Final Fantasy X: Monster Arena

The Monster Arena is a section in the Calm Lands. In it, you can begin a side quest where you capture fiends, and you can fight them as much as you want once captured. The side quest is long, as it involves every area in Spira, but there are many rewards you can get from it. It is also the key to quickly farming AP and Spheres, as well as getting parts of Yuna and Auron’s Celestial Weapons.

How Monster Capture Works

You begin the quest by talking to the owner of the Monster Arena. He wishes to reopen the arena and tasks you with capturing fiends from every part of the world. To accomplish this, you must first buy weapons that have the ‘Capture’ ability, which can only be bought by the owner. When you go hunting for a fiend, you must kill it with the weapon equipped, while using either a physical attack or skill on it (killing it with magic or Overdrives will not count).

You can capture up to 10 of each fiend, and fiends that can be seen in multiple areas will only count towards one place (usually the first place they appear). Note that machina and human enemies cannot be captured, so there is no need to worry about them for this quest.

Once you capture a fiend, you will be able to fight it by talking to the owner. As you meet certain thresholds in the quest, you will unlock completely unique monsters. Most of the thresholds involve capturing every monster in an area, or a certain number of each fiend within a species. These unique monsters are much tougher than the normal monsters you encounter, and can only be fought here. There is even a superboss you can unlock through this quest.

Monster Directory

Each of the 13 sections of Spira has its own monster directory. The directories initially do not show the monster names. They will only show how many monsters you need, and the missing monsters will have ‘?’s instead of their name until you capture one.

You will also be able to see how many of each monster you have captured next to their name. Something to keep in mind: you can only see these directories in the Monster Arena, so there’s no other way to see which monsters you’re missing and how many of each fiend you’ve captured.

Full List of Fiends

The following is a list of the fiends present in each area:

Special Monsters and Rewards

As you meet certain thresholds while capturing monsters, you will unlock special monsters that are stronger than the normal fiends. These monsters fall into three categories: Area Conquest, Species Conquest, and Original. Each time you unlock a new monster, the Monster Arena owner will give you a reward once you talk to him.

Area Conquest

Species Conquest

Original

There are three special rewards you can get for certain thresholds:

• When you capture one of each fiend in the Calm Lands, you will receive the Nirvana (after getting the Celestial Mirror).
• Capturing one of each fiend in Mt. Gagazet will earn you the Blossom Crown.
• You will get the Mars Sigil by unlocking any combination of ten Area Conquest or Species Conquest monsters.