Final Fantasy X Pbirdman Mod

I guess I could share this here.

So I think people that have been around FFX's GameFaqs have heard from the Pbirdman Mod, it is a massive project that Pbirdman on it for a very long time (over 8 years), and recently a Youtuber name Dansg08 was doing a beta test run of it that took 2 years to complete and after all this time the mod is available publicaly, I let Dansg08 do the presentation of the mod has he made a great video for it :

So overall what to expect ?

The mod is advertise as not an Hardcore hack but rather a progressive difficulty, that start relativly close to the original and progressivly gets harder.

Furthermore if you familliar with a LandonRay's Punishment this is a completly different philosophy, Punishment was mostly increasing the stats of ennemies and nerfing the Sphere Grid, this mod goes further of course it tweaks some ennemies stats but it mostly changes the AI of the ennemies, add new attack to them or new effect on their existing attack. It also tweaks some game mechanics to balance things out, to my acknowledge the most ambitious gameplay mod for FFX so far.

As a disclaimer I watched Dansg08 story part of his run but this was 2 years ago now so I forgot mostly everything regarding to the change done to the ennemies (and some things have been tweak by PBirdman base on feedback from that playthrough) so for Story part this is mostly a discovery for me, for the Arena Monster to as I didn't watch that part of the playthrough I however did watch the Dark Aeons and Penance fights, tough by the time I reached them I'll probably forget about the changes.

Also other things to note :

-LP is in French cause this is my native language, game is in English and I add description about important stuff to note here.

-The Mod is for the PAL English version, officially this version was the first to introduce Dark Aeons and Penance (among other minor changes), one negative aspect is like most PAL game at the time it was on 50Hz instead of 60Hz and was running about 10-20% slower than the NTSC version, fortunatly from Episode 3 onward I found a program to make the ISO in NTSC and run it at 60Hz, of course can't guaranteed everything in the mod will work as intended but so far the mod runs perfectly fine and I didn't encounter any issues (and the save are compatible with both ISO so if I encounter an issue I can just go back to the 50Hz one), except some synch problem with animation and sound during cutscenes and some attacks but these doesn't affect the gameplay.

-The mod can only be played with the standard sphere grid rename Challenge Sphere Grid, which I think in a mod is good as the Standard Sphere Grid keeps each characters in their own roles which makes thing easier to balance around (for the main story anyway)

-PBirdman guaranteed that he didn't make this mod as a grind fest (except for post-game superbosses of course this can't be avoided), so for the most I will avoid any unecessary grind regarding stats and will try to avoid getting overlevel.

Alright let's get started first off the 2 first episodes :

Episode 1 : https://youtu.be/nRzalO4zah8?list=PLu3lFfLxm77aA0LXrh57p7QCgXQ2um4FY
Episode 2 : https://youtu.be/f2zNnPkmcWw?list=PLu3lFfLxm77aA0LXrh57p7QCgXQ2um4F

 

Ok so episode 1 and 2 you can mostly skip them the beginning of the games has pretty much no changes in term of how the ennemies behave and play almost exactly like the base game but we can already see some changes :

-First off and this is a big one the Overdrive Gauge takes Double time to fill, what this means is we will not get nearly as much Overdrive as we can in the base games, this is a game changer as Overdrive are generally very powerfull especially for the main story (and also mean Tidus will take longer to learn his Overdrive unless of course you grind for it).

-Some abilities that were free of charge now cost MP, Cheer cost 1 MP (and according to the Patch Notes is now affected by Silence), and Steal cost 3MP.

-Some other minor Tweak like Wakka's statut effect attacks now last 2 turns instead of 3.

-The Aeon and this is big change has been dramatically nerfed, first off summoning cost 10MP (can't be display in the menu due to technical limitation) and is afflicted by Silence, furthermore the Aeons are no longer immune to statut effects, their special abilities cost MP and the biggest change their Overdrive charged 4 TIMES slower than in the base........ YEAH don't expect to cheese the boss fight with Aeons here, on a side note since charging Aeon's Overdrive is so long this makes Yuna's own overdrive more usefull.

Also some sphere grids change :

-Every MP + 20 has been turns into MP + 10 cases so we'll get less MP in general (there is also another major changes about MP but it's not relevant yet)

-Every abilities that allow to turn ennemies item drop into sphere has been remove (IIRC this was introduce in the PAL/INT version so if you are accustome to the base NA version this isn't a big change)

-Some abilities have been moved most noticeably so far Flee is behind a LV2 Lock now and so won't be available for now.

-A change that affect Kimahri the character paths are locked behind LV3 Lock except Tidus and Lulu's one which are lock behind LV2, not sure how I feel about this change honnestly.

For battle the only fight worth talking about in the first 2 episodes is the one on one Kimahri fight on Besaid, Kimahri is a little more dangerous as he uses Seed Canon and Aquabreath (and also Fire Breath if you let him time to do so), it makes the fight a little more serious but not anything crazy.

Episode 3 : https://youtu.be/xUlBIv2GPNw?list=PLu3lFfLxm77aA0LXrh57p7QCgXQ2um4FY

Now Episode 3 is where we see some big changes on the ennemies :

-Besaid Mob fight have been overhauled they have more HP so Overkilling them isn't possible, the Condor resist all element and can cast Water, the Water Flan has Auto-Shell can counter magic.

-Sin Fin fight : This was the wake up call fight as far I'm concern, the Vanilla fight is a complete breeze and also a good farming spot as you can kill the little ones again and again for massive AP gains and items, well not worth doing here as the little adds gave No AP and only 25% drop.

As for the change the Sin Scales have a little more HP and can now heal themselves with Potion, but the biggest change is they hit like Fucking Truck for this point of the game and takes no time to charge their Spines, the best way is without a doubt to kill one ASAP as if the 3 cast Spines back to back this can be devastating (without Cheer only Wakka and Kimahri can survive 2 Spines), the other big change is Sin Fin now whenever he moves he does damage to the entire party but also has 5% chance to Confuse, I get really unlucky at one point and got 2 character confuse at the same time (1 chance out of 400 talk about bad luck -_-).

So Yeah probably the first fight where you'll notice a good difficulty increase compare to Vanilla. Also you'll notice a change EVERY boss is now immune to Scan and Sensor, however the Description with Sensor will give some hint about the changes.

-Sinspawn Ech : I think Pbirdman did go easy on this one which is probably for the best as we just finish a fight, and for this one we only have 2 characters and our only heal is through Potions, Sinspawn Ech is still a little tougher as he has slighy increase Strength and Magic and a 70% resistance to Dark (so 22.5% chance to inflict it with Wakka Dark Attack), still with 5 Cheer their damage are perfectly manageable and Wakka and Tidus hits hard enough to kill him quickly, and I manage to land an Overkill on him with Tidus's Spiral Cut ^^. 

After that just more cutscenes

Episode 4 : https://youtu.be/IY6885kUs2I

Now for the Kilika Forest :

-The mobs get tougher here, in fact I have a perfect exemple where I got Ambush against 3 ennemies and get wiped out without getting a single turn geez, the most annoying one is definitly the Thunder Elemental his Thunder is now AoE and can 2 shot anyone except Wakka and Kimahri don't even think beating this bastard without having Yuna with Nullshock, the Lizard is also an annoying one as he has 20% chance to Petrify, the Bees have 80% chance to Poison but for these 2 we conviniently get a Ball for Wakka with Icestrike that makes him able to one shot them (and get the Overkill) with just 1 Cheer, if you want to farm some SLV these 2 are your best shot, as for the Flower as far as I saw she only has more HP.

-I've try the Ochu which in the base game is really easy, and makes one of Luzzu's dialogue about needing 100 crusaders to take him down quite hilarious...... wel let's just say that funny dialog was taken 100% seriously and so this time we're gonna listen to their advice and avoid Ochu for now ^^", so on to the next boss.

-Sinspawn Geniaux is tougher than the base games and have some interesting mechanic, first off he has 4000HP now and goes out of his shell after only 400 damage, he doesn't have a new attacks but Water is now AoE so Nulltide is a good idea here.... except his Water Spell has the effect of making your character RESISTANT to Nulltide basically after the first Water Nulltide will have only 50% chance to work on your character, an interesting change that spice things up, Venom is unchanged and his last attack Staccato has an higher chance to Crit (also his Luck has been increase from 1 to 17) and also 20% chance to inflict Sleep for 1 turn.

And that's all for now, so far the mod looks really promising, I already know that the changes are only gonna get more and more complex from now on, for now I highly recommend giving this mod a run if you want a new FFX experience.

 

Episode 5 : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPjDgEwTdk0&t=546s
Episode 6 : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAhZrsbuIfw&t=351s

No changes worth talking about in Episode 5, can mostly skip this episode as it's just cutscenes, one minor change tough is Kilika's Temple chest hidden treasure, still has a Armor for Kimahri that armor had 3 Resist Element in the base game now it only has Fire Resist, HP + 5% and Defense + 5%.

Episode 6 is mostly cutscene but we have some gameplay :

-The little Al Bhed's robot have no change in their attack but they are more resistant to physical attack, they also give no AP and their drop rate has been reduce to 25%, this is still a good farming point tough if you want a good stock of Hi-Potions (and even X Potion if you are lucky) and money, did it a little but not to much.

Oblitzerator : Now this is a tougher fight with quite some changes :

-First off no more Crane interaction to cheese the fight have to beat it legit (also a little glitch here the Crane is suppose to not be targetable but it still is making Lulu's Overdrive not as good as it should).

-Secondly his Dark Ball and Mute Ball now have a 15% chance to inflict Power Break and Magic Break which will reduce your damage.

-He also has a new attack that he can use as a Counter name Hard Ball which as the name imply does high damage on the target.

-Blitzrush is much more dangerous now that he has 17 Luck instead of 1 and Blitzrush itself as a 15% Crit Rate bonus it can Crit more often and deals high damage.

Also this boss has a new mechanic in that his Speed will increase during the fight, he starts quite slow but after 50% HP (3333HP left) remove he'll get faster and once he has 20% HP left (1333HP left) he gets even faster to the point he might get 2 turns back to back, 5 Cheer is highly recommended to reduce his damage, Lulu and Kimahri are our main damage dealer here.

Also a major change, the buffing magic have been reworked in the original spell like cast where cast and forget type of buff, not anymore they have a turn Duration now, namely :

-Haste last for only 5 Turns
-Protect/Shell and Reflect will last for 15 turns when gotten through their respective spells.

Needless we'll have to pay more attention to this.

Alright big up :

Episode 7 : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKI9xl0y3cw&t=130s&ab_channel=NesoukKefka

Mainly cutscene, one trolling Blitzball match and then just some fights back to back with Sahagin, I use Tidus to overkill all of them which gives me a lot of Power Spheres, which is gonna be usefull since this mod remove the abilities to inflict Distiller statut effect.

The fight against the Garuda is a pushover.

Episode 8 : https://youtu.be/0wGKMPTrcDo

And now we enter the Mi'ihen Highroad and we face quite a difficulty increase concerning the mob fights pretty much every mobs as a new trick for us here :

-The Mi'ihen Fang is the first mob to use Fantasy Potion on himself, this won't be the first time we'll see a mob do that, this basically change the AI behavior and stat of the mob, for this wolf it gives it 2 Cheer and increase their Evasion from 7 to 16 making it much harder to hit, and they start using Fantasy Fang which inflict Poison and can also inflict Dark.

-The Raldos can now use Pray to heal their allies, making a main target to eliminate, his attacks are also the first instance where an ennemy can inflict Provoke, which is new to this mod (Provoke is only for the player in Vanilla) what Provoke does is it forces the character to attack the Raldo, so kinda like Berserk but without the damage increase and force to focus on a specific target.

-White Element like previous Elemental can cast his Blizzard on the all team.

-Dual Horn has a 15% chance to Instant-Kill the target with his regular, but you can use Provoke with Tidus to force him to use Gore instead and use Power Break to reduce his physical damage.

-The Bombs : Now act a little different after Growing the 3 Cheer and Focus making them more resistance, after Growing a second time they gain Nulfrost for 1 turn and Berserk, while in Berserk they use an attack call Cannonblast which does huge damage

So needless to say the Mi'ihen Highroad is not an easy place to go through, also Yuna is extremely valuable for her Null type of spells and healing. Had to run away toward the end cause I had no more MP.

Episode 9 : https://youtu.be/y5jV22YhBYQ

The Chocobo Eater isn't an hard boss to defeat however, trying to making him fall the Cliff is really hard, doesn't help I made a mistake and forget to buy Tidus's Slowtouch weapon, with this weapon we could have a decent chance to inflict him with Slow which would probably makes it much easier to making him fall.

Defeating him normally isn't to hard tough unless you get unlucky and he use Thwack twice instantly, also when he get up he cure himself from Statut Effect (including Power Break), the other change is "You're next" delay is reduce and his Fist of Fury does HUGE damage (about 3000) killing anyone.

After that just riding the chocobo and meet some other mobs :

-Thunder Flan are like the Water Flan in Besaid they have Auto-Shell and Counter Magic by casting Thunder.

-Vouivre : Didn't get on video but he can use Fantasy Potion, which would make him use Wicked Bash which drain HP.

Episode 10 : https://youtu.be/aPYtrAYiwDc

New change on the mobs :

-Lamashtu : He can use Fantasy Potion... and honnestly this is bullshit when he uses it you might as well run he gain Auto-Protect, Auto-Haste and Auto-Regen and his Agility is increase to 12, honnestly I don't see how to kill it when this happen.

-Fungar : Weak to Ice for some reason.

-Red Element : Like previous Element can use Fire on the all team.

-Garuda : He has a new attack call Sonic Wall which is decently powerfull, and is Magical so Power Break doesn't work for it and can't mix.

Episode 11 : https://youtu.be/pSEI9MOjg0U

Episode special Sinspawn Gui, this is easily the hardest fight so far.

First obvious change his Head is now untargettable which mean we can't kill it and we can't prevent Venom, Venom is very powerfull dealing over 700 damage and on top of inflicting Poison has now a 50% chance to inflict Slow for 3 turns.

The Head can also use Thunder on all party members, and when it does it cure the body from Power Break, the body has his main attack which is pretty strong and Demi. The main hard thing is between Demi and Thunder there is a lot of AoE damage and at this point we are lacking AoE Healing, fortunatly we can use NulSchock with Yuna to nullify his Thunder, Venom is also very annoying especially if he inflict Slow.

And so this is pretty long fight you can kill the arm to do Physical Damage or you can do Magical Damage with Lulu, but yeah the fight took about 20 minutes, probably would have been a little faster if I had charge the Aeons and Yuna's overdrive before hand.

Also the Change logs say we have 20% chance to inflict Provoke on the body, maybe would have made thing easier.

EDIT : Upon retesting Provoke makes him do his physical attacks on Tidus 100% of the time, he still use Demi but as a result a good way to deal with him is using Tidus, Yuna and Lulu use Provoke with Tidus, do 5 Cheer and 5 Focus, Defend with Tidus except when he has his Overdrive ready (Spiral Cut doesn't trigger the arm and do 1000 damage) or to use items and use Lulu's spell as a main offensive to not bother with the arms.

Haven't update this in a while so here we go :

Episode 12 : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wydt2cEucVA&t=75s

Nothing perticular in this episode just going through the Djose Route and temple so far the mod follow a pattern for the type of mob :

-Lizard are fast and hard to hit and can petrify
-Bird can cast a spell or attack
-Flans have Auto-Shell and counter Magic with their own Magic
-Armored monster can inflict Provoke with their attack and heal with Pray

New to this route the Basilick doesn't have a change in stats and now counter physical attacks.

Temple of Djose's Destruction Sphere treasure gives us a Defense Sphere instead of a Magic Sphere.

Episode 13 : https://youtu.be/tQuG0G_bo-Yoi

 

Going through the Moonflow no noticeable new ennemies outside of the Ochu who can be really annoying with his Ochu Danse.

And then we fight the next boss and OH Boy this fight is a lot harder than in Vanilla :

-First off I highly recommend you get Wakka and Tidus armor with Dark Ward (merchant sold them on the Shoopuf stop), cause unlike Vanilla unless you get really and I mean REALLY lucky you're going to take some Depth Charges at one point or another.

Let's go through the big change :

-It has 6000HP instead of 4000 and his Defense is much higher, and no longuer weak to Lightning.

-Aqua Shooter now has 40% chance to inflict Silence for 3 turns and 15% chance to inflict for 2 turns

-When it rise it gain 1 instance of Cheer and has 75% chance to gain Haste for 0 turn (this mean his next turn comes much faster most likely instantly)

-Depth Charge has 80% chance to inflict Blind (40% with Dark Ward)

-When it falls it heals a bit

He has also now only 30% chance to get slowed, and modification of this mod Slow would only last for 2 turns.
Not gonna lie this fight's difficulty depend of the RNG particulary if the Sleep effect of Aqua Shooter trigger and if the Haste trigger, his Depth Charges is deadly and if he get you Blind it can be really hard to recover from, I highly recommend to get 5 Cheer out ASAP to deal as much damage as you can and reduce the incoming damage.

The other potential problem is since he gains Cheer when he rise, after some rises our damage won't be enough to make him fall before Depth Charges, fortunatly I got to that point he was almost dead.

After that we recover Rikku and can FINALLY Steal, time to steal a good bunch of Hi-potion and Remedy and I also to get some Petrify Grenades, these could still came handy, also decided I'll put Kimahri on Tidus's path with a LV2 Key Sphere.

Episode 14 : https://youtu.be/IBiNH4ALMj8

 

Cutscene time, nothing happen in perticular so next 

Episode 15 : https://youtu.be/WfSR_Dto4W8

Alright so according to the patch notes this is a point where the mobs difficulty will raise a bit, and boy it does the mob can be annoying there :

-First off these Fucking Dragon, kill them KILL them first at all cost and if they use a Fantasy Potion just get the fuck out of here.

-Gold Elemental : Remember the elemental cast their spell AoE, we could use Null spells... well now screw that this guys start Dispelling us now before destroying us with spells, fortunatly Auron has Magic Break now which work on them and does help a bit.

-The Demon guy can now use both Thundara and Fira

-The Floating Eyes are really hard to hit at all.

-Lizard is just as you expect fast, and can Petrify

-Larva are no longer weak to Water

-Qactuar now has 1111HP and can now use Shadow Gem and Self Destruct if using an Overdrive against them.

Didn't notice any changes for Iron Giant. In fact if Iron Giant are a good grind source, just Slow and Power Break them and Lulu can easily Overkill them for 1200 AP which is pretty good at this point. Also I suggest stealing Lunar Curtains and Light Curtains.

So Yeah overall the Thunder Plains is no walk in the park.

Episode 16 : https://youtu.be/FMWeNrlpieU

Macalania wood goes like Thunder Plains, new to this area are these Spider like ennemy it inflict Zombie with his main attack. Rest of the mobs follow the archetype so far, the Chimaira is encounter in the next episode but it can be easily dealt with with Auron's Threaten.

Then we face a boss Spherimorph :

-So first off it counter with the -ra spells now instead of the basic ones.

Also he has 4 forms depending of which element he takes :

Str based: Fire (Strong) / Str 35 / Mag 27 / Agil 17 / Luck 17 / Magic Booster (Off) / Poison% (1%)
Mag based: Ice (Strong) / Str 27 / Mag 35 / Agil 17 / Luck 17 / Magic Booster (Off) / Poison% (1%)
Pow based: Thunder (Strong) / Str 30 / Mag 35 / Agil 17 / Luck 17 / Magic Booster (On) / Poison% (0%) 
Normal: Water (Strong) / Str 28 / Mag 30 / Agil 25 / Luck 30 / Magic Booster (Off) / Poison% (2%)

Overall it's a really easy fight, Lulu with the -ra spells are just doing wonder here.

Episode 17 : https://youtu.be/Ase7WBGLk9A

This entire episode is dedicated about the Crawler, that pretty much tell you how tough this bastard is, in fact he was so long I had to stop my first tries cause of IRL reasons, but I beat him on second try but not an easy fight :

-First off he is immune to Breaks now
-Now he destroys his own Satellite thing, so Magic isn't seal Aeons however are permanently Seal
-So now he is able to use Gatling Gun while preparing Mana Beam, Gatling Gun has now 10% to inflict Slow.
-When using Mana Beam he chains it with Focus, and 1 time out of 2 will heal himself by attacking himself (how does that works ?).
-When being strike by a Thunder Spell for the 4th time he'll cast Nullschock on himself and Luck

So this is a long fight my strat here was to use Kimahri, Lulu and Yuna, I figure I could try to Evade instead of tanking so I use 5 Reflex and 5 Focus with Lulu, 5 Cheers and 5 Jinx with Kimahri, with the Reflexes his accuracy is actually pretty bad so Lulu and Yuna especially can dodge most of his Gatling Gun and Lulu dodge the Assault almost everytime. Yuna's role here is to put Shell to tank Mana Beam and so I heal with Items cause I save her MP for Shell, while Kimahri and Lulu are dealing the damage. The fight is very long but eventually he'll fall.