Let's Play Final Fantasy X: International (Expert Grid)

I think we're going with Sally then. Who am I to argue with produce? And this means I don't have to watch a whole bunch of Meg Ryan movies to make jokes about them. Woo!

'Course I played through to the first save point as Meg Ryan so now I need to do it a third time as Sally (first was Pants but I'm glad to avoid that cliche )

Update tomorrow hopefully!

Sally, Sally,
She's our girl!
She'll win this game;
She'll save the world!

Oh dear readers, I'm afraid I must confide this clumsily strung together cheer will prove far more prophetic than anyone present at the time could possibly imagine. We shall allow them their remaining time in peaceful ignorance however.



The youngest of Sally's worshippers show great impudence, demanding a mini-game tutorial well before schedule. Sally does not have time for their immature antics. Sally has a tournament to win. Before she can tell the children just where to put their Blitzballs, a strange Egyptian child makes a cryptic comment about Sally having plans this evening anyway. She doesn't remember anything like that but it doesn't sound like a lie...

Sally's thoughts are too firmly directed towards Blitzball for her to think too hard on that, or even wonder why there might be an Egyptian child on a non-Earth planet like hers.



On the road betwixt home and stadium, a huge billboard featuring the manliest of men is posted on the side of a building. Despite a resemblance approaching zero, that man is Sally's own father, Jecht. He disappeared ten years ago, yet still makes regular appearances in advertising all across Zanarkand. Sally's own face has only appeared in a few adverts - and only in her home district.

Sally will prove she's better than you, old man! One day... One day!



Sally runs through the next screen as fast as she can, trying to avoid the ramblings of an old radio personality who's still obsessed with Jecht. Shut up, Zanar! This is why they don't let you say anything for the rest of the game!



Sally awaits the beginning of the final match alone, in the darkness out of view of the crowds. Drops of water trickle down her supple form. Her pre-match ritual does not involve her teammates in the least. Somewhere nearby, they are going over plays one last time. Sally does not join them; they would only pull her down. Alone, she breaths slowly in and out, listening to the sounds of the stadium. The roar of the crowds, the turning gears of the roof opening, the crackle of the Blitzbubble expanding...



Some people will tell you water and electricity don't mix. Those people are dirty liars.



Drink up this vision of Blitz bliss, dear readers, for this may be the last time you will witness such a magnificent performance in this noble sport. Because I suck at it.



At last, it is Sally's chance to prove her pure unadulterated awesomeness. Scoring points can only achieve a certain level of fame. True worship is earned through scoring while looking cooler than anyone else. By Sally's estimate, leaping out of the water to bicycle kick the ball into the opposing goal ought to earn her a shitton of coolness points.



Typical.

Freaking typical.

Everything was going so well, so a giant bubble monster has to attack the stadium. Perhaps it wants to mate with the Blitzbubble, perhaps it just wants to screw with Sally's life, regardless it rips everything to pieces.



Sally awakens strangely unharmed, though the same cannot be said for the structure around her. A surprising population of the stadium has also survived and flees the area in ones and threes. They ignore their fallen goddess and flee for their own lives. What happened to their love? Their worship? Was it all a lie? Sally would plot vengeance against her fickle fanbase but it seems vengeance is already being carried out around her.

There is one person in the chaos who seems totally unalarmed by any of this and though it has been some time, Sally recognizes him. Her dad's old buddy, Auron, telltale white carton hanging from his belt. "What are you doing here?" she asks him. "Sally doesn’t think your 2% is going to help anyone here."

"Never underestimate the power of milk!" the grizzled milkman barks. "Now follow me."

For a moment, it seems Sally has lost track of him. Panic can do that to a girl, even one as awesome as Sally. Suddenly the Egyptian boy reappears. Time stands still as the boy utters words of reassurance that really don't do the trick. Studies show stopping time does not, in fact, help people absorb what's going on around them more efficiently.



Sally catches up to the old bastard. No wonder she lost track of him: He is the only person stupid enough to run towards the danger! As if it might convince her of his sanity, he directs her attention towards the horrible tentacle monster ravaging a nearby skyscraper.



Somehow this is not what Sally imagined "sin" being during Sunday School classes, but she finally understands why it is something to be avoided. So why is she allowing herself to be led to Sin?



All those birthdays missed due to work or death or some other minor obstacle and this is her present? The worst sword in the world? Thanks dad! All that Blitzball practice is sure to come in handy wielding it too!

"I hope you know how to use it," Auron comments, as if he didn't just see her struggle to even lift the thing. Now Sally hates you almost as much as her dad, milkman.



Sally discovers she's actually pretty good at hitting things with the pointy end of her new weapon. Auron's better though. When Sally hits pod monsters they turn into sparkles. When Auron hits pod monsters they explode sparkles! It turns out war is a lot less gruesome than advertised.



Auron charges right up to the tentacle monster in the road and Sally, having not watched enough anime to know any better, follows. Every swing of the sword cuts off an excess flailing black tentacle until only one remains. Writhing, it shrivels up and dies.

Sally is momentarily distracted by a shiny object.



Yay a save sphere! Sixteen minutes indeed. I don't want to think about how long it's actually been getting to this point... Auron charges into battle, heedless of the shiny free healing bauble.



Right into a bajillion pod monsters. Sally wonders if she would have been better off staying at the stadium but it’s too late to turn back now. Auron's strategy shifts focus from hitting pod monsters to hitting things that might explode. Oh well, not like the authorities will be able to pin the additional damage costs on Sally anyway...

BOOM!



Sally isn't nearly as comfortable flying through the air out of fire as she is flying through the air out of water, but you gotta do what you gotta do. Once again Auron proves that being high level means never having to look helpless or weak, as he lifts Sally into the air with one hand. He holds the girl up to the sky, an offering to Sin. "Sin fhtagn!"



Next time: Under Da Sea and the Sphere Grid!

Let's name all the other characters too. We can just ignore whatever crap the game tries to tell us.

Oh my God. XD

I was thinking of quoting a few of the lines to comment on how such and such made me laugh helplessly (at work, even!) but it turned out I was quoting most of it anyway. I don't think I'll ever be able to read another FFX LP again. This is the perfect way to tackle the game. More!

You know, I assumed the Sally thing would wear out its funny after a reference or two. But you are making it work. Elfir, you are rad! You... are... rad!

I guess I am too late to suggest you name him T.DURDEN

Dude. I think you may have just set a bar of awesome so high you will never again be able to top it.

I'm afraid I may have but damn if I didn't think of that every single time through that part!

I'll have what she's having!

I'm really, really looking forward to reading this thread, just as soon as I finish playing FFX for the first time! So even though I won't be commenting, know that I'm cheering you on in spirit. Hopefully I'll be able to catch up when I'm done, depending on how long this LP takes.

Good luck!

I wish I had mad photoshop skillz so I could do stuff like this. I'm going to go pout now.

Translation: that was awesome.

Insert choppy and scary noise making time traveling animation.

So does this mean Sally's going to die confronting the big bad, causing his galpal to become the hero and embark on a series of nonlinear adventures to bring him back from the dead?

I love how everyone keeps quoting this image!

.......curse you. I'll never be able to look at it any other way.

Dear God, maybe that's why I liked X-2 so much.

Huhhh, that's certainly goes a ways to shoring up Parish's theory that X-2 is a spiritual successor to CT.

Blub blub

What...

What's going on?

Is this Zanarkand? Underwater?

Who...? Auron? No that's...

Me?

I think that's me, when I was a kid. Why?

What is this place? Nothing makes sense...



Sally awakens on a rock in the middle of nowhere. What a queer dream I've just had, she thinks and looks around. Perhaps I'm still dreaming.

"This is no dream, Sally," says the bird perched above her. "The world has undergone many changes whilst you lay sleeping. You must soon find your way in this changed world."

"What? You can talk?" The bird stares at the sputtering girl. "Is this Zanarkand? Is this all that's left of my home?!"



"Safe travels, daughter of aqua," the bird says and flies to whence Sally cannot follow.

"Hey!" Sally shouts after it. "HEY!!" It does not stray from its course. Suddenly, for the first time in her life, Sally finds herself truly alone.



Sally swims through the flooded ruins, trying and largely failing to make sense of it. She finds weird alien poetry carved into a pillar and spies a huge statue of some kind of nobleman beneath the waters. Though far from an expert on artsy stuff, Sally is pretty sure she's never heard of anything like that in Zanarkand.



She traverses the stone walkway above the water and before her hair has even ceased dripping, the walkway falls out from under her. She plummets into the water below, her third fall from a great height in as many installments. Sally does not like this pattern.



The native creatures of this place do not like Sally. Three giant fish monsters attack her and Sally discovers sword fighting underwater is remarkably similar to sword fighting above water. Also three opponents is far preferable to infinity plus one.

Having discovered their helpless prey is actually a fierce warrior, the third and final fish monster makes a risky move. There is a spell that has been passed down through the generations of the Fishkin Clan. None who have cast it have survived to tell of it but the fish monster, faced with his own mortality, is willing to take that chance. It casts Summon Bigger Fish.



A bigger fish appears out of nowhere and chomps down on the fish monster. It gurgles dying words as it is spit aside but Sally knows not its language. It sounds something like, "Blub blub." As it dies, the fish monster sees itself being avenged: The bigger fish turns to devour the warrior girl.



Swim swim, fast as you can!
Can't catch me,
Oh shit maybe you can!

A lesser person would find herself in the bigger fish's belly but not Sally. Sally maneuvers through the water, cutting back past it faster than it can turn around, yet still barely keeping ahead of the beast. She spies a flooded passage, too narrow for the bigger fish to chase her through and makes a break for it. Blitzball doesn't have anything on this kind of aquatic workout!

Sally isn't sure how she made it into that passage alive. The bigger fish isn't sure either, though it's pretty peeved about it. I'm certainly not sure - I swear Sally was inside its mouth for a second there. Nevertheless, the end is not yet upon us by a long shot.



Ha ha ha, Sally! You so funny! Now stop narrating and get back in your cage.



The bigger fish works out its anger on Sally's escape route, and as a result Sally finds herself sealed inside. The air is breathable, if a bit stale, but the most pressing issue is the temperature. The cold didn't bother Sally out in the water but now, with her wet clothes clinging to her and her breath plainly visible before her, it's undeniable. She's going to freeze to death in this place.

Or rather she would but this is her story so that's just not permitted.

Hey look! Flint and tinder! Handy being the main character, eh?

Unbeknownst to Sally, the Withered Bouquet she used to fuel her fire was made long long ago from magic herbs. She falls asleep in the warmth of her fire and dreams a strange dream.

She sees a vision of the home she left behind... of the day Auron appeared out of nowhere for the first time since her mother died. Auron never hid that his visits were to Sally's mother, not Sally. Sally was used to the adult men in her life paying her little mind.

"It was a bad call. Your team lost because of you."

Sally had no intention of taking his crap. She'd done just fine without anybody trying to play father figure to her. "That's why you're here?" She laughed. She's pretty sure she laughed.



What the?! The sudden appearance of the Egyptian boy in her dream wakes Sally with a start. What's with that kid anyway? Sally discovers a more pressing matter when she looks to the fire. It's dying fast. She looks around in a panic. There's gotta be something else she can burn! Crap, the whole place is a leaky mess, Sally was lucky to find what she did.

As the light vanishes, a terrible skittering noise echoes through the chamber.



Sally is past the point of being horrified by the weird creatures that keep trying to kill and/or eat her. In fact, the Sally from before the game wouldn't believe her own reaction to the thing pouncing down upon her. "That'll burn." Might even burn tasty.

Still weak from battling fish monsters and hunger, Sally nonetheless hacks away at it. Desperation has heightened her senses, for she easily evades every attack it makes. Their duel is interrupted by a door exploding inwards.



Four men and one woman enter, all masked and frightenly well-equipped. The woman steps ahead of the group and spits at the monster, "L'suh, mad'c tyhla."

Sally isn't sure what to make of these strangers but they're human and that's better than anything else she's encountered recently. Plus she seems to want to help! Sally isn't sure why the men with guns aren't helping but that is soon the least of her worries.

The woman throws a grenade at the beast, then snatches a replacement off its body... somewhere. All the while Sally smacks it with her sword as best she can but her good luck avoiding hits has passed. Despite the help of a healing potion chucked at her by the woman, she falls before the creature's claws. The last things she sees before succumbing to oblivion are the creature being reduced to bubbles and the men hauling her off the ground...

I forgot to touch the save sphere for free healing. -_-;



Waking to guns pointed to your head isn't much fun, our young heroine discovers. Especially when her captors speak a completely unknown language. She gets to her feet and gets shoved with the butt of a gun! "Hey that hurts!" she exclaims. He doesn't seem to understand so she tries another approach. "Uh, no me yammo... ouche." Also no. Can't say she didn't try.



Two more march out to meet her. A mohawk guy and the woman - girl, actually, now that Sally is able to see her face. The guy pantomimes like an idiot for a bit and Sally, bless her adorably empty head, can't make any more sense out of it than the spoken words.

"You look retarded," she mutters.

"And you apparently are retarded," the girl unexpected responds. "Bad manners, anyway."

"He says you can stay if you make yourself useful," she translates, ignoring Sally's shock and embarrassment. Sally is eager to agree. "Oh and lemme show you something." The girl proceeds to go through the most important tutorial of the game: the Sphere Grid.

Expert Sphere Grid!

That's a lot to take in so I'm going to try my hand at explaining it.

Instead of levels, characters gain Sphere Levels which are basically movement points to go around that huge chart. You spend magic spheres, speed spheres, ability spheres, etc to pick up the things you land on. Running out of those isn't much of an issue except maybe with ability spheres early on. Backtracking costs sphere levels so we want to avoid that when possible. There are also a few other kinds of spheres, the most important right now being Lock Nodes and Key Spheres. We can't go past them until we get Key Spheres and that will hamper our freedom of movement somewhat, but we'll manage.

The main areas of the sphere grid are as such:
White Magic - Healing and protection
Black Magic - Attack magic
Status Attack - Physical attacks that also cause status ailments (like silence)
Stat Break - Physical attacks that also knock down defense or strength, etc
Speed Stuff - Haste, Slow, miscellaneous stuff. Really scattered around the grid, rather than in an obvious path
Wealth Acquisition - Steal, Use item (i.e. grenades, not potions), money stuff

That's the approximate order the areas are in, clockwise around the grid. Characters can cross the center of the grid from the get-go or cross with into neighboring paths further out. Example: Sally cuts through the middle of the grid to study Black Magic, then decides to change majors and study White Magic.

The center of the grid has a lot of empty space, which is lame, but there's +2 Defense, +2 Strength, and +200 HP between the magic sections and the physical sections, which is a nice boost if we wanna send one of the default spellcasters over but not that exciting for any would-be spellcasters.

For the record: We can't send anyone across the center directly into Wealth Acquisition until we get a Key Sphere. Circling around further out, Sally is 21 sphere levels from Steal. The next closest is 27 sphere levels away.



Right now Sally doesn't have any Sphere Levels because she managed to die in the only experience-netting battle so far. Oopsy. But by the end of the next post she should be moving along so now's the time to decide which way to send her. North goes into the start of the Speed Stuff and Cheer (strength + defense buff) in the immediate future, south goes into the sparce center circle and Jinx (Accuracy + Evasion + Critical rate debuff) in the immediate future. North allows her to circle over into Stat Break or Wealth Acquisition not far in. South can take her to anything else.

So what kind of girl do we think Sally is? Feel free to be as specific or broad as you like but I'm planning to stop for suggestions at crossroads periodically so grand scale plans might not get fully implemented.



For the sake of comparison, here's the starting stats for Sally and ???? (the girl). Sally's pretty well rounded, with less focus on magic than average. ???? appears to be focused on acting more frequently. In that one battle they fought together, ???? was getting nearly twice as many hits as Sally but not nearly as hard.

Almost forgot! I work a really odd schedule so updates will be somewhat unpredictable but you can probably count on a post about every four days. More if there's a lot of plot I want to fit through at once.

I always wondered just... why, when I saw Rikku's salvage and exploration outfit. Yeah, belts, Nomura, whatever. But they look mighty uncomfortable.

...why is Obi Wan calling Jar-Jar "Sally" in that Star Wars comic? Amazing synchronicity?

I vote Sally heads for Wealth Acquisition, and unlocks some delicious Steal.

I second this under the condition that Auron becomes a white mage and ???? becomes a Stat Breaker.

The premise of that webcomic is that, in a world where Star Wars never existed, the plot of Star Wars movies is being created as a D&D-type roleplaying session. In the comic, one of the players' parents couldn't find a babysitter for his younger sister, so he was forced to take her along to one of the gaming sessions, and the GM let her invent a character (Jar Jar) to keep her occupied.

That Sally was my only concern with naming Tidus Sally here, but Sally won the vote!

Rikku's flat enough that outfit probably isn't as uncomfortable as it would be on, say, Lulu. But there's still no good reason for it. Sally has proven you can swim fast without being aerodynamic in the least.

You know, after FF X-2, the idea of Rikku wearing something that covers her up is quite refreshing.

Within seconds of being given free reign to wander, Sally picks up some loot. (Highlighted here so it's easier to spot.) With this first Al Bhed Primer, Sally begins her linguistic studies. Now when she talks to the Al Bhed, she can translate Y into A. That's not very helpful but it adds up after a while. It probably belonged to ???? before, but Sally doesn't think ???? will mind her borrowing it.

The three males on deck have varying levels of usefulness.
Useful: The leftmost one gives Sally three free potions. ???? will need them ALL.
Useless: The center one swears at Sally in his crazy space language.
Annoying: The rightmost one forces Sally to sit through the Sphere Grid tutorial again if she pretends to understand him.



???? goes over the plan and now that it's been pointed out, I can't stop staring at her boobs. What is WITH those straps? That can't be comfortable. Anyway, these guys are here to salvage something or other from the underwater ruins. The first order of business is to swim down and flip the power switch. ???? and Sally are the only ones going on this little expedition, I assume because the men are too chicken to fight fish people.

With the implication helping will lead to eating, Sally is so eager she dives on in without even waiting to be told. She flips a thumbs up, without considering the gesture might not mean the same thing to these foreign folk.

These underwater areas are a real pain to screencap because you gotta hold down X with one hand to dive lower, plus moving around with the other, and I don't have a third hand to hit the screenshot button.



But this "screen shattering at the start of battle" shot is pretty awesome, eh?

???? produces yet more fully functioning grenades from fish monsters and Sally decides that's pretty cool. Makes a mental note to ask ???? about learning that trick when they get back to the surface. Player stockpiles them for selling fun time later.

Other than the occasional hungry fishies, it's pretty straightforward getting inside the ruins.



Little does ???? know but she recruited a technical genius in Sally. Sally smashes computers with her fists until they start working again. You gotta show the computer who's boss, you know?

"But wouldn't turning on underwater machinery be a bad idea?" you ask. Of course not! As previously stated, electricity and water are the best of friends. In fact, none of the sercuitry is even damaged and the whole place lights up like Christmas!

Unfortunately not everyone is pleased with Sally and ????'s little light show.



TENTACLE RAPE ATTACK!

This is the traditional "sometimes you don't attack" boss found near the beginning of many Final Fantasy games. But in this case you don't get punished with massive damage for breaking the rules, you just don't get the option of hitting Mr Tentacle Monster sometimes. Good time to chow down on some Potions. OMNOMNOM. Tastes like healthy!

Slash slash explodey slash! Swimmy swim. Slash slash explodey slash!

After a couple rounds of that, Sally and ???? change tactics. Mr Tentacle Monster keeps trying to back attack these innocent maidens and dammit, they're not that kind of girls. "Blub blub," says ????. "Blub blub," Sally agrees. They swim around to either side of Mr Tentacle Monster, blocking him in so they can have their sharp pointy way with him. It's sparkle time, buddy!



Once all the scary monsters are gone, the brave menfolk swim down to investigate the ruins. Nobody told Sally what they're looking for and she's really freaking hungry by now, so she heads back to the surface.



HEY I KNOW THAT WORD!!!

Those meanie-heads don't let Sally come in and attempt to understand their talk of airships. She just wants free and immediate access to any location in the world... C'mon guys...



???? is nice and brings Sally some food. Sally is so excited she breaks out into dance. When she's done and finishes scarfing down her meal (without even a fork!), the girls have a little chat.

The girl introduces herself as Rikku, an Al Bhed. Al Bhed all speak that wacky language but Rikku learned Common, unlike most of her Clan. She implies there's some racism in the world against her people but Sally's a little too self-centered to take in too much of non-Sally information at once.

Sally tells her life story and Rikku has the nerve to say it's a lie! Except the bit with Sin, which Sally figured was the least believable part. Zanarkand was destroyed a thousand years ago by Sin and nobody's lived there since. What is this, some kind of stupid time travel story?

"Nah, it's probably just Sin's toxin," Rikku explains. "People who get too close to Sin and survive are usually messed up in the head for a while. That's probably what happened." Little does Rikku know this will become Sally's excuse for anything and everything she does wrong for at least the next six months.



She has one of those straps down her butt crack too! What is wrong with this girl?! More importantly, what kind of sick freak designed this outfit for a fifteen-year-old girl?

Rikku figures since Sally remembers playing Blitzball, she might have actually played for some team before getting all confused in the head. She's not very clear on the details but if Sally travels to Luca, there's a chance she'll meet someone who knows her. Yay, we have our next destination!



Oh hell, not again.

I never thought about the fact that the thumbs up could mean something else to the Al Bhed people.

Great update!

You're writing this so well it makes me want to play FFX again, even though I totally hated it. Luckily, reading this will be shorter and more enjoyable than an actual replay.

Good job!

I've known some fifteen-year-old girls who would design that outfit for themselves. One of them was my craziest girlfriend ever, which I really should have foreseen.

A friend of mine has shipped me this game so I can finally finish the damned thing. I'm kind of surprised at how much of this LP feels like spoilers despite the fact I played most of the game long ago, so I wish it get here soon so I could play along.