just thrifted this bad boy! early 2000’s 2001-2002 Final Fantasy X Tidus & Yuna Tee

My fiancée and I have been getting into each other's favorite games lately. She loves Metal Gear Solid, so I decided to give it a try since it's such a big part of her childhood. In return, I asked her to give Final Fantasy X a shot because it's a huge part of mine. She's been playing it, and while she's still a little confused about some of the lore and what's going on, I'm helping her understand things without spoiling too much. One thing we've definitely agreed on, though is that we both hate Seymour. At one point, she actually said "When will he go away?" I just looked at her and said, "I hate him too, but just be glad you haven't gotten to her yet." She was SO confused. Lmao I'm not going to say anything else because I don't want to spoil anything for her, but I did give her a little advice for the boss fights. Save Your Overdrives. All of them, even the Aeons. I'm trying to help her out without taking away the experience of playing this game for the first time. I still remember how much this game meant to me growing up, so getting to watch her experience it for herself is honestly pretty cool.

I'm just sitting here waiting to see her reactions to everything that's coming. For those of you who've played FFX you already know why I'm being so vague about certain things.

I did use turn off encounters, I admit, but I have cerebral palsy and not so great reaction time, I never thought I'd do this!

Kill me now

OST: Original 💿

This beloved, and somber... yet saddening theme is the Full Version pivotal theme of Final Fantasy X-2. It is performed in-game when:

- The Sphere Hunters: Yuna, Rikku, and Paine enter the Thunder Plains in Chapter 4

- Orchestrated and Composed by - ℗Square Enix Sound Team | Noriko Matsueda | Takahito Eguch | Jade Villalon

My game on the PlayStation 5 is acting up. I have the downloaded version of FFX HD. When I go to save or load a file, I have to press the “O” button instead of the “X” button. Also, for Tidus’ overdrive is off on timing, as well as lightning dodges.

Does anyone know how to fix this? It is driving me nuts.

With the revelation that Tidus is part of the summoned (dream) zanarkand. That always raised the question to me about who he summoned in the farplane. And so far the 2 explanations I've heard and discussed is:

1. He summoned Shuyins mom since he was based off of shuyin in the dream it stands to reason tidus would summon forth the closest person matching the description of his mom.

2. The farplane only summons forth an image of the dead and his own thoughts of his mother created the image

But both explanations have something to counter them, if it was shuyins mom that was summoned, why wasn't shuyins dad summoned too? Jecht and shuyins dad would be different enities. They explain in game that people don't appear in the farplane if they are alive, or haven't been sent or didn't accept death while alive. And thats why jecht didn't show up. And if thats the case is shuyins dad just a fiend or some pyreflies in zanarkand?

And the argument of the second thought is, how does the farplane know who is suppose to be in the farplane? If the souls of the departed aren't actually in the farplane and just creating illusions, how does the farplane determen who is suppose to be there?

Would love to hear more theories and thoughts on who tidus mom is or how the farplane actually works.

Gotten all celestial weapons, completed all sphere grids, beaten the monster arena, all dark aeons, and penance. All I can think is finishing off kimhari overdrives and maybe try to get aurochs spirit, but wakka isn’t even on my team. Anything else I should do?

In case anyone else was curious like I was.

Basically the game had an invisible NPC run towards the player and once it did it would trigger the lightning strike.

So the crater here is abusing that fact because its next to a safe zone and the guy happens to spawn the same way each time.

I just started, but when I try to save, it doesn't seem to do so. I'm afraid to close the game because I don't want to start over. Has this happened to you? How can I fix it?

Despite having played through the game several times, I’ve never actually gone to beat the dark aeons, or at least not “legitimately” as far as I can remember, so now that I have figured I’d rank them from weakest to strongest.

1. Valefor

Didn’t even get to move

1. Yojimbo

All it has going for it is fighting it 5 times, but each is relatively easy to handle, can see why it’s used to farm dark matter

1. Shiva

Nothing to special, just gotta play around her diamond dust

1. Ifrit

Similar to shiva, just more health

1. Ixion

Has an auto counter for each attack, and you have to fight it twice, but with high evasion and luck it’s not to bad

1. Anima

High health and high luck can make this a drawn out fight, plus the status you can get from mega graviton, but a high luck stat of your own and ribbon armor can make it much easier, have your aeons ready to handle oblivions and you’re set

1. Bahamut

High luck stat like anima, but also able to use impulse after every 5 attacks, time it wrong and you could take an impulse followed by a mega flare to get instantly wiped. Keep track of your attack amount, make good use of auto life, and tactically summon aeons when needed as shields

1. Magus Sisters (together)

I honestly didn’t know you could seperate them, so made the fight harder than it needed to be, still I’m ranking it on what I fought. Fighting all 3 together was a definite challenge, same as bahamut you need to be pretty tactical with summons to use as shields, but hard focusing on one at time should get you there eventually, had to use a couple mega phoenixs too

I remember looking it up at some point that in terms of how much time we actually see pass, it’s estimated to be 15 to 20 Ish days. But I imagine that just comes down to game logic. You’re not really supposed to think about too much. I’d have to imagine realistically the journey was at least 6 to 8 weeks because some of it I just can’t see them doing in the span of one day. Some parts sure like pretty much the entirety of the events of Luca, and operation Mihen maybe at least few days later happen over 1 day, but I imagine time passed between those events. Like I can’t imagine from start of calm lands to camping in zanarkand was all one day, or waking up in djose temple to halfway through thunder plains being one day.

So, I’m new to all this. Never played any video games, ever. This is my first, my kid wanted me to play, something, anything. After a quick internet search, it recommended this game. So please forgive me if I don’t understand certain aspects or language. I have been playing this game for some time and finally reached the Calm Lands, and man it’s been a wild ride. Can’t believe the summoner dies after the final summoning, and I’m a little suspicious of Auron, I feel like he might be the living dead like Seymour and Mika, but no hard proof yet.
Anyways, to my random questions:
If everyone in Spira knows sin returns every so often, and only summoners can defeat it, why don’t all summoners do the pilgrimage sooner? Why not do the pilgrimage when the calm is happening that way you’re not rushing to every temple and having to be afraid of sin? Why not have multiple summoners ready to go in every place, so when sin arrives, they just perform the final summoning and kill sin?

Another question is, how can people breathe underwater? In blitzball you have to literally play underwater the whole game? Can everyone in Spira do it? Or is it just certain people? the cutscene I just watched where Tidus kisses Yuna underwater in Macalania you can hear him sucking in air before he goes underwater, so are they just able to hold there breath really long?

Last question, did Wakka really not know Rikku is Al Bhed? That Yuna is half Al Bhed? All Al Bhed seem to have green eyes. Seems to me, if you really hate something, you would know a little about it. And how come Rikku and Yuna don’t call each other cousin or something. Isn’t Cid Yuna’s Uncle? And Rikku is Cid’s daughter?

Well, any help with these random questions. I would greatly appreciate it. I don’t have friends or family that play video games besides my child. And I have tried to stay off of the web and this subreddit to avoid spoilers, I am really digging this game and don’t want to ruin the experience. If these questions get answered in the game, later, please let me know. Thanks for reading and sorry for the long post.

Praise be to Yevon, I think? Lol

So is there a reason why summoners race each other to get to Zanarkand? Or why they can't team up to fight Sin?

Just recently came back to ffx after finishing ffx2 since the Steam port recently got an update. After hours of grinding, I went ahead and fought Penance, and I didn't expect the fight to last an hour and a half, like deym😭.

​

Really want to get a FFX tattoo as the game got me through some really tough times. Having a hard time figuring out what though. I dont want to get the zanarkand abes logo since one of my friends already has one. I was thinking something with the brotherhood sword and pyreflies or the destroyed zanarkand dome. Does anyone have any thoughts or ideas?

Sorry if this post isnt allowed!

I recall being able to get the jupiter crest for wakka in the aurochs locker room right after the scripted blitzball match and cutscene with auron and tidus.

But ive mashed at every door in the row and it wont open like it opens in a video guide. On my last playthrough i got all the celestial weapons after airship and then it opened. Can i just not get it now cuz i swear everywhere it says i should be able to get it right now

I ran through the entire sphere grid and replaced all spheres with the +4 version or the +300 and +40 version, then I went through with Max all stats at 255 for everybody, now I’m trying to run through to fill the empty nodes with HP and I’m realizing there isn’t enough spots to even get that to 99999. Is it the type of thing that you choose between that or maxing every stat?

I played ffx to death on the ps2 and xbox, bought it on steam and I'm having some difficulty.

I've gotten Rikku's celestial weapon, crest and sigil, plus the celestial mirror.

I equip Rikku with Godhand and walk towards the area In macalania woods. The game just cuts away to Tidus walking away.

Am I missing anything?

EDIT: All sorted, it was me being an idiot and going to the wrong spot in the woods! Thanks for the suggestions and help!

I tried to put together a fairly cohesive summary of Spira's early history and lore, mainly because I feel like a lot of players don't fully get this part of the story (which I don't blame them for, since the game itself is pretty vague about a lot of it). It's something that comes up in discussions quite often though, and there are still players who have finished FFX who believe that the story involves time travel.

So this is essentially an overview of Spira's history, from the time before the Machina War up to the creation of the religion of Yevon and the beginning of the cycle that would define Spira for the next thousand years.

I've tried to piece everything together as accurately as possible, while also including some of my own interpretations where the lore leaves things open to speculation. Feel free to correct me if I've gotten anything wrong.

Here it goes:

The Age of Machina

More than a thousand years before the events of the game, Spira was essentially a different world. It was populated by vast, technologically advanced cities, where magic and machina existed side by side. Entire civilizations flourished that were far surpassing anything we encounter during the events of the game. In many ways, ancient Spira was something resembling a magitek golden age.

We don't know the names or exact number of civilizations that existed during this period. Most were eventually wiped off the face of the world, leaving behind little more than ruins. Only two major cities from that era are known to have survived into the present day, although in very different forms: Bevelle and Zanarkand.

And it was these two nations that would ultimately determine the fate of Spira for the next thousand years.

Bevelle: A Machina Metropolis

At the height of its power, Bevelle was probably the most technologically advanced nation in the world. It relied heavily on machina, but what truly distinguished Bevelle was its military might. It possessed extraordinarily powerful machina weapons, some of which were capable of destruction on a potentially apocalyptic scale. One example is Vegnagun, a superweapon so powerful that it could destroy the entire world.

My personal interpretation is that Bevelle's overwhelming military superiority made it increasingly expansionist and power-hungry. We know that Bevelle had a history of warfare, and I suspect that its technological advantage allowed it to pursue some pretty dark ambitions. Whether it sought territory, resources, or political dominance is not super clear, but it seems reasonable to imagine a civilization that had grown accustomed to imposing its will through military superiority.

And eventually, its ambitions brought it into conflict with a very different kind of nation.

Zanarkand: A City of Summoners

Far to the north, in the shadow of Mount Gagazet, stood Zanarkand, an advanced metropolis as well, with a sophisticated culture, architecture, and a thriving population. But unlike Bevelle, Zanarkand's greatest strength did not lie in machina weapons, but in the art of summoning.

Zanarkand was a nation of summoners, practitioners of a magical art that allowed them to manifest beings known as Aeons. Summoning involved a relationship between a summoner and a Fayth, a human soul bound to a statue through a special ritual. Through this connection, the summoner could give physical form to the Fayth's dream, essentially using pyreflies to manifest thought into reality.

Beyond that, Zanarkand was also a flourishing cultural center, a city of artists and athletes. Blitzball was an important part of Zanarkand's identity and traditions, including a distinctive gesture associated with victory, which would later become known as the Yevon prayer. 

The ruler of Zanarkand was Yu Yevon, the most powerful summoner in the entire setting. 

The Machina War

Around a thousand years before the events of FFX, war broke out between Bevelle and Zanarkand. We don't know exactly what caused it, who started it, or what either nation hoped to achieve.

Personally, I believe Bevelle was the aggressor. Given its military superiority, it seems plausible that Bevelle sought to bring Zanarkand under its control. Perhaps it coveted Zanarkand's summoning techniques, seeing them as just another source of power to be exploited. But that's just me speculating, the exact circumstances surrounding the war are never stated.

What we do know is that the two nations approached the war in fundamentally different ways. Bevelle possessed armies supported by sophisticated war machina, while Zanarkand relied on its summoners. This meant that Zanarkand's defenders were not necessarily soldiers in the conventional sense. They included ordinary citizens who were sent to war because of their abilities as summoners, but who weren't necessarily trained warriors. One example was the young singer Lenne.

We don't know exactly how long the war lasted, or how much of a fight Zanarkand put up, but eventually, the outcome became pretty clear. Zanarkand's summoners were no match for Bevelle's overwhelming machina weapons.

And as Bevelle's forces advanced toward Gagazet, the destruction of Zanarkand became only a matter of time.

Yu Yevon understood that his city was lost, but he was unwilling to let it die.

The Birth of Dream Zanarkand

With Bevelle's armies approaching and the destruction of his civilization imminent, Yu Yevon came up with a plan that would fundamentally alter the fate of Spira. He could not save Zanarkand, but he could preserve it in another way.

Yu Yevon gathered the surviving citizens of Zanarkand and transformed them into Fayth. Thy became part of an enormous collection of Fayth statues on Mount Gagazet, where they would sleep and dream for the next thousand years.

And using the collective thoughts, memories, and dreams of the Fayth amalgamation he had created, Yu Yevon began summoning on a scale Spira had never witnessed: he summoned an entire city, a complete recreation of Zanarkand itself, populated by summoned people living their own lives, completely unaware of the nature of their existence.

Dream Zanarkand was born.

Despite its name, Dream Zanarkand was not some kind of dream dimension or illusory world. It was a real, physical place, created and sustained through summoning. Its inhabitants were real, tangible beings. Yu Yevon had recreated his beloved city, preserving it in a form that could theoretically continue existing forever.

I feel like this is something many players get wrong or don't understand at all: Dream Zanarkand, Tidus' Zanarkand, is a real, physical place that exists in the same Spira where the rest of the game takes place. There was no dimension-hopping or time travel involved.

Yu Yevon placed this summoned Zanarkand far out in the ocean, where it would be unlikely to be discovered. Its inhabitants would remain largely oblivious to the outside world, unaware that their entire existence depended on the dreams of countless Fayth and the ceaseless summoning of a single guy.

The Creation of Sin

To protect himself and his summoned city, Yu Yevon used gravity magic to gather an immense concentration of pyreflies around himself and craft them into a gigantic living armor, an armor that would come to be known as Sin.

Sin was a nearly indestructible fiend with enough power to annihilate entire cities. Not an Aeon, though, and that's an important distinction. It was crafted with gravity magic, it wasn't summoned.

Sin's purpose was fundamentally connected to Yu Yevon's desire to preserve Zanarkand. Sin would protect Yu Yevon while he continued summoning, it would protect Dream Zanarkand itself from potential intruders, and it would also attack and destroy advanced civilizations and settlements, particularly those that relied heavily on machina.

In effect, Sin was meant to prevent humanity from ever again developing the kind of technological and military power that had doomed the original Zanarkand. Yu Yevon had created a system that would prevent the rest of the world from progressing far enough to pose a serious threat to Dream Zanarkand.

And somewhere during this process, Yu Yevon lost himself, probably died, and what remained was an Unsent driven only by the endless need to continue summoning.

The Destruction of the Original Zanarkand

Sin's first acts was, ironically, to destroy the original Zanarkand. By this point, the surviving population had already been transformed into Fayth, leaving the city empty and abandoned.

The game never provides a clear explanation for this particular act of destruction. One possibility is that Yu Yevon had lost control of his creation basically from the start, and Sin was simply acting according to its destructive instincts.

What I personally find more likely though is that Yu Yevon deliberately had Sin destroy the original Zanarkand. After all, Bevelle's forces were approaching. They were preparing to conquer the city and potentially uncover the secrets of its summoners.

It's possible that destroying Zanarkand was an act of defiance. He couldn't save his city, but at least he would ensure that Bevelle could never claim it for themselves.

According to something Maechen tells us, Bevelle's approaching forces heard a song emanating from Mount Gagazet, the song that would eventually become the Hymn of the Fayth. The Bevelle soldiers were unsettled by it, but then they witnessed something beyond comprehension: an enormous fiend appearing over the peaks of the mountain, bringing destruction down upon Zanarkand.

The soldiers fled in terror.

Sin's Rampage

Sin subsequently began ravaging the rest of Spira. Cities were destroyed, entire civilizations disappeared. The technologically advanced world that had existed before the war was reduced to ruins.

Consider the Spira we explore during FFX.

Besaid is a tiny island village. Kilika is a modest coastal settlement. The Mi'ihen Highroad is surrounded by wilderness and ancient ruins. At the bottom of the Moonflow river are traces of a civilization that no longer exists.

We encounter evidence everywhere that Spira was once home to far more advanced societies. Abandoned structures, submerged ruins, and forgotten machina are scattered across the landscape. They all paint a picture of a world that has experienced a catastrophic collapse, where civilization once existed on a scale almost unimaginable to its present inhabitants.

Spira is essentially a post-apocalyptic world. We simply don't immediately recognize it as one, because unlike many post-apocalyptic settings, Spira isn't presented as a desolate wasteland.

It's beautiful.

Its oceans are crystal clear, its forests are lush and magical, its beaches are idyllic. But beneath that beauty there are traces of essentially an apocalypse that happened a thousand years earlier.

The Birth of Yevon

The greatest irony is that Bevelle somehow survived.

We're never told how. Maybe its military strength and advanced machina weapons allowed it to ward off Sin more effectively than other cities? Perhaps its survival was connected to Yunalesca, Yu Yevon's daughter, who had escaped Zanarkand and would become instrumental in shaping Spira's future.

Whatever the explanation, Bevelle survived. More than that, the nation that had once relied on military technology for its might eventually became the center of a religion that condemned machina.

Yunalesca played a crucial role in establishing the religion of Yevon. Through the Final Summoning, she demonstrated a way Sin could be defeated, at least temporarily. With her help, Bevelle developed a religious doctrine that explained Sin as punishment for humanity's sins, particularly its reliance on machina. The people of Spira were taught that they must atone for their transgressions, renounce forbidden machina, and follow the teachings of Yevon.

Essentially, Bevelle had once again created a power structure in which it held all the power. Only this time, it relied on religious doctrine rather than military technology.

Over time, Bevelle transformed from a technologically advanced military power into the center of a theocracy. Its new religion claimed to offer salvation from Sin, but in practice was perpetuating the very system that ensured Sin's continued existence.

And for the next thousand years, this religion would shape almost every aspect of Spiran society.

----

Anyway, that's about as far as I wanted to go with this. I mainly wanted to cover the events that led to the creation of Sin and Dream Zanarkand, since I feel like they're essential to understanding the story of FFX, but are often not fully understood by players. Some of the details are admittedly a bit speculative, so I'd be interested to hear if I've missed anything or gotten something wrong.

OST: Original 💿

This Somber/Hopeful theme plays when:

- Tidus and Yuna return to Zanarkand

- Orchestrated and Composed by - ℗Square Enix Sound Team | Nobuo Uematsu | Masashi Hamauzu

Obvious fire element.