Ahh, Final Fantasy X — a game I once lived in back in the day. Back when the Playstation 2 was a current console. After school, after work, on weekends, Final Fantasy X was theeeee game I would be playing.
I'm certain I've written something about the FFX HD Remaster once before, but for the life of me I cannot find it. I've looked through my tags, searched site:peakd.com for relevant terms on Google... and I can't find it. So. Here is me, babbling about it again.
I mean, I was going to babble about it regardless but it would've been nice to link back to something. 😅
I introduced my son to the remaster of Final Fantasy X a week or so ago and watching him play it has brought back a wave of longing nostalgia. Also a wave of pain as he won't listen to me and is doing everything wrong. xD
It is SO painful watching someone play a game you know inside out, and doing so absolutely terribly. I have no choice: I have to play it again, myself. Luckily we've got it on Steam as well as the Playstation.
Unfortunately, on Steam I had an issue. There was a constant runtime error crashing my game. Finally I found a patch called "Special K" and after installing it I've had no issues whatsoever. 😃
As well as fixing annoying runtime errors, Special K has other cool things implemented in it too! I can make it so that everyone gains AP after a battle and not just those who have fought, which is fantastic — no longer do I have to drag every random person out to hit something just to get experience. And I can set it so 'Sensor' is always on, regardless of if it's on a weapon.
Another cool thing is that I can unlock the camera and spin it around the area. Sometimes it bugs out and it's hard to get the camera back how it should be so I can actually play, but it's still pretty cool.
I'm intending on doing a full 100% playthrough because I enjoy hating myself, and because even though I lived in the game for hundreds of hours back in the day, there are a few things I haven't done. Like defeat the dark aeons. Or annihilate everything in the monster arena.
Everyone's going to get their celestial weapons, I'm going to get the secret aeons and remove the threat of the dark aeons, I'm going to finish the monster arena, and I'm going to completely own at Blitzball.
I freakin' love Blitzball. I am not a sports enjoyer in general, but Blitzball is another story. If they packaged Blitzball as a standalone game, I'd be right on that, immediately.
It annoys me how in the first experience the player gets of Blitzball, the characters can't be controlled. You can stop them from moving and you can choose to pass/shoot, but you can't actually move the people where you want them to go and it drives me crazy.
Thankfully you can in future instances of Blitzball, but in the introduction of it for the story... argh. So frustrating.
I still won though! Kicked the Luca Goers' butts! 😁
Because I'm doing a playthrough with intent to be a completionist, of course I dodged the 200 lightning bolts necessary for one of the celestial weapons. I did that as soon as I got to the area so I didn't have to backtrack and do it again...
Although, after doing so I remembered that I'd have to go back there again anyway once I have the celestial mirror. But I've got the lightning bolt dodging out of the way at least!
If memory serves me correctly, once I get to Zanarkand is the best time to run around and do whatever I want as the airship will be properly unlocked at that time.
As of writing this, I'm at the point where Tidus and friends have been thrown into the desert where we will find Cid and the airship, and I'm remembering just how much I love the story.
Final Fantasy X was the first game I played that actually had a proper, comprehensible story in it. Obviously I played other games when I was younger but the stories never really gripped me. There's a story in Zelda, but in my brain it was just a series of events. There's a story in Morrowind/Oblivion, but in my brain they were just open world games I could explore and do whatever in.
Falling in love with Tidus' and Yuna's story, that was my first experience of diving deep within a videogame and becoming emotionally attached to the little people on the screen.
Playing it again now as an adult who really enjoys writing, there are quite a few moments in the game where dialogue (at least the English translation) is absolutely god-awful and there are a few story discrepancies, but it doesn't detract from the overall feel of what's going on.
You come to love the growing love-story with Yuna, feel for Wakka who realises all he's believed in has been a farce as the religion is revealed to be a hypocritical horror-show, and you become invested in Tidus' complicated relationship with an emotionally abusive father and want to get closure for him.
Once I get to the Calm Lands and start working on a few things, I'll share my progress once again! 😊 At the moment, I'm just really enjoying reliving this game after so long.
This is the best Final Fantasy in my opinion. If they ever remake this game, I'll be throwing money at it straight away.
Until next time! ✨⚔️
All screenshots in this post are courtesy of me, 