Jiro's Journey

[Jiro]

Al Bhed Salvage Ship

Let me start this section by once again ripping the Al Bhed a new one. I love them as a race and how they function throughout the game, but for this first section (and indeed, up until post-Luca) they are shown to be inexplicably dickish. Final Fantasy X wants you to feel like the Al Bhed are misunderstood, and perhaps they are, but if people grab me by the hair, threaten to cut my throat, smash me in the head with the butt of their gun and then aim it at me, I'm probably not going to listen to their motives.

The way Brother interacts with Tidus is conflicting. On the one hand, I am really happy to see the Al Bhed legitimately trying to communicate with Tidus. Brother knows he doesn't understand a word he's saying, so he tries to sign it. On the other hand, it still gives me the same vibe as if he were simply speaking louder and slower like people do for foreign tourists. It's a little condescending, and it still doesn't explain why Rikku doesn't just talk to him. Indeed, both Brother and Rikku can speak english (spiran?) so they should be trying this. Instead of seeming mysterious or different, the Al Bhed just seem like malicious morons.

The voice acting for Al Bhed is interesting though. I hesitate to say "good", but when you're speaking a fictional language based on a cipher, it must be really tough.

"Alright, alright, you don't have to shout!" Tidus shouts. You moron.

The first achievement/trophy I encounter is the one for finding the Al Bhed Primer onboard the ship. I don't know if I missed anything prior to this, but I do like the absence of "you started the game!" or "you won the first (tutorial) battle!" crap. Final Fantasy VII's achievements are stupid and it is good to see SE somewhat learned from that.

The sphere grid tutorial is a pain in the ass - tedious, one might say - but it is comprehensive and easy to follow. Visual demonstrations certainly help this. Of course, understanding how it works doesn't mean you will be any good at it. I wholeheartedly expect to fail at using the expert sphere grid right up until I cry and quit the game again But this is far better at explaining it to you than, say, the Junction system was (from memory, anyway).

[Sephex]

Stop being so hard on the Al Bhed, Jiro. They were only following the script, damn it!

[EtcherSketcher]

Enjoying reading your rambles I'm pretty sure, at this point Brother hasn't started to try to learn English yet.

[Jiro]

Enjoying reading your rambles I'm pretty sure, at this point Brother hasn't started to try to learn English yet.

Ah, that's right! I had forgotten; during FFX his English sucks. He was always a bit weird in the sequel, but I didn't remember that he was a bit slow on the uptake

[Jiro]

Underwater Ruins

First thing to note is how confusing it is moving in three dimensions. The shifting camera really messes with me. On the plus side, I really like that Final Fantasy X hadn't yet caught onto the map-marker phenomenon as seen in Skyrim and Deus Ex: Human Revolution where your HUD is covered in quest markers. Final Fantasy X has its red arrow in the radar, but to figure out where you are going in this section, you use your head and clever map design: follow the chain, dummy!

Oh, I didn't mention that Tidus is strangely out of character when it comes time to start work. He's so uninterested in it previously - "Alright, alright, I'll work." - and then seems suddenly really enthused, diving in first. I don't understand why he seems so happy to help people who do nothing but talk to and about him in a foreign language and then smash him in the face, but maybe the brain damage is an excuse.

Anyway, it's cool to see the party members moving around on the screen. Obviously they stop doing this once they join the party properly, but for the moment, it's nice to see them independently. It gives the game a more organic feel, rather than the awkward everybody lives inside me stuff we get with other titles. Having 6 party members strolling around behind you would, however, be strange and probably difficult to do around 2001 though. It does help direct you when you get lost though, which would be great in place of a traditional mini map.

It's very strange that Rikku hasn't directly introduced herself to Tidus yet. In Baaj, it makes sense; they're there for a purpose, and there isn't any down time, but they had ample opportunity to talk back on the ship. It makes more sense to delay the introduction until after this point - in terms of exposition at least - but it simply makes no sense otherwise and feels sloppy.

Its nice to be involved with the airship discovery. When it appears later in the game, there's a sense of "oh! that's what we found earlier."

Tidus demonstrates his skills as a handy man and bashes stuff with his hands until it is fixed. Worth noting is how similar the energy source here looks to mako energy; I don't like the idea of Final Fantasy X and Final Fantasy VII being connected, but this could be the first (chronological) sign that the connection was intended. Food for thought.

We get to a boss fight with a 7-legged octopus. Septopus? Nope, apparently it's Tros. Oh well. The cool thing about this boss fight is that it introduces trigger commands. These have to be one of the coolest additions to the battle system. Trigger commands are context sensitive boss battle commands that change the battle landscape from being a simple us vs them to having some depth. Even more interesting is that some commands are limited to certain people, which means your battle party must reflect this if you want to make use of them. I might go into a bit more detail once other examples come up, but I really think this was underused and added a lot of depth to an already excellent system.

Not really a comment, more a note, but Tidus shakes himself dry like a dog. I'm sure there's something deeper to this, some reflection on his personality, but I cannot be assed finding it. Then the Al Bhed go back to bullying Tidus, leaving him out in the cold while damp.

Tidus, having been hungry before, is still hungry, and would therefore be close to dead if we are to believe the amount of exerting himself he's done.

"Right on" is a really strange way to react to getting food while starving. Show some more emotion, not some casual positive thumbs up. His reactions to a lot of events are strange, and again it's a combination of script and delivery that cause this. The fact that he dives into his food is good, as it gives us a pay off: Tidus was starving and here he is acting like it.

He laughs awkwardly and stretches, apparently no longer hungry. And then responds completely unrealistically when Rikku tries to talk to him. Sans that, this scene is actually pretty great. There's character movement; they are not simply standing there, looking at each other, and delivering their lines. Tidus is sometimes odd, turning his back or laughing randomly, but those are his awkward tendencies and we'll gloss over them.

Apart from the fact that he demonstrates rugby movements, Tidus's cocky attitude as soon as the subject turns to his domain is really masterful. There are a couple of awkward lines, and that stupid action aside, the rest of this scene is pretty solid. The voice acting, even, is pretty great.

The best part of this is probably the way Rikku moves while she's thinking.

Tidus then kicks the ship in anger and it is the most awkward kick. Then he rolls ass over head backwards thanks to Sin and that is also super awkward, like something out of Looney Tunes. Two Al Bhed come out and do the same. Convenient, but stupid.

And then Tidus gets sucked into a whirlpool. For no reason other than he needs to wash up near Besaid. Again, not an elegant solution, but it's probably more believable an event than Al Bhed beating the trout out of him and then carrying him to the ship.

Besaid is next and ugh this is gonna take me a while!

[Jinx]

I always thought the Al Bhed thinking he's a fiend is dumb. Does any other fiend look like him? No! He's a human, you dips! And they act all surprised he can't understand Al Bhed. Most of the people in Spira don't...

Also, I love that they just assume that he's really good at holding his breath. Not everyone in Spira can. That could've been very...embarrassing.

[Karifean]

Love the Expert Sphere Grid. I didn't even do anything too fancy, I just put Wakka on Auron's grid, Auron on Tidus' grid and Tidus on Wakka's grid, and had Yuna and Lulu swap periodically (their paths intersect quite a few times). Wakka ended up being hilariously powerful, Attack Reels almost one-shotted every storyline boss. It was quite fun, overall.

[Jiro]

Also, I love that they just assume that he's really good at holding his breath. Not everyone in Spira can. That could've been very...embarrassing.

Excellent point. Can you imagine if he had drowned, hoo boy xD

[Sephex]

New theory to why Tidus is good at holding his breath: He cried about his dad so much that all the sharp inhaling over the years conditioned his lungs, thus training him to be a Blitzball player. In fact, Jecht was deliberately being an asshole towards Tidus for the sole purpose of turning him into a star player using that technique. His ploy worked, and it gave him an excuse to excessively drink, which is always a plus.

[Jiro]

Besaid

Upon waking up off the shore of Besaid, Tidus finds a Blitzball belonging to the Aurochs. This is a neat way to tie Tidus to an area; he might be entirely foreign to this place, but there is something, an important element of his past that he can cling to, and something innocuous which subtly progresses the plot.The water is beautiful. Australians are constantly bombarded with images of beautiful beaches, but Besaid truly looks like a tropical paradise. Those are the kinds of shores you would be happy to drown in.

Building on the running animation discussion from earlier, Tidus and his swimming motion are pretty solid. He's not going out there like an Olympic champion, but neither is he sloppy as hell. Tidus swims like a Blitzballer who doesn't quite know how long he'll be in the water or how far he has to go, but is happy to go at a leisurely, sustainable pace. I find this to be incredibly helpful in maintaining verisimilitude. Of course, them wearing clothes undermines that quite considerably. Their outfits are not aquadynamic at all.

Worth noting is the discrepancy in skin tones between in-game and cut scene. Wakka seems considerably more tanned in both than he appeared in the original, though my memory of this may be slightly off. But even with the touch ups, the FMVs are still running on a dull palette and so most of the characters seem far more tanned than they do while running around using the game engine. Surprisingly, it's probably the cut scenes that best represent what skin tone these people should have. For the most part, they live tropical lives. Both Yuna and Lulu seem entirely out of place with pale-white skin tones, whereas Wakka fits that pseudo Polynesian box well. Late game spoilerEven Auron seems more tanned and he's smurfing dead.

Many people complain about Wakka's voice acting. I'm sure it's annoying for some people. As someone who lives in a region where his archetype can be commonly found, I think John DiMaggio did a decent job of it. Like every character and every voice actor in this game, though, a lot of lines are delivered strangely, but I think Wakka cops an unfair rap for his dialect and accent.

Something which I haven't mentioned too much yet is music. My musical knowledge is fairly limited, so I try to avoid criticising it unless it is obviously bad, or praising it unless it is used effectively and is subtle enough that some people might miss it but not so subtle that I miss it Regardless, I want to praise the audio team for their work. When Tidus mentions that he plays for the Zanarkand Abes, the incredibly uplifting Besaid jam fades into total silence, accentuating how out of place his words are.

A telling sign of Final Fantasy X's age is that the mouth animations are by and large terrible. Frequently the mouth isn't even moving when dialogue is being spoken, or vice versa. Obviously this would be a huge undertaking to fix, but as it stands I am yet to find a worthwhile reason to have re-released this. Insofar as a 2001 game, though, Final Fantasy X is a decent enough first foray into the realms of voice acting for the series.

There are some problems which can be attributed to audio mess ups or simply character stupidity: Wakka knocks Tidus into the water and then dives in after him. When Tidus surfaces and looks around, he asks "What's the big idea?" knowing full well that Wakka is underwater and cannot hear him. Unless Blitzballers are able to speak and hear underwater. Can they do that?

[Jiro]

After fighting some battles in the lake while searching for treasure, I realise how quiet it is. Later in the game, Final Fantasy X's characters have some quips to add during and after battle. But these are quite rare compared to the number of battles fought throughout. This is another minor element that I think has massive impact on how entertaining a game can be. In Tales of Xillia, for instance, nearly every battle has commentary during and after from the characters. This helps build the appearance of an actual party unit, as opposed to the old style of a group of people wander around silently until they reach a new town and are best buddies. Tales benefits largely from its skits, also, but battle comments should not be too difficult to manage.

A criticism on Wakka's character development, for a moment. Wakka takes Tidus under his wing immediately, which is understandable because Wakka is a friendly guy. He's grown up with the Aurochs, so he has that mentor-friend relationship down to a fine art. We also know that (SPOILER)Wakka's brother Chappu -- who looks like Tidus -- was raised by Wakka and later killed. There's a lot of stuff here that I might touch on again later. So it is completely believable that Wakka and Tidus would become fast friends.

What is hard to believe, though, is that Wakka wouldn't show signs (SPOILER)of confusion that Tidus looks eerily similar to his dead brother, and that he would instantly assume that kind of aggressive-friendship. Wakka pushes and punches Tidus, and puts him in headlocks, and there is literally nothing between them at this point. It is very lazy and feels unnatural to have Wakka jump straight into this kind of two-dimensional character archetype, even if Square Enix undoes this by having Wakka undertake really quite excellent character development over the rest of the game.

There's also a nice contrast shortly before they enter Besaid proper, where Tidus and Wakka are talking about the tournament. Wakka -- who is from Spira, from Besaid, is helping Tidus, and has numerous other qualities that give him an "edge" over Tidus -- is dislodged from his superiority seat by Tidus who suddenly finds himself in his element again: "When you play in a Blitzball tournament, you play to win."

Tidus and Wakka bump into Luzzu and Gatta on the way into Besaid. They have information about Tidus that they can't possibly have known. Obviously, Square Enix wanted to introduce them here with some natural conversation, but it fails dismally. They cannot possibly know that Tidus encountered Sin. Tidus then fails to understand the word "Crusaders"; while there are plenty on English speakers who don't know specific words in English, this just characterises Tidus as a complete fool -- which he is not -- and demonstrates a lack of listening skills. Based on what even exists in Zanarkand, there have already been a hundred or so words that Tidus is unlikely to have encountered. It is easy to render confusion without resorting to making your character a complete moron.

Once we reach Besaid village, we see the traditional shortage of houses when compared to NPCs. This is particularly prominent throughout Final Fantasy X, where housing locations are extremely limited. I think Besaid actually has the best ratio, especially when you consider the number of people staying in the Crusader's lodge (and that perhaps some people live in the temple). Why they couldn't have some viable living locations in the background of certain areas confuses me. Later, (SPOILER)when the party reaches Luca, there are a metric smurfton of people, but this is no way they would even fit in two or three times the number of houses you see on the pilgrimage.

[Jiro]

Now, the prayer. This has to be one of the most confusing plot holes. Tidus, who isn't religious, doesn't know the Yevonite's prayer, obviously. But when Wakka performs the action, Tidus recognises it -- any blitzball player worth his salt knows that as the sign for victory -- yet he smurfing fails to execute it himself without showing an uncharacteristic lack of coordination.

If Tidus knew this, he should have performed it well. He might also have asked or mentioned that it was familiar to him; attribute it to Sin's toxin, and have Wakka go "aha! you do remember some things, ya?" But the continual characterisation of Tidus as both mentally and physically inept is creating paradoxes in his character and utterly erasing the value and benefit of Tidus as a conduit for the player. Tidus is, at the end of things, if you aren't too critical, a smurfing fantastic lead character. But if you weigh all these elements as you would when examining a novel, he is an inconsistent half-assed moron. And that's not fair.

A strong positive for FFX is that NPCs are not static. Well, some are. But in Besaid, some NPCs walk in and out of buildings, adding some life to what are usually pretty but pretty dead places.

One NPC mentions that, the last time Sin attacked, the owner of a house just decided not to rebuild again. I don't know what the smurf happened to the owner; they must have died or moved away, because there's not exactly somewhere else for a person to permanently live.

When Tidus visits the Crusaders, they remark on how Sin might attack the island because it is close. Again, this is unprompted: they don't know Tidus was anywhere near Sin for sure, yet. Then Gatta is just a gigantic because he is a self-entitled upstart who thinks that because he is a member of the Crusaders, he is somehow above others. If you know a person has been near Sin (or have some kind of psychic ability to determine it) and then the person says they don't know what the Crusaders are, you -- like Luzzu does -- assume "ah! The toxin!"; you do not act like the person is a halfwit.

Then Gatta gets up and does the little spiel about the Crusaders. He is simply parroting trout that probably belongs on the back of a recruitment brochure. I only complain because I hate Gatta way more right now than I have in previous playthroughs and I think it is because he is characterised as a dick.

Also worth noting that, despite being semi important NPCs, both Luzzu and Gatta have the gross flat painted on faces too. Obviously you can't spare mad amounts of resources or assets for every character, but important NPCs seem like the kinds of characters you would spend a little more time on.

[Jinx]

You know, you bring up some good points about Wakka and Tidus. I have to say, their relationship dynamic is actually probably the best in the game; you really truly believe that they're good friends. The next best is Rikku and Tidus, then Lulu and Tidus.

[Pumpkin]

I am enjoying this!

I agree the Tidus Blitzball sign for victory thing is very odd. It's always confused me. The best I could come up with is that he's pretending he can't do it because he associates it with the Abes, which he knows he shouldn't bring up.

Gatta is kind of a jerk, but I think its an interesting part of his character. I assumed they did it to show that he is young, naive, and cocky. He doesn't know his limitations, he joined the crusaders, he feels like a tough man. I personally felt it tied in well with his character, especially in the future scene where (SPOILER) he gets so worked up to fight a battle that has such a low chance of success. Luzzu knows better but Gatta is just young and arrogant

[Quindiana Jones]

After reading through all of this and enjoying it greatly, all I can think about is how much I want to see Tidus' running technique.