The Build To Final Fantasy X-3: Something Dreadful (Contains FFX/2 Spoilers)

Going on a trip together, Tidus and Yuna end up shipwrecked on an unknown island where Tidus dies. Yuna is aable to call him back from the Farplane like she did once before during the events of Final Fantasy X-2, but Tidus is not his old self after this. The Farplane grows unstable and soon the dead begin returning to Spira, including Sin.

-The summary of Final Fantasy X-2.5 via FF Wikia

In 2001 Squaresoft released their first PS2 instalment of Final Fantasy. It was somewhat linear compared to previous instalments however it was the first fully voice acted title in the series. It was a very good game. As the title has undergone a HD remaster (due to launch in the West in March 2014) I'll give a broad description of that game, and some of the characters below. The same will apply for FFX-2.

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Final Fantasy X was the story of two people on a pilgrimage to finish the job their fathers began years before. Tidus, a blitzball player and a Summoner named Yuna met when Tidus was brought to Besaid Island when Sin attacked his home of Zanarkand. Various other characters made up the rest of the team in Kimahri, Rikku, Auron, Lulu and Wakka - the Guardians of the Summoner. Their goal was to defeat Sin, a giant whale like monster which terrorises Spira (the world) and whom is destroyed by each successive generation of Summoners - previously Auron, Braska (Yunas father) and Jecht (Tidus' father).

To offer brief notes on the story. Aside from a huge monster whale terrorising the party there was a somewhat main antagonist in the form of Seymour, a human-Guado hybrid. This guy was proper freaking mental, having murdered his own father, then refusing to go to the Farplane (afterlife) upon death (the party kill him in the first battle encounter). He then returns in various forms until meeting him one last time inside Sin. After FFX his contribution to the overall story seems trite at best, but he's an element worth mentioning,

Tidus, like Jecht, came from Zanarkand. He was a blitzball superstar in that city at the time of the attack by Sin. When he awakens on Besaid Island, discovered by Wakka, he is seen as having memory problems as Zanarkand was destroyed approximately 1000 years before. The only way he can figure out what is going on is by joining forces with the summoner Yuna, Wakka, Kimahri and Lulu and travelling to the destroyed ruins of what was once a great city. Before they leave Besaid Yuna visits the Temple in order to acquire the first of her summons - a Fayth named Valefor. There are many other summons which she can acquire over the course of the game but these Fayth are humans who have willingly been turned to stone - and thus able to exist in a state of permanent dreaming through which they can visualise certain things - like when Zanarkand's survivors used their memories of Zanarkand to create a new city in their image, removed from the reality of Spira. Which made Tidus, effectively a dream.

En route they are met by a former Guardian called Auron, who accompanied Braska on his pilgrimage ten years before, and Rikku who is an Al-Bhed who turns out to be Yuna's cousin. The Al-Bhed are technologists, or machina users as they are known - the main religion of Spira - Yevon - frowns upon the use of technology which explains why 1000 years after Zanarkand's destruction humans still live in somewhat simple surroundings. Oh, Sin - the giant uber-whale - also destroys technology. Which sucks.

Fast forward to the end of FFX - the team can defeat Sin - but at the cost of imaginary Zanarkand, and as Tidus is a product of that imaginary land he'll disappear too. Knowing this he forges ahead without telling Yuna and as they defeat Sin they watch as the Fayth disappear once and for all.

Then Tidus starts to fade as well. Life, as they say, is but a dream.

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Final Fantasy X-2 continued this story two years later. Rikku found a sphere which apparently contained footage of Tidus in a prison somewhere - which sent Yuna, Rikku and newcomer Paine off on an adventure to find her lost (imaginary) love. Since Yevon and Sin were defeated there have been a number of new leaders, and new ways to live, popping up. Baralai, Gippal, Nooj are those leaders, and play a role throughout the game.

Basically it wasn't Tidus at all. It was the original person that the fayth based Tidus on, a blitzball player who originally lived with his summoner love in Zanarkand, Shuyin and Lenne. Shuyin was someone who existed on the Farplane and wanted to get revenge on the world for losing his love. He felt he failed to protect her so he sets about using Vegnagun, a giant weapon underneath Bevelle.

I'm not getting too much into this story but let's just say that Yuna, Rikku, Paine and Lenne stop Shuyin and reunite them after 1000 years. Then the Fayth of Bahamut appears to Yuna whilst on the Farplane and asks her if she wants to see 'him' again. Replying in the affirmative will bring Tidus back to Yuna as long as the dream of the fayth lasts (and you fulfil enough quests to do so).

The game will then end with Tidus, and Yuna - like Shuyin and Lenne - together, at last.

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The story then (apparently) picks up shortly after Tidus' return from the Farplane in Final Fantasy X-2.5. The opening paragraph up top is the description of the story contained within this 240+ page book, currently only available in Japan.

But here it is again anyway:

Story: Going on a trip together, Tidus and Yuna end up shipwrecked on an unknown island where Tidus dies. Yuna is able to call him back from the Farplane like she did once before during the events of Final Fantasy X-2, but Tidus is not his old self after this. The Farplane grows unstable and soon the dead begin returning to Spira, including Sin.

Which then is followed by the following information sourced from NeoGAF, Final Fantasy X Wikia and other online discussion boards. Apparently there is sexual content, descriptions of excessive gore and fanfic-grade writing:

"The way they set up that ball scene for that ONE PAGE is Yuna was getting irritated by Tidus' childishness. Tidus notices a slowly rolling ball, shouting "Blitz ball!" and starts towards it while wondering who it belongs to. Watching, Yuna suddenly bursts into tears, perhaps overwhelmed by all that's happened in X-2 and having Tidus back but it seems more sad then happy. Then as she realizes she's crying, there's a loud boom, she's knocked back, head flies in."

So, Tidus is a childish guy (we kinda know this from experience) and ends up getting his head blown off by a bomb. What?

Yuna resurrects him using pyreflies, however it seems that if Tidus realizes what he is, he'll disappear (whether that means off to the Farplane, or from existence I'm not sure). It seems overall this explaination wasn't explained too well so it could be off the mark. This could explain though why she's seeming cold towards him in the audio drama.

This follow up novella to Final Fantasy X-2 seems to have taken a very, very dark turn. It flies against what made Final Fantasy X-2 so enjoyable in the first place. The lighthearted, airy nature which previously occupied the playspace seems to have been removed in this literary telling of the after effects of Vegnagun and Shuyin, and replaced with the excessive gore you’d expect from the likes of Battle Royale. There is another story called Final Fantasy X- Will which discusses the return of Sin, and Yunas declaration to the Spiran council, and people that she will defeat Sin once more.

This is expected to lead to Final Fantasy X-3, the character designs for which Yuna and Tidus are represented in the concept art at the opening of this post. As the minutiae of the story will lose much in the Japanese to English translation only time will tell if the above information remains true if, and when such a title appears.

The road to Final Fantasy X-3 might be off to a rocky start, and who knows for sure what lies ahead. I just hope it’s not Tidus’ .

You can read more over at NeoGAF as people provide new translations.

Update #1: Another reading by a member of GAF has provided new details on the B-story of the novel. The commentator describes it as NTR (cuckolding) in nature between two characters from 1000 years before, and provides new information on how the Final Aeon summon is supposedly created.

NTR is about the war period summoner and guardian Guardian and female summoner are lovers The summoner who didn't want the guardian to become a summon (probably) had sex (?) with a male summoner and got made into a summon The scene after was found by the guardian and he struck the male summoner (ME: or the other around I don't fucking know) Because the guardian was killed by Al-bhed (?) the female summoner turned him into a dead person (ME: I assume this means unsent) After that, the guardian became a perennial youth dead person (ME: unaging unsent I guess) and lived to Yuna's era

The language is somewhat unclear, however, another GAF poster by the name of Esura has recompiled this information in an easier to comprehend manner:

Let me get this straight. Lady summoner didn't want her guardian/lover to become a Fayth so she (sleeps with) a male summoner to become a Fayth instead of her guardian/lover. Guardian beats the shit out of the summoner, and I assume guardian gets killed by an Al Bhed out of nowhere. Lady summoner who is a Fayth now makes her guardian/lover an unsent afterwards out of pity. Right?

More information as it comes folks.