WK Plays FFX

[Wolf Kanno]

I'll be starting this soon. This is going to be interesting because I think the last time I played this game was before 2010, so let's see if time and the existence of the XIII trilogy is going to help me appreciate this fan darling of an entry. I do plan on playing the International version, so I will have some new things to surprise myself with.

78352

[Karifean]

Over 15 years huh, let's see if it'll hit you any differently now.

[Wolf Kanno]

I'm planning on starting it tonight. Oddly, I'm reading the wiki a bit and while I picked up a few tidbits of the themes I'll take with me as I play through, I was a thrown off there is a huge section about the game having Gnostic themes and yet no mention of the Tale of Orochi of which I'm pretty sure FFX is almost a direct retelling of and fits with the idea of Kitase wanting this game to be Asian inspired. I'm mostly annoyed here because I find it a bit of a western bias to say that anytime we're dealing with a false god/religion, the influence is obviously Gnostic in nature. But Buddhism itself has a long history of dealing with false teaching, divine truth, and the true essence of the One Being. You could easily interpret the scenario of Buddhism vs. Hinduism if you wanted. Now the Aeons derive their name from Gnostic teaching, but the issue here is that's not what they are called in Japanese (召喚獣, Shōkanjū, lit. Summoned Beasts), so even that connection is kind of false. This game is far more Buddhist/Shinto to me than any western theology.

Now I have to debate on whether to add to the wiki to explain the Tale of Orochi connection and/or bring up my misgivings about the whole Gnosticism connection. But on the other hand, interpretation is subjective, so who am I to argue?

[Wolf Kanno]

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So we've begun. Narratively, the opening to FFX starts really strong. We get the pensive opening with the party reaching Zanarkand and the beginning of our narration. Past Zanarkand looks a bit like the Jetsons, and I find it weird we have highways but no seems to drive cars. It was weird watching Tidus have to hoof it to the stadium by foot while listening to some Baseball announcer reminisce about bonding with his father over Jecht disappearing. It was weird as I said, but a nice touch. I also always forget how much I like Bahamut just randomly showing up to either use subliminal suggestions to coerce Tidus to do what he wants or to basically tell us the player about his hidden thoughts like Tidus crying on the anniversary of his dad's disappearance. He's being a real bastard and I'm here for it. The cool CGI scene of the Blitzball game and Sin absorbing the city while Auron appears like a badass is always a pleasure and probably my favorite cutscene in the game besides Anima's appearance at the Luca Game. I ultimately played up until I reached Besaid village. Gameplay was a mix bag and I'm debating about whether I'm going to just mess with character roles or just keep it familiar. I technically reached the cloister of trials but sort of screwed up and want get Yuna's upgraded weapon in the trial the first time. I usually make it a point to acquire the Cloister Treasure the first time around so I don't have to backtrack to get Anima.

Pros:



Story-wise, the game hits the right balance of action, mystery, and intrigue to get you hooked. I've always found FFX to be sort of a bookends type game where the beginning and ending are the best parts and so far, I still find that assessment correct.
It is nice to be back to a more traditional turn based combat system. While XII and XIII are certainly still part of the ATB system, it's just nice not to feel rushed in combat anymore because we need to appeal to the ADHD generations.
Bahamut is a hoot.
Auron is still the best character in this game.
I will say this, the new arranged OST is okay, I was never a huge fan of X's OST, but they at least fixed the battle theme, it sounds so much better now that I don't have to listen to those awful MIDI Horn sections.
The HD graphical upgrade has certainly helped the monster designs. A lot more detail can be seen now and I'm for it because Nomura usually has good monster designs. The backgrounds and water effects also look great.
This game makes me always want to go to the pool since I don't live somewhere with a beach.


Cons:


I can't say the same for the human characters. XII's art direction looks just damn crisper with the HD upgrade, but here, it looks like botched plastic surgery. First, I never realized how big and pouty Tidus' in-game model lips look Dude looks like he had a lip job done. The second thing is the eyes. They are way too vibrant on all the characters and it makes it more noticeable how much the models fall into some uncanny valley territory when you see their eye movements. Not helped here is that the white part of the eyes, especially on Tidus kind of look pinkish on my TV, so the guy looks like he's stoned as hell. Beyond that, the NPCs get it worse, including a few names ones who all look like head shaped objects with faces painted on them with little definition. It's very noticeable when the party members are next to an NPC.
While XIII usually gets hell for having a ten hour tutorial, FFX is the OG of this phenomena. Battles are incredibly scripted and while I've had the option to heal, it's rarely necessary. The first two "bosses" if you want to call them that have gravity based percentile damage, meaning they can't actually kill you. All the scripted battles have some slow dripped tutorials going on as well and I know I have more to come.
Not helping this issue is the save points. I was never a fan of the save points heal the party idea SE introduced with this game, but I find the issue here is that coming off of FFXII is that save points are just too plentiful in this game. There is a save point after the first two scripted battles, another before you fight the second "boss" a third in the room after that before Rikku joins, one on the AL Bhed ship and then another in the first room when you enter the submerged base with only a short path between them. The encounter rate so far has also been low, so it feels like I can do two battles before I actually reach a point that restores all my health. Like I get this was meant to be an intro title for people who don;t play the genre, but I can't be the only person here who thinks this isn't a little excessive and a bit patronizing?
I always forget how whiny and insufferable Tidus is in the beginning of the game. Like his situation sucks but I'm getting tired of listening to him whine about being hungry all the time.

[Wolf Kanno]

Oy, didn't get a chance to update this morning so we get two days worth of gameplay to catch up with. I have worked up to Auron joining the team. I managed to acquire Jecht Shot on my first try and even won the damn tournament with a true Cinderella story. It was looking rough as the Luca Goers got a score in the first half and I couldn't score a point because the game won't let you set up the party in the first half, because Toriyama most likely because he pulled that trout all the time in XIII. Second half was tense, but I finally managed to get off Jecht Shot and score a point, but after that point I couldn't really do much because Tidus couldn't regenerate his HP fast enough to pull it off a second time, and then the story twist came in where he's replaced with Wakka. I figured I was doomed and was going to have to reset when I noticed Wakka wasn't a bad shooter and even starts with a special shoot move that game me a shot, and literally in the last fifteen seconds of the game, I get the ball to Wakka and he managed to score a goal, winning the game for the Aurochs. So some nice gameplay closure for the man. Anyway, onto the pros and cons list.

Pros:

As much as I don't care for Yuna, she is involved in some of the coolest scenes in this game. I've always loved the Sending scene in Kilika and I've always been disappointed we never get another scene like that.
While most of the optional content in the game is debatable in quality, I do enjoy the Cloister of Trials, the one in Besaid is a bit simple, but the one in Kilika was nice.
I always forget about the Ochu fight, but it's a nice test to see how well you know the gameplay and proof you can cheese a lot of the bosses with Aeons.
With everyone so close to Kimhari's part of the Grid, I've had the majority of the party spend some time trying to acquire Lancet before moving on from their paths. Useful for Yuna and Lulu, incredible beneficial for Wakka who has low MP.
Yay, Tidus learned Warrior for Limit Breaks.
FFX does have one of my favorite incarnations of Ifrit, so nice to get him on my team.
I also managed to acquire Blast Ray for Valefor before leaving Besaid, so now I won't have to worry about fighting the Dark version to get it.
Been slowly filling Oaka's coffers to get a discount later, though in hindsight, I'm not sure why I'm bothering since I rarely buy equipment in the game.
Got Jecht Shot first try!
Managed to win the Luca Tournament without resetting, and give Wakka his Cinderella story. Even more amusing is that the Aurochs largely did it by themselves without much literal help from Tidus.
I made sure to recruit Biggs and Wedge for my team, partly because they are good, but mainly to keep them from being recruited by other teams. I just need to grab that goalie from the Al Bhed and we're gold.
FFX has always had some mixed design for me. I'm not really a fan of the Besaid look that Wakka and his team use or even the Kilika one. But Yuna, Auron, and Lulu have fantastic designs in this game. It's always a bit weird how mismatched it feels sometimes.
I will say, I am enjoying my time in Spira a bit better this time around. Though I would hold one's optimism off for a bit, because we are reaching the point where FFX begins to slowly lose me.
In a game filled with crazy plot twists, I feel the twist about Jecht being Sin is the most impactful. It sets up a cool mystery, adds more intrigue to Auron's character, and finally gives Tidus a more personal stake in what's going on in the story. It works on a lot of levels.
I've never been really bothered by the Laughing scene. I know a lot of people see cringe, but I find it to be a real nice bonding scene between Tidus and Yuna that doesn't involve Tidus' daddy issues.


Cons:


While I have a lot of gripes with the game's CTB system, I think the one aspect that annoys me the most is oddly enough the fact the party only gets XP by participating. It just drags combat down so much and it also kind of shows off the weakness of having party members designed to fight specific enemies because then you get stuff like Yuna and Kimarhi who really don't bring as much to the battle system (Aeons excluded) to regular combat. My party is usually close to save point and status effects go away after combat ends, so Yuna as a white mage isn't really needed. Kimarhi has Pierce before Auron, but none of those enemies start appearing before he joins and in comparison to Auron, he hits a bit like a wet noodle. So now I have to actively find things for them to do in battle and it just drags every encounter out longer than necessary.
FFXII:TZA has spoiled me, and I really wish there was a speed up button and the ability to skip cutscenes.
I think one of the things that bothers me about FFX is the direction they took with Yuna. Like I get they are trying to be true to the Japanese version while also dealing with the annoyance of dubbing, but I feel like FFX might have been a victim of the otaku revolt about subpar dubs that stray too far from the original or try to Westernize it too much. But I just don't feel like Yuna works in this game with the English VA. Nothing wrong with Hedy Burress, like I feel someone in the localization process messed up here, and I don't know if it's the western side trying to stay faithful or the Japanese side being inflexible about changes. I get the feeling she would work better in Japanese for me. She just comes across very awkward, and not like she's just socially awkward, like more a foreigner trying to keep up with local customs.
I wonder why so many people are just jerks for no reason here. Like Donna is such a bitch, and it's like sweetie, you should hoping someone else gets to be a High Summoner. Glory doesn't mean trout when you're dead. I can understand the Luca Goers being asses, but like it was such a mood whiplash coming after the Kilika destruction. Not helped that Donna and her partner are from Kilika, which is never directly stated but their clothing is coded as Kilika. The whole sequence just feels weird.
For the life of me, I will never understand how people didn't pick up on the fact Yuna was marching to her death. Like that farewell from Besaid felt a bit too weird to be just a simple goodbye. This is another point where I don't envy the localization team because I bet this scene was even more on the nose because Yuna likely said Sayonara on the boat. Which translates as goodbye, but generally means goodbye forever.
While not a major con, the fact Yuna lived on Besaid for a decade and didn't get the accent is a bit weird to me. Like I could see Lulu dropping it, especially since she's a bit more world traveled than Wakka, but I feel like it was a missed opportunity to give Yuna some adorkable points by having her slip into the Besaid accent when she gets excited. Like the accents are a nice touch, but very inconsistent. Sadly, this is pretty noticeable coming off XII where even NPCs tend to stick to their designated accents.

[Wolf Kanno]

Been meaning to update.

I've reached Djose Temple and managed to get through the awful Mi'hen Highroad, the boring Mushroom Rock, cool Operation Mi'hen, and even a Blitzball Tournament. I decided to save Jassu this time because I always keep Gotta alive since it felt thematically more appropriate, and hey I managed to see this guy actually raise his voice for once. I also got a lot of levels, probably more than I should have... I also gave Oaka his 10,000 gil to get his discount, but we'll see if that's worth it. I didn't get the Moon Ring from the Crusaders, mainly because I didnt feel like grinding that kind of cash, and because I looked up what it did and that felt a bit like highway robbery, especially since I got the more useful Echo Ring by beating the undead summoner girl. We were also introduced to a lot of new characters in this segment.

Now that I've had some time with the Expert Grid, I would say it's more weird than anything. Like it is super easy to fall into someone else's "path" which is nice, but it still has an obvious path for each character, though it does sometimes feel like a randomizer. I think the issue I see here is that while the freedom to add a more personal customization touch is much appreciated, FFX is also a game designed around specific roles for the team, so it's hard to really take advantage of it because yeah, it sounds neat to teach Tidus some low level Black Magic spells early, but it also sucks when he gets one-shotted because he spent too much time down a squishy mage path and now you don't have your speedy Warrior anymore. The character who potentially can get a boon from this new system is like Kimarhi since he always wound up being just a second string version of another character, but now he has an easier time being the master of none Red Mage he was sort of envisioned as.

Pros:

Auron is a fun powerhouse and he adds some much needed intrigue, snark, and a voice of reason to the party that was really needed.
Oh hey, you can Scan party members and get fun info about them, just like In FFVIII.
As much as I complain about Yuna and Tidus, I will say their relationship is pretty solid. Game does a good job of giving them some nice small moments to help sell the fact they have feelings for each other. It will be interesting to compare this one to Squall and Rinoa later.
Oh hey, I unlocked the 9999hp attack trophy thanks to Valefor and the Blast Ray Overdrive.
While I don't care for Seymour as a character, I do always enjoy being able to use the villain as a party member for a bit. Though it was a bit of a slog to see his Overdrive.
I'm going to be honest. I am failry ambivalent with the characters of Shelinda and Clasko. As characters, I'm not exactly in love with them, but what saves them is the fact they are both voiced by Tenchi Muyo! alumni Sherry Lynn (Sasami Jurai) and Matt K Miller (Tenchi Masaki) and that adds just enough nostalgia to make them actually charming to me. Have I mentioned that I'm excited to watch Legend of the Crystals again because both of them as well as Washu's VA are in it?
I managed to beat the Chocobo Eater, though I didn't get the extra reward for knocking it off the cliff because it died too soon.
While the build up is excruciatingly annoying, the actual cutscene of Operation Mi'hen holds up pretty well.
I really missed having cool animations for different level spells. While FFX has never had the best ones, the fact it's more noticeable has me excited for the entries to come.


Cons:

The Mi'hen Highroad is generally the point where my opinion about FFX begins to change. While there are certainly some questionable issues with the plot, gameplay, and pacing from the beginning up to the end of Luca, it mostly feels nitpicky since we're still working on the setup. But once we finish the climax of the tournament, moving onto Operation Mi'hen is a bit of drag. The road is boring, mainly serves to dump seven new characters on your lap, who all quickly keep popping up throughout the road so we can have some minor character development to make you allegedly attached to them before the shit goes down, and said interactions are not always great. The road is visually dull and boring, the encounter rate finally gets normal making walking down this boring straight line more annoying, and the music theme for it is awful. It might be the worst track Uematsu composed for the game, and I daresay the arranged version might be more annoying. This section of the game is pace killer with the only highlights being the summoner duel and the random Chocobo Eater boss fight. Not helping is that Mushroom Rock is right after, and it is also bland and boring as well. It's times like this I miss having a world map, because the Mi'hen Highroad could have just been that, and maybe we could have put a bit more effort into Mushroom Rock or just have us skip to the Operation Base.
My other gripe with the combat system is that is has the same problem as a lot of 3D games with pre-rendered backgrounds, but oddly enough, I've been noticing that the controls for toggling between opponents/allies changes depending on where the camera is positioned. It's kind of annoying, and I don;t remember if this was an issue in the other PS1 entries but now that's I've noticed it, I'm going to have to pay attention more.
Kimarhi is the worst Blue Mage in the series. In fact, I'm going to be honest, he's the most superfluous element of the game so far. I feel like the team was trying to make him into another Red XIII character and he is so flat as both a character and party member. I would not bother using him if it wasn't for the fact he has a mandatory solo boss fight towards the end of the game and I will not experience that annoyance again. Great thinking Nojima and Kitase, you made this funky cool looking non-human character and made him the one who barely talks. That worked so well for Amarant. Also Blue Magic as a Limit Break is an awful idea. and diminishes the whole concept. You wouldn't tolerate your black mage or white mage having their spells locked behind a limit break.
I kind of forget how much of an ass Oaka is.
I think the thing that kind of bothers me about Operation Mi'hen is a lot of the hindsight issues of the game itself. Sin, is not a difficult boss mechanically. Now, that's true of a lot of FF story bosses, they are not terribly tough by design some of the time and this instance is no different. I think my issue is that narratively, Sin has a weaksause weakness, of which if the Crusaders and Al Bhed had simply known at the time, this operation may have partially succeeded. And that knowledge sort of diminishes the fact this whole sequence is designed around showing off how overwhelmingly powerful Sin is and driving home the false idea that the Final Summon is the only means of beating Sin to the player.
We've reached the point where combat is a bit of a chore now. Part of the reason I don't like the "Character A can fight Monster A" design is that it makes combat feel incredibly formulaic but in an annoying way where I still have to partially use some brain power to get through fights despite the fight being incredibly easy regardless. Like I can't wait until I get closer to the end of the game and can just steam roll everything with anyone, but even there, I'm still stuck with the annoying rule that only participating characters get XP, so combat is just artificially drawn out and boring to me.
Can we discuss the fact Valefor is just plain broken? Like it might be the most physically frail Aeon with the lowest physical abilities, but the fact it's a flying Aeon in a game where enemy monsters have no options for dealing with it besides magic (which Valfor is strong against) is just kind of messed up. I was trying to charge up it's Overdirve for future use, and kept running into issues where enemies just couldn't do anything against her, and so I could only get Overdive gauge by killing them because it kept skipping the monsters turns.
Blitzball is a chore. I get the feeling that a lot of the people who like it probably play actual sport games but this game is sssllllloooowwwwww. It's annoying I have to spend ten minutes every time I have to do a game of it. There should be a rule that makes it so the match ends automatically if a team reaches a certain score.
My other issue with Blitzball is how unbalanced it is. The Luca Goers are probably the only team that doesn't have some issue. The Kilika Beasts are purposely made weak so you can practice against them, the Ronso and Guado have opposing weakness that are easy to exploit, and the Al Bhed Psyches are just bullshit with unnaturally high stats at ridiculously low levels. Like I curb stomped every team except for them because despite being similar levels, they have like five extra point in almost every stat. I only began to start winning against them, because they dropped a member and replaced them with a non-Al Bhed player who was low level and has bad stats early on. So I just kept exploiting this team member to get around the rest of the team's bullshit but it's still annoying I can only score goals if Tidus or Wedge are literally on top of the goal and use a special move. Once their goalie get cut lose, I'm hiring him just so no other team can use him.

[Karifean]

I think the thing that kind of bothers me about Operation Mi'hen is a lot of the hindsight issues of the game itself. Sin, is not a difficult boss mechanically. Now, that's true of a lot of FF story bosses, they are not terribly tough by design some of the time and this instance is no different. I think my issue is that narratively, Sin has a weaksause weakness, of which if the Crusaders and Al Bhed had simply known at the time, this operation may have partially succeeded. And that knowledge sort of diminishes the fact this whole sequence is designed around showing off how overwhelmingly powerful Sin is and driving home the false idea that the Final Summon is the only means of beating Sin to the player.

Bit surprised to read this considering that I feel FFX goes out of its way in basically every way to sell it and does a good job of it. You only fight Sin itself while it's being massively nerfed with an extremely specific weakness to the hymn, and like 30 minutes after you beat it down it has already regenerated (and forming wings this time, showing it can reshape and adapt to its threats) so like no even if the Al Bhed HAD known about the weak spots on its fins and managed to tear it off with their cannon the same way we do later with the airship, they would have ultimately achieved nothing, even less than a summoner sacrificing their life. Couple that with the fact that Sin is the only enemy in the game (series?) whose overdrive is completely impossible to survive by any means whatsoever and is pretty close to causing severe world devastation *while* this fight is ongoing and it comes down to that you're basically just trying to get in as fast as possible while it's still nerfed. To me it really shows just how far beyond anything else this being is and it's only an extremely specific set of circumstances that allow us to even fight it, obviously those circumstances have to exist so we can have a game/story at all but yeah. But I guess it's all down to perception of how well the game sells these things through game design; curious if you still feel that way once you get to that point of the story this time.

The whole party members having to participate to gain AP is a bit rough, as while I enjoy swapping characters around dynamically a lot myself and find fun uses for everybody, I still often find myself in a situation where only 5-6 characters would get AP unless I force bring in a final character and just defend with them and maybe take another enemy attack in the process. Yuna in particular tends to be the offender in this since I don't enjoy using aeons and out of combat healing is entirely punishment-free in this game so it often feels a bit much to do it in combat just to have something to do. I imagine it was done to encourage swapping around a lot but the game already does encourage that with its enemy design in general so idk. Maybe it was also just still in a time where the idea that only participating party members get EXP was so much the norm that the concept that you can just give everyone all the EXP all the time just wasn't on their minds, it's only FF13 where they finally did that in the end. Certainly something they could have fixed up with the HD version though.

[Wolf Kanno]

Bit surprised to read this considering that I feel FFX goes out of its way in basically every way to sell it and does a good job of it. You only fight Sin itself while it's being massively nerfed with an extremely specific weakness to the hymn, and like 30 minutes after you beat it down it has already regenerated (and forming wings this time, showing it can reshape and adapt to its threats) so like no even if the Al Bhed HAD known about the weak spots on its fins and managed to tear it off with their cannon the same way we do later with the airship, they would have ultimately achieved nothing, even less than a summoner sacrificing their life. Couple that with the fact that Sin is the only enemy in the game (series?) whose overdrive is completely impossible to survive by any means whatsoever and is pretty close to causing severe world devastation *while* this fight is ongoing and it comes down to that you're basically just trying to get in as fast as possible while it's still nerfed. To me it really shows just how far beyond anything else this being is and it's only an extremely specific set of circumstances that allow us to even fight it, obviously those circumstances have to exist so we can have a game/story at all but yeah. But I guess it's all down to perception of how well the game sells these things through game design; curious if you still feel that way once you get to that point of the story this time.

Fair enough. I think the issue for me is that I've seen Sin metaphorically bleed from something mundane, so that tells me it can be beaten without the Final Summon and instead the real issue at play here is the control of information surrounding Sin. I think the other issue at play here is that we don't really ever get to see Sin take on a Final Aeon, so the assumption is that the Aeon just wrecks Sin's physical body and then Yu Yevon absorbs it. which to me tells me that that Sin's physical form, while pretty damn indestructible against conventional weapons, is still vulnerable to force. But that's the issue, this is just assumptions. For all we know, if Yu Yevon senses a Final Aeon, it lets all of the current Sin's guard down so it can be destroyed and the new body absorbed. The other factors we don't know is whether the Final Aeon is always strong enough to beat Sin? Like it would be interesting to know if some Summoners did make it to Zanarkand and made the sacrifice only to learn the bond with their sacrifice wasn't strong enough and the Final Aeon got destroyed by Sin. I was thinking about that because while the temples have statues of all the high summoners, there are other statues of people, but they are less distinct, so I'm curious to know if they represent failed summoners or if it something more boring and just represent specific Maesters? It would be interesting to know if Sin and the final boss Machina from X-2 would be evenly matched power wise, but I kind of doubt that.

It would have also been interesting to see Sin go up against a humanity closer to the Bevelle-Zanarkand War just to see how Sin fared against a more advanced military force. Likewise, I wish we got a flashback of Braska's battle with Sin. It would be interesting to know where it even was. Likewise, and perhaps this is due to stuff going on in One Piece, but I also wonder if Spira was bigger in the past? Like was there more landmass in the world and it was just slowly annihilated by Sin over the thousand years?


The whole party members having to participate to gain AP is a bit rough, as while I enjoy swapping characters around dynamically a lot myself and find fun uses for everybody, I still often find myself in a situation where only 5-6 characters would get AP unless I force bring in a final character and just defend with them and maybe take another enemy attack in the process. Yuna in particular tends to be the offender in this since I don't enjoy using aeons and out of combat healing is entirely punishment-free in this game so it often feels a bit much to do it in combat just to have something to do. I imagine it was done to encourage swapping around a lot but the game already does encourage that with its enemy design in general so idk. Maybe it was also just still in a time where the idea that only participating party members get EXP was so much the norm that the concept that you can just give everyone all the EXP all the time just wasn't on their minds, it's only FF13 where they finally did that in the end. Certainly something they could have fixed up with the HD version though.

I agree that's why the rule exists, but also, it's weird you can switch party members out, but not dead ones. I vaguely remember that being a feature in XII people were happy about. But yeah, prolonging conflicts to get even XP is annoying, and I still have one more party member to gain too. ^^;

[Wolf Kanno]

Minor Update

I've finished up to the Moonflow and have my full party. Now I need to prepare myself as Yuna takes all the good will she's fostered with me up to this point and throw it all away because of a stupid half Guado dude. Because fighting a Doomsday Whale was apparently not exciting enough for Nojima, Toriyama, and Kitase.

Pros:


Djose Temple Cloister of Trials was amusing. Though I did get temporarily stumped on how to use the Destruction Sphere because I didn't realize there was a second floor.
I have Rikku now and thus a thief. I must say, the Thief/Chemist combo is a very smart move and I do use this combo in FFV a lot.
I can finally customize equipment!!!
One of the last weapons I bought was a weapon for Wakka that had Stonetouch attached, and it has turned out to be a good investment as Wakka was destroying Ochu's so efficiently I had to start bringing him in last to give the rest of the party a chance to gain XP.
I totally forgot about random chests appearing in battles once Rikku joins. Funny enough, the recent Eiyuden Chronicles uses a similar idea though in it's case, the chests can be opened by anyone, and the chests are designated to certain areas and are finite.
The sequence at Djose temple where everyone is teasing Yuna was amusing.
Playing this game again after playing FFXI, it's actually amusing to see how many animations and camera angles XI re-used from this game. One scene at Operation Mi'hen really felt like an XI cutscene because it like using this low angle looking up pan of a group of people, and XI loves using those angles for cutscenes to add dynamic visuals while not moving the character models. It's neat to see what later game's re-used and honestly makes XII feel a bit more impressive since it doesn't seem like it re-uses as many assets for some reason.


Cons:

Oof, I definitely feel like Ixion is the weak link of all the summons in this game. He's surprisingly frail for a summon and Aerospark doesn't feel as useful as Meteor Strike and Swift Wings. He really feels like a summon that needs you to use the new customization system to make any use for him.
I feel one of the problems with the last three areas I've been in the game is that they are all visually boring and largely have a very obvious "road" design that really makes the world feel small to me. I had a similar issue with FFXIII's map design as well, but we can see where the seeds for that design first took root. Now granted, this was the first FF game for the PS2, and FFVII is the exception, not the norm if we make comparisons for the first entry on a new console vs. the last entry on the previous console. It's kind of a shame too, because reading some interviews and behind the scenes talk, the original intention of the game was to be expressed closer to what we got in FFXII than here. Anyway, I find it interesting how back in the day, people whined about FFXII looking "not fantasy" enough like FFX, but frankly, fantasy settings are not that common in the game. Like the Moonflow has the one area with the pyreflies and the other with the Shoopuf, but it's mostly just a regular road. Like three screens. Mushroom Rock is similar. The least that one could have done is do what Besaid has and have the camera pan to the left so eventually you see that your team is by the stormy ocean or something. Instead it's just brown rock everywhere.
While it is nice that Customize is available, like XIII's equipment system after it, this isn't going to get as much love until I get the airship towards the end of the game. Most of the skills available to me at the moment are not exactly game changers, and a lot of the equipment I win or find tend to have equivalent skills. Like XIII later, this is a mechanic I feel the devs should have introduced much earlier, just give it to Oaka or something so you can only use the feature when he or other shop keepers are around and then when Rikku arrives, you can finally do it at the menu screen.
One of the other kind of weird design elements that is certainly subjective opinion is the idea of NPC traveling with you. Granted they are not party members, but X has a knack for introducing characters and then have them show up at every location to give their two cents. While I can see how some players may find this enjoyable as it really drives home the game's central theme of Journey to have other travelers you meet on the road, I feel like it would work better if more of them had personal goals. Like Maechen serves as functional purpose being the lore dude, but the Chcocobo Knights are sort of just screwing around and Shelinda feels even more aimless at this point. I may change my opinion when I go further and we see their character arcs get some resolution, but so far it's just been "hey how are you doing?" ~ "Oh me? I'm just doing the same thing I was doing the last two times you asked in the previous two zones".
Maechen is a character I have a very ambivalent relationship with in this game. On the one hand, his VA Dwight Schultz is phenomenal and give this guy a nice regal but fun personality. Likewise, I do appreciate the lore drops as well. The issue is that his nature in the game gives it a very Tour Guide feel that really takes me out of the story. This is exacerbated by my complaint above in how he's just following you around so he can tell you what to look at. I was hoping a few years of Dark Souls and VaatiVidya would have softened my stance on this but I think the years of childhood trauma being stuck on guided tours while on vacation runs too deep for me.

[Wolf Kanno]

Update Time!

We've reached Macalania Temple, technically. I haven't gone to the the actual temple yet. Once the Jecht Sphere's unlocked I decided to head backwards and collect them before the Dark Aeons appeared and make this sidequest a chore. We're now thick into the Seymour Guado subplot, and as I feared, my goodwill towards Yuna is beginning to evaporate as she drags the party into this nonsense. We did get some fun with the Thunder Plains and the Macalania Woods, which are two of my favorite locations in the game. I stopped just before we get to the roller coaster ride that is trying to get out of the Macalania Temple.

Pros:


While I know a lot of people don't care for the Thunder Plains due to its various gimmicks, I've always liked the place. Tha Quactaur lore is amusing, I like how the lightning keeps you on your toes, the area just looks cool. It's also rare to have a Thunder elemental themed area in this time frame of the RPG landscape.
The whole thing with Rikku being afraid of it was also amusing, especially since her reasoning wasn't some heavy story reason but really just a simple mistake.
I love the Jecht Spheres, I never felt like FFX needed a sequel, but a prequel about Braska's journey would be something even I would check out. The chemistry between the three is amusing and really helps you to like Jecht since up to this point we've only seen Tidus' subjective view of him. Even more amusing is that going backwards from Macalania Woods and picking them up in the reverse order you came to the location back to Besaid gives you a fairly good timeline of events, with only Auron's Sphere likely happening before most of the events.
I also appreciate the fact the NPCs still have unique dialogue for backtracking, because depending on where you are, either you're hearing about the wedding between Yuna and Seymour, the failure of Operation Mi'hen, or surprisingly the sheer disbelief that the Aurochs won the Blitzball Tournament.
Despite being my newest recruit, I've already managed to get Rikku's stealing achievement. Told you I liked thieves.
Yeah, this is definitely my favorite incarnation of Ifrit. Amusing that his Meteor Shot move is essentially a toned down version of his fire attack from FFVIII and his actual Hellfire Overdrive is just brutal. Valefore's Overdrives are also neat, but her form and their animations really remind me of BoFIV'S Aura and Astral Dragon Forms.
CGEcnAPOCYk?si=zUiX6krA69RYu_TU
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I forgot to mention that FFX's Chocobo Theme is pretty good, especially the arranged version in the HD version that sounds more like a proper Big Band rendition.
Auron is definitely the best character in this game so far.
Did I just get a Macarena reference? Would probably annoy a purist, but I laughed, especially when Tidus even did the Aye part.


Cons:


This whole sequence concerning Seymour and Yuna sort of reminds me of this anime Fushugi Yugi I watched back in the day, which also entails a young girl with guardians going on a journey to save the land, and this girl Miyaka also made the most stupid decisions based on acting on her feelings which ultimately caused like 80% of the plots problems and drama. Now Yuna is not nearly as bad as Miyaka is since she only really does this once (though Yuna definitely falls into the "go big or go home" attitude in terms of scale), but unlike Miyaka, who is technically more of the Tidus character in that show and thus is just a fifteen year old school girl who is completely out of her depth in the fantasy world she found herself in. Yuna has lived in this world her whole life and should smurfing know better. Which is why it still irritates me. I'll leave my thoughts on Seymour until we reach Mt. Gagazet.
I am not a huge fan of the game's equipment system. I really get a nice dopamine fix from going out of my way to find a hidden treasure with cool loot, or grind a certain enemy to get that rare drop, and this game's ability system sort of just undermines all of that. I can't tell you how excited I will be to get back to a more traditional treasure/equipment drop system in IX, before I have to deal with this nonsense again in VIII.
I am a little annoyed that switching equipment is no longer a free action. Learned this the hard way when I realized Tidus was doing crap for damage because I have him still equipped with the Brotherhood and everything in the Macalania Woods is water resistant.

[Wolf Kanno]

Minor Update

I got a real late start, so I only really managed to get to the first Seymour fight (1/4) and I saved afterwards because I remember this Cloister Trial being quite the doozy, so I figured I should tackle it when it's not 3am.

Pros:

Easily my favorite incarnation of Shiva in the FF series, I think only FFXV might come close. I really love the Hindu goddess aesthetic with the dreadlocks, and this is one of her strongest incarnations that I've played next to FFXV.
I never noticed that Seymour's entourage were partying in the other room, and I got a bit more lore about him. I knew he was a summoner, but not a monk. Though it was a bit weird the order of explaining his life makes it sound like he was a summoner before becoming a Maester, when we learn later he did the Pilgrimage when he was still a child.
Despite being sort of designed to be annoying, I really like Brother for some reason. Like I never thought much of him in this entry, but he's one of the few returning characters in X-2 who managed to worm his way into my heart, the dopey glam rock buffoon. It was nice seeing him when he tries to kidnap Yuna using the anti-magic Mana Cannon Machina.
I found one more Jecht Sphere I almost missed. Kind of scary to think Braska likely started his Pilgrimage with Bahamut. Like once again, it would be interesting to see the three of them in action.
Hey, Ixion actually proved useful in the Mana Cannon fight. You're not useless after all.
Got to tell Clasko to go follow his dreams.
You know, the fact Seymour only seems to be able to summon Anima despite making it all the way to Zanarkand on his pilgrimage makes me wonder if he actually bothered visiting the other temples? His dialogue when Yuna summons Shiva makes it sound like he can't summon her and we only ever seem to see him summon Anima. I wonder if he made it there by just bee lining to it, and perhaps this explains why Anima is not a true Final Aeon since he skipped most of the ritual?


Cons:

I absolutely hate the Seymour side plot. Like this is just Yuna grabbing the idiot ball and running with it, and while I don't think it's out of character for her to want to set right a wrong, there is a part of me that feels like this whole situation would have been made more interesting had Tidus been the one to find the Jyscal Sphere instead of Yuna, because this level of stupidity is a bit more on brand for him seeing how he doesn't quite grasp nor care of the gravitas of the situation the party fell into. But Yuna, what the hell? Why were you hiding this from your Guardians? You know, the people who swore to protect you? Even if you managed to kill Seymour on your own, all of them would have been likely branded traitors and hunted regardless due to their association with you. And if she failed? Same thing. Or assuming she didn't get killed, Seymour would have just held them hostage to make her go through with the wedding. Like there was no real scenario here where justice was going to be served and everyone was not going to get involved and branded a traitor, so it was foolish of her to hide this bombshell information and play along with Seymour's demands from the get go. Like how can you be so stupid?
I've been kind of holding back on this, but today is where we have to address the fact Wakka is your token racist coworker. It's a good thing they spend the first third of the game building goodwill with him, but he's finally becoming the insufferable teammate with the racist views and the weird fundamentalist religious bent. While I feel it's fine that all of this stems from his trauma of losing Chappu, and like I get he turned to Yevon and the bigotry it teaches to find someplace to channel all that grief, but it doesn't really change the fact his arc makes him a bit insufferable at times. It does make me wonder if he was this religious before Chappu died? Because Lulu, and even Chappu from what we know, seem fairly progressive by Spira standards considering they both seem chill about the Al Bhed.

[Karifean]

I assume you got the snowmobile ride with Lulu?

[Wolf Kanno]

I assume you got the snowmobile ride with Lulu?

Yep. I usually get Lulu because she's usually the least likely behind Kimarhi to activate a story flag.

Very Minor Update Time!
Macalania Temple is finished and I got the item as well, so I just need Bevelle and Zanarkand to get Anima when the time comes. Currently, we're semi-lost in the Bikanel Island desert.

Pros:

Al Bhed Potions! Woo!
I've always had a soft spot for the Zu enemy ever since FFIV.
The Abyss Worm is also amusing to fight.
I'm noticing that I am getting close to the end for a few characters Sphere Grids, and with the Calm Lands opening up soon, we can finally access the "fun" part of the game.
Tidus and Rikku have a fun relationship.
It was also kind of sentimental when Tidus was trying to talk to Jecht.


Cons:

I think the other reason why the "stop Seymour" plotline irks me is that I really feel like Yuna got off too easily by the party. Only Wakka seems annoyed, but the rest of the party are okay. I kind of wished Yuan would get more of a reprimand from Lulu and Auron.
The transition to the desert sections is one of the game's most awkward "and now for something completely different" moments. Like this isn't new for FFs, and the more I go into the earlier entries, the more common this gets, but it is weird to be like "of snap, we're on top of Sin" and now we're in a desert. Feels a bit left field, but again, this isn't new to the series.

[Wolf Kanno]

Update Time!

A lot to cover because I'm on my way to Mt. Gagazet but detouring a bit to collect monsters, levels, and screw around on the Calm Lands. I will say, we've pretty much hit the point where FFX pretty much loses me on the story front. Like there are some neat ideas here, but some of the execution just doesn't do it for me. On the other hand, I can see more clearly now how this game was the brainchild of the same team that worked on FFVIII as the summon system especially feels like an evolution of the Guardian Forces. I can also say that the jump to the Calm Lands from the rest of the game's linear nature works better than FFXIII.


Pros:

I find it hilarious that Rikku has you follow her through Bikanel's desert despite it not being difficult to figure out where Home is from using the mini-map.
I remembered to get the Al Bhed Book in Bevelle, so I won't be locked out of learning the whole language. Though I do feel it's weird this game let's you transfer this data to a new file but there is no NG+.
Though it having to be spelled out to you is not my style, I do like the Spiral of Death theme and the revelations about Maester Mika. I am curious to know what Mika's lingering attachment to the world was?
I have to laugh now because Tidus and Yuna's water makeout sessions is basically the modern equivalent to Maduin and Madonna getting it on in FFVI. Made funnier when it's heavily implied Kimarhi watched, the cheeky devil.
I will give credit where credit is due, I will commend the team for doing a great job selling me Tidus and Yuna's love story. It will be interesting to compare to Zidane X Garnet and Squall X Rinoa because I know a lot of fans like to argue which one of these is the best.
I managed to get Tidus' Sun Sigil in Chocobo Catcher!
I also got my Cloudy Mirror and turned it into the Celestial Mirror, then backtracked to pick up Kimarhi's Celestial Weapon. I also picked up Yuna and Tidus, but I won't have all the pieces to unlock anything until after Zanarkand.
YOJIMBO!!!!
Nice to give Lulu some more backstory. I think it's interesting that she has more of a real backstory than say Wakka and Rikku. I wished the game explored Lulu's backstory a bit more, but beggars can't be choosers.
Tonberry's and Malboros Oh MY!
Triple Foul is such a game breaker for Wakka.
Finally got my -aga spells, and while they are tame in design compared to earlier installments, I still feel accomplished.
We have officially reached the point in the game where the devs finally kick the difficulty level. Enemies are spamming so much instant death magic and multiple debilitating status effects you would think we were playing FFI or III.


Cons:

For the life of me, I feel like the devs switches Yuna and Lulu's Sphere Grids in all versions. Yuna get ways more Magic boosts, despite being a White Mage, while Lulu gets all the defensive Magic Defense and Evasion nodes. I really feel like this should be reversed because Lulu just feels underpowered for a Black Mage. Not helped that her Overdrive is useless.
I know the revelation for Tidus about the true finale of the Pilgrimage is supposed to be a big bombshell revelation, but I find this scene funny, because I felt the game telegraphed this so hard. So for me, the scene sort of just shows how much of a cluless dolt Tidus is while simultaneously kind of making the rest of the party look like jerks. Speaking of...
I find it amusing that people call out Citan from Xenogears for being a jackass who knows way more than he's telling and just purposely letting the cast stumble into the truth, yet no one calls out Auron for the same bulltrout.
The whole wedding sequence is pure cringe for me. Like I know part of this is supposed to be a power moment for Yuna, but I honestly think her scene questioning the Maesters was more powerful for her character. It just felt a bit contrived and why I've heard some fans loving the scene where she jumps and summons Valefore, I really don't count this scene as a highlight for her.
Yuna, bro killed his own father, which is how this whole mess got started. What made you think he would keep his word?
The dungeons in Bevelle are terrible in terms of making you believe anyone would actually die here. Yuna's dungeon is a few twisty rooms, but you can essentially just walk out of it. Meanwhile, Tidus' dungeon is only a threat because a fiend version of the dragon you killed shows up. I mean even realistically, Yuna is goddamn summoner, she could just summon Bahamut and bust her way out of Bevelle.
I don't understand why Yuna doesn't try to send Seymour after our second battle with him? You beat him and then we just fade to black out and say we escaped Bevelle. Like I imagine they had to escape quickly, but you would think we would try to send him after the battle. I guess I was expecting a scene where she tries and then the Bevelle guards catch up and they have to flee.
I don't really get why Seymour killed Kinoc, like I get the guy didn't trust him, but he's so power hungry, someone like Seymour should have find it easy to play him. Likewise, I don't understand why Maester Mika does trust Seymour? Not sure if it's just Unsent code of honor or what.
I don't really understand why Yuna is so crucial to Seymour's plan. Much like a few other FF villains we'll get to eventually, I feel his obsession with her ultimately doomed his plan. This guy could have just as easily ditched her and teamed up with any other Summoner and likely completed his plan, especially once he becomes an Unsent. I mean his plan is dumb anyway up until Yuna and the party kill Yunalesca. Still, he could literally watch his end goal unfold by just enjoying his Unsent life as a Maester and keeping the system going.
Chocobo Catcher is a bitch. In the end it really does come down to some RNG shenanigans.

[Karifean]

I find Yuna's naïvité and Auron's general secrecy to kinda go well together because they both center around the same thing - which is that even if you get told something, you don't understand it until you experience it yourself. Even if Yuna hears Jyscal confessing Seymour killing him, she doesn't process what that means about Seymour, it goes so against both everything in how she herself lived and even the values she made herself be an embodiment of. It's IMO tragically quite realistic how much of a mental block and stubbornness she has towards facing Yevon being filled with not just one but several maesters who have nobody's goodwill at heart and have zero intention of seeing justice done, it's completely counter to everything she believed in.

Auron understands this kind of thing very well, which is why he chooses what he says outright very carefully and more than anything just lets them experience what he knows awaits them on their own terms and drawing conclusions themselves based on that. He himself also knows Braska will eventually die but never processed how much that actually happening bothers him until the eleventh hour, either. The one time he kind of oversteps is at the bottom of Macalania Lake where he's already saying "we'll defy Yevon if we must" but the party is still far behind processing that this is where things are headed and dial it back several gears. And lo and behold, they experience it directly and are led to the same conclusions, but now they actually understand why they must.

I love this kind of thing personally, I think it's all written in a really believable way. Though overall I do think the whole Bevelle section is somewhat contrived on an event-to-event level, and Seymour is the one part of the game's story I actively dislike, with him only getting worse past Bevelle as well. When your own party's response to every one of his frothing rants is "man this guy's smurfing crazy" you should know you haven't written a compelling villain with interesting motivations providing a different perspective.

[Wolf Kanno]

Auron's reasoning for staying secretive doesn't actually bother me. I just think it's weird people call out another character I love for this same behavior and yet no one minds when Auron does it.

I get that we're showing Yuna's naivete, but I guess it's just not an attractive trait to me, especially since I feel that Seymour has proven to her time and again that he can't be trusted. The marriage part only really bothers me because I just don't really understand Seymour's obsession with Yuna. Like politically, I can see why he would bother with this, but his endgame is to become Sin so he can spread more misery onto Spira until everyone is dead, so in that case, why bother with the one Summoner that doesn't trust you and knows your secrets? Brand that one a traitor and cozy up with another Summoner. His fixation with no real explanation bothers me.

I've been thinking about how interesting it would be to replay I am Setsuna after this, because the story is similar, yet I feel I am Setsuna sort of delivers what I was expecting from FFX and didn't get. So it would be interesting to go back through that game with this one still fresh in my mind.

[Wolf Kanno]

Update Time!

After avoiding it for awhile, I finally entered Mt. Gagazet. I am currently working my way through the cave system but sort of needed to go to bed, so I'll hopefully finish this tomorrow and reach Zanarkand.

Pros:

I forgot to mention this before, but since I did go back their the capture monsters for the Arena, I really liked the added visual effect in Macalania Lake with the wind blowing all the characters hair and clothes. Was a neat touch I wish we could have gotten more of.
Managed to get the five treasure trophy Achievement with the Reminan Temple Chocobo Race. Sadly, I did hit some posts, so I only got the potion as a reward, but whatever, I can farm the rest.
I have also managed to defeat up to Yojimbo in the Unsenst Summoner questline.
I saw Dark Yojimbo and opted to teleport out rather than see how poorly outmatched I would be.
Despite dreading the hell out of it, I did pretty well with the Kimarhi solo fight. I sort of forget the two Ronso base their own stats on how you built Kimarhi, so I easily out-maged them both.
Acquired the two holy grail Blue spells of White Wind and Mighty Guard.
Got the final Braska Sphere and Unlocked Auron's final Overdrive.
Kicked the shit out Seymour on the mountain, didn't even get one character killed. The Behemoths in the cave have been more difficult than he was. Though I could partially chop this up to foreknowledge on his boss gimmick, I only actually had one character with any Zombie protection. He really does just destroyed easily with a few debuffs and unloading a bunch of Overdrives into him. I even finished him off before his big ultimate attack but using Bahamut's Overdrive instead.
Finally learned Quick Hit for Tidus and Doublecast for Yuna. As well as Bribe for Rikku.
I find it amusing a lot of the side characters lately are singing the song of the Fayth. It was a pretty powerful moment with the Al Bhed, slightly silly with the Ronso but it's a good track nonetheless.
Forgot about Wantz and his way better wares than Oaka. Managed to get Lulu a significantly better weapon that finally allowed her to pull off some real damage. Likewise, I have a weapon for Rikku with Alchemy to help her items.


Cons:

There is a moment where Tidus narrates a part about Yuna gazing off into the distance before leaving a place where Tidus mournfully speaks about her taking it all in since it will be the last she sees of it, and this is sort of the story moments that makes me feel it was silly to make Tidus in the dark about the Pilgrimage's true endgame. It would have been nice to have more moments like this in the game. I feel the game never quite hits the melancholy aspect like I wanted it to.
I really think the Dream Tidus revelation is absolutely silly and feels a bit like Nojima trying too hard to surprise people like he did with the Zack revelation so he really had to pull something out of left field that players could have never guessed. Personally, I feel they should have gone with their original idea of making Tidus an Unsent. Especially since I felt that would have fit perfectly with the Spiral of Death theme. The fact it's also used to create a very contrived way to switch Tidus and Yuna's fate was also dumb. Oddly enough, I remember my first time playing that I suspected they were going to find a way to do this, I just didn't think it was going to be this ridiculous.
Goddamn you need a lot of Lv. 3 and 4 spheres by the end of the party pathways.
Soon, I will get the airship, and then we begin: The Grind!!!!

[Wolf Kanno]

Update Time!

Zanarkand is complete. While it's not exactly an exciting dungeon mechanically, it does hit all the right story beats. It is interesting how Yunalesca and the temple chamber really feel like callbacks to Ultimecia and her castle in FFVIII. I've always felt that FFX has some good bookends. I've been feeling a bit disengaged with the plot for a bit but getting to Zanarkand has brought me back around, though now we're entering the Grind part of the title because I do want to attempt to do the Monster Arena and the extra bosses in this version.

Pros:


Zanarkand is a cool atmospheric place and I loved seeing all the memories of former visitors, including the conclusion to the prequel game we'll never get. Still, the story beats here are strong and the game finally gives you that sense of dread of feeling like we're reaching an inevitable end. It's at this point, and something I mentioned earlier, that I felt keeping Yuna's fate a secret from Tidus hurt the potential of this game.
Much like Seymour 3/4 before, Yunalesca is a bit of a pushover if you know her gimmick. Thank god I invested in that armor for Rikku that has Auto-Med
I wish there were more boss fights like the Spectra Keeper. I liked the gimmick of the enemy countering and needing to stay one step ahead. Likewise, I liked how during the Benke/Girian fight, the two had attacks that allowed them to reposition themselves. Sad there is no back attack damage, but this was a neat Idea I felt the game should have taken advantage of more.
I have an airship, and while we're still in the disappointing airship games, it will be nice to get access to the rest of the sidequests now.
Auron is honestly the best written character in this story. Like Tidus and Jecht are no slouch either but Auron's story is still riveting.


Cons:

Forgot how annoying the Zanarkand puzzle is and I'm not looking forward to coming back for the treasure.
Kind of feel like we should have gotten more lore drops about former summoners coming to Zanarkand.
Kind of wish they had shorten Mt. Gagazet so we could have gotten more Zanarkand. Like did we really need the cave and underwater sections?
I feel I got derailed a bit wandering the Sphere Grid for a few characters, I noticed I'm missing some skills for some characters and its weird Flare looks like it's now in Rikku's portion. I wish there was a way to pan out so I could see the whole map better. Likewise, the controls for it are not very user-friendly. Kind of understand better why XII went with panels on a grid.
Now the funness of having the Dark Aeons punish me for thinking I can backtrack in the game without maxed stats.


I am really thinking of replaying I am Setsuna after this entry.

[Karifean]

For the record, you can zoom out on the sphere grid to a certain extent with originally the Select button. Not sure if you just meant it doesn't go far enough.

[Wolf Kanno]

For the record, you can zoom out on the sphere grid to a certain extent with originally the Select button. Not sure if you just meant it doesn't go far enough.

Might just be mapped weird on the PS4 controller, but I'll try next time I play.

[Wolf Kanno]

Update Time!

I mostly avoided going to speak to Mika, though it looks like I might have to in order to get Wantz to show up in Macalania Forest. Instead, my evening was mostly spent capturing monsters from previous regions so I can unlock the fabulous prizes from the Monster Arena. I also managed to finish the Unsent Summoner questline and acquire Anima and the Magus Sisters for Yuna. I also fully unlocked Tidus, Yuna, and Auron's Celestial Weapons and at least acquired all the weapons and the Crests for everyone. I also realize I am pretty close to being able to start the AP farming nonsense a guide I'm using suggests, but I might hold off for a bit until I finish Omega Ruins.

The goal going forward is going to be acquiring the last sigils so I can unlock everyone's celestial weapons, and then I'll likely finish the Omega Ruins. I have never actually completed Wakka's Celestial Weapon, so I'm getting myself in the head spcae of knowing I'm going to have to play Blitzball for a few nights...

Pros:

While I still need to get ten of a few enemy types and still need to collect monsters from the final and optional dungeon, I was able to get like 80% of the Monster arena unlocked.
Oh thank god the Zanarkand Destruction Sphere Puzzle is actually incredibly simple.
I have acquired Anima! She's probably my favorite summon in this game, and I find it interesting she takes some design cues from Ultimecia's final form. Obviously Nomura must have liked that design with the odd two people attached at the waist thing.
While a funky summon in general, I do appreciate the Magus Sisters being brought in as a summon and I like they sort of stayed true to the design of the FFIV boss they stem from. The bug/flower aesthetic is neat too.
Belgemine is one of my fave NPCs in this game and I like dueling her with aeons. Especially amusing when you see her summon some of the stronger summons. I destroyed Anima with Yojimbo and crushed the Magus Sisters with Anima's Overdrive.
Barring the armor, I have the initial items needed to make some AP farming weapons for Don Tonberry.
I can't remember where I acquired it, but I have a weapons with the No Encounters ability, so now I should have an easy time attempting the quests to get Kimarhi, Lulu, and Rikku's final Sigils.
I finally learned Blitz Ace, I was trying not to rely on Overdrives so much this playthrough so go figure, I had to grind a bit to unlock this. Still haven't tried it out to see who I wound up with.
While the quests attached to unlocking them are annoying, I do like the Celestial Weapons conceptually. So many times unlocking one doesn't take too much effort and then you just have a god tier character on the team going forward. More on that complaint when we reach FFVII.


Cons:

It kind of bugs me that we don't really have as much lore behind the Celestial Weapons. Their Japanese name roughly translates to "Weapons of the Seven Luminaries", meaning they all should have some lore implication, but only Wakka and Auron's weapons are attributed to historical figures from Spira's past. Lulu doesn't even get the special showing up to show off their weapon animation the other characters get due to finding it in a random treasure chest in Baaj Temple. I feel like Yuna's weapon should have come from Belgemine's quest as well instead of just being a treasure lying around the Monster Arena. Likewise, Kimarhi's weapon and crests should have come from the Monster Arena considering he's a Blue Mage. Finally Rikku's Godhand should have had a connection to the Thunder Plains seeing how it also features Cactaur and the lore of the region states the tower were built by an Al Bhed. Not to mention the irony. So, I'm a little disappointed here. Granted, not every ultimate weapon gets backstories but it feels weird the quest to acquire them is so long but has only partial story references. Likewise, coming off of that logic, the whole Celestial Mirror, praying at the big flower in Macalania Woods also feels a bit out of left field. You would think there would be most explanation why this is all a thing within the game.
I am absolutely dreading all the Blitzball I will have to play...
I must say, I am really out of practice for the Thunder Plains, I haven't started to attempt the 200 strike challenge, but I have been really bad with the timing when I was just passing through, so this might be a headache.

[Wolf Kanno]

Update Time!

Still in post-game hell but making steady progress. I also spoke to Mika and Bahamut so I could acquire the option to fight Sin, though I am still holding off for just a bit, but now I have Access to Wantz and his four slot blank equipment so I can make me some ultimate armor and grinding weapons.

Pros:

I have fully unlocked everyone's Celestial Weapon except Wakka due to ignoring Blitzball for a good chunk of the game.
I discovered that despite what a lot of guides online say, you can actually touch a Red Butterfly and still get Kimarhi's Sigil. The confusion comes down to the fact that touching one will significantly lower your odds of completing the course on time.
I only have four areas left to collect ten of every monster so I can unlock Nemesis in the Monster Arena. Overall, I've unlocked a good 80% of all the Area and Original Conquest monsters.
I managed to beat Abyss Worm on my first attempt. Helps I have a good chunk of the Celestial weapons unlocked and I can cheese the Earthquake move by summoning Valefore.
I am slowly moving the party back towards Kimarhi's section so I can start the process of maxing out the Sphere Grid for everyone.
I forgot to mention this, but I loved the nod to the classic Summoner job class when the Ronso said they would make a statue for Yuna and add a horn to it.


Cons:

Grinding money from the Mimics is time consuming. In fact the major gripe I have with all of X's optional content is the very fact all of it feels excessive for the sake of arbitrarily adding time to the clock. I hit the 40 hour mark by the time I finished Zanarkand, and that's also because I backtracked a lot and stopped to do some stuff like Chocobo Catcher. FFX is short compared to the sheer length of a lot of the entries that came after, but the optional content seems like it's designed to make you reach that 100 hour mark so they can say it offers that much content when the reality is that next sixty hours isn't exactly fun or riveting.
I really do dislike Blitzball. I'll save the rant for my next post since I'm short on time at the moment.

[Wolf Kanno]

Update time!

Finally got that stupid Jupiter Sigil to fully unlock Wakka's weapon. Three straight nights of just blitzball and I am done with it. Now the goal is to finish the Omega Ruins and unlock the final dungeon. Capture the last monsters I need to unlock Nemesis and then have everyone complete the Sphere Grid. I also need to farm Lv. 3 and 4 key spheres of which it seems the fastest way to do so is to grind Mimics so I can just bribe them off monsters because all of the good loot happen to be rare drops. From there, I'm taking down the Monster Arena and the Dark Aeons. I imagine I'll need to grind some fortune spheres for this since someone came up with the brilliant idea to make Luck more important that Evasion and Accuracy. I'm not going to go for perfect stats if I can help it, but I will probably fill up every blank spot on the grid unless it gets too much.

Pros:

I don't have to play blitzball anymore.
Finally accomplished something I've never done before, which is fully unlocking everyone's Celestial Weapon. Wakka usually gets the shaft from me.
Managed to unlock a few more trophies including the bribe one and the max damage one.
I learned a new trick to make Blitzball prizes appear when I want them, so if I ever do have to this again, I can make this a bit easier on myself.
I almost have 2 million gil saved up.


Cons:

I hate blitzball. The biggest problem I have with it is that it takes way too long since matches are a minimum ten minutes unless you forfeit. Tournaments are not so bad, but League matches just last forever. I can also tell this is based off football (soccer to us Yanks, though this analogy does apply to our version of football as well) as eventually you realize the best strategy is to score twice and then just spend the whole game passing the ball between team members instead of actually doing anything fun so you can run out the clock. It's one of the reasons why Jecht Shot is such a broken move because it will easily allow you to score and burn up twenty seconds of clock time or more depending on if the goalie has Super Goalie or not. But yeah, it can take an hour and half just to work through a League match which is an excessive amount of time to ask a player to dedicate to a minigame. I don't mind investing that time on accident, I mean I'll likely do it when we get to FFIX and VIII , but in those cases, it just happens on accident because I'm having fun, not because that's required. Building a strong team is not even that hard as some people just start off stupidely good and most of the original teams members eventually average out. Hell, my strategy often involves just recruiting good people to keep other teams from acquiring them like Biggs and Wedge, and in the past, I've done the same with the Al Bhed goalie Nimrook. I just wish the game had a speed up feature or the ability to end a game once you hit a certain goal amount. I vaguely remember X-2 did add some of these features to it, but I'm surprised no one thought to add them to the International or even HD Remaster version.

[Karifean]

I like Blitzball, but I still think it really overstays its welcome for how simple it ultimately is. 2 halves per game, 10 games per league, is just too much, even using Reset Data to the point it only takes 2 leagues and 2 tournaments to get the sigil (skipping the 2 extra leagues it would take just to get Status Reels and the sigil to show up).

Luck grinding is what made me drop the FFX postgame myself several times back in the day. It truly is tedious. Only when the PC HD Remaster came out with 4x speed and auto-battle did I finally get through it. It helps that you don't need *that* much of it; at least 86 is the sweet spot for the postgame since it lets you consistently hit Penance's arms, overdrives and Aim buffs take care of the rest. During grinding it also helps to do some bribes of Maelspike for 100k Gil to get an Attribute Sphere per, each of which can activate a luck node someone else has already activated; makes for a decent change of pace when you're getting sick of Earth Eater.

I typically get the final Lv 4 Keys just by mugging them from Nemesis myself, the ones you get guaranteed are usually more than enough before that. Also gotta say that while farming Mimics with Gillionaire is fine and all especially while you're still capturing anyways, it's certainly not the fastest way to grind gil in this game. I think the fastest way that also has side benefits of gathering up Dark Matters is one-shotting Sleep Sprout over and over again until you get up to 99 Teleport Spheres (on average also getting about 12 Dark Matters in the process), then filling up your equipment menu with customizable weapons from the Kilika equipment shop, customizing Evade & Counter on them and selling them back (as well as the drops from Sleep Sprout itself), rinse and repeat. Teleport Spheres are also in general a great asset for sphere gridding.

[Wolf Kanno]

Minor Update

I mostly was trying to capture monsters from the Omega Ruins, I think I have 10 of everything except Master Tonberry and Varna, though I do need more Admantoise, but that's a final dungeon fiend. My goal was to get a Lv. 3 Key Sphere drop, but it just never came, so instead I used all the money I accumulated to just bribe 40 of them from the Demon Monolith fiends, so I should be set for the rest of the game. I took on Ultima and crushed him like a bug, but could never get Bribe to work and losing that much gil didn't set right for me, so I reset and beat him again without it. Omega turned out to be a different story as I was unaware of the fact the International version boosted his HP by 10x, so I was surprised when he didn't go down quickly and he managed to kill me because I wasn't really bothering with healing and defense magic like I should. I'm not bothered because I think boosting him was a good thing as he was really underwhelming in the OG version. So I'll regroup and try again. I really need to teach Lulu a non-elemental spell to make her useful for this fight. I may also just open up the final dungeon so I can finish the Arena.

Pros:

Omega Weapon isn't a push over anymore.
Got a crap ton of levels while grinding for Lv. 3 Key Spheres.
I'm mostly done with Fiend capturing in Omega Ruins.
Kimarhi is no longer my weakest fighter, though I may need to throw him down either Lulu or Yuna's path to boost his magic again.
Supernova is certainly the most visually impressive move in the game, and has echoes of Shockwave Pulsar to it.


Cons:

It's weird to me that No Encounters works while the user is not in the active party, but Gillionair does not. Seems like an odd oversight and drastically makes the move less useful than it should be.
Is there a reason Lulu's MP to 1 skill keeps her cost at 2mp? I remember this in the OG version but it just seems weird.
The fact Yuna's White Magic is all single target really makes her one of the worst White Mages in the series. The game should have had had a All ability you could equip on weapons or something for endgame.
I honestly feel that Rikku's Godhand should have had Alchemy and Master Thief as their abilities instead of Gillionair and Double AP.
Likewise, Kimarhi should have gained Magic Booster and Wakka should have an ability unique to him that doubles that extends how long status magic works.
I'm not a fan of the treasure chest gimmick in the Omega Ruins, but at least treasure isn't actually too useful in this game unless it's a specialty sphere or rare item for customization, and even then, the Arena is usually a more efficient means of obtaining it.
I know this is the expert sphere grid and meant to mix things up, but it seems weird that Flare and Auto-Life are both technically in Rikku's path. Only because the rest of the "ultimate abilities" of the old grid are still found in their original user's path barring Ultima that is now in Lulu's path where it should be.

[Wolf Kanno]

Minor Update

I mostly was trying to capture monsters from the Omega Ruins, I think I have 10 of everything except Master Tonberry and Varna, though I do need more Adamantoise, but that's a final dungeon fiend. My goal was to get a Lv. 3 Key Sphere drop, but it just never came, so instead I used all the money I accumulated to just bribe 40 of them from the Demon Monolith fiends, so I should be set for the rest of the game. I took on Ultima and crushed him like a bug, but could never get Bribe to work and losing that much gil didn't set right for me, so I reset and beat him again without it. Omega turned out to be a different story as I was unaware of the fact the International version boosted his HP by 10x, so I was surprised when he didn't go down quickly and he managed to kill me because I wasn't really bothering with healing and defense magic like I should. I'm not bothered because I think boosting him was a good thing as he was really underwhelming in the OG version. So I'll regroup and try again. I really need to teach Lulu a non-elemental spell to make her useful for this fight. I may also just open up the final dungeon so I can finish the Arena.

Pros:

Omega Weapon isn't a push over anymore.
Got a crap ton of levels while grinding for Lv. 3 Key Spheres.
I'm mostly done with Fiend capturing in Omega Ruins.
Kimarhi is no longer my weakest fighter, though I may need to throw him down either Lulu or Yuna's path to boost his magic again.
Supernova is certainly the most visually impressive move in the game, and has echoes of Shockwave Pulsar to it.


Cons:

It's weird to me that No Encounters works while the user is not in the active party, but Gillionaire does not. Seems like an odd oversight and drastically makes the move less useful than it should be.
Is there a reason Lulu's MP to 1 skill keeps her cost at 2mp? I remember this in the OG version but it just seems weird. Editga: Nevermind, it's because her weapon has Magic Booster that doubles MP for double power.
The fact Yuna's White Magic is all single target really makes her one of the worst White Mages in the series. The game should have had had a All ability you could equip on weapons or something for endgame.
I honestly feel that Rikku's Godhand should have had Alchemy and Master Thief as their abilities instead of Gillionaire and Double AP.
Likewise, Kimarhi should have gained Magic Booster and Wakka should have an ability unique to him that doubles that extends how long status magic works.
I'm not a fan of the treasure chest gimmick in the Omega Ruins, but at least treasure isn't actually too useful in this game unless it's a specialty sphere or rare item for customization, and even then, the Arena is usually a more efficient means of obtaining it.
I know this is the expert sphere grid and meant to mix things up, but it seems weird that Flare and Auto-Life are both technically in Rikku's path. Only because the rest of the "ultimate abilities" of the old grid are still found in their original user's path barring Ultima that is now in Lulu's path where it should be.

[Wolf Kanno]

Oh wow, we're back online so I can finally post my final thoughts on this. But first...

Update Time:

I finished the game and even managed to get all the extra content done. I think the only thing keeping me from a platinum trophy at the moment is knowing I'll need to grind like 99 more Luck Spheres to finish everyone's Sphere Grid. My only positive is that some of the Dark Aeons were interesting battles, but overall, I find X's endgame/post-game content to be incredibly tedious and not fun at all. I was so burnt out that I just Zanmato Penance because I couldn't be bothered to care about fighting it.

So Final Thoughts

I walked away from FFX with a bit of a better opinion on it. I wasn't surprised by this because before hand, it was playing FFX and its sequel that made me appreciate FFVII better. So I always knew that my opinion would improve on FFX in a post-XIII world. I dread what abomination SE will produce that makes me think back on XIII more fondly...

I will say that I find FFX to be the weakest of the PS2 numbered FF offerings, though it was interesting to see how some of the camera direction and character model emotes XI ended up recycling from this game. I will say that I don't necessarily feel this weakness is due to some poor oversight, or at least I don't feel that is the issue entirely. The thing I've come to accept about FFX's design that turns me off is the fact that this game is an accumulation of a design philosophy Square had been using for the franchise since VI which is basically trying to streamline and simplify the series to make it more palpable for newcomers and more enticing for non-fans.

The problem I have with this design choice is that it holds back some elements of FFX that I feel would have made this game far more enjoyable for myself. CTB is an interesting idea on paper, but it's execution leaves much to be desired. It could have been revolutionary for the series but it's constantly held back from doing so because I feel the development team were too afraid of having a repeat of the Junction system from VIII being too complicated for the new fan base. For this reason, CTB hardly feels strategic. You simple move in the character you need to kill the enemy before it gets a turn. It feels rewarding in the beginning but quickly just becomes tedious. Even more annoying is the fact the game only gives out XP to participating party members so now you have to rotate everyone into the battle which drags out random encounters longer than they should, especially when characters like Yuna and Kimahri don't offer much of anything like everyone else does. Tidus even gets skills to manipulate turn order, but only Haste and Slow are useful and both can be automated with the equipment system to make even those skills useless. I don't think I even used Hastega in the game until I was in the Monster Arena, farming the items needed to add auto-haste to my party. So the biggest strength of the system falls flat. What is even more annoying to me is knowing they could have done more. Xenosaga's first two games use a variation of the CTB system but add extra layers to the system by adding in a mechanic that lets a character take their turn before they naturally would, but enemies can do the same thing. Which created a fun dynamic as the player and enemy battle out to see who can take their turn first. The only things enemies have to work with in FFX is if they get a counter move and 90% of those enemies are optional arena bosses. I've always griped that the combat system in the main story is fairly pedestrian until a difficulty spike once you reach the Calm Lands, but having played the optional content to completion, I can now safely say it rarely makes real use of CTB either. Some bosses do, and I feel some try to, but since the post-game strategy is largely to grind to max stats, strategy goes out the window for brute force tactics instead. I just wanted better balance. Also, whoever decided Luck should be the "hit" stat should be dragged out onto the street and shot because it's the most tedious stat to raise due to Luck Spheres being rare and only dropped from an optional boss enemy, of which you can only get a maximum of two per battle. Of anything, I'm honestly disappointed SE didn't really try to do anything more to rebalance FFX when they did the HD release.

I also didn't care for the equipment system, I find it often made finding treasure way less interesting since it was mostly just cannon fodder equipment I would usually just sell. The equipment development system should also be overhauled. It arrives too late in the game for my taste and takes even longer to be useful after that. Nothing was more annoying that building a weapon with some good skill only to have some random enemy drop something better. Once it does unlock, you only have access to some basic skills and frankly, for weapons, the only skill that's useful for the main scenario is stonetouch or deathtouch. Other weapon skills tend to be far less useful and you were better off just using Wakka's skills to inflict status effects. Once again, if the developers had built the game with a bit more teeth, then this system could have really shined.

I wish I had more positive things to say here, because truthfully, I don't remember being this annoyed with everything when I reached the final dungeon and unlocked all the endgame content. But I guess that's the real issue here is that this endgame content is so tedious and boring that it leaves a bad final impression on the gameplay side of things. There are things I did like about the overall gameplay. I liked the fact the game at least tries to keep a form of a class system, though it makes it more obvious that someone like Kimahri should have likely been dropped from the main roster since he doesn't fulfill any meaningful role once the full party is assembled. Likewise, due to how plentiful potions are and save points auto-healing the team, Yuna was also usually lagging behind. Aeons are fun for what they are, but overpowered as hell in the main game. Still, I didn't use them too much, so it didn't bother me this playthrough. If I could make a change, I would add in one more Aeon and change another just for the sake of my OCD. I would have added Ramuh into the game and just based his design on the Japanese thunder god or even the Hindu one his namesake comes from. Then I would have changed Ixion to Kelpie and given us a water elemental summon. It just feels weird we have a water element but no summon representative for it. Likewise, I feel like Kitase, Toriyiama and Nomura have it in for the old wizard Ramuh, because it feels like whenever the three of them get together, he gets knocked out of the roster.

I also appreciate Overdrives are less of a crutch mechanic in this entry. At least compared to VII and VIII. Though I wish some characters had better overdrive options as Lulu's feels underwhelming and Kimahri is the worst Blue mage in the series. In fact, I would have completely worked over Kimahri's design and made his Blue magic available all the time with an expanded roster of spells. His Overdrive would have been dragoon based instead. Likewise, I wish Yuna and Lulu had access to the spells (or perhaps weapon ability) of Double and Triple to make their magic more useful. Granted, using these abilities would make their turns come less often to balance it out, but Yuna is a crappy healer compared to Rikku and Lulu is under-powered in general.

In terms of narrative, I'm still not the biggest fan of the story and how it was executed. Which kills me a bit because the plot is based on one of my favorite Japanese legends, but it loses so much of its impact due to keeping Tidus in the dark about everything for so long. Which is especially weird when you think about how the game is not very subtle telegraphing Yuna's fate. I can understand a westerner being a bit clueless, but I imagine the Japanese audience saw through everything and recognized the trope immediately, so the surprise was hardly a shock for them. I guess not helping the narrative is having played I am Setsuna, which has the same premise but just doesn't bother hiding the outcome of the pilgrimage, allowing the party to really wallow in what they are doing and spend more time debating about whether they are really doing the right thing or not. A lot of the philosophical potential is lost due to Tidus just being treated as an outsider and the rest of the party just soldering on because they don't believe they have any other option. Still, the core Pilgrimage journey is solid for what it is. The same cannot be said for the Yevon Church subplot which I feel takes up too much time, stays too focused on the wrong people, and fails to really have the impact I felt like it should have. As someone who loves FFTactics, Xenogears, and SMT, I am quite familiar with the false religion trope and X's version doesn't do it for me.

I think the issue partially stems from the fact Seymour is just not compelling enough to pull off this subplot. This feels weird because he's has more of a backstory than any antagonist before him. We know his childhood, if you speak to a few of his retainers at certain points, they'll fill you in on his teens years and rise through the clergy. But the dude has no charisma. He just feels like a smug snake you see in a bad teen movie, and feels as threatening as one.That I feel may be the main issue, he just never feels threatening. It's not helped that even the party feels this way by he final battle with him. He's more annoying than engaging and getting on his bad side mainly had the consequence of getting the whole church after the party. I know the fight with him is supposed to segue us into the evil church plot, but I feel like it never gets as much focus because we're stuck seeing this all play out from Seymour's [perspective and his baffling obsession with Yuna. I still don't really understand why he was so hyper fixated on her, which is annoying because it's not like the game doesn't give us ample of information to create a reasoning, but none is ever stated properly in the game and it just makes it feel like he's only obsessed with marrying her because it makes it easier to move the story along. Not helping matters here either is that all of Seymour's most dastardly deeds are done off screen. Killing his father, genocide against the Ronso, kidnapping Yuna, killing Kinoc, just about all his evil deeds happen off screen and are told to you instead of witnessing first hand which does a lot to weaken Seymour's position as a compelling antagonist. If I could change things, I would have probably just have Seymour killed off earlier in the plot and instead have the party deal with each of the evil Maesters instead. I mean Kinoc is in charge of the Temple Monks, I'm surprised he gets so little screen time considering how often they are chasing after the party. Seymour is just not interesting enough to lift this plot thread and I feel an ensemble would have worked better, especially since most of them were in on it.

The other issue with the evil church subplot is that it takes up most of the game's runtime so that by the point we see Sin again, we've lost all the momentum it had built up from the game's early chapters. Once Seymour enters the fray, Sin is largely seen as benign and kind of just minding its own business instead of being a major threat. Even when it does show off its power at the end, I was kind of wishing we saw it do more of that against actual towns and people. I would have loved to see a whole sequence of Sin wrecking Bevelle at the end and the party needing to help evacuate the city. This ultimately creates the issue I have with X's story. Sin spends too much time off screen and not doing anything menacing when it does show up after Operation Mi'hen and even that sequence has the issue of the humans starting the conflict. I needed more Sin living up to its reputation and less emo villain with parental issues trying to override a church to enact his super goth plan while also marrying his secret crush as part of the deal. The buildup with Sin was great in the beginning, I just needed more of that throughout. I'm cool with a big monstrous Cthulhu like threat, my favorite game of all time involves a giant space tick that shows up to cause the end of the world and I really wanted Sin to follow suit.

The other beef with this subplot is that I feel it hurt Yuna's character for me. I was actually warming up to her in the beginning, but she loses me when she threatens her own pilgrimage by trying to appeal to patricidal Seymour to turn himself in. Like how stupid can you be? I get this sequence is meant to ground Yuna and show off her faults as naive and stubborn, which Auron almost says word for word about her, but I guess it fails to work for me because the consequences of her actions feels inconsequential. She never really gets truly punished for her foolish actions and the party sort of just forgives her without a second thought. Contrast that with say Garnet from the previous game who also is naive and stubborn as her faults. Her decision to go it along and try to talk some sense into mother nets her losing her summoner powers and giving her mother the means needed to conquer the known world and cause countless death. Garnet has to come to terms with this for the rest of the game, whereas Yuna doesn't suffer any real consequence and doesn't really learn anything from it. Again, I'm okay with just dropping this whole subplot so Yuna could stay as the pure "too good for this world" archetype that would have made the battle against Sin more compelling, but instead I have to help nepo baby finish her journey and manage to save the world.

To move back to positives though, I will say that every new playthrough of this game does make Tidus more endearing to me. Like he's super annoying in the early game and I still feel he's not really the most reliable narrator about his dad. Of anything, I feel Tidus real beef with Jecht wasn't even the bullying, but just the fact him disappearing caused Tidus' mom to lose the will to live and thus he really was alone until Auron showed up. Still, Tidus really is the heart of the plot. I still hate the whole "I'm a dream" explanation for what he is, because I feel it just makes you ask more questions than anything and causes some cosmological plot holes, but his character works overall, and I still like the twist of Tidus sacrificing himself instead of Yuna. It adds a melancholic twist the game needed. Likewise, I feel Jecht also gets some great character development and winds up being the better reluctant antagonist of the game. This is why I had no issue with Tidus and Jecht being the chosen for Dissidia, because they are frankly the heart of the story and much better written than everything else in the plot.

I wish the other characters had more time, I get this was an FFVIII scenario and we're hyper fixating on outr main two love birds, but I wish Lulu had more development about being a Guardian before this pilgrimage instead of having it all basically told in the span of the Calm Lands. Likewise, Wakka could have been a great vehicle to explore faith and religious identity as well as racism, but obviously Square opted to save all that for FFXI instead and we get the theme park version with Wakka. Just the fact it lacks any real resolution bothers me since it was the only real inter-party conflict the team had. Auron is great, no notes outside of wishing we could have explored more of his relationship with Kinoc. Kimarhi is... absolutely forgettable despite being a sevent foot tall talking cat man. I always mention how I forgot about him in X-2 and I can see why. He's forgettable, his story with his two bullies feels more juvenile than compelling, and he has no real characterization besides being quiet, devoted to Yuna, and Tarzan speak. My hot take? Mog from FFVI is a more interesting and compelling character despite having maybe four lines of dialogue in the whole game. I'm almost impressed with how uninspiring he is as a character. The game does have a colorful cast of side characters and I kind of thought it was interesting how they basically journeyed with the party after their introductions but I feel it also made the padding of the narrative more apparent as the characters often got stuck in their own story limbos as you speak with them at each stop and their dialogue often amounted to "still trying to do my thing". It was an interesting idea that just didn't quite stick the landing, but overall I didn't mind the side characters outside of Donna being a raging bitch for no reason.

World design, FFX has some fascinating ideas. I love Japanese and Asian cultures, so seeing these concepts really played with in a game was nice. I wish Spira had more interesting views though. The lousy level/dungeon design leaves little to work with but it got annoying more because a lot of environments in FFX are kind fo basic in design. Generic forest (Moonflow), generic cliff-side (Operation Mi'hen place), generic field (Calm Lands), and generic cave (Mt Gagazet cave) don;t really work so well when you also have Besaid, Thunder Plains, Macalania Woods., and Zanarkand Ruins as locales. For being the first PS2 FF I guess I was expecting more pizazz, especially considering how linear the layout was.

Musically, I'm not a fan. Uematsu manages to squeeze out a few good tracks and some equally bad tracks, but the overall score is not my favorite. I'm not a fan of Hamazu's works and I don;t even remember the name of the other person who helped with the score. Granted, being the first entry with spoken dialogue means the music needed to be more subdued, but I still feel like a lot of games prove that doesn't always have to be the case.

Oof, I know this was less than positive, but let's be honest, this game is still my second least favorite numbered entry, so the complaints just come easier for me. Thankfully, I get a real palette cleanser as I am going through FFIX currently. See you in that thread as it's all up hill from here for me.