About

Welcome to Let’s Play FFX with Minty!

Final Fantasy X is my most favorite game of all time, so I have a lot to say about it. If you’re reading this, I’m going to assume you’ve played it, but I'm doing a fairly detailed recap in case it's been awhile.  (If you haven't played it yet, I highly recommend it!)

There will be spoilers. One of this game's favorite storytelling devices is foreshadowing future bombshells way in advance, and I'll be discussing major plot elements when they're hinted at early, before they're actually revealed, so we can see how long and intricately woven the threads of the plot are. I’ll be providing my own observations, insights, and analysis with a focus on some characters and relationships that I feel are often overlooked. (Specifically Lulu, Lulu and Yuna, Seymour and Yuna, and Kimahri because I don’t know how everyone manages to ignore the big blue lion in the room, but even the game does this most of the time.) That doesn’t mean I’ll be leaving everybody else out though.

I will also be attempting something I’ve been wanting to do for a while: a sphere grid swap! This basically entails doing a no sphere grid run until I have a bunch of level 1 key spheres. Then everyone breaks into Kimahri’s sphere grid and out into each other’s, resulting in Auron becoming a deft and nimble thief, Wakka wielding black magic, Lulu commanding an army of unstoppable samurai plush, etc. It’s gonna be awesome.

This was my first Final Fantasy game, or at least the one that I was first really able to get into. I have a vague memory of, when I was in the fourth grade, watching other kids at my after school daycare play one of the early games (I guess it was the first one?) on Nintendo. I was too shy to ask to play myself, and I don’t really remember anything about the world or characters except that I was really absorbed by it. I DO remember coming home from school, putting on a hooded sweatshirt over my white nightgown, and running around pretending to be a white mage.

I also played a little bit of Final Fantasy VII when it first came out, and again a few years ago, but I don’t own it so I never really got a chance to get into it. And I’m kind of glad that that wasn’t my first FF game just because it is so famous. One of my friends even referred to it once as “the first one” and I was like “Uhh no I’m pretty sure there were six games before that. Judging if nothing else by the title.” Someday I do want to get around to playing VII (and also VIII) but I haven’t yet.

X came to me highly and personally recommended when I got a PS2. I still only had a vague idea of what Final Fantasy was all about but I was curious.  I first played the game in 2007-2008, but I didn’t actually get involved in the fandom until just last year. I hadn’t read or written any fanfiction, I hadn’t drawn much art even and what I did I hadn’t put up anywhere. I’m not really sure why. I was holding my love for this game close to my heart like a personal and sacred thing.

(And then one day for reasons even I am not entirely clear on, I turned up with a graphic novel I had started writing about Lulu and shoved it under the fandom’s door. I’m still on the fringe of the fandom, occupying a very small corner of tumblr from which I fling art at it from time to time, but I’ve made a few friends there and it is comfy.)

So hello! I am the Mintywolf, and I’m going to be playing Final Fantasy X with you.