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[Guileless]

It was the end of an era.

 

[Kev Kev]

UPDATE 15

BEVELLE - VIA PURIFICO

-found a few chests, used the transport things that you step on, but I couldn’t figure out if they took me to secret/hidden areas. oh well, fought the summoner and moved on
-controlling tidus and co now
-Leviathan! Yesssssss
-oops, never mind that’s a zombie, not leviathan lol
-took him down easy with two x potions... opened both gates first tho, not sure if I was supposed to do that? I saw I passed a couple chests on the way, hopefully I can go back.
-annnnnd looks like I missed the chests man I hate how bad this game is at foreshadowing when you’re going to be moving on to the next area or not. Oh wel, moving on....
-and Seymour is taking his villainy to the next level. This mfer is psycho... I hated his VA at first, but now he’s starting to fit right in. Self absorbed, holier than thou, psycho path who thinks everything should be dead, and talks down to everyone as if they are lesser beings. Whacko... but the VA fits perfectly
-Tidus running away from Seymours new form, “AAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!” Lmao
-O’aka randomly shows up lol. Ok let’s see if he’s got anything good!
-great place to grind right before Seymour fight. Yuna needs to catch up, plus I can steal a bunch of stuff from these enemies
-Bahamut is beast af!!!
-picked off the Use and Steal ability for Yuna.
I find myself trying to find a use for her and one in a while come up with nothing for her to do, having steal to use and collect more items could help alleviate my weapon customization complaint from earlier. Either way it’s so cool you can pick up these extra abilities that bleed into other characters sphere grids.
Love this leveling system! Really clever, fun, it’s even aesthetically pleasing! And it works great. Cant wait to have kimahri leveled up to a mobster magic user as well.
-Loaded up all my characters and aeons with overdrive and took Seymour out no problem.

MACALANIA WOODS

-awesome I love this area! Must mean I’m close to the call lands, not sure tho.
-Yuna and tidus scene is cheeeeeeesy lol but there are some nice parts. And I really like this song during the make out cut scene. Also, it it implied that they banged here? Lol, there’s this cut scene with them floating around and embracing each other and I’m pretty sure that’s the PG-13 way of saying tidus got at that thing lol
-looks like kimahri was being a peeping Tom what a creepo

CALM LANDS

-yes my favorite area in the game. Time to grind and explore. I think I’m going to be here for a while
-correct me if I’m wrong, but this is a little more than halfway through the game correct? Excluding side quests and 100%ing of course. Just asking strictly story wise
-lots of goodies to steal from these fiends. I’m going to enjoy grinding in this place
-just discovered that mug will miss sometimes, just like any regular physical attack, but steal will almost always work (although it can kiss sometimes as well, but it’s rare)
-the ridiculous amount of items it takes to customize weapons
-just found the capture fiend “mini game”. Love stuff like this! Gonna take even more time through here capturing all the fiends
-raising aeons attributes is a great idea. I can actually do something with these spheres

Gonna spend more time in calm lands, perhaps finish the fiend capture side quest.

 

[sublimit]

-correct me if I’m wrong, but this is a little more than halfway through the game correct? Excluding side quests and 100%ing of course. Just asking strictly story wise

You're correct. But the sidequests and making your characters Uber is half the fun of FFX.

 

[marquimvfs]

So, the wedding is half the main story?

 

[SkylineRKR]

So, the wedding is half the main story?

I think thats about 70%

Half the main story is generally considered to be the Desert towards Home.

 

[sublimit]

So, the wedding is half the main story?

I think thats about 70%

Half the main story is generally considered to be the Desert towards Home.

Hmm maybe i'm wrong but i think the desert is less than halfway through.The wedding is more likely to be around the halfway point. Especially if you add Omega ruins which although it's an optional area it's also kinda obligatory since it's the best grinding area for late/end game boss battles (excluding the Monster Arena).

 

[T_LVPL]

Wasted £60 on this back in 2001 (import), but got stuck on the final bosses, etc. Eventually completed it in 2018 on the PS4, starting again from scratch. Know it’s a fan favourite, and I understand that and accept it, but always hated the game. Don’t like the story, the art style, or the abysmal voice acting. The battle system is slow and rubbish. Wakka is the best character in battle and in the story, but you have to play Blitzball to keep him relevant and it’s so bad, I actually laughed during the tutorial at how silly the mini game is. It’s just laughably bad and I smile thinking about how terrible parts of the game are. It has that really soppy, girly main theme running through the entirety of the game and that’s annoying too.

All the pre release hype made the storyline sound amazing, it was a complete Catfish because the storyline turns out to have pretty much bugger all to do with saving the world from a big monster as soon as you get about 3 hours in. It also turns out countless people have beaten Sin before yet he just comes back again, rendering the whole thing pointless. Ive played most FFs and I fully know there’s millions of people who see this as the best one and better than FF7. But I am simply baffled by this and always will be. My brain simply can’t understand how anyone can think that, but I’ll leave it there.

 

[Kev Kev]

Wasted £60 on this back in 2001 (import), but got stuck on the final bosses, etc. Eventually completed it in 2018 on the PS4, starting again from scratch. Know it’s a fan favourite, and I understand that and accept it, but always hated the game. Don’t like the story, the art style, or the abysmal voice acting. The battle system is slow and rubbish. Wakka is the best character in battle and in the story, but you have to play Blitzball to keep him relevant and it’s so bad, I actually laughed during the tutorial at how silly the mini game is. It’s just laughably bad and I smile thinking about how terrible parts of the game are. It has that really soppy, girly main theme running through the entirety of the game and that’s annoying too.

All the pre release hype made the storyline sound amazing, it was a complete Catfish becayse the storyline is bugger all to do with saving the world from a big monster as soon as you get about 3 hours in. It also turns out countless people have beaten Sin before yet he just comes back again, rendering the whole thing pointless. Ive played most FFs and I fully know there’s millions of people who see this as the best one and better than FF7. But I am simply baffled by this and always will be. My brain simply can’t understand how anyone can think that, but I’ll leave it there.

i hear ya. everyones got different likes/dislikes. i think most polls ive seen people usually choose FF6 and FF7 as their favorite. 8, 9 and 10 vary between 3rd, 4th and 5th place (and i honestly want to say 10 usually winds up in 4th or 5th). so a lot of people agree at least on the idea that its not as good as 7. i think there is a lot to enjoy here tho, and its been worth the asking price so far. the updated graphics are gorgeous and the new music arrangements are better than the originals. but a lot of your complaints are valid imo, and not much else to say except, its not for you and hopefully you find enjoyment in future final fantasys.

 

[T_LVPL]

i hear ya. everyones got different likes/dislikes. i think most polls ive seen people usually choose FF6 and FF7 as their favorite. 8, 9 and 10 vary between 3rd, 4th and 5th place (and i honestly want to say 10 usually winds up in 4th or 5th). so a lot of people agree at least on the idea that its not as good as 7. i think there is a lot to enjoy here tho, and its been worth the asking price so far. the updated graphics are gorgeous and the new music arrangements are better than the originals. but a lot of your complaints are valid imo, and not much else to say except, its not for you and hopefully you find enjoyment in future final fantasys.

Yeah agree with a lot of that except, regrettably, having been around for the entirety of that 20 years since release I usually see FFX as talked about as the best one along with FF7. My theory is that the PS2 had far more owners than the PS1, and huge numbers of people played FFX first, so they hold it on a pedestal despite it not being very good. It is outrageous how highly rated it is. It’s the dictionary definition of an overrated thing.

FF13 is the far better of the 2. Better story, better voice acting, better characters, similar (but better) art style, similar game design, similar (but far better) girly theme tune running through the game but a ridiculously quick and brilliant battle system which makes the game really addictive to play. Hilarious how one is held as a masterpiece and the other is seen as a joke. Like I said, its baffling!

 

[sublimit]

Yeah agree with a lot of that except, regrettably, having been around for the entirety of that 20 years since release I usually see FFX as talked about as the best one along with FF7. My theory is that the PS2 had far more owners than the PS1, and huge numbers of people played FFX first, so they hold it on a pedestal despite it not being very good. It is outrageous how highly rated it is. It’s the dictionary definition of an overrated thing.

FF13 is the far better of the 2. Better story, better voice acting, better characters, similar (but better) art style, similar game design, similar (but far better) girly theme tune running through the game but a ridiculously quick and brilliant battle system which makes the game really addictive to play. Hilarious how one is held as a masterpiece and the other is seen as a joke. Like I said, its baffling!

Actually my first FF was FFVII but i've come to realize that my favorite is FFX even if i feel more nostalgic towards VII (or even IX for that matter).
As for reasons why people think this is the best there are plenty in this thread.But it's totally cool if you don't like it or even hate it.That's the great thing with this series,it offers so much variety it has something for everyone but that means that it also has games that many fans don't like.

 

[Ixion]

Wasted £60 on this back in 2001 (import), but got stuck on the final bosses, etc. Eventually completed it in 2018 on the PS4, starting again from scratch. Know it’s a fan favourite, and I understand that and accept it, but always hated the game. Don’t like the story, the art style, or the abysmal voice acting. The battle system is slow and rubbish. Wakka is the best character in battle and in the story, but you have to play Blitzball to keep him relevant and it’s so bad, I actually laughed during the tutorial at how silly the mini game is. It’s just laughably bad and I smile thinking about how terrible parts of the game are. It has that really soppy, girly main theme running through the entirety of the game and that’s annoying too.

All the pre release hype made the storyline sound amazing, it was a complete Catfish because the storyline turns out to have pretty much bugger all to do with saving the world from a big monster as soon as you get about 3 hours in. It also turns out countless people have beaten Sin before yet he just comes back again, rendering the whole thing pointless. Ive played most FFs and I fully know there’s millions of people who see this as the best one and better than FF7. But I am simply baffled by this and always will be. My brain simply can’t understand how anyone can think that, but I’ll leave it there.

Yeah agree with a lot of that except, regrettably, having been around for the entirety of that 20 years since release I usually see FFX as talked about as the best one along with FF7. My theory is that the PS2 had far more owners than the PS1, and huge numbers of people played FFX first, so they hold it on a pedestal despite it not being very good. It is outrageous how highly rated it is. It’s the dictionary definition of an overrated thing.

FF13 is the far better of the 2. Better story, better voice acting, better characters, similar (but better) art style, similar game design, similar (but far better) girly theme tune running through the game but a ridiculously quick and brilliant battle system which makes the game really addictive to play. Hilarious how one is held as a masterpiece and the other is seen as a joke. Like I said, its baffling!

Everything you said sounds like bizarro world to me, which I guess is the fun of Final Fantasy. Hopefully my responses will help make things clearer as to why FFX is rated so high.


-FFX battle system is slow while FF13's is fast? It's the exact opposite.

• In FFX your commands are instantly responsive, and then it proceeds to the next move instantly. You can go as fast or as slow as you want. Each move is also generally significant since you'll more often than not be killing an enemy or causing significant damage with each of your moves. The battles are both fast and snappy as hell, while also fully retaining strategy every step of the way.
• In FF13 the characters may be jumping around on-screen more, but your actual commands occur less frequently as its more about just occasionally rotating between presets. Also, it takes a fucking eternity to build up the stagger gauge in FF13, which makes battles slower. So in terms of the player controlling the battle, and the lengths of battles themselves, FF13 is far slower than FFX.

-You have to play Blitzaball to make Wakka relevant?

• You only need to play Blitzball to get Wakka's extra overdrives and his ultimate weapon, so definitely not needed for the main story at all. Only necessary for the elite endgame stuff (and even then none of that is really necessary). Also, I have to wonder if you were playing Blitzball with the wrong settings for you to pass it off so quickly. The game puts movement on auto-pilot by default and also uses an unintuitive camera by default. You need to change both of these for the game to be played properly.

-The story has nothing to do with saving the world from a big monster? What?

• The entire story and world revolves around this. There are many scenes throughout the game showing the big monster do big monster stuff with cutting edge visuals, including pivotal sections at the beginning, middle and finale of the game (which includes a climactic battle with him). Also, the entire point of the story is about BREAKING the cycle that you mentioned.....so that it's no longer pointless. For you to say this, it's almost like you got halfway through the story and then stopped.

FF13 has a better story than FFX, while FFX is also too girly?

• The vast majority of the dialogue in FF13 is trite melodrama. Anything world/plot related is hidden in the menus while in the actual game the main cast just pours out their hearts to each other via overly saccharine platitudes. THAT to me is girly and annoying. On the flip side, most of the dialogue in FFX centers on world-building for a world encapsulated by death (mostly from the aforementioned big monster) and the ways they try to cope with it, all with just a very light amount of romance. And that romance is done pretty well, with the climax of that sub-plot making for one of the most iconic ending scenes in gaming. Yeah, Tidus might look like Meg Ryan, but besides that I don't get what you're saying here.

FFX and FF13 have similar game design?

• In FF13, the entire game is literally just jogging forward to the next battle. That's the game design. Jog-battle-jog-battle-jog-battle-jog-battle. And maybe there's an occasional chest on the side. That's it. No exaggeration needed.
• In FFX, the jogging and fighting is accompanied with towns and cities, NPCs to talk to, temple puzzles, expansive mini-games, side-quests, etc, all while still being able to access the entire varied game-world with the airship, whereas in FF13 you can't go back anywhere. So there's a HUGE difference between the two game design approaches. FF13 is static, one-dimensional repetition. FFX is lively and varied.

 

[TheContact]

 

[AJUMP23]

FFX is fun, FF13 is terrible, I stopped before the first disk completed. The best one out of that era is FF12. I thought the Gambit system and the story was a lot of fun.

 

[T_LVPL]

Everything you said sounds like bizarro world to me, which I guess is the fun of Final Fantasy. Hopefully my responses will help make things clearer as to why FFX is rated so high.


-FFX battle system is slow while FF13's is fast? It's the exact opposite.

• In FFX your commands are instantly responsive, and then it proceeds to the next move instantly. You can go as fast or as slow as you want. Each move is also generally significant since you'll more often than not be killing an enemy or causing significant damage with each of your moves. The battles are both fast and snappy as hell, while also fully retaining strategy every step of the way.
• In FF13 the characters may be jumping around on-screen more, but your actual commands occur less frequently as its more about just occasionally rotating between presets. Also, it takes a fucking eternity to build up the stagger gauge in FF13, which makes battles slower. So in terms of the player controlling the battle, and the lengths of battles themselves, FF13 is far slower than FFX.

-You have to play Blitzaball to make Wakka relevant?

• You only need to play Blitzball to get Wakka's extra overdrives and his ultimate weapon, so definitely not needed for the main story at all. Only necessary for the elite endgame stuff (and even then none of that is really necessary). Also, I have to wonder if you were playing Blitzball with the wrong settings for you to pass it off so quickly. The game puts movement on auto-pilot by default and also uses an unintuitive camera by default. You need to change both of these for the game to be played properly.

-The story has nothing to do with saving the world from a big monster? What?

• The entire story and world revolves around this. There are many scenes throughout the game showing the big monster do big monster stuff with cutting edge visuals, including pivotal sections at the beginning, middle and finale of the game (which includes a climactic battle with him). Also, the entire point of the story is about BREAKING the cycle that you mentioned.....so that it's no longer pointless. For you to say this, it's almost like you got halfway through the story and then stopped.

FF13 has a better story than FFX, while FFX is also too girly?

• The vast majority of the dialogue in FF13 is trite melodrama. Anything world/plot related is hidden in the menus while in the actual game the main cast just pours out their hearts to each other via overly saccharine platitudes. THAT to me is girly and annoying. On the flip side, most of the dialogue in FFX centers on world-building for a world encapsulated by death (mostly from the aforementioned big monster) and the ways they try to cope with it, all with just a very light amount of romance. And that romance is done pretty well, with the climax of that sub-plot making for one of the most iconic ending scenes in gaming. Yeah, Tidus might look like Meg Ryan, but besides that I don't get what you're saying here.

FFX and FF13 have similar game design?

• In FF13, the entire game is literally just jogging forward to the next battle. That's the game design. Jog-battle-jog-battle-jog-battle-jog-battle. And maybe there's an occasional chest on the side. That's it. No exaggeration needed.
• In FFX, the jogging and fighting is accompanied with towns and cities, NPCs to talk to, temple puzzles, expansive mini-games, side-quests, etc, all while still being able to access the entire varied game-world with the airship, whereas in FF13 you can't go back anywhere. So there's a HUGE difference between the two game design approaches. FF13 is static, one-dimensional repetition. FFX is lively and varied.

So much wrong there and so many lies. It’s simply a lie to say the battles are faster than FF13 and also a lie to say you don’t need to play blitzball to keep Wakka relevant. How would you know anyway? You are clearly a big fan of blitzball and therefore will always have Wakka as a great character in battle on all your playthroughs.

I havent got time to respond to all of that and since there’s quite a fair bit of you misquoting me in there, making up your own narrative instead of what I actually said, I don’t really see the point replying in detail. I stand by the posts I made. People who don’t like it like yourself will just have to live with it. I played and finished both games, in FFX’s case I finished it twice essentially. And I formed my view myself going by what I played. I disagree with all your massive praise of FFX because the game is nowhere near as great as you make it sound. You make it sound so good you should be in marketing in fact. It’s a shocking game.

 

[SlimeGooGoo]

.

 

[Kev Kev]

UPDATE 16

CALM LANDS

-spent the time to collect ten of every fiend. I was really happy to learn that I can go back and collect all other fiends in the game, and can use the arena to grind. Really colle monster hunter-esque side quest. Looking forward to doing some these side quests. Excluding things I may have already missed, or missed the opportunity to initiate, what are some of the best side quests to do before I beat the game?
-grinded all my chars up to the point where they need level 3 so where grids to advance on their sphere grids. The exception being Lulu, who either somehow got behind, or just happens to have a larger sphere grid. She close behind tho. And also kimahri, bc he is now following Lu’s sphere grid (a choice I made a while back because I wanted another magic user). He’s getting close to the -ga level spells! Cant wait to have him as an extra for powerful magic users
-I cousins figure out what the horn that had al bhed written on it was asking me to do “with your back to me go twenty, and then twenty to the right” or something like that. I tried it every which way but gave up. Again. I am opting to not look up guides or anything in this game as I just want to enjoy as organically as possible. If something is really bothering me I will look it up, or if I think it’s missable I will look it up. This is an Serra I’m pretty sure I can come back to tho, so I’m not worried about it.
-defeated all the aeons and won the Chico o race at that castle looking area in the cal lands. There may have been more I could with the Chico o race as it was indicating picking off markers and chests on my subsequent go around a, but I decided to move on. Is there anything else to win after beating the Chico o the first time?
-also, I’m pretty sure that is the place I come back to to fight dark aeons, no? I remember never being able to beat them before
-I purchased 99 of every item I could, optimized my weapons and aeons and I still got half a million Gil left . Time to move on

CAVERN OF THE STOLEN FAYTH

-pretty easily defeated the stone fiend in the last area. I just made sure to exhaust all my aeons, switch out characters, utilize dark attacks and heal when necessary. Kind of a pain in the ass boss bc of his counter attacks, but I managed.
-explored the area just outside the cave before going in, found a rusty sword but it’s a key item that I’m not sure what to do with
-new fiends to capture! I’m going to enjoy doing this throughout the game. Some new items to steal of course. This may be a good place to grind as well. But until I get some level 3 key spheres, there really no point.
-I’m getting the feeling this is where Wakkas brother died. Lulu seems to be getting a little of her back story fleshed out here. One of my favorite things about ff6, and most FFs, is the side journeys/stories where you see the past and character of your companions fleshed out. It’s a really nice break from the epic main story, and helps you connect with the characters more. I feel like FFX does this pretty well, but not quite as good as other games like ff6 for example. Still tho, there’s a lot of game left to play, maybe I’ll get to see more before the end.
-oh man I was way off about wakkas brother, this is a different summoner that Lulu guarded (oh yeah that’s right, wakkas brother was with the al bhed... I think?). I love the music and feel of this fight. And the summon that this chick has. I want it!
-Lulu - “I thought it would be sadder somehow, maybe I’ve gotten used to farewells...”
Wakka - “You’re stronger now.”
Man what a great quote. I can really apply this to my own life. Being 34, people I know and love in my real life are dying more frequently. It’s never easy, but there are times where I’m asking myself the same question as Lulu “shouldn’t I be more sad?” I never thought about it the way Wakka said it, that you’re stronger each time it happens. And it’s kind of part of what life is about, growing, hardening, becoming wiser, more mature... I think this loosely ties in with the theme of the game too. Seeing Jecht and Tidus’ evolution sort of mirroring that same idea of maturing and growing as a human, even if it’s futile bc we die in the end... but that’s why we have to make the most of our story while we’re here. Part of that is experiencing sorrow and loss. Really thought provoking exchange that otherwise would have gone unnoticed by the 14 year old me, bc I had no experience of loss at that point in my life. Good stuff!
-paid 245k for yojimbo. No idea if that’s good or not but I had so much Gil it doesn’t matter. Off to the next area

GAGAZET

-kimahri backstory hopefully being fleshed out more here
-This next cut scene is really nice. Heavy themes of truth, justice, honor and remaining true to ones self and their goals.
-good to see that Wakka accept the truth about yevon being a bunch of bullshit
-beat ronsos with little problems. The bigger story here is what the hell is it with this Biran wearing a thonger this game has a thing for thongs and it’s kind of bizarre lol
-could have done without the corny rondo singing scene lmao. Man, I really stand behind my earlier statements that voice acting should be removed from video games until it is at a point that it’s indistinguishable from live action acting. It’s just not there, and I’m shocked they felt they were ready for that 20 years ago. It’s just.... not great. I think they did a good job for what it is, but using my imagination to hear their voices and going off body language and text cues is so much more enjoyable (like reading a book). I at least wish there was a way to turn off the dubs and just have subs, or at least English subs with original Japanese dubs.... but no there is not unfortunately
-the encounter rate on mt gagazet is ridiculous
-annnnnnd most annoying part of the game award goes to ... drum roll.... mt gagazet! Jfc glad that’s over...
-beat Seymour on the first try, but man that one hit kill shit is so annoying. He almost downed my entire party several times. Feel like I got lucky to be honest

That’s it for now. Excited to see what the next area is.

 

[SkylineRKR]

The music of Gagazet is awesome, and the PS4 port made me realize I prefer the PS2 OST.

 

[Rexket]

Wasted £60 on this back in 2001 (import), but got stuck on the final bosses, etc. Eventually completed it in 2018 on the PS4, starting again from scratch. Know it’s a fan favourite, and I understand that and accept it, but always hated the game. Don’t like the story, the art style, or the abysmal voice acting. The battle system is slow and rubbish. Wakka is the best character in battle and in the story, but you have to play Blitzball to keep him relevant and it’s so bad, I actually laughed during the tutorial at how silly the mini game is. It’s just laughably bad and I smile thinking about how terrible parts of the game are. It has that really soppy, girly main theme running through the entirety of the game and that’s annoying too.

All the pre release hype made the storyline sound amazing, it was a complete Catfish because the storyline turns out to have pretty much bugger all to do with saving the world from a big monster as soon as you get about 3 hours in. It also turns out countless people have beaten Sin before yet he just comes back again, rendering the whole thing pointless. Ive played most FFs and I fully know there’s millions of people who see this as the best one and better than FF7. But I am simply baffled by this and always will be. My brain simply can’t understand how anyone can think that, but I’ll leave it there.

It doesn’t sound like you remember the game well. Blitzball only gets Wakka his overdrives, and only the first prize is useful, and the pieces of his ultimate weapon. It doesn’t affect his stats and plenty of players ignore blitzball after the mandatory game. Not sure where you get this idea that he’s the best with Overdrive Rikku and Yuna with Aeons and giving her black magic. Wakka usually on endgame teams because of attack reels hitting multiple times and Tidus can do the same.

The story starts with the quest to kill Sin and ends when you kill Sin. You just learn there’s more going on. Not sure how other people killing Sin makes it pointless since this is addressed in game. What exactly was the story about if it had bigger all to do with saving the world from a monster?

 

[Ixion]

What are some of the best side quests to do before I beat the game?

You're very close to getting full control of the airship, so a lot more will open up to you. Overall, I'd say the main optional content in the game is:

• Getting the secret Aeons
• Getting the celestial weapons
• Beating the secret dungeons (Cavern of the Stolen Fayth, Omega Ruins)
• Finding all the Al Bhed primers
• Finding all the Jecht Spheres
• Beating the Dark Aeons
• Beating the monster arena super bosses

Unless I'm missing anything, that is all the side content at a high level. With that said, the act of getting the celestial weapons involves completing a handful of different types of side activities, which includes:

• Blitzball
• Cactuar Hunt
• Butterfly Hunt
• Monster Arena
• Lightning dodging
• Chocobo racing

All those quests/minigames are fun IMO with the exception of the infamous Lightning dodging and Chocobo racing. But again, the lightning dodging can be done quick and easy if you use the trick posted earlier.

Personally, once I get the airship I usually go right for Anima and also try to get a No Encounters item if I don't have one by that point. It looks like you already got Yojimbo and beat the Cavern. Then I would go after the Magus Sisters as well. Having both Anima and the Magus Sisters will make the final bosses a lot easier. Omega Ruins is also a cool dungeon with a great final boss. Lastly, getting all the Al Bhed Primers and Jecht Spheres is mainly just about hopping around the world and finding them all, which is fun. However, I mainly played the US version for a long time, so the Dark Aeons weren't around. With this remastered/international version I noticed the Dark Aeons will sometimes block access to some of the primers/spheres.

And ultimately, it's the Dark Aeons and monster arena bosses (Nemesis, Penance) that provide the motivation for finding and powering up the celestial weapons (and also maxing out your character sphere grids). So if you aren't interested in going that far, then there is really no need to get the celestial weapons. Omega (in the Omega Ruins) is also technically a super boss, so he might give you trouble if you don't have suped up weapons (whether it's the celestial weapons OR strong customized weapons).

 

[T_LVPL]

It doesn’t sound like you remember the game well. Blitzball only gets Wakka his overdrives, and only the first prize is useful, and the pieces of his ultimate weapon. It doesn’t affect his stats and plenty of players ignore blitzball after the mandatory game. Not sure where you get this idea that he’s the best with Overdrive Rikku and Yuna with Aeons and giving her black magic. Wakka usually on endgame teams because of attack reels hitting multiple times and Tidus can do the same.

The story starts with the quest to kill Sin and ends when you kill Sin. You just learn there’s more going on. Not sure how other people killing Sin makes it pointless since this is addressed in game. What exactly was the story about if it had bigger all to do with saving the world from a monster?

I said I replayed it in its entirety in 2018. You're right in the fact I can’t remember the specific intricacy of how useful or not Wakka was in battle 20 years ago, but I can remember 3 years ago. My experience was that Wakka is a beast at the start of the game but gradually becomes less useful, because you need to play blitzball to get his best gear. And that’s true isn’t it? You say so yourself. You need it for his best overdrives and his best weapon. So I am right to say that, because everyone knows in an RPG the entire point of the gameplay, and the fun of the gameplay, is to slowly work towards getting the best gear and spells in the game.

Youre right to say he’s not the best in battle, because without playing blitzball he very quickly becomes useless once you get to the harder enemies say, 50% into the game (which isn’t that long, it’s a fairly short game in terms of the story and locations, I did it twice in 35-40 hours both times).

The story was a complete and utter Catfish. Pre release, it was made to sound like a Godzilla style doom laden epic. The most incredible 10/10 amazing game and story we had ever seen at that point. All the teasers and illustrations of Sin, lovely drawings of Spira, it all looked phenomenal but the actual game was a big soppy silly Pilgrimage doing very little of note, with abysmal voice acting, and the big monster turns out to be your father. ahaha Brilliant! Honestly I am in humeruous mood thinking of FFX, I don’t find it bad in an angry way, just a funny way.

You don’t think it’s silly, and removes the air of menace once you know Sin gets beaten countless times over the thousand years yet simply comes back again? We clearly disagree, which is fine.

Its pointless telling me Wakka doesn’t start off good and become useless though, since that’s exactly what happened to me. If you can’t get his best gear and limits without playing it, then I couldn’t progress him. I really liked the character and he was great in battle. I don’t know how you can get into my brain and tell me he was never great in battle, when I played the game through twice and found him great in battle until blitzball gets in the way of his progression? It’s weird.

 

[Azelover]

Not sure if posted already

 

[Rexket]

I said I replayed it in its entirety in 2018. You're right in the fact I can’t remember the specific intricacy of how useful or not Wakka was in battle 20 years ago, but I can remember 3 years ago. My experience was that Wakka is a beast at the start of the game but gradually becomes less useful, because you need to play blitzball to get his best gear. And that’s true isn’t it? You say so yourself. You need it for his best overdrives and his best weapon. So I am right to say that, because everyone knows in an RPG the entire point of the gameplay, and the fun of the gameplay, is to slowly work towards getting the best gear and spells in the game.

Youre right to say he’s not the best in battle, because without playing blitzball he very quickly becomes useless once you get to the harder enemies say, 50% into the game (which isn’t that long, it’s a fairly short game in terms of the story and locations, I did it twice in 35-40 hours both times).

The story was a complete and utter Catfish. Pre release, it was made to sound like a Godzilla style doom laden epic. The most incredible 10/10 amazing game and story we had ever seen at that point. All the teasers and illustrations of Sin, lovely drawings of Spira, it all looked phenomenal but the actual game was a big soppy silly Pilgrimage doing very little of note, with abysmal voice acting, and the big monster turns out to be your father. ahaha Brilliant! Honestly I am in humeruous mood thinking of FFX, I don’t find it bad in an angry way, just a funny way.

You don’t think it’s silly, and removes the air of menace once you know Sin gets beaten countless times over the thousand years yet simply comes back again? We clearly disagree, which is fine.

Its pointless telling me Wakka doesn’t start off good and become useless though, since that’s exactly what happened to me. If you can’t get his best gear and limits without playing it, then I couldn’t progress him. I really liked the character and he was great in battle. I don’t know how you can get into my brain and tell me he was never great in battle, when I played the game through twice and found him great in battle until blitzball gets in the way of his progression? It’s weird.

I did see that you said you replayed it. I think that there’s a lot of the battle system you misunderstood and that’s why you think Wakka is a beast early on and useless without blitzball.Not sure how you can see him as the best character early on. Each character has a role they are best suited for initially and abilities to supplement that. Wakka is best for flying enemies. He is less likely to hit fast enemies and can’t take down enemies that have high defense. Other physical characters are less likely to finish flying enemies and magic users will need to expend more to deal with them. Wakka is the most efficient way to deal with them. He also learns status effect abilities that, if the enemy is vulnerable, can be useful regardless of damage. He is only useless if you build your party poorly. If you don’t go for his ultimate, build a sufficient weapon. It sounds like you used him as a crutch and was punished for neglecting your other party members.

Even then, not sure how having one “useless”character in a party makes a game garbage. If a character is not useful, you have others to choose from. Plenty of FF games have characters that don’t measure up.

I also think you haven’t thought the story through. Yes Sin can be killed temporarily but at the cost of lives and it comes back to wreck havoc. The destruction we see in the story has been going on for generations. It sounds like you think that killing Sin is some mundane task since when the story very clearly demonstrates that that is not the case.

 

[Ixion]

I said I replayed it in its entirety in 2018. You're right in the fact I can’t remember the specific intricacy of how useful or not Wakka was in battle 20 years ago, but I can remember 3 years ago. My experience was that Wakka is a beast at the start of the game but gradually becomes less useful, because you need to play blitzball to get his best gear. And that’s true isn’t it? You say so yourself. You need it for his best overdrives and his best weapon. So I am right to say that, because everyone knows in an RPG the entire point of the gameplay, and the fun of the gameplay, is to slowly work towards getting the best gear and spells in the game.

Youre right to say he’s not the best in battle, because without playing blitzball he very quickly becomes useless once you get to the harder enemies say, 50% into the game (which isn’t that long, it’s a fairly short game in terms of the story and locations, I did it twice in 35-40 hours both times).

The story was a complete and utter Catfish. Pre release, it was made to sound like a Godzilla style doom laden epic. The most incredible 10/10 amazing game and story we had ever seen at that point. All the teasers and illustrations of Sin, lovely drawings of Spira, it all looked phenomenal but the actual game was a big soppy silly Pilgrimage doing very little of note, with abysmal voice acting, and the big monster turns out to be your father. ahaha Brilliant! Honestly I am in humeruous mood thinking of FFX, I don’t find it bad in an angry way, just a funny way.

You don’t think it’s silly, and removes the air of menace once you know Sin gets beaten countless times over the thousand years yet simply comes back again? We clearly disagree, which is fine.

Its pointless telling me Wakka doesn’t start off good and become useless though, since that’s exactly what happened to me. If you can’t get his best gear and limits without playing it, then I couldn’t progress him. I really liked the character and he was great in battle. I don’t know how you can get into my brain and tell me he was never great in battle, when I played the game through twice and found him great in battle until blitzball gets in the way of his progression? It’s weird.

On the Wakka stuff, the part we disagree on is that you need his ultimate weapon and extra overdrives or else he starts to become less relevant halfway through the game. Ultimate weapons are not necessary at all for the main story, and even much of the optional content. And I say that as someone who has done all of that without the ultimate weapons a bunch of times. And overdrives are more of a bonus. The main thing is that you can still level up Wakka's sphere grid just like any other character. You're correct if we're talking the endgame period. If your goal is to get everyone's ultimate weapons and also fight the super bosses, then yeah I would see your point. But not for the main story.

As for your opinion that Wakka is the best character in battle, I would say he's the best at ranged attacks. In terms of the default character sphere grid paths, Auron will be the strongest physically (and is able to pierce armor) while Lulu might be the strongest overall with her magic. Not to mention Yuna brings the heat with her summons. So Wakka by default is definitely useful and important, but so are most of the characters.

In terms of Sin and the story overall, I think it's interesting how you were expecting more of a straight-up monster story, and instead were disappointed that the story has more layers than that. I have to disagree with you on this wholeheartedly since the game both provides a bunch of epic monster sections to scratch that itch....

....while also tying the monster into a deeper web of ancient deception that you need to unravel. If you just wanted the story to be "See big monster, kill big monster, the end", then I can see why you would be disappointed. I love a good Godzilla movie as much as the next person, but for a 40-hour epic RPG, there needs to be more layers and more intrigue.

 

[Kev Kev]

You're very close to getting full control of the airship, so a lot more will open up to you. Overall, I'd say the main optional content in the game is:

• Getting the secret Aeons
• Getting the celestial weapons
• Beating the secret dungeons (Cavern of the Stolen Fayth, Omega Ruins)
• Finding all the Al Bhed primers
• Finding all the Jecht Spheres
• Beating the Dark Aeons
• Beating the monster arena super bosses

Unless I'm missing anything, that is all the side content at a high level. With that said, the act of getting the celestial weapons involves completing a handful of different types of side activities, which includes:

• Blitzball
• Cactuar Hunt
• Butterfly Hunt
• Monster Arena
• Lightning dodging
• Chocobo racing

All those quests/minigames are fun IMO with the exception of the infamous Lightning dodging and Chocobo racing. But again, the lightning dodging can be done quick and easy if you use the trick posted earlier.

Personally, once I get the airship I usually go right for Anima and also try to get a No Encounters item if I don't have one by that point. It looks like you already got Yojimbo and beat the Cavern. Then I would go after the Magus Sisters as well. Having both Anima and the Magus Sisters will make the final bosses a lot easier. Omega Ruins is also a cool dungeon with a great final boss. Lastly, getting all the Al Bhed Primers and Jecht Spheres is mainly just about hopping around the world and finding them all, which is fun. However, I mainly played the US version for a long time, so the Dark Aeons weren't around. With this remastered/international version I noticed the Dark Aeons will sometimes block access to some of the primers/spheres.

And ultimately, it's the Dark Aeons and monster arena bosses (Nemesis, Penance) that provide the motivation for finding and powering up the celestial weapons (and also maxing out your character sphere grids). So if you aren't interested in going that far, then there is really no need to get the celestial weapons. Omega (in the Omega Ruins) is also technically a super boss, so he might give you trouble if you don't have suped up weapons (whether it's the celestial weapons OR strong customized weapons).

dude great post, thank you so much!!!

 

[Rickyiez]

The last FF that feels magical

 

[Kev Kev]

UPDATE 17

SALT WARNING: I get very upset and bitch a lot in this update I considered editing it out because it’s obvious I was just raging, but hey, they are my unfiltered “in the moment” impressions (I literally have my phone on me and constantly add notes as I go along). So, here it is! Don’t beat me up too much about complaining lol I think some of the complaints are at least a little valid, considering I’m not using any guides or looking up boss strategies (except yunalesca, I almost rage quit over her and wound up looking up a guide first thing I’ve looked up for this whole RTTP but oh well... can’t win em all). Anyway, hope you all can get some laughs out of my nerd raging at least, lmao. Enjoy!

TRIAL OF GAGAZET

-this has been fun so far! I like the different puzzles. The encounters are pretty tough but my crew is over leveled so I’m cutting through them with ease, just how I like it.
-I stopped fucking with selling weapons and armor and kept everything. Now I’m full and having to swap out new stuff for old stuff is kinda fun. Finding a lot of good equipment in this cavern. And I’m noticing I am well stocked for about any situation since I’ve kept everything. Pretty cool. Still not happy about how many items it takes to customize, but hopefully that gets better later in the game.
-using armor break on the dark flan is key to beating it. Didn’t realize that. Triple foul will silence and darken him too.
-I’ve also just now realized you just use lancet for kimahri to gain enemy abilities I thought it was random and was wondering why he wasn’t learning any. ugh, I wonder how many moves I’ve missed. Why doesn’t it say that when I hover over the ability lancet? It only says absorbs hp and mp. I missed where it explains this and would’ve been helpful for them to add it in next to that “also this is how you learn enemy abilities” dammnit, that’s a huge bummer...
-fighting this boss at top of my Gagazet is extremely annoying. It’s immune to a lot and had the ability to take out my whole party in one hit. This game has a really bad habit of over powering its bosses with shit like that.
-beat it first try but... wow that was not fun. Worst FF boss fight in recent memory.
-ok so storywise, I never caught that zanarkand was a dream/memory. Guess I was too young and dumb and it just went over my head. Still not sure how sin entered the fayth dream and pulled jecht and tidus out. Or how Auron got in there. Additionally, still not exactly sure who the small hooded person is that tidus keeps seeing. I like the new development though and it looking forward to what happens next in the story...
-ok so apparently you can move the camera in some cut scenes? But the game gives you zero prompt lol wtf? And then I started pressing buttons to see if anything else happened and wound up skipping over some text god this game this game makes some weird decisions sometimes

ZANARKAND

-man what is the point of this hallway slog through zanarkand. Let’s get to the point already. I need a damn town lol I’ve been on the road for way too long. I think times like this is where the game really suffers. I hate that I’m just following this one path, and there’s no hidden stuff or side stuff to do. Just one encounter after another, cut scene, more story, follow path, rinse repeat I’m going to rush through it, hopefully I get the airship soon and can break up this monotony
-jfc I hate these trials. There’s no rhyme or reason as to what you’re supposed to do. You just have to keep poking around in the dark until you figure stuff out. Why did I like these so much as a teenager? I remember liking them but now I see how flawed they are and it’s just annoying
-this trial is absurd. Seriously just want to quit this whole fucking game right now lmao. Wtf were they thinking? How is guessing random thing with no logical explanation supposed to be fun? And I have to do multiple of these Tetris guessing puzzles? Fuck me this blows...
-OMFG you have to be kidding me. Ok so apparently if you go up the the puzzle “map” on the wall it will light up the ones your supposed to hit on, which helps of course. Like, why in the ever loving fuck would they decide to not give me any indication that that is how the puzzle works? Why do these trials have to be so vague? Holy shit I have never been so pissed off at this game than I am right now okay deep breathes Kev, deeeeep breaths
-ok 1 down... 3 to go? Not sure but if that is the case... fuck me. This is not fun... we’ll see
-oh 5 more? Awesome! (edit: it was only 3 thank god)
-even with the map it is stupidly hard and annoying! What kind of time filler bullshit is this? If there was a disc I would be wanting to snap it in half at this moment lol
-ok so new discovery that makes me absolutely furious all over again. Apparently you can access the map as many times as you want, even after you’ve already started lighting up the Tetris pieces ........

......

*ahem*

AAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!

-ok I’m good now. So it’s basically the same complaint as before, but man wtf square, give a brother some directions!
-ok so this boss just wrecked my shit with no problem... like it wasn’t even a challenge... seriously over this fucking game at the moment. I don’t know what it is, it has moments of greatness and is fun but then it just becomes annoying, completely unfun slog at times. Right now is the least fun I’ve had with the game. I’m too pissed of to quit right now so I’ll try it again I suppose...
-ok so it counters everytime I attack? And does like 2.5k damage to ALL of my characters in that one counter. That is bullshit...
-What’s the point in moving? He just whips around and attacks me anyway. Wtf
-dude this is so annoying. I move and he turns around and attacks me, I attack and he counter attacks for half my health, meanwhile he’s inflicting berserk on characters he attacks, so I have to use remedy’s on the ones still alive with a couple hundred hp, and Phoenix downs on any dead characters, after doing so he attacks again and I can’t do shit. Scan didn’t reveal any useful info and in I’m basically just delaying being killed for a few rounds before I get a game over. All of this grinding I’ve done and tinkering my characters doesn’t help me at all here. I haven’t been able to customize weapons enough bc it takes way too many items to do so, so equipment isn’t really going to help me. I don’t have enough time to cast protect on everyone before he kills me. Delay doesn’t work, dark doesn’t work, armor break doesnt work, I don’t have any overdrives saved up so if I want exploit that I’ll have to exit the trial and come back, if it will even let me do that. Wtf square...
-so in the end, all I had to do was use all of my aeons and bull rush him like that. No strategy, no status ailment items, no Phoenix downs, no switching party members, just keep summoning, use attacks, aeon dies, then summon next aeons. Ugh, what a terrible boss fight.... not as annoying as the last one but still, horrible.
-of course Yunalesca is a wearing a thong
-ugh another boss fight?
-ok took a few tries and I straight up almost quit the game, but I looked up a strategy that was complicated enough that I’m sure I never would have beaten it on my own. This game was designed to sell strategy guides because fuck me there is some bullshit going on with these final bosses...
-ok got the airship and ready to tie up some loose ends.

Man that was a really shitty length of game, did not enjoy those boss fights at all (and the hallway simulator was in overdrive)! I really wish customizing equipment and farming key spheres wasn’t so ridiculous. I’ve barely been able to touch customizing equipment bc it just isn’t worth the amount of items, and I’ve only found 2 level 3 key spheres after 70 hours of gameplay, and all my characters are stuck in their sphere grids. Wtf!? Why limit me like this?

Ok, so that’s all over at least. I’m going to focus on finding lvl 3 key spheres, capturing fiends bc I think it’s fun, reexploring areas and checking out all the side stuff that Ixion mentioned. Definitely going to take a break from this game though. Those last few boss fights really left a sour taste in my mouth and I don’t want them to ruin the whole experience for me. I’ve been enjoying most of the game up until then, so don’t get me wrong it’s still great but.... man, fuck those fights, that was annoying af.

Anyway, I’ll probably dick around in Spira and do couple more updates befor Sin fight. Maybe I’ll aim to make it a rounded off 20 updates and that’ll be it for my RTTP. Any last minute things I should do or fun side quests in the game, let me know now and I’ll check them out. Thanks! Peace

 

[Ixion]

UPDATE 17

SALT WARNING: I get very upset and bitch a lot in this update I considered editing it out because it’s obvious I was just raging, but hey, they are my unfiltered “in the moment” impressions (I literally have my phone on me and constantly add notes as I go along). So, here it is! Don’t beat me up too much about complaining lol I think some of the complaints are at least a little valid, considering I’m not using any guides or looking up boss strategies (except yunalesca, I almost rage quit over her and wound up looking up a guide first thing I’ve looked up for this whole RTTP but oh well... can’t win em all). Anyway, hope you all can get some laughs out of my nerd raging at least, lmao. Enjoy!

TRIAL OF GAGAZET

-this has been fun so far! I like the different puzzles. The encounters are pretty tough but my crew is over leveled so I’m cutting through them with ease, just how I like it.
-I stopped fucking with selling weapons and armor and kept everything. Now I’m full and having to swap out new stuff for old stuff is kinda fun. Finding a lot of good equipment in this cavern. And I’m noticing I am well stocked for about any situation since I’ve kept everything. Pretty cool. Still not happy about how many items it takes to customize, but hopefully that gets better later in the game.
-using armor break on the dark flan is key to beating it. Didn’t realize that. Triple foul will silence and darken him too.
-I’ve also just now realized you just use lancet for kimahri to gain enemy abilities I thought it was random and was wondering why he wasn’t learning any. ugh, I wonder how many moves I’ve missed. Why doesn’t it say that when I hover over the ability lancet? It only says absorbs hp and mp. I missed where it explains this and would’ve been helpful for them to add it in next to that “also this is how you learn enemy abilities” dammnit, that’s a huge bummer...
-fighting this boss at top of my Gagazet is extremely annoying. It’s immune to a lot and had the ability to take out my whole party in one hit. This game has a really bad habit of over powering its bosses with shit like that.
-beat it first try but... wow that was not fun. Worst FF boss fight in recent memory.
-ok so storywise, I never caught that zanarkand was a dream/memory. Guess I was too young and dumb and it just went over my head. Still not sure how sin entered the fayth dream and pulled jecht and tidus out. Or how Auron got in there. Additionally, still not exactly sure who the small hooded person is that tidus keeps seeing. I like the new development though and it looking forward to what happens next in the story...
-ok so apparently you can move the camera in some cut scenes? But the game gives you zero prompt lol wtf? And then I started pressing buttons to see if anything else happened and wound up skipping over some text god this game this game makes some weird decisions sometimes

ZANARKAND

-man what is the point of this hallway slog through zanarkand. Let’s get to the point already. I need a damn town lol I’ve been on the road for way too long. I think times like this is where the game really suffers. I hate that I’m just following this one path, and there’s no hidden stuff or side stuff to do. Just one encounter after another, cut scene, more story, follow path, rinse repeat I’m going to rush through it, hopefully I get the airship soon and can break up this monotony
-jfc I hate these trials. There’s no rhyme or reason as to what you’re supposed to do. You just have to keep poking around in the dark until you figure stuff out. Why did I like these so much as a teenager? I remember liking them but now I see how flawed they are and it’s just annoying
-this trial is absurd. Seriously just want to quit this whole fucking game right now lmao. Wtf were they thinking? How is guessing random thing with no logical explanation supposed to be fun? And I have to do multiple of these Tetris guessing puzzles? Fuck me this blows...
-OMFG you have to be kidding me. Ok so apparently if you go up the the puzzle “map” on the wall it will light up the ones your supposed to hit on, which helps of course. Like, why in the ever loving fuck would they decide to not give me any indication that that is how the puzzle works? Why do these trials have to be so vague? Holy shit I have never been so pissed off at this game than I am right now okay deep breathes Kev, deeeeep breaths
-ok 1 down... 3 to go? Not sure but if that is the case... fuck me. This is not fun... we’ll see
-oh 5 more? Awesome! (edit: it was only 3 thank god)
-even with the map it is stupidly hard and annoying! What kind of time filler bullshit is this? If there was a disc I would be wanting to snap it in half at this moment lol
-ok so new discovery that makes me absolutely furious all over again. Apparently you can access the map as many times as you want, even after you’ve already started lighting up the Tetris pieces ........

......

*ahem*

AAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!

-ok I’m good now. So it’s basically the same complaint as before, but man wtf square, give a brother some directions!
-ok so this boss just wrecked my shit with no problem... like it wasn’t even a challenge... seriously over this fucking game at the moment. I don’t know what it is, it has moments of greatness and is fun but then it just becomes annoying, completely unfun slog at times. Right now is the least fun I’ve had with the game. I’m too pissed of to quit right now so I’ll try it again I suppose...
-ok so it counters everytime I attack? And does like 2.5k damage to ALL of my characters in that one counter. That is bullshit...
-What’s the point in moving? He just whips around and attacks me anyway. Wtf
-dude this is so annoying. I move and he turns around and attacks me, I attack and he counter attacks for half my health, meanwhile he’s inflicting berserk on characters he attacks, so I have to use remedy’s on the ones still alive with a couple hundred hp, and Phoenix downs on any dead characters, after doing so he attacks again and I can’t do shit. Scan didn’t reveal any useful info and in I’m basically just delaying being killed for a few rounds before I get a game over. All of this grinding I’ve done and tinkering my characters doesn’t help me at all here. I haven’t been able to customize weapons enough bc it takes way too many items to do so, so equipment isn’t really going to help me. I don’t have enough time to cast protect on everyone before he kills me. Delay doesn’t work, dark doesn’t work, armor break doesnt work, I don’t have any overdrives saved up so if I want exploit that I’ll have to exit the trial and come back, if it will even let me do that. Wtf square...
-so in the end, all I had to do was use all of my aeons and bull rush him like that. No strategy, no status ailment items, no Phoenix downs, no switching party members, just keep summoning, use attacks, aeon dies, then summon next aeons. Ugh, what a terrible boss fight.... not as annoying as the last one but still, horrible.
-of course Yunalesca is a wearing a thong
-ugh another boss fight?
-ok took a few tries and I straight up almost quit the game, but I looked up a strategy that was complicated enough that I’m sure I never would have beaten it on my own. This game was designed to sell strategy guides because fuck me there is some bullshit going on with these final bosses...
-ok got the airship and ready to tie up some loose ends.

Man that was a really shitty length of game, did not enjoy those boss fights at all (and the hallway simulator was in overdrive)! I really wish customizing equipment and farming key spheres wasn’t so ridiculous. I’ve barely been able to touch customizing equipment bc it just isn’t worth the amount of items, and I’ve only found 2 level 3 key spheres after 70 hours of gameplay, and all my characters are stuck in their sphere grids. Wtf!? Why limit me like this?

Ok, so that’s all over at least. I’m going to focus on finding lvl 3 key spheres, capturing fiends bc I think it’s fun, reexploring areas and checking out all the side stuff that Ixion mentioned. Definitely going to take a break from this game though. Those last few boss fights really left a sour taste in my mouth and I don’t want them to ruin the whole experience for me. I’ve been enjoying most of the game up until then, so don’t get me wrong it’s still great but.... man, fuck those fights, that was annoying af.

Anyway, I’ll probably dick around in Spira and do couple more updates befor Sin fight. Maybe I’ll aim to make it a rounded off 20 updates and that’ll be it for my RTTP. Any last minute things I should do or fun side quests in the game, let me know now and I’ll check them out. Thanks! Peace

The whole point of the section you just went through is that it's the home stretch of the pilgrimage, where there are no inhabitants and you need to pass through top-notch obstacles in order to be deemed worthy for the final aeon. The point of the Calm Lands area is that it gives you a serene, open area with a whole bunch of side things to do right before you take on that home stretch. And the home stretch would lose its focus and sense of urgency if it stayed as open as the Calm Lands.

So you just faced the last set of bosses before you get the airship and have the whole world open to you (with only one last section of the main story left). Those bosses should be hard and throw you off so that you need to go all out and try different approaches, especially since the main story of FFX is on the easier side in general. There are only a couple more bosses in the main story after all, and the ones you just faced are probably the hardest bosses in the game since you didn't have the airship yet to really power up your characters even more.

 

[Sub_Level]

Anyway, I’ll probably dick around in Spira and do couple more updates befor Sin fight. Maybe I’ll aim to make it a rounded off 20 updates and that’ll be it for my RTTP. Any last minute things I should do or fun side quests in the game, let me know now and I’ll check them out. Thanks! Peace

I would recommend doing the following:

- Acquire the secret optional three Aeons. Two of these require you to explore calm lands (hint: there's a secret cave and a secret temple you can access in 2 different hidden paths from calm lands). The third can be found at airship coordinates X=11-16, Y=57-63.
- Defeat Ultima Weapon and Omega Weapon (airship coordinates 69-75x and 33-38y, you figure it out from there)

Doing these will take you to new areas with new cutscenes & lore. These quests require you to be somewhat tough but if you are overlevelled it shouldn't be a problem at all or require grinding.

The other major sidequests (monster arena, celestial weapons, dark aeons) are more for "postgame" and don't add much to the story if anything.

 

[Kev Kev]

I would recommend doing the following:

- Acquire the secret optional three Aeons. Two of these require you to explore calm lands (hint: there's a secret cave and a secret temple you can access in 2 different hidden paths from calm lands). The third can be found at airship coordinates X=11-16, Y=57-63.
- Defeat Ultima Weapon and Omega Weapon (airship coordinates 69-75x and 33-38y, you figure it out from there)

Doing these will take you to new areas with new cutscenes & lore. These quests require you to be somewhat tough but if you are overlevelled it shouldn't be a problem at all or require grinding.

The other major sidequests (monster arena, celestial weapons, dark aeons) are more for "postgame" and don't add much to the story if anything.

ok awesome i will check it out. i dont care for uber tough boss fights, like at all (im sure you gathered that much from my recent update lol), so if it's too difficult or they have moves that one hit kill my entire party, thats gonna be a no for me dog. ill check it though and let you know how it goes. thanks for the help!

 

[Sub_Level]

ok awesome i will check it out. i dont care for uber tough boss fights, like at all (im sure you gathered that much from my recent update lol), so if it's too difficult or they have moves that one hit kill my entire party, thats gonna be a no for me dog. ill check it though and let you know how it goes. thanks for the help!

Yeah its nothing like that. One of the three secret aeons is slightly cryptic to get, so if you wanna use a walkthrough or skip it thats understandable. You can also just forget sidequests entirely and finish the game at this point if its getting long in the tooth, up to you.

 

[Ixion]

Yeah its nothing like that. One of the three secret aeons is slightly cryptic to get, so if you wanna use a walkthrough or skip it thats understandable. You can also just forget sidequests entirely and finish the game at this point if its getting long in the tooth, up to you.

It's worth noting that in the original US version Omega only had 100K HP, whereas in the International/Remaster version he has 10X the HP at 1 million. He also completely absorbs magic now, which he didn't do before. He was a pushover before, but now he's a low-tier "super boss", which means you'll likely need all the aeons and ultimate weapons.

 

[sublimit]

It's worth noting that in the original US version Omega only had 100K HP, whereas in the International/Remaster version he has 10X the HP at 1 million. He also completely absorbs magic now, which he didn't do before. He was a pushover before, but now he's a low-tier "super boss", which means you'll likely need all the aeons and ultimate weapons.

How was he in the original European version? I don't remember him being particularly hard.

 

[Sub_Level]

It's worth noting that in the original US version Omega only had 100K HP, whereas in the International/Remaster version he has 10X the HP at 1 million. He also completely absorbs magic now, which he didn't do before. He was a pushover before, but now he's a low-tier "super boss", which means you'll likely need all the aeons and ultimate weapons.

Oh damn, didn't know that lmao. That would take forever with the regular 9999 cap. I'd skip in that case.

 

[Whitecrow]

I smell another broken heart

 

[Kev Kev]

I smell another broken heart

Lol yes! It’s mine for realizing how ridiculously hard this game is and all of the absurd design choices the made (amount of items it takes to customize is insane, prices for weapons and armor way too high, bosses that one hit kill my entire party, trials with puzzles that give you zero indication of how they work, etc)

if you think the last update was salty, wait till this next one. I’m pretty much over the re-exploring and side quests and I’m just ready to beat the game and be done. It’s been fun and I still love the game, but I’m not holding back on my criticisms at all

 

[Kev Kev]

UPDATE 18

BESAID

-Went back to besaid to start re-exploring and got killed by the dark aeon. Took out all 3 party members in one attack. Smh. I’ll save the crying this time but that shit is seriously so fucking stupid. Lost about 30 minutes of progress bc I didn’t bother saving, bc why would I? There shouldn’t have been anything there that could challenge me. Once again, the game does a terrible job of preparing me or giving me anything kind of warning that something big is about to happen
-captured a few fiends, not gonna worry about getting 10 of each at the moment, maybe later...
-might as well follow the pilgrimage road again!

S.S. Liki

-Found a jecht sphere in the captains cabin! Seeing some different sides of jecht in these spheres. He’s not such a bad guy after all
-hey that guy wound up becoming a chocobo brewer, awesome! Says he’s happier too. Cool ending to his story.

KILIKA PORT

-not much to do in these towns it seems
-I’m seeing areas I can’t get to get. There was a lance in besaid as well. I could see a chest and some save points but no way to access
-these blue glyphs that have al bhed code on them are weird. No idea how to use them. Do I input these codes somewhere?

S.S. Liki

-I’m sorry but the jecht shot mini game is retarded. I’m clearly pressing the buttons and it’s just not working. Hopefully this doesn’t take too many tries.
-got it but it wasn’t even enjoyable, smh, come on square. These mini games should be fun not frustrating and annoying. The buttons presses weren’t registering and they were popping up way too fast. Only took three tries but iim left sitting here just shaking my head at how dumb it was.
-another jecht sphere! Nice. Makes all this retread worth it
-fuck yes I learned a new overdrive for Auron!
-pretty sure jecht was getting enotional in that sphere. You hear him sniffle right before he yells at Auron to stop filming. He has a really strange love for tidus, but you can tell he does, in his own way. Makes me wonder about the writers of this games story, and what kind of relationship they had with their dad...
-looks like I got all music spheres and 40/50 movie spheres. Is it worth buying these in Luca? What do you get for it? Just a trophy or something useful? Nothing?
-I’m not exhausting dialogue options anymore. It doesn’t seem to be giving me anything useful and I mostly don’t care what they have to say. If I see characters I recognize I will talk to them, but I’m not wasting my time talking to every random NPC

MI’IHEN HIGHROAD

-al bhed notes: d=t : e=i : i=u :
-finally got all those chests I missed, plus another jecht sphere in the ravine that I didn’t get knocked into.
-LOL what the fuck is it with these fights where they kill all my party in one hit? How is that any fun? Lol glad I saved right befor this. Really absurd that they thought that was a great design choice.
-used the rusty sword but my cloudy mirror didn’t have enough energy. Hmmmmm...
-found one of the primers I missed. Yessssss. And got the next rank of al bhed
-Aurons sphere!? What? Cool!
-hmmm I wonder who that Auron was talking is? Just gotta say again that I love aurons music in this game <3

DJOSE HIGHROAD

-man I’ve already captured all these fiends. Where can I find no encounter gear? Haven’t come across any yet
-jfc the encounter rate is absurd with this game sometimes
-oh finally some new fiends to capture, abilities to learn and hopefully another sphere... the completion in me is very happy right now really enjoying combing back through these areas!

MOONFLOW

-jecht sphere! More evidence that jecht wasn’t that bad of a guy. Just made some wrong turns in life and didn’t know how to express himself properly. I wonder what jechts dad was like?
-I can stock up on mega potions in this area with the chest fiends you can steal from. Also found a stamina tablet here! Hope there’s more...

GUADOSALAM

-the super short scene in guadosalam where Lulu is visiting her old passed summoner was really nice. Super minor detail but I really liked it for some reason.

THUNDER PLAINS

-still not sure what to do with these actual statues. I know to press square but that’s it
-funny jecht sphere. Man I reeeaalllly wish ffx2 would’ve have been jecht, auron and braskas journey. It was such a no brainer I don’t know how they ducked it up! Oh that’s right, it’s square lol duh. Bunch’s dodos over there I swear to god
-ran into three cactuar s in one battle! Time to steal some chocobo feathers!
-dodging lightning is fuckin impossible lol this is the most retarded shit square ever did. And they love to get you right when you come out of a battle “fun!” (Yes I know it’s not impossible I’m just being dramatic...... but it’s stupid and completely not worth it in my personal opinion... like why? The fuck why make it so hard? Make it like mildly hard and have it actually be somewhat enjoyable, but instead they go Uber difficult like they did in those last bosses. smh)
-so I still don’t get the cactuar statues. Some are lit up, some are not. Once again they are being vague to the point that it is obvious they wanted to sell strategy guides or something. Why do that to the player? To force me to go outside the game, and break immersion, in order to figure something out INSIDE of the game. It makes no sense and is annoying. I’ll just skip them, whatever it is, I don’t care...

MACALANIA WOODS

-glad to be out of the thunder plains. Wish I could’ve figured out cactuar statues. I have no idea what they did or are supposed to do. Was it just to make cactuar spawn more? Is that why I started seeing three at a time? Lol, tell me square, TELL ME!! at least I have macalania woods music to calm me down
-giving up on the butterfly game. Tried it a couple times but it’s annoying how difficult it is to go around the red ones. The camera angles fuck me all up. plus I got really shitty rewards the first time around, I think it was a remedy? Lol. Fuck this. Moving on
-oh hey I finally figured out the cloudy mirror! Turned it into a celestial mirror. Now I just got to remember to go back to that one area near djose

CALM LANDS

-obtained nirvana! .... uuhhhh no ap? Wtf? Ok so I looked it up and it’s a celestial weapon? Why is it good tho? I mean, I can get plenty of ap but what about this weapon makes it great? I don’t understand
-good news is I have the celestial mirror which I guess helps me get some good weapons. From what I understand I may have missed the opportunity to get all of them, but hopefully the road will lead me to some of them. I’m open to help here. What else can I do with this celestial mirror that isn’t dodging lightning or chasing butterflies lmao...?
-ok so I did look up one little thing. Apparently I need moon crest and sigil to bring out its full power. And I have neither lol. Oh well, maybe I will find some of this stuff, maybe I won’t. I’m just gonna to keep plowing through spira and hopefully I come across some of this stuff. Onward!!!
-fighting a nasty beasty at monster arena who is of course immune to everything and one hit kills my characters
-annnnnnnd he one hit kills my entire party. Fuck that noise, don’t care, I’m out...
-never figured out what the spike in the calm lands is telling me to do. And that one guy is still blocking the path way in the back where it descends... no hint or indication of what to do oh well, moving on...
-75k for each of these weapons at store in the calm lands. Even if I bought one of each (not sure I have enough Gil tho) the only real benefit is that they have open slots for customization, but once again the customization of equipment costs so many items that it isn’t worth it. What a shame, I still have yet to barely customize anything and I’ve only bought a handful of new weapons and armor bc of how ridiculous these asking prices are ... *sigh* moving on I guess...

CALM LANDS

-so I looked up how to make a no encounter item, bc I don’t want to travel GAGAZET having to fight fiends, that was incredibly annoying before. Wound up realizing I had to exit the monster arena and come back in in order to trigger the guy giving me items. Why the hell doesn’t it just do it all at once? Why make me go in and out like that? I nearly missed all of this stuff because of some shitty design choice . Smh. Anyway, I squires a mega shit ton of items for all my captured fiends. Don’t think I can make a no encounter weapon yet lol but maybe I can customize a little more now. Let’s take a look...
-fought a hornet at the arena to steal purifying salt so I can make a no encounter item and the hornet one hit killed my entire party in its first move. You can’t seriously tell me that great game design. Come on.... that’s really fucking stupid
-took several tries but I finally got some purfying salts. Didn’t have to beat the hornet, but still got to keep the purifying salts. Thank you for doing that square!
-okay so apparently you need 30 purifying salts. God dammnit, fuck this game and ridiculous shit like that. I’m over it. Just going to try and farm some level 3 spheres so I can unlock my sphere grids, level my characters and fight sin and be done with this. It’s been a good ride but it’s seriously flawed with crap like that.

Thats it for now. Obviously really irritated in these last couple updates. It’s a good game don’t get me wrong but they made some really bizarre design choices and some just straight up bad design choices, amongst all of the good ones they made of course.

I’ll update once or twice more and that’ll be it. I’m just not going to be trying to complete all these side things and getting every weapon/armor, ability and whatnot. The asking price and time it takes is just not worth it, and quite frankly I think a lot of it absolutely ridiculous. So I doubt I’ll be attempting any of the omega stuff or any of the hidden places bc if what I’ve seen so far is any indication, those side quests are going to be absurd and just not worth the time and effort.

 

[Whitecrow]

Well, I wont deny that the game may not be too friendly with the people who plays it for the first time, because it doesnt tell you anything about anything, and that's s frustrating.
But the game is just how it is, and when you know it, you can start enjoying it more.

The game gives you lots of options but it doesnt mean you have to use them.

I've never grinded items for no encounter shields.
I've never trained an aeon and never made any aeon lean any skill.
I may reform equipment casually, but 99% of times I use equipment from monster drops or chests or wahetever.

You cant beat the mainstory line (with some challenge obviously) just grinding levels and using normal equipment.
Now after hours of real grind, I managed to beat Dark Ixion quickly, and I got tired after.

Grinding items and equipment is just for the end game in the case you wanna go for it, which is where you must really know what you want your equipment for and what enemies drops what you need, and where you can spend more than 3 times the time of the main story line.

This game's endgame is a beast. That's why you have all dark aeons, Penance, and Summum.
You have to grind for level grinding items (SPx3, Overdrive =>SP, Triple overdrive)
You have to grind for guiles to bribe some monsters (for quantities high as 500000 or more)
You have to grind for shield skills like VIT > 9999, auto-haste, auto-phoenix...
You may get supressing spheres to improve your sphere grid and max-out your stats, or just grind for fortune spheres...

Belive me, everything you are encountering that is infuriating you, is there because of this.

Anyways, you will forgive the game for everything after you seeing the ending.

 

[Ixion]

Yeah, the Dark Aeons and Monster Arena bosses are not meant to be fought as soon you get the airship. As mentioned, those are there to give you a challenge that requires a fully suped up squad. Otherwise, there wouldn't be much reason to get all the Aeons, find and power up all the ultimate weapons, and max out your sphere grids.

As for a No Encounter item, I wouldn't fight that Hornet, since he'll just fuck you up. Instead I would just capture the five different Drakes (4 of each), which is outlined in this guide. That will get you 99 purifying salts.

And regarding the Dark Aeons themselves, those weren't there in the original US version, so you could freely go back anywhere in the world basically. But with the International/Remaster version, the Dark Aeons will block certain areas and ambush you (at least the first time, until you know where they are). I agree that the Dark Aeons are kind of annoying, but it does give you even more motivation to power up your squad and exact revenge upon those bastards.

How was he in the original European version? I don't remember him being particularly hard.

Apparently he was powered up in the original International version, so I guess you fought the powered up version if that's what you played. Omega was literally a one hit kill in the US version. I could just whip out Anima and take him out with one or two attacks. But now he has 10X the HP and you can't use your black magic at all, so there are just more chances for you to fuck up and your Aeons can't carry you the whole way anymore. It actually took me a few tries to beat him on my last playthrough, even with all the Aeons and ultimate weapons (granted I didn't max out my sphere grid).

 

[sublimit]

Apparently he was powered up in the original International version, so I guess you fought the powered up version if that's what you played. Omega was literally a one hit kill in the US version. I could just whip out Anima and take him out with one or two attacks. But now he has 10X the HP and you can't use your black magic at all, so there are just more chances for you to fuck up and your Aeons can't carry you the whole way anymore. It actually took me a few tries to beat him on my last playthrough, even with all the Aeons and ultimate weapons (granted I didn't max out my sphere grid).

Hmm i don't remember very clearly but the last two times i beat the game (the last time being around 2004) i had basically made my team like Gods so i probably beat him after i had leveled up and maxed out the Sphere Grid and that's why i thought he was easy.
But the first time i played the game back when it came out i definitely didn't do any Monster Arena grinding (i didn't even had all the celestial weapons) and i think i still managed to beat him. I wonder is that even possible or am i not remembering correctly?

 

[Ixion]

Hmm i don't remember very clearly but the last two times i beat the game (the last time being around 2004) i had basically made my team like Gods so i probably beat him after i had leveled up and maxed out the Sphere Grid and that's why i thought he was easy.
But the first time i played the game back when it came out i definitely didn't do any Monster Arena grinding (i didn't even had all the celestial weapons) and i think i still managed to beat him. I wonder is that even possible or am i not remembering correctly?

In the US version, Omega was around the same difficulty as the final main story bosses (or even slightly easier). But in International/Remaster he's up there with the Dark Aeons and Monster Arena bosses, but is on the easy end of the spectrum for those "super bosses". For example, while Omega might have 1 million HP now, Dark Anima has 8 million HP, with all of the other Dark Aeons besides Valefor also having more than 1 million HP. So yeah, he's still far from the hardest boss in the game, but is much harder than before.

And I really like that change because I always thought he was an anti-climactic finale to a cool dungeon. But now his difficulty fits better.

 

[Kev Kev]

BONUS UPDATE

I picked up some level 3 spheres and upgraded the shit out of my characters (i had like 30 moves for each, and a ton of special spheres i hadnt touched), customized some poweerful weapons and armor for each character and it made all the difference. having a lot more fun now, and taking out tough enemies much easier. i still think the amount of items to customize is insane, but i bit the bullet and did it, and it was worth it. the biggest thing was finally getting those level 3 spheres tho. still dont agree with limiting the player like that.

if i put in the time to grind and power up my characters, then i should be able to keep leveling them. but they purposefully made it difficult (impossible?) to obtain lvl 3 spehres before entering sin (defender z in zanarkand was supposed to drop level 3 "rarely", but i fought dozens of them and only got level 2 spheres). as a result, i was gridlocked and each fight did not feel rewarding bc i couldnt do anything with the XP, which made defeating those tough bosses even more annoying.

i'm gonna dick around a little more now that my characters are actually powerful enough to take on some of these fiends. maybe ill look up strategies for the dark aeons and omega boss (doesnt seem ill be able to figure it out on my own).

 

[Kev Kev]

FINAL UPDATE

Okay just finished and I think the game really shines after you get the airship and start capturing fiends. Getting those items finally make customizing weapons and armor useful. So I think a lot of complaint came down to pacing. I would rather they have made it so I could customize powerful gear as I went along, but it just costs too many items/Gil.

By the time I was done capturing fiends, leveling up and customizing gear, I had all my characters attacking for 9,999 or double casting Ultima, and it was awesome! But not being able to acquire level 3 spheres earlier really put a cap on how powerful you could get before facing Yunalesca, and that is a BIG complaint from me (well, I’ve already bitched enough in my previous updates so I’ll save it lol).

I love the ending of this game! The final scenes between Tidus and Jecht were well done. Not too sappy or cheesy. They really nailed the ending. The high five between them two at the end was perfect. Bravo on the ending square! They usually suck at them but this one was perfect.

well, I’ve already said everything else about the game that I wanted to in my updates. Only thing I will add on is that I feel the game really payed off in the end, and I rescind a lot of my complaints and criticisms. I just wish they paced it a little better so I didn’t have all that frustration in the boss fights leading up to Yunalesca.

Great game! Cant recommend it enough to anyone on the fence. Just be prepared to wait for the fun stuff towards the very end of the game. Until you get the airship, don’t grind or go too out of the way. Just follow the road and enjoy the story.

It was a fun journey! Thanks to everyone for the help along the way.

 

[Cutty Flam]

Kev Kev did FFX/X-2 make it into your top five within the franchise?

 

[Kev Kev]

Kev Kev did FFX/X-2 make it into your top five within the franchise?

yeah for sure! 6 is my favorite, then 7 and 9 right behind it, and 8 and 10 right behind those. it's hard to choose between all of them but 10 has always been in my top five since its release. didnt care for 10-2...

for what its worth, XV was half finished but the finished parts were great, and i feel vii remake is the best output since 10, although it still has some major flaws. so hopefully if they keep trending that way and can get back to what made 6-10 so great.

 

[Krathoon]

I am playing FF9 suckas.

 

[marquimvfs]

For everyone telling that the game is beatable without doing any sidequest, how hard is that to achieve?

 

[Kev Kev]

For everyone telling that the game is beatable without doing any sidequest, how hard is that to achieve?

Not that hard, just be ready to look up some strategies for bosses towards the end of the game. They have some moves that will wipe out your entire party in one hit if you’re not properly equipped for them. You may have to do a bit of grinding, but with the right strategy I wouldn’t be surprised if you could go without grinding as well. It’s a pretty easy game as long as you are prepared and have a little bit of patience for those end game battles.

Although a lot of the fun is had towards the very end of the game, right before the final area/boss. You acquire some new side quest options that allows you to finally upgrade weapons and sphere we the grid that would otherwise be missed. It’s kind of a complaint that they did it that way tbh, but it was worth spending a little extra time to do all that side stuff before the last dungeon. But you can’t really do all of that until right before that last dungeon, so for the most part just follow the road and enjoy the story until you get there.

I would go into more detail but I didn’t want to spoil anything.

 

[marquimvfs]

I would go into more detail but I didn’t want to spoil anything

I'm still at Calm Lands. Don't mind any spoilers... what are your recommendations?

 

[Komatsu]

So much wrong there and so many lies. It’s simply a lie to say the battles are faster than FF13

I don't in which world you live - clearly not mine.

CTB is widely recognized in the industry and by the community as one of the snappiest, most responsive battle systems ever employed by the franchise. Even people who hate FFX find time to compliment it.

If there is one thing that FFXIII battles are not is resposive. Nor fast.

 

[Kev Kev]

I'm still at Calm Lands. Don't mind any spoilers... what are your recommendations?

Just continue the game as normal until you defeat yunalesca. she is the boss right before the final dungeon/sin (look up strategies for her and some of the bosses before her, like I said they can one hit kill your whole party, and that’s a real downer). After you defeat her you get access to the airship which lets you fast travel anywhere. From there you want to go back to each area in the game and capture one of every fiend. It’ll take some time but I actually enjoyed it, plus it’ll help you level up characters. While in each area, double check places you couldnt access before.

There are also coordinates you can input into the airship that take you to secret locations, so look those up when you get to that point. Search for and find the omega ruins. On top of capturing fiends here, it’s a great place to grind and collect level 3 spheres.

Cash in all your captured fiends to the monster arena guy in the calm lands and use the items he gives you to customize powerful weapons. Use your level 3 speheres to continue along your grids. By this point you should be powerful from capturing fiends and customizing weapons, and you should have no issues with the last dungeon and fighting sin.

Oh, forgot to mention, you’ll want to capture fiends in the final dungeon as well. It’s a pain, but capturing fiends is how to unlock the ingredient items to customize weapons, so it’s necessary.

There are tons of other optional games/side quests you can do. Look them up if you want to 100% the game. But the above is everything I did to help me breeze through the final dungeon and sin. I’m sure you get get away with doing less, but it helped stretch the game out another 5 or so hours, and it was fun revisiting all the places in Spira, so it was worth it and helped make my party beastly