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I'm playing through all of Final Fantasy, and everyone is invited (Playing Lightning Returns now)

FelixSH

(He/Him)
Oh, it was that game. I always forget. Ok, that's not even guide-baity, it's just plain shitty. Did it at least have nice artwork?
 

nataeryn

Discovered Construction
(he/him)
All i really want to know is what is up with the mog mail system. I know I've missed a couple of Kupo Nuts.

Re: use of a guide. I have sporadically looked up a few things here and there. Where a puzzle solution could be brute forced, i just look up the answer. Maybe there was something to hint at what order to turn on the flames or knock on a wall or what number to set that elevator to. In all cases, i just go look it up. I also am playing on Switch, which includes a feature to turn off random encounters, so if I'm exploring a dungeon, i've turned that feature on so i don't get random encounters, then once i'm done exploring, i walk back and turn it off, to simulate if i had navigated the dungeon correctly.

The switch version also has a speed-up feature that i will admit i abuse for Choco Hot and Cold. With it turned on, Choco digs about as fast as you can mash and I don't know if the timer runs faster as well or not, but I can much more consistently dig the full 8 items than i can at normal speed. I also use the speedup when retrying fights when i have to get back through some dialog, it zips through it very fast, which takes most of the annoyance out of having to retry battles.

Something i forgot to mention about the upside down dungeon, I was proud of myself for figuring out the inverted damage formula eventually. I quickly realized spells and Freya's jump still worked. When i get new weapons, i tend to go look at them in the equip screen. I think it was Dagger who hadn't learned something from her starting weapon. Maybe it was Scan. Something not deemed important, so i equiped it, since weapons aren't working. I stumble into attacking with her and now Dagger is hitting for actually okay damage. Then it all clicks into place. Its an inverted dungeon and they've been giving me all the starting weapons. The damage formula is inverted too.
 
I agree with Felix that Cid's wife just being a well treated, but un-needed captive of Kuja felt like a let down. They set her up early and I was excited to learn what happened to her. I was disappointed that she was completely unconnected to the plot, other than she heard Kuja's plan so she tells us what to do next.
I quite liked this story choice. It plays well in contrast to Kuja's cruelty and callousness elsewhere - the cruelty was never even the point, it was always always about his own narcissistic ego. The same reason he leaves Zidane alive in Burmecia.
 

nataeryn

Discovered Construction
(he/him)
FF9 is complete!
I ended up with a party for the final bosses that muddled through. I used Dagger, Vivi and Steiner for the fiends, since they can all hit elemental weaknesses. For Lich, Vivi was a multiple of 5 so i swapped Eiko in for Vivi and used Holy. So, i thought for the final bosses, i would try using Vivi with Doomsday and Amarant and Freya using their best moves. Some of the equipment also absorbs Kuja's Holys, so the thought was Vivi can damage the boss and heal the party simultaneously. For Necron, I lost twice, then re-did my stones to focus on protecting from the worst statuses i could, which meant swapping Freya for Steiner. Freya was just too underdeveloped. Vivi, i kept on Auto-Haste and half MP, so i could only afford to use Loudmouth and Jelly, hoping i could heal anything else. On the 3rd try, Vivi gets Zombied and dies, so i can't revive him and Amarant's Throws weren't as powerful as i expected. Stienier however was MVP. He did not have Excalibur, but did have Ragnarok. I think his Shock was hitting for about 8k max. Zidane just threw an exlier or a remedy every turn to keep Steiner fueled.
What i really liked about the final fights was how versitle everyone was. I wish i had put more time into Eiko and Freya. All characters could dish out damage or be a cruicial supporter in the right context.

From a character perspective, the game reminded me of FF5. Zidane and Butz both are supporting guys. They know who they are already and help the other characters. At the begining, they are just along for the ride, until it is revealed they have a connection to the plot from their childhoods. Dagger and Lenna are both princesses who leave the castle to investigate the disturbances and are big drivers of the plot. Eiko and Farris are secretly kin of the princesses. And i guess Vivi and Galuf are both kinda clueless at first but have imense power and a heart of gold. Also Eiko and Krile both have moogles. I think it was probably smart to have half the cast basically have a scenario and then mostly be background to the plot. Freya is important to the Burmicia/Cleyra plot, but could have stuck with Fratley and focused on rebuilding Burmicia. Stiener could have left once Queen Brane and Alexandria are destroyed to find and help Beatrix. Amarant and Quina both barely had a reason to be in the party in the first place. I'm glad they all stay and I'm glad the game let's them mostly stick to the background. I thought it was an improvement on the FF6/FF7 big cast formula. I agree with Felix that the romances felt forced. Similar to FF5, i saw this cast as a family.

As for Kuja, I did not like him up until the end. The way Garland treats him, no wonder he went bad. In the end, i felt a little sorry for him.

The final dungeon was fine. I did like the return of the 4 fiends, but didn't like they jumped you like a random encounter. FF8 still holds the best final dunegon title for me..

The world as a whole, i'm kinda mixed on. I liked the Mist continent and I liked the multiple levels on the 3d map. Burmicia, Cleyra, Lindblum and Alexandria all get interesting architecture and geography. The outer contient was just the dwarves and the summoners, who got blown up until the black mages move in, though i did really like that the dwarves weren't in a cave. The frozen one (forgotten?) has one town and the other forgotten continent has no civilization. I guess I'm realizing that all the FFs maps have been mostly put together in service of the game progression rather than to make a believeable world. Maybe its no surprise they just dumped the world map in FF10. The creativity for the individual locations was top notch though.

The mechanics are in the sweet spot for me. Simple enough to easily grasp with bite size early goals, like equiping a weapon to learn new spells. Complex enough at the end game to really give you options to play with. My only complaint is that I did not understand the funtion of many abilities.

In the end, FF9 is a top tier FF for me. I could see mysel replaying this one in the future.


Onward to FF10. I've been looking forward to FF10. The PS2 was the first console I bought for myself in college. It was a used system and a few years old. FF10 is the only FF that I beat in my youth. I had familiarity with many other titles on this playthrough, but FF10 is the first one to be a replay. I'm interested to see what will stand out to me this time in context of the other games and what will be nostalgic. Booting it up and hearing "To Zanarkand" immediately gave me goosebumps. Its amazing to see how far the presentation has come from when i started high school to when i started college, roughly speaking.
 

nataeryn

Discovered Construction
(he/him)
I'm at the Mihen Highroad.

I definitely am enjoying FF10. But unlike last time I played it, now I know how different this is from what came before it (and how much FF is going to change from FF10). Its different and its fun. But I also feel like some of the charm is lost. I don't know if this makes sense, but FF10 feels like a Disney ride.
 
It certainly feels more on rails due to dropping the world map, imo. The world map may be a dated mechanic for many, but it does add that illusion of open space and multidirectional movement.

My main complaint at the time was how few times the story’s status quo/main mission changed meaningfully. It made the plot feel more linear and shorter than the previous games where your objectives seemed to shift more often.
 

Mogri

Round and round I go
(he)
Staff member
Moderator
Even more than the illusion of freedom, a good world map provides an opportunity to explore. FFX has exploration, but only of the dungeon variety -- it's a distinctly different feel when you find yourself doubling back because you've accidentally gone down the correct route.
 
My main complaint at the time was how few times the story’s status quo/main mission changed meaningfully. It made the plot feel more linear and shorter than the previous games where your objectives seemed to shift more often.
These are all pros to me, haha. I like both focused and meandering stories for different reasons, but in a game like FF10 - its focus on a single journey/destination I thought made for a much more compelling story versus some of the other entries to the franchise where it feels often like the characters/player lacks any real motivation to do what they're doing. Also I'll gladly take short and sweet stories over long ones these days. Especially with the amount of padding/fluff many games use to extend the playtime that are often not fun.
 
It just felt like a shorter story dragged out over the same number of hours, going through the motions since you could see so much of it coming, compared to the rollercoaster ride of 6-9 especially where there was always something new happening and you couldn't predict the story more than a couple hours ahead. 12 was even worse for this, and Lost Odyssey worst of all - while Chrono Trigger did the constant changing fast-paced adventure even better than FF6-9.
 
To each their own, but that's not how I felt playing FFX. Its predecessors were as you described, but the stories were often weak or hobbled by that writing mentality. FFX to me, is a situation of 'journey not the destination' kinda deal. Where yeah, if you're just focused on an end goal and how far you have to get until you hit it -- ok, that's probably not as fun. But the whole point of that story is that these characters get to know each other and develop camaraderie as they go on this journey with one another. The real meat of the story isn't how being in Location X followed by Location Y helped further the goals of completing Mission Z. It's about those character moments and seeing how they react to one another as well as their shifting environments and how the tension changes as they get closer and closer to their goal. It's about how the characters grow from their experiences, and how it changes how they react to things.
 
I didn't really see much of the group camaraderie evolve honestly. Like Wakka, he has his own personal journey he goes on, confronting his dogmatic beliefs and bigotry, and some of that reflects on how he treats Rikku. But he doesn't really change how he sees anyone else in the cast throughout (other than being surprised that Auron isn't as dogmatic as him, which is more "initially getting to know" than really a long-term friendship developing). And I feel like the same is true for most of the cast - Lulu stops seeing Tidus as an outsider but otherwise her relationships don't evolve. Kimahri has his own story separate to the rest, Rikku never really seems to get to know anyone other than a brief bit of cousin bonding with Yuna, etc etc.

Stuff happens on their journey but mostly just roadblocks and delays to their eventual destination, with a bit of a wobble where they think they might not go through with it. So it did feel like one short story dragged out to me, ultimately, and the character work along the way didn't take its place to become the main focus or main story like so many argue it does for 15.
 

nataeryn

Discovered Construction
(he/him)
I have made it to the Calm Lands.
Voice acting and being able to move the camera around 3d environments adds a lot to the story scenes. Putting it all together makes FF10 more cinematic than anything that came before it.

FF10 does feel like a game that can maybe afford to let go of the world map. Yuna is on a singular journey on a road that has been traveled by many summoners before her. Auron knows the road they have to travel for sure. And since FF10 is on the progression towards a fully 3d open world (using zones), it makese sense in the context of the story and the technology of the time, to present a more detailed, but more limited view of Spira. I think they made up for that by making the places you do visit very detailed and interesting. Its not perfect and some elements have been lost, but I can see why things were heading this way.

Last time I played FF10 as a young adult, I know somewhere around where i am in the game or a bit further, i got to where i was dying on random encounters. This time, i've done a much better job of making sure ot get Overkills. I don't generally like a system that punishes a player who fails by making the game "harder" (or grindier, but I consider grinding a punishment, so I avoid it whenever i can). Last time I didn't know how important overkills were, so i didn't get them on every boss, so i fell more and more behind, which made overkills even harder. Last time, I didn't steal, so i didn't have items to customize equipment, so i didn't have the ability to get certain status protections or upgrade aeons as much. This time, I've had Kimhari break into Rikku's area so both can Steal and Use. Kimhari also has Dispel, Reflect and Curaga from Yuna's area and the -aga spells from Lulu's area. I'm hopeful that this time, I'll be able to handle the last couple areas better than I did the previous time I played.
 

Mogri

Round and round I go
(he)
Staff member
Moderator
Overkills give bonus AP and items, but I wouldn't say that they're vital to your success. FFX is not fundamentally a demanding game; there's a guide for a challenge run that forbids use of sphere grid, customization, summons, overdrives, escaping battle, disabling random encounters, and playing Blitzball. If a person can win without any of that*, you can win a casual run without overkills.

* Technically, it's probably possible, but the guide indicates that you get walled by the final boss. If you allow overdrives, then it's much easier thanks to Mix.
 

nataeryn

Discovered Construction
(he/him)
I don't know how important they are. I just know when i played last time, I didn't grind and I only got overkills by coincidence. By the time I got to the ronso place (haven't got there yet this time), I had to run from most encounters. And I beat the game back then, so I'm not surprised that its not a difficult game to beat. I definitely didn't know what I was doing last time.
 

nataeryn

Discovered Construction
(he/him)
FF10 is complete.
Mt G. ended up not being as intimidating as i remembered. The difficulty increase felt appropriate all the way to Yunalesca. She did take me 3 tries. I would end up messing up the timing with swapping party members to revive someone and ending up with the on-field team being non-zombies when Mega Death came out.
I used the black mage kimhari advice in this thread so I ended up with Kimhari, Lulu and Yuna with high magic stats; Tidus, Wakka and Auron with high Strength stats. Rikku pretty much just needs the steal and use command, but i added the Nul and Esuna spells from Yuna's grid.
For sidequest time, i knew there were several i was not willing to do (chocobo racing and lightening dodging), so I focused on getting Yuna and Auron's weapons fully unlocked.
The final dungeon is not great. Taking away the minimap was a nice change as it forced me to explore. That's all the good i have to say about it...
The last fight with Seymour was a joke. I had Rikku, Yuna and Lulu with complete elemental immunity. I could have chipped away at him for as many turns as it took. Thankfully Holy was hitting for close to 20k at this point.
BFA took me 4 tries. Those Yu pilars were my problem. I couldn't quite damage BFA fast enough to ignore them because he'd get his overdrive and i needed maybe a couple extra turns before then. The correct solution was dedicating to a slower fight, using the first phase to buff, have Lulu focus on pilar management, and save Talk for the end to buy me an extra few turns.

I came into FF10 with a lot of anticipation. 10 was my reintroduction to the series as a young adult. I remembered it being really good. For the most part, 10 delivered. My dislikes were minor. The game balance was better than i remembered (probably because i played better).

I really like the characters of FF10.
Unlike 7, 8 , or 9, Tidus doesn't collect the party in the opening hours. They already exist and slowly welcome him into it. Auron gets added because of his experience. Rikku is Yuna's cousin. Yuna and Lulu seem to accept Rikku quickly. In FF7, Cloud delivers the materia tutorial to the player. In FF8, Squall is confident in his qualifications as a SEED. In FF9, Zidane is well traveled and well known. In FF10, Tidus is an outsider and it takes time for the group to begin to accept him. We get to see his relationships grow with all the characters as he learns his place in this world, and rejects the teachings of it.
Yuna is really interesting. She is essentially the party leader and the main focus of the whole quest. She is a public figure. However she's much more reserved than any of the other summoners we see. The whole trip is emotional and in order to keep the secret from the player, a lot of the reasons for the emotions aren't stated in the first half. I think you could write a lot about how Yuna must have been feeling at each stage of her journey. It feels like the voice actor did some of that.
For better or worse, the rest of the team is really supporting cast with only minor arcs. Wakka learns to accept. Lulu opens up a bit about her past. Kimhari resolves his dispute with other ronso about his broken horn. To me, the other characters are used mainly to help fill out and deliver the world's lore. Unlike say FF7, this group doesn't need a reason to stick around. They will all follow Yuna to whatever end, so their arcs can be little vignettes to help explain the background of different people and places.
I also really like that the game gives you a little cast of minor characters that follow you around. The old man that delivers history about each location was, i thought a nice touch. FF10 has the room to make the world feel like it has a culture and a history. The more curated view of the world of Spira also means each location feels distinct and is tied to some historical figure or event. There's ruins and monuments. When the Ronso said they would build a statue of Yuna with a big horn, i chuckled. It makes sense in world, but its also a fun call out to the traditional summoner horns.

FF10 had a lot of great ideas and innovations. The summons getting to come to the battlefield and do more than one big attack is a good improvement on summons. Making Blue Magic and Mix overdrives makes them a lot less broken. Getting one last run at a traditional turn based system makes me happy. Getting to always use the whole party makes each character's role in combat stand out. The sphere grid, which is essentially just an interactive level-up screen, includes important choices about character growth. Its not so open that makes it difficult to balance around, but its got some ability to break it open, especially later in the game.

I sort of knew going in that FF10 was going to be one of my favorites and I'm happy to say it remains near the top of the stack.
 

Sarcasmorator

Same as I ever was
(He/him)
I've also always liked the "Tidus as outsider" aspect of the game—he takes a larger role as the game goes, and he's the POV character, but he's not the main protagonist, not even at the end. It's always Yuna's journey first. It's more or less an isekai, with Tidus having to be walked through every step of life in this weird new world he's yanked into without ceremony.
 

gogglebob

The Goggles Do Nothing
(he/him)
The last fight with Seymour was a joke.
I always wonder how much of this was 100% planned. Your first two fights with Seymour are at some of your party's lowest points, but by the time you are at your final Seymour battle, he is almost a rounding error of a villain. Bro, we just carved our way into the world destroyer, what is your undead ass going to do to us? The gang has their resolve at that point, Seymour is appropriate as an afterthought on the way to the finale.
 

Sarcasmorator

Same as I ever was
(He/him)
I feel like it was on purpose—he's the recurring boss it's fun to beat up on one last time. The game's Jenova Absolute, down to the fourth and final encounter being a BRAND NEW FORM that dies like a chump.

I feel like every time I play through I have trouble with one boss I didn't have trouble with the other times. This time it's the big stone golem at the Calm Lands (I had trouble with him once before). But in the past it's been Yunalesca or one of the Seymours or something else.
 
Yeah, it's usually one of those three for most people, I think - Calm Lands Golem, Gagazet Seymour, or Yunalesca.
 

FelixSH

(He/Him)
I find it fascinating, how this random fillerboss, that golem, is always a roadblock to me. As is Gagazet Seymour.

Never had trouble with Yunalesca, simply because her forms change so fast. She barely got to do much, last time I played. But I also know her tricks. I imagine everyone dies to her, at least the first time, with no spoilers.

Also, I'm glad someone else has, for once, trouble with Jecht. Everyone is always like "super easy final boss", when I always have to grind for him a bit, at least to get stone immunity, or something like that.
 

Sarcasmorator

Same as I ever was
(He/him)
I had trouble with Bevelle Seymour this time.

I think part of it is that every earlier playthrough was the standard sphere grid. This is my first time through international so I"m probably building things a little differently in ways I haven't been tracking closely. Jecht I found a real tough final boss my first time through.
 

FelixSH

(He/Him)
I'll ask again now: When fighting Yunalesca, Wakka and Lulu look in the other direction, when attacking her (including casting spells). Only they do it.

Is this a weird, greatly fitting bug of my copy, or is this intentional by the game?
 

nataeryn

Discovered Construction
(he/him)
Yunalesca wasn't too hard once i understood what i needed to do. I knew the fight revolved around the zombie status, but couldn't remember the specifics. I died once because i thought Wakka was in zombie status, but he was just blinded and low health.

Bevelle Seymour was relatively easy, but slow. I had Lulu, Rikku and Yuna in that fight with a sub in for Kimhari for extra spells. Rikku and Yuna both have the Nul spells, so i tried to keep track of what spell was coming next. Lulu Focused in case the Nuls got dispelled. It was a bit slow, but low risk.

Mt G Seymour, i did not have a good solution for. I didn't have zombie resistant armors. So I used the standard FF10 crutch of get the Aeons to overdrive and sacrifice them.

I hadn't thought that the last encounter with Seymour is supposed to be a pushover. Its like Felix said in the original writeup that Seymour isn't really critical to the bigger story of defeating sin. By the end of the game, he's gone from this big threat to an annoyance that won't stay dead. It was fun way to finish his part of the story off with showing how much power our team has gained.

BFA did give me a little trouble in the same way Yunalesca did. I was too afraid of the overdrive in phase 1. Lulu with doublecast and 5 Focuses could 1 shot both Yu pillars without any danger of over-damaging them, since she is still capped at 9999. They still got a good number of turns. Lulu is slow, but she did manage to dodge two of BFA's sword swings. Rikku used items to boost everyone's max HP and let Lulu cast spells for 0 MP. Tidus hasted and cheered the group and had a clutch Talk to avoid the Jecht Shot. Auron used Mental Break. Kimhari took healing duty. Wakka even took a turn to hit a Yu pillar on a low Flare damage role. Yuna did all the work though with 1mp Holy. I was happy that everyone got to participate in the final battle. From there, the rest of it was just me taking my turns to one shot each aeon. Only the Magus sisters got to take a turn. Yu Yevon just cured itself a few times.

Tidus' final scene with his dad is tough. At the end of the day, I wouldn't have forgiven Jecht for what he did though.

Now the final scene with Yuna and Tidus hits me right in the feels. FF10 is the first one where i really like the romance aspect. Its a really happy/sad ending. She spent the whole game preparing to sacrifice herself, trying not to fall in love with this boy because they have no future and she won't give up her pilgrimage. They acknowledge their feelings and she decides to enjoy the time she has left with him. He convinces everyone to destroy the whole system to save Yuna's life, but the permanent solution will cost his and he keeps it a secret. Now Yuna has a future, but can't spend it with the person she loves. Its a very messy young love romance story. I like the sad ending though. It keeps the messyness to the end and keeps the underlying sadness that runs through the whole story.

But that's not where it ends apparently. I'm headed to X-2 next. My experience with X-2 was that I've seen the opening cutscene before. I know the battle system is totally different. I'm pretty hyped to learn how Yuna moves on from here. I watched the Eternal Calm cutscene included with the FF10 HD Remaster, which gives a bit of backstory of what has changed in the two years since the end of FF10. I don't know when it was made, but there's some immediate tonal shifts (a funny sound effect when everyone makes fun of Wakka putting on weight). I'll report in once I've made some progress.
 

nataeryn

Discovered Construction
(he/him)
I've started FF10-2. Boy talk about some tonal whiplash jumping right from one game into the other. I'm not saying that's a bad thing. This game is clearly starting off with very different kind of experience and story.
I actually have a PS2 disc copy of 10-2 that I got many years ago, but I bounced off the game. I struggled with the ATB style and the open structure. This playthrough, i'm playing the 10-2 remaster, which includes some new features. Initially, I'm having similar struggles. The ATB feels so fast after FF10. There's a lot of things to juggle, and I don't know how best to use the system yet. I did slow the battle speed and turn on ATB Wait to give myself a little breathing room for now.

Having played many an open world game since the early 2000's, the idea of an open structure makes more sense now and I understand the game wants me to poke around. After the opening tutorial, I went back to Luca and got to do a little side story about what Yuna was doing while Rikku and Paine infiltrated the concert. Yuna trying to disguise her voice in a giant moogle suit was just plain adorable. It was a silly little mini game but I had a smile on my face the whole time.

I really like the idea of job changing in battle. I think the dress sphere system brings together a lot of the best parts of games like FF5, and FF10. The dress spheres (jobs) are easy to understand their roles (FF5) but you can swap them on the fly (FF10) and you can use accessories to add an ability from a different job (various FF games). Its really open ended and customizable. I immediately liked Yuna's warrior outfit since she gets to wield Brotherhood.

On outfits in general, I like (generally) Yuna's new look in how it symbolizes her throwing off her traditional role. Personally, i prefered Rikku's FF10 look, though the bows up her arm remind me a bit of Yuffie. I was a little bummed that Lulu and Wakka didn't get an updated character model.

Backing up a bit, I really liked the design of the first tutorial mission area and a new use of verticality. In Besaid, i didn't quite realize where i could use the jumping ability on the old maps, so i just ran around holding down the circle button. I stopped before going to Zanarkand. I think putting those two locations as the first missions was clever. It feels wrong to start the game in an "end game" area, but that's my linear game thinking they are trying to break out of.

The whole game is giving me a bit of a "Rachet and Clank" vibe. The game feels more silly and light hearted. Character movement feels more bouncy. There feel like some serious undertones though. I felt like Wakka was taking becoming a dad seriously since he doesn't have an example to look toward. I want to get deeper into the story of this game and see where it goes.
 

FelixSH

(He/Him)
Look at every location, in every chapter. Even if you don't follow through with whatever you find there, at least give it a look. There is nearly always something to do, and something to get. I think the Main Missions will just advance the story, and you will lose out on whatever you didn't do. Not that you need to do everything, but if you ignore all the side stuff, I guess you will be underleveled, aside from not having stuff.

But again, you don't need to do everything.

My main problem with this game was always the absurdly fast ATB. After some time, I got into it, but the start could be brutal. I never really got comfortable with the speed, I think, but it got managable. So just keep going. Changing jobs in battle is pretty great, though, and their are so many nice costumes. Loved that part of the game.
 
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