Calm Lands Monster 'Arena'

[Aulayna]

Did you bother with this?

Any success stories?

[Depression Moon]

I think I managed to beat 1 of those creations, maybe 2 tops. They eventually became so overpowered that not even the most op summon in the game with a double overdrive (Magus Sisters) could hold off against a creation.

[Pete for President]

Beat them all, but I got the version with the Dark Aeons and Penance. In order to beat them you'll need a lot of things from the Arena.

I liked the Arena, although the music does get stale after it has been your HQ for 20 hours.

[Nebulance]

Did you bother with this?

Any success stories?

I've dabbled with it. I've only beaten maybe one or two creations... but in my current playthrough, it's my main goal to go after all of them! Just trying to max out all characters first. I do not have the international version.

Beat them all, but I got the version with the Dark Aeons and Penance. In order to beat them you'll need a lot of things from the Arena.

I liked the Arena, although the music does get stale after it has been your HQ for 20 hours.

That's when you mute the TV and put a record on! That's what I do anyway

[Formalhaut]

The Monster Arena is good in principle... but it gets so convoluted and super super endgame that it basically turns into a mess. Seriously, you pretty much need maxed sphere grid, with most if not all the empty nodes coloured in to have any hope of doing well in the later creations/Dark Aeons/Penance. You might cope with the species creations at a lower grid though: I beat Chimerageist my first time in the Calm Lands actually. Really tricky to beat him during the first visit though, but I did it.

Pretty much every other creation requires further, advanced levelling. The Magus Sisters can act as a crutch of sorts for awhile, but eventually you won't need them. After that, it's just mindless farming for spheres. It gets dull, incredibly early. The music is dull, combat is dull, everything is dull.

FFX's main sidequest turns the battle system, which was fine and dandy, into abit alot of a chore.

[Pete for President]

The Monster Arena is good in principle... but it gets so convoluted and super super endgame that it basically turns into a mess. Seriously, you pretty much need maxed sphere grid, with most if not all the empty nodes coloured in to have any hope of doing well in the later creations/Dark Aeons/Penance. You might cope with the species creations at a lower grid though: I beat Chimerageist my first time in the Calm Lands actually. Really tricky to beat him during the first visit though, but I did it.

Pretty much every other creation requires further, advanced levelling. The Magus Sisters can act as a crutch of sorts for awhile, but eventually you won't need them. After that, it's just mindless farming for spheres. It gets dull, incredibly early. The music is dull, combat is dull, everything is dull.

FFX's main sidequest turns the battle system, which was fine and dandy, into abit alot of a chore.

I don't agree. Yes there is a bit of farming, but you usually get 99 of something when you "create" a new monster. These give your weapons and armour crazy abilities and are just - or even more - important than sphere levels. The balance between leveling and customization is pretty well done and you always have a feeling you've accomplished something.

And the AP farming; it's all in being smart. Customize wisely, get a weapon that has triple overdrive, triple AP and overdrive = AP and you burn through the sphere grid like it's nothing. Point being, there are ways around a lot of the farming parts as you name it. But I can't deny you'll have to beat some monsters quite often to get their strength spheres to drop. And luck. Luck was a pain. But if you don't have the Dark Aeons I don't suppose you need that.

[Aulayna]

I just totally cheesed the Dark Aeons by paying Yojimbo a ton of Gil.

Well apart from Dark Yojimbo - I had to do him the legit way as Yojimbo was very unwilling to Zanmato all of the incarnations

[Karifean]

I got 10 of all fiends several times (I think 3 times). I don't think it's nearly as bad as some make it out to be. It's actually the most fun if you just go back on essentially a second pilgrimage right when you get the airship. That way, you're at pretty much the perfect level to go through Omega Ruins, since it's still challenging, but very possible.

The biggest gripe I have with it is farming Fortune Spheres. It's the biggest pain. Seriously, I must've killed Earth Eater over 200 times in total. Why couldn't they just have made him drop "Fortune Distillers"? So you could use it on Kottos to get 40 Fortune Spheres? That'd have solved it easily.

Unfortunately it's hard to get to a level at which the arena creations are challenging, but possible. Most of the time I just do them when I can kill them easily. Some of the fights were interesting (Neslug, Nemesis, for instance) and I always found it funny that Shinryu restricted you to only using the three characters with the best overdrives in the game :P

[TreasonWall]

I beat every Area Conquest boss, and all the Species Conquest ones up to and including Vidatu, with the sole exception of Fenrir who I ended up using Zanmato on after multiple failed attempts. I haven't beaten the other ones yet, though I unlocked them all save for Nemesis. Honestly, I don't want to spend more hours of my time grinding for more sphere levels. I just really don't. Guess my Nemesis and Penance videos aren't coming out any time soon.

[Hambone]

Ahhhh, stat maxing and the Don Tonberry trick.

It's not my favorite side quest in the game, but the rewards are incredible so I've completed it and have no trouble at all with any of the creations; Nemesis is a joke. Living in the US, I just wish I had a reason (i.e. the Dark Aeons and Penance) to do all the stat maxing. After Nemesis, what's the point?

[Goldenboko]

Beat them all, waiting on my version where I can face them Dark Aeons.

[Freya]

I beat a few of them but not all of them I think I will try to in my next playthrough.