Final Fantasy X / Tropes P to S

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P

• Party Scattering: At Macalania Temple, Sin splits up the characters and spreads them across the Bikanel Desert. The guardians manage to regroup, but Yuna was captured and taken away to a completely different city, and the player must do without her until the party can find her again.
• Path of Inspiration: The Church of Yevon, an arguably grayer example of the trope. Ignoring Seymour, the leaders all mix some level of corruption with good intentions, believing that You Can't Fight Fate when it comes to Sin and that even a little drab of hope is better than utter futility.
• Peninsula of Power Leveling:
  • An early game example is the fight while on route to Kilika against Sin's fin. If you avoid depleting the fin's health to zero, and instead kill the enemies that appear, you can farm the monsters as long as you wish, since killing one contributes towards leveling up. Doing so for a while can allow you to join several levels and progress really quickly into the Sphere Grid, well before you would reasonably be able to.
  • Though you have to unlock a lot of the battles in it by capturing fiends, the Monster Arena has nearly everything you need for your power-leveling needs to tackle the optional endgame content and combining many small tricks is practically a requirement for making the grind go much faster.
  • A trick with Don Tonberry involves equipping a party with Overdrive → AP enchantments and abusing the fiend's Karma attack on one victim to constantly hit it with a highly damaging attack. The damage that would become Overdrive meter is instead converted into AP to raise everyone's sphere levels to 99 in a matter of minutes, compared to around 30-40 battles in the game's toughest dungeon for the same result.
  • Using a Distill item or ability on Kottos can turn the 20 (40 if overkilled) Healing Springs it drops into Power, Mana, Speed, or Ability Spheres for activating stat/ability nodes on the Sphere Grid. Nearly all other enemies only drop one type of item, making Kottos the fastest source of activating spheres.
  • Certain fiends in the Monster Arena drop spheres that can convert empty nodes on the Grid Sphere into max level stat nodes. These are items that the player is only given a handful of throughout the story.
• Permanently Missable Content:
  • Many of the items in Bevelle and Home, for example. Watch for those Al Bhed Primers! Notably, one particular weapon in the Via Purifico can be permanently missable if you defeat Evrae Altana through methods other than spamming healing items; that's right, the easier way to defeat it is the more rewarding way.
  • Though it is zigzagged regarding the Al Bhed Primers. Al Bhed spheres, which can be found here and there throughout the world, can be used to give you every Primer that was found on other save files. If you have an old save file in which you did find every Primer, or happen to have a relative or friend who did find every Primer, you can still get the ones you missed on your own save file (or alternatively, get them extremely early in the game). If you have only one file though, you're out of luck.
  • Thanks to a bug, there's a piece of armor for Tidus with Magic Counter (a weapon ability) purchasable at the Calm Lands the first time you arrive, and a random weapon that can drop from Geosgaeno with No Encounters (an armor ability) and can be lost if you don't obtain them the first time.
  • Averted with the Destruction Sphere in the Bevelle Cloister of Trials. Since it's impossible to return to this location in the game, the trial's solution forces you to use the Destruction Sphere to proceed, where it's optional in all other trials. This prevents one of Yuna's summons from becoming unobtainable.
• Perpetual Storm: The Thunder Plains are a massive barren area covered by a constant thunderstorm. There's a minigame based around dodging lightning strikes; doing so two hundred times in a row earns you part of Lulu's Infinity +1 Sword.
• Perspective Reversal: It's done subtly, but this is a major theme in the game. Early on Yuna, in line with her commitment as a summoner, feels that any sacrifice is worth making if it will bring the people of Spira even a little hope and happiness, while Tidus finds the prospect of giving up one's life to win only a temporary victory horrifying. As the plot moves along, Yuna, partially motivated by her conversations with Tidus, begins to question her beliefs, ultimately refusing to make a sacrifice that will only delay Sin's return rather than defeat it when asked to do so by Yunalesca. Tidus, on the other hand, comes to see the nobility of sacrifice from the actions of Yuna and her guardians, and when he learns that there is a way to permanently vanquish Sin, but that it will result in him dying as well, he willingly goes ahead with it and gives his own life. It becomes more obvious by the sequel, where Yuna is explicit about her change in attitude on the subject.
• Petal Power: Yojimbo's Zanmato attack. He slices any enemy in half while cherry petals glide across the screen.
• Pilgrimage: For most of the game, the party is escorting Yuna as she travels to shrines located across Spira to receive their blessing, a journey taken by every summoner before her, so as to banish the giant monster Sin for a few more years of peace.
• Poe's Law: The infamous "Laughing scene" is supposed to sound fake and over-the-top, as Yuna is telling Tidus that she practices smiling when she's feeling sad. It's very obvious in context that the laughing is deliberately fake, but it gained its infamy from people (who probably haven't played the game) frequently taking it out of context and using it as an example of actual bad voice acting.
• Point of No Return: The game's final point of no return is inside Sin, at a capsule called The Tower of the Dead. Getting too close will take the guardians into the tower's nucleus, an area that had a brief cameo following Operation Mi'hen, at which the POTN is crossed. They are required to complete a crystal-catching minigame before proceeding to Jecht's location, which is the void that Tidus wound up in after the game's opening battles.
• Post-Final Boss: there are two such bosses at the very end of the game. It's not that they aren't strong — they all have One-Hit KO attacks — it's that the game blesses you with infinite lives, so those attacks mean nothing. Even a Total Party Kill means nothing because the Auto-Reraise pre-empts the Game Over screen. The only way to lose here is to deliberately inflict your own characters with Taken for Granite — which the game tries to prevent by making the Actual Final Boss specialize in those attacks, thereby encouraging you to take anti-Petrify armors into the endgame.
• Posthumous Character: This is how we get the surprisingly complex Character Development for Jecht. Even if it turns out he's not actually dead yet. We also learn a lot about Braska this way.
• Post-Mortem Conversion: In life, Braska was a thorn in the side of the Church who reached out to (and married and had a daughter with one of) the Al Bhed. After his death, they try to turn him into a hero of the Church and make sure that everyone forgets about his true feelings and actions.
  Auron: [after seeing a statue of Braska in a temple] So you're a champion of Yevon now, Braska?
• Powered by a Forsaken Child: Each summoned aeon is powered by a soul willingly encased in crystal specific for that purpose. If you look carefully at the stone tablets in the temple floors that contain each Fayth, you can see what may be the entombed body of the sacrificed Guardian. In the original PlayStation 2 graphics, it was hard to notice, but the newer HD versions make it more obvious. It seems like somebody put real care and artistic vision into those, which is morbid beyond belief when looked at in this context. It is not clear if this is their actual bodies or a carving to represent them, but given Spira's death-obsessed culture, they may be a form of memento mori for those who cannot quite die.
• Practical Taunt: Tidus's Provoke skill, if successful, makes an enemy attack him only, with its most basic attacks, or even drive down the enemy's accuracy. It sounds like a spell, but it's performed through a rude gesture and sometimes a verbal taunt. "Hey, hey, hey!" If the other characters learn this skill, they each have their own corresponding gestures.
• Prayer Pose: Subverted. The prayer pose to the big religion, Yevon, is an elaborate version of the one described above. Thing is, it's actually a corruption of the prayer for Victory from a city destroyed a thousand years ago.
• Pre Ass Kicking One Liner: The cast try, but only Auron gets it right, and boy does he get it right. For example, when coming into battle with wounded allies and facing two giant metal humanoids with three-story swords, what does he say? "I foresee no difficulty."
• Precautionary Corpse Disposal: Anyone who dies (especially in the wake of Sin's attacks) needs to have their soul sent to the farplane by a summoner, or they'll eventually begin to hate humanity and turn into a fiend (i.e., the Random Encounter monsters). The exceptions being Unsent; strong willed individuals who can hang on to their human forms (often with some purpose in mind).
• Pre-Rendered Graphics: The backdrops and some cutscenes are pre-rendered.
• Proud Warrior Race: The Ronso. They are formidable warriors, known for their strong sense of honor and loyalty, as well as their pride and quickness to anger.
• Purple Is Powerful: Yunalesca's hair turns purple when she prepares to fight you.
• Puzzle Boss: One of Sin's forms will cause a game over if you can't beat him before his Overdrive gauge fills up. The key to victory is to look at his long list of invulnerabilities, and work out what isn't on it.
• Pyrrhic Victory: The Guado succeed in destroying the Al-Bhed Home... But at the cost of their entire attacking army being killed in the process.

Q-R

• Quality over Quantity: Invoked in-universe by Dona. She berates Yuna for choosing a large number of Guardians (AKA the rest of the cast) over one quality one. She even says "Quantity over quality, what were you thinking?" (She herself only has her lover, Barthello). And in the end, it's averted, because Yuna not only beats Dona to Zanarkand, but ends up saving the world for good.
• Quieting the Unquiet Dead: Summoners put the souls of the dead to rest in a ceremony called the Sending. Those who don't get Sent become restless spirits that coalesce into fiends, or in some cases continue on as Unsent (who aren't considered zombies for the most part since they keep their memories and personality). Some of these include Seymour, Kinoc, Maechen and even Auron.
• Rage Against the Mentor: Averted with Auron, who tells Tidus a little bit more than he is willing to hear each time he asks, only holding back things for the next time he asks.
• Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: Braska and his guardians. Braska was in trouble with Bevelle for marrying an Al Bhed. His companions were equally disgraced or discredited before their success made them the kind of heroes Bevelle had to paper over its differences with:
  Braska: A fallen Summoner, a man from Zanarkand, and a warrior monk, doomed to obscurity for refusing the hand of the priest's daughter. What a delightful irony it would be if we defeated Sin!
• Randomized Damage Attack: Wakka's Attack Reels overdrive deals as many hits as the number you line up in a quick slot reels Mini-Game. This can add up to quite a bit or be barely anything at all depending on the player's reflexes.
• Random Number God:
  • Although the blitzball tutorial specifically notes that there is some deviation when it calculates the chance of successful passes/shots/etc., you seem to get the low end of the stick unusually often...
  • Placement of the balloons in the Catcher Chocobo minigame determines whether success is even possible. If you don't get 4 out of the initial 5, you have a lot to make up, and if the game put most of the balloons right in the path of where birds spawn, you might as well put down the controller and wait until next time.
  • Using the Magus Sisters and Yojimbo. There are ways to massage the results in your favor, but it's never certain.
  • The PS4 version of the HD release strangely didn't have one. Square Enix had to patch one in.
• Recognizable by Sound: In Final Fantasy X-2 (and to a lesser extent X), Tidus' whistle. (Though in X, the one time it occurs, Tidus is reacting to Yuna whistling in a crowd, even though it was Tidus who taught her to do it.)
• Recurring Boss: Seymour. You'll fight this boss a grand total of four times, each time with a new mechanic to the battle.
• Recurring Riff:
  • There are five or six versions of the Hymn of the Fayth: one for each temple, just to start with, and more besides. This at least has the Watsonian justification that each version is diegetic, being sung by the fayth at the center of the temple.
  • "To Zanarkand", the Lonely Piano Piece that opens the game, reappears as "Sprouting" and "Revealed Truth."
  • "Suteki Da Ne" is pre-prised by "The Sight of Spira," "Yuna's Theme" and "Someday The Dream Will End."
• Recurring Traveller: A couple of people, including the merchant O'aka (replaced later in the game by his brother Wantz), the wandering scholar Maechen, the priestess Shelinda (who becomes the de facto leader of Yevon after Mika disappears), and other summoners going on their own pilgrimages.
• Redundant Rescue: Early on, Tidus, Lulu, and Kimahri race to save Yuna from the Al Bhed Psyches, but after a series of enemy encounters, a few cutscenes and a boss fight, the hatch on the ship opens... and out walks Yuna, unharmed, with a would-be captor sliding to the ground. The party actually Facepalm while the victory fanfare plays.
  Lulu: I hope you hurt them.
  Yuna: A little.
• Regional Bonus: In the American version, Anima's Limit Break cannot exceed 99,999 damage. In the PAL and International versions (the latter of which is the default version of the Remaster), each of the sixteen hits from the attack's animation can do up to 99,999 damage, leading to a grand total of 1,599,984 damage.
• Removing the Head or Destroying the Brain: Averted. You can remove the entire front half of Sin if you want to, he won't die until you defeat Yu Yevon. He does, apparently, become immobile after this, however.
• Replay Mode: The city of Luca has a Sphere Theatre where Tidus can buy memory spheres and use them to re-watch important scenes from the game.
• Rescue Arc: Between the first and second fights against Seymour acts as one for Yuna; she gets kidnapped before that too, but this instance lasts at least five hours of the game, and the game's reveal happens in this time.
• Resignations Not Accepted: Both played straight and subverted. When Maester Wen Kinoc voices his disagreement over Maester Jyscal Guado's murder, he is shown the error of his ways though doesn't leave the church, as his soul was not Sent. Later, Maester Kelk Ronso is made aware of the truth behind the Unsent Maesters and is allowed to return home unimpeded though it is implied Seymour strikes him down of his own accord when he storms Mount Gagazet.
• Resurrect the Wreck: Shortly after Tidus arrives in Spira and is picked up by the Al Bhed, he and Rikku discover a wrecked airship underwater, which is then salvaged. Much later, Cid uses the newly-restored airship to evacuate the Al Bhed from Home after the Guado burn the city to the ground.
• The Reveal: There are plenty of reveals in this world of stagnant tradition and ancient dogma, but three stand out as plot-pivotal. Each of them are personal to Tidus, and each is handled differently.
  • Guardians become Final Aeons, who become Sin after destroying it. Early in the game, Auron flat-out tells Tidus that Jecht became Sin. Tidus keeps this to himself though, and Auron never mentions the first part, so the pieces don't get put together until the end.
  • High summoners die when they summon their Final Aeon against Sin. Everybody knows this except Tidus the outworlder, and nobody has the nerve to tell him.
  • Tidus is a product of the dreaming of the Fayths, and will cease to exist when they are freed. Tidus alone learns this, and keeps it a secret so the party will finish their quest.
  • There are also three dealing with the backstory:
    • Yu Yevon is Sin's summoner, the great hero and former king of Zanarkand, but he is unable to stop acting on instinct.
    • The Fayth are the Aeons, and also the power source of the summoning of Sin and Dream Zanarkand.
    • The Yevon religion was formed by Bevelle, who wanted to stop Sin, and its teachings are a combination of Sin's primary objectives and Yunalesca's temporary solution to destroying Sin.
• Revenant Zombie: This is what Unsent, the souls of those who have died but remain tied to the world of the living by some powerful emotional bond or task they have yet to achieve, essentially are. Some, such as Auron and Belgemine, are benevolent. Others, such as Seymour and Yunalesca, much less so.
• Red Shirt: Generic Al Bheds have a tendency of dying en masse at points in the game.
• Revive Kills Zombie:
  • And it can be used to two-hit kill an undead boss in the Via Purifico!^note Normally it would only take one, but full heals and revives count as instant death, and the boss has Contractual Boss Immunity to instant death. What it's not immune to is taking damage equal to half of its maximum HP.
  • And if it wasn't enough, you can zombify your opponents for this purpose, including the final bosses.
  • One boss in particular uses this tactic against you; zombifying your entire party in one turn and then casting Full-Life the next. Here's hoping you have enough turns to remove the status effect (or just kill one or two of your party members outright) to avoid making the Full-Life a Total Party Kill.
• Rewatch Bonus: A lot of things will stand out to you playing the game a second time.
  • With enough Al Bhed primers to understand them properly, you can eavesdrop on the various Al Bhed you meet throughout the game, especially the ones with Rikku at the start of the game. Doing so makes it more clear what they're talking about and that you were missing encoded Foreshadowing in it.
  • The Reveal of what happens at the end of the pilgrimage adds a lot of hidden meanings and double-talk to conversations, especially when Yuna and Tidus talk about it.
  • Sin being Jecht goes to explain who Auron was talking to at the end of the introductory sequence.
  • Knowing what Seymour wants to do and that Lord Zaon became Yunalesca's Final Aeon and the first reincarnation of Sin for it puts Seymour's marriage proposal to Yuna in a new light.
  • The little kid in the blue hoodie that makes his appearances in Tidus' Zanarkand is quite more significant than he appears.
• Rōnin: The Samurai Auron, who has all of the traditional ronin festoonery, down to the sake bottle hanging on his belt.
  • Yojimbo also qualifies, in both design and backstory, especially when considering his namesake.
• Rousing Speech: Auron has one at a critical moment: "Now! This is it! Now is the time to choose! Die and be free of pain, or live and fight your sorrow! Now is the time to shape your stories! Your fate is in your hands!"
• Rule of Symbolism: Right before Yunalesca, you see the past form of Auron fall to his knees in despair. If you take notice, he puts himself into the pose used for a person committing seppuku. When the current Auron stands behind him with his sword (acting the part of the kaishakunin, or second person in the ritual) and slashes through his younger self's head, he is in a sense killing off his past and what he saw as his greatest failure.
• Runaway Bride: Perhaps slightly too late, as the ceremony had technically finished, but Yuna makes her escape, proving she never loved or could love her partner by angrily wiping her mouth after their kiss, and throwing herself from the edge of the tower.

S

• Sad Battle Music: "Someday the Dream Will End", which plays both as the field and battle music in the ruins of Zanarkand.
• Same Story, Different Names: Of writer Kazushige Nojima's first game Bahamut Lagoon: With Yuna standing in for Yoyo, Seymour for Sauzer, The Fayth for the Dragonites, and Yu Yevon for Alexander. FFX Bahamut, meanwhile, stands in for... Lagoon Bahamut.
• Saying Sound Effects Out Loud: Rikku explains her Fear of Thunder to Tidus, telling him that when she was a kid, she was attacked by a fiend at the beach and that her Brother tried to beat it back with a spell, but missed and hit her instead. "It was a Thunder spell. — Bzzzzzzt!"
• Scenery Gorn: A few examples, the most notable of which is the Zanarkand Ruins, a hauntingly beautiful landscape of collapsed domes, towers, and highways swirling with pyreflies. The mood is enhanced by the melancholy background music, "Someday the Dream Will End", which continues to play both in battle and on the map. As the final destination of Yuna's pilgrimage, it's suitably forlorn, given that it is the place she expects to trade her life for a chance to defeat Sin.
• Scenery Porn: It's almost impossible not to be awe-struck with some of the backgrounds. The Farplane and pyreflies are especially noticeable. While the scenes in the Farplane take place on a barren stoney platform, it was shortly shown as actually being covered with flowers in a large landscape with a sunset, rainbows, and beautiful waterfalls. X-2 has a character wondering if the Farplane is creepily pretty... or pretty creepy.
• Screw the Rules, I Have Money!: Basically what you're saying every time you have Yojimbo use Zanmato. As in, no enemy will survive it, whoever it may be.
• Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!:
  • When Yuna and company decide to try and defeat Sin without using the Final Aeon. After having learned so much about Sin and the Final Aeon, Yuna decides to break the cycle, and find a way to defeat Sin for good.
  • Tidus first meets Yuna by invoking this and going in to try and help her after learning Summoners can die during the process of gaining an Aeon.
  • Auron laughs when Tidus suggests taking out the Chocobo Eater because "it's the right thing to do," because it reminded him of how Jecht used to say the exact same thing, and it always got them into trouble, even if it technically isn't their job to do so.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here:
  • Mika, after learning of the defeat of Yunalesca, decides to send himself rather than face a seemingly unstoppable Sin, with everyone calling him a coward for doing so.
  • Maester Kelk, after he is informed that Seymour killed his father to rise to power. His leaving doesn't go down well with the other Maesters.
  • Tidus's Flee command.
    Tidus: Live and let live!
• Sculpted Physique: Seymour Natus. He consists almost exclusively of metal and stone.
• Schizo Tech: Probably the most thoroughly explained example in the entire series. Advanced technology/machina like that used by the Al Bhed are outlawed by Yevon's teachings, as the technology is more or less the same of that of the allegedly-corrupt and decadent civilization of Zanarkand. The restrictions on robots and More Dakka do not apply to the religious authorities, however.
• Second Prize: In Blitzball minigame, you'll often want the 2nd or 3rd prize instead of the first as the better moves and skills for the minigame are rarely the first prize's reward. This essentially forces you to lose games to achieve this.
• Secret Path: To a minor extent, the paths in Kilika Forest that allow you to bypass Ochu, Lord of the Woods.
• Senseless Sacrifice: This is what Tidus thinks summoners giving their lives to defeat Sin only to have it return is. The Maesters of Yevon and Yunalesca confirm that he's right.
• Serious Business: The Spira-wide devotion to Blitzball is a justified case of this since, as Yuna points out, the game is really the only way people have to take their mind off of Sin. That said, the Al Bhed Psyches kidnapping Yuna just to win a game would probably be considered taking it too far. Although it's more of a case of killing two birds with one stone when you find out they were already kidnapping Summoners to save them from themselves.
• Shell-Shocked Veteran: Auron. He was a guardian for another summoner, Yuna's father Braska, and what he experienced once they reached Zanarkand shook him forever. In the memories of the Braska Spheres, it is clearly visible how much his character changed during the events.
• Shipper on Deck: Auron, with Yuna and Tidus, since they are the children of his two friends. Inverted by Lulu, who specifically tells Tidus not to fall in love with Yuna, unsurprisingly given her backstory.
• Shipshape Shipwreck: The Fahrenheit, an airship that has spent the last thousand years on the ocean floor, was almost entirely intact and only really needed a good scrub.
• Shoot the Fuel Tank: In the opening tutorial section of Zanarkand, Auron suggests attacking a fuel tanker. After a few well-placed sword strikes, the tanker splits, falls off the overpass, and explodes mid-air.
• Shout-Out:
  • "I am a summoner, like my father before me," is a clear shout out to Return of the Jedi; also, Biggs and Wedge are recruitable blitzball players.
  • Not to mention Seymour's Mortiorchis form being a near-copy of the Gundam GP03 Orchis; see also Emerald Weapon.
  • The name of Cid's airship, Fahrenheit, is a reference to an airship in Bahamut Lagoon, an older Squaresoft title. This is continued in Final Fantasy X-2 with another airship named the Celsius.
  • The puzzle room in Zanarkand Ruins uses Tetris pieces in a really bizarre way.
  • One of the optional Aeons is Yojimbo, whose summoning animation is quite similar to a scene from Sanjuro, complete with falling sakura petals. He also comes with a few shout-outs to Lone Wolf and Cub, starting with how both he and the protagonist of Lone Wolf, Ittō Ogami, are assassins who'll take any job for the right price. Secondly, there's Yojimbo's canine companion, Daigoro, who may both serve as a reference to the manga's title on top of sharing names with Ittō's son. Finally, there's Yojimbo's strongest technique, Zanmato, which is likely a shout-out to one of Ittō's own Signature Moves: Sui'ō-ryū Zanbatō.
  • "They say Seymour went to Macarena Temple." "Macalania Temple." "Aye!"
  • The BGM "Hopeless Desire" bears more than a passing resemblance to "Greensleeves".
  • One of the earlier bosses is an octopus-like creature named Tros.
  • Anima bears a resemblance to Eva-01, in both form and origin. The Evas and the Summon Spirits also resemble each other: human sacrifices themselves to place their soul into a powerful biological weapon. Except in FFX, men can do it too.
  • When you think about it, you can't help but notice some similarities between FFX's ending and FFVI's ending — In both games, the source of power of the protagonists disappear at the end of the game: In FFVI, magic and Espers disappear from the world; in FFX, Fayth and Aeons disappear. In both games, these phenomenons happen when the party is on an airship. Terra is directly linked to Espers, being a demi-Esper herself; as for Tidus, he's a creation of the Fayth and is only able to exist because of them. Both are affected by post-game events. Terra managed to survive the change, losing her Esper half. Tidus, on the other hand, completely fades out of existence...
  • Speaking of similarities, the plan to enter Sin from the airship and stop it from inside brings to mind the plan to the stop the Giant of Babil from Final Fantasy IV. In both games, Cid personally braves through the giants' assaults to get the party inside with their airships. Tidus' group aims to blow a new hole instead of going through the mouth, though.
  • When Kimahri tells Tidus that worrying will only make Yuna more determined, Tidus sarcastically replies "Don't worry, be happy?"
  • High Summoner Gandof is undoubtedly a reference to Gandalf.
• Sibling Team:
  • The Magus Sisters, especially their Delta Attack Overdrive.
  • Isaaru and his guardians, who are his younger brothers.
• Sidetracked By The Golden Saucer: There are many, many mini-games to distract your attention from the main story, many of which must be played to access the ultimate weapons for each character. It's not uncommon for players to spend more time on these than on completing the main plot itself.
• Sigil Spam:
  • The winged eye symbol of church of Yevon. It's actually Yu Yevon's family crest.
  • The Boss Corridors leading to Seymour are always dotted with his signature staves.
• Simple, yet Awesome: Certain abilities can really be this on a tactical level. Tidus's Provoke for example, not only draws fire away from other party members; but depending on what Tidus is equipped with, can make battles harmless. For example, baiting Chimera monsters with provoke so they only cast Thundara/aga on Tidus which means nothing if he's equipped with the lightning proof shield. Auron's Guard/Sentinel ability also baits attacks to him and like with provoke, can spell doom if a counter ability is equipped on them.
• Single-Use Shield: The "Nul Element" spells (NulBlaze, NulFrost, etc.) which can absorb one attack from the matching element (regardless of strength) when cast. The highest version, "NulAll", combines all four elemental shields.
• Sixth Ranger Traitor: Seymour. He joins your party at a critical moment, albeit only briefly, and later betrays and attacks your group.
• Slap-on-the-Wrist Nuke: The Aeons, especially Ifrit, in the later parts of the game. At one point the main party attacks faster, deals more damage and has better recovery than almost any of the Aeons with their imposing shape and flashy attacks.
• Smash Mook: Aside from the Iron Giant, we have Ironsides: giant fiends encased in a thick, armor-like shell.
• Smug Snake: Kinoc. To the point even Seymour, a pretty nasty snake himself, mocks him for it.
• Socketed Equipment: By another name, true, but it's basically how the Item Crafting mechanic works.
• Sole Entertainment Option: This constitutes a rather bizarre example, as it makes the entertainment, blitzball, very integral to the plot.
• So Near, Yet So Far: Defeating Sin is the entire goal of the game, and if it were possible at the beginning, your party would do it with no hesitation. Instead, though, they must go on a Pilgrimage for the Final Aeon, the only thing that can defeat Sin. Then it turns out that they, themselves are potentially the Final Aeon. The point of the Pilgrimage was to create powerful emotional bonds that will allow the chosen sacrifice to become an exceptionally powerful Aeon upon their death. It also turns out that defeating Sin in this method doesn't really solve anything, so our heroes reject it and search for another means.
• Soundtrack Dissonance:
  • On the final road to Zanarkand, all battles continue to play the area music rather than using the standard battle music.
  • The Monster Arena always uses the standard battle theme, even for the absolutely vicious Creation bosses.
  • Likewise, some of the Dark Aeons stick to the regular battle theme, despite how hard each of them is.
• Species Surname: Kimahri Ronso, Seymour Guado, et al. Notable in that almost no one else is referred to by last name, except the two human Maesters.
• Spoiled by the Manual: The manual spoils a lot of the early game:
  • Kimahri tests Tidus under stress and attacks him — but since Kimahri is listed as a party member in the manual, the player knows in advance that the hostility won't last for long.
  • Likewise, Auron and Rikku are listed as party members in the manual.
  • The manual lists four of the first aeons by name and description.
• Star-Crossed Lovers: Tidus and Yuna become the poster children for this trope in the FF franchise, although you can reunite them if you get a happy ending in the sequel.
• Stat Grinding: The Sphere Grid system, which not only levels up stats, but also allows Non-Standard Skill Learning for anyone.
• Stepford Smiler: Played with in Yuna. She is a bit of a Broken Bird, but she isn't smiling to hide a flaw of her own. She's smiling to give Spira hope.
• Sticky Fingers: Entirely up to the player, but Rikku's personal talent is thievery. Sticky Fingers is also the name of a Customisation option, which increases your chances of successfully stealing an item. Can also be combined with Master Thief, allowing you to steal Rare items more often than not. If you want the best equipment, you're going to want to embrace your own Sticky Fingers.
• The Stinger:A short scene of pyreflies floating around before Tidus drifts upwards twords them, clearly underwater, before awakening and streaching, and then swimming to the surface. This was made a Sequel Hook with the release of X-2 and made part of its best endings.
• The Stoic: Auron incarnates this trope. Fridge Brilliance kicks in when you realize he died because of a burst of anger.
• "Stop the Hero" Twist: Throughout the game, the Al Bhed continuously try to kidnap Yuna and impede her quest to obtain the "Final Aeon". Later, it's revealed that this is because the quest itself is flawed. Even if destroyed, Sin will come back in ten years or so and, far worse, this will also kill Yuna herself. Yuna's party knew and accepted this, but protagonist Tidus is shocked and vows along with Yuna's cousin Rikku (one of the aforementioned Al Bhed) to find a way to save Yuna. There is a faint hope that one day, Sin's death will actually stick, and Yuna is adamant that it must be destroyed no matter the cost regardless, so they press on right up to the final portion of the journey, where the party learns one last Awful Truth: contrary to what the masses believe, this method will never defeat Sin permanently, and the ritual actually sacrifices two people: the summoner and someone close to them. When Yuna learns this, she rejects the pilgrimage outright and destroys the entity that creates the Final Aeon, thus leaving the world no other option than to find another way.
• Straw Nihilist: Seymour wants to become the next Sin and kill many people in order to end their suffering as Spira is a place with a lot of suffering. He also tells Yuna's party he will end their meaningless existence in his last boss fight.
• Stripperiffic:
  • The breast-baring regency gown worn by Lulu, Rikku with her short shorts, both gloriously highlighted in their own respective FMV cutscenes.
  • Dona, who looks more like a hooker than a summoner.
  • Lucille of the Chocobo Knights trio.
  • Yunalesca, who wears barely anything at all.
  • In rare male examples, Tidus is open-shirted and Wakka is shirtless for the entire game.
  • Whether due to the somewhat beachy environments or the culture of Spira, many, many generic and background NPCs fall into this as well. Nothing like having towns where no one seems to know what a pair of pants are, often wearing chaps or straight up bikinis, and so on.
• Suicide by Cop: Jecht sends his son to Spira so that Tidus can ultimately kill him.
• Summon Binding: Most summoned Aeons obey the player without question. The exception is Yojimbo, who must be paid to attack, and which of his attacks he uses depends largely on how much you pay him (plus other factors like how often you use him, how often he dies under your command, et cetera).
• Sunken City: The party crosses a river containing one at some point. Wakka explains that the city's destruction was caused by Sin in response to their use of machina.
• Super Not-Drowning Skills: Tidus, Rikku, Wakka. And any other blitzball players. It is said that a trained blitzball player can even sleep underwater.
• Superboss: There's quite a few side bosses that make Sin and the (proper) Final Boss^SpoilerBraska's Final Aeon; Yu Yevon is a virtually-unlosable fight (unless you do it on purpose) look as fragile as the Besaid random encounters:
  • Many of the Monster Arena Creations have hundreds of thousands of HP (with the final one in particular, Nemesis, having 10 million HP), hit ridiculously hard (whether through just having high attack power or attacks that inflict damage based on the target's maximum HP), and blatantly cheat with unblockable status effect or One-Hit Kill attacks.
  • The International, PAL, and HD versions have the Dark Aeons, which start appearing near the end of the game and have status comparable to the Creation bosses. Irritatingly, some of them appear to block off certain routes, which can make some sidequests problematic if you didn't complete them earlier.
  • Belgemine's 8 Aeons at Remiem Temple are optional fights, Ginnem's Yojimbo, Geosgaeno, Ultima Weapon, Omega Weapon, and the 35(!) Monster Arena creations (the strongest of which have millions of HP).
  • The PAL/International/HD versions add the 10 Dark Aeons^note You can fight each of the Dark Magus Sisters separately, thus making them truly three separate bosses. and Penance. That last one has 10 million HP, can One-Hit KO maxed out characters, and takes about 30 minutes to beat even if you know what you're doing.
  • Defeating all the Dark Aeons lets you fight Penance, a 12 million HP ultimate boss that can take about an hour to complete and has a number of attacks that inflict an instant kill or so much HP in damage it might as well be one.
• Supporting Protagonist: ZigzaggedTrope. The Action Prologue ends with resident Badass Longcoat Auron looking down at Tidus — and, at this moment, the camera is in Tidus's 1st-person POV, so he's also looking down at the player — and saying, "This is it. This is your story." However, Tidus spends the first two acts of the game as a Praetorian Guard for Yuna as she sets out to Save the World; Tidus himself is relegated to First-Person Peripheral Narrator and Fish out of Water. By the time the party reaches Zanarkand, the end of Yuna's pilgrimage, it's not uncommon for first-time players to hear Tidus declare "This is my story" in a Cut Scene and just roll their eyes. But the thing is, he's right: he's a Spanner in the Works, brought in to help Take a Third Option in a cycle of Eternal Recurrence that has persisted for a thousand years. As a result, during the third act, Tidus reclaims his role as The Protagonist: the one who makes it possible to defeat the Big Bad, even if Yuna deals the final blow.
• Suppressed History: there is massive suppression of Spira's history by Yevon's priests. Summoners typically don't know much about the Final Summon (to the point where they are surprised when Yunalesca asks them to "choose a hero"), the war between the Al Bhed and Yevon, they don't really know why machina is forbidden (beyond false teachings that it is somehow responsible for Sin), and they certainly don't know that the Final Summon itself is what continues the cycle of Sin. Instead, the people of Yevon are fed propaganda, and the Al Bhed have a noticeable gap where there's many things they only half-understand, including their own technology.
• Surplus Damage Bonus/There Is No Kill Like Overkill: If you kill a monster with an attack that exceeds a certain amount of damage, the party will be awarded with more AP and items.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
  • What, you thought you'd just waltz into the most sacred place in the city after being declared a traitor, and walk back out of there without getting captured?
  • Tidus' reaction to most of Spira's quirks is fairly realistic of a response. When told why the Summoner cannot receive help from anyone while praying to the Fayth, he pretty bluntly asks why and refuses to sit back, deciding to help because it doesn't make sense why. Later when he learns the Awful Truth about Summoners - that they die defeating Sin - he is horrified by the revelation, realizing he was talking to Yuna about all the things they could do once Sin is defeated, unaware she wouldn't be there if they did defeat Sin. He also reacts fairly realistically when he learns that Jecht is Sin; he gets angry at Auron for dragging him to Spira and then dropping such a reveal on him, and, for a short time, is heavily upset at it, going so far as to even somewhat deny it for a bit before accepting it.
  • Wakka, who was a devout believer in Yevon, goes through a Crisis of Faith after learning that Seymour committed patricide and the group clashes with Seymour and other Yevon church officials. Unlike in most works of fiction where a character going through such a crisis typically resolves themselves to turning against their beliefs quickly, Wakka remains conflicted for pretty much the rest of the game. Having grown up his whole life being indoctrinated by Yevon's teachings, he struggles with what to do because it was all he knew and believed in. Also, Wakka's hatred for the Al Bhed doesn't automatically go away either; Wakka has to re-evaluate his beliefs gradually over the course of the game before he is able to fully let go of them.
  • Wakka enlists Tidus, a star Blitzball Player, in the upcoming Blitzball tournament, so that the Besaid Aurouchs can break their 10-year losing streak. Naturally being a top player, you'd expect the actual Blitzball game to be easy sailing, right? Wrong. Wakka's team is still considered to be the worst team of all time in Spira, and even someone as talented as Tidus cannot carry the game all by himself against the Luca Goers, a considerably stronger and more competent team. Unless the player themselves knows how to play Blitzball, obtain's Tidus' Jecht Shot technique, and also have a little luck on their side, the Besaid Aurouchs are simply going to lose the tournament yet again.
• Suspicious Videogame Generosity:
  • At one point, your party is split up. As you collect each member, you'll notice that random encounters give a lot of healing items (particularly Al Bhed Potions, which are effectively a full party heal). You'll also notice Yuna (the single dedicated healer) is the last one left to find after you get Rikku (the only one who can use Al Bhed Potion). Guess who you won't be seeing for a while...
  • There is also a point where you have to travel down a linear corridor, with a save point at either end, and random encounters that are extremely generous in AP and item spoils. Guess what's waiting for you at the end. To be fair, the game's not subtle about it being a boss battle, and after your last fight with the guy, you'd expect him to be hard. He is, however, unusually so if you don't have a copy of the guide to explain the strategy.
• Symbolic Baptism: In The Stinger, Tidus, after fading away during the ending, is more or less literally reborn underwater.

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