Info

Title:: Final Fantasy X
Platform:: Sony PlayStation 2
Developer:: Squaresoft
Publisher:: Squaresoft
Year:: 2001

Log

2021-03-06 – 2021-06-18

it’s kinda wild to think that it’s been a genuine lifetime since the last time i played this.
though maybe it doesn’t feel as long since i’ve watched multiple playthroughs since then, and watching those playthroughs has helped me to work through my feelings about this game.

i guess, really, it’s fascinating to realize just how much this game shaped my views on what i want out of a game, and what i want out of a story too. because sure, i also played ff6 and golden sun and chrono trigger around that time (give or take a couple years), so i can’t say that i became attached to this because it was the first. but maybe, it was the first to withstand attempts to displace it.

even story-wise, there is something perfectly beautiful about the conceit. it’s a simple story about a girl who goes on a pilgrimage to conquer the great evil and save the world. and the pace is measured; the scope is restrained. it’s just this mournful trudge from one end of the earth to the other, with only a handful of friends by your side.

or maybe this way of reading it only comes out after the first playthrough, once you realize that yuna’s pilgrimage ends in death, and that zanarkand really is the ruins of a city now. you see the kids crying as she waves to them from the boat because they also know that she’s never coming back.

i can’t recall exactly when i played this game, but i definitely remember justifying my crush on rikku by thinking, well, i guess i might just be into older women, huh?

however, it’s only after playing through it now that i realize how much of a child she is. and i have to give credit to the writers, since her immaturity is quite realistic. painfully realistic, even.

they’re all so young!

when yuna leaves her suitcase full of gifts, and then when her first true act as a summoner is performing the sending for a village that just got wiped out.
she’s trying real hard to fill the role of how a summoner should react, but the role is too big for her right now.

i want to say that the female characters have a commonality in how they each mask their true feelings in order to be someone else:
yuna feels like she has to act like a summoner.
rikku feels like she has to be the genki girl, to cheer yunie up.
lulu feels like she has to be the curt, responsible adult amongst a group of children. but you can tell she’s still trying to be an adult.

and maybe the male characters all are trying to live up to some higher standard:
tidus trying to live up to his father’s reputation.
kimahri trying to live up to ronso expectations.
wakka trying to make something of himself for chappu’s sake (maybe?).
and then auron, who has already become legendary and realizes how little it matters.

also, you wouldn’t believe it, but the eleven-year-old evangelical christian completely missed the religious critique in this game the first way around.
surely my religion can’t be fundamentally corrupt to the core, with arbitrary practices that harm its followers!

i adore the metaphor of the sphere grid. i love how it mirrors the characters’ own path through life: they’re set on this fixed path, with multiple branching points to other possible futures being visible yet unavailable. sure they have a bit of freedom in how they traverse the path, such as whether they beeline toward gaining new abilities or explore the various side paths and diversions before returning back to the main path, but these decisions are relatively inconsequential all things considered. but then, as they start to take fate into their own hands, you start getting higher level unlock spheres by which you can purchase your freedom. and so, one by one, they begin to escape their confines and pursue their goals their own way. and their escape starts to bring them in contact with each other, with the junctions at the end of each’s path providing insight into the relationships between these characters.

it’s beautiful, but the problem is ultimately that, since each spot on the sphere grid is more “native” to one of these characters, having a character take another path just kinda sorta turns them into that character, at least for a bit. this meant that my characters by the end just got agglutinated into a couple different archetypes. i put tidus on auron’s path to give him more power, and i put wakka on auron’s path because his terminated there. so already i have three characters who are doing relatively the same thing; similarly, i decided to get yuna dabbling in black magic and lulu dabbling in white magic, if only to pick up on the magic buffs located on each path. yuna learning the elemental -ga spells turned out to be super handy, lulu learning full-life less so. but even here we have two characters mirroring each other purely because it’s more beneficial for them to do so.
at least kimahri and rikku kinda get to do their own thing tho.

the scenes with braska help to put yuna in perspective, at least in terms of her mannerisms. they both have that same stilted, self-serious demeanor.

and like that, it’s over.
admittedly, by the time i fought sin, i wanted it to be over… which led to me fleeing through two final areas and then getting stalemated by jecht. then, a couple grinding sessions or so later, i headed back and hit him with swords until he went down. i didn’t even need to save up and unleash my overdrives; quick hit was a far more efficient way of piling on damage.
and then i got to kill a little bug thing, and now it’s over. we can get back to rebuilding spira.

i’m still in love with this game though, i think.
it still feels really fundamental to me.
and i did cry at the end.
and deep, deep down, i still want to recreate what this means to me.

Girls-Only!: 2022-10-30 – 2023-01-05

2022-10-30: to luca

(while watching Lord Aethelstan Plays Final Fantasy X ft. Nyanners, Part 3 )

dammit, now i kinda wanna do a ffx girls-only challenge run, where i exclusively use yuna, lulu, and rikku once i get them.
things to consider:

should i still use the boys in the early game? or should i model it like other challenges and let themselves be ko-ed?
- and at this point we could couple it with no sphere grid for the others
the kimahri duel might suck
the second operation mi’ihen battle (the one with seymour) might suck, since i’d be relying solely on yuna for damage.
the battle before you get rikku might suck, since both tidus and wakka are bound to be extremely underleveled (especially if doing nsg)
but also, once the party is complete, i could see it going quite smoothly, since yuna, lulu, and rikku make for an reasonably balanced and survivable team.
so fuck it. i kinda wanna do it now.

rules!

only yuna, lulu, and rikku are allowed to use the sphere grid
at any point when one of these three is on the field, the remaining male characters must 1) try to escape if possible 2) attack themselves to knock themselves out of play
- this includes the opening, when you’re fighting alongside ????
for random encounters when only male characters are available, you must try to escape on every turn
- for boss battles when only male characters are available, any tactics can be used, including the use of items
only equip default equipment for male characters. you can still go out of your way to obtain other equipment, but sell it off as soon as you get the opportunity
do not heal male characters between saves
summons are ok (you can choose to use only female aeons for a marginally greater challenge)
respect women

the playthrough

started with the default name, then reset and went with Tiida instead. it’s maybe a bit more girly this way?

ambiguity moment #1: the first fight where ???? joins in partway through. should you still attack while you’re alone? do you need to do enough damage to trigger her appearance?
from a narrative perspective, it’s interesting that sin dumps you off to meet rikku first. yuna makes sense because jecht traveled with braska, and he had met yuna when she was little.
damn tidus’ mom has a pretty modern look. like aside from the belt over the waist, she’d fit right into the y2k aesthetic
reset #2: fucked up the besaid trial
oh shit i’m glad i did that because that rod of wisdom will really come in handy
(lore implications: the previous set of guardians and yuna don’t have much wisdom)
missed getting energy blast because i forgot how to trigger it. i knew it had something to do with the dog, but i didn’t remember what beyond that.
part of me wonders if yuna’s hesitance in her speech is to fit the length discrepancy between spoken japanese and english, but really yuna is the only one who talks that way.
ambiguity moment #2: is it ok to leave the default buckler on tidus, since it has no benefits anyway?
- i ended up selling it in kilika anyway
skipped the lord ochu fight because it was skippable.
- but then did it when going back through. it didn’t even give me enough ap to level up anyone…
  maybe i should’ve let the lord of the forest be…
i forgot how to get the kilika temple treasure, and it took a lot of iq to figure out how to do it again…
bahamut was watching during the childhood moment of the jecht shot?
i feel like bahamut might be more meaningful in orchestrating all of this than the game really gets into, but i don’t think that’s a bad thing either. it’s ok to let some mysteries remain mysteries.

played just until arriving at luca, five hours in.
so far things have been tedious more than difficult.

2022-10-31: to mushroom rock - aftermath

time to make the goers goners.

ambiguity moment #3: if you play blitzball, should you only try to recruit female members?
then again, Final Fantasy X-2 (2003) had blitz too, and i’m modeling this challenge after x-2. so i’d assume you should be able to do what you could do in x-2… except i never bothered with blitz in that game.
i didn’t bother with a lot of the stuff in that game.

the oblitzerator:

oh shit the trigger command to use the crane can only be used by tidus, which means that you have to beat the oblitzerator the hard way…
game over #1: i predicted that this was going to be the part that sucks… but yeah once tidus and kimahri are down, you’re placed in a state where you need to heal every turn and you don’t get any extra attacks in.
maybe focusing early on would help?
focus 5x = 650 hp per turn
focus 0x = 450? hp per turn
there’s probably a formula to figure out where this is worth it, since you also get a few effectively-free hits in while the other two party members are still alive, before you get stuck on the heal cycle.
but also game over #2 just after getting these data.
maybe i should grind a bit more to get that extra 200 hp… and that defense up too…

watermoon — Today at 11:45 AM
ok took it down by grinding for a bit more hp and defense, and wow it feels just barely possible

Sheepb puppet — Today at 11:46 AM
well done :3

look out, the kitty’s GAMIN’

at full health with the extra +200hp and +2 defense, you can take two blitzball rushes and a mute ball, which lets you get in space to attack every so often and then use hi-potions until the next chance arrives.
focused something like three times in there, when i got the chance (due to a mute ball or getting two turns between boss attacks).

blitzball time

first reset after going down 3-0. fuck blitzball.
it becomes largely luck once you’re on defense, huh?
but i really want that strength sphere because i have designs for it.
second try: 0-0 at the half (by playing right side defense since they love passing it to bickson), got my jecht shot blocked, but wakka’s venom shot came through and scored the winning goal for us.
i think i find it more narratively satisfying this way.

back on the pilgrimage

that random encounter with a horny boy and two bombs was way more stressful than i expected, and i guess now i see the appeal of the challenge run: it makes even reasonably rote encounters prone to failure.
- turns out that dual horns can’t reach valefor at least…
  and like this is the sort of thing i’m talking about! i would’ve never thought to use this strategy, except that it ended up being forced a bit.
got knocked down by the chocobo eater and it turns out i can’t refight it. hope it didn’t have anything important! (though i don’t know if i could ever get the dps to get the prize for knocking it off the other side)
grinded up to getting the -a series of spells before the next section, because i have a feeling it would suck real bad otherwise
- plus that l1 unlock set of buffs for yuna

operation mi’ihen

first sinspawn gui fight was pretty rote: once you get the head out of the picture, just cure with yuna, fira with lulu, and keep going until it goes down.
- it would be convenient if yuna knew focus too, so she could do something else during the downtime, but it would convenient if yuna knew a lot of other things too
second sinspawn fight (with seymour): wait… just a grand summon of valefor and two energy rays took it down?
i was expecting this part to be a massive pain – maybe even a run-ender.
fuck yes valefor i love you.
ended right after all the cutscenes. “Mushroom Rock - Aftermath”, at 14:19 playtime

2022-11-04: to macalania woods

the aeon fight with belgimine: tried with valefor, and maybe it’s possible if you grand summon and toss out two energy rays in a row, but admittedly i didn’t put much effort into trying to win this one.
extractor boss: i foresaw this being one of the hardest challenges, due to the no equipment no sphere grid restriction i put on myself.
and yeah… it was another one that felt like it was barely on the verge of possibility, and ended with me burning through four of the five mega-potions i had acquired by then. but i did get through it!
(it also didn’t help that i kept whiffing the timing for element reels…)

making a “weird rikku”

though here’s the real challenge: i don’t like rikku’s sphere grid all that much. she doesn’t learn anything especially interesting or useful, and it always feels like she’s a little underpowered relative to everyone else.
however, when you get her, she starts next to a lv1. lock that’s connected to kimahri’s sphere grid, and you can use that to get to lulu’s, yuna’s, or tidus’. and while we already have a yuna and a lulu, having someone with tidus’ skillset around would be far more convenient honestly.
the only downside – which is a pretty huge one – is that you have to burn something like a dozen levels before you can even begin to travel down tidus’ path… but maybe it’ll be worth it?
but also i spent the entire thunder plains just grabbing the initial hp ups in the first part of her sphere grid.

do i wanna kiss rikku?

i definitely want to comfort her at least…

2022-11-15: to macalania temple

i’m finally working my way up kimahri’s path with rikku (taking the short path to tidus’ sphere grid) and i now just realized something: should i stick with tidus all the way through, or should i break into auron’s grid?
i’d get haste pretty early on and that’s what i want most: the delay attacks would be convenient to have but are maybe not necessary, slow and slowga are pretty limited-use, and while hastega is great, it’s way down his path and popping a chocobo wing would have the same effect. and maybe the thing i’m learning about rikku is that she’s quite capable if you take the time to build up her inventory of tricks. beyond that, she really just needs more power. she already has enough speed.
- maybe that’s also why, even though i considered wakka’s path as another path that would make sense for her, i think she can already achieve the same result by using smoke bombs and such
i was expecting the machina boss fight to be a massive pain, since negating magic puts two thirds of my party out of commission, but then i remembered that rikku can effectively use magic anyway. buffed myself for a few turns, (maybe needlessly) chucked a smoke bomb, chucked an electro marble, then let loose with thundara fury and more thunder items. brought out valefor to sop up the mana beam hit, had her toss out an energy ray for good measure, and that sealed the overkill right then and there.
got rikku during the snowmobile scene and tidus is so checked out during that conversation it’s hilarious. like she’s baring her heart and he’s just like “yeah. mm hm. ok.”
you know… i’m starting to think that braska was kind of a neglectful dad. what kind of father abandons his child (small) to fight sin for the meme?
hell, and jecht was the one to bring up getting a souvenir for yuna too.
so maybe that’s another way that tidus and yuna bond: not just by having absent fathers, and famous fathers, but also having pretty neglectful fathers.

this is a very rikku-forward update, but i’m ok with that. she is a good girl, you know!

2022-11-16: to home

so what are the optics of seymour being killed by an al bhed anyway.
because she did deal the final blow…
i think i get rikku now though. she’s fast as fuck, and using items makes her faster.
- make eggs, throw eggs, crack eggs, fertilize eggs.
omg rikku does the hand-flappies.
stopped at home. i’m annoying, huh?

2022-11-26: to bevelle

made my way through home

smoke bombs are good. really rikku is forced to carry her weight here.
took the easy path through, but then remembered that there were goodies, then checked to see what those goodies were again…
- friend sphere
- skill sphere
- special sphere
  and then reset because i could see those goodies really coming in handy.
  …
god tidus is so cringe.
he has real “just found out about racism” energy.

boss: evrae

this one started out being a bit of a pain, but once i figured out a good pattern for the boss it ended up being rather trivial.
once again, smoke bombs are good. and then you can just tank the poison spray if you set up your turn order so that rikku uses an al bhed potion right afterward. then just have lulu keep on casting.

now at “Bevelle - Passage of Cleansing”
i feel like there should’ve been a save point or something after the boss…

2022-11-29: to via purifico

bevelle cloister of trials… is at least smaller than i remember. but then i remember macalania temple being way larger as a kid too, and that was like a five-step puzzle this time around.
i missed the treasure to the left, but got the treasure on the right, and i guess that’s the one that matters most. (the other one is only a knight lance anyway)
…then i spent an hour bumbling through the via purifico trying to figure out how to get into the secret room.
(finally broke down and watched a video playthrough and the room i was looking for was right there all along…)

To the Condemned: shared

i find this really powerful, for some reason. i feel like it’s common for ff games to break character and address the player, usually when it involves giving instructions. but here, you’re not just addressed, but addressed as “the condemned.”

2022-11-30: to mt. gagazet

ok, finished via purifico

boss: isaaru

wow, shiva just cleans up shop all around. i wasn’t expecting this to be so trivial!

boss: zombie fish

i think we’ve now hit the point where non-main characters are at risk of getting ko’ed before they can even act
i feel like i kinda had to cheese this one.

boss: seymour natus

we have officially hit the point where non-main characters can get ko’ed before they even act

thinking through the best way of surviving this one…

watermoon — Today at 2:05 PM
oh yeah this morning i got to what i think might be the next big roadblock in the ffx challenge: the second seymour fight, where you start it with two characters at default stats and equipment
the third has time to make exactly one move, at which point the boss attacks and will wipe out the other two
i think it should be very doable once you can get the ideal party swapped in, the question is what the best way of doing so is…

option 1: yuna casts reflect on one person
that would save one of them, but it would still leave yuna in a pretty bad state, and it might be a bit dicey to get the third person up and ready to take a turn before then.
- RESULT: this one worked! it took kimahri a hell of a long time to finally get a turn, but problem solved
option 2: rikku casts super mighty g (bomb core + lunar/light curtain)
this likely won’t be enough to keep tidus and kimahri alive though, and the goal is to keep them alive enough
- RESULT: the mortibody casts desperado, dispelling all that, and then the other two die
option 3: rikku casts haste on herself, lets the others die, then reraises them (with either final elixir or a mega phoenix) and then the other two swap out
that is, if they have time to…
- option 3.5: do option 2 and then pop a mega phoenix and pray.
  but if it works, you’d have a pretty buff rikku ready to go
option 4: tank it with an aeon?
i’m pretty sure seymour banishes it on the next turn, but if it means their turn comes up…

after the opening

as i expected, it’s not too bad once the party stabilizes.
although, you know, it’s weird that the normal boss fight music is used for this! it feels too narratively important for that…

the lake macalania scene

i think what this portrays, more than anything else, is intimacy. even though i used to not like this scene much, maybe because it grossed me out, in a way i didn’t want to think about too hard. but now… i wish i had a love like this.
the scene feels so comfy, and even though i might not want to be this way with either yuna or tidus, i’d like to be this way with somebody.
maybe one day my lamb and i will float together, comfortable and happy, without having to worry about how wet our fur is.

the calm lands

oh god my party has no power. and they’re all pretty squishy too!
i also feel like my way of dealing with random encounters will likely always be annoying to outsiders. when i played this the last time, i took time cycling through party members to make sure everybody took a turn, and this time i’m stalling out encounters so i can steal as much as i conveniently can from enemies.

boss: defender x

there is probably an easier or quicker way to do this, had i chose to use my aeons… maybe.
i could also honestly seeing the boss winning the damage race against them.
but the buff + let lulu deal damage works well, but slow
supplementing the damage with poison fangs helps a lot though.

boss: biran & yenke

i’ve been dreading this one since the start, yet i also heard murmerings of this not being that bad even on single-character challenge runs.
but does it scale the damage or something? since even at this stage of the game, their hits were dealing ~100hp at most.
maybe they knew that it was very easy for people to abandon trying to develop kimahri, so they made this fight be a joke just so people don’t get stuck.

2022-12-13: to the end of mt. gagazet

a lot of grinding, a lot of mp depletion
by the end i was running out of mp for both yuna and lulu and had to just steal the items i could and flee

having yuna able to steal and use items too is surprisingly useful, especially during the machina battles
shiva has become the unofficial fourth girl in the party
lulu is honestly starting to feel like the load?
- it’s maybe not a good sign that, once lulu got the -gas and i used my black magic spheres to give them to yuna too, yuna was still beating her in damage even with the booster cactuar equipped.
i can’t tell if i have regrets bringing rikku down auron’s path. i can’t say she’s doing the sort of damage i was expecting by doing so, but also the resistance breaks might be the most important part of going down this path? after all, there’s no other way to easily get something like those.
- haste, however, was extremely useful to get, so i’m glad i at least junctioned onto tidus’ path.

current runtime at 35 hours?!

2022-12-14: to yunalesca

boss: seymour flux

i heard from nyanners and aethel that this was a real difficulty wall, though i never remember it being that hard… but maybe this build would show how hard it really is?
turns out that the build kinda trivializes it
two people who know haste, two people who know -ga spells, and two people who have decently good healing ability. aside from the low-ish hp of the party, if that’s not a recipe for trivializing the battle then i’m not sure what is.
the only real scary attack was cross cleave, which left the party with hp in the low hundreds, but i probably could’ve prepared for that one a little better anyhow.

mountain cave:

fled from a lot of the water battles because some of those enemies were dealing >50% of rikku’s hp.
ok now my party is starting to deal real damage, finally

boss: it cums!

it came, and then went

zanarkand dome

got yuna with like 4 levels banked up because i really wanted the magic buff behind the l3 key sphere

boss: spectral keeper

with proper placement and a buffed party, it’s no problem at all

boss: yunalesca

phase 1 was trivial
phase 2 was trivial
phase 3 opened with mega death and party wiped me, which… i forgot how cheap that is.
though do i have any equipment with deathproof?
oh wait… that’s right, i’m supposed to keep people zombied exactly for that reason…
welp, i’ll get to rewatching the 10-minute cutscene so i can refight her some other day…

2022-12-28: to overdrive sin

boss take two: yunalesca

i added fire eater to rikku’s armor to see if i could use it to heal her once zombified and turns out it does work!
but also yunalesca spent a lot of her turns trying to healbully yuna: the only zombieproof character.

belgemine aeon fights

trivial, except for shiva, but since she gives you enough items to equip cura on an aeon, i put that on valefor.

fish dude (on my way to anima)

got bodied, as expected, since rikku was the only viable party member.
still, she held on pretty well until the succ.
so i think i’ll do this one later

sin: exterior

for the first wing i tried moving in close so i could steal from it but that proved to not be very useful and i almost got bodied
sooo i just kept my distance for the second wing and it barely attacked at all

2023-01-05: to the end!

the slow slog through sin

boss: overdrive sin

hit it with attack’s

inside sin

the enemies are kinda damage sponges, and hitting them with good attacks saps mp real fast, so you can only grind out six to eight battles before fleeing back to the save point.
however, the one nice thing is that each of the big enemies give so much ap that every other fight levels you up.

boss: seymour omnis

put fire eater on two people, put fire ward on the third, gun ‘em down.

tower of the dead

same enemies as outside, for the most part.
and ended right before jecht…

jecht anxiety.

i’m genuinely unsure how i’ll be able to take him down. do i have enough agility for this? do i have enough hp?
i think with doublecast on both yuna and lulu i should be alright when it comes to dps, but i’m still worried about survivability.

jecht actually

since the battle starts with tidus, auron, and yuna, getting the first two out of there is top priority
fortunately, jecht seemed most preoccupied with bitchslapping his son, so after a few turns of that auron’s turn came up and i was able to swap him out with rikku.
getting tidus out took a bit more manipulation, though, and i decided to do it by summoning partway through and using valefor to soak a turn + a jecht overdrive. after that, tidus’ turn finally came up and he could get swapped out.
after that, though, it was pretty uneventful. twin stars on the two mages (twin stars is far too broken), doublecast to knock out the pagodas, then doublecast to knock out jecht. since the yu pagodas top out at 9999 hp, flare can oneshot them by that point pretty easily.

the aeons! + yu yevon

the only noteworthy thing is when i got too cheeky and let bahamut take a turn and his impulse wiped the party.
for yu yevon, reflect on him, reflect on rikku, then throw firagas and flares at rikku
(i honestly should’ve given yuna flare before all this but i forgor)

the ending still makes me cry…

final thoughts on my build

yuna: the only really unique thing i did was pop into rikku’s grid for a little bit. this turned out to be surprisingly useful, since you can do a lot with items and they’re quick to use. but even outside of that, yuna is op enough.
lulu: played this one pretty straight, though i looped back to get doublecast after reaching flare. but outside of that, what else can you do with her?
rikku: i’m genuinely unsure whether i played her correctly…
- junctioning into tidus through kimahri: this took a rather long time to do, but i think it was worth it with how useful haste ended up being.
  i feel like it would’ve been a better use of levels to get there by using a friend sphere to hop to kimahri’s location, but i forget when the earliest you can get friend spheres is.
- junctioning into auron through tidus: i genuinely do not know if this was useful.
  on one hand, mental break really comes in handy with this team, since i lack a good way of dealing physical damage, and i don’t think any items inflict mental break in the same way. however, i assumed that bringing rikku here would’ve helped with the whole physical damage problem. instead, i got a rikku with significantly reduced agility and accuracy who can only deal ~1,000 damage a hit.
- returning to rikku’s sphere grid after finishing auron’s: by the endgame i moved everyone to rikku’s path (around the point where yuna’s ends) because she does have some really nice stat-ups.
  so maybe kimahri was right. maybe rikku should stay rikku.

so should i do boys-only too?

i’ve thought about this a bit, and i don’t see this being especially fun…
the only interesting thing the build might push someone to do is to make kimahri the resident white mage, since all the other guys are good at putting out raw damage and items are kinda expensive to rely on.

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