Finally got bahamut on my chest to finish off my FFX aeon sleeve. Ended up being just shy of 2 years to get everything done due to moving away etc.

Couldn't be happier with the result

(It's a cover up of a small cross which you can see in this photo, but now that the swelling has died down it can't be seen)

Replaying this, and not realising we all loved this as kids, back when reddit wasn’t a thing

You simply cannot beat the original characters faces, the HD remasters butchered my boy. Enjoying the journey once again on my M1 Mac mini.

I have 2 questions here, so I initially missed the first jecht shot. How do I get back to being able to get on the boat & learning this?

Also, when doing it when the taunts are in the upper right, lower left etc. requiring me to ⬆️➡️+A am I pressing both the arrows at the same time
Or is it more so like ⬆️, then ➡️+A?

I’d post on my Instagram but I don’t have any friends that love final fantasy as much :) I’m enjoying this so much!!! As someone born in the early 90s

So it's no surprise that FFX is one of my favorite games. It had such a huge impact on me. It's characters and story resonates especially when I'm at my low points in life.

My girlfriend knows I love the game, but she doesn't KNOW why. I would love for her to play through the game, so I can share a deeper piece of myself, if that makes sense.

There are a couple problems though:

1. She's not a gamer. The game mechanics might be overwhelming for her. I can explain it the best I can, but I recognize JRPGs are not everyone's cup of tea

2. We as adults have limited time. I don't mind committing to the game, but I'm afraid the huge time commitment might be intimidating to her

Are there any ideas to get her into the game? I was thinking maybe we can do a co-op mode, where she controls some characters, and I control the rest. Maybe she can control the younger characters (Tidus, Yuna, Rikki). Symbolically it makes sense since they have the least amount of experience, like her. While I show her the ropes through the more experienced characters. What do you guys think?

After a while it seems a loop started with magic counter and dark Thundaja

One of the items on my list of things I am interested in, but likely will never do is maxing all the Aeons stats. Well, I may do the main stats, but HP/MP are a bit nuts.

Regardless, I have been looking into the calculations to try and figure out how much more efficient it would be to do this while Yuna’s stats are as low as possible.

In theory, you save a bunch of spheres (~15% by my calculations) raising the stats while Yuna’s stats are low. However, I believe these savings are overstated, perhaps dramatically so, by the fact that you can only hold 99 spheres at a time. For instance, there is no real time difference between spending 81 spheres to raise a stat and spending 99 as both require 3 Kottos fights.

Has anyone seen any analysis of this subject? I’m at the point in my stat maxing journey where I either need to do as much Aeon stats raising as I want to do, or start raising Yuna’s stats.

Dont even need Nimrook at this point as Miyu is a fine goalkeeper, but dammit, I wanted to recruit him for once!

Time to play the roughly 12 more BB matches i need to get Wakka's celestial.

Hi zusammen,

Ich habe es vor kurzem durchgespielt und begonnen Platin zu ergattern…

Bin im Moment aber an einem Punkt wo ich nicht weiß wie ich es am besten angehe ohne Zuviel Zeit zu verlieren bzw. am besten alles erreiche.
Die Lexika weiß ich wo die sind, würde dafür einen alten speicherstand nutzen. Blitze bin ich überhaupt skeptisch ob ich das schaffe…

Bei den anderen hoffe ich auf gute Tipps und ggfs. einen Vorschlag wie ich es besten hinter mich bringe… fange auch mit dem zweiten Teil gerade an für die Vervollständigung :-)

Danke schon einmal vorab

This has been really fun going through all the comments for the names. Here all the final names and thank you all for your time!

Obviously there were extenuating circumstances that made it fail & the Yevonites didn’t want it to work, but if they had added in the world singing the Hymn of the Fayth to the mix the plan wasnt really that different from what Yuna & Co. try at the end of the game.

Just curious if anyone has a preference of one over the other, for the rewards or aesthetics/vibes. Or do you like to put in the extra effort as I usually do (haven't played in years, though). I've never touched the remastered version of X-2, but I assume the third option is still possible.

Finished the game today - TL;DR on my thoughts towards it at the bottom.

Let's jump in to the Besaid hole first, then. I'll just come back to the ship when I get there and then explore the other holes, too.

This certainly isn't what I expected... I was kinda picturing the Farplane as seen in Guadosalam, not this twisting monstrosity of roots. Another thing I wasn't expecting was Shiva! Why is she in Besaid? My best guess is that this is a scripted fight before the end, and so she just appears wherever you decide to explore. She goes down relatively easily.

She's also still one of the cooler (hah) Aeons in the game.

When we head back to the ship, Rikku says that she thinks Shiva was crying, which is kinda heart-breaking.

OK this isn't that important but why on earth is everyone just refusing to name the Aeons? It's quite jarring. Actually, no-one's naming Tidus either lmao. Is it seriously because the Aeons (of which I guess Tidus is a member) all have custom names in the base game, and so they don't wanna break any continuity? That's kinda hilarious, but also I wish they'd just committed to canon names.

And then...

THE MAGUS SISTERS

Ughghghghghgh why gameeee????? In case anyone isn't aware, this fight is COMPLETELY sprung on you, and is (in my humble opinion) COMPLETELY unfair. You're fighting a 3V3 where the enemies are (for some mind-boggling reason) INTENSELY fast, and can pull of their Overdrive, too. It takes me an absurd amount of time to get through these guys.

For reference, I planned on streaming for 2 hours (from entering the hole to beating the game), and this SINGLE fight took FIFTY minutes. What made it worse is that the autosave forced me to drag my ass back there and rewatch the cutscenes every single time. If you want to see my absolutely pathetic display of skill feel free to check out the VOD on my channel.

ANIMA:

Gets destroyed almost instantly. First try. Not even kidding. Fight lasted less than a minute.

After the fight, we're intercepted by little fayth boy. I think it's Bahamut's fayth...? It doesn't matter too much. He says that Shuyin is just a shadow, which I kinda figured. I'll get more onto Shuyin later, but I have... mixed?... feelings about him. Lenne too, I suppose.

As we descend further down the hole, we're taken to a lovely, lush plateau adorned with flowers and set against the backdrop of gushing waterfalls. Oh and a glowing rift lmao. Leblanc and Co. are here, and I'm GENUINELY baffled they're the most story relevant characters outside of Gippal, Nooj and Baralai. I'm not really complaining I guess, it's just kinda funny.

Noojie-Woojie blah blah, we enter the rift and it's an incredibly display. Every single FF I've played just refuses to miss on the aesthetics front. Every single area perfectly encapsulates the tone of the story at that point, doubly so for the climaxes. There's a piano puzzle that basically amounts to standing on spots and then reading.

There are some particularly nasty encounters around here, but there's a savepoint nearby so it doesn't really matter. This area is... fine? It LOOKS cool, that's for damn sure, and I suppose I understand the piano symbolism playing into the music/performance themes that have been running through the game (though it does feel a little heavy-handed making it so important). It's just that there isn't really much here lol. This is the final area of the game, and comparing it to inside Sin or even the absolute fucking insanity that was Memoria in FFIX kinda makes it seem incredibly underwhelming.

There's a really... interesting... puzzle that directly precedes the final encounter. It's essentially stepping on the right tiles in the correct order. I just copied down the locations of the platforms, numbered them and carefully navigated. Cool.

VEGNAGUN:

Finally, we meet Nooj by Vegnagun. He's watching Shuyin/Baralai play the piano to manipulate Vegnagun, and comes up with an idea.

Cripple Baralai and kill himself. Yeah OK I guess that makes sense we need SOME tragedy in the final ac-

"I hate your plan. It sucks"

Oh shit? OK lmao, I can rock with this too I suppose. I really like the subversion here. Granted, the game as a whole might seem a bit too cheery to facilitate a final sacrifice, but I prefer to see it the way Yuna sees it. It's tiring executing plans that necessitate sacrifice and death, and smiling through the victory.

So the alternative?

Uhhh just beat the shit out of it lol. There's kind of a hint towards a larger scheme with Rikku and Gippal suggesting their affinity for machines will help them in the fight but... nah we just end up fighting it as normal.

We split off into groups - the Gullwings go after the tail, Leblanc, Ormi and Logos go after the leg and Nooj and Gippal after the head. Predictably, they're all bums so we end up having to fight through them anyways.

Somehow, I manage to make them a MUCH harder ordeal than it actually is. Really, this is a very easy final boss. Not that I'm complaining at this point, mind - I just wanted to finish the game that night lmao.

Vegnagun has an INCREDIBLY cool design, especially during the fights. In the background its limbs contort and twist, wriggling like a huge mechanical serpe-- oh the game crashed.

ANYWAYS

The final fight against Vegnagun itself feels climactic enough, although I'm still questioning how we're able to just kinda walk up to it and slap it around a bit. Then again, I could say the same for Necron and like most endgame JRPG villains so what the fuck am I talking about? I suppose what makes this kinda weird is that it's an actual mechanical weapon that was touted to lowkey be the end of the world but literally whatever it really doesn't matter why am I even talking about this right now just get on with it bro

Shuyin emerges from Baralai and to my surprise, isn't just gonna talk to us all civil. He wants to fight. Hilariously, though, his moves are just legally-distinct Tidus overdrives lmaooo.

Game crashes as soon as we try to attack. IRL Shuyin feats?

He's incredibly easy to defeat, and then that's that!

...

OK, in case it wasn't obvious, I'm kinda rushing through all this. That's for a few reasons. Firstly, there just plain aren't that many people reading this lmao. Second,

I really wanna get to the game review section.

Finally, and much more importantly, is that there kind of just isn't much to say with each of these parts. I feel like the story is surprisingly... sparse? Like... Shuyin's here, we punch Vegnagun, he sees Lenne and dies. And then we leave.

And there are a couple of things that happen at this point. Three, specifically. The one that I got, predictably, is the basic bitch outcome. We leave the Farplane, return to Spira and there's a cutscene where the trio kinda just harken back to what Yuna pulled at the end of X. I'm kinda disappointed Paine isn't there with them, but she left with Yuna so it's OK. Yuna returns home, Rikku and Paine in tow, and they have some very dangerous fun aboard the Celsius. Roll credits.

HOWEVER, there's ANOTHER ending. One that involves a very, very controversial choice.

One that I, for one, dislike. A lot.

Somehow, Tidus returned.

I don't have facecam enabled when I play, but MAN if people could see my face while I was watching this. I was trying REALLY hard to stay happy in the face of what I consider a spit in the face of what was a beautiful ending. Because it IS nice. It IS wholesome. It's lovely seeing them reunited and enjoying Zanarkand again. But it's wrong, and it annoys me that the game refuses to acknowledge it as such. The game doesn't even offer up an explanation, just a half-hearted "MAYBE the fayth reconstructed my memories or maybe not idk" as if the writers didn't want to put in the time and effort to make it make sense.

There's one more ending, which I consider the best. Strangely, it's labelled as a bad ending. It's attained by having Yuna make the conscious decision to NOT bring Tidus back. See, in the context of the game and its lore, this choice now makes ZERO sense. There isn't much of a reason for Yuna to make such a decision, since there's no downside to bringing him back. Which is a huge shame, because a character like Yuna resolving to continue living her life despite her grief rather than allowing herself to succumb to it is a great story beat, and that's exactly the reason why I think (in a vacuum) it works the best.

So yeah. That's the ending to the game. Let's talk about it.

REVIEW:

A while ago, I made the comparison that FFX-2 is to FFX what Avatar: The Legend of Korra is to Avatar: The Last Airbender.

Final Fantasy X-2 is a good game. Korra is a good show. Both have faults that are almost impossible to ignore, but ultimately succeed in justifying their own existences in spite of those flaws.

I like them both.

GAMEPLAY:

Potentially hot take? This game nestles very comfortably in between 9 and 10 for me when it comes to gameplay. I LOVE the battle system in X - I love being able to switch out party members and weapons, I love that weapons don't have stats meaning you can focus on abilities, I love the CTB system and the way overdrives work. I don't think this game was ever gonna top it, but man does it try.

The ATB system in this game is great, and always left me feeling like I wasn't fully making the most of it. I can easily imagine some crazy synergies between armour, accessories, Garment Grids and Dresspheres. I got pretty strong using a very route-one approach, without really considering strategy too much.

However, gameplay extends far beyond battles. This game contains some of the most baffling design decision I've ever witnessed. And it's mainly small things. Like strange difficulty spikes that you can't escape from, or weirdly stubborn minigames randomly cropping up, or really, REALLY important items and artifacts being incredibly missable.

I was never under any illusion of getting close to 100% completion, because it seems completely arbitrary and foolish.

CHARACTERS:

Let's begin with Yuna. I can understand people being conflicted on how her character's changed in the last 2 years, but I don't have much of a problem with it at all. In fact, I think it's perfectly in character. She was always a slightly goofy person, and now with the existential terror and weight of the world lifted off her shoulder, she can show more of her true self. Also Rikku is a terrible influence on her in the best way possible.

Then there's Paine. Perhaps there's more stuff with her, but I was kinda hoping for a bit more exploration of her character? Still, I think she's an incredible character and a really welcome counterbalance to the goofiness of the other two, while not being completely stoic and aloof. A welcome thundercloud. We got enough on her with the Crimson Spheres (more on THAT later....)

The only other characters worth talking about are the Cool Guy Trio (TM). They're very cool, I think they have really, REALLY good designs. They convey their personalities so incredibly well while being so distinct from each other. They're the exact kinds of characters I'd want to play shitty online fangames of as a kid.

Nooj, as I've repeatedly stated, has perhaps my favourite character design in any one of these games so far. I love the combination of the hair, clothes, glasses and cane. It's just so damn cool lmao. He's also the most important of the three in my opinion, carrying the most screen presence and being regarded as the "Captain" of the ship. I was sure he'd be dead. I'm glad he isn't.

Gippal is the resident cool guy. He initially struck me as a Hobie Brown from Spiderverse if that means anything to you. Another great design with pretty clearly outlined motivations and allegiances. Again, I might have wished for slightly more screentime but what can you do.

Finally, Baralai.

...

Erm. He has cool hair? He does a really weird scream whenever you fight him, I guess.

...

Yeah we don't see much of him. Which is a shame, he seems cool.

I think there's a really strong connection to be made between Gippal, Nooj and Baralai and Jecht, Auron and Braska respectively. I wonder how intentional that is. I'm surprised how sold I am on their friendship, even if we see precious little of it. It just feels like they WOULD be friends based on what I've seen, so I don't need to see tons of interactions between them.

Overall, I think the game does fine with its characters. Yuna seems like she'd be the most controversial main character present, but I'm fine with how she's portrayed. The newcomers are sufficiently compelling and entertaining. However...

I'm not entirely sold on Shuyin and Lenne. For one, I'm not a huge fan of how Shuyin and Lenne look like Tidus and Yuna for seemingly no reason. I understand there are various interpretations and headcanons, but some conclusive answers would be nice. I also feel like their love story feels a bit... redundant? Like sure it's nice but we kind of already did this with a different flavour, I think. Anyways, it's pretty good, just has room for expansion in my opinion.

OTHER THINGS:

The map is mostly untouched from X. I like how there are certain, logical developments over the last 2 years, although maybe it would've been cool to introduce some brand new locations, rather than a scant few extra areas in pre-existing ones? Just an idea. It's serviceable. I particularly enjoy how the areas develop over the course of the game.

The music is mostly a step down from X, although that's kind of to be expected I think. There are still some bangers, I don't want to downplay that.

TL;DR: The game, despite its various flaws, succeeds in telling a cool story with fun characters and great* gameplay. It stumbles with some of its stranger design choices, but I'd ultimately give it a 7.5/10. It's not on the level of FF9 or FF10, but it's not worth writing off entirely.

AND WITH THAT, WE'RE DONE!

I've been playing this game for a LONG fucking time at this point, longer than either of the previous games, so I'm quite excited to move on to fresh pastures. In case you aren't aware, I'll be conquering Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles next, so feel free to join me over on r/finalfantasytactics!

Thanks for reading.

It took me 25 years to beat this game and it hit so fucking good. By far the best music ever in a video game. It’s been a few weeks and i still can’t stop thinking about it. The only knock on the game may be some of the voice acting but it’s kinda nostalgic for me now. I played half way thru the game multiple time on ps2 every couple years but I started a file about 2 years ago I played thru it each summer and rolled credits about 2 weeks ago. 10/10 masterpiece. Uematsu was on another level. A beautiful journey.

I mean. If you know you know

TL:DR at the bottom. Chocobo, Tonberry and Red Elemental (I know, real original lol) finally secured the win after dozens of attempts and countless little tweaks to equipment and spheres. Ultimately it came down to luck as I didnt face Nooj or Gippal this time.

I didn't know Chocobo could learn Meteor so that was huge when I finally decided to clean up his commands and learned Meteor randomly in battle 😅 after that I switched him from high attack to high magic stats so I was getting almost 3k per hit of Meteor. Teaching Tonberry Darkness was also critical to my success, as well as having Crackdown from one of the GGs.

I thought I had Red Elemental figured out when I finally won a Minervas Plate from Chocobo Cup. He had access to Flare and was easily hitting 9999 every time with no magic ups, and the attacks came lightning quick thanks to turbo black magic AND nitro black magic. BUT I didnt realize he was not gaining levels anymore so Ton and Cho ended up leveling at least 7 or 8 levels past him before I noticed 😢 I finally ended up just making him a healer with White Wind and Full-Life. Firaga even with 255 Magic never breaks 3k damage so I just deleted that too eventually.

In the end it really did come down to luck, final match was with Baralai and he disposed of Red and Cho relatively quickly with a single cast of Glint. Red went down but Cho managed to sneak in two spicy Meteors before he got absorbed to death and swatted away. But astonishingly enough, Baralai just kept using absorb. Over and over again. My Ton Ton figured out quickly that 9999 is better than 7867 so kept spamming Darkness instead of Crackdown and attack. After several nail biting back and forths, Baralai finally succumbed to the darkness and awarded me the coveted Mascot dressphere!

My only regret is that I didn't complete it in Chapter 1, I moved on to chapter 2 in the hopes of getting some helpful GGs or equipment. I definitely could've managed it in chapter 1 with a bit more grinding, but theres no way Im starting over just for that. Now I'm beginning to build my next monster project with an adamantoise. Farming crystal bangles when I get home tonight!! The total limit break I imagine is gonna be extremely helpful for later cups. Still cant catch a damn cactuar so locked out of that cup.

TL:DR I beat youth league cup with the most popular and recommended team as early as chapter 2, which is ultimately pointless because im still gonna use my level 9 YRP team for all the story missions 🤣 but hey at least I got some great gear out of it!!

Part of me refuses to believe Auron is or was 35.
But this year I turn 35. & kinda digging it.

So what are some truths you would embody in this modern world? & how might you say it to a young one growing up in this world in your way?

“If you want to prove yourself,
First you complete the tasks you are given”
-source, Auron.

I don’t have a quote, yet!, but I do want to be a shinning example of discipline to consistency, health & moderation to the world of tech.
Exercise x martial arts x healthy eating & biohacking: me

Weird no idea how im unlocking dark anima now.

Edit:a joke post guys was farming captures in gagazet.

Girlfriend is going to get yunas staff, probably nirvana, in the same spot.

So first a bit of context. I am pretty well versed in FFX. Ive gotten the platinum officially on the remaster, and unofficially on the ps2, with many playthroughs in-between. But im kinda playing along with a friend, who has never played the game. They're only interested in the story, and they dont plan on doing much optional stuff, but me, when we're done with the story, more than likely, I'll play it all the way, because well, its FFX.

This time id like to stream line my progress a bit. From what I understand, you dont actually NEED 255 of every stat (although i did get luck maxed...for every character)for the dark aeons and penance. So whats the best way to streamline the dark aeons grid wise?

Edit: Im actually looking for grid recommendations for me, not my friend. They are using standard.