To expand on that: Ribbon is an armor ability in Final Fantasy X that negates (almost) all negative status effects. The only things it doesn’t prevent are Curse, instant death attacks, and things that remove a character from battle, such as Eject. But Ribbon will protect you against pretty much everything else, including:
Confusion Berserk Sleep Silence Darkness Slow Doom Zombie Petrification Poison
Super useful right?
Easiest Ways To Get Ribbon
Due to the nature of how you have to farm Dark Matter, Ribbon is strictly an endgame ability. There’s no way to even sniff it until you get to the final dungeon, and even then it’s going to take a while. Ribbon requires 99 Dark Matter, which is one of the rarest materials in the game. TIP: Dark Matter is a rare drop (~12% chance) from most Original Creations and Species Conquest fiends at the Monster Arena. So it’s certainly obtainable if you have the patience to grind the Arena. Your best bet is to pick one fiend that you can defeat relatively easily, and that also has a useful set of common drops too. That way you’re still accumulating good stuff from your farming – even in the battles when you don’t get any Dark Matter.
Farming One-Eye for Dark Matter
One of the better Species Conquests for Dark Matter is One-Eye. This ocular beast is easy enough to topple, and it has weapons with Triple AP as its common drop. These Triple AP weapons sell for a premium, so you’ll make a ton of Gil no matter how fast you can stack your Dark Matters. And this guy isn’t too hard to unlock! One-Eye will be unlocked after you capture four copies of every Eye-type enemy in Spira. There’s five enemies in total, each in a different location, but remember you’ll need x4 copies of each one:
Floating Eye on the Mi’ihen Highroad Buer on the Thunder Plains Evil Eye in the Macalania area Ahriman on Mt. Gagazet Floating Death in the Omega Ruins
Ultima Buster Unlock Reward
You can also get a one-time gift of 99 Dark Matter by unlocking Ultima Buster at the Monster Arena. That’s essentially a free Ribbon, and it’s the only time you’ll get ninety-nine of these things at once. Ultima Buster will be unlocked after you capture five copies of every fiend in Spira. At a rough count there’s ~118 total fiends you’ll need to capture, so yeah this is a big undertaking. This wiki page has a full list of every fiend and where they’re located, so that can be a great resource to keep bookmarked.
Are There Any Dark Matter Bribes?
Technically there is one enemy you can bribe for Dark Matter, but it’s not a viable option for farming. Land Worms inside the final dungeon can be bribed 1.5m-2m Gil for x2 Dark Matter. That’s an outrageous cost already, but it gets worse: These fiends only appear after your last save sphere & very close to the final battle in the game. Meaning even if you farm them with bribes, there’s no way to save and leave that area to use the Dark Matter – meaning you’d only keep it with you up through the final boss fight. So for all intents and purposes there is no practical way to bribe Dark Matter for Ribbon and still keep it with you after the game. Your best option is to farm one of the Monster Arena creations, with One-Eye or Sleep Sprout both being excellent choices.
Is Ribbon Worth It?
Absolutely. For all the trouble you’ll go through to get it, Ribbon pays you back double. Not having to worry about any status effects is a godsend (or should I say, Yevon-send). Ribbon is easily on the short list of required abilities on any ultimate armor build, right next to stuff like Auto-Protect and Auto-Phoenix. Yes, it is time-consuming to farm Dark Matter. But once you have this on your armor, you’ll wonder how you ever lived without it.
