Final Fantasy X (The Longest Journey)

[Kim]

So, I'm about a decade late to the party, but I figured I should probably get playing FFX out of the way before FFXIII came out, so I could decide whether FFXIII being more like X than XII was a legitimate reason to be disinterested.

As NPF members, it is your solemn duty to give me tips for where to look for cool/funny stuff, how to get awesome optional stuff, and so on. And also probably to provide decent counter-arguments to me making fun of the game, which is done mostly just for fun, and not me being any kind of serious.

The game starts off with a scene from later on in the game set to really pretty piano music. It is at this point that we learn our first thing about this game. You can't skip the cutscenes. After a piercing glare from me, and a single line of dialogue from Tidus, we go to the real beginning of our tale... The Future. You know it's The Future because everything is neon and nobody has any fashion sense, including Tidus who decided the best thing to compliment his yellow, boy band half-shirt would be half a pair of pants with suspenders attached.

It isn't long before we learn the second interesting fact about The Future, and that's that everybody suffers from some sort throat condition, as shown through the universally terrible voices all across the board. Apparently this condition is more prevalent amongst the poor, as Tidus, a goddamn pimp who be rollin' in the moneys and the honeys, doesn't have quite as awful a voice.

After signing everyone's soccer balls, a trio of young boys ask Tidus to teach them how to blitz. Tidus gives a tentative "blitzing" date of that night. I don't know what blitzing is, so I'm left with the assumption that Tidus is some sort of creepy pedophile and they are his harem. Unfortunately for them, Tidus' boyfriend says that he can't tonight, for reasons unexplained. I have to assume the small, cloaked child is Tidus boyfriend, because no other explanation for who he is is given, yet Tidus does what he's told at a moments notice.

Tidus starts running down the road, which is occupied by people but no cars, and an announcer talks about some sports dude named Jecht. I thought that the announcer was announcing stuff at the sports dome, but he stopped talking the moment Tidus got there and was swarmed by pretty girls, so I guess not. After escaping the crowd of pretty girls, because Tidus just doesn't swing that way, he enters the sports dome, which is built around a giant water balloon, minus the balloon. Cue cutscene.

Apparently they play some form of soccer/football in this aquasphere, and I can't help but think that this is a very dangerous sport, since nothing keeps you inside the sphere. Proving my assumption, we see someone get knocked out into the crowd. Apparently spectating isn't safe either.

Rob Zombie is singing off-screen during the whole competition, and we cut to an old man with a broken arm and a jug of booze. He's standing on the ledge of some building, but we don't really know why. Before a decent reason can be given, Water Balloon's older brother comes out of nowhere to unleash vengeance upon mankind for trapping and using its sibling in the name of some silly sport. I don't know what Big Balloon is, but apparently he fires lasers and pod people, so he is not to be trifled with.

As the sports dome explodes, Tidus falls. Maybe I blinked when it happened, but I don't think we ever see how he survives the fall. He just does. Running outside he meets Old Man, who is apparently named Auron. Auron is Tidus' ex-boyfriend, I guess. Further clarifying who's who, Auron tells us that Big Balloon is called Sin by... someone...

Tidus current boyfriend shows up, freezing time because apparently he can do that. He tells Tidus not to cry, further cementing the blondie into the yaoi fanfic role of uke, before disappearing mysteriously. Tidus is largely unfazed by this turn of events, and joins Jecht in a charge towards Sin.

Pod people attack and Jecht gives Tidus a sword. Tidus wobbles side to side like a drunk struggling to hold it aloft with both hands, before Auron says the sword belonged to Jecht, who it turns out is Tidus' father. Auron asks Tidus if he can use the sword, at which point Tidus gains the strength of not one Who but ten and can now wield the sword one-handed with relative ease.

Combat happens, which is standard turn-based stuff, but you at least know the order so that's kind of nice. There are mini-cutscenes between the battles at this part, and you can't even pause those ones which is kind of a pain. The combat seems like it needs to steal the Auto/Rush button from the SMT games because it feels kinda slow and not very dynamic. Also, there are limit breaks and you have to do some sort of mini-game to do them like Simon Says or pressing X when the line is in the gray area. Luckily, I'm "GREAT" at it.

TL;DR - I don't hate it yet!

[EVILNess]

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

[The Artist Formerly Known as Hawk]

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.

[greed]

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.

[Kim]

I assume I'm playing the American version because I'm an American and I bought it in Americaland.

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Goddammit why can't I move the cameraaaaaaaaa?!

I think it's kinda nifty that the main character is just pretending to have amnesia, instead of actually having amnesia. It's like the Anti-Cloud.

I feel for him on the bitching about being cold thing, because mild hypothermia is a bitch, but I really don't like the semi-constant narration.

Regarding the Al-Bhed language: Language doesn't work like that... *shakes head*

Serious Question: Is Rikku voiced by the same lady who voices Emily Elizabeth in the Clifford the Big Red Dog cartoon?

So far we've got a 50/50 on shitty character designs. Tidus, Wakka, and Lulu have really dumb lookin' character designs. Auron's isn't bad, and it's at least better than the one for Vincent in FF7. The furry dude might not have a bad one, but I haven't gotten a reasonable look at it yet. Yuna's is actually the best one in the entire game. The whole shrine maiden look for being a summoner really works, and my only complaint is that outside of cinematic sequences the sash looks too big in the back.

Sphere grid isn't too bad. I haven't seen enough of it to really decide how I feel about it, though.

Combat for regular battles hasn't progressed beyond press X repeatedly and don't even both changing targets, so I'm really hurtin' for a Rush button right now.

Lastly, the first summon just looks dumb. I hope the others are better.

EDIT: I love and hate Lulu's victory pose. It's so shamelessly "Look at my boobies see how they jiggle" that I can't really take it seriously, and the only entertainment I get from it is how stupid it is.

[Krylo]

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.

[Kim]

Couple questions real quick like:

1. I take it what I think are jerky animations, terrible facial expressions, and even worse voice acting were pretty par or even better than normal for when this came out?

2. Do buffs stack, how high can they stack, and how long do they last? Basically, I'm wondering if there's any point to having Tidus spam cheer during a boss fight or if once is all I should do.

3. Does the dialogue between Tidus and Yuna ever improve beyond "The wind... feels nice." *both bust into laughter for no apparent reason*


Also, I will go out of my way to say that the music is fucking gorgeous.

[Amake]

Voice acting was pretty new, at least. I wish you could turn it off. Buffs like Cheer stack five times until the end of the fight, and all they give is +1 to a stat. Those stats go up to 255 you know, and you're going to want to max all of them if you're going after the optimal bosses, the Dark Aeons and those guys.

The last and greatest of them, if memory serves, has 255 in all stats except Speed which is 250; 12 million hit points, outrageous seven-digit strong autocast Regen spells and two respawning helpers which, if both are alive at the same time, can end the game in one stroke. Fun times.

Leveling just the three or four best characters to max take geological ages by the way, even if you're cheating. (That's Yuna, Wakka and Tidus simply because their strongest attacks have 16, 12 and 9 strikes respectively, with Rikku's utility placing her at a distant fourth. Damage is king, boring but true. It's worth considering leveling Auron because he has an attack with two strikes.)

And yeah, as I recall Tidus and Yuna have some pretty deep stuff happening between them. Though it may be mostly gestures, glances and underwater dances. It's probably best to ignore the words coming out of their mouths.

In closing, I'll second that the Aurochs are the best Blitzball team, but not for the above reasons. They're by far the cheapest to keep around, and you need a team of four polygon bodies while Tidus grabs the ball, beats up the defensive line with Jecht shot, scores and repeats upwards of 30 times per game.

[Dauntasa]

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.

[Amake]

First time I played the game I spent like five minutes leveling Khimari, and beat his solo fight on the second try. It'll probably take a lot less than that if you stop by GameFAQs. . .

They have a lot of interesting stuff there about the game, come to think of it. Formulas for Yojimbo that no mere mortal could figure out and such. (When he asks, tell him you need him to defeat the greatest enemies. Then fight with him a lot and never let him die to build the loyalty meter the game doesn't give you any clue exists. Not that you want to actually use him to breeze through the game or anything, that's so unsporting, it's much more fun to put in a thousand man-hours to level up your guys right? But it's fun to have the option. Oh and the money you pay him counts in binary numbers, so make it 1024 gil to get twice the effect of 1023 and so on.)