Besaid
-First stop is Dark Valefor.
-Unrelated thought, but something I am appreciating more and more about this post-pilgrimage section of the game is how much more the world makes sense to me. It felt a bit disconnected on the first go-round. I didn’t have a great sense of how each section of the world connected with the next. Now, going back over it, I have a much greater sense of Spira.
-I still have to figure out how to get to the other Besaid Ruins.
-Still can’t go down this path by the Besaid Promontory. What’s down there? It’s been taunting me all game.
-A couple of attempts and Dark Valefor goes down.
It’s weird, but I still feel guilty. I love Valefor. Even her “dark” version is probably a sweet kitty cat of an aeon. I blame her summoner.
-Got a Minerva Bangle for Lulu. Break HP Limit, Auto-Regen, and two empty slots.
-YUNA BRINGS THE POST-FIGHT TRASH TALK! Not really, but the summoner greeted us with that blitzball bow, and now Yuna does the same thing to him.
-This is AWESOME. The Besaid townspeople are here supporting us, telling the summoner who attacked us to gtfo. He runs off with this ridiculous loping gait. See ya buddy!
-Feels good to be back in Besaid Village!
-Most of the townsfolk seem to be on our side. They respect the Guado, they respect the temple, but think things have gone too far. And they know us. They won’t arrest us, regardless of any orders.
-Something else that confirms to me that Nirvana et al. are legendary weapons: I can’t sell them. Wouldn’t want to even if I could, but the game greys them out on the vendor screen.
-HI GATTA!!! He’s directing a new batch of Crusaders to kill fiends on the way to the shore. Ruh oh.
-Oh lol. Just training.
-Poor Gatta. Still taking Luzzu’s death, and those of his fellow Crusaders, hard. But he’s picked himself up. He’s moving on. He’s kicking ass and protecting his village.
-THIS PLACE IS FULL OF CATS STILL
-Tried entering the temple. A kid from Bevelle warned me away, saying the warrior monks awaited inside. He was supposed to stop me too, but everything he heard from the Besaiders convinced him we’re not so bad.
-Oh well. That was my last hope that I could still get to the secrets I missed out on during one of my first sessions inside this temple.
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Thunder Plains
-Next target: Dark Ixion.
-Got him. Pretty meh reward – a lightningstrike weapon for Rikku – but the Dark Matter is always nice. That’s the stuff that’ll let me customize a weapon with Break Damage Limit or a piece of armor with Ribbon.
Theoretically at least. I still don’t know how much Dark Matter it’ll take. Each of the dark aeons has dropped only a little bit. I only have 14 right now. If it’s 99 for a single Ribbon or Break Damage Limit, dunno where I’ll get the lion’s share from.
---
Calm Lands Arena
-Oh good lord. I am on my way to see what happens now that I’ve finished the Omega Ruins capture mission, and I can’t even imagine the kind of monster this arena master will create for me.
-Huh. I’m missing one. Oh, I know! I’ll bet it’s the Gemini. I only saw that monster in the gauntlet near the end. Guess I’m giving that gauntlet another shot to find the Gemini.
-In the Omega Ruins, I found Gemini straight off on the first platform. Captured both of them.
-WHAT?? THAT WASN’T IT?? What else am I missing from the Omega Ruins?
-It’s a bit weird. Not every monster I captured counted towards there. Huh. The ones that did:
Zaurus, Floating Death, Black Element, Halma, Puroboros, Spirit, Machea, Master Tonberry, Varuna. But I definitely caught others! I also caught Adamantoise, Great Malboro, and Wraith.
-I’ll leave it alone for now and come back to it a bit later after I’ve seen more story zones.
-Speaking more story zones…
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Highbridge
-We pop back onto the Highbridge in Bevelle. Some guards stop us, and Wakka is annoyed.
-OH SHIT IT’S SHELINDA! SHE’S THEIR CAPTAIN AND SHE STOPS THEM!!
-Wtf. An Al Bhed rumor? That’s what MIKA said? Wtf is going on??
-She’s now captain of the guard because there are so few believers left. The internal strife among Yevonites is at an all-time high.
-I love Shelinda.
-Ah. Auron believes that this attempt to get Yuna back on Mika’s side is because now Yuna is Mika’s only hope. I believe that.
---
Bevelle Courtroom
-Ruh-roh. Mika thinks we have the final aeon from Yunalesca. I wonder if he’ll turn on us when he learns the truth.
-He’s… upset. And like Yunalesca, he has ultimately good intentions. He is afraid that the constant sacrifice of summoners was the only way to calm Sin.
MIKA: “Yu Yevon’s spiral of death will consume us all.”
-I like the way the courtroom architecture frames Mika as having wings here.
-Yu Yevon backstory time. He “crafts the souls of the dead into unholy armor. An armor called Sin.” UM THAT SOUNDS BAD. So when we send the dead to the Farplane, does Yu Yevon hijack them and funnel their power to Sin?
“Clad in it, Yu Yevon is invincible.” So maybe Yu Yevon is inside Sin, warring with the sacrificed summoners for control of the beast.
-Mika disappears. Fades.
LOLOL WAKKA CALLED HIM A ROTTEN SON OF A SHOOPUF
-Auron tells Shelinda that Mika never arrived. Maybe he doesn’t want to dash her faith in Mika.
-Hey, it’s the Fayth kid from the dream! He’s talking to Yuna. “Come to my room.” But only Yuna and Tidus can see him.
---
Bevelle Fayth
-The audience with the Fayth just consists of Yuna and Tidus.
-I like the hymn in the background, sung by just one boy it sounds like.
-He asks if we’ve found a way to truly defeat Sin. Not really. We know to distract it with the hymn, but that’s it. Mika didn’t really give us the rest of the answer we hoped for.
-I try answering “Not yet” but that just resets the meeting. I have to pick “I think so.”
-Two options. Hymn of the Fayth and “Defeat Yu Yevon!” I mean, the answer is both, right? The plan is to use the Hymn of the Fayth to defeat Yu Yevon inside his Sin armor. I’ll start with “Hymn of the Fayth.”
-The fayth is skeptical. But wants us to try it.
-The Fayth agrees that if it the distraction works, we’ll need more than the hymn. I get the choices again, and pick “Defeat Yu Yevon!” this time.
Easy. Just like the key to beating Michael Jordan’s Chicago Bulls was simple. Just score more points than them!
-The Fayth agrees, and gives us storytime.
-Yu Yevon was a peerless summoner long ago, and now lives just to summon. “Neither good, nor evil. He is awake, yet he dreams.”
-Ultimately, Yu Yevon will join with the Final Aeon and transform into a new Sin. Continues the summoning. An eternal cycle.
-When Yuna fights Yu Yevon, the fayth will help. “Please, call us.” So it won’t just be Yuna. It’ll be all her aeons.
-When the Fayth wakes, their dream will end. Will that be the end of Tidus, or has he become a real boy?
-Sounds like Tidus will fade. He takes the news with tremendous grace.
-The Fayth fades.
-BOOOOO!!! TIDUS, DON’T DO THIS “PROTECT YUNA FROM THE BAD NEWS FOR HER OWN GOOD” NONSENSE. GOD I HATE THAT TROPE
-Like, it’s not REMOTELY working. Yuna clearly knows something’s up.
---
Bevelle
-Shelinda couldn’t find the Grand Maester. Of course.
-Rikku asks Shelinda to help us with the hymn. Wants her to organize a Spira-wide sing-a-long. This feels a bit like the end to the Martha/Master season of Doctor Who.
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Airship
-Auron says Tidus has exceeded his expectations.
-Sounds like Cid has a surprise in store for the Sin fight. Knowing Cid, it’ll be a surprise of the explosive variety.
-Wakka apologizes for being a “big jerk” about the Al Bhed. Cid hears, accepts, admits his own faults (in hating all Yevonites), and that’s that.
LULU: “Afterwards, after we defeat Sin, promise you’ll stay with Yuna.”
….yeeeeeahh. About that.
-Rin tells of how Lord Braska met Cid’s sister, trying to unite the Al Bhed and the Yevonites.
-Yuna’s mother was killed by Sin.
-Oh god. There’s a new location on the airport map.
---
Next time: Sin. I’ll also finally take stock of my items and customize some weapons/armor.
It’s not lost on me that Seymour has been missing in action for a while. I’m betting that we come close to defeating Yu Yevon, then Seymour swoops in and merges with Yu Yevon to form a final Se-yu-mour Yevon as the ultimate final boss.
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