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Rabbi Raccoon posted:1) We all know Wakka can't read 1: My Wakka is a well-educated theologian  . He’s still a racist dick sometimes, though.2: Which line  I mean, at this point it’s obvious that Tidus is thick enough that someone would have to spell it out for him, but I never know what readers will pick up that I didn’t, so it’s worth asking.Dareon posted:
That novel tries to position itself as the effective sequel of FFX-2. On the one hand, it introduces some legitimately excellent and fascinating worldbuilding that plugs holes in the backstory you may have not even noticed. On the other, it features a gruesome on-screen war crime and undoes everyone’s character development apparently for funsies. It’s, uh, controversial. E: in case you didn’t see it, update near the bottom of the last page.
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Apr 13, 2021 05:30
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Falconier111 posted:2: Which line Falconier111 posted:
Rabbi Raccoon fucked around with this message at 00:48 on Apr 16, 2021 |
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Apr 13, 2021 05:35
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That was pretty sloppy of me, yeah, but it’s JUST vague enough for Tidus to assume she’s talking about the death toll of the pilgrimage. That line will come up again later in the narrative. Also, can I ask you to spoiler that line in your quote, just to lower the risk that new readers fixate on it?
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Apr 13, 2021 17:29
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Update 33: Pain 54-Temple Band-FFX OST  Soon enough, we enter a cave. A big cave.  Al Bhed Straggler: <Here you go. It’s cold, ain’t it?> She just… Gives us 400 Gil, less than we earned from a random encounter, then sits around staring off into the distance. Does she have anywhere to go? I’m worried about her  .   Monk: The likes of her are not welcome in this hallowed place.  She is a guardian.Monk: An Al Bhed, a guardian? Preposterous!   Monk:… Very well. I will hold you personally responsible if anything happens. We get the chance now to wander around the temple antechamber.   So Lady Yuna is getting married. You shouldn’t kid around about these things! Yeah, I guess so … Eh, it’s complicated. Say, do you know where Yuna is? I believe she’s gone to the Cloister of Trials with Maester Seymour. Thanks. All right, best of luck. And the same to you. I am travelling north to tell the people the wonderful news! Please send my best regards to Lady Yuna; wherever they are to hold the ceremonies, I’ll make sure to be there.(I missed this next conversation and had to dig it out the script. Don’t tell anybody  .)Tromell: Ah, Lady Yuna’s guardians! I haven’t thanked you for your help earlier. Thanks to you I was able to bring Lady Yuna here safely. You have my sincerest gratitude. Lord Seymour and Lady Yuna’s marriage will help foster goodwill between us and humankind. Lord Jyscal, rest his soul, would be pleased, I’m sure of it. But when we approach the Cloister of Trials…   Nun: Why would the lady have such a thing? … Plot happens again. Well, sort of. You see, I have reason to believe that we may or may not lose the chance to play blitzball for the foreseeable future in a little bit, and we can’t this opportunity go to waste. So let’s take a moment to –  Well. I think it’s time for me to go a little deeper into Overdrive mechanics. I think I’ve mentioned that characters get additional Overdrives as the game goes on? They come in patterns:
 Nevermind, let’s soft reset.  Ah, much better. While savescumming is kind of a dick move, playing against the Psyches isn’t a fun and interesting challenge, it’s a boring, frustrating slog. I feel no guilt.  Can’t say I was expecting that. I wasn’t kidding when I said teams would replace their players with free agents at random. I didn’t even know Rin was a free agent, but I guess I have to eat my words even though I never actually said them. One day, we may find out how Rin does on the field, but that day is not today. By the way, the player that got kicked off the Psyches went immediately to the Ronso Fangs; in my match with them, they suddenly had a random human swimming around by their goal. Speaking of swimming around near goals, my following game against the Goers, I took the chance to investigate a rumor. https://va.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_qriyiplb9b1rk96q7.mp4 In case you couldn’t watch that video, after scoring a couple goals, I swam over to my goal, parked myself in front of it, and watched as every other player on the field went back to their position and started swimming in circles. Just look at Kyou go  . I’ve been told you need to go behind the goal to get this glitch to trigger, but no, sitting right next to it works: whatever subroutines govern players chasing the ball can’t handle you positioning yourself like that, so they go back to their default positions to wait for some programmer to debug them. I’ve never used this technique before and I never will again, but it’s nice to know they weren’t kidding. And there we go. I’ll show this off sooner or later.  While, as is traditional, we’ve got a bunch of people standing around jawing about recent events, we can take the time to visit a drunk bodyguard in one of the corner rooms and have him break out Seymour’s whole life story. ->Seymour as a young child. Bodyguard: Both Guado and human blood flow through Maester Seymour’s veins. This mixed heritage caused him a deal of grief in his childhood. But because of that very experience…he grew to become a great leader who aspired to bring Guado and humans together in friendship. ->Seymour as a young man. Bodyguard: Lord Braska vanquished Sin when Lord Seymour was about your age. During the celebration of the Calm’s arrival, Maester Mika ordained Lord Jyscal a maester of Yevon. He praised Lord Jyscal’s achievements, including the conversion of the Guado to the teachings of Yevon. Maester Seymour was still a young lad then, but he tried hard to assist Lord Jyscal. ->Seymour as a monk. Bodyguard: As a monk, Maester Seymour soon distinguished himself. His accomplishments were many and acclaimed by all. He shot up through the ranks quickly, he did. Aye, he rose high on his own, never riding Lord Jyscal’s coattails. He’s truly a remarkable young man. ->Seymour as a summoner. Bodyguard: As a summoner, Maester Seymour’s strength is matchless. Yet, he became a maester of Yevon instead of undertaking the pilgrimage to battle Sin. I think he believes that there’s more to a summoner’s duty than just destroying Sin. Wow, what a pious, upstanding gentleman! I’m sure whatever’s on that sphere is a further endorsement of his character.  This may well answer a few questions.   Jyscal: His mind is closed even to me, a maester of Yevon. But I can feel flames of darkness burning in his heart. He is using Yevon, the Guado, and even the summoners. If he is not stopped, he will surely bring destruction and chaos to Spira.  Jyscal: But I do not fault him. Because I was not wise enough, he has suffered, and become twisted. I could not protect him and his mother from the world and its cruelty. I will accept death as punishment for my deeds. But whoever is watching this…    Will Yuna be all right? Without us, no. You saw, didn’t you? Seymour’s bad news! But, but he’s a maester! Fine, stay here if you want. We’re going to go help Yuna! Come on, Wakka. Let’s at least hear him out.  Leave. Now.  Right! C’mon!   Even a maester. This can’t be happening…55-Seymour's Ambition-FFX OST   We know what you did! … Do you now?    … Why are all of you here?She walks down the steps and up to the rest of the party. Seymour doesn’t stop her. We saw Jyscal’s sphere! You killed him. Lady Yuna, certainly you knew of this? Well then, why have you come here? I came… I see. You came to punish me, then? Is there nothing I can offer you?  “Protect the summoner even at the cost of one’s life.” The Code of the Guardian. Admirable indeed.  Maester – And now for the biggest boss fight yet. The music doesn’t change, by the way; this isn’t just a boss battle. It’s a Seymour battle.  Seymour’s bodyguards have a third of his health and put out a hell of a lot less damage, but they take their bodyguarding seriously. Not only do they use defensive spells to Seymour (as seen above) and intercept any attacks you make on him, but they also heal their injured comrades and occasionally confuse party members – and when you kill them, they use a special skill, Auto-Potion, to bring themselves back to life and keep making your life miserable. Fortunately, a good Steal will disable all of their healing abilities (since they’re technically using items), letting you put them to rest. Before you do that, though, you should make use of this battle’s Trigger Command, Talk. Three characters can have little mini conversations with Seymour:  Your eyes, they burn with resolve… Beautiful. I knew you were bad news from the first time we met! Oh, my sincerest apologies  Seymour! Maester! We must stop this! …This can’t be happening!Each conversation massively boosts either their Attack (Tidus) or Magic Defense (Yuna, Wakka).  Seymour himself cycles through -ra spells in a set pattern; once you figure it out, you can use some of Yuna’s less-used spells (the Nul[Element] line) to protect your party. He hits like a truck, but, like, a pickup truck moving at 10mph; even if you don’t bother nullifying his magic, you can probably keep up with the damage he puts out using Yuna and items. He shouldn’t last too long after you take his bodyguards out. Fun fact: you don’t have to kill his bodyguards to advance into the next stage, just him. I have no idea how you’d pull that off, though. Also, make absolutely certain you have Haste on Yuna before you take him down to zero.   You already saw the summon animation. Stage II of this fight pits you against Anima herself. She spends half her time using Boost, which fills her Overdrive gauge a bit but doesn’t do anything else. The other half?    While Pain does appreciable damage by itself, it also inflicts Death, a special status effect that instantly kills an enemy that’s both vulnerable to it and doesn’t pass a resist check. Usually, Death effects hit maybe a third of the time. Pain always inflicts Death on anyone vulnerable to it. That’s your entire party, by the way. But there’s an obvious way around this. O fayth, lend me strength!https://va.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_qriyl6anlA1rk96q7.mp4 Our new buddy, https://va.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_qriypiIceo1rk96q7.mp4 Hey our first 9999! She also has a very cool-looking Overdrive, Diamond Dust. It’s just another elemental damage vehicle, but at least it looks nice. The game expects you to make the two Aeons trade hits, with ???? healing herself with Blizzara every time she dropped into the yellow, until Anima finally bites it. Unfortunately…  … I just barely underestimated the amount of damage I needed her to do. https://va.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_qriyeeSFQC1rk96q7_720.mp4 Welp. Anima’s Overdrive would have slaughtered the entire party no matter how much I buffed them up. I mean, she goes down the next turn to Tidus, but good Lord am I glad I had a sacrificial animal out.  Seymour’s back this time, without his bodyguards; I have no idea what happens to them if you didn’t kill them in the first stage. Maybe Anima ate them. This time he has a new trick up his enormous sleeves: Multi-<-ra spell>. He cycles through the elements just the same as last time, but now he casts the relevant spell on random enemies two or three times every action, dealing thousands of damage a turn. I told you to Haste Yuna earlier because you need her constantly casting whichever Nul- spell will cancel out his next round of attacks. But once you get the appropriate defenses up, this fight becomes a damage race, and with your access to items, it’s a race you’re guaranteed to win. Tough it out until you land the finishing blow.  (Those floating orbs indicate that Auron has NulFrost and NulBlaze active on him. I didn’t realize that’s what those were until I was putting the post together.) This is a landmark fight in many ways, some of which won’t become obvious until later. I’d go into that now, but at this point this update is already obscenely long; we’ll hit it up next time.       
Falconier111 fucked around with this message at 03:04 on Apr 14, 2021 |
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Apr 14, 2021 02:00
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Auron doesn't gain his overdrives by use, he obtains them by getting those Jecht Spheres. I think the Spheremorph one gives you one free? The others need multiples.
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Apr 14, 2021 02:43
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FeyerbrandX posted:Auron doesn't gain his overdrives by use, he obtains them by getting those Jecht Spheres. I think the Spheremorph one gives you one free? The others need multiples. That’s ridiculous. Of course not! Fixed 
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Apr 14, 2021 03:06
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I love how much Wakka is freaking out in this whole sequence. I mean, all of them have very good reason to freak out, cause they're getting in poo poo with someone real powerful. But Wakka has to deal with a whole crisis of faith on top of that.
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Apr 14, 2021 03:21
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The Guado bodyguards during that fight were kind of a neat puzzle when I first played. You get nowhere fast if you try to brute-force it, and it feels satisfying to find their weakness and cripple their gimmick. It's one of the things that makes this one of the better and more memorable fights in the game, IMO, in that you have to actually use some of the tools the game gives you. I wish they had explored the idea further. As it is, this is one of only a few battles in which AI opponents interact with each other; they probably had to do all kinds of hacky custom tricks to get it working properly. That actually made me curious about what engine FFX used, but there's not a lot of info available, so I assume it was all custom/proprietary stuff. I remembered that someone figured out how to look at AI scripts and stuff in FF7, but that doesn't seem to be possible for this game. Oh well.
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Apr 14, 2021 03:42
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That snap triggered millions of gay awakenings
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Apr 14, 2021 04:52
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I love, love, loooove Seymour's Ambition! One of my favourite tracks in the game.
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Apr 14, 2021 04:55
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The bodyguards are always gone in the third phase regardless of whether you killed them before Seymour summons Anima.
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Apr 14, 2021 13:42
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Welcome to the first of many times I found myself underleveled A boss battle that insta-kills a third of your party, or builds up to a TPK attack. Oh and it's phase two after a mage with two healbots. Oh and if you manage to survive it there's a third phase with multiple-elemental magic attacks. Can you tell I never used Haste? Teenage me was an idiot that never used magic.
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Apr 14, 2021 15:57
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I really like the design of this fight's gimmicks from a narrative perspective because it makes Yuna crucial to victory and reminds you that that this fight is primarily between her and Seymour.
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Apr 14, 2021 17:13
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This was my favourite game as a kid and in my opinion this sequence in Macalania Temple, starting with the buildup to that Seymour fight, is where the game really takes off and gets good. It's the first big twist that actually moves the narrative in a new direction, unlike something like "Sin is Jecht" which matters to the narrative but generally keeps it on the same track. Unfortunately, the big exception to "this is when the game gets really good" is literally the very next thing you have to do after this Seymour fight, which kills all the momentum that the Macalania Temple sequence built up. vyelkin fucked around with this message at 01:45 on Apr 15, 2021 |
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Apr 14, 2021 17:34
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vyelkin posted:Unfortunately, the big exception to "this is when the game gets really good" is literally the very next thing you have to do after this Seymour fight, which kills all the momentum that the Macalania Temple sequence built up. Chocobo breeding? 
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Apr 14, 2021 18:12
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It's a nice touch that as soon as Seymour threatens Yuna before the fight, Tidus, Kimahri, and Auron immediately step between them.
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Apr 14, 2021 19:58
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vyelkin posted:Unfortunately, the big exception to "this is when the game gets really good" is literally the very next thing you have to do after this Seymour fight, which kills all the momentum that the Macalania Temple sequence built up. That directly discusses something that’s in the future, so I’m gonna ask that you tag it. I’m not saying you should delete it, it’s worth talking about, just add the tags, please. On that note, if I ask you to tag your spoilers, I am asking you to use spoiler tags, not delete it. I appreciate that y’all are eager to listen to me when I enforce the spoiler policy, but I look at the craters in this thread where otherwise good posts used to be and I’m like  Zonekeeper posted:I really like the design of this fight's gimmicks from a narrative perspective because it makes Yuna crucial to victory and reminds you that that this fight is primarily between her and Seymour. I really like how Yuna’s story and gameplay roles intersect in general. She’s a summoner; her goal is reaching Sin, and it’s the guardians’ roles to protect her with their lives. But the summoner is the only one who can perform the Final Summon, the whole point of the exercise. Likewise, Yuna’s reliant on her teammates and summons to put in the work for her; without them, her damage potential is basically nil. But when she’s with everyone else, between her white magic and summons she’s probably the single most important party member. Snorb posted:It's a nice touch that as soon as Seymour threatens Yuna before the fight, Tidus, Kimahri, and Auron immediately step between them. Unfortunately, in the original, when he reaches out to her, she kind of timidly retreats behind the party. It’s only when he approaches them that they spring into action. But my favorite part of this scene? Tidus closing ranks with Auron and Kimahri. He’s still his cheerful sportsball fish-out-of-water self, but he’s so internalized being a guardian that he instinctively helps form an active party to protect her (notice how there’s three of them there).
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Apr 14, 2021 21:24
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Snorb posted:It's a nice touch that as soon as Seymour threatens Yuna before the fight, Tidus, Kimahri, and Auron immediately step between them. And yet Lulu, the tankiest character, doesn't. Get it together, girl Also, I only deleted my previous post because I was at work and it was easier to delete than put in the tags on my phone, but I can put it back if you like.
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Apr 14, 2021 21:40
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Falconier111 posted:That directly discusses something that’s in the future, so I’m gonna ask that you tag it. I’m not saying you should delete it, it’s worth talking about, just add the tags, please. Yeah, absolutely! That wasn't meant to be a reference to any future story moments, by the way, it was just a reference to the awful cloister of trials that immediately follows that Seymour fight.
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Apr 15, 2021 01:46
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Rabbi Raccoon posted:And yet Lulu, the tankiest character, doesn't. Get it together, girl Up to you, bro 
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Apr 15, 2021 02:15
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Update 34: Take Care Of Guado Affairs  What… What have I done? Tromell: Did you do this? Hey, he attacked us! Yuna, send him.Tromell: No, stop!  …Traitors? The attendants pick Seymour’s body up and carry it out of the room. The party watches them go. We’re finished. No, no, look. All we have to do is show them the sphere, right? It won’t be that easy. Let’s go. We try to leave through the ice tunnel we used last time…  Gimme a break!… Only for the floor to disappear, revealing the Macalania Cloister of Trials. Seymour and pals must have solved it on the way in and reset it to slow us down. What’s that you say? Wasn’t Yuna along with them? Wouldn’t she have at least an inkling of how to solve the puzzle? These are mysteries we will never solve.  As the screenshot fails to illustrate, this cloister is one gigantic sliding block puzzle. There are three pillars in the center of the room, each of which forms a portion of the bridge when powered; your goal is to power all of them at once, using the pedestal to power and depower different portions of the puzzle until you get everything lined up.  The hidden chest contains a Luck Sphere, a rare Sphere that lets you activate the only boosts to the Luck stat on the grid. To get it, you have to engage in an elaborate process involving completing the puzzle multiple times and shooting the pedestal into blocks of ice because apparently that’s how you turn Macalania Spheres into Destruction Spheres. And that’s as much attention as the section deserves. The party finally steps out of the Cloister, only to see ranks of Guado soldiers at attention.  Tromell: No need, I already know what I’ll tell the other maesters. After all, Lord Seymour was the leader of the Guado before becoming a maester. … You’re not letting us go. You know what happened to Lord Jyscal, right? Didn’t you watch the sphere? He squeezes. It shatters. 57-Those Who Come Closer-FFX OST    The party forces their models aside and flees, chased by Guado. You remember that long curving path that led to the temple? Half a dozen Guado follow us up as we run away, each one initiating a fight the moment it touches us. Even though they’re individually faster than you, if you don’t stop running you can beat the last couple stragglers out of the area, after which they leave you alone in the canyon. Me, I noticed that O’aka ran up behind them, touched a Save Sphere next to the temple entrance, and caused both him and it to vanish; I went back to try and save there, but I have no idea if that model was even functional and I didn’t reach it fast enough to check. Either way, I lost too much ground to escape any of our pursuers.  Apparently, the Guado can either control or straight-up summon fiends. Maybe it’s because they have a connection with the Farplane? Maybe it’s rear end in a top hat-rear end in a top hat solidarity? The fiends they summon are the same ones you can find in random encounters in the area, but you also have to deal with Guado handlers that can buff them, use magic, and heal themselves with the same drat Auto-Potion the bodyguards had. Steal their potions, kill them all, and move on.  Wakka’s Overdrive bar filled up somewhere about halfway through the area, so I went ahead and took our new toy for a spin. It just gives you a bunch of free hits on random enemies, though those hits do seem able to Pierce heavy armor. Or they might just hit that hard. I’ll be sticking with these reels for the time being either way. After we make our way out of the cave and through the canyon we drove down (I’m not sure what happened to our rides)…   … We make it onto the lake, steps ahead of our pursuers.  We prepare to face off against two of them…  … Only to come face-to-face with their buddy.  Lotta boss fights this time of year. In theory, this Wendigo is just another fiend; if I remember right, we’ll be running into more as random encounters further down the line. Much further. This early it’s tough enough to function as a boss, at least with its two backup dancers (mechanically and behaviorally identical to Seymour’s guards). Berserk increases all damage done by the target by 50% in exchange for forcing them to attack random enemies every turn, which isn’t a big deal for the Wendigo because all it does is punch things anyway.  Punch things hard. Kimahri was nearly at full health there, by the way; if it lands a hit on your flimsier party members, they’ll go down immediately.  As with Seymour, the escorts have to go first. If you try to debuff the Wendigo or cure its Berserk, the Guado will fix the problem immediately – plus, you know, Auto-Potion prevents you from killing them without them getting at least a turn or two in. To add insult to injury, they cast protective spells on it as they die, making an already hearty enemy even tougher.  Fortunately, that’s easily solved. Once you get the Wendigo on its own, the fight goes from “frustrating” to “manageable”. Ixion’s Aerospark removes its defensive magic in one attack, while basic status-curing items and magic can get rid of Berserk. The Wendigo does have an unfortunate habit of always targeting the weakest party member once it can choose who to attack, but without support it’s just a particularly strong monster.  But the moment it begins to fall…  … It uses its remaining strength to strike the ice…  … And break it, sending the party plunging below.  When it comes to gameplay structure, it might help to view Final Fantasy X as, say, a college course. While the game never stops introducing new mechanics and teaching you things as it progresses, each part builds on everything you’ve already learned. But there always comes a point where they have to check how much you’ve absorbed, which means you get a test - a boss fight that exploits a recently-revealed mechanic. If boss fights are tests, this boss gauntlet is midterms. Macalania marks the game’s rough midpoint, which makes it a natural place for FFX to start working you over. Together, the Spherimorph, the Crawler, Seymour, and the Wendigo force you to prove your mastery of different mechanics and techniques before letting you into the rest of the game. The Spherimorph tests your knowledge of basic game mechanics, especially magic. To beat it, you need to understand elemental strengths and weaknesses, the difference between magic and physical attacks, and how and when to use healing. Simple stuff, but as people in the thread can attest, this game was played by a lot of kids; the Spherimorph exists to make sure they’re not just bumbling and brute-forcing their way through and force them to make use of the mechanics. The Crawler, on the other hand, tests your flexibility, since its two modes are so different they may as well be separate boss fights. With the Negator out, the fight’s about properly employing your physical characters; with it down, it becomes about using both offensive and defensive magic as efficiently as possible. It demands you know how to swiftly and efficiently retool your party while in combat, a skill you’ll make use of for the rest of the game. If the last two fights made sure you had your basic skills down pat, Seymour makes sure you know how to adapt. There’ve been bosses with odd gimmicks and surprises up their sleeves before, but the Seymour fight is the first time the game straight up hides vital information from you. Try to take him down directly? Nope, you need to take down his buddies first. Kill one of his buddies? They bring themselves back from the dead just to spite you. How do you stop them doing that? Well, their self-revival ability is called Auto-Potion, don’t you have a character that can steal items? What, you didn’t connect the dots in time? Down you go, try again, sit through a couple minutes of repeated unskippable cutscene to drive the point home. While it’s theoretically possible to brute-force this fight by being strong enough to damage Seymour faster than his bodyguards can heal him, you’d need to grind yourself silly first, and preventing that edge case isn’t the point of this fight. The point is to either make sure you know how to figure out and exploit weaknesses on the fly or to force you to learn how before continuing. Then Anima comes out and starts killing your party off. You can’t ward off Anima by grinding, using items, or buffing your characters: Pain will kill them instantly no matter what you do, and Oblivion puts out so much damage it may as well cause a straight game over. This stage exists to teach you two things. First of all, sometimes, you’re going to lose characters. A lot of players will instinctively try to keep everyone in their party alive, but that won’t fly here. Sometimes, you have to accept that party members are going to bite the bullet and plan around that. Second, it forces you to learn how to use summons properly. These things are big and intimidating, so you should save them until you need them to make a big impact or use them to solo fights, right? Wrong. Just like with the first point, sometimes you’re going to hit situations where you have to sacrifice something, and better that it’s a summon instead of your whole party. As powerful as your Aeons are, at this point in the game they can’t keep up with Anima individually, especially if you haven’t realized how to use their elemental magic to heal them. You have to sacrifice at least one, maybe two Aeons to get through this alive. Anima’s lessons are as much psychological as they are mechanical; if they aren’t mechanically supported, your assumptions about character roles, importance, and abilities must be discarded. And then stage III rolls around just to gently caress with you. I think we’ve faced bosses with two stages before, but not three clearly delineated ones like this. At this point you’ve lost a couple Aeons, maybe a party member or two; you might have eaten away at your item and MP stock earlier just to keep up. And now you have a threat that forces you to use up more of both just to keep your characters up and running. This stage exists as a counterpoint to the last one; while you do have to make sacrifices sometimes, you must always keep something in reserve to cope with whatever might come next. While Seymour’s almost fragile at this point, he hoses out enough damage that you have to stay on your toes, either with healing or by using the Nul[Element] spells, and I guarantee you the vast majority of players ignored those their first time around. What, it only protects the currently active party from one elemental spell each? That’s kind of situational, isn’t it? Well, it is, and this is the situation. It’s a pretty easy fight compared to the first two stages, but it drives the point home that you shouldn’t ever let your guard down. And then we have the Wendigo. Compared to the rest of the gauntlet, it’s a relatively simple opponent; you just have to deal enough damage to take everyone out before they return the favor. You already know most of their tricks, with the only new one, Berserk, being a pretty obvious status effect that you can dispose of with the appropriate items or spell. But oh man does the Wendigo pump out damage, and there aren’t any easy ways to defang it before it gets in several cheap shots on your most vulnerable party members. This boss fight exists to teach you endurance, and to make it clear that not everything is about mind games or high strategy: sometimes, you just need to hit them harder than they hit you. And once you beat it, you’ve proven you understand Final Fantasy X’s combat system well enough to cope with whatever throws at you and the game will let you move on. I really admire the level of thought and design that went into this part of the game. Maybe it’s just me projecting, but the whole thing seems designed to force players to up their game enough that FFX can throw greater challenges at them later without worrying as much about them getting frustrated when whatever ramshackle approach they’ve been using suddenly crumbles. Like any good training, it breaks down your preconceptions and makes sure you know how to handle what’s coming, and it’s worth acknowledging how efficient a job it does.
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Apr 17, 2021 00:05
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Hey, I once called this section the final exam before the "real" game starts! High five because great minds and all that! Although I've never had a problem with Anima taking out Shiva, except for maybe my first playthrough. Shiva is pretty ridiculous in this game. The only other thing I have to add is that this whole part feels so poorly paced. In the middle of all this wedding poo poo, we get a dramabomb about Jecht, and that Cloister of Trials just brings the rising action to a screeching halt. Things escalate pretty quick at Macalania and I feel like it would have gone much smoother if it went something like Seymour went with the team into the Cloister, and when it was solved he and Yuna insisted on going in alone, THEN they find the sphere. It just loses so much momentum and it doesn't quite catch back up by the time this chapter closes.
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Apr 17, 2021 02:35
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Rabbi Raccoon posted:Hey, I once called this section the final exam before the "real" game starts! High five because great minds and all that! Although I've never had a problem with Anima taking out Shiva, except for maybe my first playthrough. Shiva is pretty ridiculous in this game. Yeah, this part of the game builds up so much momentum and then you get one of the absolute worst cloisters of trials, and then you get thrown right back into the momentum as if nothing happened and you didn't just waste half an hour of your life doing an icy-sliding-block puzzle. It's not great.
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Apr 17, 2021 02:42
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basically there's never a good time for a cloister of trials and the game would lose nothing if they were completely omitted. Speaking of omitted, methinks Yuna & crew just un-did all the 'good work' towards Guado/human interrelations
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Apr 17, 2021 20:32
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vyelkin posted:Yeah, this part of the game builds up so much momentum and then you get one of the absolute worst cloisters of trials, and then you get thrown right back into the momentum as if nothing happened and you didn't just waste half an hour of your life doing an icy-sliding-block puzzle. It's not great. FFX’s design is kind of baffling sometimes. Sometimes, the game design is brilliant, whether in terms of overall design (like the boss gauntlet serving as a multilevel progress check) or story-gameplay integration (how Yuna’s combat role reinforces her plot function). Sometimes, it feels like someone started crowbaring lovely elements at random. Made a compelling optional minigame that rewards you for participating? Introduce it by forcing players into a match against a vastly superior team with no time to practice. Have a tense, fast-moving plotline whose ramifications will probably effect the rest of the game? Trap players behind an awkward mandatory puzzle section just before you hit its climax. It’s like somebody’s boss swung by occasionally and forced the team to add something ridiculous every time he showed up.
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Apr 17, 2021 21:18
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Update 35: You Want This To End 56-Song of Prayer: Shiva-FFX OST  (That’s what I would have said, if I was a follower of Yevon.) (Even if I had a headache from wondering what was in store from us next.) This area is completely shrouded in mist. If it looks like the whole screen is washed out, that’s because it is.  Now that the action’s ground to a halt, we get another chance to chat with some of the characters. I couldn’t find Wakka – I think he’s hidden in a corner somewhere – but he’s the character with the most to say: Heya, Wakka, what’s up? I’m a traitor to everything I’ve ever believed in. That’s what’s up. I helped kill a Maester. Who murders a Maester? I’m not sure that’s ever even happened before. You mean, before Jyscal. Look, he was a murderer who was trying to force Yuna to marry him. We only did what we had to do. It doesn’t matter! I’ve always walked the path of Yevon. Even when the Fayth wouldn’t talk to me, I followed the teachings… But now, I’m a traitor. How could this happen?He turns to glare at Rikku. Wakka, you know this isn’t her fault. You don’t know how I feel. Wonder what the Aurochs are doing now… Yuna! Stand back. Give her time to come to. I wanted to convince him to turn himself into Yevon’s judgement. In exchange for marriage? If that’s what it took. If he decided to shut you up, for good? Then I would’ve died. But the chance would’ve been worth it.… I can’t believe you just… Said that. So, what did he say?And you guys just let it roll by. He didn’t say anything.  I should’ve told you what I was going to do. Enough. Dwelling in the past is futile. Hey! You don’t have to say it like that! You want to waste time listening to her regrets? Seriously? Our immediate concern is Yuna’s pilgrimage. Are you willing to go on? Yes. But then, do you think Yevon will allow it? The fayth are the ones that give power to the summoners. Not the temples or the teachings. If the temples try to stop us…  Whoa!  Sir Auron!? Count me out.  We have to atone, to make up for the sins we have committed. But still… No way I’ll ever forgive him for killing Lord Jyscal, ya? We gotta bring that to the rest of the Maesters. We must speak with Maester Mika and explain what has happened. There is no other way, I think.The rest of the party nods. So it is decided.… We’re all traitors to Yevon now. If we do make our way to Bevelle… It will be very dangerous. I won’t make anyone come along who doesn’t want to; you could always go into hiding and try to survive. Well, I’m not gonna leave you twisting in the wind.The rest of the party nods in agreement. I am the troublemaker, after all. Yeah, that’s right! You can always count on Auron to complicate things! I never asked you to follow me. Hey, but that’s what friends are for. Right? Yep! Thank you. You’re too edgy. Listen to the hymn and calm down.… What is that? Is it coming from the temple? The fayth? What? It can sing? Of course it can. We already covered this, remember?… Hey, Auron! You look kinda out of it. Jecht used to sing this song… Say, how did you get to Zanarkand in the first place? Sin?… Say, you feel something weird in the air? Some kind of bad vibes or something. This place smell different now. Kimahri not know if this good or bad. Kimahri feel no danger. We should get moving soon. Is the ground shaking? There’s something here! Wait, what are we standing on? The camera lingers on Sin for several seconds as it gently moves through the water. You may have caught glimpses of ruined buildings on its back during Operation Mi’ihen earlier. That’s where we are.    The camera shakes and the party vanishes beneath the motion blur. The screen grows even foggier.   Tidus speaks slowly, almost fuzzily. What is it this time? You homesick, too? I get the feeling. I can’t go back either. I know. You want this to end.   He shakes off the water and swims to shore.   I forgive you, this time.  58-Scorching Desert-FFX OST  And now, the desert. The party’s been separated; Tidus is on his lonesome for now. And I checked the Save Sphere right next to the oasis; we are, indeed, sealed off from playing more blitzball. Just a few steps further into the desert, and…   The Zu is the Garuda’s bigger, meaner cousin. As you’d expect, it’s a massive bucket of hit points with dangerous attacks, but with judicial application of Haste and Slow…  … It quickly collapses. Tidus is really coming into his own as an attacker. I’m not sure what the difference between its flying and grounded modes are; it went down too fast for me to take the time to figure it out. I actually had to hold back long enough for the rest of the scene to trigger properly.    (If you take it down before they arrive, Tidus brags for a couple lines while they roll their eyes.)  Good to see you’re still alive. The others? Haven’t found them yet. We’re supposed to stay in one place if we get split up. He’s not. Look. Wakka! You alone? What does it look like? Where’s Yuna?Tidus and Lulu look at each other. Dammit!CLANG.  As we add him to our party, we see an odd-looking chest right next to his little shelter.  There’s maybe half a dozen of these scattered around the desert. Each of them gives you eight or so Al Bhed Potions, and each Al Bhed Potion restores 1000 health and removes most status effects from all party members. I haven’t been emphasizing it in the LP, but Final Fantasy X is extremely generous with items compared to the rest of the series; for instance, in a lot of Final Fantasy games, you either can’t buy Ethers to restore your MP or they only become available later on. O’aka’s been selling them since I believe Operation Mi’ihen. Stealing from enemies will often net you multiple powerful items, and it’s easy to farm materials once you know what you’re looking for. You then take those materials, add any Gil from combat you’ve converted to more materials, convert them into weapon boosts and Aeon abilities as necessary, and use the rest on the battlefield or with Rikku’s Mix – in other words, it’s a complete (if rudimentary) crafting system, one of the earliest I’m aware of. It’s probably far from the first, but I haven’t been able to find any history or chronology of crafting systems on the Internet, so I’m going to assume FFX invented letting players turn goods into products because it’s that great. It isn’t framed that way within the game and the system is awfully rudimentary, but it’s kind of fascinating to see the gameplay element associated with very different genres and eras of game design pop up in a 20-year-old JRPG. It’s kind of fitting that I only realized this in the middle of… Actually, wait, I’m getting ahead of myself.  Did you forget that Spira is a post-apocalyptic setting? The game didn’t. We may not have seen them for a while, but that’s because the areas we’ve been traveling through were so hostile to nonspecialized buildings; now that we’re somewhere where there might still be surviving ruins, surviving ruins are everywhere. Kimahri, completely uninterested in this quirk in worldbuilding, is trudging up the side of a sand dune and repeatedly sliding back down. We have to walk up to him to go further.  It’s not your fault, Kimahri. Come on, let’s go look for her. Though they aren’t as common as fiends, we do occasionally encounter hostile machina out here. They’re just as vulnerable as always to Lightning and Steal (which I have Kimahri make copious use of), but I wonder what that means?   Where’s Yunie? Gone. Ginnem would be laughing…… Um.   We’re on Bikanel Island. There’s a place us Al Bhed call Home near here. Yunie’s there, I’m sure of it! Other Al Bhed must’ve come and rescued her! Rescued? You mean kidnapped! “Kidnapped”? From what? What, you WANT Yunie to die of thirst in the middle of the desert? Yeah, what does it matter as long as she’s safe? That’s right! Anyway, I will take you there if you promise… That you won’t tell anyone about it. Especially not other Yevonites, okay? You know they don’t like us Al Bhed. Who knows what they’ll do if they knew? Gimme a break. What are you accusing Yevon of this time? Not Yevon, just… Yevonites have done some really bad things to us Al Bhed in the past. Can’t you guys, just, talk about this later? I’d rather not stay out here longer than I have to. Just promise you won’t tell anyone about this island. Promise?… Wakka. Stop judging. Really, Lu? All right, all right, fine! I promise. Lead the way. You got it!
Falconier111 fucked around with this message at 21:58 on Apr 19, 2021 |
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Apr 18, 2021 19:49
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Falconier111 posted:
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Apr 18, 2021 20:22
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I'm really starting to get fed up with Wakka. I hope Sin eats him.
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Apr 18, 2021 20:59
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Rogue AI Goddess posted:Wrong head, methinks. Nope, Yuna discovered how to teleport a couple hours back. It’s something they added in the Remaster. It has its own overblown theme and everything! (thx) E: Black Robe posted:I'm really starting to get fed up with Wakka. I hope Sin eats him. A line I cut from that last dialogue: Jesus loving Christ, Wakka posted:
He IS about to completely recant, thank god. If more racists underwent Wakka’s character arc, the world would be a better place. Falconier111 fucked around with this message at 21:08 on Apr 18, 2021 |
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Apr 18, 2021 21:02
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I would like to take a second to appreciate this face. It is a good face for expressing that racism is ugly.
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Apr 18, 2021 21:56
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I never really understood that sequence. Sin was chilling on the bottom of a frozen lake, listening to the hymn. Then the party crashes in, soon afterwards the fayth stops hymning, so Sin grabs them and puts them into a random desert island on the other side of the continent? How long were they out, anyway? This jump already felt forced when I played the game 20 years ago.
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Apr 18, 2021 22:16
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I'm not sure if this is ultimania or someone coming up with a better idea but I remember someone mentioning that the party is on Sin when they're in the lake (the camera work of just Sin out of loving no where off in the lake without any frame of reference doesn't help). So while the hymn is playing Sin's just chilling there, and his bodily functions that spew out toxins aren't pumping. Then the hymn stops and he flips his poo poo. This doesn't explain why you're yeeted halfway across the planet, but that at least better explains what happened?
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Apr 18, 2021 22:23
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Yeah, the part is on Sin: it's kind of hard to see but in other scenes where Sin's upper half is shown you can see ruins like the ones the party is above under the lake. Sin is kind of carrying ruins on his back for some reason. Also this sequence kinda confirms Sin's toxin is real in a way? Like, Sin flips out cause they stopped playing his favourite tune, Tidus has an allucination and suddenly they're on Bikanel. Aren't people who claim to have toxin usually appearing from nowhere? Either Sin has teleportation powers (explaining how he was under the lake, that's still baffling to me) or Sin carried them to Bikanel.
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Apr 18, 2021 22:38
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quote:Stealing from enemies will often net you multiple powerful items, and it’s easy to farm materials once you know what you’re looking for. You then take those materials, add any Gil from combat you’ve converted to more materials, convert them into weapon boosts and Aeon abilities as necessary, and use the rest on the battlefield or with Rikku’s Mix – in other words, it’s a complete (if rudimentary) crafting system, one of the earliest I’m aware of. It’s probably far from the first, but I haven’t been able to find any history or chronology of crafting systems on the Internet, so I’m going to assume FFX invented letting players turn goods into products because it’s that great. I know that Final Fantasy IX had a synthesis system, where you could make weapons, armors and accessories out of items (usually combinations of other weapons, accessories, etc.), and it was kinda important since in FF IX characters learned their abilities and spells from equipment (short answer, you fight with certain equipment for a while and can eventually permanently gain access to certain abilities). However, from what I've seen of FF X from lets plays and so on, its crafting system is much more extensive and intertwined with the characters' growth (especially with the Aeons and the equipment). I don't know if or how many other games use their crafting systems this way. P.S. I don't know how to put the top paragraph (it's basically the largest paragraph in the latest post edited down to the relevant point) in a quote box or whatever it's called, I tried searching online and found nothing helpful. If anyone can tell me how, please let me know. Edit: Learned how to make the box @ultrafilter. I did use the quote button the first time, but the quote/quote markers were deleted during editing, which I didn't spot the first time around. It was easier to spot when quoting from a smaller post. comicfan92 fucked around with this message at 17:20 on Apr 19, 2021 |
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Apr 19, 2021 00:28
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comicfan92 posted:P.S. I don't know how to put the top paragraph (it's basically the largest paragraph in the latest post edited down to the relevant point) in a quote box or whatever it's called, I tried searching online and found nothing helpful. If anyone can tell me how, please let me know. Hit the button marked "quote" at the bottom right of a post.
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Apr 19, 2021 00:33
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cant cook creole bream posted:I never really understood that sequence. Sin was chilling on the bottom of a frozen lake, listening to the hymn. Then the party crashes in, soon afterwards the fayth stops hymning, so Sin grabs them and puts them into a random desert island on the other side of the continent? How long were they out, anyway? This jump already felt forced when I played the game 20 years ago. It's not just you, this part and the next few hours of the game are pretty disjointed. Not sure if there just wasn't time to flesh it out better or if there was some other developmental snag, but it seems hastily stitched together compared to the early game. Alternatively, there was originally more and it had to get cut for whatever reason. Whatever the case, the lack of flow/polish is very noticeable. And yes, the deal is that Wendigo punched a hole in the ice, the party fell through and landed on top of Sin's head. The latter was hanging out listening to the hymn. Once it stopped, he woke up and dumped the party someplace else hundreds of miles away. Which he does sometimes, look at how Tidus wound up in Besaid in the first place. @OP: Decided to cut out the scene with Rikku, huh? Probably for the best.
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Apr 19, 2021 01:18
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Considering how many times Tidus & Crew have come up close and personal with Sin and come out largely okay, when just about everyone else who gets close is left massively screwed up by the Toxin, or else just horrendously dead, I think just about the only explanation is that Jecht still has some amount of control, and is actively trying to avoid harming Tidus.
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Apr 19, 2021 01:42
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Went back to clarify part of the post: yes, they did land right in Sin’s back.GiantRockFromSpace posted:Yeah, the part is on Sin: it's kind of hard to see but in other scenes where Sin's upper half is shown you can see ruins like the ones the party is above under the lake. Sin is kind of carrying ruins on his back for some reason. I always kind of assumed Sin could teleport. We know it has some level of control over space-time (it bends light in Zanarkand, it and its offspring make extensive use of gravity magic), and it has to be able to reach inland settlements or people would have switched to buildings their cities on mountains or something. I’d say it can only really rest in large bodies of water, but it can move between them more or less at will. EggsAisle posted:@OP: Decided to cut out the scene with Rikku, huh? 
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Apr 19, 2021 02:17
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I assumed that Sin's teleportation was water-based, based on Tidus waking up Although that does give a mildly amusing mental image of Sin just sprouting from that tiny oasis pool like the world's worst can of snakes.
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Apr 19, 2021 02:59
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This part can be explained eventually, but it'll be a while before we get there.
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Apr 19, 2021 03:28
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