Time for the ship back to Luca! Tidus's Theme plays, and we get some cool scenes. First I want to highlight one great line of dialogue regarding the Luca Goers:
Jassu: I just wanna sneak up behind them and beat the... -I mean, I wanna get in their faces and show'em what we're made of!
Bickson and Graav were flirting with Yuna, then Tidus came along and ruined things for them. Yuna decides to come down pretty hard on Tidus's side, at the risk of coming across like a loon to sports stars, saying there's a big city in Zanarkand where Tidus is the star player. Incidentally, if you alread know all this then sorry, what I'm trying to do is recap some of the easily missable stuff while giving my thoughts on the main story, but this scene, though missable, is so easy to get it might not be worth it. On that note, if you go back down to the cabin now you'll find the female Luca Goers have abducted Keepa. It's...unclear what they do to him. Botta expresses his wish to be "next", though. Is this why Keepa's catching stat is so poor? Neither man is there when you do the Jecht Shot...
Lulu and Wakka's conversation is really interesting. On the first playthrough it's basically your first sign Lulu's not just a cold-hearted cow. She basically talks Wakka out of leaving Tidus in Luca and into asking him if he wants to be a guardian. If you keep going up the stairs, they start talking about their parents and how Sin killed them. If you hadn't figured already, it makes you realise just how horrible and depressing Spira truly is.
Jecht Shot time. I like how in the flashback Tidus falls over trying to kick the ball at all, so Jecht assumes the shot he was trying to do was this ridiculously complicated physics-defying spectacle. Rather than just, y'know, kicking it. The shot's easy to do when you're used to it, and that'll make the Strength Sphere (er, I mean Crystal Cup) a lot easier to get! Yuna and Tidus chat about Jecht, and Yuna realises just how messed up Tidus is basically! Wakka eventually breaks things up by, uh, using his physical attack on Tidus.
Now we get the awesome "arriving in Luca" scene, which is pretty stunning in my opinion. We've got the awesome commentators Jimma and Bobba who are there to beef up the Goers and point out how the Besaid Aurochs are "a living, breathing statistical impossibility! I've never scene a team this bad!" Until Tidus decides to interrupt proceedings in the most obnoxious way possible. Then we get the arrival of Maesters Mika and Seymour. Up to now, even with the Temples, Yevon hasn't really played a big role in the game, so it's cool the game reminds you about its presence here.
Seymour himself...I get the feeling I'll rant more than once, but for me he's a big let-down. In gameplay terms, he's awesome and I love all his boss fights, but from a plot standpoint you could cut him and I probably wouldn't care. At the very least, if he was sent after the second fight with him, 'cause after that he does nothing (I know he massacares the Ronso, but it's off-camera, it doesn't have any real effect on your playthrough, and immediately after he does it you just beat him again anyway).
Also, this point's been made a bajillion and six times before, but his design sucks so many asses.
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James - Board 8's Resident Warm And Safe, Slipper-Wearing User
& The Cream of Porcupine Tree Fanboyism