WK Plays FFX

[Wolf Kanno]

Minor Update

I've finished up to the Moonflow and have my full party. Now I need to prepare myself as Yuna takes all the good will she's fostered with me up to this point and throw it all away because of a stupid half Guado dude. Because fighting a Doomsday Whale was apparently not exciting enough for Nojima, Toriyama, and Kitase.

Pros:

• Djose Temple Cloister of Trials was amusing. Though I did get temporarily stumped on how to use the Destruction Sphere because I didn't realize there was a second floor.
• I have Rikku now and thus a thief. I must say, the Thief/Chemist combo is a very smart move and I do use this combo in FFV a lot.
• I can finally customize equipment!!!
• One of the last weapons I bought was a weapon for Wakka that had Stonetouch attached, and it has turned out to be a good investment as Wakka was destroying Ochu's so efficiently I had to start bringing him in last to give the rest of the party a chance to gain XP.
• I totally forgot about random chests appearing in battles once Rikku joins. Funny enough, the recent Eiyuden Chronicles uses a similar idea though in it's case, the chests can be opened by anyone, and the chests are designated to certain areas and are finite.
• The sequence at Djose temple where everyone is teasing Yuna was amusing.
• Playing this game again after playing FFXI, it's actually amusing to see how many animations and camera angles XI re-used from this game. One scene at Operation Mi'hen really felt like an XI cutscene because it like using this low angle looking up pan of a group of people, and XI loves using those angles for cutscenes to add dynamic visuals while not moving the character models. It's neat to see what later game's re-used and honestly makes XII feel a bit more impressive since it doesn't seem like it re-uses as many assets for some reason.

Cons:

• Oof, I definitely feel like Ixion is the weak link of all the summons in this game. He's surprisingly frail for a summon and Aerospark doesn't feel as useful as Meteor Strike and Swift Wings. He really feels like a summon that needs you to use the new customization system to make any use for him.
• I feel one of the problems with the last three areas I've been in the game is that they are all visually boring and largely have a very obvious "road" design that really makes the world feel small to me. I had a similar issue with FFXIII's map design as well, but we can see where the seeds for that design first took root. Now granted, this was the first FF game for the PS2, and FFVII is the exception, not the norm if we make comparisons for the first entry on a new console vs. the last entry on the previous console. It's kind of a shame too, because reading some interviews and behind the scenes talk, the original intention of the game was to be expressed closer to what we got in FFXII than here. Anyway, I find it interesting how back in the day, people whined about FFXII looking "not fantasy" enough like FFX, but frankly, fantasy settings are not that common in the game. Like the Moonflow has the one area with the pyreflies and the other with the Shoopuf, but it's mostly just a regular road. Like three screens. Mushroom Rock is similar. The least that one could have done is do what Besaid has and have the camera pan to the left so eventually you see that your team is by the stormy ocean or something. Instead it's just brown rock everywhere.
• While it is nice that Customize is available, like XIII's equipment system after it, this isn't going to get as much love until I get the airship towards the end of the game. Most of the skills available to me at the moment are not exactly game changers, and a lot of the equipment I win or find tend to have equivalent skills. Like XIII later, this is a mechanic I feel the devs should have introduced much earlier, just give it to Oaka or something so you can only use the feature when he or other shop keepers are around and then when Rikku arrives, you can finally do it at the menu screen.
• One of the other kind of weird design elements that is certainly subjective opinion is the idea of NPC traveling with you. Granted they are not party members, but X has a knack for introducing characters and then have them show up at every location to give their two cents. While I can see how some players may find this enjoyable as it really drives home the game's central theme of Journey to have other travelers you meet on the road, I feel like it would work better if more of them had personal goals. Like Maechen serves as functional purpose being the lore dude, but the Chcocobo Knights are sort of just screwing around and Shelinda feels even more aimless at this point. I may change my opinion when I go further and we see their character arcs get some resolution, but so far it's just been "hey how are you doing?" ~ "Oh me? I'm just doing the same thing I was doing the last two times you asked in the previous two zones".
• Maechen is a character I have a very ambivalent relationship with in this game. On the one hand, his VA Dwight Schultz is phenomenal and give this guy a nice regal but fun personality. Likewise, I do appreciate the lore drops as well. The issue is that his nature in the game gives it a very Tour Guide feel that really takes me out of the story. This is exacerbated by my complaint above in how he's just following you around so he can tell you what to look at. I was hoping a few years of Dark Souls and VaatiVidya would have softened my stance on this but I think the years of childhood trauma being stuck on guided tours while on vacation runs too deep for me.