Our heroes escape the city through the power of cinematic editing, appearing in the forest outside the city.
Well, That Was Easy
Boy, we sure did escape that heavily fortified, technologically advanced city where everyone knew where we were and had orders to kill us on sight. Let's make sure to never speak of this again.
There’s another conversation like the one under the lake, where characters process what’s happened, clarify their motivations, reaffirm their goals, and otherwise make sure everyone’s dramatic arcs are nice and clear.
For Yuna and Tidus, this takes place in a personal heart-to-heart. Yuna is tempted to give up the pilgrimage. She’s been branded a traitor. She’s alone with her crush. It would be easy to run off with her man and leave the whole “saving the world” thing to others, particularly since there are still other summoners on the path and the world is now against her. But instead she decides to set aside her love and march off to die for the people who have rejected her. It’s a hard road and she might not get any glory at the end, but she’s doing it because it’s the right thing to do.
This is the moment that makes her the hero of the story, even if she’s not the “main” character. She sacrifices the most, and her decisions drive the plot more than anyone else’s. Tidus is a catalyst for change and his actions often drive the story, but his investment is so much smaller than hers.
The next morning the party moves on to…
The Calm Lands
This is probably the first spot in the game where you can be killed by a random encounter. The Malboro monsters can ambush you with an attack that confuses and poisons the whole party, and then defeats them without you ever getting to take a single turn. It kind of sucks.
The Calm LandsCalled such because this nice big empty wilderness is a good place to battle Sin. Hence, this is where the Calm begins. is an unusual location in the game, inasmuch as it’s kind of a throwback to the days of FFVII where you could wander around in open areas. Your route through FFX has been very linear up until now. Not only must all areas be done in a particular order, but there’s usually just a narrow path for you to follow. Your only choice is to go forward, or… not go forward yet.
To put it another way, your only meaningful decision is to decide how long you want to grind in a particular spot before moving on. That’s still technically the case here, but now you’ve got a vast open expanse in front of you and multiple points of interest to discover. Far to the northwestThere’s no real compass when you’re on foot, so when I say “north” I just mean, “the way the camera tends to point”. there are a few people to talk to and some goodies to get. To the east is the passage to the Monster Arena. Right in the middle is a little outpost. To the northeast is the passage to the next area. And there’s a hidden temple to the southeast, although you can’t reach it right away.
It’s actually kind of daunting. The Calm Lands feel vast in a visual sense, and it can take a good long time to cross them if you’re fighting monstersIn the remastered version, there’s a hotkey to turn off random encounters, which makes crossing the Calm Lands take just a minute or so. In the original game this could only be accomplished by acquiring special items that only became available in the late game..
This is where the story puts on the brakes. We’ve just gone through some pretty serious story beats, and now the storyteller is cutting the player loose. “Okay. That’s enough story for now. Go level up, or play some blitzball or something.”
The big attraction here in the Calm Lands is… Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Final Fantasy X Part 15: Monster Arena”
Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.
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