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Part 1 - Heavily Enforced Tutorials

Okay so let's get things started.

First we have a bunch of scripted fights with Auron. I'm forced to use an Overdrive here and there's no way around it. I didn't bother screencapping these fights because they don't matter anyway.

Anyway plot happens. Summary: Tidus plays some blitzball, giant monster called Sin attacks, Zanarkand gets kinda fucked, and I don't show it because who cares and also I watched this intro five fucking times during the testing and making of this LP because I forgot to make separate save files. The last three times I just got up and walked away during the long-ass cutscene.

Getting sucked into Sin kinda looks like getting sucked into a black hole, only it doesn't kill you sometimes I guess.

Now we wash up god-knows-where and get to some real gameplay. Sort of. Note that at this point I have not randomized the sphere grid yet, for reasons you will see shortly.

Tidus fights a fish and then a bigger fish and it basically consists of me hitting Attack over and over again. We don't kill the bigger fish because it's very powerful yet can only take out a set percentage of our health every attack right now because scripted fights.

Also, uh, you may notice sometimes party members and enemies facing backwards. That's an emulator bug that I could fix by changing some options but I'm not going to because it is hilarious.

Flash forward because Tidus NEEDS FOOD and fuck that and oh hey Rikku's here. This is why I can't randomize the sphere grid yet. When I randomize the sphere grid, I also turn off everyone's default abilities because when they join your party, they already have what should be their activated ability nodes already on their character, and then they activate the nodes and gain those skills. When I change the grid, they basically double up on skills. That would make this too easy, so I turned off everyone's starting abilities. That means Yuna doesn't get Cure and Esuna, Lulu won't get all the level 1 magic, etc.

BUT Rikku needs access to the Use command this fight, to teach you to use Grenades and such, even though Rikku leaves your party in about 20 minutes for a good long while. It will not let you do anything else until you do that. So I worked my magic after this fight.

If you haven't guessed by the title of this update, this won't be the last time this messes with me.

Anyway, we beat the Klikk, whoop-dee-doo, get knocked out and taken to an Al Bhed ship. Don't tell Wakka.

So here's something interesting: the Sphere Grid tutorial ignores whatever the sphere grid looks like at the moment and just displays the default. This entire sequence is completely scripted, visuals and all. Granted, there's no way you could have messed with the grid before this point, and also thankfully this means the game doesn't crash or prevent progress.

So instead of Cheer, what does ~~our good buddy~~ Tidus have as his first skill?

...Oh. He learns the MP draining move Osmose....before he learns any MP skills...and his max MP right now is 12...

Well okay what does Rikku have

Oh she knows level 2 ice magic and a spell that can poison enemies. Good to know.

BOSS FIGHT: TROS
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5x5O__DzLhs

Who needs Grenades when Rikku can just spam Blizzara? Also I hope you like the game constantly notifying me about Overdrives. The entire game.

There's not much to talk about with Tros. They teach you about Trigger Commands, you use them, you hit him a bunch, he dies. Also fun fact about Tros: he is actually vulnerable to Poison but takes no damage from it. I would have shown this off since Rikku has Bio but oops I forgot to look it up beforehand this time. Also if I could Capture things I could Capture Tros but he doesn't show up in the Monster Arena.

I dunno, maybe.

Whoops we blinked and now we're on Besaid Island.

Great, super. Wakka can block ice attacks 5 times before he runs out of MP. I'm sure this will be useful but not anytime soon.

We make our way to the village and head into the temple to show off more of our cultural ignorance and blame it on Sin again.

Buddy I got some real bad news for you.

I hate the Cloisters of Trials with all my heart but I will be getting all the goodies in each one. Especially this one for reasons you will see later. If you've played the International version or the Remaster, you know exactly what I'm talking about.

Apparently the Valefor summon is a she (because the fayth is a girl), so I decided to name her Duchess. I'm naming the Aeons because they're not gonna see much use so I might as well be nice to them where I can.

So now let's see what Yuna and Lulu have. Lulu should have a whopping four skills since she ordinarily knows the four level 1 black magic spells.

.....I see. Yuna knows Silence Buster, which is very useful but not for its damage output, and Extract Mana, which makes the enemy drop Mana Spheres. And Lulu can inflict Zombie, guard party members from physical attacks, cast level 2 water magic (this is good), and use battle items (VERY GOOD). Not all that bad, I guess. Aside from Watera, her damage output is gonna be crap though.

(Guard on Lulu actually isn't completely terrible in a regular game because Lulu ends up getting quite a bit of Defense. Unfortunately this isn't a regular game so who knows how her defense will be later on.)

Time to head out of Besaid Village and go through some more scripted tutorials and learn more about our party members. Tidus can hit nimble enemies easy, Wakka can hit fliers, and Lulu's magic (what little she has in this run, anyway) can take out magic enemies. Fire and ice are opposites, and so are Lightning and Water. So with this Water Flan we-

Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Oh hey look Lulu has Thunder for a brief moment because I can't advance past the tutorial unless she can kill this thing with magic. Which she can't if her only black magic spell is the same element as the blob monster that absorbs the same element that it is.

Here's Kimahri! Just mash attack, use a potion, mash attack some more and there you go. Unfortunately he doesn't join our party right away afterwards so we don't get to see his Lancet replacement.

Duchess gets the chance to see some action and destroy this Garuda. And by that I mean I have to use her. She destroys it with ease but another Garuda is not too far away. Wakka says he'll take care of this one, s-

.......It wants Wakka to use Dark Attack on it.

FINE (note: I did not remove Dark Attack until after this update so you'll see it in the next boss video but I did not use it)

Lulu's Watera deals pretty sweet damage this early in the game.

Yuna's attack, not so much. Silence Buster and Extract Mana deal physical damage. Well, Silence Buster deals non-elemental apparently, but I'm pretty sure it still depends on her strength because it did fuck all for damage. Lulu is in a same situation with Zombie Attack.

Finally, a test of our abilities. Defeating the flier and the beast is easy. Then it becomes time for the Flan.

Ah, right. Unfortunately Lulu no longer knows Thunder now that she is not forced to use it. It'll take some time, but we can totally defeat that blo-

........right. Enemies can target themselves with spells. So it can target itself with Water and heal it. And even though Lulu zombified it, zombies still absorb elemental damage if they did previously. So this battle is......nearly impossible. Unless you get lucky, I guess. I'm just guessing because the character-only challenge guides don't even mention this fight and I'm pretty sure you can't run away from it and even if you could I can't in this challenge anyway. Either way I did not get lucky after a few rounds.

So I just had Lulu use a grenade. (I realize now that I could have also used a healing item on it since it was Zombified)

Tidus gets a little more defense and 200 more HP, while Yuna gets Demi, which takes off a quarter of enemies' remaining health. Still not very useful.

So we get to the pier, board the boat, and we're off to Kilika Port.

I really need to save my money so I can't afford to donate to this asshole right now.

Oh right. Suddenly.....sin attacks!

BOSS: SIN'S FIN AND SINSPAWN ECHUILLES
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8gpHHaZAdg

So in this boss fight, we learn that Kimahri has Focus instead of Lancet which is great and not all useless during this fight. Yuna's Demi is underwhelming as fuck, surprise surprise, but thankfully I manage to get through both phases pretty easily. I was killing Sinscales for experience at the beginning. I could have farmed a bit more (and probably should have) but I decided to get things over with.

Anyway, we wash up on Kilika and a lot of shit gets destroyed and bunch of people fucking die. Yuna must go send them to the afterlife or else they'll turn into monsters. But we have more important things to worry about, like leveling everyone up on the grid.

Wakka gets some magical defense and 20 MP, while Tidus gets another 200 HP right off the bat and also Reflect. Which he can't even cast because it costs 14 MP and he only has 12. Nice.

Okay Yuna we need to talk. Regen is neat, though really expensive, but another Sphere extractor? I guess if I'm ever hurting for spheres for whatever reason, I'm set. I can't use them for customizing though, and I certainly can't profit off them for 1 gil apiece.

Kimahri got a little accuracy and evasion, and Lulu got 8 Strength. Which she needs, I guess.

Really glad I got this Rod of Wisdom to increase Yuna's Magic....which she can't really make use of....at the moment....

So here is where everybody stands right now, and where everyone would ordinarily be on a regular run. Note that the bonuses from Yuna's Rod of Wisdom aren't reflected here.

Next time we get to have actual meaningful random encounters and gameplay and no I will probably not be fighting Lord Ochu this visit.