His interest faded in little under 2 hours, and so this chapter of my time with FFX closed before Tidus even made it to Besaid. I was wholly consumed by the images I’d seen in FFX even though I couldn’t remember the game’s name after my brother returned it that very week. I was only six years old, and I’d soon grow to reject typical adventuresome media other six year old boys enjoyed like Star Wars and Lord of the Rings. I felt intensely ashamed for being so enraptured by everything I had seen so far-it all felt so eye-opening, so unlike anything I’d encountered before. They giggled as they renamed Tidus “Jackass” and whispered about how gay he looked. My brother and uncle weren’t so convinced. My uncle was a popular DJ at the time, so the ways in which Tidus and the other denizens of Zanarkand are dressed didn’t ring as strange to me-the dyed hair, the diamond stud earrings, the strange and uneven cuts of all the clothes-but it was the first time I realized how cool and hypermodern this youth culture look was meant to seem. FFX begins in Zanarkand, a futuristic city obsessed with a water sport named Blitzball. FFX dazzled me from the jump the cover, which featured the game’s protagonist Tidus emerging from the beach much like one of the eurodance stars I’d seen in music videos on MTV, brimmed with airy possibility. That night, I watched him and my 20-something uncle start the game. My first experience with the game was on Christmas Day 2001, when my much older brother received it alongside a PlayStation 2. Let’s get the sentimental bit out of the way: Final Fantasy X demonstrably changed my life. But in the last few years, I’ve begun viewing it as a sharp critique of institutional religion, anti-intellectualism, and conservative ideals. As a teenager, FFX became important to me because of its emotional content. Today marks the 20th anniversary of Final Fantasy X, a game which ushered in a whole new generation of RPG fans and greatly defined what the leap to the 2000s looked like for gaming.
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