LogFAQs > #986305206

Brief update (by my standards), with not a LOT storywise, since I've largely been doing sidequests in and around the Calm Lands for a while now.

Storyiwse, the only things that have happened are we stopped in at a little campsite and Father Zuke spoke to us, at which point we learned that he's the summoner Lulu previously served as a guardian for. But he's a cool guy and doesn't buy into the lies about Yuna being a traitor, so he just lets us know what's going on, but largely leaves us to our pilgrimage. And shortly thereafter (in the story, not so much in game time), we get accosted by some Guado, who attack me with a big ol' stone golem and get their asses kicked for trying to stop us from continuing Yuna's pilgrimage. That...pretty much covers the plotline of the Calm Lands, which is largely just a big, open space with the lore reason for its existence being that summoners typically draw Sin there to do battle and avoid major damage or casualties.

Now, with that being said, there are a lot of side quests that opened up here. Blitzball is back on the menu, but I'm not touching that until I get the airship so that Brother doesn't get scooped up by another team. Weird that the Blitzball season is still ongoing though, given the outright war going on between the Guado and Al Bhed (plus Tidus/Wakka being on the Besaid team as enemies of the state). Beyond that though, there are 3-4 minigames I need to go off about, plus some other details to discuss. The most minor is the chocobo race around the side temple, which I only really did a few times before getting annoyed, since it's not really worth a whole lot. I just got my Cloudy Mirror, which I then used back in the Macalania Woods to turn into a Celestial Mirror, which means I can start the process of getting everyone's ultimate weapons. Woo!

Speaking of my celestial weapons, I did just that for Yuna and Kimahri. With Yuna, I started the Arena sidequest, which meant taking a LOT of time to go around the Calm Lands and catch ten of every monster there. I know you only need to catch the one of each for Yuna's weapon, but I also know you need to max out each monster EVENTUALLY, so I might as well do it now. Maxed out the monsters for Calm Lands, and then went and did the same in Macalania and Thunder Plains, while also making a brief stop to grab Kimahri's ultimate weapon from Thunder Plains as well. I TRIED to do the lightning dodging there, but holy crap that minigame is somehow the WORST in a slew of bad minigames FFX has to offer. Maybe it'll get better when I have the ability to disable random encounters though.

Back in the calm lands, I also cleared Yuna's fights with Valefor, Ifrit, Ixion, Shiva and Bahamut, so we're looking good there. But there's one big elephant in the room, and that's the chocobo races. This minigame SUCKS, largely because of the randomness and largely because of how trigger happy the controls are. It was especially bad in the first run, where you're trying to control an unruly chocobo under a time limit, but it's just as bad when you're trying to dodge thrown balls under a time limit too. The third course was weirdly easy, but then we get to the chocobo race itself.

I got Tidus' weapon from the race, but I know that mastering the race with a time of 0.0 seconds is what I needed to fully unlock things. So I had to get to work, and I spent a good three hours trying to run the course again and again and again, hoping the random placement of the balloons would work in my favor. I got 0.3 seconds once, which was HEARTBREAKING. But finally, finally FINALLY, I had a perfect run. Fourteen balloons, and I managed to dodge every single bird, including the ones that pop up right before the end to screw you out of a perfect run typically. And I got my 0.0, so I've completely that portion of Tidus' legendary weapon quest. Not the...first part, but the second part, at least.

Finally, a Sphere Grid update: all characters have completed their initial grids. Kimahri is in Rikku's path and I think may be getting nearer to the end of hers. Auron/Tidus/Rikku are all bunched together on Wakka's grid, and Wakka doubled back to Auron's grid. Yuna and Lulu are...tough. They're both at the end of their grid, but I lack spheres necessary to move them to each other's grids...which means they're just accumulating AP until I can actually start moving them where they need to go. Here's hoping I can make that happen sooner, rather than later.