System: PS3
Bought: March 2013
Started: March 21st
Beat: May 14th
Trophies: 22 of 34
Idea: You're playing the game from the perspective of Tidus, a young, male blitzball star that was brought to the land of Spira by a creature that attacked Zanarkand during a tournament. Alone and extremely confused he joins up with Yuna and her band of guardians while they are on a quest to defeat that same creature, Sin.
On the journey the group discovers just how much their "church" and "god" have been lying to them. Sin was sent to punish them for using machines a very long time ago, in the process their Zanarkand and basically every city is destroyed. Summoners set off to obtain the Final Aeon in the hopes that they will be the ones who one and for all destroy Sin and bring an ever lasting Calm, which would signal that the people of Spira had finally been forgiven for their past discretion's. Lies.
Thoughts: I had all ready beaten this game a couple times on the Playstation 2, but I was quite happy to find out that the slightly different Japanese version of the game was being released in HD on the PS3. I pretty much pre-ordered it as soon as it was available.
The game itself wasn't much different from what I remember, other then the music being tweeked a bit and the graphics being prettier. Well, there are the Dark Aeons... those guys are bastards... Other then them however nothing was overly difficult. One could say the last battle is a joke with the self rezz being constantly active... Same old, Same Old.
The inability to skip the cut scenes makes the first few hours of this game pretty unbearable, certainly if you want to win the first blitzball game and need to reset a few times. Which I did do, but never actually won the Tourney. Meh.
Storyline wise, at first it presents itself as a time travel deal. Tidus traveled a thousand years into the future, a thousand years after Sin destroyed Zanarkand, but that's not really the case. It's not the future, it's just the "real world" basically. With Sin being Jecht, he plucks his son out of the "Dream" Zanardkand and plants him firmly into the real Spira. In the hopes that he kills him.... Kinda twisted really.
Characters, are well fleshed out with each having their own little back stories popping up as you go throughout the game. The main line of course, to defeat Sin was a little disappointing... well... The whole Tidus in love with Yuna, Tidus is a dream, Kill Sin/Yu Yevon and he vanishes thing.. Yea.
It's a great game, doubt I will ever platinum it though... the recs for some of the trophies are just crazy and my attention span isn't that great. haha...
Characters.....
Tidus - He's the star player for the Zanarkand Abes, or at least he was. Drug from his reality into Spira by Sin, he's sort of treated like a crazy man at first...until people decide it was Sins toxins that caused him to think he was from Zanarkand.
One person {other than Auron} believes that he is in fact from Zanarkand, Yuna. The Summoner he meets, decides to aid in her quest to defeat Sin and falls in love with. She was one of the few people who met his father, Jecht...after Sin brought him to Spira he was recruited by Yuna's father to be his guardian in his own quest to defeat Sin. Therefore, she's heard of the other Zanarkand before... from him.
Through most the story, Tidus doesn't quite realize that Summoners die when they defeat Sin... he was quite pissed when he finally figures it out and is bent on figuring out how to defeat the creature without having to sacrifice Yuna. What he finds is that the only way to defeat Sin would cause him to "die"...and yet he continues on to save Yuna.
His back story is rather depressing too, his father Jecht was an extremely good blitzball player as well... at the time however Tidus was young and not quite as skilled as his old man. His mother pretty much ignored Tidus while Jecht was around and when Jecht disappeared one day while out practicing at sea... Tiduses mother dies of a broken heart...
His whole live just turns into one huge tragedy.
Yuna - The daughter of an Al Bhed woman and the High Summoner Braska, ten years before the game begins her father defeats Sin leaving her alone in the world. Well, until Kimahri shows up to bring her to Besaid... there she lives with Lulu, Wakka, Kimahri and the other villagers and studies to become a Summoner herself.
Incredibly kind and maybe a little naive, she is determined to get rid of Sin...forever. Not just for a few years like the summoners before her and in this journey she has the world as she knows it shattered, her love ripped from her and she even becomes a fugitive from the church that she serves.
Her determination pays off, she and the party defeat Sin and Yu Yevon.... with a fairly high cost to her. I guess I have to say she may be the most... one goal person in the game. Her whole life revolved around being a Summoner and defeating Sin... after Sin she wasn't supposed to be alive so.. the end game was pretty open for her. Even without Tidus.
Auron - This guy is actually pretty interesting, I had forgotten one small quirk about him... he's an unsent. He was one of Braska's Guardians during his battle with Sin, enraged by what he had learned and the loss of Jecht and Braska, he goes after Yunalesca.... who "kills" him. Being strong of mind however, he does not die and continues on with his mission... Using Jecht Sin he travels to Dream Zanarkand and watches over Tidus until he too is sucked into Spira by Sin.
After a little while back in Spira, he catches up with Tidus and Yuna who he is now traveling with. Everyone knows Auron as one of Braska's guardians so he's held in high regaurd, other than possibly Kimahri noone realizes that Auron is actually dead {other then Seymour}.
He acts as sort of a guide, father figure for Tidus and even Yuna during the Journey...knowing everything they are just now figuring out he remains fairly quiet...but supportive. He's even quite open with Rikku, even with her being Al Bhed and a little quirky.
After Yu Yevon and Sin are defeated, he finallys allows Yuna to "Send" him...so he can finally rest.
Lulu - The older sister figure, she lived on Besaid with Wakka and Yuna while they were all growing up. Her parents were killed by Sin when she was very young, not much detail was given on that though. She was in love with Wakka's brother Chappu, but he too was killed by Sin while trying to fight the creature with the Crusaders.
Before Yuna, Lulu was a Guardian for two other Summoners. One was killed in Yojimbo's cave while the other gave up when they reached the Calm Lands, both you "meet" during the journey... one as an angry, unsent, Yojimbo summoner and the other comes to warn you about Yuna's traitor status.
Wakka - Really, there's not a lot to him... he's protective of Yuna, secretly loves Lulu even though she was engaged to his now deceased brother, is a bit of a Yu Yevon nut and hates the Al Bhed even though he doesn't seem to be able to recognize them when he sees one.
He takes it the hardest when they find out that the Meisters and the whole Yu Yevon thing is just one big lie. Oh, he's a blitzball player too...
Kimahri Ronso - He's been with Yuna the longest, he came across a dying Auron just outside of Bevelle and was told about the seven year old Yuna. Auron asked him to take her from Bevelle to Besaid like Braska wanted Auron to, so that Yuna may live peacefully....
Kimahri did so with the plans of just leaving her there, but it didn't turn out that way. When he attempted to leave, Yuna begged him to stay...and he does.
He has a fairly complicated relationship with the other Ronso.... something about a fight when he was younger and his horn was broken. Which is some sort of major deal with them. Other than that.. he's cool, he's quiet...and he's...just cool. Heh.
Rikku - The Al Bhed! My favorite character, the hyper...adorable...bouncey... late comer to the party. She's Yuna's cousin...and she's the one Wakka can't even tell is an Al Bhed. She's determined to keep her cousin alive, either by figuring out a new way to defeat Sin or to talk Yuna into stopping her pilgrimage.
Her father is Cid, the captain of the Al Bhed Airship that you get late in the game... heh.
Bad Guys....
Seymour Guado - He's a little insane, he wants to "become Sin" so he may bring Spira to an Eternal Calm by pretty much destroying everyone/thing. He's a half human, half Guado, ex summoner, Maester that was treated badly by human and guados while he was young...
During his pilgrimage he gets to the end, he gets to Yunalesca.. his mother was his guardian and she is the one that would have to be his final summon. He just couldn't do it, he was still just a child... his mother turns into Anima.
It turns out that he killed his father, the at the time Guado Maester so that he could take his place.. Yuna figures this out from a sphere that an unsent Lord Jyscal drops while he attemped to leave the Farplane while the party was visiting.
At first, Seymour is nice and...sauve and stuff. He flirts with Yuna and then proposes to her, he wants to be her one...her love...her final summons so that he may become Sin. He wanted the two of them to bring "Hope" to Spira by marrying one another... Blech.
Seymour turns out to be a giant pain in the ass, he's that bad guy who just keeps showing up and just will not die... not till the very end. Then I am not even sure if he was completely "sent" he could still be bouncing around Spira somewhere for all I know.
Sin - For some reason noone knows where Sin comes from, you'd think that it would have leaked out after a thousand years just how the thing manifests. Of course, the Maesters and the church have everyone blindly believing that it just shows up to punish them for their sins... Everyone but the Al Bhed that is.
Anyways... Unbeknownest to most the world... Yu Yevon, their nice little savior god is actually Sin. Sin is merely the Gods "Armor" basically. This Armor is made from the Final Aeon, which the High Summoner calls to defeat the previous Sin. A Summoners Final Aeon is created from one of the Summoners Guardians.... Summoners don't figure this out till they get to Zanarkand and talk to Yunalesca though. There she drops the Bomb on them.
In Braska's case, Jecht volunteers to become the Final Aeon and fight Sin. Therefore, the Sin that Tidus and his group has to face is his father's Final Form that is slowly being taken over by the God Yu Yevon. If a Summoner defeats Sin without the Final Aeon, Yu Yevon then has to jump to the nearest Aeon and it goes from there...
That's why, the Final Battle takes a while since you have to kill..every...one...of your Aeons. It's really rather sad.
Yunalesca- She was the first summoner to defeat Sin and Ironically she was Yu Yevon's daughter, her final aeon was her husband Zaon... which in turn was the next Sin. Yunalesca lives in an unsent form in the destroyed Zanarkand, waiting for the new Summoners at the end of their pilgrimages to explain how screwed up things really are.... heh.
Really, to tell them about the final aeon and how Sin really works. Yuna and company are the first to not accept that way of defeating Sin and end up killing Yunalesca...sort of.
Yu Yevon - He's responsible for this whole mess, but he's also the creator of Dream Zanarkand. A very long time ago he was the Ruler of Zanarkand, near the end of the war with Bevelle he and the other Summoners of Zanarkand decide to become Fayth to save their Zanardkand, sort of.
Going to sleep, they dream/summon the other Zanarkand and with the help of pyreflies they summon Sin to protect them.
I think it sort of went out of control and turned into something that not even Yevon wanted. The continuous summon and death of Sin and the Summoners...the final Aeons and that whole big mess.
The End.....
Tidus Dies, Auron Dies, Jecht/Sin Dies, The Eternal Calm is on! Yuna is broken hearted living on Besaid while trying to figure out what to do with the rest of her life, a life that she didn't figure she'd have.
I'll assume that perhaps, the truth about Yu Yevon and Sin has finally made it's way around Spira and that the people would start pulling away from the false religion...
The journey was rough on everyone, not just the dead people... Even turned out that most the Maesters were actually unsent. I guess that makes them Zombies in ways, without the brain eating.. except for maybe Seymour, I could see him eating brains.
With Yu Yevon gone, the other Fayth in Old Zanarkand are presumable allowed to wake up{die} from their never ending dream and with it everything Dream Zanarkand ceased to exist... Messy. Well, not for people of Spira... most of them probably will never know that the Dream place existed.
The game itself actually ends with Yuna giving a speach to everyone in Bevelle with the Guardians she has left, credits run and you see Tidus wake up in water... Which is a little confusing. Guess that's what X-2 is for...
There's a 14 Minute Diddy that Square released to connect X and X-2, it shows Yuna living on Besaid with Wakka and Lulu... People always wanting to meet with the defeater of Sin! She's still hung up on Tidus and is still not taking time for herself..
Until Rikku shows up with a Sphere, it looks like it's a video of someone who looks....sounds just like Tidus being held in a cage. Yuna decides to finally live life for herself and leave with Rikku to figure out just what that Sphere is...and if that's Tidus.
