Final Fantasy X is a wonderful movie. I'd love for someone to make something with vaguely gameplay-resembling elements that contains the same material. When the fuck do I get to explore and/or fight something?

[Nev]

<div style='font: 10pt ; text-align: left; '>I'm five hours into the game and I have much enjoyed the ten or twelve random battles I've been in, one of which wasn't even a pirahna fight in that first underwater dungeon. Matter of fact taken together that's almost even approaching the number of boss battles I've fought so far which gives me hope for someday achieving a one-to-one boss-battle to normal-battle ratio. I never thought I'd actually be asking for MORE random battles in any RPG.

On the positive side, if it's taken five hours so far and I'm not even in the real game yet (I hope) I can only wonder how many hours of gameplay there are. Tidus has moved five spheres on the grid out of a possible ten billion so doing the calculations I must be 0.00000005% done with the game.

I also kind of wonder in amazement how they rendered the CG and levels I've seen so far. Dear God, how did they create so much wonderful and candy-like CG? I can't even imagine rendering thirty seconds of one of the movies I've seen so far and it must be a good thirty minutes of actual rendered stuff so far to say nothing of the motion-captured facial expressions and movements that the models have been showing so far. Idly I wonder where they're hiding the small planet full of CG artists that produced this game.

Ironically however all of my joy at this game has transmuted into bitterness much as how sweet wine will turn into vinegar when exposed to air, at the knowledge that most of the plot has been spoiled for me by Penny Arcade. Tidus is a dream, Zanarkand is dreaming, Jecht is an evil monster, possibly Sin itself, and I'm extremely bitter.</div>

[Don]

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>You don't get to explore anywhere really in this game until you get the airship, but then, it's not really any different from when you get an overworld but can't really stray from the places you're supposed to go until the end of the game, either.

The random encounters do pick up a bit later, and some of them get really messy. That's where Flee comes in.

You can beat the game by just having enough stats to move 3 people to the end of their path (e.g. Tidus to Quick Hit, Auron to Sentinel, etc). Of course, once you get Quick Hit, it's game over anyway.</div>

[Tortolia]

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>The game is very exposition-heavy at the beginning. You get past that.</div>

[Nev]

<div style='font: 10pt ; text-align: left; '>Seriously, don't you remember the rules for this forum? No spoilers in subject lines and any message bodies that contain spoilers need to be tagged. Quick Hit/Sentinel info, airship, Flee, all are spoilers. Minor compared to what I've already been exposed to, but that's another thing I don't get to find out about for myself.

Perhaps you can make it up to me by somehow telling me that Jecht isn't Sin and that I still have a surprise to look forward to - if someone asks for a spoiler, that counts as an exception.</div>

[Eric]

<div style='font: 11pt ; text-align: left; '>Really? All this time I thought spoilers only pretained to the plot. I don't think knowing about abilities and an Airship is gonna ruin the game for you dude....</div>

[Don]

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>Although it will be a long time before you can move to Quick Hit or Holy or whatever it is very obvious which way all the characters are supposed to go (since any major deviation from their path requires level 3 or 4 key spheres) and you can see where their path ends up at. I suppose you can pretend you didn't see the 4 Ra/Ga spell clusters along Lulu's path and be surprised when you do get to the Ra/Ga spells?

As for Sin being Jecht, it was never meant to be a surprise.

If you can only enjoy a game through ignorance then it is the game's fault not the people spoiling it. If a story is pointless to play just because you already know what's going to happen why does anyone ever play a game again?</div>

[Lox]

<div style='font: bold 9pt ; text-align: left; '>I agree with that. A couple of those are common to FF anyhow. I don't think that will ruin the game. Plot spoilers are a much different story.</div>

[Kupek]

<div style='font: 10pt verdana; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '>If you're actively talking about a game, I think basics like that are expected. If you want to know NOTHING, don't talk about it.</div>

[Nev]

<div style='font: 10pt ; text-align: left; '>I guess this falls into the "within reason" category.</div>

[Nev]

<div style='font: 10pt ; text-align: left; '>I think late-game abilities are a spoiler. But, I suppose for a game this old, it's to be expected.</div>

[Nev]

<div style='font: 10pt ; text-align: left; '>I've been debating saving up all of Tidus' spheres and not moving until I get a Level 1 Lock sphere, then taking off in entirely the wrong direction. Is there any fun to be had in that?</div>

[Kupek]

<div style='font: 10pt verdana; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '>Uh, they're in full view.</div>

[Don]

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>From there you can get to anyone else's path. I think you need 2 level 2 keys to pull this off but I might've remembered wrong. But even if it's 2 level 1 keys it'd still take you a while to get those, and the only reason to do this would be to to make the game harder for yourself, especially since Tidus's path has so many useful abilities (Flee/Haste/Hastega) and the game breaker (Quick Hit).

I think if you want to mess around with the paths the best way to do it is just search everywhere and hope you find a Friends Sphere (takes you to the current location of any other character). You might get one of those around middle of the game.

Of course once you get level 3/4 keys you can pretty much go wherever you want, but that's pretty much the end of the game.</div>

[Don]

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>From there you can get to anyone else's path. I think you need 2 level 2 keys to pull this off but I might've remembered wrong. But even if it's 2 level 1 keys it'd still take you a while to get those, and the only reason to do this would be to to make the game harder for yourself, especially since Tidus's path has so many useful abilities (Flee/Haste/Hastega) and the game breaker (Quick Hit).

I think if you want to mess around with the paths the best way to do it is just search everywhere and hope you find a Friends Sphere (takes you to the current location of any other character). You might get one of those around middle of the game.

Of course once you get level 3/4 keys you can pretty much go wherever you want, but that's pretty much the end of the game.

Realistically you are limited by the sphere levels more so than keys unless you're just fond of killing random stuff over and over again.</div>

[SineSwiper]

<div style='font: 10pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light", "Century Gothic"; text-align: left; '>Oh, BTW, DON'T MISS THE FUCKING JECHT SHOT!!!!! I seriously hate one-time-only elements in RPGs. (I think that's what turned me off from Suikoden 2.)</div>

[SineSwiper]

<div style='font: 10pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light", "Century Gothic"; text-align: left; '>I generally only used it if it involved a cheat that I really didn't want to hear. As far as everything else, I almost WANT to hear as much about the game as possible, because I'm too old to be playing the damn thing over again. I think it really matters more with puzzles, but I was never much a fan of being stuck on something for a couple of hours. If I'm stuck on something for more than ten minutes, I'll have GameFAQs already on my browser.

Also, because of GameFAQs, you don't hear much about gameplay any more, so again, the tag gets used a lot less.</div>

[SineSwiper]

<div style='font: 10pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light", "Century Gothic"; text-align: left; '>I saved a bunch of black magic spheres for when I got Nuke and Ultima, to use for most of the other characters. One thing to remember is that a non-magic user isn't going to do that much damage, even with Ultima.</div>

[Torgo]

<div style='font: 9pt Arial; text-align: left; '>From my and my friends' experiences, your enjoyment of Blitzball is determined by whether or not you get the Jecht Shot.</div>

[SineSwiper]

<div style='font: 10pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light", "Century Gothic"; text-align: left; '>I attest to that. I fucking hated that game.</div>

[Don]

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>You can go back to the boat and get Jecht Shot if you miss it, but not having Jecht Shot makes beating the Goers almost impossible.</div>

[Don]

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>Ultima hasn't done much damage since FF6 and is totally not worth it. Better off teaching people stuff like Curaga or Hastega or even Holy.</div>

[SineSwiper]

<div style='font: 10pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light", "Century Gothic"; text-align: left; '>I think some can get in the 8000 or so, but I just found Holy to be much better. Better to save up White Spheres, instead.</div>

[SineSwiper]

<div style='font: 10pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light", "Century Gothic"; text-align: left; '>Replace "Goers" with "absolutely any team", and I'd agree with you.</div>

[Don]

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>After Goers you can recruit new people, and Wedge can score on anyone besides Nimrook easily</div>

[Zeus]

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>Better yet, just play FF6 :-)</div>

[Nev]

<div style='font: 10pt ; text-align: left; '>*eyes bleed a little more* Well, I got it anyway, so that's one thing not to worry about. After wasting a week on Leisure Suit Larry: Magna Cum Laude I'm all over directional button smashing.</div>

[SineSwiper]

<div style='font: 10pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light", "Century Gothic"; text-align: left; '>Heh...I never got that far. My winning streak is still zero.</div>

[Don]

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>You need to ditch the band of losers known as the Aurochs as soon as you can to possibly have any chance at all. The only person worth keeping on Aurochs is their MF and of course Tidus.</div>

[Don]

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>All the best Blitzball players (besides Tidus) are Al Bhed, which is pretty odd for a nation of people that lives in the desert. I guess it's like hockey.</div>

[SineSwiper]

<div style='font: 10pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light", "Century Gothic"; text-align: left; '>That seems kinda bugged: they give you a team that has no chance of winning against even the lowest ranked teams.</div>

[Don]

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>Aurochs have never won a game in like 20 years. They're supposed to suck. What I don't get is how Aurochs ever beat the Al Bhed at all.</div>

[Nev]

<div style='font: 10pt ; text-align: left; '>*looks at spoiler, blood fountains out of eyes, spurts all over Shrine floor*</div>

[SineSwiper]

<div style='font: 10pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light", "Century Gothic"; text-align: left; '>Geesh, Mental. It's not a spoiler!</div>