Thoughts on Kimahri.

Inspired by a thread about classes I came to wonder about Kimahri's function in FFX. Seeing as the other characters had a function, Tidus = fighter, Auron = samurai, Yuna = summoner/white mage, Lulu = black mage, Rikku = thief and Wakka = joggler, I came up with a theory that Square's original intent with Kimahri was that he was supposed to be the dragoon and/or blue mage of the game. However, in the game we learn that only Ronso can learn fiend abilities, so putting these abilities on the Sphere Grid was impossible (I think the Sphere Grid idea came after the writing of the characters) since everyone would be able to learn them. Maybe that's why he doesn't have a path of his own on the Grid and blue magic is an overdrive ability, which sadly makes him quite useless.

Agree or disagree, please.

Quite useless? While he might not be as clear-cut as the others in terms of a defining role, he is certainly not useless. Mighty Guard, white wind and nova are all great ronso rages. What I always do with him is send him through the thiefs area so he can start steling items for customization later on. When you get Rikku and they both have Mug, things just start getting easier for me. I'm crazy about thiefs though and thats just how i feel he is best used early. or you could send him through lulu's area and have him as a second spell caster which is the easiest way to perform consistant high damage early.

I didn't find Kimahri useless either, but many does and I can see why, although I find him quite versatile. But he would be less useless if his Ronso Rage ability where an ability called Blue Magic, no?

The problem comes with Kimahri being moldable into any function that you desire. That also gives you 6 primary options, and any number of intermediate positions. More people can have fun with Kimahri if they would but a little bit of thought into what they want from a character that is virtually built from scratch. Do you like going pew pew with lazerbombs? Make a second Black Mage. Do you need someone who can use Armor Break without not being able to move again? Pull an Auron.

He is a Dragoon/Blue Mage. His first Overdrive is Jump. The very point of him being able to learn stuff from the enemy (and there's a bunch of stuff you can learn without going out of your way) is to make him more versatile. Who doesn't want a fighter with a multi-target healing spell?

Unfortunately, this potential is never fully realized on the first playthrough. You'll need to play FFX twice or so to really appreciate him, and unfortunately, there isn't much of an incentive to do so, unless you wanted to hear the Al Bhed translated THAT badly.

Technically, it isn't Blue Magic because he doesn't need to be hit and survive the blow to learn the magic. He gets it from Lancet.

I disliked how Kimahri had no real path on the Sphere Grid to follow. This made it difficult to give him a proper role suiting his stature and storyline. I am sure that the character designer for Kimahri did not intend for a hulking, inhuman warrior to be a weakly Black Mage or a Thief in combat.

I've played this game a million times but never end up using him much. I don't feel like putting in extra work to elevate him above the crappy version of someone else. They should skin the guy and make a nice coat out of him iyam.

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Originally Posted by Tavrobel

Technically, it isn't Blue Magic because he doesn't need to be hit and survive the blow to learn the magic. He gets it from Lancet.

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Quina ate monsters to learn their skills. That's called blue magic.

Khimari is the only character that feels incomplete compared to the other characters. It is obvious that he was intended to fill the role of Blue Mage / Dragoon, with using a spear, having the lancet ability and having a blue color scheme.(Yuna wears white and is a white mage, Lulu wears black and is a black mage) He was just lost somewhere in the process, and never really picked up.

I think that the original intent was to have blue magic be similar to summoning, in that it would be an extra command available only to Khimari, so to make up for it he would have a smaller section of the sphere grid. But that idea was dropped, and the sphere grid map stuck.

Also a response to the thought of Khimari as a hulking character, he is a very small Ronso, so by their standards it's not that surprising to see Khimari as a mage. But any way you look at it, he is very easy to pass over.

i usually got him into rikku's section before she joins up then made him a jack of all trades. tidus' speed then wakka and aurons strength.

when i come to the junction i have rikku learn some of yunas healing for the bikinal - bevelle section

I tried to have Khimari as a back-up black mage... he had just learned thunder when Lulu learned thundara, so I gave up on that. Then I tried to have him take Tidus's path, which worked pretty okay... I definitely used Khimari more than Rikku...

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Originally Posted by Tavrobel

You'll need to play FFX twice or so to really appreciate him, and unfortunately, there isn't much of an incentive to do so, unless you wanted to hear the Al Bhed translated THAT badly.

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Huh? He translates Al Bhed?


Well, I usually take Kimahri through Tidus's area of the SG, and he gets to be really good since his weapons typically have piercing and he gets time mage spells.

After Tidus's area, I take him counter clockwise just like all my other chars, taking him through Yuna's next, then Rikku's, then Lulu's(Lulu and Yuna should have been side by side), then Wakka's, then last Auron's, and by that time the extra strength in Auron's area makes no difference.

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Originally Posted by FFIX Choco Boy

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Originally Posted by Tavrobel

You'll need to play FFX twice or so to really appreciate him, and unfortunately, there isn't much of an incentive to do so, unless you wanted to hear the Al Bhed translated THAT badly.

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Huh? He translates Al Bhed?

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No. I was referring to the "compile Al Bhed" primers function that can be found in certain places in Spira. Translation books can jump save files, and is independent of any Kimahri awesomeness.

I'd like to add his name can be shortened to Kim and that makes him a sissy.

He's useful if you make him useful. Unlike the other characters, there's no enemy where you really have to use him except for one battle in Gagazet, but it's easy, so you don't have to worry about his stats much.

I usually make him a second Wakka at the start because he has a lot more MP to compensate Wakka's lack of it. Status attacks can be very useful every now and then. Later on I usually send him down Auron's path.

I once tried to make Kimahri second Lulu but he was weak little kitten. On my second playthrough I made Kimahri Rikku, because he can become one before Rikku joins team so you can steal earlier. He was otherwise pretty good Rikku too.

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Originally Posted by qwertyxsora

Also a response to the thought of Khimari as a hulking character, he is a very small Ronso, so by their standards it's not that surprising to see Khimari as a mage. But any way you look at it, he is very easy to pass over.

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No, I think that he is constantly portrayed in cutscenes as a physically intimidating character to those that wish to impede the progress of Yuna. I agree that he is small for a Ronso, but, as a whole, we see him wielding a spear and not really using too much of his Blue Magic aside from his first battle.

I also think his blue magic didnt work well as a Overdrive and wouldve been better as a unique skill. It couldnt have been that hard to give it to him, after all they gave Yuna summon so maybe it was the designers intention to make Kimahri use it as a limit.

I also once tried to make Kimahri a black mage, my thinking was that if he was ever low on MP he could use lancet, He also has an awesome spell casting movement, (Talk to the hand, boom). However he was quite in-efectual and i now use him as a second Wakka.

I think I'm gonna do an all Kimahri challenge. Or at least a playthrough where I power-level him.

I found Kimahri quite useful when i played FFX, alot of players over the years i have spoken with from game sites, didn't like////use him so much, and you uaually get that in games, the one character that seems to get disliked in that way, usually the non human ones, like Quina and Cait Sith from other FF'S.

But he can become strong and a good clone of another character, like say, Auron for Xample,and that's not a bad thing, makes the game so much easier, his Stone Breath and Nova were pretty useful, and i liked using the Self Destruct...He's a good gaurdian, he takes his job seriously, he did hold off Seymour at the Highbridge,for the others at one stage :P

My probably about Kimarhi was that you needed to get Lvl 1 Locks before you could bring him along someone else's path, so for a while, he was useless.

thats why you figure out whos path hes to go on then you go all the way around his circle and back to the one hes to go through...if you take your time you will have it set good...or just keep him in the party and get alot of AP and when you get a key sphere then your set for a long while

I give him a blend of Wakka and Auron, his long range and strength gives him the Dragoon aproach I felt he was supposed to be.

I'll say I highly enjoyed training kimarhi as a thief/white mage. White Magic when fighting Evrae, steal with Biran and Yenke, Faster access to upper level white magic, esp Holy, etc.

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Originally Posted by Masamunemaster

thats why you figure out whos path hes to go on then you go all the way around his circle and back to the one hes to go through...if you take your time you will have it set good...or just keep him in the party and get alot of AP and when you get a key sphere then your set for a long while

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I prefer not to train a character when he's not going to immediately benefit.

My big problem with Kimarhi is that he doesn't excel at anything, which goes against the entire Sphere Grid. With the exception of Kimarhi's tiny section, the Sphere Grid is incredibly focused, and making a hybrid character is nearly impossible. Whatever section you turn him down is just a copy of another characters, and an inherently weaker version, and moving him around with Teleport/Friend Spheres will have him wind up weaker than everything. He's not "versatile", because he can't switch from one role to another. You can choose one path for him, and the rest is just a straight shot through the grid, picking up whatever he gets from the chosen path, but almost always winding up inferior to the character who is already on that path.

well my last play through I took my time and acctually made him a lil of everyone, he went one or two circles in each persons then I sent him through the last part of lulus into wakkas

You can do that, but it has problems. First, he spends a lot of sphere points moving backwards to get back to his circle (though you can negate that if you use spheres, I suppose), and second, the first circles of a characters grid are generally the worst. They are usually 1 and 2 stat nodes, versus the 4 stat nodes that are common in the later portions of most of the paths. It's certainly possible, it just doesn't have a lot of benefit to doing it that way.

well it was mainly meant for supports like cheer focus reflex etc, and Id rather take the time to go to them seperatly to get those few stats than use up and skill spheres

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Originally Posted by Skyblade

You can do that, but it has problems. First, he spends a lot of sphere points moving backwards to get back to his circle (though you can negate that if you use spheres, I suppose), and second, the first circles of a characters grid are generally the worst. They are usually 1 and 2 stat nodes, versus the 4 stat nodes that are common in the later portions of most of the paths. It's certainly possible, it just doesn't have a lot of benefit to doing it that way.

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Going backwards isn't the problem, all sorts of teleporting sphere's allow that to be fix'd simply. If anything, the one way I quickly boosted Kimhari past the rest of my party was saving most of his sphere levels (annoying to keep him alive because it made him weak while we where going through parts of the game but that's his biggest ish), then teleported to the end of people's sphere grids, let him get all the 4's and teleported him to someone's to gather up 4's once again. It took effort which could've just been on someone else though =P

one thing I never understood is why they put ultima in his circle instead of lulus

Because it's behind level 4 locks, and Ultima is the best spell in the game, and because Kimahri's section occupies the geometric center of the Sphere Grid?

Kimahri was always a tough choice for me, I first tried to make him a second Auron, which seemed like the most logical thing, but then his lack of MP made Lancet somewhat hard. Then I tried having him be a Black Mage, which rought havoc on his physical power and defense.


Ultimately, these days I make him the Mage/Fighter Hybrid of the game, focusing on Auron's Grid for the overall, and occasionally on Lulu's for the MP and magical stats. I also like to give him a bit of Tidus's Grid for a bit to get some speed going, to make up for the constant Grid backtracking.

I found him quite useful in the non-standard sphere grid. The main point of which seems to be to mix and match jobs anyway, You can argue this isn't as good as the original specialization - and you'd be right, especially at high levels, but at least the game plays a bit differently.

In this scenario I often used Kimahri to pick up important abilities which you'd normally expect a character to have if they hadn't gone off on a diversionary route through the grid. Rather than not have them. Eg. Wakka has gone to get Haste and so delayed getting Sleep attack. Kimahri keeps on keeping on and gets it before you reach somewhere you really need it, like the mushroom rock road.

:choc::choc::choc:

I liked the characters of Auron, Rikku, and Kimahri the most, so they were the characters I used the most. In the end, Kimahri ended up learning Yuna and Wakka's stuff(support type), Rikku learned Tidus and Lulu's stuff(quick mage type), and Auron learned, Tidus and Wakka(physical type).

It was an awesome team.
On top of that, the game makes it so easy to level everyone, just have them all rotate in and perform a single action.

THE JACKEL

It's a chore trying to make him useful. Most people probably didn't try a lot on their first playthrough. I wanted him to be a jack of all trades and to do that you would need either teleport spheres or friends spheres. Both are hard to come by until way later in the game. It would've been just fine if they game him a bigger grid where he had no abilities, but a lot more of status increases. It would've also helped if he could have gotten his overdrive more often too for balance.

Story wise. There not much to him. He rarely speaks and I guess it's because his race is supposed to be barbaric. It would've been a lot cooler if he spoke just a tad bit more. He was one of the first to meet Yuna though.

He is a nice little kitty that got bullied by the others. You just need to remove that loincloth to convince everyone his greatness. :bigsmile:

Barbed, it is, or so I hear.

I've noticed people tend to finish his center part of the sphere grid, and then choose 1 to 2 characters for him to follow the path of. But going too linear kind of just makes him the second best version of someone else.

I'm taking a different route on my current playthrough and embracing the randomness of his blue mage-ish qualities.

I'm using a guide which goes down a "jack of all trades" route. You have the opportunity to unlock abilities earlier than you would have them normally. Once you have lvl 1 lock spheres, you can get access to Steal and Use before Rikku joins the party, than you can cut through to Yuna's grid and get Reflect and Dispel way before Yuna gets there. Make your way to Tidus' grid to get Haste, and then work backwords towards Auron's grid to get the various Breaks. Kimahri would never be the strongest character directly following someones path so it's beneficial to just give him an array of utilities.