Part 100: Episode XC: Aeon My Flux

Music: Challenge



Time for one of the two largest candidates for “THAT Boss” for first timers going through Final Fantasy X: Seymour Flux and his companion Mortiorchis. Seymour Flux is coming to the table with a healthy 70,000 HP the Pilgrimage Pals need to burn through before sending Seymour packing for a third time.



Our first order of business should be to have Tidus caste Hastega on the party. Seymour Flux is immune to any of Tidus' delay attack shenanigans and any attempt to Slow the boss will result in it immediately getting Dispelled. With the added negative of Mortiorchis getting pissed and casting a counter-Slow on the entire party.





After that, we want to tag Lulu in and have her cast Bio on Seymour. I hadn't really mentioned it, since Lulu is unlikely to have learned Bio at the time. But when filling out his Boss Sphere Grid, Seymour failed to pick up the Null-Poison ability like 95% of the bosses in the game possess.



That's a good 1,400 HP of damage any time Seymour so much as blinks. Which doesn't sound like a whole lot. But that adds up fast since every single action Seymour takes, and he has quite a few cut-in-line instant actions or multiple turn boss bullshit during this fight, will be another ~1500 HP down the drain. Poisoning Seymour is almost like having a fourth damage dealer on the line. It makes life much, much easier.



Now that our early prep of tossing toxic waste in Seymour's bizarre cat armor body is sorted out, we can get down to business. Like the previous encounters with the Guado maester, there are Trigger Commands to Talk to Seymour. This time around Yuna and Kimahri are the only ones who have choice words for the floating genocidal creeper.



“Let death carry you off into peaceful slumber.”
“You can't run from your fate!”
”And the dying without being sent turns you into a fiend so... Your plan has glaring flaws, holes, and logic leaps!”
“But death is delightful! I've done it twice myself.”
“Do you not see what I am saying?!”



Yuna gets a nice magic boost. Good to have as the vast bulk of Seymour's abilities are magic based. Kimahri also has a trigger command to follow up on Seymour. Might as well get that AP tag in out of the way, huh?



“The spirits of the Ronso will guide Kimahri's spear.”
”Oh. You'll have to wait your turn on that one, I'm afraid. I crafted my own lovely lance from the remains of the dearly departed Maester Kelk. He really should have read those Maester Memos and avoided this mess. Alas, the Ronso and literacy were never strong allies.”
“Grrr!”



Kimahri gains a strength increase. Which I suppose would be nice given Seymour has a bit of physical armor. But ya know... it's Kimahri. Sorry about the Ronso genocide but back to the sidelines, champ. Could you send Rikku up here for a moment?



Mr. Flux has a couple of elixirs that Rikku can snatch. Or Kimahri but meh. Look he had this turn to shine. We've got work to do here.



Seymour has a normal swipe with his flagpole lance that will strike a single character for 600-700 HP that is nothing to worry about. However, he also has “Lance of Atrophy” that strikes for around the same damage but has the unfortunate side-effect of causing the Zombie status for the first time in the game.



After afflicting a party member with Zombie, Mortiorchis will immediately follow up his next turn by casting Full-Life on the same party member, one-shoting them in the process. This can be pretty rude if you don't have Haste running and even then, Flux Capacitor is likely to pull off the combo at least once at the start of the fight.



Now then, remember how I suggested to invest in Holy Waters from Wantz? Here's one of the bosses that comes into play. After the first combo, I found Tidus was reliably able to outpace Mortiorchis in following up with a Lance of Atrophy and toss Holy Waters out as soon as Zombie was afflicted.



Seymour Flux and Mortiorchis don't have particularly smart AI. So regardless of whether anyone is zombified or not, Morty will burn a turn casting Full-Life on a healthy party member like an idiot err... I have no idea how you'd describe the mess of overdesign Mortiorchis/Seymour Flux is... At least their predecessor was stupid looking but describable as “Seymour turned his hair into a stone mural and got a fancy headcrab buddy.”

I really should do another model viewer segment just to critique dumb boss designs in the later half of the game.



Seymour's biggest damage dealer the first half of the battle, though somewhat rare if you can burn through enough HP in quick enough period (I had to do this battle a second time to see it) is the Cross Cleave.





Seymour Flux actually has two tree trunk sized swords strapped to his, for lack of a better term, back, that are ready to dish out some pain for this... single seldom used attack... They're mostly for decorations otherwise.





But if he does land it, it hits the entire party for a good 2200+ HP of damage. If he's feeling like a real dick he'll immediately follow-up with a Zombie/Full-Life combo next turn and potentially wipe your party if the wrong characters are in battle. At this point in the game Auron should have over 4000 HP and ought to always be in the active party in case of dickish supermoves like this.





Going on the offensive, it's best to hit Seymour Round 3 fast and early. Auron, Tidus, and Wakka's physical attacks all do well. Overdrives are as always choice. Lulu, with that magic buffing Cactuar doll from Wantz, can dish out nearly 5000 damage a turn.



We can target Mortiorchis and it has the Mortibsortion gimmick like its predecessor, along with the decreasing HP with each revival (Starting at 4,000 HP and capping at a minimum of 1,000 HP.) Attack it is unwise as there's quickly diminished returns less than attacking Seymour directly and Mortiorchis will flip on an auto-counterattack at around 75% of Seymour's total HP.





Seymour himself will quickly wise up and start casting Protect and Shell. He'll also occasionally cast Dispel on the entire party just to be obnoxious.





As with the previous couple battles against Seymour, dropping in any aeons is only worth the effort if they're packing an Overdrive beforehand. At this point, pretty much everything we've got (except maybe Kazooie) ought to have Overdrives hitting the damage cap.





We've got exactly one round to use an aeon on Flux before Seymour will get fed up and eject them from the battle. It's worth noting this counts as a turn and he'll burn another 1500 HP banishing our aeon. Like I said, Poison is really nice when it's working in your favor.





At around 60% HP Seymour will change up tactics and cast Reflect on himself. This is not to deter Lulu's newly revitalized black magic strikes or anything sensible like that. This is another combo attack like the Lance of Atrophy/Full-Life.





We'll just go ahead and Dispel that straight away with Yuna and make Seymour look foolish. For you see, Seymour's plan here is to cast Reflect on himself then follow it up next turn with Flare bouncing off the reflect to hit one of our party members for... some reason. I don't think reflected magic attacks are any more potent. I'm not sure where he was going with that one.





Since Seymour donned in magic catman armor is not particularly bright, despite the Reflect being nixed, he'll still cast Flare on himself for a good 1600 HP of damage. Oh and of course the 1400 HP in poison damage for using a turn. Seymour, stop hitting yourself. You're supposed to be the main villain.



He even gets a sad message saying he done goofed when the Flare combo fails. Seymour just stay dead this time. You're just awful at this.



When Seymour Flux reaches around 33% health, he and his mount decides to stop everything and get serious. This message means Seymour has begun to charge up his super attack. No, not the Cross Cleave. He has a much deadlier one.



At this point, the options are either to top off everyone's health (making sure Auron is up front), hunker down casting Protect on everyone active, and get ready to tank it. Or else going all in offensively and beating Seymour Flux before he can pull off his attack. Which is exactly what I did fairly handily the first time I played the game. This was not THAT Boss for me. The next one was... You know the one.



Anyway, Seymour Flux/Mortiorchis will give us two rounds to prepare before releasing his ultimate attack: Total Annihilation.



...No. Not that! Seymour couldn't come up with something decent.



Instead he'll use Mortiorchis' Tesla Cannon (it has one of those by the way) to fry the entire party for 500-900 HP of damage.





It then follows up with a missile barrage (by the way Mortiorchis has a missile salvo crammed up its butt too) hitting random party members a eight or nine times for 600-800 damage a pop.







And to top it all off, Seymour will go on a bombing run and take an electric shit on the party's heads for one last 800-900 HP of damage for the road.



Needless to say, Total Annihilation can fuck an unprepared party right up. Even prepared an unlucky RNG roll on the missile portion of the attack can down almost any party member outside Auron. And forget it if Kimahri, Lulu, or Rikku are unfortunate enough to be hanging out in the active party.







So the best course of action is to just nip Total Annihilation in the bud before it ever becomes an issue. Between the poison and everyone being fairly well trained by this point, I had Seymour Flux fairly well handled. But I wanted that tasty Overkill AP bonus to send the prick off for the third time. And what better way to send home the Overkill than with a damage limit broken Mega Flare.









And with that Seymour Flux explodes for a bit before dissolving into a swarm of quickly dissipating pyreflies. Spoiler: Of course he's not dead. You could have just cut this boss battle out completely and not missed a beat plot wise.







But hey, we survived and defeated Seymour Filler! Sure, it took a bit of effort and the death of the better part of the Ronso race. But at least we're one step closer to Zanarkand

Music ends...





Welp. That happened. Again. No need to discuss if Seymour is really dead or going back to see if any Ronso survived his off-screen slaughter. Let's mosey.





"If he becomes Sin, Sir Jecht will be saved."
"We're leaving."



Auron knows more than he's letting on?! Are we talking about the same Auron? Let's see what the man himself has to say...



Just as I thought. Classic Auron. Alright, that's settled. Let's move, folks!

Yuna gives up on Auron ever revealing how far ahead he's read in the script and runs to Tidus...



“Tell me!"
*frown* “...”
”I hate that Seymour guy so much... Tch...”
“Sin's ...my old man.”
"You hit your head?"
_{“Oh boy... Thank goodness that finally came out. I'd been kinda freaking out about that one since the snowmobile ride.”}
“Oh that fine. Jecht son have big reveal. No one pay mind Ronso wiped out. Kimahri just be over here. Last Ronso...” *frown*



”I think that was how it works... Somehow. I dunno. It's weird! But I'm pretty sure it didn't go my Sin became my old man and then went back to being Sin... That'd be messed up.”
“I don't know how or why he did it. I felt him, inside. And when I did, I knew it was true.”
”...Alright the phrasing of that has some terrible double meaning. But you know what I'm getting at.”
“My old man is Spira's suffering. Sorry."



“...knowing that Sin is your father... Still, you know, I must..."
”Well... This probably could have been mentioned soon—“
“Oh NONONO! Nope! You don't get to pull THAT card. Uh-uh!”



“I think my old man would want that."
"You'd fight your own father?"
"Yeah. No problem there."
”Dunno if you'd been listening. I wasn't a fan of the guy even before he became like some kinda doom whale.”
"Uh... 'Bout your old man... You sure this ain't some kinda bad toxin dream or something?”
”No, Wakka. I mean Auron told me this whole thing. I mean if he glares at you if you ask, you'll know it's true.”
*glares*
“See! Told ya.”
“Then, Chappu...”
”Got done in by my old man, the doom whale. Yeah. Kinda a small world in Spira, as it turns out. Super sorry, man.”
“I, uh... I think I'll just pretend I didn't hear nothing. I'm getting a little confused, ya? Why... Why'd all this have to happen?"



You'd think that but nah. We've still got a decent trek... Tune in next time for the weirdest goddamn plot reveal in all of Final Fantasy X!






Video: Episode 90 Highlight Reel





Seymour Flux Concept Art