As a Moments subpage, all spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned.
- The whole point of the game: Yuna searching all of Spira to find Tidus, spurred by hopes that he is still alive somewhere. Doubles as heartwarming.
- Yuna's nightmare, wherein she and Tidus are chased and gunned down in the same way Lenne and Shuyin were.
- The sad ending, in which Yuna reunites with Tidus' spirit on the Farplane and decides to live her life without him, knowing he will always be with her.
- "Yuna's Ballad
". Not for nothing, as it's considered "Zanarkand"'s Spiritual Successor.- The vocal version "Kimi e", sung by Yuna's Japanese voice actress Mayuko Aoki. The fact that it plays as a music video at the end of Last Mission displaying memorable moments from X and X-2 makes it hard for one not to tear up.
- "1000 Words". Pretty surprising given that X-2 is easily one of the most lighthearted JRPGs in recent memory. The same goes for the song's piano and orchestral versions.
- When we see Lenne and Shuyin get gunned down during the song.
- After the "1000 Words" concert and learning Lenne and Shuyin's story, Rikku can't help identifying with Shuyin, who went to extreme lengths to save the woman he loved, which is no different from her two years prior, when Rikku tried all she could to save Yuna.
- The vocal version "Kimi e
- The sidequest in Luca where Yuna follows a floating moogle around. Each time she catches up to it, she recalls a memory she had with Tidus there.Yuna: (whistling) I practiced. Wherever I go, Spira is full of places tied to my memories. Memories of my journey. Memories of you.
- After Yuna falls into the hole in Djose Temple, she calls out into the darkness to see if someone - anyone - is there. She eventually curls up on the ground in defeat, lamenting that she's all alone. However, this can become a heartwarming moment if you press X, which results in Yuna hearing a familiar whistle...
- A downplayed example. When Yuna returns to Zanarkand, and the spot where the party sat around the fire in the opening scene, there's something very bittersweet about a site of so much loss and sadness being used for tourists. Even Paine, who wasn't there, sees the display and sadly remarks, "A tourist attraction."
- Isaaru, a once proud summoner who failed to finish his pilgrimage, is reduced to running a cheesy quiz for the tourists, further making a mockery of this once-great site. And then the monkeys' overbreeding force him out of this job, too!
- Yuna being forced to fight and defeat each of the dark aeons, especially the first one, Bahamut. She throws up her arms and exclaims "You must stop!", hoping her words will make a difference. They don't. It doesn't help that "Yuna's Ballad" is playing in the background the whole time.Paine: Fight! You have to!
- After the infamous "I don't like your plan. It sucks," quote from Yuna in the game's finale, most people are too busy laughing at the scene to pay much more attention. If you actually do, Yuna fully expands on her thoughts in a heart-wrenching speech about how much she lost in the past and how much she deeply regrets all of the noble sacrifices made by her friends (complete with hearing the voices of many of those who made such sacrifices), and how she doesn't want to have to suffer through that regret anymore. The fact that "Yuna's Ballad" plays after Bahamut asks Yuna to forgive him and the other fayth for what they had to put her through makes this scene more poignant.Yuna: Your plan is awful. Think about it. It’s no different than what we did two years ago. We destroyed our own allies. We destroyed the aeons who had fought together with us, at our side. We didn’t have a choice then. We believed that was the only way we could save Spira. Do you know what it felt like to watch them die? Right before my eyes? It was the only thing we could do. It was the only choice we had. I gave in, I accepted, I believed. I allowed it to be true. I thought I’d be able to go through with it without ever doubting myself. But I... it hurt so much.Bahamut: Forgive us.
Yuna: Everyone was so happy. “Great job, Yuna. You did it. You saved us all.” There were too many smiles to count. And I know that I was smiling too. But now...when I look back… The people who should be here aren’t. The ones who should be smiling with me aren’t here.
Jecht: We had no choice.
Yuna: “We had no choice.” Always “we had no choice.” Those were our magic words. We repeat them to ourselves again and again. But you know...The magic never worked! The only thing we’re left with is regret.
Jecht: Yuna...I’m sorry.
Yuna: No. I don’t want this anymore. I don’t want friends to die...or fade away. I don't want battles where we have to lose in order to win. Nooj, I know that what you say is what you mean to do. Give me your resolve. Believe in Yuna. - It takes a lot of work to figure out what the deal is between all the current leaders of Spira and Paine, but if you manage to watch all the spheres and follow the right cues for where the action is throughout the game, it's pretty hard not to feel sorry for everyone involved in their tragic history.
- To elaborate, the Crimson Sphere sidequest involves collecting a series of spheres that document a branch of the Crusaders called the Crimson Squad. Paine explains that the Crimson Squad was to be an elite fighting force under Maester Kinoc, and Nooj, Baralai, and Gippal were all candidates for the squad, with Paine as their recorder meaning that Paine is behind the camera of eight out of the ten spheres needed to complete the sidequest in full in Chapter 5.
- Crimson Sphere 7 is a callback to Operation Mi'ihen of Final Fantasy X. As Tidus in X, we were able to look over each and every dead body (if we so chose to) before progressing in the story, and the remains of the Crusaders and those involved all lament their losses to Tidus if spoken to. We don't even get a clear view in Crimson Sphere 7 because Paine is presumably running around and not actually holding up the camera to record anything specific, but imagining Paine, who just stopped her friends from shooting each other in the Den of Woe, who just barely managed to escape with her friends and her life intact after warning her friends of the Crusaders' betrayal, suddenly finding herself getting caught up in the chaos of Operation Mi'ihen and then being unable to find her friends is just heartbreaking to think about, especially when you equate this to real life events in which families search for their loved ones following natural disasters or other incredibly traumatic events. And what's worse, that's not even the end of it yet.
- The hardest to watch is Crimson Sphere 5, full-stop. The final exercise for the Crimson Squad involved exploration of an area of Mushroom Rock Road which was dubbed the Den of Woe for the unexplained deaths of people who enter. It turns out the presence of the malevolent pyreflies (read: Shuyin) was responsible for forcing the participants to kill each other, and Nooj, Baralai, and Gippal just barely avoid killing each other with Paine's help. They look utterly broken by the end of the sphere in question.
- Crimson Sphere 8. Paine, Nooj, Baralai, and Gippal regroup at the Mi'ihen Highroad Travel Agency, clearly traumatised but alive. They decide it would be safer to split up. As they go their separate ways, Paine makes one last recording of her friends, "for old times' sake." It seems, for a moment, that they might have made it out okay. And then Nooj turns and shoots the others in the back.
- In the Den of Woe, when Rikku and Paine are possessed, driven insane by Shuyin's centuries of despair, and Yuna is forced to fight them in order to save them. With Rikku's bloodcurdling scream and "Yuna's Ballad" playing, it's equal parts tearjerker and nightmare fuel.
- A possible Game Over quote:Yuna: Somebody? Anybody...
- The Reveal that Maechen has been an Unsent for the past 1000 years. Poor guy doesn't even realize that he was dead for so long and has seen so many people die to sacrificing their lives to defeat Sin in vain. He finally manages to send himself after revealing everything to YRP, including knowing Braska's party when they also sat down at the campfire just like the party in the prequel.
- Considering fiends are manifestations of the souls of the dead, it should really not come as a surprise that some of their finished tales are pretty sad:
- Pick an elemental as a creature partner and return it; the stories they tell are usually heart-rending. White Elemental for example tells the story about monks slowly dying in sinking Macalania temple.
- Chocobo's tale is about a young girl that died due to unspecificied events and their parents still not moving on. However, sighting said Chocobo makes them realize she must be at better place now, also doubling as Heartwarming Moment.
- Lupus' tale is about four kids burying a time capsule before they are all killed by Sin.
- Machina Ranger's tale tells us about a family making a home sphere recording when machina malfunctions and kills the whole family. The Machina Ranger sees the recording and absorbs the personality of the family's young son.
- In Last Mission, taking place three months after the events of X-2:
- The equally heartwarming musical theme, "Wind Crest -The Three Trials".
- Yuna thinking to herself how Rikku feels that Yuna doesn't want to see her anymore. There's also the moment of Rikku thinking to herself how she can't help it when it comes to worrying about other people whether or not it's her business.
- Around a campfire, Paine asks Rikku what she wants to do with her life and nothing comes to mind. Rikku goes off on Yuna and accuses her of wasting her life away by staying in one place and doing normal things, something Rikku can't stand to see her cousin doing but at the same time is jealous of her for. Then Yuna gets upset with Rikku and says her cousin is only fooling herself by keeping busy and running around all the time since she cares about other people too much. Rikku even accuses Paine of not caring about others. The two cousins fighting makes Paine raise her voice to silence them and ask what the point of reuniting is if they're just going to fight.
- Before this, Yuna and Rikku have never raised their voices to each other, let alone fought with each other. Plus, seeing the usually happy-go-lucky Rikku insecure and at odds with Yuna concerning the latter's life choices makes the out-of-character argument between them particularly heart-wrenching.
- Paine revealing she was the one who wrote the letters that brought the girls back together, that she spent the last three months traveling around Spira on her own and how she felt that something was missing during her lone travels.
- As the girls get closer to the top of Iutycyr Tower, the sunset causes Paine to have a flashback to the day the Shuyin-possessed Nooj shot her, Baralai and Gippal, after which the latter three were found by the Al Bhed and split up. Then Rikku flashes back to the day she saw Zanarkand for the first time during Yuna's pilgrimage and how it filled her with dread about Yuna's fate. Remembering the sunset in Zanarkand as well, Yuna says having her friends on her journey with her was enough, despite not knowing about the Final Aeon.
- Around their second campfire, the girls all realize they have changed and all fear growing further apart as long as they're together. Yuna believes they only got along when they were a team because they had to work together and they probably never really got along in the first place. They all realize there is still a lot they don't know about each other, which is why they fight, and the previous night won't be the last time it will happen.
