Final Fantasy X

Final Fantasy X is the tenth installment in the Final Fantasy series. It follows the story of Tidus and Yuna. It was the first Final Fantasy to appear on a 6th generation console (i.e. the PlayStation 2, Xbox and GameCube).

Due to Final Fantasy X's success and popularity, it spawned the first ever direct game sequel to a Final Fantasy game: Final Fantasy X-2, released in 2003-04 and continuing the events of Spira 2 years later through the eyes of Yuna. A second sequel, which would have been told from Rikku's point of view, was planned but never eventuated due to the lackluster fan response to X-2.

It is also the first in the series to use voice-overs instead of the previous method of scrolling subtitles. The implementation of voice-overs limited the player's ability to change the name of the characters, however. Tidus is the only playable character whose name you, as the player, are able to change. This leads to a strange predicament, since nobody ever pronounces Tidus' name (during a sphere that Yuna records, she refers to him as 'star player of the Zanarkand Abes), and thus, there have been many discussions how his name is really pronounced. However, an official press release by Square Co., Ltd. stated that it is pronounced Tee-dus. (In contrast to this, Kingdom Hearts II pronounces Tidus' name as Tie-dus, bring anew the constant debate of what pronunciation is correct.) Aeons can also be renamed. It is the first installment in a long time in which most of the main characters do not have last names.

Story


The story unfolds on two levels: the historical one, and the narrative one. From the historical perspective, 1,000 years ago, Spira was a world full of technology and machines, dubbed machina (MAH-ki-nah). Two city-states, the machina-heavy Bevelle and the summoner magic city of Zanarkand, were at war with each other. For clarity's sake, we will divide Spira's calendar into two periods: before and after the events on first game of the series (FFX) take place, abbreviated as "BG" and "AG" respectively. Following this notation, FFX takes place in the year 0 AG and the Bevelle/Zanarkand war takes place in year 1,000 BG.



History of Spira
Bevelle's machina gave them the upper hand and Zanarkand was about to lose the war, when the survivors gathered in Zanarkand under the guidance of Yu Yevon, their leader. Believed to be the most powerful summoner alive, Yu Yevon directed all Zanarkand citizens to flee to the nearby Mt. Gagazet. There, refusing to admit the fall of their beloved city, Yu Yevon and the people of Zanarkand decided on a drastic and definite course of action: They let themselves be turned into fayth, all gathered in a massive wall on Gagazet's slopes, fayth that Yu Yevon would use to begin the casting of a huge summons: A city, a new, ideal Zanarkand, forever at peace and eternally holding alive the memory of its former glory. In order to protect himself while summoning the huge city, Yu Yevon gathered millions of stray pyreflies around him with powerful gravity spells, forming a formidable armor which later became known as Sin. In order not to get distracted from his summoning, Yevon "programmed" a series of guiding instincts into Sin: among them, to attack any larger human settlement, to attack any machina, and to respond to aggression with overwhelming force. Unfortunately Yu Yevon lost control of Sin and got trapped into an instinctive behavior himself, from then on living only to cast the summoned city. A master-less Sin turned around and completely destroyed the real Zanarkand, proceeding to decimate the incoming Bevellian army. From that point onwards, Sin destroyed any large city, quickly becoming a terror to all Spirans and uniting Spira under a common fear.

Defeating Sin for the first time: The First Calm
On the eve of Zanarkand's destruction, Yunalesca, Yu Yevon's own daughter, herself a very skilled summoner, managed to escape the doomed city with her husband Zaon. After Sin's appearance she and her husband travel to Zanarkand, where she turns Zaon into a particularly powerful fayth, dubbed a Final Aeon, and defeats Sin for the first time. However, at the moment Sin's shell got cracked, a purely instinct driven Yu Yevon took control of Zaon's Aeon, forcefully severing the mental link between Zaon and Yunalesca, and used the newly captured aeon to kill his daughter. With Sin's defeat, a short period of peace settles on Spira. Unfortunately, within a couple of months, an instinct driven Yu Yevon is able to regenerate a new Sin using Zaon's Aeon as a core, and Spira's plight begins anew. The intermission during which Sin is being regenerated will further be known as "The First Calm".

The Second Calm
Bound by her promises towards both her father and Bevelle, Yunalesca remains in Zanarkand as an unsent. It is assumed that she crafted a deal with Bevelle: in exchange for all people honoring the memory of her father, she would ensure an immunity to Bevelle against Sin's rampage, and show Spirans a way to defeat Sin. During the following decades, Bevelle's leadership slowly mutates into a religious organization whose central figure is "Yevon", a benevolent teacher who tells Spirans ways to atone for their faults and reliance on machina, which supposedly has brought Sin to their world. While Yevon slowly establishes its hold over most of Spira, summoners from all around gather and try to vanquish Sin, with little success. Finally, after more than 600 years, a summoner named Gandof is able to defeat Sin for the second time, thus creating the "Gandof's Calm". However, Gandof suffers the same fate as Yunalesca: Yevon takes over his guardian's Aeon, severing the link between both of them and killing the High Summoner in the process. As before, this calm is very short lived and Yu Yevon soon rebuilds Sin which restarts its mayhem.

The High Summoner's Pilgrimage
Gandof's success at defeating Sin was a major accomplishment, even though the Calm lasted less than a year. Given the length of Sin's unchecked rampage, any brief respite and any victory gives Spirans hope of overcoming the beast one day. Gandof's path sets the measure of the accomplishment, and probably finished the shaping of the pilgrimage as it is known in modern Spira. After his death Gandof was named "High Summoner," a title which will from then on be bestowed posthumously on all who have defeated Sin. Statues of Gandof were built and put in all Spira's temples and his story is told to all Spirans as an example of honor and sacrifice to be followed. To defeat Sin, High Summoner candidates, known only as "Summoners," journey through a series of Yevon temples, gathering powerful Aeons at each temple in preparation for obtaining the Final Aeon in Zanarkand.

The Other Calms
230 years after Gandof's Calm, a former Kilikan blitzball star, Ohalland, manages to equal Yunalesca's and Gandof's feat and defeat Sin - only to bring about a much too short Calm. 200 years later, Lady Yocun becomes the first female summoner since Yunalesca to achieve this momentous task. Finally, a mere 10 years before the game's present times, Braska, an outcast summoner, brings about yet another Calm. Thus, the stage is set for FFX's events. Braska is also Yuna's father.

Modern Spira
The modern Spira is quite different from the one which saw the Millenium War. Machina, once abundant, is shunned by Bevelle's edicts, and only the outcast race of the Al Bhed tries to regain some of the lost knowledge. From a probably relatively common kind of magical fighters, summoners have become a sort of special caste of their own: help and privileges are granted to them during their pilgrimage in exchange for their coming sacrifice against Sin. Yevon dominates every aspect of Spiran life, spreading their teachings and pretending to be the benevolent rulers of a much diminished world - a world where virtually any kind of technological and social progress has been asleep for 1000 years. Yet beneath the surface unity of Spiran mainland, distrust and old anger still boils deep: one has to wonder if the various warring factions wouldn't have blown each other to smithereens without Sin's dreadfully pacifying presence.Only Blitzball truly unites the whole world around a common passion, the sport which survived Sin's coming and which holds annual tournaments in Luca's stadium, oddly left untouched by Sin's wrath.

Narrative: Game Start
This is where the narrative starts. On a large modern city full of Machina called Zanarkand, Tidus, a young star blitzball player of the Zanarkand Abes, plays in a match against the Zanarkand Duggles on the 10th anniversary of the disappearing of Jecht, his own father and a legendary Blitzball player himself. During the game, terror is unleashed on this Zanarkand: A giant sphere of water appears in the sky, wreaking havoc on the unsuspecting city. Fleeing the attack, Tidus meets Auron, his mentor, who identifies the enemy as Sin, and gives Tidus his father's sword to fight some fiends unleashed on the streets of Zanarkand by Sin. But a bit later on, after an odd one-sided conversation with Sin, Auron grabs Tidus and drags him into Sin's vortex.

Tidus lands in Spira
Tidus regains consciousness near a ruined Temple, where he is eventually rescued by Rikku and her Al Bhed tribe. After befriending her, Tidus learns, to his bewilderment, that apparently his Zanarkand has been destroyed by this same Sin 1000 years earlier. Another encounter with Sin lands Tidus on the beach of Besaid Island, where he meets Wakka and his team practicing something familiar: blitzball. After revealing that he is a player himself, Tidus agrees to help out the Besaid Aurochs (who have been on a 10-year losing streak) who, in turn, will bring him to Luca, hoping that a few of the annual tournament's spectators might recognize Tidus. Oddly, for some time, most people will believe Tidus' story of being from Zanarkand to be a hallucination because of his close contact with Sin, as their version of Zanarkand has been in ruins for the last 1,000 years.

Meeting Yuna
Before leaving for Luca, Tidus is introduced to Yuna, a young summoner starting her pilgrimage to defeat Sin, and her guardians. While travelling, Tidus learns that Jecht, his own father, was a guardian to Yuna's father, who died after beating Sin and bringing a short Calm a decade ago.

In Luca, Tidus finds Auron, who turns out to be none other than Braska's other guardian. After winning the Blitzball tournament, both of them join Yuna's pilgrimage as guardians. The goal of the pilgrimage is to obtain the Final Aeon in Zanarkand, and Tidus hopes to find a way to return to "his" Zanarkand while Auron hopes to keep his promise both to Tidus' father and Yuna's father to keep an eye on their kids, as well as assist in bringing out The Calm.

Revelations
During their travels, the party will go through many ordeals, eventually finding out several disturbing truths: That Yevon is built on a lie, and that the Final Aeon is none other than one of the summoner's guardians, that many of the Yevon's powerful are dead unsent that use their power to further perpetrate the lies, etc... They further find out that using a Final Aeon to defeat Sin only brings a short Calm, as, after beating Sin, Yu Yevon takes over the Final Aeon to make a new Sin and killing the summoner in the process. This also means, on a very personal level, that the current Sin is none other than Jecht, Tidus' father. The final revelation is made to Tidus alone: that "his" Zanarkand is not the one destroyed 1000 years ago but the Dream Zanarkand summoned by Yevon, and hence that he is himself part of that Aeon.

Rebellion
Because of the fondness which grew between Tidus and Yuna, as well as the former's stubborn nature, when meeting Yunalesca at the end of the pilgrimage, Tidus refuses to take part on the charade. Yuna also refuses to do it and eventually the entire party decides to refuse to continue in the old Final Aeon scam, and fight Yunalesca. After her defeat, they decide to try to find a way to destroy Yu Yevon directly. They go to Bevelle and talk to Grand Maester Mika. He is shocked when he hears about Yunalesca's defeat, and being an unsent, he leaves to the Farplane just as Yevon crumbles around him. After the meeting, they convince Shelinda to tell all the people of Spira to sing the Hymn of the Fayth, thus luring a docile Sin into a trap.

The final battle with Sin
Using an Airship salvaged by the Al Bhed, they attack Sin and enter its distorted interiors, to finally confront and defeat Yu Yevon himself.

In order to confront Yu Yevon, the party must have one final confrontation with Seymour, and then proceed towards Dream's End and a painful reunion between Tidus and Jecht. Tidus is finally able to realize he was wrong for blaming his father, yet must try to preserve his hatred for Jecht in order to complete the task of destroying him. After defeating Jecht, Yuna summons each Aeon that has accompanied their journey one by one and destroys each one, preventing Yu Yevon from merging with them and recreating Sin. The final battle is with Yu Yevon himself, resulting in the end of Yu Yevon and Sin.

Epilogue
With Yu Yevon defeated, the Fayth no longer had to dream. The Aeons and Sin's empty shell were now sent by Yuna, never to return again. Tidus willingly accepts that he, like the dream, will fade, and says his final goodbye to his friends and Yuna, who also announces that she loves him as he vanishes into the sunrise, meeting Braska and Auron, and reconciling with his father.

Yuna holds a speech at the Luca Blitzball Stadium about the future of Spira; that finally, Sin is dead, and Spira is theirs again, after 1000 years of terror. After the ending credits, a final cutscene shows Tidus waking up in the depths of the ocean and swimming back to the surface, a smile on his face. This scene is repeated in Final Fantasy X-2 as the beginning of the good ending.

Playable
Throughout the game, the music centers on the theme "To Zanarkand". This has significance to the plot. While at times the events along pilgrimage may be enjoyable, the pilgrimage's final destination is still Zanarkand; no matter where there immediate destination is, the Summoner will still have to sacrifice her guardian and herself to defeat sin.

Minigames

 * Blitzball - The feature minigame of Final Fantasy X is Blitzball, a cross between soccer and water polo, played entirely underwater in a giant sphere pool at Luca.
 * Chocobo Racing  - Featuring less predominantly than previous games in the series is a Chocobo training and racing game. Situated at the Calm Lands, the player can participate in several challenges to train a Chocobo, and then use those skills to race another chocobo at Remiem Temple.
 * Monster Arena - When fiends from all over Spira are captured using special weapons, they appear in the Monster Arena, also located at the Calm Lands. These fiends can be fought at any time (for a fee), and certain combinations can be bred into much tougher enemies.
 * Celestial Weapons - Each playable character in the game has their own distinctive Ultimate Weapon, which require some hard work and traveling to acquire.
 * Most locations also have their own smaller minigames, such as the Butterfly Hunt in Macalania, and the Valley of the Cactuars in the Bikanel Desert. See each location page for more details.

The Sphere Grid
Character growth in the game is undertaken by use of the Sphere Grid. By gaining AP from battles and collecting different types of spheres allow the characters to move through the grid and raise stats and learn abilities. An extra grid was included with the International Version (see below) which had 45 fewer nodes and undefined paths for each character.

Final Fantasy X: International
The International version was released on January 31st 2003 in Japan and later in North America and Europe (The European release was simply titled "Final Fantasy X"). This updated version of the game had different box art (For Japan) and new features such as an Expert Sphere Grid, which allowed for accessing abilities easier, but less over-all stat-growth; new abilities added to both Standard and Expert Grids; the inclusion of the Dark Aeons and Penance, all powerful superbosses; as well as many minor changes to dialogue, scenes, the Celestial Weapons' key items (Japan Int. Only), characters and armor & weapon customizations such as Break HP/MP Limit and Ribbon. The release also included a bonus disc with behind the scenes making-of features of Final Fantasy X, and a special movie prologue to Final Fantasy X-2.

The European release had the additions of the Dark Aeons and Penance, as well as the Break HP/MP Limits but didn't change the name of the Celestial Sigils and Crests. The game had noticible black borders and slower running speed. The black label version also included a bonus DVD with the title "Beyond Final Fantasy" which included various interviews with the game developers as well as two of the English voice actors. Additionally, it included trailers of various Square games, an art gallery, short biographies on Nobuo Uematsu and Rikki, as well as a music video of Rikki performing the song "Suteki Da Ne?".

There is a glitch in this version, whereby if you go to the area where you fight Dark Ifrit after defeating Yunalesca, but before fighting Braska's Final Aeon, it is possible to slip past the two men blocking your way to Home, and thus, be able to return to the story at the events in Home with Yuna in your party.

It is unknown whether this glitch can be repeated after the first time it is used.