Realeased for the PlayStation 2 in 2001 a year later then FFIX to see this much of a jump in graphics and game design in a years time was just amazing!
Plot
Final Fantasy X is set in the fictional world of "Spira", and it consists of one large landmass divided into three subcontinents, surrounded by small tropical islands. It features diverse climates, ranging from the tropical Besaid and Kilika islands to the temperate Mi'ihen region to the frigid Macalania and Mt. Gagazet. Although it is predominantly populated by humans, Spira features a variety of races. Among them are the Al Bhed, a technologically advanced but disenfranchised sub-group of humans with distinctive green eyes and unique language. The Guado are less human in appearance, with elongated fingers and other differences. Still less human in appearance are the large, lion-like Ronso, and the frog-like Hypello. A subset of the sentient races of Spira are the "unsent"—the strong-willed spirits of the dead who remain in corporeal form. It is explained that the dead who are not "sent" to the Farplane by a summoner come to envy the living and transform into "fiends", the monsters that are encountered throughout the game. However, those with strong attachments may remain in human form as unsent. Other fauna in Spira, aside from those drawn from real animals, such as cats, dogs, birds, and butterflies, include the gigantic, amphibious "shoopuf", and the emu-like chocobo, which appears in most Final Fantasy games. Spira is very different from the mainly European-style worlds found in previous Final Fantasy games, being much more closely modeled on Southeast Asia, most notably with respect to vegetation, topography, architecture, and names.
Final Fantasy X begins late in the story, with the main character, Tidus, waiting with his allies outside the ruined city of Zanarkand. Tidus narrates the series of events leading up to his present situation, which spans most of the game's storyline. It begins in Tidus' home city, the unruined and high-tech Zanarkand, where he is a renowned star of the underwater sport blitzball. During a blitzball tournament, the city is attacked by an immense creature shrouded in water known as Sin. The city is destroyed, and Tidus and Auron are taken by Sin to the world of Spira.
After arriving in Spira, Tidus is rescued by Al Bhed divers in the area, and upon asking where he is from, one of them, Rikku, tells him that Zanarkand had been destroyed 1000 years earlier. After another attack by Sin, Tidus is separated from the divers and drifts to the tropical island of Besaid, where he meets Wakka, the captain of the local blitzball team. Wakka introduces Tidus to Yuna, a young summoner planning a pilgrimage to defeat Sin, who is described as mankind's punishment for their sins. Accompanying Yuna are her guardians, Lulu, Wakka, and Kimahri, while Tidus joins to help Wakka in the upcoming blitzball tournament and find a way to return home. The party travels to gather aeons, defending against attacks by Sin. They are joined by Auron, who convinces Tidus to become Yuna's guardian. He reveals to Tidus that Yuna's father, Lord Braska; Tidus's father, Jecht; and himself made the same pilgrimage and defeated Sin ten years ago. Tidus thought his father had died at sea ten years earlier. Following more encounters with Sin, they are joined by Rikku, who is revealed to be Yuna's cousin. Throughout the pilgrimage, Tidus and Yuna draw close through their shared experiences and mutual interest.
When the party arrives in the Guado city Guadosalam, Seymour proposes to Yuna, who accepts as she intends to give Spira hope. In the Macalania's temple, the group sees a message from Seymour's late father. He declares he was killed by his son, and that Seymour's evil nature will destroy Spira. The group reunites with Yuna to engage Seymour in battle and they kill him; soon afterward, Sin attacks the group and they lose track of Yuna. While searching for her, Tidus learns that a summoner must give their life to perform the "Final Summoning", leading to his desire to find a way to defeat Sin that would not result in Yuna's death. The group finds Yuna in Bevelle, where she is forced to marry the now unsent Seymour. They interrupt the wedding and escape with Yuna. The group is captured, and ordered to stand trial. After being forced to escape, the group heads towards Zanarkand.
In the journey, Tidus learns that he, Jecht, and the Zanarkand they hail from are summoned entities akin to aeons based on the original Zanarkand and its people. Long ago, the original Zanarkand battled Bevelle, in a war in which the former was defeated. Zanarkand's survivors became "fayth" so that they could use their memories of Zanarkand to create a new city in their image, removed from the warfare on the Spira mainland. One thousand years after its creation, the fayth have become tired of the summoning of their Zanarkand, but are unable to stop as two of its people, Tidus and Jecht, came into contact with Sin, and until its defeat, the summoning will not stop.
Once the player completes Yuna's pilgrimage, Lady Yunalesca—the first summoner to have defeated Sin and has been unsent ever since then—tells the group that the Final Aeon is created from the spirit of one close to a summoner. After defeating Sin, the Final Aeon transforms it into a new Sin, which has caused its cycle of rebirth to continue. The group decides against using the Final Aeon due to the sacrificies it would carry and the fact that Sin would still be reborn. Disappointed by their resolution, Yunalesca tries to kill Tidus' group, but she is defeated and vanishes. They then seek a new way to permanently destroy Sin that will not require any sacrifices. The group learns what makes Sin possess the Final Aeon is Yu Yevon, a summoner who lost his humanity and is only able to summon Sin. This leads the group to enter Sin's body and battle the now absorbed Seymour and Jecht's imprisoned spirit. With Sin's hosts defeated, Tidus' group battles and defeats Yu Yevon. Sin's cycle of rebirth ends, and the spirits of Spira's fayth are freed from their imprisonment. The Unsent Auron goes to the Farplane, having died years ago following an encounter with Lady Yunalesca. Just then, Dream Zanarkand and Tidus disappear because the now free fayth stop the summoning. Afterward, in a speech to the citizens of Spira, Yuna resolves to help rebuild the world now that it is free of Sin. After the credits, there is a brief scene with Tidus underwater. He opens his eyes and begins swimming upward, and the screen fades to white.
Characters
There are seven main playable characters in Final Fantasy X. Tidus is a cheerful young teenager and the star blitzball player for the Zanarkand Abes. He has long resented his father, a renowned blitzball player who disappeared during Tidus's youth. Yuna is the daughter of the High Summoner Braska, who defeated Sin to bring about the Calm, a time of peace. Yuna embarks on a pilgrimage to obtain the final aeon and defeat Sin. Kimahri Ronso is a young warrior of the Ronso tribe who watched over Yuna during her childhood. Wakka is a blitzball player and devout follower of the Yevon order. Lulu is a stoic and self-possessed, but well-meaning Black Mage. Auron is a taciturn former warrior monk, and finally Rikku is a perky Al Bhed girl with extensive knowledge of machinery. The primary antagonists of the game are Maester Seymour Guado and the other maesters of the Yevon religion, while the enormous whale-like monster Sin serves as the primary source of conflict.
Gameplay
Like previous games in the series, Final Fantasy X is presented in a third-person perspective, with players directly navigating the main character, Tidus, around the world to interact with objects and people. Unlike previous games, however, the world and town maps have been fully integrated, with terrain outside of cities rendered to scale. When an enemy is encountered, the environment switches to a turn-based battle area where characters and enemies await their turn to attack.
The gameplay of Final Fantasy X differs from that of previous Final Fantasy games in its lack of a top-down perspective world map. Earlier games featured a miniature representation of the expansive areas between towns and other distinct locations, used for long-distance traveling. In Final Fantasy X, almost all the locations are essentially continuous and never fade out to a world map. Regional connections are mostly linear, forming a single path through the game's locations, though an airship becomes available late in the game, giving the player the ability to navigate the world of Spira faster. Like previous games in the series, Final Fantasy X features numerous minigames, most notably the fictional underwater sport "blitzball".
Combat
Final Fantasy X introduces the Conditional Turn-Based Battle (CTB) system in place of the series' traditional Active Time Battle (ATB) system, first used in Final Fantasy IV. The new system was developed by battle director Toshiro Tsuchida, who had Final Fantasy IV in mind when developing the CTB system. Whereas the ATB concept features real-time elements, the CTB system is a turn-based format that pauses the battle during each of the player's turns. Thus, the CTB design allows the player to select an action without time pressure. A graphical timeline along the upper-right side of the screen details who will be receiving turns next, and how various actions taken will affect the subsequent order of turns. The player can control up to three characters in battle, though a swapping system allows the player to replace them with a character outside the active party at any time. "Limit Breaks", highly damaging special attacks, reappear in Final Fantasy X under the name "Overdrives". In this new incarnation of the feature, most of the techniques are interactive, requiring button inputs to increase their effectiveness.
Final Fantasy X introduces an overhaul of the summoning system employed in previous games of the series. Whereas in previous titles a summoned creature would arrive, perform a single action, and then depart, the "aeons" of Final Fantasy X arrive and entirely replace the battle party, fighting in their place until either the enemy has been slain, the aeon itself has been defeated, or the aeon is dismissed by the player. Aeons have their own statistics, commands, special attacks, spells, and Overdrives. The player acquires five aeons over the course of the game, but three additional aeons can be obtained by completing various side-quests.Sphere Grid
As with previous titles in the series, players have the opportunity to develop and improve their characters by defeating enemies and acquiring items, though the traditional experience point system is replaced by a new system called the "Sphere Grid". Instead of characters gaining pre-determined statistic bonuses for their attributes after leveling up, each character gains a "sphere level" after collecting enough ability points (AP). Sphere levels allow players to move around the Sphere Grid, a predetermined grid of interconnected nodes consisting of various statistic and ability bonuses. Items called "spheres" are applied to these nodes, unlocking its function for the selected character.
The Sphere Grid system also allows players to fully customize characters in contrast to their intended battle roles, such as turning the White Mage Yuna into a physical powerhouse and the swordsman Auron into a healer. The International and PAL versions of the game include an optional "Expert" version of the Sphere Grid; in these versions, all of the characters start in the middle of the grid and may follow whichever path the player chooses. As a trade-off, the Expert grid has fewer nodes in total, thus decreasing the total statistic upgrades available during the game.
Final Fantasy X adopted many new elements into the world of FF. First of we lose the "Overworld" map, this game transpires through a linear playing field, the player usually going from one end of the field to the other, while this limits the areas that a player can explore I think this game used this system really well.
A new battle system is implemented, the Conditional Turn-Based System, or CTB. This gave the feel of playing in real time while still pausing to allow the player to determine the the strategy of the battle. They also install a swap system, while your party only consists of 3 members, you could swap them out in battle for a character who may be better for your winning strategy.
Here we see more importance placed upon the Summoner as the entire story and mythos is revolved around summoning.
We see a different implementation of the summoning systems in battle as well, the summons in X known as Aeons, actually remain in battle, with a health bar and an "Overdrive" bar of there own. The goal is to keep the Aeon in battle without the Aeon dying, building the Overdrive till the Aeon can use its ultimate attack, in previous games this was all a summon did, it arrived unleashed its devastating attack and then left the field. This is where the game changed things. The game story had many Summoners in the game, Yuna meeting them in her travels. Her father Lord Braska was a Summoner before her who brought about the Calm, the time period from Sin's defeat to his rebirth. But we also see with this game the end of the Summoner in the world of Spira, with the defeat of Yu Yevon the Fayth, who power the Aeons and grant them to use by the Summoners, are no longer needed, they cease summoning and welcome a sleep they have longed for in thousands of years.
Yunas Summons Include:
Ifrit
Valefor
Shiva
Bahamut
Ixion
And if acquired through side quests
Yojimbo
Anima
The Magus Sisters
With this game we see the continuation of pre-ordained weapon classes:
Tidus using what the game titled a Long sword
Auron using a Heavy Blade
Yuna a Staff
Kimari a Lance
Wakka a Blitzball
Lulu didn't use a weapon but magically enchanted dolls, as she was the games only Black Mage
Rikku was in the thief class but used a claw like apparatus attached to her arm as a weapon.
We see the first real change in the level up stats systems. While getting stronger weapons and accessories did up the stats of the characters, it was very minimal. The implementation of the Sphear Grid took over for this. For each of the characters they had a set number of slots for their grid, in which you could place sphears gained in battle, some of theses slots would raise specific stats by a number of points, some would actually give you stronger abilities. Example as Lulu progressed upon her grid, she started out with the lower levels of magic, Fire, Water, Blizzard, and Thunder, as she progressed she could unlock the next level of these magics making them stronger. Fira, Watera, Blizzara, and Thundara.
We also see the return of Ultimate Weapons gained in special side quests of the game.
Chocobos return, and the Al Bed unearth the only known Airship in Spira.
The moogle returns in the form of a plushy magical doll equipped to Lulu to make her magic stronger.
While some fans were disappointed at the loss of Overworld Map, the implementation of voice acting and much stronger storytelling I think helped most welcome this game with open arms.
I know one of the scenes most memorable to me is when Yuna who up until this point in the game was strong an gunghoe about completing her Pillgramage, but when Tidus discovers in order to defeat Sin Yuna must sacrifice her life, she comes to the realization, and of course with the added desire of her budding romance with Tidus, that she does not want to sacrifice her self. The cut scene between Tidus and Yuna is truly a work of beauty.
I myself absolutely adore this game, and from this point forward I have become spoiled on voice acting and beautiful cut scenes, which make it really hard to go back and play the previous stone age like titles.
Well as I mention before, X is the first game to actually receive a direct sequel, aptly titled Final Fantasy X-2 here is where I go deeper into why there are multiple titles of "Final" Fantasy.
Next up Final Fantasy X-2!
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