Final Fantasy X remains a genre-defining legend while Final Fantasy X-2 still dances through its saccharine and exploitative expectations. Neither feel especially ravaged by time. As either an academic interest in turn-of-the-century gaming or a hopeful re-acquaintance with a bygone phenomenon, the collection makes it easy to invest another lifetime across Spira.
Final Fantasy X served as the model for its generation of Japanese role-playing games. Final Fantasy X-2 replaced weight with whimsy and functioned as a celebration of its legacy. Both are integral parts of a disparate narrative and emblematic saviors of Square’s, and then Square-Enix’s, post-millennium operation. How these games played is as important as what they meant; the strength of their impact is can’t be denied, even if their technical novelty faded with time. This is always true when a classic is remastered. In the case of Final Fantasy X / X-2 HD’s Xbox One appearance, the better story is how two opposing forces became a cohesive package.
In the real world, Final Fantasy X arrived at a difficult time Square. It was the third numbered Final Fantasy in three years and was fit to be the jewel in Square’s Western crown on mainstream gaming. At the same time, Square’s business was reeling from the spectacular failure of Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, one of the larger box office bombs of 2001. The beloved company that could do no wrong lost a ton of money on a misguided portfolio expansion. A cool reception of The Bouncer, Square’s beat ’em up PlayStation 2 debut, was another insinuation of impending doom. Both left Final Fantasy X, like the original Final Fantasy years before it, as the apocryphal make-or-break point for the entire company.
In 2000’s discourse surrounding the next generation, Final Fantasy X sold the promise of the PlayStation 2. Individual results may vary, but, as senior in high school, I fondly remember abusing the computer lab’s T1-line to download a postage stamp size video of Final Fantasy X’s opening computer-generated sequence. The way the water was spherically gathered in suspended animation, the return of turn-based battles, a reemergence of Eastern-styled characters, and the near-abandonment of pre-rendered backgrounds sent my friends and I into a wild frenzy over its potential. We bought into the dream that Final Fantasy X was going to change everything. The usual speculation—the more Final Fantasy changes the more Final Fantasy stays the same—was the only topic of conversation that summer. For the target audience, which we were unquestionably members of, Final Fantasy X was the second coming.
Here’s the thing; Final Fantasy X lived up to its hype. Turn-based battles served as a refreshing and surprisingly strategic divergence from the Active Time Battle system we knew and loved. Ridiculous proper nouns like “Shoopuf,” “Moonflow,” “Farplane,” and “Machina” were spoken—spoken dialogue in a Final Fantasy game!—with a straight face and became integral and respected terms of Final Fantasy X’s emerging lore. The wide expanse of the Calm Lands, the magical intensity of the Macalania treetops, and the earthy, organic homeliness of Guadosalam were vessels to transport our minds to another world. Even Tidus and Yuna’s infamous laughing/screaming scene defined the whimsical temperament of Final Fantasy X. As a next generation showcase of art and direction, it was a spotlight on the power of practiced imagination. At that time, no one did it better than Square.
How well Final Fantasy X works in 2019 is a subject to personal taste. Objectively, the game shows its eighteen years of age. Characters emote excessively with their hands, the writing is full of nonsense plot points and tired idioms, and the pacing, especially in the opening hours, can’t seem to get in a groove. You can watch it decay as it searches for a miracle salve to stop the aging process. As with any post-modern perspective, adaptation comes with time. For every notorious excess, like dodging lighting (literally) one hundred times or killing ten of every monster, Final Fantasy X is quick to answer with its carefully balanced battle system, endearing Summoner Roadtrip narrative, and, of course, the unstoppable bastion of positivity known as Rikku.
The Xbox One version of Final Fantasy X receives the 2014 PlayStation 3 remaster’s additions and improvements. Chief among them are the bump in resolution and the option for an arranged soundtrack. The former looks great for the portions of Final Fantasy X that use polygonal backgrounds. While this collection advertises Xbox One X enhancements and 4K resolution, it has proven to be not included in the current build of the game. The newly arranged soundtrack is subject to personal taste. It’s mixed differently and makes use of live instruments, but it’s not in sync with what I remember. Dissonance, thankfully, fades with time.
Content additions from the International and PAL version of Final Fantasy X are rolled into this collection. Most present is access to a new layout of the Sphere Grid, Final Fantasy X’s strenuous path through character upgrades. This isn’t something you do on a maiden voyage—the probability of taking a wrong turn is exceptionally high—but it provides a new perspective on character development. Also included are optional battles against the fabled Dark Aeons, assuming the ridiculous Yunalesca fight wasn’t a proper test of your patience. Strapped to a separate part of the package is Eternal Calm, a twenty minute post-game narrative sequence constructed using established assets. Eternal Calm is superfluous but it neatly sets the table for Final Fantasy X-2.
Oh, Final Fantasy X-2. If you weren’t Extremely Online in the early 21st century, the forum meltdowns and loathsome dork rage caused by Final Fantasy X-2 ascendancy to a female-fronted festival was second only to the cataclysmic reveal of Windwaker’s divisive art direction. Yuna, Spira’s revered summoner and vanquisher of Sin was recast as a hot pants-wearing pop star. Questions were everywhere. Yuna’s now a part of a Pop/Idol group, YRP, along with Rikku and a new character named Paine? Final Fantasy X-2 really recycles most of its art assets from Final Fantasy X? There’s a guy who looks like Tidus but it’s not Tidus? The main battle mechanic involves things called a Garment Grids and Dresspheres? It’s a shame most older parts of the internet are dead and buried because no one gets to go back and revisit the infancy of outrageously incensed children who wished they controlled the world.
While the premise and parts of Final Fantasy X-2 appear designed exclusively to infuriate its fan base, the execution and implementation of its ideas couldn’t have been more perfect. “Dresspheres” translate to jobs (or classes, in modern parlance), and “Garment Grids” present different arrangements of those jobs. Active Time Battle is back and focused exclusively on efficiently managing abilities between those jobs. Each job has unique attacks, status effects, buffs, or one-off powers. Juggling jobs, usually in the middle of a battle, between Yuna, Paine, and Rikku is the kinetic hook of Final Fantasy X-2’s combat system. The ridiculously fast pace at which it moves contrasts greatly with its strategy and planning-minded predecessor. At the time it was conceived, and perhaps even now, Final Fantasy X-2 was the pinnacle mixture between two Final Fantasy system staples. It was hacked together out of existing parts and ideas, sure, but it was more of a Greatest Hits than a Lost and Rare.
While its combat is a Frankenstein’s monster of proven ideas, Final Fantasy X-2’s approach to exploration and progression was radically different from its peers. It was composed of distinct point-to-point missions instead of a linear narrative. An airship, which at that point had been always been restricted to Final Fantasy’s third act, is available from the get-go and grants instant exploration of almost all of Spira’s locals. On the downside, 80% of the environments recycle and remix assets and locations directly from Final Fantasy X. Most, however, repurpose goals and enemies to blend together with X-2’s narrative threads. Aided by new minigames (Gunner’s Gauntlet is particularly addictive) and new spins on older distractions (Blitzball’s back), a New Game+ option, and the infamous Vai Infinito 100-floor tower, it’s clear Final Fantasy X-2 was built for a long term relationship between product and player. For what we all assumed was a cynical cash-in leveraged on Final Fantasy’s good name, the quality of X-2’s content (and the surplus) was quite a surprise.
Like Final Fantasy X, this version of Final Fantasy X-2 also receives the International version’s extra goodies. The most pertinent and immediately useful is the addition of two new Dresspheres, Psychic and Festivalist. I found Festivalist more of a novelty than anything but Psychic fills gaps left by the relatively under-powered Alchemist Dressphere. There’s also surprisingly deep Creature Creator which can be used to trap monsters and add them to your squad. A careful progression system ensures your monster party members won’t throw the game out of balance, though I’m sure there’s a way to eventually break something (or everything).
A brand new mode, Last Mission, is thrown in separately from Final Fantasy X-2. It functions as a mini-epilogue and is constructed as a classic roguelike. Just as Final Fantasy X-2 re-purposed Final Fantasy X assets to suit its needs, Last Mission remixes aspects for X-2 into a pseudo-tile-based dungeon crawler loaded with recognizable ephemera from Final Fantasy X. I found it all frustrating and difficult, and a bit like making a copy of a copy, but at least it’s there. There is also a hastily-constructed, audio-only epilogue that plays over the end credits. I have no idea what it’s doing there and it seems to throw Final Fantasy X’s grand narrative even further off alignment than X-2 did. Still, it was hard to fault Square-Enix for coming up with a genuinely new piece of content for its initial 2014 remaster.
Final Fantasy X remains a genre-defining legend while Final Fantasy X-2 still dances through its saccharine and exploitative expectations. Neither feel especially ravaged by time. As either an academic interest in turn-of-the-century gaming or a hopeful re-acquaintance with a bygone phenomenon, the collection makes it easy to invest another lifetime across Spira.
