Monday, September 19, 2016

FFX – Part 26: Ride Ze Shoopuf

Summary: Down the river. Another Al Bhed kidnapping attempt on Yuna. Rikku reappears. Guadosalam.




Shoopuf Ride

-lololol this voice actor for the driver.



-We’re traveling south down the Moonflow.

-It just hit me: we haven’t really gotten an overworld for FFX. This map, these roads – these ARE the overworld. Really interesting choice. I wonder how things will work when we get the inevitable airship.



-There’s a city beneath us in the water. The city was too heavy and sunk.

-Wakka thinks the city was built in defiance of the laws of nature. Tidus isn’t so sure.

-Another good point from Tidus: even Wakka’s society uses machina! Like the blitzball stadium. So what’s the difference?

-Apparently Yevon (“it”) decides which machina are forbidden. The warlike machina are the forbidden ones… actually, that’s pretty reasonable. Apparently Sin’s arrival ended the war. Sin is the punishment. But wouldn’t Tidus remember if there were a huge war when his time was going on?

-The shoopuf is under attack.

-Al Bhed. Rikku reappearance?

-Boss fight against a water extractor where the Al Bhed placed the kidnapped Yuna.



-It floated up a bit, “readying depth charges,” but we hit it a couple of times and it came back down without doing anything.

-Wakka’s ball does way more damage than Tidus’s sword. Must count as aerial.

-Victory! Pretty easy.

-What’s up with the Al Bhed continually trying to kidnap Yuna? I doubt it’s either the tournament or Operation Mi’ihen.

-Lulu thinks they’re behind the summoners disappearing. I agree. Maybe they’re gathering them all to help them? I don’t think the Al Bhed are bad. My personal theory right now is that they want to somehow harness the summoners’ power and put it into machine form to help fight Sin.

---

Moonflow – North Wharf

-Townspeople crowd around Yuna.



-Someone says, “How about seeing Lord Braska when in Guadosalam?” Like, his tomb?

-Found another Al Bhed Primer, vol. XII. M -> L. Achieved the rank of Al Bhed Maynhan. Not that I really need more volumes, since I feel pretty comfortable with the glossary I put together from context.

-A dude here says Sin took his daughter but he saw her in Guadosalam. That combined with the person about Lord Braska has me wondering whether there’s a graveyard there, or a memorial, or maybe one of those things that plays back your memories.

-Lots of Guados here.

-I get the chance to sign a woman named Miyu. Looks to be a strong tackler and high endurance, but low passing and shooting. High CA… hm. Do I want her over Keepa? I’ll try her for a one game contract to see if she can learn lots of stuff.

-DANG. I gotta release someone now, and they won’t even show me people’s levels and stats on the “Release” option menu. Seems like an interface oversight. I’ll just release Kyou because I don’t remember much about them. 

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Moonflow – North Bank Road

-A woman washed up on shore.

-Hi Rikku!!



(Though holy crap could I have gone without the ridiculously sexualized close-ups of Rikku and her ass as she unzips.)



[Later edit: Rikku reminds me of Yuffie more than a little bit.]

-oh lol that was Rikku in the kidnapping machina. What was she up to?

-Private lady discussion going on. Just Lulu, Rikku, and Yuna. We don’t overhear.

-Huh. Yuna wants her to be a guardian. I’m pretty confused now, because Auron questions Rikku by making her look him in the face. Something about her eyes confirms something to Auron. Does the fact that she has green eyes mean she’s a half-sibling to Yuna or something like that? It can’t just be the eyes confirming that Rikku is an Al Bhed. After all, Wakka still hasn’t picked up on that yet, and he’s seen her eyes.

-Got an achievement: “All Together.” This must mean I’ve collected all my party members for FFX.

-Some kind of interaction now with treasure chests in battle. Gotta be careful to not defeat foes first or attack the chest.

-hee! This tutorial is just Rikku, so the battle order is a line-up of Rikku’s face.



-Rikku’s overdrive is “Mix.” She can combine two items in stock. This’ll be fun to experiment with.



-I’ve commented before how FFX combines previously known jobs in interesting ways. Like Kimahri is part blue mage, part dragoon. Yuna is part summoner, part white mage. This carries over for Rikku. She’s part thief, and part chemist from FFV (something I never expected to see again).

-Combining two bomb cores results in Firestorm, a series of six fire explosions in a row.

-Rikku gets one-shot. She has an astoundingly low life total, so I’m hopeful that a few levels will fix that quickly… yes. Rikku has a number of +200 HP spheres close to her starting point on the sphere grid.

-Coming near a city, something that looks treeish. Is this Guadosalam? 
---



Guadosalam

-An older gentleman named Tromell Guado approaches us. A servant of Seymour, so I immediately distrust him.



-oh god do I distrust this

-I can customize gear now. This is what those blank spaces were about.



Much like adding abilities to aeons, customizing gear will cost me certain items.

-Tried exiting through a downward path, but there’s a dangerous storm in the Thunder Plains. To be expected I suppose, given that it’s literally called the Thunder Plains.

-Shelinda is in the inn here. So is Maechen. Tells me that pyreflies born from ascending gather in the Farplane. The Al Bhed thinks the pyreflies just react to visitor’s dreams, but the Yevon theory is that they are actually the dead or something along those lines.

The Farplane must be an actual physical place nearby.

-The pyreflies are a mystical unit that have to do with dreams and aeons and a whole bunch of stuff. They’re the lights that emerge from a dying fiend.

“Or maybe not. Who knows?”

-Noy Guado is here. Level 8, CA 13. I would’ve loved to have signed him to my team, but he’s still on contract with the Glories.

-Two new fiends in the tutorial window: Larva and (gulp) Iron Giant.

-Larva use Thundara on themselves to heal at half HP.



Silence to counter it. Water also helps.

-Seeing Iron Giant on the list of coming monsters surprises me. I’m used to Iron Giants being very late game. Superboss in FFIII, and they peppered the final dungeon of FFVII and FFIX for examples.

-Dark Buster works to prevents its full party attacks. Oh, and Fatal Cait Sith works too.

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Next time: into Seymour’s mansion.

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