Summary: Sinspawn Geneaux. Dona and Barthello. Tidus goes through the Cloister of Trials. I get disproportionately frustrated.
Kilika – Pilgrimage Road
-Wakka says that this place has history. Lord Ohalland trained here. Tradition seems to be to race up the stairs.
-heee!!!! Everyone took off early, leaving Tidus in the dust. I talked to Kimahri, and Kimahri just shook his head disapprovingly. <3
-…that turned fast. Sinspawn are up the stairs and I’m launched into a boss fight against something protected by a metal shell and two tentacular beasts.
Sinspawn Geneaux.
-So there’s Geneaux and Geneaux’s two tentacles. Normally, I’m inclined to take out the tentacles first, but going to try using Valefor’s fire damage to knock down Geneaux itself… nah. Screw it. Tentacles.
-Knocked out one tentacle and brought Geneaux out of its shell before Valefor bit the dust.
-Victory! And even managed to bring each party member in for the AP.
-Tidus is exhausted, and seems to enjoy the praise he gets from Wakka for how he handled himself.
-Hee! I love that Tidus is basically the Donna Moss of this game. Though not nearly as capable and smart as Donnatella, he still serves the function of being the audience surrogate often, asking “so what are Sinspawn anyway?” to a group of people that are already intimately familiar with the answer.
-Sinspawn are “fiends.” Wait… does this mean that they are living souls that Sin picked up after they didn’t get sent,or are they living parts of Sin that died and came back as fiends? Both options are super creepy.
-Yikes. If not dealt with quickly, Sin returns to pick up stray Sinspawn.
-From his future storytelling perspective, Tidus notes that this moment is when he started considering becoming a guardian. I wonder if that means he actually becomes one by the end.
-In the middle of the floor, I see the symbol from the tutorial menu. I thought it was an outline of Sin initially, but I’m not so sure. That wouldn’t make sense if Sin is their enemy.
Maybe it’s Yevon or something.
-There are two statues here in this area where we fought Geneaux. They look like giant rats. Not the lean and humanoid Burmecians from FFIX; the kind of giant, nasty stuff I’d see in the NYC subways.
-Wakka’s starting to believe Tidus about Zanarkand. Lulu thinks he’s just looking for an explanation about Sin’s workings that doesn’t leave Chappu dead.
-Holy shit, Lulu. You are brutal. Forthright, cynical, and brutal.
-So much of this story about Lulu, Wakka, and Chappu that I’m missing now.
---
Kilika Temple
-Religious-sounding music starts as we reach the temple proper.
-The Crusaders are going to fight Sin without a summoner’s aid. Perhaps that is their sin.
-Looks like we got our sports movie villains. A team strides out of the temple with music that sounds like it should go with the Cobra Kai doing leg sweeps.
“Who needs to pray? The Luca Goers always win!”
-lol this confrontation is so ridiculous
-Going in. Some sphere puzzles await me.
-A lot of trial and error – testing different configurations of spheres to get around the walls of fire. It’s pretty fun!
-Found a Sphere of Destruction. Now to figure out how to use it, where to put it. There are a number of options. Tried putting it in a few different places, including the prior room. I wonder if I use it in this next room for something.
-AH SHIT I LOST IT AGAIN WHEN I WENT INTO THE NEXT ROOM AND CAN’T BACKTRACK
Me trying fruitlessly to get back to the previous room.
STOP. FUCKING. DOING. THAT. FFX. I WASN’T DONE SOLVING THIS PUZZLE. I WAS STILL TESTING STUFF AND ASSUMED I COULD SEE IF THE ANSWER WAS TO USE THE DESTRUCTION SPHERE IN THE NEXT ROOM. I was able to walk between the prior rooms without getting locked out. Seemed reasonable that moving to the next room wouldn’t suddenly end my time here.
GOD I HATE THIS. What a ridiculously frustrating design choice. I like exploring, and this is the second time in my first ten sessions when I’ve gotten punished hard for that tendency.
-Whatever. Again. Grrrrrr.
-Well. Whatever. (Again.) I’m here in the antechamber with Wakka, Kimahri, and Lulu, and they’re pissed. Tidus’ protestations don’t matter because Yuna can be excommunicated.
Lulu’s facepalm says it all.
-The fayth were those who fought Sin and gave their souls while still alive to Yevon. They’re trapped in statues. A summoner can draw their energy out, and that’s where aeons come from.
-Yuna emerges, exhausted.
-Tidus knows the music, the singing. From his childhood. This is connected.
-Yuna now has Ifrit. We leave.
-WHEW! This time, I can go back into the cloister to finish the puzzle.
FUCK NO I WAS TEASED, I CAN GO DOWN THE ELEVATOR BUT NOT INSIDE. God, this has got me so angry and salty and pissed. I feel like there’s probably some game-long puzzle this is going to stop me from solving, and I hate hate hate it. Yet again I’m tempted to restart to finish off that destruction puzzle, which I feel I’m one or two steps away from completing. I’ll resist temptation.
[Later edit: I’m writing this about an hour later. This bothered me much more than I should have let it. I still think it’s bad design, and it felt bad. It’s okay. This is a first playthrough. I won’t get everything. Whatever I miss, I’ll learn about afterwards. It’s fine.
(“Steven Universe” spoilers: Whfg fnj "Zvaqshy Rqhpngvba;" vg'f rnfl sbe zr gb trg pneevrq njnl va fvghngvbaf yvxr gurfr, gb fgnl fnygl bire yvggyr guvatf. Gelvat gb hfr fbzr bs jung V fnj va guvf rcvfbqr gb qrny orggre jvgu gurfr zbzragf.]
-Saving.
---
Next time: finding out whether she was excommunicated. Hopefully not.
Last post of this week. Enjoy your weekend y’all!
Kilika – Pilgrimage Road
-Wakka says that this place has history. Lord Ohalland trained here. Tradition seems to be to race up the stairs.
-heee!!!! Everyone took off early, leaving Tidus in the dust. I talked to Kimahri, and Kimahri just shook his head disapprovingly. <3
-…that turned fast. Sinspawn are up the stairs and I’m launched into a boss fight against something protected by a metal shell and two tentacular beasts.
Sinspawn Geneaux.
-So there’s Geneaux and Geneaux’s two tentacles. Normally, I’m inclined to take out the tentacles first, but going to try using Valefor’s fire damage to knock down Geneaux itself… nah. Screw it. Tentacles.
-Knocked out one tentacle and brought Geneaux out of its shell before Valefor bit the dust.
-Victory! And even managed to bring each party member in for the AP.
-Tidus is exhausted, and seems to enjoy the praise he gets from Wakka for how he handled himself.
-Hee! I love that Tidus is basically the Donna Moss of this game. Though not nearly as capable and smart as Donnatella, he still serves the function of being the audience surrogate often, asking “so what are Sinspawn anyway?” to a group of people that are already intimately familiar with the answer.
-Sinspawn are “fiends.” Wait… does this mean that they are living souls that Sin picked up after they didn’t get sent,or are they living parts of Sin that died and came back as fiends? Both options are super creepy.
-Yikes. If not dealt with quickly, Sin returns to pick up stray Sinspawn.
-From his future storytelling perspective, Tidus notes that this moment is when he started considering becoming a guardian. I wonder if that means he actually becomes one by the end.
-In the middle of the floor, I see the symbol from the tutorial menu. I thought it was an outline of Sin initially, but I’m not so sure. That wouldn’t make sense if Sin is their enemy.
Maybe it’s Yevon or something.
-There are two statues here in this area where we fought Geneaux. They look like giant rats. Not the lean and humanoid Burmecians from FFIX; the kind of giant, nasty stuff I’d see in the NYC subways.
-Wakka’s starting to believe Tidus about Zanarkand. Lulu thinks he’s just looking for an explanation about Sin’s workings that doesn’t leave Chappu dead.
-Holy shit, Lulu. You are brutal. Forthright, cynical, and brutal.
-So much of this story about Lulu, Wakka, and Chappu that I’m missing now.
---
Kilika Temple
-Religious-sounding music starts as we reach the temple proper.
-The Crusaders are going to fight Sin without a summoner’s aid. Perhaps that is their sin.
-Looks like we got our sports movie villains. A team strides out of the temple with music that sounds like it should go with the Cobra Kai doing leg sweeps.
“Who needs to pray? The Luca Goers always win!”
-lol this confrontation is so ridiculous
-Whoa.
Tidus seeing these cartoonish assholes makes him think of the far less
cartoonish Jecht. I wonder what’s going on with the difference between
the kind and gentle Jecht that Yuna knows and Tidus’ Jecht. Best
guess: something about Jecht being sent to this post-apocalyptic world
changed him.
-Bickson was one of the Goers.
-Some kids are running around in the monks’ chambers.
-Kilika Temple is the temple of fire. Its Cloister of Trials has a fiery theme too it sounds like.
-The temple is similar to Besaid’s, with more fire.
-Wakka prays. I have Tidus join him.
-A woman who initially sounds somewhat villainous, Dona, emerges to talk to Yuna. I don’t know exactly why she sounds villainous – just something in her tone seems disbelieving or condescending. [Later edit: she also sounds more than a little bit like Azula from ATLA.]
-Okay, yeah, Dona’s definitely an asshole.
-GO YUNA!! Dona was mocking Yuna for having so many guardians (“quantity over quality”), but Yuna retorts that these are people she trusts, and how great it is to trust so many.
---
Cloister of Trials
-The Fayth (?) waits below.
-lol, the “we” doesn’t include Tidus. He’s not a guardian yet, so Kimahri unceremoniously shoves him off the elevator.
-uhhh… what do I do? I can’t leave this place.
-Crap. I’m supposed to go down into the Cloister unauthorized, aren’t I. DUDE. WHAT HAPPENED TO LEARNING YOUR LESSON??
-Whew! He may actually have learned it. Dona and her guardian, Barthello, enter the Cloister and Tidus says he wasn’t going to go down because he’s not yet a guardian.
-This seems to intrigue Dona. She’s totally gonna try to use him, isn’t she?
-WTF BARTHELLO – he hoists Tidus onto his shoulders and puts him onto the elevator.
This is probably gonna activate the fiery stuff inside the Cloister. Totally not fair! It shouldn’t count. That’s like someone on a religious fast being force-fed. They shouldn’t be punished.
-I do like how self-aware the game seems to be. Tidus knows this is not good. He even waits at the bottom of the elevator hoping it’ll go back up and get him out of this mess. No luck.
-I get two options at the door ahead: “Go inside” or “Wait here.” I’m gonna try something. Gonna try waiting. The FF series has used waiting a few times in the past. I had to wait in FFIV when Cecil became a paladin and not take any action. I had to wait in FFV (I think it was V? Maybe VI, can’t remember. Yeah, probably VI) when fighting Gogo the Mimic.
-Gonna just sit here for about five minutes outside the door. If nothing happens by then, I’ll go in.
-*sigh* No luck. Time to go in I guess. Ugh, I swear, I did everything I reasonably could to avoid this, and still Lulu’s gonna chew me out when she sees me…
-Bickson was one of the Goers.
-Some kids are running around in the monks’ chambers.
-Kilika Temple is the temple of fire. Its Cloister of Trials has a fiery theme too it sounds like.
-The temple is similar to Besaid’s, with more fire.
-Wakka prays. I have Tidus join him.
-A woman who initially sounds somewhat villainous, Dona, emerges to talk to Yuna. I don’t know exactly why she sounds villainous – just something in her tone seems disbelieving or condescending. [Later edit: she also sounds more than a little bit like Azula from ATLA.]
-Okay, yeah, Dona’s definitely an asshole.
-GO YUNA!! Dona was mocking Yuna for having so many guardians (“quantity over quality”), but Yuna retorts that these are people she trusts, and how great it is to trust so many.
---
Cloister of Trials
-The Fayth (?) waits below.
-lol, the “we” doesn’t include Tidus. He’s not a guardian yet, so Kimahri unceremoniously shoves him off the elevator.
-uhhh… what do I do? I can’t leave this place.
-Crap. I’m supposed to go down into the Cloister unauthorized, aren’t I. DUDE. WHAT HAPPENED TO LEARNING YOUR LESSON??
-Whew! He may actually have learned it. Dona and her guardian, Barthello, enter the Cloister and Tidus says he wasn’t going to go down because he’s not yet a guardian.
-This seems to intrigue Dona. She’s totally gonna try to use him, isn’t she?
-WTF BARTHELLO – he hoists Tidus onto his shoulders and puts him onto the elevator.
This is probably gonna activate the fiery stuff inside the Cloister. Totally not fair! It shouldn’t count. That’s like someone on a religious fast being force-fed. They shouldn’t be punished.
-I do like how self-aware the game seems to be. Tidus knows this is not good. He even waits at the bottom of the elevator hoping it’ll go back up and get him out of this mess. No luck.
-I get two options at the door ahead: “Go inside” or “Wait here.” I’m gonna try something. Gonna try waiting. The FF series has used waiting a few times in the past. I had to wait in FFIV when Cecil became a paladin and not take any action. I had to wait in FFV (I think it was V? Maybe VI, can’t remember. Yeah, probably VI) when fighting Gogo the Mimic.
-Gonna just sit here for about five minutes outside the door. If nothing happens by then, I’ll go in.
-*sigh* No luck. Time to go in I guess. Ugh, I swear, I did everything I reasonably could to avoid this, and still Lulu’s gonna chew me out when she sees me…
-Going in. Some sphere puzzles await me.
-A lot of trial and error – testing different configurations of spheres to get around the walls of fire. It’s pretty fun!
-Found a Sphere of Destruction. Now to figure out how to use it, where to put it. There are a number of options. Tried putting it in a few different places, including the prior room. I wonder if I use it in this next room for something.
-AH SHIT I LOST IT AGAIN WHEN I WENT INTO THE NEXT ROOM AND CAN’T BACKTRACK
Me trying fruitlessly to get back to the previous room.
STOP. FUCKING. DOING. THAT. FFX. I WASN’T DONE SOLVING THIS PUZZLE. I WAS STILL TESTING STUFF AND ASSUMED I COULD SEE IF THE ANSWER WAS TO USE THE DESTRUCTION SPHERE IN THE NEXT ROOM. I was able to walk between the prior rooms without getting locked out. Seemed reasonable that moving to the next room wouldn’t suddenly end my time here.
GOD I HATE THIS. What a ridiculously frustrating design choice. I like exploring, and this is the second time in my first ten sessions when I’ve gotten punished hard for that tendency.
-Whatever. Again. Grrrrrr.
-Well. Whatever. (Again.) I’m here in the antechamber with Wakka, Kimahri, and Lulu, and they’re pissed. Tidus’ protestations don’t matter because Yuna can be excommunicated.
Lulu’s facepalm says it all.
-The fayth were those who fought Sin and gave their souls while still alive to Yevon. They’re trapped in statues. A summoner can draw their energy out, and that’s where aeons come from.
-Yuna emerges, exhausted.
-Tidus knows the music, the singing. From his childhood. This is connected.
-Yuna now has Ifrit. We leave.
-WHEW! This time, I can go back into the cloister to finish the puzzle.
FUCK NO I WAS TEASED, I CAN GO DOWN THE ELEVATOR BUT NOT INSIDE. God, this has got me so angry and salty and pissed. I feel like there’s probably some game-long puzzle this is going to stop me from solving, and I hate hate hate it. Yet again I’m tempted to restart to finish off that destruction puzzle, which I feel I’m one or two steps away from completing. I’ll resist temptation.
[Later edit: I’m writing this about an hour later. This bothered me much more than I should have let it. I still think it’s bad design, and it felt bad. It’s okay. This is a first playthrough. I won’t get everything. Whatever I miss, I’ll learn about afterwards. It’s fine.
(“Steven Universe” spoilers: Whfg fnj "Zvaqshy Rqhpngvba;" vg'f rnfl sbe zr gb trg pneevrq njnl va fvghngvbaf yvxr gurfr, gb fgnl fnygl bire yvggyr guvatf. Gelvat gb hfr fbzr bs jung V fnj va guvf rcvfbqr gb qrny orggre jvgu gurfr zbzragf.]
-Saving.
---
Next time: finding out whether she was excommunicated. Hopefully not.
Last post of this week. Enjoy your weekend y’all!
