Game:

Final Fantasy X (2001)

Duration: 9:39

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14

Like with Greater Sphere, this isn't exactly "low" level, rather a "natural" level for when you're likely to unlock Shinryu for the first time. Your level may vary slightly depending on your play style and what paths you've used for Tidus, but an equivalent performance should be achievable. The most important stat here is my Magic Defense, which is around 27. Much lower than that and Shining will likely kill you once Tidus is on his own.

I throw a First Strike weapon on Rikku so she can Mix Hyper Vitality. This accomplishes two things I want: doubling Tidus' HP (actually not needed for me, my Tidus has about 10,100 max HP, just barely over 9999) and stacking 5 uses of Cheer and Focus to boost Tidus' Defense and Magic Defense. He then casts Protect and Shell on himself. If you don't have these and they're too far out of the way on the Sphere Grid, go for Use instead and let him use a Light Curtain and Lunar Curtain on himself. If your Tidus does know Use, I also highly recommend applying a Twin Stars to him so he can use Quick Hit and Quick Pockets without reservation.

EDIT: After further experimenting I suspect that the online resource I used was wrong and Hyper Vitality does not apply 5x Focus, only 5x Cheer. If you apply Shell and 5x Focus by hand, you can significantly reduce Shining's damage, and a Tidus with quite a bit lower Magic Defense should be able to survive. I haven't tested Ultra NulAll.

You can also Use a Stamina Tonic to double Tidus' HP then let him apply 5 Focus and 5 Cheer to himself the long way, but that can make it difficult to survive Shinryu's first few rounds. Still, it's very possible to do this in a pure "Tidus solo" fashion.

At that point, Tidus should be impossible for Shinryu to kill in a single attack, so it's just a matter of spamming X-Potions and slinging out Attacks or Quick Hits. Just make sure Shinryu is never about to take a turn when Tidus is below max HP, in case of Shining. Auto-Haste and Auto-Potion on Tidus' armor can help things along here, but neither are necessary.

If your Agility is lower than mine and you can't make the two turns per cycle, you may need to rely on Quick Hit and Quick Pockets more (again, applying a Twin Stars via Use will help here). Getting to the latter can be difficult if you aren't overleveled, so I'd recommend Bribing a Warp Sphere from a Master Coeurl in the Omega Dungeon for 130,000 Gil (International. On original I believe it needs to be 260,000). That's only about one Mimic kill with Gillionaire. Alternately, you can rely on counterattacks and healing on your turns, but that's going to take so much longer you'll likely run out of X-Potions. If it comes down to that you're probably just too low level. (Auto-Potion after selling all potions lower than X-Potion can help the speed issue too).

EDIT: I've completed the entire Monster Arena now and Shinryu is the only encounter I used Mix on. I'm a little disappointed I didn't get a complete set, and I'm confident it would be pretty easy to go back and do this, since all of the risk in the battle is right at the beginning when you're applying buffs. I did ultimately wind up using Mix for Penance so I suppose it's not a huge loss, but I would have liked to have completed all of the original release content Low Level, No Mix, No Aeon.

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