The Shrine

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>Overall it's probably one of my favorite of the series. It just came together so well. I like the cast - for probably the first time in a FF game, I've liked every single party member, especially Lulu and Auron. The Sphere system is great - takes a little time to figure out, but a little advanced planning lets you really make some cool characters. Music was good - I'm particularly fond of the intro theme and Mt. Gagazet. It's also going to take a lot of adjusting to go back to a console RPG where the party is fixed - the character switching dynamic was probably the most interesting and most useful addition to the series there.

It's interesting to look at Square FMV these days. I have to say I found it quite distracting, even though it's good. I know exactly what threw me off, too - the character renders. The character models themselves were really well done, and you got used to them - then when a FMV sequence came up, all of a sudden some of the characters looked...different (Tidus and Rikku being the prime examples of this - both of them had distinctly Asian FMV renders that didn't quite match up with their character models). It wasn't bad, just a bit disconcerting, and in a lot of ways I preferred the normal graphics.

The game wasn't too hard, either. I did a bit of levelling up here and there as I went, and spent about 5 hours levelling up in the Zanarkand Highway and the first area of Sin, but that was the only point where I deliberately levelled up. Only boss that killed me more than once was the giant mantis thing in the Zanarkand Dome, and that's because of poor planning and a lack of Berserk defense.

I like the Sphere Grid just because it gives you options. I liked being able to make Kihmari a black mage, though in the end he pretty much gets shafted no matter which path you take him on. I liked being able to take a character through their sphere path, then decide where to go.

Case in point: Yuna finished White magic. Lulu was about 10 sphere levels away from the end of her path, and Flare (including the sidetrip to get Doublecast). I had Yuna wait for that. When Lulu got Flare, I had Yuna use a Friend sphere to go there - voila, Yuna had Flare.

But I wasn't done yet. I had Lulu Return to the very beginning of her path. She then went north into Kihmari's grid, circled around, learned Lancet, and opened up Ultima. She also laid down 4 MP spheres and used them all. Once Ultima was learned, Yuna used a Black Magic Sphere. She suddenly knew Ultima too.

I wasn't done yet. I used a Return sphere to teleport Yuna over to the newly used Ultima sphere, which she could now Return to. She picked up the 4 MP+ 40 spheres, as well as a nearby HP sphere, and Lancet then Returned to Flare.

So with a little bit of patience and planning, Yuna learned the two most powerful Black magic spells in the game, and was free to go backwards down Lulu's path, picking up powerful magic and MP boosting spheres. Hell, she had 20 more magic than Lulu, so she was even better with Ultima than Lulu was.

Let me just say that having two mages with 700 MP and doublecast Ultima make the last battles quite easy.



Anyway, I have one story question.

Tidus was mentored/guarded by the unsent Auron back in Zanarkand 1000 years past. This was approximately the same time that Jecht dissapeared. When Yu Yevon first summoned Sin and Zanarkand was attacked. Auron and Tidus were sent to Spira through Sin - Auron because of not having to worry about such issues as dying again, and Tidus because Jecht protected him during the "journey". From there Tidus went on, helped defeat Jecht, and dissapeared as the Fayth stopped dreaming.

My question is this: How did Jecht get to Spira in the first place? It was ten years before Sin appeared and Zanarkand was destroyed.



Anyway, great game, and I'm glad I was able to beat it. No big loss on only being able to rent it; I didn't get any of the extra Aeons or defeat any of the Monster Arena bosses, but those were more curiosities than anything else.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>There's no real barrier to traveling from Zanarkand to Spira but not the other way around unless you're dead. It just sort of happens. Everyone in Zanarkand is technically a spirit anyway and like the story shows, you can pretty much defy death and become alive again if your will is strong enough in the world of Spira (e.g. Grand Maester, Yunalesca, Seymour), so I don't see why someone dead can't come back to life.

I find magic to be pretty worthless except Hastega. Quick Hit is unbelievably powerful. It's cool to squeeze some extra firepower out of your spheres but overall I don't find it adds very much to the depth. I had a lot fun walking around the Sphere Grid but ultimately it's not that different and none of the decision you make really matters. You don't have the ability to manipulate the Sphere Grid on a significant level until later on the end and by the time you can do that it often doesn't matter.

Agreed on the characters... FFX is one of the few games where I liked everyone, even Yuna. They did a good job keeping all the characters involved in the story rather than just the typical develop-a-character scenario pattern.</div>

<div style='font: 11pt ; text-align: left; '>I thought you disliked Yuna due to her voice?</div>

<div style='font: 11pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light"; text-align: left; '>Ultima sucks. I had most of my team learn that (via Black Magic Spheres), and I realized that I should have let Lulu go to Flare first and learn that instead. (Of course, Holy still kicks ass.)</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>I didn't like Yuna but I think she's likeable because at least she's not completely stupid. I don't have a problem with her voice.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>And Ultima is a nice way to waste your time. Barely does more damage than Flare for about 3 times the animation time.</div>

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>It's the only black magic spell in the game (excluding Demi) that hits all the enemies at the same time. Given the last bosses' dependance on receiving overdrive energy, it's nice to be able to hit all targets at once...</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>Quick Hit the Yu Pagodas with Wakka. Problem solved.</div>

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>I'm not saying it's the uberest solution in the land, I'm saying that for my purposes it was more than adequate. I liked having two damn powerful offensive mages as opposed to Yet Another Melee Badass. Big deal.</div>

<div style='font: 11pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light"; text-align: left; '>Ditto. I'd have to say that Yuna doublecasting Holy is good enough, especially if you get a Break Dmg Limit weapon.</div>

<div style='font: 11pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light"; text-align: left; '>Ditto.  I'd have to say that Yuna doublecasting Flare is good enough, especially if you get a Break Dmg Limit weapon.</div>

<div style='font: 11pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light"; text-align: left; '>Exactly, I didn't feel like wasting my time, and most of the bosses are single enemies.</div>

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>A dozen sphere levels is hardly a lot of fighting. Just start from the beginning of the Black Magic path and head up.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>It's a lot when you're running away from 75% of battles</div>

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>You seem to be missing my point.

I don't own a PS2. I don't own FFX. When I was home for break, I had access to my brother's PS2 for part of the vacation. I knew I had two rentals to beat the game, or 10 days. As such I had to play through to the end, and do some character advancement - enough that I could beat the game.

I didn't run away from battles on a regular basis until the Calm Lands. From that point on the only enemies I ran from were Marboros, Dark Flan, Defender Z (the key spheres were nice, but they were hard to deal with), King Behemoth, and all the critters in Sin's Tower of the Dead.

Why didn't I run? I needed the AP. I didn't want to use an artificial AP trick. I didn't plan on having time to go to side dungeons to level up. I played through the game with these limitations in mind.

For the most part, the game wasn't difficult. I did a little bit of extra fighting here and there, but I didn't expressly level up until right before and right inside Sin.

I read some of the threads a month or so back about FFX. Someone mentioned (I believe it was you) that the monsters inside Sin were basically there to kill you. I don't see how that's the case. 3/4 of the critters in the first area I found were Adamantoises or Gemini. Both were easy, both were good AP sources. Adamantoises were vulnerable to bio, armor break, and sleep buster. For Gemini I'd cast Demi, I'd continually sleep buster one of them, I'd armor break the other, kill that one, then kill the other one (often without breaking him). The AP was great - everyone would get a level every other battle. I could even overkill them a fair portion of the time with Tidus or Wakka's overdrives (Wakka was using Tactician, so six sleep busters and he'd be able to overdrive).

Part of my strategy was reliant on two factors:
1) Kihmari was a black mage. He could use Bio or Demi and lancet MP back, saving Lulu's MP for nukes.
2) Wakka had a MP stroll armlet I got in the desert; he'd get back 50-60 MP between battles, so he could basically use a sleep buster each round.

For someone on a limited time frame, like I was, this was my best option.

You seemed to question why I focused more on attack magic instead of Quick Hit and physical attacks. It's simple - physical attack characters plateau later on in their development paths. Tidus was working on Auron's path and had Quick Hit, but he'd only hit for 3500-4000 damage a hit. Wakka was also working on Auron's path, didn't have Quick Hit, but hit for 3500 each time.

Whereas Yuna could doublecast Flare or Ultima for 9999 each time. Lulu could Flare for 7500, Ultima for 8500, both doublecast. When hasted, Tidus got 3, maybe 4 quick hits in between Yuna's rounds, so he was doing 12-16K damage to her 20K per round. Lulu wasn't quite as fast, but her slightly lesser number of "turns" as compared to Tidus was negated by the fact that she was doing 17K each time she went. Wakka was fast, but didn't have Quick Hit, and even if he did, he'd be doing similar damage numbers as Tidus, which is less than either Yuna or Lulu provided. That's also ignoring Bahamut, who could do about 51K damage per Megaflare - again, dwarfing what the other people could do.

Are the melees much better in FFX in the long run? Absolutely. If I'd had another 5 day rental, I'm sure I would have been using Wakka instead of Lulu in the final battles, with Quick Hit and a higher damage sum per individual attack.

When you talk about the game balance, Don, you're ignoring my particular situation. I didn't have a shot to get Celestial weapons for damage breaks, couldn't go get Anima or the Magus sisters, couldn't get Tidus and Wakka's damage up to a much higher level, couldn't unlock Blitz Ace. If I owned the game, that'd be a different story.

Keep in mind that the best way isn't the only way.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>In fact I actually couldn't beat Sin on my first try because my characters are too weak to survive his attacks. I operated on pretty much one person's path throughout the whole game. I still was able to hit 9999 with Quick Hit with Tidus using Brotherhood (the strength bonus on it is very helpful).

Sine was the one complaining about the difficulty of Inside Sin. Some monsters are downright impossible to beat at the point you're expected to get there like King Behemoth. Yeah there are stuff you can kill but none of them is worth your time. If you want to level up just don't leave Highbridge. Super easy enemies to overkill for close to 10K AP with a few weapons with the right elemental damage there (or you can go to Zanarkand Ruins mech part but have to deal with Defender Zs and undead monks). If you pool Wakka and Tidus's path's speed spheres together you can get more like 5-6 turns compare to a normal speed character and pooling Auron and the +4 strengths from Tidus/Wakka's paths easily gets enough strength to hit 9999 with Armor Break as long as you use your teleport spheres at the right time.

I made it a point not to use summons because Aeon Bomb attacks totally trivialize the game. There's basically nothing in the game that you couldn't kill by just having 3 or more Aeons with Overdrive ready and just keep on using them one by one except for Sin due to the time limit.</div>