What's Jeffs problem with Blitzball?

Just listened to the bombcast where he rages about it, and he seems to judge the entirety of Blitzball based on the one story match that is programmed to be bullshit and basically impossible without cheesing it because that's the story. The Aurochs are a garbage team, so Tidus has to do everything.

Stay away from my precious Blitzball Jeff. I'll fite u.

Blitzball sucks. Waka's special weapon was the only one I never got because I fucking hated Blitzball so much.

It just feels stiff, boring and slow.

The problem is that if your first exposure to Blitzball is you getting your head kicked off, it doesn't really make you wanna go back to it.

Also, I recall Blitzball being bad, but I hated quite a lot about FFX, so whatever.

FFVIII Triple Triad is the best minigame.

Thrash ball it's not.

Personally I have always loved Blitzball and wished they made a stand alone version of it.

The very concepts of Blitzball are ridiculous in the worst way.

Then there's actually playing it...

It's dumb but I spent hours with it.

I have good memories, so I'll never touch it again to spoil them.

If a turd could somehow be broken down and digitized and put on a game disc, you'd put it into your console and find that it's Blitzball - The Game.

It's the worst part of the game, even worse than the voice acting, the sphere grid, and those cloister of trials parts. Thank god it's optional except for one story sequence.

First off Blitzball is impossible. Balls just wont move underwater like that no matter how hard you kick them from underwater and they never explain how the huge sphere of water is even possible nor how the characters are able to hold their breaths for several minutes at a time. I know that there are people who can hold their breath underwater for like 20 minutes or whatever but those people aren't playing freaking rugby while doing so.

That and they advertise the game in the intro as some cool fast paced, adrenaline pumping, extreme sport while the actual game version is just a bore. You spend the whole time managing numbers and numbers and what's actually happening on screen barely matters as long as your boring ass numbers line up right. It's like playing an mmo but without any possible entertainment or benefit of an mmo. Madness.

Final Fantasy for me is a Religion. And Blitzball is the Shit!

What do you expect from a man that hates everything about FFX?

As a standalone game it wouldnt do much for you and since he cares so little about the main game thats exactly how Jeff judges it. In the context of the game it is a suprisingly deep and fun minigame which ties well into the story and theme of the game. I liked it back in the day but i only went the full length with it in one of my playthroughs.

Yea Jeff is so dumb u guis he only hates blitzball because of.. *reads OP* ..perfectly legitimate reasons? How dare he!!

Perfectly legitimate? My original post says only the story blitzball match is like that. Which is one you are basically supposed to lose.(But can win)

Blitzball in X is okay/fine, not horrific. It's pretty damn bad in X-2 though.

I think you meant the entirety of FFX.

I borrowed a buddy's copy back in high school and played it up until you get the airship.

jesus that was some rotten shit. Put 30 hours into it before deciding to stop.

If by turd you mean second best FF, sure. :D

I played like 75 matches of Blitzball to get Wakkas ultimate weapon. Blitzball is shit, you can win every match by spamming Jechts shot.

Why on earth would you play something for 30 hours that you hate? Seems pretty dumb to me..

Blitzball's great.

Jeff just hates on most things these days. People follow Jeff's word like law.

= A lot of people hating on things Jeff hates and saying his irrational hatred is legit.

It's no Windjammers

I love threads where people disagree with members of the Giant Bomb on stuff. It's perfectly okay to like Blitz Ball even if Jeff hates it. I like Final Fantasy X-2 while Jeff hates it and I am fine with it.

Did you know you are allowed to disagree with opinions expressed by the Giant Bomb staff?

Also Blitz Ball sucks.

Which is exactly the purpose of this thread.

How could he know that if he didnt play those 30 hours?

@damodar: Getting the Jecht Shot before that first blitzball match is essential to winning it. It's probably the hardest Blitzball match you'll play, but it's totally winnable.

Blitzball is fucking awful, and I got Wakka's celestial weapon fully upgraded.
There is no skill to it, its all stats. Recruit the best guys and you will NEVER lose a match and you can mathematically win everytime.

Its just a chore and not fun.

If there is no skill to it how come many people have such a hard time with it?

I mean you can mathematically win every match in chess if you want to.

@krullban: Jeff's problem with Blitzball is everyone's problem with Blitzball: it stinks. He even says it sucks not because of the story match itself, but because Bb is all about calculating numbers and odds while playing a supposed sport and that's boring.

Imagine an American Football minigame in another RPG where you had to account for wind coefficients and the current speed and catching ability of the free safety. Wheeee.

Also, why is this a big deal?

I played, and won, the first Blitzball match after 3+ hours of torture without the Jecht Shot. I never played Blitzball again.

Can't everyone just say XII is the best PS2 Final Fantasy game so we can get a HD release of that then everyone can go back liking (wrongly) FFX

At first glance it's confusing and overcomplicated. When you get in deep, as you are required to do so for Waka's ultimate weapon, you kinda appreciate it. The movement and encounters are still kinda wonky but it's interesting how they made a turn-based underwater polo game work. Then you dissect it and conclude it's bullshit. A 10 attack power shooter may still beat a 19 defense goalie. There is too much randomness, too much buff and debuffs attributed to stats.

I remember reloading for like an hour so I could beat that mandatory Biltzball match and it was totally pointless in the end. Agh! Why did I do that?

@redyoshi: Was it pointless becouse you didnt get an huge level up splash and a phat guitar riff chug over it?

I mean, the "my opposition is a hive mind!" approach is cool and all, but you're really out of touch with people's feelings on Blitzball if you think Jeff started its hate train. This is a conversation that's been raging since 2001.

@rethla: Probably! Wait does that happen? It's been like ten years.

I think his main issue he had with it was the part where it is a hot steaming pile of fucking trash. Just a wild guess.

@pierre42 said:

Giantbomb runs on being a cult of personality to be sure, but blitzball is also all kinds of terrible.

Eh, I never really liked it too much, but I could stand it enough to make sure I won the story game and enough to get Wakka's weapon. It was all just a numbers game though. Recruit the best possible people, train them up, and never lose. The first game however was complete and total luck trying to keep Tidus open enough to make shots. If you could score enough with Tidus, you'd win. If you couldn't before Wakka came out it was game over in my experience.

I spent hours playing blitzball to get the Attack reels and the Jupiter Sigil or whatever Wakka's thing was.

I hate blitzball.

There are a lot of things I disagree with the Bomb crew about, but Jeff's critiques of FFX are spot on. FFX did not age well and that's partly due to the era in which it came out. Voice acting and facial animation and complex character movement were just starting to evolve. If I "watched" all of FFX instead of played it, I'd probably hate it as much as Jeff too. The battle system is still great fun and the sphere grid is at least not a boring linear level system. FFX can be fun to play, but man...sometimes I think the designers wanted me to actively hate the characters (except Auron.)

And blitzball sucks.

@superkenon:

Ok sure, that was unfair of me. Sometimes Jeff's passion for hating things I like just irks me.

It is a discussion people have waged for ages, some love Blitzball some hate it. I think it's largely down to how it was sold (the awesome opening cutscene) and how it was presented as an almost turn-based tactical game instead of the full-on action it was shown as.

I get why people would be disappointed but I just felt there was a great wealth to it if you had the patience for the game.

Blitzball is pure shite. It's stiff, unresponsive and about as exciting as as 4 day old cold pea soup.

Oh maaannnnn, Blitzball was my shiittt! So much fun! That story match sucked a lot, but after that I fell in love! I was far too invested in managing my Blitzball team but I loved every second of it!

For the people saying it's not about skill, it's just numbers... that's what made it different and exactly why I liked it! It was like a tabletop RPG turned into a sport! yes yes yes!

I loved Blitzball in the first one, didn't like what they did with it in X2 but still played 20 hours of it. Never finished that game because I was at the endgame but just played Blitzball instead of just seeing the ending.

Even though I love it, Blitzball is pretty bad.

I fucking adore FFX, but oh my god, Blitzball is absolute garbage. That story mission is possibly the worst introduction to anything ever. I feel like the vast majority of people either lose of manage to fumble their way through that clusterfuck and have no idea how they got the result they got.

Blitzball is a fairly awful mini game, having said that I've played hundreds of matches of it. I love the idea but unfortunately the balance is pretty poor. Maybe there is a sweet spot that makes for exciting matches but having played so much of it on the PS2 by the time I got to the the HD remake I knew exactly which players I wanted and every game ended in a whitewash.

Despite all that I continued to play the hell out of it

Weird that a game within an RPG would be about stats and numbers.

Stats and numbers are also popular among people that like to follow sports, it is a reason for fantasy leagues and why games such as Football Manager are often found at the top of Steam Concurrent user lists.

I remember playing a lot of Blitzball when the game originally came out, and hating every minute of it. It'd be a pretty cool concept with a team behind it who really understands action/sports games, but when you look at what actually mattered in Blitzball, you could tell it was developed by a team who knew turn-based RPGs.

Reading through these comments, I wouldn't be surprised if there was a hidden depth and fun to be had with it, but at 16 when the game came out I didn't find it.

jecht = recht

Jeff is opinionated, hates a lot of things unreservedly and mostly likes shooters and car games. I'm surprised he played FF in the first place, unless it was for a review.