Let's Play Final Fantasy X-2 HD Remaster #1 - It's Showtime, Girls!

I had forgotten about the mutlipliers. I think this was my downfall when I first played the game as I tried to make the biggest number I could, just like in the video. I'll crush him next time that I know what do to.

It makes sense that I know my numbers, cause I'm in da money business~

oh my god waaaaaaaaaaaawwuuwwwa waaaaaa waaaaaaaaaaa

Sphere Break is really easy only losers lose (obviously). After our thrilling victory, we head out to see if anywhere else needs the help of the Friendly Neighbourhood Gullwings!

Looks like only LeBlanc needs our help to pull herself out of the darkness she finds herself in now that Nooj is gone. Maybe a tale that I already know the ending to from Maechen will cheer her up!

Nice win. Totally forgot to mention that you can get a really useful Garment Grid during the match against Shinra at random while getting 'Item' border coins. Oh well.

Gippal's a pretty cool guy, huh.

I find it strange how you just randomly encounter monsters in the Leblanc mansion now. It's like... Ormi, Logos, you should really look into this infestation that suddenly happened, maybe?

Makes me wonder how the 'Journey's Start' sphere randomly ended up on Mount Gagazet. I mean sure it's on the path from Bevelle to Zanarkand (their war enemy) but why would anyone take that sphere with them to there? Well then again you can wonder this about many of the spheres in this game.

Honestly I'm quite glad Maechen actually acknowledges Tidus' existence here since no one else ever does in this game besides former party members.

Still theorizing as to what realization exactly it was that slipped Maechen's mind in this scene.

Express is actually quite a useful skill for self-preservation. It gives you (the caster only, not the whole party) the effect of Perfect Pitch and Matador's Song and also Hastes you up on top of that. A good alternative if you don't want to use a Songstress for supreme dodging.

The more I play this game the more horrifying the Den of Woe events feel. Easily this game's high point in storytelling.

I nominate Dark Knight Yuna, Songstress Rikku and Lady Luck Paine. Gotta give the new dresspheres some love.

I went back anf got the White Signet Garment Grid. Shinra Nearly beat me though. I had 51/50 on turn 40.

What's Matt's favourite minigame? Is it catching butterflies, perchance?

Not gonna lie, got slightly aroused with the classic side butt shot and then classic Nooj butt sent me over the edge.

Holy Fanervice batman? Who am I kidding this whole game is fanservice

Let's Play Final Fantasy X-2 HD Remaster #31 - Lady No-Luck

In this exciting installment, we take on the mysteries of the Mi'hen Highroad. Unfortunately due to poor fortune on our part we are taking Lady Luck with us. Things don't go well as Shauna almost murders us several times.

Well, at least we see butts.

Lady Luck is pretty strong. Casually doing more damage than the Dark Knight with a set of cards.

IMO the only abilities on the Dark Knight worth a damn are the passives. Maybe Black Sky. The only other reason you'd use this dressphere is for its defenses and Darkness. I find it pretty boring tbh. (Not going to suggest it ever again =P)

I still have to laugh a bit over how all of the enemies just simply cannot ever hit you after Matador's Song.

Reels aren't random. You got Clean Slate for getting two cherries in a row and Armor Break for one cherry in a row. The game is nice enough to give you all horizontals and diagonals you manage to get which is the reason you keep getting multiple WINs/attacks. The reels aren't too bad since they only have a few symbols before the pattern repeats. With good timing it's not too hard to hit. 777 gives you Shin-Zantetsu (Death on all enemies) IIRC. The real good stuff is on the other reels abilities which have two of the single most broken abilities in the game. I'd almost say it's worth learning to use the reels properly just to get those consistently.

Dud is a pretty hefty price to pay for messing up though...

"Never gonna use Lady Luck ever again"? No way. Lady Luck is great! IIRC there's some tougher fighting coming up next time so I'll nominate Songstress Yuna, White Mage Rikku, Psychic Paine.

Right, I guessed it wasn't random in the reels, but we just have no idea what any of the things mean. So without knowing that one cherry is Armour Break, and two cherries is Clean Slate (which are completely unconnected what xD) it's all just completely all over the place. Ah well.

It's not too bad, but yeah - Dud is a horrible punishment for getting it wrong (although with Matador's Song it barely even matters).

mmm dat side...thigh? heh heh heh well well well WHO IS THE SLOTS KING NOW not you CERTAINLY NOT YOU

well well well well YOU ARE BAD AT SLOTS yeah that'll show ye



Ah, the sandy deserts! So many strange creatures here, most notably the talking cacti. Where did Pointy Shinra learn how to speak cactus? Weird. Well, the Friendly Neighbourhood Gullwings take on the mission to save the cactuars from themselves.

Afterwards, we cool off at the Macalania Inn where terrible things have happened. And continue to happen. Oh god they keep happening.

I'd never seen that "What you think you're done here? Think again!" bit before

They did a good job making the cactuar hunting mission a bit more interesting in this game. The minigame is pretty bs though. You can do perfectly but still lose due to bad luck since I've never seen any hint of a correlation between the cactuar dodging and the player's performance. At least it only has one reward attached to it.

The Rhyos is easily the toughest enemy in the Macalania gauntlet and pretty much the sole reason the mission is as hard as it is. I had to skip it on my first playthrough because the goddamn thing oversouled. Little did I know I was missing out on a dressphere by doing that...

Fire Eater sure would've been helpful against the chimeras ^^

Best of luck to O'aka and his little shop.

Halfway through is quite a statement considering one instance of getting 0.2% requires you to dive through the latter 80 floors of Via Infinito.

I'll nominate Gun Mage Yuna, Songstress Rikku and Berserker Paine for next time. Berserker is a pretty great dressphere, though both Yuna and Rikku have painfully annoying attack animations. Too bad learning its quintessential passive takes so much AP.

Those surely are some sandy buns but I wish Shauna would stop talking about them.

Matt should get a gig as a Cactuar translator. He just needs a pointy hat.

THERE ARE FIENDS AT THE TEMPLE! *camera zooms in on Rikku's bikini clad breasts to emphasise the danger*

Holiday special? Na, we don't do crap like that.

Let's Play Final Fantasy X-2 HD Remaster #33 - Returning Home For Christmas

On this episode of lets play FFX-2 we go home for the holidays.

Except it's not Christmas and there are chores to do like fiend killing. The old'uns try clear up the mess, but in the end they just take a nap in the hall and the kids have to clean up after all.

At least your crazy uncle shows up this year, even if he wants to burn the house down...

Sigh. Here I am being all thoughtful, giving you Gun Mage when I know you're going through the Thunder Plains where you can get Flame Breath, and what happens? smurfing Charm Bangle ruins everything. Goddamnit.

That damage on the Berserker. Very nice, very nice.

I like Beclem during this mission. He's completely practical and doesn't give a damn about the temple, but his points are perfectly valid. He just prioritizes things differently, putting the safety of the townspeople above all else. Which I can respect; just as much as Yuna and Wakka's standpoint.

smurf Cat Nip. One single accessory utterly ruined the most awesome challenge any FF game has to offer. And even nerfed it's still stupidly good.

Ah, the calm beaches of Kilika. Nothing bad ever happens here.

Except FIENDS! From the TEMPLE! Uh oh. Guess the Gullwings better get in there to try and help out, even though the temple definitely doesn't want their help. We will help them whether they like it or not.

All the while, the Shaunas discuss evening telly for the Spirans. Who would you vote out?

The Bushido Lore is probably the best of the lores in the game given how good the Samurai's skillset is. Though you can always just use the GG that gives the same effect plus 60 extra Strength and using the skills in question faster so there's that.

This part is where I started really disliking the Youth League. Sure, let's just lock up these people dying by the dozens so they can't escape the inevitable death. If Yuna hadn't showed up they'd have all been massacred before the YL would've let even one of them through (though I suppose with the defense line they had they might've been able to hold out until help arrived). I love how Buddy extorts the New Yevon guys for money though. Makes me laugh every time.

Hooray for fighting seven forced Daevas in a row. I think they ran out of ideas.

Cripple is probably gravity-elemental anyways so it wouldn't have worked on either the Daevas or Ifrit.

Dona technically makes it all the way to the Zanarkand trials, actually! If you don't encourage her to quit her pilgrimage on the airship you can meet her there when you return after beating Yunalesca.

Paine's Berserker attack animation is just by far the best of the girls'. Yuna does an awkward jump and Rikku dances around before they finally get around to attacking. Paine just rolls and uppercuts like it's nothing.

Ifrit is pretty easy if you put everyone on the Fire-absorbing GG. Otherwise he does hit quite hard.

Yay Samurai! Easily the hardest hitter in the game before you get Mascot or the ultimate Blue Bullets.

I nominate Lady Luck Yuna, Songstress Rikku, Samurai Paine for next time. Gotta give new dresspheres some love and Lady Luck feels like it fits pretty well with the other two, so enjoy.

Holidays are over. We're back baby!

Let's Play Final Fantasy X-2 HD Remaster #33 - The Zanmato Show

This week on Lets Play Final Fantasy X-2 we do some sidequests. You know, just for funsies.

Then head to help people in distress at the Cavern of the Stolen Fayth, because The Gullwings help all people! Little did we know, a Zanmato or 6 was in store for us when we got there.

Ah the Sunken Cave mission. Easily the biggest difficulty spike of the first four chapters.

Yeah you can get all of them in one go. It's worth it to just go through and pick up all the people in the right order. It sounds like a hassle but the hints on all of them make it exceedingly clear when to pick them up to keep them till the end. Saves you a lot of walking.

I think it's pretty troutty that you have to go back out of the cave to get one of the energy cores. I'd have never thought to do that on my own. You can actually get it before you even start the mission.

As far as I can tell the main reason to save everyone in the cave is that it opens up the side rooms in which you can find a chest with a pretty neat Defense Bracer in Chapter 5. Though that still makes saving the last guy a total waste of time from a meta perspective. Actually I don't know, does the reward you get change depending on how many peeps you saved?

Ah god I really wanted to yell at the screen when you didn't realize you could've just warped back to the entrance with the last two guys >_>

A pretty neat trick I learned about sometime is that you can leave the mission, save and restart the mission and you won't have lost any progress. So you can save directly before the boss fight which given his difficulty is pretty cool.

And there he is, Yojimbo himself. I remember how I totally shat my pants the first time I saw Zanmato and was first thankful that it just reduces your HP/MP to 1, but then it turns out that's actually preeeetty deadly especially with how well it synchs with the Poison he loves to inflict. Going in with poison protection is definitely a good idea and makes the fight a lot easier, plus he telegraphs Zanmato nicely so you can stack a healing item to go out straight after it happens. Mega Potions and Megalixirs actually end up being really useful here. Probably the best fight to use them in in the entire game. No reason to be stingy with them.

Not gonna lie, when Yuna sapped his MP I had to laugh.

See this is why I don't like the Charm Bangle. It smurfs up your dressphere progression so hard. Having at least one or two active abilities learned for Samurai would've sped up the battle quite a bit. I mean sure they cost MP but recovering that would've been certainly worth it.

Daigoro is such a troll in this battle. I remember once I went into this battle perfectly prepared, but I didn't have any turns ready when Yojimbo used Zanmato and I got wiped out with 2 Daigoro attacks and one Wakizashi before I even got the heal off.

It's funny because you'd have survived and gotten back to full health for your entire party if you had used a Mega Phoenix instead of a Hi-Potion at the end there. That thing revives even the user if they get KO'd while using it.

I did this to you? WELL EXCUSE ME IF YOUR PLAYING SUCKS. Well true having a better damage dealer might've helped. And using dresspheres with some AP in them. And having an MP independent healer. Okay yes different dresspheres would've made this fight a lot easier. Happy?

But tbh I actually would like to see you try the fight again with the same dressphere, this time knowing what's ahead and minmaxing to the best of your abilities. Good luck with that!

Grinding before Yojimo!

Pro - The actual Yojimbo fight went super well and we were pleasantly surprised
Con - Microphone failed ot pick up any audio so we didn't get to capture that shock.

Egads we gotta record it all again