What were they thinking?
I've thought about this for a while now, and I think it's time I made a topic about it. I'm pretty sure FFX was actually designed for a more sinister purpose than simple entertainment. Overall the game was fairly good, but so many elements just cannot possibly be designed for the purpose of good.
WARNING, this may take a while, and I do repeat myself from other threads.
The characters, lets look at them:
Tidus, the main character, you'd expect him to be cool, have a decent backstory, some kind of training or experience. No, he's a celebrity, a whining, teenage celebrity. Who hasn't looked at them and thought wow they're cool, not the sort of people that need a good slapping and brought back to reality? How were we supposed to relate to him?
Auron, admittedly severely cool, but in life and death situations where quick thinking and level-headedness is important, you'd think he might actually tell everyone what the hell is going on instead of letting them wander blind into things. I mean seriously Zanarkand ruins might have been worth sitting down and working out a plan before destroying possibly Spira's only hope, but no, Auron decided that thinking should be done mid-fight.
Rikku. It's not her pointless over acting and arm-waving that's most pointless here, it's the sheer arrogance of apparently her entire race. Summoners CHOOSE to sacrifice themselves to save thousands of lives, but NOOO apparently what deep down they really want is to be kidnapped and have all those lives put in immediate danger.
Lulu, possibly the coolest character in the party, and certainly the most sensible, so why the hell did they decide to remove her entirely from the plot halfway through?
Kimhari, a big strong warrior, who says very little and is merely recognisable for his fighting and protective skills. So why make him the least useful character in battle in the game? Why?
Wakka, although the way he showed how Yevon can turn a nice guy into a racist, was it really a good idea to have the only otherwise sensibly done character a stereotype AND a racist?
Yuna. Ooh boy. The main love interest, and supposedly respected and thought the strongest person worldwide. Why then would you make her a complete moron? Who in their right mind would think that even though they need guardians 24/7, that keeping secret info that could lead to the end of the world, then walking solo into the hands of the enemy was a good idea? Not only this, but apparently basic sentences were a problem as she only seems to understand "I will fight on", and variations on the phrase?
The game design:
New PS2 power at their fingertips, the designers set out to create... the most restrictive FF yet!
No world map, why? This could be the best part of a lot of FFs, and where a huge amount of time was spent previously. It's ok though, they still managed to fit in ONE WHOLE usable vehicle, a walking chocobo.
Well at least they spent time making the rest good to make up right? Nope, paths are now about a foot wide in places, and each has maybe one small detour.
So the game is just walk from A to B with no real choice of where to go. Well maybe A and B are fun. Nope, just meaningless encounters with increasingly annoying characters.
The guy who tells you information about Spira (Maechen?), they actually KNEW he was annoying so they let you skip him. Why didn't they just not make him annoying?
The laughing scene, OH MY GOD!!!!!!!!!!!
Seymour, obviously the bad guy on sight. Annoying on every meeting. Yet they still make him turn up very, very often.
But none of this compares to the true evil of FFX. Mini-games.
Let's look at the evidence, were they really intended to be fun?
Blitzball, argueably the most fun of the bunch, however was this fluke? It was set underwater intentionally, but for some reason it was 2D. You could recruit new players, but due to the setup it was near impossible to improve them because their levels were too low to Techcopy. The games last well over ten minutes, yet you need to complete around fifty to get any decent rewards.
Undecided, let's move on. Chocobos. Now I actually had some fun playing this. Even after being given the ridiculous time required I still thought it would be okay. So what did they do? Throw in birds completely hidden that won't appear until the very last few metres of the race. On that close a timer, they surely didn't expect a random element to be entertaining?
Macalania woods. Even after being told what to do, and doing it, I still haven't got the sigil. How the hell was anyone supposed to get some of this stuff without a guide?
The Cloisters. Hmmm, dull wandering about moving spheres with very little thinking involved. This could almost be just slightly annoying. But no. If you want to get good stuff, you have to do the SAME cloisters several times. Why, why, why?????
Now the lightning bolts. Now it's getting stupid. Do I have to even go into this? Endurance is rarely going to be fun, but endurance that you have to restart for the slightest mistake? That's assuming you knew every detail you had to watch out for to begin with.
The final mini game. This is the biggy. I know you might be thinking, it wasn't that bad. But think about it. They put it right before a long cut scene and the final boss. They knew you'd have to do it several times. So what did they choose to base it on? Bad camera angles. BAD FRICKIN CAMERA ANGLES! Who in their right mind would even consider leaving them in a game, let alone actually basing a game on them.
Do we really think these were designed to entertain? Am I some crazy conspiracy theorist? Are Square secretly running the world and we are just pawns in their evil scheme?
Yuna is to become a lead character. What do you think?
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