FFXII - Deifacted Nechicite

Oh man, in the final stretch here, less than ten days to go. It's been a whole lot of fun. Let's keep it going with the last of our journey in Final Fantasy XII.

Last time my party was read to set out on foot across a bunch of desert to reach King Raithwall's Tomb. About this time I decided to split my party into two groups and identify what the roles would be. Or rather, how I'd dish out the damage. Stripping everyone of all gear, and being around the same level I could see by stats who would be the best at what.

Vaan had good strength and the best speed, only Fran comes close in speed. So since daggers have a speed modifier, that's what I'm going with for him. And since Fran started with a bow, and bows also have a speed modifier, she'll stick with that. The strongest weapons in the game seem to hammers, axes and spears. Now spears have a straight strength mod, so Basch took those as he has the highest strength. Axes and hammers have a vitality mod, and I was surprised to find that Baltheir had the highest vitality, so he got those. Lastly, Ashe had the highest magick power, followed by Penelo. So Penelo will be my pure white mage, and Ashe my pure black mage. And I'll probably dish arcane and time magic to some other people.

Fun stuff, I spent about an hour figuring that all out and getting the right gear setups and license points distributed. Never have I had to put that much thought into gearing my people in a FF title. I like that part though, lot of fun.

Continuing on through the desert I took my first squad of Basch, Vaan, and Ashe almost all the way to the tomb. I've implemented a rule of no more than two levels of separation, so once those three were level 17, my other party of Baltheir, Fran, and Penelo stepped up from level 15. I played them through the tombs and until they were level 19, then swapped again. You get the idea. Only during boss fights do I break this and play whoever is going to win for me. Along the way I had to fight through the inhabitants of the Sand-Sea. You know the Sand-Sea people, or the 'sandpeople' as I like to call the for short (is George Lucas part of Enix...?).

Once I got to the tomb, I had to beat some phoenix like monster named Garuda (nice) just to get inside. And once inside, I was attacked by the classic demon wall. Kill it before I get smashed. I got smashed... I think my guys were a little under level so I had to go again. No dice. I finally realized that it was an optional fight to get the Demonsbane sword so I passed it up, beat the other demon wall and continued. When we finally got to the end of the dungeon, we find that we have to fight a demon. Well... an Esper. Once we beat Belias, he joined us as a summon, I gave him to Baltheir to get his first Mist going. While down there we also picked up the Dawn Shard and headed back to the surface. But before heading up, Ashe saw a ghost of her late husband Rasler before the Dawn Shard. No one else in the group saw it except for Vaan. What's going on there...?

Anyway, when we got topside, we were greeted with the entire 8th fleet of the imperial army. Damn Judge Ghis. Being out of his clutches only temporarily we found ourselves on another capital ship, the Shiva, prisoners once more.

This time however, we strike a bargain. Or rather, Vossler strikes a bargain. He has traded the Dawn Shard without Ashe's permission for the throne (for Ashe) and for Dalmasca to be free of the empire. I can see why he'd do it, sounds like a pretty sweet deal. But when someone is willing to give so much, the thing they want is always worth much, much more. Ashe is not too happy with Vossler for betraying them. Vossler says he did it for Dalmasca but we're in chains and he's free as we're escorted aboard the Shiva.

Back on the Leviathan, Judge Ghis wants to test this new nethicite to see if it is deifacted nethicite (authentic) or synthetic. They smartly put it in their drive system for the ship to test it out. Of course the tests prove that it's authentic. A little too authentic. It starts to pull in the power of the ship, something's wrong.

Back on the Shiva, Fran with her deep connection to the Mist can sense the nethicite going into some kind of overload. She starts flipping out, going berserk. She breaks her chains, and kills three guards before anyone knows what's happening. Vossler draws his sword. He will not let my party ruin the chances for Dalmasca's future. We have to put him down. As he's dying, he apologizes to her, to Basch, and asks Basch to watch after her for him now.

The Leviathan drives reach their breaking point and finally blow, triggering the nethicite in something like a nuclear reaction. The ship goes and take the entire fleet with it. The party barely escapes on their own shuttle as everyone else gets toasted.

When it's all said and done, Penelo with her eagle vision sees the nethicite floating at the epicenter of the blast. We go in and retrieve it then head back to town.

Back in Archadia, a meeting of the Senate has convened. They decide that Vayne has overstepped himself. His actions have led to the destruction of the 8th fleet while their rival, Rozzario, is building it's military for some kind of action soon. They're in a bad spot now, defensively. Vayne must pay. The emperor doesn't like it but they remind him it's not the first time he's had to put down his sons. They hint that he's killed his two oldest sons in the past when they went too far. The senate wants Larsa to become the next Emperor. They sign the death certificate for Vayne.

Back in Rabanastre, Basch recalls a seeing a similar reaction during the fall of Nalbina with Rasler. Ashe and Basch conclude that it must have been the Midlight nethicite going off. All this, all those people so Vayne can get his hands on the three deifacted nethicite. Now he has the Midlight Shard from Nalbina, the Dusk Shard from Dalmasca, and he wants Ashe's Dawn Shard which we just acquired from the Tomb.

Ashe wont let that happen, she will use the power of the Dawn Shard against Vayne. But she needs to know how to use it first. Fran tells us that the people of Garif know of such things, so that's where we're headed next. But first it was time for a little grinding, and shopping!

After a fun time doing that I finally got a Kotetsu for Ashe. I love this combo. The katanas in this game base damage off of magick power. She's the strongest magick user in the game. I equip her with a katana and mage gear, now I've got a stong ass black mage who can cut enemies to pieces with a sword. She does more damage then anyone else because the katanas strike multiple times. So while she, Vaan and Basch are all hitting for about 330 damage, she will sometimes hit for that two to five times in quick succession. Good times!

With that on it's way I headed across the Giza Plains to Garif. Once there we talked to the head chief but didn't really learn much. They don't really know much about the stones either. In fact what the chief tells us is that way back when, the Gods gave the stones to his people. But not knowing how to use the stones at all, the Gods eventually took the stones back and gave them to the Humes (humans) instead. The King Raithwall figured out the power of the stones and used them to become the first Dynast King. He used his power to bring a great time of peace and prosperity to his people. This is Ashe's descendant. He also tells us though that the stone she has, the Dawn Shard has been used up. It holds no more power, instead it only craves to suck up power, to regain it, it's a magick sink.

While there, we find out that another Hume has been around asking the same questions. And eventually we find Larsa in the camp. Larsa thinks that Ashe should come with him to meet with some big shots and reclaim her throne. Not sure really who these guys are that can just tell Archadia to stop and they will, but ok... Larsa knows that the Marquis is building an army to fight the empire. He knows that he does this for Ashe and Dalmasca. He wants him to stop. Ashe of course is not buying this, she wants her kingdom back. But Larsa explains. The Marquis Halim will be successful in gathering his troops. And the country of Rozzario will help him do so. Dalmasca will be theirs once more. But then what? Rozzario will attack Archadia, and Dalmasca being in the middle will be the battlefield between two much greater nations for who knows how long. The people of Dalmasca will be obliterated. It is her kingdom that will suffer in the end. The kid makes sense. Smart little bugger. Ashe reconsiders things when he puts it in that light. She tells him that she will follow him for the time being; she is yet undecided though.

Before setting out though she sees the ghost of Rasler once more while alone. But Vaan comes along and Rasler disappears. She realizes that Vaan can see him too, but neither of them know why. Vaan makes a commitment to Ashe, to follow her through to the end of this. I thought Penelo was his girl but it seems like they're slowly steering Vaan in Ashe's direction. We'll see, he's like seventeen. Until next time.

Peace.

FFXII - Square Enix presents... Star Wars

Back from out little bout with the Empire and a nice little dungeon escape, Vaan tried to track down Penelo to show her the Dusk Shard he'd found, but she seems to be missing. We go to Dalan, to show him what we got and to ask about Penelo. He says he'll put his feelers out but in the mean time he'd like us to take something to someone in town, a Sword of the Old Order.

We head out and the place is just around the corner, guarded by a few guys. Once we're inside, we find that Vossler is the guy we're delivering it to. Basch is already there defending himself against the slew of accusations that he's a traitor. He seems to convince Vaan, but Vossler is still on the fence. Eventually though Vossler decides to trust Basch for the time, but he's going to keep a very close eye on him. Even if he's telling the truth, it means that his brother is a Judge.

Back in the city Basch asks Vaan to help him find Baltheir. Coincidently, when we find Baltheir, we also find that Penelo has been snagged by that bounty hunter who's after Baltheir. Normally Baltheir wouldn't care but he's feeling a little guilty, and he needs something where they're keeping her anyway (Bhujerba). Basch also has business there, so the four of us take off in Baltheir's airship.

We arrive at a city in the clouds, which is pretty sweet.

We head toward the meeting place, the Lhusu Mines and along the way we pick up another Guest. A boy named 'Lamont' who's dress screams noble. We're not in the mines long when we hear some talking and go to spy on whoever it is. When we get there we see a Judge walking with a noble who Baltheir identifies as the Marquis, Halim Ondore IV. The Marquis is assuring the Judge (Ghis) that the purest of the magicite is being diverted from the Empire directly to Lord Vayne as instructed, discretely. What's Vayne up to? He's obviously working against his father in some fashion.

After they leave we continue on downward, Lamont comments on what he finds. He pulls out a stone and calls it Nethicite, it absorbs the energies of magicite. He comments on something to the effect that this is indeed where all the magicite is coming from. Eventually we come face to face with the bounty hunter. When we ask where Penelo is, he tells us that they cut her loose a while ago. Well... since they don't have Penelo we just bail. Idiot.

Once we get out of the mines, Lamont, who was ahead of us, is already talking to the Judge and Marquis. While we watch from the shadows we hear the Marquis call 'Lamont' by his real name, Larsa, who happens to be the fourth son of the emperor and brother to Vayne. We also see that they have Penelo, who Larsa claims as his guest and retreats to the Marquis' manor with her so she's not thrown in prison by the Judge.

Back at the estate with Larsa and Penelo, Larsa explains that the Empire is good and trying to help Dalmasca. That all the men of his family try to help the people of the empire selflessly. He believes that his brother Vayne is a good man. Kid has a good heart and a good head but he's blind, Vayne is not the good guy here.

Back with the main party, we set up a meeting with the Marquis. We arrive at his palace that night and are greeted as welcome guests at first.

But as Basch explains that he plans to rescue the resistance leader Amalia from Vayne, the Marquis has them arrested. He explains that the fleet is arriving as they speak to pick up Larsa and Judge Ghis. That Penelo will go with Larsa, and that they will be delivered to Vayne. He has no choice.

This is all too reminiscent of Lando (Marquis) turning against his friends because of the Empire (the Empire) at his Cloud City (Bhujerba). We have our sky pirate Han (Baltheir) being chased by the bounty hunter (Banga). We have our Princess Leah (Ashe) who's the leader of the resistance (Rebels) fighting them. Anyway, enough plot stealing. We cut over to Vayne with Judge Gabranth (Basch's twin) talking about the loyalty of the Marquis, but Vayne has just gotten word that the Marquis has captured Basch for them. Gabranth swears he'll kill Basch when Ghis brings them back. As Gabranth leaves, Dr. Cid enters and has a discussion with Vayne.

In the morning the party is taken up to the fleet, specifically the Dreadnought Leviathan (I like how all the capital ships of the Imperial fleet are named after old FF summons).

Aboard the ship we're taken to the bridge where we find Amalia, who's introduced finally as the Princess Ashe, waiting with Judge Ghis. She slaps the traitor Basch who supposedly killed her father when he comes in. After that little bit of drama, Judge Ghis explains that Vayne wants the help of Dalmasca royalty to help bridge the peace in Dalmasca but anyone falsely claiming the blood of royalty will be executed. Basch expalins that he knows the location of a stone which will prove her royal lineage. Well, it just so happens he's talking about the Dusk Shard, which Vaan has with him, and it starts to glow. So her blood is proven right there on the spot. However, the Judge doesn't really care, Vayne just wanted the stone. He sends Ashe and the others back to prison, to be executed later I think.

On the way to their prison (separated from Ashe already), Baltheir and Basch beat down the guards with the help of an undercover Vossler. Free of our bonds, we head off to rescue Ashe. After a bit we come to the Princess and she joins our party. Now we're roaming the Leviathan and the alarm is going off. I'm supposed to find the control panel to disengage the alarm but instead I used the opportunity to gain a few levels for all of my people. This almost backfired though when I stumbled onto a boss fight with no MP and everyone at about half health. Barely surviving, I moved on, and as we came to our destination, Vossler left the party to find another solution to help Dalmasca, leaving Ashe in Basch's hands. I guess everyone finally trusts him.

When Vossler leaves, Penelo and Larsa find us. Larsa helps us get away, and before he goes he gives Penelo the nethicite as a gift. When we ask him why he's helping, he says that Basch and Ashe were claimed dead by his brother for a reason. The fact that they live will bring plots to light, and the longer they live, the more that plot will be revealed. Larsa must know what's going on.

We finally arrive at the transport and have to face off with Judge Ghis to continue. He attempts to just kill Ashe with one spell but the nethicite that Larsa gave Penelo absorbs the attack. He's gonna have to do it the old fashion way I guess. After we got him to about 20% health, his mask fell off and he gave up. This was my first time getting to experiment with the new limit break system. Vaan had recently gotten a 'Mist' on the license board and when his MP is full, he has the ability to go off for a special attack. The attack system takes some getting used to, but eventually I got it. Knocked off about half the Judge's health in one hit. We escape the fleet on the transport.

Arriving back in Bhujerba, we meet with the Marquis again, this time he's not so ready to turn us in. We find out that Ashe is his niece and she wants his help. But he says he can not do anything until she can get proof of her blood, the Judge has the Dusk shard now. She explains that there's one other stone which can do that, the Dawn shard in King Raithwall's Tomb. The Marquis says she'll stay in Bhujerba with him until they can figure out what to do.

The next scene is her trying to steal Baltheir's airship. But Vaan and then Baltheir and then everyone else comes in. She convinces Baltheir to 'kidnap' her. She promises huge treasures in the tomb. So in Han Solo fashion, the greedy leading man will help the princess once more.

Back in Arcadia, we see Judge Gabranth meeting with the emperor. The emperor is dying and he worries that there will be a war between his two sons once he's gone. He knows Vayne is ambitious and might kill Larsa if necessary. He also knows that the senate (hah) prefers a more pliable emperor, someone younger and easier to manipulate like Larsa, and they may go after Vayne. The emperor wants Gabranth to be Larsa's shield, to protect him from harm. We also find out that a long time ago the empire destroyed the home of Gabranth and Basch. But where Basch fled to Dalmasca, Gabranth joined them. Lastly, Gabranth reports that Cid is helping Vayne doing some experiments in some research laboratory.

Back to the party, Baltheir lands quite a ways from the tomb, something about the field not letting the ship get any closer without shutting down. We turn on the invisible cloaking system on the ship and head out on foot.

Very fun game to play and just tool around in. Love the lack of random battles, just because I hate loading and unloading the battle system every other minute. Nice to just be able to run around and, with gambits, I can just run up to a mob and the party will kill it, heal themselves, and continue. I only have to really get involved if things get out of hand. Kind of refreshing.

FFXII - The Captain Returns

Off to the desert I went and after a little fun killing wolves and the like, I found myself in a small village on the outskirts of the city. And there I ran into Vaan's friend Penelo who teamed up with me to keep Vaan out of trouble. We talked to the locals and found out that the Sunstone must be gotten by absorbing power from large Shadowstones in the desert. Out we went with the help of some kids to acquire the power of the Sunstone. When I was done I headed back to Rabinastre, and Penelo left the party.

I headed down to Dalan and, with the help of the Sunstone, I broke into the palace, then the treasury. As Vaan was rummaging through the treasury a statue opened up on it's own and revealed a glowing crystal. Vaan snagged it just as two other thieves entered the treasury too. They identified themselves as Fran and Baltheir, and said the stone was the Goddess' Magicite, and it was theirs for the taking. Vaan thought otherwise, but there was no time to argue as a commotion was stirring outside and it was time to bail.

We started to run and Vaan tried to break away from the other two but Fran cut him off on their hover bike, and they snagged Vaan.

On our way out of the keep though, there is something else going on. Apparently the old knight Vossler and a girl named Amalia (obviously the dead Ashe), along with a great deal of soldiers, have broken into the palace to kill the new Consul during his Fete (welcoming feast).

But the new consul Vayne obviously anticipated something of the sort and the great airship fighter Ifrit comes out in the night, just destroying the resistance members.

As the battle rages on, the hover craft gives out and we crash into the lower keep, finding ourselves somehow in the dungeon or under the palace. Fran and Baltheir decide to temporarily team up with Vaan to fight our way out. Along the way through the sewers of the palace, we find a girl cornered by many imperials and though she's killing them, she's greatly outnumbered. We aid her and take down the soldiers. She introduces herself as Amalia, one of the leaders of the resistance, but we tell her that her resistance is all dead upstairs. She joins the party as a Guest, to fight our way out.

So the party consists of three members once more. While the combat system only allows complete control of one character at a time, I can switch between characters whenever I want, as well as set "Gambits" which are like AI commands for battles. When Guests enter the party as they have since FFII, you have no real control over them, their equipment, or their actions, and they leave when the story line dictates.

Anyway, we continued on, and I was very glad I went to the magick shop before going into the castle because I was blowing through Cure like crazy. Near the end of the tunnels I had a showdown with a Fire Stallion of sorts and had to bust out all kinds of Potions, Phoenix Downs, Antidotes, and Eyedrops to survive. I'd forgotten that boss fights in this game are actually pretty tough. But fun stuff.

Eventually though, the imperials found us once more and there were just too many this time. Vayne was there, and took Amalia away while the others are thrown in the Nalbana prison. Which is like an underground desert where the inmates are free to kill themselves as they please. After a while in there, we come into contact with some asshole Bangas and have to kill them. The guards come down, and we're introduced to a Banga bounty hunter who's looking for Baltheir, and we also get to meet our first Judge. The Judges act as judge, jury, executioner and commanders of the Arcadian empire. This judge in particular has come down to interrogate "The Captain".

While still hiding from the bounty hunter, we trail the Judge to see where he's off to. Maybe a way out. The Judge goes through some deep underground secret passages and finally comes to a hanging cage over a bottomless wide well. Inside the cage is Basch, not very dead. The Judge asks a few questions then leaves. After the Judge leaves, Fran tells us that the way out is down the well. She can detect 'Mist' and knows these things apparently. The party ignores Basch and tries to find a way down. Basch pleads with them to let him out. Baltheir says he doesn't talk to dead traitors, and Vaan jumps on the cage and starts yelling at him, telling him that everything wrong with the world is his fault, that he killed his brother Reks. Baltheir calms him down.

Vaan was a little loud though and the guards are coming. The only way to quickly get down is to cut the chain and ride the cage down, which we do. After we've crashed at the bottom, the cage is broken and Basch is out. He wants to come with us, and Vaan is having none of that, he'd rather kill him, but Baltheir says they could use an extra sword arm. Basch joins as a guest.

After working our way through a good bit of tunnels, Basch finally tries to defend himself. He explains that when they broke into the castle to stop the king, his party was surrounded and he was abducted. Then he was held and forced to watch as his twin brother, dressed like him, killed the king and Reks. Basch was setup, to tear the kingdom apart. Baltheir buys it but Vaan is still skeptical.

Eventually we get out of the tunnel, fight our way across the desert and find ourselves back in Rabinastre. The party splits and we keep Vaan, and are told to lay low, especially Basch. But Basch thinks it's only a matter of time before the resistance finds him, they'll want answers and he wants to clear his name and fight the empire.

After all the fighting, I got to spend a few points on the license board but at this point I have just enough points to get some cures and some boxes to use the latest weapons and some armor. Hope to knock out a bunch more tonight.

FFXII - Fallen Dalmasca

Our story begins with a beautiful cut scene which gives us several years of background info in a few minutes. I'll try to relay that in a few sentences. Ours is a kingdom called Dalmasca, a happy kingdom with a princess Ashe who's newly married, the kingdom rejoices but the celebrations don't last long.

There's two kingdoms at war with each other, with two smaller kingdoms stuck in the middle. The kingdom to the north, Arcadia attacks our home kingdom of Dalmasca to prevent their enemy from doing the same.

It's not long before the new Prince Rasler must go to war with his trusted knight Basch, but the enemy is too strong and the young prince dies in battle, leaving his new bride in black to mourn.

After the great defeat, the kingdom of Dalmasca has no choice but to surrender. It's at this point that we gain control of a 17 yr old character named Reks who's fighting under Basch and his friend Vossler. Their mission is to stop the king from signing the treaty of surrender with Arcadia, because they feel his life may be forfeit afterward. During the mission I basically get a tutorial on the new combat system. They enter the keep, fighting through imperial soldiers of Arcadia to get to the king. Reks gets separated from the main group for a moment, and when he catches up to the king's chamber he finds a slaughter. All his men are dead, and the king is dead. He turns at a noise and comes face to face with Basch who puts a knife in Rek's stomach. Basch says that the king was a traitor for surrendering. The imperial guards come in and arrest Basch as Reks' vision fades to black, Reks calls out the name of his little brother, "Vaan".

Two years have gone by and in the meantime there is a quasi ruler in Dalmasca called the Marquis. It is he who tells the player that since the fall of Dalmasca, the princess Ashe has commited suicide after her father's murder, and Basch was tried and executed as a traitor. Now we get control of Vaan, who's now 17 himself. We're in a sewer, killing rats. After a bit of that a kid named Kytes comes down to tell us some guy named Migelo needs us. We head on up to the surface in the city of Rabanastre and go to Migelo's place. Migelo is a Banga who gives us odd jobs here and there but they're kiddy jobs, Vaan wants something more. Vaan is a thief and wants to put his skills to work but Migelo is trying to keep him out of trouble.

We head to the local bar on a silly errand and find a Bill on the Hunter's Board for a pestering tomato fiend out in the desert. Vaan decides it's time to test his skills out, he accepts the bounty and we go out into the desert. After a look around and a few dead catuar and wolves, I find the menace and dispatch of him. On the way back into the city though I'm stopped. The new consul from the empire is coming today and the city is locked down. Eventually Migelo comes out to get me though, along with my young friend Penelo who I'm pretty sure has a thing for Vaan, she looks about 15 or 16. Young heros.

I get back into the city and go find a spot to see the new consul with Penelo. In another cut, we watch as the new consul Vayne, who's the son of the current emperor, takes control of Rabanastre. Vaan doesn't like it but the people seem to respect him a little after a pretty good speech.

Once it's over, Vaan decides he wants to break into the palace that night during the feast of the new consul to steal something special. Of course he knows Migelo won't help him so he goes to see Dalan. Dalan runs a little seedier part of the city underground and tells Vaan about a secret passage into the castle. But one must have a sunstone to open the magical door. It's off to the desert to find the magical stone.

This is all good stuff, and this is actually the third time I've played through the game, but I only ever get about 3/4 of the way through. It will be nice to finally finish it, it's a fun one.

Final Fantasy XII, Goodbye Sakaguchi, Hello Enix

Final Fantasy XII is an interesting title with roots in change. Final Fantasy X was the last title that Hironobu Sakaguchi was part of as executive producer. Final Fantasy IX being the last title he had a hands on role in. In 2002, after his film debut of Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, Sakaguchi felt pressure to step down in the company as the movie was a complete bomb and the company suffered massive losses in capital. After Sakaguchi left the company, Square joined forces with it's long time rival, creating a new company called Square-Enix. Sakaguchi went on to form a new company called Mistwalker in 2004. The fact that he left Square kind of makes me sad. It's like Square going from Nintendo to Playstation back in the day, your loyalties are torn. After all he IS the father of the series.

The last title to appear on the PS2, the first title to be without Sakaguchi, the first title to be produced with the aid of Enix, and the first title to reinvent the turn based fighting system. This game came out in 2006, years after the release of Square-Enix's new MMO, Final Fantasy XI. The game developer took many aspects of the MMO and tried to transition them into play for their new single player title which the world had been waiting for, for four years. They wanted to give the single player game a more online or playing-with-friends feel. Or at least that's what I and many others felt.

The game was successful, but not as much as prior titles. For myself, it felt older than it's time. I had been used to playing online MMOs in FFXI and WoW and this was a definite downgrade in graphics when I expected better. That does not take from the game, it just was disappointing. The designers went for a more realistic look of their characters ALL the time. What this did was make the actual game play more pleasant by having the characters look better. But it also made the cut scenes less crisp or beautiful because the same lower aspect models were being used. If I remember correct, true CG movies are very few and far between in this game.

Also of note, this game again does not allow you to name your main character which I find frustrating. This was done before in FFIV for the DS where voice acting was used for that version. It allows them to talk to and about your character without avoiding using the name. I don't like it, as I've stated before, it takes something away from gameplay, makes it feel less personal, less heroic, and less of your story. It becomes more about the party and not a single hero you can identify with and build up as an alter ego.

Alright, alright, I feel like I'm bashing a good game here so I'll stop. It's time to begin the last leg of this awesome journey. Kind of sad that this is the last one I'll be blogging about... Let's begin Final Fantasy XII.

Edit at 11:24pm: I take back what I have stated about the graphics after watching the gorgeous cut scene opening up the game tonight. It looks really good on my PS3 with the graphics boost. Blows FFX, FFXI, and WoW out of the water. I still don't approve of the character models but I understand their transition in going from cartoon characters to real looking characters can be tough. I know they met much better success in FFXIII.

Final Fantasy X, The Dream Ends

In preparation for defeating the final boss I, of course, had to first obtain all summons to keep my streak going. They looked tough, but I can't stop now. The first on my list was Seymour's crazy ass summon, Anima. This required going back to each temple and acquiring the destruction spheres, then placing them in the temple where Rhek was first summoned by Sin and found by Rikku at the beginning of the game. Once complete we enter and find that the Fayth is Seymour's mother. She tells us how she became a Fayth and granted Seymour the Anima Aeon when he was very young, giving him a craving for power. It's her fault and she's sorry, she wants us to end him, and to help us along the way, she gives us the Anima summon.

Next we headed to the Calm Lands where we traveled to where Lulu's first Summoner met her end. We enter a cave and work our way through to the end where we find the Unsent summoner who has no more humanity left, just hatred. She calls upon Yojimbo and I answer with my new summon Anima. I had hoped he would not be capped like Bahamut so he could deal over 9,999 damage. I was not disappointed as he one shotted Yojimbo for 40k damage, sweet. Afterward though I did not receive the summon outright. Rather I had to pay him off to join me, ended up costing me most of my bank roll, 205,000 gil.

Next up, we traveled to Remein Temple to have our final showdown with Belgemine, the summoner who's been challenging and teaching Yuna throughout the game. We defeat her Bahamut and receive the Flower Scepter. Then we go monster hunting for the guy in the monster arena. Once we've captured all the required monsters, we are rewarded with the Blossom Crown. We head on back to Remein Temple and receive the last summon, the Magus Sisters, who are originally from FFIII. Cool.

With the summons obtained it was time to fight Sin. We begin the hymn and the world joins us in song. We approach the great beast and he creates a vortex which pulls us in.

As we're pulled in, he casts some crazy ass spell which rips holes through the surface of the earth, converging on our airship, we barely get out of that.

We move in closer and notice symbols on the arm joints, so we attack each arm to weaken it before Cid uses the cannon on the airship to fire at Sin and rip his arms off.

Sin, now hurt, moves in for the kill and instead of waiting we engage him first, jumping onto his body. We attack his center point, deal with his ass and then hop off as he goes crashing into the city of Bevelle. But it's not over, Overdrive Sin arises and hovers over the city, waiting for us.

We head in. Now at this point in the game my guys are just.. ok. Auron smacks shit around pretty well, as does Wakka from time to time. But Rhek is very mediocre and Kimahri is useless, as is Rikku. Lulu is powerful when she uses her end game magic on regular mobs but it's pretty weak if not worthless against bosses who are often immune to things like Bio, Demi and Death. She's not far enough in her sphere for Flare or Ultima. So at this time I typically win by overdriving Yuna and her summons then letting the Aeons do all the heavy lifting. This was no exception, Anima annihilated OD Sin, his regular hits were for over 12k (more than a regular summon's OD), and his own Over Drive hit for 50k. Sin went down nasty.

Now it was time to enter Sin and kill Yu Yevon before he could find another Aeon host for Sin. Inside we find Seymour who's been absorbed by Sin. His master plan this time is to sit in Sin for eternity and eventually find a way to control it. Whatever, man. We whip the shit out of him for the last time and Yuna Sends him finally. Man that guy was annoying.

We travel through the body of Sin in some metaphysical plane of existence and finally come to a great tower in the body. At this point it's worth mentioning that I was nearing the end of my sphere grids and I'd gotten Ultima for Yuna and Lulu. We enter the tower and find Jecht, the final real boss of the game.

He lived up to his status and beat me down, but I almost had him. I grinded a couple of overdrives up and went at him again. After a tough first phase (because I saved my best Aeons), I was finally able to chip at his health, only really bringing out my weaker Aeons to absorb his overdrive which almost guarantees one or all of my party dying if they're out. Using this method to soak up most of the damage, I finally beat him into his second phase. At this point it was up to my Aeons. It's worth noting here that once an Aeon has used his or her overdrive ability, the boss doesn't stop getting turns until the Aeon is dead. This killed me before because his turn ended on an Overdrive and he wiped my party when they came back out. This time I was prepared though and strategically timed the turns and overdrives so that wouldn't happen. Auron started things off with an Armor Break to weaken the boss, then Yuna summoned Bahamut who hit him for 28k, Anima who hit him for 85k (!!!), and finally the Magus Sisters who did a disappointing 18k damage (for being the final summon). Gotta love Anima and Bahamut. Jecht went down and transfered back to human form. Rhek reconciled with his father as he died but now it was time for Yu Yevon.

At this point the game was beat, what followed was a series of battles that I couldn't lose due to the fact that the game put Auto-Life on all my party. Yuna summoned each of her Aeons in turn, who were immediately possessed by Yevon, and then defeated by us before they could meld with Sin. We went through this process for every summon in Yuna's arsenal and this was the only time I kinda regretting getting every summon. Once this lengthy procedure was complete, we finally got to face off with Yu Yevon himself. A squid...

Kinda ironic how Yu Yevon cast Zanarkand to remember his dead city, and uses Sin to keep Spira away from his dream world; and then to be killed by your own summon. Ironic because his defeat has always been based on a summoner calling upon a summon which just ends up killing the summoner in the end after merging with Yu Yevon. He got a taste of his own medicine.

Reflecting on this battle I see what has become a key element in the entire series, the summoner. I used to think that the common thread in all the stories was usually something to do with crystals. But ever since FFIII, a summoner has either played a vital role, been the center of the story, or the Eidolons control everything. It's always the summoner.

The fight itself was a pain just because I was hitting him for only like 2-5k damage and he would counter attack with Curaga for 9,999 health. With his total health at 99,999, I wasn't sure how to beat him for a minute. Then I cast Bio with Lulu and it actually landed and I just sat and did nothing so he couldn't counter cure as Bio ticked for 9,999 damage every turn. When his health was under 2k I finished him off with Auron, which I thought was fitting.

After Yu Yevon is defeated, we see all the statues of all the Aeons in the temples over the entire world start to fade in power. We see the Fayth disappear from the temples. Yuna starts to perform her final Sending, and as she starts she sees Auron begin to fade. This causes hesitation but Auron tells her it's ok, to continue. The final Sending destroys all Aeons, Sin, and the Fayth.

The dream that is Zanarkand ends, and Rhek disappears as Yuna tells him she loves him. Aww, so sad...

After everything is over, we see Yuna standing at a pier, whistling the way Rhek taught her. He told her when she whistled like that, he'd always come for her. But he doesn't come... Lulu comes and tells her it's time. She turns and walks to the stadium to tell the people of Spira that they're finally free and it's time to rebuild.

The credits roll and at the very end, the black fades into a scene of the sea. And we see Rhek curled up under the water.

He wakes, looks up, and begins to swim for the surface. The title splash screen hits, The End. What a tease. I almost want to go play through FFX-2 now to see how he came back.

My final stats, game logging in at about 41 hours. Overall great game. I can see why they'd want to do a sequel to this one. The 'dream' thing wasn't bad at all or how people made it sound. I LOVED the whole Summoner story line. I loved using the summons in battle. The story was good. The only things I had a beef with were the voice acting and responses of some of the characters but as I stated earlier, Square has never been great in this department and I accept that. This game ranks pretty high for me though, I'm going to put it at number 4 I think.

Only FFXII to go. After that I think I'll post a ranking of my favorites. Until next time, peace.

FFX - The Legendary Summoner, Yunalesca

After leaving the crystal forest, my party entered the calm lands. The peaceful plains where Sin was last defeated under the Mountain Gagazet. Here many summoners lose their nerve and turn back. We find out that Lulu and Wakka were actually guardians before for another summoner, and after a six month pilgrimage he gave it up here in the Calm Lands. We press on.

Near the end of the plains we come upon an interesting shack, a monster arena. Here we're told that we can fight monsters for practice but first we must catch them. The guy in charge sells us a few weapons we can use to capture monsters if they strike the killing blow. I'll have to use those later to get some of my final Aeons in the game, so we'll come back to that. For now, it's on to Mount Gagazet.

Here we find the Ronso homeland. At first we're told that we're traitors of Yevon and that we must leave immediately. But after some discussion, they realize that Yuna is still going on to sacrifice herself and defeat Sin. They realize that the church must be full of shit. Instead they tell her to go on up the pass, that they will stop anyone from following her. While I'm there Kimahri's brothers challenge him and I have to defeat them. Used the opportunity to draw out several new blue mage spells like Mighty Guard and White Wind. Nice. However, my super strong beast of a man can only cast blue magic on his limit break and as he travels through the sphere grid the dividing of points between magic and steel has taken it's toll. He's now a red mage of sorts, casting both magic and sword into battle but not really great at either.

On a side note, the leader of the Ronso's tells Yuna that they have great respect for her and that one day after she defeats Sin, they will erect a statue of her in her honor. They will even put a horn on her forhead like the Ronsos as a honorary symbol. This is funny because the symbol in all FF games of a summoner is someone with a horn in their forehead. Thought it was a cool scene.

We entered into some tunnels at the mountain base and worked our way up, up, up. As we progressed we saw the graves of summoners all over the place. Summoners who'd fallen after getting so far. With no one to Send them because they died alone, they all become fiends, making the mountain even harder to pass for the next Summoner. As is the staple of all final dungeons, I have started to see the Behemoth mobs as I climb the mountain.

Eventually we reach the peak and just as we exit the tunnel, Seymour follows behind us. He explains to us casually that he killed all the Ronsos below who tried to stop him. Kimahri is the last of his race. Man what a dick. We engage in battle and Seymour proceeds to thoroughly kick the shit out of me. Ouch. Reset. I went back down the mountain and did a bit of power leveling. Enough to snag Curaga for Yuna, Hastega for Rhek, and all the elemental -aga spells for Lulu. I also took some time to get all five of my summons to their limit break as well as Yuna herself. Once this was done, the fight was much easier. Basically it entailed keeping Yuna hasted and healed while she summons every Aeon she has to deal 9,999 damage before Seymour one shots it. I ended him with a nice Bahamut who doesn't have a 9,999 damage limit. He hit him for about 23k I think. God I love Summoners. As he goes down he yells something about Jecht being Sin to Rhek and as we leave Rhek must confess the truth about that, Jecht is Sin. For the most part they don't hold it against him and we continue to Zanarkand.

When we arrive, it looks more like the Farplane than anything else, so many souls wandering about. We come upon the city limit and find a wall made out of people. WTF. Auron tells us that the people are the dead of Zanarkand, they are Fayth. They dream and give power to the Aeons, or something. Rhek walks up and touches one, and enters a dream world. Oops. Rhek is alone back in his world of Zanarkand on a boat at a dock. We go inside and there in the corner once more is the little boy in the blue hooded robe. We ask him whats going on and he tells us. Here we go folks, the real story about this whole dream thing that everyone was so pissed about.

Apparently long long ago there was a huge war between Bevelle and Zanarkand. But Bevelle had tons of very advanced Machina and Zanarkand knew that their destruction was all but assured. After Bevelle completely annihilated Zanarkand, the few remaining survivors left became the Fayth. They cast a spell among the thousands of people left and they began a dream. A dream that was Zanarkand. They dreamt up the old memories of the dead, the buildings, the events, the people... Rhek-is-a-dream. His entire world - was a dream. Is a dream. His mother, his father, everyone he knows - is a dream. A dream of the Fayth of the long dead city.

And the Fayth are tired now. They are tired of dreaming. The boy tells Rhek that he and his father were touched by Sin though. And they have become something more than a dream. Now the Fayth believe that maybe Rhek is the dream that will end the Fayth's dream at last...

Rhek wakes up, and when they ask him what happen, he tells no one. We continue toward Zanarkand, through some final mountain pass into the city proper. As we approach Auron tells us that 'she' is testing us, making sure we're ready. Who? Yunalesca he says. What?

Well it turns out that no one ever Sent Yunalesca either, and that she's been in dead Zanarkand for over a thousand years. She is the first Summoner to defeat Sin and she tells all Summoners who've come this far how to obtain the Final Aeon and defeat Sin as well. Interesting. We continue on, and must face off with a Temple Guardian who also kicks the crap out of me at first. In a very unconventional fight, I had to jump platforms and use about 25 Phoenix Downs as I chipped away and died over and over and over. After that we move into the city proper, but on the way Yuna drops something. Rhek picks it up, a voice message she intended to leave behind once she was dead. A suicide note of sorts, telling everyone she loves them and will miss them, etc. Rhek pretends like he didn't hear it and moves on. We come to a beach, the beach from the beginning of the game, where Rhek began to tell his story of what has happened so far. Now we're all caught up, in present time, and now we must head into the Zanarkand Temple, ready to face whatever comes.

As we get closer to the temple we begin to see visions of the dead. Summoners who got this far. The summoner Yucon, Braska, and some event with Seymour when he was like five with his mother. She's telling him he must become the final Aeon and defeat Sin... Little confusing with no follow up. Okay...

We continue on and fight the final Temple Guardian before entering the real Temple. We go inside and hear Jecht's voice. "What do you mean no final Aeon?!" Yuna goes down inside then comes right back out and tells us to follow. When we get inside, we're greeted by some temple custodian who tells us that the final Aeon was Lord Luca, but he's been dead for some time now. His soul is gone, there is no final Aeon. WHAT?!? Lady Yunalesca awaits us.

We go inside and are greeted by the Summoner of all Summoners, the legendary Lady Yunalesca. She then breaks it down to us. Yuna must choose a guardian. The guardian will die and become the final Aeon. It must be someone whom she has a very strong bond with because it is through that bond that Sin is defeated. Yunalesca chose her husband Lord Luca. We flash back to Jecht choosing to be the Fayth for Braska. And against Auron's wishes, Braska goes through with it because he believes that MAYBE this time Sin won't come back, maybe they'll break the cycle. And that possibility is worth the risk. Yunalesca goes into her chambers and asks us to follow once we've made our choice.

Of course everyone volunteers, but Rhek wants to ask Yunalesca if there's not some other way. We enter into her chamber and get a little more info out of her. The final Aeon that defeats Sin with the Summoner, becomes Sin reborn and kills the Summoner in turn. It is inevitable, it is guaranteed, there is NO breaking the cycle, it is eternal, Sin will always come back, no matter what humanity does, it will always be there. No atonement, no possibly breaking the cycle this time. Nothing. We flash back to Auron confronting Yunalesca about this very point after Braska and Jecht die while defeating Sin. Auron attacks her, she cuts him down. Back to present.

Well, the party doesn't like this at all. All of Yevon's teachings were bullshit from day one. Well, I knew that, but they didn't. Yuna chooses no one. She will no longer participate in this false tradition. She will not choose someone she loves to die. Yunalesca accepts this, but she must kill them now. Death is inevitable for all and is the final embrace of peace. We engage in battle and Auron calls out to us to prepare. I think he's known all along that this would be the outcome. He's come to kill Yunalesca. After a pretty tough three phase boss fight where we're zombies for like 20 minutes and she's curing us to deal damage, we end the final part with a nice 5 Aeon straight limit break. Fun stuff.

Well at least that part of the cycle is forever broken. Yunalesca perishes believing that all hope for Spira is gone, she says that "Yu Yevon the Immortal will only create Sin again if defeated." After the fight, Auron pulls Rhek aside and finally tells him he's dead, Unsent. Yeah, figured. He died fighting Yunalesca ten years ago. But it was through death that he was able to travel back to Zanarkand on Sin and help watch over Rhek. Which Jecht asked him to do before he became the final Aeon.

After all the drama we finally walk back outside, and sitting there half above the water, is Sin waiting for Rhek like a loyal dog.

Kinda weird. Rhek tells him that he'll think of something, he tells Jecht that he'll free him, he promises. Sin turns and leaves, passing Cid's airship in the sky as he comes to pick us up.

After some head scratching our party comes up with two ideas. One, go talk to Maester Mika and see what he knows. And two, we realized that Jecht is really attracted to the Hymn of the Fayth. So much that he becomes almost docile when he's near it. We plan to use that to weaken him then strike.

We head back to Bevelle and are greeted by Mika who now believes that Yuna has the final Aeon and is Spira's only hope. We're not traitors all the sudden... But he's of course very upset when we tell him we didn't get the final Aeon, but killed Yunalesca instead. After he has a little break down, he says something interesting before disappearing. He says that Yu Yevon's spiral of death will consume us all. That even if we defeat Sin, Yu Yevon will just take the souls of the dead and create the unholy armor of Sin once more. There is no end.

So Sin is just armor for the true villain, Yu Yevon.

After the Maester disappears, the floating boy shows up and tells Yuna and Rhek to come see him. We go to his old room or whatever and he explains to us that Yu Yevon was once a Summoner long ago, but now he lives for only one purpose, to summon. He's not good or evil, he's awake but he dreams. When the final Aeon defeats Sin, Yu Yevon merges with it to make a new Sin, to continue the summoning. Yu Yevon lives inside Sin.

The boy tells us that we alone are not strong enough to defeat Sin, and then Yu Yevon. He asks that we call upon all the Fayth to aid when we go to battle. He tells us as we leave that when it's over, the dream of the Fayth will end. The dream will vanish with Sin... He's talking to Rhek, and Rhek understands. When Yu Yevon dies, Rhek will disappear forever. Rhek accepts it. Yuna doesn't understand but she knows he's not telling her something.

As we leave Bevelle we tell the head steward to spread the word to sing they Hymn of the Fayth when they get the signal from the ship in the sky. The whole of Spira must participate. We leave and I have control of the airship and free roam of the world for the first time in the game. I see the final destination "Sin" at the top of my list of destinations, but there's some summons to be gotten first. Tomorrow, the last three summons and final preparations before the final showdown.

Doing good on time, should have a full two weeks to complete FFXII, looks like I'll be done with FFX in a total of seven or eight days.

FFX - I guess I was wrong

After killing Maester Seymour, we started running from the not too happy Guado. After trying to convince them that Seymour killed his father, they just destroy the evidence and attack us. Guess they don't really care. We're chased down to the ice lake and have a showdown with a monster. After we win, his last move is to break the ice. We fall down below the water, under the temple and recollect ourselves. Once we've had a chance to reflect, we decide as a party to ask for forgiveness in the face of Yevon at the capital in Bevelle.

After we've decided on a course of action though, Sin shows up and attacks. We get knocked out and wake up on some new tropical beach. We wander up and find ourselves on a desert island separated from Yuna. Rikku recognizes it though and tells us that we're on the home island of the Al Bhed. We walk across the desert and find her home under attack by the Guado and Yevon. Rikku is upset but says that we must get to the 'Summoner Shelter', Yuna might be there.

We head on through the fire fight to meet Cid, the leader of the Al Bhed, Rikku's father and Yuna's uncle. He enlists our help and we fight down to the summoner shelter. When we ask Rikku what the summoner shelter is, she explains that the Al Bhed have been kidnapping summoners because they believe that Yevon is sacrificing the life of summoners to hold off Sin when it's just going to be reborn. They don't think the summoners should be throwing their lives away. Cid especially doesn't want Yuna to partake in this. Confused, Rhek asks what they mean. He's then told that when the summoner calls upon the final Aeon to destroy Sin, that the Aeon will destroy the summoner as well. Rhek is not too happy about this. Not at all.

We continue fighting on, searching for Yuna and as we go, we have to utilize Rikku as the healer. She's not bad, uses special potions instead of magic though. We find the shelter and it's littered with dead Al Bhed who sacrificed themselves to protect the summoners but the only summoners left alive are Isaaru and Dona. The monsters are closing in so we all jump on Cid's airship and head out.

As we leave, Cid fires on his home, destroying it in the process, to kill the invading armies. The Al Bhed are homeless now...

Rikku is upset, and Wakka is starting to feel like a jackass. It turns out that some gizmo on the airship can actually track Yuna's location, we lock on and start heading toward her. The location happens to be Bevelle.

On our way in, we can see Yuna in a wedding dress climbing an altar with Seymour to be wed.

Seymour is dead but still walking around like the living and Yuna is still trying to play him, to get close enough to Send him. As we close on the city, the Maesters send their defense at at, the great flying monster Erva. We climb to the outside of the airship and fight the beast. Eventually he goes down and we continue toward the center of the city among a barrage of gun and cannon fire.

We shoot zip lines down and fly down to rescue Yuna.

We land and start fighting our way to the top of the altar. Once we get there though there are just too many guns on us. We stop short of Yuna and Seymour but she tries to begin his Sending right there. She's stopped though by Maester Mika, apparently Seymour is supported all the way to the top. Maester Mika threatens to kill the whole party if she doesn't stop. She does, and participates in the marriage to Seymour against her will.

After they're wed though, Seymour orders them to be killed anyway but in response Yuna steps to the edge of the tower, thousands of feet above the ground and threatens to throw herself off unless they drop their guns and let her friends go. Seymour commands them to oblige. Yuna turns and jumps off anyway after telling the others to trust her and just go.

As she plummets down though, she calls upon her first summon Valefor who comes and catches her, to fly her to safety.

The rest of the party heads down into the keep. For some reason no one follows us. We believe that Yuna would have headed to the only place she knew in the city, the Bevelle Temple. On our way down, we encounter many different machina. Not only do the Maester use guns but we see elevators and force fields. Wakka can't believe it.

We reach the temple and navigate it to finally come to the cloister of the fayth. Rhek and Kimahri say Yevon be damned and we enter the inner chamber to find Yuna. When we get inside we see her kneeling in front of the image of a small boy in a hooded blue robe (the boy that's been appearing to Rhek off and on). Auron follows in and tells Rhek that the fayth are deceased human souls who, with the summoner, work together to bind the Aeon to the summoner. As Yuna collapses, Rhek goes to her. He turns and carries her out to a room filled with Maesters and soldiers with guns. We are to stand trial, but first we receive Bahamut.

We stand trial with the Maesters as our judges. The Ronso Maester leads the trial and when he asks why Yuna betrayed everyone she explains that Seymour killed his father. She also explains that Seymour is actually dead and she's been trying to Send him. Maki steps forward and reveals that he too is dead, many of the Maesters are. They would rather be ruled by wise dead than arrogant living. The Maesters are aware that Sin can never be defeated and that they are just throwing away the lives of summoners. But they believe that it is a necessity. The trial is concluded and we're sentenced to death.

After we're thrown in some water dungeon we try to regroup. Yuna finds Auron and Kilmahri, and before she can leave she must face off with Isaaru, who Yevon has sent to kill Yuna. Yuna faces off with Isaaru in a one on one battle of summons. Pretty cool.

After he's defeated we switch over to Rhek and the others who must navigate through the underwater passages to finally face off with a giant water monster. Once he's dead the entire party is united on the surface. However, we're met by Seymour. He explains his plan. He needs Yuna to go with him to the ruins of Zanarkand, to summon the final Aeon and defeat Sin. Then he will consume her and become Sin himself as the next reborn version to destroy the world. Then he can grant the peaceful slumber of death to all inhabitant of Spira. Yeah. He crazy...

We go to war with him and after a semi-tough battle I tossed Reflect on the entire party and watched Seymour cast himself into an early grave. Afterward our party goes back to the crystal forest. Yuna goes off on her own to think, Rhek goes after her to cheer her up. She feels betrayed by Yevon and questions whether she should continue her pilgrimage. She and Rhek talk about it for a long time but eventually she breaks down in tears and decides that she must go on. Rhek comforts her and, well, I was wrong. What follows is some romance between the two which I don't remember in the pools under the crystal forest light. Add in some cheesy Japanese love song and you've got yourself a true FF romance scene.

It's time to go to Zenarkand. For Rhek to stand by Yuna's side to the bitter end...

FFX - The Queen of Ice Owns You All

With Ixion in the bag it was time to head on over to Macalania Temple for our next summon along the pilgrimage. We took the road leaving Djose Temple down to the bank of the Moonflow river. The wide river was far to big to cross in any fashion except by using this big dinosaur looking monster with a huge saddle type thing that sat 6 people. We hopped on and headed across.

NOTE: I'd just like to take a second here to make a comment. I was reading some reviews on FFXIII and a few things bothered me about it. For the most part, the game has gotten rave reviews, but when listing short-comings, the critics talk about a few things. Believable motives and acting, no sandbox (linear), and poor story. Now the poor story is worrisome because it's one of the things I like most about the games in the series. But the bad acting is almost a staple of the game, anyone who's taken the time to play through all 12 games in three months would know this well lol. It's just part of the franchise, Square does not do well in that department and it can be almost comical. As for linear, ummm, EVERY final fantasy has been linear. Yes you could always go out and run around in a forest but you had to cross that bridge to get to that castle and there was a mountain pass that you couldn't get into until you went to that castle, etc. It's always been a very linear series. And here in FFX is actually the first time we get even more linear than that. I'm eighteen hours into the game and haven't been on a 'world map' once. I just go from road screen to road screen to temple, etc. FFXII is the same way, so critics, go back and play some more FFs before you say that the series is drifting away from it's roots by being linear.

Anyway, continuing on my FFX LINEAR path of awesome game fun, we were almost across the wide river when we're attacked by an Al Bhed Machina trying to take Yuna again. Why do they keep trying to kidnap her? Wakka and Rhek dive into the river and have it out underwater with this machine. We kick the crap out of it and get Yuna back on the dino. After we finish our crossing, we take a breather and Rhek goes off down the next road a bit on his own. Here we find a washed up Rikku, who's a little frustrated at Rhek for just pummeling her in her machina. She takes off her full wet body suit in stripper fashion for a cut and then chats up Rhek for a bit.

I think that scene was single handedly responsible for all the FF nerds voting Rikku as the hottest FF chick of any game in the series.

Worth noting here that while Square is not as perverted in their games as some other Japanese game/anime houses, but they still like to toss in the sex innuendos everyone once in a while. The rest of the party comes down the road and meets us, then Rikku, Yuna and Lulu go have a girl chat for a bit. When they come back Yuna tells Auron she wants Rikku to be one of her guardians. Now I know Yuna is half Al Bhed, and I'm all for Rikku in the party. But how does she go from trying to kidnap her to being her protector in that conversation. What's going on there? On top of that Wakka (Al Bhed hater) seems oblivious to the fact that she's obviously Al Bhed and befriends her.

We continue down a very long road and enter into the Guado homeland, home of Maester Seymour, who insists we see him upon arrival. We get there and he shows us into this chamber. Here he uses some magic projection system where we travel across space and time and all the sudden we're IN Zanarkand over 1000yrs ago, walking among the people. He says it's created from the memories of all the dead.

He then takes us to a particular building and shows us the first summoner to ever beat Sin, Yunalesca, for whom Yuna is named. He explains to Yuna that it wasn't just by her own power but through the bond of her love with her companion/lover (some lord I can't remember the name of), that she was able to beat Sin and bring peace and joy to Spira. After the show and tell, he gets to the point. He wants Yuna to marry him, for the sake of the joy of the people of Spira. He leaves her to consider his proposal. Of course Rhek is against it, that guy is a douche bag, but for the first time since FFV, our hero doesn't have a love interest in the lead female character. He just wants to take her back to his place...

Quick interesting note. Before Seymour leaves, as our party is walking out of his room, he comments to Auron, "Why are you still here?" Auron doesn't reply, then Seymour says, "Sorry, we Guado have a keen sense of the Farplane." What the fuck does that mean, is Auron dead..?

After Seymour is gone, Yuna considers his proposal and decides against it, she must complete her pilgrimage and defeat Sin. But before we leave, we visit the local Farplane. So there's there's this uhh portal or something. And you step through it, and you can see and talk to the dead people of your memories. It's weird. Worth noting Auron won't go inside, neither will Rikku though.

Yuna talks to her parents, Wakka talks to his brother Chappu. Yuna tells Rhek to try to summon up Jecht. When no one comes she happily tells him it must mean that his father is still alive. No. He's Sin. But he does inadvertently summon up his mother for a moment. As we're leaving the Farplane place a spirit materializes before Yuna, outside the portal. It's Lord Jyscal, the late father of Maester Seymour. She performs a Sending to put him to rest, but before he disappears, his ghost drops something on the ground which Yuna picks up. We also see behind the party that the Sending causes Auron great pain and brings him to his knees... Uh huh... The party wonders why Lord Jyscal was wandering about, he should have had a Sending when he died. Auron comments that some spirits who've had a Sending still linger when they have unfinished business. It means he had an unclean death. Yeah, million bucks says Seymour killed him.

We head back downstairs and Yuna goes to rest. Rhek is roaming about and hears talking in her room. He tries to eavesdrop and stumbles inside to see a holographic image of Lord Jyscal talking. Yuna closes the hologram and tells Rhek it's nothing. She later comes out and tells the party that she's decided to marry Seymour after all. Booooo!

We go to find Seymour and find out he's already left for Macalania Temple. We follow. Along the way Auron makes a short side trip to some weird clearing in a crystal forest. There we find a fight with a elemental shifting Sin spawn who drops a sphere when he dies. On the sphere is video footage of Jecht and his trip to defeat Sin with Auron and Braska. Also on the tape, Jecht speaks to Rhek a little, apologizes, acts... fatherly. Auron comments that during his time in Spira, that the asshole Jecht changed. He accepted his fate, he grew as a person, and he decided he would help defeat Sin for the people of Spira and his son. He actually became a decent guy I guess because all of Rhek's flashbacks of him portray him as the biggest dick ever.

Before we get to the temple, we have a little run in with some other Al Bhed trying to kidnap Yuna once more. We stop them and they have a shouting match from afar with Rikku then leave. Wakka finds out Rikku is Al Bhed and is all pissed but whatever, that guy is a blind fool. Man I hate religion, even in video games...

We finally get to the temple and Yuna has already gone ahead to enter the cloister. While we're waiting around, we find that thing that Jyscal dropped/gave to Yuna. The party watches the hologram as it tells us that Seymour is dark and corrupt and killed him. He must be stopped for the sake of all of Spira. We go running to find Yuna. Seymour is waiting for her outside the cloister.

As we confront him, Yuna comes out and joins us. She always planned on stopping Seymour but she didn't want to get the others involved. She was going to do it on her own. Normally I'd say, oh man, that crazy girl trying to do that shit on her own. Doesn't she know he's the super bad villain, she's just gonna get killed alone. But...

After some back and forth argument and an upset Wakka who can't understand how a Maester of Yevon could be evil, Seymour tries to kill us all. So I enter into an interesting battle. Seymour casts shell on himself and has two guardians who cast protect on themselves. So, if I try to cast magic on Seymour it's met by Shell, and if I try to hit Seymour it's intercepted by his minions who have Protect and auto-potion for 1000 health. Ooookay. After trying to throw my hardest at the minions to get them out of the way, I realized I needed another solution. I needed something that could hit everyone at once for more than the minions 2k health.

I called up Yuna. You know. The crazy girl who I thought would be stupid to try to take on Seymour alone? Yeah, her. I hit the summon list and I see ???? at the bottom. Ohhh, she DID just come out of a cloister of trials. I hit the command to summon and out comes one of my favorites, Shiva. The minions start going to town and Seymour starts casting random magic. Her overdrive bar fills as I just keep casting Blizzara on myself to heal for 1500hp. Awesome. I pop her overdrive ability, Diamond Dust, and watch the board get slapped for 9,999. Dead, dead, dead. Seymour didn't like that though so he summons Anima. That big ass Aeon that killed everything in the Luca stadium in one hit. Uh oh. Shiva might be going down. Nope. I proceed to Airblast the Aeon with 18,000hp for 2k a pop while healing myself with Blizzara and watching the overdrive climb once more. Then I popped that bitch for another 9,999 damage. Dead. Finally, Seymour seemed to have gotten another 8,000 health from somewhere, so I had to fight him again. Diamond Dust, 9,999 damage, dead. Ice Queen for the win. Man I love summons in this game. Starting to remember why FFX got me on the summoner kick.

We watch as Seymour appears to die and his entourage comes in, shocked to find their Maester dead in front of my party. We try to explain things but they won't hear of it. We're traitors. Auron tells Yuna to send his soul but the Guado won't let us touch him. They take his body away. Now, at a guess I'm gonna say that since we didn't Send him, we're going to have to face some fiend version of Seymour that's way more powerful. Just a guess.

The sequence final over, I collected the Shiva summon officially along with a crap ton of AP and save my game for the night. Goooooood times.