Final Fantasy X Part #110 - Episode C: Our Mother In-Law

Part 110: Episode C: Our Mother In-Law

New Music: Attack (Piano Version)

Alright, the people have spoken and they want our first voyage of the Fahrenheit to be a return visit to Baaj Temple. Alright then.

It's settled then: Setting course for Zanarkand Ruins!

Sooo... you know how in every previous Cloister of Trials we had been going out of our way to use the Destruction Sphere to unlock a special bit of treasure? Did you notice how we didn't do that for Zanarkand's Cloister of Trials? That's because we couldn't in our initial trip. Final Fantasy X wants us to take a return visit to the final cloister for one last puzzle.

Yep. Backtracking and another bad puzzle dungeon trial is the first step into Final Fantasy X's end game. This is mandatory step in order to obtain anyone's ultimate weapon as well as unlock the last few hidden aeons. Good times.

Mercifully, teleportation pads have been added in several points throughout Spira to make up for the somewhat limited airship fast travel. I'm wonder if someone during playtesting just went “all this backtracking fucking sucks!” Bless that ornery fellow who had these placed.

Though, I kind of suspect the airship being a fast travel system was something added late development. I really suspect they just wanted you to backtrack through Spira on foot throughout the game. Especially, given all the world's NPCs refresh their dialogue after several key events (Operation Mi'ihen, the Seymour/Yuna wedding announcement, and Yevon shitlisting come to mind off the top of my head) and there's no way you'd hear it unless you marched back the opposite direction on foot prior to the airship.

Not that I have anything to base it on. Just a hunch. Always assume things could have been shittier. It makes the garbage already shoveled in front of you slightly more manageable.

The Fahrenheit is hanging out in front of the Zanarkand Dome from now to eternity. Hey, thanks for dumping us at the foot of the ruins, Rin. Great teleporter.

Alright then. About the final Cloister of Trials... for realsie his time. There is one new puzzle in this area that must be solved. And I use the term “puzzle” very loosely.

If you see the puzzle hint screen here, there are seven panels we need to light up this time. They are all white squares. This time around? No hint beyond there being seven panels. That's right, unless I'm missing something this is entirely just trial-and-error! Good stuff, Final Fantasy X!

If you step on a white panel, it will stay lit. If you step on any other panel, another colored Tetris shape will briefly mark your failure as the camera zooms out for five seconds to show you the puzzle has been reset. So yep... randomly pick a panel. Make note if it is a white square. Continue doing this for the two dozen or so panels in both rooms until you have located seven white squares.

Spoilers: This is where they all are. Three in the first room. Four in the large room. Just look it up and save yourself ten minutes of just the laziest goddamn busy work.

The view-screen in the first room will explode into a pedestal containing our desired Destruction Sphere. Hurray.

Now we just stick that sucker in the right side pedestal by the Spectral Keeper's former resting place and boom. Puzzle completed.

Now we are officially done with Cloister of Trials' horseshit. Our long national nightmare is at its end. Our prize is a staff for Yuna which halves MP usage. Not bad I guess. More importantly, we now have completed all six Destruction Sphere challenges for the Cloister of Trials.

Now that the silly Zanarkand Cloister business is sorted out, we can get back to our regularly scheduled program of a visit to Baaj Temple. You'll see why we needed to take that pit stop first in a bit.

By the way, every time you fast travel with the airship, Cid bellows:

“Yeeee-haw! Here we gooo!”

Music: Ominous

Welcome back to Baaj Temple. This time Rin's teleporter was nice enough to plop us down right next to the temple. We don't actually return to the area Tidus and Rikku met the first visit here. The part of the temple for our end game proceedings is mostly new.

Anyway, I did a lot of grinding off screen. Like 40 levels worth. Give or take. Everyone has finished their own sphere grid path and has set sail sail for new horizons. Tidus and Wakka are going down Auron's path to get swole as hell. Auron is training under Tidus' grid since he's been skipping leg day something fierce and has been getting slow as hell. There is Kimahri, who is going down Wakka's path to be fast at stabbing people in the eyes. Well Kimahri is still kind of floundering at everything. But he tries. Yuna is on her way to becoming a better black mage than Lulu. And Lulu is on track to becoming the gothest white mage in all the land.

So why are we back in Baaj Temple anyway? Well, if we run to the end of the platform where Tidus fell into the drink and was nearly eaten by a giant murder fish, Tidus will dive into the waters below and explain.

*looks around* “I almost got eaten by a fiend here. Payback time!”

“I get the picture. All right, let's go!”

“Hey... Isn't this the place where I saved you from some scissor armed fiend? Then punched you out and you crumpled like a sack of potatoes?”
“Eh?”
“Ergh... I think I saw something down in the water!”
“Uh-huh...”

Apparently Tidus has been holding a grudge against the giant murderfish that nearly ate him this entire time. And now that time has passed and the pilgrimage has leveled him up far beyond the weakling he was during the opening hours of the game, Tidus is now back for some REVENGENCE.

Well, hopefully there isn't too much nonsense involved in coaxing out the fi—

OH GEEZ! Well, that was unexpectedly quick!

Music: Enemy Attack

We're thrown right into it in a battle against Geosgaeno Rematch. Tidus has brought friend to battle the giant murder possibly Sinspawn fish and has been training hard in the month (or however comically little time has actually passed in the game) since their last encounter. Geosgaeno is no slouch either as it has taken off the “only doing half current health because this is just a glorified cutscene” kiddie gloves (fins?) and is ready to fight for real.

As this is an underwater boss battle, we are of course limited to just Wakka, Tidus, and Rikku for burning through the fiend's odd 32,767 HP.

So maybe I should have mentioned a bit of prep that is required for this battle. Obviously, we want to get Tidus and the swimmer gang a bit trained for this end game boss battle. Even if it is the easiest of the optional encounters, it can still be tough. Especially if ill-prepared. For you see Geosgaeno has an attack called Stone Punch, despite the fact it lacks fingers to form a fist.

Stone Punch, as the name suggests, can afflict Petrify. A petrified character underwater will instantly shatter, killing them and removing them from the battle. Look at that picture. Rikku is fucking DEAD!

Obviously, when we only have three characters to work with, it is best not to have one shatter into a million pieces and scatter about the ocean floor mid battle. So coming prepared with Stoneproof armor is a good idea.

Other than Stoner Fisting abilities, the giant murderfish also has a KO Punch. KO Punch can either just hit for 1000-1500 HP, despite it being a large pincer lightly popping someone in the jaw. Or it can outright KO a character straight away. If it connects and DOESN'T just knock its victim out cold, likely drowning them because we are, after all, underwater (but we'll overlook that fact) it will afflict Curse status. Just rude business all around.

The biggest pain in the ass of Geosgaeno's arsenal is its ability to inhale one of our characters at will. This isn't like back in Sanubia Desert with Dune worm inhaling our character for a few rounds. This version of the attack is a bit more complicated. First of all, murderfish will absorb any buffs like Haste or Protect from the inhaled character. So that's rude.

Unlike the Sand Worm's ability, where a character was simply removed for a few turns, our character here will still be in the game. They are given a Trigger Command to Struggle from within the bizarre hollow rib cage prison under Geosgaeno's maw. At this point, there are three resolutions to this hostage crisis.

If the captured party member Struggles. Congrats. They successfully escape! By getting spit at high speeds into a nearby rock, crushing their skull and instantly KOing them in the process. That's actually the best outcome, believe it or not.

If the devoured party member does not Struggle, on the next turn Geosgaeno will spit them out leaving them at one HP. At the same time, the rest of the party will be hit for damage equal to the exhaled party member's HP when spit out minus one. So if the character with highest HP and full health of the group is inhaled, everyone else is toast upon them getting spit out. Still not the worst scenario!

If you happen to hit a killing blown on Geosgaeno while a character is inhaled, it will hit the entire party for 9999 damage and instantly kill everyone at this point in the game.

To add insult to injury, it will go through its entire fifteen second death animation in front of the drowned corpses of Rikku, Wakka, and Tidus before throwing up a Game Over screen to try again. No wonder Tidus wanted to come back and get his revenge on this fish. It's a real dick!

When it comes to the subject of murdering the murderfish, pretty much everything works well. Especially magic, of which the Baaj guardian is weak to everything. So Wakka's Slots Overdrive is a near guaranteed 9999 damage, Tidus with Brotherhood works well.

Up to six Water Gems can be stolen by Rikku from the boss, then tossed right back at it for 900+ HP x 4 every use, to get Rikku's normally weak butt on the damage train. It's not a very hard boss battle. As long as we don't kill it while anyone is camping out in its guts.

And that is literally it for adversaries in our Baaj Temple revisit. Nobody has turned on random battles since our trip here in the prologue. Murderfish was the only one calling these damp ruins home, ever since Deadward Scissorhands bit the dust.

Music: Ominous

Now that Tidus has slain his apparent Moby Dick in the early game, we can begin the rest of our business in Baaj Temple. This area is actually really tiny. As in... you are looking at one-third of its total area right now.

Now that we've defeated Geosgaeno, Tidus can swim to the southern part of its former boss arena and check out a treasure chest. Remember that Cloudy Mirror we picked up from the Chocobo Race maze at Remiem Temple? We might need to do something with that in the near future when we go ultimate weapon hunting. For now, the mirror is not powered up and thus we cannot open this submerged chest. We'll just remember it's here for now.

For now, we're going to take another deep dive and press further into the interior of the sunken ruins of Baaj Temple.

One short sunken corridor and a damp flight of stairs later and we're back on dry land. Congrats. We're at the half way point of the temple. I told you this area was short.

Beyond another gate, we find a room filled with six relics and a magical seal at the far end. So remember the Destruction Sphere puzzles?

Yep, those were keys to the seal of Baaj Temple's Chamber of the Fayth. Each of the six statues in this room will react to our successful completion of Besaid, Kilika, Djose, Macalania, Bevelle, and Zanarkand's Destruction Sphere challenges.

Someone was really proud of this activation animation. So much so that Tidus needs to walk up to each and every one of the six statues and watch it cycle through a 12 second color shifted powering up animation.

Now that we've sorted out that business, the seal to Baaj Temple is broken and with it we gain access to its lost Chamber of Fayth. Turns out Baaj Temple held the second of the three optional aeons for Yuna's growing stable.

New Music: Song of Prayer ~ Anima

Oh, look who all learned the power of swimming off camera. Nice of you to all show up after all the hard work has been done. Pfft... Some guardians you all are.

Wait... Are we still guardians? The pilgrimage has kind of been abolished. Did the party's rash actions accidentally toss themselves into unemployment? I hadn't even thought of that.

Oh... good old early PS2 era bear-claw mitt hands. The lovely successors to the N64 and PS1's melted fist hands.

In case the musical track didn't fill you in, this is the Chamber of the Fayth for the aeon Anima. Which means its fayth would be...

Boy... This is sure an awkward way to meet your mother-in-law. Not that they ever acknowledge the fact Yuna got married to Seymour at any point past our escape from Bevelle.

“My son... do you not hate him?"

”Well...”
“Ehhhhh... maybe... not the biggest... fan...”
_{”Fuck that guy.”}
“Kimahri!”

“He is the one who sows the seeds of hatred. He is to blame.”

”I know my son is a dick.”

“I wanted to give him the strength to live by himself. And so I became a fayth.”

”...As it turned out that was a terrible idea.”

“...because I let him taste power he began to thirst for more. He was not satisfied with my aeon. He wanted more. More power."

”I'm afraid he got really into this literature by this Lacan fellow at an early age. It was a bad influence. It was all power this and power that. And then...”

”And then he died and started crafting armor out of other dead guys as a stop gap. It's kinda messed up.”
“He died...? What?”
“Uhhh... nothing. His hair. It uhh... it got weird.”
“Oh yes... I am afraid he took after his father there. It was... difficult for him.”

“Come, summoner. I will bestow you with my power.”

“Destroy Sin, and my son's obsession with it, though it is small recompense for what I did to him."

Alright. We're snatching away Seymour's trademark aeon and taking it for ourselves. As per tradition, now that Seymour's mom is in our employ, we ought to give her aeon a new name.

----- AEON RENAMING: ANIMA -----

Let's review the boundaries for naming our new summon...

We’ve only got EIGHT spaces to work with here. So no names over eight spaces!
Suggestions must be BOLDED to make my life easier. If you don't bold it, I'm not going to acknowledge it. If you change your mind, just edit your original post. Don't make a new one. If I haven't written a tally of popular names, I haven't bothered counting yet.
No naming it anything vulgar. This is a family friendly LP... except for all the times it is not.
No using other summons' names. From this game or previous titles. That's just confusing!