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Contains some very mild spoilers which won't harm your enjoyment of the game
Final Fantasy games are notorious slow at the beginning, compared to games like Balders Gate you get spoon fed story line, tutorials character introductions and fighting tactics amonst other stuff. So remember FF7. It starts in Midgar and it takes you a fair few hours to all there is to do there before the ga,e really lets you loose on the world map, even then it restricts you as to which bits of the world map you can explore.
Well with FFX take all this and times it by Ten. You are VERY VERY VERY spoon fed at the beginning. It takes you through most aspects of fighting and a lot of background story in the first few (more than FF7) hours. There are enormous amounts of cut scenes and bits where you don't really feel like your involved in the story line, more watching a movie.
At the point the only real scope for huge ivolvement is leveling up your characters which I will come on to. So for the first between 10 and 20 hours you follow a fairly Linear story line where you pick up some new charcaters, get some Summonings watch lots of cut scenes. Don't me wrong, Its a very interesting story, and I certainly get very emotionaly involved with my characters. I did enjoy this bit, but FFX doesn't really come alive until you have completed most of the story line and the game really opens up.
As I have said before unlike previous FF games (I don't refer to FF9 because I couldn't get very interested in it and subsequently gave up after about 15 hours play), there is no world map. All your world exploration is done via the airship which is like a base from which you may teleport to re-visit most of the places to which you have previously been and discover new ones, which is important you want to scratch more than the surface of the game.
To a casul (I use the term loosly) gamer, the game may seem fairly shallow, but there are many 'hidden things to discover. I won't go into them in detail for fear of spoiling the game for you. But you really have two ways of playing the game, as with FF7, you can play along with the story line, skip over any extra exploration and finish the game, which is fine, and that is what I did the first time through. But for a much better RPG type experiance you can get to the end of most of the scripted storyline and become your own boss. Powering up your character, collecting items to get that ability for your weapon thats so important, finding secret stuff.
At least the lack of a world map doesn't leave you running around lost for hours, not being able to find the next location on the world map, which has happened to me at various times while playing FF7
So on to leveling up your characters. The way that you do that is very different to FF7 but with more scope for involvement from the player. In FF7 gaining levels increased your stats and gave you EXP on any materia you had equipped. In FFX all leveling up is done via the sphere grid. Basically you fight monsters to earn AP which in turn earns you Sphere levels. For every one Sphere level that a charater earns you may move one space on the sphere board. The sphere board consits or nodes, each node when activated givbes the player something, either more strenth pointes or speed points, etc. or an ability such as a spell or a skill. There are also blank nodes which are important later when you can fill them in with spheres that you may collect from monsters in several ways. All this gives you massive scope for developing your characters the way you want to.
Oh and as a bit of an aside (but it does mnatter to me) the graphics are fantasic. It is one of the pretties games I have ever seen.
It has a mini games as well. Done away with are card the card games (the best part of FF8 in my opinion) and in its place is a game called blitzball which is kind of like underwater american football. It does feel abit like a tagged on to flesh out the game mini-game, buts its fun never the less.
The only complaints I really have about it in comparison to FF7 is the bad guy. Sephiroth was one of the deepest most evil yet understandable and kinda lovable-hateable bad guys ever. You could really understand, yet loath why he was so bad. The bad guy in FFX is for want of a better way of putting it, a bit of a wuss. The story line is no where near as complicated as FF7 whilest being more involving and deeper than FF8. The Hero of the game Tidus is a bit bubbly and annoying (hes like the anti-squall) I wish they had created a more rounded character like Cloud. And the trademark romance doesn't convince me either. I much prefered FF7 will it be aries or will it be tifa cliff hanger.
I takes a lot for a game to make me play a game for 80+ hours. FF7 did it FF8 felt like a bit of a chore, and FF9 lost me. FFX is the next-best thing to FF7 and I've really enjoyed playing it
Hope that helped.
Final Fantasy games are notorious slow at the beginning, compared to games like Balders Gate you get spoon fed story line, tutorials character introductions and fighting tactics amonst other stuff. So remember FF7. It starts in Midgar and it takes you a fair few hours to all there is to do there before the ga,e really lets you loose on the world map, even then it restricts you as to which bits of the world map you can explore.
Well with FFX take all this and times it by Ten. You are VERY VERY VERY spoon fed at the beginning. It takes you through most aspects of fighting and a lot of background story in the first few (more than FF7) hours. There are enormous amounts of cut scenes and bits where you don't really feel like your involved in the story line, more watching a movie.
At the point the only real scope for huge ivolvement is leveling up your characters which I will come on to. So for the first between 10 and 20 hours you follow a fairly Linear story line where you pick up some new charcaters, get some Summonings watch lots of cut scenes. Don't me wrong, Its a very interesting story, and I certainly get very emotionaly involved with my characters. I did enjoy this bit, but FFX doesn't really come alive until you have completed most of the story line and the game really opens up.
As I have said before unlike previous FF games (I don't refer to FF9 because I couldn't get very interested in it and subsequently gave up after about 15 hours play), there is no world map. All your world exploration is done via the airship which is like a base from which you may teleport to re-visit most of the places to which you have previously been and discover new ones, which is important you want to scratch more than the surface of the game.
To a casul (I use the term loosly) gamer, the game may seem fairly shallow, but there are many 'hidden things to discover. I won't go into them in detail for fear of spoiling the game for you. But you really have two ways of playing the game, as with FF7, you can play along with the story line, skip over any extra exploration and finish the game, which is fine, and that is what I did the first time through. But for a much better RPG type experiance you can get to the end of most of the scripted storyline and become your own boss. Powering up your character, collecting items to get that ability for your weapon thats so important, finding secret stuff.
At least the lack of a world map doesn't leave you running around lost for hours, not being able to find the next location on the world map, which has happened to me at various times while playing FF7
So on to leveling up your characters. The way that you do that is very different to FF7 but with more scope for involvement from the player. In FF7 gaining levels increased your stats and gave you EXP on any materia you had equipped. In FFX all leveling up is done via the sphere grid. Basically you fight monsters to earn AP which in turn earns you Sphere levels. For every one Sphere level that a charater earns you may move one space on the sphere board. The sphere board consits or nodes, each node when activated givbes the player something, either more strenth pointes or speed points, etc. or an ability such as a spell or a skill. There are also blank nodes which are important later when you can fill them in with spheres that you may collect from monsters in several ways. All this gives you massive scope for developing your characters the way you want to.
Oh and as a bit of an aside (but it does mnatter to me) the graphics are fantasic. It is one of the pretties games I have ever seen.
It has a mini games as well. Done away with are card the card games (the best part of FF8 in my opinion) and in its place is a game called blitzball which is kind of like underwater american football. It does feel abit like a tagged on to flesh out the game mini-game, buts its fun never the less.
The only complaints I really have about it in comparison to FF7 is the bad guy. Sephiroth was one of the deepest most evil yet understandable and kinda lovable-hateable bad guys ever. You could really understand, yet loath why he was so bad. The bad guy in FFX is for want of a better way of putting it, a bit of a wuss. The story line is no where near as complicated as FF7 whilest being more involving and deeper than FF8. The Hero of the game Tidus is a bit bubbly and annoying (hes like the anti-squall) I wish they had created a more rounded character like Cloud. And the trademark romance doesn't convince me either. I much prefered FF7 will it be aries or will it be tifa cliff hanger.
I takes a lot for a game to make me play a game for 80+ hours. FF7 did it FF8 felt like a bit of a chore, and FF9 lost me. FFX is the next-best thing to FF7 and I've really enjoyed playing it
Hope that helped.
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hohoho
Blank wrote:
> And I thought Fabtasy was intentional!
when you put it thatway.....
damn I could have passed that one off
> And I thought Fabtasy was intentional!
when you put it thatway.....
damn I could have passed that one off
And I thought Fabtasy was intentional!
I have only written one review, and that's because I was so insulted by the pathetic attempt ata game which is Nintendo's Doshin the Giant (I can say that n this forum without being jumped on...)
Insane Bartender wrote:
> Many thanks to Ros for typing this up for me.
You did me a favour actually. After I posted this I tydied it up, cut some words out and submitted it as a review, so my review count stands at two now. I don't seem to be able to write a review unless someone asks me for one (like the Rocky one for Goatboy). So thanks, my stats look slighty less dismal
> Many thanks to Ros for typing this up for me.
You did me a favour actually. After I posted this I tydied it up, cut some words out and submitted it as a review, so my review count stands at two now. I don't seem to be able to write a review unless someone asks me for one (like the Rocky one for Goatboy). So thanks, my stats look slighty less dismal
OK, I've read it all now, but I'm not necessarilly convinced.
I'll wait for the next installment I think.
Many thanks to Ros for typing this up for me.
I'll wait for the next installment I think.
Many thanks to Ros for typing this up for me.
Rosalind wrote:
> Beats working for a living
Or slacking?
> Beats working for a living
Or slacking?
Insane Bartender wrote:
> The things you do for me!
Beats working for a living
> The things you do for me!
Beats working for a living
nice one Ros. Haven't read all of this, but I'll have a gander when I get home.
The things you do for me!
The things you do for me!
Oh. bother my shoddy typing!
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