Final Fantasy X HD

Yesterday saw the release of the high definition remastered versions of Final Fantasy X and Final Fantasy X-2. Today I went to the post office to pick up my copy. They tried to deliver it yesterday at 4pm but I was asleep. I decided I liked these games so much and had interest in the collector's edition bonuses (an art book, some small posters, and the sound track) that I ordered it directly from Square-Enix since it isn't available in stores. In retrospect I think that was probably a mistake because it turns out I had to pay the post office an extra $21 to get my package. $11 in import taxes and $10 in service fees that I wasn't told about until today. This was on top of the $13 shipping and handling that Square charged themselves. If I'd gone and bought it at EB in town today instead I probably would have had to pay $45 for the games, $6 in taxes, and $6 for the subway for $57 total instead of the $114 it ended up costing me this way. Double the price to get the sound track and some cool art. I was ok with it for an extra ~$30, but the hidden stuff at the end is really annoying. I guess maybe they had to charge tax because this specific item isn't being sold in stores in Canada? It still seems pretty silly to me, but what's done is done.

I don't actually have a PS3 so I can't play it yet. Byung is going to lend me his PS3 next week which is going to be awesome! I'm not quite done Kingdom Hearts yet anyway, so even if I had a PS3 I shouldn't be playing FFX quite yet. Sephiroth still needs to die!

What I was able to do is pop the Blu-ray sound track into my computer and give it a listen. Each song has some video accompanying it, mostly concept art for the area or character featured in the song. One of the songs, my favourite one from the original sound track, has a FMV from the game playing instead of just concept art. The song is Otherworld and the scene is from the start of the game where Sin attacks Tidus playing blitzball in Zanarkand. It looks absolutely incredible. Now maybe it's just because it's a Blu-ray and I'm used to PS1 and PS2 quality graphics but the level of detail compared to what I normally see on my tv is insane. Obviously I don't know how the game itself will compare to this but it _really_ has my hopes up now. There was a second FMV for another song too, where Yuna is sending souls out from an ocean, so I don't think it's just that they made this one video really good for the 5th song on the soundtrack. But it could be that the graphics detail in the FMVs blow the gameplay away like I thought they did in my recent play of FFIX.

The game itself is a remastered version of the International release which means it has a bunch of extra stuff in it that wasn't in the version I've played. I don't know all the details, and I'm intentionally not looking them all up, but I know there's a bunch of even harder challenge fights because the really hard arena fights just weren't hard enough