Final Fantasy 10 was the first game in the series for the sixth generation of consoles, launching on the PS2 in 2001. It’s notable for many reasons – it was the first mainline game to have full voice acting, it was the first game in the series to receive a direct sequel with Final Fantasy 10-2, and it saw huge shifts in music that saw established composer Nobuo Uematsu taking on a collaborative role that would mark the beginning of his move away from the franchise.
With all these shifts, Final Fantasy 10 brought a whole new generation of fans on board, many of whom see the game as the best of the whole series. Here are just a handful of the ways that Final Fantasy 10 did things better than other games in the franchise.
6 Worldbuilding
Final Fantasy 10 is set in a world known as Spira, a world gripped by endless attacks by an unstoppable creature known as Sin. It’s also one of Final Fantasy’s more interesting and visually stunning worlds overall.
Inspired by South East Asia, Spira features a lot of unique architecture and seaside vistas, while the writing paints the world as oppressed by a religious order with its people trying their best to go through life. Spira is an endlessly vibrant world full of distinct cultures and diverse locations that stands out against some of the other worlds from the series.
5 Late Game Sphere Grid Customization
The Sphere Grid is Final Fantasy 10’s central party leveling system, where AP earned in battles is used to advance progress on a connected web of nodes that unlock abilities and stat boosts. While the system is specifically designed to steer each party member along a specific class – White Mage for Yuna, Black Mage for Lulu, Warrior for Auron, etc. – this drastically changes in the late game.
Every character shares the same Sphere Grid, which means that once a character has reached the end of their natural path on the grid, late-game items can open up routes onto other character paths. This means that each character, with enough grinding and careful resource management, can be directed down additional paths that strengthen and enhance their roles within the party. It’s a system that combines the best parts of past games’ Job systems with a more free-form custom approach.
4 Side Content
Final Fantasy 10 is a linear game for much of its run time, with the party following a specific path on Yuna’s pilgrimage. However, in the later parts of the game, the party gains access to an airship and can now hop around Spira as they see fit, opening up a ton of side content that expands the game significantly.
From optional Aeons to hidden weapons, there are a ton of things to be found tucked away in Spira. With mini-games like Chocobo training in the Calm Lands and Spira’s main sport Blitzball, there’s plenty to keep players occupied before they decide to finally take the fight to Sin.
3 Active Party Switching
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One of the more frustrating elements of any JRPG is managing the various party members, keeping them all useful and leveled up for any situation. It can result in a lot of swapping between fights and long times spent grinding to keep everyone in good condition, or even restarted boss fights at times when the party combination turns out to not be ideal.
Final Fantasy 10 avoids this entirely with its brilliant party-switching feature. At any time during a battle, any party member can be swapped out for another, and instantly take their turn in place of the character swapped out. It adds a ton of strategy to battles, as different enemies are best handled by different party members – Wakka is best for flying enemies, Lulu can exploit elemental weaknesses, Auron is best on armored enemies, etc. – and being able to switch between them on the fly avoids frustration and keeps every party member active and useful.
2 Epic Summon Battles
Summons have always been powerful characters that the party can call upon in numerous Final Fantasy games. However, there is a problem with them most of the time, since more often than not they just feel like casting a huge spell with a long casting animation rather than truly calling on a powerful being for their help. Final Fantasy 10 built most of its story around summons, as Yuna is on a pilgrimage to become a powerful summoner, and as such, they overhauled how summons work in the best possible way.
In Final Fantasy 10, when an Aeon is summoned, the party leaves and the player takes control of the Aeon instead as it offers its assistance to Yuna. This can lead to situations where summons arrive to take down major bosses or even other Aeons called on by enemies, and these fights are often large-scale exchanges of blows that build up to big final special attacks. They’re epic and exciting in ways that past summons were not, and it’s one of the best parts of the game.
1 One Of The Series’ Greatest Emotional Plot Twists
The Final Fantasy series has a ton of great stories, and deciding which one is the best is difficult. However, in Final Fantasy 10 there is a reveal that happens in the later stages of the game that completely reshapes the rest of the game and the character interactions that came before. There are spoilers ahead.
Later in the story, Tidus discovers that Yuna’s pilgrimage is one that she expects to die on and that she fully intends to be a sacrifice to provide peace to those she leaves behind. For much of the game, Tidus has worked to keep her spirits up, expecting that her anxiousness was down to it simply being a long, difficult journey. When he realizes the truth, however, it provides an entirely new context for both him and the player, and adds an extra layer of sadness to an already harrowing story, with the impact connecting directly to the game’s central characters.