Current Events > Playing Final Fantasy X (Spoilers)

(+) Yeah! (+)

Three down.
That was Dark Ixion.
Had me going for a moment, Blitz Ace and Attack Reels have a pretty harsh damage reduction already. Every auto-counter Ixion went for missed. The electric spell it did only did about 4-5k which is strange and it caused Tiddus to auto-counter it.
Wasn't expecting a second round. That's some left field stuff by this game's standards.

Next up, Dark Shiva, aka the fastest enemy in the game. That's pretty much her only strong point though.

Four down.
Dark Shiva went down in two moves which I'm not sure what to say to. It's interesting to know they're not just boosting all stat every time at least.
I chose Slice and Dice over Blitz Ace because I was being cautious and didn't want to disappear too far down the action queue but each hit did triple damage Ixion was taking. Then Attack Reels killed.
Ixion's second phase was a second round. Shiva's is a series of fights against low level enemies. Hmm.

The finger snap causing the glass smashing transition to the fight is cool. The initial look of the fight is kind of daunting too, you get so used to all these big colorful environments for fights then this one is just a flat of ice in the middle of a black void.
I like the boss theme variety too. Valefor got the default battle theme, Ifrit had that action/danger cutscene song, Ixion had a quieter more tension song and here we are, finally Dark Shiva has the boss theme.

Five Down.
Dark Bahamut was more like a puzzle. I died twice, first time I was like oh shit this is a real boss they've even given him the real boss theme, second time I wanted to test if what happened was consistent or random. Seems consistent.

He always uses his turn to punch you, every few Quick Hits gets you an Impulse. If you auto revive out of an Impulse wipe while his meter's full, you've Mega Flared yourself. Meter goes up, have aeon be the one fill the meter and be sacrificed to Mega Flare. Megalixir to do another loop.

This one ramped up a lot compared to the previous fights. I do actually feel pretty good about winning this one though.
Edit: Actually I'm pretty sure this one really did have a few million hp.

Six down.
I had some schemes and ideas for Dark Yojimbo but the first one worked. Send an anti-ambush loadout Yuna in to cancel that out and also waste his first turn on an Aeon. 3 auto lifes, build meter, send it over to Wakka, Quick Hit on free turns. Zanmato doesn't build that fast, there's a good bit of room to spend time preparing/healing. Constantly remind self that he won't do Wakizashi every turn for the morale boost.

That one wasn't that bad but I was feeling some pressure on rounds 4 and 5. Especially while doing the Attack Reels slots. I kind of assumed the first 4 would be weaker versions and then round 5 would be the real thing but they were pretty evenly balanced out.
Weird they let the summoner walk away like that.

I've just found out that the other four actually disappear from your party while you're in the water. As in say goodbye to the effects of that No Encounters armor Lulu has.
Could have just prevented me from switching them into the main 3.

ViewtifulJoe posted...

Six down.
I had some schemes and ideas for Dark Yojimbo but the first one worked. Send an anti-ambush loadout Yuna in to cancel that out and also waste his first turn on an Aeon. 3 auto lifes, build meter, send it over to Wakka, Quick Hit on free turns. Zanmato doesn't build that fast, there's a good bit of room to spend time preparing/healing. Constantly remind self that he won't do Wakizashi every turn for the morale boost.

That one wasn't that bad but I was feeling some pressure on rounds 4 and 5. Especially while doing the Attack Reels slots. I kind of assumed the first 4 would be weaker versions and then round 5 would be the real thing but they were pretty evenly balanced out.
Weird they let the summoner walk away like that.

Yeah, the only differences are the guaranteed Ambush in the first battle, and his overdrive charges faster in the later battles.

Fun fact, his Zanmato is actually affected by Defence. Even with 255 it still does well over 99999, but if you then add the aeon move Shield onto that, it will reduce it to less (around 50k).

Seven down.
Dark Anima was unexpectedly easy. After a while I started to think the fight was designed with me using aeons as meat shields in mind and that I'd need to go through six or seven of them but I only went through three.
It could only attack one opponent at a time and two of my three had Ribbon so the attack that piles you with statuses was nerfed to death. Tidus got hit with it once though, it was like curse, silence, sleep and doom or something all rolled into one. Nasty. Quick Pockets MVP.

It was like Dark Bahamut without the risk of the Impulse -> Overdrive combo. Feels wrong to be able to say that. I kind of assumed since you fight Seymour's Anima earlier in the game, they'd really change it up for the dark version.

Eight down.
Well actually it was ten enemies. But it was also nine battles total. Hmm.
Dark Mindy and Dark Sandy then Dark Mindy.

That running away minigame is stressful, not in a bad way though. I don't know if any of them can hit multiple targets outside of mega-graviton. They have spells, so maybe they had ultima and just didn't use it, couldn't say.
Seemed like once you have it down to a 3 vs 2, all you need to do is keep auto-life active and keep their overdrive meters out of sync so they can't do too much burst damage.

Something else nice is they don't just immediately obliterate aeons, I was able to summon Anima with no meter, survive a mega-graviton and passado then land an overdrive.
The Dark Cindy fight had something funny to it. I summoned my own Magus Sisters and they actually really held out. Razzia and passado do damage, all three had auto-life cast on them and their speeds were pretty even.

Well if you want a bit more challenge you should have fight 3 of them at once.

I suppose I could have.
It's got me counting multi-target attacks that weren't overdrives. There's what, Impulse, Wakizashi, Anima's non-overdrive mega-graviton. Nemesis wasn't a dark aeon but he might as well have been, he had Ultra Spark.
And on top of that I'm still wondering why Dark Anima and Dark Magus Sisters got the default battle theme, these are the late game aeons. All the others got something fitting.

Valefor's Energy Ray as well. It's an overdrive for your Valefor but just a regular attack for Dark Valefor.

Dark Magus Sisters have no hit-all attacks besides Mega Graviton and Delta Attack. They only use their special moves, physical attacks (except Mindy) and Calamity (Mindy only). This can still run you out of Phoenix Downs very quickly if you fight all three together.

A big participation trophy spawned in the sky above the Calm Lands a while ago.
Now, we all know trophies in video games - that aren't from Smash Bros - don't challenge people to fights and then put said people in the ground without breaking a sweat, so that's a relief.

Still, this eleventh hour grind has a really foreboding air to it.

He eats Attack Reels like it's nothing. Right. Time to start scribbling down bad ideas.

-Arms need to go, bit of time to hit him, heal before attacks/arms respawn, repeat. Obliteration seems to dictate the structure of the fight.
-Even though X-Potion is at the front of the inventory they default to healing with hi-potions so maybe sell every potion except X-Potion before the start.
-Not entirely sure what to do with Tidus' overdrives, I don't want to get pushed down the action queue and have the arms respawn while he's out of action. Maybe entrust the bar over to Wakka and stick to Quick Hit.
-One of the arms is worse than the other.
-Phase 2's gimmick is like it or not I will be beamed down and have my MP drained. I think Quick Pockets can get me out of this. I lose a turn but I can replenish numbers and re-auto heal whoever got hit.

-Accidentally attack Penance instead of an arm
-Feel heart momentarily stop

ViewtifulJoe posted...

-Even though X-Potion is at the front of the inventory they default to healing with hi-potions so maybe sell every potion except X-Potion before the start.

You only need to get rid of Potion and Hi-Potion for what you're trying here. Auto-Potion won't use Mega-Potions or Al Bhed Potions.

I'm sorry did he just pull out a second form

Spamming quick hit is better than Attack Reel, i think.
Don't forget to dispel the haste.

Oh thanks, didn't realise it was a spell, though it was innate when he threw the weighted training gear off.
I wonder how many resources I'm down after spending a few turns trying to keep up with Turbo-Penance.
Edit: I hit him with a dispel and it said miss. I don't actually need to go back and grind my magic stat up to make the move work do I?
This is spiralling.

ViewtifulJoe posted...

Edit: I hit him with a dispel and it said miss. I don't actually need to go back and grind my magic stat up to make the move work do I?

No. His Haste when entering the second form only lasts for a couple of turns, then it wears off; which would have already happened by the time you casted Dispel, hence the Miss.

Dispel has no random or stat-based factor to it (unless you count the MP cost). If a status it can remove exists, it will do so. If it fails, either there is no status to remove, or the status in question is not possible to remove.

Man it's really not easy to get a clean shot in.
I don't exactly want to gamble by having both arms active and trying to Attack Reels both of them down at once either.

Ah.
He has petrify.
Ah.

Fuck that's really discouraging.

Hey who cares, at least replaying the first bit I can feel like I'm making some progress again and I can see if I can stay ahead by dispelling the haste fast, that really could have been what bent the pattern out of shape.
Maybe I should try not to use overdrives too. Moving down the attack queue is pretty much the most dangerous thing right now. The coverage is nice but if I could stay in a flow that was all Quick Hits doing 99999, that would be ideal.
Oh I'll use a first phase opening to get my initial auto-lifes set up too, that sounds like an idea.

Phase transition (He was next to attack in the queue), he attacks. I Quick Pockets to Megalixir. Then I dispel, the dispel misses.
So I have to count first phase hits and sure he goes into the next phase on my go so I can dispel and apparently have it count for something?

If the hands die at the same time they respawn too close in the action queue to be properly dealt with, I think.

I should really look into a way to survive Immolation. Rikku's mixes aren't getting much use at all, maybe it's an elemental attack I can resist. There's so few openings I have to be playing this wrong.

I count 29 hits, 30th changes phase.
He got the first go again, dispel missed. Shrug.
I'm hoping it'll all click if I play a clean fight and get the jump on his second phase.
If not, I'm thinking if I could survive Immolation, I might even get some counter attacks out of it and the auto X-potion would start mattering again.. That'd be a game changer so looking into that is plan B.

Edit: I just mentioned I was fighting Penance and immediately got told about ultra nul-all which really sounds like the missing piece.
Oh and this thing seems like a real pain to get hold of, guess I'm taking a real detour.

It doesn't matter if you miss the chance to Dispel. Once it doesn't work, his Haste is gone, and he is back to normal speed for all subsequent turns.

The benefit of Ultra NulAll against him comes from that it gives you 5x Cheer. You could just do that manually.

Oh it's real.
I let another pair of arms spawn, took them out, refilled MP and turned Penance to his second form right after obliteration. He didn't get the first move, I hit him with dispel, it didn't miss.

So if you don't time the phase transition right, the game gives him haste for a single move just so he can use immolation and most likely bend your pattern out of shape?

Okay every now and then he still randomly kills me through it. Maybe Super Elixir doesn't cure the break status effects. Or maybe I was supposed to re-cast nul-all to cancel it out?
Edit: So I have to endlessly dispel my own buffs and reapply them all while immolation keeps reapplying debuffs and also while keeping respawning arms in check. Or does dispel only remove the nultide nulfrost part of it and the cheer 5 stack is permanent as long as the character stays alive? A stat modifier and a positive status effect. Maybe the glowing orbs no longer orbiting my character is just very tilting.

"Human grit always beats robot magic." - The Soldier, Team Fortress 2

I beat him.

There's probably a faster way involving overdrives but I decided to stop messing with the action queue. Quick Pockets, Quick Hit, Dispel, no deviation. Arms go first, occasionally get a few clean shots at Penance. Cross fingers and hope I had enough X-Potions and that Penance would get himself auto-countered by Tidus or Wakka a lot.
I had 24 X-Potions left and 56 Megalixirs.

For the record this was what I assumed most if not all the Dark Aeons would be like.
Having to look up how to prepare for these takes a bit of the prestige away but I treated the fights like puzzle boxes where I go in with the tools I'll apparently need and try to figure it out myself so there's still some sense of accomplishment.

The last real thing to do is the last level.

It's pretty amazing you're this far in just 10 days.

As far as I recall, the only way to cure the Breaks is Dispel.

Dispel does not remove Cheer or similar. It removes Haste, Reflect, Protect, Shell, Regen, the Nuls, the Breaks, and Curse. It doesn't remove invisible statuses like Cheer or Trio etc, nor does it remove Auto-Life.

Turning encounters back on for Sin.
It's a little more climactic than just running to the end.
I didn't even look past Seymour Omnis the first time so unless the place is a straight line, I'll have one last bit of exploring to do.

Have fun one shotting BFA lmao

LeCh0nk posted...

Have fun one shotting BFA lmao

Yeah, this is why advise people to finish the game at least once before trying to tackle the secret bosses.

I always thought the big metal pillar that teleports you to a magic crystal void full of free stuff was strange.
Makes a convincing point of no return though.

It's so surreal hearing the Captain Blue voice actor in anything else.
And damn, the battle arena is way cooler than I remember. That's a different version of Otherworld too.

Maybe I can have some fun with this. Two auto-phoenix ribbon characters spamming defend, one of the neglected characters being the only one allowed to attack? And Wakka's allowed to stop the Yu Pagodas.
Oh right unless he hits Wakka and gets auto-countered into his second phase yeah. Better switch weapons.

All right, enough simultaneously making Jecht and Auron look bad.
A graceful end it is to be.
(Begins tossing beach balls)

Scene intended to be emotional.
An ending intended to be emotional to come.

But in between, a fight with this list of summons with increasingly stupid and bizarre names tainting the emotional impact.
All according to plan.

Ah, the ending still managed to catch me off guard. I remembered the gist what happened in the but I wasn't expecting the vivid flashbacks to the first time I beat the game.

I didn't really think about it until a while ago but the whole plucked from a dream Zanarkand (which also describes the ending of a previous playthrough) to go on the adventure again lends itself to replaying after a while so well.

For a game I initially took a chance on because someone on Youtube made it sound like it'd be a laugh and because I figured I should try the franchise just to say I did, it's pretty outrageous how good it ended up being.