Fair warning – this is probably the most negative I’ve felt coming out of an FF session since I bashed my head against Ultimecia in FFVIII on the first night of attempts.
Calm Lands
-First goals: see what I have to capture across the world from the capture place, then try Dark Yojimbo again.
-Trying to remember where to grab a chocobo. The northeast maybe?
-Working towards my first high end sphere grid ability: Doublecast for Lulu.
-Feeling some major cognitive dissonance using Steal on Yuna.
Rikku is such a bad influence!
-I love this weapon I picked up recently on Auron, Kotetsu. Piercing and Counterattack. Especially on someone with his tankiness and threat generation, counterattack is particularly useful.
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Calm Lands – Arena
-WHO WHOW HOA!! I REACHED THE BATTLE ARENA DUDE AND THE CLOUDY MIRROR REACTS TO THE CHEST I COULDN’T OPEN BEFORE HOLY SHIT
-I tried to use it. “Not enough energy.” Huh. So THIS is what the Cloudy Mirror is for. Gotta figure out how to charge it.
-This arena dude made another super-enemy, a conglomeration of enemies I gathered from the cave (?). I guess I’ll try my luck.
-Got a ton of Silver Hourglasses, and now Three Stars x60.
-Trying another of his superboss fights. (These MUST count as superbosses. Or challenge bosses maybe? Probably more accurate. I’ll bet “superboss” has a specific meaning in the FF community.)
Earth Eater.
-UHHH IT JUST DEALT 39,000 DMG IN A SINGLE SHOT WTFFF
-And it’s immune to Dark. It just kicked my ass six ways from Sunday.
-There are still two unknown areas to me.
-Quick mark of how many monsters I should capture from each area:
Besaid: 0/3
Kilika: 0/4
Mi’ihen Highroad: 0/8
Mushroom Rock Road: 0/7
Djose Road: 0/7
Thunder Plains: 0/8
Macalania: 0/10
Bikanel: 0/6
Calm Land: 9/9 - Clear!
Stolen Fayth Cavern: 9/9 – Clear!
Mt. Gagazet: 11/12. Already captured: Achelous, Ahriman, Bandersnatch, Bashura, Behemoth, Dark Flan, Grat, Grenade, Maelspike, Mandragora, Splasher. One unknown.
Omega Dungeon: 0/10
Area Conquest: 2/3. Already captured Chimerageist and Don Tonberry. I don’t remember Don Tonberry – must’ve been the monster I accidentally just passed on.
Original: 1/8. Already captured Earth Eater.
-Not sure what differentiates Earth Eater from Area Conquest. I mean, I’m pretty sure the Area Conquest are enemies that spawn when I clear an area. I assumed Earth Eater was one of those, but something else must’ve spawned Earth Eater. Hm.
-I tried interacting with the snake wrapped around the arena, and got the message: “It’s alive…” I just thought it was some mobile golem thing. That’s super creepy.
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Cavern of the Stolen Fayth
-Here we go. Going to try 50k gil first, no overdrive charging for Yojimbo.
-Boo. 50k got me Wakizashi.
-Ok. New plan. Going to try a lower gil amount for the first one, since I can keep resetting it easily. Then for the next two, will try 90k.
-Another Wakizashi. New plan yet again. Going to try building him up to full Overdrive before each fight.
-Just paying him 1gil per attempt so that he auto-kills as little as possible and builds his overdrive gauge. I hope this isn’t making him pissed at me in the long term.
-Hate these magic pots. I always get blown up, so whenever I see them I just escape. Such a slow process. One by one escapes.
-…actually. I take it back. I broke out Yojimbo for this, and the explosion ramped his gauge up fast. Nice.
-New trial: does a full overdrive gauge with 50k gil paid nearly guarantee Zanmato?
-Paid 30k and got Wakizashi, even with full overdrive. FINE, YOJIMBO. I’ll try the full 50k.
-Screw it. I’ll go all in. Paying 63k this time. Got the Zanmato. Ooh, got the Genji Armlet for Kimahri! Curseproof, Break HP Limit, and two empty slots. Not like it matters though – if this doesn’t work, I’m reloading my save from the start. I don’t usually do that, but sorry, I’m not gonna lose 190k gil just on a trial when that’s all I have.
-Built the overdrive gauge again, and spent 70k this time. Another Zanmato. I only have 71k more, so hopefully it’s just three encounters. If not, I’ll revisit.
-Third time. Here we go. Fingers crossed, 71k gil at the ready.
-DAMMIT!! I ACCIDENTALLY USED THE ZANMATO ON THE LAST RANDOM ENCOUNTER. Fuck. Ok. Maybe consider a 71k zanmato even with no overdrive please?
-Fuck. You. Yojimbo.
-Trying again from the start. 58k yields Zanmato for the first encounter…. Omg. Got “Eternity” from that encounter fro Lulu. It has Ribbon and Break HP Limit… you know what? If this doesn’t pan out, I think I’m keeping the item. I have to. Ribbons are too useful.
-This session is pissing me off royally. I’ve spent the last two minutes running around the cavern trying to get into another random encounter to restart the gauge, and I haven’t found any. None. I don’t have any “No Encounter” items, but still can’t find a fucking encounter.
-IS THE GAME BUGGED? COME ON, GIVE ME A RANDOM ENCOUTNER. PLEASE.
Yeah. Must be bugged. Fuck. I’m raging right now. Gonna have to try this next attempt with no overdrive built up I guess.
-FINALLY. Found a fight just before the second Dark Yojimbo. Must’ve just had an atrocious streak of luck not finding an encounter for minutes on end.
-It’s funny. I used to haaaate running into Magic Pots, but now they’re my favorite encounter in this place. Yojimbo can’t one-shot them, so they’re a guaranteed overdrive builder.
-NOOOOOOOOOO!!!! I fucked up again. I accidentally kept Yuna in for the start of the fight, so I can’t swap her in for the First Strike Tidus. I’m yelling in real life and my cat is concerned.
-Screw the ribbon. I’m starting again. This has already felt like a massive waste of my time, and I don’t want to keep fucking up. I KNOW this isn’t a good choice. I should’ve kept the Eternity and just come back here when I had more gil. But I’m enraged, I want Dark Yojimbo to die, and if that means losing the Eternity bangle, so be it.
-Wakizashi. That’s how he repays me. Wakizashi.
-Four more restarts and all Wakizashis for 58k gil. (I don’t want to pay more than that because I want to leave 70k for the next two encounters.
-Ok, Coldrun. Chill. Keep trying until the first one nets you a Zanmato. Then give one last try at 70k gil paid to Yojimbo each time. It’s like a weighted slot machine. Don’t get angry at a weighted slot machine.
-Eight wakizashis in a row for the first encounter. This is so much worse than something like Ozma or Omega. Those fights I tried once and knew I had no real chance. This, I constantly feel like I’m close.
-Ten wakizashis.
-And now he does an automatic wakizashi at the start of the fight before I can even pay him.
-Twenty wakizashis in a row for the first encounter, at 60k gil a pop for the last five. One more try, then I’m done. If this doesn’t work, I’ll come back when I have about 500k gil.
-Yup. Another Wakizashi.
What a waste of time this session was.
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One Hour Later
-I took some time. Cooled down. I want to try again. I have a theory: the theory is that when I kept running back from the auto-save, the game kept having the same inputs (whatever they are) that led my 58k gil payment to be a Wakizashi rather than a Zanmato, even with a full overdrive gauge.
This time, I’ll take off “No Encounters” to try shaking things up. I have no idea if this is just the equivalent of putting on my lucky socks before watching the Mets game or if it’ll have real impact.
-Going to try five times. Five times maximum. Going to practice staying calm during these attempts. If I lose all five and still stay calm, I’ll consider that a victory.
Attempt #1: First encounter, 60K for Zanmato. Good start. Second encounter, automatic wakizashi before I could attempt to pay. Death.
Attempt #2: First encounter, 58k for Wakizashi. Death.
Attempt #3: First encounter, 60k for Wakizashi. Death.
Attempt #4: First encounter, automatic wakizashi before I could attempt to pay. Death.
Attempt #5: First encounter, 60k for Zanmato. Second encounter, 75k for Wakizashi. Death.
-Yay! I didn’t get angry. Super, SUPER bored, but not angry.
[Later edit: This is a lesson I’ve had to learn periodically in the FF series. I’m not a completionist. The times I am, like in FFIX, are when I’m enjoying the process, as I was with Chocobo Hot and Cold. I didn’t enjoy the need to build myself up to max power, so seeing Ozma was enough. Seeing Omega in FFVIII was enough. When the fun gets sucked out of a session, I should really just stop and move on, leaving it incomplete.]
-Ok. Leaving for now. I at least got a nice shield out of my first victory against Dark Yojimbo.
So that’s something.
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Next time: somewhere else. Anywhere else. I’ll come back when I have about 500k gil and will see if 100k+ would guarantee me a Zanmato.
