According to Gamefaqs, Final Fantasy 10 tells the story of Tidus a 17-year-old rising Blitzball player from Zanarkand, a gigantic technological city that never sleeps, sharing lots of semblance to Midgard, from the FFVII-universe. Tidus is extremely cheerful and illuminates self-confidence from the first time you see him, but has built up a hateful relationship to his own father, who ran away ten years ago. One day, while Tidus were out playing an important game of Blitzball, an enormous and mysterious creature arrived to Zanarkand, annihilating everything in its sight. While being lucky enough to survive the attack, Tidus gets mysteriously transported a thousand years into the future, and into the land of Spira. While trying to find his way back home, he comes across a bunch of people, all with their individual stories to tell. They all set out on a pilgrimage for Zanarkand as the goal, a journey where Tidus must learn about Spira's teachings, the truth about his father and even more about himself. The story, beyond my poor attempt at a summary, is much more complicated and intricate. The way each element of the story is presented should be appreciated to the utmost degree as you will be able to tell immediately from the opening sequence of the game how much effort Square put to develop a memorable story. Though the voice-overs are not without flaws it's still a very nice addition to the series, and without a doubt an enhanced way of telling a story.
The game, compared to other Final Fantasy's, is much more linear, completely omitting the world map. While some people did find this controversial, the game still provides plenty of side-quests and regular game content comparable to the previous games. The RPG system introduced in FFX is by many considered the best in the series. The Sphere Grid predetermines a part of the roles your characters must act during battle, but offers a prospect to customize and upgrade them as you see fit, for later. By using Sphere Levels, obtained from defeating foes, the player can choose to move his characters a set amount of spaces on a grid while donating spheres in order to upgrade strength, HP or learn them new abilities. Although it might sound complicated from my explanation, it really isn't. To many gamers' frustration, Square did keep the random battles. In my opinion, the random battles are not annoying as previous games. Putting the ATB system from several FFs on the shelf, we're back to the basics in X. Meaning that your characters no longer have to take action based on a countdown, but that you have all the time in the world to plan your strategies before making a decision. You can choose from attacking, using magic, item usage etc. Oh, and to summon of course. While only one of your characters has the ability to summon creatures, called Aeons in FFX, Square has unarguably put a lot more thought into each of them in X. Though not being as many as in most of the previous games, the player will for the first time take full control over each individual summon during battle, deciding whether to perform attacks, use magic or even unleashing a super attack if the time is right. The player will also have the opportunity to enhance and customize the aeons a bit later on. The overdrives used by your characters can be used only when their overdrive gauge is filled. How it fills depends on what kind of overdrive mode you've chosen for that particular character. It varies from healing, killing to even taking damage. The overdrives themselves can often be enhanced if the player executes a tiny “mini-game” within a time-limit first.
Overall, Final Fantasy X is a great rpg. According to Vgchatz, FFX has sold over 8 million copies worldwide solidifying it as one of the best role playing games of all time.
Links:
http://www.gamefaqs.com/ps2/197344-final-fantasy-x
http://www.vgchartz.com/game/759/final-fantasy-x/
I have to agree, Frank. It's a good game. Not my favorite RPG, and maybe tied with FF9 with my favorite Final Fantasy, but it's still a good play.
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