The Final Fantasy Retrospective from gametrailers.com noted that whereas previous Final Fantasies in the franchise mostly based their locations on Western romanticized notions of fantasy worlds and science fiction, FFX's world was based on Southeast Asia.

The Middle Eastern influences were pretty obvious in FFXII, but I can't really think of very much in FFX that struck me as Southeast Asian.

Here's where I saw the influence:

The architecture of the Besaid Temple is like a longhouse
Maritime culture
The shoopufs and the Moonflow
The stilt-houses of Kilika

Anybody see any other instances of Southeast Asian culture?

The thing is, I felt more of a Japanese vibe than a Southeast Asian vibe, yet when they based FFXII on Middle Eastern and Arabic culture, it was very easy to see where the influences lay.

Rather than relying on memory, I started replaying FFX with Southeast Asia in mind - now I actually see the influence a lot. Lots of Japanese culture, of course, as well.


-Old Zanarkand with all the spires greatly resembles Thai pagodas (more like the pagodas of Ayutthaya rather than of Srivijaya, I think)

-The Crusaders' Lodge in Besaid looks like an Indonesian tongkonan

-Besaid is supposed to resemble a South Pacific island, though in the Japanese version they speak with an Okinawan accent and in the English version they speak with a Hawaiian accent

-The first boat (S.S. Liki) kinda looks like a cross between a Chinese junk and something of a Polynesian design

-The temples are heavily influenced by Japanese design. The arrangement of the statues, however, is very Southeast Asian - a mix of Buddhist and Hindu

VR: The pic you show is indeed Asian. The shape of the building is very reminiscent of a Japanese pagoda (which in turn is based on a Chinese pagoda), as well as the general ornate design as well as the color choice. The decorative patterns, however, are distinctly Nomura's steampunk-derived designs.