This is a grindless challenge mod for Final Fantasy X HD Remaster on Steam.

It is a full game mod, changing the entire game from start to finish, including the postgame Dark Aeons.

The goal of the mod is to make you experience some of the toughest and most interesting battles you'll have ever seen in this type of combat system, while not transforming it to not be FFX anymore, but rather push its gameplay systems far beyond what the original game ever asked of the player to do, pulling you out of your comfort zone and having you face enemies that are actively trying to kill you, but can be overcome.

The sphere grid is heavily modified, with abilities shuffled around, some abilities gotten much earlier, some gotten later, and some abilities removed entirely. It starts being a very linear path for the most part (except for Kimahri's) but asks you to make some decisions later on and especially in the endgame.

"Grindless" in this context means that the only AP you get in the game is from boss fights, and the only items/gil/equipment you get is also from bosses, or from treasure pickups from NPCs and chests. You get multiple batches of 99 Power/Magic/Speed/Ability Spheres over the course of the game to make that not a limiting factor - but your overall gil, items and levels are inherently FINITE in this mod by design.

Every boss gives you the AP you need for the next section, until beating the next boss after.

You are expected to use every character in every boss fight so they all get AP.

Any random battles or otherwise repeatable battles give no AP, no Gil and no item or gear drops; instead they serve as hazards for you along your path to survive and challenge you to conserve your resources as best you can.

If you know where all treasure chests and treasure pickups from NPCs are, you can draw on this knowledge to make sure you get all available resources. If you don't know, try and look around where you may have missed treasures previously!

Many enemies that originally had no elemental weaknesses or were immune to statuses now have weaknesses added, to reward making use of everything at your disposal.

Later in the game the mod also puts emphasis on choice in customization - you will, for example, get the materials to customize 1 Auto-Phoenix, and never any more; it is up to you who you give this powerful ability to, and what other abilities you combine it with, using your best judgment.

Many of the in-game tutorials are repurposed in order to further introduce mechanics of the mod. Don't just skip through them!

Installation Instructions

You can use this mod either by patching the your data files (the FFX_Data.vbf to be precise) persistently, or using the External File Loader. The patch method does not require any additional downloads or files and easier reverting back to a completely modless game at the cost of making a copy of the 20 GB vbf archive, while the EFL method allows easier multi-mod management and requires no particular extra disk space; be warned though, the game sometimes crashes on startup when using it.

To patch the FFX_Data.vbf directly:

- Copy/move the FFX_Data.vbf from your installation's "data" folder into the unpacked mod folder (make sure it is named "FFX_Data.vbf")
(-) I strongly recommend keeping a backup copy of the unaltered vbf archive.
- Run the "RUN_ME_TO_PATCH.bat"; this will edit your vbf archive, showing a success (or failure) message on a command line window.
- Move the now altered FFX_Data.vbf back to its original location
- Launch and enjoy!
- If you wish to play the original unmodded game again, simply replace the modified FFX_Data.vbf with the backup copy of the original; if you don't have one, use Steam's "Verify integrity of game cache" function.

To use the External File Loader:

- Download it from here: https://www.nexusmods.com/finalfantasyxx2hdremaster/mods/150
- Unpack the External File Loader into your installation directory to set it up
- Copy/move the "mods" folder to your installation's "data" folder
(-) If you changed the settings on the External File Loader, change the name of the mods folder to what you set for FFX mods. The default is "mods" so if you didn't change anything you don't need to rename anything.
- Launch and enjoy!
- If you wish to play the original unmodded game again, simply rename the "mods" folder to something else that doesn't get picked up as a mod folder by the External File Loader.

Currently the mod needs to be played on the English version of the game. Otherwise, several modifications will not apply. Make sure you turn the game language to English before starting a new game.