T w e n t y S i d e d

In previous iterations of Final Fantasy, they had the Active Time Battle System, or somesuch. This was a turn-based game, but it was “real time / turn based” game. How it worked was this: Each character (and each foe) had a “time” guage that slowly filled.

When the time guage filled up, a menu would appear…

…which would let you choose what action you wanted to take. The menu started out simple at the beginning of the game, and as things progressed it became more complex. Eventually you could attack, cast lots of spells, use special powers, abilities / skills, use items, and summon powerful monsters to fight for you. The list of items grew to be quite large.

But while you’re fiddling around in the menus looking for the thing you want to do, your foes are taking their turns. They are controlled by a computer and thus don’t have menu lag like you do. Your other characters (you can control up to three at a time) are also charging up their turns as well. If two people are ready for their turn now, one of them must wait while you give orders to the other one.

Sometimes the guages charge quite slowly. Sometimes it’s nobody’s turn, and the combatants on both sides just stand there staring at each other until someone’s guage fills up. Then two or more characters fill up at the same time and it’s a mad dash to rush through the menus and assign actions.

This sucks a lot of strategy out of the game. You can have things all planned out, which characters will need to take what actions, but while you’re hunting around in the list for the thing you need, the situation changes. Another character is bady injured and suddenly instead of using an ability like steal, you need to heal them. So you back out of the sub-menu and start hunting around in the magic menu for a healing spell. Oh no! While you were doing that they were knocked out! Now you need to back out of the magic sub-menu and find an item to get them on their feet again. Both of your characters are idle and waiting to take their turn, and all of your careful planning and strategy is out the window because you’re not a menu master.

The net result is that strategy is still important, but it takes a backseat to having the menu memorized so that you can hammer away at the buttons and get to the desired action without looking. Down, right, down, down, down, X to heal. Down, down, right, down to summon Bahamut! Oops! Wrong button! You just wasted your turn! Ha ha! Meanwhile, the enemy is pummeling you with grim efficiency, unimpeded by menus.

The whole system got on my nerves in a profound way. It was like trying to look up a phone number while someone repeatedly slapped me in the forehead screaming, “Come on! What’s the number? Huh? Huh!?!”

Enter Final Fantasy X. They retained the same gauge system, but it was hidden under the hood. It used the guages to figure out who’s turn it was, but it didn’t actually linger waiting for the bar to fill. It just moved to the next turn in the sequence. If it was the player’s turn, the game waited for them to select their choice from the menu before moving on. Studying your options wasn’t going to give the computer the edge. This put the human and the computer on more or less equal footing, since menu navigation speed was no longer an asset in combat.

This eliminated the boring (and odd-looking) gaps in combat, and made battles a lot less irritating. In the image above, the vertical bar on the right shows the various time bars and what turns are coming up. Starting from the top, I can see the turns will go Rikku, Auron, Tidus, Rikku, Auron, Monster, Tidus, Rikku. I can suddenly plan several moves in advance. Battles are now very strategic. I love it.

So of course the die-hard fans hate it. People who had played previous versions didn’t like it at all, and wanted their forehead-slapping menu game back.

This is a killer problem for developers. I really do believe that for newbies, the newer system is more interesting and more fun than the old. People who have been playing this game for a decade underestimate just how troublesome it is for a newcomer. New players are far more likely to become a fan of the new. But for old-schoolers, it’s no longer the game they fell in love with.

I know that for this the old-school fans will brand me a heretic, and I’m ok with that. People invest a lot of themselves into these games, and its hard to citicize the game without offending the fans. In this case, the die-hard fans won. The upcoming FF game will have the Active Time Battle Thingy instead of the system FFX uses.

Sigh.

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.

If you has asked me, the first time I beat Final Fantasy X, how long the characters traveled together and how much time passed in the game world, I would probably have guessed several months. It’s a huge, epic game and when you’re done it feels like the end of Lord of The Rings: The whole world is different, and ages have passed.

But on subsequent plays I noticed there is an implied day / night cycle. We can judge where one day begins and another ends by keeping an eye on the lighting and the sky. Using this as a guide, how many days pass within the game world between the opening credits and the final scene? How long does Tidus spend in Spira? Let’s look:

Play blitzball in Zanarkand at night. Get attacked by Sin. Team up with Auron and then get pulled into Spira. Wake up in the ruins. Build fire. Meet Rikku. Get Kidnapped. Salvage Airship. Get attacked by Sin and knocked into water.

This is a very slow-paced day. Tidus wakes up on the Besaid beach and meets Wakka. Travel to the village. Enter temple, do the trials, and then end the day at the campfire.

Wake up in Besaid village. Leave town. Fight Kimari. Take the boat to Killika. Fight Sin on the boat. Arrive at Killika at sunset. Yuna does the sending and then everyone calls it a night.

Wake up at the Killika inn. Visit the temple. Meet the #!$&ing Goers. Get back on the boat and set sail for Luca. Spend the evening talking to everyone and learning the Ject shot.

Wake up on the boat. Arrive in Luca. Meet Mica and Seymor. Rescue Yuna during round 1 of the tournament and then compete in Round 2. Humiliate the #%@!ing Goers. Fight Sin in the arena and reunite with Auron. Then travel the north road to Rin’s Travel Agency. Talk with Yuna at sunset and then sleep at Rin’s.

(The entire tournament in one day? If all these people from around Spira travel for days to get here, they ought to expect more than a day of entertainment. However, we never see the sun go down, and there is no break in the action, so I guess this all really was supposed to happen in a single day. What a ripoff!)

Wake up and fight the Chocobo eater. Travel the Mi’ihen highroad. Take part in Operation Mi’ihen. Fight Sin. Lose badly. Travel to D’jose temple and do the trials.

Wake up at D’jose temple. Travel road to Moonflow, and then ride the Shoopuf. Rescue Yuna from the extractor and reach the other side. Reunite with Rikku, and have her join the party. Visit Seymor at Gaudosalam and see the Zanarkand recordings. Then Seymor proposes to Yuna. They discuss it, and then cross the Thunder Plains to to Rin’s Travel Agency.

Cross the second half of the Thunder Plains. Go through the woods. Stop at Rin’s. Get attacked at the lake and fight the Al Bhed tank. Go the the temple and Fight Seymor. Do the trials. Escape the temple and confront the Guado at the lake. Fall into the abyss under the frozen lake.

The is no explicit day / night change, but we get moved from one area of the world to another. It seems to be about the right time for a night to pass.

Wake up, mysteriously, on Bikanel island. Cross the island and find the Guado attacking. Head through the complex. They have a key turning point in the game, where Tidus finally learns what’s going on. Get on the airship. Blow up the Al Bhed home. Fly to Bevelle. Fight the Guado onboard and then fight Everae. Crash the wedding, help Yuna escape, and then head for the trials. Get captured.

They stand trial and are tossed into Via Purifico. While Yuna faces issaru, Tidus faces Everae. (again) They escape in the evening and fight Seymor (Again!) just after sunset. Then they meet in the woods outside Bevelle at night. Tidus and Yuna meet at the lake and have their moment together.

Wake up at the campsite in the woods. Optionally get a chocobo and visit Reminem Temple. Then trek all the way over the Calm Lands. Fight the guados at the bridge. Optionally detour into the sunken cave to visit the stolen Fayth. Then head for Mt. Gagazet and and meet with the Ronsos to get passage up the mountain. Kimari must fight his brothers. Then climb all the way up the mountain. This is the densest fighting in the game, and the climb takes a while. Reach the top and confront Seymor. (Again!) Then head through the caverns, open the way, and reach the Zanarkand summit. Fight the guardian. Tidus has his encounter with the Fayth. Several conversations and cutscenes follow.

Finally, reach the base camp on the outskirts of Zanarkand at sunset. The party rests until nightfall, talking. Once it is dark, they set out into the ruined city.

They fight their way in and do the trials. Then they fight the Spectral Keeper. Finally they reach the inner chambers and meet Yunalesca. Things go sideways and they kill her.

Talk about long days!

At sunrise they emerge from the place and see the Airship waiting for them.

All the rest of their efforts seem to happen during one day. It stays daytime until the very end, when we see them gathered on top of the airship at sunset for the final scene.

So there it is. The whole thing takes 11 days.

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.