Final Fantasy X (The Longest Journey)
 

A few things, everyone fights and you should have everyone do something every fight otherwise they get NO AP which is bad. FF10 is one of those FFs where everyone starts different but then they all kinda meld into the same character with different limit breaks as the game goes on. Still not as bad FF12 or FF6, and that is super late game.

Some tips? Everyone should learn Steal (or Mug), Bribe, Use, and you should seriously try for Double Cast as fast as possible for Lulu and Yuna.

Use everyone in every fight if possible. It may make the indiviual battles last longer, but if makes the overall leveling faster.

The ultimate weapons are crazy stupid hard to fully get in this game and honestly break all balance of the game. Honestly, they aren't required and are a pain to get. Do get the optional summons though.

Blitzball is dumb. Worst minigame ever.

If I think of some more then I'll edit the post

Going on what Evil just said, I concur with using everyone in every battle. Even if all you do is switch characters in and out and have them guard for a turn they will still get AP, and it keeps everyone levelled up at the same rate. If you don't do this, then some characters, such as Kimahri, can end up severely lagging behind.

Further points on characters and how to level them;

To start with, every character will be on their own section of the sphere grid, and it's a mostly straight run through their own section, but eventualy you'll reach the end and will need to branch off into other areas. Kimahri will be the first to finish, and I like to send him off down Rikkus path first. Auron and Tidus are basically the opposites of each other, so once each has finished his own sections they should really swap places, to aquire all the speed/strength that the other has. Wakka I like to send down Aurons section too, for the extra strength buff. The mages Yuna and Lulu should also swap sides, so they both gain black and white magic and increased magic power. Finally I send Rikku down Lulus path, for the black magics, because she has some seriously untapped magic power, at one point my Rikku was casting more powerful spells than Lulu.

One point I don't agree with Evilness on; Blitzball. I honestly don't get all the hate for it, it seems I'm the only person in the world who liked Blitzball. If it turns out you do wanna play some I can give you tips on team setup and things. Just make sure you learn the Jecht Shot while on the boat after Kilika. Save the game right after the island so if you screw up you can do it again, even if you don't plan on playing Blitz all that much, because Blitz is at the very least good for one thing; Attack Reels. It's an overdrive for Wakka that you have to win, and it's one of the most powerful attacks in the game. Make sure you get it, you won't be dissapointed.

Oh and right after you leave Besaid vilage, head back in and find the dog. Trust me, you'll love what you find.

Yeah Blitzball is a real love it or hate it thing. I hate it myself.

Also tips. The characters are as others said mostly the same once you finish their sphere grid paths, but Yuna definitely stands out as the strongest due to great magic stats and summons(which are absurdly broken in this game), so use black magic spheres to give Lulu's spells to Yuna, cause once she has them she becomes an excellent attacker as well as an excellent healer. Also get time magic (it's on Tidus' path) as quickly as possible and on as many people as possible using white magic spheres, it's very helpful in this game.


Which version are you playing BTW? The NTSC one or the PAL? If you're playing PAL make sure you check everywhere around Yunalesca's battlefield. After you fight her if you go back later a bonus boss will stop you from getting one of the items needed for Tidus' ultimate weapon til after you beat it.

Oh yeah and I can't stop going in a straight line.
 

Tips:

That thing everyone else is saying about switching characters?

Fuck that.

No really.

There's a few more worthwhile characters--like Lulu, Yuna, Rikku, and Auron--than what you can keep in the party at any given time. HOWEVER--unless you plan on playing blitzball forevers to get his ultimate weapon and ultimate limit breaks, Wakka is only good for killing fliers, and anyone with black magic can do the same. He has some neat status fucking abilities, but they're of pretty limited use, honestly, due to higher end enemies having pretty good resistance to them, and he has low enough mp that ehhhh.

And Kimahri?

Kimahri is the most useless piece of shit to ever be put in a game.

Now, as has been said, everyone pretty much melds together if you grind/at end game due to skipping and hopping to other people's section of the board. Unfortunately for Kimahri, this means that the only true defining feature is their limit breaks.

When you get Kimahri use jump on someone. Then attack that same person with any other member of your party.

Then sigh loudly because none of his limits other than, like, Mighty Guard and White Wind are any better than that. And those two can be replicated/done far better with Rikku's mix. He also starts the game with pretty shitty stats, and his natural sphere grid progression is shitty.


NOW, all of that alone would NOT be reason to say fuck them when it comes to leveling everyone together.

No no, the thing that makes all that translate into picking a few characters (make sure yuna is one) and leveling them is this--SPHERE STARVATION.

If you try to level everyone you'll notice it first just before macalania woods with ability spheres. You will have everyone sitting there on the board with something like 18 sphere levels just staring at the grid longingly as you can't level them any further without skipping over abilities. You should never skip over abilities (or anything else).

Now, you could, conceivably, farm spheres like a mother fucker against the fish in the very beginning or spend three hours on the miihen highroad because there is an enemy there that drops them, but he's pretty rare to run into.

OR you could just not level every single member of your party and it should be fine.

THAT SAID, if you are going to level every single member and farm ability spheres, move Kimahri into Rikku's path ASAP. Don't even learn anything on his past what it takes to get him to the entrance to Rikku's.

The reason being that there is exactly one use for Kimahri, and that is learning steal early on so that you can steal items from enemies before you get Rikku. This only works if you don't run out of ability spheres, though.

And DO make sure you level Yuna. Her summons are the most powerful abilities you have, and summon stats are based on Yuna's stats. This also makes Yuna the best choice for empty spot filling spheres most of the time.


ALSO: Unless you really love ridiculous grinding and power gaming I wouldn't bother teaching everyone steal/use. It's far far far from necessary and I don't know about you but using steal with every single character in every single fight is just kind of aggravating to me. Same goes for leveling every character, too, but there are more prescient reasons to not do that, at least at first.

Basically, though, I would honestly just play it casually. IT IS NOT A HARD GAME. All the power gaming advice above, from both me and others, is entirely unnecessary so don't even bother unless you really want to.

As for blitzball, it's not bad if you learn how to play. Tips: DO LEARN JECHT SHOT. Even if you never ever plan on playing. Not because of Wakka (because fuck wakka, the only point to keeping him is if you feel like power gaming and breaking the game with his ultimate weapon/limit), but because there is one game the computer MAKES you play. You will NEED Jecht shot to have a chance in hell at it, and you will feel really bad if you lose.

Also: The aurochs are basically the best blitzball players. They seem to suck because they all start at level one and you're up against level 5 etc. teams straight off, but they have very well rounded stats and some of the absolute best level progression. Other players have much more specialized stats that can be obnoxious, like guados and their super passes that are more or less impossible to stop, or the untackleability of the ronso, but the original team is more or less your best bet for a well balanced team once you get them some levels.

I've won a few leagues on my most recent play through and have, literally, not lost a single game using only the original Auroch team. Just make sure you have money to rehire them, because their contracts do eventually expire.


OHhh, and on combat. Turn order--pay attention to this when you're choosing skills/spells/abilities. The turn order will readjust itself to predict what will happen if you use that ability. So you can see if using haste on your character now will let you go once more before the opponent, or how useful a delay attack/buster would be at this point.

Which is great if say... you have Yuna out and someone as low hp. You can check to see if it's possible to get Yuna to go before the enemy before committing to trying it, and therefore know if you're better off dealing damage with your other characters and having Yuna cure the hurt person, or if you're better off using items to keep them alive until Yuna can drop the real heals.

It's incredibly useful if you bother learning how to use it.

Seriously, what was up with that.
 

The problem with not using Kimahri is that there's a solo fight with him later on in the game, and while it is scaled to his level it will really fuck you over if you haven't used him at all. Oh, and have you left Besaid on the boat yet? Because what was said earlier about the dog in Besaid village was kinda misleading. It has something really important in it's mouth, and you can only get it after you're supposed to be heading to the boat to leave the island, but before you actually get on the boat. If you get on the boat, you can't get it until really late in the game when it's not nearly as useful. And no, the dialogue never gets any better.

EDIT: And if you want to learn Jecht Shot for blitzball (and if you play blitzball or plan to play blitzball, then you should), there's only one possible chance to get it. At one point, you'll end up playing a little minigame while Tidus screws around with a blitzball. Playing is mandatory, but you can fail and you don't get another chance. If you win, you get Jecht Shot, which is the second best blitzball technique, and is required for learning the best one.

Speaking of Yojimbo, he is the best Aeon, although he's tricky to use. He is also, however, completely optional and therefore quite possible to miss, though you can always go back and get him later. And you have to pay him. But he's worth it, because one of his attacks will kill anything in the game in a single hit. Anything. Including the Super Secret Bonus Boss.

compare FF X to XII and even X-2 and yeah it is gonna be crappy, but when you take into consideration how old it is and how far the games have progressed, then it is still decent.

That said Khimari sucks and I loathe him.

I didn't think the voice acting was bad, especially since the whole "HAHAHAHAHA" was meant to be forced.

It's actually very easy to max 3 characters if you spend your time farming for the monster arena, at least in the way it won't bore you 12 ways to Sunday.

You will have to level Wakka in the game for parts of the main story later on, due to fighting underwater bosses, and a couple bonus bosses, too.

But yeah, blearrrgh Blitzball. It'd be a better game if teams didn't constantly show up higher level than my team.

Also, NEVER go after unlocking Onion Knight, Lulu's +1 doll. The damn thing requires you to dodge an assload of lightning bolts. In a row.

200 Lightning bolts, in fact. And you can't screw up even once. Or get hit by lightning between getting 200 and getting the doll. And if you push X too often then the anti-mash kicks in and you get hit automatically.

Bahamut, the Magus Sisters and Anima start out able to break the limit, I think. Valefor needs Yuna's weapon. Yojimbo needs Auron(although Zanmato kills anything in one hit without damage numbers anyway). Shiva needs Lulu. And I think Ifrit needs Wakka, although I'm not sure about that one. And Ixion needs Kimahri.

Noncon, about Rikku: When you get her again, she seems awful. She isn't leveled, she has crap damage, and she doesn't have any spells or anything. But she's really, really useful and levels up to the party average really fast. Use her. And her Overdrive is probably the best in the game. Or at least the most versatile. Plus, she can steal and throw grenades at people, and that's always good.

I always use everyone cause it takes a few extra seconds to switch out a character and guard or attack or something and there are fights where you are shoehorned with specific characters. All the underwater battles for instance: You will always have Tidus, Rikku, and Wakka. No one else can swim apparently. Khimari has his own solo fight (Which you can learn all of his overdrives from if you just spam lancet), and not to mention sometimes you just have to switch out a character who is low on HP.

I wish I could help, but due to crappy emulation (the game's slow as hell, and sound's rather messed up too) I'm very close to the start. only got past the first actual battle!

Hello I'm every Final Fantasy game before 11/12. I believe we've met?

I'm guessing they know that. Doing it realistically would make the Al-Bhed primers impossible.

If Emily is voiced by Tara Strong, then yes. Also she is the voice for every-fucking-body ever.

Rikku is absolutely necessary to beat the game if you run from every nonforced battle(man I loved getting flee as early as it gave it to you). Rikku's overdrive is one of the most easily accessible things to break the game:o.

I never would of beat a few bosses without Sunburst and then later Trio of 9999. Sure, you have to go out of your way to do a few minigames to get the items to mix.

Ah, Trio of 9999. I love that one. In my first playthrough I got 30 Wings of Discovery or whatever they're called from that Chocobo race. I'd been stuck on Flux(that cheap bastard) for like a month. Got the Wings, mixed trio of 9999 and took him out in under a minute.

yeah, mix is broken. Using it in FF5 is how I know.

But not certainly.
 

I'm used to my fancy jRPGs with my movable cameras. Is that really so wrong?

Probably!

I never used Kimahri. At all. My party was Tidus, Yuna and Auron, simply because I had their ultimate weapons powered with ease. Although finishing a race in negative time for Tidus was a bit completely silly. The problematic part for the optional bosses is that, even if you get everything in the sphere grid, there's a lot that you can't possibly kill, so what do you do? You farm some hard-to-get spheres to erase every sphere in the sphere grid that isn't the best (+4 to a stat, don't remember how much HP/MP is the best ) and substitute them for other hard-to-get spheres that are the best. It takes a LONG time but you'll end up with maxed everything but MP.

Edit: Also, Bahamut is totally cool. He's like a badass bodyguard dragon or something. 'Course, for pretty much anything in the late game you'll just use the Magus Sisters. 15 hits of 99999 and all that.

Oh the graphics/ voice acting:

Yeah I mean this game is now nearly a decade old. Games just don't age well unless you know going in that you're dealing with sprites and even then most people can only tolerate SNES era graphics. That said I think in this context that FFX is still a pretty and pretty amazing game. I lol'd plenty at the voice acting but by the end it somehow seems alright and the story more than makes up for it.

Blitzball is super fun. I started a file just to play Blitzball. You can even recrute Blitzball players of all races throughout the world into your team eventually. You also basically play Blitzball via any save point whenever you want. Blitzball Blitzball Blitzball.

so, any advice on my emulation problem?

Not much.

Nope, but it shouldn't really be that surprising. :3 Maybe I just don't play enough fancy jRPGs with movable camera that it's not standard issue to me. XD

Running PS2 emulators on anything other than a supercomputer is a fools dream. Esspecially with a game like FFX. I don't know enough to say it's impossible but I ran a perfect PS2 emulator install, started it up and tried to play straight off the FFX disc and got nowhere. Also Krylo is right. Spend 60 bucks and find a sale somewheres. I just grabbed a bunch of great PS2 titles for $5 a pop.

I don't have teh console so that's not an option.

It actually may have been FFIX but I can't confirm that.
 

I wasn't so much surprised so much as frustrated. All these corners and turns that I can't get good views of and it makes me feel like there is a treasure chest hiding there. I honestly can't remember the last time I played a 3D jRPG without a movable camera.

Mow some lawns? There's just not a lot of reason to emulate PS2 games since you'd basically spend more money and/or an equivilant amount of value in the form of time spent and still end up with an inferior product, than if you would fork-up $100 for a used PS2 and like 4 Games. Also emulation is bad and we don't talk about it.

Oh yeah that's gonna drive you nuts. There is the constant lingering paranoia that behind every unseen corner is a wonderful treasure that you have to get NOW or it won't be there later! I can't decide if finding nothing or finding '5 Gil' is worse.

It's actually pretty good now for slightly obsolete computers(stuff thats a few years old). Heck, the leading emu was built specifically for FFX, as thats what they were aiming to emulate. I've played FFXII on it(since my ps2 died) and my computer isn't a total behemoth(Q6600, 4 gigs of ram, 2x9600gt's sli'd... but Ive run it outside of using SLI and for a while was only at 2 gigs of ram). If your computer is ancient, or just doesnt have dual core or an ok gfx card, then dont try to emulate on your computer...go buy a ps2, cuz it's cheaper than upgrading your computer to play it.

That said, the emu still has problems(Gitaroo Man is slow and it's my favorite game in my library...so I ended up buying a ps2 again) and I still suggest buying a ps2. They are hella cheap.

You crazy people. Gauntlet Legends on the Nintendo 64 is still impossible to emulate. And, about the camera: Don't worry, there aren't many missables and the ones that are, aren't important. Unless on the International Version...

Much like FFXIII, FFX was a straight line. Not just the dungeons, if FFXIII has some other thing that's not a straight line. The entirety of FFX is a straight line, with an extremely basic rock-paper-scissors combat apparatus, summons which cause 9999999999 damage so it's pretty hard to lose, and if you grind even a little you can complete the game with little trouble. I only died twice in FFX, the first time when you first fight Sin and the second time when you fight Seymour on that Ronso mountain thingy. Other than that it was easy for the main quest, there's really no difficulty entailed in it whatever.

Also the ultimate weapons are somewhat pointless because 1. ultimate is entirely subjective, since I never bothered to get most of them and was still Doublecasting Ultima for 1 MP with Yuna and Luna and killing monsters instantly with Auron's petrifying sword thingy, when I wasn't having Tidus attack five times in a row through the use of haste and slow and cheer, etc. FFX is broken and overkill is easy, the game is easy, all the extra stuff seemed superfluous for some reason, possibly due to the game being a straight line until it killed my will to care about anything other than what is next in progression to beat the game. In the absence of non-linearity for a great length of time I'm not about to start caring suddenly when it shows up again.

*SPOILERS*Here I complain some more on this page.*SPOILERS*

can anything be more broken than the multiple hit limits in FF7 and 8? Other than any combo in 5 or 6 that requires Quick and a powerful attack (you can only summon Bahamut once per battle in 6 and have Ultima. 5 lacks Ultima but you can summon Bahamut repeatedly.)

It takes a long time to get that stuff working in those games due to the high amounts of grinding, and personally I never did most of it the first couple of times through. In FFV it takes a lot of work to get a summoner with doublecast so you can doublecast Bahamut. Also in FFV Advance they added in an extra dungeon that even with fully broken characters was a challenge, but that wasn't in the original so I suppose it doesn't count.

In FFVI you have to know how to get Raiden to get Quick, and it takes a long time to get Quick for a character due to the learning rate, and so on and so forth.

FFX just sort of puts everything out there, and Tidus' abilities for one were very easy to abuse. In any case I probably have a double-standard about something being "broken" because there were so many other aspects of the game I disliked at the time. Almost every game can be broken at some point or other but FFX just sort of broke itself with the summoning system, whereas with other games the player has to exploit the game design.

EDIT: Also you won't be hearin' me defending FF7 and 8, though I don't remember the multiple hits in FF7.

Also didn't FFX have this dungeon where like every random encounter in it was all a boss fight? Yeah that's pretty much there for the obsessives.

Also also the superweapons for everyone are stupid tedious/hard. I didn't even bother.

This and also I think everything in FFX - literally everything - has been rendered. I remember a cutscene where the camera's fixed and then, for some reason, it changes angle to point at the exact other side of the room, and it's all rendered. There's absolutely no reason not to include a free-look or first-person look button. It honestly surprised me to when my then-roommate and I split the game up.

Having said thus, I dunno, it was alright. For some reason we had a huge problem on the second Seymore fight. Grinded a bit, unleashed a fuckton of summons, and he died.

That'd be your Omnislash and your Knights of the Round. And a couple others as well, but those two are the worst. As for FFX, not a lot of multi-hit attacks, but the damage cap is 99999 so it balances out. You kinda need the extra damage though, especially if you have the International version and plan on fighting Penance. Penance is a nasty son of a bitch. Not too many Story bosses to watch out for, though. I had trouble with that sinspawn in Operation Mi'hen my first time through, but beat him no problem the second time. Evrae got me a few times as well, but that was because I was underleveled. I had to use Trio of 9999 to beat Flux first time through, but I was, again, pathetically underleveled. Flux is tricky even if you're at a decent level, though. Yunalesca(note: Noncon, if you don't want a big chunk of story spoiled, don't highlight that) was awful, final form had me stuck for about a week. Other than those, though, the story bosses were basically pushovers until the second last boss, who was pretty hard.

Meh, I don't know why people think the summons were overpowered. The only thing I ever used them for where meat shields, I considered their damage a bonus.

Heck, both my run from everything play through and the one where I pwned all the optional bosses, that was their only use to me. Oh no, the boss is going to one hit me...summon...summon dies, I continue to fight.

For some strange reason every time I fought Seymour was this tedious uphill battle that made me gnash my teeth, especially when he goes all one winged angel and jumped you on the side of a freaking mountain.

Magus Sisters, 15x99999. Pretty kickass, man. And FFX wasn't hard, at least not the normal version. Don't know what you guys are talking about getting your asses kicked. The only thing that ever gave me trouble before the monster arena was the chocobo race, because, COME ON.

I was referring to FF7's ultimate summon for that game. I don't really like it THAT much myself.
8 has a surprising amoutn of potential 9999 breaking limits, AND EVNE THE OCCASIONAL SINGLE ATTACK BREAKS THAT DAMAGE LIMIT1

Also, about quick in FF6? every enemy in the desert below Maranda gives 5 or 10 AP. That's easy QUick, easy Ultiam, easy....well, every spell.

Actually the single toughest attack when you twink is Barret's Ungermax, which can do 18 hits of 9999.

He can also use the Death Penalty glitch to haxkill anyone in one shot, so Barret is DA BEST.

But yeah Magus Sisters and THE SPOILER AEON are hax enough. Spoiler is totally easier to use if you aren't a twiiiiink.

I'm pretty sure Ungermax can't do max damage on every hit. If it could, then the Best attack would, I think, be Highwind, which has like 20 attacks.

This is one of those times where archiving has advantages.
 

As for magus sisters, they are meant to be hax seeing as though they were the last optional summon. That being said they were nearly impossible to get on a low level run and useless on one you do all the optional bosses on. Abusing quick hit means your characters do far more damage between monster turns, which relegated all summons to meat shield mode.

The game can be surprisingly hard if you are under leveled. Heck, the first final boss is impossible if you don't use any spheres and don't modify weapons or grab aurons ultimate.

Not quite all summons. Yojimbo still has the most powerful attack in the game, Zanmato, which will kill anything in a single hit without damage numbers. And nothing's immune to it, not even Penance. It's both extremely expensive and extremely cheap.


And it's actually pretty easy to end up underleveled because of the way the Sphere Grid works. If you run out of a particular type of Sphere, and end up on a Node in the Grid that requires it, it's tempting to just skip it and keep going. But you really, really shouldn't, especially if it's an Ability. So you can end up in a situation where you've level grinded for hours and have characters who are far more powerful than seems necessary, but they've all got, say, awful Magic Resistance becuase you ran out of the relevant Sphere and chose to press ahead anyway. This means that you'll smash your way through a chunk of the game easily, then run into a Magic Using Boss who wipes out your whole party with a couple of spells.

How in the hell do you run out of spheres?? You get like 2-3 of each every battle, you can almost never drop below 90 of each type.

Well, If you try to level up every character then you'll run out of them surprisingly fast. There usually won't be an enemy for every kind of Sphere in one area. If you're keeping 7people at the same level then you will eventually run out of a particular Sphere(probably Ability).

From the beginning of the game through to the thunder plains the only enemies that drop ability spheres are the fish in the VERY beginning at random, and the one rarest (and toughest so over kills are pretty rare) enemy on the Mi'hen highroad. In the thunder plains you get another chance to get a few from larva, which are the second rarest enemy THERE, and then in Macalania woods there's a bunch of enemies that drop ability spheres.

However, that means you move through Besaid, Kilika, Luca, The Highroad, Operation Mi'hen, Djose Temple, the Moonflow and Guadosalam while suffering from Ability Sphere Starvation, unless you ground them like a motherfucker in the beginning or on the highroad (where I didn't grind at all in my latest play through and didn't see even ONE drop, I only even know they are there because I checked a guide on where to get them when my entire party was unable to level anymore after operation Mi'hen).

Also, considering the fact that they only appear in certain locations and from certain enemies until you can acquire distillers (which isn't until after you acquire the Airship, and the distillers are, thus, useless), customizing equipment/teaching Aeons abilities that use the spheres can cause you to run out and be unable to restock as quickly as you would like.

It is.

In the original you have to buy distillers from Rin, and he doesn't stock them until you meet him on the airship, in the international you can pick up a character ability to do it, if I remember right.

Unless it's only the fish from the hanging out with Riku part then HRNNNNNNGH
 

Hanging out with Rikku and the pond with Wakka are the same fish. But yeah, no you can't hop back in.

Goddammit, Yuna.
 

I blame Yuna and all her NulElec/NulBlaze/NulAbilitySpheres abilities.

I want to say they sound extremely useless and like something I'd never use, but I know that the moment I say that someone will come in with how they're the best abilities in the game if you use them in such and such way or something...

Ehhh... They're pretty useful but only very situationally, so.

You mostly get Ability Spheres from Bosses until you get the Airship. If you're using Lulu and Yuna, they will eat Ability Spheres like candy because their magic is found in groups of 4 and 6, and every one needs an ability sphere. Tidus and Wakka use up quite a few as well, with all their different attacks. Auron and Rikku only use up a couple, because Auron's only got his various Breaks and I can only remember Rikku having like 5 abilities in her whole path. Kimahri sucks and is only useful for getting Ultima and then using a Black Magic Sphere to teach it to Lulu or Yuna. So, depending on your main party, you might never run into supply problems or you might treat every Ability Sphere like a Gift From God.

Nope, they're pretty useless. I mean, they're good in those two boss fights with (Big 'Ol Spoilers) Seymour where he has a predictable pattern of Elemental spells, but there's another Spell you get later called NulAll(or maybe it's from an item, I forget. But it's still pretty easy to get if you need it), and that basically makes the other Nuls totally useless.

It must be then, because I have the PAL version and the only time ability spheres are rare is pre-Kilika. As soon as you get there they start dropping by the barrel full.


As for the Nuls, yeah they're mostly only massively useful on certain boss battles later on, like that Gel thing in Macalania and Seymour of course, though Rikkus Ultra Nulall is more useful seeing as it comes with a load of extra buffs as well. Still I found myself using the originals even right up to the end of the game and there's probably a few more powerful non-boss enemies that if you're under-levelled against you might find them useful for, like Dark Flans.

Oh and while I remember Non; when you first encounter a Basilisk, make sure you lancet it with Kimahri to learn his most useful overdrive. Even if everyone else, including you, finds Kimahri shit, that skill will be enough to redeem him. Particularly when you later use it against a couple of specific Guado bodyguards later on who like to auto-heal every time you try and hit them and won't fucking die. It's also great as a giant "Fuck You" to any other enemies you can't be arsed to fight, because it's second only to Zanmato in terms of how quickly it will kill everything in one hit.

Ok, Yojimbo, when you know how to exploit his math is amazing. However, without knowing how to handle the guy he's worthless other than randomly doing zanmato. At the time I played both playthroughs I knew nothing of the calculations>.< I do now and if I were to play again Id exploit him like hell.

EDIT: +in the NA version of the game...even at max compatability, vs a hard boss with full overdrive, youd have to pay at least 65536 gil to get a 2% chance to do zanmato. Hell even at the max payment(536870912 gil) means a 17% chance. EU version is far easier to assure zanmato(which is what Id play if I played it again)...and he would never use zanmato as a free attack vs anything other than fodder. He was worthless overall in the NA version.

True but those sand worms basically butcher your characters if you don't have a nullifying piece of equipment on, and because I never bothered with the Coliseum much I only had like, three Thunder Shields so it took me more time to get Quick on all the characters. Plus if you don't know how to get Raiden then technically you aren't going to learn Quick, but FF6 had FAQS even back in the day so there's not a lot of in-game obstacles to finding the means to overpower your characters...

Anyway, FF6 was still harder than FF10, I've died many more times in FF6 than in FF10, mainly because if you don't have the right equipment on to fight say one of the dragons you'll probably die early on in the World of Ruin. But yeah it's not like FF6 is really hard, it's just that FF10 seemed so easy.

have you tried confuse or instant death on the slagworms? both statuses work.

Also, somewhat interestingly, the sprite is a little messed up when you're trying to slow the slagworm. Or it is in the GBA version at least.

It's just not any fun is all.
 

If you use manual control in conjunction with the radar it works pretty well. And please please please tell me you're using the Jecht shot.

Wasn't a particularly rewarding victory.
 

I used it the one time I could, since it didn't let me change over until Halftime and used up so much health that it didn't have time to regenerate before they made me bring Wakka out.

I won this time though so yay.

You're at the tournament in Luca? The match against the Goers is pretty hard, but I kept doing it until I won because everyone looks so disappointed otherwise. Funnily enough, in later optional Blitzball the Goers are absolutely the worst team and the Al Bhed Psyches are stupidly powerful.

Ungarmax can- Barrett's attack power can actually overflow and kill anything in one shot if you bother to stick enough mastered materia in his weapon. The reason it's the best is it's animation is short and it hits a lot. Highwind takes foreeeeeeever because it has a longer animation while you can use like thirty ungarmaxes for each one Highwind.

Underwater Breathing Materia, since that one didn't get mastered iirc? (and thus could stack AP indefinately). Really been ages since i played that game.

About X, I liked the Null spells, sure they're situational, but in those situations, they do their job quite decently.

His voice is damnably irritating.
 

You have to give the game like 3 points of age leeway, video game voice acting was terrible back then, and at the time FF10 was like the epitome of good voice acting in video games.

Just look at it as a testament to how far we have come.

Wut? Baldur's Gate 2 came out a year or two before it. Also Metal Gear Solid was out long before it and MGS2 was the same year. So yeah it wasn't terrible by the standards of the day, but it's VA was still definitely mediocre.

I meant more for par with jRPGs. Still you have a point.

Then why did I jump off the bridge?
 

Voice acting doesn't really get excused for sucking just cause it's old.

This. Good voice acting in games is pretty rare actually.

You have to remember that this was the first game with facial animations of this level. Add to it was the first time a game company had to fit english localization onto something completely lip synced to japanese dialog. The sheer amount of work the localization team had to do was a first of it's time. I blame that for a lot of the subpar voice acting and script.

The animation at the time was amazing since it was the first time they animated the faces in a way other than changing textures.

That's also the reason why they all say "Okay" like five times faster than they should.

Nah it isn't, it's just that games originating in Japan end up half-assing translation frequently for reasons Yumil mentioned as well as simple laziness. Western RPGs, shooters, action games, etc don't have that problem, whereas pre-MGS Konami and jRPGs do.

I do have to wonder if voice acting in Japan for games like Fallout 3 and Dragon Age is all awkward and screwed up...