Note: This strategy guide only works reliably on the blitzball games you play AFTER the tournament game against the Goers, as I discovered when I played through the tournament a few months ago. An updated, tournament-specific guide can be found here. Fucking Goers.
This is a public service announcement.
Gamers, we love Final Fantasy. Everyone should play lots of it. Unfortunately, many Final Fantasy games are plagued with an unpleasant and incurable condition that I like to call Shitty Mini Games.
We’ve all experienced the tragedy of Shitty Mini Games. You’ll just be going along, enjoying your random encounters, your boss battles, your dungeon puzzles, when BAM! – you find yourself stuck in a Shitty Mini Game. Sometimes the Shitty Mini Game is totally optional, and you can blissfully ignore it and go on enjoying your game. Sometimes, however, the developers were cruel bastards, and you are forced to play a Shitty Mini Game in order to progress in the game.
Such is the case with Blitzball.
Fucking Blitzball.
Everyone knows Blitzball sucks. But if you want to play Final Fantasy X, and you do, because other than the Blitzball, it’s an amazing game, you’re going to have to play Blitzball. And if you want Wakka’s ultimate weapon, you’re going to have to play a LOT of Blitzball. More Blitzball than you really want to think about.
Well, today RPG Rabbit is here to tell you how to make this shittiest of Shitty Mini Games a slightly less shitty experience.
You see, the problem with Blitzball is that not only is it a certifiably Shitty Mini Game, but it is also a Shitty Mini Game that you lose constantly. Meaning you have to keep PLAYING the Shitty Mini Game. The more you win, the less you have to play. So allow me to share with you the exploit that will allow you to win almost any Blitzball game you play, including the plot game with the Luca Goers. It may take a couple of tries with the Goers because every single one of your players except for Tidus sucks ass, but I know it’s doable because I’ve done it.
Step one, get the Jecht Shot. This will not work unless Tidus gets the Jecht Shot. So make sure you SAVE right before you get on the boat to Luca because of course you have to play a whole SEPARATE Shitty Mini Game to get the Jecht Shot in the first place. So you may have to reload the game a few times, because it’s a little tricky.
Once you’ve defeated Tidus’ angst and unlocked the move, you now have to power to win…after the first half of the game. Going into the first game against the Luca Goers, Tidus doesn’t have a high enough level as a Blitzball player to even equip the Jecht Shot. Ugh. So when the game starts, hope your team gets the ball first. If the Goers get it first, they will probably score. Hope is not lost if they do, it’s just annoying. Once your team gets the ball, get it to Tidus. Just having him swim while holding the ball will give him EXP, so he should be able to level before the second half. But you don’t want to try and score yet, because the damn Goers will probably block it without the Jecht Shot, and you don’t want to let the damn Goers steal the ball away by ganging up on you an tackle-raping you, either.
So just swim Tidus behind your own goal.
Just hang out there. The opposing team’s AI won’t follow you. This will allow you to keep them from scoring until the second half of the game. At halftime, you can finally equip the Jecht Shot. Hope your team gets the ball at the toss up. If the Goers get it again AND score, you’ll probably need to reset the game to your last save. At least during this first game, it’s going to be next to impossible to score enough to beat them if they score twice before you can. If your team gets the ball, get it to Tidus. Swim behind your own goal again. Now wait. See the mini map with all the triangles?
Wait until you see the red triangles form a line. This is your opening. Swim up towards the opposing goal. The line formation means that you will most likely only have a maximum of two blockers between you and the goal, and you can Jecht Shot their asses into oblivion. Once you have a higher score than the other team, simply get the ball, swim back behind your goalie again, and hide there until the game is over.
This strategy works, but it can be tricky in this first game because you only have three minutes in the second half before Wakka returns and takes Tidus’ place, and without the Jecht Shot, Wakka is much less likely to score. Any game other than that first, really unfair game against the Goers, though, and you’re golden.
There are lots of other strategies out there, but this is what works for me. Give it a try, see if you can beat that Shitty Mini Game!
RPG Rabbit 
I fucking hate blitzball, Fuck everything about it, I just want to win this game for Wakka otherwise I wont touch blitzball ever again, and I don’t care about wakkas shitty final weapon, fuck it. I love FFX, its my favourite game but I can’t stand blitzball. I suck huge balls at it and its a useless stupid game.
AMEN, BROTHER.
Nice bro . . . .
i hate to this fuckk bliztball game . . . . .
Tidus bastar is the start in this story , how can he be defeated so easy in this fucking game . . . .
Yeah, I don’t know, man! Idiotic plot magic is the answer to that one, I guess. Every other part of this game is SO GOOD and then the blitzball is just SO BAD.
I’ve played ffx many times on ps2, it was like my first game for it and my very first rpg tbh. All was going well until I got fucked by that underwater hell. In subsequent playthroughs, I always hated that blitzball forced game shit, but loved the rest of the game. Hell, I had the European version and defeated both Penance and Nemesis without playing blitzball ever again! But the worst part against the Luca asshats are the cutscenes you can’t skip and every time you lose, reload and watch that crap again. I bought the HD remaster recently and got screwed by that, again, but I managed to win somehow and blitzball can now die in a ditch.
I wholeheartedly agree! I’m replaying the HD remaster with my husband right now, because he’s never played the game. I got us through the plot games, but every time we get to a save sphere, he’s like, “Are you going to play some blitzball?” And I’m like, “OH HELL NO.”
Wtf blitzball is amazing, its one of the best minigames in the franchise, you must not understand the appeal, so im guessing your probs a 90’s kid or something?? Seriously Blitz is FFX
Wow, dude. Thanks so much for this. I honestly have NEVER met someone who LIKED Blitzball, so this is a great day for me!
(You may think I am being sarcastic, and I swear I am not, really.)
I love FFX to bits, and yes, I am a 90s kid, though I am unsure of how that relates to my Blitzball frustrations. Personally, I find that there is very little crossover between people who like JRPGs and people who like complicated sports simulations, but that doesn’t mean that there ISN’T any crossover. And look, here you are, the crossover!
Keep loving the Blitzball, dude. Someone has to. You probably own at it even without the exploit. Keep it real with Wakka, bro.
FUCK! YOU!
I mean…SOMEONE must like blizball, or it wouldn’t have been programed in the first place.
As of right now I’m in the midst of acquiring Wakka’s Attack Reels and I can’t win a single fucking game for the life of me. I’d sooner dodge 200 lightning bolts again than play one more game of this shit. UGH. I’d like to meet the asshole in that office who came up with the brilliant idea of making Blitzball a forced mini-game. Absolutely repulsive game design.
Other than the Blitzball experience, FFX is perfect. Thank you for sharing my hatred for this shitty mini-game.
Hatred loves company.
Finally beat that shitty game with the help i read
Happy to hear it!
Ur guide I still of shit. No matter howmany times I try AI comes after the ball behind the goal every time
I’m sorry you’re still having trouble. This isn’t foolproof; it merely raises the chance of victory.
Blitzball is bullshit hands down. that can go both ways though rarely.
For example i had wakka score a goal on the goers with 3 blocker including graav, which according to the in-game tutorial is mathematically impossible even with the variance involved, but effectively making me win due to overtime. i have seen a video of Graav shooting through 3 blockers and getting through keepa from the middle of the feild. also impossible.
no strategy will work if you never get the ball in the first place, like the first half. which totally screwed me for jecht shot since nobabody got exp. the ball was in the goers possession the entire time until the got a goal right before halftime.. come second half, tidus gets the ball, and i by some miaicle , i get a goal. the wakka comes in. graav continues to single handedly dominate 3 people at a time until full time. you know the rest/
All of the Aurochs are shit, Wakkas coaching even shittier. keepa’s (auroch goaler) maxes his SH (goal shooting power) at 99 the highest in the game, wakka has trained this guy to focus on the one stat he will never use. All of his other stats are balls.
That said yopu need to sack them jassu being the only half competent one, Brother(yes that’s his name)(Mid), Jumal (goaly), Wedge (striker), Ropp(def) are on my team and i can beat the ronso team and the goers pretty easily(brother outruns graav, who is basically the whole team).
Guado and Al-Bhed on the other hand are near impossible, nimrook has a base CA (Catching Ability) of 16, which means not even the jecht shot will be enough unless tidus is 3 or 4 levels above him. to stop that, keep playing exhibition games against the albhed. until Nimrooks contract is 1 game left. then save. the play another exhibition match against the albhed, forofeit and hop they release nimrook. if no reload your save and try again until they do. if they do, got the the airship cargo area and hire him. hes the best goaley in the game.
Guado are super fast, which makes it hard even for brother to avoid them and they can quickly return to normal formation making the above very hard to pull off, they usually specialise in one stat and are quicte flimsey for tackling. Unfotuantely Seymour is out there using his magic prowess to manipulate the RNG for these guys, so you need to overlevel these guys to beat them.
This game is so bad ive considered beating penance and all the other super bosses without wakkas weapon or his Atk wheels which is required in like every guide to beating them, opting for blitz ace instead. last time i did bothered getting it, i had already beaten them. butr now they are achievments and as a hunter im forced to play this rigged game.
I Hope someone has better luck than me. and i was kinda hoping the fixed this thing in the HD remaster.
Hell yeah! Playing for the first time. Worked like a charm
Great! So happy to make blitzball a slightly less painful experience.