Final Fantasy X dissected
Oh yeah... I spent 55 hours on Final Fantasy X (FFX, PS2, jp) already after 3 weeks of playing. Last weekend it was half of my waking hours! There's just so much to do, I don't feel restricted so much by the Japanese language. The rare item and enemy collecting (via "hokaku" weapons) is just so fun but time consuming. It's a little bit like Pokemon, in the collection part. It's funny though! Every time Auron, the guy with the big sword, swings, it's capture time. Then he says with the aloof, loneman air, "Ja na... Saki wa nagai, iku zo." ("Later, baby... That was long, let's move it.")However, there are some things I hate about FFX.
First off is the weapon item screen. There is no sorting feature to it. When you've adventured your way through treachous byways, collecting a gang load of weapons from felled monsters, it's hard to tell which weapons you want to save and which weapons you want to throw away. It's not the same with regular items, where they give you a sort function. I've resorted to moving all the useful items to the front, delimiting the monster-dropped weapons from the useful weapons by putting the rarely used "hokaku" weapons between them.
Secondly, when you have more that 30 save games on a 8MB memory card, it takes for ever (5-10 seconds) for the save screen to appear. Oh well, I guess that's how it goes.
Third is the sphere board which is responsible for my party's level up growth. I've got two characters just blocked from improvement because the necessary item, "Level 3 Spheres" are so hard to come by. Recently I found an area just before Zanarkondo-jiin where I found a monster who dropped a Level 3 sphere after a battle. Looks like I'm "mining" there for a little while.
Fourth is just trying to get all the collectables together. I'm missing some Arubeido books and "Days of the week" items. Hm. It's such a pain "stealing" all the rare items necessary to beef up one's weapons and summoned creatures (shokan shita seibutsu).
Other than that, I can't believe I've spent this much time on FFX despite the full Japanese language. It's not as frustrating as I thought. 55 hours. That's not straight linear progression however. I must have spent 10 hours in various places just leveling up for the fun of it. For example, before you fight Shimoa for a second time after escaping capture, there's this long hall way populated with enemy robots with high Ability Points (AP), which is FFX's EXPerience points. Utilizing the in-fight character swap via the L1 button, you can get 8000-9000 AP per character from beating relative easy robots.
Running down each party member:
Yuuna, the summoner, is now equipped with a MP-walk recovery item (funny how it brings a new meaning to the term, "walk it off") and the 85 MP "Holy" offensive spell which does 9999 damage to normal enemies.
Tidus, the main d00d, is pretty lame strength wise, but he can steal and cast "Haste" on anybody. I don't know what else he's good for.
Auron, is the backbone of the party and also the lead "capturer". I've equipped his two-handed sword which came with the default "hokaku" with "evasion counter" ability. If he gets attacked, he'll serve up a "capture" attempt. Coupled with his 8000 HP physical attack, he gets 'em every time. BTW, you can "remodel" a weapon with the "evasion counter" ability if you save your "return home spheres".
Wakka, the wierd blitz ball player is the second-most physically strong character. He now has a magical and physical "counter" weapons. He also has the "armor breaks" and "mental breaks" that wear down high HP enemies easy. When the going gets tough, I turn to Wakka.
Lulu, the black-clad sorceress leads the black magic club in the party. I used her heavily in the early parts of the game, but now it seems she's less useful. She has the 55 MP "Clear" spell and MP-walk recovery item, but her spells rarely hit more than 5000 HP damage.
Kimari, the blue-skin it-thing with a sawed off horn, is my second black magic user. I regret making him so because both his physical and magically attacks are weak. The only redeeming aspect is that he seems to get a guaranteed "atari!" hit on that 999999 HP item-dropping enemy.
Rikku, the Arubeido girl-turned-teenager is my main source for rare items. She has the ability to steal during an attack, which gets me wierd things like "Moon's curtains" and "Electric bombs". These things are used in turn to apply rare but rarely useful abilities to items and summoned monsters. I'm slowly collecting "Chocobo Wings" in that "lightning field" from those cute green "Zaramandas" or whatever.
Speaking of which, there's a "Zaramanda ghost" in that "lightning field" that follows me around now. It's eerie. I'm minding my own business, trying to avoid lightning, when I see this greenly transparent thing streak around the screen. Heh.
Anyways, FFX is a fine game that has captivated me for hours. It's drawn me in just like Chrono Trigger.
Despite spending all that time with FFX, I bought Devil May Cry (DMC, PS2, jp) on the day it came out. It didn't come with anything specially, so I felt very disappointed. I proceeded to put the game in the PS2. The one thing that cemented in my mind the b-movie horror flick atmosphere is the "Let's rock, baby" that Dante, the main d00d, says in English. I half expect Bruce Campbell to rip out a chain saw or something. ^_^;
Action is gory and in-game cinematics even more so. For example, right before Dante gets the Alastor, his big sword and main weapon, it impales him in the sternum and pins him to the ground. Dante regains his strength and pulls himself free from the sword by rising through the shaft of the sword and through the hilt. It would be really disgusting if the polygon collisions weren't so evident. But I still get squimish just thinking about it.
Weapons are killer too. I thought I had the shotgun had oompfh, but now I got the grenade launcher (== Quake's rocket launcher) and now I'm playing with power. Slice them up, then toss a grenade into their... ahem... So this is what they call the air combo in the Resident Evil/Biohazard genre.
The more you continously slash with the Alastor, the more red orbs (credits) you can get. Simultaneously, you see text indicating your badness. Progressing from "Dull", slashing continously gets you "Cool", "Bravo", "Awesome" and finally "Stylish!" messages, no doubt influenced by Capcom's 2D fighting game status messages. Using a gun weapon though, interrupts the hack-n-slash rhythm, so if you're collect red orbs, don't use the grenade launcher or other slow reloading weapons.
As soon as I get bored with FFX, I'm moving straight onto DMC. Stylish hard action. No doubt.
BTW, I'm not playing that Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2 (GBA, us) much lately. Nor am I racing around in Mario Kart Advance (GBA, jp). Just too much to do, I guess.
I am getting around to inventorizing my games. Unfortunately right now, I'm doing it via Excel 2000 spreadsheet. It's just the easiest way for me to input and quickly search for the items. When can I synchronize it to my Postgres DB? Hm. Probably after I figure out how to use Postgres in Linux. Etc etc.
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