One test down, one essay type homework to go. Since I was tired after studying all day, I played for a bit and... I think I'm enjoying writing these up too much.

This is a fairly small part, or is distance-wise, but it's by far the most important part because... finally... IXION!





The leaders of Yevon may be corrupt asshats, but the regular priests and followers - aside from Wakka who could really take a lesson from this - usually seem pretty cool. Even Shelinda is trying to help out.



Tidus asks how long until the end and then says something almost every gamer has asked about a game at least once.

Imagine how short this game would be if we had an airship and COULD skip all the walking!

(This is a bad time to ask that though as no way are we ever skipping Ixion)



AT LONG LAST.

At first I thought the map looked small, but then I found this in my inventory later. (Still kind of... I mean most of the older games had more than one continent or even multiple worlds)

I do miss how past games took place in a complete world you could fly around, although I really don't miss getting lost on the world map since I have Laguna-level map sense.



You probably should've mentioned that before. You're lucky Tidus didn't for the very sane reason that no one would believe him, but



Auron tends to be cryptic, leaving with more questions than answers. I can't remember if they know that one guardian has to die or not, so I'm guessing he means that she'd realize a guardian becomes the final aeon and... yeah, as I doubt she'd be distant just because Tidus' father got turned into a giant flying death whale.

I don't remember seeing those white lines on his hands in the original. Meant to signify that he's already dead or was his great great great grandmother Guado?




I would say this is a really good point, but then it doesn't make much sense to keep on hiding the Yuna is going to die aspect, especially when it's celebrated so much so he SHOULD be likely to find out on his own.

As an aside, I just learned that Auron is supposed to be... 35... I always thought he was at least 40, I mean, the gray hair and gruffness and all! Some people go gray early, but then why... I know Japan has a fixation on youth, would listing him as above 35 cause an outrage? (What's funny is that 35 would've been nothing in the SNES era. Tellah, Fusoya, Galuf, and Strago laugh at you)

We walk a short distance and...



I'm starting to really think everyone in the game is against me getting to this temple and will do anything to stall me

and why does Sin hate chocobos so much? I somewhat doubt there was a chocobo machina empire, although I would want to see that




So it does play out just like Kinoc, the bald douche maester from before, wanted as they think this is their punishment for defying the teachings of Yevon rather than punishment for gaudy polka... well, I guess they're actually... polka diamonds?

The crusaders have been around for so long, it seems really unlikely that they haven't tried something similar before and failed. I've yet to see any books or anything so far though, so I'm guessing anything that isn't captured on a sphere is just not recorded.




I'm pretty sure this is the exact same reaction I had the first time.

Hell, I still have it. So much better than the previous temple that looked like someone built it out of discarded pots.



Yuna has a line here which was "Another summoner?" and, when combined with info a little later, it seems confusing as she says it like she's absolutely confused and surprised at the existence of other summoners, but it's suggested there's quite a lot of them... I'm guessing it was supposed to be similar to Tidus' thoughts like "another summoner? would it be Dona? I don't want to deal with her again..." but with the voice acting...

(I love how Tidus says that line though, it's nasely and really gives off a sense of UGH DONA)

Then again, not the worst. That reward goes to a certain XIV character who made serious scenes seem hilarious she was so bad. (In English, I rewatched the same scene in JP and it was amazing then)




There was also a scene earlier I forgot to capture of him despairing right after it happened, and I find myself wanting to know more about him as he seems a lot more interesting than characters like Kimahri or Wakka.

... and hilariously, the party, being the heroes they are, just leave him be without trying to do anything or comfort him.

Oh well, that means I can finally enter the temple in--



...

Isaaru is not letting me pass. Of course.


ELIGIBLE BACHELOR #9: Isaaru. He, um, well, he's very eager to put his assets against yours.

(I love the layout of this place though, not just that lightning, but the murals behind them look like Ixion's horn in a circular fashion)



These two are his brothers, they say, but uh... you know, I'm just going to put this in the "I'm tempted to ask but probably don't want to know the answer" category that is growing pretty fast in this game. (I mean, there's the physical differences, and then Isaaru is 26 and Pacce looks... what, 8? I would also question why he has a kid of a guardian, but this is FF and one of my best characters in FFRK right now is a 6 year old girl since I pulled Eiko's relic)

Annnd ELIGIBLE BACHELOR #10: Maroda. He suffers from the FFX curse of stupid hair (amusingly Isaaru is one of the few named characters without this curse) in that he has cartoonish devil hair, and I remember exactly nothing about him, but he's not carrying a blitzball and has yet to say anything racist, so~

We've now reached double digits! If Lulu went with Wakka just because she didn't spend enough time with any of the others, we now have enough to create a bachelorette style reality show where she can get to know all of them! ... but of course, with significantly more substance and style than those actual terrible shows.




This is basically "Let's have a contest to see which one of us can successfully kill ourselves!"



...wait. I mean assuming they're from Bevelle, it would make sense to go in the opposite direction we are, but Zanarkand is... North, which would be... Unless they're allowed to break rules and use an airship for that, I feel like we were saved what could've been a ton of game padding as we walk back through the same areas a second time (Hey, some games love terrible mechanics like that! Just look at Tales of Xillia 2!) They do end up in Bevelle again somehow, but I can't recall how.

(and amusingly if you talk to his brother enough, he basically accuses Isaaru of not getting off his lazy ass)



And I just stole what I assume was your only mega phoenix down in that chest over there. Oops. I imagine that would've helped a lot of the people dying right now, but we once again prove ourselves to be the best heroes.



Yeah, see, this implies there's a fair amount of summoners, so far we've only met 3 and I really wish one of them wasn't Dona but

Annnd we're FINALLY allowed to enter, yeess I've waited long enough for this



This certainly looks safe.



Have I mentioned how much I love the design of this temple yet

just when I finish the puzzle part and think I'm going to get Ixion...



*weeping

I-- is she even allowed down here? Shouldn't only one summoner at a time be allowed? This + after she pushed Tidus in previously with the hope of getting Yuna excommunicated... shouldn't she be excommunicated instead?

But, her guardian speaks up this time and goes over to Auron and...



Bwhahhaha I'm laughing pretty hard right now as I didn't remember this at all and it's so counter to Dona's reaction to him



As he's just "riff-raff" to her while he's turning all fanboy and saying Auron is the reason he became a guardian



Honestly, I'm starting to wonder if she even is a summoner or just bent on following us around like those crazy people who are fixated on celebs they hate even though they don't actually know them and how people act on screen is often different from who they really are.

also you can just barely make out her beauty mark in this shot!




I know they're heavily implied to be in some... kind of... relationship, but I'm now a little worried for Barthello as between this and the last scene with them I'm starting to think he's just Dona's manslave



I love how you can usually talk to named NPCs up to 3 times before they start repeating themselves, and all 3 lines he has are just variants of SSSSSSQQUUUEE SIR AURON KYYAAA



Yeah, that REALLY isn't a good thing.

... man, imagine if Seymour picked Dona instead of Yuna, just... I suddenly feel sick even imagining those two with any scenes even remotely romantic.

And Dona is... well, I feel like she's another character who could've been a lot better. She's the only character outside of Tidus and the like who DOESN'T praise Yuna for being Braska's daughter and special, but instead of questioning whether Yuna is really ready, that your parents don't determine your profession in life, pointing out that Yuna is too young and hasn't really had the chance to live, or doing anything remotely reasonable, she just comes across as another member of Spira's Asshats. She has no given reason to be so salty about Braska and Auron, I mean, why would you hate someone who you've never met and gave you years of peace as a result of sacrifice?

(Though curiously it occurs to me that she has a lot in common with Seifer, and Seifer is beloved by the VIII fandom... I actually dislike Seifer even more than Dona as the way they try to romanticize him when he's essentially an overblown bully skeeves me out but... yeah, strangely everyone tends to hate Dona so I wonder if it's a female vs male aggressive rival characters thing or if it's just because no one wearing such an insane outfit can be considered attractive)



AT LONG LAST.

I don't even know why I like Ixion so much, perhaps because FFX was my first FF and Ixion is the first Aeon you get which actually looks cool, like an undead unicorn. Unicorns are lame, but electrified undead ones are awesome. I've always been partial to the thunder and wind elemetns, and the temple leading up to it likely helped, too. I was so disappointed by Ramuh when I went backwards in the series, haha.



Is Auron being attacked by monkeys? And not caring at all?



We've out-lazied the supposed lazy summoner, what do we win?!



... or she was up all night doing this. There were TWO other summoners, do Dona and Isaaru do nothing or do people just object and shield their eyes if they start dancing?



Well, I mean, we run around fighting monsters and rarely seem to have access to beauty products so you'd kind of expect this... Plus her hair looks just like it always does, lol



Better than treating you as someone impossible to pick on due to specialness, I'd say



AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH WORST CAMERA ANGLE YET



I'm really going to miss with the awesome NPC onslaught is over and we start the creeper Seymour arc after this




Still a significantly better romance option than Wakka!



So. Badass.

I always loved the music in the background of this area, but perhaps because of that... this is the first remixed song I don't like as much as the original as there's a different sound to the melody which doesn't have the same effect the original had.

Original:



Remastered version:



IDK the original is beautiful and tears at me, but the remastered one feels disjointed



These two show up again and claim that they're there to tell me something I already know - that summoners are disappearing - but given how they spend the majority of the time talking about horns I think they're really just trying to severely over-compensate and am tempted to add them to the Team Asshat list.



I like how, when characters KO, they do it wherever they were standing at the time instead of in the line. Poison got him while attacking and now he's just resting next to the giant poison plant-monster-thing with Yuna looking down on him like "really?"



Her again and--



NNNOOOO YOU'RE MAKING ME FIGHT IXION?! Are you just trying to test my mental fortitude?!

And you say that, but I want to summon Ixion, and the game mechanics won't let me since he's already summoned and only one of each summon can exist at a given time



After Ifrit gets koed, Ixion attacks... Yuna... yeah, after I win by overdrive-summoning Valefor, she says something like I won fairly and I just want to reply back DESPITE YOU NOT FIGHTING FAIRLY, YOU BLOODY ATTACKED /ME/. NOT MY AEONS, /ME/



I have a class on Saturday where we do field work, which normally involves going out into wetlands, so swamps and marshes and other places people usually avoid like the plague. One time, we had to out into a canoe... in the rain, with tons of wind, and my team kept ramming straight into patches of water lillies, which as it turns out, are quite sturdy and refuse to budge if you accidentally ram into them due to weather.

So yeah, I used to think things like this were beautiful. Now I'm kind of... well... *shakes angry fist at these kind of plants (Okay, they're STILL pretty though)



Annd we end with the first mention of Shoopuf, curiously one of the things I remember the BEST from when I played this when I was little. Shoopuf is greatly important, it seems.