FFX: Celestial Weapons Syndrome

"WE ARE THE ULTIMATE WEAPONS. WE CAME TO TAKE YOUR LIFE"

I need to keep my composure while writing this.

As most of you know, FFX got a final, "Ultimate Weapon" for each character, and those weapons can be very powerful, and must be acquired in order to actually get somewhere against the horrors of horror in the monster arena and Dark Aeons. They all give you Break Limit Damage which is a very neat ability, along with some other abilities. But the problem is: getting those weapons is HARD. Actually not really. Getting them is easy, but they are useless until you improve them  with Crests and SIGILS. And those SIGILS will require lots of work, luck, and anger management. I'll only talk about four, and those four are the ones I really struggled with.

KIMAHRI: Butterfly Hunt 

Kimahri's quest requires you to play a minigame(?) at Macalania. In this game, you have to collect the blue butterflies and avoid the red ones, all that after Tidus talks with a weird-looking, bird guy that randomly tells you what to do. The problem is, if you usually screw up one, ONE part of the second, you will most likely fail. It's HARD. Really HARD. It can get so frustrating, to the point that making a weapon yourself might be a better idea. You have to be specific about EVERY move and turn you make, otherwise, Tidus will touch a red butterfly, and waste your time by making some strange moves with his hand; trying to catch the butterfly I guess? Didn't that bird thing dude tell him not to? Heck! Even if you don't touch any red butterfly but make a rather slow turn, you might fail. This took me hours and a sickload of tries. Did I mention that the Weapon's name is "Spirit Lance"? How original, Square. 

WAKKA: Blitzball

Except for Blitzball. That thing is effing endless!

If you're a fan of Blitzball, it's okay, you might enjoy this quest. But, if you aren't, just skip Wakka for the rest of the game. Wakka's weapon requires you to play Blitzball. As easy as this might sound, it isn't. You have to win the League (10 games) in order to get it. But the problem is, the prize isn't always his Sigil. And the prize can only change by finishing the League. Can it get worse? YES IT BLOODY CAN! Chance of the holy sigil to appear is beyond rare. It took me 19 Leagues for it to finally appear. And do you know what 19 leagues mean? 190 BLITZBALL MATCHES! And each match is 10 minutes. Calculating: That makes it 31 hours. Thirty. One. Hours. I'm not sure what Square were thinking, I mean, Thank God Blitzball is not that difficult, but it's the opposite! It's so easy. You could go on 50 games without facing defeat while bagging 6 or 8 goals. It gets old way too quickly, and the mini-game itself is badly done (at least IMO. Some really loved it) I gave up at so many points, but I finally got it. Never came back to Blitzball afterwards.

LULU: Thunder Dodge

Ugh. I'm not sure how to even begin this. And I'm not sure either if I'm going to stop talking about this. Alright *inhales deeply*. *exhales* In this quest, you must dodge lightning bolts at the Thunder Plains. How many? Two Hundred. Yes. Two hundred lightning bolts. And you didn't hear the last of it, you must dodge 200 lightning bolts CONSECUTIVELY. My God. I didn't even believe it when I first heard it. Pretty sure there is someone in this world who reached 199 bolts and failed at the 200th. 99% sure that this person isn't with us anymore. TWO HUNDRED ARE YOU SERIOUS, SQUARE? Who is the genius at the HQ that sat down and thought "hey, why not let these pathetic little things aka gamers dodge lightning bolts? Oh, make it 200. Oh oh oh! Make them consecutive! Mua ha ha ha" 

Whoever made this mini-game (it's not even a minigame, it's freakin' torture) should be included in the HD remake as a boss or something. No one can be as evil as him.

TIDUS: Chocobo Racing

I hope you step on a Lego, trainer.

Last one here. In this, you have to win in a chocobo race. No, not really win, you have to achieve perfect time. What perfect time is? 0 minutes, 0 seconds, and 0 parts of the second. How can one even achieve that? You must hit as many balloons as you can and never get hit by birds (why are they even attacking you? Bird jealousy of some sort?). Sounds easy, right? NO. I know I said this many times but, IT'S HARD (That's the point of the rant after all). Add to that, you're riding a drunk, defected chocobo who can't even turn properly or even brush aside those tiny, inferior birdies. It's probably the easiest out of the four, but it can get really annoying since you probably won't be making any progress in your first 20 tries or some. Or maybe I'm the only noob here. Serious question: Why would ANYBODY in this world normally decides to attempt getting a perfect time? There's just no indication whatsoever that you might be getting something out of that. 

That's it. Celestial Weapons sidequests require you not to be good, but to be perfect. The weapons might be worth it, but those are some really unnecessary and ridiculous requirements. Actually, the whole of FFX post-game is like that. Farming spheres and levels, and catching monsters is seriously overwhelming. Evil, Square. You're evil.