After speaking with Maroda and Isaaru at Bevelle during Chapter 5, enter the interior of the temple. Take the path on the right and you’ll see that Pacce and his Kinderguardians have found a teleporter, which they proceed to use. Step on the teleporter and you’ll end up in a new area beneath Bevelle called Via Infinito. Pacce and his friends are understandably creeped out by it, given the large amount of fiends and pyreflies in the area. After they high-tail it back to the surface, walk into the clearing and you’ll see an old man, who will proceed to tell you the story of Trema, the former head of New Yevon who disappeared over a year ago. After the cutscene, walk north through the clearing and you’ll see a hole leading to a lower level. Fall down the hole to proceed.
Via Infinito is very well-named, since it has 100 floors to explore. The deeper you venture into this dungeon, the nastier the enemies will become. Oh, and the Charm Bangle won’t work in here, so you’ll have to go through each floor the hard way, random encounters and all. There are a total of 16 different floor layouts that can show up on every floor of Via Infinito, broken up by boss fights on the 20th, 40th, 60th, 80th and 100th floors. Some are more common than others, and there is little chance that two games of FINAL FANTASY X-2 will feature them in the same order as you progress through it. Here are some tips you should bear in mind if you want to make it all the way through.
• Most floor layouts only require you to jump down to get to the next floor. Others require you to step on a switch, and still others will make you fight Tonberrys to get the entrance to the next floor to appear.
• The dungeon is visibly infested with Tonberrys, but they shouldn’t present too much of a problem. On some floors you can avoid them altogether and on a couple of floors they will even give you items to aid you in your exploration of the dungeon, but on certain floors you will have to fight them to move on to the next floor.
• The visible enemies that you should be concerned with are the Elder Drakes and the Mega-Tonberrys. The difficulty of both of these enemies rivals that of some of the fiercest bosses in the game. Fortunately, there is always an alternative to fighting them.
Elder Drakes
There are two main areas where you have to be concerned about the Elder Drakes. In one of the floor layouts, you’ll see an Elder Drake ramming its head up against the wall. To avoid fighting it, just walk past between the times when it comes into the hallway. On the other floor, there will be an Elder Drake waiting for you in a pit, with seemingly no way to get around it. With this layout, just go back to the intersection you started out at and go left. The path will lead you to a floor switch. Step on it and a couple of stepping-stones will appear, enabling you to avoid the pit.
Mega-Tonberrys
There are three areas where you have to watch out for this bad boy. On one floor layout, a Mega-Tonberry will be waiting for you in a pit. To get around him, walk south from the starting point and fall to a lower level. Follow the path, defeat the regular-sized Tonberry and take the lift back to the upper level. From there, go south, climb the wall into the pit and step on the floor switch on the left, behind the Mega-Tonberry. The way to the next floor will be revealed. On the second floor layout, a Mega-Tonberry will be patrolling the halls just as you climb a ledge. Just hug the left wall while moving and you’ll just breeze by him. On the third floor layout, there is a Mega-Tonberry flanked on either side by two normal Tonberrys. Just defeat both of the Tonberrys and the Mega-Tonberry will disappear, revealing the exit.
• After the boss fight with the Black Elemental on the 40th floor, you’ll receive a series of items. Among them is an accessory called Cat Nip. EQUIP THIS ACCESSORY! It allows you to do 9999 HP of damage per hit when the person wearing it has low HP. Imagine the damage you can do with a Gunner’s Trigger Happy attack. It will make the later floors and boss fights much easier to manage.
From the 90th floor on, the going gets downright brutal. Enemies that
you could previously avoid, like Elder Drakes and bosses you’ve faced. Luckily,
they allow you to run from these battles, so unless you’ve beefed up your
characters to godlike proportions, your safest bet would be to run.
