Screenshots :.
Final Fantasy 10
PS2
Matt
18-05-2007
"She's a babe. A little icy, but she'd get it."
"And you think YOU have bed hair."
"Look me in the eye when I'm talking to you!"
"Angry fire monster of doom!"
It began with number seven for me, I think. My love of the Final Fantasy series started right there with Squaresoft’s seminal swords-in-space RPG epic. Being 15-years-old when the game was released for the PlayStation console of which I had just managed to afford an example, the game completely differed from anything I’d spent time with before and kept me addicted from the opening scenes right through to the last few names rolling by on the end credits. Since then my anticipation level for each new game in the series has risen greatly, which brings us neatly to Final Fantasy 10.
There was always going to be a lot of interest in Final Fantasy 10. Not only is it the very latest game in one of the most popular video game series in the world, it also marks the first time that the series has made the jump to the PlayStation 2. The star of the show this time around is a tousle-haired athlete named Tidus who suddenly finds himself being ripped from his superstar lifestyle in the futuristic town of Zanarkand and thrown far into the future and a world he doesn’t know.
Squaresoft are well known for tinkering around with their games in introducing new systems for battle and levelling, and episode 10 sees changes in both areas. Doing away with the Active Time Battle system that previous games had used, a new Conditional Theme Battle system has been introduced to allow Tidus and crew to joust with their various foes. In basic terms, the system involves characters each having their turns with no emphasis on time taken. Instead of queuing turns based on time taken, the game takes into account what each turn has done to characters’ status and shuffles accordingly, resulting is a slightly more tactical affair.
Adding to the tactical edge is the ability to swap members of your team during battle. This becomes particularly useful if, for example, you come across an enemy whose main weakness happens to be a character not in your main formation’s strength. Swapping a member in prevents you from using that character for one round of turns though, so rather than a matter of just swapping in and out it becomes something you have to apply at the right moment to maximise effect.
Summoning, magic and limit breaks all make a return to the action, and remain fairly similar in terms of use. Limit breaks (or Overdrives as they are known) in particular see each player being able to influence how effective they are with a series or pattern of button presses, which add that little edge of pace into battles. Not content with just allowing the player to gain Overdrives by performing every type of battle action, the game allows the player to tailor in which circumstances they can be gained for each character. When it comes to your swordsmen, for example, setting Overdrives to build upon using magic would be useless, whereas setting them to build upon attacking an opponent directly would fit the bill perfectly.
The end result of all the battling – and the experience gained in doing so – is a new and unique levelling system. Doing away with simply adding to each character’s abilities with experience, Final Fantasy 10 introduces a grid system on which the player can place spheres. These spheres are gained with experience and can be placed on adjacent branches to previously placed ones. The real trick to the system comes when it comes to the grid branching off in numerous directions, meaning that the player has to choose a pathway which best suits the class of each character to level them appropriately. Whole chunks of time can quite easily be lost studying the grid and planning your routes through it, proving it to be an involving and well-thought introduction to the series.
The main string to any Final Fantasy bow is the storyline, and this latest instalment takes the series to new heights in terms of emotional attachment. The main enemy the game throws forward is not an individual as such, rather the force of nature itself in the guise of Sin. Seen as the world’s punishment for its population’s use of mechanised machines, Sin takes the form of a giant tidal wave which crashes into villages at will, completely wiping away any trace of life.
Upon arriving in his new world, Tidus is informed that the ruins of what was his hometown of Zanarkand are now a holy destination to where chosen individuals make a pilgrimage in order to defeat Sin. Tidus soon becomes good friends with the summoner Yuna in the village where he was washed-up on, and fate leads him to join her and her friends on their pilgrimage across the world of Spira. Along the way friendships are won and lost, truths are uncovered and twists aplenty keep the player guessing on what exactly is going on.
What can certainly be said about Final Fantasy 10 is that it is a much darker, bleaker game than previous instalments. With the main themes being death, destruction and corruption, the story paints a painful picture of a world imploding in on itself. One particular scene sees the player walking Tidus along a stretch of beach littered with dead bodies shortly following an attack from Sin, accompanied by nothing more than the gentle sound of water lapping against the shore. The world and the happenings within genuinely leave you with some thought-provoking moments during the game’s 40+ hours.
As do the characters who inhabit that world. Your bunch of friends with whom you spend most of the game travelling are a likeable and interesting bunch, be they relaxed islander Wakka or strict, seething mage Lulu. The increase in hardware capabilities available to Squaresoft has seen the characters it portrays take on more depth and personality than ever before, and you quite quickly take a genuine concern in the fates of each and every main character you meet along the way.
That increase in hardware capability has also seen Square produce one of the most artistically beautiful games of all time, both in terms of visuals and acoustics. The CG movies dotted throughout the game are of equal quality as the Final Fantasy movie, and the in-game graphics see a move away from pre-rendered settings towards properly fleshed-out 3D areas. Series composer Nobou Uematsu returns to score this instalment, although for the first time ever he has been given assistance. The resulting audio track is a beautiful blend of gentle strings, soaring choral arrangements and – for the first time – heavy metal, all of which combine to add huge great layers of atmosphere on proceedings.
So, does Final Fantasy 10 keep up the usual standard of excellence that the series has prided itself on? You bet. With some pleasantly well-thought changes to the systems which drive the game allied to an epic, heart-tugging storyline, this latest edition is an ideal way for the series to make its bow on the new generation of machines. Final Fantasy 12 can’t come soon enough.
There was always going to be a lot of interest in Final Fantasy 10. Not only is it the very latest game in one of the most popular video game series in the world, it also marks the first time that the series has made the jump to the PlayStation 2. The star of the show this time around is a tousle-haired athlete named Tidus who suddenly finds himself being ripped from his superstar lifestyle in the futuristic town of Zanarkand and thrown far into the future and a world he doesn’t know.
Squaresoft are well known for tinkering around with their games in introducing new systems for battle and levelling, and episode 10 sees changes in both areas. Doing away with the Active Time Battle system that previous games had used, a new Conditional Theme Battle system has been introduced to allow Tidus and crew to joust with their various foes. In basic terms, the system involves characters each having their turns with no emphasis on time taken. Instead of queuing turns based on time taken, the game takes into account what each turn has done to characters’ status and shuffles accordingly, resulting is a slightly more tactical affair.
Adding to the tactical edge is the ability to swap members of your team during battle. This becomes particularly useful if, for example, you come across an enemy whose main weakness happens to be a character not in your main formation’s strength. Swapping a member in prevents you from using that character for one round of turns though, so rather than a matter of just swapping in and out it becomes something you have to apply at the right moment to maximise effect.
Summoning, magic and limit breaks all make a return to the action, and remain fairly similar in terms of use. Limit breaks (or Overdrives as they are known) in particular see each player being able to influence how effective they are with a series or pattern of button presses, which add that little edge of pace into battles. Not content with just allowing the player to gain Overdrives by performing every type of battle action, the game allows the player to tailor in which circumstances they can be gained for each character. When it comes to your swordsmen, for example, setting Overdrives to build upon using magic would be useless, whereas setting them to build upon attacking an opponent directly would fit the bill perfectly.
The end result of all the battling – and the experience gained in doing so – is a new and unique levelling system. Doing away with simply adding to each character’s abilities with experience, Final Fantasy 10 introduces a grid system on which the player can place spheres. These spheres are gained with experience and can be placed on adjacent branches to previously placed ones. The real trick to the system comes when it comes to the grid branching off in numerous directions, meaning that the player has to choose a pathway which best suits the class of each character to level them appropriately. Whole chunks of time can quite easily be lost studying the grid and planning your routes through it, proving it to be an involving and well-thought introduction to the series.
The main string to any Final Fantasy bow is the storyline, and this latest instalment takes the series to new heights in terms of emotional attachment. The main enemy the game throws forward is not an individual as such, rather the force of nature itself in the guise of Sin. Seen as the world’s punishment for its population’s use of mechanised machines, Sin takes the form of a giant tidal wave which crashes into villages at will, completely wiping away any trace of life.
Upon arriving in his new world, Tidus is informed that the ruins of what was his hometown of Zanarkand are now a holy destination to where chosen individuals make a pilgrimage in order to defeat Sin. Tidus soon becomes good friends with the summoner Yuna in the village where he was washed-up on, and fate leads him to join her and her friends on their pilgrimage across the world of Spira. Along the way friendships are won and lost, truths are uncovered and twists aplenty keep the player guessing on what exactly is going on.
What can certainly be said about Final Fantasy 10 is that it is a much darker, bleaker game than previous instalments. With the main themes being death, destruction and corruption, the story paints a painful picture of a world imploding in on itself. One particular scene sees the player walking Tidus along a stretch of beach littered with dead bodies shortly following an attack from Sin, accompanied by nothing more than the gentle sound of water lapping against the shore. The world and the happenings within genuinely leave you with some thought-provoking moments during the game’s 40+ hours.
As do the characters who inhabit that world. Your bunch of friends with whom you spend most of the game travelling are a likeable and interesting bunch, be they relaxed islander Wakka or strict, seething mage Lulu. The increase in hardware capabilities available to Squaresoft has seen the characters it portrays take on more depth and personality than ever before, and you quite quickly take a genuine concern in the fates of each and every main character you meet along the way.
That increase in hardware capability has also seen Square produce one of the most artistically beautiful games of all time, both in terms of visuals and acoustics. The CG movies dotted throughout the game are of equal quality as the Final Fantasy movie, and the in-game graphics see a move away from pre-rendered settings towards properly fleshed-out 3D areas. Series composer Nobou Uematsu returns to score this instalment, although for the first time ever he has been given assistance. The resulting audio track is a beautiful blend of gentle strings, soaring choral arrangements and – for the first time – heavy metal, all of which combine to add huge great layers of atmosphere on proceedings.
So, does Final Fantasy 10 keep up the usual standard of excellence that the series has prided itself on? You bet. With some pleasantly well-thought changes to the systems which drive the game allied to an epic, heart-tugging storyline, this latest edition is an ideal way for the series to make its bow on the new generation of machines. Final Fantasy 12 can’t come soon enough.
9/10
