time, given form by Yevon himself to serve as "armor" protecting himself and the fayth.
[Mika: Spira has lost its only hope. Destruction is inevitable. Yu Yevon's spiral of death will consume us all. I have no desire to watch Spira die.... / Rikku: Wait, gramps! Who's Yu Yevon? / Mika: He who crafts the souls of the dead into unholy armor. An armor called Sin. (Final Fantasy X) Tokyo: Square Enix, 2001] While continuously summoning Dream Zanarkand, Yevon lost his humanity and became known as "Yu Yevon" ("the Curse of Yevon"),
a being existing solely to maintain Dream Zanarkand's existence.
[Fayth: Tell me, what do you know about Yu Yevon?... / Yuna: Sin is his armor. It protects him. / Fayth: Yu Yevon was once a summoner, long ago. He was peerless. Yet now he lives for one purpose: only to summon. He is neither good, nor evil. He is awake, yet he dreams. (Final Fantasy X) Tokyo: Square Enix, 2001] Over the next one thousand years, Sin would persistently attack the people of Spira to keep them from gaining the technology to learn of Dream Zanarkand's existence.
|
Tidus attempts to embrace Yuna as he fades away |
Once the player completes Yuna's pilgrimage to Zanarkand â€" ending Tidus' extended flashback recounting most of the game's events â€" she and her companions learn from the unsent spirit of
Lady Yunalesca — Yevon's daughter, and the first summoner to have defeated Sin
[Yunalesca: A thousand years ago, I chose my husband Zaon as my fayth. Our bond was true, and I obtained the Final Aeon. (Final Fantasy X)] — that the Final Aeon is created from the spirit of one close to a summoner, and that when Sin is defeated, Yu Yevon's spirit then possesses it, transforming it into a new Sin.
[Yunalesca: Sin is eternal. Every aeon that defeats it becomes Sin it its place... And thus is Sin reborn. / Tidus: So that's why Jecht became Sin. / Yunalesca: Sin is an inevitable part of Spira's destiny. It is neverending. (Final Fantasy X) Tokyo: Square Enix, 2001] Additionally, it is revealed to the player that Auron himself is an unsent, having been struck down by Yunalesca ten years earlier when he confronted her in rage after the deaths of Braska and Jecht.
[Auron: When Braska and Jecht died defeating Sin... I just couldn't accept it. I came back here... tried to avenge them. But she struck me down. (Final Fantasy X) Tokyo: Square Enix, 2001] Yuna and her guardians decide to seek a new way to defeat Sin: one that will permanently destroy him and will not require any sacrifices. Without having acquired the use of a Final Aeon, the party attacks Sin directly and enters its body with the help of the Al Bhed's airship.
Inside Sin, the party battles Seymour, Jecht's imprisoned spirit, and Yu Yevon, defeating each and sending their spirits to the Farplane. Thus, they are able to end Sin's cycle of rebirth forever. Auron dissipates and goes to the Farplane as well, having fulfilled his promise to Jecht and Braska to guard their children. Lastly, the spirits of all the fayth of Spira are freed from their imprisonment, dispersing the aeons, Dream Zanarkand, and Tidus in the process. Although Yuna mourns the loss of Tidus, in a speech to the citizens of Spira, she resolves to help rebuild the world now that it is free of Sin. However, she asks that they never forget the people who have been lost along the way.
Developed from
1999 to 2001,
Final Fantasy X cost approximately 4 billion
Japanese yen to produce (approximately US$32.3 million)
with a crew of more than one hundred people.
As with most other games in the
Final Fantasy franchise, the characters and story of
Final Fantasy X are distinct from those of its predecessors. Executive producer
Hironobu Sakaguchi states that this is to maintain the novelty of each title and to show off his team's true potential. Although he had certain reservations about the transition from 2D to 3D backgrounds, the voice acting, and the transition to real-time story-telling, Sakaguchi believes
Final Fantasy's success can be attributed to constantly challenging the development team to try new things.
For his part, scenario writer
Kazushige Nojima has said that with this installment of the series, he was particularly concerned with establishing a connection in the relationship between the player and main character. Thus, he penned the story such that — since both Tidus and the player find themselves in a new world — the player's progress through the world and growing knowledge about it is reflected in Tidus' own developing understanding and narration.
also features innovations in the rendering of facial expressions on characters, achieved through
motion capture and
skeletal animation technology.
This technology allowed animators to create realistic lip movements, which were then programmed to match the speech of the game's voice actors.
Voice-overs
Nojima also revealed that the inclusion of
voice-overs had a substantial impact on the writing of the game's story. He has explained that the presence of voice actors allowed him to maintain a more simple method of storytelling, as the range of emotions that could be expressed through them was greater than that provided by text alone. Nojima has further revealed that the presence of voice actors led him to make various changes to the story and characters themselves, so as to solidify the voice actors' personalities with the characters they were portraying.
In some respects, however, the inclusion of voice-overs led to additional difficulties. With the game's cutscenes already programmed around the
Japanese voice work,
Final Fantasy X's
English localization team faced not only the difficulty of establishing English-oriented dialogue, but also the added obstacle of incorporating this modified wording with the previously established rhythm and timing of the characters' lip movements. In his words, lead localization specialist
Alexander O. Smith described the process of "fitting natural-sounding English speech into [...] the high-polygon scenes and CG movies" as "something akin to writing four or five movies worth of dialogue entirely in
haiku form [and] of course the actors had to act, and act well, within those restraints". To this end, each voice actor was briefed on their character's motivations and feelings for every scene, and also shown various scenes from the game itself.
Although Tidus is the lead character in the story, he is the only character whose name is never spoken by the game's voice actors. This is because
Final Fantasy X follows the
Final Fantasy tradition of allowing the player to rename the lead character. In this game and
Final Fantasy X-2, the other characters refer to Tidus as "him", "he" or "you". However, Wakka says Tidus' name in
Kingdom Hearts â€"another
Square Enix title â€" pronouncing it as "tee-dus", as does Tidus' English voice actor,
James Arnold Taylor, during interviews,
while
Selphie Tilmitt of
Final Fantasy VIII fame pronounces it as "tie-dus" in
Kingdom Hearts II.
Musical score
Final Fantasy X marks the first time
Nobuo Uematsu has had any assistance in composing the score for a
Final Fantasy game. His fellow composers for
Final Fantasy X were
Masashi Hamauzu and
Junya Nakano.
The game includes three songs with vocalized elements, one of which is the
J-pop ballad "
Suteki Da Ne". It is sung by Japanese folk singer
Ritsuki Nakano (also known as "RIKKI"), whom the music team contacted while searching for a singer whose music reflected an Okinawan atmosphere.
"Suteki Da Ne" is sung in its original Japanese form in both the Japanese and English versions of
Final Fantasy X. The song's title translates to "Isn't it Wonderful?" in English, and its lyrics were written by scenario writer Kazushige Nojima,
while Uematsu composed the instrumentals. Like the ballads from
Final Fantasy VIII and
IX, "Suteki Da Ne" has an in-game version together with an orchestrated version used as part of the ending theme.
The other songs featuring lyrics are the heavy metal opening theme, "Otherworld", sung in English, and the "
Hymn of the Fayth", a recurring piece sung using Japanese syllabary.
Final Fantasy X's reception was largely positive, with high sales figures and—for the most part—much acclaim from the gaming industry. The game sold 90% of its first 2,140,000-unit shipment â€" adding up to 1,926,000 units sold â€" in just the first four days of its release in Japan, having already sold between 1.4 million and 1.5 million copies in pre-orders prior to release.
These figures exceeded the performances â€" in a comparable period â€" of
Final Fantasy IX and
Final Fantasy VII.
was also the first PlayStation 2 game to reach sales totals of 2 million and 4 million copies.
Once among the top twenty best-selling console games of all time, consistent sales placed it as the second best-selling
Final Fantasy game, having shipped 7.93 million copies worldwide as of May 2006.
The game has been rated as the
U.S. market's 11
th best selling game of the 21
st century, as of July 2006.
Critical response
Both Japanese and western critics have generally given
Final Fantasy X high scores, with the game attaining a 92/100 "universal score" according to
Metacritic.
Leading Japanese video game magazine,
Famitsu, awarded the game a near-perfect 39/40 score,
while readers of the same magazine voted it the best game of all time in early 2006.
Another leading Japanese gaming magazine,
The Play Station, gave the game a score of 29/30 at the time of release.
As part of their reviews,
Famitsu and
The Play Station expressed particularly favorable responses toward the game's storyline and graphics, as did the
UK-based
magazine Edge. However, the magazine only gave the game a 6/10, describing it as "Sequential software that labels itself next-gen" without providing a next generation gaming experience, instead repeating "the mistakes ... made on the last version".
In this regard,
Edge cites the game's battle and character-leveling systems, describing the former as only "fractionally more complex" than was the case in previous installments of the series, and the latter as "[no] more flexible than the straight leveling from previous games".
also dealt harsh criticism to the game's English script and voice-overs, regarding the dialogue, "both textual and verbal", as "nauseating". The magazine further went on to say that it "renders the pathos comedic, the comedy dead, and since emotion is meant to be the series' driving force, it butchers the whole game".
was not the only critic to find faults with
Final Fantasy X. In their 7/10 review, the critics of
Norwegian gaming site Gamer.no expressed an unfavorable response toward the game's battle and navigation systems, describing battles as "usually too easy" and exploration as highly linear, together rendering the game "too short for the greatest of RPG enthusiasts".
Despite these and other criticisms,
Final Fantasy X was nominated for the 6th Annual
Interactive Achievement Awards for animation and console role-playing game of the year in 2003,
and became a highly popular installment of the
Final Fantasy series worldwide.
Legacy
Due to its commercial and popular success,
Square Enix released a direct sequel to
Final Fantasy X in
2003, entitled
"Final Fantasy X-2". This sequel â€" the first direct sequel developed in the
Final Fantasy series â€" is set two years after the conclusion of the original story, establishing new conflicts and dilemmas, while also serving to tie up loose ends left by the original game. Also as a result of the game's reception, the producer and scenario writer decided to establish a plot-related connection between
Final Fantasy X and
Final Fantasy VII, another popular
Final Fantasy title.
The advancements in portraying realistic emotions achieved with
Final Fantasy X through voice-overs and detailed facial expressions have since become a staple of the series, with its sequel and other subsequent titles â€" such as
Final Fantasy XII and
Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII â€" also featuring this development. Additionally, traversing real-time 3D environments instead of an overworld map has also become a standard of the series, as demonstrated in both
Final Fantasy XI and
Final Fantasy XII.
|
A Tidus action figure standing before the cover of The Art of Final Fantasy X |
An
international version of the game was released in Japan as
"Final Fantasy X: International" and in
PAL territories under the name
"Final Fantasy X." It features content not available in the original
NTSC releases, including battles with dark versions of the game's aeons, an airship fight with the superboss Penance, and various added scenes. The Japanese release of
Final Fantasy X: International also includes a twelve minute video clip bridging the story of
Final Fantasy X with that of its sequel,
Final Fantasy X-2.
Additionally, the
European release includes a bonus
DVD entitled
"Beyond Final Fantasy", a disc including interviews with the game's developers, as well as two of the game's English voice actors, James Arnold Taylor (Tidus) and
Hedy Burress (Yuna). Also included are various trailers for
Final Fantasy X and other Square products, a gallery of concept and promotional art for the game, and a music video of "Suteki Da Ne" performed by Rikki.
In addition to a sequel, Square Enix produced numerous action figures, several versions of the
game's soundtrack and various books, including
The Art of Final Fantasy X and three
Ultimania guides, a series of
artbooks/
strategy guides published by Square Enix in Japan. They feature original artwork from
Final Fantasy X, offer gameplay walkthroughs, expand upon many aspects of the game's storyline and feature several interviews with the game's designers. There are three books in the series:
Final Fantasy X Scenario Ultimania,
Final Fantasy X Battle Ultimania and
Final Fantasy X Ultimania Ω. A similar three-book series was produced for
Final Fantasy X-2.
*
Official Final Fantasy X website*
Behind The Game â€" Interviews with the game's developers and English voice actors
*
Final Fantasy: Worlds Apart â€"
Final Fantasy X dialogue script
*
Final Fantasy X story translation*
Final Fantasy X timeline at the Final Fantasy Compendium*
Meaning and Emotion in Squaresoft's Final Fantasy X â€" Graduation thesis by Glen R. Spoors, Edith Cowan University - Australia
*
Final Fantasy X wiki guide at StrategyWikiFinal Fantasy X and
Final Fantasy X-2 at
Wikia
