City
-Everyone’s running away, leaving Tidus and Auron alone on a bridge. They look at a MASSIVE sphere of water. It looks like something is inside the sphere.
http://i.imgur.com/2aaswni.jpg
AURON: “We called it ‘Sin.’” I’m getting monk vibes from Auron. Hard to pin down why, but something about him just feels martially religious.
-WHAT IN THE SWEET NAME OF CTHULHU IS THAT
-A cephalopod sci fi creature rockets out from the water orb into a building, and starts to shed these biological nodes or parasites.
-The nodes land on the bridge and turn into insectoid things that swarm around Tidus. He’s hilariously ineffectual trying to ward them off.
-Auron gives Tidus an awesome looking red short-sword.
-Hee! And Tidus almost falls over. Not the warrior, this Tidus. Not yet at least.
AURON: “A gift from Jecht.” Jecht is alive! Or maybe this is a post-mortem bequest.
-Auron’s left arm appears to be broken. His right arm is not, and he definitely looks like he knows how to fight. Unlike the “fall on his butt, literally” Tidus. XD [Later edit: Auron’s left arm doesn’t actually seem to be broken. He uses it. But he holds initially in kind of a strange way, like he’s wearing a sling.]
-Battle time! AND HOLY CRAP IS THAT A SMOOTH TRANSITION! The battle screen looks like the map we were just on.
-Enemies are Sinscales.
-Auron has a “skill” list, with one thing for 8 MP: “Power Break.” His regular attacks are enough against these Sinscales, as are Tidus’s regular attacks.
-I’m a bit confused about the system since I don’t see any ATB gauges. Also can’t pause the combat, which makes me think there’s some new system in play.
-Moved up to the boss, Sin.
-Limit breaks here are “Overdrive.” A character who reaches overdrive can use a special attack once, so much more similar to FFVII and FFVIII limit breaks than to FFIX trance.
-This enemy isn’t actually Sin. It’s “Sinspawn Ammes.” And if this is just a Sinspawn, then Sin itself must be gargantuan.
Sinspawn Ammes.
-AURON IS AWESOME!! Uses a Bushido attack, like Cyan from FFVI iirc. Dragon’s Tooth is a special attack where I have to enter codes quickly, like Zell’s “Duel” limit break in FFIX.
(Sorry for the references btw – it’s not meant to compare quality really, just to help give me a grounding to process what I’m seeing.)
-Tidus’s overdrive is “Swordplay.” This is another mini-game that I fail because it took me a bit to understand, but now that I saw it I get it. Gotta hit a node in the middle of a bar.
-WOW!!! This move order is really interesting.
There’s a window on my screen that shows order of who attacks when. Not based on waiting for gauges to fill up. This both makes it more predictable, relaxing (I can think through my moves without being punished), and even faster since I could just rapid fire go through without waiting.
I’ve been able to process this new system for about thirty seconds and I already love it far more than the previous system.
-Used a couple of potions to heal up, but wasn’t necessary since it just cast the percentage based Demi.
-Got it!
-Save point just up ahead. It’s a sphere. It doubles as a tent, restoring my HP/MP automatically with the save. Nice.
-Yay for “Continue!” Well, not exactly. FFX doesn’t have a continue feature the way that FFIX did, but it auto-saves and I can use “Load” to reload my last auto-save. Which is basically continue.
-Moving on down the bridge. Tidus takes a second to sneer at the Jecht image on a building wall (“What are you laughing at, old man?”), and I’m going to be really curious to see how the inevitable reunion goes. Is it just about living in Jecht’s shadow, or Jecht disappearing, or did they have bad blood before Jecht left?
-Shit. Auron says they’re expected. I like that Tidus isn’t doing the standard “INTO THE FRAY!” hero thing. He just wants to gtfo.
-More Sinscales surround us.
-Destroyed the bridge to kill the innumerable Sinscales, but ran across it in time to reach the sphere.
-Tidus dangling from a ledge, Auron above him. I honestly thought Auron was going to let him drop for a second. He took his sweet time before helping Tidus up.
-We’re really close to the water orb. It’s sucking lots of stuff into itself.
AURON: “You are sure?” He’s TALKING to the orb? I thought the orb was “Sin.” That sounds like something you shouldn’t be communing with. WTF is Auron’s deal? WTF is the sphere’s deal? WTF is Sin’s deal?
“This is it, this is your story.”
Everyone seems to know Tidus’s story before his story happens.
-Trippy animation as we’re sucked into the orb.
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Inside the Sphere
-uhhhhh
-Ok. Tidus is floating in mid-air. Hears his dad’s voice? No water around us. Maybe this is what the sphere looks like from the inside.
-I kind of wish I could move the camera myself to see what’s around.
-The blitzball stadium is floating here in ruins, but still in a kind of order.
-Tidus starts talking from the future, and I really like that the intro framing conceit of him telling this whole story isn’t forgotten.
-There’s a kid on the main platform of the stadium, and everything starts getting trippy again. Is that kid a young version of him, or is it the stealthy time mage dude?
-He had a dream then. He was alone, and feeling lonely. The dream looks to be underwater, amidst ruins.
-It’s just him, alone, on ruins in water. A cute li’l bird is next to him. HI BIRD!
-The music is quiet, subtle, and ominous as hell.
-A tower looms in the distance, surrounded by a flock of birds as lightning crashes.
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Status Screen Exploration
-Status screen for the first time. Let’s see what we can see.
-Lots of standard stuff – gil, equipment (longsword and buckler), location, time… what’s different?
-S.Lv. Tidus’s is 0 now. Skill level?
-The overdrive menu has some stuff. Tidus’s is Swordplay as we saw, and he’ll definitely get more beyond the starting Spiral Cut.
-There’s a “Mode” which is currently “Stoic.” I’ll bet this impacts how quickly his overdrive gauge fills, that there’ll be a potion like Hyper from FFVII (iirc) that can change the mode.
-Next to “S.Lv” I see “Next: 5 AP.” So AP will help level up whatever his S.Lv. is. Maybe that’s what says when we get Tidus’s next swordplay.
-OHO!! I was wrong. I can actually set his overdrive mode here in the status screen. Stoic is my only option currently, and it says “Charges when character takes damage.” So new modes that I get access to will probably not slow or speed this up, but change the nature of it completely. Like, maybe one just has him charge the overdrive every turn, or another charges it when he deals damage instead of taking damage. Neat!
-Stats all look pretty standard.
-BLESS!!!! MANA FROM HEAVEN (if my guess is right)!! The configure screen has an option for Aeons for Default or Short. This must be FFX’s version of espers/summons/eidolons, and it seems like it’ll let me toggle whether I see the full animation or an abbreviated version. FHDJLSFHDSFLDS I’VE BEEN SCREAMING FOR THIS SINCE FFVIII YESSSSSS!!
(Btw, I fully reserve the right to be embarrassed if I find out my guess is completely wrong. For all I know, aeons in FFX are a type of snack cake and this just tells me how fast I'll bake them.)
-Started to check out the “Battle Mode” help screen, but the sample screenshot showed a full party. Quickly clicked away for fear of spoilers.
-Some fights will allow me to use sub-commands, like pincer attacks or talking. Will keep an eye out for that.
-Only four elements – fire, ice, lighting, and water. I wonder if things like holy, wind, and shadow are gone from this roster.
-Poison is BRUTAL in this game. Each turn, it deals 1/4 of the character’s MAXIMUM (not current) HP. Jesus. Gotta remember to use antidotes ASAP lest I get killed off quickly.
-I can change weapons/armor mid-battle. I like it. More flexibility.
-Another thing I like: “Over Kill.” More rewards for obliterating an enemy. I like it because it incentivizes me to engage with the mechanics of combat more. Like, if I COULD just auto-attack an enemy to death, this incentivizes me to not do that, to instead use elemental stuff and powerful abilities to take it out. Those are more fun than pure auto-attacks.
-I see a lot more info in the “References” section, about command abilities and auto-abilities and overdrives and overdrive modes, but I’ll hold off for now. Will come back to this only after I come across specific abilities in game.
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Next time: exploring the submerged ruins.
