-- Final Fantasy X (US) Affection Levels FAQ -- -- by CB! (Christine Bomke, circe@san.rr.com) -- -- Version 1.0, 12/28/01 -- LEGAL DISCLAIMER: This guide is for PERSONAL USE ONLY, copyrighted to me, Christine Bomke. Do not put this FAQ on your site without first emailing me for permission. If permission IS granted, you are not permitted to change a single word of this FAQ when you post it, and must leave it as a .txt file unless I've explicitly told you otherwise that you may change it. Do not steal information from this FAQ for your magazine, or other form of media - printed, online, or otherwise. Do not pass GO, do not collect $200. If you violate this disclaimer anyway, know that I have the means and the mettle to pursue this matter legally, and you _will_ regret it. NOTE TO WEBMASTERS: If permission is granted to post this guide on your site, it is _your_ responsibility to get the most recent version from my site or GameFAQs.com periodically. If you can't be bothered to keep it current, then you may not post it. Avast ye matey, thar be spoilers ahead. -- Table 'o Contents -- I. Version History II. Foreword / Contact Information III. Frequently Asked Questions 1. What are 'affection levels'? 2. What do affection levels influence? 3. How can I increase or decrease my characters' affection levels? 4. If I responded in the wrong way early in the game, can I make up for it later? 5. Do affection levels in any way affect a certain FMV late in the game, or the ending? 6. Why an affection levels FAQ? IV. Thanks, Credits, Shameless Plugs -- I. Version History -- v1.0 12/28/01: Began and finished FAQ, going partially by memory, by some of the information in the Ultimania Guide, and an astoundingly informative post by Olivier Hagué on the GameFAQs FFX message board. I hope this clears up any questions on how the "Affection Levels" are tabulated. -- II. Foreword / Contact Information -- This is not a gameplay FAQ. This is an overview of how your responses to party members throughout the game affect certain cutscenes, and who throws the Blitzball to Tidus in his final Overdrive. If you need help figuring out the Sphere Grid system, or want a walkthough, look elsewhere. This FAQ discusses specific things you can do throughout the game to make characters like you more, so obviously, THERE WILL BE STORY SPOILERS. Let me repeat, THERE WILL BE STORY SPOILERS. No major plot points are spoiled, but if you haven't played at least two-thirds of Final Fantasy X, and/or you're very spoiler-allergic, please do not read any further. The latest version of this guide, and all the other ones I've written, can always be found at GameFAQs (http://www.gamefaqs.com/) and my site (http://home.san.rr.com/circe/). Please reference them before finding fault with what may be an out-of-date version. Some scans and pictorial translations of key pages from the Final Fantasy X Ultimania books can also be found at my site. If you have a submission or a question regarding affection levels that I haven't covered in this document, you may email me at cb@positronrecords.com or circe@san.rr.com, or contact me via AOL Instant Messenger as "Ceebsie". I'm also on the GameFAQs boards as "Ceebs". Please try to use a modicum of grammar and politeness, and please make sure your question hasn't already been answered. If you don't, I can pretty much guarantee your message will go ignored. I'm an extremely busy person, and have tried to make this FAQ as thorough and self-explanatory as possible, so I have neither the time nor desire to regurgitate material from it. Let's put it this way - the more time I spend reading your email, the less I have to work on this FAQ. Understand? -- III. Frequently Asked Questions -- 1. What are 'affection levels'? 'Affection Levels' are exactly what they sound like - the level of affection or friendliness your party members feel towards Tidus, determined by how nice or mean you are to your other characters during the game. If this seems familiar, Star Ocean 2, Final Fantasy VII, and several other games have had similar systems. 2. What do affection levels influence? Affection levels influence certain cutscenes, and who throws the ball to Tidus in his final overdrive, Blitz Ace. (Or Ace of the Blitz, if you're playing FFX in Japanese.) The cutscene changes are as follows: - After visiting the Farplane for the first time, a slightly longer conversation may occur with either Lulu or Rikku depending on your affection level with each one. - En route to Macalania Temple, depending on who your affection level is highest with, you may either a) ride the snowmobile with Lulu or Rikku, or b) ride the snowmobile alone, with Kimahri or Auron next to you. If the affection level for two characters is in this event equal, the priority goes like this: Lulu > Rikku > Auron > Kimahri. - After fighting Sin's fins, the character with the highest affection level for Tidus will jump from the airship first. - After fighting Sin's Core and Sinspawn: Genais, and Tidus wants to jump off the airship again to fight Sin, a conversation may ensue with that same character, or a different one - during the battle, if Tidus heals, the affection levels will change. In all other cases excepting the Farplane and snowmobile events, if the affection level between two or more characters is equal, the priority is this: Yuna > Auron > Kimahri > Wakka > Lulu > Rikku. With regard to Blitz Ace, the character who throws the ball to Tidus will _always_ be female - if that character is absent due to story reasons, dead, or petrified, the one with the next highest affection level throws Tidus the ball. If all three girls are unavailable, the ball comes out of nowhere. Likewise, when fighting underwater, if Rikku's affection level is lower than the other two girls, the ball also comes out of nowhere. 3. How can I increase or decrease my characters' affection levels? Well, how do you get people to like you in real life? BE NICE TO THEM! If one of your party members is wounded or dead, use a curative item, status- restorative item, curative spell, or a Phoenix Down on them and they'll like you more. This applies to your male party members as well as your female ones. Using Guard or Sentinel in conjunction with Provoke may improve affection levels. For example, if you want to protect Rikku from attacks and therefore raise her affection level for Tidus, have her Provoke the enemy, then have Tidus use Guard or Sentinel to take the hits. Provoke isn't absolutely nescessary, but Guard and Sentinel are too unpredictable without it. The affection level also rises if when all your characters are standing around, you talk to one first before anyone else. If talking to a character leads to a conversation about that character's past, the affection level also rises. Also, the rate at which the affection level rises is more quickly for female characters than male ones. Another way to make the girls like Tidus more is by pulling a Zidane - in other words, get your mack on, tiger. Flirt like it's going out of style. (There aren't any instances where Tidus can flirt with the male party members, therefore it only applies to the girls.) If you want Yuna to like you, on Besaid Island, when Wakka asks you if you like Yuna, say yes. Lulu fans, on the other hand, should respond that Yuna's not their type when Wakka asks. (I'm not sure if saying that increases Lulu's affection level, or simply makes Yuna's not rise.) Then at Guadosalam, when Lulu rambles on about who Yuna should marry, tell her you've fallen in love with Yuna if you don't want Lulu's affection for you to rise (this may increase your affection level with Yuna, I'm not positive), or tell Lulu you want to marry her instead if you do want your affection level with Lulu to rise. Lastly, at Thunder Plains, when Rikku's throwing a tantrum outside of Rin's shop, do not walk away with your party if you want Rikku's affection level for Tidus to rise. Go back and comfort her. There may be more instances where you can play Don Juan, I'm just writing this from memory until I have a chance to play FFX again. Now onto decreasing affection levels. This may sound twisted, but if you want your party members to hate you, repeatedly have Tidus kill them in battle. If their evade rate is too high for you to hit them (hi Master LL!), use a Petrify Grenade to petrify them, then attack the unlucky character to shatter them. If one of your party members is habitually low on HP, and you can't be bothered to heal them, their affection for Tidus _may_ decrease. 4. If I responded in the wrong way early in the game, can I make up for it later? Yes, by being a jerk to the character you don't like as described in the final paragraph of the preceeding section, while simultaneously being super-duper-über nice to everyone else. 5. Do affection levels in any way affect a certain FMV late in the game, or the ending? No. Regardless of how mean you are to Yuna, or nice to anyone else, she and Tidus still smooch in the pond in Macalania Forest while "Suteki Da Ne" swells in the background. Kind of scandalous, considering she's married, and "'till death do us part" apparently isn't a tenet of the Yevon religion. :) The ending is.. well.. the ending! Square was reaching critical mass on one DVD disc from all of the voice acting - this is why there wasn't a Japanese voice acting option in the North American release of FFX - so there wouldn't be room for multiple endings depending on who likes Tidus more. 6. Why an affection levels FAQ? Why not? The question comes up a LOT on the GameFAQs FFX message board, and some of us are getting tired of answering it. Isn't the point of any FAQ to answer common questions? Moreover, none of the commercially released US strategy guides touch on this subject at all, and the Japanese Ultimania books - which normally excel in every area - barely do. I hope you've enjoyed reading this FAQ, and I hope it helps you win the heart of the lady of your choice. Happy affection levelling! -- IV. Thanks, Credits, Shameless Plugs -- First and foremost, HUGE thanks to Olivier Hagué for explaining certain affection mechanics I didn't know about. This accounts for most of question #3. Big thanks go out to Tronix (http://www.tronixweb.com/) and National Console Support, Inc (http://www.ncsx.com/) for selling me Final Fantasy X and a Japanese Playstation 2, respectively. Best import shops on the web, they are! Thanks as well to Amazon Japan (http://www.amazon.co.jp/) for stocking the two FFX Ultimania guides, and being kind enough to ship overseas. Thanks to my friends and family for putting up with me throughout the writing of this, and my other Final Fantasy X guides, especially my sister Annie (ajbomke@yahoo.com). Show your appreciation by flooding her email box with marriage proposals. Really. She likes it. Extra special thanks to Square (http://www.playonline.com/) for creating FFX and many other quality titles, and GameFAQs (http://www.gamefaqs.com/) for hosting FAQs on every game imaginable, and respecting FAQ author's rights, and last, but not least, thanks to you-know-who for teaching me more about "affection levels" than Yoshinori Kitase ever could. Wink wink.