FINAL FANTASY X/X-2 HD Remaster

If you’re like me, and dived head first into this weird game, failing miserably within the first 10 floors, then I suggest you try reading this, I found it to be very helpful.

Unfortunately, it’s not quick, it took me around 8-10 hours to knock out the way from start to finish. I took this from a PSN guide I found online, credit goes to CyToSiNe, their guide can be found here - https://forum.psnprofiles.com/topic/34171-iutycyr-tower-tips...

I’ve tweaked a few things here and there as they were not included in the PSN guide, and I was able to clear through with minimal difficulty. I even began to enjoy playing it, it isn’t a bad mini game, just an awful ending to the story.
A good thing about this is you can skip the cutscenes by pressing start and then X. I highly recommend you do this unless you want to watch the three girls struggle with their daily lives, complain about how bad things are and argue with each other, it’s a real crappy drama that just shouldn’t be in the story.

Once you begin playing, you’ll be standing outside between two buildings. There is a guy stood next to one of the buildings, if you talk to him he will explain the tutorial. This is important, as you will have to play through 80 floors for this game and each one is different apart from the boss levels, and they are not the same for everyone, they will be a random level each time with randomised items. Once you understand the mechanics of the game, it will be straightforward, just seems daunting at first but it’s really easy once you get the hang of it.

When you’re ready, head towards the tower, and it will give you a choice of playing as Yuna, Rikku or Paine, choose Yuna.

You will find items scattered around the place, some are handy, some are just useless. Bear in mind that you can only hold 20 items in your inventory. Also, another annoying part on this, is that items do not stack unfortunately. So you may find a basic potion (2) – means you have 2 of them – which will take up one slot. Later, you may find another Basic potion (3), but rather than stacking them with what you already have, it will just take up another slot of your inventory, so you need to constantly assess what you are picking up, and what you can throw away, what should take priority, etc. You can put down items, which will place it on the square you are standing on, or you can throw it which will launch it a few squares away from you. You can pick it back up as long as you have a spare slot available. You can even throw it at enemies, which may damage them, but if it’s a healing item, you will give that monster that benefit, so be careful of this.

You will have health bars on each of your dresspheres, as well as a health bar for your main character. Once your health bar on your equipped dressphere is depleted, it will break and you will be then be fighting unarmed. And if your health depletes while in this stage, you will be kicked out of the tower, reset to level 1 and all your items you have found removed, and when re-entering the tower, you will still be unarmed, so there is that disadvantage also. There is no level select if this happens, you will return to floor 1.

The main goal is to be levelled up as much as possible, both with primary dressphere and main level, so that HP and strength are better suited against the monsters. The higher you go up in the tower, the stronger enemies you will face. To do that, you will need to defeat enemies, and you can also find items that can level you up too, though these are rare to find.

The required dresspheres you want to get a hold of asap are the following:
Gunner (which you start off with)
Dark Knight
Trainer
Songstress
Psychic
Thief
Samurai
Black Mage
White Mage
Gun Mage
Mascot
You can equip up to 5 dresspheres at one time. Press Y to see items, dresses and abilities. If you pick up a dressphere that isn’t on this list, throw it away.

The start of this game is going to be the most difficult, as you have to find your dresspheres and equipment before you can look at progressing. Whichever dress is in the number 1 slot is the one you will take on in appearance and abilities. In the main X2 game, when you defeat enemies whilst wearing a particular dressphere, you gain points to learn a new ability. In this game, when you have a certain combination of dresspheres equipped, you will be given auto abilities that affect your character. For instance, when you have dark knight and gunner equipped, you will be immune to confuse. When you kill enough enemies with that auto ability equipped, an accessory will appear next to you which you can equip with that same ability, which means you can then switch your dresspheres for another ability whilst still benefitting from the 1st one.

The reason we choose Yuna at the start is because of the trainer dressphere. Yuna gets the dig ability while wearing it. She is the only one out of the three who can do this, and it gives a decent chance of finding a random item in the ground which can be anything – dressphere, healing item, accessory, levelling up item, etc. As soon as you acquire this, you should use the dig ability 5 times for every floor except boss fights. Then when you have done this, switch back to the dark knight dressphere until you climb to the next floor, then repeat. It costs 4mp. To start with, you will likely run out of mp soon and will be relying on ethers that you find, but once you have the other required dresspheres equipped, you will regenerate your mp as you walk, so this issue will eventually be resolved and you won’t need ethers after this.

Items you want to find are –
Evolutionary Water, Growth Tonic, Enhancing Potion - these level Yuna up
Dress fusion secrets – combines dresspheres of the same type to increase their levels
Save memos – saves the game on any floor once you get to the elevator
Copy techniques – copies any item you have in your possession
Restart guides – can be used to warp to floor 1 but with all your items and levels intact (personally I didn’t have to rely on this, it’s more of a last minute emergency. If you feel that you are about to die and lose all your progress, use this item. It may suck having to go back to the beginning, but better to retain all exp and items than lose it all in one go)

If you have more than one of the same dressphere, use dress fusion secrets, which will combine them together into a higher levelled one. Super handy if you combine it with the copy techniques. Let say you have a level 5 dark knight, use the copy techniques and it will duplicate that level 5 dark knight. Now use dress fusions to combine the two and you now have a level 10 dark knight. Continue to acquire more dress fusions and copy techniques and utilise this until you have a level 99 dark knight, this will be carrying you through the entire tower, especially with it’s black sky ability. However, to fully utilise it’s potential, you are going to need the Gun mage, black mage and white mage dresspheres.

As soon as you acquire the dark knight, make it your main dressphere, move the gunner dressphere to slot 2. When you get the accessory for confuseproof ability, you can then discard the gunner dressphere for the rest of the game, just do not throw away the accessory, this will come in handy towards the end.

Get the doomproof ability by having dark knight, samurai and trainer equipped. Super useful for later levels and the tonberry treasure room. Once you have the doomproof accessory, discard the samurai dressphere.

Get the stealth cloak ability by equipping psychic, songstress and thief. This will make you immune to all floor traps. This will help you so much up til the final boss. As soon as you get the accessory, throw the songstress and psychic away. If you want the accessory Triple tiara, which lets you attack 3 times in one go, then keep the thief up to floor 44, where you can steal it from the founder. I personally didn’t bother with it but up to you. Once you have it, throw the thief away.

Once you have acquired all the accessories above (you can only equip two at a time, just rotate the doom and confuse items, but keep the stealth cloak on until the final fight), have your main setup look like the below

Dark Knight – main
Gun Mage
White Mage
Black Mage
Mascot

The Dark Knight is so OP in this tower, and this setup will make you pretty much unstoppable. By utilizing this setup you will:

Regenerate MP every few turns, so you'll have very limited need for ethers or elixirs, freeing up your inventory.

Occasionally inflict darkness on your enemies, making it hard for them to hit you.
Ability to utilize Curaga for 5MP, and with the MP regeneration it's basically free HP, freeing up your inventory.

Ability to utilize Ensuna for 4MP, same as above (no need to carry around Status potions)

Ability to utilize Mini-Demi, which is awesome against the final boss.

With White Mage, Gun Mage and Mascot equipped, damage to you will be halved

And best of all:
Ability to utilize Black Sky (Major damage to the entire room) that costs 80HP from base character to use. This would be bad, but you can use curaga right afterward for 5mp and just regenerate that back. It clears rooms extremely easily. To heal Yuna, press Y and select abilities, then choose Curage. Make sure you heal the dark knight dressphere AND heal Yuna directly which will be on the third page.

Make sure you have at least 3 secret room folios and 2 save memo folios before getting to floor 61. Once there, follow the tonberry treasure room achievement guide.

Try to avoid spending too long on any one level, as you will eventually be confronted by the founder. The first time he will turn you into a Leblanc goon, and you cannot change back unless you go up to the next floor. The second time he will kick you out of the tower and then you will have to start from Floor 1 again.

At some point, you will come across Cactuars in later levels. Be careful of these, as their needles ability can do a lot of damage, and a couple of times I was too carefree and not paying attention, and they obliterated my Dark knight armour, so I had to reset. Just take them out with black sky.

Gil isn’t really a requirement in this game, so don’t go out of your way to get rich, it doesn’t really help you.

You will be aiming to find elevators in each room to progress to the next floor. To move up the elevator, stand on it and press Y, then select check. You are given the option to save every 5 floors, unless you have a save memo in your inventory, which allows you to save on any floor. Every 5 floors, the elevator will be locked by barriers and you must complete certain tasks to move forward. The below is what must be done to proceed.

Floor 5 – Defeat 3 enemies
Floor 10 – Defeat 10 enemies
Floor 15 – Drop any two items & Defeat 5 enemies
Floor 20 – Defeat the boss
Floor 25 – Throw any 2 items & Defeat 8 enemies
Floor 30 – Drink 2 potions of any type, but the same type for both & Defeat 8 enemies
Floor 35 – Drop any 3 items, Defeat 8 enemies & Perform 3 attacks at nothing
Floor 40 – Defeat the boss
Floor 45 – Defeat 8 enemies, Perform 5 attacks at nothing & Read any 2 books
Floor 50 – Defeat 10 enemies, Do nothing for 5 turns (hold B and push back)
Floor 55 – Defeat 8 enemies, Perform 3 attacks at nothing, Read any 2 books & Do nothing for 5 turns (hold B and push back)
Floor 60 – Defeat the boss
Floor 65 – Wait for the founder to appear. Stand on the elevator for a quick getaway, this one might not unlock straight away, it might require him being attacked or attacking you
Floor 70 – Change into a Leblanc syndicate uniform. You can achieve this either with a book or have the Founder do it after attacking you.
Floor 75 – Drop any 3 items, Throw any 3 items, Defeat 8 enemies, Attack at nothing for 5 turns & Do nothing for 5 turns (hold B and push back)
Floors 77-79 – You need to wait for the Founder for this. If you get to floor 79, you’ll be unable to find an elevator, and the founder will send you back to floor 77. Best to just wait on 77 until the founder appears, he will warp you to floor 80 after his second visit
Floor 80 – Defeat the Boss

Hopefully you find this guide helpful. My playthrough had Yuna at around 55, and dark knight at 99, the rest were levels 1-4. If you have any queries or suggestions, please let me know.