Random crack w/ Mousache Gai & FFX uberization

[classicdrogn]

(Tidus is flipping out because The Moustachioed Green Beast told him that his father became the focus for a new Sin after defeating the last. When he starts getting hysterical, Gai gives him a light punch that spins him around and knocks the blitzer into the nearby stack of crates to get his attention.)

: "TIDUS! Listen to my burning message! For ten years, your father resisted the power of Sin and kept the Calm with the PASSIONATE FORCE OF HIS IRON WILL! But now, even he has succumbed, and it falls to you his son and Brassica's daughter Yuna to END SIN'S RAMPAGE once and FOR ALL with the EXPLOSIVE POWER OF YOUTH! It is my duty as a shinobi to guide and aid you on this quest. Now, let us meet them at the Mi'ihen Highroad, for we must make the trip to Djose... a trip that normally takes two weeks, but we shall do it in one, or else do one thousand laps of the temple courtyard with extra leg-weights!"

Given that Auron is supposed to have been one of the warrior monks before going on Brassica's piligrimage, there's even some vague continuity of backstory... (and yes, I know the real name is "Braska," it just amuses me to call him Lord Cabbage)

- dNN my Narutofan userid is "dialNforNinja," one of the only times I've used anything but some variation on "Drogn"That which does not kill us... has made its last mistake.
SERVO: Loook *deeeeply* into my eyes... Tell me, what do you see?
CROW: (hypnotized) A twisted man who wants to inflict his pain upon others.
" It's crazy to try to spell out all the mega-nooks and hyper-crannies of a Borg contrivance." - Doug Drexler
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows

[Bob Schroeck]

Bwaaaaaaaaaaaaah?

-- Bob
---------
It's a "magical" land. I think "magical" is ancient Greek for "pain in the butt". -- Bun-Bun, Sluggy Freelance, 11/9/03

[classicdrogn]

I find that as the story is explained, Auron grows more and more annoying, even over his exceptionally annoying intro in Luca, and I was wishing for a mentor figure who could at least back up his attitude instead of still being the weakest link in the party thirty hours of play later, when he's at the end of his normal area of the sphere grid and moving into Tidus' section. His damage with a +18% STR weapon tops out around 5000, and unlike the others he doesn't have anything else to do except be a human shield, which doesn't do much good when even boss battles are more of a challenge to get averyone rotated out so they get a share in the XP before finishing than to keep from dying, due to my heavy-assualt magic setup (Wakka waited at the lv2 lock into the end of Lulu's grid until after the Spherimorph battle, handled with summons, by whiich time he had enough to go all the way around to Flare.
Having spent a lot of time playing Blitzball in Luca, I had Teleport Spheres to pull Kimahri, Lulu, and Yuna over to Flare and since K and L hadn't moved previously either they both rolled back the other way, Lulu into Wakka's grid and Kimahri into Lulu's, backwards, while Wakka teleported over to Kimarhi's start point and worked down to the start of Rikku's for Steal and the first Magic+, ten back again and through that Lv2 lock into the end of Yuna's grid to get to Curaga, and is now one stop shy of Holy. Lulu is a few spaces away from Osmose, at which time she's heading over to the middle of Tidus' grid, were he went through Slowga and then down to the beginning of Yuna's. Rikku is already done with her grid, and has now zapped over to Flare to pick up some magic mojo...
Order of battle is Tidus/Wakka/Rikku first out, with Tidus having a First Strike weapon and Rikku an Inititive weapon. Tidus casts Hastega if the enemies are immune to Slow or Slowga if they aren't, the others steal, Tidus casts Hastega and the others steal, Tidus starts doing the shuffle with the other four, first Auron because he's useless, then the three Big Bad Mojo casters, whose Magic stats are closing on 70 having beaten Seymour again at Mt Gagazet, all of whom have been getting 9999's from Flare since the beginning against enemies with normal levels of Magic Defense, and on the -ga series since the battle at Bikanel. Just call me Nukie I guess... or Captain Stompa. Now that Lulu has whatever the weapon upgrade is called that burns double MP for extra spell damage she's getting 7000+ against the high-M.Def Grenades on Gagazet. I've currently gone back to the Clam Lands to train until I have the gil to get Yojimbo - having stompa'd the boss battle in the cavern without even gotten to end of the character roster to switch out Yuna and summon.
Granted, the party is hardly uber when the stats can go to 255, but they haven't even gotten to Zanarkand yet, and true uberization requires lots of gil to use in the Monster Arena, to bribe for items to make expensive weapons and sell for even more gil and buy Clear Spheres to get rid of the crappy stuff in the beginning parts of the character grids and replace them with +4 stats, +40 MPs, and +300 HPs. I need to check and see if I have three Lv4 keys to get into Ultima, too, now that I think of it.
As a side note, I think calling the summons "Aeons" is a mutated-in-translation thing - there's a Japanese word meaning "eternal" that sounds like "eon," and calling them "Eternals" would make so much more sense...

Anyway, I guess that's CD's Tips for Kicking Ass in FFX. In chronological order: (and having gorwm as I keep thinking things to the main body instead of a summary...)
First, general rule: with the exception of Tidus, who learns new Overdrive moves by using his over and over (I beleive it's 85 times to get Blitz Ace, his last one) get all the characters' guages charged and leave them charged, for use in boss battles. Only use them a couple of times each otherwise in order to know how they work, so you can reasonably expect to pull them off in the boss battle - Wakkas are probably the most annoying, but Lulu's are close (espescially since I have to use an analog controller for it, rather than my beloved old PSX mini-batwing, buttons-only controller) and the reccomended way of pulling off Fury is to take the controller in a pistol-like grip in your left hand, put the palm of your right on the right analogue stick, then shake your arms as if mixing paint so the combination motion quickly spins the stick. I can usually get 7 or 8 hits using this method, once 11.
Don't miss the save shpere on the highway when you're with Auron at the beginning - it's hidden behind the boss corpse and there's more fighting to be done. When you get to the ruins and a re swimming around, find the Al Bhed Compilation Sphere, then the save pint, and save an extra copy of your game in the last slot on your card - if you decide to restart playing, you can go to this savegame first, use the sphere, and copy as much of the Al Bhed as you've gotten primers for into the new game.
Those piranha under the al bhed ship at the beginning? They're your freinds, ewven if they do want to eat you. Keep fighting them and going back up for potions from that guy on deck until Tidus learns the Slayer Overdrive style, then until he gets at least Slice & Dice overdrive (preferably Energy Rain) by using it. For that matter, go down and back and get some more potions until you have 99 of them, too. The fish die easy and do only small damge. This will also get him ahead some on the shpere grid, the faster he gets to Haste the sooner you learn of its awe inspiring ownage. Only have Rikku steal at first, until you have 99 grenades, because they cost 300 gil each. She''l have a full OD gauge before long too, but there's no point in using it until the boss battle in those underwater ruins.
On Besaid, make sure you get Yuna's improved weapon with the Destruction Sphere in the Cloister of Trials, so you can get the Sensor enhancement in Aeon battles. Also, know that using Tidus's "Flee" command still counts as being in a battle for the purposes of growing your summons, and is very much quicker than actually fighting. Keep doing it until Valafor's HP are over 1000 (I think it's 1005) and let everyone get munched enough to have full overdrive guages, including both Yuna and Valefor. If you're really patient, get Valefor doing around 700hp with her basic Attack move on a dingo. Make sure you talk to the girl in the shop and then get the slobbery unidentifiable thing from her dog in the weaver's hut before leaving Besaid, it's Valefor's second, more powerful and much cooler Overdrive attack. Make sure to heal using Yuna instead of potions, then you're ready to get on the boat, first go to the shop in Besaid and sell them all. Don't worry, you won't need them in between. Flee from battle on the way back down to the beach if you need to, but Yuna's MP should hold out to get you there. Swim in the bay and get the Moon Crest (I think) formt he treasure chest off to the right in a little alcove before leaving, too. Don't advance Lulu at all, run Kimarhi up the little leg toward Tidus and Yuna if you like, and only move Wakka to where he's in position to unlockt he Lv2 to the middle of Lulu's grid. Yuna, Tidus, Auron and Rikku can all profitably stay in their own tracks for a while at least. Talk to everyone on the dock, because the give you stuff.
In the cabin where you resume on the boat, there's suitcase that drops a potion when you kick it, until you have 20 of them. 20 potions is more than you'll need, by a considerable margin. Make sure you have some free time before starting the boss battle on the boat - you're going to heroically distract Sin from Kilika for about three and a half hours. I hope you have an aftermarket controller with autofire for this BTW, or your thumb is going to be REALLY sore. When the battle starts, immediately shuffle Yuna back out and have everyone attack the sinscales once, then bring her back out and call Big Bird. Make sure the cursor is on "attack" and just keep hitting X; since Valefor is airborne the scales' claws can't reach, and only one of them charges the range attack at once - always the first in series, meaning it's the one the targeting cursor falls on first, and since one attack from Valefor does around 250hp and they only have 200, they never get an attack off. Do NOT use Valefor's OD on the scales. Every now and then the fin will move and drag the boat around, but that has no effect. (If you were extra patient above, every hit will be an Overkill which gives better XP - if not, only about one in three will be crits and hence overkills) The battle can only go for 3:30:00 or maybe 3:45:00 if you're feeling brave, because around 3:50:?? or so the game will freeze - probably from keeping track of so many kills, with the average time being thirty seconds to dispose of three sinscales and have the next batch pop up, ready for killin'. When the time comes, use Valefor's OD on the fin, and you should get an overkill there, too. The second boss underwater isn't too tough, just blind it with Wakka, Haste Tidus at least, both preferably, and use Energy Rain to damage it and kill all its scales, then kill another couple scales to get another OD gauge and do it again, while Wakka throws potions as needed, blows his weak OD, and otherwise bounces his little squeaky ball off the boss. Just remeber to keep it blinded, Darkness wears off after three boss turns.
Make sure to confront Lord Ocha and immediately flee in Kilika before going to the temple, to get Pheonix Downs from one of the Crusaders. There's no need to actually fight him until later, though. Yellow elements are good for recharging everyone's OD guages here, for much the same reasons as the piranha were your freinds before. Spending time training here is annoying due to the bees and their poison, but if you can get a Lightningstrike weapon from the elementals for Tidus or Kimahri (a 1/128 drop, granted, and then it might be for Yuna or Lulu) it'll be a big help, but not really neccesary. Many people will give you stuff here, too, including the barmaid if you save her sister from the damaged stilt-house.
Don't go near the front of the second boat until you've talked to everyone and saved, because you NEED to win the Jecht Shot Challenge before proceeding to Luca. Also, you should spot Oaka some gil to keep him around, but no more than 2500 or so (100 will be fine for now) and keep at least 6000 for yourself.
When Yuna springs you from the locker room, go around the docks to collect goodies and buy (at least) the Stunning Steel from Oaka, which will be your new best freind, as it casts Slow on enemies about half the time. If you didn't get an electric weapon for Kimahri on Kilika, you can get one now, IIRC. Explore the rest of Luca, but don't go in the bar until you're done and have used the save sphere again. Once the machina attack begins, get to the save sphere on the docks, use it, then keep running in circles to fight more machina until you've got 50 or so Hi-Potions, more if you have the patience. Use the save sphere as needed to top back up. For the boss, a Thunder Rage should get the crane started, then Tidus' trigger command using it will make the Oblitzerator easy pickings.
You want general Blitzball advice, go read a FAQ. The Aurochs suck and while you can win the match, it's not really worth the effort. Once they're done, go out to the Mi'ihen Highroad save sphere so you can play Blitz, use the 'reset' option on the Blitz screen until the League prizes are a Teleport Sphere and a Return Sphere for high scorer, then train for a while right there by the sphere. When you get around 12,000 gil, go back down, and into the bar, where you should hire the girl in the maroon jacket and knee pants, Shuu, then out to the fountain, where Jumal is sitting, then back toward the stadium. Hire the reporter girl in the middle of the bridge, then the guy with the brown uniform and pink belt at the stadium gates, then Zev Ronso on the dock to the right of the gates. Jassu and Letty are the only Aurochs worth keeping, Jassu to stay on defense for now, Letty to warm the bench and not be annoying on another team. Wedge will probably be benchwarming too, but if not Shaami will - hire everyone for 11 games, except whichever of those two you don't plan on using yourself - six will do for them, and you can in fact wait until after game 4 and hire them for 4 then, both saving more gil and being more sure they won't be used against you. Go back tot the Auroch's locker room and get the Jupiter Sigil, I think it is... from Wakka's locker.
Save in two slots, then start the league season. If your first game is against the Psyches, reset the PS2 and try again - the Glories, Fangs, or Beasts are best, the Goers workable, but the Psyches will eat you alive unless your players have had time to level up. For the first half, your only goal is to pass to Tidus and get him to make two successful passes, then to Zev and the other forward as much as possible - put Shuu in the other forward position for now, Zev as center, Jassu defense behind Tidus, Shaami or Wedge in the other defense slot, Jumal in goal. Putting the forward in back makes it easier to pass to and form them a lot without attracting the other team, and Shaami actually doesn't do too bad in defense normally, thoguh she's better as 'forward defense' due to how the game sorts players during a confrontation.
Anyway, get Tidus his two passes so he'll have the use of a technique in the second half, and generally keep the ball away from the other team. Make sure your set Tidus' technique to Jecht Shot instead of Sphere Shot when it becomes available, for that matter, and for other players equip tackles first, Tackle Slip second, then Passes, then Shots - for Jumal, Super Goalie then Grip Gloves, if he ever gets enough XP for Lv7. After you win, save in one of the two slots, then play again - the second slot is insurance against the Psyches being your second game, as once the season is started the order of games is permanent. Keep checking whenever there's a tournament available, if the top prize is "_____ Reels" or "____ Crest" you'll need to play it, and remember that you'll need more gil when contract renewal time comes up to finiah out the league season afterward. It hardly needs saying, but only shoot with Tidus, and as often as he has hit points for the Jecht Shot, getting right up in the goal first so there's next to no chance of getting caught, except by Nimrook, who will always catch you unless yor shot is at least two points higher (with the Jecht Shot bonus) than his catch, at which point about half of them will get in. Never pick "Keep Playing" after you win a game, always go back out and save first. After winning the season, go train some more, reset the league data until you have the desired prizes, ad do it again. Note that one of the ____ Reels items is a League prize and that once it comes up you have to play that season. Also, there's some kind of stats-fiddling going on during that season, either yours are lower or the opponents are higher or both, so expect it to be tough. When Yuna is far enough in her grid to get Cura, you can go on down the Mi'ihen Highroad to the Travel Agency. Talk to everyone on the road, they give you stuff.
When the boss fight starts, switch everyone through, making sure to have Tidus haste himself first and hit it until its Slowed, then pull out Yuna, and Kimahri or Auron, whichever can do more damage. Haste the other two, then keep healing the boss (and party, as needed - using Pray on her turns usually takes care of that) when it gets around 7000 HP with Cura, until you drive it backwards off the cliff. Boss beaten, get a chocobo and go down to the Oldroad, because there's another Crest or Sigil in the chest at the end of it and the save sphere by Oaka is the best area to train in the accessible sections - pretty much, you'll be doing the character shuffle so they've all done something, then pulling out a summon to kill the monsters so you get Overkill, and hence more XP.
Keep an eye on how many red spheres you have in your inventory - when it gets close to 99, sell some to Oaka (down to 50 or so) since while they may only be worth 1 gil each, they're just wasted if you already have 99. Sell off any crap equipment, too. Keep training and blitzing until you have at least four teleport spheres, but now that you can get at him, hire Ropp in the travel agency to be your second defender instead of Jassu. Don't move Yuna past Cura, Tidus past Hastega, or Lulu past Jinx after removing the Lv1 lock above her, and if you did start moving Kimarhi out Tdus/Yuna's way, stop before the +1 accuracy and Lv2 lock into Yuna's grid. Make sure you loan Oaka at least 2500 gil, so his prices will be lower later - check the FAQs to see by how much.
Since I'm sure you'll be heartily sick of this area by now, save and move on to the Mushroom Rock road and watch te stupid, long, annoying cutscene. Wierd, the Garuda are a lot tougher here that that one on Besaid, huh? Maybe it got hurt being blown there by a storm or something... Anyway, train until you have ebough gil to get TKO from Oaka at the end, before the boss battle - Avenger too if you want, because once you have the Slow spell slowtouch on a weapon is no longer your best freind, if something better is in the offering. This boss battle is pie, BTW, since by now you'll surely have been in enoguh battles that your aeons have overdrives doing 9999 damage. Grand Summon after the character shuffle, then hit it with overdrives twice. Watch the battle, then summon the other Aeon for the second strike, and Attack (or Meteor Strike if it's Ifreet) then OD.
Talk to everyone on the Djose road, because they will give you stuff. You might as well flee from battles until you've been in and out f the temple to get the next summon, too, and if you like you can also go to the shoopuf dock and get the stuff along the way, but it is adviseable if not required to fight and kill as many Basilisks as you can on the Djose road, at lest until you get some Stonetouch weapons - Wakka's you can buy form Oaka before getting here, but Tidus, Auron, or Kimahri can all profit form one, even the girls if you're going to send one or both of them through a fighter's grid like I did with Lulu. They're a semi-rare drop, but worth it if you have the patience. The Ochas (which are tougher than the boss version, due to where they are in the game) give good XP too, but don't drop anything espescially good, and there's much better training opportunities on the far side of the Moonflow. Go on when you're ready to, fleeing battle for now as you go through Guadosalam, the Thunder Plains, and Macalania Woods, until you reach and save at the sphere in the woods with Oaka standing a ways beyond it. Back out when you first talk to him and tell him his prices are a little high, then talk to him again and buy stuff if you want. Save again and patse the Spherimorph, then pop that lock into Lulu's grid and go to town. After that... well, just remember to get Kimahri over to learn Steal before you head up Mt. Gagazet, so he can steal the Lv3 keys off his solo fight enemies, and the rest is pretty much gravy.
ETA: Oh, and while you're in the desert, cactaurs give GREAT XP. Make sure you have Tidus and Rikku set up with the weapons like I said at the beginning, then immediately Slow the cactaur and haste the party. Do the shuffle with non-attacks like Pray, Cheer, Steal, etc., then use an Overdrive (Tidus or Auron, Wakka's if you can stand to use the damn slot machine minigame to charge it) to kill the beastie - they give good item drops, too, but watch out for the 10,000 Needles attack - that's why I say to not attack it until the end, not only do they tend to flee if damaged, they're more likely to use 10K if attacked.
- CDThat which does not kill us... has made its last mistake.
SERVO: Loook *deeeeply* into my eyes... Tell me, what do you see?
CROW: (hypnotized) A twisted man who wants to inflict his pain upon others.
" It's crazy to try to spell out all the mega-nooks and hyper-crannies of a Borg contrivance." - Doug Drexler
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows

[Logan Darklighter]

Hah -- good advice. Certainly explains why my Kimahri and Rikku were the weakest of my party. *G*

[classicdrogn]

FFX Stat Maxing Guide - my plan is to take less MP than this lists, trading them for HP spheres, and put One MP Cost on everyone's equipment, thoguh I went and restarted again to have everyone wait by Doublecast until I get the lv3 keys...
- CDThat which does not kill us... has made its last mistake.
SERVO: Loook *deeeeply* into my eyes... Tell me, what do you see?
CROW: (hypnotized) A twisted man who wants to inflict his pain upon others.
" It's crazy to try to spell out all the mega-nooks and hyper-crannies of a Borg contrivance." - Doug Drexler
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows

[jpub]

I have 2 words:
Auron *rocks*.

Edit: Seriously, don't blame Auron for your unwillingness to grow him properly. He was arguably my most powerful melee character in all three of my play-throughs, with only Tidus being comparable by trading off strength for accuracy.--
Christopher Angel, aka JPublic
The Works of Christopher Angel

[Florin]

Same for me, Auron, Tidus and Lulu made up my normal party, with Wakka and Yuna hardly ever getting pulled out to do anything.--
Oh, what has science wrought? I sought only to turn a man into a metal-encased juggernaught of destruction powered by the unknown properties of a mysterious living crystal. How could this have all gone wrong?
--
If you become a monster to put down a monster you've still got a monster running around at the end of the day and have as such not really solved the whole monster problem at all. 

[classicdrogn]

I'll buy most powerful melee character - when he can hit anything - but I always bring everyone out for a share of the AP in battle, so he got moved along just as much as everyone elese - yeah, he started out about 8 sphere levels behind by not being around for the fin/scales fight on the boat, but that catches up relatively quickly, and he was the first to reach the end of an area without cutting around half of it. At the same time, the rest of my offense was magical with Flare or -ga series spells, doing twice as much damage per turn (or four times once I opened Doublecast), while Tidus played status blaster and Rikku stole. With his lousy initial magic stat, its not like he'd be doing much better if I tried to make him one of the casters at that stage, and his grid already has the highest concentration of +4 STR nodes so adding the one won from the plot blitz tournement wouldn't help him much.
Perhaps if I didn't juggle the growth of the other characters around, so they al went through their crappy early grids, he'd rule, but in the bigger pond created by pulling people quickly to the late areas vis Teleport Spheres his performance is no more engaging than his attitude, and since HIS GRID is the best physical combat section on the stock layout, there's not a lot of incentive for me to try a non-magic assault setup. I'd actually prefer to have him as the one to pathbreak out to the end of Lulu's section and be teleport beacon and keep Wakka in his normal area then break into the end of Aurons, since Wakka is far more likely to hit what he attacks, but Wakka also becomes Underwater Spell Boy and second theif.
(Hmm - Yuna through part of Auron's grid as well... it would make her more capable for the Bevelle dungeons, at least... it would mean allocating her two teleports, though, which is another whole Blitz league season and ~80-90 more monster fights on the Mi'ihen oldroad before moving on to Mushroom Rock... Depends how sick of Blitz I am after the other seven seasons and two tournements, I guess.)
- CD
Edit: Oh, for party duties -
Random monsters: before Spherimorph, it doesn't matter who's out, just that Yuna goes last after everyone else has done something to actually kill the beastie with a summon. Afterward, with the magic mojo in place and Wakka jumped over to Rikku to be a second thief, Tidus goes first to slowga/hastega, Rikku and Wakka are out to be hasted and steal, and the other's switch out in Tidus's spot, Auron doing a little damage or stadning there like a meat shield, then Kimahri, Lulu and Yuna take out the trash when their pockets are empty. You can see which slot is least valuable, here.
Average Boss: As for random monsters, except that with only one opponent I don't always get to the end of the character roster after Auron wastes a turn.
Serious boss: Lulu and Yuna are out to be hasted with Tidus, Yuna is switched back out of harm's way for Kimahri to Overdirve, Lulu Flare Fury or ______ga Fury, Tidus either slows the boss or hastes Kimahri, who then switches for Auron to overdirve, Lulu switches out with Rikku or Wakka to overdirve, Auron with the other, Tidus overdrives, Yuna out to throw the summons' overdrives, and if it's still alive after that Kimahri and Lulu join her to cast at it.
Really tough bosses like the Arena creations get the summons first, and Yuna and whoever else I've gotten down into her area to learn Life are never both out at the same time, since one hit from them will always kill someone until having spent considerable time after getting the airship uberizing. (Yes, I beat the arena bosses for the available areas BEFORE Prunelesca and getting the airship. It took about three or four tries each and running sall the casters comletely out of MP, but I did do it. Cursing Auron all the while for missing so often and only doing 6000-7000 damage on his turns, too, even when the others WERE out of magic and he was the only one still doing four digits...)That which does not kill us... has made its last mistake.
SERVO: Loook *deeeeply* into my eyes... Tell me, what do you see?
CROW: (hypnotized) A twisted man who wants to inflict his pain upon others.
" It's crazy to try to spell out all the mega-nooks and hyper-crannies of a Borg contrivance." - Doug Drexler
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows

[Florin]

I never really did much with the Arena monsters, but most of the game was really a cake walk even without min/maxing your characters. I remember pasting most every boss with a couple of breaks from Auron, with Lulu casting which ever spell was best and Tidus keeping everyone hasted and attacking (with Rikku stealing anything worthwhile). I never really had any accuarcy problems, and as I recall the only boss who ever managed to beat me more than once was Seymour at the Rondo mountain.
Yunalesca WAS hard, but only beacause she went status crazy (Zombie or paralyze... can't remember which) and I didn't have very many curative items on me --
Oh, what has science wrought? I sought only to turn a man into a metal-encased juggernaught of destruction powered by the unknown properties of a mysterious living crystal. How could this have all gone wrong?
--
If you become a monster to put down a monster you've still got a monster running around at the end of the day and have as such not really solved the whole monster problem at all. 

[Logan Darklighter]

*mutters*stupidchocoborace*mutter*

[jpub]

Gotta agree with that. My main issue with all of these recent Jap RPGs is their insistence on stupid minigames.
If I wanted to sit there and spend 8 hours working on a luck/twich game, I'd get out my SNES. Honestly, between the Chocobo Races and that stupid Thunder Plains minigame, I was prepared to toss the FFX DVD out the window and consider it a loss.--
Christopher Angel, aka JPublic
The Works of Christopher Angel

[classicdrogn]

The Arena monsters are said to be tougher than anything else in the US version, though the Dark Summons in the International version are nastier. After taking on the ones for the Calm Lands and Mt Gagazet, because I really wanted to get Yuna's ultimate weapon and have Valefor doing over 9999 damage, even Yunalesca was no problem - Having Rikku and Auron overdrive and Lulu Doublecast Flare at her disposed of the first form, Bahamut's overdrive did the second in one hit (40k HP vs. 55k or so damage), and then Valefor's Energy Blast did the third in one hit (60k HP vs. 79k damage). Since Tidus went first and Yuna was one of those hasted, Yunalesca only got two or three actions in. The stat maxing is really just a 'because I can' thing - if people can play and win in a No Sphere Grid game, anything else is unnneccesary.
And the chocobo race... yeah, it's (to use one of my father's favorite expressions) an ass-frost, both the one against the trainer (I iognore the balloons until the second half and concenrate on getting ahead, then take the ones that are close to in a row) and under Remiem (again, ignored the chests in favor of getting ahead, just enough to get the Cloudy Mirror. If I remember the FAQs right you have to get enough ballons for a negative score on the race in order to get Cadlabolg, so I'm thinking Tidus is going to just have to make do without it.
...and after all this discussion, I've gotten sucked into Kingdom Hearts in a major way, after putting it in as a break from the dozen seasons of Blitzball that are required for my Nth-re-start re-build strategy. Ironically, the biggest attraction to it is the Gummi Ships retro-arcade-style minigame... I have one that looks very vaguely like a TIE, with a central pod that has the cockpit, engine, and two guns and big slabs of Dispel-G armor bricks on either side, and one that looks like an Aztec pyramid, with the 'wing' peices flat on the underside to not break up the look. Aztec astronauts, what a new concept (smirk). And now KH2 is coming out. I'd have to say that the action-rpg style of KH is more fun in battle than the Final Fantasy stand-there-and-wait type, but it makes for poor control over the rest of the party. Fighting infinite monkeys in Tarzan-Land, I went for about an hour on the one area before realizing that they really WEREN'T going to stop coming, and I'd have to just cut out through a load gate in the middle of fighting.
- CD did not see any monkeys with scripts for Hamlet, but that may have been one that Tarzan or Goofy killed before he got thereThat which does not kill us... has made its last mistake.
SERVO: Loook *deeeeply* into my eyes... Tell me, what do you see?
CROW: (hypnotized) A twisted man who wants to inflict his pain upon others.
" It's crazy to try to spell out all the mega-nooks and hyper-crannies of a Borg contrivance." - Doug Drexler
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows

[Evil Midnight Lurker]

My gummi ship designing got seriously strange when I realized that you don't need to have even one block actually attached to any other. The good ship Cloud of Debris is surprisingly effective.
--Sam
"Then he threw a chimney at us."

[classicdrogn]

Well, my Sun Temple (and TorpTemple varient, with four lasersand two Thunders instead of the reverse) has these four little floating yellow balls over the corners of the pyramid... otherwise, after messing around for a while (and after buying Spray so I can control the color of bricks) I've stuck to the classics - and now have a chibi TOS Enterprise and Millenium Falcon, both with the quad guns and two 'lasers' - I am perhaps excessively amused by ordering Mr. Sulu to fire before triggering the (slow-moving pulse that tracks the eneemy) 'lasers' - and I even managed to get the weapon locations vaguely close to accurate on both of them, though the 'torpedos' are hidden in the engineering hull of Enterprise because they don't look properly Trek, while the Thunder-Gs look more like the torpedo bay at that location. The other two thunders are hidden inside the saucer by slabbig it over with square wing pieces, which also forms the entire bottom layer of the stone temples. I never saw a pyramid so maneuverable!
Since this is the fan-fiction forum, after all, I should share some more crack - What if a young Harry Potter was the one to have the KH adventure, rather than Sora? I'm assuming that at the end of the game the worlds are restored the way some of the characters have said they would be, and would need to get and play KH2 before going on the superficial similarty of the bad guys standing around in black robes that have been part of the publicity pictures and the Death Eaters, but Voldilocks certainly qualifies as evil enoguh for a KH villian. But, forget this Mickey Mousing around - the King is, was and ALWAYS SHALL BE Elvis... which means the princess is Lisa marie.... which means that Donald's place is taken by MICHEAL JACKSON!? Kind of an old-school MJ from when he actually did a couple of songs I liked, mid-to-late 80sish, and because Presley-hime has him on a string young Harry is safe enoguh with him... but still. Hey, I said it was crack. Goofy could stay, though, or maybe Xander could get the shieldsman's role. The trouble of course is that a post-KH Harry would consider smacking down a hundred Dementors with the keyblade a nice warm-up and would have the standard FF-set of combat spells that are serious bad mojo by Potterverse standards, at least for good guys.
I'd kind of thgouht it would be ebst to jump into the Potterverse near the beginning, with the game as backstory that's explained where neccessary through flashbacks, Harry having been dropped on the Desiny Islands at eight or so and had a couple years to get in shape and become f4reinds with the plot-element cast, then spending a few months on the game adventure,before returning home to aworld that think's he'd never left, and not quite being sure it was real himself until Xander calls to see if their worlds really were the same, since harry had never heard of this magic stuff or demons or anything - fortunately, he managed to do it when Harry was the only one hoe, so he actually got the call, or perhaps Marge told Harry to answer the phone because she 'had her hands full' of a women's magazine.
Of course, part of the attraction of this idea is Bumblemore flipping out as Harry keeps vanishing from the castle (Lots of magical nexus points in there, where those who can see them can pull energy or in Harry's case beam up to the Gummi) and at some point bringing a huge stone temple (well not huge for a temple - maybe 120ft square at the base, assuming that the 'cockpit' piece is actually a control dome and a lower level for bunks, head, and galley - which admittedly is stretching it for a cartoon-style space ship, but meh) in for a landing instead of a Ford Anglia.
Whoa, sudden confirmation of the MJ-is-Donald thing - his music video for ... I think it was called "Stop Doggin' Me Around" has him flying in a Kingdom-model gummi as rendered in carnival ride style, at least if I rmemeber it at all accurately, and allowing for the lack of an underslung energy mount in the video.
- CDThat which does not kill us... has made its last mistake.
SERVO: Loook *deeeeply* into my eyes... Tell me, what do you see?
CROW: (hypnotized) A twisted man who wants to inflict his pain upon others.
" It's crazy to try to spell out all the mega-nooks and hyper-crannies of a Borg contrivance." - Doug Drexler
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows