When you think of difficult fights in Final Fantasy 10, what comes to mind? There's more than enough to pick from, with Seymour Flux, Yunalesca - and of course - Braska's Final Aeon probably resulting in a lot of broken PS2 controllers back in the day. Yet as hard as they can be, they're far from the worst in the game.
Believe it or not, the trickiest fight is at the very beginning, all the way back in Besaid... against a Water Flan. What makes this hard is the fact that the game never intends for Tidus to beat it. He's meant to hit it once, but not make a dent in it, prompting Wakka and Lulu to give the player a tutorial about using magic. However, as discovered by YouTuber Warrior Of Light, there's nothing to stop you from grinding until you can one-shot it.
After and staggering 110 hours of grinding in this early game area, Warrior Of Light had levelled up Tidus' strength enough to make the challenge possible. Despite being a poor matchup against the Water Flan, he's able to take it out in one hit.
Funny enough though, this doesn't actually change anything about the magic tutorial. Despite the enemy not being there at all, Wakka still chimes in: "Told you. Only magic can beat that thing." Alright, well that's just a lie isn't it Wakka?
Even better, Lulu still rocks up to call you "clueless". She then talks you through the elements, as she prepares her spell for the non-existent enemy... and then the battle ends. I guess the developers really did not account for anyone spending more time than it takes to beat the game itself just to see Tidus take out a tutorial enemy. Square Enix really underestimated its fanbase.
"110 hours of work for a really really dumb question, but all in the name of science", concluded Warrior of Light. Indeed, we now know that the characters will take any opportunity to dunk on Tidus, even if he's right.
Source: Destructoid