The last time I played FFX was the North American PS2 version but when I started up this version of FFX, it asked which version of the sphere grid I wanted to use. Can anyone tell me what the differences between the two are? I'm assuming one is from the north american version and the other is from international but does one make the game harder than then the other? Are there abilities on one that aren't on the other? Kind of a shame they don't give you a short blurb on what the differences are when they ask you to make your choice.

http://www.reddit.com/r/JRPG/comments/20o2cm/final_fantasy_x_hd_has_the_option_to_choose/ gives a pretty good run down of things.

I found this explained it nicely.

Basically standard is the original one, where players are set on their default paths. And the expert starts everyone in the middle and you do as you please with each character. Also the expert has less spheres to fill in. Its a little more challenging. You have to plan out your upgrade path per character. While standard is pretty set it and forget it. You just upgrade from where they are until you can go other places later in the game.

Expert is more open and lets you customise your characters to a greater extent than standard. For example I taught Yuna some level 1 black magic before sending her down her own healer path right at the beginning of the game and I sent Tidus on a detour to Auron's path after setting a +4 strength sphere at an intersection.

I want to ask a question about this but also don't want to sign up to Reddit: I have never played FFX before, so should I start with Expert or Standard? That being said, I'm also certainly not a newcomer to JRPGs, it's high and above my all time favorite genre and I've played a ton of them. I just don't want to pick one grid and then regret it later on because I really don't know the structure of the game and combat.

I would say start with standard. Expert might get a little confusing because you don't start in each specific characters section and can just go anywhere with anybody from the middle. But if you are confident, want more of a challenge and want more choice on which character does what go with expert. But personally I would go standard if I have never played the game before.

Expert is also worse in the long run because it has fewer nodes, meaning if you max level any of your characters (this is still take a looong time, even on expert) they won't be as powerful on an expert grid as on a standard grid.

I'd recommend for most people to just go with standard. On a second playthrough it can be fun to mess with the expert one.

Standard is probably the best one to start with. It is a bit more straightforward and keeps the characters a bit more distinct from each other in the early game which makes it more worthwhile to swap people in and out. At least until you max people out at which point Lulu, Khimari and Auron become kind of redundant while Yuna just gets used to provide token summons to let aeons eat one hit kill attacks from certain foes.

Anyway, if you plan to ever go far enough to defeat the dark aeons and penance then the standard grid allows for more growth potential for the characters. (Apparently around 50 or so less spheres for stats on the expert grid).

Expert allows you to vary characters more in the early game but given how fast it is to switch people out in combat there is not really a pressing need to overlap the characters early. You also aren't really missing anything with the standard grid in the long term since you gain a number of spheres that allow you to pretty much jump characters around at will. Eventually you max everything out and just stick to melee hits/quick hit for 99,999 damage anyway.

What's confusing about the Expert Sphere Grid? If you want to follow the characters as usual then they already start on their path (just move in the direction they are already pointed in). But expert is ultimately a much more well designed grid with interconnections throughout rather than after a more straight path. As has been pointed out, the Expert one is technically the weaker one in terms of sphere nodes but if you get to the point of maxing out character stats, those extra points are basically useless (you'll probably realize you can beat every enemy in the game after maxing out using only 80%% of the grid anyway).

They still have the same paths in the same order with the same abilities, they just have an origin all around the center.

Nevertheless, here's a tip if you're playing the HD version:

If you go into HELP on the menu and click into References, it allows you to look up what every ability and auto-ability (the ones set to equipment) are called and what they do. Unsure whether you want to get an ability? You can look it up without even going to the internet.

Because of the way the sphere grid works that moving along a line you have previously gone through costs 1/4th a point (i.e. up to 4 steps back and only one forward) it means that picking the Expert Sphere Grid gives you a lot more freedom. At any point in the game, you can respec a character by going back to an earlier point and branching to another part of the grid (and in Expert, since they all mostly start from the center, at any point you can send someone back through another's grid very easily) and all it costs you is the number of ability points to move back there.

If you are the sort of person to play games multiple times or if you just want to experience the story as directly intended (i.e. won't experience odd moments when characters reference their skill-set and you've levelled them completely differently - like if you set Rikku along the black mage path for instance) then pick the standard one. It is still a fantastic game under that sphere grid. But I think the Expert Sphere Grid is incredibly more well thought out and much more fun to playthrough. I also think it is much better for newcomers as it allows for more leniency in how you play - find part way through you don't have enough black mages - no problem, Yuna's, Wakka's and Rikku's path all intersect with the -ra magic spells so it won't take much effort to do so.

Whichever one you pick though, getting the hang of the Sphere Grid early is one of the best ways to be prepared for some of the harder fights (some of the hardest fights in the game are only difficult because you'll usually have only one character that has the utility to be effective against them - so having the ability to diversify each characters skill-set so they can make up for if another character is killed is a useful thing to do).

Also, no matter what sphere grid you pick, Kimahri is a free character who is meant to be able to fit any role from the get-go. While he does have his own part of the sphere grid, it is very limited (especially so in the Expert sphere grid - as parts have been taken out because he no longer has to have a way of moving between other sphere grids since they are all at the same point). So pick something you think it would be great to have an extra of and maybe move him down that path (I usually give him the Steal ability and then move down the White Mage path while stopping part-way to pick up the black magic -ra abilities - he still ends up the second strongest in terms of strength though!)

Have Fun!

Thanks for the thread. I had the same questions about standard vs expert.