Game:

Final Fantasy X (2001)

Duration: 31:14

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4

The Dark Aeons are regarded as requiring a ton of Sphere Grid work, specifically farming Luck and Fortune Spheres from Greater Sphere and Earth Eater respectively, which is a really annoying farm cycle. In this series I'm going to prove these guys are extremely over-hyped. With simple strategies and basic farms you can burn through them easily. Some of the fights will be longer, but I've saved at least as much time from traditional farms. I won't be using Mix or Aeons, but both of those make these fights easier. I'm still considering this a continuation of my "low-ish level" run, because none of my characters have completed the Sphere Grid, but I know some might not agree with that assessment.

Like Dark Bahamut this battle is very over-hyped, although I think I understand why. The mechanics surrounding the Dark Yojimbo fights aren't made clear to the player in any way, and I'm not even sure if they work as intended or if there's a glitch.

Let me lay it out here for those completely unfamiliar: you have to fight Dark Yojimbo 5 times as his summoner retreats through the Cavern of the Stolen Fayth. One of the encounters can be skipped,, but then when you win the final battle it won't count you as having killed him. Dark Yojimbo will respawn the next time you enter the Cavern and Penance won't be unlocked (note: doing this makes him the best high-end farm in the game).

Between fights you're not allowed to save. To be clear: you can save but you're not allowed to reload, as that will reset Dark Yojimbo's state (as does playing Blitzball). You can touch the save sphere however, restoring all of your characters and (more importantly) Aeons to full health.

Regular encounters for the Cavern are disabled when you enter the Dark Yojimbo sequence. However (and this is the thing that may be a glitch), if you run back to the Teleporter pad and bring up the menu for it, then step back off, regular encounters will be re-enabled. This gives you a great way to refill Overdrive bars between fights (bear in mind that if Yuna Grand Summons an Aeon and then the Aeon wins the fight, they get to keep that Overdrive bar).

Once you put all of this into action Dark Yojimbo becomes quite manageable, essentially 5 battles against Dark Ixion 2. There is another wrinkle, however, which is Wakizashi. Yojimbo has a 33% chance of performing this move every turn, which makes it a full party kill you can't predict or control. To counteract this, Auron chips in to assist with Auto-Life duties, so hopefully at least two party members will have Auto-Life up before each of Yojimbo's turns. This is better if you switch to Murasame during a safe moment (First Strike isn't that important after the first fight, I should have just stuck with Murasame). Even if Yojimbo spams Wakizahi repeatedly, Yuna and Auron can self-Auto-Life until he does something else. This cycle can be seen at 15:20.

This does raise another issue, however. If Yojimbo uses Wakizashi frequently during the later encounters and stalemates your offense, his Overdrive bar will fill up and he'll use Zanmato. There is literally no way for your human characters to survive Zanmato. It always deals beyond 99,999 HP and dispels Auto-Life.

Since I'm not using Aeons, this means it's crucial that I kill Yojimbo before his Overdrive bar charges in all 5 encounters. This is a bit of an arbitrary restriction and I'm mainly only doing it for video purposes, but under normal circumstances you should absolutely use an Aeon sacrifice for this move (as a curiosity: an Aeon with 255 defense using Shield can reduce Zanmato's damage to 32,000, making it possible to survive it). Fortunately this is quite easy with a 255 Strength Wakka, as it only takes 4 Attack Reels to end each encounter. Ideally before each of Yojimbo's turns, make sure all three characters have Auto-Life and Wakka's Overdrive bar is full (Entrust). This way when he gets back up on his feet he can use Attack Reels while Auron and Yuna start casting Auto-Life. Bear in mind that you can sacrifice Aeons to block all of Dark Yojimbo's attacks and revive them at the save sphere before each fight, also removing the threat of Wakizashi.

I should note that Stoneproof is also essential here, as Daigoro will do an instant Petrify/Shatter. It's also worth mentioning that the first encounter is always an ambush. Based on the way the encounters are framed, I think this was probably meant to happen in the last encounter where Yojimbo sneaks up on Tidus and swings his sword from behind. I'm guessing either someone made a coding mistake, or they decided Dark Yojimbo was too hard with that ambush coming at the end and moved it to the beginning.

0:00 Intro
2:22 Yojimbo 1
6:32 Refilling Overdrives
7:58 Yojimbo 2
12:27 Refilling Overdrives
14:12 Yojimbo 3
18:58 Refilling Overdrives
21:00 Yojimbo 4
24:53 Refilling Overdrives
27:11 Yojimbo 5
30:21 Stats check

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