Luca
-What a metropolis this place is! A bustling seaside city with a big blitzball arena.
-An announcer is commentating. “This event is sponsored by Yevon.” Huh? That’s… strange. Like saying, “This year’s World Cup is sponsored by Jesus!” (I had gotten the sense that Yevon was an old and iconic religious figure.)
-Heard an announcer’s voice say that this year we’re celebrating someone’s 50th year in office, but couldn’t quite make out whose 50th year. Maybe he said it was sponsored by the Order of Yevon, and it is the religious order’s head’s 50th year. Hm.
-omg the announcers are Bobba and Jimma XD XD XD That’s gotta be a translation thing. Just FFX-ifying Bob and Jim. Or was the sound similar in Japanese?
I want to visit this sports bar.
-hahahahah announcing the Aurochs: “They’re a living, breathing statistical impossibility! I’ve never seen a team this bad!” I’ve gotta remember that phrase. As a Knicks fan, it’s bound to be useful in the near future.
-Only a few Auroch fans here today. Die hards. Y’all, you don’t know it yet, but you’re the lucky ones. You’ve got a video game protagonist on your team now, so you’re going places! When everyone is wearing their new Aurochs caps in a year, you’ll be able to say you were fans before it was cool.
-The Luca Goers are announced as the real powerhouse. Home field advantage too, with the crowd behind them. Maybe if the Aurochs win (or even if the Aurochs just play competitively), we’ll get a moment like the end of Rocky IV where the crowd turns.
-This clearly bothers Tidus, but Wakka’s okay with it.
-omg. Dude. Tidus. Don’t. no.
-I want to flee the room in embarrassment. This hurts to watch. Tidus gets a megaphone and yells laughingly that the Aurochs are taking the cup this year.
Like, even if the Aurochs do okay this year, they haven’t won in forever. You sound like a whiny bad sport. Don’t do this. Gives this shrill laugh into the megaphone. I’ll bet Tidus would get along really well with Sokka from Avatar.
-hee! Wakka’s face-palm gives me life here. (FFX really brought its top facepalm game, with Wakka and Lulu.)
-You know what though? Credit where credit’s due. It gives the Aurochs a bit of a confidence boost. It’s not something I would’ve done, but maybe in this circumstance it helps more than it hurts.
-Maester Mika is here. The leader of Spira. AH! He’s the guy whose 50 years in office. Came from Bevelle, which must be the Spiran seat of government.
-Tidus makes a snarky remark about Mika being old, and Wakka shuts that down. Yuna’s excited. This is a really effective (and somewhat subtle) piece of world-building. Shows that Mika is beloved and respected, even by someone living far from the center of things like the folks from Besaid.
-We wander over to the massive ship pulling in. Maester Mika’s ship. Its sails have that symbol from the tutorial screen and the temple floor on it.
So this makes me wonder what the political makeup of Spira is really like. Could be a theocracy, with Maester Mika as the YevonPope. Or maybe it’s like a constitutional monarchy with Mika as more of a figurehead while everyday power is devolved.
I keep thinking about the symbol too. It could be like the United Kingdom’s flag, a combination of its composite states’ symbols.
-OMG OMG LOOK AT THE MUSICIANS ANNOUNCING MIKA!! FFIX-STYLE ANIMAL PEOPLE!
-The crowd looks on in amazement as a number of different people come out. “A Guado!” “Maester Seymour!”
-Maester Seymour initially strikes me as villainish, a sort of visual combo of Sephiroth, Ultimecia, and Kuja. He then turns and kneels to the ship. Mika must be on his way.
-Here’s Mika. I like his voice acting.
-He introduces Maester Seymour, whose father died a few weeks ago.
Again, the design of Seymour has me immediately suspecting that Seymour is Big Bad material who could have killed his father and been making a power play. My experience with Kuja-Brahne and Kefka-Gestahl tells me that Mika may be in danger.
Note: I know I have ZERO to base this on aside from the dude’s eyebrows and hair and face and similarities to past FF Big Bads, so I’m taking this first impression with a shakerful of salt.
-Seymour’s voice is pretty good too. Syrupy. His dad wanted to bring peace between human and Guado, something he vows to continue. So Guado must be a separate species.
-Okay, I swear it’s not just me. He’s DEFINITELY being framed in a villainous way. He locks eyes briefly with Yuna. He VILLANOUSLY locks eyes with her. Yuna seems disturbed, and only Tidus notices.
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Locker Room
-Pre-match. Wakka is getting the draws. Hoping we don’t draw the Goers.
-Heh, one of the Aurochs sounds super Canadian.
-Wakka comes in. “We’re playin’ the Al Bhed Psyches first. If we win, we’re in the finals!”
Wtf kind of tournament puts a crappy team in the finals for winning one game? [Later edit: it occurred to me later that might just not be that many teams. No idea of the scope of this world, or how many different blitzball organizations there are, and a whole bunch of other stuff]
-Ooh, Al Bhed! Maybe we’ll see Rikku in the stands.
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Blitzball Tutorial
-Holy mother of God. There’s an utterly overwhelming list of Blitzball tutorials.
-Ok. Chill, Coldrun. You won’t win the tournament or get top points or whatever. This is too extensive. Just take it one thing at a time, and do your best.
-Five players in the “sphere pool.” (No wonder Tidus is so great at holding his breath.)
-Seems a bit like water polo. Underwater polo.
-Goals on the mini-map are right to left. We’re trying to score on the left side.
-The camera keeps shifting as I move, but I can always just look at the minimap rather than needing to adjust directionally based on the camera.
-The game recommends manual control only for veteran blitzers, so I’ll stick with auto.
-When on defense, the entire team moves on Auto.
-BLESS. The game pauses when I open the menu to select an action command, pass/shoot/dribble. Less rushed.
-Stats determine the likelihood of different actions. On what scale? 1-10? Looks like it.
-Actually, seems more like gauges/meters than stats. A shot that reaches the goal with SH at least 1 will score.
-I don’t quite get the math of whether a goalie stops a shot, but I do get that a goalie having a strong CA (catch) at a given moment against a weaker SH will stop it, so short-distance shots are better. Makes sense.
-Something else I’m picking up from this look at blitzball is that all blitzball players are basically superheroes. It didn’t occur to me until seeing this tutorial that the entire blitzball game took place underwater.
They can hold their breath underwater for massive chunks of time, and perform exhausting actions while doing so. They can throw and kick balls underwater and have them travel with force similar to soccer passes. Earth’s top Olympians wouldn’t be able to even remotely play this game.
-HP is like stamina.
-Up through encounters, and this tutorial is really helpful. The game seems more intuitive than I had expected.
-Breakthroughs are an interesting mechanic to shake defending tackles.
-Techcopy seems like the blue magic of blitzball.
-There are even status ailments!! Poison, sleep, and wither.
-Poison accelerates HP loss and disables shooting techs first, then tackling, and then passing.
-Wither halves a stat.
-The techniques screen makes it seem like there are going to be multiple tournaments, multiple seasons. Not just the next two games.
-Techniques seem to get learned in a sort of talent-tree format, where you learn earlier techs that open up access to more advanced techs. Can either watch and learn from other players or purchase them with a special type of currency.
-League seasons have ten games. 3 points per win, 1 point per tie. Can forfeit mid-game.
-Tournaments are all 2-3 matches.
-Interesting! Although exhibition games don’t count, you can still copy techniques in this mode.
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Locker Room
-Yuna comes in. Someone saw “Sir Auron” in a café. AURON??? “SIR” AURON??
-We’re about to go find Auron, but Wakka warns that the game starts soon.
-Wakka is getting super nervous.
Tidus teaches him some breathing techniques to relax, and we get to see Lulu give another epic face palm as Yuna laughs.
-Yuna thinks that Auron will lead to Jecht. He was “Sir” because he was also Yuna’s dad’s guardian.
-Tidus internal monologues that it didn’t occur to him that his Auron and this Auron could be two different people. Not sure yet whether that means that he’ll be surprised when it turns out that they are two different people (perhaps twinners, to use the language of The Talisman,) or whether this confirms that they are absolutely the same person.
Probably the latter. We’ll see.
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Next time: probable reunion with Auron.
