Board 8 > Rate the VG Story Day 1: Final Fantasy X

(+) Yeah! (+)

Well, since there was a lot of fervent discussion in my topic about the worst game stories and spin-offs, I figured we may as well get a rating topic series going, and that it might be fun to contrast with the B8s best stories list that KP put together.

Post your ratings here on a scale from 1 to 10, 1 being the lowest and 10 being the highest. I am also taking suggestions for future days. Right now I am thinking of Disco Elysium for tomorrow.

How would you rate the story in Final Fantasy X?

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Final Fantasy 10

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Ten

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10

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10

10

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7

9

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9

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Gonna go with a 6. I like it a good deal but there are script and presentation issues. Also, what was up with Seymour? Him not being in it would have earned it a point.

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I can see the flaws here and there, but honestly it all works so well put together that I'll give it a 10.


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7.5

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Lightning Strikes posted...

Also, what was up with Seymour? Him not being in it would have earned it a point.

The half-assed attempt at creating a recurring villain really takes away from the story imo. I think they were trying to push the game closer to your standard JRPG when it would have been far more interesting for the antagonist to be this world-eating entity rather than splitting the role between Sin and Seymour.

Chrono Trigger knew better, which is why that story is much tighter.

10

My favorite game story of all time.

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10

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7

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8.
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10

not literally perfect in execution, but the effect is still nearly peerless

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8.5

Might have been higher if I had finished it. (I got up to the scene of them in the pool of water together, and just didn't continue. I know the ending and played most of FFX-2, though.)

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10/10.

Not literally perfect but so good that I will fight people about it.

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10/10

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4
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ChainLTTP posted...

The half-assed attempt at creating a recurring villain really takes away from the story imo. I think they were trying to push the game closer to your standard JRPG when it would have been far more interesting for the antagonist to be this world-eating entity rather than splitting the role between Sin and Seymour.

Chrono Trigger knew better, which is why that story is much tighter.

Seymour was the actor in the "I know what world-eating entity is - I want to become it!" role. Maybe it spreads the story out a bit, but he still exists within that trope of wanting to harvest and control the big danger that everyone is opposed to, instead of just destroying it outright.

It also is an interesting dichotomy because Sin has always been a sacrifice - Jecht knowingly gave his life to become Sin. And every final Aeon before that. Seymour actually wanted to be Sin.

I think his role would have felt more in-place if he actually succeeded. But I think that also would have taken away from the key conflict of two men overcoming their family's issues. Although - imagine beating Braska's Final Aeon, then Seymour takes the place and is the actual final boss instead of Yu Yevon. Kill him while he's merging with Sin or something - I think that would have landed better than 3rd Seymour that you fight before the end, and it would've been more of an actual 'oh this asshole' moment than what we got, which was more 'ugh why this asshole'.

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Also, it's probably overrating it, but I'll give FFX a 10 as well.

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6

Above average. Still one of the better FF stories.

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10

10/10 and I loved Seymour the whole way through.

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4

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HanOfTheNekos posted...

Seymour was the actor in the "I know what world-eating entity is - I want to become it!" role. Maybe it spreads the story out a bit, but he still exists within that trope of wanting to harvest and control the big danger that everyone is opposed to, instead of just destroying it outright.

It also is an interesting dichotomy because Sin has always been a sacrifice - Jecht knowingly gave his life to become Sin. And every final Aeon before that. Seymour actually wanted to be Sin.

I think his role would have felt more in-place if he actually succeeded. But I think that also would have taken away from the key conflict of two men overcoming their family's issues. Although - imagine beating Braska's Final Aeon, then Seymour takes the place and is the actual final boss instead of Yu Yevon. Kill him while he's merging with Sin or something - I think that would have landed better than 3rd Seymour that you fight before the end, and it would've been more of an actual 'oh this asshole' moment than what we got, which was more 'ugh why this asshole'.

I agree with this wholeheartedly. The half-measures taken with Seymour really took the wind out of the story. (Still a five-star game though).

9.5/10
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I think I'll also say 9.5, the .5 deduction for Seymour Omnis. By that fight he just feels a bit over already before the fight even begins. But I do think Seymour is good throughout the game.

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Seymour was good in mercs

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7.5

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I'll give it an 8.

It'd probably be a ten if you asked me 4 years ago, but there's so many better stories out there.

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10/10

Would rate #1 again

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9


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9.5

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7/10

a bit overrated

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3 for just the story

Game itself gets a 7 overall on the back of blitzball alone though.

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Final Fantasy 10/10

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3/10

Final Fantasy stories are always a balancing act with their weird and convoluted plot twists and their flawed characters, and for me X is the game where that balance finally breaks. Instead of posing interesting questions the twists become groan-inducing and I was never emotionally invested in any of the characters, with the exception of Jecht, whose story in the flashbacks of Braska's journey I did actually find compelling.

I love this topic series idea btw

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Bane_Of_Despair posted...

I think I'll also say 9.5, the .5 deduction for Seymour Omnis. By that fight he just feels a bit over already before the fight even begins. But I do think Seymour is good throughout the game.

That track though!

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9.5

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5.5

It presents some neat ideas, mostly through world-building, but at the end of the day, it is like many JRPGs where a lot of the good it accomplishes is wasted on mediocre or worse writing full of contrived melodrama, thin characters and an air of pretentiousness.
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Story starts really compelling but then degrades. Fortunately the party has a great dynamic.

spoilers throughout the post lol

The story has a lot of really dumb things in it.

How did Tidus have no inkling that Yuna was going to die until they were weeks/months into their journey? How was there no pattern of unusually-final sounding remarks for him to pick up on? Did he never ask Yuna about when her dad got back from defeating Sin? Did no other party member express an emotion for TIdus to hear when Yuna wasn't around? Also this reveal happened when Home was being destroyed.

What is up with people being unsent? Certain people just don't turn into fiends when they die. The criteria for it are extremely vague. If you just want to live hard enough then, uh, you get to. Great.

Also the story leans way too hard on characters going to sleep and waking up in the next plot location. It's how Jecht and Tidus get into the future, Tidus ends up in Besaid, the party ends up on Bikanel, and the party ends up fighting Braska's Final Aeon.

My pet theory is that Tidus falls to his death in the opening cutscene and the entire time you're controlling him is his dying brain hallucinating a whole adventure in the half second it takes him to die.

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NeatoAnAccount posted...

My pet theory is that Tidus falls to his death in the opening cutscene and the entire time you're controlling him is his dying brain hallucinating a whole adventure in the half second it takes him to die.

FF already has one bad An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge theory, no need for any others

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7/10

I'm apparently in the minority because I thought Seymour was a much more interesting villain than Sin was.

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I haven't thought enough about this to feel comfortable rating, but I've come to kind of view FFX's story as a reinterpretation of the Protestant Reformation, if not intentionally. I'm sure any story about battling an all-encompassing church probably has similar overtones, but the "salvation via good deeds" vs. "salvation via faith alone" divide seems pretty pointed if nothing else.

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NeatoAnAccount posted...

How did Tidus have no inkling that Yuna was going to die until they were weeks/months into their journey? How was there no pattern of unusually-final sounding remarks for him to pick up on? Did he never ask Yuna about when her dad got back from defeating Sin? Did no other party member express an emotion for TIdus to hear when Yuna wasn't around? Also this reveal happened when Home was being destroyed.

What is up with people being unsent? Certain people just don't turn into fiends when they die. The criteria for it are extremely vague. If you just want to live hard enough then, uh, you get to. Great.

Also the story leans way too hard on characters going to sleep and waking up in the next plot location. It's how Jecht and Tidus get into the future, Tidus ends up in Besaid, the party ends up on Bikanel, and the party ends up fighting Braska's Final Aeon.

1. There were a ton of hints for Tidus to pick up on, he just didn't. Neither did most players I imagine. It's very obvious on a replay though

2. The critera is not at all vague and not exactly uncommon in fiction

3. First of all, Jecht and Tidus never go to the future. Second of all, none of those are "going to sleep", those were all attacks by Sin... except the last one which I'm not even sure what you're talking about

I give your critique a 1/10

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