Final Fantasy X/Macalania Woods

After speaking a bit with Auron and the rest of the party you'll be able to save. You can meet up with the two female Chocobo Knight riders to the right, although they'll bar your passage to Bevelle, forcing you to go the left-hand route to Macalania Temple. It's quite a long random path to the next screen, but just before the screen change there's a chest containing 2000 Gil.

There are another new load of new enemies you can encounter in Macalania Woods:


 * Chimeras are a new species of fiend. They have a little over 5200 HP, and they can hurt if you're not careful. Use Dark Attack, Silence Attack and Magic Break and they're easy from there. Avoid using Fire or Water-based attacks since they're resistant to them (Kimahri can learn Aqua Breath from these with Lancet). For the time they take to kill they're annoyingly common.
 * Iguions are lizards. Usual properties and tactics apply, but they might take a second hit to kill.
 * Murussus are armoured moles. One hit from Auron or Kimahri will kill them.
 * Wasps are aerial fiends, so hit them with Wakka or Lulu's magic (Blizzara works best). They occasionally inflict poison.
 * Xiphoses are new fiends that resemble Klikk from the start of the game. They are sometimes vulnerable to Dark Attack and have 2700 HP. Their physical attacks have a good chance of inflicting poison too, so watch out and be ready to cure it with Yuna's Esuna or an Antidote. They're not particularly resistant to anything, so 2700 HP should go down quickly.
 * Blue Elements are water-based elements. One Thundara from Lulu will kill it nicely.

Traveling through Macalania Woods
Macalania Woods is basically one long and twisty path from start to finish. The random encounter rate is also quite high. Anyway, around a downward spiral on the outside is a semi-concealed chest containing 3 Phoenix Downs. On the forest floor whilst going around a tree, you'll meet up with Barthello, who has misplaced Dona. Oh dear. You'll regain control after Auron's inspirational advice. A bit further on you'll meet a weird humanoid guy with a bird's face and a harp. This is another little mini-game like lightning dodging was, and you can get the Saturn Sigil (which is still useless) for completing both the butterfly hunts. This is outlined elsewhere in the guide.

Carry on to the next screen. Same with this next path — there's no hidden chests along here so just follow it all the way to the end (the other butterfly catching game starts towards the end of this path). You'll be next to a save sphere, so save then head up. Here's O'aka, so you can buy some stuff off him if you want, but the first thing you should do is come straight back out of the menu. He'll ask you whether he's charging too much or not. If you say anything other than "Too pricey" then you're an idiot. He'll knock between 2000 and 3000 Gil off the prices if you say "Too pricey", so make sure you do. Then you can buy stuff off him. The Sonic Steel may seem unnecessary at the price, but it's up to you — First Strike means that you can always escape Ambushes if you want to so it's good security (especially for when you come to fighting Great Malboros, because they will always ambush you, and you'll see why that's bad). Buy the Shimmering Blade for Auron and the Force Knuckles for Rikku, since they'll power them up a bit.

The path back and to the right doesn't actually go anywhere for the mean time but you can grab Al Bhed Primer XV, so grab it, turn back up and Auron will take a little diversion by cutting a tree in half, revealing another path. Head on along after Yuna and Auron and you'll run into a pool of water. All of sudden, there's light, and a giant floating ball rises up out of the water…

Boss Battle: Spherimorph
This battle initially seems difficult because of how elemental magic gets absorbed most of the time and physical attacks do barely anything to it. Lulu will be a key member of this battle, so get her out, and have Tidus use Haste on her. Lulu should cast a random magic spell on it, it will absorb the damage (probably) and it will counter with one of the base-level elemental black magic spells (either Fire, Water, Blizzard or Thunder) on everyone. This will trigger Lulu to tell you what's up — it absorbs all spells except the one it's currently weak to. If it's using Water spells, then you would naturally think that it's weak to Thunder, right? So use Thundara on it — it'll do quite a bit of damage. However, it counters spells it's weak to with Elemental Shift, which changes the element it counters with and also the element it's weak against. Always make sure you use a physical attack to determine its element, since it'll absorb magic and its spell counter-attack will hit everyone rather than just one person.

It also has two attacks outside of this — a slamming attack which does about 200 to one person, and Press, it's only really dangerous attack which will do about 650-750 damage to everyone. Have Auron use Magic and Power Break (it's susceptible to both) then switch Yuna in and have her cast the appropriate Nul spell to help reduce the damage you take from using attacks to determine its element. Use a Mega-Potion to heal up after a Press, or Cure/Cura. This will take a while given that Lulu's the only one who can inflict any real damage. Afterwards, you'll get quite a bit of AP, a Level 2 Key Sphere (2 of them if you overkilled it) and some random gear. Auron will also learn his next Overdrive, Shooting Star!

At this point you should also consider taking the long trip back to Besaid to retrieve the Jecht Sphere to the right of Besaids temple, as it will not be possible to safely return to Besaid without facing off against Dark Valefor after the events at Macalania Temple.

Lake Macalania
Follow the arrow out of this area and then out of the woods. You'll be by the Lake Macalania branch of Rin's Travel Agency. Head along, and before you go inside pick up the Al Bhed Primer XVI. As you go inside, Clasko will talk to you. When he asks, say Chocobo Breeder — this will allow you to get a Friend Sphere later on in the game, but you'll get nothing if you say Chocobo Knight. Talk to O'aka as well and say "Of course!" when he asks if you'd actually buy something from him. Buy the Soldier's Targe for Rikku and the Seeker's Ring for Yuna, and equip them.

In this brief section of path and up until you're inside Macalania Temple there is another group of newish enemies:


 * Ice Flans are more powerful versions of Snow Flans you encountered earlier on in the game. One Fira will kill them.
 * Snow Wolves are wolves, so they're quick and magic-resistant. One or possibly two hits from Tidus will do them in.
 * Mafdets are slightly healthier and more powerful versions of the murussus in Macalania Woods. One hit from Auron will kill them.

Save inside Rin's Agency, and then head out and down to the lake for a couple of sequences. Looks like the Al Bhed aren't quite finished here.

Boss Battle: Crawler and Negator
This is in a way a lot harder than the Spherimorph battle. As the pre-battle dialogue suggests, magic is going to be sealed in this battle and you can't summon either. With the Negator active, the Crawler will use Gatling Gun to do about 10 hits of about 100 damage each randomly to your party. They'll miss often. With the Negator down it'll charge up Mana Beam using its turns, and counter anything with Assault which does about 950 damage.

The first thing you should do is get Wakka out and have him attack the Negator. It will take anywhere between 2 or 3 hits from him. Once it's down, have Tidus cast Haste on Wakka, then switch Wakka and the other character out for Lulu and Yuna. Tidus should cast Haste on Lulu too. Lulu should use Thundara and nothing else, Tidus should use physical attacks and heal when necessary (now is an excellent time to use Mega-Potions) and Yuna should heal up also, until Mana Beam is only one turn away (all four lights on the main cannon are flashing). She should then summon an aeon and have it use Shield. Mana Beam, as it suggests, hurts like hell on your normal party, doing at least 1500 to everyone. Ixion with Shield drops that down to just under 300. Unshielded, it does about 1100. Use Thundara to keep Ixion healed in between Mana Beams. Once you get a spare turn, either attack or use Thor's Hammer. This should do about 8000 damage (!) and if you're lucky leave you exactly one turn between the last charge-up and Mana Beam. Use Shield again.

Once your aeon has soaked up that Mana Beam, the Crawler should be down to about 1500-2500 HP, maybe a bit more or a bit less. Dismiss your aeon and make sure everybody in your party gets a turn. Then, one attack and one Thundara should do it in nicely, but make sure Yuna gets in a turn before Mana Beam so she can summon an aeon to take the brunt of Mana Beam. The Crawler may replace the Negator at some point, but if you speed up the battle with an aeon overdrive or some character overdrives the battle shouldn't last that long. If it does, then simply destroy the Negator and carry on as before.

To Macalania Temple
Wakka will find out that Rikku's an Al Bhed here, and then storm off. The rest of you will hijack the Al Bhed motorskis that they used and travel to Macalania Temple that way. You'll have a sequence with Tidus and Lulu where they talk a little bit about Wakka, his brother Chappu, and Sin. Once you reach the temple entrance make sure you use the Sphere Levels you got from fighting the Crawler and head inside (pick up the Mega-Potion in the chest to the right first). Follow the long path around to the temple entrance.