• Welcome to Talking Time's third iteration! If you would like to register for an account, or have already registered but have not yet been confirmed, please read the following:

    1. The CAPTCHA key's answer is "Percy"
    2. Once you've completed the registration process please email us from the email you used for registration at percyreghelper@gmail.com and include the username you used for registration

    Once you have completed these steps, Moderation Staff will be able to get your account approved.

Juno

The DRKest Roe
(He, Him)
Got the second set of jobs.

For people who remember- at what points in the story do you need to go back to Castle Tycoon in order to see the optional scenes with Lenna and Faris? I already went back right after getting the Wind Drake, but in my previous playthroughs I didn't realize there were others beyond that, and I don't want to miss them this time.
 

Peklo

Oh! Create!
(they/them, she/her)
Whenever a significant development/revelation occurs in Lenna and Faris's relationship is the tell, basically. The second one is after finding King Tycoon at Gohn and the confirmation of their siblinghood, and the third is post-Ronka and Tycoon's death. Or put another way: post-airship and post-final Jobs.
 

Peklo

Oh! Create!
(they/them, she/her)
Most of V's script in this release follows the GBA version, often verbatim, but there are also smaller rewrites all over it--too many to count, really. Several stuck out to me in the ship graveyard scene where Faris is outed, largely because of how imprinted it is in my head as the culmination of the early-game queer panic over Faris in the game's writing. Examples:
  • Galuf's "HE'S A SHE!" outburst is reworded to "HE'S A WOMAN!"
  • Bartz's "... Ah, right. Yeah." response to Faris explaining her gendered presentation is omitted entirely, along with some other interjections.
  • Galuf's fuck-awful "Bah... If you aren't gonna dress like a girl--and you should, a real shame to hide such assets--y'could at least talk like one..." grousing is rewritten altogether as "Her tone still smacks of machismo to me."
Obviously the fifteen years between the script treatments could inform some of these alterations, but not all of them strike me as revisions brought about by evolving cultural attitudes; some just seem rephrased or edited as part of the new pass given to the existing script which they still largely want to retain as far as the tone it lent the game. I'm not expecting any changes here, but Ghido to me is one of the low points of the GBA script, with all his lines and interactions with Bartz especially turned into snarky putdowns and prickly verbal jousting--my understanding is that this personality is as much of an invention of the localizers as the TMNT reference via pizza is. If they're willing to make changes like the above, I'd hope other decisions were subject to the same reconsideration, but I doubt it's seen as of equal priority.
 

R.R. Bigman

Coolest Guy
I’m in a weird mental spot with FFX. I beat it months ago, then started a new game to get some of the things I‘d missed that were later unreachable or locked behind Dark Aeons. On my second playthrough I ended up obtaining and fully powering up all the Celestial weapons, completing the Omega Dungeon and finding all the Al Bhed Primers/Jecht Spheres. But I still don’t feel like I did enough. All that’s left is to do is spend hours trying to level everybody up through the Sphere Grid and fight the Arena and Dark Aeon super bosses, but it seems like such a large slog to essentially fight horribly strong pallet swaps for no reward. But fighting these million HP having jerks is the main reason to get the powered up Celestial Weapons, so I sort of feel I owe it to myself to use them.

I am a strange person.
 

FelixSH

(He/Him)
I think I was at the exact same spot, everything simple done, only the superbosses left. Was really motivated to do them, then started the grind and gave up after an hour, or so.

You don't owe the game anything. Maybe really play X 2, it might help. Or start the grind, get disgusted like I did, and stop that way.
 
Probably you should take a break and play something short and breezy like Untitled Goose Game or Firewatch or something as a palate cleanser and then see where you're at.
 

gogglebob

The Goggles Do Nothing
(he/him)
Is it worth looking at the Eternal Calm epilogue that comes with the HD Remaster of FFX?

Yes. It is basically a short "story trailer" for X-2, and was released to hype the fanbase up for X-2's release. It basically establishes the "post X" world of X-2, and, if memory serves, X-2 kind of assumes you have already seen it. There are a few "this is the status quo now" things established that I do not think are ever stated with the same emphasis in X-2. And, oh yeah, the entire catalyst for Yuna going off adventuring is seen, and I literally cannot remember when that is first directly referenced in X-2.
 
By far the biggest problem with the superest boss is that no amount of actual... like... typical RPG gameplay is involved. There is only one answer, and it's to grind and spam max damage, and it's boooooooooooooooooooooooring.

FFX-2 at least gives you some fun rewards to play with when you beat its grindy superbosses.
 

R.R. Bigman

Coolest Guy
Yes. It is basically a short "story trailer" for X-2, and was released to hype the fanbase up for X-2's release. It basically establishes the "post X" world of X-2, and, if memory serves, X-2 kind of assumes you have already seen it. There are a few "this is the status quo now" things established that I do not think are ever stated with the same emphasis in X-2. And, oh yeah, the entire catalyst for Yuna going off adventuring is seen, and I literally cannot remember when that is first directly referenced in X-2.

That sounds fairly important. I will watch it.

The big turnoff for me about filling in everybody’s Sphere Grid, aside from the time commitment of grinding battles for AP and stat spheres, is that everybody more or less turns into everybody else, aside from Overdrive abilities. I‘ve never liked that in RPG’s and Final Fantasy seems to have that problem a fair bit with it’s different leveling and magic systems. Tidus is fast and buffs, Wakka is accurate and debuffs, Auron hits hard and breaks armor, Yuna heals and summons a bunch of Overdrived Aeons to kill every boss, Rikku steals stuff and uses unique items, Lulu hits elemental weakness and Kimahri sits in the corner. That’s how it should be!
 

Mogri

Round and round I go
(he)
Staff member
Moderator
There's at least one other important difference: three of the characters can swim. It doesn't matter often, but when it matters, it really matters.
 

R.R. Bigman

Coolest Guy
I watched a YouTube video detailing the requirements to fight Nemesis and the “reward” for beating it, and decided to cut my losses. Despite how much time and effort you need to put in to stand a chance against the Monster Arena bosses, it feels very tacked on at the last minute to try and justify a reason to max out more than a quarter of a character’s Sphere Grid. The nakedly extraneous Dark Aeons, even more so.

I watched both the Eternal Calm and the odd radio show bonus content. The audio only show was very confusing, seemingly taking place after even FFX-2, based on the time frame and state of the world. Where were these released?
 

Super Megaman X

dead eyes
(He/Him)
Eternal Calm has an odd official release: First, in Japan, FFX came out. Then it came out here, with english voice actors. That version was brought back to Japan as "FFX International", which added the Dark Aeons and stuff like that. It also added the "Eternal Calm" cutscene. Initially, FFX International was never going to come to North America, so we were never going to see Eternal Calm. I guess Squenix ultimately decided "Crap! We gotta show this to these folks before X-2!", because they then released Eternal Calm as a special on the demo disk that came with that month's "Official Playstation Magazine". (Remember those??) Until the remaster was first released on PS3, this was the only "official" release of Eternal Calm.

Said remaster was also the first place that audio drama premiered. This drama was added so that the remaster would have some sort of all-new content, and yes, it definitely does take place AFTER X-2. It was created, alongside a book, to drum up interest for X-3. It's been almost a decade since the remaster first came out, and there's been no further official discussion of X-3, but even this year, people in the company continue to beat that drum.
 

R.R. Bigman

Coolest Guy
Wow, so you had to buy a magazine to see the promo cutscene for FFX-2. Thanks for telling me.

I am surprised that FFX hasn’t had more, ya know, stuff in the twenty years since it came out. I remember it being huge and people still love it based on how many guides and Let’s Play’s there are online.
 

Positronic Brain

Out Of Warranty
(He/him)
It did have a bit of a backslash, and FFX-2 wasn't well received by the Gamerz, if I'm not mistaken.

That said, FFXII happened and there were several canceled spin-offs from that, and then FFXIII happened. This marks the beginning of Square's struggle to keep up with development, which I guess hampered how many resources they could devote to a new FFX instead of chasing a new shiny thing.
 

Octopus Prime

Mysterious Contraption
(He/Him)
It did have a bit of a backslash, and FFX-2 wasn't well received by the Gamerz, if I'm not mistaken.

That said, FFXII happened and there were several canceled spin-offs from that, and then FFXIII happened. This marks the beginning of Square's struggle to keep up with development, which I guess hampered how many resources they could devote to a new FFX instead of chasing a new shiny thing.

I believe you are correct and it is as wrong today as it was then
 
My problem with FFX-2 wasn't with the gameplay or dresses or anything so much as that the ending to FFX was so perfect for me that I had no desire for any kind of continuation of that story.

Memories of Lightwaves alone justifies the game's existence, though.
 

R.R. Bigman

Coolest Guy
My problem with FFX-2 wasn't with the gameplay or dresses or anything so much as that the ending to FFX was so perfect for me that I had no desire for any kind of continuation of that story.

This is why I’m hesitant to play FFX-2. FFX has such an omnipresent theme of “let things go” that going back to the world and presumably bringing back Tidus feels wrong.
 

Peklo

Oh! Create!
(they/them, she/her)
X-2 has meaningful things to say as a direct sequel to the story it's following up on, both in character-centric writing, and for its focus on Spira as a setting.
 

R.R. Bigman

Coolest Guy
Seeing the people of Spira try to create a new culture after a thousand years of revolving around Sin is something that is interesting to me. I’ll miss Auron, though.
 

Zef

Find Your Reason
(He/Him)
This is why I’m hesitant to play FFX-2. FFX has such an omnipresent theme of “let things go” that going back to the world and presumably bringing back Tidus feels wrong.

As you say, FFX is about impermanence, acceptance, and letting things go--Tidus literally goes through the five stages of grief for Yuna and for himself--but, by the same token, FFX-2's core theme is about moving on. Every single faction in the game expresses how people try to, or fail to, move on from the past, a past both personal and contextual to their world. From the NPCs to the antagonists to the villains, from the positive "how does a society that has lived in fear of death move on when the threat is gone" to the much more difficult "how does a society that followed the church for a thousand years move on when the church is exposed as a lie," it's a fascinating world and it's amazing the myriad ways in which each character develops.

That said, the part you spoiler-tagged is a) completely optional, b) pretty difficult to get in your first pass, and c) intentionally obscured by the developers. You literally have to push a button at a seemingly random point in order to even activate the path, and that's if you fulfill other (optional) requirements. So the story that X-2 tells regarding Yuna and her moving on is your choice.
 
X-2 has meaningful things to say as a direct sequel to the story it's following up on, both in character-centric writing, and for its focus on Spira as a setting.
Oh yeah, I'm not arguing that X-2 is bad for continuing the story or anything. It's just a personal thing that when I finish X the story is complete for me and I don't want any addendums.
 

Kirin

Summon for hire
(he/him)
Seconded. It’s one of a handful of FFs in which I did absolutely all of the ridiculous bonus content just because the battle system was a blast.
 

Zef

Find Your Reason
(He/Him)
the battle system was a blast.

1ca7de703c108355c3dfa617efff0b996baf2bf8.gif


(Speaking of, it's a damn shame all ports/remasters of X-2 nerfed the Gunner's Catnip ability. It was basically the only consistent way to beat the Via Infinito superbosses.)
 
Top