I've been grinding inside Sin.
No, really, I have. Oh, I love Final Fantasy X, it allows me to say this stuff honesty, earnestly and non-ironically.
Sin is the Big Bad Guy of the Final Fantasy X game, a sort of ginormous, magic, demonic whale thing that vacuums up whole towns and villages. It's called Sin possibly in some sort of religious reference (it's never made clear), as it is tied into the game's world's principle religion. At one point in the game you actually end up inside the damn thing for plot reasons that totally make sense at the time, hence my post title.
The Final Fantasy series tend to be a world and whole language to themselves, so for anyone who doesn' have any experience of the Final Fantasy X universe, this next few paragraphs will make no sense whatsoever.
I finished the game about a year ago, but I haven't done all of the side-quests, and that's part of the fun. My current side-quest was going through all of the monsters in the Arena - I've unlocked every area monster, most of the species monsters, and a few of the originals. I was having a whacking great problem with Jumbo Flan, though; that thing needs a Doublecast Ultima just to gets its attention, and not even Anima (complete with full overdrive gauge, Cura and a pissed-off attitude) could put a dent in it, despite Pain doing 99,999 HP worth of damage. The thing can cast Regen on itself to the tune of 30,000+, which puts a dent in any serious attempt to take it out quickly. It's also completely immune to physical attacks and eats elemental magic. Gahh.
After three of four unsuccessful attempts, I went off in a grump to do another side quest, thinking I might come back to it later. The one that caught my attention was the quest for the Venus Sigil, which I've tried before. Damn, but dodging 200 lightning strikes consecutively on the ThunderPlains is hard. I did in about 40 minutes, pausing every ten strikes for a quick break. I got Lulu's ultimate weapon unlocked, and then began to look speculatively at her Sphere Grid.
Completing the whole Sphere Grid for every character is one of those long-term goals I have. I know not even that is enough to defeat the Dark Aeons (you have some serious work to do with empty nodes, and even replacing the lower-level nodes). The thing is, I think Lulu is a bit useless. Yuna is by far the best magic caster, no matter how annoying she is, and after the first few towns Lulu just starts being dead weight, so I haven't done much in the way of her grid. You don't even need her to finish the damn game.
The Jumbo Flan might need her, however. I'd picked up a Cactuar Doll that gives her triple AP, so for the last hour and a half I've been grinding fairly consistently inside Sin, as the monsters there are on average tougher than the Omega Dungeon dudes. I managed to collar her 70 sphere grid moves in an hour and a half, which I consider a success, and her strength stats have gone through the roof; she's done bits of Wakka's and Auron's grid, which have helped. I also managed to get Tidus and Yuna to the Auto-Life sphere, and I'm interested to see how that's going to work out in the Arena.
The advantage to grinding Yuna instead of Lulu is also that any progress you make with her stats are reflected in the Aeon's stats, too. Let me tell you, my top three Aeons (Magus Sisters, Anima and Bahmut) deal out 99,999 damage as a matter of course, and sometimes more in the overdrive. Also, when I finished Yuna's grid and put her on Auron's, man, her damage stats leapt. Her physical attack went from a couple of hundred damage to several thousand in about twenty grid moves. She's still one of my heaviest hitters, it's insane. I put her on Wakka's grid, and then Tidus', and now she's mopping up with Lulu's and Rikku's. I did the same thing with Rikku, and Rikku is now my heaviest hitter bar none. She averages 35,000-40,000 HP damage, which is even more than Auron.
I'm hoping to have Lulu up to scratch with Doublecast Ultima, Yuna with Doublecast Ultima and Holy, and that (combined with a Haste bitchslap from Anima) ought to knock the damn Jumbo Flan out. That'll learn it.
I feel much, much better for a few mindless hours on the PS2, and ready to face tomorrow with an essay plan. Having the afternoon off was a wise move; it allowed me to do stupid things like experiment with the hand-held blender. (I found a box of strawberries in the fridge that were just on the uncomfortable side of ripe, so I blended them with a couple of bananas.) It was the nicest smoothie I've ever had, lumps and all. I like smoothies I can chew.
Sin is the Big Bad Guy of the Final Fantasy X game, a sort of ginormous, magic, demonic whale thing that vacuums up whole towns and villages. It's called Sin possibly in some sort of religious reference (it's never made clear), as it is tied into the game's world's principle religion. At one point in the game you actually end up inside the damn thing for plot reasons that totally make sense at the time, hence my post title.
The Final Fantasy series tend to be a world and whole language to themselves, so for anyone who doesn' have any experience of the Final Fantasy X universe, this next few paragraphs will make no sense whatsoever.
I finished the game about a year ago, but I haven't done all of the side-quests, and that's part of the fun. My current side-quest was going through all of the monsters in the Arena - I've unlocked every area monster, most of the species monsters, and a few of the originals. I was having a whacking great problem with Jumbo Flan, though; that thing needs a Doublecast Ultima just to gets its attention, and not even Anima (complete with full overdrive gauge, Cura and a pissed-off attitude) could put a dent in it, despite Pain doing 99,999 HP worth of damage. The thing can cast Regen on itself to the tune of 30,000+, which puts a dent in any serious attempt to take it out quickly. It's also completely immune to physical attacks and eats elemental magic. Gahh.
After three of four unsuccessful attempts, I went off in a grump to do another side quest, thinking I might come back to it later. The one that caught my attention was the quest for the Venus Sigil, which I've tried before. Damn, but dodging 200 lightning strikes consecutively on the ThunderPlains is hard. I did in about 40 minutes, pausing every ten strikes for a quick break. I got Lulu's ultimate weapon unlocked, and then began to look speculatively at her Sphere Grid.
Completing the whole Sphere Grid for every character is one of those long-term goals I have. I know not even that is enough to defeat the Dark Aeons (you have some serious work to do with empty nodes, and even replacing the lower-level nodes). The thing is, I think Lulu is a bit useless. Yuna is by far the best magic caster, no matter how annoying she is, and after the first few towns Lulu just starts being dead weight, so I haven't done much in the way of her grid. You don't even need her to finish the damn game.
The Jumbo Flan might need her, however. I'd picked up a Cactuar Doll that gives her triple AP, so for the last hour and a half I've been grinding fairly consistently inside Sin, as the monsters there are on average tougher than the Omega Dungeon dudes. I managed to collar her 70 sphere grid moves in an hour and a half, which I consider a success, and her strength stats have gone through the roof; she's done bits of Wakka's and Auron's grid, which have helped. I also managed to get Tidus and Yuna to the Auto-Life sphere, and I'm interested to see how that's going to work out in the Arena.
The advantage to grinding Yuna instead of Lulu is also that any progress you make with her stats are reflected in the Aeon's stats, too. Let me tell you, my top three Aeons (Magus Sisters, Anima and Bahmut) deal out 99,999 damage as a matter of course, and sometimes more in the overdrive. Also, when I finished Yuna's grid and put her on Auron's, man, her damage stats leapt. Her physical attack went from a couple of hundred damage to several thousand in about twenty grid moves. She's still one of my heaviest hitters, it's insane. I put her on Wakka's grid, and then Tidus', and now she's mopping up with Lulu's and Rikku's. I did the same thing with Rikku, and Rikku is now my heaviest hitter bar none. She averages 35,000-40,000 HP damage, which is even more than Auron.
I'm hoping to have Lulu up to scratch with Doublecast Ultima, Yuna with Doublecast Ultima and Holy, and that (combined with a Haste bitchslap from Anima) ought to knock the damn Jumbo Flan out. That'll learn it.
I feel much, much better for a few mindless hours on the PS2, and ready to face tomorrow with an essay plan. Having the afternoon off was a wise move; it allowed me to do stupid things like experiment with the hand-held blender. (I found a box of strawberries in the fridge that were just on the uncomfortable side of ripe, so I blended them with a couple of bananas.) It was the nicest smoothie I've ever had, lumps and all. I like smoothies I can chew.