Final Fantasy X is a 2001 science fantasy role-playing video game developed and published by Square Enix, released for the PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, PlayStation Vita, PlayStation 4, and Microsoft Windows.  It is the tenth installment of the Final Fantasy series and is set in the fantasy world of Spira, the game’s story revolves around Tidus, an athlete star of the fictional sport known as blitzball, who finds himself in the world Spira after his home city of Zanarkand is destroyed by a rampaging monster known as Sin. Shortly after arriving to Spira, Tidus joins the summoner Yuna and her companions on her pilgrimage to destroy Sin.

Positives:

• Great score
• Great characters
• Great setting
• Extensive campaign
• Great cinematics
• Great voice performances
• Immersive combat system
• Sphere grid is awesome

Negatives:

• Lack of open world exploration
• Tons of grinding
• Linear campaign

Campaign:  The campaign is quite extensive and along with many of the puzzles is quite challenging. The story revolves around Tidus, an athlete star of the fictional sport known as blitzball, who finds himself in the world Spira after his home city of Zanarkand is destroyed by a rampaging monster known as Sin. Shortly after arriving to Spira, Tidus joins the summoner Yuna and her companions on her pilgrimage to destroy Sin. The story is pretty compelling and takes its time to gradual unravel.  There are a lot of great characters including the main protagonists: Tidus (a blitzball player), Yuna (a summoner), Rikku (an Al Bhed), Auron, Lulu (a black mage), Kimahri (a Ronso), and Wakka (captain of the Besaid Aurochs blitzball team). Each character having depth and great backstories.  There are some pretty interesting characters though they aren’t as pronounced as they could’ve been .  Sin is the main antagonist of the game and yes, he’s definitely awesome.  The world is fully fleshed out with an interesting history with diverse cultures. (5 out of 5)

Gameplay:  Players randomly encounters enemies, which switches the environment to a turn-based battle area where characters and enemies await their turn to attack. The gameplay is rather fun while at the same time challenging. The combat system has so much depth to it and the fact that all of the characters are accessible in the battles makes for a very entertaining gaming experience. It feels like all of the characters are relevant rather than simply picking teams from a roster. The Sphere Grid is freaking awesome. Players  move around the Sphere Grid, a pre-determined grid of interconnected nodes consisting of various statistic and ability bonuses, with experience points gained from battle. Not only do characters level up and learn skill sets for their specific character type but also they have the potential to learn skill sets from other character types. Yuna is able to summon Aeons (which are obtained by completing the Cloister of Trials at each of Spira’s temples) in battle and they can be controlled by the player once summoned.  (5 out of 5)

Graphics:  The cinematics are really impressive and do help to flush out the more emotional aspects of the story. The in-game graphics do look really good. There is detail to the characters as well as the creatures and the environment.  Character designs look good, each character having their own distinct look. (4 out of 5)

Score:  The soundtrack is just freaking phenomenal. There are so many memorable tracks that just simply listening to the game is highly recommended . The characters all have their own themes that do reflect their personalities . Also praise should be given to the voice performances. (5 out of 5)

Replay Value:  The game has a lot of great content. Despite the level of depth when it comes to the world it does suffer from a linear map. Players will not be able to fly across the world and explore various areas like they did in previous installments but instead are subjected to pulling up the map going to a point of interest and fast travel in there. This sucks balls of course. There are some sweet mini games as well as side stories to help distract players from the main story. Also the Blitzball sport is wildly popular and can be engaged with many characters in the world. Competing against various teams as well as the tournament does make Blitzball highly enjoyable mini game that provides a lot of challenges and requires strategic planning. There is also the Monster Arena where players can travel the world capturing monsters (which can be captured by weapons with the Capture special ability) and fighting them in an arena.  Also, certain creatures can be combined to make even more powerful creatures to be challenged. (4 out of 5)

The Verdict:  In the end, Final Fantasy X is a great game. Despite the linear style of the map does take away from exploration; the game does feature a great story, great characters, great soundtrack, great voice performances, pretty good visuals, and an immersive combat experience. Final Fantasy X gets 5 out of 5.