Final Fantasy X and X-2 were recently re-released on the Nintendo Switch worldwide - which is
great news for fans of the games, who would like to play the games on their Switch.
And also for newcomers to the series, who haven't given the games a try yet but own
a Switch and perhaps not other platforms.
Also, with the Switch's portable nature, games being ported to it means there's normally
the portability factor as an additional reason for people to be interested.
Whilst Final Fantasy X was originally released for the PlayStation 2 way back in 2001 and
its direct sequel X-2 two years later, the series has been re-released quite a few times
now.
Like the other modern re-released versions, the Switch port is based of the HD Remastered
version, which Square put quite a bit of effort into the whole remaster process, rather than
just increasing the resolution and not doing things like updating the textures and models.
However, there's one glaring thing to keep in mind about the Switch version that has
got quite a lot of buyers disappointed about the new port.
Now, despite being of collection of both X and X-2, the first thing to point out is that
only X is contained on the cartridge.
This means that you'll need to download the sequel via a code provided in the box.
That's not all though.
Now unlike most cases of games being provided digitally - for some strange reason, Square
has required that players keep the cartridge inserted into the console even when you only
want to play X-2.
Basically, it's been set up so that the console treats Final Fantasy X-2 similar to DLC, rather
than its own thing.
This also means that if you were to resell the game or, through some other means, lose
access to your copy, you not only can't play X but also X-2, despite being a digital version.
This is an extremely unusual method of handling digital distribution and so it's quite confusing
for Square to take these measures.
Then to add to all of this, the version released in Japan and South East Asia actually has
both of the games contained on the cart - there's absolutely no need for any downloading.
This is because the versions released in the East use a cart with a bigger storage capacity.
It's thought that the reason why Square didn't also use the bigger carts in the West was
due to them cutting down on costs, as bigger carts cost more, and also due to the East,
for various reasons, having a much lesser tendency to support digital games than us
over in the West.
To top all of this of, the versions released in Japan and Asia also include full English
language options - meaning all of the text and all of the audio can be set to English.
I've looked into this and the way the game handles the language is that it's based of
the system language.
Unfortunately however, this means that there's no way to play the game with both English
subtitle and Japanese voices.
It's either all in English or all in Japanese.
Still, for these reasons, you may be interested in picking up either the Asian or Japanese
release rather than the one released over in the West.
As always, import specialist Playasia.com has you covered if so and you can find a link
in the description if you're interested in checking them out.
The only really difference between the Asian and Japanese versions are the cover art - so
for that it's down to which one you prefer the most.
Speaking of cover art, whilst the US version's box art looks like this, the European versions
have a huge disclaimer on the top of the cover warning people that X-2 is a download only.
One other thing that's worth putting out though is how this isn't the first time that something
like this has happened with the games.
You may recall how something similar happened with the Vita release and how, over in the
West, only Final Fantasy X was contained on the cart and X-2 was a download code.
However, unlike the Switch version, you didn't need to keep the cart to play X-2.
Also unlike the Switch version is that for the Vita version, storage space limitations
were even more of an issue, as there doesn't even exist higher storage space carts to fit
both of the games on.
Of course, however, Square could have perhaps put 2 carts inside the case - but that would
have led to more costs for them.
However, you may wonder how the Asian and Japanese versions handled the Vita release.
Well, in the East, Final Fantasy X and X-2 were actually sold separately for the Vita
version - which is quite a big difference compared to the West.
What do you think about the way the Switch port has been handled?
As always, please let us know your thoughts in the comments below and consider subscribing
to see more videos on how media is changed around the world.
Until next time, thank you for watching.