We're getting close to the end. It occurs to me this game isn't as long as the PSX era games, as I'm actually past the point where this entry ends and my playtime is only 31:00. I'm not sure if they thought they made those too long or what.

Also not sure when the next one will be since after this I've got to study for two lab finals and one of them is just... insane.


Before we continue in the game, I read the part of the Ultimania which deals with Yevon (but not the rest yet) since that was what I had the most questions about and:

"It is obvious that there isn't any consistent philosophy. There were people in the past who noticed this and tried to establish a doctrinal system, but all attempts to do so either failed"

So my answer to "are there any real rules that don't revolve around not using machina or jumping into the fayth chamber if you're not a guardian/summoner" is evidently no.

It's funny, that's a really low amount of rules and yet the organization of Yevon itself still manages to defy both of them. (The machina is obvious, but Kinoc and some random monks show up outside the chamber of the Fayth when they arrest you as well)

"Although the Yevon Temple is an enormous organization with roots over the whole of Spira, they don't officially have any worldly authority. Matters such as administration are left up to regional self-rule"

This one is interesting, and helps explain why Bevelle's authority isn't really felt throughout the rest of Spira and why the individual areas tend to react differently to those deemed heathens, and even the different temples have more local rule. (i.e. Djose seems to have no problem with it to the point a NPC even tells you that you have to sleep on the floor because the beds are reserved for those injured in Operation Mi'ihen despite how they were considered heathen traitors and Tidus is a Guardian, but Bevelle on the other hand...)

"The Temples possess enormous funds due to donations received daily from those who believe in the teachings They aid the people in their lives by using those finances in various ways, such as operating the shoopuf crossing service free of charge, and sponsoring the ferries."

When I saw the first part of this sentence, I expected it to end with some kind of selfish corruption charge, but was promptly shocked.

Evil religious organizations: You're doing it... uh... differently. Not sure if necessarily "wrong," as it actually stands out and has more impact in comparison to pure cults that it's hard to even care about in other games.

"The Yevon Temples' official position is that even those who are oppose Yevon should not be harmed."

Okay they definitely did not read the "How to be an Evil Religion 101" guide...

but then in regards to Bevelle's warrior monks:

"But behind the scenes, they have a duty to crack down on traitors to the Temples, and have oppressed and caused harm to those like the Al Bhed for a long time. However, most people are unaware of this fact."

I really wish this had more detail. I still can't figure out how so many people are unaware of this.

Also most people we meet seem completely okay with the Al Bhed, aside from Wakka, the maesters, and potentially Shelinda (and that's iffy since she's just repeating what she heard although she does use the word "evil")... I can't even think of anyone else with a name who complains about them. I guess it was so you don't hate everyone, but it's harder to get the impression that Spira does hate the Al Bhed as much as a lot of story points imply they do. Then, I guess it could just be that those in charge just hate them and attack them but the rest of Spira are indeed unaware of it.

Overall, I wonder if it was meant to be perceived the same as Yu Yevon himself "neither good nor evil." You can't deny they're doing some good, but it's based on lies and the maesters are mostly asshats. Still no answers on summoners though, as it just said what we already, that "the fayth choose them" but by what criteria? Do they let anyone try?


Back to the current plot--

We walk away from Seymour floating and dissolving off a cliff, pretend that never happened, and find a bunch of near-naked people stuck in stone.



Confused, they demand answers from Auron again, who mentions nothing and prompts Tidus to say this a lot in the following scenes



Rule #2 of the drinking game I should've made: a shot every time someone says this who isn't Yuna!

He touches the naked people rocks and promptly gets knocked out



I wonder how does aging work in Zanarkand? Given how Tidus is shown to age while there, the dream Zanarkand can't be stuck in stagnation, but this make it sounds like Tidus has been around for longer than his age is.



This sounds crazy out of context, but what's truly insane is how much sense this makes in the game itself since it has already been well established that the fayth can turn their dreams into a manifestation of pseudo-reality.



Thinking about it, the FF game before this even had a theme about memories living on after death, and I wonder how much they were influenced from that since this is an interesting concept. The tl;dr is that Zanarkand was doomed to be destroyed anyway, so they preserved it as a fayth memory instead so that it could still "live on" in some sense.



... but 1000 years of dreaming while in a state of not quite life or death would be incredibly rough.



I suppose this does give some credit to the fact that Tidus can come back at the end of X-2, but still not amused by that, especially since he disappears at the end of this one.



"Let's not even try to explain what just happened and keep the fact I'm going to disappear a secret to everyone else!"



There's a small dungeon up ahead containing some "trials" which are more annoying than anything since they force me to use Wakka. Why are you being so cruel, game?! And what about summoner parties which lack long-range weapon guardians who also happen to be able to breathe underwater? This would be completely unfair.



Before fighting the boss from some horrific depths of the Farplane, we get a nice moment between Auron and Yuna.

... and then...



I remembered thinking this bastard was tough the first time I played it and he's a pain in the ass in FFRK as you will sometimes get hit with full on status effects before you can even move. I don't really have great armor equips, so I have no way to counter statues like confusion and sleep which can be gamebreaking.

So, I decide to mainly fight with Aeons as they're immune to status effects by default



I also thought I was being clever by casting reflect on the boss since he has a habit of using curaga... but, the bastard is 1000x more intelligent than Seymour as his reaction to that is to cast reflect on a party member and then direct curaga at the party instead, so it bounces off and heals him still. I... hahaha. I could fight using my party and spamming dispel on me / reflect on him but the problem with that is he uses photon wings and everyone ends up confused, blinded, asleep, and/or silenced.

I did notice that it's not immune to breaks or Heavenly Strike (although it is to Delay Attack and Sonic Wings so... I don't know), so I make Shiva spam that as much as I can after using breaks and that probably helped the most.

This is the first boss I KO to the first time, but I plan a little better next time and get it on my second try.




This part of the game is proving the hardest to comment on, as I have a lot of screenshots which just amount to "this scene is cool, and hurrah, increased character depth!"




Auron: Proof that even party members with graying hair can still be popular if they're relevant enough to the story, have enough background, and badassery! I miss the days when not every party member looked young and pretty. (I guess there's Sazh, but he doesn't look nearly as old...)



More scenery porn.





Yuna very conveniently drops a sphere at this point, showing a video she took way back after we left Luca, before Rikku joined the party.




Wherein she goes through all the current guardians and says how grateful she is for them.



Kimahri's section is the most interesting, since we never really get to hear about him in regards with his relationship to Yuna at all otherwise. We also get an image of Yuna as a kid, celebrating with everyone else in Bevelle until it hits her that it means her father died.




Part of Lulu's and Wakka's, and yeah, I think it's really important that she had people who said "no!" given how most people react to her.




Her description of Tidus is spot on when it comes to how it feels to fall in love the first time, but mixed with a much larger twinge of sorrow since... thinking you're going to die would change things quite a bit.



... annd back to the opening scene.

That would look so much better without the blitzball there.



Everything up until this point was just them recalling the story. Let us hope they're reliable narrators, although him being unreliable and embellishing some stuff for the Rule of Cool would make some scenes make a lot more sense...

Hmm, thinking about it, the section that I had a lot of issues with... No one was there to hear what the maesters were saying, so Tidus just imagining them all as trolol when they go off on their own would explain-- am I still way too caught up on making sense of the Bevelle post? Why no, of course not!

I've always liked the music during the next part even more than "To Zanarkand," and I love how it continues to play even in battle:





Yes, let us listen to the guy with the zombie face. Can I cast life on him?




And presumably was Sin for a very long time.

We're immediately hit with images of those who came here before and this part is pretty awesome despite the occasional questionable camera angles, have to admit.



DAMN IT

WE ALMOST WENT A WHOLE POST WITHOUT SEEING SEYMOUR.

ALMOST.

WE HAVEN'T BEEN FREE OF HIM SINCE THE MOONFLOW.



I mainly have this because wow, his mother's outfit is really pretty. Only time in this game you'll ever hear me say that. (Okay Yuna and Auron are dressed okay but seriously, most of the outfits in this game fall into "How what why") Where does she buy her clothes? Why does no one else seem to dress like that or are aware such clothes exist?



TIDUS' FACE IN THE BACKGROUND

"Now I understand why my father didn't mind trying to get kids to cry! I so want to bully Seymour right now"

On a serious note I have no clue what they're doing here as I remember it possibly being in a sidequest but can't remember details.




Auron is stoic about nearly everything in the game up into this point, so it really hits to see him breaking down like this in the past.



...

Oh X-2, how you've ruined so much.

See, the actual walk through this corridor is really short but has a lot of tension after seeing the previous images and knowing we're likely walking up to the end.

... but because the damn monkey quest in X-2 took SO LONG and had way too much running back and forth, I see this corridor, and think of monkeys in heat.

I can't remember what their exact reasoning was for doing that, but if they waned to ~preserve the memory of Zanarkand~, they ironically ruined it. Badly.



He's still stuck on thinking there should be fireworks. Even though we're in a ruin filled with zombies. I guess we could try to turn the zombies INTO fireworks...



Once again, they turn to Auron for answers



While I get on the game a lot for not telling Tidus about Yuna dying, I do get this since letting them discover things on their own helps them a lot more ultimately.



That hair, how does it work. It seems to utterly defy gravity.

That outfit, why. I could understand why she was in underwear when sitting on her bed, but why is she ALWAYS in underwear. I remember being deeply wtf at this the first time I played too, especially since I was so young, lol. I know there are also statues of her in the temples, but I didn't realize it was her until this the first time I played.



Double the sacrifice for everyone!




The first part I'm guessing is a huge reason why so many people ship Braska/Jecht...

I also find the images in the background rather disturbing



What exactly... is this image? I'm hoping that's a... stick. Yeah, a stick.




You're sounding way too much like Seymour right now.






While this scene makes Jecht a lot more sympathetic and shows he does care for Tidus and think about him a lot

Pushing your dreams onto your children: Never a good idea. He's lucky Tidus was interested in blitzball.



That, on the other hand, is admirable, yes.



"I'll/We'll think of something"! has been what Tidus and Rikku have been hoping on for awhile so seeing this and knowing they didn't manage... After this scene, when Tidus is still protesting, even Rikku seems to give up as she just quotes "You'll "think of something?"' as if thinking it's now hopeless.





I'm mainly posting these for a comparison scene which will have to be next entry. It's... evidently they didn't ask Yunalesca about that one.



To his credit, Wakka immediately does after Lulu. Interesting to note how these two are also the two most devoted to Yevon in the group. Tidus never quite believed it, Rikku doesn't at all, and Auron knows this shit is messed up. Kimahri... who knows. Jecht didn't believe in Yevon, but he just had nothing to really lose.

Tidus protests, of course




They point out he's acting like a child, which... yeah, that statement sounds very impractical and childish.




What exactly do you mean by "end it here?"

I guess the message here is supposed to be that your life is your own individual story and you should strive to live it the way you want and make it go the way you want. I can see how that can be appealing, but honestly, if you take that too far, you do end up in fairly dangerous territory if you always do everything you want. What if someone just wants to set things on fire?



It's even more your story than it is his, seriously.




... and with that, we're off to stop the endless spiral Spira has been spiritlessly spiraling on for too long.