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Episode XXIII: Spark My Flame
Music: Hymn of the Fayth
Thanks to Summoner Dona being a bit of a bitch, Tidus is now stuck at the entrance to Kilika's Cloister of Trials. Apparently, the elevator does not reset until the person that rides it down is locked into the trial area. Which begs the question of how do people summon it back down after finishing the trials. But details...
Tidus is given the option of not breaking more religious taboos by bumbling into another forbidden area to solve puzzles. But sadly, Yuna and the gang will never finish up back stage until Tidus enters and performs the trial himself. No Easter Eggs for loitering around for an hour. I am sure someone out there with far too much time has tried unsuccessfully in the past.
"Well, I guess it's too late now."
"I mean Sin just attacked here yesterday. I'm sure if anymore old geezers get ticked off, I can still run with that toxin excuse..."
Tidus enters the second Cloister of Trials...
Music: Between Ordeals
Welcome to the second puzzle dungeon of Final Fantasy X. As with the first rodeo, we are locked in until the thing is completed and the mini-map is disabled because fuck you! While Kilika Temple is not a tutorial area like Besaid's trial proved to be, it's still within the realm of easy training wheels business. With that in mind, let's get crackin'!
This first chamber is quite simple. There is a burning pedestal with a sphere embedded into the front of it and a sealed door at the back of the room with a sphere slot next to it. ...How was this entire set-up reset already? Just taking into account the usual off progression of time in RPGs, it cannot have been more than a few minutes since Yuna and company had to have rolled through here...
Setting gameplay realism logistics aside, let's get to solving this first basic obstacle. The house Kilika Spheres can, as you can probably derive from the whole burning pedestal thing, produce fire when set into sphere slots. So we just snag this sphere...
And jam it into the slot by the northern gate to burn that sonuvabitch to ashes. Of course, it’s a bit difficult to progress with a wall of flame barring the way. So Tidus has to yank the Kilika Sphere back out to extinguish the obstacle.
Entering the next chamber with the Kilika Sphere in hand, we come to a very similar looking area. This time around there are sphere slot dongles to the north, east, and west. There is also another (movable) pedestal holding a Glyph Sphere (the ‘necessary to complete this dungeon’ type, if you’ll recall.) We can jam the Kilika Sphere into another of the three slots in this room.
But again, we are going to want to insert it at the northern slot of the room. The fire does not burn open a new route this time around, but instead chars a glyph into the wall. Groovy.
You will recall Tidus should vigorously rub any and all magical glyphs he comes across. Unless they are on the tongue of an angry mute covered in blood... That would not end well. Anyhow, before glyph rubbing can commence, Tidus needs to relocate the Kilika Sphere to either of the two other slots in the room. The western and eastern slots of this chamber are useless. They’re pretty much just there to be cup holders for other spheres.
Feeling up the glyph opens the path to the third and final chamber of this Cloister of Trials...
...and both is it toasty in here. We’ll probably need to do something about the inferno in the center of this area. To the west of this chamber is a staircase leading down into the fire. An invisible wall unfortunately blocks extremely idiotic summoners (and now blitzball players) from self-immolating. On the eastern half of the room, there is another Kilika Sphere feeding into the blaze as well as a pedestal sized pressure panel. Stepping on said panel without a pedestal will teleport the block puzzle component along with the Glyph Sphere on it into the center of this chamber. It’s supposed to reset the puzzle if the player is stupid enough to shove the thing into a corner. But it also can save a bit of legwork. So hopping on that is a good idea.
In any case, we first need to do something about that Kilika Sphere in the wall. Just removing it will not quell the flames. So let’s just ditch it back in the previous room.
Instead, let’s try slamming that Glyph Sphere into its place...
Huh. Glyph Spheres double as fire extinguishers. Who knew?
Doing Smokey the Bear proud also reveals Kilika Temple’s Destruction Sphere. If we only wanted to get this Cloister of Trials over with right now, it’d take all of about twenty seconds of legwork. However, we DO want whatever bounty the Destruction Sphere provides. So let’s take a minute to go the extra distance...
This Destruction Sphere puzzle is pretty easy. First, we’re going to need one of those Kilika Spheres and plant that sonuvabitch in the Glyph sphere’s old pedestal.
Then the newly converted sliding torch needs to be shoved onto the pressure panel mentioned earlier. Doing so will cause it to burn away part of the walkway apparently constructed with sub-standard building materials.
If we have Tidus run down into the formerly flaming lower path, a new Kilika Sphere presents itself behind the portion of the room burnt out by the pedestal.
Now it’s just a simple matter of ditching the Kilika Sphere back in the second chamber of the area and inserting the Destruction Sphere in its place.
Ta-da! Destruction Sphere Puzzle #2 is down and out! 
For our troubles, Kimahri gets a new armlet that reduces damage from all basic elements other than water (no amount of magic will ever make cats not hate water.) So that’s nice too.
Now that everything else is taken care of, let’s finish this lousy puzzle dungeon. All we need to do now is go retrieve one of the Kilika Spheres and carry it to the opposite side of the third chamber.
And from there we use it to burn down another ancient stone gateway, yank it back out to clear the way...
...and boom. Kilika Temple’s Cloister of Trials fizzles out. Hurray!
Tidus moseys on into the designated Guardian waiting area...
New Music: Song of Prayer ~ Ifrit
Sup, guys. Hope you don’t mind if we shat all over your religious customs. Again.
Tidus waltzes further into the room. Everyone immediately gets totally pissed at our bumbling heathen hero...
*scratches head* "It was Dona and that big musclehead man!"
*sideyes Kimahri* ”I am getting shoved around way too much by big burly quiet guys today...”
<Nancy boy think Kimahri pushed him. When Kimahri REALLY pushes him, he will know. Maybe... Kimahri not sure if nancy boy immediately breaks neck afterwards if that counts as knowing... Will ponder that while trying best to tune out idiot asking onslaught of stupid questions... again...>
Lulu storms over and enters her best angry pose...
"Uhh... What consequences?"
"She could be excommunicated!”
”...That’s a bad thing, right...?”
“No. We are just taking a cross tone to compliment the acoustics of this chamber...”
“...”
Welp. We have to speak with everyone to progress. Time for a bit of exposition for the audience surrogate...
Tidus talks to Wakka...
"The fayth, remember?"
"Oh yeah, that thing. Right."
”...Never really got told what the heck that means...”
“Yevon took their souls, willingly given from their still-living bodies."
"Huh?!"
"Now they live forever, trapped in statues. But when a summoner beckons, the souls of the fayth emerge once again. That's what we call an aeon."
"All that in this room?“
”So these statues... Like do they determine what an aeon is or does these people’s souls’ power just naturally turn into like giant birds and stuff...?”
*rubs neck* “I... would guess it would be ergh... Lu...?”
“Well... I... suppose...? Err... As guardians, this is not for us to know.”
“S-So what's Yuna doing in there?"
"She prays with all her heart for a way to defeat Sin.”
Tidus talks to Lulu...
"What, even guardians can't go?"
"It's taboo!"
“Oh...”
”So I probably shouldn’t just sneak a pe—”
“NO!”
“Alright, alright! Geez...”
If Tidus tries to enter anyway, he gets a friendly “FUCK OFF” shove from Kimahri. Since it would seem the resident Na’vi is the only one taking his job seriously.
A little while later...
Well, at least Yuna has stepped up her game from over two days to grind enough Job Points to gain a summon down to about twenty minutes.
Yuna stumbles over to the rest of the ground and gabs while Tidus monologues to himself from the sidelines...
“That song we heard there, in the temple... I knew it from my childhood. It was proof that Spira and Zanarkand were connected somehow. At least to me it was.“
“I tried to say something, to tell them. But the words wouldn't come.”
In any case, Ifrit McGruff has joined the aeon stable with much less fanfare than Kazooie. Sorry, no showboating for the villagers for the rest of the summons.
Some time later...
Music: Hymn of the Fayth
Yuna immediately is mobbed by a crowd of admirers upon successfully completing Kilika’s trials. That whole business with Yuna getting shitlisted for Tidus’ mischief...? Immediately forgotten about.
Tidus stares at Yuna’s crowd of admirers and decides to have a flashback...
You really ought to at least skip ahead to this part of the highlight reel if only to see Tidus perform the most spaztastic dance ever in the middle of this crowd.
Edit: Video: Our hero!
”Fans... Fangirls... Free stuff... Endorsement deals... Everyone wanting my autograph... I missed it all. You know not one person has asked my name since I got to Spira... What is up with that?!”
Tidus’ flashback concludes as the crowd disperses. Yuna notices Tidus spacing out...
“I... Ehh... I don’t know...”
“What... do you... want to do?”
“To scream real loud.”
*nervous laughter*
“WWAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!”
And on that incredibly awkward note, we are dumped back into Kilika Woods. Our duties on Kilika Island have all but concluded, so it’s just a simple matter of jogging back to the docks to catch the next ferry to Luca.
Music: Normal Battle
But while we’re in the hostile neighborhood, we may as well give McGruff a chance to take a fiery bite out of crime, eh?
McGruff gets a pretty metal summoning introduction.
Our new buddy, as you may have guessed, is a fire elemental summon. This means he absorbs and fire based magic and gets his shit pushed in by ice. McGruff comes out of the box with a basic Fire spell as well as a NulBlaze (neutralizes one Fire spell) and NulFrost (ditto but for Ice) spells. I’m not sure what purpose the former serves to a character that already absorbs fire damage. But there you go.
McGruff’s unique attack is Meteor Strike in which it spits out a giant ball of fire and then punches it at a single enemy. Unlike Kazooie’s Sonic Wings, Meteor Strike does not delay an enemy’s turn. In fact, it has a larger recover time than McGruff’s normal attacks making him lose a turn instead. That isn’t the greatest attribute... On the plus side, it deals non-elemental damage despite being a great big fireball. Plus it ignores enemies that have the Protect (physical damage resistance buff) cast on themselves.
As far as Overdrives go, McGruff is equipped with the Hellfire attack. A fire-based attack that hits all enemies for a respectable amount of damage.
The actual attack involves McGruff summoning forth a column of fire from the bowels of hell, which blasts enemies into the air.
It then spits a few fireballs to produce a gigantic vortex of flame.
And then finally it tears up a giant piece of earth and lobs that sonuvabitch at the inferno. Killer Croc would no doubt approve of McGruff’s fighting style.
And that is our fire summon in a nutshell. Now then, let’s get the hell out of this dive of an island!
A power walk back to town and a trek to the docks later...
Music: The Sight of Spira
I don’t know about you all, but I have seen quite enough of Kilika for one day. Let’s blow this broke ass town.
And so concludes this chapter of our journey through Final Fantasy X.
Video: Episode 23 Highlight Reel
Video: McGruff Summon Demo (Recommended Viewing)
Ifrit Concept Art