On replaying FFX

[owlmoose]

I've been thinking about replaying FFX again for awhile, and being at home sick for the last week ended up being a good time for it. (I'd also thought about playing along with moogle_university, but I decided I couldn't hold out until October. :) I can always replay again then if I'm inspired.) I haven't played FFX at all for several years, and I hadn't done a top-to-bottom replay in even longer; then again, I know the game so well by now I doubt there will be many real surprises. But that's not the point of a replay like this. It's more about sinking back into the world and spending time there, reminding myself of the voices and the faces and the story. I'm about twelve or so hours in, just reached the Thunder Plains.

A few stray thoughts:

• The Jecht Shot is ridiculously hard. I think I reloaded seven or eight times before I got it to work. FFX was the last game before the ability to skip cutscenes was introduced to the series, and there's also no way to reload besides restarting the PS2, so that was also annoying. I don't intend to play much blitzball, so I didn't really need the Jecht Shot. But I so much prefer the way the characterization works if Tidus is able to make it work that I decided it was worth it.


• The other choice I really care about: who dies at Operation Mi'ihen. Nothing against Gatta, but the scene with Luzzu and Wakka at Djose Temple is one of my favorites in the game, so when I accidentally kept Gatta alive I found myself going back to a previous save.


• One thing I noticed at Operation Mi'ihen: after Yuna performs her Sending, there are still bodies on the beach. I remember having a discussion about that issue either here or someone else's journal a few years back: do human corpses disappear after death the same way that dead fiends do? At least based on this evidence, the answer is no. I'll have to keep an eye out in future scenes.


• Tidus's voice acting is better than I remember. Yuna's, sadly, is worse. Maybe it only seems that way because she gets so much better in FFX-2, so that's the impression that remains in my head.

Comments

[jerkface]

I've been replaying FFX this week as well!

I actually just finished Operation Mi'ihen. I let Gatta live this time because I've never seen what happens, and it's mildly disappointing. Luzzu's story had more...umph, I guess. Gatta, on the other hand, doesn't really do anything memorable for me. Alas, it is too late to go back and get him killed now.

Also, I distinctly remember this game being easier the last time I played it. Maybe it's because I just recently finished VIII, which is a walk through Caketown, and X only seems difficult by comparison? Is it supposed to be this challenging?

[auronlu]

X is a comfortable challenge if you walk along without stopping to level grind. If you spend any time mucking about, it can become too easy (not that I really mind one-hit kills or that Stonestrike blitzball you can buy from O'aka right before Operation Mi'ihen.)

I always waste enough time wandering along side passages to pick up various goodies, so that Lulu has Thundara by Operation Mi'ihen and can handily take out one arm per spell with that bug boss thing. If you don't have her and Auron lopping off one arm apiece in a single turn whenever the arms regenerate, that battle can take a while.

[owlmoose]

I haven't been having trouble -- in fact, I haven't gotten Game Over once yet -- so I can't say that's been my experience. Like auronlu, I tend to poke in every corner, although I didn't get Lulu's "ara" spells until a bit after the Operation, so that might make the difference. I also make a point of cycling people in and out of battles so that everyone gets experience. Not everyone fights in every single battle because that gets too tedious, but often enough. I screwed that up once, and Kimahri ended up sorely under-leveled.

Yeah, Gatta's story just isn't as poignant as Luzzu's. It's a nice contrast, in a way, that Gatta is inspired to start over again and help rebuild the Crusaders, but the way Luzzu just breaks there is more satisfying to me.