Video Games: The Important Message We Miss

It’s never too late to become who you might have been

Niklas Göke

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Photo by Josh Hild on Unsplash

In Final Fantasy X, you must dodge 200 consecutive lightning bolts to obtain the magician’s most powerful weapon.

The Final Fantasy series has a reputation for gruesome challenges that force players to grind for hours on end to obtain the games’ most precious rewards — but this one clearly takes the cake.

One area of this game is cast in a perpetual thunder storm. As you traverse it, the screen will randomly flash white for a split second before lightning hits you — unless you press X in perfect sync, upon which your character will dodge the strike.

To get one of two upgrades for one of the top weapons in the game, you must dodge 200 lightning strikes in a row. If you miss one, it’s game over. If you miscount in your head, it’s game over. If you accidentally get hit on your way back to where the reward is, it’s game over.

Needless to say, many a controller has been broken over this challenge. Many hours have been wasted. Even using every trick in the book, it’ll still take 20 minutes of perfect execution, which begs one question above all: Why?

If you’re not into video games, you might shake your head at someone putting 10, 20, 30 hours into something that…

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Niklas Göke

I write for dreamers, doers, and unbroken optimists. Read my daily blog here: https://nik.art/