There are seven main playable characters in the game, most prominently protagonist Tidus, a skilled blitzball player from Zanarkand who becomes lost in the world of Spira after an encounter with an enormous creature called Sin and searches for a way home.
Since art director Yusuke Naora convinced the Square staff to make Final Fantasy X an Asian-themed game, Nomura designed the characters to give them an Asian look.
[1] Nomura has expressed that after designing serious and moody main characters for Final Fantasy VII and VIII, he wanted to give Tidus a cheerful attitude and appearance.
[2] Sub-character chief designer Fumi Nakashima's focus was to ensure that characters from different regions and cultures bore distinctive characteristics in their clothing styles, so that they could be quickly and easily identified as members of their respective sub-groups.
[3] Final Fantasy X features innovations in the rendering of characters' facial expressions, achieved through motion capture and skeletal animation technology.
[1] The voice acting brought difficulties in the making of the English version of the game, as the localization team had to translate Japanese dialogue into English-oriented lines that would fit the characters' lip movements.
[7] To reinforce this concept, the staff made sure to make the protagonists still look feminine while changing into multiple type of warriors such as the Samurai form, in which the characters wield large swords.
His outfit was designed to stand out within the people from Spira due to being from another world,[1] while his lively personality is meant to contrast with previous Final Fantasy protagonists.
In Final Fantasy X, she is the daughter of the late High Summoner Braska, who defeated Sin ten years ago, and seeks to accomplish the same task with help from her guardians.
As he was dying, he met Kimahri Ronso and asked him to fulfill the promise he had made to Braska: that Yuna be moved from Bevelle to Besaid so she can have a peaceful childhood.
While the developers originally considered having Final Fantasy X-2 follow the story of Auron and Jecht's generation, they eventually let this idea pass due to the concept making the game "too traditional", deciding instead to go with the trio of Yuna, Rikku, and Paine.
[7] In initial versions of Auron was a Crusader, an exterminator of monsters from Zanarkand, but as the story involved deceased people, the staff decided to make him an Unsent.
[29] In 2009, Shelby Reiches of Cheat Code Central ranked Auron among the "Top 10 Video Game Swordsmen", commenting that "the calm resolve with which he faces monstrous foes and the strength with which he can wield his blade (even one-handed, if so desired) both go toward earning him a spot on this list above his Final Fantasy cohorts".
In addition to being one of Yuna's guardians and childhood friends, he is captain of the Besaid Aurochs, a blitzball team that – as of the beginning of Final Fantasy X – went ten years without winning a single game.
[44] Lulu (ルールー, Rūrū) is a 22-year-old black magic user and an older sister figure to Yuna, whom she grew up with alongside Wakka and Chappu on Besaid Island.
[71] The decision to pick Rikku as one of the three female leads came early on in the design process of X-2, due to the developers challenging themselves to create an all-female character party.
[76] Paine had also been the recorder for a group of candidates named Nooj, Baralai, and Gippal, the game's present day leaders of the Youth League, New Yevon, and the Machine Faction, respectively.
[77][78] Most Crimson Squad candidates died during the group's final field exercise due to the influence of the undead Shuyin, who caused them to turn on one another while getting a glimpse of Vegnagun.
[80] Just before Yuna joined the Gullwings, Paine enlisted in the group in hopes of learning more about why the Crimson Squad was massacred, and because she had long desired to fly in an airship.
[81][82] In Final Fantasy X-2 International+Last Mission, Yuna, Rikku and Paine reunite after being disbanded three months after the game ended, exploring a newly discovered tower.
[95] Near the end of the game, Tidus' group confronts Jecht inside Sin taking the form of Braska's Final Aeon (ブラスカの究極召喚, Burasuka no Kyūkyoku Shōkan).
[120] After the events of Final Fantasy X, Cid is one of the few to receive a negative impact from Sin's demise, as his children left him behind to set their sights on the changing Spira rather than rebuilding Home like most of the Al Bhed.
[120] In Final Fantasy X-2, Brother is the pilot of his own airship, the Celsius, and leader of the Gullwings sphere hunter group alongside Buddy (ダチ, Dachi) and Shinra (シンラ).
[130] Although he seems to be an ordinary inhabitant of Spira, he reveals himself in Final Fantasy X-2 to be an unsent from Zanarkand who used to live before the city was destroyed, and was so engrossed in his studies that he forgot he died of old age.
The Chocobo Knights are a team of Chocobo-riding soldiers: Lucil (ルチル, Ruchiru), the captain; Elma (エルマ, Eruma), the second-in-command; and Clasko (クラスコ, Kurasuko); they are the only named members of the group.
[134] Members of the Crusaders include the high-ranked Luzzu and the younger, lower-ranked Gatta, while Wakka's brother, Chappu (チャップ) died a year ago fighting Sin.
[135] Depending on the player's actions, either Luzzu or Gatta dies during Operation Mi'hen, while the other survives and returns to Besaid to rebuild the village's Crusader branch.
Nooj (ヌージ, Nūji) is the leader of the Youth League organization, which emerged in the wake of Sin's defeat and whose members advocate for radical reform of Spira's society.
[165] GameSpot writer Greg Kasavin found the game's cast entertaining and emphasized how different was Tidus from previous Final Fantasy heroes in terms of personality yet still was appealing.
[167] Criticism to the English acting in Final Fantasy X was aimed towards James Arnold Taylor's and Hedy Burress's portrayal of Tidus and Yuna, respectively, in comparison to the original Japanese delivery which made the characters less interesting.