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

I... didn't notice it when she was animated, but that still frame of Yuna makes her look all sorts of weird. Nevermind that she looks like a Japanese boy, there's something seriously wrong with her eyes.

Lovely work with the sprite graphics for the Cloister

More horrifying: the Fayth that lie within the inner sanctum at each Temple. Valefor's Fayth a woman with wings attached, and so Valefor has long hair and breasts (And it's named after a biblical demon, at that.)

It's amazing what you can come up with smashing the screenshot button constantly. I really liked Kihmari's expressions in that scene too... there's so much going on it's normally hard to notice.

For a bit I was toying with the idea of doing the whole thing that way but it was way too impractical. I like playing with pixels. ^_^

Somewhere around here there's someone you talk to in order to get the only optional overdrive for the aeon we've got. If you leave the island before you get it, you're probably not getting it. (It's technically not gone forever, but then I'd like to see you kill that boss.)

When Sally rolls out of bed the next morning, Wakka and Madam Death are already waiting out in the village square. Wakka presents Sally with a present: An awesome plastic sword!



"Thanks, this is so much cooler than my father's keepsake sword!" Sally declares and makes plans to pawn Jecht's sword at the first opportunity.

"That's the sword you gave Chappu," the black-hearted witch states.

"No, dat's the sword I tried to give Chappu, ya? Now where'd Yuna?" Okay, but if Wakka tries to dress Sally in Chappu's old clothes she's SO out of here.

Sally looks around, "Maybe she headed to the dock already? I mean, we're all going on the same boat, right?"

"No way," Wakka replies, "We been together since Yuna came to the village ten years ago, like family."



"You're a Player Character now, you no longer have need of luggage or pockets or changes of clothing," she explains.

"Oh... I guess... you're right..." Yuna says and abandons her suitcase on the steps. The trio leave their childhood home together, perhaps for the last time, Sally following behind.



Then Sally darts back into the village to do some last minute errands. She sells off all her potions because some strange intuition tells her there are more available free in the near future. Then Sally steals shopgirl's dog's new toy, a rare and powerful tool of destruction. Yay! Okay, off we go.

The main industry of this island, it seems, is tutorials. The Zombie Queen is finally introduced as Lulu and she likes to make things burn. Wakka can hit stuff that's out of reach with his beachball of death. Yuna performs dark rituals to bring forth monstrous beings bound to fight on her behalf. And Sally hits things real fast. Go team!



At the overlook at the peak of the island, everybody stops to pray. It's some kinda custom. Oh no worries, Sally. You don't have to pray or anything. It's just a "moment of silence". You can... read or something. We won't hold it against you.



DEATH TO THE NONBELIEVER!!

Warrior Cat challenge heathen girl to fight. Claw claw pounce bite rake rake! Heathen girl good fighter, heathen girl get live.



You know how your can will sometimes go crazy and chase invisible monsters around the house and bat at the walls? That's Kimahri. But he's a good kitty, really. He even buries his poop almost all the time!



Everybody on the island is at the dock to say goodbye to Yuna. Shesh, you'd think she's never coming back. She waves and does the prayer gesture and then we're off to visit distant lands with fewer tutorials and more variety of monsters. Time for sightseeing!!



Um, anyway Sally goes to hang out with Wakka and get the itinerary.



Kilika Island has another temple for Yuna to hit up for devil powers and Luca has the Blitzball tournament Wakka's going to be in before quitting. Sorry, "quitting" is too negative a term, isn't it? How about "stepping down" or perhaps "resigning"?



Sally approaches the crowd around Yuna but can't really get close enough to chat right now. She returns to the fount of knowledge, Wakka, to explain what they were talking about. Yuna is the daughter of Braska the Badass. He's some summoner... badass. Sally imagines it's on par with being the daughter of a Blitzball Badass, so she can probably relate.

Either way, Yuna's busy right now so Sally goes exploring the ship alone.

First Sally meets O'aka the Ass. He insults Sally's fashion sense, says she looks poor, and then begs for money. What a dick. Sally's so mad she goes into the Auroch's bunk and kicks a box twenty times to calm down. Feeling a bit better, Sally learns about the alternative energy sources of Spira in this time period and works on her foreign language studies. Sally is quite studious now, no?



Ah, more awkward conversation between our leading ladies. "So... you play Blitzball... for Zanarkand... right?"

Sally blushes, "Wakka told you about that, huh? He thinks I'm crazy."

"I don't... think you're... crazy," Yuna smiles mysteriously. "I've heard... about Zanarkand. It has... a stadium that's... all lit up... even at night... and everyone goes... to watch... every game!"

"How do you know about that?" Her description wasn't beyond the scope of imagination - she could just be making fun of Sally - but Sally doesn't think so.

"One of... my father's guardians... told me. His name was... Jecht."

WHAAAAAA! SHOCKING!

"But- That was my dad's name!" Sally's pretty sure she never mentioned her dad since coming here. How could Yuna know that name unless she's really telling the truth?

"Praise be! This must be... the blessing of Yevon! ...It's destiny!" Giddy looks weird in slow motion but that's the closest fit for how Yuna looks. She probably thinks this is her first encounter with a Miracle since becoming a Summoner.

"That doesn't make sense. He disappeared off the coast of Zanarkand over ten years ago," Sally protests.



"You're... here." Girl's got a point, Sally. Makes sense, even. Jecht was always too much of a jerk to just die. Oh no, he's gotta make Sally's life miserable until the end of freaking time.



Typical. Sally goes anywhere near water, Sin attacks. Hey Yuna, go ahead and beat Sin now, why don't ya?



That there is some high quality self-sacrifice. The fire Sin full of harpoons in the vain attempt to protect their families in Kilika. Faced with the prospect of horrible drowning death (or being fish food for those who inexplicably breath underwater), the team decides to fight the beast.



Remember how Wakka can hit things that are normally out of reach with his beach ball? Yes readers, he is now beating on the all-powerful Elder God with a beach ball. Meanwhile everybody else picks off the Sinbits because they respawn infinitely, providing as much experience and mana and power spheres as I have patience.

Please note: There is no rule against cheesy abuse of the system.



Sin breaks free of the ship after, say, two thousand hit points? and speeds away in the same approximate direction it was originally headed. I'd say this operation was a success.

Hey wait, where's Sally? Frick!

Our hero Wakka dives into the ocean after his dear almost-girlfriend/brother's-doppleganger.



I really get a kick out of characters using items in the story, rather than these things being purely game mechanics.

Aqualad and Aqualass fight Evilsquid and more Sinbits. The Sinbits do the same thing except Yuna isn't down here with us to provide free awesome healing so it's not the best time to play Harvest Sin.

Aqualad overdrives the crap out of Evilsquid. Yes, it's ice element but I'm proud to get an element to line up at all. Everybody safely back on board, the ship continues on to Kilika...



Okay boys and girls, it's time to decide what all these new party members are gonna do!



Holy crap they have high evasion!

Yuna: Fights with a fancy stick and starts with Cure and Esuna. Her summons pick up any stat boosts she gets so that's something to keep in mind.

Lulu: Fights with plushies and starts with the first level of elemental magic spells. Her overdrive is a black magic machine gun but it sucks so don't worry about that too much.

I have no idea if Yuna or Lulu's weapons are too gimped to be effective even if they go through a physical path but I'm willing to find out.



Kimahri: Fights with spears which are all "Piercing", meaning they go through high defense like... turtle shells or whatever. Very handy. Kimahri gets screwed on the default grid because he's set up to go anywhere but has to claw his way out of his crappy grid to get there first. Overdrives blue magic/rages, which probably use strength or magic depending on which rage is used. A note on him: I went ahead and picked up Extract Ability because he starts so close to it, so he's slightly closer to white magic than anything else. *shrug*

Wakka: As noted in this battle, fights with a ball that can hit anything so he's very well-suited to hitting things. To start he just has Dark Attack, which causes blindness.

Sally is on her way toward picking up Steal. That'll take a while but when I get it (believe me you'll know), we'll decide what direction to point her next.

The physics of Lulu's necklace confuse me.

...actually, the physics of every piece of clothing she wears confuses me. BELTS DO NOT WORK IN THAT MANNER. She will become a physical tank.

it always blew my mind that yuna and sally were white when you zoomed out and japanese when you zoomed in. it was like catering to both otaku fetishes at once!

In my first playthrough, Brotherhood made it almost all the way to the endgame before I changed over to a customized sword. Still, Tidus was my second hardest-hitter, so there must be something to it after all.

...knowing what Sally doesn't, that's amazingly cold of Lulu. One can imagine what went through Yuna's head* while packing, knowing what the Pilgrimage would lead to, and then she has to leave it behind because of what the Pilgrimage entails.

It's stuff that flies over your head, the first time around. Like Sally, you think it's just an odd quirk or Lulu being awfully practical.

* Yeah, yeah. "Air," someone will say.

Yeah. Makes you think there's some sort of deeper connection between them, donnit?

Hmmm... How about: Yuna takes what would have been Auron's path, stat-breaking and providing cover, while Lu takes Tidus', providing support spells?

Kimahri, as always, is a cypher. White Magic, maybe?

My first time through, Lulu was abandoned because I never used black magic and she looks like a large-breasted zombie. The idea of her freaky little plushies ripping monsters to pieces amuses me.

I'm gonna make an effort to use everyone this playthrough regardless, mostly to see what happens to characters depending on where they go.

Brotherhood's pretty damn nice, actually. Three empty slots to play with anyway. I don't remember what I did weapons-wise my first playthrough.

Er.. did International change this? I don't think you can put anything on that sword because visiting the Farplane fills up the other three slots (+10% Strength, Waterstrike, Sensor, if I remember right). I.. guess you could not do that, but it's not like empty 4-slots are hard to get.

I don't remember what it was like before, just looking at the way it is now. *shrug*

That may be because Yuna has heterochromia i.e. one green eye and one blue eye as can be seen here in Elfir's screencap.



Minor spoiler: If I remember right the reason that Yuna has differently colored eyes--besides making her look exotic and marketable--is because Braska is human and Yunalesca was Al Bhed.

I don't recall Yunalesca being her mother. Just her namesake, I think.

You know, I think you're right (and more importantly so does the FF wiki). I guess that the 4 years since I played FFX has allowed some of the details of the plot to fade from my recollection.

Yeah, I remember that bit (especially noticeable since it only brings up the color, and not the other trait that makes those eyes unique to the race.) I was going off their shape and proportions relative to her face in the FMV model.

As to the spoilers:I always thought Braska and Cid's Unnamed Sister simply named Yuna in honor of Lady Yunalesca.

Also in response to the spoilers: When they go to the farplane, doesn't Yuna look at her parents, of which Yunalesca is not present.

Assuming I can tear myself away from Final Fantasy 4 DS the next update should be this weekend. But before I do any sphere grid stuff, let's review:

Lulu - Stat break?
Yuna - Speed stuff?
Kimahri - White magic
Wakka - ???

Speed stuff just kinda meanders around the board so.. I'll try to keep track of where Yuna's going but I might get lost. I think stat break is the most tank-like physical path. When I get stuff like teleport and friend spheres there'll be a chance to bounce people around drastically.

I don't know how set you are on making Kimahri the white mage, but I'd much rather it be Wakka if possible - if only because I find Kimahri boring and you'll probably be using your WM a lot more. If that doesn't work, then send him down the speed path - the sooner you get Hastega, the better!

I like Kimahri but found him crippled by the original grid. Everything's still up in the air until people get moving along and even then it's changable. Wakka as white mage is certainly possible.

Today we're going to be learning lots about the ways of modern day Spira. I know, Sally, school sucks but you really ought to pay attention. First up is the "sending".



I'm so glad you asked! Though Lulu clearly is not.

The sending is a funeral rite performed by summoners to "send" their souls to the afterworld so the dead don't feel so unloved they turn into random monsters. The souls are those little sparkles Sally and Friends have been making monsters turn into. That's a lot of dead people. I'm not sure how many we've fought so far but I know it's a lot.

I think it probably has to be done relatively quickly before the souls start reforming, otherwise summoners could just do their thing every few meters and there wouldn't be any more random monsters.



Yuna is Jesus!

I always thought those things under the water were some kind of flower fish. This time around I finally realized those are all coffins decorated with flowers and ribbons. That can't be good for the water supply. The sending might purify the water by turning all the dead flesh into sparkles but... I don't think I'd be comfortable drinking it regardless.



Yuna is Magical Girl Jesus!

Not only does she walk on water, she dances on it! Everybody has a good cry while the sparkles go bye-bye.



Except Lulu because she can't mess up her makeup and Sally because she's still pretty clueless. It must be pretty rough, though, having all the responsibility of making sure everyone's loved ones don't come back to eat their brains in a month or so. Sally can get that. It's like being a Blitzball star... No, Sally, it's really not.

This whole thing brings up the question: How many summoners are there in the world? Considering the dead become monsters, wouldn't it make sense to keep a summoner in every town to perform the sendings? Also it's implied this is Yuna's first sending. What happened to everybody who died in Besaid while she was in training? I suppose the summoners stopping by on their way to Mecca do it but you can't count on that happening however often the sendings are needed, I bet.



Anyway, the next morning everybody from the boat is making themselves useful repairing the village. When Sally finally rolls out of bed she just goes in search of Wakka. She's like a puppy, ya?

Wakka is taking the whole Blitzball team along to the temple to pray for victory while Yuna prays for the salvation of the world. That seems a little shallow, even to Sally.

"Blitzball very important, brudda," Wakka argues. "People come watch Blitzball an' get so into da game they forget 'bout their troubles. Only the game matters then!"

"...I guess." Dammit Sally, you don't have to go along with everything he says just because you like him!

Out on the edge of town, Yuna awaits Sally with an OMG SHOCKING proposition.



Shesh, Wakka, you don't have to look quite so displeased with the prospect. Yuna's retinue discusses the prospect of adding Sally to the party (except Warrior Kitty who has yet to speak) while Sally whines helplessly at all the big words and funny terms nobody's taking the time to explain to her.

"Sally is accompanying us till Luca at least," Lulu finally says, "Perhaps we should deal with more pressing matters first." Like praying for the salvation of the world. Okay, you win Lulu.

"Huh?" Sally trails after the others. "You guuuuys..."



What's this? A big scary monster in the middle of the main path through the forest? There are multiple alternative routes? There's only one thing we can do. CHAAAAAARGE!!!

With the way they talk about it, you'd think Lord Ochu would be tougher. Yuna summons Valefor to pile on Fire until Valefor kicks it, then Lulu does the exact same thing but with backup from the rest of the group. This is also before starting anybody except Sally on the Sphere Grid.

The only thing of note the rest of this forest is all the little conversations the characters have in battle when someone swaps in. The best is when Wakka apologizes for calling Sally a n00b. I think further into the game all the good lines have been used up and they just say pretty generic stuff.



Some famous Blitzball player trained by running up and down the temple steps every day. My twiggy geek form feels tired just thinking about it. All the Blitzers decide to have a race to the top, though it soon becomes a race for their lives.

Yay! More of those little pod monsters with the sparkle wings!



Oh. That's not sparkly. That's vegetably. The exact same strategy from the Lord Ochu battle works on this vegetable as well. Yawn.



Apparently while Sally wasn't paying attention Yuna's Guardians decided to let Sally fight alongside them as some kind of Guardian initiation test. That's okay, Sally wants the sphere levels anyway. Then, bless her little brain, Sally decides to study some more for the written portion.

As I understand it, Sinspawn are monsters that come directly from Sin itself rather than dead people. When Sin senses little bits of it out there, it comes back to collect it. So if you don't kill off the Sinspawn before Sin notices they're missing, you'll get two Sin attacks for the price of one. Seems to me if there's a way to predict where Sin's gonna go next, somebody ought to take advantage of that...



Hey wait a minute! Since when does Wakka believe Sally about the Big Z? Since he figured out how Sally's existence could be used to make him feel better about the death of his beloved brother.



Wakka likes the theory that everybody who gets attacked by Sin actually gets time warped. So nobody dies, they just get to go live in a beautiful magic city full of Blitzball and yummy food and puppies and everybody gets to be ten times prettier than they were in life. I mean when they were in the present day. Yeah.

Lulu is a cold-hearted bitch. I'm gonna go against form and quote the whole thing without changes. "Amazing. Simply amazing. You make up one theory after another, refusing to face the simple truth. Sin didn't take Chappu anywhere. Sin crushed him and left him on the Djose shore! Your brother won't just pop back. Oh, and one more thing. No matter how much you want it, no one can take Chappu's place. No one can replace Sir Jecht, for that matter. And there's no replacement for Lord Braska, either. It's pointless to think about it, and sad."

She crushes Wakka's soul into a little ball, then for shits and giggles tries to make Yuna and Sally cry too.



There there, Wakka. You wanna hit the mean lady with a ball next battle we get into? We can do that.



The Kilika temple looks like something from an amusement park. Just add some water slides and this would be the funnest trial EVER! Before that we get to meet a few people we'll be seeing more of later, though.

The first group is the Luca Blitzball team. They win as often as Wakka's team loses. That is to say always. Wakka tries to make nice but they decide to spit on what's left of his self esteem instead. Why in the world would such an awesome group have to pray for victory? They're practically gods already!

Jerks.



Lulu you bitch.

Sally and I are still refusing to pray. This kind of thing has an incredibly minor effect on the affection system this game never really makes use of. A hundred potions could probably counteract all the multiple choice questions in the game.



Introduction #2: Rival Summoner Dona

She dresses like a ho. Or like someone who's already using dress spheres a game ahead of schedule. She's more hardcore than Yuna because she only has one guardian. I bet they're doing a No Sphere Grid challenge too.

Yuna argues her case for having a hundred and seven guardians in a really unassertive kind of way. "I feel that my way of playing this game is more fun but I'm sure your way is fun too and I wouldn't want to reduce either of our fun levels by arguing over it." Something like that. But with more ellipses. Plus all Yuna's guardians are her friends and all her friends are her guardians. Super fun!



I wonder.

Next time: I jump past the trial and hope no one notices!!

The way I saw it, what with Dona and Isaaru (and the whole bunch of Summoners that the Al Bhed kidnapped) the Temples probably train several people in the Summoner path, but they only earn the title, so to speak, after they've successfully bonded with the Fayth. So, there's probably a bunch of other Summoners-to-be in major communities, we just never saw their stories. Also, the regular clergy probably has the capacity to Send people, just in a less flashy manner.

Also, don't Fiends come from people who die violent deaths? I don't think a regular death by disease or old age would harbor enough rage to return as a Fiend or remain as an Unsent.

I love the screencap; Wakka looks like he's doing a standard Takahashi double-take in that, with the raised arm and all.

Yes, and he even got a Sphere made out of his life. He was famous enough that the city commissioned a statue of him, arms raised high, and placed it at the top of those stairs. But then the Temple complained that it was too ugly, that it was not art, and that everyone associated the Temple with the athlete, and moved the statue off to the side and at the base of the mountain.

Sheesh. You'd think she has some unresolved issues as a Guardian or something.

This brings up some really hilarious mental images.

It took me a couple of times through the game to realize they were coffins, too. When I did, though, I had the same thought as you did. Plus, if dumping your dead in the water is a Spira-wide tradition, it would certainly go a long way towards explaining the mental capacities of many of the characters in the game.

Her pseudo-goth look with absurd cleavage suggest daddy issues.

Lulu is one of my favorite characters, I love how blunt she is, and I think Wakka needs someone to shake him from his fantasies he is always stuck in. Lulu probably is so direct since they've known each other for so long, and she'd probably just sick of Wakka's crap.

I will, because I'm waiting for another sprite-based summary.

A friend of mine was convinced that Tidus was dead throughout the game. When you start the game up in Zanarkand, he's at the top of the blitzball stadium during the cutscene, and he falls to the entrance by the end - Tidus is dead by that point. He then suggested that, during that cutscene where Yuna sends, Tidus slowly rises up in the air - the last shot is of Tidus floating several feet off the ground, which is possibly what you'd expect to happen if someone that was a ghost was being 'sent'.

Of course, with the release of X-2 we know this is horseshit, and Square is not that clever.

All that is possible but I still feel like complaining. I suppose Yuna may have Sent people from Besaid before but it was okay to cry a bit because she knew them in life but now she's crying for people she never even met so she's supposed to toughen up a bit more than that. The game does an impressive job with showing Yuna's not the only summoner out there so I really wish it had some apprentice summoners you could chat up in the temples here and there. Make it clear that's how it works if it does. There may also be apprentices who failed to bond or gave up the quest part way.

I know, really!

If I can I'm gonna get a screenshot of exactly that. And Wakka'll be all "I thought you was Confused, brudda!"

Also because she is violently opposed to being attracted to him. Though it's hard to tell when their thing actually starts because she's so hard to read. After a certain point I found I'd gone from "Lulu, stop being so mean to Wakka! ;_;" to "Seriously, Wakka, you need to shut up and do what Lulu says."

Yeah, I found the scenes where Sally would say something to Lulu and instantly shut up to be pretty comical, because Sally was learning how Lulu works and yet you're never really sure.

Have fun with the annoying puzzles, guys!



Dona and her manmeat return (why??) and, upon discovering Sally's not allowed to participate in the trials, decide to play a little prank and chuck Sally down the elevator. Tee hee. Fuckers.



Sally go down the hole.

Yes, Dona is wearing a split skirt and a thong for her pilgrimage around the world.



Imagine juggling in a dark room for 10d6 minutes and randomly one of the balls catches on fire. That pretty much sums up this trial. Except there's also a pillar you have to shove around, with no indication where to put it, and the controls hate you, so you'll push it when you're trying to walk past it and run past it when you're trying to push it. The pillar goes on the sparkle spot which the previous trial established as meaning "restart puzzle".

On the plus side, it's unlikely you'll miss the treasure because you'll already be in the habit of shoving your balls in every hole you come across. Also there was nothing sexual at all about that sentence.



I'm so glad you asked!



Seeing as that small child doesn't appear to be dead (or is she?!), I think it's one of those things where the penalties are strict but whenever it actually comes up they're "lenient" depending on how much you pissed them off lately.

Nobody's going to kill Braska's daughter and Sally got punished plenty by having to go through that damn trial so I think we're good.



Wouldn't be awesome if they made a game without a Sally-type character at all, just characters who already know everything, and nobody explains anything to the player? Yeah, that's what I thought.

Inside those super special chambers are statues of dead people that have the souls of dead people inside them. They're called "fayth" and they're chumps who nearly died fighting Sin, then used a sacrifice power like bomb-type monsters to kill with pure spite. Unlike bombs, their sacrifice isn't of the instant gratification kind. Instead they turn into summons used by the summoners who use them to fight Sin.

That's not entirely accurate but it's gonna be a while before it matters.

In way less time than her first prayer session, Yuna emerges with her new summon, Ifrit. The summons are renamable but the only reason to do that would be to make it more confusing for me when picking what to summon in battle. Therefore I won't give you the opportunity.



MYSTERY! Glee. Not actually a mystery. But implying weird things via screenshots is fun.



Yuna is greeted outside the temple by her fans. Sally had fans once. Sally wants adoration again. Sally want go home. ;_; Sally want...



Sally want to scream!!!