I think Tidus does improve a lot, and either way he's meant to improve. So it's not that they created a loud self-centred and obnoxious guy and expected you to like/relate to him, they created a loud self-centred and obnoxious guy and expected you to like watching him to learn to become more self-aware and less self-centred.
You can even see it in his voice acting. The 'voice over' is a lot deeper and calmer and slower paced, which is because that's him speaking towards the end of the game after he's learned. And you're meant to hear the VA and notice how different he seems from how he's speaking outside of the VA at the beginning of the game.
He also goes from insisting that they don't need to sacrifice anything that damages his happiness, to choosing to give it all up for the good of the people he likes.
I don't think his character arc is a masterpiece but what I like about it is, instead of having him change everything about himself when he 'grows up', they focus on the parts of him that were good and he learns to bring out those more. Sure he was self-centred, but there was a determination and optimism in it which can be admired.
He wasn't great at being selfless, but he learned to be selfless for the things he loved.
But that's the thing. It's done in such a way that I find him obnoxious to begin with so I don't care if he supposedly changes. First Impression are a thing and they are important.
A similar character is Luke from Tales of the Abyss. Yes, he was obnoxious in the beginning, spoiled and ignorant of the world. But he had a damn good reason to not know of the world outside of his home. Tidus doesn't exactly have that explanation.
Nor does he seem even remotely capable of acting decently without first making a huge ass out of himself. He comes to Spira and starts talking badly about their religion and its rules, breaks their rules while metaphorically flipping the people off... in German, the term would be "Er benimmt sich wie offene Hose" (lit. He behaves like open trousers) meaning that he acts in such a way that it goes beyond the limit of what is considered very inappropriate.
I don't want that guy to be my representation (especially if he's too stupid to just sit there, shut up and watch to find out what a Sending is rather than dumbly ask "Durrr... Lulu, what's a Sending?") and definitely do not want him in a leader position.
I could take the "sit down, shut up and watch" angle if it was something like football. I think "magical person swings a staff around and magic fireflies fly away" is much more abstract than, say, "guys in tight pants run from one side of a field to the other with a ball".
You can understand that something is being sent away by the process, yes. But for a... what, 16-18 year old spoilt sports star from a completely different world? I don't think sitting down and watching something like that would adequately explain the process. "The ritual sends the deceased away from the living world so they don't become monsters" isn't exactly clear just from watching - the "sending away" part, yes, but the reason behind it isn't clear to a total newcomer to Spira.
And Tidus doesn't have an excuse for being ignorant to Spira's rules, because a better character has a much more justified reason and Tidus' excuse fails in comparison? I'll agree that Tidus is a pompous little turd at the beginning of the game and it's grating, but he has been thrown from a life of luxury, where he lived his life being a pompous little turd beforehand (who was enthusiastic about his sport, still) into a world he has zero connection to. he doesn't know anything about Spira. Is he a jerk about it sometimes? Yeah, he is. But if nothing else, asking Lulu what a Sending is before seeing it is valid - it looks weird and spooky and completely detached from anything he'd seen in his world before, even more detached than the foreign elements he'd seen before on Besaid island, like the Yevon temple or Kimahri.
I won't hammer the "his character arc necessitates his jerk behavior at the start" point home, because while that is true, it's already been mentioned and it's sure to be hammered out in these comments more than once. But Tidus not being patient enough to sit complacently and watch something he has no understanding of? Nah. He was curious about whatever a Sending was, and even if he had sat thoughtfully and seen it with no prior context, he'd only be able to draw the "magic bugs go out of the coffins and fly away" part - he doesn't get why the dead are Sent, and why it's so important to Yevon and the world. He'd pretty much ask the same question to Lulu once it was over. There's a reason he asks the questions that he asks, and it's not that he's just an idiot who doesn't wait to see things through (though that does happen) - it's because he has no idea what he's getting into or what he's seeing, and he'd like to know what's going on either beforehand or during the process.
Come sail your ships around me, and burn your bridges down.
I think if he had asked what The Sending is for after watching it, it would have been better. It would show a decent, curious but also polite way of gaining knowledge of the world he's in. He's willing to sit back and watch what's going on, then ask for clarification of it makes absolutely 0 sense to him.
The Sending looks nice and, well... it's called a Sending. And it overall has the atmosphere of a funeral, so those two points would give a pretty good idea on what it is. The fact that unsent pyreflies can turn into monsters isn't exactly clear, but asking what the idea behind it is isn't as terrible as "What's a sending...? Uhrr... sin toxin..."
Though I think his dumber question is "What's 'The End'?" because... you can just hear the comedic needle scratch of foot-in-mouth being played. Because the constant talk of The Journey they are undergoing and how Fighting Sin is a big part of it... you'd think simple logic would tell him the End has at least something to do with Sin.
Tidus is certainly an underwhelming character and is really unlikeable early on, and Yuna is also a bit two-dimensional. However, I like everyone else and don't get the complaints about them. Sure, Wakka isn't especially likeable early on, but on the whole, he's what Tidus should've been when it comes to his character developing past the prejudice. Rikku also has some of the best voice acting in the series, actress winning award for her performance in the sequel. The non-playable characters like Shelinda are also quite memorable.
Then, while some things might be a bit too easy to figure out, I really like how opposite is not the case, and pretty much everything has at least some degree of foreshadowing to it, especially if you take your time to interact with NP Cs. The utilisation of NPC dialogue in there is quite masterful in general.
My favorite moment is when you can talk to a young Guado girl in Luca and she says that her brother has been chosen to guard Seymore. A little thing on your first time round, but when you play through it again, knowing that you'll literally have to kill her brother in that first battle ... Damn.
I agree that Wakka is okay, though when he's unlikeable, he's realy unlikeable. Especially since I just want to tell him to keep his damn mouth shut about anything Al Bhed related, since I know it will be nothing but "I hate them on principle, not out of proper reasons" crap.
Rikku is okay, I rather like her, mostly because she actually bothered to ask good questions about the religion and hatred toward her race.
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Good Story But The Characters...
Final Fantasy X was a good game in that the gameplay and battle system were decent, but definitely could've done with some improvements. Like the implementation of multi-targeting ones spells. Or removing the mechanic that, if a player wants the full AP from a battle, they need to have every party member active in the battle at least once.
Most of the battle system is pretty decent and the idea is nice that you can exchange your members, especially if some of them are better against certain types of enemies.
The story is pretty good, it can be a bit depressing at times, but it's not too bad of a one. Though, unfortunately, several of the plot twists are rather easy to figure out very early on, which has the disadvantage at making the hero Tidus seem rather... slow on the uptake...
Which brings me to the main issue with this game. The characters are not good. Some are decent to entertaining, like Auron and maybe Lulu. But the rest are the kind that you want to tape their mouths shut cause you don't want to hear a single word from them. The worst being Tidus.
I understand that they attempted to have him be a representative of the player and needing aspects of the game and lore to be explained, but they did it in a way that makes Tidus seem as self-centered and dumb as possible, which ultimately makes it seem like the developers believe the player to idiots themselves.
Especially since several of the aspects do not need to be explained, since it's the same thing one has seen in previous Final Fantasy or RPGs but under a different name. Tidus' personality is not that much better. He's loud, obnoxious and I do not see how he improves, even later when he tries to grow into a more proper hero and leader role.
The voice acting of the game was okay, except for Hedy as Yuna, who ended up with strange pauses in her sentences as she was trying to voice her lines to fit with the game's Japanese lipflaps. And James Arnold Taylor who manages to up Tidus' obnoxicity even higher. Though I must say the Japanese voice acting was not that much better, though Morita has the excuse at not being great at balancing his emotion-in-voice ratio, since it was his Debut Role.