Thursday, December 27, 2012

Final Fantasy X - Final Thoughts

And thus we approach yet another Final Thoughts section.
Prepare yourself for my review and passing thoughts on yet another achieved victory over Final Fantasy!
Observe below as I have...

Final Fantasy X - Final Thoughts

As usual, we'll start with the basics and list some game information. Since FFX completely threw out the idea of levels, I'll just list some character achievements instead. I'm also going to list them in order of "most useful" to "least useful".

Game Stats
Hours Played - 81 Hours. That's a new record as far as the series goes! Nearly a third of that is just the last post.
Character Ratings - As I stated, this is the order of characters from "Most useful" to "Least useful". This simply reflects my opinion based on how they did throughout during battles. NOTHING to do with their actual character or personality.

  1. Wakka - Easily one of the best characters...battle-wise. Long range and powerful.
  2. Yuna - Your white mage throughout the game. Also brings the awesome power of Aeons! Became the star mage for me before the end. Has the easiest to get Ultimate Weapon as well.
  3. Rikku - Brings you the ability to steal, customize items, and her Mix Overdrive has the widest variety of uses while giving you the super item "Trio of 9999". Not the most powerful character though...
  4. Tidus - He comes in at about the middle ground for me. He's decently strong, fairly fast, and gains the Quick Hit attack on his lane. I'd put Auron here, but Auron ended up not being nearly as powerful near the end.
  5. Auron - Your strongest powerhouse for like 70% of the game. Ultimate Weapon is fairly easy to get, and he comes with the useful "Break" abilities. However, I got them with Tidus, so Auron lost a lot of his flavor in comparison.
  6. Lulu - She's your black mage, and that's really her only great use. You have to use her a lot because some enemies are resistant to physical strikes and not magical ones. If you get far enough, you can start teaching others magic and put her to the side. Didn't help that her Ultimate Weapon is one of the most annoying to fully power up.
  7. Kimahri - Ah poor Kimahri. Is he the worst character? Probably not. Unfortunately, I made him the worst character. He starts off as being fairly nice middle ground of power, health, and magical ability, but he's too much of a middle ground. You have to make him into whatever you want, and if you build him wrong, he starts to just plummet downwards. I'll say right now..DO NOT MAKE KIMAHRI INTO A MAGE! There's no point in making him a mage. Push him down Tidus's lane or anybody's elses except Lulu's. His blue magic "Overdrive" is kinda useless once you have all the other powerful abilities and attacks. I also skipped his Ultimate Weapon because screw butterfly catching.
Ultimate Weapons Achieved 
  • Obtained and Fully Powered 
    • Tidus's Caladbolg
    • Wakka's World Champion
    • Auron's Masamune
    • Yuna's Nirvana
    • Rikku's Godhand
  • Obtained and Partially Powered
    • Kimahri's Spirit Lance
    • Lulu's Onion Knight
Overall, I did pretty well as far as actual game achievements. I didn't do everything, but in the end, I didn't WANT to do everything. A lot of the side quests turn into too much time. I was ready to beat the game, so I beat it! I'll cover this more as I go through each portion of my review.

If you've read previous Final Thoughts, you'll know how this goes. If not, I was going to go over my process regardless. For Final Fantasy X, I'm going to cover three basic aspects: Gameplay, Story, and Characters. Each part will contain general coverage of said subject followed by opinions containing compliments and complaints. I always try to be fair, but there are times when a game just annoys me, and things need to be said! Anyways, I'll stop wasting time here and get going! Let's start with the gameplay. 

Ah! The gameplay! Without gameplay, you don't have a game. I guess you'd have...a movie. Final Fantasy X takes a strange turn in the series and goes back to purely turn-based play. It seems strange with several of the titles before it (since FF4) went into Active Time Battle. It's not a bad move though. I honestly really like how the battle plays out, and with it being on a more powerful console, they were able to give it a live-action look. The battles play and flow incredibly well. At many points of the game, instead of shattered glass, the game simply melts into the battle and immediately goes from there. A nice change from the turn-based aspect is the ability to see all the upcoming turns for the next...ten turns or so. With that visible, you're able to see how certain actions can delay your character's next turn or an enemy's turn. It's possible to improve the turn order by just doing different actions. The battle system is probably the strongest point of the gameplay. It feels fast, plays fast, and is pretty cool to see in comparison to previous titles. Overall, battles are fun and well done.

Up next though, we have to cover the system that it all runs on. First and foremost, I don't get this game's super fascination with the shape known as a sphere. Seriously...the game is obsessed with them. They are all over the damn place. Glossing past that, the Sphere system is an interesting and new take on level ups. It allows full and utter customization on a micro detail. This makes the system very "love or hate" though. On the plus side, it's a new and interesting system. There's a lot of room for customization, and it's possible to teach everybody everything if you have the time and huge amount of patience. The Sphere Grid is littered with all forms of useful attacks, abilities, and magic. Unfortunately though, I have to bring up the bad part of the Sphere Grid.

It's a lot of work for generally not much reward. It's a big board game where you mover your pieces around to enable them to grow stronger and more powerful. At the same time though, it's an insanely slow process. Without a current level, it's hard to gauge if you are strong enough to move on or should take time to do more leveling. Kimahri brings up the worst part of the Sphere Grid. He's in the middle of it all and has access to basically everyone else's path. If you aren't careful though and build him like I did, you come out with a big pile of crappy character. Thankfully, only Kimahri truly suffered here, but it's possible to do it with anybody if you make a wrong turn.

In conclusion, the battles are great and all, but the Sphere Grid is...a mix of good and bad. It's really only a good system to someone who wants to fully and totally micro-manage their character's stats. With enough time, patience, and an absence of life outside of game playing, you could maximize your character's to insanely powerful levels. All-in-all though, it's a huge time suck and generally offers little reward as you slowly putter through it. With the gameplay said and done, I'd normally move on to the story review, but I've got a special mention to make for the side quests before I move on.

In Final Fantasy X, the Side Quests are probably among the most annoying ones ever conceived. Seriously, before I was said and done, I really had little enjoyment in any of them. Monster catching was okay, but it wasn't really any different from normal battles, minus a weapon change. Blitzball is a horrible game and just feels badly done at times. You often get cheated because of AI or bad mechanics, and you have to play a LOT of freakin' Blitzball if you want to get Wakka's weapon fully powered. If it weren't for that, I'd have left it behind and never gone back. Lightning dodge...I won't even go into a lot of details, but I'd like to say the following. LIGHTNING DODGE SUCKS! It's not fun. The rewards are minimal and not worth the time or effort. True, I might just suck at it, but it's a purely not-fun mini-game in the end. Chocobo Racing would be okay if I was allowed full control of the bird rather than "turning rights". If that were fixed, it'd have been okay. The Cactuar Hunt was borderline pointless. Luckily, it lets you have Rikku's Mercury Sigil regardless of how you do, but it just felt...blech.

The only thing I'd be nice to in all of this is earning the extra Aeons. The extra Aeons were more than worth the minor amount of trouble involved. Doing Aeon battles was cool too! It was cool fighting Aeons versus other Aeons! There should have been more of this throughout, but you really only have one opponent in most cases...Belgemine. Despite that, it was still cool to see all these big FF figures finally able to duke it out. And that's all I have for Side Quests. They were either not worth the trouble or insanely annoying. That's enough about gameplay though. Let's move on to STORY!

WARNING! SPOILERS AHEAD! 
(Just warning you)

Ah! The story is the key aspect of the RPG (next to characters). With an RPG story, you get to feel like you are a part of it all. You learn about the world, the characters, and all the events around you. In Final Fantasy X's case, it's a huuuuge pile of religiousness. I've read that the Japanese version was incredibly hefty in religiousness, and they ended up editing and toning a lot of that down. Overall, it's really not a bad story. Guy gets caught up in something and is teleported magically to another time. From here, he learns all about the problems of this period. He meets a pile of new people, and he gets caught up in a huge spiral of religion, hatred, and lies.

All in all, it's really just making fun of a certain highbrow religion that runs today. Talks about how people are blindly following a set of teachings but rarely question it. How there are others who believe different and are persecuted for it. It's good stuff. The world of Spira is run by the religious leaders, but the people live their lives in constant fear of...SIN. As you get further in, you learn that things aren't what they seem. Everybody has been lied to, and the solution they all preach is just a big damn lie. Controversy! Romance! Religion! This should naturally be a really good story, but then the game throws in a screwball. A huge...stupid...screwball.

We have all the stuff happening in the real world, and then we find out that...some of the people aren't real. They're all ghosts and spirits that have lived on miraculously without anybody noticing. (Keep reading. This isn't the screwball.) I could get past that honestly. They explain that people's spirits tend to not want to move on and they become fiends and demons who strike out at the living. I could get past that almost, but then they throw a huge character twist! TIDUS ISN'T REAL! HE'S A DREAM! Somehow, a dream of a ghost-statue made it into real life and is real there...but still a dream. Why did they do this? Why was this deemed a great twist? It's not a great twist. It's just...weird and complicated. They should have just worked it around where he dies at the end. Maybe he dies because of a sacrifice needed or something. Maybe there is more to the time travel bit and Tidus can't stay in the future or it ruins the past. Why not do that? That's better! They decided that Tidus being a dream was the best solution here for some reason. Thanks Square...Thanks.

Glossing past my obvious complaint here, I enjoyed a good portion of the story. It wasn't the best story of the series, but they did some interesting bits. The whole religious aspect of it all was interesting to see from all the different character's points of view. Some of them were all up about it. Some of them questioned it all. Seeing as I'm talking about characters now...let's wrap up the story and dive right into it. To finish up story though, it was good but not perfect. The twist should have been different and better. Now, let's get to those characters.

Once again, Final Fantasy brings us a whole roundabout cast of characters. We've got all kinds of people here of different shapes, sizes, creeds, and beliefs. It's a good mixture of differing people. That being said...it's not the best Final Fantasy cast at all. It's hard to really point the finger at any one character because none of them are beyond amazing. Of the group, my favorite characters were Rikku and Auron. They seemed to be the better done of the group. Rikku feels like she's the one with the most put into her. She voices herself quite often and doesn't let herself get pushed about. Auron is just your badass samurai guy. However, he lends a guiding hand to the group, and it's always funny when he deflects things. Like when he admits to know what was going to happen but not telling them because "It wouldn't change anything". He also brings the most jokes to the table throughout. In my opinion, he's one of the best in the group, However, with good...comes bad.

And if I were to complain about the rest ...Tidus just feels like a bad combination plate. It's a mix of Cloud and Zidane with a touch of Squall's clothing to top it off. (Seriously, what the hell is up with his outfit?) Lulu is okay really, but she spends most of the game being a massive dictionary of everything. Anytime a person asks something, they basically just look over at Lulu and await an explanation. At least she has a decent backstory and character problems though. Wakka isn't the best character, but he has an annoyingness about him. It's the fact that he's the strong believer in this religious adventure. Kimahri is the strong silent type, but he randomly talks at times. As far as character goes, he's really nothing new here. He is also the only non-human one among them. So...bonus points for that I guess? I don't get why Final Fantasy neglects the idea of non-human characters. I'm not saying to bring in something ridiculous, but it'd be nice to see something different in the group. That only leaves...Yuna. She's more of an inbetween for me. She's not a bad character, and she definitely grows throughout the game, but she doesn't really shine at any point. I didn't really find myself liking her that much. Maybe just comes down to different people like different characters, but I'd say a lot of them are just weak characters in general. I have one more point to cover on this, and then I'll wrap up this section.

With most Final Fantasy titles, I take the time to look over the villain of the game. It's really hard to do that since the "villain" is a never truly just one person. Seymour presents himself as a main villain for a bit, but he is just constantly killed to immediately come back later. His evil is that he believes suffering and pain will end with death. It's true that those end in death, but life also ends in death. Therefore...his logic is kinda retarded in most cases. Seymour just doesn't really ooze an evil or villainous aura. He's more like...just an insane and power hungry individual. Sin can't really be personified past talking about Jecht. However, you really only see a little bit of Jecht throughout, so it's hard to form an opinion on him. He's cooler and better than Tidus, but maybe that's just me. There's Yu Yevon, but he doesn't actually have any form of talking at all whatsoever...so yeah.

There are the random NPCs with names to think about, but they are just minor players in all this. It's interesting that you can change their destiny throughout the game, but it doesn't really matter to the end goal. You just...get to see part of their story through. The only one I'd make a mention of is the scholar guy you see throughout. He's got very little story to him, but he does offer up some interesting facts on the side. Chararacter-wise though...he's just a big history book with nothing more to him than that. Sure, these NPCs are a massive enhancement to something from the far-flung past of the old-old titles, but they aren't that great when you compare them to NPCs of more previous titles. (See FF8 or FF9.)

I'm being overly mean on some of the characters, but there are past characters who are much better done. Again, see anything in Final Fantasy 8 or Final Fantasy 9. Most of these main guys just feel a bit lazy when it comes down to it. Overall, you can never truly call any character 100% unlikable. Somewhere out there is someone who just adores the lesser-liked characters like Yuffie or Wakka or Tidus. If I were to give some form of grade or judgement purely on characters, I'd just give the game a pass. They could have given more to each of the people, but they didn't. In the end, people are going to pick who they like out of the group. I liked Rikku and Auron. All the others...pretty meh in comparison. Now...on to the final review!

Final Fantasy X brought the series on to the next generation when it hit the PlayStation 2. It brought highly detailed characters with facial expressions and gave them all voices. It's not the best graphics of the era, but they did a fairly good job making it all work. The battles are probably the highest point of this game. They're quick and fun with lots of options while reviving the classic turn-based style. The Grid Sphere is an innovative and interesting way to level, but it's a lot of work for little pay off and is better for those who want a micro-managed character. The story brings in the usual controversial issues and does them quite well without being too far (technically edited BUT WHATEVER), but I feel that they dropped the ball by making the twist what they did. There are better ways to twist the game, and that wasn't it. Unfortunately, the weakest link for Final Fantasy X is it's array of characters. You'll end up picking favorites as always, but none of them truly shine through as a classic Final Fantasy character. Rikku's about as close as they get in my opinion.

What would I say about Final Fantasy X? Honestly, I'd say to give it a shot. None of the games so far have ever been "DO NOT PLAY", but there are several that come in at higher spots over the others. I'd say that FFX hits somewhere in the middle ground. There are better FF titles, but there are some worse ones. I'm afraid that a few of those are coming up soon...Maybe I'm wrong though. Final Fantasy X gets a pass, and I urge you to give it a try before you pass it up.

This has been another wonderful Final Thoughts of a Final Fantasy titles.
As far as goals go, I only lack two more in the series, and then we can look towards the future of the blog!
I've got an idea brewing, but I won't reveal it yet. You'll find out soon enough though. I thank anybody who took the time to read this and implore anyone to comment on it and give me an idea of what you think.
Seriously...I'm up for anything.

As a final side note before closing, I'm planning a one-shot play of FFX-2 to give a small insight into this strangely placed and very first sequel in the Final Fantasy series. After that though, I'll be picking up Final Fantasy XII and continuing the journey. Thanks for reading and see you soon!

~May the Crystals Guide Me~

Day 74


Game - Final Fantasy X, Day 74
Hours Played/Hours Total - 27 hrs / 81 hrs
Starting Point - The Airship.
Current Goal - Complete a ton of Side Quests. Obtain and fully upgrade at least ONE Ultimate Weapon. Defeat Sin and save Spira!

What Happened - This is looking to be the final post for FFX! Wish me luck on the magical journey of all the damn side quests in the game followed by the end of the game! I'm...not looking forward to it at all, but I do believe I will obtain at least two or three fully powered Ultimate Weapons! (Actually called Celestial Weapons, but who really cares?) Without further ado, let's get on with this post!
     The majority of this post is made up of side questing, so I hope you are mentally prepared for that. I can and will honestly admit that I'm using a guide for pretty much all of the side quests. It is that or spend forever trying to figure out how and where to go on a lot of it. This is where they want you to spend like...30 hours of your gameplay it seems. As I stated last time, you can unlock locations by putting in passwords or clicking around the map. To explain that a bit further, you look around on the map based on longitude and latitude, and that allows you to find new locations. In all honesty, I have no idea how you find any of these locations without someone telling you them. I guess you'd just spend forever clicking around the map. However, I didn't do that because I used the guide!
     Most of the locations you unlock (whether by map or password) are one shot locations with just a single task to do. Of these one shot locations, the most notable ones included a hidden spot in Mushroom Rock Road with Rikku's ultimate weapon, Godhand, (Obtainable with the password GODHAND.) and Baaj Temple (the area where Tidus washed up to in the beginning). I'll return to Baaj Temple later, but from here on, I started just going all over the map to previous locations. I'll skip the more indulging details and just be straightforward. The first goal of the world tour was capturing monsters all over the place. Since the earliest monsters were pretty weak by this point, I was able to capture them with just single attacks.
     Beyond capturing a large portion of the monsters in the game, I also was able to locate a few more ultimate weapons and a few of the Crests for those as well. Wakka's Ultimate Weapon, World Champion, is strangely located at the bar in Luca. You get it from the bartender of the bar where Kimahri was fighting with the two Ronsos. The ball belonged to the High Summoner Ohalland, who was a amazing blitzball player or something like that. (I mentioned him waaaay back in the very first FFX post.) It is Wakka's ball now!
     After that, I made my way to Mushroom Rock Road. If you remember the Rusty Sword from the Calm Lands, (Regardless if you do or not, continue.) the Rusty Sword is necessary for getting Auron's Ultimate Weapon. You take it to a small hidden alcove along the road and place the sword nearby a statue. By doing such, it unlocks a secret treasure chest with the Masamune in it! Only two Ultimate Weapons remain to collect, Lulu's and Kimahri's. This doesn't include the agonizing and annoying task of getting the remaining Sigils though. I'll highlight those as I get them.
     With the weapons obtained, I switched my focus and made my way back to a previously skipped area, the Cavern of the Stolen Fayth. It's the mystery cave I didn't enter back in the Calm Lands. There's really nothing special about the cave or the monsters in it, but there's an obvious story behind it all. It seems that this cavern supposedly contains a stolen fayth somewhere inside of it. A long time ago, some random person stole a fayth from a temple and hid it here. (I realize this is self-explanatory, but I'm saying it anyways.) They all wonder why anybody would possible do that. (I question how they managed to steal a massive hunk of rock, carry it OUT of a temple, and manage to get away with it...BUT MAYBE I'M BEING TOO LOGICAL FOR THIS GAME!) The prevailing opinion for the reason behind the theft is the protection of summoners. If summoners can't get all the fayth, they can't complete their pilgrimage. It makes sense in one way, but it obviously didn't stop anybody. As we come to the back of the cavern, we find that someone is here. However, that someone...isn't alive anymore.
     Lulu runs up to the person and recognizes the woman as the first summoner she was a guardian for. It seems that this woman has remained down here as an unsent summoner, and she's not too happy. All the vengeance or whatever has kept her here, and she wants the group to kill her and send her away. BOSS BATTLE TIME! The woman enters the battle and summons up a killer looking Aeon called...YOJIMBO! (Japanese word for hired bodyguard. Japanesian enthusiasts may correct me, but I don't care.) Despite the ferocity of the awesome-looking Aeon, I was able to beat it with very little trouble. Such little trouble that I didn't include any actual battle details here, so...that was probably a bad decision on my part. Had I gone through this cavern earlier, I would have probably had trouble with it, but I came later instead and had zero trouble with him. With Yojimbo's defeat, the summoner is finally able to rest in peace, and Yuna does the whole Sending of her soul/whatever.
     Before I continue on, I'd like to bring up something that's a bit much for the game. How come all these "dead" people are completely and utterly able to interact with everything? Dead spirit people that are all over the place and are able to do everything that a living person can do. They are having battles with monsters and killing them (Auron), able to summon up Aeons despite their dead status (summoner lady with Yojimbo), and completely able to rule an entire world/nation/country and NOBODY figures out they are dead (Mika). If you can't tell, this will probably be one of the negative points in the end review. However, this is the middle of a serious Day # post, so I'll stop here for now. /end rant
     With the summoner sent to her resting place, we are allowed to enter the stolen fayth's chamber. We come up to the fayth, and he reveals himself as Yojimbo. He is very willing to work with us...for a price. Before we go anywhere though, he asks why we want his services. He presented with three options, but according to a couple guides, the best option is "To kill the toughest enemies" since that gives you a small discount. On to the bidding war! For his starting price, he asks for 250,000 Gil. Considering you can get MILLIONS of Gil in this, that's a small amount, but it also happened to be a very large amount for me at the time. I had around 220,000 Gil, so I was having to talk him down. I followed a couple different guide suggestions to talk him down in his price. If you offer half of what he asks plus 1 Gil, he will bring down his price a little. Unfortunately, I low balled him too many times, and he sent me on my way. I stupidly repeated this two more times before I finally settled on a price that was still higher than what I wanted to pay. I ended up giving him 225,000 Gil, but he was officially mine! AEON ACQUIRED! YOJIMBO. Like his name and profession, Yojimbo is a special Aeon that works a bit differently. Instead of selecting attacks and magic, you pay him so much Gil, and he performs an attack from there. There are four different attacks available, and you get different attacks based on how much you pay. The fourth, final, and super attack is only obtainable if you pay him millions of gil! (My understanding of it at least.) That's all I've got for Yojimbo, so it's time to move on to the next task.
     Next up on my list is revisiting Zanarkand's Cloister of Trials. Upon re-entering the Trials area, everything lights back up, and I'm given a different objective. Before, it was about lighting up shapes on a gird based on what a screen showed me. (If you really want more details, you can look it up.) In this case, it was basically the opposite of what it wanted last time. It wanted me to light up all the other shapes that made that version of this puzzle reset. After lighting them all, I'm given a couple of spheres to use. I pick them up, move them about, and I get a Destruction Sphere. And thus...I'm rewarded the secret treasure of Zanarkand! (Forgot to write it down, but it wasn't that impressive.) With the Zanarkand secret treasure done, I was officially finished with all the Temple's secret treasures! What does this unlock? Well, you are about to find out as I head for Baaj Temple!
     As I come down from the airship, I immediately recognized Baaj Temple as the area where Tidus washed up to in the beginning. Of course, as I head for the main part, I have to dive back down into the watery area. (If you forgot/don't want to look it up, he fell into water while exploring the area.) Once there, Tidus, Rikku, and Wakka take over. Tidus is all skittish at this point, and the two ask him what's up. He's looking around for the massive fish fiend that attacked him when he got here originally. We don't have to wait too long for him to make an appearance though! BOSS BATTLE TIME!
     Since I'm in the water, I'm forced to use Wakka, Rikku, and Tidus. I've already done a little preparation for this fight beforehand though. A guide suggested that I put Stone Ward on everybody's armor, so I put Stoneproof instead! (If it isn't obvious, it blocks the stone status. Ward gives a good guard while proof generally guarantees.) The stupid giant fish fiend (the boss) only comes with a couple different attacks. It can strike a single character for a good amount of damage plus petrifying them. His other attack involves a two-step process where I have to make a choice. He sucks in one of the characters and swallows them inside the massive cage he has for a gut. He absorbs any buffs the character has (I only have Haste) and prepares to spit the person out soon enough. The choice I have here is to try and "struggle" my way out and lose the character OR let the character sit there and suffer worse consequences. (I was curious of the difference...It's pretty big.) If I struggle out, the character is spit out and KO'd in the process. However, if I let them sit there, he'll spit the character out and devastate the entire group. Luckily enough, I managed to survive the second version and stuck to the first one afterwards. All in all, it's not a hard battle if you are more than prepared for it. Of course, you could say that for any battle. With the fiend defeated, I'm finally free to explore Baaj Temple!
     Before swimming inside the temple, I quickly look about in search of Lulu's Ultimate Weapon. It's hidden in a random corner where you can't directly see it. You just have to click around until it's opened. After getting that, I head inside the temple and go to collect my prize. Baaj Temple is the home of another fayth and can only be claimed if you obtained all six secret treasures at the cloister of trials in each temple. Every time you opened a chest, you saw a little glyph appear than disappear. I'm assuming that was supposed to symbolize something. The room in question has six statues that you can activate and upon activating all six, you are allowed entry into the chamber of the fayth.
     As the group enters the chamber, the fayth is lying there in it's...statue-in-a-stone status. The aeon looks like Anima, and as I pieced together earlier, it turns out that Anima's fayth is Seymour's mother. (It was suspicion pieced together with brief evidence.) She apologizes to everyone for her son and his actions. She explains a bit of what caused all of it in the first place. Being of mixed race, Seymour was alone as a child. She wanted to help her son and to always be with him by becoming a fayth. However, the power went to his head and drove him into wanting more power. He saw that power in the form of Sin. She apologizes once again but offers us her power as Anima. So we gain another powerful Aeon on the team! Anima's pretty cool looking, and he/she is extremely powerful. With Anima in my collection, the next step is another Aeon!
     I left Baaj Temple and made my way to Remiel Temple in the Calm Lands. Once there, I talked with Belgemine and set out to beat the rest of her Aeon lineup. It's almost like Pokemon! She throws out her monster, I throw out mine, and we battle to the death! Only difference here is that I can use as many as I want per battle, but she is limited to just one. I've got quite a lineup to deal with here. Belgemine has all of the Aeons available to her, and her Aeons generally have a lot more health than mine. I've dealt with Valefor, Ifrit, and Ixion, but I still lack another five Aeons! I quickly handle Shiva and Bahamut, but after beating Bahamut, I've got a little side trip to make. After beating Bahamut, I'm awarded an item called the Flower Scepter. With the Flower Scepter and Blossom Crown (obtained through catching all the monsters on Mt Gagazet), I'm able to enter the chamber of the fayth in Remiel Temple.
     The Aeons obtained here are the most powerful group of Aeons you can get! And yes, I do mean group. You get the Magus Sisters, and they come in as a team of three bug-looking sisters. Each one has their strong point, but together they are ridiculously overpowered. You can't directly control the three sisters, but they are powerful enough to not need to. Instead, you give them talking commands of sorts. Examples include (but not exactly worded as) "Help one another", "Fight!", "Do as you please", "Use magic!", or finally "Combine your powers". Each one results in a different action performed, but regardless of what you tell them, there is a small chance that they take a break and do nothing. Either way, each of the sisters are capable of breaking the 9,999 damage limit from the start! I'll go into details after I finish up this next section.
     With the Magus Sisters on hand, I go back to Belgemine and deal with her remaining Aeons. This includes Yojimbo, Anima, and the Magus Sisters. Despite their power in my hands, I'm able to defeat each of those with very little trouble. I think the Magus Sisters got a few of my Aeons, but they didn't do much past that. I mostly just blasted everybody with Overdrives where I could. After I defeated all of her Aeons, I was rewarded with Moon Sigil! Also, Belgemine passed on...She was dead after all. With the Moon Sigil, I was ready to fully upgrade my first ultimate weapon! I went back to Macalania Woods to the random spot where you do it. With the Moon Sigil, the Nirvana was fully upgraded and complete!
     Each of the Ultimate Weapon's have a specific ability build made for each character. For Yuna's Nirvana, she gets Double AP, Triple Overdrive, One MP Cost, and Break Damage Limit. Those are all fairly self-explanatory, but I'm going to go into detail on the last one. Break Damage Limit enables the character to break past the 9,999 damage limit that exists in most of the series titles. This is an all-inclusive bonus as well! It's not just physical strikes. It even covers magical abilities. This means a well cast Holy or Flare spell can easily do 10,000+ damage! As I found out later, I was more than able to surpass the 9,999 limit with Yuna. As an added bonus, every fully upgraded Ultimate Weapon also breaks the damage limit for a selected Aeon. I don't remember whose weapon unlocks which Aeon's damage limit, but I know it does it all the same. The biggest goal accomplished here...I managed to fully upgrade one ultimate weapon! Woo! It might be the easiest to get, but it's still a goal met all the same. From here on, I'm planning to get all of the rest of them, but I have a feeling that a few are going to get skipped. Let's just move right along and see what happens.
     Next on the list of "things to do" is Cactuar Hunting in the desert. I can tell you right now that this isn't a fun quest, but it's also impossible to fail! Details to come. I return to the Sanubia Desert and get to start my long journey of walking around this stupid place. Luckily, I recently acquired a "No Encounters" weapon, or this quest would have broken me quickly. I would have quit and never looked back. Going back to the quest at hand, it's almost exactly as it sounds...Cactuar Hunting. In the desert, there's a remote corner of it that's a home to the Cactuar. Inside of that area, there is supposed to be a chest for the Mercury Sigil. However, before you can enter said area, you have to be recognized by the citizens of it, the Cactuars.
     Basically, you find this large stone with a Cactuar carved onto it and examine it. The stone gives you a clue to the whereabouts of a Cactuar. (They all have names, but I didn't feel like typing/remembering them all.) Using the clue, you have to run around the desert and try to find it. Once you find it, you play a little mini-game where you try to catch it. It sounds simple enough, but you only have about 15 seconds to catch each Cactuar and can only run towards them when their backs are turned. If you capture them, they give you a sphere with their name. If you fail to capture them...you still get a sphere! However, it's basically a "YOU SUCK!" sphere. After catching one Cactuar, you return the sphere to the large stone and receive a new clue. This process is repeated nine times for 10 Cactuars. (One capture nets you two Cactuars at once.)
     Overall, it's a fairly easy quest, and you don't even have to fully succeed! However, getting a "Perfect" score when you capture them enables you to earn a small prize alongside the Mercury Sigil. So...glossing past the entire process, I managed to successfully capture seven of the ten Cactuars. It netted me a nice gift, but I also obtained the more important Mercury Sigil! With the Mercury Sigil, I fully upgraded Rikku's Godhand and success! Another Ultimate Weapon has been fully powered and added to the team! Rikku's Godhand comes with Break Damage Limit, Gillionaire, Double AP, and Triple Overdrive. Gillionaire increases the amount of Gil earned after battle by simply having the party member in battle. I didn't ever take the time to compare the difference though, but I can assume it's enough to be worth having!
     Before leaving the desert, I took some time to capture all the monsters I could. This small and time consuming process yielded yet another Sigil! By capturing monsters, the Arena man rewards you with all sorts of items, and he creates custom super monsters for your battling pleasure. I attempted to battle a few of them, but they are insanely tough. Since I have no point in battling them though, I didn't waste a lot of time there. The point I'm getting to is that you get a Sigil out of it! If you unlock ten of the super monsters, the arena owner rewards you with the Mars Sigil. I took the Sigil and headed straight for Macalania Forest. Once there, I fully upgraded Auron's Masamune and completed another Ultimate Weapon! The Masamune comes with Break Damage Limit, Triple Overdrive, First Strike, and Counterattack. First Strike allows the character to...strike first in battle. The only flaw of the Masamune is that you don't get Double AP like most of the other weapons. Basically, Auron and many other characters start getting left behind as the others are skyrocketing through Sphere Levels.
     After obtaining the Masamune, I took some time away from the Ultimate Weapons to deal with the side dungeon of the game, the Omega Ruins. The Omega Ruins is the super hard and challenging dungeon of the game. It's jam packed full of incredibly tough monsters with lots of health and crazy cheap abilities. The worst of these are the Tonberry and Malboro, but for now, let's get back to the Omega Ruins. There's a story behind this place, and surprisingly enough (NOT), it involves Yevon's teachings. Lulu explains that a monk who defied the teachings 700 years ago was sentenced to this place. His name was Omega, and it seems that his hatred of Yevon ended up turning him into a fiend. They say he's still around here, and it looks like the group's goal is to go and fight him! Of course, this is very much an optional dungeon. It's a pretty small dungeon, but there are a lot of branching pathways. Only one of them leads to the end!
     I easily spent three or four hours in this dungeon. The enemies are incredibly hard, but they are well worth the effort spent here. Every enemy generally gives you enough to gain at least one Sphere Level per battle. You do have to be careful though because many of the enemies can easily catch you off guard. I quickly found out that I maybe wasn't ready for the fiends here though. The Master Tonberry makes his home here, and he's no easy foe to take down. His tactic remains about the same as it does in the past. He slowly walks towards the time and plans to strike down with vengeance  With a lot of health on hand, it takes quite a bit to defeat him. He won't attack you while he slowly walks towards you, but he does counter every attack. He counters with an ability called Karma. The damage done is calculated according to the number of fiends the character has slain. This means that my main people (Tidus, Auron, Wakka) are basically useless because they've killed enough that Karma takes them down. Basically, my strategy for dealing with Tonberry is to cast Demi on them with Lulu and heal up Lulu after every strike. I never had to directly deal with the Tonberry, but I'm probably lucky. Chances are he'd have decimated everyone with Chef's Knife or something along that line. Anyways, things were good.
     I had a decent system going for me (stay RIGHT next to the save point), but then the unexpected and/or expected happened. Unfortunately, I got ambushed by a Great Malboro, and he immediately ended my winning streak. That's the fun thing about these guys. Great Malboros only show up with an Ambush. As soon as they ambush you, they throw out Bad Breath and screw up basically everybody. In my case, Bad Breath poisoned, confused, blinded, and silenced everybody. This lead to everybody attacking one another and being poisoned to death. Within a matter of a few rounds, they all fell to the ground dead, and I received a very disappointing game over. I hadn't saved for a bit as it seems (only used the point to heal), so I ended up loading from a ways back. I went back to the Omega Ruins briefly to count as "visiting" and then left for now. I wasn't in the mood to get screwed over again.
     From here, I made my way back to the Thunder Plains to try and get Kimahri's Spirit Lance. Unfortunately, it seems like I've messed it up somehow. I can't get this Cactuar ghost to appear and lead me to the chest with the Spirit Lance. I explained a while back that you get the weapon by praying to Cactuar stones throughout the Thunder Plains. You pray to three, a ghost Cactuar shows up, and it leads you to the chest. One way or another, I've messed it up though, so I decided to skip Kimahri's weapon. This is a big bonus for me because it means I don't have to waste the time. Also, my Kimahri kinda sucks because I started building him in Lulu's lane. He has spells and such, but he's not very powerful physically or magically. Overall, it's just one less weapon to get.
     From here, I only lack three other Ultimate Weapons...Lulu, Tidus, and Wakka. They are also the longest and hardest to get of the weapons. Lulu's Sigil (already have weapon and crest) requires that I do the infamous "200 lightning bolt dodge", and it is easily one of the most annoying and aggravating quests in the entire damn game. Tidus's Sigil is earned after getting a perfect time of 0.0 seconds in the Chocobo Race. It's another very unfun task. Then there is Wakka...I don't even have his weapon yet! I quickly rectify that situation by heading to Luca.
     In Luca, you find Wakka's ultimate weapon at the bar where Kimahri got in a fight with those Ronsos. The weapon in question is a Blitzball known as the World Champion. It belonged to the High Summoner Ohalland, who was also a star blitzball player. With the weapon and crest obtained, all I lacked was his Sigil. To get the Jupiter Sigil for Wakka though, you have to have gotten all of Wakka's Overdrives. They show up as prizes in Blitzball league or tournaments. At this point, I was lacking two of the four remaining overdrives, and that could easily extend to several dozen games. It's not super challenging really, but it requires a LOT of time. Most full games last anywhere from 12 to 15 minutes based on how fast you go and your overall success. I kinda want to just say "no" to this ultimate weapon, but Wakka is one of the better fighters in your party. It almost seems wrong to NOT get it, so I am planning to do such. However, for now, Wakka and Lulu go on the backburner, and I make my way to the Calm Lands to get Tidus's Sun Sigil in the Chocobo Race.
     This Chocobo Race is a terrible quest. I'm going to try to not fully rant about it, but it just feels so badly made and very against you to boot. You race from Point A to Point B. Along the way, you are supposed to grab balloons and dodge birds. By obtaining balloons, you get to take a few seconds off of your time, and thus you can achieve the perfect time of 0.0 seconds. The birds simply stop you in your tracks briefly AND add time to your end time at the end. This is my first complaint. On top of stopping you, the trainer adds time to your end time. You lose around two seconds on the field and gain a three second penalty at the end. This means a single bird completely screws you over for FIVE seconds! Balloons only take away a couple seconds each.
     According to the guide I've followed, (I'll link it here now. It is a very good guide, and I'd highly recommend it.) You have to get at least thirteen to fifteen balloons to succeed. That's based on getting a decent time for the race as is. Thus goal of the race is to quickly make it to the end while achieving the other two goals as well. This wouldn't be so bad...but you are racing against the Chocobo trainer as well. From the very start, she likes to jump in front of you and take all of the balloons she can. At the very beginning of the race tends to be like four to five easy and very needed balloons. Of course, you can use her to block a few of the birds, but it only does so much. It'd be okay if you had full control of the Chocobo, but they don't even give you that! Instead, you can only turn the chocobo right and left, and it automatically moves forward. This just screws everything up as the chocobo can tend to do different things at almost random. I'd say the race is about 60% luck and 40% skill. Luck is purely based on how often the birds launch, how many balloons are placed about, and if the trainer doesn't cheat in front of you at the beginning. It's...a very crappy side quest.
     However! After several tries, I managed to luck out and succeed! With the perfect time of 0.0 seconds under my belt, I was rewarded the Sun Sigil and finally able to complete Tidus's ultimate weapon. Honestly, I got this out of NOWHERE, and I was just almost ready to quit and break a controller. Yay me! I ran off to Macalania Woods and completed the Caladbolg. Once fully upgraded, the Caladbolg comes with Break Damage Limit, Triple Overdrive, Evade & Counter, and Magic Counter. I miss the idea of Double AP, but Tidus is (more likely than not) your most used character. So...he's already ahead of everybody! From here, I only lack two more Ultimate Weapons, and these proved to be the most annoying of the bunch.
     Seeing as I just got done with an annoying one, I started work on the time eating quest...Wakka's Sigil. Basically, I knew I could get it, but it required a lot of blitzball games and therefore a lot of time. I played several blitzball games at this time to try and make a dent in the overall necessary amount. I managed to get the rest of Wakka's overdrives during this time though! So one part is complete, but now it's up to purely random chance whether the rest can be done anytime soon. There is a way to cheat the random system of rewards, but it's not the most favorable. You can reset your team data. By doing so, you reset the leagues and tournaments and hopefully the prize is the Jupiter Sigil. Unfortunately, as it resets your team data, you would lose all your current levels, stats, players, and abilities. As you might realize, I've put enough time and effort in to find this the least favorable method to do so. Since I can't go any further with that right now, I decided to change gears and try for Lulu's Sigil.
     And thus, we come to the worst of all the side quests...Lightning dodge. You have to go to the Thunder Plains and dodge 200 lightning bolts in a row. There are multiple guides and all forms of suggestions of how to do it, but at the end of the day, it comes down to pure luck and skill of how well you can do it. There are several rules to the lightning dodge, but the most prominent ones are that they have to be in a row, you can't leave the area you start it in (counter will reset), and you can't save your game. Basically, it's a nightmare of a side quest. I won't go into anymore detail here because the only details to add would be my anger and the swearing born from that anger. Suffice it to say, I didn't manage to complete the quest. In the end, I gave up. I wasted three hours trying to complete this task, and I never really got past about ten successful dodges in a row. Lulu's not getting her ultimate weapon fully powered so...complete failure.
     However, there's a small lining of silver to this horrible cloud! During this whole lightning dodge fiasco, I managed to obtain Kimahri's Spirit Lance! I don't know what fixed it, but I was looking around the first (Southern area) Thunder Plains area, and I happened upon another glowing Cactuar stone. I prayed to it, and the Cactuar ghost came out to greet me! He's supposed to lead you to the chest, but he is almost following you as much as he's leading. Therefore, I looked up a guide to find where the chest was. I found the chest, the Cactuar unlocked it, and I obtained the Spirit Lance! Woo! Kimahri's weapon is back in the running.~ Of course, the Spirit Lance brings another insanely annoying side quest to the table...the Butterfly Catching game.
     I return to Macalania Woods and give the Butterfly Catching game a shot. I'm just going to shorten this up and say...I still give up on Kimahri's ultimate weapon. I'll reiterate that he's basically my worst character, and I'm not super worried about him having his ultimate weapon. The game requires that you navigate a thin path and catch blue butterflies while avoiding red butterflies. You are timed at running through the path and hitting ANY red butterfly results in failing the attempt. You can retry it all the times you like, but it's a pretty hard task even if you memorize the map. It just comes down to luck and timing, and I had neither of those. That and my patience was really wearing thin at this point. I give up on the Spirit Lance! Time to work on something that at least gets me somewhere. Thus...I started blitzballing to the max!
     Let me just say...I hate Blitzball. It's a stupid game, and the physics/mechanics of it are all wrong. Whoever made this game and decided it was awesome is a horrible person. There are just so many numerous things wrong with it that I won't go into detail. Let's just say...the computer gets to cheat constantly with the mechanics, and you just get a big pile of "too bad" presented to you. More likely than not, you'll have to resort to Tidus and his "Jecht Shot" maneuver. I'm not going to explain this sport because I believe I already have. It's underwater soccer. It feels worse and worse the more you play it though, and I'll be glad when I'm done with it. I did several games, but the Jupiter Sigil never appeared. Since that wasn't going anywhere, I took a small break and went to obtain a few other items.
     The next goal was looking for the remaining Jecht Spheres. I already had 5 of the 8 on hand, but I wanted to get the rest. Of course, with the use of a guide, this was a fairly short process. I just had to think which spheres I already had and go for the rest of them. Each of the Jecht Spheres go off to explain a little bit of the trio known as Team Braska. Most of them are directly about Jecht, but Braska and Auron get a little spotlight here and there. I won't go into details on their content though because it's nothing big. Also not as good if you haven't been more or less directly playing and enjoying the game. Once you obtain all of the Jecht Spheres, you unlock Auron's final Overdrive, Tornado! I went off to test it on some monsters, and I've got to say...It is pretty powerful. Totally worth the very little effort needed to get it. After completing the little break, I went back to Blitzball to finish up that stupidity.
     In the end though, I was angry enough at blitzball that I settled with resetting my data. That made the Jupiter Sigil almost immediately appear, but that ended up causing another problem though. With my team reset, I didn't have any of their abilities or skills to win games. After several frustrating restarts, I finally managed to get somewhere. By recruiting Wakka and Brother (Rikku's brother) to my team, I was pretty much just set. A friend of mine recommended Brother for Blitzball a while back, but I never paid it any mind. I REGRET THAT DECISION! Brother is almost a one man team on the Blitzball field! He comes at level 1 with some insane stats, and he's easily the best blitzball player you can recruit. Let's just say...Brother made this whole process completely successful and fairly easy. Of course, I had to play 10 Blitzball games in the league to get the Jupiter Sigil. Let's just skip past the next two and a half hours of Blitzball (Not exagerating here, I spent nearly three hours on this shit.)...and now I have the Jupiter Sigil! With the Jupiter Sigil and a quick trip to Macalania, I'm able to fully upgrade and complete the World Champion! With it fully powered up, the World Champion comes with Break Damage Limit, Double AP, Triple Overdrive, and Evade & Counter. Nothing special there, but it's a good setup for Wakka!
     From here, I decided it was time to revisit the Omega Ruins. I had a little more training since my first time in, and I figured I could handle it now! Despite this, I did spend some time leveling up near the front. If nothing else, I was going to at least obtain the last Al Bhed Primer from here. It was located near the back, and it is number 26! Once you have all the Al Bhed Primers, you get a small reward from Mr. Rin, but I'll get back to it when the time comes. Before going for the extra boss, I decided to gain some extra levels in here. As I've already stated, the enemies are fairly tough but offer quite a bit of AP for Sphere Levels. Of course, I also died several times because of bullshit on their part and bad choices on my part. Pushing beyond the many Game Over failures, I was finally satisfied with my current status. I decided to head further in and give these extra bosses a shot. I went pretty far into the place and found one! BOSS BATTLE TIME!
     The first boss I ran into wasn't Omega. Instead, it was Ultima Weapon! (Yeeeaaaah, once Square finds a name/thing they like, they stick with it.) He's a massive and menacing looking monster, but as it turns out, he didn't have much to him...if you fight like I did. I did a couple of normal attacks on him, but then I summoned the Magus Sisters in to finish him off. I had only planned to take him down a notch, but I kinda unleashed two Overdrives in a row at him. I didn't think it would kill him, but it quite easily killed him. They automatically had the damage limit gone, so they were able to deal a huge hunk of damage with their overdrive! (Over 20,000 if I remember right.) As the fiend fades away into nothingness, Auron informs us that this isn't Omega. It's just an aspect or something that broke off of him. So...we continue onward!
     After Ultima Weapon, I continue a little further on and find a warp pad of sorts. I jump on it, and it takes me the Omega's inner sanctum. In the inner sanctum, I'm presented with a pair of pathways with strangely set platforms at spaced intervals. I come to find out quickly that the platforms are there for set fiend battles. I get to fight all sorts of fiends from the Omega Ruins. The main ones that pop up unfortunately are Master Tonberries and Great Malboros. Despite that annoyance, I push through all of the set battles with little trouble. Finding out rather fast that Yuna's Holy spell is just ridiculous! Deals a massive amount of damage without a damage limit. I continue on down the path and finally enter into the center chamber. Once there, we come face-to-face with the big man himself! BOSS BATTLE TIME! OMEGA EDITION!
     Omega Weapon actually looks almost exactly like Ultima Weapon. However, according to the guide, he comes with a lot more health and a bit more power. I started off with an odd team of Tidus, Yuna, and Kimahri. Why Kimahri? Because Omega Weapon has an exclusive Ronso Rage that can only be gotten from him...NOVA! It sounds cool, and it actually looks pretty cool. I immediately used it on him after getting it. Even for Kimahri, it's a pretty damn powerful move. Of course, after I did that, I summoned up the Magus Sisters and blew his face away! I didn't do any Overdrives this time, but you almost don't need the Overdrive with the Magus Sisters. They're pretty overpowering as is. Anyways, Omega is dooown! We have succeeded!
     With that done, the Omega Ruins are finished. I would like to add one thing though...After I beat the boss, it magically threw me back to the beginning. Normally, I'd just love that, but in this case, it kinda pisses me off. As they were leaving Omega's chambers, there was a chest in the background. A DAMN CHEST IS BACK THERE! And I'd have to walk around and go get it, and guess what? I don't feel like wasting the time. It's a bit lazy, but you have to understand that at this point I've hit over 70 hours. I'm ready to wind this game down and finish it up. I head back to the airship and begin my final journey. I go and visit Mr. Rin to resupply my items. As I finish up, Tidus and he have a full conversation in Al Bhed. He's quite happy to see how well Tidus has learned it and rewards him with 99 Underdog's Secret. Underdog's Secret is one of Rikku's special items, and it can be used to make one of the awesome-est mixtures ever, Trio of 9999!
     Trio of 9999 is a very interesting and powerful mix for Rikku's Overdrive. For a period of time, all of your character's attacks, magic, and other numbered-things will do 9999! (Unless it does more than that already.) It's insanely useful and can be used with pretty much everything. Yuna's Pray ability? Yup. Tidus's final Overdrive Blitz Ace? Totally! Are you confused? The idea is that anything that gives out a # is affected by this special item mixture. It's basically the best mix you can do, and it has just so many applications. Totally worth having on hand! However, that's enough about this awesome ability, and I'm ready to kick on through the final bits of the game. I finish up any supplying I needed to do and then started customizing my characters. The only real customization I had to do was armor since most of the people had their ultimate weapons. Those who didn't...(Lulu and Kimahri) has to be equipped with whatever was the next best option. I just made sure Lulu had One MP Cost for her magic spells. Anyways, my next stop was back to Bevelle!
     It's been a while since we hit the real story, so I'll go over it briefly. Last time the main story came up, the group wasn't sure what to do next. Yuna, Kimahri, and Tidus talked a bit and figured to ask Maester Mika about the whole Sin ordeal. They figured he might know something they don't. I head off to Bevelle and approach the main temple. As we do, a couple of guards are there and they try to stop us! Lucky for us, an old friend appears and helps us out. It's Shelinda. She is the Yevon Acolyte who has appeared throughout the game. She's appeared pretty much all over the place, but I stopped mentioning her because...She doesn't have a lot of point outside of minor appearances. Anyways, she tells the guards to stand down and informs them that Yuna's traitor status was an Al Bhed lie and nothing more. They want to question her, but she says that Maester Mika himself informed her of this. Rikku isn't very happy to hear this lie about the Al Bhed lying, but she keeps quiet nonetheless. The guards walk away, and she starts to explain this weirdness.
     Apparently, the massive uproar over Yevon teachings have caused quite a few to lose their faith. With the number of those in the faith depleting, the remaining faithful ones have been promoted to fill in the gaps. Basically, Shelinda was called up out of the blue and made a captain of the guard! The group asks her if they can meet with Maester Mika, and she goes to get it set up. A small time lapse later, and we are right in front of the head honcho himself. Mika asks if Yuna has the final Aeon now. He says we need to go and beat Sin right now! Tidus comes forward and explains that they met Yunalesca, but she's...Yuna jumps in to say that they have defeated her. Mika freaks out over hearing that and claims that we have screwed over all of them. Without the Final Aeon, there's no way to get rid of Sin. They all try to assure him that they have a plan, but he refuses to listen. He claims we are all fools for what we've done and claims that Spira's hope is gone now.
     Finally after all the blaming and "hopeless" talk, he says something interesting and informative. He talks about how Yu Yevon's spiral of death will consume them all. They all just sit there for a moment, and FINALLY Tidus asks who Yu Yevon even is. (Personally, I don't get why nobody at least mentions the name connection. Teachings of Yevon...Yu Yevon...How is it NOT connected? Seriously guys!) Mika explains that Yu Yevon is "He who crafts the souls of the dead into unholy armor", and of course, he's talking about Sin. He claims that Yu Yevon is invincible inside of Sin and the only thing that can pierce that armor was the Final Aeon. And we destroyed it! (Him yell that at us.) With all their hope gone, Mika becomes a big coward and fades away. As we are standing there, the fayth (same kid I've talked about throughout) appears to Tidus and Yuna and asks to speak with the both of them. So the two head off to the chamber of the fayth in Bevelle.
     Once there, he asks them if they have found a way to truly defeat Sin. It gives me a choice of what to say right here, so I go with "I think so..." When he questions how they plan to do so, I'm giving a slightly larger list of options. Basically, the first half of the plan has already been decided. They want to use the Hymn of the Fayth to slow down Sin. They figure this because Jecht likes the hymn, and they caught Sin listening to it waaay back in Macalania. The fayth tells them that it's been a long time since Jecht became Sin, and he might not even be able to hear it anymore. Tidus says that it might be true, but it's all they got and have to try anyways. The fayth agrees with that thought, but of course, that's just the start. What do they do with a slowed-down Sin? Randomly, Tidus asks the fayth out loud if he is just a dream still. Why he does this out loud and right now of all times...kinda stupid if you ask me. Yuna just goes "What?", but he deflects her question by just saying "Long story."
     Glossing past that, the fayth (who doesn't even answer Tidus) asks what the next aim is. Tidus figures we have to defeat Yu Yevon. The fayth completely agrees with that and asks the group what they know about him. All we know is what Mika told us though. He's what makes Sin come back, and that Sin is his armor that protects him. The fayth gives us a bit more to go on. Yu Yevon was a summoner long, long ago, and he was a very powerful one at that. (He uses the term peerless. Shit got real.) However, like all things, he died, but he has lived on for one purpose only...to summon! The fayth claims that Yu Yevon is neither good nor evil, is awake and yet he dreams. Tidus states that we are going to beat him and end that!
     The fayth explains that the Final Aeon is used to beat Sin, but Yu Yevon simply joins with the Final Aeon and transforms that into a new Sin. Once merged, he recreates his armor and continues the summon from inside of his Sin protection. With him living inside of Sin, we have to get inside to kill him. We are just about ready to go do this, but the fayth tells Yuna something. He says that she will need to call the Aeons when we fight Sin because our weapons and magic won't be enough. The fayth asks her to promise that she will call them. He asks her in such a way that something is up. It doesn't explain it though, but we'll find out soon enough. The fayth then turns to Tidus and says that when it is over, the dream will end. The fayth will awaken and their dreams will vanish. Basically, DO YOU UNDERSTAND TIDUS? Tidus answers yes and says that they've been dreaming a long time after all. The fayth apologizes to Tidus, but Tidus tells him not to because he's grateful for them. Yuna questions Tidus again about what they are talking about, but he just answers that it's nothing. She knows he is hiding something and says he's a poor liar. And the scene ends...
     The group is leaving Bevelle now. Shelinda has come around to bid us farewell and wishes she could do something to help us. Rikku says that she can do something! She tells her to go out and spread a message to all of the people. She is to tell people that "When the ship in the sky plays the hymn of the fayth, the people need to join in." Shelinda promises to pass on the word, and we head back to the airship. From there, I save my game and prepare for the final portion of the game. I save my game and head straight for Sin. We start flying overhead and playing the Hymn of the Fayth. All we can do from here is wait for Sin to react, but we don't have to wait too long for Sin to come in! Apparently, Sin is able to fly...Cid asks what the plan is from here on. Tidus simply says that we'll enter Sin through the mouth or make a new entrance elsewhere. Cid laughs at that and says that it's a great plan. He also promises that he's got something in store to help us with our fight. Time to go up on deck and fight with Sin!
     As we get on the deck of the ship, we can hear the hymn playing from the ship, but it's also apparent that the people are singing along with it! Things are going according to plan for the moment. As the group waits for the approach of Sin, Tidus asks Yuna if she'll be needing this sphere anymore. He pulls out the one from earlier on Gagazet. She fumbles about her person looking for the sphere that he currently has in his hand, but then he tosses it overboard. After that little show of story, it seems that Sin is preparing something. A huge cutscene goes down of Sin doing something of massive and global proportions! It's hard to describe without showing an image or video really, but the easiest way to put it is that...Sin was chargin' his lazer! He starts gathering the ocean around him in a sphere that's visible from space. He blasts the sphere in all directions and it displaces everything! With some sort of super magicalness, the blast defies physics by creating multiple trenches stretching out from Sin...some of them through water! It's followed up by a massive explosion that throws the group about. As they recover, Sin charges at us for MULTIPLE BOSS BATTLE TIME!
     BOSS BATTLE TIME #1 SIN'S...fin? Yeah, for the first of the multiple battles to come, we have to fight Sin's left fin. I get to experience another ranged battle on top of the ship, It goes pretty much like the previous ones. I have to get Cid to move us closer, or I'm limited to long range abilities like magic or Wakka's ball. Of course, I have to wait for Cid's turn to close in, so I get to waste several turns trying to do what I can from afar. By this point in the game, I pretty much always start off with Hastega. With everyone in haste, I can easily get off several attacks in a row before the enemy gets to even move! In this case though, it's kind of a negative since I'm waiting to move in and can't haste Cid. Once Cid finally closes the distance, there's not much more to it than a numbers game. I just keep hitting him every chance I get. Sin's fin doesn't have anything special to him. He can bump into the ship and do group-wide damage to us or cast Negation which eliminates all the buffs I have like Haste. (Except for Tidus's because he has Auto Haste! Auto abilities are insanely good in this game.) I quickly beat the fin, and Cid pulls us away from Sin. He tells us to hold onto something, and we finally learn what he had in store.
     The game hits a cutscene and the giant lightning tesla cannons from earlier pop out of the ship and open fire on Sin. This blows Sin's arm/fin completely off! Next up, Cid pulls the ship up to the other side for BOSS BATTLE TIME #2! SIN'S...other fin. I won't go into much detail here, but it went faster than the previous one. Cid blows it full off with the tesla cannons as well. Unfortunately for us, the cannons borked after that last shot, so that isn't an option anymore. Cid tells the group to come back in to reformulate their plan, but Tidus says that nope! They are going for it! He goes off to say something about blitzball and having the ball and scoring. Lulu comments that a day with Tidus is never dull and leaps off the edge of the ship. Tidus and everybody else follows swiftly after and happen to land on Sin somehow. We confront a Sinspawn on Sin's head. BOSS BATTLE TIME #3! SINSPAWN PLUS EXTRA!
     The Sinspawn in question is very similar to one near the beginning of the game. It's the ball-like one that looks likes kinda plant-like. It starts out in its battle mode of sorts, but I quickly force it into changing its form! It goes into defense mode and starts just healing itself. It heals pretty well though, so I'm having to really keep after it. Eventually, I break out the big gun with Yuna's Holy spell. As it turns out, she is the big gun of power on the team. Her Holy can easily and almost always deal over 10,000 damage! It only takes a two casts of Holy to kill the Sinspawn off, but then I have to deal with the thing behind it. It looks like another core of sorts just like the ones on the fins. Before I beat the Sinspawn, this core was starting to charge for some reason. I wasn't very interested in seeing what it charged into, but I quickly found out. It turns out that the charging was for Gravijia! Gravijia is a powered-up version of Demi that does three-fourths of everybody's health. (Demi is a group-wide spell in this game...fun, fun.) Alongside Gravijia, it can also groupcast the elemental magics. Lucky for me, it's all weak and low tier magic. None of it really does much, so I just start hammering away with Holy. It tries to charge up for a second Gravijia, but I defeat it with a blast of Holy! Seriously, if you build just build Yuna along her path, she gets to do some ridiculous damage with Holy.
     Next thing I know, I'm already into another cutscene. Sin is seemingly falling apart and out of the sky. It jumps back to the group who is now back on the airship. Doesn't explain how they got off of the exploding and crashing Sin, but they did apparently. We're back inside, and Brother and Cid think that Sin is done for. Of course, the group knows the truth. We gotta go inside of Sin to finish it off. It's not over until we get Yu Yevon, but he's at least weakened for the moment. As it turns out, he crashed nearby Bevelle and is just out of it for the moment.
     The group is all over the ship right now, and I have to go find Yuna so that I can continue. She's on top of the ship and starting to think about it all. She's wondering why the fayth seemed eager to be summoned while fighting Sin, and it's kinda suggesting that they're is something up. She says that Yu Yevon will simply join with the Aeons summoned, and that we'll have to beat those as well. She also brings up the dream thing that the fayth and Tidus mentioned. She looks over to Tidus now and asks that he won't disappear right? He doesn't really answer her at this point though. Before this goes any further, Sin makes another move and interrupts the moment.
     Sin sprouts actual glowing wings at this point (didn't seem to have them before) and flies to the top of Bevelle. Tidus and Yuna have come back inside at this point, and Auron tells him that Jecht is waiting for him. Now is the time to go! We get back on the deck and have to fight Sin yet again, but this time we're going straight for the face! BOSS BATTLE TIME! SIN'S FACE! Yet ANOTHER battle on the top of the ship, but this one is a bit different from the previous Sin encounters. In this case, Sin really only has a large Overdrive meter. He sits there and stares at us as the meter slowly fills up. The goal here is to beat him before it fills up. In the beginning, he's a long range target, so I'm forced to bring in Wakka and Lulu until he gets closer. Cid can't move the ship in this case though. I just have to slowly but surely wait for him to approach. After several turns, he finally gets close enough to hit, and I begin to wail on the big guy. It doesn't take a lot to kill him though...I was kinda surprised at how quickly we took him down. I admit I used Holy a time or two, but I figured there'd be a bit more of a fight here. With Sin beaten right here, it's time to enter inside Sin and finish this fight.
     We go inside of Sin, and I am finally in the final dungeon! Unfortunately for this dungeon, I'm more than prepared for it. The enemies in the initial area are fairly easy, and I'm swatting them about like flies. I could have just equipped the No Encounters weapon, but I wanted to get some last minute experience to pad the characters...just in case. The first area is a large water area with fog all about. I'm not swimming around persay, but we do have to wade through it. It's a slow walk through a maze of fog, but the map gives away most of the path. Lots of random encounters take place here, and I get to make use of Tidus's Overdrive Blitz Ace!
     I made a mention of this Overdrive earlier on, but I didn't actually get it until now. Blitz Ace is almost exactly like Omnislash from FF7 or Squall's Lion Heart. He does a group of slashes (10 if I counted right), but then he throws a little twist in it! He plants the sword in the ground and leaps up into the air. A random character on the ground (selected based on how you talked with them I believe) tosses a Blitzball up to Tidus, and you have to time the hit right to kick it down for a final blast. It's the strongest portion of the attack, and if you miss it, Tidus falls back to the ground embarrassingly. As for the random character, Lulu was the one who tossed up the ball. As I reach the end of this section, I find out that it's called the "Sea of Sorrow". So...yeah. I climb up the random steps and come face-to-face with an annoying old enemy.
     Yuuup, Seymour is back yet again. Despite how many times we kill him, he always comes back. For some reason, Yuna never sent him any of the previous times. I guess it takes a bit of time, and she didn't want to bother with it or something. Regardless, I'm tired of this stupid guy with his retarded hair and stupid belief. He comes up to say that he has become one with Sin! He plans to spend his everlasting time here and slowly learn to control Sin from within. He thanks the group for dealing with Yunalesca because with her gone, the Final Aeon can't stop Sin. Of course, Tidus jumps in at this point and says that they are going to stop him right here, right now. BOSS BATTLE TIME! SEYMOUR'S FINAL EDITION HOPEFULLY!
     The only thing I'm going to give this fight is that it has a really cool theme music going for it. Outside of that, it's just another typical Seymour battle. Seymour takes the form of a massive invisible warrior angel thing. (It's hard to tell because of the invisibility part.) Behind his massive and invisible form are four spinning discs with four colors surrounding the edges. The secret to those is that they convey the elemental type of magic he'll be using. For his final act in this game, he has access to the -ga level of elemental magic, and he is lovingly able to cast it four times in a row (thus the four circles bit). The guide made me believe that I was in for quite a fight right here, but I quickly find out that I'm more than adequately prepared for him. I lower his physical defense and just lay into him with Tidus. I manage to pull off a couple of Blitz Ace's admits all my other attacks, and that does the trick really. Ultimate weapons might be a pain to get, but they're more than worth the effort. With Seymour defeated once again, Yuna FINALLY starts sending him. I understand that she couldn't send him the first time, but there were like two other chances to do it. Why didn't she do it then? Oh well! Not much I can do now, and Seymour is finally gone. Time to move along.
     Next thing I know, I'm in a large and strange-looking city. I say city, but it's really just a bunch of blocky architecture of sorts. There are more fiends in this area, and they are a bit harder. Most of the fiends I'm seeing are powered-down versions of those from Omega Ruins, so I'm pretty much more than prepared for them. I find out from the menu that this area is called the TOWER OF THE DEAD. Now that's an ominous name for a place that honestly isn't a tower, but who is complaining? (I am...just making sure you knew.) The only worrisome thing in all of this is the Behemoth type fiend that roams the area. He's more than beatable, but he likes to cast Meteor as a counter to his death. The first couple of times I found one, I immediately threw out an Aeon to deal with him, but later on, I tackled him down with my part. Come to find out, that was almost a mistake. His Meteor spell nearly wiped out my entire party. No point hanging around here, so I continue into the heart of Sin.
     We come to the end of the Tower of the Dead, and a massive tree-like object shoots down from the sky and into the ground. There's a strange glowing symbol on the bottom of it, so I touch it to be teleported away. This takes me to an area called THE NUCLEUS! (Seriously, that's what it is called.) This an interesting area to say the least. It's just a round crystal decorated area, and the camera is just slowly spinning about. There are massive crystal shards that shoot out of the ground and force me into random battles. I'll be honest though, with the end of the game so close, I just started running from some of them. None of them were necessarily hard, but my patience with FFX was growing ever thin. Apart from the crystal shards, there are also crystal eggs lying about. You have to grab them while avoiding the shards. This would be an easy task if you had some control over the camera, but instead you get to walk about and confusingly avoid the shards shooting out of the ground. Eventually, I grabbed enough of the eggs and are thrown to the final area. FINALLY!
     This final area for our final battle appears to be a large and very broken down blitzball arena. Sitting on a platform in the middle of it all is...Jecht! We walk up to him, and he starts talking with Tidus. They have a nice father-son moment, and Tidus is finally able to tell Jecht that he hates him. Eventually, Jecht breaks off and says that it is time. Once he gets started, he won't be able to hold back and asks that they finish the job. Jecht backs off into the abyss and changes into his Final Aeon form. The place starts lighting up around us and reveals to be the ancient city of Zanarkand! FINAL BOSS BATTLE TIME! ROUND ONE! FIGHT!
     Jecht's Final Aeon form looks quite similar to him, but of course, it's also very monster-y. He has horns and such. On both sides of him are a pair of strange towers called Yu Pagodas. Of course, I know from past experience that these are best left alone. (My last playthrough...I made it THIS far and didn't finish it.) The towers will just constantly heal him each turn. You can stop the towers by "killing" them, but they eventually regenerate with more health and can heal him even more each time. So...best to just leave those alone and focus on him. Tidus can talk with Jecht during the battle, and that causes him to lose some of his power. (Only can do it a few times, but it's worth the effort.) The first real action I take is Mixing up a Trio of 9999!
After that, I just shoot through the first round of this fight. Blitz Ace + Trio of 999 is basically just a combination of win. Once the attack finishes, Aeon Jecht reels back...and prepares for Round Two!
     FINAL BOSS BATTLE TIME! ROUND TWO! FIIIGHT! The massive Aeon reaches into its chest and pulls out a massive sword to fight us. Once the round starts, I find out quickly that the sword isn't the only change here. Now Aeon Jecht has an Overdrive bar! Trio of 9999 is still in effect though, so I make the most of it while I can. Unfortunately, that deals a lot of damage and almost immediately fills up his Overdrive. He then unleashes...THE ULTIMATE JECHT SHOT! The attack was fairly massive and devastating, but I was more than prepared for this final boss ordeal. Alongside the Trio of 9999, I also used an item that doubled everybody's max HP. Both Yuna and Tidus had 9999 HP for the battle, and Rikku wasn't too far behind. After the Ultimate Jecht Shot, I quickly finish up Jecht and uh..manged to beat him super easily.
     With its defeat, Final Aeon Jecht fades away, and Jecht reappears briefly. Tidus goes over to him and talks with him briefly, but then...Jecht finally passes on. As he's fading away, he tells Yuna to hurry and call the Aeons. It seems that there is a plan about to take motion. When Aeon Jecht faded away, a massive spirit ball came flying out and is currently flying over our heads. The group claims that it is Yu Yevon, and he finally comes around and charges straight at us. And now....FINAL BOSS BATTLE TIME! ROUND 3! FINAL MULTI-BATTLE! FIIIIGHT!
     Going to just be straightforward and honest, this is a kinda lame final battle scenario. The idea here is that you have to summon all of your aeons and beat them each one by one. However, it's impossible to die at this point. All of your characters gain a regenerating Auto-Life that will constantly revive them if they die. Back to the battle! Every time you summon an Aeon, Yu Yevon's spirit jumps into it and changes them into evil/dark forms or whatever. I decide to start with the hardest Aeons and then slowly descend down the list. This means that the first ones up are the Magus Sisters. Despite there being three of them, I manage to finish them off rather quickly. (Rikku's Trio of 9999 is STILL in effect! I guess it lasts for so many rounds, and all these battles I guess technically count as the same one.) Unfortunately, during this Aeon slaying process, I happen to kill both of the Yu Pagodas. They didn't really change the tide of battle, but they did seem to be able to charge up the Aeon's Overdrive! This just means I have to kill them all quickly.
     I could go into full detail here, but there's really not a lot to say about most of them. After the Magus Sisters, I brought out Yojimbo, Anima, and Bahamut in that order. Each and every one I was able to defeat with a single powerful strike by Tidus. The only interesting thing going on here is seeing a slightly different colored version of all the Aeons. Also, we are flying around in strange dimension place on top of Aeon Jecht's massive sword. I don't know why that happened, but no point questioning the crazy of this game. The only unfortunate part of this fight is that these Aeons are directly MY Aeons. That means they are as strong as Yuna is since they share stats. That's really the only problem, but it's technically not a problem since we have regenerating Auto-Life. (I get why they did it, but it's...still kinda lame.) As I get past Bahamut, the Trio of 9999 wears off of my team. Shiva pops up next, and she manages to drop some hurt on Tidus and actually manages to kill him! Of course...Auto-Life kicks in, so it's just a minor kickback. After that, Ixion, Ifrit, and Valefor are all beaten with very little trouble.
     With Valefor's defeat, that takes care of all the Aeons. All that's left is Yu Yevon's actual spirit. It comes down and changes into...a bug? The game breaks away from the battles for a moment for Tidus to give his last minute announcement. He decides out of nowhere to be like "HEY GUYS! When Yu Yevon dies, I'm going to disappear." Apparently, he just had a "thought you should know that" moment. They all go "What?" but then continue straight on into the next battle. The only sad thing about this part is that...Yu Yevon is a massive pushover. All he does is sit there and heal himself constantly. He heals after every single hit, but my awesome power and might is able to beat him quite easily. With his defeat, it seems that everything is finally over.
     Yuna starts sending everything in sight and begins the final process of eliminating it all. As she is sending things, everybody notices that Auron is leaking pyreflies. He tells her to continue regardless, and he steps forward to finally take his leave of the world. He doesn't say much apart from a small goodbye, and then...Auron is gone. I'm not going to fully describe the ending from here though. If you want to know it, you can play the game yourself! (Or look up the ending on Youtube...) If I were to briefly run through it, all of the Aeons fade from existence and disappear. The fayth statues start to lose a lot of their power all over the place, and Sin completely fades away as well. AND SPIRA...is finally at peace. Oh! The fayths stop dreaming, Tidus jumps off the ship as he fades away, and high fives Jecht. Also Yuna admits her love for him. Yeah, I just ruined a good portion of the ending. It's better to play and see it for yourself.
     And that's it! Final Fantasy X is FINALLY done! I let it ride a little longer than the previous ones, but it's done all the same. Overall, FFX is a nice Final Fantasy, and at this point, I would almost say it's the last of the GOOD ones. I'm getting ahead of myself though and being overly judging. I'll find out soon enough when I start up the next ones. FINAL FANTASY X IS OVER! As far as the forseeable future goes, I plan to never come back. I could be very wrong, but it definitely looks that way. Enough about me though, it's been a decent journey finishing up this one. I spent over EIGHTY HOURS on Final Fantasy X! That's just crazyness, and I do hope that I won't have to do it again. Unfortunately, I probably will. I'd like to thank anybody who sat through that wall of text. It was a pain to type, but it's all done now. I'll be working on the Final Thoughts post, and it should be up soon enough. Stay tuned for my exciting and in-depth opinion-izing of Final Fantasy X! 

Ending Point - The end of Final Fantasy X!
Current Party - Doesn't really matter because they don't have actual levels. I'll make a list of things when I type up the "Final Thoughts". I guess I could put down what the final grouping was as I beat the final bit though...
  • Tidus
  • Wakka
  • Yuna
Goals Accomplished - Collected all of the Ultimate Weapons. Completely upgraded 5 of the 7 Ultimate Weapons. Beat Ultima and Omega Weapon in Omega Ruins. Played more Blitzball than I'll ever want to play ever again ever. Beat up Sin. Entered Sin and defeated Yu Yevon! Beat Final Fantasy X.
Next Goals - Start Final Fantasy XII.

~May the Crystals Guide Me~

Thursday, December 20, 2012

Day 73


Game - Final Fantasy X, Day 73
Hours Played/Hours Total - 14-1/2 hrs / 54 hrs
Starting Point - Calm Lands.
Current Goal - Get to Zanarkand. Figure out an alternate way to defeat Sin.

What Happened - Well, it seems I'm reaching the final-ish portion of the game. There's only a few more areas left, and then I'm basically at the end. However, this is also gearing up to be the longest portion since I can start working on a lot of side quests at this point. I'm going to aim to complete at least ONE Ultimate Weapon, but who knows...I might get frustrated before then and quit! It is quite likely with these side quests in mind, but we shall see how it goes. ONWARD...TO THE GAMEPLAY!
     The first thing I did was locate another side area known as the arena. The arena is a place where you can fight monsters at your leisure for items and such. The catch to it all? Is just that. You have to literally go out and catch the monsters for the guy because he lost them all. He asked me to catch everything I could in the Calm Lands first, so I started with that. I spent quite a bit of time on this though because there are two or three monsters that are rare encounters or only show up in certain spots. After catching for a while, I decided to stop near the middle of the Calm Lands at a pit stop of sorts.
     Upon my arrival, the group breaks up for a bit and relaxes at the stop. (As much as you can in a monster-ridden plains?) When they do, a man walks up to them and greets them. Lulu identifies him as Father Zuke and seems to know him. He warns the group that they are being blamed for murdering Maester Kinoc. They are wanted now and should probably avoid temples if possible. Bevelle is currently in a pretty big uproar with Yevon problems. He (Father Zuke) doesn't plan to stop us and heads off. When asked why he came out here, he said he wanted to deliver the message to us and see the Summoner that Lulu was with. He heads off and the group continues being among themselves. Lulu explains that she has actually been on three different pilgrimages, and that Father Zuke was the second of those. It seems that everybody up until Yuna had quit when they reached the Calm Lands. Wakka adds in that he was one of Zuke's guardians as well, but he was relieved when Zuke quit. Around that time, Wakka was trying to be a serious Blitzball player. I talked with everybody else at that point, but nobody really had anything relevant to add, so I continued with the game.
     Kimahri says that Mount Gagazet is our  next stop, and that it is the homeland of the Ronso tribe. I was about tired of catching monsters and was almost ready to move on, but then I managed to find the last couple of monsters! Among the last and most rare ones was the infamous Malboro. That battle almost didn't end well. His Bad Breath ability, like in previous games, throws almost all of the status effects at you, and this wasn't a good deal. Poison deals a lot of damage in this title. (I haven't actually looked into it, but it seems almost like 1/4th of your total health!) On top of that, it had quite a bit of health. With just a little bit of luck, I managed to finish off the deadly Malboro and catch it for the arena. I'm not looking forward to catching more though...Anyways, I was just about ready to head for Mount Gagazet, but then I got myself off track with another side quest.
     This side quest is fairly important though, and it's a huge requirement for completing Ultimate Weapons. A while back, I picked up the Cloudy Mirror. This is a key item necessary in the super weapon process, but it's not complete as is. With the Cloudy Mirror in hand, I backtracked a small ways and made my way into Macalania Woods. Once there, I had to do a roundabout quest of talking to a small family. First I had to find the dad, and he wasn't in the actual woods, but I didn't realize this until later on. I wasted quite a bit of time walking around and searching for him. I was rewarded later on with more arena gifts, so I looked past the time wasted. After finding the dad, I had to look for the kid. The kid had ventured off into an upper location next to a strange glowing area. As it turns out though, he led me to right where I needed to go. I was able to use the Cloudy Mirror here and turn it into the Celestial Mirror! The family meets up and walks off, and that's the last of them. With the Celestial Mirror in hand, I'm ready to get some Ultimate Weapons started!
     I'll go over this briefly and get it out of the way. I have already explained it before, but I'll go into the details a little more this time. Each character has an Ultimate Weapon that has a special significant name and origin (Nirvana, Masamune, Onion Knight, etc). You can only open the chests with the weapons if you have the Celestial Mirror. When you receive the Ultimate Weapon, it only comes with the "No AP" ability. This means the initial weapon is completely worthless. However, each weapon comes with a related Crest and Sigil to upgrade it. Each character has a specific set of Sigil/Crest that are named after planets and such. (Sun Crest/Sigil, Moon Crest/Sigil, Mars, etc.) The biggest annoyance of the entire process is getting the Sigils. The Crests are just found as you adventure through the game. Of course, you might miss some and have to go back. (BACK TO THE SIGILS.) The Sigils are unlocked through various tasks, side quests, and mini-games. I'll talk about these when I get around to them in the next post, but let me just say...It's a handful. Back to the post!
     With that small task completed, I made my way back to the Calm Lands. While there, I was able to obtain my first Ultimate Weapon, the Caladbolg, (Tidus's) but I don't have the Crest or Sigil for it (Sun). I spent a little more time in the Calm Lands and then made my way to the north (I think) to head on with the game. We were just reaching the foot of Mt Gagazet when a couple of Guados get in our way. They came before us and said that Maester Seymour has summoned us. Yuna says no to that, and the rest of the group reinforces that statement. The Guados simply state that she isn't needed back alive and walk away. As they do, a massive stone golem thing comes charging up towards us for BOSS BATTLE TIME!
     There wasn't anything special about this boss battle, but it wasn't a cake walk either. The giant monster we fought this time is actually a large machina...I think. It looks like a large stone golem of sorts, but it also has gears and cogs on its appearance. Anyways, it's a fairly tough boss with a decent defense and magical defense. Lucky for me, Auron's Armor Break works, but that really only enables me to cut a little harder. The boss comes with only a couple different attacks, but they are pretty strong. I had to cast Protect on everybody taking part in the battle if I wanted them to remotely last long. Even Auron (having the most health at this point) was liable to lose nearly 3000+ health on most attacks! The golem, called Defender X, also has an annoying counter attack called Blaster Punch. That just does half of your current health in damage. Fun, fun. Once you round it down to under half its HP, it casts Mighty Guard on itself (Shell and Protect). This does delay the battle a bit, but that's all it really does. I mean...it's almost dead now, so all it really does is extend the time a bit. Regardless, I beat that jerk and was able to move right along.
     Before moving into the mountains though, I noticed a path going below the nearby bridge into Mt Gagazet. I took it down and beneath to explore that area first. There isn't a whole lot down there unfortunately, but I did get a few things out of it. Off to one side, I found a random Rusty Sword just sitting there, so I took it of course. (It's needed for Auron's Ultimate Weapon.) In the other direction is a large and mysterious cave, I tried to enter inside but was interrupted by Lulu. She recognized the place and said something about the first Summoner she traveled with. Apparently, the summoner died there in that cave... The group moves right along to head inside, but I didn't because I wasn't ready for it yet. With this little area fully explored for now, I made my way back to the main path and into Mt Gagazet!
     The group starts to move on, but Yuna stays behind briefly. Tidus looks upon her and realizes something. He thinks she is saying goodbye to all of these places since she will never be coming back. Sad times...Tidus really wants to think of another solution, but for now, we continue up the mountain. I climb only a small ways up when I am met by the Ronsos, including Maester Kelk Ronso. As soon as we approach, he tells us to turn around and leave right now. Mt Gagazet is a sacred mountain of Yevon and is Ronso land. He says that the mountain will not bear the steps of infidels. The Ronso known as Biran (one of the two that were bothering Kimarhi so much) steps forward and says that enemies of Yevon are enemies of the Ronso, and he tells us to leave. Yuna tells them all that she has cast aside the Temple and won't be following Yevon anymore. Kelk says that she will die by those words. Yuna responds "so be it!" and claims that the teachings have been warped. They betray all of them now, and the group agrees with her. Their besmirching of Yevon angers the Ronsos there, and they step forward. Kimahri jumps in front of the group though and doesn't let them get closer.
     At this point, Lulu points out to Kelk that he also left Bevelle behind during all this uproar. Auron says that he is guarding Gagazet as a Ronso and not a maester. (Quite a bit happened, so I am paraphrasing quite a bit.) Yenke steps forward (the second Ronso who was bother Kimahri) and tells Kelk to let them deal with the traitors. They won't let us escape! Yuna says that she has no plans to run, and she will fight and continue onward. Kelk is surprised to hear that she is willing to fight Sin despite being branded a traitor. She is lost to the temple and hated by her people, yet she continues her pilgrimage! Kelk says that everything is lost to her and asks what she fights for at this point. Yuna answers that she fights for Spira. The people are longing for a calm, and she wants to bring that to them. It's all she can possibly do. If she can defeat Sin and end the pain, she will do it. Kelk is surprised to hear that she would willingly sacrifice herself even under the circumstances.  He tells the Ronsos to let us pass and says to Yuna that her will is stronger than any steel. Mt. Gagazet welcomes her, and Yuna thanks him for this. With his blessing, it is time to head on up the mountain! Of course, we aren't getting up that easily.
     However, the only one with the problem at this point is Kimahri! As I try to head up, Biran and Yenke get in the way again. They say that everybody can pass EXCEPT Kimahri. They say that Kimahri has shamed his brothers and forgotten his birth. He has forgotten his people and his mountain. The mountain is for the strong, and Kimahri must prove his strength! Biran claims that Kimahri will never forget who took his horn and beat him. (Biran did that...just clarifying.) Yenke joins in and says that Kimahri will never beat Biran. Kimahri steps forward and claims that he will win. Tidus tries to join with him, but Kimahri stops him and says that this is his fight. So, it's BOSS BATTLE TIME! KIMAHRI EDITION!
     For this round, I'm only allowed to use Kimahri, and I have to fight off both Yenke and Biran. When the battle starts off, it's really not that challenging. Yenke and Biran aren't super strong, but they do have an annoying "Bulldoze" attack. It's mostly just a lengthy attack and causes them to switch sides on Kimahri, so they are constantly going in front of and behind Kimahri. One nice little bonus of this battle is that you can Lancet new Ronso Rages off the duo. I already have several of them, but I gained a few new ones through the battle.
     After wasting a couple rounds, it was time to get down to business! Since I could see both of their total HP (Sense ability), I saw that Yenke was weaker, so I focused on him first. Unfortunately, I built Kimahri kinda poorly by heading down Lulu's path. I wanted to get him Black Magic, but now he doesn't have very good health or offense. Once Yenke went down, Biran cast Berserk on himself, and that's when the battle became very unfun. With Biran berserked, he was able to do around 1,000 damage per hit! Kimahri only had a little over 2,000 HP, so I had to keep healing him to keep him going. This was especially crappy because the High Potions only heal 1,000, and the X-Potion is the only step up. Meaning I had to waste several X-Potions to keep myself from dying. So it took a couple of turns, but I managed to take down Biran as well. And to Kimahri...goes the victory!
     With the battle finished, they turn to the mountain and give a little speech. (Biran does the speaking part actually.) He says that he honors Kimahri's name and allows them to pass. The two Ronsos promise to stop anybody from pursuing them up the mountain. Yuna thanks them for this and is very grateful to them. They say that the Ronsos will protect from behind while Kimahri protects from the front. The Ronsos seem to think quite highly of Yuna at this point, and they say that they will honor her well and shiner her statue the brightest. Yuna doesn't believe she'll get a statue like the others, but the Ronsos say that they will make one for her with a grand horn on her head. Ha-HA! Let's continue on up the mountain now. We don't get too far before we're interrupted by the Ronso duo once again. Thankfully, it's just for a small parting gesture. The two of them begin to sing the Hymn of the Fayth. From there, more and more Ronsos join in to sing it. And thus we are finally allowed to climb up the mountain.
     The path up the mountain is fairly straightforward from here. There aren't too many branching pathways, and I really only head off to get an item here and there. As I continue up the mountain path, I pass along several strange stone monuments. Lulu explains that these are monuments (graves) that belong to Summoners and Guardians who failed at this point. That kinda sucks considering the end of the journey is basically at the top of the mountain. A bad side effect of their failure is that they all tend to remain unsent since nobody is around to send them. So...we get a whole pile of fiends, courtesy of dead Summoners and Guardians! It's a pretty long trip up the mountain, and it doesn't help having all the constant battles. I catch more than enough fiends for the Arena though. As we reach a high point, Rikku turns around and talks to Tidus briefly. She says that Zanarkand is really soon, and they're both clueless on what to do to save Yuna.
     As they wrap up the brief conversation, who should appear but everybody's favorite villain, Seymour! Rikku runs off to get the rest of the group. (They all kept on walking while leaving the two behind.) The group runs back up quickly though, and Seymour tells Tidus that he, the son of Jecht, will be dying quite soon. As the group comes back in, ready for battle, Seymour lets Kimahri know that the Ronsos fought quite well...as he annihilated basically all of them below. He claims that he has released them all from pain by killing them. He goes on to explain that his plan is basically the same idea. He will heal Spira by destroying it, and he plans to accomplish this by becoming Sin! (With Yuna's help, because no other summoner can accomplish this for him for some reason.) He tells Tidus that his father will be free from his position when Seymour takes the role of Sin. (Nobody really says anything right here...but wait for it!) Seymour backs off the nearby cliff and merges with a monstrous being, so it seems like we are in for yet another BOSS BATTLE TIME! SEYMOUR EDITION!
     So...this is the third time we've fought Seymour. As far as it is concerned, this battle is almost identical to the previous one. The biggest change is he has combined with a large thing that is different from the previous one. I can't really explain it, but it has arms with hands and a pair of swords. This big stupid jerk comes with a kinda lame combo attack that he likes to do pretty often during the first half of the fight. He strikes with a spear attack that causes Zombie, and then he follows that up with the Full Life spell to aim for an instant kill. This means I either have to waste my time curing Zombie or revive people that have recently died. Aeons are useless too because he can just Banish them from the battle. Despite that, you can get in at least one attack ,and I took off a good chunk of his health with Bahamut's Mega Flare. After that though, it was just down to my people (didn't feel like wasting more Aeons).
     He has several powerful attacks and spells at his disposal. The worst of these attacks were Cross Cleave and Final Annihilation (not 100% sure if that's the right name but close enough). Cross Cleave is a group wide physical strike where he pulls out a pair of massive swords and attacks everybody. This move alone makes the Protect spell a necessity in this battle. As far as Final Fantasy X is concerned, both the Protect and Shell spells have been made incredibly useful again. It's been a couple of titles since they've been overly useful. In FFX, each spell HALVES the damage of what they are supposed to! This means that they are insanely useful and sometimes an absolute necessity depending on the boss/enemy. In this boss's case, they are a complete necessity. Cross Cleave alone can easily deal around 2,000 damage if you don't have Protect up, so it seems like a big necessity. Cross Cleave isn't even the worst here! There's another attack...Final Annihilation.
     The name kinda gives it away, but it's basically his super kill-all ultimate attack. He takes a few turns to charge it up, and when he does, it unleashes death upon everybody! Rather than one big attack, it's more like a flurry of multiple hits that do small bits of damage. However, it hits each character like six to eight times (guessing) for a fair amount of damage. This move makes Protect and Shell a requirement because without those, the characters will most likely die. The only scenario that they won't die without the protective spells involves a lot more level up time than I have put in. Honestly, he nearly killed off my team with Final Annihilation, and I was fully prepared for it! He only got that move off one time though. Following that, I got my team fully Haste-d and started laying down the pain. Thanks to the guide tips (Shell and Protect in preparation), I was able to beat him with little trouble outside of a few hiccups. With Seymour's third defeat, he fades away once again. Maybe he'll stay gone this time? I doubt it, but we shall see.
     The group recuperates from the battle and is ready to move right along. However, Yuna has finally realized something. Apparently she is remembering what Seymour said (before we blew him away again) and starts asking Auron for answers. He's trying to play "dodge the question" again though, but she isn't going to let him get out of this one. Finally, Tidus speaks up and answers her. He reveals that Sin...is Jecht. He talks about how he could just sense Jecht when he was nearby Sin. The group is kinda confused by it all, and in the end, they find it most surprising that Tidus is willing to kill his father. (Personally, I don't get their surprise at this. From the very beginning, he's always been super bitter about him and says he HATES him.) The big reveal finally wraps up, and the group pushed on and upward.
     However, we don't get too far before seeing a really weird sight. A little ways further up the mountain reveals a massive, shimmering wall of people. They're all melted into the wall. The game even did a little cutscene to make sure I got a creepily detailed version of the wall. Of course, it's quickly explained what's really going on here. Somebody mentions that it's a big grouping of fayth and that they are all currently in use. They can't possibly imagine who could be capable of using all those fayth at once though. Tidus reaches out and touches the wall...and initiates a dream sequence.
     Tidus wakes up and finds himself back at old/his Zanarkand. He goes inside a nearby ship and finds the strange little kid who has appeared throughout. It was revealed earlier that he was a fayth, and he was the fayth at the Bevelle temple! Tidus starts talking with the kid, and when the kid asks, Tidus does feel he recognizes him somehow. The fayth (going to just stick with this term from here on) confirms for Tidus that the place he is in right now is his home, Zanarkand. As they are talking, Tidus starts seeing visions of his friends all about him, and they appear to be trying to wake him up. He realizes now that this is all a dream, but the fayth just laughs at this. He then drops the biggest and weirdest bomb of the game. Tidus isn't dreaming here...He IS the dream! (It sounds weird, but it is explained of course.)
     The fayth goes on to explain how this is even remotely a plot device. Long ago, there was a war between Zanarkand and Bevelle. Unfortunately, Zanarkand's summoners were no match for Bevelle's machina. (Yuuuuuup, Bevelle were the ones with all the machina business.) Zanarkand was losing and doomed to fall. Thus the fayth organized an effort to try and save Zanarkand...if only in memory. The remaining summoners and survivors of the war became fayth for a massive summoning. Tidus asks if he means Sin, but the fayth answers no to that. What they were summoning...was Zanarkand. They used their dreams to summon the memories of the city, and Zanarkand became a city that never sleeps. They summoned everything, from people to the buildings. Basically, the people that live and breath in this summoned city are simply dreams of the sleeping fayth. They are all dreams, and if the fayth stop dreaming, then...everything stops. Tidus says that he likes being there even if he is just a dream. The fayth says that they have been dreaming for such a long time, and they are growing very tired. He asks Tidus if he and his father would let them all rest now. Because they have been touched by Sin, they have become something more than dreams. Maybe Tidus can be the one dream that ends all the dreaming for them. And then..Tidus is woken up.
     I'm back on the mountain, and the group is all about Tidus and asks if he is okay. He says he was just dreaming, but they managed to wake him up. He's okay now, and we continue on up the mountain. The next area to go through is a large cave at the top. Not much going up here, there's a few small puzzles, but they aren't anything to go crazy about. However, I do reach a point of water where the party can't fully proceed. They leave it up to Tidus, Wakka, and Rikku to deal with these brief areas. The water areas are full of fish fiends, but I didn't have any real trouble with them. At the end of the first watered down area, I find the first trial that I must complete. It's...all about timing. Two rings are spinning around a glowing orb at different angles. I have to time throwing Wakka's blitzball through the rings so that I hit the glowing orb. It takes several tries, but I manage to pull that off. Completing this puzzle opens up a new path. I backtrack a small ways and head down the new path.
     The new path points me towards another area of water. In that area of water, (as you probably guessed) there's another puzzle. Of course, this is less of a puzzle and more of a "hit three buttons". The buttons are various sizes and have to be hit by a specific person, but the answer is obvious considering the size of our three swimmers. The puzzle drops a treasure chest, and I claim it with haste! I swim back out of the water and continue down the final path to find...a dead end. There's treasure to be had, but it's still a dead end. I had to end up backtracking and looking around a bit. Thankfully, I had just missed a small, alternate side path and quickly resumed my journey.
     As we are nearing the exit, Auron mentions that "She is sending fiends to test us." Of course, Yuna responds with a "She?", and he quickly replies with the name Yunalesca. This brings up some questions because (just reminding) Lady Yunalesca is known as the first summoner to ever defeat Sin. Of course, that was quite some time ago. Auron says that she's waiting for the strongest to arrive in Zanarkand. Someone asks if she is still alive, and Auron says she's as alive as Mika or Seymour at this point. (Dead but unsent.) That's all they say for now, and I head outside of the cave for BOSS BATTLE TIME!
     We come face-to-face with a rather large best that I feel resembles Omega Weapon from FF6. Before going anywhere with this battle, I use Grand Summon to bring in Bahamut. (I figure I've said it before but going to restate it regardless. Grand Summon brings an Aeon in with full Overdrive.) With Bahamut in play, I immediately throw out a Mega Flare! Bahamut's pretty wicked in this alone because I dealt 20,000 damage with JUST that! The worst part of it is the boss in question only has around 40,000 HP total. With half of his health gone, there's really not much left to tell of this battle. I kept after the big guy, and he didn't have anything really special to hold me at bay. With his defeat, it seems we are just about to the top of Mt Gagazet. Rikku wants to rest for a minute, but Auron says we are close to the top and should just continue on. The rest of the group heads up, and Rikku talks with Tidus next. She just wanted more time to think up some way to save Yuna. The two of them are clueless though, and there's not a lot they can do at this point. She heads on up.
     As we climb a bit further up, Tidus and Wakka start to really contemplate and realize where they are now. The both of them are a bit nervous of what is ahead and such. Auron chimes in during this and says that they are just like he was when he got up here. Back then, he thought he had his mind made up, but his convictions started to waver. He knew Braska would summon the Final Aeon to fight Sin...and then die. He wasn't sure what to think at that point, but he did continue onward. As we round the peak, we finally get our first view of current Zanarkand, and let's just say...the cutscene isn't pretty. It shows the group looking over the very dead ruins of Zanarkand. All forms of dilapidated and broken down buildings are skewered throughout the area. Tidus is acknowledging it all and realizes it is the end of Yuna's journey. However, he also feels that this is his last chapter, but he doesn't know what to say at this point.
     Rikku runs up to Yuna and tells her no! If she goes down to Zanarkand, it's going to be the end for her. Yuna thanks Rikku for being a good friend and all, but Yuna has already made up her mind. She's prepared for this for her whole life. She thanks Rikku again and continues on up the mountain. As she's walking away though, she drops a small sphere. Everybody continues around the mountain, but Tidus stops to examine the sphere. (It's a video one like all of Jecht's.) The sphere is a message she made earlier on for everybody in the group. She's giving her last message and thanking them all for what they've done for her. It's a loong scene of her thanking each and every one separately. (Except Rikku...it was made earlier on when we were going on Mi'ihen Road, so Rikku wasn't around then.)
     The first person she thanks is Sir Auron. She is very glad that he was there to help and guide her along her path. She heads on to thank and talk about Kimahri next. She describes their very first meeting as well. It seems that Sir Auron had instructed him to take her away from Bevelle and to Besaid. She was quite sad at that time because she realized her father was truly gone for good. She thanks Wakka and Lulu for being with her all the time when they were young. They were like her brother and sister and took care of her. She finishes up the message with talking about Tidus. The way she goes about it is basically saying that she really likes Tidus, but she doesn't ever say it directly. The recording ends kinda abruptly because Tidus was approaching her (on Mi'ihen Road) at that point. That's all she wrote. We continue down the path and finally come to the opening scene that plays at the menu and when you first start.
     The group is on the border of the Zanarkand Ruins, and they are taking a final rest before we head in. All of the story up to this point is supposed to be Tidus telling the story. (I think...) He is finishing the story, and the group decides that it is time to move out. So...we move out! It's a fairly long and twisting path to reach the inner sanctum of Zanarkand. I fight quite a few fiends as I head in, but there's really nothing troublesome among them. I do fight a Behemoth here, but he's not that hard to beat in comparison to his previous brothers (in the previous FF titles). As we come to the end of the path, it has lead us to a very large dome, the Zanarkand Blitzball dome! An old man comes out and greets us (he's a spirit or whatevas). He talks to Yuna briefly and tells her that Lady Yunalesca is waiting to meet her inside. As we enter the dome, there are spirits/ghosts all about here! Auron explains that the area is just a swarm of pyreflies, and this dome is basically a giant sphere of memories.
     I continue through the ruins of the Blitzball dome and get to fight off several hordes of undead soldiers and monks. (I guess they are supposed to be spirits or something, but they have the Zombie status on them and inflict it on you.) As we continue along, we see a couple different memories play out. The most notable memory that comes along is a strange memory of young Seymour and his mother. Seymour is crying and says something about not wanting his mother to become a fayth. (Suspiiiiicious.) A little ways past that, we run into the ghost version of Team Braska. They run past us, and both Auron and Jecht tell Braska that he doesn't have to do this. Of course, Braska has already made up his mind. I reach a building and head inside of there. In there, we see another memory of Team Braska. Jecht asks Braska if there are more trials to complete ahead. Braska says there probably will be, and Jecht is annoyed. He figures there would be celebrations and such, but Braska replies that there will be when they beat Sin. Ghost Team Braska heads inside, and I follow quickly after them and right into...the Zanarkand Cloister of Trials!
     The trials in this place weren't too hard, and they were made even easier with the use of a guide! (I'm so close to beating it that it doesn't really matter at this point. I just want to beat this game and move oooon.) It's really not a hard puzzle to perform. You have to light up shapes on a field, and the shapes you light up have to match the ones needed on the screen. Basically, it's a trial-and-error puzzle at worst. If you light up the wrong ones, you just have to start all over. With the guide's help though, I easily light up all the necessary images and open the path to...BOSS BATTLE TIME!
     I'm presented with yet another battle with a twist! The fiend in question only has a small selection of attacks at its disposal, but the special thing going on here is that I can move around him during the battle. There are six emblems all around him, and I'm able to move each character to wherever I want. This is necessary to keep the party up and going. For one thing, he has a group wide counterattack that would hit all three people if they were next to each other. For the second part, one of his three attacks is a trap of sorts. He turns three of the emblems/glyphs/whatever into bombs. They go off in a couple of turns, so you have to move your people off of them. In the fun spirit of game, the bombs are set to "auto-kill" and simply kill whoever is on them. His third attack is just a slash attack with his tail that has a chance to Berserk who it hits. Overall, he's not a very hard boss, but you do have to move around a little bit.
     With that monster beaten, it's time for Yuna to get the Final Aeon. She gets on the elevator (appears after solving the trials) and heads down to obtain it. However, I then get a random line thrown at me from ghost Jecht. He says something about there not being a Final Aeon here! (It says that Jecht says it, but it's a black screen and kinda confusing if you ask me.) Yuna comes back up and has us follow her back down. We go down there, and the massive stone of the Final Aeon...is kinda dead. The stone isn't glowing anymore, and the group turns to Auron. They ask why he didn't tell them about it, but he replies that the knowledge of such wouldn't have changed their minds anyways. The Final Aeon used to be Lord Zaon, but his spirit was destroyed at some point. The fayth statue has been lifeless for some time. The random ghost priest (who greeted us at the entrance) tells us that Yunalesca will give us the details and allow Yuna to obtain the Final Aeon. We head into the next room and finally get to directly meet Yunalesca.

Lady Yunalesca, in all her borderline nude glory!
     Lady Yunalesca shows up to greet Yuna and congratulates her on the successful journey. She then tells her to choose and seemingly gestures to all of the Guardians there. Yunalesca says that she will use one of the Guardians there and turn them into the fayth for the Final Summoning. Everybody seems a little taken back by this proposition. Yunalesca tells her that there must be a strong bond between her and the one she chooses. If that bond is strong enough, its light will conquer and defeat Sin. She says that she chose her husband, Lord Zaon, as her fayth a thousand years ago. Their bond was true and strong, so they were able to obtain the Final Aeon. She goes on to say that there's nothing to be afraid of because once the Final Aeon is here, her life will end. (We already know this bit. I apologize for the long speech as well.) She claims that death is the ultimate and final liberation. Her father, Braska, chose this path, and then we get a little memory scene of this.
     Auron is trying to get Braska to turn back now. Braska asks him who would defeat Sin if he didn't. He knows that another summoner and guardian would do it instead. Auron believes there has to be another way somehow though, but Jecht intersects this conversation and adds his bit. Jecht figures this is their only option right now, and he asks Braska to make him the fayth. His dream is back in his Zanarkand, and he doesn't have any way to go back now. He wanted to make his son a start blitzball player so he could see the view from the top. However, he knows he can't go back and will never see his son again. his dream will never come true. Thus, he wants to be the fayth for the Final Aeon. He'll be able to fight Sin with Braska and maybe give some meaning to his life. Auron then begs Jecht not to do it. Maybe there's another way if they all think about it, but Jecht, much like Braska, has made up his mind. Jecht says that he is old now and might as well make a use of himself. The two are about to head on in the memory, and Jecht tells Auron to protect Braska when he goes to fight Sin. As the two are leaving the chamber, Auron gets in his final word for this. He says that Sin always comes back after a Calm, and that the cycle will simply continue. Their deaths will mean nothing. Braska thinks that any chance of Sin not coming back is worth the sacrifice. Jecht says that he understands how Auron feels and will try to find a way to break the cycle. As the two head on, Auron (current day) slashes at the image of his ghostly self in anger...because the cycle just kept going.
     Finally, the little memory is finished, and Tidus jumps in to say that they'll break the cycle! Wakka asks how and if he even has a plan. Tidus figures that there has to be a way they can do it. Wakka and Lulu both volunteer to become the fayth, but Tidus says that their sacrifice won't matter because nothing will change! The cycle will simply continue unless it is broken somehow. The two confront Tidus about this of course. Wakka says that Tidus wants to defeat Sin, keep Yuna alive, AND doesn't want Sin coming back. That's just not going to happen. Lulu says he can't have everything, or he'll end up with absolutely nothing. Wakka says that he's acting like a child. Tidus comes to say that he gives up! What would an adult do here? Sit back and let summoners die so that they can live? He might not have a chance, but he won't let Yuna go and sacrifice herself. He believes what Auron said about their being another way is true.
     Rikku asks him if he has come up with a plan. Tidus figures he can ask Yunalesca about it. Rikku is skeptical that she'll help, but there isn't any way of knowing if they don't try. Tidus says that it is his story, and it'll either go the way he wants it or end it all right here. Yuna speaks up and says that this is her story too. It'd be easy for her to give up and let fate carry her away, but she can't just give up here. She knows what she is going to do, and she will do it without any regrets. For now though, we're going to go ask Yunalesca. Yunalesca asks if Yuna has chosen the Guardian to be her fayth. Yuna asks her if Sin will come back regardless of the use of the Final Summoning to beat it.
     Yunalesca answers her by saying that Sin is eternal. Every Aeon that defeats it becomes Sin in its place, and thus Sin is reborn. So that explains how Jecht became Sin. She adds on that Sin is an inevitable piece of Spira's destiny and is neverending. Wakka steps in and asks if Sin would stop coming when they atone for their crimes. Yunalesca responds by asking if humanity could ever possibly attain such purity. Lulu jumps in after that and can't believe what she is hearing! Basically, the teachings are a big pile of lies. They state that Sin can be exorcised with completely atonement, and that has been their only hope! Yunalesca replies by saying that hope is a comforting force that allows acceptance despite all of the tragedy around.
     At this time, we get another fun littler interjection from ghost Auron. He runs into the room and starts yelling at Yunalesca. He asked her where the sense was in all of it. Braska believed in the teachings and died for them! Jecht believed in Braska and gave his life! Yunalesca (past version) says that they chose to die because they had hope. Ghost Auron charges at Yunalesca to attack her, but she simply flings him back. He's thrown clear across the area and onto the ground. The ghostly images fade away, and Yunalesca starts talking again.
     She says that Yevon's teachings and the Final Summoning give Spira hope. Without that hope, the people would drown. She asks Yuna once again who will become her fayth. Yuna answers by saying that no one will! She would have gladly sacrificed herself for the people, but the Final Summoning is a false tradition that should be thrown away. Yunalesca tells her that it is their only hope. Braska sacrificed to give the people hope and in that they might forget their sorrow. Yuna says she is wrong! Her father wanted Spira's sorrow to go away, not be covered up with lies. Yunalesca claims that sorrow can't be abolished and trying to do so is meaningless. Yuna comes in with a final big speech here...To paraphrase it best, she will be strong, defeat sorrow, and will someday conquer said sorrow without false hope. Yunalesca goes off into a Seymour-esque speech and claims that she will free them from their sorrow by killing them. It seems as though the gloves are about to come off/go on/whatever works here. Auron throws out a final round of encouraging words and such. He tells them that it is now time to choose. They can die and be free of pain or live and fight their sorrow! The time has come to shape their stories, and fate is in their hands. Now that everybody has gotten their speeches in, it's time to fight! BOSS BATTLE TIME!
     This is a fairly long and very annoying boss battle. First of all, it's split into three different forms. As you beat one form, Yunalesca immediately morphs into the next one. The first form is just a fairly normal-looking Yunalesca. This is the easiest form to deal with, and she really doesn't have anything special going on here. It's mostly just minor annoyances. She counters any form of an attack with an appropriate status effect. (IE Blind on physical strikes, Silence on magic attacks, Sleep on special ones...like Rikku items) Aside from the counter statuses, she really only strikes out with a minor physical attack and will drain people for health here and there. As she was reaching the end, I summoned up Bahamut to finish off the first form. Maybe not the best tactical decision, but I was ready to move on. With her first form out of the way, she jumps right into a second form which is larger and very strange-ish looking. (Not quite sure how to describe it honestly.)
     The biggest addition with this form is the addition of her most annoying ability, Hellbiter. It's a group-wide attack that causes the Zombie status to everybody. With Zombie in place, she starts lashing out with Cure spells and Regen. (You probably know, but Zombie status makes you take damage from both of those.) Of course, if you cure the Zombie status, there's a small chance she'll use the spells on a cured character for your benefit! I knew what was kinda coming next, so I couldn't cure all of the Zombie-d characters. Also, it'd be a waste of time to constantly cure them because you'd waste time doing it and just have to repeat it soon enough. (She uses Hellbiter quite a bit.) I managed a Grand Summon with Yuna and brought in Shiva. (Forgot to say it, but Bahamut was tossed out with a single attack like all the major bosses do.) I blasted Yunalesca with Diamond Dust for massive damage! With Yunalesca 2.0 defeated, she began to evolve into her third form.
     Her third form is even bigger than the last, and it reveals that she was standing atop a massive head that looks like a large Medusa head with Yunalesca riding on the top. For the sake of fun, the first thing Yunalesca 3.0 does is cast Mega Death on the party. This move will kill anybody who isn't Zombie-fied. (I don't know if the Death protections would be effective here cause I didn't have them.) Thus the reason to not cure everybody before making it this far. Alongside Mega Death, which she tends to do randomly at whim, she also gains a new attack called Mind Blast. Mind Blast is fairly strong and comes with a chance to confuse everybody. The biggest balance of this battle is keeping your Zombie'd party members alive, but not taking the Zombie off on account of Mega Death. Despite her large amount of HP and silly tactics, I managed to bring down Yunalesca entirely! (I will admit that I did get a Game Over on my first attempt. I didn't go through the bother of typing it like that because it would have made this part too long.)
     With her defeat, Yunalesca has taken back her normal form again, but it seems like she is going to finally pass on. With her death, she claims that Spira will lose the Final Aeon and all of its hope as well. Tidus says that they'll find a new hope! Yunalesca is convinced there is no other way. Even if there was, Yu Yevon the immortal would just create Sin anew. Tidus is the only way to say "YU YEVON!?!" But that goes unanswered as she finally passes from this world. Her final words are a climatic ending with her apologizing to Zaon for letting Spira's light be robbed. (Something like that...) With that, Yunalesca fades away into nothingness.
     Yuna is all of a sudden very surprised at what they did, but Tidus figures that they are going to top that very soon. He wants to go and defeat Sin without the Final Aeon, and with that action, hopefully it shouldn't come back again. They aren't quite sure how they'll defeat Sin, but they will figure something out. The group starts to slowly walk out of Yunalesca's chambers, but Auron stops Tidus briefly to talk. He tells Tidus that there is something he needs to know. As soon as he says that, Tidus seems to have already figured something out and asks if it is about him. Auron admits to Tidus that he is an unsent but sees that he isn't surprised by this new knowledge. (It's kinda surprising, but it makes sense if you consider all the past stuff.) Tidus says that he already knew and asks if it was Yunalesca who did it. Auron just goes on to say that he couldn't accept Jecht's and Braska's death. He came back to Yunalesca to try and avenge them. However, when he did come back, Yunalesca struck him down. From there, he somehow managed to make his way down the mountain, but he couldn't quite make it to Bevelle. He found Kimahri there and told him about Yuna right before he died. Ever since then, he has simply been wandering about and never going to the Farplane.
     Tidus wants to feel bad for Auron, but Auron tells him not to. He says that being dead has some advantages. One of those was being able to ride Sin and go to Tidus's Zanarkand. From there, he was able to watch over Tidus. Of course, Tidus asks why he has watched him of all people. Auron responds that it's difficult to explain and will simply show him instead. Through magical dead powers, Auron shows us a small scene through his eyes. We see Jecht talking with Auron, and he's asking Auron for a final favor. He wants him to take care of his son in Zanarkand. Auron just asks how he's even supposed to GET to Jecht's Zanarkand. Jecht just laughs at that question and says that Auron himself already covered that. There has to be a way to get there, and he'll find it. (He told Jecht this earlier on.) Auron promises to do this and will guard him with his life. Jecht thanks him for it, and the memory ends.
     The two of them rejoin the group, and we begin the trek back outside. When we finally make it out of the Blitzball arena, we find that Sin is waiting there for us. Tidus somehow communicates with it and tells him that he'll think of a way and to give them more time. As Sin starts to turn to leave, the Airship flies in to pick up the group. Next thing I know, we are on board the ship and trying to think of some ideas. Auron thinks the key to it all lies in that Sin is Jecht. Tidus's bond with Jecht might be what they need to stop it. Auron says we should all think about it and wait. Yuna comes onto the bridge and approaches Cid. They have a small and strange moment, but then she walks back out. She leaves, and I'm left to my own devices.
     I'm allowed to explore the ship right now, but I can't leave it yet or anything. Looking about, I quickly locate Yuna with Kimahri in an upper area. Yuna still can't think of anything and apologizes. Kimahri says that she shouldn't apologize because that's just running. The three of them talk briefly about their next action, and Kimahri suggests we talk with Maester Mika. He would be the one with the greatest amount of knowledge, and maybe we can force some answers out of him. So it seems our next destination is Bevelle! I head back to the bridge and find the rest of the group has already figured something up. Wakka, Rikku, and Lulu seem to have come up with a small idea. They figure we can use the Hymn of the Fayth to momentarily disable Sin. They know that Jecht likes the hymn and was listening to it (as Sin) in Macalania. He was incredibly docile at that point, and they figure that using the hymn will calm him down enough that they can enact some further plans. It's not much, but that's about all we have to work with.
     With all that said and done, I'm finally rolling into the final portion of the game. From here on, I can teleport to and from the airship via save points. Sadly enough though, I don't directly control the airship in FFX. I'm allowed to pick a location to travel to from a map and simply quick travel there. It's fast and easy, but it also feels kinda lame that I don't get to directly fly the thing. However, there are a few other interesting features to access on the Airship travel system. (Not what it's called, but I am going to call it that regardless!) You can enter Passwords into the system, and these unlock a few secret and extra locations where you can obtain a few nice items. There are only three passwords to obtain in the game, and they can simply be looked up. Trying to actually figure them out will take too long, and I don't really care to do that. Another neat option is the ability to look around the map and open up new points to travel to! Through this, you are able to access several locations old and new. (Once again...I used a guide.) I opened up several new locations of travel and then...I saved and quit.
     Dear lord, this post has been waaaay too long in the making. I should have had it up several days ago, but I have nothing to blame except myself. I could have worked a little more fervently and had this out there. The biggest problem was wanting to type on this rather than playing a fun game OR playing more of FFX. I do kid, but I'm growing quite tired of FFX. Like pretty much all of the previous titles, the closer I get to the finish, the less I like it near the end. There's lots of side quests and extra battles to be fought, but I kind of just want to finish the game and be done with it. In FFX's case, I've opted to do several side quests and hopefully have a super-ultimate team ready for the final boss! This means I'll be spending at LEAST ten more hours trying to do extra shit, but it'll come with some nice rewards. The last post will probably be fairly lengthy, but it'll also be the last post for FFX! I'm aiming to finish this before the year ends, and I'm really coming down to the wire. Wish me luck! I'd like to thank anybody who took the time to read, and I hope you look forward to the final post for Final Fantasy X! Next time, on Recurring Fantasy, The Final Battle With Sin! Will we stop the cycle? Or will Sin ravage us with his... ferocity?

Ending Point - The Airship.
Current Party -
  • Tidus
  • Wakka
  • Rikku
Goals Accomplished - Found the Monster Arena. Caught a pile of monsters. Upgraded the Cloudy Mirror to the Celestial Mirror. Crossed the Calm Lands and climbed up into Mt Gagazet. Defeated Biran and Yenke with Kimahri. Climbed Mt Gagazet and defeated Seymour AGAIN. Learned the big secret of the game. Finally made it to Zanarkand! Completed the Zanarkand Cloister of Trials. Met with Yunalesca and then beat her dead butt into a more dead version! Gained use of the Airship!
Next Goals - Complete a ton of Side Quests. Obtain and fully upgrade at least ONE Ultimate Weapon. Defeat Sin and save Spira!

~May the Crystals Guide Me~