Luca
-Blitzball season opens!
-The Aurochs aren’t coming. Babysitting duty.
-They want the gullwings to take their place.
-Ok, so we’re doing this.
-This looks like it has the potential to be an expansive mini-game, but I kind of doubt I’ll spend much time with it to be honest.
-Not gonna mess with the team too much yet. I played FFX recently enough and played a TON of blitzball, so not gonna go through the tutorial again. Let’s see what we look like in an exhibition game.
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Gullwings vs. Kilika Beasts
-wait wtf is going on
-what the hell is this?
-I feel like I’m feeding goldfish rather than playing blitzball
-what the sweet fuck did you do to my blitzball x-2
-it’s halftime, I’m winning 2-0, and although I don’t quite know what’s happening, I’m reasonably sure I hate this
-oh wait that’s not halftime, the entire game is now just one half.
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Tutorial
-Ok. Chill, Coldrun. This is a different game. Don’t be one of those people who gets pissed because A Thing is different. Fresh eyes.
-I’m gonna go through this tutorial with an eye towards what is different.
-Each match is 5 minutes.
-A game can be called if one team scores 7 points, or if a team… wait, is this right? If 7 team members are INJURED? Did X-2 go full Thunderdome and hang chainsaws and spiked bats around the blitzball sphere?
-Command points improve my players. I get command points away from the blitzball stadium or by playing matches. Initially capped at 100.
-ooh, neat! Team chemistry is a thing in x-2.
-there are about seventy billion different skills.
Many are familiar, but some are not. For instance, RCH = defensive reach, MOR = chance of executing special shots (morale), and FTG = chance of injuries (fatigue).
-This is a lot to take in. Let me think… what are the three most important skills for various roles?
Attack: SHT, END, MOR
Defense: BLK, ATK, PAS
Keeper: CAT, RCH, PAS
Later edit: after reviewing this more, I’m reasonably sure I misunderstood stuff and will revisit this later. Not looking for tips or anything like that at the moment.]
Seems like a reasonable starting point.
-Hm. Looks like I can’t improve RCH through training. I wonder what determines it.
-So many formations, and since the games are automated, they’ll matter a lot more than in FFX.
-Each of the eight trainable attributes has a “sweet spot.” Training above that sweet spot increases fatigue.
-The language in this tutorial is a bit confusing. An example:
“The teamwork values displayed at the top left of players’ names show how well the other players play with the selected player.”
It makes sense, sort of. Just took me a bit to parse.
-I’m really struggling to understand how to train without fatiguing.
-OH!!!! I see. *lightbulb moment* On the player screen, the first number is the number of the technique the player is training. The right is how many points they’re putting into it.
-Trained up a bunch, trying to buff players’ relevant stats while keeping downtime low.
-Ok. Spent about 90 training points. Let’s try another exhibition match.
-lol im getting clobbered. 7-0 loss to Al Bhed, then a 5-0 loss to Luca.
Shinra is no Keepa. I dunno.
-I might come back later.
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Luca
-omg is there a pirate sphere break player?
-This pirate looks like a Sphere Break superboss.
-A number of new ones sphere break challenges here. I just don’t feel like the pressure and getting my ass handed to me right now.
-I love the hypello!
-I beat her and feel legit bad about it.
-OOH I CAN PLAY AGAINST THE DOG!
-holy crap I got a garment grid from playing the dog – the White Signet garment grid, granting white magic access. This tells me just how many garment grids I’m missing if they can be found at moments like this. Well… not exactly from playing the dog, but because I used some kind of rare item granting coin that I lost.
-One of the Kilika players is living the dream. Surrounded by animals.
-Lots of great banter just walking around the town. Very… normal. Peaceful. Couples dating, people excited about blitzball, workers moving cargo. Nobody worried about the threat of Sin.
-I finally beat the Punk Kids.
-And got an achievement! “Sphere Breaker.”
-Leaving Luca. So there’s a lot there that’s left over. I have a feeling that I’ll end up using a replay to really dive into the toughest Sphere Break challenges and into this new version of blitzball. Not quite feeling it right now.
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Calm Lands
-Currently at Publicity Level 2 for Open Air. This is another one of those things I’ll probably leave for a replay to really dive fully into.
-Not much else happening at the chocobo ranch. Got some potions, sent out some more chocobos.
-I’ll bet that node in the northeast is related to the publicity campaign.
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Mi’ihen Highroad
-Rin is finishing off his investigation on the Highroad troubles.
-He’s gathered some people by the Agency. I wonder if this’ll be like the reveal at the end of a Colombo episode… YES IT IS!
-So someone jumped down onto a control panel.
-wait, it was rikku? Huh?
-Ah!! I see. It was an accident. Rikku jumped to get out of the way of the hover as it tried avoiding hitting her. She landed on the drone machina down below.
-lol this classic ffx-2 split screen
-Rin is sentencing Rikku. It’ll lbe, like, “clean up your shit,” right?
-Basically. Rikku got stuck on trash duty. :D
-Later, we see Rin on chocobos.
RIN: “They were being employed to power a ferryboat, so I purchased them.” Nice FFX callback.
-poor rikku. Now she has to pick to pick up the feathers from Rin’s chocobo.
-I SCORED THE RAGNAROK ACCESSORY? HELL YES!! I mean, I should see what it does before I get too excited, but Ragnarok is usually a major power item/weapon in the series.
-And so it is now. Reduces MP cost to zero during battle. This would’ve been nice during the Angra Mainyu fight.
-Episode completion takes me back to the Celsius, but I return here for a last run through the zone.
-I have the option to ride chocobos down the highroad now, but I’m not feeling in a rush. Gonna walk and fight along the way.
-Many along the Highroad are happy that the chocobos are back.
-I’m trying out Bribe a bit. 2k gil doesn’t cut it. 5k doesn’t. Maybe 10k?
-Nope. Not 10k. 20k? (Trying to bribe an Aka Manah, one of the demons.)
-Yup! 20k worked. He gave me a nice accessory, Lag Shock, and ran away.
-I’m working on a theory about the publicity campaign for Open Air. I think if I match the grammatical structure and tone of what the person says, I might have success.
-Bribing is surprisingly fun. Because it’s a surprise! Bribed an Oversoul Peregrine for 20k (that seems to be the magic number) and got 7x Mega-Potions.
-HOLY SHIT BRIBED A QUEEN COEURL FOR 20K AND GOT 37 ETHERS!! YES!!!
-Gonna go a bit easy on bribing now that I know it’s good. I want to save money for the tougher places.
-The Prophet is happy to have the chocobos back.
-Ok, time to test my publicity theory. This kid asks me a question, so I give him the “Shee you shoon, yesh?” pitch. “They seem totally pumped!” That’s a good sign.
-Another test. This woman says, “At this rate, lots of people will be running around on chocobos before long!” I go with: “Fun awaits you at Open Air!” Hm. They seem mildly intrigued. There was another exclamatory option I had, “I lost 30 pounds with Open Air!,” but who the fuck wants someone pitching them like that?
-I DID IT!! I’M ON THE DOWNEASTER ELIXIR, AND I’M CRUSING THROUGH BESAID ISLAND SOUND!!!
It took 999 AP, but Alchemist!Rikku finally got Elixir. Whew.
-The more I test my publicity strat, the more it fails. Oh well. Was a good idea.
-One more thing I want to check out before I call this session.
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Bikanel Desert
-I never checked back in here after defeating Angra Mainyu.
-The main camp is back to normal.
-oh god
-I wasn’t ready
-benzo is mourning marnela
-wait, is she alive?
-MARNELA IS REBORN!! YAY!!!!
-Oh! Marnela is the cactuar word for grandma. There’ll be a new Marnela. She’s just a baby now.
-I can redo all the cactuar shooting games. Neat. At some point I want to try those a bit more, maybe see if I can win all of them at least once.
-The Cactuar Hollow has been sealed up.
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Next time: Mushroom Rock Road.
