Final Fantasy X

Not the best of the Final Fantasy series, but definitely a fun play. The voice acting is irritating at first, but it gets better. The sphere grid system can be a bit slow, but is the most fun addition to the game. Also enjoyable is being able to swap your party members mid-battle, this leads to more strategic battles.

How can they call this a "game"? it's basically just a long cartoon which never lets you play! I can't believe there are so many good reviews for a game which has no challenge or fun value. You might as well just watch a japanese cartoon on TV because that's all this is.

This game wasn't a horrific, disgusting waste of money, but compared with others in the series, I am a little put off by how many people think it is unquestionably the best.

As someone who plays RPGs primarily for their fantastic, better-than-Hollywood stories, I was left feeling devoid and empty after conquering FF9, hands-down the most loose-end-resolving game I have EVER played, in any series, period. Not wanting to replay any others at the time, I decided, against someone close's advice, to pop in FF10 and give it a shot. And, after I passed the point where certain characters boarded a ship and left the first village, I was glad I did.

For one thing, the voice acting alone was particularly exciting--I had always dreamed of the day when someone would convert treasures like FF6 and FF4 into full-blown movies, and this was the closest thing so far. I was a little concerned about the cheesiness in certain places (mostly the beginning or involving Rikku, who I did find very useful in battle), and the fact that Yuna sounded completely bored about everything you talked to her about; but for the most part the verbage and dialect of each character was consistent, and the cheesiness was allocated to the more light-hearted characters, who either became endearing, too powerful in battle to dislike, or both. Even Tidus's jocky character, which still gave impressions of cool shallowness rigbt through to the end, was anchored substantially by his intermittent pensive, almost nostalgic narrations. Complete with many musical tracks that blurred emotional lines at exactly the appropriate moments, and overlooking the fact that some of the music was mastered too loudly for the dialogue, I would give this game 5 stars if it were based only on the graphics and cinematic quality, which are just short of fantastic.

The fighting system, as well, is actually one of the most entertaining I've ever experienced in a FF. I'll admit it--I'm the person who just attacks everything with physical weapons as fast as possible just to get through the random battles as fast as possible (I almost never "Escape" because I end up leveling up a little ahead of where I should be when I just stick it out), but this game has probably broken me of that lazy, anti-strategist habit forever. The ability to switch out and use every character in battle not only (for me, anyway) kept the lead characters adequately leveled up (they're never my favorites, for some reason), but also was a great exercise in strategy, even though some characters ended up with odd attributes in the Sphere Grid later on in the game (Lulu was the last to learn "Ultima", and Kimahri became a skilled white wizard). Even though the sphere grid was a little frustrating at times (spending hours trying to get Lv. 4 spheres, for instance), it was exciting to see character's attributes going up when they were already kicking [...]. Customizing your own weapons, too, was probably one of the most satisfying features ever to be included in a linear RPG, and it was great, for example, to just buy up a bunch of Shimmering Blades and then make Auron one of everything (I could just see him perusing his supplies and casually selecting how he wanted to kill something--poison? stone? zombification?). The possibilities are numerous, if not endless, though the process of obtaining the ingredients took about as many hours as all the other parts of the game put together (I finally just gave up on getting 32 Hypello Potions for everyone, and Farplane Winds, forget it.).
So the fighting system, in sum, also gets a 5.

The reason I absolutely had to give this game a 4, and actually the reason why I had to say something after reading several negative comments by halfway-throughers, is the ending. Maybe it's because I had just come out of playing FF9, where everyone and his dog has a complete, satisfying happy (or not-so-happy) ever after, but even compared with Young Merlin, where you have little characters jumping up and down and mumbling at each other and which is not even an RPG, this ending SUCKS. Not because of the main thing that happens, which everyone who has played through to the very end knows what I'm talking about and which probably inspired a lot of the FF10 AMVs on YouTube, but because they, to put it appropriately, completely dropped the blitzball on everything else. Not that the main thing was done very well either--the male character involved was much too complacent with the truth when he found it out, and unfortunately this carried over to everything else--but I'm sure I'm not alone in my absolute hatred of game endings where you've become completely attached to the characters and then after the big buildup and the final boss they say a maximum of two words and then the credits come. What the living **** is the point of creating interest in the characters (and this can be applied to any medium--books, movies, etc.--it even happened with a certain series about a British boy wizard) and then not taking two extra seconds to make up a satisfying, complete-feeling ending for them? More pointedly, what is the point of creating non-lead characters at all when they're just going to be ignored later and given no future? Barrett in FF7, Setzer in FF6, Rydia in FF4--I even liked Steiner as one of the best in FF9--what if they had all been blown by the wayside at the end of those games? I would have thrown something, along with millions of other people, I'm sure. Fortunately my favorite guy in FF10 had a decent resolution, but even that was blown off by the other characters themselves, and there were four characters--four, out of seven, who I don't think even got to speak after the final battle. The final battle itself wasn't too pretty either--that handy limit-break on the Masamune led me to kill the final boss with one 99999 hit, after Seymour (aka Sephiroth) killed me at least 5 times on Mt. Gagazet, resulting in 5 of the 7 game overs I got during the whole game. Sorry, but when I got beat the [...] out of in the Omega Dungeon and barely escaped with my life, I expected the final battle to be a little more challenging. I must say, though, that the one salvation of the end (something that happened before the final battle) was absolutely beautiful, and I actually teared up at that point, where I didn't even have time to be sad about anything else later on because it was over so quickly. The whole father-son relationship, and the part of the story concerning everyone involved with the Jecht spheres, was the true heart of this story in my book, and its playing-out was a triumph.

All in all, my best advice would be to stick with this game. Even if it seems a bit cheesy from the offset, it gets better; and even if the ending doesn't satisfy you either, the story itself before that is worth playing though, and you can always make up your own ending in your head if it bothers you enough.

This game is worth ever penny. It has everything an rpg lover likes, great story, charcters with thier own personalities, and fun attacks and enemies. With that said, does anyone know where I can purchase an international version of this game?

This game is the best game that I have personally ever played and I still play it now 7 years after release, and im not a Final Fantasy fanboy, this is the only Final Fantasy game that I have liked (only played 4 of them ). The story is the best I have seen in a game, and there are plenty of extra things for you to do throughout the game. The level-up system is very original and adds a ton of replayability to it.