The Quarterly JRPG Club - Q2 2016 - Final Fantasy X-2

Yeah, hotspots are like "here's the story progression!" Technically, there's stuff to do everywhere, even if it's just talking to a person. But that totally depends how much time you want to spend around. I'd definitely recommend at least grinding and farming on Mushroom Rock Road and getting the items there. That will give you a good boost if you're looking to spend the minimal amount of time doing so.

It depends on how completionisty you feel. The way to ensure you don't miss dress spheres and side content is to hit every spot except hot spots and then go back. Even still, my first play through I still accidentally missed Dark Knight which is in a hot spot but easy to run past.

The game has New Game+ mode and I think it is intended for you to hit some different side content on different playthroughs. It can be mini-game burnout if you try to 100% it the first time (also difficult without a walkthrough or strategy guide).

Damnable Bear wrote:

Yeah, hotspots are like "here's the story progression!"

Yes, I agree!

Log_In_Lain wrote:

The game has New Game+ mode and I think it is intended for you to hit some different side content on different playthroughs. It can be mini-game burnout if you try to 100% it the first time (also difficult without a walkthrough or strategy guide).

Yes, I agree!

Well, since I had my unexpected Fire Emblem marathon this week, I decided to give it a shot at catching up on FFX-2 to try to keep going with the quarterly JRPG club.

I immediately ran into danger when I discovered this "Fiend Fight Club" or whatever it's called... No, no, MUST RESIST COMPULSIVE COLLECTION TENDENCIES.

I am very tempted to explore that. So far I only used it to re-name Brother to "Skeezoid" and I have been making sure to capture monsters for it because I know when I really dive into it I will probably get sucked into the black hole of pseudo-Pokemon.

So I'm on chapter 1 and wrapped up the Besaid Island segment, and decided to go on a world tour before moving on to the Zanarkand mission.

First stop: Kilika. Where it sounds like I'm supposed to go into the woods to hunt for monkeys, but I can't get into the woods because the guards won't let me.

Checked my game guide (because this is a modern FF game; don't leave home without a guide!), and it reads like I'm supposed to see some story bit with a character named "Nooj" (oh, you...) but nope, Nooj is nowhere in sight.

*sigh* My biggest peeve in rpg's is when you have to trip some obscure action trigger to be able to move along.

Farscry - I can check on this later for you and let you know. I know I did that section, just have to remember where Nooj was.

The gates open when Kilika becomes a hotspot later the chapter, no worries.

Lots of other cool stuff to do on the world tour though.

Ah, ok, I thought the only two hotspots in chapter 1 were Besaid and Zanarkand. I will continue the world tour and return later in the chapter!

Question was already answered, but yeah, some hot spots open after completing other hotspots.

The fiddliness of trying to earn AP for some classes versus others is a bit tiresome. For example, Yuna is learning abilities quite swiftly with the White Mage thanks to Pray, but Rikku is slow going with the Thief kit and Paine is even slower going with the Warrior kit.

I'm enjoying my X-2 World Tour though. Just about to journey down the Mushroom Rock Road.

I tend to learn the ability you can spam that will raise AP similar to pray first. I can't think of a class that doesn't have at least a buff or something similar. It is kind of silly to spam an evasion buff unnecessarily but it works. The difficult ones for me are the transformations each character has. They also will have a buff or heal to spam, but I find if I don't take the enemies out quickly at first the transformed character is taking too much damage.

Farscry wrote:

The fiddliness of trying to earn AP for some classes versus others is a bit tiresome. For example, Yuna is learning abilities quite swiftly with the White Mage thanks to Pray, but Rikku is slow going with the Thief kit and Paine is even slower going with the Warrior kit.

I'm enjoying my X-2 World Tour though. Just about to journey down the Mushroom Rock Road.

Wait, it isn't just a function of turns passing? I generally just mash defaults through regular random encounters, and Paine is on the last couple of Fighter skills now. Meanwhile, Thief has been dreadfully slow to level up. I thought it was just a (turns / some random factor) thing.

I played up to Chapter 2 a couple weeks ago, just because I didn't have anything else to play after the Bravely Second demo. I'll pick this back up now (just in time for the full release, of course.)

Another idiotic question: I see Gun Mage having the ability to use blue magic but I don't ever seem to absorb any abilities. I do get hit by enemies quite a lot. Am I missing some ability from another job I should have picked up beforehand?

aspect wrote:

Another idiotic question: I see Gun Mage having the ability to use blue magic but I don't ever seem to absorb any abilities. I do get hit by enemies quite a lot. Am I missing some ability from another job I should have picked up beforehand?

The mechanic is pretty standard. Be a Gun Mage and get hit by the enemy attack. It can even kill you and you'll still learn it. Maybe you aren't being hit by learnable abilities? It seems to be based on a random number generator, so it is possible to get hit and not learn the ability but generally I learn them if the character has the Gun Mage Dressphere equipped and gets hit by the attack. There are a couple like mighty guard that you will have to confuse the enemy to get it to use the ability on you. Maybe now you can use a captured monster to cast it on you but I haven't tried that.

I finished chapter one last night, gonna put this down till May.

Still on Mushroom Rock Road; haven't played much this week, and that section has a ridiculously high encounter rate.

NormanTheIntern wrote:

I finished chapter one last night, gonna put this down till May.

Sounds like you....scored some free time.

YEEEEAAAAHHHHHH

Log_In_Lain wrote:
aspect wrote:

Another idiotic question: I see Gun Mage having the ability to use blue magic but I don't ever seem to absorb any abilities. I do get hit by enemies quite a lot. Am I missing some ability from another job I should have picked up beforehand?

The mechanic is pretty standard. Be a Gun Mage and get hit by the enemy attack. It can even kill you and you'll still learn it. Maybe you aren't being hit by learnable abilities? It seems to be based on a random number generator, so it is possible to get hit and not learn the ability but generally I learn them if the character has the Gun Mage Dressphere equipped and gets hit by the attack. There are a couple like mighty guard that you will have to confuse the enemy to get it to use the ability on you. Maybe now you can use a captured monster to cast it on you but I haven't tried that.

That's what I figured, but I've been using the job for a while and it hasn't popped. Just unlucky, I guess. Onward!

Before I caught up on this thread, I was also making heavy use of the Festivalist and Psychic classes just because they seemed weird. The chance to get a Firaga off at low levels by throwing a pair of sandals is pretty tempting, but I can see how it tails off at higher levels. Psychic still seems like it could be a cool tank class with all the elemental absorb skills.

NormanTheIntern wrote:

I finished chapter one last night, gonna put this down till May.

How long did it take to get there? I'm trying to wrap up Yakuza before I jump in, and I don't know if I will have enough time to get to the end of chapter 1 before the end of the month. (I have already started, but I may start over because I missed something already.)

I'm at maybe 7 hours of gameplay? Level 15 ish, not too bad - I'm ignoring the Pokemon stuff for this run through.

Was surprised to see I've somehow clocked (not Clocked ) up just over nine hours on the game so far, still working on Chapter 1. Other than a couple annoyances, I'm quite enjoying my time with it.

I've been doing moderately well at keeping the worst of my compulsive tendencies in check despite my urge to fully rank up all Dresspheres. My compromise is that while I am working on 100%'ing various spheres, I'm specializing the characters. Yuna is focused on healing/support, so she's been maxxing out White Mage and Songstress. Rikku is focused on magic damage and utility, so Black Mage, Thief, and Gun Mage are on the docket for her. Paine is my physical-focused attacker (and will be backup support/utility) so Warrior and Gunner are her focus, though I temporarily put her into Black Mage to earn the MP Absorb ability.

Not sure how well this will work out long-term, but that's my plan for now. I forget where I left off this weekend, but I'm close to heading out to Zanarkand for the second main story mission for this chapter (I completed the Besaid Island mission early on).

That won't hurt you. I made Rikku my tank/physical damage, Yuna my magic damager, and Paine my healer/support this time around knowing the game supports making them three different roles.

NormanTheIntern wrote:

I'm at maybe 7 hours of gameplay? Level 15 ish, not too bad - I'm ignoring the Pokemon stuff for this run through.

Thanks! I'm pretty sure I can get to the end of chapter 1 before the end of the month then.

I started playing this yesterday, after beating Yakuza. I finished the prologue and completed the mission in Besaid. I'm currently walking through the Mi'hen Highroad.

I am pretty sure I did the same thing during my first play through Farscry. I do not remember having any difficulties with the game.

I decided to pick this up again after being confused how to get off the ship. I looked it up and it turns out I just had to go to sleep. Anyways I'm making progress now but I have so little idea what I'm doing. I'm going to find a tips guide or something. It looks like I just suggest what skills people learn and with xp and leveling they learn abilities. I was surprised I didn't have to allot points after characters level like most games.

Haven't found anything to confirm this yet, but is it the party order that determines likelihood of being attacked? I'm trying to figure out how to get Paine to actually be able to tank, since that's the role I'm trying to build her into, but there are no Dressphere abilities I've found yet to draw aggro.

I wrapped up chapter 1 late last week, which surprised me as I didn't expect to be able to get caught up to the thread's goal-point for the first month. May is going to be a rather busy month for us (graduations, school year-end stuff, ramping up to our big bi-annual EMR update at work that happens in mid-June) so I figure getting ahead of schedule is probably necessary to keep myself on target to finish this at the end of the quarter, since I tend to get drawn into sidequests and xp/ability-grinding in the mid-game of most FF games.

However, I've got most of the key abilities I want to learn acquired for each character until I unlock some more Dresspheres (primarily looking for Samurai, Berserker, Dark Knight, Trainer, and Alchemist) so I'm actually moving along at the start of Chapter 2 focused on completing sidequest stuff rather than taking much time specifically hunting enemies. I think the world tour gets repeated with each chapter, but different events take place in each location; I'm referring to the events list in an old game-guide I bought when I got the game originally on the PS2 so I don't waste time scouring locations unnecessarily.

Story-wise, it's modestly intriguing, but not pulling me in too strongly yet. I enjoy the core party's mixture of personalities, although I find the mercurial way they've written Yuna to be a bit off-putting so far. Granted, it's not too far off from how off-putting Tidus was in FFX, so I suppose that's to be expected. I miss Lulu and Wakka, they made most of the party's appeal in FFX for me.

Small spoiler bit (has to do with events at very start of chapter 2):

Spoiler:

I'm not going for 100% completion, so didn't check for what the "optimal" faction to side with is. Instead, I went off of the story so far, and while it was a surprisingly tough choice, I opted to return the sphere to New Yevon. The Youth League is just a bit too confrontational for my taste, and I want to give them the chance to prove that they're not like the Yevon of old.

I've just started this, not sure I'll be able to keep up with everyone else though. About an hour in...

I'm still in Chapter 1. I was thinking of playing some more this weekend, and instead played more Freedom Wars and Toukiden Kiwami.

I don't think I will be able to reach the end of chapter 1 before the end of the month. I have to admit the game has not been able to keep my interest very much so far.

Farscry wrote:

I'm trying to figure out how to get Paine to actually be able to tank, since that's the role I'm trying to build her into, but there are no Dressphere abilities I've found yet to draw aggro.

I don't think the "tank" model applies to this game. Instead, I think you want to focus on disabling the enemies from attacking by usually having one character dedicated to inflicting status effects. Usually with Songstress... keeping blind or silence on all enemies is the best way to keep them from hitting the characters with squishy dresspheres. If Paine fits any role in the MMO model of combat, it's probably more DPS; but I also think you want to avoid completely forcing them into certain roles.

Farscry wrote:

Small spoiler bit (has to do with events at very start of chapter 2):

Spoiler:

I'm not going for 100% completion, so didn't check for what the "optimal" faction to side with is. Instead, I went off of the story so far, and while it was a surprisingly tough choice, I opted to return the sphere to New Yevon. The Youth League is just a bit too confrontational for my taste, and I want to give them the chance to prove that they're not like the Yevon of old.

Spoiler:

I played through both ways, and as I recall, neither is "optimal" from a gameplay perspective but only Youth League gives you a chance at 100% completion in a single playthrough. (You'd still have to play pretty carefully. The reasonable expectation, if you aren't following a walkthrough to the letter, is to pick a different faction in New Game+ which gives you a chance to pick up a lot of completion % from different events.)

Storywise, I read Youth League as being the "correct" choice. It seems to fit the theme better. Frankly though, I think picking New Yevon first and then Youth League on New Game+ is probably an optimal experience in the long run.

bobbywatson wrote:

I'm still in Chapter 1. I was thinking of playing some more this weekend, and instead played more Freedom Wars and Toukiden Kiwami.

I don't think I will be able to reach the end of chapter 1 before the end of the month. I have to admit the game has not been able to keep my interest very much so far.

I am 4 or 5 hours in and I am not sure I like the game. The story so far is very lifeless and the voice acting on the main character is so so. The combat is good but not seeing mobs on the map and getting dragged into fights constantly against random foes is kind of silly.

I got a kick out of stealing gold off a large flying monster. Picking that monsters pocket.