Final Fantasy X Remaster, 1: His Story, and Valefor

 Tonight my friends, I take you to a very different place. Our tale begins in a city of exceptional technology, one where buildings reach for the sky as far as one can see. A massive stadium is there, which can be filled with water to host a sport that has been a tradition for years. This city, is Zanarkand.

Not related to the above text I know. I was searching for the game's title screen, and instead found this!

 Central to this tale is a young man named Tidus, a star in the sport played at the a fore mentioned stadium, blitz ball. It is a starry night in Zanarkand as Tidus prepares for his next match, dodging hordes of adoring fans in order to make it to the stadium on time. The game goes quite well, Tidus showing his prowess. However, this night holds something quite different from the usual.

The crowd pours into Zanarkand's stadium.

 Tidus is squared up to the ball, flipping over to lay a solid kick to send it shooting towards the goal. However, he sees something in the distance, a mysterious, massive, floating globe of shimmering water. Soon it erupts with beams of energy. These beams cause destruction and chaos as they strike throughout the city. Tidus soon meets a man he recognizes, a man named Auron. Auron gives him a blade, and instructs him on how to cut through the scaly beasts that now run rampant in the streets of Zanarkand. However, Auron holds a bit of a surprise, he looks towards the floating globe, and says "We called it 'Sin'". Instead of running from Sin, Auron leads Tidus inexplicably toward it.

 

Auron above Zanarkand.

  I had received the Final Fantasy X/X-2 remaster for Christmas, however due to moving recently I didn't have my TV or PS3. My family was kind enough to make the trip out to visit me, and I was thus able to procure these nigh essential items. My new found access to this game was just too tempting to pass up. However, I planned for my blog to jump around a bit anyway to keep things fresh, and allow me to talk about whatever games I happen to be playing at any time.

 I think a full re-telling of the game's story is probably unnecessary and would be taxing on both myself and the reader. Also, I don't want to spoil everything, as it's a story, and game, of great depth that I do recommend playing. I'm thinking instead I'll combine some amount of story exposition with something that has always intrigued me about the Final Fantasy series, the origin of names, and their history within the series.

 For example, starting with Final Fantasy III, the player can summon beasts into combat to help. These summons have had quite a history in the series, often taking a very central part to the plot, as is the case in FFX. The first summon gained here is called "Valefor", who is less of a "traditional" summon than some of the others. By this I mean that, for example, "Ifrit", the second summon gained in FFX, has been the summon tied to the fire element in almost all FF games. Valefor, for the most part, appears only in FFX and FFX-2.

Art for Valefor's "fayth", where the summoner can pray to receive it's help in the future.

 A quick Bing search (maybe I should use Google since this is blogger? =D) makes it appear that the name of a demon is the most likely source for Valefor. This seems likely, as so many of FF's names are taken from mythology. Given demon's close ties with currently practiced religion, some may not consider this mythology, but hopefully for the sake of this blog you will bear with me! In this case, the creature in the game just seems to have borrowed the name, not so much the other characteristics of the demon. "Valefar" may be a more common spelling of the demon's name, and also more closely resembles the Japanese version's spelling.

Yuna, after summoning Valefor on the isle of Besaid.

 A few quick notes, especially for this post, I've relied on pics I grabbed from image searches. While I would love to list the source pages for each one, this can be a pit of a pain in the ass to find, as well as possibly getting me assaulted by a gang of ads. So, for now I'm not worrying about it, hopefully we can all be cool about that. The same goes for any research I do. While I will present my conclusions as research, it's going to be a combination of online searches and my own knowledge and experience, so that comes with appropriate caveats as well.

 All that being that said, the blog is in it's infancy, and I'd greatly appreciate any comments about the format or what you would like to see. Especially if I've managed to send any new players over to Forgotten World!

 Narrowly saving young Tidus from falling to his almost certain death, Auron holds his arm as they are both pulled into contact with the entity, Sin. Tidus is immediately disoriented, then finds himself in a dream like state where he sees visions of his father, indicating to him there may be a connection between the two, Sin and Jecht. Jecht, being his father, whom Tidus assumed dead for ten years now.

Tidus and his team captain on Besaid.

 Tidus awakens in a land that is strange to him, yet also inexplicably tied to his home of Zanarkand. He finds his way to the shore of Besaid Isle, where he meets up with a blitz ball team, and a summoner, Yuna. Yuna prays at the island's temple and is then able to summon a spirit beast, called an aeon, named Valefor. It seems that Tidus's fate is tied to Yuna's, and they travel together, along with Tidus's new blitz team, towards the port of Kilika. However, Sin is ever on the horizon.

The Besaid temple.

 Join me again soon friends, for This Bard's Tales!