In this episode of Final Fantasy X, Rikku makes funny faces and we spend a lot of time talking to people in corridors!



So we all wake up safely despite falling an insane distance, and Auron and Tidus lecture each other, but then...



WHY GAME. She's comparing herself to Lulu, but if we have to have fanservice suggestive posing, I'd much rather it be from Lulu since she's not 15. Or hey, why not one of the guys as well? Auron needs to pull off a sexy zombie pose.



I don't know how it works with Ronso, but I don't think that's what Rikku means, Kimahri.



Yuna, being a boss, still wants to continue despite now being an enemy of Yevon and everything she grew up being taught to respect.



Auron, being even more of a boss, is just like "sure, we'll just cut down any Yevonites in our way!"



Even heathen-Tidus is shocked.



Good! I'll go ask Elma to join us in exchange. Will be much better.

Seriously speaking, this is where world building is vastly important. Yevon is corrupt and they'll oppose us, etc, but we've seen the most of the actual followers are even willing to help those outside of Yevon, such as after Operation Mi'ihen. Plus, going along a lot of random NPCs will give you items the first time you talk to them, as they want you to succeed. Now just about everyone will be opposed to us, we'll likely have to kill some of those people, and you feel it more because you know all of this.

Which I think is why games like XIII get so much hate for their lack of world, as it's less the linearity itself, but more... "We are enemies of cocoon," but uh sure, but that means nothing to me unless you just really hate the transitional phase between caterpillars and butterflies.



Another little detail I didn't remember. I recalled that he liked the song, but not that it was from pre-Yevon times. I'm hoping we get more detail on where the song came from later.



Lured by the song, sin attacks, and we get blurry camera effects!



Tidus wakes up in the desert, which... why does Sin never kill us? are we really THAT lucky? how did we survive getting blown so far away?



We've all been there, Kimahri. You should see me try to jump straight up cliffs in Dragon Age: Inquisition.

As of right now, we've conveniently refound Wakka, Lulu, and Kimahri, and hey... ti's Rikku!



....

This game clearly wants to make me love Wakka even more than I already do. A close up of his face is just what I needed!



She explains that, in the past, Yevon did something awful to them, and since their home is nearby she doesn't want them to know about it...



Holy Yunalesca in full plate mail, you do realize that you could be supporting genocide with that statement, Wakka?!



So uh

Have I ever mentioned that I HATE worms

Even worse, these literally swallow party members

/weeps

They do drop a great weapon for Lulu though, as they apparently ate and killed Cait Sith, and they're actually... they're not terribly strong, but have a ton of HP, which makes gravity fantastic here, a spell that has very limited use in most other games.



I'm guessing this is warning me of the monster I already fought? Little late, sign.

... but then I get attacked by two more of them after this, fmluck.



We finally reach Home, and discover that it's already being attacked. Not quite what they think though, as it seems that Seymour just ordered the attack to capture summoners, specifically Yuna.



We see this very well developed character die in a dramatic cut scene, Rikku screamed his name but I can't remember it exactly, but it took Spira's love of Ks and repeating letters to the extreme and was something like KKKKKKKKKKKOOOKKKKKKKKKKKU!



Rest in peace, KKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKAOKKKKKKKKKKU, you will be deeply missed.



... or I'll just loot your body with none of the respect given to the bodies after operation Mi'ihen.



There's a series of forced fights with Guados summoning monsters, and I see the game over screen for the first time... The second forced battle is against a type of monster which hits like a truck and I had previously beaten by summoning Valefor, which the monsters can't even attack. I only remembered as I saw this screen that the enemy data on them said blind them, which I hadn't been doing since I wasn't using Wakka, haha oops.

Oh well, considering I'm playing on expert, the fact I got this far before I died, and then died out of derp, is pretty good, I'd say?



I go the opposite direction I'm supposed to, Rikku even yells "Hey, not this way!" and get attacked by... holy hell it takes up the whole room.

... and then the actual battle is against TWO of them. And a Guado. How are they all fitting in here?!



Hey, I can actually read both of these treasure boxes enough to figure them out! Success!



Wakka looks Very Sympathetic

To his credit, he is a little nicer to her after this, but it doesn't make up for him being annoying for the vast majority of the game and generally being of ridiculously low logic.




See, this is why you guys should've mentioned at the beginning...



Thanks, Kimahri. That's a great help.



He runs in here and just... ROARS. I'm not sure whether he's more upset about not finding Yuna or that Dona and Isaaru are there.



Remarkably, even Dona is moved by this and helps out by sending them



Uhhh out of all the people in Spira, I think you just asked the only other person who doesn't know.




The screencaps were not kind to this scene.



Rikku makes funny faces: the dramatic cutscene.



Well, outside of a kid, yes, it seems so.



Yeah, that really isn't a great reason, especially when Auron told Tidus Jecht was sin earlier in order to avoid him getting emotional tat the wrong time.

It would've made more sense to reverse those two? I mean, just about everyone knows that summoners die, and it's a major part of their world so it's a bit silly that you'd be able to go on a pilgrimage as a guardian and NOT hear about it.

... but then only Auron and maybe Seymour (I know Seymour knows the truth about Sin, can't remember specifics) know that Jecht is Sin and that's a lot more of a "Wtf HOW" kind of situation so it would make more sense to have that be the dramatic reveal later.

That said, the background music during this part is beautiful




Hearing that they tried to stop her and didn't just go "HEY YOU SHOULD GO BEAT SIN FOR US!" is honestly a huge relief.



this materializes out of nowhere, and leaves me wondering just how quickly people become fiends

... but the biggest shock of this whole cutscene is actually seeing Dona summon something. She really can help when prompted!



Yes, they really should've told you to prevent that awkwardness. And now you're hitting someone's Valefor for no reason. It's not Valefor's fault!




I was thinking "Well, she did say she's learned to smile when she feels sad..." and then it reshows that very cut scene.

I don't know whether that's Dona's or Isaaru's Valefor, but I'm guessing the reason they don't say anything is because his punches are so weak they do 0 damage




Even Valefor feels sorry for someone doing that little damage!

I should probably mention that this scene had a lot more impact the first time I saw it, but even then it's... unless there's some rule in Spira about just not talking about it, which there isn't, I don't get how they could hide it so.

After grabbing the treasure chest that was bugging me throughout that whole cutscene ("treassurrree ;; and I can't reach it!") we jump immediately to the airship




FFX's Cid has an interesting role in this, in that while the Al Bhed as a whole are viewed as heathens by Spira, within the Al Bhed he's conservative and stubborn, going so far as to stop speaking to his sister just because she married a Yevonite. Curiously, if he were a Yevonite, I imagine he'd get along great with Wakka...



He refuses to even take us anywhere until Tidus promises that Yuna won't die, although we have no way to uphold that promise at the moment and forcing Yuna to not do something against her will doesn't seem good.




Wakka... seems to be trying to cheer her up, but he called it "like big happy fireworks!" which only sounds even worse when you consider how he implied he was okay with the Al Bhed being attacked for being Al Bhed earlier.

So after that I can leave and choose to go bother the NPCs. A lot. It's the games fault for letting me bother them 3 times over before they give up and start repeating lines to get me to go away.

The line before this was something like "If only there were another way to beat Sin..."





Curiously, likely the most accurate argument anyone has made yet for why everything has remained this way. It's not like you can study sin, since if you try to get close to it, it'll kill you. Try to capture one of its spawn? It comes back for them and will kill you. And then previous summoners get to Zanarkand, find out the truth, and... it's not really easy to come up with "Let's jump INSIDE sin! Like being eaten alive, but our choice!"



He says that he knew he would have to die since he was young, and I find myself even more frustrated at the lack of detail about summoner lore since it continues to not tell me how people become summoners as that would mean they either train some people since they're little or you can wait a long time before going on a pilgrimage. I guess it could also mean he decided when he was little, but couldn't until later, but... arhhh lack of answers on core plot points!



Good to know we're not the only team that has a problem with specific members being kidnapped.

He says they never should have brought him along to begin with, but that only makes me wonder why they did.



His third dialog is the best, but it's more the way his VA says it like "Motion sickness?! WONDER OF WONDERS!"

(I feel him here, YOUR MOTION SICKNESS AGAIN-- wait, I really don't want to win that one...)

And wait, don't they have boats? Sure, sea sickness, but similar concept.



Do you ever find a screenshot and wonder why in Spira you have that screenshot.

This is that screenshot.



Okay, I feel like I'm getting off easy considering past encounters and--




This both benefits us and she hasn't exactly been kind to us so why would we care? I pick the first option, though.



Which is incredibly selfish, really. I guess they want the max number of people to at least try, but it should really be their own choice if they want to give up their lives. I actually... would probably support the idea of sacrificing one person to save others (I've noticed in games like DA, like there was one quest where you have the choice to sacrifice someone to save a kid's life or kill the kid and I picked to sacrifice the person who was willing. I LATER learned that if you pick the "THERE HAS TO BE ANOTHER WAY!" option long enough, you can get a third option that will save everyone but I just gave up trying to find another way after asking once. Yeah, jprgs apparently taught me nothing!), but it should only be if they're willing.



Good advice from a surprising source



Shocker.

I know Yin mentioned this scene before in comments, and now I really do find myself more sympathetic towards Dona, but once again I want to know more about her and am wondering even more about this whole summoner thing and am eternally disappoint that I won't have an answer. This is a surprisingly unique world that they put a lot into, but then...




Auron says what I've been thinking, which is "against her will?"

Also, we now know that, although they were trying to protect them and even died doing so, they had no problem kidnapping kids and keeping people stuck in a metal room that they weren't allowed to leave unless they promised to do what the Al Bhed want. Which is amusingly very "ends justify the means" the same way that "one life for many" is...



*slow clap

WAKKA FINALLY REALIZES

Although he says "don't say it" and sounds legitimately upset, he does at least say "Yuna is Yuna, right?"

and right then we find Yuna at last!



She certainly looks so happy about this wedding!



DIVING INTO THE CAPITAL CITY WITH A FULL MILITARY, WHAT COULD EVER GO WRONG



wait

we know this and yet

Wakka was >('ing at that underwater city and condemning them all for defying nature earlier?! The whole bit about that was that they built their city on water! Why does Bevelle get a pass?!



... or you know, maybe I should never base anything on Wakka's perceptions.



At least Rikku is willing to mock bad ideas, we needed that!



Aside from Wakka, that is.



HEY, DON'T SMUGLY PHOTOBOMB MY SCREENCAPS!



She follows it with saying she'll leave the fighting to us.

You know, you could always go to another part of the ship... and here, just when I was thinking you were willing to help out! I can't believe I'm using him as the benchmark, but Isaaru is even motion sick yet doesn't seem to be having any problem, he even has free time to photobomb my shots in between battles!



I like how that's singular.




Cid tells us to go outside and fight it, but I go back to the cockpit for the YOLO and mostly to try to say... "Doesn't our ship have missiles? did we use them ALL up on Home or?"



I guess we did. Or he's being stingy. Damn.



Probably the most intelligent thing Wakka says in this game. Why DO merchants charge you so much when you're on their side and defending their lives?



I completely forgot about this mechanic after fighting it in FFRK where you can't have features like that.



Although the dragon proves itself much more intelligent than Seymour as, after it failed with this, the NEXT time I moved the ship back, it swooped in first and then used poison breath on me. I almost completely ko'ed as everyone was left with less than 150 hp and had poison. Praise be to Yevon for Al Bhed potions... er, ironically.

I win and we're off the crash a wedding! ... but wait, IT'S NOT OVER YET, we'll have to listen ot lines like "IT'S NOT OVER YET!"