Final Fantasy 10 » Game Basics

Final Fantasy 10 is for the most part a straightforward game. While some things will surprise you as you go through the world, everything is easy enough to understand -- in traditional Square-Enix fashion. If you're just getting started, however, feel free to check out what you'll be up against.

The Overkill icon appears when you strike an enemy down with an extremely powerful blow. When Overkill is achieved, more AP and spheres are earned at the end of battle. To attain Overkill, the finishing blow must deal a massive amount of damage to the enemy. To increase the chance of getting Overkill, exploit the enemy's weakness.

When you want a character to pass on their turn, or if a character is particularly injured, you can have them initiate a defensive stance by pressing Triangle. While in a defensive stance, your character cannot attack; however, they also receive considerably less damage. Magic attacks are not affected by defensive stances. This action cannot be used in some battles.

Press -> (RIGHT button) during battle to access a new command: Weapon / Armor. At the expense of your character's turn, they can, as can be guessed, change their weapon or armor through this command. The currently equipped item is displayed in the upper left corner of the screen, while the available equipment is listed down the right side.

Enemy attacks sometimes inflict status ailments in addition to normal damage. A character affected by a status ailment generally has an icon above their head which generally states gives you an idea of what you're inflicted with. Poison, denoted by popping green stuff over character's heads, causes damage every turn and can be cured by an Antidote. Darkness, denoted by a dark cloud in front of a character's face, makes it harder to physically attack creatures and can be cured by Eye Drops. Sleep is nothing more than annoying because it causes a characer to be be unable to act for a short time. When a sleeping character is physically attacked (but not magically), they will wake up. Silence is particularly nasty for magic casters, as it negates magical abilities. The cure to this ailment is an Echo Screen.

These are only some of the status ailments found in the game, however. Many more exist, and it's important to be able to heal them in a proper (and quick) manner. Pay attention to what your companions tell you, use that White Magic wisely, and you should be fine.

A new feature to the Final Fantasy series is the ability to switch out characters in battle. By pressing L1 during battle, you can switch an in-battle character with an out-of-battle character at a whim. The character dragged into battle can act immediately.

Final Fantasy 10 has 4 elements: Fire, Ice, Lightning and Water. These elements are in turn manifested in spells such as Fire, Blizzard, Thunder and Water. Fire and Ice oppose each other, as do Lightning and Water. Many enemies are vulnerable to at least 1 of these elements, and as a result suffer 50% more damage from attacks of that type. Some enemiese have elemental resistances that cut magical attacks by half, while other take no damage from some elements at all. A few enemies actually absorb elemental spells and attacks, thereby healing themselves. Different enemies have different elemental strengths and weaknesses, so use abilities like Scan and Sensor to your advantage.

In battle, white numbers appear above combatants' heads to indicate the amoutn of damage inflicted on them by attacks. Green numbers indicate recovery.

"MP" precedes any number indicating MP loss or recovery.
"Miss" indicates a failed attack or failure to inflict status ailments.
"Immune" indicated resistance to a particular attack or spell. When faced with an attack capable of inflicted multiple elements, the target must resist them all for "Immune" to appear.