Final Fantasy X Remastered review: Spira’s looking goooooood

It has been well over a decade since I first played through Final Fantasy X (FF X) on my Playstation 2 (PS2), but I remember the adventure so incredibly well. Who can forget that first introduction to blitzball, washing up on the shores of Besaid, fighting Sin, or any of the other events that took place in Tidus’ story?

FF X was the most memorable game I played on my PS2, and now Square Enix has brought it to the Playstation 3 and Vita. The question on every fan’s mind though is, does it hold up?

This is Tidus’ Story

FF X takes place in a land called Spira that is being terrorized by a seemingly indestructible monster named Sin. At the start of the game, you control the main character, Tidus, as he is getting ready for his big blitzball match. During this match, Sin rises out of the ocean, destroys the city, and transports Tidus 1,000 years into the future.

Once in the future, Tidus finds himself alone and confused. After a series of events, he washes up on the shores of Besaid and meets a young summoner named Yuna and her crew of guardians; Wakka, Lulu, and Kimahri. Summoners are tasked with a pilgrimage to obtain the final summon, the only method of defeating Sin, and Tidus joins Yuna and her crew in hopes of finding someone who can help him get back home.

Along the way, Tidus finds both adventure and romance and his quest to return home develops into a quest to protect Yuna and save Spira.

Along the way…

As you voyage from temple to temple, your party will encounter fiends (monsters) that you will have to fight. FF X uses a straight turn-based system that does not contain time meters. Once it is your turn to attack, you could leave your controller, go make a snack, watch a movie, come back, and nothing would have changed. This is different than the typical Active Time Battle meters used in previous Final Fantasy games, and allows for what seems like faster gameplay.

Your party is made up of three out of the game’s seven playable characters at any time, but these party members can be switched around with a press of the L1 button. You can change up your party members without having to waste a turn, which makes it easy to develop your entire party instead of relying on three characters the entire time.

Something else that differentiates FF X from the Final Fantasy games that came before it is its Sphere Grids. Sphere grids contains nodes like Strength, MP, HP, and various abilities to learn along the way, and are unique to each character. The more you progress along the Sphere Grid, the stronger your characters will be.