Anima FFX Guide: The Scary One

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Bryan Hughes

Bryan is a writer who first fell in love with JRPG’s with titles like Breath of Fire II and Secret of the Stars. After his family fell under some hard times, he had no connection to video games or way to enjoy them except vicariously. That was until one Christmas morning when two things popped up under a tree. A Sony PlayStation and the game Final Fantasy VII. At the time, it was the most amazing thing he’d ever seen, every square polygon and cut scene, every story beat. He’d been transported into the future. Here we are more than twenty years later and several FF titles under his play-through belt and now Final Fantasy VII: Remake reminds him that no matter how far things advance, the best stories last forever.

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Anima is a late game, optional Aeon you can acquire in Final Fantasy X.

It has one of the more horror movie-inspired designs of all the summons in the Final Fantasy series and a somewhat tragic backstory.

You need an airship and a secret code to locate the temple in which it rests, but that is precisely what we’re here to help you with.

Everything you need to know about Anima in FFX is below, in this comprehensive Anima FFX guide on the nightmare inspiring Aeon. 

Key Info

• Location: Baaj Temple
• First Seen: Used by Seymour after the Blitzball tournament in Luca
• Strengths: A Powerhouse of Damage, Special Skill can cause Instant Death
• Overdrive: Oblivion
• Special Skill: Pain
• Required to Obtain: The Fahrenheit, All Destruction Sphere treasures in other Temples obtained.

Seymour

No, not little shop of horrors, but horrors just the same. Seymour uses Anima as his go-to Summon, just as Yuna uses Valefor. This is no coincidence either. 

Throughout the story of FFX, you’ll learn what Aeons really are. Praying to the Fayth and proving yourself worthy as a Summoner allows you access to them, but what does that mean? Well, they are spirits. Anima is Seymour’s freaking mom. 

Seymour’s story is sad to some extent, but what he does in retaliation to his tale makes him the truest of villains in the tale. His mother had hoped to become the final summon for him to defeat Sin. That is not how he reacted to her death at all, as we well know. 

She holds no ill will to him, and you learn about his tale and how she ended up there as you speak to her Fayth in the temple. I want to say she damn well shouldn’t. The boy wanted, needed his mother with him. He did not need her to sacrifice her own life. Regardless of your intention, that’s not something you should ever put on a child and expect them to resemble anything normal. 

All that being said, Seymour’s mom, the Fayth that created and is Anima, ask Yuna to use her power to defeat Sin. Thus, gaining Anima does tie up the tale of Seymour among anything.  

Locating Anima

Once you have access to The Fahrenheit, the airship in the game, you can find Baaj Temple by entering some specific coordinates. You’ll need to work on your Al Bhed to learn these, or I could just give them to you.

Enter Coordinates: X=11-16, Y=57-63

This being done, you enter the temple you may recognize it. It’s where Tidus first emerged in Spira after being attacked by Sin in his home Zanarkand. You will have to fight the fish that almost ate him before you gain entrance. No worries, it shouldn’t be a tough fight for you at this point in the game.

Geosgaeno

• HP: 32, 767 (Overkill: 32,767)
• Defenses: 50 each. 
• Agility: 48
• Attack: Decent
• Weakness: All elements
• Immunity: All except Poison
• Steal: Water Gems
• Drops: Power Spheres and a No Encounter, Auto-Reflect laced equipment.
• Abilities: Stone Punch, KO Punch, Swallow, and Regurgitate

Okay, so it’s not too easy. The biggest problem. It’s an underwater fight, and if you get petrified underwater, you’re instantly gone. 

To win this fight, Stoneproof armor is necessary (or Ribbon). Poisoning it isn’t a bad idea. What will serve you most is being hasty and having some form of auto-life. Most importantly, do not kill this boss when it has swallowed someone. Wait for them to struggle and get spit out. When someone is eaten, focus on boosting defense and healing.

Also, if it does swallow someone, it will take any positive and/or negative status they inherited. Use boosts like Cheer and Focus instead of spells like Protect or Shell. Its weakness to magic means having elemental weapons or attacks will be very effective. 

Once it is dead, enter the temple. 

Baaj Temple Cloister of Trials

Firstly, you need to go back and finish ALL the other Cloister of Trials and gain their Destruction Sphere Treasure items, which you can now do if you missed them before. Once you have the airship, those areas and their temple trials are also re-opened. 

You must also finish the Zanarkand Cloister of Trials and get its Destruction Sphere treasure, even though there seems to be no Fayth there. (If you complete the game, you can guess what Fayth was meant to be summoned from it and why there isn’t one.)

Once you’ve completed all those trials, the path in Baaj Temple to the Chamber of the Fayth will be open. Yuna will speak with Seymour’s mother, and you will receive Anima. 

If you had to go back to complete some of the puzzles with the Destruction Sphere in previous Temples and are playing the HD: Remaster version of the game. You may encounter Dark Valefor or Dark Shiva should you go toward one of their temples. If this is the case, wait until you’ve gotten a significantly strong Party with Break HP Limit on their character equipment, at the very least.

Anima’s Aeon Powers

Anima comes right out of the gate with the ability to Break the Damage Limit and Break the HP Limit. Making it the most potent Aeon upfront. That, included with its ability ‘Pain’ which causes Death or severe damage to targets immune to Death, make it extremely handy in getting Yuna levels. 

It also comes with the already learned skills of: 

• Sleep Attack, Silence Attack, Dark Attack, Sleep Buster, Silence Buster, Dark Buster, and Zombie Attack.

It comes with these spells already learned:

•  Fire, Thunder, Water, Blizzard, Fira, Thundara, Watera, Blizzara, Firaga, Thundaga, Waterga, Blizzaga, Bio, and Death.

Its Overdrive hits multiple times. Meaning it can do more than even the 99,999 limit other Aeons may find themselves reaching. It is also the most damaging move in the HD: Remaster version of the game, just ahead of Wakka’s Attack Reels.

Its base stats are only rivaled by one of the Magus Sisters, the group of three Aeons that are the last and “most powerful” Aeons attainable in FFX. 

Suppose you’ve read any of my articles beforehand in the FFX section. In that case, you can guess I use Valefor or Shiva for every summon fight. That takes a lot of extra time and effort to boost their stats. Anima requires significantly less work to make her one of the best Aeons in the entire game, if not the most damaging.

Battling Anima

Before you can ever obtain Anima as a summon, Seymour will use her against you. 

Anima(Macalania)

• HP: 18,000 (1,400 Overkill)
• Skills: Boost, Pain, Oblivion
• Stats: Just okay all around
• Drops: Possible four-slotted equipment
• Steal: A rare steal of a Farplane Shadow
• Notes: It’s tough; you need piercing weapons to do reasonable physical damage.
• Weaknesses: None
• Immunity: All Status, but you can use Demi on it

It’s not the most challenging fight. Its agility is only 25, so you should be able to Protect, Shell, and keep ahead of it in damage. Pain can hit you pretty hard and will cause Instant Death. So have some hasty life-givers or auto-phoenix/auto-life people on your team if you don’t have Deathproof yet. 

Switch in plenty of the party to maximize your AP gain from the encounter. It is advised to be wary of its Overdrive. Should it seem about to go off, you can switch to an Aeon and Shield. 

As Tidus suggests, using Shiva in this fight makes it easier. Aeons are immune to instant death. Even if you haven’t taught many skills to them, Shiva can still heal herself with Blizzard/a and do heavy magic or overdrive damage to Anima.

Before getting the Magus Sisters, you must defeat the Summon of Anima at the Remiem Temple. This is a more challenging foe. 

Anima (Remiem)

• HP: 54,000 (Overkill 54,000)
• Skills: Pain, Oblivion, Dispel, Demi
• Stats: Very low defense(1), good magic, average strength
• Notes: No use going for Overkill; it doesn’t drop items or give AP. Requires piercing attacks to damage.
• Immunity: All Status, including Demi
• Weaknesses: None

For this fight, you can only use Aeons. As losing doesn’t result in Game Over, you’ll get multiple chances. With such low defense and high HP, using whichever Aeon you’ve boosted the most magic-wise or have Break Damage Limit with will be a great boon. Valefor can’t take advantage of his skill, causing delay on Anima, so a Bahamut or a Shiva can be helpful. 

Bahamut for the high damage output or Shiva for the good magic, easy blizzard heal, and higher evasion/agility. Anima using Demi can be a nuisance. A faster Aeon that can cast Haste or Shell/Protect will force Anima to waste a turn casting Dispel. This can be quite effective. Remember to take advantage of Shield and Boost. Oblivion hitting you will cause delay, which can be an annoyance.

When you suspect it will use Demi, Boosting is good as the damage will always be similar. 

Anima (Sin)

You fight Anima once more if you have it during the final battle. It will mimic the stats of the one in your party. It pretty much just uses Pain again and again. If you don’t have a way to deal with Instant Death, this will suck. If you do, it isn’t too hard of a fight.

Hellfire, Thor’s Hammer, and Delta Attack have alternate animations used against Anima during this fight, which is a cool bit to note. 

Dark Anima

This big, bad, secret boss version of Anima is not something you must fight. Should you want to brave it, though, here’s what you have to look forward to.

To face Dark Anima, you have to wait until you’ve gone through the campfire sequence at the Zanarkand Ruins. Then, complete Wakka’s ball trial on Mt. Gagazet once more. Dark Anima will appear at the entrance to the mountain. 

• HP: 8,000,000 (99,999 Overkill)
• Defense: Very High Physical, Max Magic Defense
• Attack: High Physical, MAX Magic stat
• Skills: Pain, Mega-Graviton and Oblivion
• Weaknesses: None
• Absorbs: Fire, Lightning, Ice, and Water. 
• Immunity: ALL Status. Now immune to Holy as well.
• Notes: Need Piercing to do good damage. Magic is useless. Does Physical attacks can inflict Petrify, Poison, Curse, and Zombie. Pain now bypasses Deathproof. It will kill your Aeon instantly. Don’t summon unless to use an overdrive attack or shield Oblivion. Mega-Graviton causes Doom, Slow, Sleep, Silence, and Darkness(for 99 freaking turns!). Oblivion now removes buffs and does north of 81,000 damage but never 99,999 damage. It cannot be lessened except by an Aeon using Shield. It also causes strong delay. 
• Steal: Three Stars or Elixir
• Drop: Dark Matter, rarely a Master Sphere.

Strategy to fighting this monster of an enemy: physical damage maxed. Don’t go into this fight if you haven’t been grinding. Wakka’s Attack Reels will be a great boon, for instance. You want to get as many hits as quickly as possible, so maxing your agility will help. Haste, Stoneproof, and auto-life or auto-phoenix are crucial for each party member. 

To win this, you will need to Break the HP and Damage Limit, so if you haven’t unlocked that ability, this fight will be doomed from the get-go. If you have Ribbon on your equipment, that will be a big bonus. Someone with Sentinel and Ribbon or Stoneproof can help you free up slots for other characters to gain some boosts to better the fight.

If your HP is not 99,999, Oblivion will probably wipe out your party. Dark Anima will absorb any elemental damage done by an Aeon’s Overdrive. So Shiva, Ifrit, or Ixion are only helpful as Shields when Oblivion happens. The optimal strategy is having Rikku use Hyper Mighty G before it goes off or swapping in a Shield Aeon to take the hit. 

You really have to anticipate the attacks to win this battle because Anima doesn’t have many attack choices. That does make it easier than certain other Dark Aeons with less HP. In any case, this is a fight only for those over-achievers out there. Be careful not to wade into it unexpectedly. 

Tips

• Getting this Aeon enhances the overall story Arc for Seymour. It gives Yuna some closure, so it is worth retrieving even if you don’t want to use it. 
• You do need Anima to get the Magus Sisters as well. 
• Yojimbo‘s Zanmato will kill Dark Anima in one hit
• The complicated Parent-Child relationships in FFX are often overlooked because of the romance. Still, the connection between Yuna, Tidus, and Seymour is prevalent in these themes.

FAQs

From Darkness Comes Hope

Anima is an Aeon with the most damaging move in the game when maxed; Oblivion. It is worth getting for its contribution to combat alone. 

In addition, it’s a side quest that adds to the story and helps round out the antagonist that took up such a large portion of the middle of the game. You know, the one that almost ruined Tidus and Yuna’s romance. 

Overall, I’d say Anima is one of the best hidden Aeon’s a game has offered due to it bolstering both your party’s options in a fight and adding depth to the already fantastic tales told within the game Final Fantasy X.