The first Final Fantasy game to hit the PS2, and one of the best to be sure. A deep and fantastic story, 30 plus hours of gameplay, with gorgeous graphics even by todays standards. There is a reason this game made it to greatest hits status.

The Final Fantasy series completely reinvented the RPG genre, turning it into something that can cause the player to gain an emotional attachment to the characters. With Final Fantasy X, the first game in the series with voice acting, that familiar sense of attachment has been wholly translated to a simple yet beautiful and emotional story.

The CGI scenes are beautifully rendered, the backgrounds - especially those of Besaid Island and Macalania - lush and colorful, the story simple, yet at the same time, wonderfully complex. One of the biggest complaints about the game is the voice acting. Personally, I believed that the voice actors worked with what they were given, and that dubs are notorious for being very bad. James Arnold Taylor gives an effective, if occasionally obnoxious (but I don't believe it's his fault: he voiced Ratchet perfectly), reading for the main protagonist Tidus, and at times it feels as though you're right there with him. Every voice actor chosen for the English dub was, I believe, very well chosen.

The storyline begins very simply: Tidus lives in a machina (machine) city known as Zanarkand and is the local star of the Zanarkand Abes Blitzball team (a form of underwater soccer). An attack by an entity known as Sin, however, launches him into another world, 1000 years into the future, known as Spira. He begins a quest with a young summoner, Yuna, and a cast of colorful characters to vanguish Sin and find a way to return home.

The depth of the story as it goes on, however, can be amazing. Subplots are uncovered; new, vast areas for exploration (a temple off the Calm Lands, accessable only by chocobo, and especially the Omega Ruins) are discovered via the airship, unlocked later in the game. Fiends can be captured to create awesome new creatures that give worthwhile prizes once defeated. Character depth and development, while not particularly noteworthy, is still enough to be engaging. The most painful thing will be early in the game, when random battles pop up while going from place to place, and of course the frequency of cutscenes and the inability to skip them. Still, it isn't enough to take away from the story and the journey, and can have you playing (if you go for every hidden area and secret) for well over seventy hours.

All in all, the game is an excellent buy and still looks beautiful, even alongside newer games for the powerhouse PlayStation 3 and its Blu-ray-based games. No matter what price you pay for it, it will be worth your time and money.