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.

FFX - Jecht is Sin

We left Kilika and traveled by boat to Luca. We arrived at the city, and saw not a collection of shacks or hovels, not a small town, but a city. An advanced technological metropolis not too far behind Zanarkand. What's with that? Thought Sin destroyed any gathering of more than a few families.

Yuna explains that Luca is the second largest city in the world and is fiercely protected by the Crusaders of Yevon because it is the home of the only Blitzball stadium. I accept the explanation but it's has a few holes as Sin is pretty much unstoppable.

We arrive with the other blitzball teams and the Maester of all Spira (the world), Maki. Maki introduces the world to a new Maester, Seymour. We can already tell this guy is off tilt and there's something villainy about him. Especially suspect since he takes an immediate interest in Yuna.

We continue on and at one point Yuna says she saw Auron. Rhek is of course surprised to find out that everyone knows his old buddy Auron, the best guardian who ever lived but disappeared 10 years ago. About the same time he appeared in Zanarkand and befriended Rhek. We go looking but can't find him.

The blitzball tourney begins but Rhek can't play because the team we're playing against, the Ah Bheds, have kidnapped Yuna and want us to throw the game. We go track them down and get Yuna back instead, then win the game. At this point we find out that Yuna is actually half Ah Bhed on her mother's side. We're told not to tell Wakka, as he has something against them. The finals start for the tourney and I get to play the mini game (or full fledged game) but I'm not so good at it and end up losing in overtime 1-2. Damn.

It doesn't really matter though because as the game comes to a close we see Auron appear in the stadium, followed shortly by many fiends. Lots of fighting ensues and we hold off as many as we can but eventually Maester Seymour summons his incredible Aeon Anima and wipes every single fiend out in one blow. Nice.

After the fighting is done, Rhek gets a chance to talk to Auron alone and we get the scoop on things. Auron tells Rhek that Sin is Jecht. Ouch. That's a tough one to swallow for Rhek, but he goes on. Auron and Jecht used to be the guardians for High Summoner Braska (Yuna's father) 10 years ago. Back then, they defeated Sin. This is confusing for a while until Yuna explains later that when you defeat Sin, Sin is reborn eventually. The period in between is called the Calm and lasts for an unknown period of time. She explains that the only way to really defeat Sin is for humanity to atone. For what, she doesn't know.

I guess this is why Auron seemed attached to Sin somehow. He was Jecht's best friend, he can feel Jecht in Sin and I think he sort of talks to him sometimes. Auron explains to Rhek that 10 years ago Jecht made Auron promise to take care of Rhek, which he's been doing in Zanarkand these last 10 years, and to bring Rhek to Spira when it was time. I thought Auron might be a bad guy, but I guess he's one of my main seven party members. He joins Yuna as a guardian and makes Rhek her official guardian as well. He has his own section of the sphere grid, so he's not going anywhere. Just gotta get Rikku back and I'll have all seven members.

We continue on our journey down a very long road to Djose Temple. But before we arrive there, we come across a Crusader campaign that is using Ah Bhed Machina (against Yevon's teachings) to try to lure Sin into a trap and defeat it. Maester Seymour is there, which is odd, since he's part of the church of Yevon, as well as another Maester. Auron is suspicious of why they're there. The crusaders have gathered a large amount of Sin spawn and are waiting for Sin to appear to reclaim them. Sin does not disappoint. When it arrives, it's an all out onslaught by cannon fire and even chocobo knights.

They even have a crazy new weapon they use which almost breaks Sin's protective shield.

But Sin is just too powerful and in the end it's a massacre. Everyone dies except Rhek's party, the Maesters of Yevon, and a handful of Crusaders. Auron tells Rhek that Sin came and killed all those people to show Rhek Jecht's power. So that Rhek would understand. So that Rhek would kill Jecht...

In the aftermath we also find out that Summoners can only kill Sin by using the Final Summoning, which can only be obtained once the Summoner has gathered enough strength from all the Temples along their pilgrimage. So now we know what our goal is. We also find out that they achieve the final summon in the ruins of Zanarkand, so Rhek wants to tag along to see his destroyed home. On a side note, after the massacre, Seymour basically hints that Yuna should be his wife. Don't like that guy, leave my woman alone! =P

We continue on our pilgrimage to arrive at Djose Temple and after another little puzzle in the cloister of trials we obtain our third summon, Ixion, which is like Ramuh. While there we also hear from another summoner's guardian that summoners on their pilgrimage have been disappearing lately. They're just gone one day. Someone is out there picking off all the summoners, so I better watch my back. I bet it's that Seymour guy! Son of a bitch...

Until tomorrow, peace.

FFX - A Summoner is born

So when we left off, a distraught Rhek was traveling with a few Ah-Bhed members on a ship in the middle of the dark ocean. It's not long before Sin shows up and knocks Rhek off the ship, into the ocean. He spirals into the abyss and wakes up in a tropical paradise. We meet a new character Wakka playing Blitzball on the beach and get introduced to his home town. Once more we have to pretend we've had a lapse in memory to cover the fact that we know nothing of this new world. We learn that everyone praises some god called Yevon, that there's a high summoner, and a summoner in each village, and that Sin actually has been attacking cities all over the world repeatedly for the last 1000yrs. Wakka talks about when Sin first appeared, when there used to be many advanced cities that use "Machina" to do their work for them (Rhek's world). Now everyone is back in the stone age, making houses out of bamboo and leaves, yet we saw a ship in the ocean and scattered about is a computer terminal here and there, so they're not TOO far back...

In Wakka's village of Besaid, we're talked into joining their Blitzball team, then I'm told to go see the local summoner. I go meet with him and learn that there's an apprentice summoner currently undergoing her final trials in the temple. No one is allowed to enter but she's been in there over a day, people are starting to worry. I head on in with no respect for their traditions to check up on the new summoner and find Yuna with her two guardians Lulu (the black mage chick) and Kimahri (a dragoon/blue mage beastman).

Yuna finally completes her trials and comes out, a fledgling summoner.

Her first summon is Valfort, a rainbow colored eagleman type beast. After this it's time for Yuna to go on her pilgrimage around the world to other temples to take part in other trials and gain new summons. There's a party in the village the night before she leaves and it's decided that Rhek will join Yuna, Wakka, Lulu, and Kimahri on their journey to Luca, where they believe someone might recognize Rhek who they think has amnesia. Well everyone except Yuna thinks so anyway. When we go to chat with her we find out that she completely believes that Rhek is from Zanarkand. In fact her father's (the high summoner) guardian was a man from Zanarkand who they met 10 years ago named Jecht. Well, that's funny cuz Rhek's father, Jecht, disappeared 10 years ago... Jecht practically raised Yuna and told her many stories of him home land.

Anyway, we disembark and as we go, we're introduced to black mage, dragoon, blue mage, white mage, and summoning abilities in the battle system. Summons are cool because everyone except Yuna and her Aeon (summon) leave the screen. The Aeon fights in their stead, able to cast it's own set of unique abiities. Once it's HP hits zero, it disappears, and you can no longer summon it for a time while it regains it's strength. I also learned that for any battle, I can swap my characters in and out of the three man party on the fly. I can start with two strikers and a black mage, cast some stuff, then swap in Yuna for some healing then swap in someone else for more damage, etc. It's a pretty cool system, and it allows for me to keep getting everyone that participates more exp as we fight. I'm still not sure if the exp splits up more, with more people, it probably does.

Eventually we reach the dock after all the new tutorials and we set sail for Luca. We have a few more conversations with out new friends but eventually Sin shows up and attacks us again. We fend it off as best as we can, and it continues on toward our first destination Kilika. It arrives before we do, and proceeds to destroy the entire town in a cool cut.

We arrive to a few survivors and the ruins of a small town. We try to help people where we can and Yuna offers to do the 'Sending' for the village as they have no local summoner. I guess part of a summoner's job is to do this Sending ritual for the deceased. If the ritual is not done, the soul of the dead person becomes envious of the living, then resentful and hateful. Eventually the soul will take the form of a fiend, forgetting it's former life and attacking people. In order to stop this from happening a summoner must send off the souls to the Farplane to rest in peace. Yuna does the ritual in another cool cut.

After this is done, she heads in with her three guardians to obtain the next Aeon, Ifrit. We have some drama with another local summoner who tosses Rhek down there with the rest of the party, trying to get Yuna excommunicated. Bitch.

Nothing goes awry though and Yuna gets her next summon, we move on. While on the boat again heading toward Luca, we find out that Yuna wants Rhek to become one of her guardians. At this point Rhek has pretty much given up hope of ever seeing his home again (it's been like three days..) and is seriously considering taking the position. But it might be more because he's got the hots for her than anything else.

Hopefully I get in some more time tonight, got a long ways to go and not much time. Go Go Go Rhek!

FFX - Dead a Thousand years

I only got a little time in yesterday but it was enough to make several observations just about the game and how far the series has come in general.

First off, it was nice to finally be able to just pop a disc into my PS3 and have it recognize it and boot up without having to go to my downloaded games or to just start up the "CD Format" blank disc icon of unrecognized games. That in itself was refreshing. The next breath of fresh air was the graphics, which are light years better than FFIX on the PS1. It's kinda weird to be honest. I feel like I've been on a very long journey into video game history, and now I'm finally coming home, finally closing in on my own generation of technology. Very cool feeling.

Adding to this feeling of coming into my own era once more was the title screen of the game which has the www.squaresoft.com link at the top and the PlayOnline logo on the right. The era of the internet coming into bloom.

I mentioned the graphics already, but I'd like to elaborate a little. Since this was the first time the backgrounds were rendered as objects in real time, Square used them. Even in the opening fights, we're constantly moving through the terrain, using it, adapting to it, interacting with it while battling in real time. It's pretty nice. This is also the first time we've been able to swim around in a FF game, and go under water, fight underwater. Combining these elements resulted in a nice boss fight sequence where we swam around some objects, split the group and changed positions to put the boss in between my party members for a pincer attack.

In addition to these little elements, Square really made a strong effort to make fighting and exploring seemless. Gone are the random battle encounters that resulted in the screen freezing then breaking apart or melting or spinning out while the battle scripts loaded up. Now the fights simply blur the normal background slightly and you're in the battle sequence within a second. Also, as usual, one of the things I love most about Square, is their continued dedication to NO LOAD TIMES. Load times have always been a huge damper on any large game, no matter what system, but Square has somehow managed to be smarter and every cut scene is flowed right into and out of normal gameplay. It's a beautiful thing. Not only that but the cut scenes themselves are so fucking gorgeous now, it's getting ridiculous. Just take a look at a few of the images below and compare them even to the images from FFIX.

Other things worth mentioning are some of the battle mechanics. First off, I've not yet seen an ATB, so that's kinda weird. I wonder how haste and slow will work. Also, I see something akin to a limit break but instead of just setting it off, I have to finish a sequence of button commands as they appear on the screen in a little mini game. Kinda cool. Lastly, there is no leveling. Instead you obtain AP points to gain sphere levels which you then use up as you move about the sphere grid and gain new abilities. It's an interesting system, one that I remember liking very much, but it's a little weird having no levels. I guess I'll have to get used to the idea since that is what it seems like FFXIV is going to be like.

Let's move onto the story.

The first opening scene was a little comical for me. Not because the content is funny but because of a realization I finally had. The game starts with a ragtag group of people sitting around a campfire on a beach, all looking very sad. It was pretty much my entire party, a glimpse of the end game perhaps. The main character, Tidus walks up to Yuna and puts a hand on her shoulder, comforting her. She smiles briefly and he walks on. As the camera pans around the fire showing all the characters, I see a woman that looks almost exactly like Edea from FFVIII. Now, if you read and recall my FFVIII posts, I was very confused throughout the entire game because I remembered the character Edea so clearly but NONE of the game story or content what so ever. In fact all I remembered about FFVIII was a brief stint learning the Draw system, hating it, and not playing very far.

Now I know why. I DID NOT play FFVIII more than an hour. My memories of Edea are not of Edea but rather of Lulu, the black mage character I get in FFX, which I played almost to completion. Idiot! No WONDER I was so lost, I was starting to think I had blanked out all my memories of FFVIII. Craziness.

Continuing with the story... Tidus begins to narrate, he's telling us a story. He's going to explain how they got to where they are now. So when the game launches beyond the splash screen for FFX, Tidus, who I obviously called Rhek, keeps on narrating as I play the game. It's new and keeps you interested, and reminds you of what's going on. We begin our flash back.

Rhek lives in a city called Zanarkand, where he's a very famous Blitz Ball player (a kind of underwater soccer inside a huge ball of water). He's the son of another very famous Blitz Ball player named Jecht who went missing ten years ago, but that's all history. The arch nemesis of the game wastes no time in revealing itself. As Rhek is playing in a match, an entity appears from the ocean, collecting water and building into a sphere. A man in a red jacket watches from the top of a building as it forms, almost as if he has been expecting it or even summoned it himself.

The entity lashes out. Spikes of water and tentacles quickly rip through the city, bringing down sky scrapers and other buildings like paper.

After everyone starts to panic, Rhek runs out of the colosseum and is greeted by the man in the red jacket who identifies himself as Rhek's friend Auron. He's been waiting for Rhek. The water entity shoots out little pods all over the city which sprout into monsters. Auron tosses Rhek a sword and they start cutting their way through. Prior to this and while running on the bridge once more, time seems to freeze for a moment while a little boy in a blue hooded robe appears. He simply says, "It begins", then vanishes.

We come to the edge of the bridge and see the monstrosity formed above, Auron names it for the first time for the audience. He calls it Sin.

After a bit more running, fighting, learning the combat system, etc. we come to the end of another bridge as it begins to break apart. Sin looms above the city and begins to consume everything. Rhek falls from the bridge but is caught by Auron. It's almost like Auron was unsure as to whether he should help Rhek or not. But then he talks to himself, "If that is your wish". Then as he holds Rhek above him (not putting him down but rather like a Vader choke hold), he says, "This is it. Your story begins here." And then they both melt and blur into the mouth of the beast.

Rhek wakes up floating in some dream state world. He floats to a boy standing in a street, wonders if he's dead or dreaming, then wakes up again in the flesh. This time he's among some old ruins in the middle of the ocean. He works his way through trying to find fire to warm himself when he's attacked by some monster. A new group of characters bust in, help him out, then knock him out. Thanks.

He wakes up once more aboard a ship at sea and the group of people who call themselves Ah-Bhed are completely incomprehensible to Rhek. Everyone, that is, except a girl named Rikku. She tells Rhek that if he wants to live, he has to work. So he goes with her underwater to collect some treasure. After this mini adventure where the sphere grid is explained, Rhek gets some time to chat with Rikku. He tells her about Zanarkand and his Blitz Ball history and Sin, and she tells him that he must have hit his head or been poisoned by Sin of something because Zanarkand is a city that's been destroyed for over a thousand years...

Poor Rhek.

FInal Fantasy X, The Dream Begins

Background: Final Fantasy X was developed for the PlayStation 2 platform by Motomu Toriyama, Takayoshi Nakazato, and Toshiro Tsuchida of Square in 2001. This was the first game in the series developed for a second generation console within Sony. And it was the forth leap in technology, going from the Famicom, to the Super Famicom on cartridge, then to the Playstation on CD, and now to DVD on the Playstation 2. Goodbye four disc games? (not exactly) The game received huge success, both by critics and by sales, and was listed by some as the best game of all time. It was so successful that it was the only FF title to receive a direct sequel in FFX-2. Lastly, in addition to rendering all backgrounds in 3d for the first time, it was also the first title to utilize voice acting. Goodbye blue boxes of text.

This title was definitely a leap in the series, and set the bar pretty high once more for future RPG gaming. For myself personally, at this point in my life I had only played through FF7 completely, partially finishing FF1 and FF8. I recall being very excited to get this game for my new PS2, but for one reason or another, I couldn't afford it, or didn't want to buy it. Instead I rented it from Blockbuster, paying late fees for two weeks. And I just COULDN'T be late one more day so I returned the game about 40 hours in. I found out later on that I was basically done with the game, maybe one or two fights from the final boss. I actually remember trying to finish as much as I could before I rushed it to the local store before midnight. I put a lot of time into that game, but never finished. Now it's time to finish it.

Since FF1 never had a summoner class, and since FF7 and FF8 had summons but anyone could use them, this was my first experience with a true Summoner class in Yuna. And it is because of her that my interest in the class was sparked, she's a great character. While FFIII, FFIV, FFV, and especially FFVI had such great summoner classes, I had never seen them. My experience with Summoners until this Final Fantasy Journey has just been Yuna. While I'm a big fan of Yuna, and of Garnet and Eiko from FFIX, I must say that looking back, little Terra from FFVI is my favorite now. Perhaps replaying through FFX will remind me why I loved Yuna so much, we'll see.

Lastly, I look forward to playing this one for another reason. I have had complaints from friends about this game because supposedly you find out in the end that the entire game was a dream. I'm very much against dream games, books, movies, where nothing you ever did ever had a bearing or significance. I'd like to finish up the game on my own to get the real story. See if there was some misinterpretation going on or what the deal is. Don't get me wrong, I'm also looking forward to playing a great game with a battle/xp system that I love, but I need to know.

Getting short on days remaining so I better go get started! Until next time...

Final Fantasy IX, Sakaguchi redeems his taste!

Man, so much to cover so let's just dive right in.

The first thing I did was grind a little bit to get my full party on a more even playing field, mostly Akelray and Nazomi who'd fallen behind by 10 or so levels. With that done for the time, I proceeded to Black Mage Village to find out why the black mages joined Kuja. Once we got there, Vivi confronted one of the three remaining black mages, the leader, and he explained that Kuja told the black mages that if they followed him, he could extend their life time. Fearing inevitable death within the year of their making, they followed him and did his bidding. Feeling somewhat guilty though, the leader of the black mages tells us that Kuja's palace is in the desert to the east under the quicksand.

We stock up and head on over, and are immediately sucked into the sand. Rhek awakens in a prison cell in Kuja's underground castle. Well that sorta backfired, didn't it. Soon enough Kuja's voice enters Rhek's mind and Rhek is released to go obtain a stone for Kuja under the threat of killing the remaining four party members left behind in the palace. Why can't Kuja go get this stupid stone himself if he's so powerful? Well... because in this new land there's a magic barrier, no magic can be used. Well... that's gonna suck hard. I take my hard strikers Nazomi and Ichorid, and I take Cysra in case the barrier is lifted and I can use white magic. Anyway, I'll need someone tossing Hi-Potions out and it might as well be her. Plus she needs the AP to keep learning new summons.

We head on out in Kuja's stolen airship, the Hilda Garde which was made by Cid and stolen by his wife. How'd Kuja get it again...? Where's Cid's wife?

We head on out by way of airship but we're not in control. The two stupid clowns Zorn and Thorn are serving Kuja now, and they're in control. We land and I begin the long walk toward Oelivart in the desert. On the way I quickly regret bringing Cysra. She's still in her muted, distraught mode after the destruction of Alexandria and from time to time it will simply say, "Cysra cannot complete that command." This happens about 60% of the time, and when the command is to toss someone a Hi-Potion to keep them alive... well it sucks.

I took my strikers and gimpy WHM into the very weird castle. Almost all the enemies are the same, a mummy looking closet that opens a door, releasing a new mob. The new mob is one of my eight party members. If the mob happens to be one of the people currently in my party, they die immediately. Ouch. It was tough but I worked through it. Along the way we were told a story of sorts through an old high tech projection system. Orbs would light up and tell a few facts as we came upon them. Basically I learned that there used to exist an old civilization which eventually peaked then started to die out through no fault of their own. During the crisis, they tried to build a ship to escape their world on. We see many prototypes eventually leading to the master design of the Invincible, Garland's ship. We finally come to the Gulug Stone, snag it, fight a boss and head back to Kuja's palace.

In the mean time, Cid breaks the other four party members out through a series of puzzles on a timer. Always hated any kind of timer in an RPG, sorta defeats the purpose of being able to sit back and solve things, I don't want to think fast, I want to think slowly. =P

With the rest of the party out, Rhek is not too keen on just handing over the stone when he returns, so Kuja just takes it by force, then steals Akelray and flees on his airship. We have no choice but to follow by boat, the one Cid gave us. We chase him all the way across the world to a place called Esto Gaza at the base of Mount Gulug. Trailing Kuja, we overhear him telling the clowns that he must stop Terra before he loses his soul. In the mean time, Kuja is having the girl drained of her Eidolons just like he did to Cysra before, but she's not sixteen so it's killing her. Before my party can interfere though, her moogle that's been her companion since birth comes out and takes his true form, an eidolon. He sacrifices himself to become the summon under her control and she schools the two little clowns and receives her final summon, Medeen.

The party comes down and rejoins Akelray against Kuja. Kuja ignores them and turns to leave instead. We try to follow but are stopped by a barrier, and behind us the clowns resurrect into their true form, a combined demon. We take care of him too, but can't follow Kuja in his airship. We're left behind with no course of action, but while trying to figure out what to do, we hear a woman's voice in a cell. It's Hilda. Cid makes amends and she turns him back into a human. Now he can concentrate, so we head on back to Lindblum to build another airship so we can go after Kuja. Hilda also tells us that while she was in captivity, Kuja laid out his whole plan to her.

Apparently Kuja is from another planet called Terra and there's a link to that planet in ours at a place called Shimmering Island. However, there exists a barrier currently so we can't use the gateway. We have to go to a place called Ipsen's Castle to unlock the secret to the gateway. Back to the forgotten continent we must go. But first we have to wait for Cid to complete the new airship, the Hilda Garde 3. In the mean time, Cysra is missing and Rhek goes to find her in Alexandria at her mother's grave site. She can finally talk again, thank fucking god. And while there we find the Bahamut summon stone for Cysra. Sweet.

We head on back and find that Cid has completed the Hilda Garde 3. FINALLY I have an airship and free range of the entire world. Woohoo!

But before I set out to find my way to this other world, I wanted to finish things here. First and foremost was to obtain all summons. I headed to Treno and got the Dark Matter to summon Odin off of the auction house. This left only one more summon in the game, Ark. Now. In order to get Ark I had to defeat Hades in the final dungeon and use his synth shop afterward to produce the Pumice Stone. The materials required are two Pumice Pieces. One I had already gotten from defeating a boss. The other I would have to get one of two ways. The first involved leveling up to around 70+ (my characters were about level 40) and defeating the hardest boss in the game. The second way was to get it from a hidden treasure chest which could only be obtained with a golden chocobo. I knew both ways would be huge time sinks but I decided to go the chocobo way. What followed was more hours than I care to admit of digging and upgrading my chocobo. EVENTUALLY I got him though and received the second Pumice Piece. Going the golden chocobo route also opened up many other treasures though and I was able to get Rhek and Slayn's end game weapons, as well as some really nice mage gear.

I was finally ready for Ipsen's castle which proved to be very interesting. The entire place wasn't too big or lengthy but it was all upside down, which made navigating it a bit confusing at times. What this also meant was that all my awesome end game weapons did zero damage. I switched to my level 1 dagger in the upside down world and started hitting mobs for 2k+ damage. Eventually we came to the heart of the castle and I retrieved four mirrors: earth, wind, fire and water. Garland, four elements, crystals... This all sounds so familiar.

I took the four mirrors and found four clues on them. Places all over the world where the elemental shrines and seals could be broken. I broke my party into four groups, and two of us headed to each shrine to break the seals simultaneously. After our task was complete, we headed toward the Shimmering Island and entered the worm hole, ship and all, in a sweet cut.

We all fly off in zero gravity and begin our decent into a worm hole through space and time, the ship is lost.

We landed on Terra, all separated, and Rhek is met by a man in black garb who we know to be Garland. Rhek doesn't know him but Garland obviously knows Rhek. Garland pressures Rhek to question who he is, what his purpose is. Rhek doesn't understand but after Garland leaves he realizes that he knows this place. That light blue light that he remembers from home is here. We meet up with a girl who looks EXACTLY like Rhek, she welcome's him 'home'. Rhek is thoroughly confused and follows her for a bit before meeting with Cysra. We come to the edge of a cliff and below we see a huge city, above we see the Invincible.

Cysra passes out and Rhek takes her to the local town to rest. Here, EVERYONE looks like Rhek, he questions a few people about why they look like him and they tell him, "We were built this way." Oh. Shit. So here we've been going through the entire game with Rhek feeling bad for Vivi because he feels like he doesn't have a soul, that his existence doesn't mean anything because he was created, he's a doll, a vessel. And now we find out that Rhek is the same. Wow.

It's hard for Rhek to hear this but he persists and continues to get information from this girl. We find out that everyone in the town are mere vessels, empty beings without souls, genomes as they are called. The people of Terra could no longer live on the dying planet, so they were put to sleep. They've been sleeping for a very long time. Garland was chosen as overseer to find a solution. He created the genomes to house the souls of the people of his world temporarily, perhaps permanently. But then something happened, a special genome emerged, one that was unique. The girl also explains that it is Garlands plan to merge the two planets of Gaia and Terra. He plans to use Gaia as the home of his people and to infuse the people of Gaia with the souls of the people of Terra. Everyone on Gaia will basically switch to living on Terra, the dead planet. Garland is ready to see Rhek.

While Rhek goes to Garland, he is beginning to realize that he is a member of the Terran race, and that his race is set on detroying the people of Gaia. That his people are responsible for the deaths of countless thousands, that he could have easily been part of that plan. In the mean time, Cysra awakens to tell the party that she now recalls that it was the Invincible that destroyed Maidin Sair ten years ago when she was a girl. Now she realizes that the Invincible was there when Cleyra was destroyed and when Alexandria was destroyed also. Kuja has been at the center of everything.

Rhek arrives at Garland's castle and Garland further explains things to Rhek. Long ago, that genome that was different, unique, was Kuja. Kuja aspired to be more, he had his own motives and desires, and he was powerful, wicked powerful. Garland changed his plans. He sent Kuja to Gaia to wreak as much havoc and death as possible. He also planted the Iifa tree and the Iifa tree would stop souls from being reborn on Gaia. The Mist is actually wandering souls that are stuck in limbo. Even though we destroyed the Iifa tree, it was only it's physical form that perished, it's still doing it's thing. We also learn that twelve years ago, another genome was made that was unique, and even more powerful than Kuja. Kuja saw this potential in the new genome and took him and dropped him off in Gaia before it became conscious. That genome was Rhek. Garland always planned his genomes with an expiration date, and one as vicious and unpredictable as Kuja could only serve it's purpose so long before it would turn on it's master. Garland designed Rhek to supplant Kuja when Rhek became more powerful. That time has finally come.

But Rhek won't have any of that. He was raised on Gaia, he has friends, he can't join Garland. Rather he wants to kill Garland. Seeing that he's not going to change, Garland instead attempts to remove Rhek's soul from the genome body. Rhek passes out.

When he finally starts to gain consciousness, it is only by the strength of his friendships and experiences that he is able to barely hold onto himself, barely keep Rhek. Eventually he solidifies his grasp on reality and stumbles out of a throne room. He passes Akelray and Vivi who ask if he needs help, he calls them brats and locks them away. He passes Nazomi and Ichorid, blows them off. He comes upon Slayn and Qu and helps them defeat a monster then continues on. He doesn't want help from anyone. He wants to be left alone, killing Garland is something he needs to do by himself. But when he is attacked by another monster and almost dies, it is Cysra who comes to save him. She tells him he's being stupid and that he needs help from his friends. After some drama he agrees and the party is back together. It's time to kick some Terra ass.

We turn right back around and head into Garland's keep. We fight our way in and eventually face off with Kuja's Silver Drake. After we kill that, we fight Garland himself. He's not so bad and goes down after a bit of a fight. Once Garland is down though, Kuja teleports in and tells Garland it's his time to reign and he kicks Garland off the cliff to die below. Then he turns to take care of my party. We deal with him swiftly, kicking his ass until, that is, he goes into his own Trance state. This was his plan all along apparently and now he's some ultra super powerful being with limitless power. He casts Ultima once and brings my party to it's knees. There's no one left in the world who can stand against him, and this is exactly the moment that Garland begins to speak to Kuja telepathically from beyond the grave. He's laughing at Kuja. He tells Kuja that all his work is for naught, because Kuja is a doll, and Kuja was made by Garland to die eventually. And that expiration date is soon, very soon. No amount of power can stop it, Kuja will be dead very soon.

This of course upsets Kuja greatly and he finally decides that if he can not live, then no one can. He begins casting a very destructive spell that starts to burn and break apart the entire planet.

We jump on the Invincible, grab the genomes from the village and get the hell out of there before the entire place goes up.

Finally we get to the wormhole and travel through to Gaia just as the planet dies. But it's a somber party that arrives back in Gaia. We know that Kuja will not be satisfied with just destroying Terra, he will come for Gaia. And it's not minutes after we arrive that the entire planet becomes covered in Mist. He's gathering the power of souls at the Iifa tree to cast his final spell. We head to Black Mage village to drop off the genomes and stock up one final time before facing off with Kuja.

I chose my final four to participate in the final showdown: Rhek, Slayn, Vivi and Akelray. Rhek just HAS to be there of course. Concerning Cysra, I could only bring one of the white mage and summoner hybrids and Akelray was always more on the white mage side, having only four summons, one being simply an all reflect spell in Carbuncle. I needed to have things like Full-Life, Curaga, and Dispel for my final fight. I felt bad but I just couldn't bring her. Concerning my choice of heavy hitters, well, Slayn is the only character that I've consistently seen hit for 9,999 damage without crit'ing. And that's because he utilizes the Magic Sword combo off of Vivi. Vivi himself is pretty decent damage but Slayn was the one I was really after and I needed Vivi to make him work. I took my party and did a bit of grinding and AP learning. I got everyone Auto-Regen and Auto-Haste. Those two abilities alone on my party of four could probably survive anything short of a straight party-wide death spell. I mean Auto-Regen is broken. If I simply cast a long cinematic summon or magic spell, a party member can regen from 1 health to over 3k health while the boss sits there and watches the cut scene like me. And perma-haste... well there's nothing wrong with that.

Anyways, I was satisfied once my lowest member, Akelray, hit about level 45. I took the Invincible to the glowing orb above the Iifa tree. But they didn't make it easy, I was immediately greeted by a MASSIVE swarm of silver drakes who attacked the Invincible. But I had backup out of no where.

Cid and about 20 other airships all broke from the clouds and murdered the drake army. Or rather put a big enough dent in their number that I could penetrate the massive orb with my ship.

We arrive at the final dungeon... Memoria. Now this is an interesting place. It is made up of the memories of all my party members. Pretty trippy castle. As I worked my way through the castle, I was greeted by many bosses, but the final four seemed all too familiar. I faced off with Mirasi who was fire chaos, but then I faced off with Tiamat (wind chaos), Kraken (water chaos) and Lich (earth chaos). I don't remember the name of the original fire fiend from FFI, but the other three are old buddies of mine. After I beat them I also got to face off with the optional boss, Hades. Once he was defeated he synthesized my Pumice Stone for me. FINALLY the last summon. I saved, tossed Cysra in my party and killed something with it just to see what all my effort was for. What I got was an airship, who transformed into a power ranger robot, who cast some godly array of light beams, which almost punched a hole in the earth, it hit so hard. With the planet quivering from the massive damage, the mob merely shook off the weak 2k and continued on, laughing. Grrr, the first weak summoner in FF history! That should be a guaranteed 9,999 damage! The problem with this game is that the summon power is based on how many copies of the stone you have in your inventory. So unless I go out and farm 256 stones, they won't be at their full potential. Weak.

Anyway, I swapped Cysra back out and approached the last boss fight. That summon should have been way strong seeing as how I had it for all of two minutes in the game. I forgot to mention that the whole time I was in this final dungeon though, Garland has been talking to Rhek in his head, guiding him. His final words to Rhek are, "Take care of Kuja and protect the Crystal." As we've been going through the castle, Garland explained that this process has taken place before. That Terra used to be the blue planet full of life and it was assimilated by Gaia five thousand years ago. Gaia became the blue planet full of life and everyone on Terra died. Now the cycle has come full circle. He also explains why Rhek has the memories of other people while in the castle. That all existence is one memory, from father to son over generations. Everything originates from one source, the beginning of everything, the Crystal. Kuja intends to destroy the crystal and snuff out existence itself.

We finally reach Kuja, first in the form of Deathguise, then in the form of Trance Kuja. He threw some nasty things at my party and had me reeling once or twice but I was able to handle him alright with my infinite regen and haste up. But once more, as we defeated him and he perished, he cast Ultima, this time really putting my party down for the count. After Kuja dies though, a new entity emerges called Necron. This is like the Nothing from The Never Ending Story. He simply consumes existence. Kuja opened the gate for him. Rhek tries to fight on but is too weak. Then at this point, the four party members I wasn't using sacrifice their strength to raise up the other four, reminiscent of FFIV.

We rise once more and show this Necron bastard that we're not ready to stop existing. Necron had some very nice evil things up his sleeve including something akin to bad breath, but I was prepared for it. I stacked the shit out of my abilities to negate as many status effects as possible. And the berserk on Slayn and Rhek only hurt him in the end. Rhek started going off for 9,999 a hit and the boss with 50k health went down pretty fast.

After the boss went down, the party is mysteriously teleported back to the edge of the Iifa tree and Cid comes to pick them up as the tree itself seems to be collapsing and lashing out in it's death throws. The party begins to leave when Rhek stops. He has to go back for his brother Kuja... After much argument, they let him go. Cysra makes him promise to come back to her.

Rhek does a nice acrobatic sequence avoiding all sorts of vines and monster activity on his way to the heart of the Iifa tree and eventually he comes to Kuja who's dying inside. He sits with Kuja and they talk for a bit, Rhek forgiving him and telling him his existence did mean something, after all it was Kuja who teleported them out after Necron went down and the place was blowing up. Rhek stays with Kuja until the bitter end when the tree completely collapses in on itself. Goodbye Rhek...?

The text reads "Years Later" at the bottom of the screen and we go through each character, wrapping up stories, showing where they've gone from the final battle. Alexandria has been rebuilt in large part and Cysra, the queen, is having everyone back to her castle for a reunion of sorts as Baku's band of pirates once more puts on a play for the royal palace. Cysra is still upset, because I guess Rhek never made it out of the Iifa tree afterall. But as the play starts the main hero is all garbed up. You know who it is.

As the play goes on, eventually Rhek unveils himself and declares his love for Cysra. She goes running down to embrace him in the final scene. Aww.

So this is Sakaguchi's favorite huh? I was skeptical because his prior favorite was five which I didn't like at all. But this one completely redeems him. This game was.. GREAT. For myself, it is a close second to FFVII. I know many people would faint to hear such blasphemy, but this was really really good. Just fucking enjoyable to play, a great experience, so much fun. I loved it. Well done Square, you keep pumping out great games, I'll keep playing them. Thanks.

End game stats, clocking in at about 44 and a half hours.