FFX: What would you change?

[Dionysos]

My immediate first thought was the it might be a reference to the pilgrimage that ancient man took during polytheistic human history to observe and be a part of the Precession of the Equinox. Certain old buildings from old civilizations were designed for certain celestial event recurrences, such as Chichen Itza in Mexico, for example.

There are 365 days in a year, each staircase on all 4 sides (and there are 4 seasons), has 365 steps.
On the side of the staircase, there is the head of Quetzalcoatl at the base, and large diamonds embedded in the rock on the way up to the top.
On the first day of Spring, at a certain time of the day, the Sunlight will hit those diamonds and cast a serpentine-shaped shadow up the staircase wall. To this day, tourists still make pilgrimages (although, they're just tourist-y pilgrimages these days) to see this event.

Here is a time lapse of it on YouTube for good measure:

Yes! There are a number of archaeological sites across the globe which have been found to be aligned in such a way as to suggest (if it isn’t outright acknowledged) that they had been lined up to capture the sun or to point towards particular stars at certain moments. I find archaeoastronomy fascinating. Although some would express caution about some of the examples people cite in some areas, beautiful moments like the sun hitting the serpent steps of Chichen Itza at a very precise time of year appear to be genuine.

There are many reasons to take pilgrimages to particular sites. Quite often it is the site itself which is considered sacred. Alternatively (or concurrently), sometimes a god is believed to actually exist within a statue within a temple. If the statue is removed, the god is essentially leaving the temple. Just like the Aeons in Spira being tied to their temples because of the location of their Fayths. I think the only one which is known to have been moved is Yojimbo (which was stolen and relocated), but him being a mercantile character he may not mind too much. Many of the other locations are sacred spaces which have some sort of significance for the Aeon housed within.

Pilgrimages to see sun miracles are almost a bit relevant to FFX too if we tie this into the symbolism of Tidus and Yuna. Tidus is named after tida (Okinawan dialect word for the sun). In fact that is something else I think I would have liked in the game. The references to Tidus and Yuna as representing the Sun and the Moon are so subtle (I didn't learn about them until many years after I completed the game), so I would have liked a little bit more there in the game itself. I guess like the sun and the moon they are only in each other's lives for a fleeting moment before one passes into another realm, appearing to vanish/die entirely, only to be reborn again in the sequel. There's celestial symbolism in that perhaps!

They probably couldn’t go too far down that route though since Tidus could be renamed by the player. ‘Dave’ or ‘Butthead’ wouldn’t share the sun symbolism that the default Tidus has.

 

[I will Set You Free]

In terms of what I would change... I've always wondered what the game would be like with active time battle like 12 would be and have 12 battle system be like 10 and I think I'd be curious to have those two swap battle systems but that's really all.