Celsius
-Rikku feels as I do. Angry still at the Guado for… well, everything, including the attack on Home, but sad for them too.
-That’s the end of my missions for now. I’m going to test out two non-mission zones. If I feel like I’m wasting my time, I’ll move onto the Guadosalam hotspot. If I don’t feel like I’m wasting my time, I’ll expand.
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Luca
-Heeeee!! Shelinda is a newscaster.
-Praetor Baralai is the new leader of New Yevon.
-There’s also a Machine Faction, an Al Bhed group.
-The Leblanc Syndicate is headquartered in Guadosalam.
-Yuna is today’s special guest and she’s all “uhhhh” lol
-This is a hard-hitting interview. Asking why Yuna left Besaid.
-Brother busts in. He wants to be known as the leader.
-hahahaha Shinra
[STVOY] Sbe fbzr ernfba, Fuvaen erzvaqrq zr n ybg bs Frira bs Avar whfg gura. Ohfgrq vagb gur vagreivrj jvgu n pbzcyrgr gnatrag nobhg gur fhcrevbevgl bs uvf bja vairagvbaf.
-Shelinda thanks us with the Covetous Garment Grid. Well, that seals it. These non-mission areas are worth exploring. (Heck, even if I didn’t get the garment grid, it would’ve been worth it.)
-Shelinda started out in the Calm helping out with the temples, but people kept telling her what to do. She sounds a bit like Yuna here.
-oh no!!! She feels sad now, thinking that she only got this job because others asked her to do it. Is it what she really wants to do?
-omg rikku get out of my brain
-YESS!!!! A kid says that the Kinderguardians are investigating in Bevelle. Glad they’re gonna be a recurring thing.
KID: “Is Sphere Break really all that fun?” Dunno. No idea what Sphere Break is.
-Sphere Break might be some other sport.
-The Leblanc Syndicate was spotted in the desert.
-The Sphere Theater is still a thing, and way less expensive at 1000 gil per sphere. Still no real need or interest to buy it though.
-Yeah, Sphere Break is some off-season sport other than Blitzball.
-The music in Luca is super chill and easygoing! I really dig it for strolling around.
-Found the Thunder Spawn garment grid, which lets me use dressphere changes to gain Thunder abilities. And… YES!! While I’m here, I checked out the Covetous garment grid, and that gives me Osmose. That’s amazing. I was looking for that!
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Luca Locker Rooms – Sphere Break
-Sounds like I’ll get to learn and play Sphere Break.
-You can get rare coins while playing.
-Lord Rin (like, the travel agency dude?) created the game.
-You play with coins and a core sphere. You use coins to defeat the opponent’s core sphere. Combine the numbers somehow on the coins.
PERSON WHO LOOKS LIKE TOBLI: “When the core sphere is combined with coins, a strange power is born.” That sounds ominous af.
-Got 5 Helm Coins, 5 Zurvan Coins, 5 Coyote Coins, 5 Flan Coins. Practice time.
“Sphere Break is a race against the clock…”
-Okay, I’m IMMEDIATELY biased against Sphere Break. But let’s try anyway.
-I have to create multiples of the core sphere’s core number by combining the numbers of the 16 coins on the board. I have no real clue what that means.
-Entry coins are like an entry fee, lost after I spend them to play – sometimes? Hm.
-My biggest concern at the outset is that the numbers are really hard to read on the coins. I have to kind of blur my eyes to differentiate some of them.
-Ah! So this is mostly a basic math game. I’m pretty bad at math, but I still enjoy it.
-The goal is to find a sum of coins equal to a break multiple. Now it makes sense.
-Entry coins used to create a break multiple stay, but border coins disappear temporarily.
-Border coins numbered nine disappear quickly, while border coins numbered one stick around.
-So I get the gist of this, but the numbers being hard to read is going to stick in my craw a bit I can tell. 9 and 4, 6 and 8, 5 and 6… all kinda look a like until I squint.
-Entry coins don’t count towards quotes, so I have to sometimes go for the higher break multiples.
-There’s also a thing where the value of the entry coins can drop depending on border coin traits.
-Still a bit confused on echoes, but I’ll return to that later. There’s enough to worry about with the very basics.
-Let’s try a game.
-YAY!! The first player is Shades!!
Come on, Alvarez, let’s do this.
-Lost. Got a string of 1’s for the sphere core and felt pressured on the final turn to use like 8 coins, and misread one of the coins.
-So it’s pretty fun! Not something I feel the need to binge right now, but fun anyway.
-Though the idea of this as an offseason substitute for blitzball is a bit tough to imagine. Like in the US, if the football season ended and everyone was like, “Ok, time for COMPETITIVE SUDOKU to pass the time!”
-I beat Shades a few times, so I’ll give one shot for one of the tougher opponents, like these hilarious punk kids.
The quota is 80 coins, 45 seconds per turn, 20 turns… yeah, I’m not winning this, but it’ll be fun to try!
-Got too greedy and lost, but I wasn’t on track to win. The quota was so high.
I’ve seen this look on the faces of adults who get creamed by 12 year olds at Friday Night Magic.
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Next time: Mushroom Rock Road.
