FINAL FANTASY X/X-2 HD Remaster

Unfortunately, in spite of what a great game FFX is, I can't recommend this version of the game for a couple of reasons. Just for context, let me say that I am only reviewing based on the FFX portion of the game, and that I have played that game multiple times but don't have much to say about X-2. So my 20 hours are just on FFX, and I also played this remaster on PS4 before, as well as unknown hours on the original. I wish I could recommend this product, but let's get the easy part out of the way: unique to the PC version from what I can tell, this game does not run properly. It crashes regularly, both in cutscenes of both types and battle transitions. It seems to be more likely after a couple hours, and there are mods to fix it, but we don't grade products based on whether or not you can fix them with fan/user efforts. So objectively, this is a big problem with the game, that makes you ask every time it happens, "do I continue the game or simply play something that works properly?" For Square Enix to leave a flagship product (FFX is the second best selling game in the series with almost 15 million sold at time of writing, barely less than OG FF7 at 15.7 from that perspective), in a barely playable state like this. With that aside, I have another criticism that the PS version shares with this version: After having played it twice, I don't like the PAL version of this game and wish this remaster included the original PS2 version. The one good thing I will say about this version is that the Expert Sphere Grid makes Kimahri much more fun to use (you can get him a lot of useful low level skills very quickly, meaning you can use him to heal1/remove status your party then lancet for free MP, while also able to steal/use, dark attack, and lvl1 black magic), other than that I can say I honestly think Dark Valefor ruins the game. Fair warning, I'm gonna rant for this part but long story short they could have avoided this problem entirely by including the OG NA PS2 version as an option. So here's why my argument is that Dark Valefor, and by extension the entire PAL version of the game is not bad because it's just that it's annoying, but that it actually ruins the pacing of the ENTIRE game. So here's the deal if you don't know what I'm talking about: Dark Valefor is a TECHNICALLY optional final super boss. He's outrageously hard, and he's supposed to be, but that's not the problem. Like I said, he's TECHNICALLY optional, but not if you want the Jecht sphere that he is guarding. The Jecht spheres are simply recordings of one of your party members memories, but they grant Auron his final Overdrive. If you are planning to actually PLAY the end game content, like for example if you are a person that has played the game multiple times and wants a good save file for end game content that is there to let you grind and push the battle system as far as it will go if that's what you want to do, then Auron will be the only person whose final Overdrive will simply be locked to you...UNLESS you go back and get it before he spawns! Which sounds easy, but here's why I say it ruins the pacing of the ENTIRE game, and not just the end: in order to do this, then as soon as the Jecht spheres spawn in Macalania (about 30-40% of the way through the game), you have to WALK BACK TO THE BEGINNING OF THE GAME AND GRAB IT. The only reason this is achievable is because you can cheat and disable encounters, 2x/4x game speed, and run back. But while you are doing this, you might as well pick the others up, meaning that instead of getting the airship and finding all these things at your leisure as part of the game's post game content, you are watching all of them at once, it's a chore as opposed to a fun side objective while doing end game airship stuff. Meanwhile, it takes a while, and guess what? The game crashed a few times while doing this. By the end of it, I just decided to uninstall and emulate my PS2 copy of the game. TLDR You can get similar results with an emulator without the technical and design problems of this version, also for free if you have a copy of the game. PAL version is a downgrade in some important areas.