07/09/04: Final Fantasy X:
"Ten Phases of Final Fantasy X"
I.
You have to understand that I've played every Final Fantasy game.
(Well, okay, that's not necessarily true: I haven't played I or II or III, V or Mystic Quest.)
(I am even more of a nerd for making that admission.)
Final Fantasy is a franchise that I clutch near and dear to my heart. My weekends in middle and high school were spent slumped in front of the television, working my way through Midgar and Balamb Garden. Other people had friends and did stuff with them; I had poorly-rendered polygons in the middle of a violent soap opera.
And I got attached to my polygons. I spent sixth grade rehearsing the opening of VI in my head, over and over. I spent ninth grade writing fanfiction about Cloud's Freudian resentment towards his mother. I am a creature obsessed. I am a whore for Square. Some may see sixty hours filled with movies, menus, and melodrama, but I see heaven.
Of course I was going to play Final Fantasy X. How could I not?
Only...I didn't.
II.
Or, at least -- not for a while.
Most shipments of Final Fantasy X were delayed until right after Christmas 2001. I did most of my Final Fantasy-receiving at Christmas (thus insuring that my January and February would inevitably be spent in slack-jawed abeyance), so delaying the game's release crippled my opportunities to play it.
(I made up for that disappointment by voiding the warranty for our Playstation 2. Never a dull moment in our house!)
Also, I was poor. Not that poor -- I wasn't foraging for food among the rats -- but I was a high school kid with poor saving skills, and spending sixty dollars myself for a game was not a realistic option. So I moaned about my loss for a bit and then started playing my many other video games. And promptly forgot about Final Fantasy X.
For a while.
III.
Ultimately, I didn't possess my own personal copy of the game until November 2003.
Which is not to say that I spent the intervening 23 months in a state of virginal anticipation: I rented the game during my high school spring break.
(While my peers were hitting the sunny beach, I was sprawled in my brother's darkened bedroom, playing Final Fantasy X and giving my best damn impression of a gelatinous, light-fearing slug.)
I am both a purist and a completist when it comes to dorky RPGs. That means that I cherish the story in all its melodramatic glory (i.e. no changing all the names to CHEESEHEAD) and I do my best to complete all the inane sidequests.
My brother is neither. This may explain his impatience with RPGs. He mostly stopped playing genre games after Final Fantasy VI and Secret of Mana. He occasionally plays one of my RPGs, but mostly he wanders through the room (which, to be fair, is technically his bedroom) and mocks the overwrought plot unfolding on the screen.
(Xenosaga makes him wince to this day.)
Yet he played Final Fantasy X. And he beat it. It was a slightly suspect victory -- part of his speed was due to the fact that he irritably started stabbing buttons at the first hint of a cinematic scene. The plot passed in a blur of garbled bleeps and disorienting hiccups.
But he did beat it, which meant it intrigued him more than any RPG had in a long time. Our two younger siblings play all RPGs, so by this time, they had jumped on the Final Fantasy X-playing bandwagon as well.
Which meant lots of gushy feelings of family togetherness and unity as we all shared a common love for Tidus' dorky Wonder Years narration. But it also meant fewer opportunities for me to actually play the game.
I only got to the Calm Lands before my spring break was over and I had to return the rented copy.
IV.
Yet that heady Spring Break was enough to sear the game's sterling qualities into my brain. It was an objectively good game; perhaps a bit chatty for my brother's tastes, but the fun gameplay made up for that excess in his eyes.
I liked the chattiness. I liked the characters. They were sympathetic even they were exhibiting their personal flaws. Wakka, in particular, is a brilliant character: likable despite his dogmatic intolerance.
The standard cliches of good games apply. Pretty graphics! Great script! Fabulous voice-acting! Crisply rendered locations! It was, in short, a pretty, pretty game.
It was also a fun game and it had an arresting story. What's not to love? Here was a truly superlative title from a franchise I had always loved.
Yet I became too busy with school to rent the game again.
(Just as well. I only passed Calculus that year by the skin of my teeth.)
V.
Which is not to say I lived in a bubble untroubled by the game. Other people were playing the game and talking about it, and after a year, people stop feeling the need to punctuate their discussions with spoiler warnings.
(Same with the latest Harry Potter book -- have not read it, tried to avoid discussions about it, stuck my fingers in my ears and hummed, and was spoiled anyway. Dammit. Not that I'm bitter.)
The oddest intrusion of Final Fantasy X into my life, however, was in the middle of college lecture on robotics I sat through in my senior year of high school. The professor was discussing some element of artificial intelligence I've since forgotten -- it may have been visual recognition -- and paused to make some analogy to Final Fantasy X.
"Have you all seen this game?" she asked. We all nodded, being a very geeky audience. "Really excellent graphics, right? The expressions on faces? I mean, the story..." She paused and shook her head. "The story is kind of...not so good, yeah? But the graphics are nice."
More than a year and a half has passed since I sat through that non-sequitur digression, but it still bothers me. What the hell was her problem with the story? I mean, sure, it's not Shakespeare. Nobody is going to champion the plot as one of the great works of narrative of this century. Still, the game develops a plot, examines character motivations, utilizes motifs and symbolism, and grounds the story in several consistent themes. It has all the hallmarks of literature -- if not great literature, at least competent literature.
In short, Final Fantasy X is undeserving of a forgotten A.I. professor's scorn. But, then: what the hell did she know, anyway?
(Not that I'm bitter.)
VI.
I rented the game at some further point but that was even less of a success: I only managed to get to Yuna's sepulchral journey through the Via Purifico before I had to return the game.
(I always start a game new from scratch if I haven't played in a while, as that ensures I won't forget all the intricate little plot details. See purist above. Also note my utter lack of a life.)
By then, I had decided that my money would be better used for buying the game than paying rental late fees. Thus resolved, I...utterly failed to buy a copy. I'm a easily distracted free-spender; it's not the ideal temperament for premeditated video game purchases.
So I turned my attention to other pursuits (books, movies, other video games, sunlight) until my 19th birthday in 2003, when my mother finally got with the program and gave me a copy of Final Fantasy X.
(Technically, the gift-giver may have been my youngest brother. Thanks, man! But all gifts ultimately descend from my mother, because she's the one to whom I give my annual gift list. I am the very model of a modern modest teenager.)
It was fabulous to have my own copy of Final Fantasy X. Finally I would have the leisure to beat the game. O frabjous day!
Only one problem: I was in college at this point, and I didn't have a game console up at my campus. Which meant I could only play the game when I was home. Which meant I only had the narrow window of Winter Break to get the job done.
(Secondary problem: my siblings, chomping at the bit to continue playing the game and thus impinge upon my own playing time)
I came home that December with a glint in my eye and steel in my heart. I was going to beat Final Fantasy X, as God was my witness!
VII.
It didn't work out exactly as I had planned.
(My plan: spend each and every minute perched in my brother's room, skimming my way through endless cramping hours of random battles. Napping for an hour with a controller clutched in my hand. Eating meals in bites taken during an enemy's combat turn. Regardless of what my brother might think of this arrangement)
The problem with Winter Break is that your family wants to see you occasionally. And all your hometown friends want to hang out. And after a semester of studying, you crave some sunlight and non-taxing tasks. You disdain stress.
Beating a sprawling RPG in a narrow window of time is stressful.
It didn't help that I hadn't been playing any video games during my semester at college, and getting back into the groove of "hours of pointless random battles" takes some time.
So I slacked off. I carelessly frittered my time away on non-essential tasks, like talking to my mother and cleaning my room. I managed to start up a game, but I wasn't dedicated to it. I wasn't committed.
(My siblings, on the other hand, were really playing the game. My brother beat it a second time.)
Then New Years Day came and went, and I realized that my chances for finishing this damn game were quickly diminishing.
So I threw myself into the game. I skimmed through mindless hours of random battles. I moved the Playstation 2 out to the main television at night, so I could play at night when my brother slept. I would toddle off to bed at 5 or 6 a.m. and set the alarm for noon, when I would move the Playstation 2 back into my brother's room. I'd play until 9 or 10 p.m., when the cycle would repeat. I was dedicated. I was committed. I was sleep-deprived.
Admittedly, the entire affair was teetering on the edge of weariness. There were some moments -- curled up in blankets at 3 in the morning, trying to blearily beat yet another incarnation of Seymour -- that I seriously questioned not only if I could beat this game but if I should beat this game. Was this fun? Was there any real point in entertainment if it feels like hard work? And why won't Seymour just die already?
VIII.
I persevered, yet inevitably the last day of my Winter Break loomed and I was left with a difficult decision.
Which sidequests would I be able to complete?
Final Fantasy X has a lot of sidequests. Most are linked to acquiring your characters' ultimate weapons. To be fair, the ultimate weapons are very nifty, but I didn't have the luxury to devote a month to tagging butterflies and dodging lightning.
So I compromised (with my anal completist self). I got Yuna's ultimate weapon (which meant a tournament of summoned Aeons). I captured several sets of monsters for the Monster Arena. I played a couple rounds of blitzball. Yes, I was still a nerd about it, but I was a nerd with reasonable goals! Also, I was a nerd who only did the fun mini-games, as opposed to...dodging lightning. That specific nerd persona (i.e. "masochistic nerd") will have to wait until I replay the game at some point.
Limiting blitzball -- the underwater water-polo/soccer mini-game -- was the hardest thing to do. I rocked at blitzball. I had only given the mini-game a cursory glance the first two times I played the game (mainly I concentrated on winning the first game against the Goers at all costs and through many resets) but third time was the charm. I OWNED blitzball. There was not a team on Spira who could take down my mother-loving Aurochs.
(Admittedly, this may have been because I stopped playing before the other teams could level up to unbeatable stats. Shh! Don't disturb my beautiful bubble! I OWNED blitzball.)
And with that compulsive itch sufficiently scratched, I honed in on the ending like a barracuda on the last day of my Winter Break.
IX.
I cried at the ending.
I don't feel guilty about this reaction. The ending managed to orchestrate a perfectly bittersweet conclusion to all the dreadful anticipation which has been building throughout the game. The ending avoided any overly mawkish and manipulative heart-tugging -- the characters are resigned and weary, rather than passionately theatrical. So I don't feel ashamed about crying.
Still, there's nothing like the experience of sobbing while you're sitting next to your stoic thirteen-year-old brother.
X.
So now I've finished Final Fantasy X, which was a good game but which required efforts herculean beyond its actual worth.
Of course, I will replay it at some point. I loved the story, I loved the characters, I loved the battle system, and -- most importantly -- I did not do all the sidequests! Blitzball and butterflies, here I come!
But that can wait.
Now I just need to worry about acquiring Final Fantasy X-2.
Which could take a few years.
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