Part 71: Episode LXII: Try My Patience

Music: Seymour's Theme



Right. The people have spoken. Shiva may be a magical being summoned into this plane of existence to graciously aide us in battle. But I heard nothing in the contract about giving it any kind of respect. So we'll just be referring to it by a mid-tier Batman villain's tragic coma wife in a jar's name from this point onward.



Tromell kindly dropped a save point next to the exit while he and the boys dragged Seymour's corpse away before it started to leave an odor. That was sure nice of him.



We're heading back the way we came. The other path is blocked as that leads to the fayth and that's a summoner's only zone which Yuna already sorted out off-screen. Probably best to bail on Macalania in general what with the whole high profile murder thing that just went down and all. I'm sure it's going to be great for Al Bhed's political relations to have one of them among the whole assassination squad in the temple.



Wait... what?







Oh... Nonononono! C'mon, game! You're not doing this! Yuna got the goddamn aeon already. We don't need to do a bloody Cloister of Trials here. Nobody likes this shit! Nobody!





Uggggh... Welp. This is happening. Hey, Yuna didn't you already solve this entire thing? In record time, I might add. Mind just tagging in and speed running it again? Tidus and the rest did just gank Seymour and get put on a government black list for you, after all.

Fuck...



Alright. Fiiiiiine. We'll do your goddamn puzzle dungeon. Let's see what we've got to work with here. We've got a central pillar with a sphere stuck in it and a small pedestal a bit south to it hanging out. Let's try swapping those and see what happens.





We can take the Glyph Sphere from the central platform and slot it in the pedestal. The game doesn't give any indication, but we can now slide this thing while it is activated. Just what this game was missing! A sliding block puzzle! Said no one ever in the existence of the human race.





So we can shove this block to the east where it impacts with an ice stalagmite and comes to a complete stop. That's how physics work, right?







From there, we can shove the pedestal northward wherein it will take out another mound of ice. However, instead of stopping dead in its tracks like before, it will continue to slide down a newly revealed slope...





It will skillfully drift around a corner and come to a stop at another, much smaller put apparently unbreakable patch of ice at the bottom of the slope. I wonder how many summoners got stuck in here and had to contact the temple maintenance thanks to the pedestal just toppling over at this point? Despite gliding on the floor like it's on some anti-gravity field, I can't imagine some 100 pound scrawny summoner like Yuna could push that thing upright if the puzzle fucked up.



Glyph Sphere has had its fun on the Cloister ride. Time to get off and let the other kids play.



In the western half of this room we've got three Sphere shaped indentations to choose from. Spoilers: The Glyph Sphere only works on the leftmost slot.



Damn. I spoiled it...



Using the Glyph Sphere down below will raise a platform directly above (by the path initially leading into the area) and will also reveal another sphere along with it.





Now we need to have Tidus do a lap upstairs to recover the newly revealed Macalania Sphere. Who or what the heck is Macalania and why was it prominent enough to have a forest, a lake, and a temple named after it?



Anyway, we can take the Macalania Sphere back down to that sliding block puzzle pedestal and shove it into its slot.





With the Macalania Sphere slotted in, we can now shove the pedestal to the east, straight into a pillar slot by the far wall. With that done...



...The first of three sections of the ice bridge reappears up above. Alright. One-third of the way done with this lousy business. Now what?





Well there's another sphere up above to the eastern part of the room that has activated. Or it was activated and we never looked at it... I'm not sure. It was useless up until this point, so who cares! We need it now.



The camera makes a point to pan over to an empty space after the second Macalania Sphere is removed. We'll have to remember that for later.





Macalania Sphere Numero Dos gets shuffled downstairs and slotted into the western pillar slot, naturally. What do the other slots do? Jack shit, naturally. This isn't even a puzzle, it's just busy work. These Guado suck at temple design.



The second Macalania Sphere finding its proper home will activate the second of the three ice bridges out of this dump. Almost there to freedom.





For the last walkway, we head upstairs and remove the Macalania Sphere by the slope leading to the lower level. Did I mention there was a sphere there too? No. Where there was. And we're gonna take it and slam that sonuvabitch in the middle pillar where we took the Glyph Sphere originally.





And sweet freedom at last!





Let's just have Tidus book it back upstairs and blow this po—



Wait? What's this? Excuse me, game. I am leaving this temple. What are you trying to pull?



Oh yeah... Right... There's the Destruction Sphere puzzle we've got to do. God DAMMIT! Why did I come back to this LP...? Ugh. Fine. Fine!

This Destruction Sphere business is a real fucker since I mean... we could just leave. The exit is right there. But nope. There's another eight minutes of sorting out this filler nonsense. We'd just have to come back and do the whole damn thing again later if we skip out now. So, we'll just have to grit our teeth here.



So stepping on the flashing panel at the start of the Cloister will spawn a new sliding pedestal embedded with another Macalania Sphere. We'll just go ahead and snatch that up...





...And shove the pedestal itself out of our way. Like its predecessor, it will effortlessly glide around a curved icy slope as though on rails. However, when it hits the mid-point of the slopes...





...The pedestal gets sort of awkwardly no-clipped across the room and embedded into a jagged chunk of ice that just so happens to contain the Destruction Sphere we need.





The Macalania Sphere we are carrying is useless right now. So we'll just slot that in the platform on the western part of the room and remember where we parked.



We're going to grab the central pillar's Macalania Sphere instead. Now we've done gone and screwed up our escape route. Hey... what happened to the rest of the party? Why is only Tidus stuck with the puzzle challenge? He's like the least qualified person here beyond maybe Wakka. Argh.



The central pillar's Macalania Sphere will be used to reform the slope to the lower level of the Cloister. We're going to need to dick around down there in a minute.



In the southern part of the upper level is now another glowing pressure plate like the one up above that got us into the second leg of the Cloister's trials. Having Tidus shuffle onto this one will...





Reset the pedestal's position to where it began. The two pressure plates actually just reset the position of this pedestal if the player messes up the sliding block portion of the proceedings. If we'd walked on the upper ice platform after hitting the pressure plate up above, the third portion of the walkway would vanish as soon as we touched it because the pedestal and the sphere have reset. Yes, that means you can totally dick up this puzzle accidentally by lumbering upstairs and walking on that plate by mistake not knowing what it does. Yes I did that the first time I played this game and was very annoyed by that fact.



Getting back on task, thanks to that weird no-clipping business the pedestal did earlier, the Destruction Sphere is now accessible from the newly reset position. Yoink!







Finally, we can take another trek downstairs and use the Destruction Sphere on that previously unused third slot on the left to reveal a treasure chest buried in the ice. What's the reward for all that effort,you ask?



Why it is a... Luck Sphere...? Luck? Are you kidding me? That nebulous shitty thing is always the “I dunno put some weird math in there. They can look it up on a wiki if they care” programmed stat?

In Final Fantasy X, Luck dictates the critical hit percentage chance as well as evasion. The Luck Sphere will plop down a Luck node on a empty slot of the Sphere Grid. The thing is, you need a Fortune Sphere to actually activate a luck node. The last one of those we got was way back at the Mi'ihen Highroad. The next one we'll see is... let's take a look. Hmm... Around ten hours from now! Until then, this thing is only good for sitting in the bottom of Kimahri's purse or wherever we're keeping the inventory.

Terrific. Let's get the hell out of here...



So now we need to pretty much redo the whole beginning hullabaloo just skipping the Glyph Sphere part. Remember the first Macalania Sphere we left upstairs?





We need to relocate that sphere to the easternmost corner of the room. This causes the ice patch from the beginning of the Cloister of Trials nonsense to reform.



Then it's just a matter of shoving the pedestal back downstairs like the first go around.








Grabbing the Macalania Sphere we used to form the ice, sticking it back into the pedestal downstairs, then shoving it back into place.





And finally, taking the Macalania Sphere forming the path downstairs and relocating it to the central pillar to return the whole upper ice bridge back to its former glory.



I am so unbelievably over this entire temple. I feel like this alone has us entirely in the right for having cut down Seymour. Speaking of the departed, wow Seymour's Theme is not a great loop to hear for fifteen minutes straight. Get me out of this place, please!





Tidus catches up to the party who seem to be having some trouble with the Guado natives. Huh. I guess everyone really did just ditch Tidus behind to do the entire Cloister of Trials by himself and nobody noticed he got left behind. Some friends you are.



"No need, I already know what I'll tell the other maesters."
"Meaning...?"


New Music: Those Who Come Closer



”I regret to inform you...”
*deep inhale* “Guado Clan ain't nuthin' to fuck with.”



"Let you go? Lord Seymour would never forgive us if we did."



“Jyscal's sphere! We can show it to them!"



”I am afraid your alleged evidence... isn't all it was... cracked up... to be. Hehehe.”



Tromell shatters Guado Ghost Dad's Final Fuck You to his son. You bunch of dunces probably should have taken that along with you. This is fairly high up on the incompetence scale. Even you are fucking up here bad, Auron. Tsk.



“If a human falls in the woods and there is no one to hear it but we Guado, does it make a sound?”
“...Uhh. Yeah? You dudes have like stupidly huge ears.”
“Not if there aren't any witnesses.”
“...What does that even MEAN?!”







Welp. Diplomacy has failed! Auron is booking it. We are LEAVING. You fools do NOT want to see the inside of a Guadosalam prison!






Video: Episode 63: Highlight Reel





Macalania Temple Glyph