The Shrine

<div style='font: 11pt ; text-align: left; '>I just picked it up and played it for about 2 hours so I thought I might as well make some comments.

Overall impression of the game after 2 hours? Kickass :)

It's been a real long time since I've been this pysched up over a FF game...since FFVII, but if FFX is a hint of the RPGs that are to come, I think we're in good hands.

The load times are very low, the graphics are very pretty, good music, and the battle system went through a number of changes that makes it a bit more interesting.

The changes to the battle system? Basically, more options. There seem to be more scripted battle scenes in FFX, which means that you can access a number of "special options" during battle. For example, if you're fighting a boss who hides behind an obstable so you can't attack him, you get 2 new options :Rest and Pincer(to use the term from FFVI) Attack. With Rest, you can heal 50HP for free, and with Pincer attack, your party splits up and traps the enemy so he can't hide. The battles themselves feel a bit faster too, which is very welcome.

There's now a mini-map when you're wandering around the map so you won't get lost...which will do quite often without it. Though the maps between the loads and much more spacious than before, the camera angle will change depending on how you're walking, which makes positioning your self at a certain direction hard at times without the mini-map.

The level up system's a bit weird, though workable. I guess you can read up on the sphere system yourselves...but I don't like how if you screw up in your movements you won't be able to actually gain anything for a while (I once moved the wrong way by accident). It really means that you can't depend on level ups for stat increases though.

The characters (At least the ones I've seen so far) are quite likable too...the voice acting is quite good, and although the main character has that pretty boy look, he's not quite the annoying little bastard that Squall was.

I won't get much into the story since I don't want to spoil the beginning for you, but I think it holds a lot of promise. And since the game starts off with the main character narrating the story for you, you get a better knowledge of why he does the things he does without thinking "Why the hell is that little bastard doing that?"

I'm hoping the game doesn't fall flat later though...something that quite a few FFs recently have felt like...at least for me.</div>

<div style='font: 11pt ; text-align: left; '>Wheeee, 6 months before it comes out here. :P</div>

<div style='font: 12pt Arial; text-align: left; '>I'm eagerly awaiting mine, much moreso than I was with FF8/9 (it doesn't come until wednesday in the mail fer me).</div>

<div style='font: 12pt Arial; text-align: left; '>Yeah, at minimum ya mean. They'd do GREAT to release it just before Christmas time in America, but... Square said it looks very unlikely.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>Played roughly 8 hrs of it so far, still seems decent, but the damn sphere is confusing.....</div>

<div style='font: 11pt "comic sans MS"; text-align: left; '>I'm impressed so far with the pics I've seen. Even more impressed when one of our Shriners can understand Japanese fluently. Damn you! =8^)</div>

<div style='font: 11pt ; text-align: left; '>the game's more skill based than stat based, it seems.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt Verdana, Tahoma; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '>Is it to FF[7|8|9] as FF7 was to FF[4|5|6]?</div>

<div style='font: 11pt ; text-align: left; '>To me it looks like Square is trying to bring more interactivity into FFX and concentrating more on telling it tale while abandoning some of the original staples of an RPG...like level ups and weapons and armor.</div>

<div style='font: 11pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light"; text-align: left; '>Okay, you fucking graphics whores! :) What about the gameplay and story?</div>

<div style='font: 10pt Verdana, Tahoma; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '>More interactivity: good. No weapons and armor: uh-oh...</div>

<div style='font: 11pt ; text-align: left; '>If you don't want any spoilers at all, skip the first 2 paragraphs

The story is told as a flash back through the eyes of Tidus (which is supposed to pronounced Tiida....don't ask me), who is a Blitzball(Think soccer played inside a sphere filled with water, with hitting allowed) megastar in the city of Zanakand. While he's in the middle of a match, a huge tidal wide sweeps through the city, destroying many buildings, including the stadium that he's playing in. When he regains conciousness, he sees a huge monster and its many offspring attacking the city. Before he gets a good grasp of what's going on, he gets sucked in by the monster and blacks out...

And when he wakes up he finds himself in a different world. After he wanders around for a while, he finds out that the city of Zanakand was destroyed 1000 years ago by "Shin" (It's a bit ambigious as to which "Shin" this means. Everyone out there says it's Sin, but it also be shin for God...) and that the reason why he has memories of a non-existant city is because he was poisoned when he got too close to a Shin. You spend a good deal of time trying to figure out if this is the "real world" and that he made up his life as a Blitzball player or if he somehow managed to travel forward in time. As you can imagine, much of the game is focused on the battle against Shin.

There's quite a bit of text that is fully voiced, and they're all done well. You have a pretty likable cast of characters, ranging from the dumb but loyal Walker, the brooding Kimeru, and the cheerful Yuuna just to name a few. Unlike a game like FF8 which felt like all the supporting characters were only there to spice up the battles(to me, anyway), each of the characters interact with each other and has a reason why they're with you.

There's a bigger cast than what I remember of supporting characters in FFX. Most of them are only there to add flavor to the game, but I think that it was a nice touch. The plot advances very nicely and you don't have to fight for hours before reaching a new fork in the tale like in many RPGs. One thing though...there seems to no overworld map...at least not after 10 hours.

As for the gameplay, it's quite original. You're allowed 3 man parties in battles, with the ability to freely switch during the battle, like in WA2. BUT you're not allowed to switch characters out when they're dead...which I think is weird. But the thing that's bad about this is that except for boss battles, ONLY the characters that are fighting recieved Ability Points (No Exp. here) to raise in Sphere Level (like Levels, only not). That doesn't sound like much, but when you're only allowed 3 people in battle, you'll rarely put your healer in, saving her to heal after the battle. But if you keep doing that, she'll stay incredibly weak, so you're forced to put her in now and then, which is annoying.

Like I said before, there are a lot more scripted battles, which means more interaction overall. They range from special commands you can use depending on the circumstances, a story even happening WITHIN the battle, and making use of the surroundings to make the battle easier for you (Like in Anachronox). I think it's fair to say that as much of 10% of your battles are scripted in one way or another, which is quite a lot. Oh and they've gotten rid of the active time battles. They have the bar, but it stays still while you pick out your action (active wait?).

The new level up system means that you'll stay around the same stat level for quite some time and it shows. My characters didn't start getting into the 1000HP area until I was well into the game, and there still some charcters that are under 800HP(I'm 10 hours in). If you disregard the way it works aesthecically, the Sphere level up system is like a cross between the slight but frequent level ups from games like Saga Frontier and the normal level ups that everyone is used to. Because there is usually 1 or 2 ways to proceed on the Sphere board, you don't get as much freedom as people have led you to believe, though if you really try you can force a fighter to become a mage...which is pretty pointless since the weapons and items you can use are locked depending on the character.

Which brings up the next topic:Weapons and armor. You can buy them...well, Weapons and accessories, really...in most shops but unlike games that actually increased your stats directly, these items in FFX only come with a certain set of skills to help you. They end up being almost the same in the end since these weapons do have skills like "HP+10%" and "Attack+5%", they are all percentage based, which means that even the crappiest weapon will deal more damage overall in the long run. Most of the skills are more along the lines of "Analyze"(See HP level,etc) and "Fire attacks halved" though.

To make things short:FFX concentrates a lot more on story and battles, but one you start fighting...expect a whole slew of battles one after the other. It's even more linear than before, making people who complained of FFVII-VIII being an interactive movie almost guaranteed to hate X. I like it though, and the gameplay changes make it feel fresh.</div>

<div style='font: 11pt ; text-align: left; '>From what I've seen the gameplay looks enjoyable. ;)</div>

<div style='font: 11pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light"; text-align: left; '>

And when he wakes up he finds himself in a different world. After he wanders around for a while, he finds out that the city of Zanakand was destroyed 1000 years ago by "Shin" (It's a bit ambigious as to which "Shin" this means. Everyone out there says it's Sin, but it also be shin for God...) and that the reason why he has memories of a non-existant city is because he was poisoned when he got too close to a Shin. You spend a good deal of time trying to figure out if this is the "real world" and that he made up his life as a Blitzball player or if he somehow managed to travel forward in time. As you can imagine, much of the game is focused on the battle against Shin.

Appp! God was mentioned...therefore I know the ending. But the question is what god do I get to kill?

There's quite a bit of text that is fully voiced, and they're all done well. You have a pretty likable cast of characters, ranging from the dumb but loyal Walker, the brooding Kimeru, and the cheerful Yuuna just to name a few. Unlike a game like FF8 which felt like all the supporting characters were only there to spice up the battles(to me, anyway), each of the characters interact with each other and has a reason why they're with you.

It was kinda hard to do otherwise because of the way your groups interacted with the story (IE: only the 3 people you had actually popped in and said something, and it was predictable when some fourth guy just wandered into the storyline and said "Oh, hi guys! I'm here to get killed by Sephiroth."). Just look at Chrono Cross.

There's a bigger cast than what I remember of supporting characters in FFX. Most of them are only there to add flavor to the game, but I think that it was a nice touch. The plot advances very nicely and you don't have to fight for hours before reaching a new fork in the tale like in many RPGs. One thing though...there seems to no overworld map...at least not after 10 hours.

That's okay, I think FF7 was like that.

As for the gameplay, it's quite original. You're allowed 3 man parties in battles, with the ability to freely switch during the battle, like in WA2. BUT you're not allowed to switch characters out when they're dead...which I think is weird. But the thing that's bad about this is that except for boss battles, ONLY the characters that are fighting recieved Ability Points (No Exp. here) to raise in Sphere Level (like Levels, only not). That doesn't sound like much, but when you're only allowed 3 people in battle, you'll rarely put your healer in, saving her to heal after the battle. But if you keep doing that, she'll stay incredibly weak, so you're forced to put her in now and then, which is annoying.

I like that. One thing that annoyed me about Chrono Trigger was that you weren't forced to switch members. You always used the same team over and over again.

Like I said before, there are a lot more scripted battles, which means more interaction overall. They range from special commands you can use depending on the circumstances, a story even happening WITHIN the battle, and making use of the surroundings to make the battle easier for you (Like in Anachronox). I think it's fair to say that as much of 10% of your battles are scripted in one way or another, which is quite a lot. Oh and they've gotten rid of the active time battles. They have the bar, but it stays still while you pick out your action (active wait?).

Uh-oh...are they trying to make the game easier?

To make things short:FFX concentrates a lot more on story and battles, but one you start fighting...expect a whole slew of battles one after the other. It's even more linear than before, making people who complained of FFVII-VIII being an interactive movie almost guaranteed to hate X. I like it though, and the gameplay changes make it feel fresh.

Yeah, and I'm sure people bitched that FF3's World of Balance was a interactive movie. What about FF2? Oh, but these old skool fuckers don't even remember that, do they?!</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>More like luck base..... I messed up too badly in the progression of spheres.... wasted around 7 levels without gaining a single stuff due to wrong placement.....</div>

<div style='font: 10pt Verdana, Tahoma; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '>Hey genius, some of us skipped those two paragraphs he warned us about for a reason.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>FFXFFXFFX is far from being deem easy. For one, leveling don't increase your stats as significant as other FF games. It's base more on incremental increase then dramatic ones.

Add to the fact that there's enough variation when it comes to encounter, it's less boring then other FF games when it comes to boss fight etc. Past FF games = hit attack every turn, use limit, heal, repeat infinite.

One thing I'm starting to get annoy by FFXFFX is that the story appears to be too easy to predict. Unless something major appears......</div>

<div style='font: 11pt ; text-align: left; '>I thought status ailments were back in FFIX but some of them, like Poison are truly dangerous in X, and because your characters stay around the same level for a very long time, Most enemies can kill any character in about 4-5 direct hits...if you don't equip yourself properly ^^

How far are you in anyway?

Oh and I think you messed up really badly in the sphere progression because you probably didn't know something about it...going back to any space you've already gone to only eats up 1 Sphere level ^^;;</div>

<div style='font: 9pt Arial; text-align: left; '>More like 8.</div>

<div style='font: 11pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light"; text-align: left; '>Then don't click on the message.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt Verdana, Tahoma; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '>It wasn't the message, the subject was enough.</div>

<div style='font: 11pt "comic sans MS"; text-align: left; '>Hehe....that's as bad as a subject line that says "Spoiler! Cloud dies in the end! Don't click here unless you've completed the game!"</div>

<div style='font: 11pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light"; text-align: left; '>Well, considering: 1) I was only speculating and 2) you get to kill a god in the end to almost every Square game (esp. the FF series), I don't think it was that bad.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt Verdana, Tahoma; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '>FF4... no, FF6... no, FF7... no, FF8... no, FF9... haven't beaten it yet, but I doubt it.</div>

<div style='font: 11pt ; text-align: left; '>I gotta agree with Sine here, all of them were gods or had the mentality they were, especially Sephy.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt Verdana, Tahoma; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '>They were really powerful beings, but none were gods. Zeromus wasn't a god, Kefka wasn't a god, Sepiroth wasn't a god, and that witch wasn't a god. Xenogears, THAT was god. As was Tactics.</div>

<div style='font: 11pt ; text-align: left; '>Oh come on, they influenced things so much in the world it's hard to say they weren't gods.</div>

<div style='font: 11pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light"; text-align: left; '>Goddamn, Kupek. Enough with the subject spoilers!</div>

<div style='font: 11pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light"; text-align: left; '>Yeah, I can't believe he hasn't noticed Square's god complex on their games.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>I didn't pay attention to the explanation and went random during the first few levels, had to pay a lot to fix it back to a decent progression :/</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>It's not only square.... 99% of the rpgs out there have you fighting a god or your relative eventually</div>

<div style='font: 10pt Verdana, Tahoma; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '>Please. We can assume those games have been played.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt Verdana, Tahoma; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '>Those aren't gods. They're just really powerful people, maybe with god-complexes, but that doesn't make them gods.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt Verdana, Tahoma; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '>Well, think about it: how exciting is it to get to the last boss and it's a field mouse? Of course the final enemy of an RPG is going to be an extremely powerful being.</div>

<div style='font: 11pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light"; text-align: left; '>I was joking. It was irony.</div>

<div style='font: 11pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light"; text-align: left; '>Kefka was definately a god.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt Verdana, Tahoma; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '>Not at all. He was human who got lots of power.</div>

<div style='font: 11pt ; text-align: left; '>Dude! He came down like a freaking Angel!! Sephroth destroyed the entire solor system! Come on now! :P</div>

<div style='font: 11pt ; text-align: left; '>Disc?</div>

<div style='font: 11pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light"; text-align: left; '>And Sephiroth came down as an angel...you know, a <u>one-winged angel</u>! The word "sephiroth" is a class of angel. (It's also the Hebrew "Tree of Life".) The witch created her own dimension to rule over everything, and I think there was mention of how she became a god. (I don't remember her name, so I can't look it up.) Deus means "god", from Xenogears. FFT's boss was the biggest god of them all. In Parasite Eve, you're trying to kill "The Ultimate Being". Lavos was just an alien, but he had control over the planet and its effects for millions of years, so calling him a god wouldn't be so far-fetched. I don't even remember FF2's storyline too well...

There's nothing wrong with having a powerful boss, but Square has brought the godlike expressiveness of the final bosses to a new point of absurdity. It gets old and repetitive. What's wrong with defeating an enemy that doesn't have power over the universe and stars and dimensions? Shit, it's not like Bowser is a god, or Dracula is a god, or the king/queen in Suikoden, or the bosses in Fallout. In System Shock 1/2, the computer chick is pretty powerful, but everything is explainable. It's not like you come out victorious because you defeated god.</div>

<div style='font: 9pt Arial; text-align: left; '>He must be a god! How can you destroy the Solar System again after you've destroyed it once? :)</div>

<div style='font: 9pt Arial; text-align: left; '>The people of Xenogears and FFT believed Deus and St. Ajora were gods. Though Deus was man-made, it managed to create a whole new race of people on an uninhabited planet, and managed to get people to worship it. St. Ajora was a human, but was basically a twisted version of Christ, starting his(her?) own church and such. Since we are looking from the main characters' point of view, we believe these bosses to be gods.

As for the FF bosses, Zeromus was the culmination of all hatred(not really sure what to call that); Kefka was some general who got greedy; Sephiroth was a genetically enhanced human; and Ultimecia was a power-hungry witch in a long line of others. They had god-complexes, but were all just abnormal human beings.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt Verdana, Tahoma; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '>Second, Square took a lot of liberty on the end bosses of FF6 and FF7. At no point in the story of the game did anything happen to indicate that this villian has now become a god. They just got a kick out of angelic looking end bosses, but it had no impact on the actual story.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt Verdana, Tahoma; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '>Blah blah blah, at no point in the game did he become a god. He was a very powerful man. About Sephiroth, see below.</div>