FFX Releases
(I just typed this up, so please forgive me for any typos that are in this post)
(Note: Only the general releases for the three major gaming regions (Japan, North America, and the PAL countries) are covered here. Budget releases (Mega Hits, Platinum, Greatest Hits) are omitted because they do not have significant changes over their first-run counterparts.)
Original Japanese Release "Final Fanatsy X" [NTSC J]
(19 July 2001)
This was the first release of Final Fantasy X. Exclusive gameplay quirks/features in this version: Fixed Bribe prices and rewards, Catcher Chocobo bug (you can make the birds fly through you without registering a hit), no save sphere at the Monster Arena, and no [Overdrive->AP] cap. Packaged with the game was a bonus DVD titled "The Other Side of Final Fantasy."
North American Release "Final Fanatsy X" [NTSC U/C]
(17 December 2001)
This version of Final Fantasy X was released in North America (denoted as NA henceforth). Other than the language change (and accompanying name change for some monsters/items) and the lack of a bonus DVD, the only differences between this and the Original Japanese version are the fixes made to the quirks that I mentioned above. Bribe success/failure and rewards were randomized somewhat, the Catcher Chocobo bug was removed, a save sphere was added to the Monster Arena, and a cap was implemented on the amount of AP that a character could get by using [Overdrive->AP] (see end of post for an explanation). All of these changes carried on to later versions of FFX.
International version "Final Fanatsy X International" [NTSC J]
(31 January 2002)
This is the remake of FFX that was released in Japan. It has English audio with a choice of either Japanese or English text. It has a slew of extras and changes, including the following:
- Choice of Standard or (new) Expert Sphere Grid at the beginning of the game (ESG has fewer nodes and it lets players customize their characters earlier)
- New Sphere Grid Abilities Full Break, Quick Pockets, Nab Gil, Pilfer Gil, Extract Power, Extract Speed, Extract Mana, and Extract Ability
- New weapon auto-abilities [Power Distil], [Speed Distil], [Mana Distil], and [Ability Distil]
- New armor auto-ability [Ribbon]
- New optional bosses: Dark Aeons and Penance
- Modified Yojimbo attack formula (he will use Zanmato more often)
- De-cheapened Quick Hit (it has double the recovery time and triple the base MP cost of its NA version counterpart)
- More difficult Omega Weapon (999,999 HP instead of 99,999 HP, and slightly higher stats)
- Modified Overdrives Tornado (two hits), Delta Attack (six hits), and Oblivion (16 hits). These Overdrives were in the first two releases of FFX, but they only hit once.
A complete list of changes can be found in the "PAL/International Version Differences FAQ" at GameFAQs.
The Japanese Final Fantasy X International release included a bonus DVD titled "The Other Side Of Final Fantasy 2." This bonus DVD contains an epilogue clip ("Another Story Eien no Nagisetsu") that served to be the first trailer for Final Fantasy X-2. There was also an "Asian" release of FFX International that did not have a bonus disc.
PAL release "Final Fanatsy X" [PAL]
(24 May 2002)
This is the version of FFX that was released in Europe, Australia, and other places that use the PAL television signal standard. Due to the PAL version's late release, Square was able to use the gameplay of Final Fantasy X International to serve as the base for the PAL release. There are virtually no gameplay changes in the PAL version compared to International, so the two games are almost identical. For this reason, the term "International" is sometimes used to describe this version, even though it does not have the word "International" in the title like its Japanese counterpart. Besides the language changes (no Japanese option), the video format is different, and it shows (the game leaves borders at the edges of the screen due to Square's PAL conversion). This game was packaged with a bonus DVD ("Beyond Final Fantasy"(?)), but the DVD does not have "Another Story."
Those are all the major releases of Final Fantasy X.
A short noteon the [Overdrive->AP] cap
In the original Japanese version, you get to keep all the AP that you earned from [Overdrive->AP]. That is to say, if you found a way to gain 1000 AP each turn by simply defending, then you could defend 1000 times and get 1,000,000 AP. For the North American version, Square added a penalty multipler of (0.9) for each time a character uses [Overdrive->AP] in a battle.
So instead of gaining AP like this:
1000, 1000, 1000, 1000, 1000, 1000...
The character in the NA version would get this:
1000, 899*, 810, 729, 656, 590...
* - The game subtracts 1 from the second charge amount for some reason.
Eventually, the AP gain goes to zero, which is why it's called a "cap". This rendered the previously-preferred AP gaining method (Loner OD mode + [Overdrive -> AP] (and other AP and OD-modifying auto-abilities) + Magic Urn + Defend hundreds of times) quite useless. The cap has less effect on methods of AP gaining that involve large gains per charge, such as the Don Tonberry and Cactuar King methods (basically, you get hit for 99,999 damage while in Stoic/Comrade OD mode with the proper weapons equipped).
I hope that this helps.
<img src="/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />
--jobber2022497
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