FFX ? I'm completely confused

[Lilani]

-snip-

I think you need to either read a full plot summary, or just bite the bullet and finish the game because a lot of the story you don't have straight just yet. After you get to Zanarkand and go through the cloister of trials there, what Sin is, how it comes to be, and what its purpose is becomes clear. And then EVERYTHING becomes clear after all that and you visit Maester Mika again.

Also, to save yourself a lot of grief, I would just look up a guide when you fight the boss battles in Zanarkand. There's one right after you complete the cloister of trials that isn't so bad once you figure out his pattern, but there's another after that one that is a total ***** if you don't go in with a plan.

I like the game more or less, but don't get me wrong, a lot of what bothers you bothers me too. Especially what you said about the timetable of when Summoners work. Once you find out what the Fayth really are and how they work, then your idea of the Summoners completing the pilgrimage during the calm makes a hell of a lot more sense. Also, I hate how they never explain why Tidus, Rikku, and Wakka can hold their breath underwater for so long. Apparently the others can't because when you have to do water sequences it's always them and never others, so it just doesn't make sense. Tidus is annoying but so are most young male protagonists from Japan, and they all dress funny because it's Squaresoft (they weren't Square Enix just yet when it came out).

Oh, and if you get passed Zanarkand, you can get Anima as a summon. You have to get the destruction spheres in all the cloister of trials in order to get him, but don't worry. If you missed any you are free to go back and get them after Zanarkand (but don't worry about Bevelle, you have to use that destruction sphere to get out of there, so even if you didn't get to the treasure chest it will still be complete). Look up a guide for that, as well. I recommend this not only because she's a cool and powerful aeon (yes, she), but also because there's a bit of story tied to her that I found really interesting and sad.

 

[Benpasko]

Snip.

You forgot to mention how ear-bleedingly bad the voiceacting is, and the fact that the game's mini-game - Blitzball - is actually more fun to play than the game itself, when you sit down and think about it.

Buuuuuut I'm just a bitter, jaded ex-FF fan. FFX was the last FF I ever played through and beat. I rented X-2, but returned it about two hours later and haven't played a FInal Fantasy since.

Now I beat this game literally over a decade ago, so my memories a bit fuzzy but I'll see what I can offer you.

You should go back to X-2. I know the pop stuff is weird, and you won't feel cool while you're playing it, but it has the best gameplay in the entire series. And I mean that, barring none. It's pure atb perfection when you're playing it. Plus the 100% completion ending is worth getting at least once.

 

[bartholen_v1legacy]

snippety snip

I'm a bit confused as to why you say I should finish the game since the OP says

After finishing and thinking about it a lot...

It's not that I didn't understand what the general idea of Sin, its connection to Zanarkand, Tidus and Jecht, the aeons, summoners, machina etc. was, I got that stuff perfectly fine. It's just that the whole thing is (IMO) so bloody convoluted it raises a crapton of questions about just every aspect of the setting and makes me think why they needed such a complex setup in the first place.

I could perhaps swallow Tidus' character design by just going "Lol, jrpgs" (If I was high... (and drunk... (...and my brain wasn't getting enough oxygen...))), if it wasn't for that damned moment in one of the earliest cutscenes in the beginning. When we see Tidus playing blitzball, we get a very brief shot of the opposing team's players giving each other a high five. This is where my overly analytic way of thinking probably negates my argument, but their clothes actually looked quite sensible to me given the circumistances: skin tight and smooth, with little to no hanging or protruding parts so that swimming in the sphere would be easier. But Tidus chooses to wear all that impractical shit because... why indeed? Is he just that good so he can wear anything and still win? Could he play blitzball in full combat body armor?

Also, to save yourself a lot of grief, I would just look up a guide when you fight the boss battles in Zanarkand. There's one right after you complete the cloister of trials that isn't so bad once you figure out his pattern, but there's another after that one that is a total ***** if you don't go in with a plan.

I assume you're talking about the Spectral Guardian and Yunalesca. I found the former one more difficult than the latter, because I had to constantly think about my characters' placements because of those guddammed mines he placed. Yunalesca's all three forms I squished like bugs. I actually got lucky and had him cast Regen on one of my characters who wasn't zombified . In every single boss battle I just used the same strategy, i.e. spamming overdrives. It's true that the addictive grinding got the better of me and my characters were absurdly overleveled about two thirds into the game, so nothing really posed a challenge anymore. Especially after getting Bahamut, since he can break the 9999 damage limit, everything became almost insultingly easy.

 

[Benpasko]

I would recommend against final fantasy games past 6, they take a nose dive if you are old enough to know what actual story progression and cohesion and character arcs are. 7 and on are all about the spectacle, not about telling a story and having an adventure, or just having an adventure in the case of the first 2.

I used to love FF7, but I went back to play it a few years ago and it dawned on me just how bad the game actually is. I should have just left it collecting dust, now I have to avoid discussions of the game with my friends or risk telling just how disgusted I am with the game.

It is not me losing my taste for JRPGs or anything like that, right after replaying FF7 I replayed Xenogears, Grandia, and Suikoden 5, and acquired an all new appreciation for them. Final Fantasy games past 6 are just bad.

No guys, I promise, the games you like are all just bad. Look at these games I like. That means you're wrong, stop having fun.

 

[Glongpre]

I would recommend against final fantasy games past 6, they take a nose dive if you are old enough to know what actual story progression and cohesion and character arcs are. 7 and on are all about the spectacle, not about telling a story and having an adventure, or just having an adventure in the case of the first 2.

I used to love FF7, but I went back to play it a few years ago and it dawned on me just how bad the game actually is. I should have just left it collecting dust, now I have to avoid discussions of the game with my friends or risk telling just how disgusted I am with the game.

It is not me losing my taste for JRPGs or anything like that, right after replaying FF7 I replayed Xenogears, Grandia, and Suikoden 5, and acquired an all new appreciation for them. Final Fantasy games past 6 are just bad.

Agree to disagree.

Aren't most games about the adventure?

FF9 is bad? Surely you jest.

 

[Lilani]

I'm a bit confused as to why you say I should finish the game since the OP says

Oh, lol, guess I skimmed over that part. I guess I just assumed you hadn't finished it because of all the stuff you didn't know. While there are a few things that don't make sense, they explain pretty clearly how Sin works. I mostly got the impression you hadn't finished from this paragraph:

How does Sin work? How much of the will of the guardian who turns into Sin is left when the transformation happens? In that one scene Auron says Sin came to that one beach because Sin is actually Jecht and he wanted to see his son. That would imply that the guardian has some control over Sin. But people all over Spira talk about how Sin has attacked such and such place. Is killing and destruction some kind of automatic, natural thing Sin does as easily as we breathe? What is going inside the transformed guardian's head when he's slaughtering people by the thousands and rampaging across Spira?

I would guess the only reason no other guardian who became Sin didn't do as much as Jecht is because they felt they had no reason to. They saw it as natural, Jecht did not. Also, Jecht had a few others on his side to help him along. If Auron wasn't also game, then he never would have had anybody to send to Zanarkand and watch over Tidus. That's the way I understand it, anyway. Sin also has a lot of control, as well. I took it as sort of a dual-nature thing. Yu Yevon bonds with the armor, but the armor still has some will of its own.

I could perhaps swallow Tidus' character design by just going "Lol, jrpgs" (If I was high... (and drunk... (...and my brain wasn't getting enough oxygen...))), if it wasn't for that damned moment in one of the earliest cutscenes in the beginning. When we see Tidus playing blitzball, we get a very brief shot of the opposing team's players giving each other a high five. This is where my overly analytic way of thinking probably negates my argument, but their clothes actually looked quite sensible to me given the circumistances: skin tight and smooth, with little to no hanging or protruding parts so that swimming in the sphere would be easier. But Tidus chooses to wear all that impractical shit because... why indeed? Is he just that good so he can wear anything and still win? Could he play blitzball in full combat body armor?

I imagine it's the same reason he can breathe underwater, and the same reason no blitzball players use flippers or other even more practical underwater gear. Because it's Japan, and Square

I assume you're talking about the Spectral Guardian and Yunalesca. I found the former one more difficult than the latter, because I had to constantly think about my characters' placements because of those guddammed mines he placed. Yunalesca's all three forms I squished like bugs. I actually got lucky and had him cast Regen on one of my characters who wasn't zombified . In every single boss battle I just used the same strategy, i.e. spamming overdrives. It's true that the addictive grinding got the better of me and my characters were absurdly overleveled about two thirds into the game, so nothing really posed a challenge anymore. Especially after getting Bahamut, since he can break the 9999 damage limit, everything became almost insultingly easy.

Funny, I had a pretty easy time with the Spectral Guardian. I mostly fought with Auron, Tidus, Lulu, and Yuna. I had a few other characters unload their overdrives, but otherwise I just kept Auron and/or Tidus in front of it and Yuna and/or Lulu in back. I moved them around as needed, and I actually got really lucky with the mines. He only placed two in the whole fight, and both were where none of my characters were standing. But again, I just attribute that to luck. With enough prep I didn't have much difficulty with Yunalesca. The first form was more tedious than difficult, the second one was tedious and a bit frustrating but toward the end I had a moment like you where she cured and regened a character that wasn't a zombie. Then for the final form I just unloaded all my Aeons and their overdrives which I already had charged. I even got lucky with Shiva and she didn't use mind break on her, so I was able to use Diamond Dust twice :3 And with Bahamut I got overkill. I guess I just felt it was worse because you have to be so careful, and so much can go wrong so quickly if you don't prepare yourself and always think one step ahead. I hate fights like that.

 

[EvilRoy]

I could perhaps swallow Tidus' character design by just going "Lol, jrpgs" (If I was high... (and drunk... (...and my brain wasn't getting enough oxygen...))), if it wasn't for that damned moment in one of the earliest cutscenes in the beginning. When we see Tidus playing blitzball, we get a very brief shot of the opposing team's players giving each other a high five. This is where my overly analytic way of thinking probably negates my argument, but their clothes actually looked quite sensible to me given the circumistances: skin tight and smooth, with little to no hanging or protruding parts so that swimming in the sphere would be easier. But Tidus chooses to wear all that impractical shit because... why indeed? Is he just that good so he can wear anything and still win? Could he play blitzball in full combat body armor?

Although I might say it is entirely possible that tidus is just that much of a showoff/braggart that he specifically handicaps himself while playing, I think it is more of a stylistic choice by the game designers. Tidus spends 90-95% of the game out of the water depending on how much you like blitzball, so a wetsuit would look pretty weird for him to have it on all the time, but if they changed his dress when he entered into water it could become too difficult for the player to tell which one is tidus/rikku/wakka on sight under water. Add to that their mildly annoying choice to flip camera angles during battles, and you could end up spending entire underwater fight sequences staring at the text bar in the corner just to keep track of who you are doing what with to whom.

As to the holding of breath and so forth its probably best to just ignore the realism of any of the underwater stuff and most of the above water stuff. Blitz-ball is not a physically feasible sport even if they wore re-breathers and fired the balls out of cannons, there is no way combat could take place in a submerged environment in the manner portrayed, robots are not held together with an easily removed lynchpin and so on and so forth.

 

[Artemicion]

But Tidus chooses to wear all that impractical shit because... why indeed? Is he just that good so he can wear anything and still win? Could he play blitzball in full combat body armor?

Let's break it down:

Yellow jersey with hood for team colors. I don't know why the hood's there. The jersey is open and stops at his pectorals to prevent inflexibility.

Blue pauldron with thick red mesh and plate armor extending to the hand - Protection against tackles. He's the star player of the Zanarkand Abes. He's the best, making him, you know, the primary target for the opposing team. Guy needs his armor. Red mesh allows water to pass through unrestricted, reducing movement penalty.

Exposed, unarmored arm for maximum mobility for passes and throws.

Leather half-overalls and pants - Further protection against hits during tackles; zippers on the pants allow Tidus to alter how much protection he has, and this loose protection doesn't particularly hamper his movement. He's chosen to keep his primary leg protected to balance protection on both sides of his body. It makes sense.

Steel-toe boots - the extra weight can put some more power behind each shot, and can protect his feet and toes against breaks and sprains.

Chains and other paraphernalia added for aesthetic.

It's not exactly difficult to see why the primary scorer on the team of a full-contact sport might be more equipped to deal with punishment. Sure, you have your skintight suits that may make you faster, but you can't take a beating in them. Besides, Tidus doesn't need to have all the speed in the world, and in the Blitzball minigame, he doesn't. He needs the extra protection that comes with being mid-field and the freedom in the right places to guarantee his shots count.

 

[Lilani]

know, the primary target for the opposing team. Guy needs his armor. Red mesh allows water to pass through unrestricted, reducing movement penalty.

The rest I don't have a problem with, but this one just doesn't make sense. Mesh would only turn his elbow into a net to catch water and friction, and the holes would be forcing the water to to through a smaller space which would cause a lot of drag. If he wanted to reduce drag in that area, he should have made it as flat and smooth as possible. Make the water go around the whole arm, not get caught in a big net and still have to go around the arm inside the net.

 

[Artemicion]

The rest I don't have a problem with, but this one just doesn't make sense. Mesh would only turn his elbow into a net to catch water and friction, and the holes would be forcing the water to to through a smaller space which would cause a lot of drag. If he wanted to reduce drag in that area, he should have made it as flat and smooth as possible. Make the water go around the whole arm, not get caught in a big net and still have to go around the arm inside the net.

Something flat and smooth and in a single piece that wraps around his elbow may cause a serious restriction to how much he could bend his arm. Anything that stretches to accommodate this would force him to work harder with each stroke, and a wide, sealed armor piece may create a bladder where water is stuck, increasing the total weight of his arm. While a glance at the mesh may suggest water flowing through it would cause drag, this would likely be minimal - in a swimming position, this water would be displaced by less than a half-centimeter of space. His arm bracer is angled to deflect water up and away with a stroke, so water would more likely be pushed away from this area, and the water that seeps through the mesh would be under a "strap" and back out into the open water within (what appears to be) about two to four inches. The displacement of incoming water along with the relative nonrestrictive flow through the mesh while in a swimming position suggests that this armor setup would be wholly viable.

 

[BeeGeenie]

snip

Again, everybody dresses weird in FF.

FF characters didn't used to all dress weird, lookin' like they just rolled around in a pile of laundry and kept whatever stuck to their spiky hair... <.<

Back in my day FF characters knew how to dress. Except for Kefka, since that was kind of his thing.

 

[RandV80]

I just did a single thorough playthrough, but Rikku ended up being my top 1-2 punch with Tidus, using Auron/Yuna rotating as the #3. I didn't do absolutely everything as I missed a few secret summons, but I did beat that one really tough optional dungeon at the end which can push a few characters to max out their sphere grid paths and move into others. Tidus for example because extremely powerful because the end of his connects to the end of Auron's, so you quickly get a whole bunch of high strength boosts. Also Haste is always awesome.

With Rikku it came down to beating that last dungeon. I got an item that let me attach death effect to a weapon and gave it to Rikku since she had the fastest attack, and it worked great. At the end of her sphere grid path I think she gets some Alchemy skill which doubles the effect of healing potions, which works great with those albhed potions which I belove restore 2000hp to the whole party and cure status alignment. So basically, just keep stealing them and you don't need Yuna for healing. Finally, once she gets to the end of her path you should have a teleport sphere or two so you can put her in the same place Tidus is, getting a ton of strength bonuses making her attacks do a lot of damage.

Now if you want someone useless that would be the cat guy, whatever his name was. Now he started off strong, having the pierce ability to attack armoured enemies, but before long you get Auron who replaces him in that role. The key problem though is his sphere grid ends too early in the game, and to branch out you have to choose one of (I think) Yuna/Rikku/Lulu's paths. This absolutely kills his physical attack because they don't get much strength bonuses, and while you can cross him into a magic class character he's too far behind the others too be useful, unless I guess you do a whole bunch of grinding just for him. Or maybe if you're using a strategy guide that can tell you how to get all the blue magic spells and what works best. But other than that it gets to the point where he just no longer has a role in the party so you stop using him. At least until that one part of the game where it forces you to use just him for a fight, which wasn't hard but took forever to beat.

 

[RandV80]

double post.

 

[omega 616]

snip

Again, everybody dresses weird in FF.

FF characters didn't used to all dress weird, lookin' like they just rolled around in a pile of laundry and kept whatever stuck to their spiky hair... <.<

Back in my day FF characters knew how to dress. Except for Kefka, since that was kind of his thing.

I'm no FF expert but come on now, Cloud with a sword as tall as him and wider, some black guy with a minigun for a hand, a fox thing with a charmander tail and bracelets.

Pretty sure I could through the later FF games and pick things that are silly on just about every one of them, like in 13 there is a black guy with a chocobo living in his hair ...

 

[BeeGeenie]

snip

Again, everybody dresses weird in FF.

FF characters didn't used to all dress weird, lookin' like they just rolled around in a pile of laundry and kept whatever stuck to their spiky hair... <.<

Back in my day FF characters knew how to dress. Except for Kefka, since that was kind of his thing.

I'm no FF expert but come on now, Cloud with a sword as tall as him and wider, some black guy with a minigun for a hand, a fox thing with a charmander tail and bracelets.

Pretty sure I could through the later FF games and pick things that are silly on just about every one of them, like in 13 there is a black guy with a chocobo living in his hair ...

Like I said, those were the good OLD days. And I'm talking strictly clothes, not massively-over-compensating-for-something weapons.
Cloud's actual clothes are fairly plain, it's his hair and his Massive Steel Erection that set him apart from "generic soldier A". In FF8 everyone was wearing generic school uniforms. In FF9, everyone was wearing fairly traditional fantasy costumes, with a few embellishments for characterization.

It was only in FFX that the entire party started wearing clown suits and fetish gear to go adventuring, and they've pretty much been doing it ever since.