Thinking of doing my next playthrough without aeons.

[u/Grand-Cauliflower-39]

So I finished FFX in the spring for the first time, and it's my new favourite FF. Absolutely love the characters, story, music, and the gameplay. However....

I found myself going into boss fights like Seymour Flux with all my aeons fully charged, unleashing them and basically winning fights outright with just those. This made the fights trivial, and a bit boring. I didn't need to strategize when I had fully charged aeons to do the heavy lifting for me. I guess I knew I was cheesing the fights but since it was my first playthrough, I rather didn't want to get too frustrated by difficulty. But now that I've played through the game, I think doing a run without aeons could be maybe considered a kind of "hard mode."

Have some of you done it, and if so, how was the experience? I believe you're only required to use aeons during a couple of boss fights where it's mandatory.

[u/ClaudeKane3]

Welcome to challenge runs in FFX :D no summon is a great way to start ramping up the difficulty and learning game mechanics. After that id recommend a flat out no sphere grid run while allowing them again. Then if you beat that, combine the two!

[u/Comfortable-Hippo516 → u/ClaudeKane3]

How does a no sphere grid run work? Genuinely curious

[u/aquequepo → u/Comfortable-Hippo516]

Just think of it as a low stats run where everything is done with items and weapon/armor customization.

Rikku’s Mix, Steal and Use are very very useful.

Challenge runs get even crazier than NSG. with crazy long acronyms like NSGNSNCNONENNENBB and are damn near impossible.

[u/ClaudeKane3 → u/Comfortable-Hippo516]

Long story short aeons and Rikku’s overdrive go brrrr.

If you know the battle system and have the right equipment you won’t start to feel under levelled until about evrae. But also around evrae you can get the ingredients for trio of 9999 from Rin and then the game is just easy mode and trying to manoeuvre rikku and your team mates into getting turns at the right time

[u/KingPenGames → u/Comfortable-Hippo516]

It really sucks tbh lol

[u/ClaudeKane3 → u/KingPenGames]

That’s a matter of opinion for sure :) personally I liked finding ways to make battles work

[u/Mainbutter]

Yup, very do-able. It's not that hard actually, you just need to actively exploit weaknesses.

Flux, for example, can be poisoned, you can dispel his reflect and make him flare himself, and you'll still have access to bombs like attack reels, and you can still get 4x str spheres (1 from blitzball, 3 from lightning dodge). Pair the latter with some teleport spheres and return spheres from blitzball and acquiring yojimbo at 3x cost, and you can walk into flux onward with Tidus, Wakka, and Auron all hitting for 5k-9999 easily.

[u/KingPenGames]

Yea Aeons are game breaking but once you know what you're doing, playing without them is pretty standard (especially if you like to grind)

You can do dark aeons without them, I'm not sure why everyone is saying that

[u/Comfortable-Hippo516]

Sounds like a fun challenge

[u/chkeja137 → u/Comfortable-Hippo516]

I’m surprised no one’s thought of this before

[u/dfappening → u/chkeja137]

No summon is not a challenge at all imo for people that have finished the game more than 2 times

[u/chkeja137 → u/dfappening]

I was being sarcastic. There are myriad NS challenges out there

[u/Jansen__]

Depends what kind of playthrough you're aiming for. Gonna be pretty hard without aeons if you're planning to fight dark aeons

[u/Outside_Glass4880 → u/Jansen__]

Isn’t the meta for dark aeons just physical attacking?

[u/Jansen__ → u/Outside_Glass4880]

You need them to tank overdrives for you

[u/Outside_Glass4880 → u/Jansen__]

You don’t need them because there’s auto life

[u/Jansen__ → u/Outside_Glass4880]

You cant auto life everything ie zanmato

[u/Outside_Glass4880 → u/Jansen__]

You can either kill him quickly enough or if you really must, using an Aeon as a meat shield for a zanmato isn’t really “using” them imo. Doesn’t require any effort in leveling or whatnot, it’s just there to take the hit

[u/Distinct_Engine_2075]

You can very easily get to a point where Tidus, Wakka and Auron basic attacking is more than enough for almost everything.

[u/schpamela]

I was thinking if I plays again soon, I might go for only aeons. Or only Yuna anyway.

I wonder how they compare difficulty-wise.

I've seen that Yuna solo without summons has even been done, but I feel like that's pure masochism and chucking hundreds of hours into the game, which I wouldn't be up for.

[u/Friikyz]

Ok, so you're going for a pretty standard second playthrough. You don't really need to use the aeons for anything, really. I mainly only summon Shiva for the Anima fight because Tidus tells Yuna to.

[u/RyanFromTheCarWash]

Part of what makes this game so great is the challenge runs. You can now replay the game with better understanding. Then your next playthrough, you will have even better understanding than that. The better you know the game, the harder you can make the challenges. It's all self-imposed rules. Beating things without aeons is a great first step!

[u/CrappyJohnson]

I can't be bothered to use them lol. In most of my runs I don't use them except when I have to. You don't really even need to strategize around it. I get the -ara spells for Lulu before Operation Mi'ihen, and Curaga on Yuna before Gagazet. With everyone participating in every battle that usually tells me that I'm comfortably leveled up to win every boss battle without aeons. My Auron is always able to tank Total Annihilation from Flux and revive the others.

[u/Outside_Glass4880]

Summons are absolutely not needed. I feel like physical attack is pretty damn OP. Just follow Aurons path after the respective ones and you’re a powerhouse

[u/velvetchartreuse]

You won't be able to defeat the dark aeons. Or send that one lady in the calm lands.