Squaresoft, the makers of the RPG strategy game FF Tactics have created an awesome new concept! A turn-based sports game!

Blitzball is a lot like soccer crossed with rugby, and placed underwater.  There's a goal at each end, and 5 players plus a goalie on each team try to score points by shooting the ball into the goal.  Players can swim with the ball, pass to players, perform trick shots, and defending players can even tackle whomever is in possession of the ball.

Unfortunately, someone must have screwed up the translation or game packaging, because the box and the title screen all say "Final Fantasy X".  Hmm...go figure.

The Story

That's right, unlike your average boring sports game, Blitzball has a real story behind it!

Blitzball is all about these two guys, Wedge and Biggs.  Star Wars fans will recognize these guys as two of the key players in Rogue Squadron, the unstoppable force that helped blow up both Death Stars, captured the capital planet of Coruscant, and freed the planet of Thyferria.

In Blitzball, Wedge and Biggs are taking a vacation of some sort on the planet Spira.  It's also possible that they're undercover, or maybe raising funds for the New Republic.  It's hard to tell, since the game doesn't cover all of the action that is surely taking place behind the scenes.

Anyway, Wedge and Biggs get hired by this guy named Tidus to help out the Besaid Aurochs.  It seems the former captain and manager, Wakka, blew most of the team's funds on this gal named Lulu, and as a result, they couldn't afford to hire any good players, losing the championship tournament 10 years in a row.

Leave it to Rogue Squadron to help out a team down on their luck.

Final What???

Apparently, someone blew it when they decided to bring Blitzball to the US.  As mentioned earlier, instead of "Blitzball", the PS2 game is labeled "Final Fantasy X".  Maybe the translation guys screwed up or made a typo or something.  Strange that they labeled Blitzball correctly within the game itself.

The other problem with Blitzball is the introduction is EXTREMELY long!!! It took me more than six hours before I was able to get through the intro and got to start playing! While Wedge and Biggs are working their way into the city of Luca, the intro meanwhile focuses on the new team captain, some down-on-his-luck guy named Tidus.

Tidus enters some kind of warp zone and ends up far from home. As a result, he ends up getting a job as the captain and manager of the Besaid Aurochs.  But since they have no money, Tidus has to go hunting on their journey to Luca. To make matters worse, there's this cute girl named Yuna who has some sort of thing for Tidus, and ends up getting into all sorts of trouble.

Oh yeah, Tidus also gets this cool looking water sword, but it doesn't do much, since weapons are banned from Blitzball games. At least it looks cool.

Anyway, Tidus gets to Luca where they show him how to play Blitzball.  This way, YOU get to learn how to play it. Pretty clever, huh?

After your first game, which is pretty hard with the crappy Besaid Aurochs, you can recruit Biggs and Wedge, assuming you have enough cash to hire them.  At this point, you can save the game, and will then be able to play Blitzball without having to run through the insanely long intro.

So, how about those Rogues? Wedge is a shooting tackle maniac! He plows through most opposition 1-on-1, and has some of the best shooting skills in the game.

Biggs on the other hand is pretty slow to progress.  Pretty typical for Biggs, I guess.

Turn-based sports?

Yep!  Unlike other real-time sports games, like EA's FIFA Soccer, or NHL XX, Blitzball doesn't really require much at all in the way of reflexes.  When defending, players on your team automatically take formations (which are adjustable via a menu), pursue the ball carrier, and cover open opposing players.

When on the offense, you can manually control the ball carrier, or let the computer control him or her for you.  Personally, I prefer manual control.  When in position, you can press a button to bring up a menu, at which point game play freezes.  You can pass, shoot, or continue dribbling the ball.  If this player has any special skills, you can also send his or her HP points to perform a trick shot or pass, making it more accurate and/or having some side effect against defending players who try to stop the ball.

There's a lot of math involved in a successful shots, passes, blocks and tackles, and smart players can optimize their strategies and techniques to overcome their opponents. Or, you can simply take the brute force approach and tackle everything in sight! I say let the computer do the adding and subtracting for you.
"Math is hard" - Barbie

Overview

Blitzball is an awesome game! It's very innovative, and best of all, it's turn-based. Too bad soccer isn't like that in real life. Although, if it were, I'd probably venom tackle all of the opposing players, so I guess it's just as well.

Once you get through the several hour long introduction, you can resume where you left off as long as you save the game.

Get ready to bring Rogue Squadron to all new levels of fame! Let's Blitz!!

If you suck at soccer as much as I do, you'll love the turn-based ability of Squaresoft's Blitzball!

 

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