Walkthrough:Final Fantasy X/CSM's Walkthrough/Part 19

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The next morning, it's time to wake up and keep pressing on. Before leaving this place, there are some items for you. In the campsite you'll find a chest with a Lucid Ring. Also, if you go back to the main area of Macalania, you'll find another Jecht's Sphere. Make sure you grab it. When you're ready, head east from the crossroads.

[edit] Endless plains

For the first time, Square actually makes you appreciate the long distance one thing is away from the other.

Welcome to the Calm Lands. Lulu will explain to you that this is where Summoners usually fight Sin. It's now incredibly big and endless. This means there are a lot of enemies here to fight. Also, is it just me or is the random encounter rate here a lot higher?

As always, let's begin with the smaller enemies and work our way up. The Skoll sounds like a good place to start. This is another dog type enemy. And like most dog type enemies, it LOVES to put you to Sleep and Silence you with its physical. You can Steal a new item from them: Dream Powder. As always, let's tell you what it does:

• 16 will add Sleepstrike to a weapon
• 8 will add Sleepproof to an armor

You can get 1 for a common Steal and 2 for a rare Steal. And now that you have three Thieves (Yuna, Rikku, and Kimahri), Stealing will be easy and less time consuming than ever before. They have high Evade and Magic Defense. Tidus, Wakka and Kimahri physicals work the best to kill it. They drop the usual weapons, and armor that protects against Sleep or Silence.

I think I'll talk about the very annoying Nebiros next. This is another bee type enemy, and it can Poison you with its physical. It's also very fast and flying. You can Steal lots of Poison Fangs from them. The common Steal is 1 and the rare Steal is 2. They're flying, so Wakka needs to snipe them down. They drop the usual weapons and armor that protects against Poison. Nothing much else.

The Shred is next, and it's another armadillo type enemy. It has high physical attack power and needs Auron and Kimahri physicals to have it die (although by now, Kimahri's good weapons won't have Piercing on them, but the choice is yours to make). It has lots of Hypello Potions you can steal. The common Steal is 1 and the rare Steal is 2. As you'd expect, it drops the usual weapons and armor that protects against Berserk.

You'd expect an area like this to have an enemy only Lulu's Black Magic can kill, right? Well, there is one here. This is the Flame Flan. I love the name of this enemy. Because as you know, I love alliteration. I don't think I need to tell you what it attacks with. I think I do need to tell you to have Lulu use Blizzaga (Lulu should know the Level 3 spells by now). You can Steal valuable Fire Gems from them. The common Steal is 1 and the rare is 2. This is a new item, so here's what it does.

• 4 will teach an Aeon Firaga
• 20 will add Fire Eater to an armor (this is fire ABSORPTION!!!)

This guy drops fire elemental weapons and armor that provides either fire protection or immunity.

The last small enemy here is the Mech Scouter. It has high HP and attack power and is weak to lightning. You can Steal Grenades from them. The common steal is 3 and the rare Steal is 4. Keep in mind that Stealing from this guy kills it instantly. You may want to kill it this way since it often shows up with very powerful enemies or lots and lots of Nebiroses.

The large enemies show up more towards the northern end of this place, but they sometimes show up in the middle so I better talk about them now. First is the Anacondaur. Beware of Stone Breath, which Petrifies everyone. You can Steal lots of Petrify Grenades so you can replenish your stock if you had to use it for Seymour. The common Steal is 1 and the rare Steal is 2. They drop weapons that sometimes inflict petrification and armor that sometimes protects against it.

Next up is the Coeurl. These enemies are tough. They use various spells, mostly ice elemental, and they can also use Drain, but their main concern is Blaster, which they use to Petrify a character when they get low on HP. For this reason, you should make your Steal attempts when they have a lot of HP. You can Steal Mana Springs from them. These are very, very useful, and here's what they do:

• 10 will teach an Aeon Osmose (!!!)
• 2 will add Magic +5% to a Weapon
• 2 will add Magic Defense +5% to an Armor

The common Steal is 1 and the rare Steal is 2. Kill them however you want; these large enemies don't really have a method that works best on them. Just don't use any ice or lightning elemental spells. They drop some great stuff. Their weapon drops can increase Strength or Magic Power by 5%, Magic Power by 10%, or they have a chance to inflict instant death! Their armor drops can increase Defense or Magic Defense by 10%, or they can protect against Instant Death! These are VERY important to have for later in the game!

I think I'll talk about the Chimera Brains next. These enemies are tough and use various elemental attacks. You can Steal a common Ice Gem from them. Here's what it does:

• 4 will teach an Aeon Blizzaga
• 20 will add Ice Eater to an armor (this is ice ABSORPTION!!!)

Its rare Steal is a Lightning Gem. Here's what it does:

• 4 will teach an Aeon Thundaga
• 20 will add Lightning Eater to an armor (this is lightning ABSORPTION!!!)

So you want to start building up your stock of these now. Watch out for all of the Chimera Brain's tough attacks. When they die, they drop everything the Coeurls do, except they don't drop any physical stat boosting stuff or Instant Death related stuff.

The next enemy is the Ogre. This guy has almost 10,000 HP and a nasty physical. It also has a nasty counter when it puts up its dukes. Now, you can Steal Stamina Springs from them. The common Steal is 1 and the rare is 2. You might've seen these already, so I'm not telling you what they do (go back and check the earlier parts of the walkthrough, you lazy bum you). The big guy is weak to Fire and doesn't have much Magic Defense, so Lulu's Firaga should work wonders, as do physical attacks. They have interesting drops. Their weapon drops increase Strength or Magic Power by 5%, or they can allow you to counter physicals! Their armor drops increase your max HP by 10%, or they can provide you with SOS Haste! Wow!

And then there's the last enemy. The most hated enemy in the entire Final Fantasy series, the baddest of them all, the big, stinky plant, the Malboro! Lulu describes this plant as "uncouth." What the hell does something to have to do to be uncouth? Can anything be just plain couth? I bet friggin' Tidus is plain couth! Anyway, it occasionally uses the dreaded Bad Breath, which as you know, deals just about every bad status ailment in the book to you. Thankfully you can Steal Remedies from them. You'll always get 1. It has a lot of HP (almost 30,000!), so use Firaga and physicals and Summons to take it down. It drops weapons and armor that have various status properties.

So yeah. There's a lot to do here, but that's not surprising. Follow the path to the left as you go off the ledge, and then follow along the bottomside of it back to the right until you get to the corner. There are two chests here. One has 5,000 Gil and the other has 10,000 Gil. Now, go to the middle of the area. You see the save point? Well, we're not gonna go there yet. First, we're gonna go to the bigass circle nearby. In the middle is Belgemine, the Summoner who looks like Princess Leia. It's time to fight her version of Shiva. Of course, this means the choice is obvious: Ifrit should maul her HARD. If Ifrit goes down, use Bahamut. If you win, you'll get 30 Power Spheres. If you lose, you'll get 30 Speed Spheres. No matter what the outcome, you'll also get the Aeon's Soul, which allows you to use Spheres to further boost an Aeon's stats. Entirely useless, but we want to fight Belgemine to show her we mean business.

NOW go to the Save Point. You'll actually notice that this is the last permanent settlement, and is basically a frontier station run by the Al Bhed. Here, a man will come running to meet you. It's a man named Zuke. This dude was an old friend of Lulu's, and actually, Lulu and Wakka were his Guardians for a time when he was a Summoner. He quit here and became a Yevonist priest. Apparently, Yevon is in disarray now. The mastah of the Maestahs Yo Mika accused you of murdering Kinoc (and of course, covered up the real killer: Seymoron) and branded you all traitors. He sent Zuke to kill you. He also confirms that Kelk left Yevon after realizing its corruption. Smart move. Of course the Yevon leadership hates anyone who's not human or Guado. And we hate them for it. Lulu will also admit that she had a business where she was people's Guardians for a time. This is her third time (which we hope is gonna be the charm).

Now, Tidus finally admits being an assclown is something positive. What an idiot.

If you talk to Rikku here, you'll make a pact with her that you'll find a way to defeat Sin without Yuna dying or Sin coming back. Auron will wonder when Mika will wake up and smell the coffee. If you talk to Yuna, he'll teach Yuna what it means to be an assclown. The shop here sells some interesting stuff. For example, it sells a rod for Yuna that really increases her Magic Power, a Spear for Kimahri that increases both his Strengh AND Magic Power (but sadly doesn't have Piercing), a shield for Tidus which counters Magic attacks, an armguard for Wakka which provides resistance against ice AND water, and most importantly, an armor for Lulu that makes her immune to both Petrification AND Silence. There's another shop here that sells weapons that increase your Strength by 10% (for the guys and Rikku) and Magic by 10% (for Lulu and Yuna), and armor that increases your max HP by 10%.

When you're done here, save your game and go around behind this place for a chest containing a Level 2 Key Sphere. Now, go to the cliff at the northwest corner. Search around for the Al Bhed Primer XXIII, which translates the letter W for you. Only three more of these before you know all of Al Bhedian! Next, talk to the person riding the Chocobo. She'll let you ride if you break a certain record in a race. You have to keep the Chocobo moving straight because it's out of control. If you finish in 12.8 seconds or less, you'll get to ride the Chocobo! You'll also get an Elixir as a prize. We'll come back here later, but now ride the Chocobo back to the entrance to the Calm Lands. Look for where you see Chocobo feathers in the ground. Check them while riding the Chocobo to jump to another ledge. From this ledge, you can enter a new area.

[edit] The abandoned temple

Cross the bridge here. Save your game, and look around the building here for an Al Bhed Primer XXIV, which translates the letter X for you. Only two more!

Save your game again, and now talk to the Chocobo. The object here is to race it under the temple and beat the other Chocobo. If you win, you get the all important Cloudy Mirror. Now, you can race the other Chocobo again, and there are other prizes you can win, depending on how many chests you open. If you want these prizes, you are NOT allowed to touch any poles.

• No chests, no poles: 1 Potion
• Hit a pole and win: 1 Potion
• 1 chest, no poles: 1 Elixir
• 2 chests, no poles: 1 Megalixir
• 3 chests, no poles: 30 Wings to Discovery
• 4 chests, no poles: 30 Pendulums
• 5 chests, no poles: 60 Three Stars

As you can see, some of these items can be VERY USEFUL. Many of these are very rare items. So, let's talk about what each of them can do. For the Wings to Discovery,

• 50 will add Triple AP to a weapon (!!!)
• 30 will add Break HP Limit to an armor (!!!!)

As you can expect, these are very, very difficult to come by. You can get them by Bribing certain enemies, but you might not have this ability yet, and even if you did, it costs like 360,000 Gil or something to get just like 3 of these. I suggest saving them for later. Try to at least get this far in the race. As for these abilities, Triple AP lets you get triple the AP after battle, and Break HP limit lets you have more than 9999 HP. These abilities aren't necessary right now, so save the Wings to Discovery until later.

So, what about the Pendulums? Well, they only do one thing. If you have 30 of them, you can customize the Master Thief ability, which ONLY lets you Steal Rare Items! DO NOT CUSTOMIZE THIS ONTO ANYTHING NOW. We're going to make various ultimate armors for each character for various purposes. And to do that, we need armors with four empty slots. If you have one for Rikku (and I doubt you do, it's called a Tetra Targe), put it on. If you don't, then you'll have to wait until you do. But try to get these anyway.

I haven't every gotten the Three Stars yet, but I'll be very happy if you do. There's a lot of luck involved. Try using the D-Pad instead of the Control Stick. Anyway, here's what the Three Stars can do.

• 5 will teach an Aeon Doublecast
• 20 will add One MP Cost to a weapon
• 30 will add Break MP Limit to an armor

How you use them is up to you. I will tell you that both Lulu and Yuna will have One MP Cost on their ultimate weapons, and Break MP Limit is really more novelty, although I like to have it for prettiness sakes. Break HP Limit is better infinitely. So how you use these is up to you. If you can get them, send me your autograph please.

Now that the race is done, you can go inside this building. It's called Remiem Temple And Belgemine is still here! What's she doing? Anyway, she'll let you fight her Aeons one at a time. You can only fight Aeons you already have, and you can't use the Aeon you're fighting. They should all be pretty easy, especially if you use Bahamut (when you're fighting Bahamut, you should use Ixion). Here's what you can win from this:

The Star Curtain is a new item. So, like always, here's what it does!

• 3 will teach an Aeon Reflect
• 8 will add SOS Reflect to an armor
• 40 will add Auto Reflect to an armor

This is the best place to stock up on these, and they make great items for Rikku to Mix when we get to the optional superbosses.

As for the Flower Scepter, this is a key item we'll need for later.

[edit] The Celestial Mirror

Go back to the Calm Lands, and once you're there, go back to Macalania. This all sounds side-questy, and it is, but let me tell you that there are NO SIDE QUESTS IN A CSM BRAND WALKTHROUGH. EVERYTHING IS MANDATORY. Go to the main entrance to Macalania and you'll meet a mother and child who will tell you the father/husband is missing. He's in the spring where Yuna and Tidus were all makey-outey (go north at the four way junction near the Calm Lands). When you find him, go back to the entrance and you'll find the boy is lost. Go up the sparkly looking path and you'll find him next to a device. Check the device and you'll be prompted to use the Cloudy Mirror. This will make it turn into the Celestial Mirror, which is a VERY IMPORTANT ITEM in obtaining everyone's Ultimate Weapons.