“I thought I knew this game”

Final Fantasy 10 holds a special place in my gaming memory. It was the first game in the Final Fantasy series that I played and also the first big JRPG that I played. Over the years of my time on PS2, I played through Final Fantasy 10 four times and one of those times I clocked in about 130 hours playing both the main campaign and the various side quests you can undertake. Suffice to say, I knew the game pretty well. Recently, as I close in on the end of my time of regularly playing games on my PS3, I decided to revisit this personal classic by playing through the HD remastered edition of Final Fantasy 10. Having beaten the game several times over, I knew what would happen and when. I did notice a few differences between the original PS2 version and the HD remastered version, but for the most part the game was what I remember it to be and I cruised down memory lane without any uncertainty about how I would tackle the various challenges the game threw at me. That is, until I got near the finale. Towards the end of Final Fantasy 10, you acquire an airship that allows you to revisit places you have been before and is essential for completing the various sidequests that take you all across the game’s world. While revising one area to acquire a few items I needed for sidequests, I suddenly ran into a boss fight that was not in the original game. Undeterred, I charged headlong into the fight, confident in the strength of my characters and my knowledge of the game’s mechanics. In less than a minute my characters were lying dead on the ground and I was staring down a Game Over screen. “Wait, what?” I reloaded my save file from just before the fight, and returned to the same area to see if it would happen again. Sure enough, the same boss appeared.  This time I approached the fight more thoughtfully and didn’t mess around. It had the same result; my team was again dead on the ground. Looking at that Game Over screen, the only thought in my head was “I thought I knew this game.” Now I had to change my sidequest plans as an area containing a few items I needed was now denied to me until I could figure out how to get past this boss. Revisiting some other areas I ran into other bosses that weren’t in the original version of the game and they also proved problematic for me. As it turns out, the these boss fights that were not in the original version of the game are unique to the international version of Final Fantasy 10, which is what the HD remastered version is based on. With time and effort I overcame these bosses, but this experience was a needed reminder that my gaming knowledge isn’t as good as I pretend it to be. I thought I knew this game. It turns out, I actually didn’t.