Final Fantasy X Part #76 - Episode LXVII: Defend My Home

Part 76: Episode LXVII: Defend My Home

Talk about a home invasion!

Let's be honest people, you ought to expect this at this point. No point of this pilgrimage has gone smoothly. Literally the first thing that happened when setting foot off the outset island was encountering Sin. From there you got caught up in a stupid sportsball game, had your summoner kidnapped, got caught up in a failed military campaign, had your summoner kidnapped, got caught up in Guado politics, had your summoner attacked by a tank, got involved in the assassination of a major political figure, encountering Sin AGAIN. It stands to reason it's time for another round of summoner kidnapping and peril, given the previous pattern.

The Al Bhed are doing their best lighting up fiends with some fantasy assault rifles. But overall it doesn't seem like it's going all that well. Maybe the Al Bhed should have spent a FEW sphere grid levels on some magic skills rather than going all in with the machina skills.

Dead. Fira spell hit a munition cache at the beginning of the assault. Yuna was standing right near it. Gone in a flash. Real unexpected, sudden end for her character. Not sure why Aeris eating it out of nowhere gets all the infamy.

Meanwhile, one of the Al Bhed takes a gut shot. Presumably from stray friendly fire since... well, the Al Bhed are the ones with the guns in the neighborhood. And absolute shit aim if the pock marked walls on Home are anything to go on.

[Keyakku! Who? Who's attacking us? Who did this to you?]

"Yevon... Guado..."

”Pynv!” *dies*

No, not Giaeggo! He was the heart and soul of the rich stable of Al Bhed characters we've been introduced to like Rikku and... the one with the beard and umm... Rikku's brother named... Brother.

Whoops. Did we inadvertently spark a holy war with the church dragging an Al Bhed along to the whole Guado leader hit thing? Boy, this is more embarrassing than the time Tidus conjured up a megaphone to talk smack about a rival blitzball team on TV.

[Father...]

There's actually an entire novella about Keyakku's adventures prior to his tragic demise during the raid at Home. He traveled the world and just so happened to pass into every mildly significantly character a few years prior to the events of Final Fantasy X during his misadventures.

Well... maybe not. It was 2001. A younger, more innocent time before the Square-Enix merger and the harvesting of old IPs for dire spin-offs, sidestories, and sequels. Let us play a dirge for those simpler days...

Rikku's father clears his throat and starts speaking in ~~English~~ the common Spira tongue. Rikku might have an American English accent and Brother sounds vaguely Eastern-European. But Papa Albert Family rolls with a vague southern drawl like a more subdued Yosemite Sam. Sure, why not?

In any case, he doesn't really care about why his daughter showed up with a couple of ill-dressed blitzball players, a samurai, a witch, and a Ronso. He's just interested in fucking up some Guado and immediately enlists the party to help stop some tree folk. Most of the party runs off along with him.

"Cid. Leader of the Al Bhed... He's my dad."

”Oh... That right? Guess you uhh... get your looks from your mom's side, huh?”
“...”

"Let's go."

"Yeah. We have to save Yunie."

"Not only Yuna. Right?"

*perks up and turns around* "Right!"

Welcome to the Al Bhed's home city of Home. Sorry if the welcome mat is a bit corpsey. Home is an annoying as hell area to explore for one simple reason that obviously won't come across in screen shots.

There is an emergency alert playing on loop over Home's intercoms. It is saying “Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan!” Constantly. NON-STOP. THE ENTIRE TIME TRAVELING THROUGH THIS AREA. Battles don't interrupt the Crisis music or the PA alert.

Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan!

Read all that. Congrats that's as many times as you've heard that voice clip in a single minute while we're in Home. Uuuuuuggggh!

The aggravating repetition of sound bites is enough to immediately dissolve any sympathy Tidus feels for the Al Bhed genocide going down. So he has no qualms with immediately rummaging through the still warm corpse of Keyakku for a couple of spare potions. What? It's not like he'll need them anymore.

Before heading into Home proper, it's important to take a quick side-trek to the western part of Home's entrance to pick up an Al Bhed Primer. The next couple of hours of the game it is really important to be diligent about obtaining all the Primers as they may or may not become permanently inaccessible if the plot progresses past a point in the area.

Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouhaohgodisitgettinglouderinside?!

Cid has vanished into the ether between scenes. The guardians take up positions in a central platform ready to deal with any foes that might breech this highly vulnerable walkway with atrocious safety standards. C'mon Al Bhed. Did the lost technology of guard rails never get unearthed in Spira?

And just adding to the team's general streak of just being the worst at their jobs, our heroes all fail pray to the tactical blunder of “failing to look up” and are immediately ambushed. Nice job!

There is no escape from the omnipresent Al Bhed automated alert system, even in battles.

A trio of bombs ambushes the party. Most of the random battle mobs attacking Home are fiends we've already faced in the past. Only this time around they're accompanied by Guado monster wranglers. The Home Invasion Guado are the same as the earlier Yevon guardsmen variants. Though they seem to have left their Auto-Potions back at Guadosalam.

Shame that. No time to waste on old news. We do have a summoner to rescue. Assuming she's actually here. We never really did any confirmation Yuna was actually at Home. For all we know she's clinging on an ice drift at the bottom of Lake Macalania still. But, details...

"This is terrible!"

The party continues to press further into the corridors of Home. Their semi-aimless march is briefly interrupted by another message over the intercoms. Though not one that actually overrides the flow of the alert I'll no doubt have as the soundtrack of a very tedious nightmare tonight.

[This bites! Rikku! You read me? You go under, too! I am leveling Home! And the fiends with it!]

"Oh, no!"

"What'd he say!?"

"We have to get underground!"

”Hey, I kinda caught parts of that... Umm... Did he say something like about “leveling” Home? Like... leveling up? You all can do that with buildings? Wild.”

"Where's Yuna?"

Oh, of course! The Summoners' Sanctum. That place serves some mean cocktails. Pricey, though. Alright, Rikku. Lead the w—

Oh geez! Forced Ambush battles are some bullshit, game. Luckily, it's just against some beefier armored hounds we've already seen ages ago and some Guado fool.

Nothing to worry about. Guado aren't people. It's fine to kill them like dogs.

So here's a real crappy bit of design. The rest of the party runs off further into the building, leaving Tidus behind to continue game play like normal. You see that blue light to the upper right hand side? That's a door we can enter and really DO want to enter. The trouble is that we cannot thanks to the cinematic camera angle. Attempting to go any further back than Tidus is standing right now will automatically turn him around back toward the stairs.

So instead we need to run Tidus down the stairs far enough for the camera to shift. At THAT point, we can turn around and have Tidus come back the way he came...

This time it will reveal the rest of the hallway we saw in that cutscene along with the headshot Al Bhed corpse the party trampled over on the way through the hall. Classy lot.

Entering the door here up here will result in a scolding from Rikku and Tidus getting mauled by a monster as soon as he opens the door.

How did it even get in here? Can fiends work door switches now? The Al Bhed's machina is clearly out of hand.

Following the brief battle, we are free to properly ~~plunder the Al Bhed's treasure stockpile as they are literally in the middle of a church sanctioned ethnic cleansing, what the actual fuck Tidus?!~~ explore.

In the left part of the room is a magical chest that straight up will ask us (in Al Bhed) what it is Tidus desires from its depths. With his limited vocabulary, as well as possibly imagination, the limits of Tidus' dreams only can go so far. But the middle-center option is clearly the best in being another Elixir we can add to the pile of never to be used because you never know when there might be an emergency!

The right-side chest also contains rudimentary Al Bhed security locks. After thirty hours all that beginners guide to Al Bhed is finally paying off in the form of war profiteering against their race! Nice.

Here we just need to match the English word with the Al Bhed equivalent.

I've actually missed a couple Al Bhed Primers on the way here. One back on the road outside Luca I think was just an oversight of showing off both paths following the Chocobo Eater fight. And the other I just forgot due to triggering the recruitment of the actual Al Bhed party member ironically enough. And that spergy ass thread didn't yell at me to go back for either at the time.

Wait... That one in the top right corner! But Drakengard didn't even EXISTS when this game came out... Ominous.

Pardon me but I think I got this one.

Wouldn't that password lock system be just as difficult for an Al Bhed that didn't know English? Meh... Details. Our ~~plunder~~ reward for Al Bhed knowledge and rudimentary guess work is a Friend Sphere. A Friend Sphere lets a party member warp to another party member's position on the Sphere Grid. Handy if say Lulu gets to the third tier magic spells and you decide Rikku needs to get in on the black magic scene for some reason.

Also quite important in this easily missed room is the twentieth Al Bhed Primer. Today we discover that [D = T!] Dryhgc vun dra muud. Cunno ypuid dra syccylna.

At the bottom of the stairs we come upon a fork in the road. To the left is progress and save point. The center path is blocked but holds some additional Al Bhed potions for Rikku. I'm pretty sure I have 99 stock of those already, but thanks. To the right...

...We find a few more Al Bhed corpses along with another living quarters dorm we can crash ~~for profit~~ to search for Yuna. But first!

Can't be too hasty. There's another Al Bhed Primer discard outside the dorm room. Here we find that [I = U] E ufa oui.

Tidus' Al Bhed rank also climbs another level in the process. The boy may yet learn all his YPLs by the end of this journey.

Entering the side room will once more gain Rikku's ire and result in a monster ambush for Tidus and the gang. Is some Guado prick just shoving monsters into locked rooms as a prank? Is that what's going down? Jerks.

Here, shockingly enough, we actually face a new enemy type: The Chimera. 95% of Final Fantasy's mythological creature name drops being just things that sound cool but have next to no relationship to the genuine article. And the fact that “chimera” is pretty much free reign in video games to lazily title some fucked up mashed up creature at will. Despite that, Final Fantasy X's Chimera is... surprisingly vaguely close to the creature from Greek mythology.

Sure the wings are gone and the goat head has shifted into a bull and migrated from the back to the chest. And the serpent head has shifted into an eagle. And that looks less a lion and more a... well I'll be honest, I don't know my big cats but a lion that ain't. Oh and it has began walking upright on two legs. But it's fairly close to the traditional description of a chimera otherwise when you've got stuff like the Hindu good of destruction being depicted as a sexy blue ice woman.

Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan!

~~A bit less on traditional point is the fact the eagle head is apparently capable of barfing enough water to hose down the entire party for around 800-900 HP of damage.~~

Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan!

As well as the... I don't know? Lynx head can summon a mean Hadoken. I don't recall those being traits from Greek mythology. At least, I don't remember Kratos encountering anything of that nature while disemboweling similar chimeras.

Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan!

Beyond all that, the bull head keeps it simple and just rams into its foes on occasion. The snake tail is just for show to bring together the ensemble. There is little more to say beyond that. Frankly, all the random battles in Home I found myself just fleeing from since I way over-leveled a bit digging up everything in the Sanubia Desert. Also, all these creatures have way too much HP for how little AP they dole out.

Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan! Ajanouha ihtan!

Oh yeah... and that FUCKING WARNING LOOP IS DRIVING ME NUTS!

Right. Another room someone just dumped rounds into. Another two treasure chests with Al Bhed codes ripe for the pickin'.

The chest on the left has a simple math puzzle in Al Bhed. 4+1. 7-1. 3x1. 2+1. 5633. Are we raiding an Al Bhed kindergarten's stock in these chambers? Is that what's happening here?

For our first grader math skills in Al Bhed, we're rewarded with a Special Sphere. These err... special spheres will allow a character to learn a special ability another character has already learned on their grid (read abilities like Tidus' Cheer or Lulu's Focus.) Not bad for multiplying by one.

There is a second chest hidden behind some foreground clutter on the right side of the room. This one requires we answer some simple trivia about the Al Bhed. Sure, how hard can that be?

[MEA] Yes. Of course we are Al Bhed!

I mean... at least Rikku is. We have an Al Bhed friend. That basically counts, right?

Cid's son is named Brother. Which sounded slightly less stupid when it was just Rikku's brother was named Brother. Perhaps we'll discover Cid's father was named Uncle and his aunt was named Grandma. The Al Bhed are weird like that.

O'aka XXIII is a real hole of an esmand.

Ym Prat.

For our efforts, this time we ~~loot~~ salvage a Skill Sphere from the wreckage. We'll be sure to return it to the surviving Al Bhed at the end of this massacre. Promise.

With the area fully... searched for survivors... we can now return to the early fork in the path, save our game, and travel deeper into Home in search of this “Summoner's Sanctum” joint where Yuna may or may not be camping out.

“We Al Bhed, we...we weren't always like this. Sin destroyed the island where we all used to live. After that, we were scattered to every corner of Spira. But then, my dad brought the Al Bhed together again. If we few put our minds to it and worked together, then we could make a new home. Everyone worked hard, we had our Home back again...”

“Umm... was your old home named 'Home' too?”
“No... My dad just isn't very good at naming thing. My brother is literally named 'Brother'.”

“But now... Why did things have to turn out this way?"

“Rikku...”

Welp, time to wrap up the Wakka and Al Bhed racism beef real quick here. Good thing Rikku has decided to get weirdly emotional with Wakka of all people now that her people are in dire straits. You can almost see Wakka reallocating his bigotry points from the Al Bhed slider to the Guado in real time.

They're thinking of throwing us into another crummy battle. But let's be frank here.

Rikku is having a crummy time and she isn't feeling the need to fight the same Chimera duo and Guado handler for the fifth time today.

Y'all just can't seem to take a hint when to give it a break.

The game starts getting fairly obnoxious with the whole walking forward five steps to trigger the next cutscene around here. It's okay, Square. I'm alright with putting the controller down for several minutes at a time. Shuffling Tidus twelve feet is not immersing me in the rich narrative.

Music ends. Al Bhed Emergency Broadcast System continues...

"The Summoners' Sanctum is where we keep the summoners. We keep them safe there."

“You kidnapped them.”

*nods*

”We called it emergency relocating but ehh...”

"I know it's against the teachings and all that..."

"I get why you did it, but..."

"They might get hurt on their pilgrimage so you kidnap them?”

”I mean what are they going to do with their aeon things? Sit around and teach them to play Triple Triad?”
“What's Triple Triad...?”
“Exactly!”

“I mean, if the summoners don't do their job, then who will beat Sin? You want to protect them, I know. But guardians are there for that.”

*chirp*

“...”

*chirp*

“...”

<Everyone just stand here while ignorant nancy boy freak out? Kimahri not have time for this.>

Music: To Zanarkand

”H-Hey! Where do you think you're going? Is someone gonna answer me? What's with the weird silent treatment?!”
“Kimahri out.”
“...What do you mean you're 'out'?! And what's with the music all the sudden?!”

“...”
“...”

“Umm. ...Should go make sure Kimahri don't run into none of those Al Bhed, ya?”

“Good idea. I too should come.”

*clenches teeth* “Yeeeeeeah. Sooooooo... You still have not... Umm...”

_{_{”Gotta go!”}}