Nattering about FFX (not a real post, in other words)

[mousme]

I'm still more than mildly obsessed with this game, although the New!Shiny! has worn off considerably since I got it. It's a good thing, too, because I was beginning to be very very sleep-deprived after the first week.

Yep, still having fun. I've also gone mildly OCD about the game, which has so many little secrets and side-quests and Stuff You Just Have To Know But Can't Conceivably Unless Someone Tells You™ that the mind fairly boggles.

I realized this about a week ago, when I finally got over my initial squick at Killing Stuff For XP™ and started paying attention to strategy in the game as well as the story. Leveling up is okay to do, and some of the side quests look like they could be a lot of fun. Side quests are also good for some much-needed leveling up of characters who otherwise get their asses kicked in the boss fights. So it all ties together and makes it much more palatable for me.

Then some of the side quests started kicking my ass but good, which was more than a little frustrating. Most of them are the Celestial Weapons side quests, some of which require a great deal more manual dexterity than I actually have. Others require a lot of planning, a lot of strategy, or just a ton of memory, which I'm short on these days.

So I've started up a notebook to keep track of everything. Yes, a notebook. It has lists and clues and stuff. I haven't written enough in it for it to require a Table of Contents, but I foresee a time when that may become necessary. Did I mention slightly OCD about the game? ;)

1- Tidus' weapon, for instance, requires that I race the damn Chocobos faster than I am capable of doing. Argh. I love the Chocobos (especially the music that plays when you ride one, and the fact that they chirp), but I can't seem to manage any of the challenges in the training grounds.

2- F*cking butterflies! I have no idea how to get past them. Even if I manage to dodge all the stupid red butterflies, thus guaranteeing no encounters, I still run out of time before I can get to the final blue one. I've managed to get six, but I need seven, and then it just puts me right back where I started. *snarl*

3- I am disappointed that I shall forever be missing four Al Bhed primers. Had I known before that they would get blown up with no hope of recovery, I would have made more of an effort to find them. If you get all twenty-six, you get a prize. Now my best hope is to get twenty-two. I currently stand at twenty. One of them is somewhere on the Macalania lake road, and I can't find it for the life of me, and the other one is at some secret coordinates that I can't manage to get to right now.

4- I have yet to find a way to equip a "no encounters" ability on one of my weapons. This is the only way I can think of to duck 200 lightning bolts. Yeesh.

5- A lot of the above would be made a lot simpler if I could figure out just how to get my airship to the secret coordinates. The controls right now are proving too fiddly for me to be able to accurately point to the right coordinates on the map.


The only side quest I've had any success with so far has been the monster arena challenge, in which I have to collect creatures from all the areas in which I've been. When I succeed, the trainer gives me nifty prizes! It's fun. However, all the "new" monsters created from the old ones have never failed to kick my ass within one to three rounds. Oops.

Okay. I'm giving myself 30 minutes, then I have to shower and be on my way.

Comments

[gats.livejournal.com]

The chocobo racing is evil, really evil, really really evil, but the weapon is so good.

The butterflies are also evil.

Actually, every mini game was designed to be horrifyingly evil.