Floors 31-40
-Bought a Growth Seed at a store for about 20k. Not sure what it’ll do, but I hope it has something to do with increasing xp gain.
-Yup! AP gain doubled. I’ll definitely take that.
-Haven’t tried secret rooms in a while. Gonna do that.
-It took me a brutal room with a “Big Bully Cap” that did heavy damage. Still not sure the benefit of those secret rooms.
-My Mascot is currently level 12. Maybe I should start building something else. I’m worried about being SOL if that gets destroyed.
-Gunner has an auto-ability I’m lovin, “Defeat to Heal MP.”
-Hi, Boris!
-Floor 35 has two barriers. Neutralized the first with dropping three items. Neutralized the second by killing enemies (I think?).
-Frustration rising again with this last one.
-uh. I just kind of was angrily button mashing and it worked? I just attacked empty squares. Could that really have been the answer?
-I like the lore these tomes provide.
-Takoubas are awful enemies. Their hits can inflict confuse. My current strategy is to use my warrior (I think?) ability, Hard Break, to take them out before they can hit me.
-lol at Rikku’s line when she transforms into a warrior: “Cut ALL the things!”
-Floor 40 time.
-oh shit it’s a swarm of enemies led by that armored turtle
-The turtle is a Stalwart. It can use Gigancannon.
-I really don’t want to get hit by that. Current strategy: try to stay just out of range when it casts it until it’s out of mana.
-CRAP I GOT HIT
-Oh. Never mind. It only did 22 damage. A lot, but I thought it’d do like 500, or that it’d knock me down to one like that kind of enemy did in X-2.
-I pop Omni-Guard and then use Hard Break to beat it down. Four shots and it’s done. Whew. Warrior has overtaken Mascot as my favorite dressphere.
-An achievement tells me I’m halfway through. So this’ll go up to 80, not 100. Nice.
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Outside
-ZANARKAND???
-Wait, no, this is the tower. But hot damn does it look a lot like Zanarkand.
-Rikku telling stories of beating people up. [Later edit: only when looking at this screenshot after did it hit me that she’s telling the story of what we saw in the intro to X-2.]
-They’re reminiscing about their time as the Gullwings.
-PAINE IS WRITING A BOOK HOLY SHIT
GOOOO PAINE!!!
-Paine thinks Rikku is just kind of puttering around. Going nowhere, but going nowhere fast. What is her goal? Rikku doesn’t know.
-Poor Rikku. She is doing okay, but trying to think of what she really wants to do.
-OH SHIT she comes out SWINGING at Yuna.
A lot of resentment beneath the surface – she feels like Yuna is wasting her life with her fairly calm Besaid existance, and perhaps that such a life is a sort of rebuke to Rikku’s choices.
-Look. I don't agree with Rikku here, but I like it a lot from her, if that makes sense? It feels like she's getting substance, body, like her character is being fleshed out in a way it wasn't in X-2's base game.
-Paine has to break it up.
YUNA: “She started it.”
RIKKU: “You started it, Yunie.”
PAINE: “I SWEAR TO GOD I’M GONNA TURN THIS CAR AROUND.” (I might have paraphrased Paine’s line.)
-No real closure for now. Seeing old friends isn’t always easy.
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Floors 41-50
-I just noticed I have an ability called “Change Out” that would let me swap to another character. WAS THAT ALWAYS THERE??? I feel like such a dingus for missing it.
-I’m gonna stick with Rikku, but I’m a bit worried that I might get to the top and find that some final boss requires all three characters. I hope not. If that’s the case, I’ll probably have to try going with the Ultimecia strategy of using Yuna and Paine as cannon fodder.
-Feeling much more comfortable now with tile movement, specifically how to position myself to lure ranged casters into melee distance.
-45th floor has three barriers. Attacking empty tiles five times neutralized one. Using consumables (or maybe it’s just reading folios) neutralized a second. Throwing/dropping items worked for the next.
How much do I hate confuse? SO MUCH.
-At the shop, bought a Safety Pouch. Sounds useful. And the Growth thing that increased AP wasn’t as useful as I’d hoped.
-…meh. I regret buying the Safety Pouch. I hoped it’d be like the Safety Bit from past games, but it just prevents items from getting BOOMed. Not really a problem yet.
-Found my first Coeurls on 49. They’re not TOO terrible. Tons of HP and they use Blaster for moderately heavy damage, but I they only seem to be able to attack from range.
-Floor 50, two barriers. Neutralized the first by stomping on a couple of trampoline traps. Neutralized the second by ending the turn without moving a bunch of times. Starting to get the hang of what kind of stuff to test.
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Outside
-Rikku’s getting annoyed at how high this place is, and why we’re doing this in the first place.
-The party starts to debate who wrote the letter. Leblanc? Rin? No. Doesn’t seem their style.
-OH SHIT IT WAS PAINE
-SHE MISSED THE GROUP!! Thought if they were together again, she’d “have something to grab onto again.”
-lolol there’s nothing to see up top, it was just a Paine-created MacGuffin.
-They could go back, but Yuna insists they continue.
RIKKU: “Hey, what do you think’s gonna happen to the three of us after this?”
PAINE: “If we keep going, maybe we’ll find out.”
Whew. This is heavy shit.
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Floors 50-60
-Did the music change up here?
-Floor 55. Four barriers. Neutralized the first by using a book. Neutralized the second by swinging at empty squares. Neutralized the third by ending my turn without moving a few times. Neutralized the fourth by using some consumables, including a potion (in case that matters).
-These Mycotoxin (mushroom) enemies are pretty rough. They put me to sleep then get off 3-4 Thundagas on me.
-Huge Pop Fry machina on floor 57. They use Holy and Meteor both. Glad I have a high-ish level Warrior dressphere to soak it up.
-Ah crap. My level 12 Mascot got BOOMed. Learning from my mistake. Going to keep an Alchemist dressphere in my inventory in case I need Item Esuna.
-Level 60. Three Sahagins and a demon wall. OH AND OMEGA/ULTIMA, SHIT.
-Great music though.
-Once the Sahagins are dealt with, I swap to White Mage as prime dressphere for the Holy. That takes out the Tomb (that demon wall) pretty quick.
-It’s Ultima Weapon. It uses Judgment and Dawn of Ruin as major attacks. They are heavy, but I can survive it.
-Now it’s using “Final Abyss.” Omni-Guard eats it.
-Now I’m in melee range with Omni-Guard up. I slam on a bunch of Hard Breaks and Ultima goes down. WOOHOO!!
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Outside
-The sun is rising. What a beautiful setting.
-We’re reeeeeally high up.
-Paine thinks back to that time relaxing with the faction leaders. This dawn is reminding Paine of when Nooj (possessed by Shuyin) shot her.
-Their group broke up after that.
-Rikku has her own memories of being afraid to lose friends. We flash back to that meeting by the campfire in Zanarkand, this time from Rikku’s perspective.
She was terrified that Yuna was about to die right then.
-Yuna felt the same sort of fear then.
-Tidus’s voice comes over. “Listen to my story. This may be our last chance.” It wasn’t.
-Rikku is clearly terrified right now that this’ll be their last real time together as friends, close friends.
Yuna and Paine don’t say anything, but they no doubt feel the same.
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Next time: the final levels of Iutycyr Tower.
