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

I know Maechen's got fans but I was never one of them.

Yuna's voice acting in 2 is really great 'cause they resynced it for the voice actress instead. It kind of works overall because she's so much more confident in that game.

Forget that, get Zev! Zev Ronso is an amazing center, especially if you get him Golden Arm and the Wither/Sleep Pass techs. Biggs and Wedge can go hang as long as you've got him passing and breaking through enemy defenses.

Come to think of it, him and Wakka are the only two players I actually recruited in my first playthrough (when I started playing Blitzball, post-Zanarkand.) I kept Keepa and the two defenses, but booted the two other guys. On my second one, I recruited Biggs and Wedge to keep them off Luca's roster, put Zev back in the formation, and hired a priestess-looking woman who looked very awkward swimming in her full-length robes. (But she made a great shooter. I'll look her up later.)

Aww

I would have gotten the matched pair of Biggs and Wedge but somehow I didn't find Biggs. *shrug* The reporter girl wears a dress underwater too.

My initial goal was just to get the Aurochs off my team ASAP. Unfortunately the various Blitzball guides on Gamefaqs are really hard to follow but I'm gonna dig through them for a decent goalie I can recruit early. I remember one saying Wedge develops into a good goalie but doesn't start that way... Practically anybody would be better than Keepa though.

I'll take any recruit suggestions people might have.

I like Shelinda, only for her White Magic. Otherwise she's an annoying NPC.

I don't see why. I personally think it's nice to see a friendly face rolling around the planet along with Team Sally Forth.

Well, the best goalie you can get this early in the game is definitely Jumal, but he's back in Luca. If you're willing to go back though, he's sitting on a park bench next to the fountain in the square just as you're heading out of town toward the Mi'ihen Highroad.

Also, be sure to pick up Ropp if you're still at Rin's travel agency (he's the dude behind the counter on the right) as he's one of the best blitzball defenders in the entire game.

These lovely ladies take in a spectacular sunset outside the ol' chocobo farm Bed & Breakfast. A gentle breeze moves across the water, replacing the stink of chocobos with the smell of fresh lake water. Brushing her hair from her face, Yuna meets Sally's gaze. After a long pause, Sally breaks the silence.



"I... used to know this joke... but I've forgotten the punchline."

"Yuna, I... was seriously asking," Sally says, starting to worry about their summoner's ability to focus. "Sin? Toxin? Time travel? I don't know the jokes. I don't even know the company line!"

"O-oh, right. I forgot." Yuna giggles a little, then answers properly, sounding like a textbook. "Sin is our punishment for our vanity. It will keep coming back until we repent. How long that will take, no one knows. Until then, summoners will keep trying to defeat Sin so the people may relax, even for a short time."

"What'd we do that was so bad, anyway? Like, thousand-years-of-suffering bad?" Sally asks. "Something to do with using machina maybe?"



Ignorance is bliss.



Live for the present!

This game has the best morals. They turn in. Morning brings with it new friends and new giant monsters.



Friend!!

Rin is pretty cool. He's an Al Bhed who owns a chain of travel agencies (inns) all over Spira. Most Al Bhed are pretty reclusive and don't bother to learn basic Common but he not only knows Common but carries around a few Al Bhed Primers for any cute blonds who want to join his "study group".



Giant monster!!

Yuna is a beast at magic now. Wakka has the same black magic she does right now but she does almost four times as much damage with it. Sally has steal now but I keep forgetting to use it. Lulu-the-Tank isn't turning out very well but we're gonna stick with it a while longer.

"Smack it like crazy" + "with fire" is the strategy for this boss fight. You'll knock it down and push it back and eventually it'll either die or fall off the cliff and die. If you're weak enough to let it do the same, it'll push you off the cliff and you just won't get the experience and treasure. The treasure is two more Level 1 Key Spheres so don't let that happen!



Our other reward is a free chocobo ride. (And a closeup of Rin's hot bod!) Chocobos are usually bad 'cause we want the experience from fighting monsters but this is an exception. There are yellow feathers here and there along the path and by running into them with a chocobo, it will run and jump -



- to delicious treasure! And way down a side path is the Saturn Crest, which is important for unlocking Sailor Saturn later on.

Back at the exit to the next area, the Anti-Sin Coalition has set up a blockade for their "super secret project" everyone and their mother is talking about. The rumors, summed up: Sin, machina, Al Bhed, Anti-Sin Coalition. All of ASC is excommunicated, so this is pretty much everything sinful and evil in the world.

Tee hee! They're pissing off Dona so I think we can forgive all that. Dona eventually sulks off to have angry sex with her manmeat until the blockade goes away.

And what shall we do to kill time until it goes away? Certainly not talk to the guard to trigger the next plot point! Heck no, I just gained access to a Blitzball tournament! I've kinda gotten the hang of this game now and only the Al Bhed Psyches give me a hard time because of their cheaterly good goalie. The first prize of the tournament is a Blitzball technique nobody on my team can use so it gets wasted but I engineered it so Sally and Shaami tied for most goals scored and netted two Return Spheres.

Return Spheres let someone go back to any point they've already visited on the Sphere Grid. On the Expert Grid it's handy when you discover you've made a wrong turn. We've also amassed three Level 1 Sphere Keys by now and I have no clue what we'll be using them on.

Oh, and this:



Glee! Confession: My first time playing I never really figured out why Wakka didn't get any new overdrives. Other than Sally and Auron, it doesn't really feel like you're getting new ones so it didn't seem that weird.

Back to the plot.



It's our hometown buddies again! They're delivering a wagon full of... red thing. Perhaps this wagon is an early version of the Pokeball.



The boys say their goodbyes with the promise this will be a very short and unfulfilling game. We follow along to interrogate the guards.

Operation Mi'ihen: ASC collects all the sinspawn they can and brings them together to one place. Since Sin always comes back for its spawn, this should force Sin to come where they want, right into a trap!

Nobody's very specific about the trap itself but since this is the big ol' heathens project I doubt they have two dozen summoners lined up to Ifrit Sin's ass. I could see that working but not much else.



They're still not letting us through but here comes our buddy Seymour! Yuna, work your womanly charms and maybe he'll help!



...

Yuna, we need to work on your people skills.



Maester Nipplecloak helps us anyway, 'cause he's just a swell guy. Or he has a reason for wanting us present for Operation Mi'ihen but what could that possibly be? If he wanted a dozen Ifrits he would go find Dona too.

That's on Wakka's path.

It's so obvious. I mean, he's half undressed already.

You know, it would've been really awkward if Sally had said "After you beat Sin, that's when we can worry about the future."

That caught me off guard and made me choke on my juice. Bravo!

I understood that in an entirely horrifying way

...you know, that's an excellent point. I'm sure The Lady of the Thong convinced everyone that the only way to beat Sin was to send one Summoner to perform the Final Summoning, but surely someone, somewhere, sometime in 1000 years of tradition, thought, "Wouldn't we do better rallying all the Summoners in the world and frying that manatee's ass?"

It really really isn't. As evidenced by the next (half finished) update.

He does start from a fair ways back. Although Rikku is the only one with anything even close to approximating people skills, you don't have her.

Auron's Intimidate skill is all we've really got right now but for the most part we're getting by with Yuna's Plucky Savior feat.

Sally's gotta be getting some passive bonuses somewhere. Seriously, the amount of shit she gets away with somehow, she's like Spira's Paris Hilton. (Also: friends with Spira's Britney Spears.)

Right on the other side of the blockade, the whole road is a lot darker. Must be the looming shadow of impending doom. Seymour makes a speach to the troops indicating they're all okay guys and probably won't go to hell for going against the teachings of Yevon. Wakka, naturally, has a problem with that.



But nobody else does. Reactions range from "that's interesting" to "he's a Maester so it must be okay." With the usual "..." from Nekoman. Talk dammit!



"Your mom."

That was totally not me this time. Blame Auron.



Wakka is taking speech classes from Yuna. Seymour manages to figure out what Wakka is trying to ask and he's okay with the operation because it's for the greater good. You'd think they would go with the usual bureaucratic response to these things: Ignore it and hope it works out to your advantage. He suggests Wakka try that method though.



Um, yeah.

Seymour goes off to... help? Watch? Eat popcorn?



"That's nice but we're headin' to da temple, ya?" Wakka says.

"I'm sorry, we're still making preparations there," Clasko replies. Damn I hate his hair. "Lord Seymour requests you meet him at the command center."

"Hang on, wasn't Seymour just making an excuse to get us through the blockade?" Sally mutters.

"It would seem not." Lulu is short and to the point as always.

Frick. We've traded one blockade for another.



Between the Seymour crap and now this railroad plot, Wakka's pretty surly. I love it when battle dialog changes to reflect what's going on in the plot.



Those platforms are "nature's elevators", with bursts of water changing their height when you step on them. Despite that being kind of cool, I don't like this little side path. It's infested with bombs, basilisks, and enough elementals to eat through Yuna's magic points very quickly. Wakka's magic skill is still so low he has trouble one-hitting things even while taking advantage of their elemental weaknesses.



Oops, looks like we walked into the middle of a lovers' quarrel.

"I'm not a cadet anymore, sir!" Gatta shouts, staring pleadingly into his senior officer's eyes. "I want to go with you! I want to prove myself!"

"I-" Luzzu looks away. Oh how he wishes they could always be together. "I know, but an order's an order."

"Luzzu..." Though tears glitter in his eyes, Gatta dares not shed them.

"To your post, Crusader."

Stung by such an impersonal command, Gatta finally relents. "Yes... sir." He flees, not trusting himself to hide his sorrow any longer.



They were in their own little world while arguing but there's no use hiding it now. Sally and Wakka add their own two gil, on either side of the issue as it turns out. No one's really surprised Sally would related to the uke* and Wakka would relate to the seme*.

* If you don't know these terms it's probably for the best.

"Reason with confusion, judge with recklessness! Brave Insanity!"



LOL that berserk magic prank again!



Wow he's been getting everybody with that one! Oh that joker. Even though Wakka's the mage now, I bet his punch hurt more than Lulu's plushie rage.

Luzzu goes off to get himself killed.



Yuna doesn't want to see anyone else get hurt by Sin but Auron points out she doesn't have the monopoly on martyrdom. I wonder how many people working on this operation honestly expect to survive it? And is that more or less than how many think it'll work?

The party moves on to the cliff top staging area, lined with big evil machina cannons.



Yeah, Wakka! You showed it! Hurt your foot but that cannon knows who's the boss around here now.

You know who we haven't seen in a while?



Yaaay! O'aka!

Depending on how much money you give him when he's begging earlier in the game, he'll give you a special discount now. That'd be cool except I never use items. I got Sally a counterattack sword and that's pretty much it. So not worth it.

At the entrance to the command center, Gatta is still raging about the unfairness of the world.



Important Decision Time!: Should we encourage Gatta to obey orders and guard the command center or should he secretly go out on the front lines to face death like a man? I forget the specifics but I know this is one of the few choices in the game that matter.

And make it quick, I wanna play some tonight! ^_^

Kill G-- I mean, encourage Gatta to get out on the front lines.

I hate his voice.

Tell him to hide. I'm with Yuna - the less people stealing her martyrdom spotlight, the more drunken tabloid confessions Sally can sell in her later years to pay the bills.

Well guarding the base is an important job. Tell that layabout to get back to his post, or there'll be hell to pay.

I haven't enough bloodlust in me to lead a virtual person to die. Tell him to keep guarding.

Since they're certianly going to end up killing Sin with their trap, and I hate Gatta, you might as well tell him to hang back, to deny him his moment of glory.

I can't remember what his voice sounds like, so we'd better keep him alive and well until I do.

It's high and whiny. Even by the standards of high and whiny in this game.

After a brief deliberation, the party advises Gatta to stay home and mind the house like a good boy. Gatta grumbles a bit - something about "you can't make me" and "you're not my real dad" - but we've done our part and it's time to move on. I wonder who's in charge of this operation!



o_o

Oh no he didn't!

Fat man hugged Auron!! He must be somehow important to the plot because Auron doesn't break his arms on the spot.



Oh boy, I bet Wakka's just thrilled by this revelation. So much for Seymour's claim he's supporting the heathens as a person, not a religious leader. Half the religious leaders of Spira are here to support it. Did the church plant the idea of this mission in their minds as well?



That's just mean. You're going on my shit list, Kinoc. Right up there with that chick from the Goers.



Kinoc knows Auron from way back, it seems, though when and why is unclear. Maybe from his first bout of guardianship. Either way he knows Auron well enough to catch the rude muttered response to his questions. (Spoilers: Your mom; your mom.)



They're pretty subtle about it but I take the hint and save. FYI: There's a treasure chest tucked behind the left weapons rack. I hate it when games hide things via camera angle that would be really easy to spot from the character's perspective...

It's not worth showing the random NPC dialog but Sally's Al Bhed is really improving. It's possible to figure out a lot of words from the letters she's collected and context. Though I discovered I missed one in Luca so there's a bit of backtracking in my future...



That was abrupt. I thought the plan with to stuff a box with sinspawn and maybe make them squeal for mommy via sharp sticks and rocks. Who let the spawn out?

This is your standard-for-this-game "looks like one/stats like four" boss monster. The claws block damage to the torso so you're supposed to target them first. The head periodically makes little "hurk hurk" noises and you gotta smack it before it vomits poison on you. Much like a cat. And of course the arms regenerate after a while.



It's not too much of a problem though.



As soon as the monster falls, Sin appears - this time in the form of an oil spill. Lucil leads the Chocobo Knight charge. Yes, charging Sin on armored chickens.



That went well.

I can't find a video so I'll try to describe what happened. As soon as Sin rises above the water, now looking more like some kind of whale than a bubble or tentacle monster, the cannons stationed atop the cliff fire at it. Chunks of sinspawn fall off into the water and charge the troops on the shore. After a very brief clash, Sin makes his shiny aura zap everybody on the shore. The sinspawn are vaporized and the humans are slaughtered instantly.

And what of our heroes? Were they far enough away at the command center?



Yuna has survived but she's a beast so that's no big surprise. That girl'd live through anything. Seymour's made of the same stuff - he's even already up and fighting the revived monster we just killed! No, I don't know why it came back like that.



And we've still got Auron! Cool. The party is now Yuna, Auron, and Seymour. I'm okay with that. Sure, Sally was insanely fast and the story won't be the same without her self-centered whining and clueless commentary but I'll manage. Lulu and Wakka still hadn't gotten their stats swapped so they could be terribly useful in their new roles and Nekoman never even talked to me, so I'll get by without them.

Best part is Seymour starts with Cura so he gets to be my cure bunny for the first few rounds of combat. Same strategy as five minutes ago except I sacrifice Ifrit to the gods of Massive Damage rather than Val and I can't swap party members.



Oh hey, everybody else is still getting AP. It's gonna be sweet spending all those Sphere Levels Seymour racked up.



Whoops, I almost forgot: Sin's still out there. I mean, he already did his super move. Why bother sticking around?

Ew! Does Seymour have an eye socket on his chest?! Gross!



Ding dong the Sue ain't dead
The Mary Sue ain't dead

The whole beach is littered with dead bodies but somehow Sally, who must have fallen from the cliff several elevator rides above, is perfectly fine. She wanders around, "checking for survivors" (read: looting bodies) and after a half dozen or so actually finds one.



That's it? That's frickin' it?! We should have just let you go get yourself killed with your boyfriend after all.



He's right, Yuna. You exhausted all your aeons in the last two boss battles. Plus it's Sin. You'd want at least four more summoners (in pentagram formation!) before you even think of trying it that way.



Fun Fact: Sally watched The Little Mermaid one hundred and fifty seven times growing up and dressed as Ariel for Halloween twice. None of that can excuse the fact that she swims after the giant ocean monster when it leaves.



???



Dammit, Egypt, stop screwing with my head. The flashbacks are bad enough - you don't need to add sparkle tree visions. Sally wakes up back on shore where she started, once again proving how useless it is to go after Sin.

Spoilers: She never stops



You got that, everybody? Church = Evil. There's going to be a quiz later on!



Seymour's such a romantic, eh? He's referencing some religious story about the first summoner (first who matters anyway), whom Yuna is named after. This will not be on the test. Feel free to forget - I'm sure it won't come up again.

Seymour walks away and right out of my party before I can even check him out on the status screen. That jerk.



"Then Sin must be my dad..." Sally folders her arms. "Only my dad could be that much of a dick."

"What about -"

"Yeah, I considered that, but I've seen you and Sin at the same time. I figure that rules you out."

"Hmph."



D:

It talks!

"She smiles to make everyone happy. We must smile to make her happy."



o_o

I... I'm happy. Please stop now. Don't eat me.

Guess what? Now Kimahri will talk in battle like everybody else!



*sigh*

I really love Kimahri but it's not just the sub-optimal Sphere Grid placement that's going against him.

Sally's impatient to get to Zanarkand and kill dad but the rest of the party goes over the pilgrimage itinerary and it's a ways off.



No, we can't.

We really can't.

We can't even backtrack. The path is blocked by an invisible shield. No effort made to explain it, we just can't go back beyond the last screen of Mushroom Rock.

But I can put it off. No updates until sometime next week. I gots D&D to play.

Apologies for the lack of updates. Been very busy with stuff and hiding from seeing Tales of Vesperia spoilers means I haven't gotten to play since the last update. I should have more sometime this week provided the kittens don't destroy my computer.

Btw, if anyone wants me to rename Aeons I can (Blitzball wins rename cards pretty often), I'm just not sure there's a point... They don't do anything in plot as far as I recall so it'd just show up in occasional screenshots. Not so exciting as Ogre Battle or Pokemon naming funtime.

I dunno, there'd be some charm in naming Anima "Pollyanna" and Ifrit "Mr. Hugs."

@_@;;

Well, we've got Valefor and Ifrit so far and I think Shiva is next. So... yeah. I think I have one rename card right now. But I'll veto anything that's too painfully cliche like "Ice Bitch" for Shiva or anti-intuitive like "Ice Bitch" for Ifrit. ;p

Are you implying that "Ice Bitch" is acceptable for any of the other aeons?