Uematsu rates "Suteki da Ne" as his favorite from the album, followed by the opening theme. At one point he turned out 15 songs in an hour, one of which ended up being the theme song. Uematsu went about composing the music for Final Fantasy X by setting up a synthesizer in his office at night. Uematsu calls " Suteki da ne" Yuna's theme song, but also that it's essentially the main melody of the game. Uematsu called the album is a masterpiece, and Rikki's voice "amazing", which made him choose her. The album they listened to was Miss you Amami, Rikki's album released on an indie label. When deciding on the singer for the game's theme song a manager brought the team one of RIKKI's albums, and after just one listen, they unanimously decided she was the only singer they wanted. Before Final Fantasy X sounds effects were done in monaural, but in in this game they switched to stereo making the effects better add to the atmosphere, and Uematsu noted they are key to the story.
Uematsu rated Final Fantasy X as sounding more cinematic, but old fan favorites, such as the Chocobo's Theme, are also included. Hamauzu and Nakano were chosen to compose for Final Fantasy X because they can create the type of music Uematsu says he cannot compose himself. Uematsu would divide and assign the responsibility for the pieces, and ask each composer to work individually. Unlike previous Final Fantasy soundtracks, Uematsu didn't work alone on the soundtrack for Final Fantasy X, but he worked with Masashi Hamauzu and Junya Nakano. Compared to previous games in the series, Final Fantasy X has the most scenes with silence, but it also has the second largest number of songs in a Final Fantasy game.
The spoken dialogue is paramount, so when a character starts talking the background music will automatically decrease in volume. For example, melodies may play along with the spoken dialogue, but very quietly if the music is too loud it would get in the way, so Uematsu had to approach the music differently. He has said voice acting would take the RPG genre to a new level by changing the way music is needed. Since Final Fantasy X made great strides for the series, Uematsu wanted to do the same from a musical standpoint by trying something new.