For as many people that praise the modern Final Fantasy games for their glorious, technically impressive cutscenes, there is an equal amount of people that criticize them for being far too overdramatic and emotionally empty.
As a huge fan of the "older" Final Fantasy entries (IV & VI!), I would normally be predisposed to agreeing with these latter sentiments. I would even argue that there is more emotion in the 16-bit Final Fantasy games than any of the recent iterations.
But, despite my thoughts on a lot of these magnificently beautiful, yet emotionally hollow modern Final Fantasy cutscenes, one sequence in a relatively recent entry really touched me in a way I never thought it would. While the melodrama is thick, one particular moment in the conclusion of Final Fantasy X shows off a surprisingly quiet confidence and impressive sense of direction.
It is my favorite moment in Final Fantasy X -- a dramatic, tragic scene that brings the epic role-playing game to a heartbreaking close.
The Set-Up
I actually didn’t play Final Fantasy X until a few years after it was released. I had been a fan of all the games in the series up to that point, but after the perfection that was Final Fantasy IX on the original PlayStation, I was worried PlayStation 2’s first contribution to the series was going in a direction I didn’t like.
Lucky for me, after finally playing the game, I was proven very wrong. I loved Final Fantasy X after finishing it and was surprised by how moved I was by the game’s epic, yet personal tale.
In the game, you play as Tidus, a boyish, slightly generic Final Fantasy protagonist, who also happens to be the star of a strange underwater sport called blitzball.
Final Fantasy X opens with Tidus in the middle of one of these heated and highly skilled games of blitzball, being cheered on by the futuristic city of Zanarkand.
During the tournament, the city is unexpectedly attacked by a giant creature that goes by the ominous name of Sin.
Teaming up with his older, wiser (and badass!) guardian Auron, Tidus runs through the streets of Zanarkand, the two trying their best to defend against the constant onslaught of Sin’s minions.
Unfortunately, Tidus and Auron are unsuccessful in their battle and are overtaken by Sin.
The world before Tidus fades to white.
When Tidus awakes, he finds himself in an unfamiliar world -- the world of Spira.
Shortly after arriving in this strange, new world, Tidus meets a girl by the name of Rikku, a member of the technology-driven tribe of the Al Bhed. Rikku informs Tidus that his home world of Zanarkand was destroyed by Sin 1000 years ago.
For good reason, Tidus is confused and shocked by this news. Was he really 1000 years in the future? If so, how did this happen? And what the heck is going on?
Before he even has a chance to comprehend anything, Sin reappears and attacks the ship Tidus and Rikku are on. After the vicious attack Tidus is thrown overboard.
Waking up (again), Tidus now finds himself on the island of Besaid. Here he meets the eclectic character Wakka, a fellow blitzball player. It is Wakka that then introduces Tidus to Yuna, a beautiful summoner that is about to embark on an important pilgrimage to defeat Sin.
Intrigued by Yuna, Tidus agrees to join Yuna’s pilgrimage under the guise that he is just going to travel with Wakka to help him in a far-off blitzball tournament and look for a way to get back home.
Along their journey, Tidus and Yuna start to form a special bond. She finds interest in his mysterious qualities, while Tidus looks at Yuna as one of the bravest souls he has ever met, especially after finding out that, to defeat Sin, Yuna may have to sacrifice her own life.
Determined to find a way to save Yuna and still destroy Sin, Tidus continues with Yuna (and many new friends) on her pilgrimage.
Many lands, many hours, and many (many!) plot twists later, the party finally reaches the sad wasteland that was once Tidus’s home. Standing before them is the ruins of Zanarkand.
It is here when this week’s Memory Card moment occurs: Yuna’s empty embrace.
The Moment
Here in Zanarkand, Tidus learns the horrible truth about who he really is and what happened to his beloved city.
You see, the past Zanarkand, as Tidus has come to remember it, is not real. It is actually a dream world created by special summoners -- called fayth -- to keep the memories of this once great city alive. (Think of it as a thousand year dream the fayth are constantly experiencing.)
And Sin -- whom Tidus also learns is actually his father, Jecht -- is maintaining the creation of this dream Zanarkand since he came into contact with Tidus and Auron at the beginning of the game.
The fayth no longer want to hold onto this dream Zanarkand, but are forced to because of the existence of Sin.
Like most recent Final Fantasy games, it is a confusing twist, but slowly starts to make sense as the final moments of the game continue on.
Eventually, Tidus, Yuna, and the rest of the party do battle with a series of incredibly powerful bosses aboard their airship.
The last boss they encounter is Sin himself, a massive beast with a haunting connection to Tidus.
After defeating him, Tidus’s father Jecht is cured from his horrible curse. He is no longer Sin. He is free.
After a tough battle, the party is successful. Yuna performs her final act, banishing all evil from the world. The dream world of Zanarkand is finally released.
But everything is far from being a happy ending.
Being from the dream Zanarkand, Tidus’s existence in the world of Spira starts to disappear as well.
He starts to fade away before his friends’ eyes.
Yuna looks on, but can’t believe what she is seeing.
Her eyes start to tear up.
Fearing she is going to lose him forever, Yuna leaps forward to embrace Tidus. She wants to tell him she cares for him. To tell him how much he means to her. To hold him in her arms one last time before he is gone forever.
But as Yuna reaches out, she falls right through Tidus. He is disappearing so fast that she can’t even touch him.
Yuna’s face lies against the cold, hard ground.
She opens her eyes, but freezes in disbelief.
Suddenly, Yuna gathers all the strength in her body. She stands up and looks into the sunset, reflected beautifully in the moving clouds.
In one simple whisper, she says her final words to Tidus:
"I love you."
With this, Tidus appears behind Yuna. Her love for him giving them one last moment, he embraces her. He holds her close as if he never wants to let go.
Yuna takes this moment in. She closes her eyes and tries her best to enjoy what is sure to be a moment she will never forget.
With this final embrace, Tidus fades away. He slowly leans forward and floats off into the distant clouds.
Yuna stares straight ahead, trying her best to stay strong.
For a moment, the world stops.
As Tidus flies away, he leaves Yuna -- and the world of Spira -- behind.
Although devastated to see him go, Yuna uses her love for Tidus to find newfound strength. A strength she will use to make sure her world is a better place.
As Yuna tells her people in a moving speech during the game’s final moments:
"The people and friends that we have lost, and the dreams that have faded, never forget them."
Words Yuna will always live by.
You can watch the beautifully tragic final moments of Final Fantasy X right here:
The Impact
To be honest with you, I never really felt the full impact of Final Fantasy X’s ending until several playthroughs later.
I always thought it was a beautiful, wholly satisfying conclusion, but I was so oversaturated with the exquisite graphics and overload of the senses that it took me a few times to really appreciate the farewell scene between Tidus and Yuna.
Final Fantasy X is full of ridiculously over-the-top moments -- including some that populate the game’s ending -- but in the midst of this gorgeous chaos, the scene where Tidus disappears in front of Yuna possesses a quiet beauty that is quite remarkable.
Although there were many cutscenes in the three PlayStation Final Fantasy games (VII, VIII, and IX), the cinematics felt very disconnected from the actual game since they looked so different than the in-game graphics.
Final Fantasy X was the first Final Fantasy game I played in recent generations where the cutscenes looked almost identical to the actual game you were playing.
And this reminded me of how the old Final Fantasy games handled cutscenes. Obviously the 16-bit games were not nearly as detailed as the modern iterations, but there was a certain charm in seeing all the cutscenes happen completely in-game. Regardless of the inferior technology, seeing Celes jump off that cliff in Final Fantasy VI is still just as powerful as any of the cinematics I have seen now.
Unlike most romantic relationships in the Final Fantasy world, Tidus and Yuna have a more innocent, playful, unspoken relationship, and their final scene really reflects this.
Just look at the direction of the sequence as a great example.
As mentioned, Final Fantasy X is a very "loud" game, at times displaying cinematics that are almost too busy and chaotic.
But when Tidus and Yuna part ways, everything is slowed down.
Watch the scene again and count the number of lines of dialogue. There are very few.
The directors of the game (Motomu Toriyama, Takayoshi Nakazato & Toshiro Tsuchida) trusted the story and the characters enough to slow down the action and let Tidus and Yuna’s final interaction be all about the looks on their faces; their body language; their unspoken love for each other.
Look at the emotion on Yuna’s face right before she runs for that embrace with Tidus. The animators put such detail into this look that there is no need for any dialogue to accompany it.
It is a beautiful, quiet moment that I had not seen since the glory days of the Final Fantasy games on the Super Nintendo.
And notice the way the entire sequence has no problem taking its time. When Yuna falls to the ground after her empty embrace with Tidus, the camera stays on her face for an extended amount of time.
When you take this truly stunning direction and couple it with an absolutely magnificent musical score, you have a really classic videogame scene on your hands.
Sure, the ending gets a little overdramatic, but it is hard not to get choked up when Tidus makes that final leap into the clouds. The way the music stops for just a second; the way Yuna stands strong, while at the same time looking like she is about to erupt in tears.
It all just works.
The final sequence between Tidus and Yuna is definitely one of the highlights of the more recent Final Fantasy games. As strong as the melodrama is during their goodbye, the entire scene also has such a personal, quiet feel to it that it stands out as being one the most unique and touching videogame moments in the Final Fantasy series.
Chad Concelmo is Destructoid's features editor. He loves hanging out with awesome people. That's why Destructoid makes him so happy, since it is full of THE MOST AWESOME PEOPLE OF ALL TIME! Also, dolphins.
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Chad enjoys punching old ladies in the face, Super Metroid, Zelda: A Link to the Past on the SNES (best system ever!), Final Fantasy VI, Day of the Tentacle, Shadow of the Colossus, Mother 3, Beyond Good & Evil, Contra III, Valkyria Chronicles, Punch-Out!!, Half-Life 2, and Super Mario Galaxy 2.
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Great memory card. Interestingly, it wasn't the embrace that really got to me but the moment that immediately follows, the cloud dive. There was just something about Tidus seeing the other departed characters and joining them that really cemented the fact that he was gone. It was just this quiet, brief release into death (or non-being) that I found very moving. For sure, though, that entire ending was so sad (in a good way).
This is one of those games that I started but never finished. Amazingly enough, it hasn't been spoiled for me, so I definitely want to experience this ending for myself.
It's a shame that I could never emotionally invest in this scene because of how annoying Tidus was as a character and how vapid the romance between him and Yuna seemed to me. I've seen the game through to the end about 3 times and while my appreciation of it did grow, the characters and plot are easily the worst thing about the game.
I can easily see how well-crafted the scene itself is, it just never had any impact on me.
I felt FFX had it's ups and downs as I played it, but I felt the end wrapped it up nicely and even endeared me a little to Tidus, who I pretty much hated as a main character throughout the game. But with that ending, I was quite pleased with where FFX had taken me.
Then they made FFX-2 and ruined everything. -_-... *shakes head*
Oh, god dammit. I seriously had to grab a tissue. Final Fantasy endings have a way of making me cry, but Final Fantasy X's does especially. It's over the top and melodramatic to be sure, but the scene had perfect tear-inducing pacing.
I was wondering if you were ever going to do this moment, Chad! I remember the first time I played through this game, this moment hit me like a pile of bricks. For most of the ending up until that point, I had doubts as to whether the game would go through with the sad possibility of Tidus vanishing. Final Fantasy games aren't exactly known for having sad endings. Vague, yes, but never deliberately sad.
However, when this moment happened, I remembered actually getting choked up and my eyes watering. That's when I realized that Tidus would definitely be disappearing and that Yuna was going to lose him. I held it together until the very end, when Yuna says '...never forget them', at which point I definitely cried a few tears.
You know... that ending carries some significance given the recent events in Japan, now that I think about it.
i had a few tears the second time i played through it and reached that part. amazing game. i would love to replay again and again and again and get Yojimbo and the magus sisters summons.
brillant game that had its own laungange, religion, great story and a few badass characters that made the difference. Seymour will always blow chunks though.
that aside and this off topic, we absolutely need more turn based rpgs. when the fallout series is the closest thing to a turn based rpg on the ps3, there is something wrong.
Final Fantasy X is great, and one of my most played FFs. Blitzball was awesome as a minigame and really captured my attention. It's one of the games I still play, when I'm not playing .Hack G.U or some other multiplayer with my roommates.
I also love X-2, are you going to share your opinions about that¿ I'd like to read about that.
I'm proud to call myself one of the few people on this planet who actually liked Tidus as a character. I like his playfulness contrasted with Yuna's determination, and I liked James Arnold Taylor's voice work a lot - I don't see why people cast him off as whiny. (though that could be the retro goggles talking, it's been years since I've played through FFX)
I was thinking about playing through this game again earlier today, as Spira is one of the most accomplished worlds I've ever spent a good amount of time in. The journey through it was beautiful when I was about fifteen, but I'd like to experience it again to maybe pick up some of the things I missed when I was younger. It's a real shame that there's so many great JRPG's I've still yet to play (Persona 4 is looking at me from my desk right now) otherwise I'd love to go back to the past and relive these fond memories.
I played through FFX after X-2 was announced but before it came out and this was the scene that caused me to rush out and preorder the sequel. I was so pumped, it's a shame X-2 ended up letting me down. I have been meaning to give it another shot one of these days.
In case you didn't know, the last thing Yuna said to Tidus in the Japanese version was "Thank You." I would like to see your interpretation on why they changed it in the English version.
FFX is definitely one of my all-time favorite RPGs. The sphere grid and hot-swapping characters in combat gave the whole system a flow that very few turn-based RPGs could match. I really grew to love the dream-city of Zanarkand and the world of Spira - and while the writing was spotty, Lulu and Wakka did some fantastic voice-acting. And I can remember walking through the Sunset neighborhood in SF one summer evening, and hearing from a 2nd story window, someone playing the Zanarkand theme on piano - a haunting moment! Thanks for the little shot of nostalgia to my day.
This brings back memories. It makes me want to play through FFX again, but I can't because I have some many other RPG's that need to be completed! One of these days.....
Hey Chad, would you ever do a Breath of Fire-related Memory Card feature? If not, I would love to do my own unofficial Memory Card segment about Breath of Fire II in the cBlogs.
Sadly, FFX was when Square Enix jumped the shark for me. There were some great moments, but Tidus and Yuna weren't counted in a single one of them for me. I apologize if this sounds like a review, but just sharing my memories of the game.
Pressing a button during a cutscene (which if you miss you can't go back) gives you the good ending? Lame. Ultimate weapons that required you to sit in the thunder fields and press a time button hundreds of times with one failure making you start over? Lame. Me missing Tidus' Super duper shot because I never got it on the boat? Lame (well, i'm probably lame for that one). I felt like this was the first FF you had to have a guide or at least a walkthrough in front of you to not feel like you've missed half the game. This game also marked the death of the overworld map, which may be nitpicky but part of the fun of the old FF games was wandering aimlessly and finding some cave with a monster in it that steamrolls you. (although I think FFXII did a nice job of fixing this by making the environments enjoyable to traverse).
I will say that art wise this game was beautiful, and had a good score. The battle system also was a refreshing way to not relegate the majority to your characters to sitting on an airship.
Character interaction shared the stale aura of VIII, where half the characters simply exist to support the primary storyline of Tidus and Yuna, or Tidus and his daddy issues. In fact, some of the character subplots are carbon copies of VIII (i'll refrain from listing them here for spoiler reasons). Auron, however, has one of the most interesting character backgrounds of any FF game I've played.
Lastly, I felt like the most interesting place in the game was original Zanarkand, a place which you see for about 15 minutes in the game and then never go to again. Spira's pretty and all, but it's often very boring.
@Linktrigger -- Wow. That is really interesting. Even more interesting when you realize this update completely changes the meaning of that final scene.
To me, saying "I love you" is an expression of the love you share with someone. To have Yuna say "thank you," that makes it sound like Tidus changed her or something. Like, she is thanking him, for not only being a part of her life, but for making her a better person.
Wow. Pretty powerful stuff.
What do you think? What do you make of the change? :)
@NukaCola -- I haven't played the Breath of Fire games in years! I love them, but would need to replay the series if I wanted to write a feature on them.
You should write about them! I would love to read it! :)
Truth be told, I avoided it (and the other sci-fi-y FFs, 8 excluded) as I figured they could never top 5 or 6, and went in a direction I didn't like. But maybe I should give 10 and 12 a chance...
I think Dragon Age II needs a memory card for the chantry bombing scene. What a very powerful scene that was. And its one of your own party members that does it, not the antagonists.
Or Tali's loyalty quest in Mass Effect 2, which cemented her as the series most popular character.
Even though Tidus can get pretty annoying, Final Fantasy X is still one of my favorite Final Fantasy games. Did you ever play X-2? The story's a little meh, but the battle system is really fun.
The Luca Blight boss battle is one of the greatest in JRPG history, it was so poetic for maybe the most disguistingly evil character in the history of gaming.
While it is a great scene, it is a shame that it is a part of such a rather bad game.
Nothing about FFX really holds much fondness for me. There are some nice cutscenes and a few charcters (all mostly side characters) who were really nice, but I found the majority of the cast especially Tidus and Yuna to be underwhelmingly blah.
FFIX's the last one to have a great story and FFXII is the only recent game that had be loving it from both a gameplay and story perspective.
In fact, Kitase/Nomura/Nojima haven't made a FF that I liked since FFVII. FFVIII is even worse than FFX. And FFXIII? I couldn't force myself to play more than the first couple hours it just felt so honestly bad to play - especially with the knowledge that the game would continue to be a giant tunnel for the next 15-20 hours.
Final fantasy x is my favorite game of the series, barely though, with vi, iv, and vii are all tied for 2nd place, it has a lot of flaws but after playing through it 4 times, these flaws are something that don't even bother me now, and even through the 4rth play through, this scene still gets me to shed a man tear.
This is actually the only scene that reached me emotionally in the game. I remember thinking, "Wow, if only the rest of the game had a story I cared this much about, I would have thought it was great."
Ahh good memories, such a great game and moment. Thank you for giving final fantasy X some much needed love <3. I seriously start up instruments because of "To Zanarkand" ...goddam that stuff gets me every time.
If memory serves me I only ever cried during a game at this scene (+ Auron right before) and the ending to MGS3, and FFX remains to date my favorite jrpg and one of my favorite games ever.
This scene really shows the growth in Tidus as well. He starts his journey as a whiny brat who just wants to go home and doesn't want to think about his problems. Through all that he learned on his adventure to defeat Sin, he becomes more of a man and faces his problems head-on. Rather than mope, Tidus realizes what's happening and handles it with utmost maturity - his goodbye is nothing if not bold.
@Chad - I see the "I love you" as more of a fan service than anything. I think there's a deeper meaning on Yuna saying "Thank You" because if it wasn't for Tidus, who knows, maybe Yuna would've followed the same path as her father and ended up having to sacrifice one of her guardians to continue the cycle. Although, the 3 words do have some strengths in it since it was never said throughout the entire game. Although, the "Thank You" won't make the scene of Tidus hugging Yuna to be AS effective. Cause it was kinda awkward when I rewatched the scene via the Japanese version. Overall, I love you was a better choice in appealing the western audience.
Also, please do a memory card for Valkyria Chronicles? ;)
I think the whole forest scene with the wounded soldier would be somethiing that might interest you!
Today I clicked on one this post for the first time, and I realized I have been missing out. I've been a dtoid user for years but I missed what was probably some of the best material on this site. I spent today's afternoon, reading old "The Memory Card" posts and it was an amazing trip down memory lane with a great gamer/person.
Even though roughly 60% of the games on this list are stuff I've never played (PC gamer here, tho I do try to play any console classics I can get my hands on), I enjoyed reading all of them. As for some of them, like the HL2 and EBA one, I almost cried. Some other times I felt like hugging you Chad, like for the Starcraft one. Well done. I will rabidly follow The Memory Card from now on and will never miss another episode.
P.S.: for those of you that can't play FFX but would like to know the story etc, my friend has made (for me) a "film" of the movie that covers all events in the game pretty thoroughly. In case you're interested: http://www.youtube.com/user/Suicute#g/c/D9AE2868D489C0E7
Yep, that Luca Blight fight was fantastic. I think that was the first time a JRPG boss actually frightened me, and he did it not by being physically distressing, but through his evil and feral character traits. The build up to the fight brought immense tension, and the fact that it took multiple teams to the brink of death to bring him down just added to it.
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Contest:
4:00 PM on 03.17.2011 | 
It's a shame that I could never emotionally invest in this scene because of how annoying Tidus was as a character and how vapid the romance between him and Yuna seemed to me. I've seen the game through to the end about 3 times and while my appreciation of it did grow, the characters and plot are easily the worst thing about the game.
I can easily see how well-crafted the scene itself is, it just never had any impact on me.
Then they made FFX-2 and ruined everything. -_-... *shakes head*
Haters gonna hate.
No thoughts on how the ending leads into and dominates the story of Final Fantasy X-2?
Final Fantasy IX was still perfection though.
However, when this moment happened, I remembered actually getting choked up and my eyes watering. That's when I realized that Tidus would definitely be disappearing and that Yuna was going to lose him. I held it together until the very end, when Yuna says '...never forget them', at which point I definitely cried a few tears.
You know... that ending carries some significance given the recent events in Japan, now that I think about it.
brillant game that had its own laungange, religion, great story and a few badass characters that made the difference. Seymour will always blow chunks though.
that aside and this off topic, we absolutely need more turn based rpgs. when the fallout series is the closest thing to a turn based rpg on the ps3, there is something wrong.
Now I want to play through the whole game again, which I absolutely don't have time to do :-/
I also love X-2, are you going to share your opinions about that¿ I'd like to read about that.
I was thinking about playing through this game again earlier today, as Spira is one of the most accomplished worlds I've ever spent a good amount of time in. The journey through it was beautiful when I was about fifteen, but I'd like to experience it again to maybe pick up some of the things I missed when I was younger. It's a real shame that there's so many great JRPG's I've still yet to play (Persona 4 is looking at me from my desk right now) otherwise I'd love to go back to the past and relive these fond memories.
I can
Hey Chad, would you ever do a Breath of Fire-related Memory Card feature? If not, I would love to do my own unofficial Memory Card segment about Breath of Fire II in the cBlogs.
Pressing a button during a cutscene (which if you miss you can't go back) gives you the good ending? Lame. Ultimate weapons that required you to sit in the thunder fields and press a time button hundreds of times with one failure making you start over? Lame. Me missing Tidus' Super duper shot because I never got it on the boat? Lame (well, i'm probably lame for that one). I felt like this was the first FF you had to have a guide or at least a walkthrough in front of you to not feel like you've missed half the game. This game also marked the death of the overworld map, which may be nitpicky but part of the fun of the old FF games was wandering aimlessly and finding some cave with a monster in it that steamrolls you. (although I think FFXII did a nice job of fixing this by making the environments enjoyable to traverse).
I will say that art wise this game was beautiful, and had a good score. The battle system also was a refreshing way to not relegate the majority to your characters to sitting on an airship.
Character interaction shared the stale aura of VIII, where half the characters simply exist to support the primary storyline of Tidus and Yuna, or Tidus and his daddy issues. In fact, some of the character subplots are carbon copies of VIII (i'll refrain from listing them here for spoiler reasons). Auron, however, has one of the most interesting character backgrounds of any FF game I've played.
Lastly, I felt like the most interesting place in the game was original Zanarkand, a place which you see for about 15 minutes in the game and then never go to again. Spira's pretty and all, but it's often very boring.
Haven't played FFX all the way through yet. I quit halfway into my first playthrough, but I'm itching to start again now.
To me, saying "I love you" is an expression of the love you share with someone. To have Yuna say "thank you," that makes it sound like Tidus changed her or something. Like, she is thanking him, for not only being a part of her life, but for making her a better person.
Wow. Pretty powerful stuff.
What do you think? What do you make of the change? :)
You should write about them! I would love to read it! :)
Truth be told, I avoided it (and the other sci-fi-y FFs, 8 excluded) as I figured they could never top 5 or 6, and went in a direction I didn't like. But maybe I should give 10 and 12 a chance...
BTW Chad, 82 of these and no Suikoden 2 yet?
I think Dragon Age II needs a memory card for the chantry bombing scene. What a very powerful scene that was. And its one of your own party members that does it, not the antagonists.
Or Tali's loyalty quest in Mass Effect 2, which cemented her as the series most popular character.
The Luca Blight boss battle is one of the greatest in JRPG history, it was so poetic for maybe the most disguistingly evil character in the history of gaming.
Nothing about FFX really holds much fondness for me. There are some nice cutscenes and a few charcters (all mostly side characters) who were really nice, but I found the majority of the cast especially Tidus and Yuna to be underwhelmingly blah.
FFIX's the last one to have a great story and FFXII is the only recent game that had be loving it from both a gameplay and story perspective.
In fact, Kitase/Nomura/Nojima haven't made a FF that I liked since FFVII. FFVIII is even worse than FFX. And FFXIII? I couldn't force myself to play more than the first couple hours it just felt so honestly bad to play - especially with the knowledge that the game would continue to be a giant tunnel for the next 15-20 hours.
FFX was so overrated, the writing is so bad it sucked the emotion out of the game. The laughing scene especially.
Too bad this memory card was ruined by an easy way out ending.
This was definitely an ending I teared up at, even though Auron dying was probably the official ending for myself prsonally :)
Also, please do a memory card for Valkyria Chronicles? ;)
I think the whole forest scene with the wounded soldier would be somethiing that might interest you!
Today I clicked on one this post for the first time, and I realized I have been missing out. I've been a dtoid user for years but I missed what was probably some of the best material on this site. I spent today's afternoon, reading old "The Memory Card" posts and it was an amazing trip down memory lane with a great gamer/person.
Even though roughly 60% of the games on this list are stuff I've never played (PC gamer here, tho I do try to play any console classics I can get my hands on), I enjoyed reading all of them. As for some of them, like the HL2 and EBA one, I almost cried. Some other times I felt like hugging you Chad, like for the Starcraft one. Well done. I will rabidly follow The Memory Card from now on and will never miss another episode.
P.S.: for those of you that can't play FFX but would like to know the story etc, my friend has made (for me) a "film" of the movie that covers all events in the game pretty thoroughly. In case you're interested: http://www.youtube.com/user/Suicute#g/c/D9AE2868D489C0E7
Yep, that Luca Blight fight was fantastic. I think that was the first time a JRPG boss actually frightened me, and he did it not by being physically distressing, but through his evil and feral character traits. The build up to the fight brought immense tension, and the fact that it took multiple teams to the brink of death to bring him down just added to it.
/endtangent