Final Fantasy X Retrospective - A Fan Favorite (With a Bad Port)

let me start this video off by saying I have played every single numbered Final Fantasy I have played every single numbered Final Fantasy twice with the exception of two and eight two because well I mean it's two but I do plan to replay it at some point so who knows I might go off the rails and declare it the secret best one and eight well actually I really like a there's no particular reason I haven't gotten around to replaying it yet but when I do you'll know if you uh catch my drift I have played some Final Fantasy games three times but there's only one final fantasy I've played through four times and it's a subject of this video Final Fantasy 10. believe it or not though there did exist a time where I hadn't played every Final Fantasy when my knowledge of the series had this hard-cut line between what I knew and what I didn't a time before I would buy my first used PS2 in early 2010 and basically have it become my main console for the next four years the remaining gaps in my knowledge about the final fantasy series during that time were filled by everyone's favorite pre-discored online communication method forums and message boards when you discuss the final fantasy series particularly in the wild west war zone of the pre-modern internet one question always inevitably comes up alright fellas cards on the table which one is the best one while everyone probably has their favorite people tend to gravitate towards a few big titles you'll find people who rep games like six seven tactics I'm willing to bet that 14 is a big Contender for the amount of people who think it's the best one nowadays and among those others 10 has always shown up on that list every now and again but what does it mean to be the quote Best Final Fantasy game what separates the games that get brought up constantly and the ones who have their Die Hard fans fighting in the trenches repping their front runner what's the difference between the best Final Fantasy game and someone's favorite Final Fantasy game people often say your first Final Fantasy will always hold a special place for you and that's probably true my first was four and I look on it more fondly than I probably should but these are all questions I want to answer today in this video as I take a hard look back into the 10th game in the Final Fantasy series if you've watched any of my previous videos especially the Final Fantasy ones you've probably got a good idea of what to expect I'll give a good warning before I drop any Major Spoilers for this uh 22 year old game guys I know I say this every video but if someone could stop the Relentless March of time that'd be real cool there are two controversial parts of ff10 I've got some particularly heated opinions about so stay tuned for that if you want to hear me go all in all my footage will be coming from the PC Port of the HD version of Final Fantasy 10 which you could probably consider the current definitive version of the game but more on that later anyways with that Preamble out of the way let's get into this now yes I have played Final Fantasy 10 four times once in 2010 once in 2016 once in 2018 and once now in 2023. I have read the Final Fantasy 10 novels I have even watched the Final Fantasy 10 Kabuki show if you can believe that I watched it while wearing my Final Fantasy 10 t-shirt so trust me when I say I know a lot about this game the weirdest thing though is that this wasn't intentional I never set out to have Final Fantasy 10 be my most played in the series it just kind of ended up that way and that's a point I'm gonna bring up again later in this video so anyways the first thing I want to say about Final Fantasy 10 is that the main menu is the most early 2000s thing in the world I don't know if I can describe this it might be one of those things where you just had to be there so I hope you get what I mean but this menu just felt like the future [Music] all right it feels like an early 2000s web page if you've ever suffered through the play online sign up process for ff11 this is pretty reminiscent of that play online with square enix's short-lived network service that was supposed to give you game guides and function as a front end for ff11 by the way the HD version's main menu doesn't have that same charm which is a shame but it do be that way sometimes at editing me from the future here I found an original beta trailer for ff10 from the year 2000 and would you take a look at that it was a web page the game was meant to have play online functionality but I guess it got cut at some point I don't know I feel Vindicated that this feeling I've had in the back of my head for like ever actually sort of turned out to be on the money anyways what is ff10 AKA my dinosaur dad about you might not believe this but Final Fantasy 10 is actually an isakai yeah no joke it was made before the modern concept of isakai was solidified so it manages to dodge most of the tropes that have made most people tired of the genre today but the elements are all here our protagonists Titus is a star Blitzball player in the sparkling city of Zanarkand he's famous he's got all these fans he's basically living the dream okay I'm sorry I couldn't help myself this all changes however when the city is attacked by a massive Kaiju that titus's Ronin friend Aaron refers to his sin Aaron Chucks Titus into sins Vortex before imparting the words onto him this is your story before the scene Fades to Black Titus then wakes up in an abandoned ruin in a world known as Spira and meets with a girl named Riku an albed who fills him in on where he is you know this may be an aside but I always found it weird how Square Enix named Riku from Final Fantasy 10 and Riku from Kingdom Hearts so similarly I mean the games came out within a few months of each other you figured the teams would have kept each other updated on what they were naming their main characters in Japanese nikku and diku sound a little more different if you pay attention to how I'm saying it you can hear it but the double consonant distinction isn't as strong in English and even still it's close enough to cause confusion in both languages all this is to say wait her name isn't Riku in Japanese it's yuku huh well now I have even more confused oh whatever after having a few more run-ins with the Pacific Rim monster Titus washes up on the island of busade where the game begins proper he's introduced to the characters Waka Lulu and kimari three Guardians of the Summoner Yuna the game's secondary protagonists Summoners have always been a staple of the final fantasy series but in 10 they're less of a character class and more of a lore point to the world itself Summoners are basically worshiped in the world of Spira they serve a fundamental role in the religious order and are kinda like monks they perform a ritual called descending to guide The Souls of the people who've died to the far plane basically the spirit world it's like Tita says people die and Yuna dances how many died today [Music] people die and Yuna dances when will she stop dancing but they also have one more extremely important role to fulfill sin basically roams around Spirit destroying towns and Villages the only way to stop sin is the Summoner has to Journey around the world on a pilgrimage to become more powerful and defeat it this brings about a short period known as the calm where sin basically doesn't exist for a while fun fact the calm in Japanese is called the nagisetsu Nagi being a fisherman word for calm winds this calm is only temporary however as no matter what sin always comes back something the people of Spira believe is due to their own sins and synwall need to appear forever once they've been redeemed there have only been five total comms in the thousand years since existed and the latest one was brought about by yuna's father and her inspiration to Summoner Braska who traveled the world with Aaron and titus's father Chad Titus hates his dad because let's be real every flashback we've seen of the dude involves him on the hunt for either the smash or a bottle that Russian holy water titus's dad disappeared when he was young which we find out is is because he like his son found his way to Spira Titus now a grown ass adult wants to tell his dad how much he hates him for the mental anguish he put him and his mom who would die soon after jet disappeared through but never got the chance already we're laying down some pretty complex themes and I want to dedicate a section of the video to that later but let's wrap the setting up first Titus is made to believe that Spira is in fact the same world as Zanarkand just a thousand years into the future since Titus doesn't really have anywhere to go in this completely unfamiliar world he ends up sticking with his Newfound Companions and eventually becomes yuna's Guardian they traveled the world together visiting the various temples around Spiro so Yuna can pray to the f-a-y-t-h faith there and obtain the summons power to defeat sin along the way they fill out the party with the two characters from the intro Aron and Riku and Titus might be catching a few feels for our resident Summoner if you know what I'm saying it's clear at this point that there's a lot more to this journey than it might appear at first and Titus has to slowly put the pieces of the puzzle together as he adapts to his new reality speaking of Titus yes I get it until Dissidia came out and his name was voiced for the first time I'm sure the vast majority of people assumed his name was Titus I'm sure there's a lot of people out there who refuse to call him Titus and are sticking with what they know this name pronunciation phenomenon a lot of old RPGs have where the collective conscious decided pronunciation is suddenly snapped out of existence the second official material voices the character's name for the first time always fascinates me but wait a second how are we having this problem Final Fantasy 10 is the first voice game in the Final Fantasy series and not only that it's fully voiced some NPC side dialogue is silent but for the vast majority of cutscenes all dialogue is spoken dialogue well here's the thing and what I assume was a holdover from Final Fantasy tradition of being able to name all your party members titus's name is the only one that can be changed by the player not counting the aeon's names as a result his name is the only one that's never spoken aloud during the games time as a result result it's really awkward how they always have to dance around it when referring to him newbie star player him I get why it's this way I really do but let's just say it's really clear why they never did anything like this again for later games now World building and settings are always integral parts of any game and whether or not a game can introduce its World properly without boring the player to death is something that's usually brought up as a point to contention now let me just say I think Final Fantasy 10's world is probably one of the most interesting ones in the series next to sevens Spirit takes a sharp right turn from the more European influence of previous games worlds and instead is based on an island culture specifically the South Pacific Thailand and Japan that is to say I hope you like water Spira also runs on a very distinct set of rules it's a world dominated by a religious order known as yevin that most people base their entire lives around to tackle the whole sin issue you have an issues a strict set of teachings that are said to keep sin away and help the people repent for their sins yeah sin sins it's confusing for me too trust me at least I can capitalize it in my script technology is basically banned because it said using it brings about the wrath of sin which is technically true as you find out later it's kind of cool to see this as you explore the worlds machineries banned so boats are powered by chocobos Etc the world reflects its own rules everything revolves around a prayer gesture which Titus notices is the same as the Blitzball Victory sign he used back in Zanarkand then there's the different races and one a particular note or the al-bed a nomadic race the majority of spirit treats with disdain because they use machines the practice forbidden by Yemen the reason I say they stand out is because they speak a completely different language from the other characters you can piece this language together by finding books across Spira and you'll find yourself being able to understand more and more of it as you progress through the game this is uh kind of my thing so obviously you're gonna catch me going wild over it and because this is my thing I gotta point out that al-bed technically isn't a language it's actually a cipher because it's just different letters swapped around and okay okay please don't leave we can move on a cool world is all well and good but if you've put two and two together you've probably figured out how you're getting all this presented to you remember this game is an isakai it isn't a modern trophy isakai Titus isn't wearing a tracksuit and presented with a free love interest way out of his League okay wait both those things are kind of true but he's a newcomer to this world which means it's not weird when he has to ask basic fundamental questions about how stuff works this is doubled down on when we get introduced to the magical get out of jail free plot Point sin toxin in Final Fantasy 10 it's said that when you have a close encounter with sin you're infected with its toxin which causes memory loss and confusion considering Titus basically high five sin three times in the first 10 minutes of the game whenever another character asks wait shouldn't you know this Titus can instantly respond with syntaxin you know how be we get to fulfill the goal of explaining the setting to the player and we have an in-game plot related reason as to why it needs to be okay I get it I know what you're thinking duh this has been done before it's not new and you're right but ff10 did come out 20 plus years ago when something like this was a lot more novel sure it's all super obvious nowadays but I bet in 1998 when the devs were drafting the planning documents they were rubbing their hands together calling each other geniuses over this and of course you can't talk about Final Fantasy 10's world without talking about its most defining feature Sin Sin like sin sucks man imagine existing in this world and living in constant fear that at any time at any moment everything you know can just be destroyed in an instant your Society your home the people you care about the things your caveman brain tells you are fundamental permanent parts of your existence can just get torn up without any warning you'd naturally become numb to it you'd block it out of your mind there's no way you could live normally if you couldn't you'd be prepared obviously but the people of Spira likely don't wake up every day thinking well today's a day isn't it now not all of you but some of you might understand this feeling at least after I finish explaining it I don't have any definitive proof but I think that sin is based off of natural disasters particularly from a Japanese viewpoints and particularly how they reviewed hundreds of years ago and then after writing this line I looked up UPS in on the FF Wiki and there it is but I came to this conclusion on my own first so I'm sticking by it there are many places on this world are real worlds that can just completely turn upside down at a moment's notice if you've ever experienced a major earthquake you'll know how sudden and without warning they are I didn't come from a place that had earthquakes but I moved to one that did I remember my first earthquake happened when I was in my early 20s I remember it because it was big enough to have its own Wikipedia page if you've never been in one it's kind of hard to describe honestly the worst thing is the noise I remember lying there in bed for hours afterwards just listening to the sounds of sirens I've experienced a ton of earthquakes since then obviously nothing anywhere near that major but there are still a few things that have stuck with me now if someone's tapping their leg under a desk I tense up before I can figure out what's making the sound I freeze in place whenever a big truck goes by obviously I didn't die I'm not trying to make out like I got the shortest end of the stick here but now I know that they can just happen at any time but I don't think about it if it was constantly on my mind I wouldn't be able to function and I think it's the same for most people who live in earthquake prone areas the people of Spira no sin can just show up but they still experience Joy live semi-normal lives but that promise even if it's only temporary that they can live a sin-free life for a while it's something that probably gives a lot of them hope we know how these things work we know how to explain them and why they happen and we can use our rational brain to understand what threat they pose and how that can be mitigated but think about it like this alright you're chilling in the Middle Ages thinking about what's the fastest way to burn down nobunaga's Castle then without warning the ground something you've always known to uh not move starts violently throwing you around like a ragdoll how are you supposed to explain that you'd probably be like Well turns out God's real and uh he wants us dead and that's exactly what people did they didn't know about plate tectonics so they explained earthquakes by saying their was a giant catfish that lived underground that occasionally started thrashing which caused the ground to shake what were people back then supposed to think when they saw a tsunami they probably pointed at it and went well that's dead as a Kaiju turns out the ocean wants us dead too there are even stories of what are known as orphan tsunamis where a far away earthquake is so massive it causes a tsunami that travels halfway across the world one-shotting some poor fishing Village that had no way of seeing it coming and that's sin the people of Spira can't explain sin they don't know why sin does what it does all they have are these vague explanations based on limited visual experience and then they fill in the blanks from there the reason everyone can believe in the theory of sin won't go away in Toby its own is because it's abstract who can say when the atoning is complete sin is still here because we haven't atoned we must continue to atone you haven't said so there's obviously another correct explanation but the people of spirit don't have the means to understand it and the parallels don't stop there you can't kill a hurricane and similarly you can't kill sin even When sin is gone even when the dust is settled it always comes back without warning you don't know where you don't know when but you know it will just like natural disasters sin is a powerful metaphor because it speaks to that deep-seated fear we as people have and that's why I think its inclusion makes Final Fantasy X themes speak a lot louder and now that we're all cut up to speed with the premise in the worlds I want to talk about the gameplay but real quick before I do I mentioned I was playing the PC part of the HD version right the version that by all right should be the definitive version of Final Fantasy 10. look I don't usually talk about stuff like this since a lot of it could be dismissed as well it works on my machine I think the last time I ripped into a shoddy PC Port was my Final Fantasy 13 2 video but uh bro this PC version got some problems I'm using a fan patch that's supposed to mitigate most of its issues as well so I don't even want to know what it might have been like if I went in without it shout outs to colladen the patch Creator same person who made the far near Automotive fix that was basically to de facto way to play that game properly for like four years before the official patch finally dropped so even with this ff10 patch I was Finding issues left and right let's just say I'm not sure the far plane is meant to look like that looking a bit to uh too green for my liking I could brush past all of this if it wasn't for the one big issue the crashing experiencing a crash in an RPG from the early 2000s is about as painful as being hit in the back of the head by a wooden board with Nails in it this port thankfully has auto save but still the crashes weren't that frequent I mean they were infrequent enough that I originally wasn't going to mention them at all maybe like three in total for the first 75 percent of the game but then the game crashed after two major endgame boss fights the xanderkin Dome boss and S omnis at that point I was out for blood again maybe my hyper-specific machine specs is what caused the issues but I'm gonna put it out there unless PC is your only option maybe look into picking up ff10 on a different system ah yeah so yeah gameplay ff10's gameplay is usually something a lot of people who say 10 is their favorite site is one of the highlights you'll even hear stuff like best combat system in RPG history Etc do I agree well let's lay down a few facts first ff10 is the first non-sakaguchi Mainline Final Fantasy game and that shows in a lot of areas one area that shows is in the battle system which for the first time since the year 1990 isn't ATB instead ff10 runs on the CTB the conditional turn-based battle system instead of your actions happening in real time I'll have Final Fantasy 4 to 9 10 displays your turn order in the top right and the actions you take in your character's speed affects how those turns interact on paper it kind of sounds like okay so it's a turn-based battle system but ff10 system stands apart in the way you can interact with those turns in their order different actions you take can affect how these turns interact and since you have full information on when these turns will happen and you can use the different abilities you have at your disposal to plan ahead and set up strategies does this mean you can use certain strategies to absolutely break the game oh yeah yeah it does even on my first playthrough I figured out if you cast hey Scott and slogan turns one and two you can basically negate any normal random battle you'll be able to get like 10 free hits in before the poor lizard on the opposite side of the screen has a chance to Blink obviously this isn't MP efficient and if we measured RPGs by how exploitable their battle mechanics were we may as well just throw the whole genre out what's important to remember is Final Fantasy 10's battle system has turns that are a lot more Dynamic and free-flowing than most other RPGs this game also sees the return of limit breaks which were missing from nine and unlike 7 you can act normally until you decide to activate them essentially being able to store it the way limit breaks work in 10 is kinda cool you can choose how limit is built not just by taking damage maybe you want to build limit by healing or attacking it gives you an extra layer of customization and strategy for your characters then when you activate the limit break you each character has a small mini game associated with theirs all the Final Fantasy 8. these are mostly good but Lulu's is basically the controller Destroyer the amount of Demands you rotate the sticks it's gonna send any controller into an early grave my third playthrough of ff10 was on the Vita and I basically gave up on ever using her lemon break sorry but my entire ass console isn't worth the damage boost I Just Whipped out the keyboard every time I wanted to use it on this playthrough I ain't messing with that you might not believe this but at the time ff10's combat was considered a massive shake-up to the status quo and the fact that this was a flagship title on Sony's newest console the PS2 they knew they had to put a focus on introducing players to that combat ff10's onboarding process actually surprised me with how fleshed out it was take for example ambushes a standard part of FF series combat I don't gotta explain them to you you know what they are but maybe there's someone listening to this sentence that hasn't played a Final Fantasy game and doesn't know what an ambush is or what it means gameplay wise and that's where ff10 shows it to you through context early on Titus gets attacked by a bunch of sahagan in a cutscene they sneak up behind him the screen says Ambush and you see that they get to take multiple turns before you get to act bam you now know what an ambush is each of your party member specializes in taking on a certain type of enemy Waka can take on flying enemies Titus is good against fast ones Lulu handles Elementals Etc as they're added to your group the game gives you a fake but kinda maybe real looking random battle where it introduces you to their skill set and gives you an enemy to take it out on it doesn't feel like you're getting your hands held but the game doesn't allow you to disobey it either I feel like it strikes a good balance of telling you what you need to know without smacking you over the head with It ultimately this means that each of your party members fulfills a distinct role in combat which is important because ff10 is a full party Final Fantasy game a term I'm pretty sure I just made up you see in most final fantasies or RPGs in general you get a roster of characters and pick between three to five to fill out a party while the rest sit on a bench games like ff6 and 8 have sections where your full party sees use but games like 10 and 12 have you making use of your entire roster not just your active party hence the term full party you can see how RPGs constantly evolved to try and Tackle perceived problems of the genre and this time around it was the active party issue RPGs want to give you a distinct cast of characters and let you build your own party but at the same time it's an unfortunate reality that most people aren't gonna level them all up equally nor should they everyone naturally gravitates to having four or so hit squad killers and then an army of Benchwarmers yeah every character in ff6 is used in the final dungeon but uh let's just say every time I replay it each of the three groups has a little dead weight attached if you know what I mean ff10 Bridges this Gap by trying to find a way to have the best of both worlds and get you to use the entire party so basically in ff10 you can swap out party members at any time by tapping L1 and it doesn't cost you a turn to do it since each enemy is countered by a different party member you're encouraged to swap them out constantly to deal with the different types you could a dumb dumb brute force it I certainly did on my first playthrough but the game comes alive when you've got the full group swapping in and out on the Fly this is cool and I love this in concept everyone has a use the whole party participates in battle it makes sense from a lore perspective as well obviously four out of the seven party members wouldn't just be sitting around playing Uno while the main three fight it does have a few drawbacks in its execution however you see your party members only get experience points if they participate in battle which means they have to act at least once since enemies are hard countered by certain party members this usually means that random battles consist of figuring out how to waste four members turns until you can do the three actions you need to win this makes battles play out a lot slower than they're meant to you know you can one shot that enemy with Waka but you have to send Lulu out to do a Pity attack so she can get exp and her normal attack animation takes so long [Music] this also means that like 70 of random battles play out the exact same enemies come at you in groups of three waste four turns and then one shot the remaining enemies with their counter I will say though there is a small entertaining puzzle element to finding out how to most efficiently spend all seven turns while letting the enemy get the least number of attacks in I think think most players get tired of this Loop which leads to them leaving a party member by the wayside to save time which is you usually Kamari sorry big fella there's a massive difference between constantly having to spend seven turns and six turns don't get me wrong this doesn't make Final Fantasy 10's battle system bad nor am I saying it's a bad system it's an incredibly Innovative system that I can respect for trying to tackle fundamental issues with the genre but it is a flawed system it's a system with a lot of ups and downs highs and lows in some parts it's an excellent battle system but in others I could definitely see where a few tweaks could be made to improve it it's kind of a shame they abandoned it entirely after this game not even ff10 2 uses it but a battle system is just one part of an RPG's gameplay Dragon quests and by extension Final Fantasy was originally basically a way for people to play Dungeons and Dragons on their NES therefore the long game managing resources in between opportunities to rest is also a big part about what makes these games fun I often think about things like difficulty and fun gameplay and RPGs how do you adequately challenge a player when most issues can be solved by big ger bigger bigger makes number go big this is a bit of a personal anecdote but I owned a Dreamcast crazy I know anyone who owned a Dreamcast knows what you can do with a few blank CDs if you're uh picking up what I'm putting down anyways my uh legally acquired copy of Skies of Arcadia had a cheat menu where you could enable Max stats which 12 year old me turned on after being frustrated by a challenging boss fellas it was almost instantaneous how quick my brain snapped and all the joy of the game was immediately sucked away turn-based RPGs work because of the long game turn-based RPGs work because you know you're always earning something from an encounter if there's no challenge no threat no fear of dying it just feels like you're faring a 3D model to the next cutscene Final Fantasy 10 does its long game extremely well and if you've ever watched one of my videos you know exactly what I'm about to cite Mount gagazet is an area later in the game you're explicitly told that this is the hard-cut line where Society stops and that it's going to be a brutal Trek From Here Mount gagazet is a romantic ideal of an RPG you set out and it's just you against the elements you have to make every inch every last drop of your resources count you're carefully calculating whether it would be more efficient to use a potion or one of yuna's healing spells to carry your party every action you take in battle is a deliberate choice you could use one of Lulu's spells to end the battle faster but she only has so much MP but if you don't use a spell one of your party members could take a hit and then you're using yuna's MP to heal them there are no safety nets Once you walk away from that save point your only choice is to push forward and survive until the next one every mistake you make in battle costs you in the long term every time your character misses you physically feel the pain of a wasted action getting ambushed can nearly be a death sentence as you try to figure out the most efficient way to crawl back into the fight you're doing mental math in your head trying to figure out the best way to squeeze every drop of juice from your precious limit breaks taking a wrong turn and going down the wrong path it doesn't just waste your real life time it's like painful man then when you finally Crest that hill and see that spinning blue orb in the distance nothing feels better ff10 has a lot of moments like this on a smaller scale but as for long-term gameplay and turn based RPGs yeah mount gagazet hits man it hits hard I'll never stop bringing it up the boss fights of ff10 also work a bit differently from earlier games in the series again being the first non-saka Gucci game I think the team wanted to flex their muscles a bit and try to redefine what a boss fight could be in the series up to this point boss fights mostly had a single condition reduce the bad man on the other side of the screen's Health to zero you had some other gimmicks like the occasional supposed to lose boss fight but other than a small handful I'd say most are just win lose Affairs Final Fantasy 10 mixes it up in that there are very few straightforward boss fights like a straight up DPS race with some 15 meter tall monster is the minority in this game more than likely if you enter a boss fight in ff10 with the sole goal of hitting it dead you're gonna get smoked the game wants you to think differently most boss fights have some sort of gimmick or alternate win condition you can take advantage of some use optional commands that takes your character's positioning into account like this one boss I can only swing in the spaces in front of it or this one where you command the Airship to move in and out of another boss's attack range some involve alternate targets like the this one boss fight where you have to power up a crane with lightning magic to get an advantage or this one where you have to knock this machine off a rail to create an explosion some boss fights have even crazier gimmicks like one later game boss fight where you have to balance the negative status ailments to keep your party alive there are some summon versus summon boss fights that require you to put one of uniseons in a 1v1 with another Summoners I don't want to be the guy who just makes reference to the popular thing but the 1v1 mechanics really reminds me a lot of Pokemon like just the general strategy not all of these boss gimmicks are winners some are like okay idiot hurry up and realize this phase of the boss is only going to use one hit kill attacks that only your summons are immune to pull them out or die but for the most part I'd say the boss fights are one of the strongest elements of the gameplay in ff10 a definite contrast to the often samey Random Encounters but you know what isn't a strong element of the gameplay come here come here listen close turn up the volume on your headphones all right you know I'm about to say one of two things guess which one is coming first yeah strap in because it's time to talk about Blitzball so you might not consciously think it but the final fantasy series since 7 has been stuffed to the brim with mini games there was a lot of perceived value in having side content like that in your game around the PS1 era Final Fantasy 8 9 would continue the trend with their larger mini-games triple Triad and tetramaster side note why Square Enix hasn't put out a Hearthstone style triple Triad mobile game is far beyond me like that's money on the table but ff10's big minigame Blitzball okay let me be as nice reasonable and rational about this as possible Blitzball sucks it's heavily RNG filled uh turn based question mark underwater football and the way they introduce it that sucks even more you're herded into a match with almost zero chance of winning even if you did have a chance the optimal strategy in Blitzball is to put the controller down and start praying the AI behaves canonically the team Titus forms with Waka and the Gang from besaid is supposed to suck they've never won a championship but the opposing team the Luca goers their stats are so high they can just run a train on your entire defense line and all you can do is watch I literally had to Google if winning this match was even possible it's basically impossible and that's assuming you even understand the mechanics remember you're given a text box tutorial that's it and then you're thrown right into this you don't have to win the game continues even if you lose but who's gonna want to play Blitzball again when this is their first impression of it well you know what right here on my fourth playthrough of the game I finally won I actually did it I legitimately be meet the Luca goers in the first Blitzball game apparently the game was just a surprise someone actually managed to do it as I was because it crashed while announcing the results now that's real comedy folks you can't write stuff like that before I talk about one more element of ff10's gameplay that uh ain't so hot I want to talk about one mechanic that's praised and for good reason you see most RPGs work like this [Music] foreign battles gain exp level up stats go up and then repeat well not in Final Fantasy 10. instead you're in points that you can use on the sphere grid a sort of board game like level up system that you direct your characters down to gain stats and abilities you might think well that's just leveling up with extra steps and it is sometimes I can't be the only one to have dumped five levels per character into the grid then gotten the game over and realized I had to do it again but one of the best perks of the sphere grid is how you can just kind of do whatever you want with it let's be real here 99 of people on their first playthrough are gonna direct each character down their standard path but if you know what you're doing this is like a Pandora's box of replayability even most casual players will get enough of a handle on it that by the end game when they've reached The Natural end of each character's path they're going to be able to get creative you know I'm finding a way to speed around Yuna getting double cast it's definitely one of the most unique level up systems in the series and I think Square Enix knows this because 13 would attempt to use a much more more boring version of it almost 10 years later and it's and it's all sort of being in remake today one of those level up systems that no one has really forgotten and for good reason and it only got bad complex and more interesting with the updated versions of the game which introduced the international sphere grid tree now that's all well and good but this next part of the game I'm about to talk had me stunt every time I replay ff10 I think to myself was it really that bad perhaps I am just cursed with a small brain I must consider the possibility that I am the one at fault but after four playthroughs and talking to multiple people about it and hearing all angles I've come to the conclusion that The Cloister of Trials puzzle dungeons are hot garbage so I do get these on paper short puzzle dungeons that give you an alternate form of gameplay to try out some people might describe them as a nice change of pace or an interesting idea well maybe they are an interesting idea but believe you me they were executed poorly I'm gonna be full up front I don't play a lot of puzzle games I'm not intimately familiar with the mechanics behind what makes a good puzzle but even I can tell you that this ain't it Chief there's no real logical flow you figure out through context exclusive or stuff like that you just grab the orb and mash it against every interactable object until something works it's tedious to have to swap out the single orb you can hold when you need to try out a new set of put the round peg in the square hole level brain teasers the Bahamut trial is my personal hell you ride on this floating elevator and have to stop the arrow at the right time so you don't get sent Carini off the edge sometimes the timing can be off through no fault of your own and just send me to the left why does it gotta be this way even when you know the solution moving things around is just so slow and tedious and the game wants you to spend even longer in them to get extra rewards there's bonus side content that's unlocked if you complete the optional objective in each trial and uh no thanks I did it in the Shiva dungeon and even though I arrived at the solution pretty quickly executing all the steps was 15 minutes of my life I'll never get back oh and big shout outs to the zanarkin C B torture floor puzzle room where you have to do this memorization Tetris puzzle not once not twice not five but six times six I don't like it I don't want it oh and also the side content that involves getting the ultimate weapons is uh not very good dodging 100 lightning bolts in a row yeah not my ideal way to spend an afternoon speaking of which the way weapons work in Final Fantasy 10 is kind of weird like they don't have stats they're kind of just blank canvases you stick one to four bonuses onto it makes the way you engage with the equipment system throughout the game a bit strange I don't know why they did it like this and I wouldn't consider it a positive but I don't know once you get used to it it's fine I guess and the monster catching minigame more like you ain't catching me touching that overall I'd say my thoughts on Final Fantasy 10's gameplay are as follows it has a lot of high highs it's an interesting battle system with an engaging concept sometimes it fails in executing that concept and the pacing is a little slow but it got me to think about a battle system more than most other final fantasies did the boss fights are challenging and interesting and the progression something that just kind of you know happens in most other games is a gameplay mechanic on its own the SCI content yeah it's kind of rough other than like the Yojimbo dungeon Yojimbo is the coolest summon by the way don't at me otherwise I won't read it [Applause] [Music] maybe the Penance fight is cool if that's your thing but other than that the non-rpg parts of the gameplay like Blitzball and The Cloisters of Trials yeah they don't have a lot going for him I I once knew a guy that wanted to get the platinum trophy in every Final Fantasy game and I knew that Final Fantasy 10 was basically going to be a giant brick wall in that Quest well actually the real Dark Souls of Final Fantasy trophies is the Excalibur 2 side quests from nine but that's a story for another day which means I guess it's time to talk about the visuals I feel like I have to stress that when Final Fantasy 10 came out it was seriously groundbreaking when you consider that nine drops just a year before you basically must have felt like you were living in the future in 2001. I mean ff9 and 10 were announced that basically the same time and back then everyone was so obsessed with technology moving forward with the next console Generations that 10 almost killed 9 outright you can see that clearly in the sales which is a shame because nine as we all know is the best one I said it I stand by it every character model is just so detailed the game does the same thing Kingdom Hearts does where characters have a more detailed facial model when they're the focal point of a cutscene and a less detailed one when they're not the environments are varied and colorful and the art design really sells you on Spira itself similar to Final Fantasy XII really similar as a matter of fact Spirit itself is extremely linear especially when put up against earlier games in the series no fronting a lot of the game's areas are essentially hallways with one large massive green area near the end of the game huh I think I have heard something like that before and remember this was the first Final Fantasy without an Overworld even when you get access to free travel you just pick a destination from the list and fast travel there I don't think linear level design makes Final Fantasy 10 by the way I've gone on at length about how linear doesn't equal bad and how it's the way that linear design is used that makes the difference but I'll say this this linear level format and lack of world map made it so that Spiro's world could be built on hampered by conventional mechanics remember this was the first non-sakaguchi FF I'm sure making the game distinct was a big goal at the design table instead of focusing on the overall World aspect they designed Spiro with the pilgrimage aspects in mind making it a journey with a set destination I think it works even if I think they could have done a bit better on some of these literal hallway levels you lose something in the process obviously but the level design fits the overall design goal with the journey they were trying to make level design aside the price of ff10's visual Fidelity goes double so with the HD version there were some weird issues originally like the characters that were supposed to be placed off frame in a 4x3 resolution are just awkward staying there in 16x9 and well yeah sure it's obvious that this isn't a modern game it does look really good and a lot of this improved texture work is really nice to look at and these fmvs it's probably kind of hard to believe nowadays but fmvs used to be kind of like a reward you play the game a cutscene loads up and you're treated to some of the best CG animation of the time for like three to five minutes nowadays the visual Fidelity gap of pre-rendered versus in-game cinematics says kinda close and pre-rendered cinematics take up big boy space in a game's file size so they've kind of fallen out of favor but back then these were a big talking point the game while also having a fixed camera in the exploration sections makes real clever use of camera angles while in battle you're no longer staring at a static Viewpoint that occasionally changes a lot of effort and thought was put into the different ways the battle is displayed one section that stuck out to me in particular is how the camera is set up during this early game boss fight against the sinspawn using this buzzword is making me choke up a little bit but it's seriously is cinematic double so given the year it came out they wanted to show off the power of their next-gen Hardware I can dig it attention to detail goes a long way now while the HD version is the the current definitive and probably best version of Final Fantasy 10 this play through the game has made me come to a realization fellas I think this might be a bad remaster and I'm not talking about the PC crashes first off technical stuff it's missing a lot of obvious quality of life features like you're not able to skip cutscenes I've I like original ff10 was the poster child for games with long unskippable 10 minute cutscenes right before a boss battle you're probably gonna lose to the HD remaster doesn't address this but okay it is an older remaster in the grand scheme of things I mean hell the remaster itself is 10 years old this year ff10 was one of the first Final Fantasy games to receive a re-release that wasn't just a straight port with an opening cutscene thrown in after all so I guess I can overlook this one thing but there are other issues as well like a 30 FPS lock again not unheard of especially in the PS3 generation but kind of a red flag for things to come but by far my biggest issue is some fresh news that's been making the rounds on the internet over the past month it was talked about when the game originally released but it's making a comeback talk about timing take a look at the models for the HD version now take a look at the models in the original if you play the HD version the CG cutscene Renditions of the characters might look a little off and that's because they didn't always look like this yeah remember how I said fft 10 has two models per main character one for when they're front and center and one for when they're not it turns out that while these two models are pretty significantly different than the PS2 version given the limitations of the hardware they're not so much so in the HD version this is a problem because the HD versions quote detailed models are based off the ps2's less detailed models not the more detailed ones now this would all be fine if they look good but the new models are arguably worse than the old ones and an even bigger issue often don't emote as well as the old ones take a look at this one scene where Yoon is giving a speech about finding inner strength to defeat sin this isn't an opinion or me being pedantic there is a very obvious lack of expression in the HD version of the model I will live with my sorrow I will live my own life I will defeat sorrow in his place I Will Stand My Ground and be strong I don't know when it will be but someday [Music] Yuna looks determined in the original and that clearly shows on her face in the HD version she's just deadpan now the big question is why do it gotta be like that they didn't forget how to make models in the decade between the OG and HD so what gives so here's the main Theory Square Enix was really bad at archiving their work back in the day some of you may remember that when the HD version of Kingdom Hearts was made they basically had to remake the game from scratch the original assets were pretty much gone I don't know why Square Enix had a habit of torching the documents the second the game hit shelves in the early 2000s but it's the same story with ff10 the bulk of development was handed off to a third party studio in China while the Tokyo team dove into the garbage bins trying to salvage whatever Banana Goo covered assets they could let's call this what it is this was a rushed remaster but love and care of the original models received just wasn't given to the new ones and the game suffers for it is the HD version the definitive edition of ff10 and the one you should play yes but that statement comes with an asterisk that really shouldn't be there and that's a shame now for the OST Final Fantasy 10 gives you two options the original or the remastered tracks made for the new version I've feel like you could give a solid argument for using either but for me it boils down to this I like the remastered OST better but the version that exists in my head when I close my eyes is the original no matter which one you go with though this OST is a banger if you've never heard of two's anarchins before my next question is did You time travel from the future we're talking about ff10 is forbidden by law or from the past before the game existed but that's not all a lot of these tracks do a good job of fitting the game's tropical beach Motif the OST kick in when you first get to besaid island is one hell of a vibe [Music] thank you the PS2 GameCube generation was basically the beach generation a lot of games with a water Motif were coming out around this time Wind Waker Mario Sunshine Kingdom Hearts ff10 Etc my personal theory is that the advancement in Hardware led to developers getting real excited about new water attack but either way it's one of my favorite Aesthetics so I'm down with it I especially like the satekidane late Motif used in a lot of tracks throughout the game sticky done a is a banger by the way and I'd love to play a short clip of it for you to show the late Motif in action but using Final Fantasy vocal tracks in a YouTube video is basically the copyright claim any percent Speed Run Strat so you're gonna have to search that up on your own you know the drill though one mil likes and I'll drop my karaoke cover of it my personal favorite track is thunder planes the way the ticking in the background seamlessly fades in as the piano section starts oh it's just so good man I know I said overall I prefer the remastered soundtrack but I stand the OG version of this song foreign [Music] dodging 100 lightning bolts though nice try the Final Fantasy 10 OST is the first one in the series to not be completely done by long time series composer nobuo ematsu instead it was a tag team effort between him Junior nakano and the man who would go on to be the composer for the Final Fantasy 13 series and 7 remake Musashi hamaruzu it's definitely different from the osts that have come before it but if someone said it was their favorite soundtrack in the series I wouldn't think they were weird for it stuff like Seymour's boss theme is Pico ematsudo seriously it sounds like it jumped fresh out of Final Fantasy 9. there's also the hymn of the faith I really like how there's different versions for each summon and yes I know fact number six on every Final Fantasy top 10 Things You Didn't Know video was the fact Bahama the most powerful summon is the child's voice but you know it's cool so I'm playing through the new Fiat rhythm in my off time while making this video and yeah I'm constantly being reminded on how great A lot of these tracks are music aside Final Fantasy 10 is the first game in the series that dropped on PS2 which means we've got full voice acting it's not like voice acting didn't exist in the PS1 generation but audio files take up a lot of space and these are pretty hefty games it just wasn't really feasible to put voice acting in say FFA not on a 700 megabyte CD that's for sure for the mainline series literal first foray into it they did a pretty good job some age is shown sure but for the most part there's nothing that really sticks out there are games that would release 10 years later that have voice performances that have aged worse than Final Fantasy X yes we'll get to you in a sec as is often the case though it's clear that they weren't thinking about the English performance like at all when they originally developed the game in Japanese some cutscenes have the voice lines sped up or cut off to match the scene but these are few and far between at least you've even got some massive names on the lineup here you've got James Arnold Taylor as Titus Tara Strong as Riku and John DiMaggio AKA Bender as Waka I've played the game three times in English so it was it was nice that With a Little Help from some mods I was able to play through the game in Japanese and hear that side of the voice performances go around and yeah I'd say both languages are on about the same level quality wise you can't really go wrong with no stop stop stop stop stop everyone hold up is olaka voiced by goromajima okay nah I'm sold [Music] iers okay it's time now this section is a staple of every Final Fantasy 10 videos ever exist and I'm sorry to bring it up again but the little Goblin in my head is making its demands and I'm powerless to resist I feel like anyone who points to the Laughing scene in 2023 and goes haha wow what bad voice acting is either a willful ignorant to the context of the scene or B watch the six second clip and went well that's all the context I'll ever need if you need that context at this point in the game Titus and Yuna are kind of going through a lot of right now one of them just got isakai to a literal hell world where a Kaiju can just stand or snap the entire population in a given moment and just got a plot bomb dropped on his chest the other is like haha damn being alive sure is great for the remaining two weeks I'll probably get to be neither of them knows what the other is going through but they both know the other is suffering in silence Yuna suggests they laugh and Titus in front frustration plays along that's where you get the obviously forced voice laugh clip but this eventually results in the two genuinely laughing being able to share a brief moment of joy in a seemingly hopeless situation my brain turns itself inside out when I see people point to this and go haha bad localization when the Japanese version of the scene is literally the exact same [Music] the voice actors have all come out and been like fellas The Laughing is intentional this is how the scene is meant to be but people still you know do their thing I don't know I feel like it's not that hard to understand I've done this exact same thing in real life to similar effect anyways I just had to get that off my chest thanks for coming to my TED talk or my therapy I don't know which one I have one more controversial topic to tackle in the spoiler section so stay tuned for that if you want to hear me get heated Final Fantasy 10's characters and their design are an often praised part about this game and I think there's good reason for that cetus's iconic yellow jacket and uh uneven shorts or a real standout design he starts the game off reasonably as a why me character but learns to grow and accept Spira and the role he plays in it side note I'll never forget that one time that the city has zero 12 flipped a script and made Titus a part of the villain cast what's that about Yoona is physically the weakest member of the party but that doesn't mean she's weak canonically power wise she's probably the strongest and is definitely by far the mentally strongest she puts the needs and happiness of others far above her own almost to a frustrating degree her determination is what keeps the party together as everyone else's relationship centers around her Lulu is something like yuna's older sister she's had her fair share of hardships going on multiple pilgrimages with other Summoners all ending in failure and serves as a guide for a lot of the game her design is uh well yeah you go have a look for yourself no I'm not talking about though I mean those down there I feel like when people talk about nomina belts and zippers they're mostly talking about Lulu to be fair if someone slid this character design across my desk my first words would be uh you good homie do you uh do you need to use the bathroom apparently nomita designed her that way to see if the art team could properly render her belt skirt thing to his exact specifications they responded by only showing her from the waist up in the CG scenes so basically a designer Cold War riku's the party's al-bed character as shown by her spiral pattern eyes her childlike happy-go-lucky demeanor hides the fact that she's terrified to lose the people she cares about and her determination to help them is second to none Aaron X is The Game's guide in the beginning he seems like he's the only one who holds all the pieces of the puzzle and he kind of does but is selective with the information he shares and his design I mean uh you've seen what I'm seeing sunglasses Samurai what more do you want from me by the way the thing he does with his arm I heard and you probably heard that it's a ronin thing a Ronan is a masterless samurai fitting considering that Aaron survived while his master Braska died Ergo he keeps his arm in the sling I always accepted this as facts but when I looked it up for this video maybe to at least get the name of the pose or practice I uh couldn't actually fact check this well boy down the rabbit hole I go to you this all took three seconds to me let's just say it was a long uh day of research so I think the Ronin thing comes from the 1961 akirakurosawa movie Yojimbo where the main character sanjado a masterless samurai does often throw his arm in a sling like that but unless he specifically says in the movie I do this because my master died I don't think the two are related but I haven't watched it okay so I just finished watching the movie and he never says that and I couldn't find any discussion about the arm sling thing related to Ronan online that didn't involve Aaron I'm not saying this is wrong someone could show me some evidence and I could get blown out in an instant but I could literally not fact check this and I'm the kind of person that until I see written proof a thing is true I'm always gonna have a little doubt I feel like this is one of those things someone said 20 years ago on the early internet no one questioned it and it just became public knowledge the best hard facts I could find about the sling thing is a 1585 Jesuit missionary account that states it started off as a way to regulate body temperature before sorta turning into a way of showing attitude notable historical examples of this pose are one Sakamoto dioma who was yes factually a masterless samurai but that's because he was more about overthrowing the Shogun at expelling the Barbarian hordes and restoring power to the emperor rather than serving a lord basically Aron does it because it's cool so next you want me to talk about Kamari huh well you you see actually the truth is I think Kamari gets a bad rap because of his role as a blue Mage yeah the majority of his limit breaks suck and you have to learn them from Monsters but I sent him down Titus and auron's fear grid path and he was more than a capable fighter I'm not into the whole blue cat thing but his story of an outcast among his own people does resonate to you he's this hulking mass of Silent muscle that could pick you up by the forehead and crush you like a Coke can but among his people he's the runt a disgraced hornless weakling who has to fight turn his reputation back overall not a bad character so that's the full party right I'm not forgetting anyone am I oh oh right right Waka so waka's happy woohoo Island life yeah Blitzball attitude is a front for the pain he's carrying his brother who is also Lulu's ex-fiancee died a while back and waka's just kind of had to pick up the pieces this whole time also side note throughout the game you're constantly told Titus looks like waka's brother and that's why Waka took a quick liking to him but then you see his brother and you're like uh does he though so anyways it's these events that turned Waka into uh hang on let me check my notes Here foreign like we all know the joke haha funny racist Waka but I forgot no uh he's actually pretty bad like popping off yelling slurs on the boat bad Waka loves yevin dude wakes up every morning like praise be fellas and swallows the whole yevin good albed and their nasty machines bad teaching no question what's weird is that the whole party is kind of low-key scared of him like they're all awkwardly staring as he goes off in the Discord call until natitis has the wherewithal to call him out on it dude straight up hates albed which is weird because he doesn't notice Riku is an albed until he's explicitly told she is upon which point he has a little hissy fit and storms off Yoona is half Al bad and when Titus finds out everyone is like bro do not tell Waka like this dude's hatred runs so deep they're afraid of what he'll do if he finds out the girl he's treated the majority of her life as a sister as half albed if Spira had microphones he'd definitely have a podcast the wildest part is Lulu sees all this and is still like damn I am gonna let him hit though it's important to remember negative character traits are still character traits though and this gives Waka a chance to grow the opportunity to question his beliefs and become a better person by doing so which she does the design philosophy of Final Fantasy 10 doesn't just stop at the main characters though let's take a look at the secondary villain of the game Seymour he's a maester in the order of yevin he's polite well spoken and has a Regal Air about him an intelligent man dedicated to his order and his people okay got all that now here's a summon anima [Music] like the other summons in this game are Majestic beasts powerful and have a certain refined heir to them anima bro imagine being in the stands of the Blitzball Stadium when that thing comes out anima is scary it's summoning animation literally involves a hook coming out to rip it straight from the underworld and it shows up screaming in agony the entire time it reminds me of the scene where Ava unit 1 is wrapped up in the bandages sin for what it is doesn't look evil it looks kind of goofy kind of like a whale which is fitting because it's meant to represent a destructive force of nature Ergo its design looks like something that could feasibly exist in nature and this dichotomy of design versus nature perceived good versus perceived evil hits in Final Fantasy 10 because it's a game that's fundamentally about opposites Titus represents the sun while Yuna represents the moon yin and yang respectively Tita titus's Japanese name is the Okinawan word for the sun while Yuna is the word for a sea hibiscus Titus and Yuna are fundamental opposites one being from another world an outsider and the other being steeped in this world's teachings and cultures the Evan and Al better fundamental opposites how you ask well let's take a look at their names in Japanese yevin is Ebon because there's no ye sound in Japanese and V turns into B al-bed you can't end a word on a lonely D so an O gets added making it Alberto now hold up a Quick Sack how do you say black and white in Latin again black and white fitting for a game that's World deals and absolutes but you find out that absolutely nothing is the way it initially appears the entire game is coming to terms that the things you believed your entire life aren't reflective of the truth both Titus and the party learn this in different ways as they go about the adventure and as much as I'd like to keep dancing around subjects I think it's time I released my shackles and began the spoiler talk if you haven't played ff10 yet and plan to go in blind first of all bro it's a 20 plus year old game get on that and second skip to this time stamp I'm gonna put up on the screen now okay I think they're gone all right so I alluded slash joked about it before but sin is actually titus's dad jet that's something you're told in like hour four but I don't know I figured I wouldn't say it just in case the gang travels around Spira praying to the different faiths encountering sin and witnessing it carve a path of Destruction around the world eventually they reach guadal Salam where Seymour plays his hands asking Yuna to marry him to become a Beacon of Hope for all of Spira Yuna a person who would gladly allow someone to steal her bike to increase the total happiness in the world or something here's what makes Spira happy and agrees but another reason she agrees is because she finds out Seymour killed his father and wants to confront him about it when the party does Seymour attempts to take him out but they kill him instead and uh gang of weirdos from Backwater Islands kill maester of supreme holy order isn't exactly a headline that does them any favors so now they're branded Traders think about it a Summoner the main symbol of Hope for Spira is branded a traitor Waka the goodiest yevan feet kisser in the land is branded a Trader all because they stood in the way of a clearly corrupt murderer it seriously shakes their faith in their entire belief system makes them question who and what they're doing it all for sin shows up and whisks the party to the AL bad desert and yuna's missing it turns out that the AL better capturing Summoners but not for the reasons you might think they're capturing them because in order to summon the final aeon and defeat sin the Summoner has to die no questions no chance of survival if Yuna made it to Zanarkand yeah she's pretty much dead oh did I mention everyone knew that batitis he spends the whole game talking to Yuna about what they're going to do after the pilgrimage talking about the future and the places they'll visit unaware of the fact that Yuna was listening to all this knowing she wouldn't be alive to see it there's this one scene where Yuna records a goodbye message for every member in the party and knowing everything I know now man watching the scene makes me get a little teary-eyed titus's desperation to find Yuna is personal now he wants to apologize for everything he said so the party teams up with Uncle Sid and find her in yevin's holy city bevel where she appears to be getting married to Seymour wait didn't we kill that guy yeah so turns out in the ff10 verse if you really don't want to die you can just like not and are known as an unscent a soul that refuses to be uh sent the gang sweeps in to rescue Yuna and what is probably the best CG cutscene in the game buying your time to escape but getting caught in the process we then get this short section where Yoon is the main character and use her to walk around pretty cool to be honest it also turns out that yevad was kind of full of with their whole anti-machine stance as the underground parts of their city is packed full of them yeah looks like you got some fact facing to do Waka the party meets back up and escapes mavel to head to their final destination xanarkand this is where the scene happens you know the one the lake scene it's actually really powerful if I'm being fully honest with you everything the party knew was all some messed up lie they were fed to keep them content yevin is corrupt Summoners die and no one cares all to bring about a piece that lasts for what 10 years Max you wouldn't blame them if they topped out now and Titus tells Yoon all about the future they could have together if they just LED normal lives you can tell how much Yuna desperately wants to take him up on it but she can't if she doesn't defeat sin someone else will if she doesn't defeat sin someone else will just die in her place she can't give up no matter how much she wants what's on the other side she breaks down crying apologizing to Titus that she can't do it she can't give up she'd never forget it no matter how amazing of a life she might have Titus probably knowing that from the start kisses her and the perishare probably their only brief moment where sin yevin and Zanarkand don't exist in this moment there's only the two of them the lyrics of stekidane really reflect the situation especially the final lines this is a real ass Final Fantasy love story not an implied one not one that happens behind the scenes one that plays out right in front of you beginning to end is it as explicit as Cloud receiving fire taught from Tifa underneath the high winds I mean nothing really is but the affection between Yuna and Titus is genuine made all the more heartfelt that yuna's got an expiry date hanging over her head the party once again sets off the mount gagazet stuff happens and they eventually reach Zanarkand where they finally learned the whole truth from unilesca the first Summoner to defeat sin the final summon involves one of the summoner's Guardians being sacrificed to become the final aeon you see sin is actually a massive aeon being summoned by you yevan who created it in desperation during the final days of the Zanarkand Pavel War one thousand years ago since Bevell was a technologically advanced Nation sin was made to track down and destroy all traces of Machina but it ended up doing its job a little too well and almost brought about the end of the world you even then preserved Zanarkand by summoning it as a dream a dream that's been dreamed for a thousand years even if Yuna sacrifices one of her companions to become the final summon once they defeat sin you even will just absorb that aeon in reconstruction and the cycle continues indefinitely we also see a flashback of Aaron learning this truth a decade ago and when he finds out his friends died for nothing he attacked yunaleska who killed him that's also why he wears his arm like that that's where she hit him this is how he was able to meet Titus in the zanarkin prologue like Seymour Aron is an unscent his sheer will keeping him attached to the world unalaska's boss fight is cool because you actually want your party to get inflicted with the zombie ailment you have to manage your HP in life in a totally different way than usual by having a party member die and get revived they're cured of zombie temporarily but they're also vulnerable to unileska's death spells the game also crashed the first time I beat this three-phase boss fight so strike one Yuna decides to defy unilesca giving a rousing speech about how she'll defeat sin and end the cycle without sacrificing the comrades that helped her get this far that's good but with you and Alaska defeated there is now no known way of killing sin that's bad but the party still has one last trick up their sleeve they plan to travel to Bevel to get any and all information they can from the remaining maesters yeah it's good but then the maester says this world sucks I'm out and sends himself that's bad can I go now the party realizes that sin being jet still responds to hearing the hymn of the faith so they get the entirety of spirit a chance at which keeps sitting pacified long enough for the party to blow a hole in it and jump inside thus Begins the final dungeon this dungeon kind of sucks the Seymour boss fight is pretty good though you have to make perfect use of anti-element white magic to keep them off your back while chipping down at him every opportunity you get the game also crashed after this boss fight so strike tune eventually the party meets with jet inside sin and it's a really heartfelt moment jet knows he was an absolute pile of trash back in Zanarkand he tried to race Titus in a way he thought would make him strong but came to the conclusion that he messed everything up jet like Titus also went through a whole last character arc when he came to Spira he knows he can't make amends for what he's done but he at least tries to apologize and Titus denies him the closure Titus finally understands him but he can't bring himself to forgive him they both know that an apology is never going to be enough jet tells Titus that once the fight begins he'll lose control and that kicks off the final boss fight jet is a nightmare boss if you let him get an ounce of momentum on you you have to juggle his ads while dealing damage to him and if he can outpace you the bad model is basically over the game also crashed after this boss fight so strike three baby we heat it now now I said Jed is the final boss fight but the real final boss is you yevin who is basically a Victory lap you can't die no matter how hard you try unless you self-petrify your entire party or something and you just one by one throughout your summons and watch them get eight then you fight uef in itself and oh no it heals every turn sure would be a shame If This Were The One boss in the game that's vulnerable to zombie yeah who doesn't know that exploit at this point with you even defeated symbol cease to exist and the dream of Zanarkand will come to an end Titus a dream born of Zanarkand will effectively cease to exist Titus knows this and Yuna suspects it it's a role reversal from the beginning of the game back then tedis an outsider had to rely on everyone else for information information that often wasn't given to him now it's him who holds all the cards only he knows the full picture Yoona who had pretty much consigned herself to death was taught how to live by Titus now right here at the end of the game she suddenly has to accept that she'll need to learn to live without him she realizes she only has enough time to tell him one more thing and she says her final words before he disappears I love you yeah I didn't stutter you might know already that in Japanese yoona's final word statidus are Arigato thank you and the line was changed do I love you for the English version I feel the need to State my position on this topic clearly the comments I usually get from people who favor the use of thank you over I love you are twofold the first is its use as a word look I don't mean to play the expert card but I'm essentially fluent in Japanese approximately sixty percent of the conversations I have are in Japanese I'm not one of those people who pretends to be an internet language Master while only showing carefully selected and edited clips and treats it like a superpower I'm just a regular bilingual person who can conduct their life in either language I'm saying this not as a flex but to tell you I'm well aware of not only how to use the language but also the cultural context that determines how to use a language you may have heard that Japanese people don't use the word in Japanese for I love you eistadu because it's too strong and that's partially true it depends on the person obviously but for some people yeah it's not an everyday word they might only use it on a special occasion but does that mean it's not said at all no that's way different of course people say it and uh Titus is about to go ghost are you telling me that this would not be the perfect time to drop it is uh the death of the lover not a special enough occasion the second fold is that people say Japanese people Express emotion differently and that thank you being Less Direct would therefore have more impact the express emotion differently thing is again partially true and again depends on the person Japanese people are not a monolith they do not all act and think the same way just like you know people who speak English don't I personally think that's a dumb relic of like some hashtag fact that was disseminated in the 1980s where worldwide everyone was pretty emotionally stunted but you know maybe that's just my opinion so I asked people I asked a lot of people I asked a lot of Japanese people in Japanese which line they thought was better some had played the game and some hadn't ladies and gentlemen 100 of the people I asked said the exact same answer wait what in the English version she says I love you what the hell that's way better granted I didn't ask anyone above the age of 50 or below the age of 20 so unfortunately we'll never know the Boomer Zoomer opinion but I have to stress literally every single person I asked thought thank you was weak compared to I love you look I get it it's easy to assume thank you is the smarter option it's more subtle than I love you if I were to make my biggest devil's advocate for thank you and I mean I am super playing the heel here I would say Yuna says thank you because Titus already knows how much Yuna loves him what he might not know is how grateful she is for the role he played in her life but I think my biggest evidence for thank you being the worst line is that it was changed again in Japanese in the Kabuki show which was like nine hours long by the way the line has changed again to you were never a dream to me you gave me hope anyways unhinged rent aside with sin defeated never to return Spira finally knows peace and Yuna gives a speech for the people who were lost and that's about it that's the end of the game so it's time for me to wrap this all up with a thrilling conclusion thus ends Final Fantasy 10. I have played every single Final Fantasy I have played every single Final Fantasy twice except two and eight I have played many Final Fantasy games three times but 10 is the only one I've completed a grand total of four times so now that we're here at the end of this video however many minutes in did I play Final Fantasy 10 four times because it's the quote unquote best one no I don't think so I definitely don't think it's the best one and it definitely isn't my favorite one because I mean let's be real here fellas the answer to both those questions is Final Fantasy 9 and listen you'll find out one day but not soon while I don't think 10 is the best one I can definitely tell why it's a lot of people's favorite one it's just really easy to play and get into which is probably the reason it's my most completed of the series it's easy to see why so many people recommend 10 as a good entry point into the series despite being 20 years old other than a few smudges it's basically modern every part of it is solid and there's a really good story to be found here I'd say above everything else I respect Final Fantasy 10. do I have a few criticisms of it yeah sure but I have the ability to criticize it because it sucked me in so deep it's natural to find faults with the media we're familiar with while it might not crack my FF top 5 I still think it's a banger of a Final Fantasy game and one you should definitely play Looking Back Now yeah it's easy to see how I had no problems clearing it as many times as I did anyways that's it as usual thanks for watching and before you go I have one extremely important thing I have to say ha you fools I've tricked all of you into watching a video on Final Fantasy 10-2 stay tuned for that [Music]

Channel: BrandoSP

Views: 417,242

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Id: jjiwmzeDEvQ

Length: 74min 19sec (4459 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 24 2023