Thunder Plains – Agency
-Found a book. Thought it’d be another Al Bhed manual. Instead, it’s a “History of Summoners, Thunder Plains Edition.”
-It’s already amazing, and hilarious (hard to say if it’s intentional). It discusses those deadly fiends of horror and legend, “Qactuars.” Lord Gandof drove them to the Thunder Plains, and used the X button on his magical X-Box 360 controller to turn them to stone.
I’ll definitely be backtracking to see if I’m worthy of facing these ancient nightmares.
-When Rikku was a kid, she was attacked by a fiend. Her brother attacked the fiend with lightning… but missed and hit her instead. Ow.
-Rin comes by, sees Rikku and seems to notice that she’s an Al Bhed before she tells him to shush.
-Rin gives us Al Bhed Primer vol. XIV. H->N.
-He knows Auron! They seem to have a history – something positive. Rin saved Auron in the battle 10 years ago against Sin. And back then, he had what seemed like a mortal wound that he walked away from.
A bit confused on the timeline (and that’s ok!), but this wound either caused him to be sent into the past, or killed him and he got resurrected from the Farplane.
-Tidus heads back to check on Yuna. We overhear a male voice. Jyscal? It’s hard for me to make out what he’s saying beyond “…astonishment for my deeds.”
-And he falls through the door while trying to overhear lol
-AH!! I see. The thing that the ghost dropped, the sphere, was his will. It says “take care of my son.” I’m still betting that this is a double meaning, that Seymour murdered Jyscal and Jyscal now wants us to “take care of” (i.e. kill) Seymour.
-She flees the room.
-heeee!! Wakka roughhouses and headlocks Tidus when he catches him.
-The night passes. There’s a record book out here in the lobby with a note of how often Tidus dodged and got struck by lightning. So perhaps there is an incentive to dodge.
-Rikku’s still scared, but pressing on… Rikku, I’m really sorry about this, but we gotta backtrack. For the cactuars.
-The tutorial board here shows two new enemies, Chimera and Xiphos. Will read about them a bit later, since I want to get to the qactuars now.
---
Thunder Plains
-Tidus learned Slowga. That will likely be very useful.
-Rikku learned Spare Change. I haven’t tried it out yet, but I’ll use it… well, sparingly, if I learned anything from the Samurai jobs (and initially from FFIV: The After Years) in past games.
-Got to the first of the two qactuar stones I saw. Here we go.
The ubiquitous 1,000 Needles.
-Huh. Tidus did that blitzball bow, the light went out of the stone, and nothing else. Perhaps I do that for all the stones in the Thunder Plains and then a qactuar emerges.
-Found the second one and “unlocked” it. Was that all so far? Going to backtrack all the way just to be sure.
-FOUND TWO QACTUARS!!! But they ran away before I had a chance to act.
-Found another Qactuar. Couldn’t beat it. Tried water attacks, and Tidus’s Delay Attack worked well to keep it from escaping, but I just couldn’t do anything. Next time, I’ll try Yuna’s summon.
-Yes! Valefor’s Energy Blast dismembered the poor thing.
-Back to the agency. Two new fiends to prep for.
-First fiend is Chimera. High HP and high damage. Power Break and Magic Break are helpful.
(Also effective: my deathtouch Cait Sith doll.)
-Xiphos has high strength, so use dark or power break.
---
Next Segment of Thunder Plains
-Iron Giant is my first enemy. Goes quickly. Stole a Light Curtain.
-Found another qactuar stone. This one already had the magic drained from it, so perhaps al we needed was to use X on the prior two.
-We pause. Yuna’s got something to say.
-She decided to marry Seymour. I’m a bit confused because I thought we already knew this, but I must’ve misinterpreted what she said earlier. Everyone’s acting like she said before that she wouldn’t marry? Ok.
-Lord Jyscal changed her mind. She plans to speak to Seymour before telling us more about that will. Auron’s opposed, but not fighting as long as she doesn’t quit the pilgrimage.
-Tidus is the only person really against this.
-Wakka brings up a good point – can’t she just talk to Seymour, show some sort of unifying bond other than marriage? Apparently not.
-Tidus from the future discusses how alien this was to him, this whole thought process, but he didn’t want to abandon the group.
-Next up is Macalania Temple.
-Tried Mixing two Mana Spheres for Rikku’s overdrive. Got “Frag Grenade,” which did decent damage to the enemy group.
-still pretty hilarious to see that little Cait Sith doll lope up to the massive Iron Giant, bop him, and one-shot him.
-Almost got down two Qactuars. My strategy was to use Wakka’s “Aim” a few times. That helped a lot. One still got away.
---
Macalania Woods
-I think we’re now out of the Thunder Plains. Into a crystalline woody area. Hee! Rikku literally jumps for joy.
-Auron tells Tidus he believes Yuna wants to negotiate something with Seymour. What is Yuna up to? Some big thing to kill Sin for good?
-Something repeated here that I like in Tidus is that he admits he was feeling a bit jealous, but it’s not like he and Yuna ever committed to each other or anything like that beyond a guardian/summoner relationship. Flirting, but not beyond that.
-This music is super familiar. Is it from earlier in FFX, or from a past game?
-Lucil and Elma are here. They’re on a road to Bevelle, but we’re not going that way now.
-Watery enemies here. Tried NulTide, and Yuna’s battlecry was: “Shield us from watery woe!” IT’S SO HOKEY.
-Stole Fish scales from Blue Elements here. Poison Fang from a Wasp. Arctic Wind from a Chimera. Soft from Igion. Hypello Potion from Murussu.
-First Chimera! It has one of my favorite enemy attack designs in the game so far, since each of its different heads does something for a different attack. The bull for physical attacks, the snake for lightning attacks, etc.
-These woods are quite beautiful. The moonlight, the crystalline formations.
-Hi Barthello! Dona’s missing. Uh oh. He’s panicking.
-Auron gives sound advice. He’ll be okay, that Barthello.
-Strange beat near the end. He leaves, off to search for Dona, but Rikku chases a bit, wanting to wish him good luck. Just Rikku being friendly perhaps.
-It’s that bird priest who helped introduce Mika. Playing a harp with a butterfly flitting about.
-Some sort of mini-game perhaps. “Macalania Woods Butterfly Hunt.” I have to find a rainbow butterfly. Catch seven blues, but reds will summon powerful fiends.
-Dang. Lost. Only caught like 5. Is that it? My only chance? Tried talking to the bird priest again, but he just says “luck is a fickle thing!” and that’s it. Ah well.
-Xiphos hits like a kitten.
-New enemy, Igion. That was a boss in FFVIII, right?
-AHA!! Found another butterfly on that path, and touching that one started up another chase.
-Success. Got 7. And got teleported back to the bird priest, but no treasure? Maybe the chest is where I found the last butterfly.
-Mixing two grenades causes “Flash Flood,” six Wateras in a row.
-Redid the first butterfly chase and got an MP sphere. I succeeded in the next one, but kept accidentally leaving the area and resetting it. Getting a bit tired of running this zone.
-Finally! And all I got for my trouble was an Ether. (Along with a boatload of AP I suppose.)
-Saving at the Macalania Woods – Lake Road.
---
Next time: onto the Macalania Temple.
