Final Fantasy X / X-2

[one-armed dwarf]

Well if you enjoyed that you will love dodging 200 lightning bolts ?

 

But yeah easily the most miserable achievement in that game for me and I platted it. I still get angry thinking about it ?

[DisturbedSwan]

14 hours ago, one-armed dwarf said:

Well if you enjoyed that you will love dodging 200 lightning bolts ?

Yeah, not sure I’m gonna do that one ? I was considering going for the Plat though as it doesn’t seem that difficult, my only concern is the time requirement (particularly with the Blitzball stuff) and doing that lightning bolt thing. 
 

Finding some of the Celestial Weapons sounds pretty fun though from what I just looked up. Are they that much more OP than any other weapons in the game? 

[one-armed dwarf]

You also have to go back over every empty sphere slot on the sphere grid and fill it in with something iirc, which requires you to grind powerful enemies in the arena (which requires more grinding lol)

 

Ffx is more grindy than ffxiv in its endgame ?

[OCH]

Then, you get the joys of End Game Monster Arena. Which I would advise, needs the Celestial Weapons.

[DisturbedSwan]

1 hour ago, Nag said:

 

Not difficult but filling that sphere grid is a pretty monumental task... I can't remember if you need to do the monster arena for certain sphere types as well.

 

1 hour ago, one-armed dwarf said:

You also have to go back over every empty sphere slot on the sphere grid and fill it in with something iirc, which requires you to grind powerful enemies in the arena (which requires more grinding lol)

 

Ffx is more grindy than ffxiv in its endgame ?

Ah yeah, fuck that then. I will just get the Celestial Weapons that aren’t too much of a ball ache to do and some of the other side stuff like finding the extra Aeons, Al Bhed Primers etc. Then. 

[DisturbedSwan]

8 hours ago, Nag said:

There's a missable Al Bhed primer and I know you're past where it is so if you missed it you're shit outta luck I'm afraid.

Luckily I had a viewer tell me where all the missable Al Bhed Primers were in Bikanel whilst I was streaming the other week otherwise I wouldn’t of had a clue any were there or even missable ? so fingers crossed I’ll be ok for that. 

[DisturbedSwan]

Have to say I’ve really not enjoyed it the last 6 hours or so. Now up to 46 hours total.

 

It just seems the exemplary pacing the game’s had so far has been abandoned and instead it’s just been dungeon after dungeon with a few bosses thrown in for good measure, just found it a real slog. I love the combat in this game but in this section there just feels like there’s been too much of it, there hasn’t been anything really to break it up aside from the boss fights. 
 

First of all I started out exploring off the beaten path after the Rock Golem and found a cool hidden cave system. Ventured down here and eventually bumped into Yojimbo, didn’t know what to answer when he asked his questions so I just chose the ‘Summomer’ response. I looked it up after hoping there was some way to gain his services for free but it seems no matter what you have to bung him some cash, so I parted with 228K Gil to secure his services. 
 

After this I began my ascent up Mount Gagazet but didn’t make it far before encountering a Ronso roadblock. A boss fight ensued with Kimahri against his bullies - Biran and Yenke - which was another cool puzzle fight which I unfortunately failed to master after a few tries. So, I looked online, realised what I had to do and managed into defeat them on my next try.

 

Lots more combat ensued up a snow covered Mount Gagazet. Then

Spoiler

Seymour

turns up again out the blue. Couldn’t really understand this, I get he’s basically undead now - and presumably can go where he wants - but this fight didn’t really fit in with the overall plot for me, it didn’t make sense. I struggled a bit more in this fight than in my previous encounter with him but I managed it after going back and making sure most of my aeons were in overdrive. 

After this a cool dream sequence ensued.

Spoiler

It was really weird though and didn’t make much sense, is Tidus actually real? Did he actually ever actually exist in his Zanarkand or was it all an illusion of the fayth? I’ve no idea. The plot has been pretty easy to follow so far but this was definitely out of left field.

 

Onward through another dungeon, a couple of light puzzles and then I reach another boss battle. This one really had me scratching my head and on this occasion the tips I read online didn’t really seem to help - as Auron’s ‘Threaten’ would fail after a few successful attempts - as the boss would just use Curaga and end up healing almost all the damage I could inflict on him. Instead I used Dark Buster with Wakka and Bio with Lulu and just kept on applying these when he would use Esuna, along with Tidus’ Hastega and Yuna’s aeons these were all very handy and ensured he went down relatively easily once I got the hang of it.

 

I left it there and will pick up where I left off tomorrow, hopefully I’ll finally reach the final Temple and Zanarkand. Not a great last 6 hours but in the scheme of things it’s not a big deal as long as it’s not a massive combat slog with no reprieve for the remainder of the game I’ve got left. 
 

Some pics:

 

Spoiler

 

[one-armed dwarf]

The next part is really good.

 

imo anyway

[DisturbedSwan]

Good to know, hopefully I’ll finally hit Zanarkand today and get the Airship.

[Jimboxy]

Getting the airship was the exact point in the game where I went "well, fuck this shit" and never went back to it. I remember it quite clearly, it was about 4 pm on a Saturday afternoon and I'd been playing it pretty much all day. Bit worrying that that is nearly 20 years ago and I can remember it so clearly.

 

I am curious if time has been kind on X. I bounced off it so hard at that point as I expected the game to open to and allow me to explore, but it is just a fast travel device between the different places. I'm not convinced that would bother me so much now.

[Maryokutai]

25 minutes ago, Jimbo Xiii said:

I am curious if time has been kind on X.

 

It hasn't but it mostly shows its age during cutscenes. The linear approach to it all isn't that much different than a lot of modern JRPGs – the 3DS in particular had a lot of those "choose  and teleport to your destination" games. The combat system and music is still some of the best of the genre and the Sphere Grid, well, works. I've never been a fan but it's not a bad progression system, just not really my cup of tea.

[OCH]

The worst bit for me was how you had to rotate everyone in with each battle, otherwise they don't level up. That was such a step backwards from how RPG's normally give a limited amount of experience to non-party members.

[DisturbedSwan]

44 minutes ago, Jimbo Xiii said:

I am curious if time has been kind on X. I bounced off it so hard at that point as I expected the game to open to and allow me to explore, but it is just a fast travel device between the different places. I'm not convinced that would bother me so much now.

Difficult to compare it to the OG game as I played that for so little time (think I only reached Kilika) but for me it definitely holds up. I actually think the pacing is very similar to FF7R in lots of ways, the linearity and then opening up occasionally into these little open world areas is similar too. The graphics definitely hold up, at first you’re a bit like ‘eurgh’ but the colours still pop really nicely - in the 2D backdrops in particular - overall. For me, it’s not dissimilar to the graphical quality of like XC2, they both look pretty similar. 
 

The music, combat, sphere grid and characters still hold up, the latter are impacted by the ‘of age’ voice acting but not significantly so for me.

 

Has never been an issue for me @OCH, it’s so easy to swap them out (doesn’t even skip your turn) that there’s no downside to it for me.

[Maryokutai]

There are lots of encounters like wolf/armoured enemy/slime which could easily be dispatched with an active party of Tidus, Auron and Lulu in a couple of seconds but you have to switch around at least four times before killing them if you want everyone to get XP. You might technically not have to "skip" turns but you lose four turns regardless. Total waste of time.

 

Didn't point that out because it's not a problem of the battle system per se but as far as quality of life features go it's bottom of the barrel. Also really weird they didn't change it for the remaster to be honest.

[OCH]

It was just unnecessary. It is a system they've never used before (or since, I believe?).

[DisturbedSwan]

4 minutes ago, Maryokutai said:

There are lots of encounters like wolf/armoured enemy/slime which could easily be dispatched with an active party of Tidus, Auron and Lulu in a couple of seconds but you have to switch around at least four times before killing them if you want everyone to get XP. You might technically not have to "skip" turns but you lose four turns regardless. Total waste of time.

 

Didn't point that out because it's not a problem of the battle system per se but as far as quality of life features go it's bottom of the barrel. Also really weird they didn't change it for the remaster to be honest.

In that circumstance I’d dispatch those enemies with that exact party. Then for the next encounter I’d swap them out a bit here and there. I get where you’re coming from but it’s a complete non issue for me. I actually find it really fun that you can swap party members out without penalty at any point and experiment. I’m glad they didn’t change it for the remaster haha.

[OCH]

Some games work around it well enough. FF 1 for example, you had the same* four party members from start to finish. You simply chose their job classes and experimented that way (*The Warriors of Light, were largely blank character avatars) Meanwhile, FF 6 broke you off into chapters with different characters (FF7 did that to a lesser degree).

 

As Mary said, cycling through them all manually was just a really counter-intuitive quality of life mechanic. 

[OCH]

Draw/Junction was weird but manually cycling characters was obnoxious.

[Rikzilla]

 

[OCH]

Given that the linearity of the game and that the whole idea is that your party are an entourage that always follows the Summoner. They should have either gone for a battle system to accommodate everyone onscreen. A likely challenge for Square, as they have never gone beyond four characters onscreen before. Or limit the size of the party to four to six and double down on character development. Either of those would have been preferable to manual cycling.