One of the best gaming experiences I've ever had...
by Helmetz Aug 19, 2009, 2:14 PM PDT
About ten years ago, I was one of those games that simply did not have the patience for a game where I had to stand there and wait to be hit and then I could hit back. That would put us around the era of FFVI. FFVII hit the market and everybody went crazy. Sure it was an improvement graphically from it's predecessor, but I did not give it a chance because of the whole turn based system. Fast forward a couple of years down the road FFVIII and FFIX hit the market and graphically they keep improving (as far as I could tell) along with the stories and characters within. Then FFX was launched on the PS2. I heard everybody talking about it, but did not see what the big deal was about. My nephew had the game and I borrowed it for a weekend because I had nothing to do (good thing too). I mixed a couple of drinks and decided to give this Final Fantasy thing a try. When I put in the game I was instantly stunned by the amount of time and care that apparently went into this game. The graphics were so impressive I nearly lost my breath!!! The mix of pre-rendered CG and live gameplay was amazing. I hadn't felt such a cinematic feel with a videogame since Metal Gear 2: Sons of Liberty (which was also a great game). The story was one of the best stories that I've experienced within a videogame, movie, you name it. I was drawn into the game for hours upon hours...next thing you know, the day, weekend, week is gone. Yes, it is that engaging. Square Enix did a fantastic job with this game and it clearly showed that they wanted to be the ambassador of the next generation consoles (Playstation 2 at the time) and clearly surpassed most developers doing so. The character development made you truly feel compassion for some and hate for others. You connected on an unbelievable level with the characters on this epic journey and felt as if you was another member in the party. It kind of made me forget about the whole turn based strategy involved in the combat system at all...go figure. A nice thumbs up to Square for getting past my over critical facade about not willing to give certain things a try! Puzzles and mini games are thrown in to give the game alot of variety...and when I say alot, I mean alot. The game took me nearly 50 hours to complete, but with all the additional content, it could easily take any fan of the series about 100+ hours. Character development was interesting as a game sphere is used to increase certain attributes of party members. Sometimes the gameplay can b
