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mysticorbcollector · 1 month

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I think Tidus is one of the most overlooked and overly bashed-on protagonists ever and a lot of what op said about him is why I think he’s awesome, actually.

Okay, yes, Tidus is ABSOLUTELY an annoying, kinda cringe character. He is a superstar teenage boy with daddy issues. But his kinda bratty and childish attitude and ideals are what make him such a driving change in Spira, a place in which death, and the acceptance of the way things are are ingrained in the citizens and ruling powers.

(Also I think a lot of people tend to forget they were also, in fact, kind of bratty and annoying as a teenager.)

Spira and its people accept the status quo. That loving something is deciding to do what you think is “best” for them.

Tidus asks the question, “who decided that this was how it’s supposed to be?” He believes that there ARE other ways of doing things. That there are other solutions. He won’t accept the way things are if he sees other ways of succeeding. To put it simply, bro is in it to win it and I vibe with that a lot.

Also, Tidus is just a very upfront, tell it like he thinks, and eager dude. He’s a super endearing character to me. The way he cares about things, and people with everything he’s got. Pushes constantly towards something better. He says that anyone can learn the Jecht Shot if they practice hard enough, directly opposing his father Jecht, who says that nobody can hope to make that shot, simply because he’s better. Tidus earnestly builds people up, encouraging them to aim higher, while Jecht berates in (I believe) an attempt to “toughen” people up.

Anyways, I could say more but I’ll have to actually gather my thoughts properly for that, but…

Tidus, you may be cringe and annoying and bad to some, but that cringe and annoying personality is ENDEARING TO ME. I’m always defending one of my my top 10 protags of all time to the end, even with his crazy ass early 2000s rpg fit (which is camp and cool I’m sorry, please argue with the brick wall if you disagree) and roots that NEED to be re-bleached‼️

Crystal Lore: Final Fantasy X was the first Final Fantasy I played to completion. At the time, my friends at school who had Playstation consoles were all big into FF7, and insisted I should try it. Well as fortune would have it, my step-brothers had a Playstation 2, so there was hope. But by that point, FF7 was hard to specifically find, and it would take a while before I got ahold of it. FF10, however, was current, so my father got me that. It was the second RPG I ever played, after Grandia 2, which was part of a Dreamcast bundle game my dad got. The fact that both games heavily featured an evil church and defeating god with a group of teenagers meant that I assumed every RPG was just like that.

Anyway, all this to say I actually really like FF10. It's a fun game! It's goofy, but in a way that felt sincere! The specific dialogue is awkward at times, more a matter of direction than anything, but but I loved this game. So unlike the PS1 era, my recollection of its main story was very strong, and I went into this kinda knowing I'd vibe with it. Still, much to talk about.

Usual disclaimer going into this: a lot of my desire to replay the series as a whole stems from playing the Pixel Remasters, then watching Professor Bopper's analysis videos on the games. He has one out for the PS2 games now, and as usual, the assessment of game's themes is deeper than anything I would've come up with on my own, so I'll be trying to stick to personal thoughts or anything I can add while shilling his videos. I like them a lot.

Shortly after the era in which I played this, we had that era of the internet where reviewers would kinda tear into everything for sport. FF10 was, of course, caught in the blast, for being kind of bizarre in a lot of its framing and stilted in its voice direction. Of particular harm was Tidus, a protagonist who is cringe as hell. His dad is a major star sportsman who became a legendary guardian, turning around his shittier ways for the sake of saving a world he barely knows. Comparatively, Tidus is often seen as a whiny braggart who acts petulant about most things. I'm not here to say that Tidus is not those things, but I am here to say that's kind of why I vibe with him.

A major takeaway of the Bopper video is that Tidus, as someone external to Spira who doesn't think like its inhabitants, is the only one capable of looking for solutions outside of the cycle of abuse, violence, and death. Examining Tidus through that lens does offer quite a lot, pretty much from second one. The blitzball angle is played up a lot, and one of the earliest scenes around it is Tidus agreeing to play for Wakka's team. When he asks Wakka about his goals, Wakka expresses he just wants to do his best with no regrets, to which Tidus (correctly) goes "no, absolutely not, if you're gonna play you play to win." The idea of actually winning at the sport he plays never even crossed Wakka's mind. It just never seemed like a possibility, and thus wasn't something worth pursuing. How could there be anything outside of his belief?

This continues all the way through their confrontation with Yunalesca in Zanarkand. They're told the Final Aeon is bunk, they're told that Yuna and one of the guardians must die to see it through anyway, and start lining up to volunteer. When Tidus presses his objections, the others call him childish, and he has to ask "then what would an adult do? Just let Yuna die?"

What I wound up really liking about Tidus is that, while his visions of what should be done seem loftly to the point of absent idealism, he's grounded in material outcomes. You play the sport because you want to win. You fight Sin because you want it gone for good, and no half-measures will cut it. No one should die for something that won't fix a problem. Any fight that's lasted hundreds of years means something is being done wrong. It's an interesting angle, having your petulant, childish protagonist actually be the most materially sensible person here. It also makes for a strong contrast with Seymour, who is similarly about material ends. He signs off on the Operation Mi'ihen plan to destroy Sin with machina, not because he thinks it'll work, but because it's worth trying a different way, and everyone is doing this for the right reasons. Tidus even comments that while it's not something he's supposed to say for his station, what Seymour says there made sense to him.

But their differences are the thematic heart of the story. While Tidus seeks a way to fully defeat Sin, Seymour, like the rest of Spira, cannot see beyond what they know. Seymour's only perceived solution is to accelerate the cycle until it can no longer replicate. When everything is dead, nothing can die, and thus we have defeated Sin. He embodies the defeatist attitudes of the world at large, and the depressing acceptance that things just have to be this way.

The other angle I think is interesting is the dynamics of power and those at the top. There's the obvious in Jecht's braggart nature and constantly putting down his son, but you also have things like the Luca Goers being poor sports and getting away with it because they're favored to win, Biran and Yenke being assholes to Kimahri because Biran's the strongest of the Ronso, or the maesters of Yevon doing whatever they want because you know we need proper leadership so we'll twist the teachings for ourselves while the rest of you sacrifice yourselves. There's a constant sort of bullying going on in the foreground, and wild abuses of power within the structures that govern the world.

But it's important to remember that in his world, Tidus was at the top. He was the best player of the best team, and from his position at the top...he's willing to teach kids how to play, engages more casually with his fans, and builds up Wakka's team of losers so bad they've never won a singular game by insisting any of them could learn the Jecht Shot with enough practice. Tidus is unique in Spira, in how he refuses to really abuse his position. It's a huge point of pride he has, and it's something he throws around a bit to show why he's able to back up his claims, but he's never hostile toward others about it.

This leads into the bigger aspect: everyone in Spira is really bad at love.

Auron makes a point of showing Tidus that no, Jecht really did love you. He cared deeply, but his means of showing that were atrocious. Similarly, Biran and Yenke torment Kimahri, with the belief that if he holds to shame, he will improve as a warrior like they'd want for him. This doesn't work, Kimahri can't overcome them until he finds someone he's willing to fight and potentially die for, but the point remains. In Spira, love is shown in the manner you think is best for them, and it...does not go well.

Yuna's arranged marriage to Seymour really hammers this in. Lulu talks about how sure, she would want Yuna to marry for love, but she can't. Yuna is destined to sacrifice herself, and thus there is no place for her feelings in the matter. The love she must endure is what others want for her, and only Tidus really calls this out as incredibly messed up. Seymour's ambition here is to become the Final Aeon and jump to Sin, which is fully explained when you meet Yunalesca and understand the process. Yunalesca explains the Final Aeon as an "act of love," be it between partners or friends. The willingness to sacrifice yourself for another is the act of love that can defeat Sin.

...except we know that doesn't work. Lingering in the background the whole game is Chappu, Lulu's fiance and Wakka's brother, who became a Crusader to fight Sin. In his passed-on words, he believed "Keeping your girl close is good, but keeping Sin far away from her is better." With that belief that the way Lulu needed to be loved was by him fighting...he died. Uselessly, he died, and the trauma of his loss continues to hurt Lulu and Wakka even now. By loving them in the way he felt best, rather than in the way they would have wanted, he caused more harm than good. This is a microcosm of the cycle of Sin. The Final Aeon is born from an act of love - the love you believe is best for others. But this act causes others harm, and it contorts, recreating Sin in an endless cycle.

(Quick note I can't fit in anywhere else: this is also why Seymour is the way he is. His mother sacrifices herself to become an aeon, anticipating it will make him strong enough to live on his own as he needs to being half-human half-Guado, but loving him like she thinks is best fails him entirely and he falls into a sense that death is the only way out, so whoopsie.)

This is, again, where Tidus is unique. He alone loves others as they would want. He cares deeply for Yuna as a person, and engages her at a personal level, never once deciding that self-sacrifice is a viable option. He connects with Wakka over blitzball and resolves to help Wakka, but pushes Wakka to remember why he picked up the game in the first place. He encourages Kimahri to push back on Biran and Yenke's abuse. For all his whining in Luca about "Why did I have to know, why did it have to be me?" He's right. No one ever really considered his feelings in the matter on...well, anything. And in his position as a star player, in what capacity he can, he's determined not to inflict that same pain on anyone else. He loves deeply and earnestly, but most important, he loves others in the way they would want, and doesn't impose what he believes is best on anyone. I dunno, I...really liked Tidus, actually.

By gameplay, the game is excellent. Characters feel distinct from one another, but notably, the system allows for a fast-paced rotation of characters in and out of battle without consuming a turn. By setting up enemy encounters with a sort of "X beats Y" mentality, you rotate your party around frequently, giving everyone ample play, in order to make the most of your characters. At a basic level, Tidus can beat the fast wolf and lizard enemies, Wakka beats fliers, Lulu beats elementals, and Yuna summons for the major HP blobs like Ochu. What this culminates in is boss fights where you have a machine weak to Electric attacks, but it has a flying magic-suppressant, so you lead with Wakka and Kimahri to take out the suppressor then swap in Yuna and Lulu to dish out heavy damage. It's a great system.

The level up system is also replaced with the Sphere Grid. You actively move your character along a line of progression toward stat boosts and skills, and it's...okay, it's a little too heavy on micromanagement, but it's not much of a problem, and opens up options for customization. Kimahri is the poster child for this, being your Blue Mage who can take any given path to copy another player's stats and skills. I went with White Mage because healing good, but I made sure to grab Steal and Use too for utility. I was also able to double back and get Lulu Lancet so MP was never a concern, and had Yuna (and Kimahri) cross over into Lulu's grid to pick up -aga spells late-game. The grid works out okay.

There are smaller systems, like powering up your Aeons or applying custom effects to equipment, but I never used them. Much like FF9, equipment determines additional effects and skills, but unlike FF9, you're kinda at the mercy of whatever skills drop on items, as customizing takes rare items and quite a lot of them to apply. It's also meaningless. I never bought any equipment, and I rarely swapped things around. Armor for immunities or resistances, sure, but weapons? Not once.

*sigh* At this point, I do need to consider something. It's a question that's been eating at me for nearly two weeks now. When assessing the quality of a game as a full experience...should the optional post-game content count against it?

Because if yes, oh my god does this game fall apart. FF10's postgame is, bar nothing, the worst postgame experience I have ever endured. I finished the main game in like 22-24 hours. My save file is currently sitting at 69 hours, and we have way too many more hours to go. We're frankly not even close to done.

See, the postgame goes through multiple phases. First is monster catching. You're introduced to this early, but the short is you eventually go back and catch 10 of every monster in the world. It's super tedious because there's always a rare one, and you need special equipment to do it. Hooray.

Second is getting the Celestial Weapons. These are infuriating, because they required you to engage with some of the worst minigames known to man. Dodge 200 lightning bolts with precision timing! Race a chocobo that barely listens to you without getting hit by obstacles that swerve a full 90 degrees to hit you! Play Blitzball for like six hours, resetting the league at least twice and starting all your progress over! It's painful, but somehow, at least the pain is a sensation.

Step three! From the captured monsters, you can now fight really strong fiends that are frankly too strong for you, hope you found Anima and/or Magus Sisters, because now you have to farm stat boosting spheres to apply to the sphere grid to cap stats! This involves also farming a billion activation spheres, which were never a problem in the main game but are a massive roadblock now, and dealing with exceptionally slow fights like Jumbo Flan, who takes several minutes to beat one (1) time. You will farm it at least 10 times. All of this is to cap everyone's stats and get all skills on the sphere grid, which has the side-effect of removing the sense of unique attributes each character had, in favor of "Everyone is max speed and attack, and just spams Quick Hit until Yuna summons to block an instant kill death attack." It sucks.

But wait! That's just to beat Nemesis, the strongest fight in the old NA version! The Remaster is international, which means my childhood self can fulfill its desire to beat the Dark Aeons and Penance! You know! Once you farm 300 HP spheres because Break HP Limit feels goddamned mandatory on these fights, and also 53 luck spheres from the worst fight known to the series. Because the Dark Aeons involve fights that can dodge every attack if you didn't cap luck. Yeah, turns out no matter how high your accuracy is, if your foe is even just kinda evasive, you'll never hit. You need to cap luck. But that also means farming Fortune Spheres from another awful monster arena boss. See, both Luck and Fortune spheres are dropped by monsters that counterattack every move you make with high animation time spells. They have 1.5 million and 1.1 million HP respectively, which if you hit damage cap each swing, is 16 and 12 attacks respectively. Oh and the former casts Ultima, which is 12 goddamned seconds of animation. That fight lasts 5 minutes on a good run, and like 80% of it is watching its goddamned counter animation. And you do all of this...so your Quick Hits will connect, and you can tank their counterattacks. Provided you made equipment that has Break HP Limit (farm Nemesis, other Dark Aeons, or fight Shinryu 25 times for one (1) character), Ribbon or Stoneproof because they all inflict petrification that instant shatters removing the party member entirely, and Auto-Haste, which requires a shitload of cash to bribe an encounter enemy, which sucks because you also need a ton of cash to even fight these arena fights (the asshole charges you to deal with this) and then over 3 million to remove the worthless sphere grid nodes with Clear Spheres. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention: the sphere grid is cluttered with useless +1, +2, and +3 stat point nodes, and all HP nodes are +200. Remove literally all of them, undoing all your progress and replacing them with the farmed stat boost spheres, or you don't have enough room to get your stats where they need to go in order to participate in the postgame fights. Anyway, you beat all the Dark Aeons with this and then find out Penance doesn't even use status, it just uses big damage so you want Auto-Protect to cut that down and Auto-Regen to recover BUT WAIT! Skills can't be overwritten on equipment in this game, so while you need Break HP Limit and Auto-Haste, you don't need Ribbon, and that earlier equipment is useless, so you have to start that process all over again! Isn't that fun?! Hahaha! HAHAHA! HAAAAAA! AAAAAAAAAAAAA!

Fortunately, I didn't count postgame against 7 or 8, so I won't count it against 10. 10's really good, I liked it a lot. I think 5 and 9 outrank it just on preference for gameplay, but this might be #3. Just do not look at postgame. Ignore it. There is nothing worse. Engage with the really nice story and snappy gameplay and live freely and beautifully. Don't even think about the Celestial Weapons, they're not important. Just keep moving forward. Do get Anima, though. Such a cool summon.

#ff10 #final fantasy x #final fantasy 10 #If Tidus FFX has 100 fans one of them is me. If Tidus FFX has 1 fan it’s me. If Tidus FFX has 0 fans it means I’m dead #Tidus needs a bleach and tone asap please who let him have the boxed bleach

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