How Nostalgia Killed the World of Final Fantasy X

Video essay about nostalgia and its place in the story of Final Fantasy X.
Timestamps▼
00:00 Intro
03:35 This Is My Story
09:14 Nostalgia
18:24 Longing In Spira
30:12 Two Types
41:26 Time Capsules

[@Sivarias]

Fun fact. Lulu's belt skirt was a challenge from the concept designers because they didn't believe they could successfully render that much detail, either in game or in cutscenes. Cue the cutscene creators only really rendering Lulu from behind and the waist up 😂

[@AkaiAzul]

...is that another reason why she has two other...assets to her design?

[@chuganoga1908]

Did you know?

[@martinlehmann4525]

The music is so great and for example Yuna dancing for the dead still hits me hard, just love ff10.

[@Mukation]

While 7 still undeniably have the overall best characters (Cloud, Tifa and Aerith are just golden, don't care who you "ship", the romance is the least interesting thing about how these characters support and build eachother up), FFX undoubtingly has the overall best _story_ and the romance between Yuna and Tidus is still better than any of the other FF "couples" as of yet. He defies destiny, destroys the last legacy of "his" people, knowingly doming his mother and everyone else in dream Zanarkand, just so that the descendants of the people who wiped out "his" people can get to live freely without suffering the wrath of Sin for something their ancestors did. Because he accepts that he is not "real", while the people of Spira are. And he does all this so that the woman he loves can get to live. And in the end, the Fayths grant Yuna the wish of reuniting with Tidus so the decide to dream of him again, just for Yuna in FFX-2. It's just a fantastic story.

[@Stevewebstermusic]

For about 8 years I was a step dad to a little girl, during that time I went on a similar nostalgia fueled deep dive into games from my childhood. Sonic adventure 1 & 2 were obsessions of mine as a boy and while returning to them brought up feelings of frustration and disappointment, the sheer joy this little girl felt watching me play them trumped everything else. She became just as addicted to them as I was when I was young and helped me fall in love with them all over again. Just existing in those spaces (city square/mystic ruins/chao gardens) was enough, s ranking levels is a bonus.

[@thecodeson99]

I need food! Idk why but that plays in my head to this day when I'm hungry

[@harkavianbalvis6623]

Fantastic work on this! I've seen a lot of analyses of this game over the years, but this one is at the same time both incredibly insightful and emotional. You may be the first person I've seen to draw the troubling line between FFX's messages about nostalgia, and the fact that squeenix repeatedly tried to squeeze blood from that stone in the years following its release, and I'm actually kind of surprised I haven't heard it before. This is a follow well earned, and I'm looking forward to seeing your other stuff.

[@ghost_limit]

Thank you for the kind words, I'm glad you enjoyed it!

[@Labbish1]

This is THE game I can play again and again. Never got tired of FFX. Best game ever made.

[@maddireppen4864]

This video really came to me at the right time and place in my life. Needing to move on, leave this comfortable but painful liminal space. Plus, I thoroughly enjoyed this new exploration on a game I love. Keep it up, and thank you!

[@ghost_limit]

Thank you so much! I'm so happy this resonated with you and I hope it all goes well.

[@sarah-ui5sz]

this was amazing! I haven't seen anyone delve into the theme of nostalgia in relation to ffx & how apparent it is upon replaying it in adulthood. this is a very original and creative video. keen to see more!

[@ghost_limit]

Thank you so much! That means a lot me!

[@Melaisis]

Fantastic video and I'm glad that the algorithm recommended it. I also played FFX as a kid but have put off replaying it since for the many reasons you identified. Thanks for helping to articulate my feelings.

[@ghost_limit]

Thank you, glad you liked it!

[@wizcatcheslightning]

You had me at the beginning of the video, but I love the Void Stranger shoutout

[@crypticTmesis]

FFX was my favourite as well. I even learned to play "to Zanarkand" on the piano because I was so engrossed with thia game.

[@EliasBunda]

Same here!

[@honeyOTU_]

I kinda really like that you used footage from the OG game instead of the remaster, hits my nostalgia bone even harder lol

[@thechugg4372]

It works even better with the theme of the video, you might want to revisit the game with a "remaster" but you end up with something entirely different, different textures, models, soundtrack even.

[@GamingYoshi64]

Similar feeling with the Assassin Creed games for me. I'm going thru the Ezio Collection but the various QOL updates the remasters have doesn't hit the same like AC2 did on the 360 when I was a teen

[@jackinbigletters6040]

A great video on a cultural touchstone I missed out on, delighted to see it

[@ghost_limit]

Thank you!

[@danmarshall4812]

Amazing video - thinking about these themes more deeply has really helped me today. Cheers

[@carck6442]

Beautiful video. Thank you

[@EldenRingBuildsArchive]

Splendid thought provoking video, glad the algorithm informed me of you

[@SuperSahama]

I can so relate to your feelings and vibe. Thanks so much for this video!

[@taksadarkandiri2429]

I have to say i appreciate your thumbnail choice...this specific artwork by amano ( i believe ) represent tidus and his story..well done

[@Fain255]

Thank you so much for this video. As someone who simply can't help but to live in the past, constantly missing the good ol days, rejecting the new stuff, and clinging to nostalgia in a borderline pathological way, this video spoke volumes to me. Especially with FFX. I haven't found a character in a videogame that I see myself in more than Tidus, and after watching your analysis, it makes sense. Eventually I will have to move on, like he does, but man, I'd give an arm and a leg to experience the joy of the past again.

[@ikeaira8701]

Never in my days thought a KZbin analysis of FFX would breach my algorithm especially all these years later. One of my favorite games ever in fact the very first game I was able to beat on my own when I was 4years old. Thank you for this video, I haven't started watching it yet. But wanted to at least thank you

[@ChrisPTenders]

This is the most well put together and engaging FFX video I've seen. I've never liked FFX, but I went on a video essay binge that lasted years, trying to figure out why everyone else loves this game so much, and nothing I saw or heard remotely convinced me I was missing anything, until now. I can't express how elated I am to finally feel like I get it. This is such an interesting reading of the game, it's a huge eureka moment for me.

[@ghost_limit]

Wow, thank you so so much for the kind words, I'm glad you enjoyed it!

[@vagabondyacine7987]

It reminds me of the famous quote from the poet Paul Valéry that is used in the ghibli movie The wind Rises : "The wind is rising ! We must try to live". If you watched this movie you'll understand why your video made me think of it. Excellent video btw

[@Realience]

I was talking to my friend about games that made us cry, that like, showed up that things can make us truly sad And his was FFX, mine was PMD2 Hearing "Don't Ever Forget" still makes me tear up

[@danielramsey6141]

1:35 this is the Plot of FFX-2. In the Simplest explanation.

[@hardyjoe4278]

I hate how Macalania Woods became in FFX-2. The forest no longer has any magical feeling, and we are left with a ominous soundtrack of the area. Also, macalania lake melted and the temple sank. Also, The Al-bhed were chasing down O' aka for unpaid Gil for the shop he had there...

[@alundrajehuthy1801]

Modern games can be changed. Look at how they went and changed a 5 year old FF7 Remake by patch. They might not be the same in 10 years. Even in netflix series or movies you can watch online, there have been alterations. Look at how Monster Energy being removed from Death Stranding... Scary thought that for the future, not even games are safe time capsules...

[@Wotvr]

I love your content man and really enjoying this video. I've actually never played FFX and plan to at some point. I got to 18:24 where you mentioned spoilers. Is there a good place to skip ahead to?

[@ghost_limit]

Thank you, glad you enjoyed it! I talk about some other games past 35:54. But I think the video works better if you come back after playng FFX.

[@Wotvr]

@@ghost_limit That makes sense, I'll be sure to come back, I'm pretty sure I'm gonna play it at some point this year.

[@ImSofaKingGood]

Wow, FFX is one of my favorite games since I was a small child but I had never quite examined and analyzed the story like this. Thank you for your insight on it!

[@BongSwansong]

While I didn't play ffX and didn't really like the aesthetics when it first dropped. However as I've gotten older it's really grown on me.

[@PalaceMidasMusic]

I really enjoyed this video and how you go deeper into the topic of nostalgia using FFX as a catalyst. I enjoyed your perspective but I have my own thoughts on this. I believe the idea of nostalgia is used way too loosely to wave away dissatisfaction with the present. Quite often, what happens in the past IS better than what's happening now or will happen. Nostalgia seems to come in it's most recent and powerful incarnation from Romantic and Gothic literature. Romantic poets like Wordsworth and Shelley, onwards to Thomas Hardy had a visceral reaction to the idea of all progress being progress, and against rationality in general. When you have hamlets that are completely industrialised, the industrialists will of course see the erosion of such ways of life as simply progress. And we'd look at pining for the days before as nostalgia. But this is deceptive. Would we do the same for say, a colonised country? Is their recreation of the past simply nostalgia? Maybe... Since you've chosen gaming for this theme, I'll do the same. There are many examples where it's not simply nostalgia, because we can look at things side by side in real time. If you had shown me Spyro the Dragon in the 90s, and said it was not nearly as good as Super Mario Bros 3, I'd have thought you were insane. But now a player can look at both, understand both and see it's true (hopefully). What we really have, is people who are getting new things for the first time, and THEY are the ones protective of their thing. As time goes on though, this view is untenable. If you play Quake enhanced edition, I would provocatively claim their is nothing dated about it's design in the slightest in 2024. It is in fact more refined than Doom Eternal. But if you'd played Quake in 2008 amid COD4, it would be considered almost unplayable. But designers dove into the past, and found the movement in Quake is actually more in line with the way games currently are going, while things like cover systems were actually a regressive reactionary spin on something we had "excellent movement". I personally consider pixel art to be nostalgic in the way you described, and overused. BUT I have to say when put up against the kind of art style of Streets Of Rage 4, or Sonic Superstars, or Bloodstained, pixel art will continue to hold it's own no matter what I think. As will the metroidvania design; because it is a smaller, more refined version of an open world which is too bloated now. Though metroidvanias are cynically designed too, and oversaturated. My point is certain ideas from the past are objectively good. Sometimes better. Do we say that when someone is struck by the Godfather or Lord Of The RIngs or Citizen Kane or a silent film as being nostalgic? Why then, this suspicion around the highest achievements in gaming being the measuring stick for newer games. Can they (new products) not take the comparison? If we were in a tribe, there could be this person who dives deep into the past to find a treasure that can take us forward, (renaissance), and then it sets off a treasure hunt so all consuming that people aren't even living on the surface anymore they're lost in the depths (nostalgia in a negative way). This is kind of in line with your restorative/reflective example. One other thing to consider is the idea of nostalgia as this thing to be avoided has been around for quite some time, and I would say right now, it is in itself in need of some critique. As is the idea that things are progressing in a linier fashion. This was dominant for so long, but with the internet, we can in fact compare more than ever. How can one know that their romanticised view of the past is truly making things seem better than they were at the time? We aren't at that time so we couldn't even know. They may in fact have been better. It's kind of for us to find out. I'm deliberately not going into how better is subjectively here as that would be pointless. Especially if we consider it better to let go of the past because we can't bring it back and instead move forward. (better/worse) distinction there. I am very ambivalent however, about how companies use their ideas of how they think nostalgia affects us to sell and repackage products. The old with the inferior as a kind of laundering of art. For me, nostalgia hits mainly with absolutely silly things, like missing times I know I didn't like living through. BUT, this speaks to the idea that on our death bed we will not so much regret the way we have lived our life, but the way we are living NOW. Long comment. No-one will read maybe. But these are the things I consider.

[@kudo7821]

FFX is hauntological? Great video, I have always been interested in this concept. There's some great writings by Mark Fisher on this topic and how it relates to our current cultural bankruptcy. I also recommend Derrida who coined the term "hauntology" in the first place.

[@jeremesmith9266]

One of my favorites

[@Diccolo91]

Great video, man. Made the mistake of starting it right at the beginning of work and I just wasted 45 mins (Although I wouldn’t say it was a waste at all). ❤

[@jaymenjanssens720]

Lol, i don't play like i used to. Nostalgia tripping on speed runs & tournaments. Glhf

[@LethalBubbles]

much like the world of FFX, real life is also on rails and provides you with very little choice (or does it?)

[@someonesomewhere5667]

He will always be Tide-us.... 😌💙🩵

[@iainbearyay2236]

Bro literally washes in... on the tide.

[@somethingsomething9006]

I'm not trying to convince you, but interestingly... The reason he's "Tee-dus" is related to the fact that his unique ultimate weapon is upgraded with the Sun Crest and Sigil, and sun in Japanese is tida, pronounced tee-da. It shows that he kind of always was meant to he Tee-dus long before KH1 said Tee-dus yet KH2 said Tide-us, and long before Dissidia and other media all said Teed-us.

[@Smegmadonis]

Nah, that broccoli hair can go. Justin Timberlake did it 20yrs ago it can stay back 20yrs ago Everything else truuuuu

[@MrScoffins]

🥲

[@hardyjoe4278]

Haha, no one drowns in this game from lack of air... 😂😂😂

[@doomoftheend]

Förster

[@Aki-kh2qe-StreetKidZZZ]

Nostalgia didn't ruin anything. The corporations becoming minimalistic clone copy paste is what ruined not only FF but many other game series as well

[@mrbubbles6468]

If there’s one thing you can’t say it’s that FF has been copy paste. It’s been radically different every game usually to not only it’s owon deteriment but to other games around it

[@bastardferret869]

in defense of us cranky old schoolers... the ps2 is still the best selling game console of all time. the ps5 and xbox series haven't even managed to outsell the wii... U combined. So I don't think it's us just us "lashing out" at new things when we say they suck. Yes, the games ARE too political. When Square originally made FFX, it didn't have an ethics department. It didn't have ESG scores to worry about. Those are very real things which drive companies financially nowadays. Konami seems to have embraced the "modern audiences" meme, going as far as to actually use that terminology in some of their most recent press releases. Note that they've done this for games which they are now "remaking." But when the original games were made, there was no such thing as a "modern audience." There was just an audience... who hopefully had the game console they were designing the game for and willing to purchase their game. The reason WHY they are using so much nostalgia to sell their tripe nowadays is precisely because it's tripe, and you probably don't want it. Ah, but if they can hold your childhood, or your young adulthood hostage. Well, there you go. Now, I've played good modern games. The new zelda games are great (I see people pushing back against that, and I disagree). Strategy games have never been better. I loved playing Romance of the Three Kingdoms back in the day, but I'd be lying if I told you that I thought it was superior to Europa Universalis 4, or Hearts of Iron, or Stellaris. And PDX seems to be a highly political company. But I still love those games. I'd be lying through my teeth if I said I didn't. But there's definitely issues in the modern AAA gaming space. No one is imagining that *simply* because of warm fuzzy memories.

[@bastardferret869]

Having said all that, good breakdown of FF X

[@ghost_limit]

Thank you for the great comment, it gave me a lot to think about and I don't think your view contradicts with the one I shared in the video. The purpose of the "lashing out" -idea was not to paint the reasons for disliking new games as invalid or meaningless but rather to consider one of the reasons why that dislike might be happening from factors outside of specific contents of the games themselves. I might at some point get deeper into it through some other video, but my purpose was not to argue whether or not games are more or less political and if that has an effect on their goodness or not. I chose that as an example because It's a sentiment I often come across on the internet. Personally though, I enjoy modern games around as much, or even more than I did as a kid (mainly because of the variety caused by the accessibility of game development). It's undeniable that the gaming landscape of today is much different than it was 20 years ago and my point was specifically that the difference between those landscapes leaves space for longing for the past which can be expressed as defensive complaints (legitimate or not) towards the present. I would imagine that the people who grow up on the games of today would similarly have complaints about whatever will change in the next 20 years.

[@cursedcancersurvivor]

*This* Most modern games I find are too busy trying to tick boxes or chase the current thing, that the game writing suffers for it. There no creativity with an "ethics department" breathing down your neck. I think of all the old classic games and how hollow and boring they would be if they were made to be tailored to the "modern" audience.

[@thedeterminater8757]

@@ghost_limitI really enjoyed your video. It was well thought out and your narration was Iike experiencing it in a dream as well. At times I wondered if I agreed or disagreed with your video and I ultimately landed on mostly agree because of what you replied to in this comment. A long time ago a person I met told me you should never go back always go forward. It was actually a person that really annoyed me and I tried to avoid prolonged interactions with but the idea of “never going back” really stuck with me and I can’t imagine seeing it different. It was when you were explaining the nostalgia baked into ffx story that I understood your point. This is just a secondary example but many people want final fantasy to be turned based again. I don’t, well I don’t hope it isn’t turn based again persay, I don’t prefer it I think the future of ff is overall better suited with action. Many of the arguments around why it should be turn based are because of what they were not why it’s better. Obviously not everyone feels that way but I think nostalgia drives a significant portion of people that want it. I think you examined this idea beautifully. I don’t allow companies to manipulate my nostalgia because as you said your brain remembers it “better” it really was and attempting to live up to that polished memory of the past is impossible. I suppose that’s why when it’s all said and done the reality is you can only go forward never go back. You can’t live up to how “great” it was anyway. You gave me a new perspective on my favorite ff and maybe favorite game.