Is Final Fantasy X the latest true masterpiece from Square Enix?

Twenty years ago, when Final Fantasy X debuted in Japanese stores, the Square series (Enix was still running on its own) was at the height of its history. Final Fantasy VII, thanks to Sony and PlayStation, has changed an idea Hironobu Sakaguchi In a global phenomenon, while Final Fantasy VIII has aligned it with a new generation of gamers, Final Fantasy IX has helped keep the past in mind. Chapter 10 has combined what has been learned in the past decade into a single product that projects body and soul into the future.

And the future of video games, as imagined in the early years of the new millennium, can only be gigantic, geared as it were toward continuous, hopefully unlimited growth. Video games, like society, had an optimistic hangover that in a few years they would have to deal with a reality consisting of new problems, new challenges for which no one was really prepared.

But what are the elements that make us say that Final Fantasy X is the absolute true masterpiece Who is the series? Why can Square Enix no longer be able to replicate this magic? Let’s find out together.

linear noodles

by setting New production and combo standardsWithout forgetting what made video games so popular up until then, Final Fantasy X personified as one of the greatest exponents of the medium. The game was welcomed by unanimous consent, however, as we will find out later, rather than pushing the developers towards a better balanced balance of components, it led them to promote nature cinematic From subsequent projects, at the expense of an increasingly atrophic depth.

Not just a creative option: this lightning is largely due to the need to have more and more detailed graphics to dub more and more dialogues. Final Fantasy X estimation created a trend that after a few years also reached the West, in fact there is a certain consistency with the track Elder Scrolls from Oblivion, which will be released about four years later, and beyond: more sounds and details, but also less gameplay and freedom.

event game

After all, net of every technical aspect, extraordinary music, engaging cast, inspiring setting, engaging plot and one of the most successful and appreciated mini-games of all time, we are of course referring to Blitzball, Final Fantasy X was and will be many years in Final Fantasy more linear For everyone.

To see what’s worse we will have to wait for the release of the thirteenth game, and thus a return as a director Motomo Toriyama. This shows that even a great game, if not quite as unusual as Final Fantasy X, can often have negative effects through its legacy. The great success of FFX, as well as its exorbitant cost at the time, also gave way to another revolution in the Square household which at first glance might seem positive, but overall it has created a supply chain that squeezes every class a lot. More than he’s actually able to offer: hmm Role This recycles part of the cast and setup and allows Square to fill in the increasingly long time separating the release between Final Fantasy and the next.

Final Fantasy X-2, which turns the female FFX crew into an idol to create a kind of JRPG that also tries to be a musician, is a fan-favorite, likable, but downright sacrilegious in its handling of the source material.

Colossal at any cost

Excellent products to make cash, but often able to damage the memory of Final Fantasy that must first be an event, not because of restarting development from scratch once, twice, or three times, but because of a clear idea we had that worked well for all the necessary years.

The success of Final Fantasy X also led to a kind of addiction to Turnout, with an almost chronic inability to think a bit smaller, thus offering drier and at the same time effective experiences. The brilliant disaster that Final Fantasy XV is the epitome of this desire to dazzle at all costs with the loss of a problem key, and the only consequence of keeping a game in the garage for an entire decade, is a suicidal move for any home software not called Square Enix.

high and low

Final Fantasy X is then imbued with a mystical magic that explodes in brilliant CGI. Do we really need to remind you of the amazing opening? Oron looks at the city from above, Tidus focuses before his first official match in Blitzball, Zanarkand At night, Yuna dances and is lifted by a column of water while the relics of the fallen slowly appear on the surface, always Yuna from this time of heaven’s commands.

And what about the first attack of the mysterious sin, the unforgettable kiss between the two protagonists. It’s all so poetic and archetypal that it probably deserves more affection than the untouchable Final Fantasy VII, but it’s not easy to fall in love with a product when, years later, you discover its agonizing duality: to be peak and downhill at the same time.