Review Information
Game Reviewed Final Fantasy X-treme, by biebersoft
Review Author Vitiman
Created Jul 18 2021, 10:57 PM

General Commentary and Game Overview
Oh wow, biebersoft has been uploading some of his old catalogue onto here? That's fantastic! For the longest time, I was pretty much completely unaware that he had even made non-Mario fangames (or "spoofs" as he once referred to them), so I think it's really fascinating to see that early biebersoft charm applied to other franchises.

You know, biebersoft was one of the first people on the internet to even make fangames! Him and FreakZone were pumping out some titles of intrigue as far back as 1998. That's a very long time, over 20 years ago in fact! Their combined releases present some of the most iconic fangames I've ever had the joy of playing - titles such as "Super Mario Alpha", "Mario vs. NWO", and countless others.

But the problem with being some of the first... is having to figure out how to even use these old tools. If you guys thought stuff like Mario Left the Cheese Out had Clickteam jank... boy, you haven't seen anything yet.

Alas, this game has a couple of major issues. One in particular seemed to halt my progress entirely.
 
Pros + Unearthed biebersoft classics is always a treat
+ The sheer absurdity of SNES Final Fantasy assets being crossbred with default K&P assets is truly a sight to behold
+ The music choices - many select FF MIDIs - are, of course, splendid
+ A surprisingly advanced story progression for such an old fangame
 
Cons - The battle system is pretty janky. This isn't turn-based at all, but it tries to capture that vibe... albeit poorly
- It's so utterly slow, ughhhh
- I've tried dozens of times: there's a spot very early on that soft-locks the game
- General Clickteam jank that is usually unfun if the rest of the game isn't charming enough to mask it
 
Impressions
Gameplay
3 / 10
All attempts to make RPGs back in the day with the limited tools that fangame developers used would almost always result in either horrifically malfunctioning battle systems... or most of the time, lazy attempts to make RPG-esque fights that weren't really turn-based. Perhaps this was for the better, but it can still be as much of a chore to play and progress through.

"Final Fantasy X-treme" opts for the latter, and it isn't COMPLETE junk. It's just mostly junk, if that makes sense. Your character and the enemy will move around a little battle arena, where you can either slash them with your dinky sword a hundred times, or waste your mana casting spells. Seems pretty typical of an RPG, no? Well, the twist being that since it isn't turn-based, your character can freely move around and your opponent is on a bouncing-ball movement occasionally being directed at where you are to give a weak impression of them targeting you.

Your movement on the overworld is similarly slow and dull. You have to wonder if these older fangame devs even liked RPGs - like, was this their way of saying "why do people even play these games? They're repetitive and slow and boring". That's my little conspiracy theory, anyway.

So yes, that soft-lock I mentioned above? I've never been able to figure out how to circumvent it as of this writing. Once you're asked to board the ship that docks, you go to a much larger overworld-type map, where you lose control of your character as he begins to walk into a top corner of the forest on loop. You then are randomly thrown into the same minor enemy fight for eternity. A forced grind? I have no idea. Does it eventually let up? In my experience, no. The boat keeps re-docking as if it didn't the first time, and you keep walking into the forest, doomed to repeat your foolish mistake.

"Full Game" my arse.
 
Graphics
4 / 10
Pretty hard to look at these graphics and go "wow, how neat!", but I do have a soft spot for the kind of clash on display here. I also find the juxtaposition of proper SNES JRPG pixel art with bad 1993 Klik & Play graphics to be absolutely wonderful... but I'm aware others may not feel the same way. That's fair, more power to me then. I'll continue to get a kick out of it and the rest of y'all can suffer.

I mean... I guess that doesn't make the game any less broken, but whatever enjoyment I can get out of it, right?
 
Sound
5 / 10
I don't think I could recall any sound effects in my playthrough to speak of... but at least there's some bangin' MIDI tunes here, and it's all quite enjoyable and a good time.

But what more can you say? They're nice MIDIs. They fit well. I'm pretty sure they're all from the various FF games that were available at the time. Writing anything else is just needless padding.
 
Final Words
3 / 10
An intriguing fangame relic that unfortunately isn't all that exciting and appears to not even let you progress after a point. Beyond this, what little I was able to experience did not entice me to figure out if there was some secret button I was failing to press, as the game is deliberately slow and repetitious.

I'm glad biebersoft chose to upload some of his lost classics here, but this is more for historical value than actual fun.

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