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-Around floor 25, I’ve started experimenting with the Dark Knight ability Black Sky more. It’s ridiculously powerful, and the cost is nothing since White Mage can use Curaga so efficiently.
-The more I play with Black Sky, the more shocked I am that its power scales up so dramatically while its health cost does not.
-Reached the Stalwart boss at level 40. Two Black Sky and down. I actually had meant to see if that Mascot’s Mini-Demi would work, but forgot.
-Lol. Maybe I shouldn’t have knocked thief so soon. I was on 55, then fell into three consecutive pit traps bringing me back to 52.
-On floor 58, I get my Dark Knight dressphere to level 50. I wonder if there are diminishing returns, but I think I’m committed to trying this strategy for now.
-Starting to look a bit more at my stats. It seems that when I boost my Dark Knight dressphere, I boost my physical defense, magic, and accuracy. That’s why physical attack seems to be relatively low. The hitpoints for the dressphere seem to have leveled off, only going up by 1HP per level.
I’m going to try spending some of my next fusions on one of the supplementary dresspheres like Gun Mage and see what that does. I know only half of the supplementary dressphere’s stats are added, but still. Fear of diminishing returns.
-Or maybe I shouldn’t worry about that. I keep thinking of Dark Knight as a physical build, and it is, but not necessarily an offensive physical build. My sword is mostly for show. Black Sky is a magic attack. That’s where it’s at.
-I thought I’d be using the Impenetrable Front accessory (no damage from frontal attacks) much more. I hardly ever need it. The half damage is enough, and Black Sky kills stuff so quickly.
-Floor 60. Time to test Mini Demi on Ultima Weapon.
-HOLY SHIT IT WORKS??? ON A BOSS?? Is this really Final Fantasy?
-I gotta try that on the hydra. If it works, I’ll be shocked, but it worked on Ultima Weapon so… maybe?
-Some quick testing:
Dark Knight: Physical Defense, Magic, Accuracy
Mascot: Physical Defense, Magic Defense
Gunner: Physical Defense, Accuracy
Gun Mage: Physical Attack, Magic, Magic Defense
White Mage: Physical Defense, Evasion, Magic
-Hm. I’m still worried about the hydra’s constant quakes. I’ll boost Gun Mage a bit. Maybe that’ll help.
-No. Bad choice. The fact that supplementary dresspheres only boost by half makes it not worth it. I’ll just continue building up Dark Knight, except if I visit a Dress Shop and can buy 2+ of one of the supplementary dresses versus only one of the Dark Knight dressphere.
-Still glad I tested it.
-I’ve ditched the Festivalist dressphere I kept spare. Just don’t seem to need Spinner for this build.
-Fought a Queen Coeurl on floor 73. It used quake, and confirmed for me that Quake is magic, not physical. Yuna is much more heavily prepped for physical damage, but still a decent chunk of magic defense. That plus half damage make me think I might actually be okay against the hydra.
-Ooh, plus I’ve only seen two phases of the fight, and the second only briefly. Because it’s a hydra, I’m working off the assumption that there will be four phases. Even odds that one of those last two phases is about heavier physical damage.
-What I’ve learned about stats also tells me that I’m okay throwing away the Impenetrable Front accessory that stops physical damage from the front. I’m just not worried about physical damage with my Dark Knight dressphere. Would rather have an elixir or something in that slot.
-OH GOD MY HEART WAS IN MY THROAT JUST NOW
-I fought a cactuar on floor 75. Got cocky. Assumed I could just punch it a couple of times and be okay, since its Needles ability did only 150 damage back on floor 15. (My Dark Knight dressphere has 677 HP). It did 750 damage.
I was about to panic before I saw the “Hope: A Memoir” auto-life effect save my ass. Whew.
-Floor 79. Now Floor 77. Deep breaths. Here we go.
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Hydra: the Rematch
-This second playthrough, research and testing included, took me 20+ hours. Let’s fucking go.
-Quake does 7 damage rather than 40 this time. It also doesn’t give me confuse. Feeling great right now.
-Does the mascot demi work?
-YES IT DOES IT DOES 900 FUCKING DAMAGE, BITE ME HYDRA
-Used Mini-Demi a bunch, and now it’s time to rain some Black Sky on this asshole.
-PHASE ONE DOWN
I’M ON AN ADRENALINE RUSH LIKE I HAVEN’T BEEN IN A WHILE BECAUSE I’M STOMPING HIS SNAKY BUTT
-Phase 2. Chill, Coldrun. You only barely saw this before Quake and those self-destructy things wrecked you on your Rikku playthrough.
-Mini Demi knocks off 942 of phase 2. Okay. Just under 4,000 health on this thing.
-I’m still shocked that Demi abilities work on any of this game’s bosses.
-Wait… does… no lol. Tried Doom, and it didn’t work. That’d be just a wee bit too easy, even for a game that saw Black Sky and was like “nah, it’s balanced, don’t worry about it.”
-It summons adds that use Self-destruct. Unfortunately for the hydra, the Self-destruct is physical damage. I’m a Dark Knight. It does 1 HP. I ignore it.
-Black Sky splits the damage among all targets, so my strat will be to walk towards the little adds (called Fractus) and get them to self-destruct so all the damage goes to the hydra.
-PHASE 2 DOWN. Phase 3 coming.
-Mini-Demi still works. Just chunks the hydra down.
-Phase 3 is just more of the same as phase 2, with a wider open battle arena. But I don’t use it. I just get up in his face.
-I DID IT
-Only 3 phases, no fourth. That was… intensely anti-climactic. I don’t think I’ve ever overprepared for anything in gaming more in my life. Turns out my first build on Rikku was just kind of awful, and once I thought through everything and planned the hell out of my strategy, the hydra turned into probably the easiest final boss yet. So it’s a good kind of anti-climactic – the kind where I feel like my prep really paid off.
I still feel kind of dirty that Demi worked on a boss. Can’t get over that design decision. But I also don’t feel that guilty. The boss was doing practically no damage to me. I wasn’t in any danger. It was just a question of how long it would take for its HP to go to zero, and demi sped that up.
-It’s bittersweet. Both for me, and the Gullwings. They enjoy the victory, but this trip to Iutycyr Tower has shown them how much has changed.
-They walk to the final gate. One last cheer.
please please PLEASE don’t be another boss fight. [Later edit: in hindsight, I really shouldn’t have worried about this. I got an achievement after beating the hydra called “80 – Giant Tower.”]
-There’s a platform up here up top. Two awesome gargoyles.
-Some kind of machine/platform. Rikku starts fiddling with it…
-…and nothing happens lololol. It’s just an old broken thing.
Oh god it’s not funny at all is it, it’s a metaphor for a friendship past its time.
-But it’s not like they’re enemies! They’re just in different places now, still with their memories and affection.
-They all take in the beauty of the view, high above the clouds.
-Three gulls soar off in the distance.
-We don’t hear them now. We just see them talking, joking with each other.
RIKKU to herself: “Is our time together over now? Are we all gonna go our separate ways?”
-I love this. I love this. I love this. I was expecting them to find something abstract up here, but I did not expect it to be this. I thought they’d learn that nothing could ever split them apart. Which is a nice enough idea, but not something I see with old friendships in new places that often.
Instead, they enjoy the moment. Enjoy each other’s company and time for what it is. They’re different people, and they don’t have to be angry that time has continued to move.
Hold on loosely.
-Wait, was the spiraling water always moving like that? I don’t think so. Something they did activated this machine.
-I don’t know that this has any practical purpose, but it sure is beautiful.
-Closing montage of moments from FFX. Of Yuna specifically. Sending, Tidus, laughing, in the lake, FUCKING SEYMOUR, everything.
-Another montage. Moments from X-2 this time.
-Final montage of everyone. X and X-2. From Kimahri to Wakka, from Sin to Jecht, Paine to Nooj.
-There it is. One more thing left in my FFX/X-2/LM compilation, and that’s the audio and credits. But first… final thoughts on Last Mission!
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Final Thoughts on FFX-2 Last Mission - Positives and Negatives
This is going to be much briefer than my thoughts on a full game. I’ll try just a positive/negative breakdown. Here we go:
POSITIVES
+The story. This was everything I could have wanted. The Gullwings together one last time. Not summoned together because of another threat to the world, but bringing themselves together. Well… Paine bringing them together, but they all were pretty okay with it.
The biggest strength for me came in the writing, and in the choice to not have an ending where they’re all best friends forever. There’s a legitimate bravery in this decision. It would’ve been so easy to end with a “friends FOREVER!” message. Friends staying friends forever while admitting they are different, in different parts of their lives, and growing apart?
Bravo, game.
+Dresspheres. One of my complaints about the dresspheres in X-2 was that, compared with FFV, there was no mixing and matching. The dressphere layering system fixed this. So great to have a base job and be able to still add other jobs to it in a limited way. I would love to see a version of FFX-2 that incorporates this!
+The general layout and combat. I got used to the basics very quickly and grew to enjoy it. The whole tile-by-tile set-up was perfect. It made this feel more like a mobile game than a full FF entry. I don’t mean that in a negative way – just that it had a different scope, and adapted to tthat scope with some innovative and fun basic design.
+Replayability. I almost want to play this before playing FFX or X-2 again. Not that it’s a better game than those, but starting a new game is less of a commitment, and the variety from replays excites me. I want to have a playthrough as Paine maybe, and try out other dresspheres! Psychic maybe. Or a more purely ranged build, like a Gun Mage build that focuses on physical attacks rather than defense and magic (like this Dark Knight build).
Replaying the game appeals to me even more after this second playthrough. I just feel so much more confident in my understanding of stats and abilities and what upgrades dresspheres does that I could create cool builds intentionally.
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NEGATIVES
-The length. It wasn’t a super long game, but I personally would’ve preferred it to be maybe 40 levels. Much of this felt like padding.
-Inventory management. I suppose they didn’t want me to just get ALL the dresspheres and use them all. They wanted me to make choices. But there had to have been better ways to set the inventory up. Maybe set a maximum number of dresspheres you could carry at once?
The little thing that most pissed me off (aside from the already low amount of inventory space) was how I couldn’t stack up the same type of items. Made things super awkward without a real upside that I could think of.
-Difficulty ramp at the end. This was probably just me, but I never had any problems with any of the bosses along the way. My dressphere set-up felt okay as I tinkered with it, and got me through the game, but felt totally inadequate for the final boss. It’s not an issue I found in any of the prior FF games.
-And strangely, to go the other direction: how overpowered some things were. Black Sky was super overpowered. Demi should not have been usable against bosses. 1/2 Damage was seven million times better than any other auto-ability. And I’m sure there is a host of other stuff I didn’t notice or see.
-The elevator puzzles. I harped on these plenty in my playthrough, so I won’t pile on here.
-Sometimes the random layouts were annoying. Specifically, I often got floors with long paths that just led to walls/dead ends.
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So that’s “Last Mission!” Some cool mechanics, phenomenal writing, and some major flaws.
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Next time: one last entry in the world of FFX/X-2. An audio thingy. I’ll listen, see what’s up, write some notes, and then it’s onto the massively multiplayer online world of FFXI next week.
