In this episode, we get struck by lightning more than should be feasibly possible yet have no adverse effects to bitter cold!




There are a lot of characters in this with painted nails who I didn't remember having painted nails originally, such as Rikku, Yuna, and Seymour. Not sure if new addition or just my memory from over 10 years ago being bad. (... or perhaps normal given that time span)



Every time I see that name I read it as "Gandalf" and it throws me for a loop. I have no doubt that Gandalf could defeat sin, but he'd deserve better than having the most annoying area aside from the blitzball stadium named after him.



I suck at this and get stuck by lightning. A lot. So I keep on having to fight lightning elementals and these weird floating triangles that do nothing but cast a strong thundaga which really hurts.

I found a way around this by summoning Ixion, who absorbs lightning, and taught him watera, but Yuna is already far above the other characters in sphere-grid-level as it is so I'm hoping it doesn't come back to bite me.


We meet up with Shelinda who is way too happy about this Seymour / Yuna wedding bit...



Lmao Tidus, you troll



HOW CAN I RESIST



Why? I mean, even people irl get way too happy when there's something like a royal wedding, even here, when we fought to GET RID of royalty (this is completely beyond me though, as I never care).... but uh... Yuna is a teenager. Seymour is 11 years older than her. 11 years isn't much when the difference is like... 32 and 43, but it's a much larger difference when you're young. Plus she could defeat sin and hasn't told the public whether she'd give that up for marriage and defeating sin > getting married. I'm worried about all the people celebrating this.

We stop because Rikku is terrified, even though we've already been struck a million times anyway. What would three more lightningstikes to the head possibly hurt?!



Between this and the last scene with him and Seymour, I think even as a kid I realized he was unsent by this point. Subtly in foreshadowing. Not this game's strong suit.

Yuna goes off on her own and Tidus...



has no respect for her privacy! Okay, it was sort of an accident since he was trying to listen to what was on Jyscal's sphere she had, but she just he says to "Take care of his son"



Just to be sure, you may want to...



Or rather triple tap. With a large sending stick.

Yuna rushed out and



NOT AGAIN



A fade to black screen with Tidus and Wakka in a bedroom... yeah, don't want to think too hard on that one.

Then afterwards...



Hey, if this is about the previous scene re Tidus and Wakka, I don't think Tidus was really into it, so you still have a chance!

Curiously, the party asks what made her change her mind and I'm a little confused as I thought that was her choice to begin with... I guess she never mentioned specifically, and instead just said "I've made my decision"... but then she followed it up with saying she has to do what's best for the people of Spira not just herself, which made me think she was going to say yes as marrying Seymour would be good for no one on the other side of that relationship?

I don't know if I completely missed something, there was some translation error somewhere, or what.



I'm guessing it's supposed to be the shadow of her dress, but it really looks like that's the top of her nipple... or would if she had a different skintone, I guess, but still. CAMERA ANGLES.



To further confuse things, the party now seems completely opposed to this when only Auron And Tidus seemed opposed before... There are times when the writing in this game is really good, and other times when I just am left in a state of "... what?" I'm also guessing this is why this stretch of the game didn't stay with me as well as the NPC Explosion Arc...




Actually, Yuna's plan would be pretty good if Seymour were just some generic obsessive stalker, since she wants to make him turn himself in, in exchange for marrying him. This would also mean he'd be hopefully locked away so she wouldn't have to do anything with him. Only problem is Seymour's goals aren't really to marry Yuna, but to make her turn him into Sin which won't happen if he's behind bars... wait, why did he even need to marry her for that? Wouldn't it have made more sense to try to earn their trust first and then just become a guardian?



Lmao, whatever gave you the idea that she was in the first place? She's talked to him, what, twice? Once during Operation Mi'ihen and then at Guadosalam.



Which means you're very much going to "you know"... and in this very area, even, in a scene which still manages to dumbfound me!



Why does no one outside of Tidus and maybe Kimahri ever seem to realize Seymour's a creeper




Hah, I try to go to Bevelle multiple times, as I always wanted to see Bevelle but the game never lets you, behind a single long hallway with a carpet and a nice tour of the waterway / underground dungeon thing. Massive and pretty capital city, and-- nope. I am impressed that instead of just repeating the same line they actually have dialog for if you try to do it more than once, though.



Shh- oh wait, no Dona in sight, we are temporarily free of being looked down on for no given reason!



Thankfully no, but Auron shows off his skills in dealing with childish personalities, that he likely learned in his years of having to deal with Tidus, by getting Barthello to calm down and think rationally about it.

'Course, it's pretty obvious she got captured, but our party is once again a bunch of heroes and doesn't mention that we know the Al Bhed are the ones going around kidnapping summoners. Then again, it's Dona, I can't blame them here



The existence of these musicians already raised a lot of questions ... are they a separate race? People in costumes? And now one pops out of nowhere, in a fiend infested forest, and starts rambling about butterflies. I prefer to pretend like that didn't just happen and leave.



Auron explains it captures memories, which really has um... interesting implications for a later scene.




... anndd I guess no one told Jecht, either.

I know I make fun of their clothing a lot, but in terms of wtf FFX outfits Braska is near the top. I don't even know... how to describe what this is. Someone carved crop circles onto a plate and then stuck it on a robe made out of scales? And that headgear. I'm surprised he didn't have to quit his pilgrimage due to massive neck problems.



Jecht is basically going around video taping everything to show to his wife and kid, which is... surprising, but then, being dumped in a foreign world would change you.



Unless he hid it VERY good, he's really lucky no one else came along and picked it up




Well, mocking Tidus for crying repeatedly and telling Tidus that there's no way he'll ever be as cool as he is or do what he can definitely wasn't the right way to go about it.



I have no clue if this has any impact on anything, but after we get out of there he asks if you think he'd be a better chocobo breeder than chocobo knight and I said yes since he's always falling behind the other two anyway and it seems to make him happier.

... but then we get attacked by one of the most annoying bosses in the game



Thanks, "Brother."

Brother is one character I feel confident saying is worse than Wakka, and so isn't going to be added to the list. Granted I don't remember much of him from X, but he has a more major role in X-2 and is so exaggeratedly annoying you could mistake him for a VIII character about to down a plate of hotdogs, constantly hits on Yuna (his cousin, I understand that's more accepted in Japan, but even if they weren't related the way he does it would be annoying), and remarkably seems even less intelligent than Wakka.

Worse, he kind of acts like the boss of the 3 playable characters and... of all people, really? Why couldn't we work for Lucil, Brother's father (Cid), or the Shoopuff Hypello? I'd be totally okay being a chocobo knight, taking people on tours of Zanarkand, or riding ze shoopuff all the time. But working with Brother? They just wanted us to suffer, didn't they?

(Also that name, um, did they just go "Damn, we wanted a girl so I guess we'll just name this one Brother to signify his insignificance in comparison!"?)



It does make Wakka finally realize this, but his reasoning... isn't Tidus a heathen too, technically? And if she's willing to guard Yuna, who cares?



I don't know if you've noticed, but even in matters that have nothing to do with Yevon, Wakka and thinking don't really go together



Wow. "I'm so devoted to Yevon I'm willing to denounce someone considered a hero in our religion for his suspected race!"




Exactly, thanks Tidus.

... there's something I never thought I'd write.



Hm. Well. I expected it of him by this point, so I'm not really and so much as just "*sigh CONTINUED DISAPPOINTMENT"



If we open it up, I wouldn't be surprised if he has an actual rock in there somewhere.




Answering what it is could go a long way in finding another way to defeat it, though... there's actually a line a little later - during what will have to be the next post - which better explains why it's so hard to come up with any answers.

And more importantly, how are they not freezing to death? All that ice isn't just for show as you can see their breath...



Can I just assume Tidus did collapse from cold here? That background is so pretty, though.



I'm just going to go out on a limb and guess this means "Love my gong"



Well, hey, I wasn't lying, there won't be a full wedding, Seymour will just kidnap her and then she'll dive off the platform. not the romantic evening you're envisioning.



I'm trying to imagine just what... Seymour would smell like and... it's deeply disturbing me so again, I don't think I want to know




Given how summoners are greatly looked down upon if they don't go on a pilgrimage, or quit, I wonder... I'm guessing that Seymour's only actual aeon is Anima and the main fayth rejected him for obvious reasons, but they wouldn't know that. Maybe they're exempt if they're high ranking in the Yevon system otherwise, but... again, there's so much I want to know about how this whole summoner thing works. Stop teasing me and then not answering, game!



"He uses so much hairspray that he's become the leading cause of global warming!"



I can't remember if we ever learn much about him or if this is supposed to make us feel sympathetic towards Seymour, but since it ends with Jyscal saying that he'll just let his son kill him to make up for how he failed as a parent and how Jyscal tried to unite the Guado with the humans / rest of the world, I find myself much more sympathetic towards him than Seymour right now, especially since Seymour's backstory never is explored very well and just kind of glossed over.




Uh oh, Wakka is stuck in a loop...



Thank you for returning to being the reasonable one, Lulu.



Probably the biggest surprise of this game for me is how much I find myself liking Yuna. The fandom interpretation of her though... well, like Terra and Garnet, I often see her listed alongside characters like Rinoa and Serah and just want to scream since haha no.



*clears throat

My mind right now:

TARGET SCORE:
Defeat Seymour without being KO'ed
Win before Anima uses Oblivion

I've got this. Just use death on the two guards, set up carbucle to defeat Seymour (who will stupidly attack himself), unleash your most powerful attacks on Anima, and then set up carbucle again for the last Seymour part.

I... wait... I don't have any of those moves.I don't even have reflect. Well, shit.



What follows is a series of dialog I know very, very well




I'm not sure how he can even see her eyes in that FFRK shot, as she seems to have stolen Auron's sunglasses.

(Also that was back when I first got Lightning and trying to use her onyl to fail every time... I quickly gave up on that, lol)




This one, too, but I don't have screenshots of it.





(... as he keeps on repeating that line constantly in that ep after losing his personality unit)



... target score #1 failed



I summon our newest Aeon, tastefully named "????" instead of defaulting to "Shiva" until nicknamed.



Target score #2 failed. Oh well, at least only ???? took the fall and not my entire party (She only filled the overdrive gauge during the previous attack which... damn, so close)




Well, I'd tell you all you have to do is go pray at Djose, but I'm pretty sure the only fayth that would love you is your mother and you're nowhere near cool enough to have Ixion.



"This can't be happening!" Wakka said something other than "This can't be happening!"



They... stop her from doing this, I'm not sure why, but the reasoning he gives is that Guado take care of Guado affairs which... earlier we heard "Ronso take care of Ronso problems" so the racial groups seem really divided in this world. This is something else I wish we got more detail on, but in the Guado case, they weren't even Yevonites until the previous generation so they're probably used to being treated like the Al Bhed and being isolated. (Although likely less so since thy seem more nature prone in general and didn't seem to use machina to begin with...)



Our problem is we have no witnesses. Damn.



It defaults to "Shiva" this time, but I thought this was the far superior name!

Yuna: I summon... *makes vaguely confused motions !



We try to leave but instead have to go through the trials, that we skipped earlier since Yuna was already in there and the layout is different from Besaid's... I get very annoyed at a point as I accidentally step on the switch which erases one of the pillars once after already doing it twice for treasure... so I pretty much redo it 3 times.



It's windy AND freezing? I feel chilled to the bone just looking at them.



We're finally going to escape, when this giant ape monster destroys part of the ice and we end up... much below it.