Now, the prayer. This has to be one of the most confusing plot holes. Tidus, who isn't religious, doesn't know the Yevonite's prayer, obviously. But when Wakka performs the action, Tidus recognises it -- any blitzball player worth his salt knows that as the sign for victory -- yet he smurfing fails to execute it himself without showing an uncharacteristic lack of coordination.

If Tidus knew this, he should have performed it well. He might also have asked or mentioned that it was familiar to him; attribute it to Sin's toxin, and have Wakka go "aha! you do remember some things, ya?" But the continual characterisation of Tidus as both mentally and physically inept is creating paradoxes in his character and utterly erasing the value and benefit of Tidus as a conduit for the player. Tidus is, at the end of things, if you aren't too critical, a smurfing fantastic lead character. But if you weigh all these elements as you would when examining a novel, he is an inconsistent half-assed moron. And that's not fair.

A strong positive for FFX is that NPCs are not static. Well, some are. But in Besaid, some NPCs walk in and out of buildings, adding some life to what are usually pretty but pretty dead places.

One NPC mentions that, the last time Sin attacked, the owner of a house just decided not to rebuild again. I don't know what the smurf happened to the owner; they must have died or moved away, because there's not exactly somewhere else for a person to permanently live.

When Tidus visits the Crusaders, they remark on how Sin might attack the island because it is close. Again, this is unprompted: they don't know Tidus was anywhere near Sin for sure, yet. Then Gatta is just a gigantic because he is a self-entitled upstart who thinks that because he is a member of the Crusaders, he is somehow above others. If you know a person has been near Sin (or have some kind of psychic ability to determine it) and then the person says they don't know what the Crusaders are, you -- like Luzzu does -- assume "ah! The toxin!"; you do not act like the person is a halfwit.

Then Gatta gets up and does the little spiel about the Crusaders. He is simply parroting trout that probably belongs on the back of a recruitment brochure. I only complain because I hate Gatta way more right now than I have in previous playthroughs and I think it is because he is characterised as a dick.

Also worth noting that, despite being semi important NPCs, both Luzzu and Gatta have the gross flat painted on faces too. Obviously you can't spare mad amounts of resources or assets for every character, but important NPCs seem like the kinds of characters you would spend a little more time on.