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As a warrior type of character in an RPG, Tidus needs the help of swords to help him battle fiends and uh, vanquish evil! There are six basic types of swords Tidus can use while traveling around Spira -- seven, if you count his ultimate weapon. Some of them can be bought, but the really good ones are usually found in treasure chests or synthesized. The six types of swords are really six categories for more swords.If it sounds confusing, that's because it is. Well, not really, it's quite easy to get the hang of.

This is the sword Tidus initially starts off with. It's a decent enough sword, but you'll definitely want something stronger when the journey gets more difficult. There are no elemental side effects to it, and it usually raises strength or magic powers. The Taming Sword is also listed under the Longsword category, and is the only sword that can be used to capture fiends.

This is the sword you receive from Wakka. It is always associated with water, making it kind of useless against plant-like fiends. You can have Icestrike or Waterstrike equipped on it, or if you get the Excalibur, you can even use it to break the damage limit and go beyond 9999 damage points.

This sword can be bought from Wantz in Macalania Woods, at the hefty price of 100,000 gil. As its name implies, it can be used for a variety of different functions. You can use it to counterattack, or evade and counter, or even to become a "gillionaire". There are also a variety of different overdrive bonuses. Famous swords from past Final Fantasy installments are listed under the Variable Steel category, including Save The Queen and Ragnarok.

This sword can't be bought, but it is easily acquired since a great many fiends drop it after defeating them (why they are carrying around weapons, potions and money is beyond me). As deceiving as the name is, this sword is able to have any type of elemental equipped onto it, such as waterstrike, lightning strike, firestrike, etc.

Slasher-type weapons can only be obtained by synthesizing, or as it is called in FFX, customization. A great majority of the swords under the Slasher category are for increasing strength and magic, much bigger increasements than the Longswords can handle.

The only way to obtain a Twilight Steel is to fight Garudas or Sinspawn. Twilight Steels are unique in that they have status effects equipped onto it, including Darktouch, Stonestrike, Deathstrike, etc. The Arc Sword also has the ability to half MP costs.

The Caladbolg is Tidus' ultimate weapon and you must go through quite a bit of frustrating work to obtain it. You can read about obtaining it here.