Generally there must be three characters on the front line in preparation for battle. Obviously initially there's only Tidus and later there will be other times where less than three will be available. Set which three you wish as the first three via the Formation screen. For a strong physical attack, employ a front line of Tidus, Kimahri or Wakka, and Auron. If you want to be able to front a strong magical attack, use Yuna, Lulu, and Rikku. For general adventuring, place Tidus, Yuna, and Wakka (alternate with Lulu depending on the enemies faced), in the front line. When first playing the game, you can use Tidus, Auron, and Yuna or Lulu.

You should be adequately prepared for battle by ensuring your characters are well prepped with the best weapons and armor. It's suggested that you use weapons capable of Break Damage Limit, First Strike, Evade and Counter, Triple Overdrive, or Celestials, for best battle performance. Use armor capable of Auto-Haste, Auto-Potion, Auto-Protect, and Ribbon (for PAL/International format). Obviously you'll not have access to any of this stuff when starting out. Also, it's a good idea to ensure your characters are at or near full health in between battles as a general rule.

The CTB Window is completely new and original in Final Fantasy X. It's a vertical list, which appears on the lower right side of the screen, during battle mode. It shows all the turns of the battle to come, and the order in which they'll occur. Scroll up and down the list with the 'L1'/'L2' and 'R1'/'R2' buttons on your Playstation 2 Controller. Suppose your party has an Agility statistic average of 175. Suppose that the battle is with an enemy or boss, with an average of around 190 Agility. The enemy's(ies') Agility statistic is somewhat higher than your characters' average, thus it will get a turn or they will get all their turns before your characters even get a chance to lay a glove on it/them. If the relative Agilities are reversed, your characters will get to attack first.

A Pre-Emptive Strike is the opposite of an Ambush, in that your characters will be able to get in one to many turns before the enemy group gets to strike at your party instead of the enemy group getting to attack first. The CTB gauge will again return to its normal state, where Agility is again taken into account. Increase the chance of a Pre-Emptive Strike by adding the Initiative ability or by customizing six Chocobo Feathers onto one of your character's weapons.

An Ambush is the opposite of a Pre-Emptive strike, where the enemy party attacks your party before anything else happens, instead of your party attacking the enemy first. The Great Malboro will frequently ambush your party. The CTB gauge will return to its normal state, where Agility is taken into account. You can eliminate the chance of Ambushes by customizing the First Strike ability onto all weapons currently in use (use a Return Sphere on a weapon to do so).

It's the little caption box at the top of the battle screen, which can be used to display all kinds of information useful to beginners, including information concerning different actions, enemies, etc. Having the Sensor ability on a weapon or using the Scan ability on an enemy when it's active, will result in additional information displayed. Use the Config on the Menu Screen to toggle this function on or off.

• Attack causes the character to physically attack an enemy(ies). When there are no other performance detracting statuses in place (e.g. Magic, Mental, Power, or Armor Break attacks), the enemy receives the full inflicted damage amount. Should a Critical Hit (luckily or because of high Luck status) occur, the damage will approximately double with a slight increase over that if Break Damage Limit is in effect. If the weapon, being used, has one or more abilities that inflict status detractions then the enemy(ies) so struck will have diminished capability or automatically lose hit points on succeeding turns (e.g. Darkness will cause enemy attacks during following turns to be less effective due to blindness). When "Overkill" appears during the defeated enemy animation due to exceeding the Square pre-established defeat damage amount, increased experience is awarded. Certain enemies and Aons are immune or resistant to physical attacks. Some enemies can absorb damage from attacks using weapons with elemental affinities attached, such that their health is replenished rather than depleted.
• Black Magic causes oppressive magical damage to be inflicted upon the enemy. It will cause full currently possible (based on the character's Magic (attack) value) damage against enemies with no elemental preference. Should a Critical Hit (luckily or because of high Luck status) occur, the damage will approximately double with little difference whether Break Damage Limit is in effect or not. If the enemy or aeon being attacked has a compatible elemental value, it will be healed rather than damaged (e.g. a Fire based being, will be healed when it receives fire based damage). Use the opposite element to inflict double damage (e.g. use Ice, Water, or Holy against a Fire based elemental). Bio which causes Poison status, which is a more advanced form of Black Magic. It normally inflicts 25% of the enemy's(ies') current Hit Points in damage when it(they) act(s). However Bio does no pre-damage. Drain is another advanced Black Magic attack, which removes a random number of Hit Points from the enemy and adds them to the casting character's. When an enemy is normally afflicted with Zombie status or one of your characters has cast it, Drain causes the random loss of Hit Points from the attacker. Demi is a Gravity based attack, which takes away 25% of current Hit Points, unless the enemy(ies) is(are) immune to it.
• White Magic, which aids, is the opposite of Black Magic, which damages. Yuna can cast Cure, which can recover a varying amount of Hit Points based on her current Magic ability. It's curative effect can also be halved or actually heal an opponent under certain circumstances. Haste causes characters' battle rates to increase. Slow negates Haste and vice versa. Reflect will cause Haste to be applied to any enemies so enhanced. Slow reduces the number of turns an enemy or enemies receive(s) during a given period. Reflect will cause Slow to be applied to against your character(s). Shell causes attempted magically inflicted damage to be halved, while Protect does the same for physically attempted damage. If the attack bounces off and hits the attacking opponent, your character has Reflect in place. Holy is the only offensive White Magic spell, which inflicts Holy elemental magic damage against one or more enemies, unless it(they is(are) immune to Holy. Holy, and Ultima Black Magic can't be Reflected, but are affected by Shell.
• Skill inflicts damage or status effects against the enemy. Utilization will cause Magic Points to be deducted. Enemy immunity also comes into play with Skill command usage (i.e. s Skill related Status attack will fail if the target is immune to that form of attack). Some Skill based effects cause a predictable enemy reaction (e.g. Mug used against Nemesis initiates Ultima). Quick Hit, which is on Tidus' Sphere Grid section, enhances performance and gives your characters very fast recovery time. The Breaks don't really inflict statuses. Armor Break (decreases Defense), Magic Break (decreases Magic ability), Mental Berak (decreases Magic Defense), and Power Break (decreases Strength), are used to lower those opposition statistics. They too are not effective if the target is immune. Weapon effects in conjunction with Skill utilization still takes place, which can work for or against your characters. Skills have longer recovery time spans than Special recovery times.
• Special assists your party members and optimizes their performances. Some Special Commands utilize Magic Points but most do not. The following commands expend the indicated Magic Points: Copycat (28), Entrust (8), Flee (), Provoke (4), and Threaten (12). Magic Points can be reduced to zero with Three Stars, cut in half with Half MP Cost, and reduced to one with One MP Cost, for all Magic Point costing Specials and all Skills. Some of the Specials don't work on your characters, but do work on some enemies (e.g. Provoke or Threaten). Copycat lets you repeat actions. Kimahri must use Lancet to learn his Overdrives. Spare Change bypasses lots of enemy counters, but it cost your characters Gil at the same time. Use and Rikku's Mix skill let you utilize some of the game's rarer and more useful items (e.g. Wings to Discovery). Specials have a shorter recovery time span than Skill recovery.
• Item allows usage of the things that keep your party functional while in battle, as well as before and after via the main menu Item sub-menu function. The useful and more curative items can be accessed by simply choosing this option. Ninety-nine of any one item is the maximum number your characters can have in reserve at any given time. You can drop some if you find that you have too many items. Sometime use of restoorative items can have the opposite of the intended effect (e.g. healing while under Zombie status). You'll know when this occurs because the color or the number of Hit Points lost (instead of regained) will be white instead of green.
• Summon (Yuna only) invokes any of the currently available aeons, who're entities of great power. They are (in the order acquired): Valefor, Ifrit, Ixion, Shiva, Bahamut, Yojimbo, Anima, and Cindy, Mindy, and Sandy, the Magus Sisters. Once invoked, the aeon battles against all enemies until they're all defeated or the aeon is, unless you decide to use the "Dismiss" command to cause the aeon to prematurely exit from the battlefield. A menu, similar to (but not exacly like) the menu each of the characters has, is available.
• Overdrive is accesed by pressing the 'left' directional button when on the main Command Menu, after the Overdrive bar has been filled, and the command becomes available, and allows specification of any currently acquired (or default) Overdrive against one or more enemies or to the benefit of one or more party members.





• Trigger Commands: They're accessed by pressing the 'left' directional button on the main Command Menu and only used in certain situations:
• Talk: Only useable by certain characters only in Seymour battles.
• Pincer Attack: Have Rikku and Tidus surround Tros in the Sunken Airship.
• Move Closer/Move Out: Tidus and Rikku use it to move in closer or farther out when battling with Evrae before entering the Bevelle area.
• Talk: Used only by Tidus when fighting Braska's Final aeon to lower its deadly Overdrive guage.
• Weapon allows you to change your character's current weapon to any currently available weapon while engaged in battle. The downside is that this too costs you character a turn to do so.
• Armor premits you to change your character's current armor to any currently available armor while engaged in battle. The downside is that it cost you character a turn to do so.
• Escape is accessed by pressing the 'right' directional button on the main Command Menu. It causes one character at a time to flee from the battle scene. Story line (i.e. required) boss battles can not be escaped from. The "Flee" skill, once learned, is much more effective, in that it allows all characters to exit stage left at once.
• Skip Turn: Pressing the 'Triangle' button during a character's turn will skip his or her turn and put the character in Guard stance and condition.
• Exchange a Character: Press the 'L1' button to access a list currently inactive characters.

• Attack: Causes a physical attack against an enemy.
• Black Magic: Allows specification of any currently known dark oppressive magic attack against one or all of the opposition members.
• White Magic: Allows specification of any currently known light helpful magic and its subsequent use on a single party member or everyone in the party.
• Skills: Allows specification of any currently learned (on the Sphere Grid) skill against one or more enemies or to the benefit of one or more party members.
• Specials: Allows specification of any currently learned (on the Sphere Grid) Special against one or more enemies or to the benefit of one or more party members.
• Overdrive is accesed by pressing the 'left' directional button when on the main Command Menu, after the Overdrive bar has been filled, and the command becomes available, and allows specification of any currently acquired (or default) Overdrive against one or more enemies or to the benefit of one or more party members.
• Unique Attack lets the aeons use their Unique (to them) attacks.
• Boost: Raises the Overdrive guage status a little, while also causing a slight lowering of the Defense statistic. This action is accessible by pressing the 'right' directional button on the main Command Menu.
• Shield: This move raises the Defense statistic, while causing the Overdrive guage to fill much more slowly. This action is accessible by pressing the 'right' directional button on the main Command Menu. Use it when you can predict a powerful boss move in the offing.
• Dismiss: Sends an aeon away from battle. This action is accessible by pressing the 'right' directional button on the main Command Menu.