Current Events > Yojimbo from FFX is a completely bonkers game mechanic

(+) Yeah! (+)

I'll try and explain this in a way that doesn't require you to play the game.

You have a standard JRPG party, and one of those characters can summon "aeons" to help fight. These are basically giant monsters that totally decimate and make the game easy-mode for people that don't want to grind too much. This is true for everything except the very end game optional bosses, and FFX has a lot of those, and they are very hard. Most of the aeons you get are picked up normally through a standard playthrough. They have fairly ordinary attacks - hit physically, do magic, here's an ultimate attack, etc.

And then there's Yojimbo. Yojimbo is found buried in an optional dungeon. To get him you have to pay a pretty ridiculously high amount of money (for a standard playthrough). Even if you get him, he'll seem really odd to actually use. He doesn't have normal attacks. Instead you pay him money and he seems to decide what attack to use based on what you pay, but for the most part it seems random.

So it's completely reasonable to think that most people who've played this game either never found Yojimbo or never used him once they did.

But there are two interesting things about the guy. The first is that he has this one attack that has the ability to one-hit kill literally any enemy in the game, including the God-like post-game optional end boss that takes a fully maxed out party about 40 minutes to kill ordinarily. The second is that the in-game formula that decides whether he can use this ultimate attack is so fucking complicated that someone wrote a gamefaqs guide that reads a bit like a mathematics research paper.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/ps2/197344-final-fantasy-x/faqs/24392

In a nutshell, there's a ludicrously complicated interplay between how much Yojimbo likes you, what actions you've asked him to do previously, what level the enemy is that you're fighting, what resistance they have to his insta-kill attack and finally a huge amount of RNG. This stuff is so complicated that even only as recent as a couple of years ago people have been breaking open the game's source code to better understand how it's calculated.

An entire guide to just explain how to use ONE attack for one entirely optional assistance character.

It's just bonkers to think that back in 1999 Square decided to put this much work into something so totally unimportant to the game and then hid it completely.

You just know this was the work of one particular dev who was given no direction and had nothing better to do that week.

I beat Jecht with 2 of those one hit kills back to back. I wonder what the odds of that were.

FFX is a great game but there's a whole lot of bloated game design. Things that make no sense, things that overpowered.

You can get Wakka's Attack Reels straight after Luca and it's the most OP attack in the game (Other than Zanmato) and then his Auroch Reels overdrive you can only get after like 300 fights or something is shit

Kimarhi has like 18 overdrives and they are all worthless.
Lulu's overdrive is absolutely shit and worse than attacking normally.

Every boss/difficult enemy being immune to status effects making them near useless. Seriously, aside from Sand Worm is there any point in ever poisoning anything?

There's the unexplained friendship mechanic that barely comes up.

Guns_of_Verdun posted...

FFX is a great game but there's a whole lot of bloated game design. Things that make no sense, things that overpowered.

You can get Wakka's Attack Reels straight after Luca and it's the most OP attack in the game (Other than Zanmato) and then his Auroch Reels overdrive you can only get after like 300 fights or something is shit

Kimarhi has like 18 overdrives and they are all worthless.
Lulu's overdrive is absolutely shit and worse than attacking normally.

Every boss/difficult enemy being immune to status effects making them near useless. Seriously, aside from Sand Worm is there any point in ever poisoning anything?

There's the unexplained friendship mechanic that barely comes up.

Yeah. And all of these systems also means there's usually a shortcut strategy to most bosses, which is kind of neat but hard to discover.

Seymour for example - IIRC, every version of him is vulnerable to poison. And since the damage is calculated based on his total HP, it's the easiest strategy to win even if you are under levelled. You cast bio once or hit him with a poion weapon once, and watch his health melt away at 4x the rate of your best attack.

I just did all the celestial weapons quests and I was amazed at how annoying Wakka's was. The other celestial weapon quests were hard but relatively short. This one was like "ok, play 100 games of blitzball, each game is 15 minutes long btw lololol"

Its an interesting game mechanic but I will never consider any fights beaten with Zanmato a legitimate win
but I used a game mechanic
no you skipped the fight

but it is a fun toy

Pay 2 win

Rika_Furude posted...

Its an interesting game mechanic but I will never consider any fights beaten with Zanmato a legitimate win
but I used a game mechanic
no you skipped the fight

but it is a fun toy

Name checks out. Absolute head nod acknowledging game club.

In this playthrough I used Zanmoto once against Dark Ifrit, because I had just been grinding out the monster arena capture quest in Bikanel. Spent nearly an hour without saving trying to get 10 sandworms, 10 cactuars and 10 Zu birds. And then without realising it I had wandered into Dark ifrit's area, while being supremely underlevelled to even think about facing him.

So basically it was a choice between losing that fight and doing all that grinding again, or just using Zanmoto to whoop him. So I did that. i reason that if I beat the other dark aeons legitimately it doesn't matter, he's hardly the hardest of them.

pinky0926 posted...

I just did all the celestial weapons quests and I was amazed at how annoying Wakka's was. The other celestial weapon quests were hard but relatively short. This one was like "ok, play 100 games of blitzball, each game is 15 minutes long btw lololol"

I remember seeing that and noping the fuck out. Wakka had to make do with the ball he had XD.

I actually do consider Yojimbo a legitimate win. They put it in the game and they wanted you to use it.
It's just something you have to come to terms with when you decide to go the ribbon on three characters, max stats, all celestials route. You tell people about your big accomplishment and th other people can just say "I beat him too but with no effort."

Which is questionably true because they'd at least have to roll 5 Zanmatos in a row against Dark Yojimbo which could be a pain.

pinky0926 posted...

In this playthrough I used Zanmoto once against Dark Ifrit, because I had just been grinding out the monster arena capture quest in Bikanel. Spent nearly an hour without saving trying to get 10 sandworms, 10 cactuars and 10 Zu birds. And then without realising it I had wandered into Dark ifrit's area, while being supremely underlevelled to even think about facing him.

So basically it was a choice between losing that fight and doing all that grinding again, or just using Zanmoto to whoop him. So I did that. i reason that if I beat the other dark aeons legitimately it doesn't matter, he's hardly the hardest of them.

You have to talk to an NPC who leads you to Ifrit, then you still get the chance to walk away <_<

How did you start that fight by accident?

pinky0926 posted...

In this playthrough I used Zanmoto once against Dark Ifrit, because I had just been grinding out the monster arena capture quest in Bikanel. Spent nearly an hour without saving trying to get 10 sandworms, 10 cactuars and 10 Zu birds. And then without realising it I had wandered into Dark ifrit's area, while being supremely underlevelled to even think about facing him.

So basically it was a choice between losing that fight and doing all that grinding again, or just using Zanmoto to whoop him. So I did that. i reason that if I beat the other dark aeons legitimately it doesn't matter, he's hardly the hardest of them.

You cheated not only the game, but yourself.

You didn't grow.

You didn't improve.

You took a shortcut and gained nothing.

You experienced a hollow victory.

Nothing was risked and nothing was gained.

It's sad that you don't know the difference.

Guns_of_Verdun posted...

You have to talk to an NPC who leads you to Ifrit, then you still get the chance to walk away <_<

How did you start that fight by accident?

Guy was speaking in Al bhed and it was vague anyway. Once you're in the cutscene you can't escape. I couldn't see ifrit, just a random NPC.

What you described isn't what happened for me - did it change in the remaster? There was nothing giving away that it was a dark aeon.
Alteres posted...

You cheated not only the game, but yourself.

You didn't grow.

You didn't improve.

You took a shortcut and gained nothing.

You experienced a hollow victory.

Nothing was risked and nothing was gained.

It's sad that you don't know the difference.

I shall commit sodoku

pinky0926 posted...

Guy was speaking in Al bhed and it was vague anyway. Once you're in the cutscene you can't escape. I couldn't see ifrit, just a random NPC.

What you described isn't what happened for me - did it change in the remaster? There was nothing giving away that it was a dark aeon.

You speak to the girl, agree to look for her child, then it shows Dark Ifrit chilling on a cliff edge

Then you're given control back and can walk away or walk towards the cliff:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-KnhxEpKPo

Skip to 3:55

Guns_of_Verdun posted...

You speak to the girl, agree to look for her child, then it shows Dark Ifrit chilling on a cliff edge

Then you're given control back and can walk away or walk towards the cliff:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-KnhxEpKPo

Skip to 3:55

wtf, this didnt happen at all.

You know what - what I think happened is that I triggered this cutscene months ago and left it alone, but this time I came back to that area and had forgotten about it. That meant I didn't see ifrit at all, and just spoke to the girl and it triggered the fight. She was standing behind the two guys when I went there.

The game is super inconsistent because some Dark Aeons ambush you

Valfor, Bahamut, Shiva

Magus Sisters sorta (Tho you can run away)

But then others give you chance to back out. Ifrit, Ixion, Yojimbo.

Anima you have to flat out go out of your way to challenge.

I wonder if that Seymour fight up on the mountain is still a huge cock block after all these years knowing it's coming and being able to level and what not before it.

Heineken14 posted...

I wonder if that Seymour fight up on the mountain is still a huge cock block after all these years knowing it's coming and being able to level and what not before it.

I went back with this same curiosity a while ago.
Rikku's overdrives make it pretty simple. There's a mix that doubles a character's health.

Heineken14 posted...

I wonder if that Seymour fight up on the mountain is still a huge cock block after all these years knowing it's coming and being able to level and what not before it.

I honestly think what made it hard back then was lack of information. You can't just play the fight like other fights, you have to have some strategy to it.

A combination of poison and knowing the right nul[element] order was all it takes, IIRC.

I still remember how great it was when I was getting fed up with Penance, summoned Yojimbo, and just threw all my money at him to see what would happen, then seeing "Zanmato" show up at the top of the screen while the toughest boss in the game just dies. So fucking awesome.

One thing about Yojimbo is that, in International/PAL/Remaster, it's super easy to get Zanmato because they buffed the formula so hard in your favor. I think the originals had it right: make it possible, but very difficult and very expensive to get against meaningful bosses.

Guns_of_Verdun posted...

Anima you have to flat out go out of your way to challenge.

And the best part is that she can ambush you.

I've never used Zanmato but I love that it is there

I think a "Fuck this" mechanic is a really cool idea for games.

Reminds me of the old Point and Click Adventure games were they gave you the option to just skip the terrible arcade sections