Part 130: Episode CXX: Our Aeon Adieu

New Music: Song of Prayer ~ Yu Yevon



Welcome to the final FINAL area of Final Fantasy X. It doesn't have a proper name. Yu Yevon has just ripped open a pocket dimension inside the pocket dimension inside of Sin. We're getting all Inception on our sub-realities here as we join the party on Giant Dad Jecht's Giant GIANT sword held adrift in the swirling chaos of the ending nebula.







The rest of the party ate shit on their trip to the sword realm. Except for Yuna, who doesn't have time for that kinda crap. She knows she is about to get drawn into an overly involved drama battle and is mentally preparing for the trial. Or something like that... Final Fantasy X's plot to slay Yu Yevon reads like something rambled from a hyperactive six year old at this point.



*turns and nods*




New Music: Summoned Beast Battle (Recommended Listening)
Alternate Music: A Contest of Aeons (HD Remaster Version)



We are now presented with what looks like a placeholder debug menu. Mostly because it's the exact same generic menu style used if you mess around with FFX's debug junk. Hey, we are putting no effort in any sensible resolution to this Yu Yevon business. May as well put just as much effort in the presentation.

Anyway, we now have a list of all our lovely aeons we have collected over the course of Yuna's pilgrimage and my miserable trials through the post-game content. And now? We are going to murder them. All of them! Welcome to the penultimate challenge of Final Fantasy X: Aeon Genocide!



Look, the Final Fantasy X team was really proud of its summon animations. So goddammit, you are going to see each and every one again before this game ends! The full things too. They know you put it to Short animations 50 hours ago, you cretins.







Well, let's get this done. We may as well just burn down the list in the order they give us, right? Kazooie, it's been a long damn time since I've summoned you. What's good?



After viewing the summoning animation, we get a prompt informing us the aeon has been Possessed by Yu Yevon and sure enough...







Our poor Kazooie is now host to the parasitic Yu Yevon and is now the new potential host for the next Sin. I guess that's how it works? The old Final Aeon/Sin dies to the new Final Aeon. Yu Yevon pops out and possesses the new Final Aeon which it eventually corrupts and transforms into the new Sin. This time around there is no Final Aeon for Yu Yevon to jump to. So it will now have to settle for the garden variety common aeons of the Yevon temples instead of its artisanal home made Final Aeons of his daughter's.

They fail to explain WHY we cannot just gank Yu Yevon while it doesn't have a host. Apparently it became incorporeal unless head jacking a summoned monster? Maybe? Except when it runs out of aeons it will just shrug and fight us. Whatever. The developers envisioned a dramatic battle against all our aeon allies. And dammit, they're gonna have it.



Straight away, you'll notice the Yu Pagodas have migrated into the sword realm as well. They function exactly the same as they did for Braska's Final Aeon.





If they're both active, Power Wave will juice Kazooie, or any other aeon's, Overdrive meter and heal it for 1,500 HP. Thankfully, the Yu Pagoda's stats reset back to 5000 HP between each battle. So we don't have to worry about its health reserves climbing into the tens of thousands.



But really, we ought to just ignore the Yu Pagodas entirely and take off the kid's gloves so we can just lay into the aeons.. Its the end of the game. We should burn through all our items. Now is the time to chug elixirs and use weird items and burn all the Overdrives. We've got eight of these damn things to get through. We're gonna be here a while.



RIP Kazooie. You weren't the most useful of aeons past the initial novelty. But you were the only one that got several cutscene appearances long past your prime. And let us not forget you had the honor of being one of only two aeons to appear in the CGI dimension. You had a good run, for an overgrown lady bird with mammal breasts.







After slaying one of our aeon pals, Yu Yevon sputters off to resume idling about the arena until Yuna finishes one of her three canned pained look animations and selects the next aeon for the chopping block.









Same deal with McGruff. Summoned (the whole animation sans Yuna) and then a nice 15 second animation of Yu Yevon possessing our aeon, bestowing upon it the most dreadful of conditions in Spira: The palette swap. That's a fucked up thing to do to a creature.



Now I've mentioned I sent Yuna for some strength training down Auron's path. As we enter the very end of the game, she has 53 Strength and 65 Magic stats. All of the aeons we are battling are Yuna's of course. As such, they're all going off her stats power level wise. Needless to say, with those kind of stats...





...Yeah if any of them get an attack off, they will absolutely wreck our day here. Which could make this quite a difficult battle if we're unprepared. It could but... Uhh... No. It won't be. Remember how I said Braska's Final Aeon was the final boss of Final Fantasy X? Even though now we are facing a boss rush, there's a reason I said that.







Everyone during this summoned beast battle has Auto-Life. Permanently. Yeah, turns out this entire fight is all a glorified cutscene battle with literally zero risk of the party wiping. It's sort of like that last fight in Final Fantasy VII with Cloud against shirtless Sephiroth where you just ruin his shit. Except that lasted all of 40 seconds and this lasts over 20-30 minutes.

I know what they were going for here making the party put down all the aeons themselves. I'm sure it sounded like a cool sequence on paper. But the execution is just shit. This whole sequence drags on far too long. Especially since the novelty of aeons died ages ago around the 4th or 5th forced summon battle.

The aeons almost always, no matter what level your teams is, will just body your guys when they get the chance. And obviously, they couldn't figure out a way to balance this. So they just threw up their hands and made everyone immortal. And have I mentioned that Auto-Life animation is like 10 seconds long every single time someone eats it? Cuz that's a thing too in a battle that already has nine minutes of sitting around watching long animations by itself.





Anyway, so long McGruff. We acquired you just prior to a three hour stretch where there are no battles involving Yuna. But at least you got a while to be top dog and the rival summoners really seemed to enjoy busting out Ifrit variants. Don't worry, you'll almost definitely get work again in this series. Don't tell Kazooie, but that bird is getting stuffed in a closet and forgotten after this game.







Thorse, what can I say? I think I summoned you twice. Once in a non-canon save for an update just to show off what you did. The second time was in Bevelle to show off a glitch and I was surprised to see you still had the full summon animation since I'd never used you. Your design was kinda alright for just kind of being like a unicorn version of Odin's horse without the Odin. But you showed up at a lull with the only boss battle being against a pair of gimmick battles, one being underwater. And then the largest hostile area was a goddamn lightning zone. It's not you, it's Spira.







Nora! You had that one Seymour/Anima tag-team battle where you really got to shine! Even if you weren't given a name until after the battle concluded... And then Yuna was removed from the party for 3-4 hours. Then by the time Yuna returned, she got an infinitely superior aeon that completely usurped your usefulness. But don't fret getting the short end of the stick in this outing. You're a series regular! That Thorse idiot just goes on to become a generic term for lightning horses in its future.







Trogdor! You were the best aeon in Final Fantasy X. There, I said it. Sure, Agnes and the Magus Sisters were all stronger. But you had a rad design, carried yourself like a badass, and were the only plot relevant fayth in a sea of wish-washy naval gazers and non-entities. You will be missed. But don't worry. You're basically guaranteed a spot somewhere in every Final Fantasy game by now.







Have I mentioned that the shitty Dark Aeon boss battles in later revisions of the game are just these palette swaps copy and pasted with hugely buffed stats? That's how lazily put together those bosses are if you were wondering. Anyway, Agnes you were the strongest and by far the most metal of the aeons. Perhaps even rivaling Braska's Final Aeon in that regard. Shame about your son being such a tosser. Send our regards, assuming all douchebags end up in the Farplane.





Man, PayToWin... There is some emulator setting that just started hating your glowing cape and boy does it really dislike your possession by Yu Yevon. Don't worry, I'll make this quick before your geometry is torn asunder in a fate worse than death.





PayToWin... I tried to do an update where I just cheesed the crappy Monster Arena monsters just using Zanmato to tear through their ranks. But but fighting through your shitty, unreliable RNG was not worth the effort or frustration and I scrapped the whole thing. Beyond that? I never summoned you once after I acquired and showed you off. Fuck off.





Almost there. Hang in there, Yuna. Just be happy you don't drop dead when your aeon gets possessed like I really thought was implied to be the case with the whole Final Aeon cycle. But I guess not...? Who knows. I don't and I doubt Final Fantasy X's writers did either. For all I know Yu Yevon's first act on possessing a Final Aeon is just dunking on its summoner and tossing their corpse down that big pit on the Calm Lands.





Evidently, Yu Yevon can break its spirit into multiple pieces, considering it manages to possess all three Magus Sisters (and also PayToWin's dog I suppose.) Sure, why not? It's not like they have established any rules for Yu Yevon's powers or how it learned to become a ghost summoner, aeon flesh crafter, and immortal. Don't worry about it!





The Magus Sisters can be kind of a problem to deal with on foot. Observe here how Ozzie butt-slammed Lulu so hard and twisted her neck 80 degrees. Don't panic. Auto-Life is still in play. She's fine!





Magus Sisters, I also had an aborted update where I threw you at Monster Arena super bosses to see if you could take 'em. I ended up losing the footage and hell if I was going to redo all that on an update I wasn't particularly happy with to begin. It's amazing the lot of you managed to claw your way out of Final Fantasy IV for some fanservice reason. I'd be real surprised if we saw you again anytime soon as anything more substantial than a winking reference.

Music ends...



In any case, that's a wrap. We have slain all of the Temple of Yevon's stock reserves of aeons. Rest in Peace Kazooie, McGruff, Thorse, Nora, Trogdor, PayToWin, Agnes, Ozzie, Slash, and Flea. Boy those are some dumb fucking names you all came up with, huh?

Now that Yu Yevon has run dry on alternate hosts for its possession, its only recourse is to deal with the party head-on. So, are you ready to see Yu Yevon, the 1000 year old super summoner leader of ancient Zanarkand's true form? Warning! It's gonna be really stupid. Final Fantasy X couldn't have it any other way.






Video: Episode 120 Highlight Reel