Final Fantasy X's Incredible Progression: Making the Levelling Process Fun

Picture this, you just got a new video game to play and it also just so happens to have some sort of progression system within it to help help you feel more motivated to play the game.

It could be any sort of progression system. It could have EXP requirements, a hugely complex skill tree with branching paths and traits, or just a simple but gradual onslaught of weapons you could pick up that give you bigger numbers with each upgrade to your kit that you're able to find.

These little incremental dopamine hits fuel you to play even more of the game that eventually: You lose track of time and completely forget about the incredibly endearing story of the game after becoming entirely invested in just the gameplay alone.

Does this sound familiar? Well, it does for me, because it's happening right now. If it wasn't obvious by now, I very recently received the Final Fantasy X remaster as a gift, and I'm absolutely loving it!

It's honestly a surprise for me, personally. Now keep in-mind that I'm speaking on the basis of my very own opinions, but I'm admittedly not the biggest Final Fantasy game-buff ever. I played VII, then found its remake to be interesting - albeit lacking. I then greatly enjoyed the Crisis Core remaster, but by then I had already had enough Final Fantasy for that year. I eventually decided to simply just leave the series for a bit, and that ended my time with the series as a whole during 2023. In fact, I might have been too good at forgetting about Final Fantasy, since VII Rebirth wasn't on my mind at all during these past few months. My wallet was feeling particularly hollow, anyway, so it wasn't too big a concern for me in the moment.

But of course, I couldn't stay in my Persona and Fire Emblem rabbithole forever. Eventually, one of my friends had taken notice. Upon asking what sorts of games I'd prefer to play, he realised I'd generally preferred older turn-based titles as opposed to the newer real-time combat Final Fantasy games. It was at this point I then proceeded to get a surprise message, surprise visit, and then promptly had a surprise box of the game gifted to me right then and there before I could even comprehend my friend driving off, telling me to play the game.

But what was I meant to do? I mean I was going through Ni no Kuni II at the time as well, and that game was fun enough to keep me away from starting other games... right? But I let FFX sit on my shelf. It sat, staring down at me.

If you've ever had the experience of having the protagonist, Tidus, stare at you with his face from below, begging you to open up the disc case and plop it into your PlayStation, then you'd know how I felt. It's a normal experience for any Final Fantasy fan, I'm sure. This isn't unusual at all and I definitely do not have any sort of stubborn principles about quitting and leaving games behind whatsoever. I also definitely didn't intentionally put the game at a very noticeable place out of guilt for potentially accidentally disregarding my friend's kind gift to me.

Not

At

All

Plenty of People believe that life begins somewhere.

Everything has a beginning, and I'm just so happening to choose my beginning to start here.

Who am I? What am I doing here? Why have I decided to introduce myself on a blogging page that'll (hopefully) eventually be drowned out by dozens of ot...