Final Fantasy X is my favorite Final Fantasy. I first played it the summer between High School and college on my family’s last remaining CRT. I didn’t end up finishing that playthrough, both because my parents gave away the CRT once school started and because I found out the remaster existed right as I reached Zanarkand. I played it at the perfect time in my life. The game is about grief, being in it, and then moving past it. It’s a tale that has only become more poignant and important to me since then, with every playthrough feeling like stopping by home for a bit in the middle of a trip somewhere else. It’s one of those games that’s very reflective to me, and I see more of myself in it and discover some new facet about the game each time I replay it. This latest playthrough on Switch 2 was no different, even if the version existing feels kinda like a formality.
Final Fantasy X | X-2 HD Remaster was already available on Switch 1, and worked perfectly fine through backwards compatibility. What does this version have over the Switch 1 version, you may ask? I have no idea. I can’t find it clearly outlined anywhere. I had initially assumed this version added cheats and other features like maxing out your gil with a button press or fast forward and auto battle options, but apparently those have been in the game since 2016 at least. A feature to instantly learn Al Bhed would have been nice too. I assume this has a higher resolution, especially in portable mode, but I can’t exactly compare the two because I don’t own the Switch 1 version. There can’t be any framerate improvements because the game is forever shackled to 30fps due to poor programming decisions which were very common at the time.
If you do own the Switch 1 version, like a lot of Square Enix games, there is unfortunately no upgrade path. You’re paying $50 for the digital version, full stop. No physical edition either. (Except for Japan, but even then it’s a Game-Key Card. Gorgeous artwork though.) It makes this version extremely weird. I really don’t understand the thought process behind this, because simply putting out patches or even paid upgrade packs would win Square Enix a lot of brownie points. Instead, they are doing the exact opposite, and everyone is angry and confused at the same time. It’s a release that was decided on specifically to make money, rather than to give consumers anything valuable.
It’s a shame because, as I said at the top, this is my favorite Final Fantasy. The writing is incredibly sharp and nuanced. The varied locations are all stunning and memorable. The battle system is fun and strategic. The sphere grid is one of if not the best leveling system in the series. I’m not sure if it’s just nostalgia, because that’s definitely a part of it, but I miss how… grand games felt in the PS1 and 2 era. PS2 in particular was a great sweet spot of visual fidelity and art style, and whenever a pre-rendered cutscene came along, you knew something important was happening. Now in-game graphics look so good you can hardly tell the difference between them and the pre-renders. Which is incredibly cool, but it also removes that special feeling. Basically, if the next Final Fantasy wants to return to FFX or XII or Kingdom Hearts’s visual style, I wouldn’t be mad. Kids don’t really care about the graphics arms race anymore either; they grew up on Minecraft.
Back to the port itself though. Yeah it feels rather pointless, but it’s Final Fantasy X and X-2; I’m gonna play them regardless. The HD remasters aren’t perfect, as I prefer some of the flair the UI has in the PS2 originals, Tidus and Yuna’s faces aren’t quite recreated exactly, and the difference between textures that have been upscaled and those that haven’t is pretty stark, but I just love these games so much. I’ve never actually finished X-2 either, as I found it very “cringe” way back when and somewhat missed the point of the original. Now that I’m older, though, and know cringe is fake and dumb, I’m loving the game’s camp and sheer, audacious confidence.
If this is your first time playing the HD Remaster or the FFX duology in general, this is a perfectly fine version to play, even including the touch screen convenience features like auto recovery and adjusting dress sphere animation length. If you already have the Remaster on something else, though, including Switch 1, you can probably just skip it here.
