Hey so any major conversation regarding the Final Fantasy X moments, predictions, results, criticism, how awesome the host is, or anything else that even remotely involves this contest or FFX in general can go on here. Discussion is permitted in the voting topics, but if you expect it to be a lengthy one, try to move it here so that tallying votes is a little easier and the discussion can be sustained for longer.
Contest will start this evening. I'll be posting each result in here. Let's make this a fun ride.
To start off discussion, people were tabbing the laughing scene as an early favorite to win. This puzzled me. And now laughing scene gets two quick saves. Will it be receiving both joke and need for respect votes all contest?
I won't support it forever, but I figured it would be a good start to the contest to have two of the cheesiest scenes in the game get the first two saves of the contest.
"Obtaining the Magus Sisters" was the first one eliminated. My thoughts:
I'm generally not a big fan of the Belgemine Aeon battles (Or one-on-one Aeon battles in the game in general) because they are pretty limited. It doesn't really take advantage of FFX's great battle system because of the one-on-one format. Plus, the fights themselves are usually not that difficult. The sequence of having to beat all of Belgemine's Aeons is kind of repetitive and not all that interesting. I mean, yeah, the Magus Sisters are a great Aeon and a nice reward for doing it all, but there isn't much storyline value other than figuring out that Belgemine is an unsent.
So yeah, while it probably shouldn't have been the first thing eliminated ahead of some of the Celestial Weapon stuff, it ranks pretty low for me among the moments in this contest, so I'm not too bothered by it going first.
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"I couldn't stand a day without a past or future. I need to live each moment to keep fighting here and now."
Mirroring Leon's here for the most part. He's right in that some Celestial migraines should have been routed before this but it still isn't too surprising. The Magus Sisters are likely my least favorite Aeon; had it not been for the relatively terrific Anima I would have proclaimed FFX one of the weakest entries as far as super-powerful summon hell-yessery is concerned.
The Belgemine fights are limited indeed, but I enjoy them for their sort of 'Pokemon in shiny 3D' value. Oh, and with better art design than most of the little critters could have ever hoped for.
Unfortunately for The Magus Sisters, theirs were fairly silly and not even in a funny way, at least to me. So good riddance, I suppose.
I'm not surprised either, but I definitely expected something like Butterly Catching to go out first. I pretty much second everything that has been already said about the Magus Sisters, though I actually enjoyed using them. The fact that they broke 9999 without any requirements was a lot of fun.
Also, I'm really glad the two votes to be saved thing worked out well. The round finished in under 24 hours which is nice. I counted 27 unique votes, and then another person posted after the round was over. I don't have much experience with Save Mys, but that sounds like a pretty nice crowd for a first round.
Chocobo racing is the latest elimination. I can't say I'm surprised. It was an incredibly frustrating task, though I'd rank it ahead of dodging lightning, personally. And the elation that came from finally finishing below 0:00 was an amazing feeling.
Chocobo Racing going out so soon is a shame, but it's not really surprising. I did it just for fun during my NSG run, despite the Caladbolg being absolutely pointless. Contrary to popular opinion, the minigame can be completed easily if you know what you're doing and does not require some ungodly luck for the perfect balloon setup. A poster on the FFX board had a Youtube video where he got a a time of 0 4 times out of 5 tries.
Chocobo Racing is actually pretty cool. Also, I want to say that Hyper Dodger (is that name correct?, the one with balls and birds) is worse than the balloon minigame.
Just for fun, I'll rank the CW tasks:
Monster catching > Blitzball (if you play throughout the story) > Chocobo > Aeons > Cactuars > Butterflies > Lightning Dodging > Blitzball (if you want to do it all at once)
Chocobo racing was my second least favorite of the Celestial Weapons quests. I don't care what anyone says about it being easy or not having any trouble with it. I did, and I don't like it. Only Butterfly Catching is worse.
Good riddance, I say.
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"I can set you free, mate." "My freedom was forfeit long ago!"
The hardest part about Chocobo racing were the controls, really. They were funky and hard to deal with at times. At least I understood what I was supposed to do. Just because of that I'd put it ahead of Butterfly Catching and Dodging Lightning (shudder).
Tedium goes a long way in making me dislike something. Dodging Lightning has enough of it to make me confident I will never get Lulu's celestial weapon.
I didn't find chocobo racing easy at all, but I did find it fun. Lightning Dodging was incredibly boring, plus I had to get no-encounters before doing it.
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My rivalry with SuperNiceDog turned out a bit one-sided.
Getting a no-encounters equip took forever, Leon, and it was pretty much required for me. I spent like 2 hours trying to get it without it, too, what a waste.
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My rivalry with SuperNiceDog turned out a bit one-sided.
I don't remember ever having problems getting a No Encounters armor on either FFX file I did. I was thinking there was something you could find or do that made it easy to get one, but it's been a while.
I remember beating Geosgaeno gave you a No Encounters weapon guaranteed. I don't remember what the, or even if there was, the items required to fuse it to your weapon.
I got it from a ghost, which is about a 1/15 drop rate. I ended up capturing 10 before I got one, so then I fought them in the monster arena, and it didn't take too long after that. I guess it depends on if you were going to completely capture everything anyway, in which case it wouldn't add too much time to get, possibly none.
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My rivalry with SuperNiceDog turned out a bit one-sided.
This elimination was a little surprising, but I'll agree it's definitely a weak storyline moment, if not just because it is hard to give an actual title to. I'm not sure how much use the Google Doc is getting, but this is one many people probably needed to refresh their memory on, just because it's hard to know what I'm actual talking about with the title "Tidus finally believes Sin is Jecht" in my opinion. The scene is also really cheesy, though. It's awkward hearing Tidus, in the early ages of full voiceover, have a one-sided conversation with Sin. Worse moments could've been eliminated, but this one didn't have much road in its shoes to start with.
I actually like the short section where the party regroups under the lake ice after the non-stop action between Crawler's attack and escaping the Guado, but it doesn't have too much to do with Tidus' monologue. Some great (optional) chat takes place there between the whole party, and its the last time they're relaxed together until after Bevelle (many hours away).
-- We are living our lives Abound with so much information
My thoughts: Overall, this scene isn't all that special except for a couple parts I really like. I like the part where it zooms in on the blitzballs, and Tidus says, "That's not your world anymore." Then we get the part where it shows Jecht with his back to the camera, looking up into the air, and you can just tell he's tired and he's despondent. Then Tidus says, "I know. You want this to end." Just that one image is really well done because it really captures the feeling well. That's kind of a minor thing though. There are no major revelations here, just acceptance on Tidus's part.
Still don't think it's the worst storyline moment on the list though, but it's probably on the lower part of it.
Latest result: Battle with Seymour Natus is eliminated and finishes in 61st place.
I'm not too bothered by this elimination. The events leading up to it are interesting enough (Kinoc's death, Seymour's plan to save Spira by killing it, charging back to Kimahri's side) and would be enough for me to vote it through personally, but as for the battle itself, it is easily the most forgettable of the Seymour battles. In fact, I don't remember too much about it just sitting here offhand.
Anyway, yeah, this one is going out too soon. The buildup to the battle is great, with Kimahri stabbing Seymour in the chest with the spear while he just looks at it and goes, "...Unpleasant." Then everyone running, but Tidus and Yuna deciding to go back to save him. "We're all guardians, and you know what that means, don't you? Anywhere you go, I'll follow." Great line. Then the battle itself is pretty good, with Seymour still using his triplecast spells, and this time he tries to use Break to petrify you and then use his little minion thing to shatter you if you don't cure it fast enough. Also, every time you completely drain the minion's HP, it'll drain 1000 HP from Seymour to keep itself alive, which is pretty cool. You can also use that to whittle away at Seymour's HP to prevent him from counterattacking you every time you attack him directly.
So yeah, too low, especially when we actually had the chance to get rid of something that deserved to go out this low.
Yeah, Natus should be much higher up. Great end to the most intense section of the game. Starts with a bang and becomes more intense when he starts using Break. I like how there's no scene afterwards too - just a fade to black and Tidus' narration.
-- We are living our lives Abound with so much information
Yeah, Natus going out this early is a shame. Flux and Seymour + Anima are better moments, but Natus and the whole Highbridge scene are some good stuff.
Horrible moment to eliminate if you want to eliminate a Seymour moment. He reveals his entire plan here, plus the other stuff that was mentioned. I'm going to have to stop voting so much if this is what happens when I do.
Eh, don't let this discourage you. I admit I was kind of irritated last night when Genny purposefully saved two low tier things that should be eliminated almost immediately to get rid of an actual good moment because I figured since this was such a unique concept for a contest and I assume most people voting in this thing actually like FFX, we should try to do it a bit of justice and take it at least semi-seriously when it comes to getting rid of bad stuff and saving good stuff.
But hey, it's just a contest, so yeah.
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"I couldn't stand a day without a past or future. I need to live each moment to keep fighting here and now."
Latest elimination: Cloister of Trials finishes in 60th place.
ELIMINATED 60th place – Cloister of Trials 61st place – Battle with Seymour Natus 62nd place – Tidus finally believes Sin is Jecht 63rd place – Chocobo racing 64th place – Obtaining the Magus Sisters
Cloister of Trials is out, huh? I can't say I particularly look forward to the Cloisters whenever I play FFX, but they're fairly inoffensive after you've played through the game once. It's pretty easy to remember what to do after you've done it once. The only one I'd say is actually kind of enjoyable is the one in Zanarkand, and Bevelle is the only one I'd say is bad (and it's not THAT bad). The rest are just kinda there.
So it's not the worst thing out there, but I'm not sad to see it go.
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"But you have been given freedom. Freedom to be...outside." "I am lightning...the rain transformed."
Yeah, I don't see the Cloisters as offensively bad, but they're certainly not one of FFX's stronger points. Well, except the Zanarkand one. Why they didn't make them into actual puzzles or mazes, as opposed to trial and error games, I'll never know.
-- We are living our lives Abound with so much information