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I'm on my first playthrough ever of FFX. The story, characters, and gameplay are all top notch, but you can definitely tell this game was released in the era of big strategy guide sales. The cloister puzzles have been okay (Macalania was tricky but solvable, and I caved and used a guide for Bevelle), but I LOATHE the side quests.
I wasn't able to dodge a single lightning bolt in the Thunder Plains (no way in HELL I'm doing that 200 times in a row), blitzball is fun but tedious, and training wild chocobos can F right off.
I guess my question is, will I miss anything crucial if I skip all this crap? I just reached the Calm Lands. I know these mini games CAN be done, but I don't have the time, patience, or desire. I know most of them are required for the ultimate weapons, but I don't plan to fight any of the super bosses and I haven't had a hard time with any of the story bosses thus far.
Thanks in advance!
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None of the side quests are required unless you want ultimate weapons but there is a method for the lightning bolts to make them strike at the same time over and over which makes it trivial with a little bit of patience
ID: hrxwsa2ID: hrxudzcDo you know where I can find this method. I gave up on that one a long time ago.
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FFX is my favorite, but I will tell you in a second that the side quests suck hose water.
I hate Blitzball, and the quests for the ultimate weapons are so awful that I think I have developed an allergy. I can't do the Thunder Plains for 1 minute without getting struck by lightning, let alone do it 200 times. And don't get me started on the Calm Lands chocobo racing.
You can absolutely play the game without those quests. I'm personally in it for the story, not for the fights.
ID: hryc2zjHonestly, Blitzball wouldn't even be so bad if there was anything you could do when your team doesn't have the ball.
ID: hryb6oaThat final dodger chocobo race is infuriatingly hard.
ID: hrys8hiTheirs a hole where you can control the lightning strikes, you walk in and out. It’s actually fairly easy if you do that.
The chocobo race is somewhat luck based but watch some YouTube videos of successful runs and emulate what they do and you can get it done in under 15 minutes.
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no way in HELL I'm doing that 200 times in a row
For real. Even if it was 200 times total, that would be much more doable. Consecutively is ridiculous.
ID: hrz87u5I never got the weapon done because of that reason. Too lazy to keep trying.
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You're definitely not wrong. I enjoy a good challenge with side quests, especially for an RPG that I love. With FFX, the side quests and extra bits just seem like they're there for the diehards.
Things like the dark Aeons is a cool idea but they're such late game "You better be max everything to accomplish" that it removes any interest because I'll never get that far. Final Fantasy as a whole has problems with their side quests; rather than be achievable, a lot of them fall into the camp of "be prepared to spend 20 hours accomplishing this one thing before you spend another 30 hours on this other thing.
ID: hrzas9nThe dark aeons were way too hard imo.
When I wanted to return to be said only to get bodied and be locked out of the NPC's there I was so pissed
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Not necessary at all if you're just playing for the story. I levelled up my final three very highly and breezed through the final bosses, so I'm sure you'll be fine with nothing more than a little grinding.
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The mini games are awful. Just terribly designed in every way. I got lucky in chocobo racing and managed it after about 30 minutes, but it was still so unbelievably frustrating that I wanted to throw my PlayStation out the window.
ID: hrxuu0tFFX would get a perfect score from me if it was just the game. The minigames take it down a full-ass point because you need to do at least some of them if you want any chance in the post-game stuff (unless you’re cheesing Yojimbo).
They are so frustrating, no fun and either extremely time consuming or difficult. Fuck the Chocobo racing. Fuck grinding blitzball for hours. Fuck it all. I hate the goddamn mini games so much. I don’t know what they were thinking.
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Blitzball was fun in 2005 I swear. Sadly it hasn’t aged well.
ID: hryeue1Yeah I'm reading through this comments and confused why blitzball seems to be so commonly hated lol. I loved it back in the day! Jecht shot made it really easy
ID: hrytf4bNo sweeter joy have I experienced in a FF game than thrashing the Luca Goers in the story tournament. The reward wasn’t that great, but fuck those purple pompous bastards and the boat they road in on.
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I would do all these side quests, if you want, near the end (hopefully not spoilers: with the airship). If you don't do them you'll be missing a completed sphere grid, aeons, items, equipment, and ultima weapons but the game is still great without them. All of them have some kind of strategy you can look up, idk how you could do it without looking it up.
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I just beat the story last night. Never did any of the side quests. Just make sure you are almost at the end of each character's sphere grid when you get to Zanarkand.
ID: hrzf5vhDid you use any of the key spheres to get into the other areas? I'm on my first playthrough too.
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Ever since FFVII at least, there have been pointlessly hard sidequests to fucking pad the hours and i imagine, sell guides. It's so fucking annoying. I don't have the time nor the patience so I've given up on getting that sweet sweet taste of 100% completion.
ID: hryuhdxI actually liked FFIX’s side content. Chocobo treasure hunting was fun and rewarding, the frogs was ok. I did hard the card game though, luckily it’s not required for anything
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Worst minigames yes. 200 lightning dodge???
Beating chokobo race with negative time?? With those heat seeking seagulls?
And blitzball, ugh.
I realize now that this is a game i never will complete 100%
I would also say that some of the temples have bad controls. Not hard, just frustrating.
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I think I'm in the minority based on what I see on this sub but I actually quite liked blitzball and never really had any problems with the chocobo trials. Definitely found the macalania butterflies a bit tiresome but that was more down to sitting through slow animations every time I failed.
Anyway, like others have said: no, not essential for basic game completion.
ID: hrygrrmSame here. Blitzball is a great game, I played the hell out of it trying to max level all the characters for the challenge. The chocobo trials aren't too bad once you get the hang of it... on subsequent playthroughs, you can get it within a few tries.
The only side quest I actually dislike is the lightning bolt dodging. I did that once when I was a teenager and dedicated hours and hours of tries, I've cheesed it every time since.
ID: hryrzfcSame. Butterfly catching was always the worst one for me. I loved blitzball and put probably a hundred hours into it for fun.
I hate to sound like a boomer (I’m not one ftr) but I think nowadays people just don’t have the patience or desire to put time into these things. Games nowadays require less time put into them for more payoff; difficulty is in other parts of the game designs. When I was younger I didn’t mind trying the “frustrating” parts of games over and over and over again, but then again I grew up with Nintendo Hard games.
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This was the first final fantasy that really started to piss me off with the bs puzzles. The previous games had some simple puzzles that were more about overcoming the combat in the areas before proceeding, but this took it to a level which was just not enjoyable for me.
You could make the argument it started with 8, but I just dont like it and now that final fantasy has become hack and slash puzzle solving, I just dont see a reason to play anymore.
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There's an exploit to fairly easily do the 200 lightning bolts.
If you're thinking the ultimate weapons are tedious I wouldn't bother with just about any of the side content since most of it is locked behind the monster arena, requiring you to go back to every area and catch 10 of every single monster.
ID: hryk4y210 of every monster? Nope, definitely not doing that lol. I love this game but I have a job and family.
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I loved Blitzball! Feel like I'm absolutely in the minority on that one though.
I used to turn on the game just to play it sometimes when my team was dialed in
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For the record the ultimate weapons are a little overrated if you max out your charecters, so you can still fight and beat the super bosses.
ID: hrxlm49Takes longer to max characters than it does to get the weapons unfortunately lol. Hell, not counting the time it takes to get strong enough to start really grinding ap, simply the time it takes to fill the sphere grid is insane lol. I wish there was a "auto fill" option that just used all my levels and spheres lmao
ID: hryc2h6You can, but it's a decent amount more difficult. The ultimate weapons have a passive/hidden ability to bypass enemy defense for most general attacks. Defense is very high for most of the endgame bosses, so this makes a big difference. Even if you tricked out an empty 4 slot weapon to identical abilities you'd do a lot less damage due to not having that passive ability.
Given how long it takes to grind your stats up to the point where losing the ultimate weapon passive abilities isn't a big deal, if you're not willing to put the work into getting the ultimate weapons then you should probably just Zanmato cheese the end game content instead (getting Yuna's compatibility up with him takes much less time).
ID: hrxulj3The ultimate weapons ignore defenses. Which is why they are preferred over normal maxed weapons. Sure you can do it, it’s just you have to work around that.
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Yea it's a weird thing, people tend to praise the amount of, and variety of side content in FFX while I guess ignoring that most of it is horrifically bad. Lightning dodging requires some kind of mental illness to complete unless you're using an emulator and save-states (I abused the crap out of save states in my playthrough). Butterfly catching is just insanely frustrating due to crappy graphics and 0 depth of field. Chocobo riding is AWFUL. The Temple speed race is at least marginally passable, but the race against the trainer is aneurysm inducing. Blitzball is fun for the first few games, then gets insanely easy while still forcing you to play another 30 matches.
You can skip all the side content, sure, but you're going to have a nightmare of a time doing all the grind house content (and dark aeons / penance if you're on those versions of the game). Even if you can beat the enemies, the sheer number of times you have to fight enemies to grind sphere grid means that without limit break weapons you're going to be spending a LONG time doing it.
I mean I love FFX, but the side content / post-game is 100x better with an emulator for turbo + save states, otherwise I'd never, ever try it again.
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Dodging birds on a chocobo is pure torture
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I agree 100% and it’s one of the reasons X is not in my top 3. And so many of the side quests come when you are 3/4 through the game. Why go and get the ultimate weapons and Aeons just for the end game?!? Not worth it.
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I've never gotten the ultimate weapons and still was stupid op for all the story content.
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IIRC, the only truly required one is the blitzball game you're forced to play as part of the main game. In my opinion, the minigames are the worst part of the game. It's one of my top three FF games, but those minigames can kick rocks.
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I had a hard time with blitzball my first playthrough. Then I read how to learn the Jecht shot on the ship in the beginning of the game. If you can get that, then blitzball is super easy. You basically knock people out of the way to give yourself a more clear shot on goal.
The side quests are brutal as fuck though. Same with some of the side bosses that aren’t mandatory.
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Indeed it is and no you won't.
When I played on consoles, I just skipped all those frustrating parts. On Steam I just cheated everything I could. Think about it, every time you'd want to play the game for good time's sake, you'd have to deal with these tedious things again and again. I replay FF8 every year and no way in hell I'd put up with something like that in it.
The super boss in Calm Lands is kinda doable but the chocobo race and lightning dodging? No, just no.
That's why I like FFX-2 a bit better, it has some annoying parts, but not that many and you don't need to put up with them to have the cool stuff.
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No you will not miss anything important. As someone who 100% completed the game my first run, it was absolutely miserable. I spent 30 hours to get to the end of the game, and then 50+ hours doing the most boring content possible. It's not fun, just time consuming, and probably worsened my opinion of the game.
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none of them are worth the hassle honestly. its just random shit in there for 100%ing
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Yeah, X is a pretty solid game but the sidequests are not great.. the ps1 ones were much better, even less fun ones
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Blitzball is actually super easy once you figure out ONE SIMPLE TRICK.
There's a dude in one of the main towns that you can recruit that has a perfect 10 goalie score. With him on your team the other team literally can't score.
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I genuinely could not agree any harder if I tried. Final Fantasy X is in my Top 3 FF titles … but the side content is frustrating and deeply NOT FUN OR ENGAGING in any way. None of it, well, perhaps the super bosses like Dark Aeons.
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Honestly I agree wholeheartedly.
I 100%'d FFX back in the PS2 era, and I'll carry that torch with me. I'm older now, and I don't have the time, patience, or most importantly, the reflexes to do Chocobos, lightning, and butterflies any more sadly.
Edit because I started writing before reading the question: You're only really missing out on stuff if you want to engage in the post game stuff. Minor customization and a bit of grinding should be enough to get you to the credits easily.
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The Bahamut trial was absolutely impossible for me without the strategy guide. I spent so many times trying to get through that hell hole before giving up.
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I love X but I put me off mini games for life, mainly after attempting the 0 second Chocobo race. I am still yet to ever win a Blitzball games, I didn’t think I would be as shit in gaming sports as I am in real life
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This is why FFX is not my #1. Terribly designed side quests or games. And it's either you're too overpowered or the enemies are. Dark Aeons? They're too strong. You grind and max your stats? Suddenly you're the one that is too strong. I never felt this on FFIX even though I grinded to 99 and 100% completion. Yes I felt strong, but the gap isn't that bad.
引用元:https://www.reddit.com/r/FinalFantasy/comments/rzvg4m/as_much_as_i_love_ffx_the_side_content_is_the/
I cheated on this on the Steam version, I installed a hack that automatically pressed X when the screen turned white. I'm not even sorry.