Blitzball!
-I know I said I’d start this session moving on with the story, but I feel like some more blitzball. Curious if I can make it through a full league season, how long it is.
-Also might be helpful to have a goal, something to learn and focus on, even if I lose every game. Last time it was to practice the fundamentals. This time, it’s to practice effective marking. I ended up marking targets last time that were higher level often, so I’ll watch closely for that this time.
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Season 1, Round 7 – vs. Luca Goers
-Equipping the Jecht Shot on Tidus. 120 HP (almost HALF his HP). SH +5 (more consistent than the Sphere Shot boost), and knocks away up to two opposing players. Whew. That last one is big. Can turn impossible situations into possible ones…
Wait. If I get a 1v1, where it’s Tidus versus one defender and the goalie behind the defender, I wonder if both goalie AND defender get knocked away for an automatic goal. Hm.
-Just noticed what the “fuzzy” font means. “Players can only learn Techs highlighted in blue.”
[Non-rhetorical question for y’all: what whether a player can learn a tech or not? I’m seeing the blue highlights even on much higher leveled players – are certain players just inherently more limited and unable to learn things? Keepa seems unable to learn literally anything.]
-Woohoo!! Up 1-0 thanks to the Jecht shot. Managed to break past one defender, and it was just Tidus with an open shot. It didn’t knock the goalie aside, so perhaps the Jecht Shot just knocks aside two non-goalie defenders.
-Abus ties it up. High SH. I can see why he’s one of the top scorers in the league.
-I’m SO BAD at remembering to have my finger ready to Techcopy the opposing goalie when I take a shot. This is like the fourth time in a row I was just too late on it, just watching my shot. Note to self for next time.
-When Techcopy comes up and I spam the B button, I hear one of those video game failure noises. Something like “BLORT BLORT.” I think that means I’m supposed to only hit Techcopy once, right when the word shows up and not beforehand.
-DAMMIT LOLOL – Not two minutes after I wrote the bullet point about being ready to tech copy the goalie, I was so entranced by the Jecht Shot that I forgot again. XD
-Ah well. Yay! I won 2-1. Eat it, Goers. First victory against them.
-Now the Aurochs are solidly in 3rd place, well behind the Psyches and Goers (5 points back) and two points ahead of the 4th place Glories.
-Our team level increased to 2 and we learned the “Center Attack” formation. Going to have to experiment with formations at a later date.
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Season 1, Round 8 – vs. Kilika Beasts
-YESSSS – finally managed to successfully techcopy the goalie.
-lolol – this was my first Jecht Shot with a defender on me, and Tidus ricocheted the ball off the poor defender’s head. Posterized.
-That shot is just SO RIDICULOULSY GOOD.
-Vuroja of the Kilika Beasts has one of my favorite character models.
-omg Tidus was about to score a single-half hat trick and halftime hit right as the shot was on its way.
-I think I need to prioritize getting my other forwards access to things like Sphere Shot to give themselves a chance.
-Victory, 3-0.
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Season 1, Round 9 – vs. Ronso Fangs
-Last game of this session.
-Lord. These guys. Infinite endurance. At least their SH isn’t all that high, or they’d be unstoppable.
-FDHJKLFDS TAKE THAT RONSO GOALIE – the Jecht Shot has just changed the whole nature of blitzball for me.
1-0.
-Also changing things is what I learned about waiting until “Techcopy!” appears on the screen before pressing B. Now my copies are successful usually.
-At this point, Venom seems to not be all that great tbh. HP doesn’t get used up enough in games as is, so it doesn’t have any real impact. Wither and Nap are where it’s at.
-The AI makes some really strange decisions. Like, this Ronso Fangs forward with 15 SH and 20 EN had a 1v1 breakaway and decided to pass to the backfield. (Backsphere?) No particular reason.
-Oho!! I just learned something: venom seems to stack. I can poison someone multiple times and it seems to drain their HP waaaay faster. [Non-rhetorical question: is this true, or am I misreading it? Does poison actually stack?] If this is true, then I misjudged the value of poison.
-Respect to Zamzi Ronso, the Fangs keeper, for stopping the Jecht Shot. (It was a 50-50 by the time the ball reached him, 12 SH vs 12 CA.)
-KEEEPAAAAA!! Sure, I’m gonna swap you out as soon as possible because you can’t learn any techniques, but you come up with clutch saves sometimes. Like just now, preserving a 2-1 lead with 15 seconds left in the game against their top shooter on a fast break.
Basically, yeah, I’m still gonna ditch you as soon as I find a reasonable replacement, but I’ll feel bad about it.
-And lookit that. Tied for second place with the Al Bhed Psyches. That Jecht Shot. I’m telling you. Fucking Jecht Shot.
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Highroad
-So that was a lot of blitzball, and a really fun session, but to at least build a bit of momentum I’m gonna move a bit down the highroad before I log.
-This road looks full of ruins. What did it used to be?
-Statue of Lord Mi’ihen, the Crusaders’ founder.
-I like his weapon. Like a broad spear. He was accused of rebellion, but contested it and was awarded a role for the clergy of some sort anyway. So… sort of heretics but not really?
-Fiend fight. Raldo. Now this is very interesting – it’s an enemy that’s weak to piercing weapons.
-Continuing to love the voice acting even for individual spells, like when I used NulFrost and Yuna said “Shield us from frigid blight!”
-hee! This guy who’s telling us history as we go down the road has a super British voice, heavy ‘r’ trilling too. Dramatic af.
-The guy is Maechen, a scholar/historian.
-I think my favorite small bit of voice acting is when Wakka gets a kill and sometimes lets out a “HOO-hah!”
-Chocobo riders! Led by Lucil, captain of the… WAIT CAPTAIN OF THE “DJOSE CHOCOBO KNIGHTS!!” THERE ARE CHOCOBO KNIGHTS XD XD XD I immediately want to be best friends with Lucil and train under her to be a Chocobo Knight.
-They immediately remind me of the guards from FFVI, from Figaro.
-She’s accompanied by a woman named Elma and a silent dude.
-A fiend is in the area. A fiend “with a taste for chocobos.” It must DIE.
-Interesting. She mentions that we should take care if renting chocobos. Perhaps we should rent one and fight it… unless it’s not meant to be fought, like the Midgar Zolom.
-Tidus echoes my thoughts here, wanting to fight it “because it’s the right thing to do,” and Auron sort of laughs. Jecht said this a lot. This surprises me. He seems more like his sayings would be “Pwnd n00b!” or “Awww, is the wimpy child crying? Baby want a bottle? Ha ha ha!”
But then again, the version of him from this world seems significantly different.
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Next time: continuing along the Highroad.
