<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>It seems like they made the last boss harder in the US version because when I saw my friend play the Japanese version the Overdrive didn't do nearly as much damage. Of course, he had Anima, but I all my people Quick Hit (haste on crack) for the battle which I think is more useful than a single 99999 attack. The last battle is fairly challenging, though sometimes aggrevating because it takes a while to get there, so if you lose you've to start over at the Sea of Sorrow or whereever the last save point was. Oh yeah, the Yu Pagodas have much more HP in the US vesion than the Japanese. Although they start out with only 5K as opposed to 9999 they steadiy get more HP as they regenerate. So don't count on Yuna able to permanently put them out of action with Holy.
Not even closed to filling the grid. I'm not sure if I want to fill it... seems like it'd take a huge amount of time, and some of the ultimate weapons are just downright painful to get (like Tidus's) and there's no point to fill the board without getting the ultimate weapons since 65 str is good enough for 8000 damage. I hope there are better places to get XP other than Omega Ruins because even at 30K AP per battle with Double AP the sphere levels are starting to slow down, and it's basically impossible to Overkill a ton of stuff in Omega Ruins without the Ultimate Weapons (not even 9999 is enough for Overkill on some of the stuff). I have heard people resorting to taping the controller down inside Omega Ruins and come back hours later, which doesn't sound very exciting.
Al Behd Potions >>> White Magic. If you plan to use Yuna as a healer, don't. It's totally pointless to have healing spells once you get Rikku (or you can move Kimahri to Rikku's path, but I'm not sure if that's a good idea). Well, you can always use a Friends or Teleport sphere to get someone to Rikku for the all-powerful Use command, but Rikku's path offers only speed and nothing else. It works well for her since her starting stats is pure speed focused so it doesn't make senes to put her on a magic or strength based path. I don't forsee too much usefulness out of offensive magic consider Tidus can hit 8000 with 65 strength. Well, high strength is only useful in conjunction with Armor Break, but it's pretty easy to get it to stick. The only thing you really need magic is the element/ghost type enemies that have high defense and aren't effected by armor break.
The ending is okay, though I think it's a bit undeveloped. It seems like it's straight out of Terranigma's ending, albeit with better graphics. The last scene is pretty messed up... it's clear that what they're trying to do, but it still doesn't make any sense because it's poorly represented. Supposedly the FFX International will have a scene after the ending to explain the scene, but I've a feeling they'll just screw it up more. Who knows.
Some thoughts on game engine:
Haste should be 30 MP, not 8, and Hastega should be 99 MP, not 30. Haste in general is way overpowered unless you're fighting something that can stone, but if you're fighting something that can stone that isn't a boss, you're just out of your mind and deserve to die anyway.
Quick Hit should use like 50 MP per attack. It's ridiculously overpowered but you need it to beat the overpowered bosses at the levels that you're supposed to fight them on (I assume end of path = time to take on final boss... which simply isn't going to happen without the Haste/Quick Hit combo).
Going to what I said earlier about stoning. Status effect is too powerful in this game due to the dearth of protection against them. Whenever I see something that can inflict status effect that I can't kill in one hit, I just run. The enemy seems to have a 100% success rate with status effects, including the Death spell. This is pretty cheesy when you consider one of the bosses cast Mega Death and it's unlikely you'll have death protection at that point (I think the stuff you need for Death Protection is in Omega Ruins, which you can't go yet)
Armor Break is another broken ability. I estimate the Haste + Quick Hit + Armor Break combo allows someone like Tidus to dish out at least 10 times more damage than normal. Instead of hitting Sin once for 1500 you get to hit it 4 times for 8000. Actually that's more like 20 times more damage. The concept of armored is pretty good, but it's a bad idea to apply it to bosses because that means the only person who can hurt it normally is Auron (oh yeah, and Kimarhi, but his stats suck), and Auron is slowwwwww.</div>
Not even closed to filling the grid. I'm not sure if I want to fill it... seems like it'd take a huge amount of time, and some of the ultimate weapons are just downright painful to get (like Tidus's) and there's no point to fill the board without getting the ultimate weapons since 65 str is good enough for 8000 damage. I hope there are better places to get XP other than Omega Ruins because even at 30K AP per battle with Double AP the sphere levels are starting to slow down, and it's basically impossible to Overkill a ton of stuff in Omega Ruins without the Ultimate Weapons (not even 9999 is enough for Overkill on some of the stuff). I have heard people resorting to taping the controller down inside Omega Ruins and come back hours later, which doesn't sound very exciting.
Al Behd Potions >>> White Magic. If you plan to use Yuna as a healer, don't. It's totally pointless to have healing spells once you get Rikku (or you can move Kimahri to Rikku's path, but I'm not sure if that's a good idea). Well, you can always use a Friends or Teleport sphere to get someone to Rikku for the all-powerful Use command, but Rikku's path offers only speed and nothing else. It works well for her since her starting stats is pure speed focused so it doesn't make senes to put her on a magic or strength based path. I don't forsee too much usefulness out of offensive magic consider Tidus can hit 8000 with 65 strength. Well, high strength is only useful in conjunction with Armor Break, but it's pretty easy to get it to stick. The only thing you really need magic is the element/ghost type enemies that have high defense and aren't effected by armor break.
The ending is okay, though I think it's a bit undeveloped. It seems like it's straight out of Terranigma's ending, albeit with better graphics. The last scene is pretty messed up... it's clear that what they're trying to do, but it still doesn't make any sense because it's poorly represented. Supposedly the FFX International will have a scene after the ending to explain the scene, but I've a feeling they'll just screw it up more. Who knows.
Some thoughts on game engine:
Haste should be 30 MP, not 8, and Hastega should be 99 MP, not 30. Haste in general is way overpowered unless you're fighting something that can stone, but if you're fighting something that can stone that isn't a boss, you're just out of your mind and deserve to die anyway.
Quick Hit should use like 50 MP per attack. It's ridiculously overpowered but you need it to beat the overpowered bosses at the levels that you're supposed to fight them on (I assume end of path = time to take on final boss... which simply isn't going to happen without the Haste/Quick Hit combo).
Going to what I said earlier about stoning. Status effect is too powerful in this game due to the dearth of protection against them. Whenever I see something that can inflict status effect that I can't kill in one hit, I just run. The enemy seems to have a 100% success rate with status effects, including the Death spell. This is pretty cheesy when you consider one of the bosses cast Mega Death and it's unlikely you'll have death protection at that point (I think the stuff you need for Death Protection is in Omega Ruins, which you can't go yet)
Armor Break is another broken ability. I estimate the Haste + Quick Hit + Armor Break combo allows someone like Tidus to dish out at least 10 times more damage than normal. Instead of hitting Sin once for 1500 you get to hit it 4 times for 8000. Actually that's more like 20 times more damage. The concept of armored is pretty good, but it's a bad idea to apply it to bosses because that means the only person who can hurt it normally is Auron (oh yeah, and Kimarhi, but his stats suck), and Auron is slowwwwww.</div>
