Final Fantasy X Screenshots   The Final Say! Gameplay 9.5 Graphics 9.9 Sound 9.5 Value 9.0 Final Fantasy X - reviewed by Andrew B Review Date: 22 May 2002 Review Score: 9.5/10  Distributor: Sony

"Final Fantasy X...wow!" Squaresoft's highly anticipated Final Fantasy X has finally hit the Playstation 2 with extraordinary graphics, storyline and gameplay.  The game revolves around the unlikely hero of Tidus, a blitzball champion who finds the very fabric of his reality torn apart. The story starts with Tidus competing in a championship round of blitzball when suddenly his home city of Zanarkand is attacked by a mysterious entity known as Sin. Fortunately for Tidus, his mentor Auron is keeping a watchful eye over him. Auron gives Tidus his father's sword and his first lesson of self defence. As Zanarkand is falling apart from the attack of Sin, Tidus is drawn into the entity and finds himself in the land of Spira where he must protect a young sorceress known as Yuna. Finding allies along the way, the story soon reveals that Spira and Zanarkand are intertwined and Yuna must be protected at all costs. And thus begins your adventure... Unlike other Final Fantasy games, not everyone can summon the powerful Aeons that inhabit the dream world of the Final Fantasy series. Fortunately for your group of heroes, Yuna possesses this ability and can summon the Aeons to fight alongside you. As with other Final Fantasy games, the summoning of these Aeons is probably the most visually impressive feature of the game, apart from the beautifully rendered backgrounds and cinematics. Your group consists of a wide variety of characters that all have their own unique strengths and weaknesses. They include the powerful Kimkari, the black mage Lulu, former blitzball champion Wakka and the wise and powerful Auron.  As you travel through the lands of Spira, your characters will slowly become more powerful and discover new Aeons, vital equipment and deadly weaponry. After each battle, your characters are awarded ability points that lets you improve skills and statistics. Final Fantasy X has returned to a more traditional style of role playing where each character has a certain sphere of power such as thievery, magic and fighting.

The gameplay of Final Fantasy X is very similar to previous incarnations where characters must travel across the world, solving puzzles and adventures in order to proceed to the final storyline. Along your travels you will encounter a variety of different enemies that you must vanquish in order to proceed. Apart from these random encounters, your heroes must also fight powerful bosses that take careful planning and strategy, in order to defeat them. Brute force will only work so much. Moving your characters around is quite easy and is achieved by using the gamepad or the analog stick. Fortunately, the developers of Squaresoft have changed the fighting system in FFX and you are no longer rushed into choosing a tactic. There is also an option that lets you shorten the Aeon summoning animation from the options menu. Personally I would rather preferred a "skip" key because if you get a new Aeon, you must go the menu and enable it again to watch the cinema. The save system is the same as previous games and you must look for save points throughout the game in order to save.