Put simply, Final Fantasy X is drop-dead gorgeous. The prerendered backgrounds are, for the most part, gone; they've been replaced by fully 3D arenas. The game doesn't allow manual camera control, but the designed camera paths are, for the most part, very sensible. The forced camera angles also allow the mostly-hidden treasure chests that we've all grown to love in the series, so I understand the reasoning behind it. Even with a realtime engine, the environments are lushly detailed, moreso than any other game in the series. Cities, towns, and forests are all lush and vibrant, teeming with little animations and high-poly structures. The characters are well-detailed; their body language is better than I've seen in any other game, although their lips aren't synched properly to their voices. Unfortunately, the engine does bog down occasionally; you'll see the framerate stutter when there's a lot of people on the screen combined with a moving camera, for example. It's noticeable, but not particularly distracting.

The FMV, of course, is absolutely drop-dead gorgeous, the sort of stuff that we've come to expect from Square. It felt better than any FMV I've ever seen in a game, which is saying a lot. Not that I expected any less, mind you.

Old-time fans and newcomers alike will be pleasantly surprised by Final Fantasy X's sound. For one, the series finally has voice acting. While it's not the best I've ever heard in a game--it's definitely still in the 'American video game voice acting' realm, not up to par with the Soul Reaver or Metal Gear Solid series--it's definitely passable, and even pleasurable at times. Everyone will have their favourite and least favourite actors, so I won't try to push my opinion of them; nonetheless, some of the performances are considerably better than others. Many of the smaller (but not bit) parts in the game are also voiced, which is nice. When it comes to music, Final Fantasy X delivers, with some gorgeous sweeping tunes along with a guitar-driven thumping song that'll surprise any veteran of the series. A lot of its livelihood undoubtedly comes from the fact that Uematsu is no longer the sole musician behind the game; any way you look at it, the variety is an improvement. The game's sound effects are as you'd expect for any Final Fantasy, with plenty of swinging swords and booms and clashes and the like.

And--it must be said--along with the improvements in graphics and sound that Final Fantasy X sports, it also represents a delicious upgrade in gameplay. While there are still a few annoying videogame tropes hanging around--too many random battles!--Final Fantasy X is the most well-rounded game in the series so far, with a high refinement of the battle engine and a delightful new leveling system. Oh, and a good storyline too.

The game starts with Tidus, our blonde hero, on the eve of a big Blitzball game. He's the star of his team, and we get to watch him playing the surreal underwater-soccer game in glorious FMV. In the middle of the game, though, something comes along and starts to tear up his city. Soon enough, he's flung into Spira, a world that seems both like and unlike his. There's Blitzball, and there's Zanarkand--destroyed a thousand years ago. There are also summoners, whose training lets them call Aeons (Final Fantasy X's version of Espers/Summoned Beasts/what have you). If a summoner visits all of the temples of the land, they can learn to summon the Final Aeon, which they can use to destroy Sin for a number of years. Yuna, the female lead, is a summoner just starting on her training, and it's into her company that you fall into.

The storyline, of course, has its share of twists and turns, although for the most part the course is set. You're going to the various temples to gain the Aeons, and as Yuna's guardians, Tidus and the rest of the motley crew devote themselves to protecting her life.

The characters run the gamut of the Final Fantasy legion. There's the main-character-sword-swinger, the supporting-female-white-mage (who also happens to summon), the powerful-older-man, the chirpy-young-female, and so on. The various generic characterizations aren't so important; what is important is that they're all characters. Everyone seems to have their place, and no one feels just tacked on to the game, to add someone else to the character roster. It's a nice change.

Speaking of changes, the battle system has finally left Active Time Battle behind. Instead, battles are strictly turn-based, although the turns come the same way that they did in ATB--the faster the characters, the quicker their turns come up. There's a queue on the side of the screen that shows you what's coming up next, so you can plan your attacks accordingingly. Battles are ostensibly three-character, but you can switch in any of the characters not 'on the line' without losing a turn, allowing you to cycle the characters you need into the party almost instantaneously. It works fantastically, and it's a great way to keep your hurt characters safe while bringing in fresh troops during a boss battle. It also means you're never stuck because you forgot to bring along your black mage into a magic-weak battle.

Another major change is the way that characters gain abilities. Instead of discrete character 'levels', where various stats get boosted and abilities are learned, the characters in Final Fantasy X gain Sphere Levels. Every character starts at a particular location on the Sphere Grid, a mind-blowingly massive tableaux that looks like nothing so much as a hypercomplex Parcheesi board. You can expend Sphere Levels to move on the table--one per new location, or one for four moves 'backwards'. You can also expend Spheres to pick up the various things on the boards--stat increases, new abilties, spells and the like. While characters start in predetermined areas, they can go anywhere they like on the board (given enough Sphere Levels), allowing you to customize your team as you like it. It's a brilliant change, because you're gaining stats after every couple of battles instead of every ten or twelve.

Along with these changes, there's the obligatory primary minigame (the aforementioned Blitzball, which is perhaps one of the most interesting 'sports games' I've played in a while), the obligatory hidden quests, tons of things to do on the side to enhance your characters, and so on. The game is plenty lengthy; you won't find yourself tromping through it in one day, or even one week unless you play it hard.

In a pleasant change from games in the series prior to Final Fantasy IX, Final Fantasy X actually proffers a challenge here and there, even during the main plotline. I actually found myself sweating over a few of the random encounters, which was nice; the bosses tended to be challenging but doable. Some of the battles (like the Aeon-on-Aeon fights) tended to be very hair-trigger, with me eking wins out by the hair on my chin. Nonetheless, even newbies to RPGs should find a pleasant enough learning curve, and many of the truly difficult battles are completely optional.

For the most part, the game's controls are identical to all of the post-SNES games in the series. You navigate with the D-Pad or left stick, pull up the menu and interact with the face buttons, and so on. In battles, there are a few more options because of the character switching (done with the L1 button); all of these controls, of course, are taught to you as you play the game, which means that the instruction book is almost unnecessary. That's good, because the instructions are by far the skimpiest I've seen for a Final Fantasy. The game's load times are pleasantly quick, as is the battle transition. The Aeon animations tend towards 'extremely long', but you can thankfully set an option to make them short. Yeah, baby. The new mechanics for the game--the turn-based fight system and the Sphere Grid--end up working excellently, which is a pleasant surprise; it's hard to basically rip out an old system and replace it with a new one that works just as well.

Intriguing characters, fascinating gameworld, solid gameplay. What more is there to say? Yes, I wish that battles still didn't come out of nowhere like they do; yes, I think that some of the characters are a little too generic in their origination for their own good. But these are all very minor flaws in what amounts to a deliciously solid game. RPG fans will have an absolute blast with Final Fantasy X; newcomers to the genre will find it to be a wonderful introduction. What are you waiting for? Go get it. Now.