LogFAQs > #986350036

But yeah, the party reaches the end goal with Yunalesca, and it's spelled out very clearly: one of the guardians has to sacrifice themselves to become Yuna's Final Aeon, and effectively become the new Sin once the old Sin is destroyed. It's absolute bullshit, and everyone sees that, and even Yuna is not down with this. She's resigned herself to her fate, sure...but she's not about to sacrifice her friends; we've already seen a lighter instance of this with the marriage scene in Bevelle. And to make matters worse, Yunalesca straight-up tells the party "Yeah, Yevon's teachings are a total lie...Sin will ALWAYS come back and there's no ultimate atonement. IMMEDIATE soul-crushing news for everyone, and even worse for Yuna and Tidus, since they now know for sure that their fathers died for nothing, effectively.

And finally, SOMEONE breaks the cycle. Yuna refuses to go through with the path Yunalesca expects her to follow, Tidus encourages her, and the party fights Yunalesca to the death. It was a tough battle, but the game is really trying to add mechanics to their boss battles so you can just overlevel and blast the boss outright, which is still appreciated. I tried to always keep one of my healers (Lulu/Yuna) zombied and one normal, just to handle any spells that got used to start doing some real harm to the party overall. But yeah, we killed Yunalesca and that means the standard method of "killing" Sin is no more. Time for Tidus to put his "just think of something" mindset to work.

One thing I noticed--and it stood out more because I came back to Zanarkand after visiting Bevelle, and I met up with Dona and Barthello (good on them for actually finishing the pilgrimage, I suppose)--but early on, Dona highlights how pathetic it is that Yuna needs so many guardians. Dona only has Barthello, Isaaru only had his two brothers, Braska only had two, Father Zuke only had Lulu/Wakka. Yet Yuna wins up with a party of six. But I feel like having such a large party is exactly what allowed Yuna to be the one who broke the cycle. If she only had a Tidus/Rikku guardian duo, they likely would've talked her out of the sacrifice. If she only had a couple of the Kimahri/Lulu/Wakka group, they likely don't make her question the pilgrimage, and one of them gladly sacrifices themselves. But because you have SIX people, and you have both the stalwarts AND the skeptics, it allowed Yuna to complete the pilgrimage AND had those conflicting thoughts that let her stand against what Yunalesca wanted. Even in a group of three, we saw Jecht/Braska were two-on-one versus Auron, but with six, each of the guardians has a relationship with one another, and you have to take THAT into account in addition to the summoner themselves. So in a way, it's not even just Yuna's individual strength, but the strength of the people she chose to surround herself with that serve as the change that Spira needed.

Finally, we get our last BIG reveal of the game (I think), with Auron telling Tidus that yeah, he's been dead the whole time. It's hinted at for sure, but it's good to see the game spell it out, because I think that really helps to sell older Auron as a hero more than he has been before now. Up until this point, he's just been "I'm pushing Yuna along because Braska wanted it", but now it's more "I'm staying alive just to guard the children of my two closest friends and make sure that Braska and Jecht's deaths weren't in vain." Hell, Auron gets killed trying to avenge them right away, taking a swing at Yunalesca, so good on him for that, too.

And then we get outside where Sin is just chilling. For once, Sin isn't causing unbelievable destruction, or immediately whisking Tidus off to some random corner of the world. And this leads to the thought process on the airship soon after, where perhaps the Hymn of the Fayth (which Jecht always liked) could pacify Sin long enough for the party to take him down. It's the start of a plan, for sure. But it also requires some information from Maester Mika, since he's been alive long enough to know things. That means heading back into the Lion's Den of Bevelle, where we're not exactly welcomed. Or...we WEREN'T welcomed until Shelinda shows up! That's right, Shelinda saves the day again and I'll not hear a bad word about her, even if she totally buys into the anti-Al Bhed propaganda still. But yeah, it's great to see Mika so terrified that he has no choice but to rely on Yuna to defeat Sin, and when he learns that Yunalesca is dead, that's enough for him to peace out and finally pass on. That's all the Maesters fully dead at this point, I think.

And with that, I now have free reign to explore Spira and complete some sidequests. Get some ultimate weapons, finish getting all of Yuna's summons. I'm at the endgame, but there's still a ways to go to finish the story.