How Final Fantasy X Created the Best Mini Game of All Time – Introducing Blitzball
Final Fantasy, and JRPGs in general, are renowned for their use of slightly obscure but often endlessly entertaining side missions or mini-games.
Being able to immerse yourself further into the world of the game, these bite-sized cutaways from the main story allow you to take a break from the grinding, the exploring, and the loot hunting and receive a few moments of harmless escape. As mentioned, Final Fantasy has some of the best of these in the industry, but one in particular stands above all, so much so that it could be its own game entirely: Blitzball.
Blitzball, inside Final Fantasy X and X-2, is a sports mini-game played underwater with a mix of football and rugby principles. In its most simple form, six players on a team go into a sphere of water and try to score goals. With a complimentary mix of strategic play and RPG-like team building, the mini-game had you build your team of players and level them up or scout for new players to join your roster from other teams.
The gameplay itself was similar to a turn-based RPG, in which stats, skills, and strategy mattered. Different statistics would overpower one another, so it was paramount to build a team with varying skills so that both attack and defence could be covered. The overall premise of the game was very simple, pass the ball up to the goal, shoot and hopefully score, but things quickly became quite complicated the further you dove into it.
Originally thought to be a small cutaway, Blitzball in fact had incredible depth and diversity to it. So much so that it would allow for hours and hours of game time. It would become so well celebrated that people often hoped for its own standalone game to be released. Despite the huge community behind this incredible cutaway, we never did see its own spin-off iteration.
Pair its incredible gameplay, complex RPG elelements and iconic soundtrack with the ability to hop into this mini-game anytime during the entire campaign, regardless of certain game-changing story events, resulted in Blitzball going down in history.
