Here's what happened: We have mastered our first Materia. We unlocked Curaga, the highest-level spell on that Materia, a while ago; but there was still one unchecked star on that Restore Materia. That was a star for Mastery. Now that we have obtained the AP required to Master it, we obtain the benefits of Mastery, which is that the Materia undergoes mitosis and spawns off a new lv 0 Materia.
….
Okay. I see where this is going.
I have no need for another Restore Materia. I already have three, maybe even four Restore Materia at lv 3+. But what I do have, on the other hand, is a smattering of incredibly powerful, unique Materia. I only have one Ultima. One Contain. One Bahamut-ZERO. One MP Turbo. I have been allocating these Materia as precious commodities, trying to spread them as usefully as possible across my party.
But if I master Ultima, I get a second Ultima Materia. A second Bahamut-ZERO! All that incredibly powerful magic will be freely available for me to make a killer party!
…
Or not. The Ultima Materia unlocks the Ultima spell at 5,000 AP. It is mastered at 100,000 AP. This Restore Materia, my first-ever mastered Materia, 36 hours into the game, cost me a total of 40,000 MP. Over the entire game. Having had it slotted in since day 1.
Of course, as AP rewards for battling opponents increase with encounter levels, reaching high AP numbers will be made easier… But 100,000 AP? I mean, if it happens on its own, it happens on its own. But I'm doubtful. And we're not gonna be grinding for it unless it turns out to somehow be fast and easy. So ultimately the Materia mastery system is like, whatever.
Maybe we will turn out to unlock Double Ultima. As things are, it seems more likely we'll end up with a chest full of duplicate Alls and Restores in excess of what I actually have use for.
Very, very belatedly, but I really like this. It's a neat statement, not just a way to reward grinders with extras of unique Materia.
After all, Materia are crystallised knowledge, right? That's why a character holding one can employ powerful magical spells without a lifetime spent poring over arcane lore. It stands to reason that Mastery represents, to some degree, your assimilation of and adaptation to that knowledge. You are becoming more and more familiar with the Materia and the knowledge it contains, over the course of using it. If the Materia combo system weren't so important to gameplay, you'd probably "learn" the Materia's magic innately upon Mastering it, like permanently learning a Skill from a piece of equipment in some other FF games.
But it is important, so you can't just invalidate Materia (at least, not completely; Master Materia also plays very neatly into this theory). What's more, Materia Mastery isn't tracked per-character, like a Skill, but per-Materia; Cloud can grind a Lightning up to the brink of full Mastery, only for Yuffie to be the one who Masters it. The accumulated experience isn't affecting the characters... it's affecting the Materia. Which are crystallised knowledge. And when they've soaked up enough of it, they split off into new Materia. That new Restore Materia isn't the knowledge of the Ancients - it's the knowledge of you.
Welcome back, class, to Final Fantasy VIII 101. Today's lesson:
The Assassination of Zombie JFK
Last time, we arrived in timber, a city notable for its delightful Art Nouveau aesthetic. The whole place has such a beautiful, hand-crafted feel to it, it's really pretty.
Immediately at the station, we are accosted by a man saying "Oh, the forests of Timber sure have changed!" to which we reply, "But the Owls are still there" (our two other options are 'Chocobo' and 'Moogle,' I don't know what happens if we pick wrong), following which he invites us to follow him.
In hindsight, I probably could have just left him on read to explore the town as much as I cared at this stage, but I am extremely susceptible to video game NPCs asking me to follow them in a tone of urgency so I just followed him directly after talking to the people around the station - there's a child complaining the Pet Shop is closed, and an old lady selling souvenirs; these include a 'map of Timber' which she drew herself and which is…
…utterly incomprehensible. What even is this.
Anyway, we don't actually leave the train station, just move to a different platform, because, as it turns out, the resistance's base of operation is… A train.
Conceptually, 'resistance operating aboard a secret train' is a really cool concept. Practically speaking, the logistics seem dubious. It seems like that would make you a big predictable target, you know? But maybe there's a historical precedent I'm missing. (FAKE EDIT: There was. More later.)
The guy in yellow is Watts, the guy in blue is Zone. Zone introduces himself as the leader of the Forest Owl and offers his hand for Squall to shake, which Squall pointedly ignores, so Zone instead moves to offer his hand to Selphie, who does shake it, at which point Zell holds out his hand to Zone, who ignores him just like Squall did him. What an efficient way of conveying the social pecking order at play here. Unfortunately for Zell, he sits at the bottom.
Squall: "So, let's get on with it. What do we do?" Zone: "Just take it easy. Here, let me introduce you. Looks like you already met Watts." Zone: "I guess it's just our princess, then." Watts: "It's the princess's nap time, sir." Zone: "Ahh, man… Hey, Squall, sorry, but could you go get our princess? She's in the last room up those stairs. Some of our other guys are in the room on the way. Ask 'em if you get lost." Squall: "...Were we hired to run errands?"
(Zone backs away in fright.) Zone: "A-Are you angry!?" Squall, mentally: "(We're not gophers… We're SeeD… Special forces…)" Squall: "This is the last time for this kinda thing." Zone: (He doubles over in pain.) "Owowow… Ouuuuch… My stomach…" Selphie: "Squall, way t'go! You tell'm! They can't treat us that way!" Zell: "These guys don't seem to have it together…"
It's interesting to me that this isn't just Squall having a big ego; Zell and Selphie, who are normally a lot more chill, are fully in agreement that going around fetching people is beneath them. They're elite mercenaries and they expect to be asked to perform elite duties. And Zone realizes he fucked up instantly and is terrified of Squall.
You take that and you put it together with Zell's mention, back on the train, that there are people out there who hate SeeD and might have tried a poison attack on them, and it's clear that, even if SeeD is relatively new as an organization, Dollet wasn't its first showing; it's built a reputation, both in a positive and negative way.
There's a control room with a few more resistance members, and there's enough unexplored space that it's possible there may be room on the train that we don't see with more people in them, but all in all it does look like the Forest Owls, Timber's resistance cell against Galbadian rule, is made up of like six people.
No wonder they didn't have the funds to hire us normally.
Oh, and this secret train base… Has a full bedroom compartment that's even got its own color scheme.
This message flashing on the screen indicates I have just received my salary.
Lady, your bed doesn't have… sheets? Or a pillow? What's going on here?
Blue Girl, from the party. Well, she's actually blue now, at least. Squall introduces himself by name, and says he's with SeeD; Blue Girl is overjoyed, and by that I mean "literally jumps out of bed to hug Squall in delight."
She then reveals that she had been sending Balamb Garden requests for a long time but had never received a reply, until she went to the party and was able to meet with Cid personally… Thanks to Seifer introducing them. She talks about Seifer like she knows him personally, too, and asks Squall if he came with them, and is disappointed when she hears he hasn't.
It looks like we have found a whole third person in the world capable of standing in Seifer's presence and not want to punch him in the face. Truly wonders never cease.
God, I hope this won't be a love triangle, though… Ah, who am I kidding. Seifer, Blue Girl and Squall are literally on the cover of the CD box.
There is no hope.
And then, at long last, it's time for Squall's love interest/possible reincarnation romance to reveal her name…
…
This is my Aeris/Aerith moment.
Japan famously does not draw a distinction between the L and R sound, which occasionally leads to oddities in the translation process into and out of Latin languages. In much the same way as Aerith is now officially established as 'Aerith' and the old translation of 'Aeris,' though understandable at the time, retroactively in error, this character is 'Rinoa'... Except in French.
In French, she's Linoa.
Even through the haze of years, I still remember her as Linoa. Rinoa sounds… Off. Wrong.
But still. I will take it upon myself to endure it.
Enter, then, Rinoa.
…you know, I wonder if there was a disconnect between the team that animated the FMVs and the team that was writing the script for the game's dialogue. In the FMV we saw of Squall and Rinoa dancing, he was pointedly a terrible dancer at first who needed her to actively guide him and show him to move, after which he caught the gist of it. But here, Rinoa compliments Squall on his dancing, and he plays it off by saying it's part of SeeD training in a variety of skills useful in subterfuge, like approaching a target inconspicuously at a party. Those seem to directly contradict one another. Either way, Rinoa is saddened to learn that Squall's dancing skills are work-related and not a hobby.
Also, Rinoa has a dog.
His name is Angelo, and against all odds, he is a mechanically relevant entity: Rinoa's Limit Breaks are dog-based.
Incredible. We are taking this little doggy all the way to fight god, people. Or whoever ends up being our final boss but considering the history surrounding Hyne, god is probably getting involved at some point.
Actually thinking of it, that's not so different from Shadow taking Interceptor to the Kefka fight.
Oh, and how does Angelo acquire new tricks?
Do you remember when I said there was a pet magazine in the train last time?
In the same way as magazines serve as our weapon upgrade manuals, Pet Pals teaches Angelo new tricks, which are then learned by just… Walking around for enough time. Sure, why not.
Squall introduces Rinoa to Selphie and Zell, then the group moves to the 'briefing room,' where someone put up a model train. It's finally time to learn what we are actually here to do.
And the answer is: Abduct the Galbadian President.
Yeah. It's a lot for a group of half a dozen people, one of whom is combat-capable, to be planning. Can't fault their ambition, at least.
President Vinzer Deling (as in Deling City, where we saw Laguna last time) is the President of Galbadia. President, or dictator? Zone and Watts at least claim that he is a dictator disliked even by his own population, but of course they'd say that, they're rebels. Deling will be coming to Timber on a private train, and while Selphie excitedly suggests 'blowing it up with a rocket launcher,' the rebels' plan is much more complicated than that, requiring the model trains to explain (also, I think Zone just wanted an excuse to buy and use the models).
The explanation of the plan is long and complicated but ultimately it boils down to this:
Train piracy.
Hell yeah.
Basically, we need to sneak onto the top of the President's train, unhook the front two cars, slip in our own base and 'dummy' car, then unhook the base and president's car, letting the train reconnect with none the wiser. Deling is a misanthrope who resents the presence of his guardian, so if we can isolate his car from the escort cars, he'll be at our mercy.
This will require quick timing, coordination, the inputting of multiple codes into the train's control systems, and bypassing guards equipped with 'sound sensors' and 'thermal sensors.'
Then everybody takes a break to roast Rinoa's arts and crafts.
Selphie: "By the way… this model's nice but the president's car looks kinda shabby. …Why is that?" Watts: "Yeah, Rinoa made it. That's why. We bought everything else at the gift store." Zell: "Oh… I thought some kid made it. The paint job sucks, too." Squall, internally: "(...? Yeah… It kind of does.)" Rinoa: "Oh, shut up! I made it look like that on purpose. It represents my hatred towards Deling." Zell: "Hatred, eh…? Yeah… right." Selphie: "It's one of the… ugliest things that I've ever seen in my life. You must really hate him." Squall: "...." Rinoa: "Are you guys finished!? Enough about the model! Can we get on with it now!?"
WHY ARE THEY DRAGGING THAT POOR GIRL SO HARD OVER A TOY TRAIN
Absolutely ruthless. SeeDs really are taught to leave no survivors in their wake.
Once the plan has been established, it's time to form a party. Watts immediately declares that his specialty is information gathering, not combat, and runs out of the room, while Zone collapses from a sudden stress stomach ache.
These people are supposed to be leading a resistance cell against a brutal dictatorship. No wonder they never got anywhere without SeeD, good lord. At least Rinoa will be joining us as an NPC for now.
Pinned to the whiteboard are a series of issues of Anarchist Monthly, a clandestine newspaper, which promises info on the 'dark secrets' of President Deling.
Article:
President Deling became the President after the 2nd Sorceress War ended. To gain support quickly, he carried out the invasion of Timber. It was only a ploy to decorate an already corrupt man's immoral career… Our land Timber was brutally destroyed. Here began Vinzer Deling's road to dictatorship…
To imprison anti-government sympathizers, the D-District Prison was built in the desert south of Deling City. Millions were spent to build the facility. The threat of being sent to the prison intensified Deling's unpopularity. The prison began imprisoning Galbadian anti-government sympathizers just as they did in Timber. Moreover, the leaders of the resistance movements faced the threat of having family members imprisoned as well. Around this time, Deling began surrounding himself only with loyalists, which turned him into an even more fierce dictator.
With the exception of Esthar, the Galbadian Military possesses the world's only long range missile. Although never used in combat, their existence has become a worldwide threat. It is said that the missiles have the ability to hit any target with astounding accuracy even without using radio signals. Will the time come for the president to push the button? When the time comes, Ti…
(The print is blurred on the last part…)
I don't think you can do the 'author's last swords scrawl out as he is taken away midway through writing' in print. Like logistically that's not how it works. Also if they barged into the newspaper owner's home or office to abduct him wouldn't they have just destroyed the final issue before publishing? This is trying to be too cute.
With that said, hmm. FF8 is definitely angling for a special kind of 'political verisimilitude in a fantasy context' with its worldbuilding, focusing on consistent political agendas, wars waged for both foreign and domestic objectives, introducing deterrence as a concept, a brutal depiction of a dictatorship's censorship regime, even as it's set against the tantalizing fantasy backdrop of a "Second Sorceress's War"…
Of course we don't know how true any of it is, since we're seeing the perspective of Timber independentists here. Still, the path of 'elected President following a war, uses a quick military victory over a lesser power to shore up popularity at home and start securing power as a dictator, eventually see popularity decline as the crackdown on dissidents intensifies' makes sense. It's a coherent historical line for a modern country to take. The 'long range missiles' could be an elusive way of referring to nukes, or literally just conventional ballistic missiles that are able to operate despite the worldwide interference wave.
So it looks like, at least for the time being, Vinzer Deling, president and dictator of Galbadia, is our main antagonist. If Gestahl and President Shinra are any indication, this won't last.
Also, the Owls made a dummy of the President that they're going to have reading a journal so you don't see its face, with canned lines whenever someone approaches him so they'll be too afraid to check, because everyone knows pissing off Deling is a good way to end in the dungeon. I do love a little bit of self-defeating authoritarianism.
That said, the plan of like, sneaking train cars in and out of order, as a plan, is insane. We all realize that, right? This is a plan that could be defeated by the people on board of the target literally just looking out the window. It's going to be executed with enough flair that I don't mind too much, but it's genuinely a baffling concept. Yeah, sure, no one is going to notice when you unhook cars and hook them back together while they're inside.
Alright, let's go.
The mission begins with us riding the dummy car, coming close to the back escort car of the President's train. Our timer starts - we have 5 minutes to complete the whole operation.
The Galbadians in this car appears to have had their sensors glitch, so they don't work.
Okay, Deling really doesn't like company; he's sitting alone in his luxury car, and when the guard approaches to make his mandatory "no sign of trouble" report, Deling snaps at him and the man bemoans that he's definitely about to have his pay docked and wonders how he's going to be able to propose to his girlfriend now. It's a funny humanizing moment; as we saw with Laguna, Galbadian soldiers too are sometimes just blokes with their own lives going just trying to eke by.
It's not the soldier's fault either, contextually it's clear that he's doing these unwanted reports because it's what his orders tell him to do, but also somebody clearly screwed him over by ordering he report to Deling, a man who infamously hates his security detail, several times per hour.
Man, though. As a dictator, you'd think Deling would be nice to his personal security detail, the guys in charge of his life. On the one hand, it might be that he's resentful and distrustful of them because he fears getting Praetorian Guard'd, but on the other hand that attitude seems a good way to get Praetorian Guard'd.
Now that we've made our way to the first escort car, we need to input the codes in order to release the clamps and unhook the cars. There are guards in the train who patrol it; Zell and Selphie warn us with shouts when they're coming, and we can also use L1 to look left and anticipate it, but in the moment and following the briefing this is a lot of information to process at once and I'm genuinely not sure what's happening or what I'm supposed to do in which order. Also, the codes have to be entered in a short window, but not too short; try to type the codes too fast and we will just confuse the poor PSX hardware, resulting in mistimed entries and a failed code. Enough failure for the guards to catch on to us and…
…okay, I was expecting a mandatory fight, but a game over over this seems a little excessive. Now we have to reload from Rinoa's base and do the whole sequence again. But at least this time I have a better handle on what's going on; we just need to take the necessary time to enter the codes properly, climb up from the code panel when guards approach, rinse and repeat. Once we have that process down, it's smooth sailing; even the time limit is basically nothing.
I love this game's FMVs so much. They're so dynamic, so intricate, so pretty. Those trains look absolutely gorgeous, and the sequence that plays as they unhook and the Owls' train sneaks in is just, fantastic stuff.
That poor soldier from earlier is back to give his report to the President. This time though, 'Deling' doesn't seem angry. He's just about to slip away with a sigh of relief when an officer barges in, asking what's going on (probably because of the noise and rumbling of the track switches), which prompts the Dummy President to spout his angry recorded line, which causes the soldier to despair - that's two paychecks certainly docked now: no ring, and no candlelight dinner! Is he ever going to get married?
Poor guy. I hope he manages alright.
We replay the same code input sequence, only this time Zell and Selphie aren't there to shout warnings in advance and we need to enter 5 codes rather than 3. It's still not too much trouble now that we have the rhythm, and swiftly enough…
…we have pulled off a successful train heist.
Fuck yeah.
That was… a decent heist sequence, I think. Taking place on fast moving luxury trains elevated it, and the concept of train pirates will always be rad as hell to me, but I do still have questions about whether any of this is logistically feasible. Including their daring escape.
Depending on how much trains feature in FF's future, it might be best to think of this as a kind of setting where the rail network is extensive enough yet surveillance loose enough that you can literally just sneak away on railroad networks with your locomotive and fade into the countryside impossible to find.
…
Actually I think that may be the thing. I'm thinking this too much in terms of the modern day due to FF8's modern aesthetic.
I need to remember how even FF8's modern-leaning settings tend to retain deliberate anachronisms for aesthetic, thematic or narrative purposes.
If I look at the Forest Owl's "Raider" train base as this setting's equivalent of Trotsky's train, then it all makes perfect sense. Which would make Rinoa… Trotsky???
I am un-junctioning Ice from all my characters as a safety precaution.
Back in the base car, our characters congratulate themselves. It's not clear what specifically they're hoping to get out of President Deling (they're most likely going to demand maximalist goals like 'withdraw all troops from Timber immediately and relinquish all claim to the country,' then negotiate down from there), but of course as the President of Galbadia he is an incredibly valuable hostage regardless of anything else, and it also looks like they just want to personally talk to him face to face as like, the infamous dictator they so despise and want to call out.
Hmm.
I wonder. Obviously taking Deling captive has more potential rewards than just killing him, but it would have been much easier and safer to just blow up the tracks to derail his train and kill him, or even to do what Selphie suggested and blow up his car with a rocket launcher. Part of their panic at the idea is probably that they want him alive for pragmatic reasons of how useful he'll be as a hostage, but…
Part of it is that they just don't have it in them to kill him, isn't it? Watts is a kid, Zone gets stress stomach aches at the thought of violence, and Rinoa is either literally or figuratively* a princess, and the others are just, like, minions. I think they just don't have the guts to commit straight-up murder, hence resorting to an overcomplicated and overly risky abduction plan.
*They referred to her as a 'princess' early in this update, but we have yet to hear if that was a figure of speech or if she is actually a descendant of the deposed Timber royalty.
Also, our SeeD rank goes up by 1 for our success! This is neat.
Rinoa tells us that as soon as Squall and the others are ready, we'll head in and begin 'serious negotiations' with the President, to which Squall senses trouble and reminds himself he should make sure his GFs are equipped. There isn't too much risk of that not being the case - we haven't changed party comb since we left BGU (although we haven't had a fight since the dream with Laguna) - but it's nice to give the player reminders to keep themselves properly junctioned when your system is this complicated and fiddly. Also this is obviously a 'boss fight ahead' warning, which is helpful.
Briefly stopping by the controls room before we head in for our presidential appointment, though, there's some new dialogue - we can learn about the Anarchy Monthly writer's arrest, one of the guys is wondering aloud about Seifer and Rinoa's shared history, and the guy at the controls tells us a little more about Zone and Watts.
Owl: "Watts and Zone's fathers founded the Forest Owls." Owl: "18 years ago on the day before the invasion, there was an all out hunt for resistance members. Watts and Zone's fathers both died to protect everyone in the city. Galbadian soldiers shot them in front of everybody as a warning. Everybody looked away as they were executed." Owl: "But… Watts and Zone were watching. They saw the whole thing." Owl: "Deling glared down at the two of them like they were dirty rats. He had just become president. So, to show his power… He took a soldier's gun and shot their fathers' already dead bodies." Owl: "From that day on, they decided to carry on with their fathers' work as 'Forest Owls.' I decided to become a member after hearing that story." Owl: "We may look like a bunch of jokers to you guys. But we all have our stories. So try to understand, eh? When it all comes down to it, we get the job done. Still, we got a long ways to go to live up to our 2 founding fathers." Owl: "...You probably see this as just another job…" Owl: "I wonder where the name 'Forest Owls' came from?"
Hmmm.
For the most part, this is a pretty striking and compellingly believable story. Deling used brutal public executions and the desecration of the dead to scare and humiliate Timber into submission, and in so doing radicalized the next generation of resistance fighters, same as it always goes. His foreign adventure in Timber mostly served to shore up his power back home, and his attitude as described there feels less like one of the bland grey bureaucratic kind of dictator you see sometimes and more like one of those 'wear your parade uniform everywhere, show up for a triumph in conquered territory, and do stunt executions with your own gun' kind of dictator.
With one exception: 'On the day before the invasion, there was an all out hunt for resistance members.' That is not a sentence which makes sense to me. Why would there be a resistance while Timber hadn't been invaded yet? How would Galbadia be hunting for resistance members on territory it hasn't conquered yet? It seems pretty obvious this should be 'after,' ie describing events that directly followed the conquest. Probably a translation error.
Alright. Let's meet the man himself.
Rinoa: "...President Deling! As long as you… don't resist, you won't get hurt…" President Deling: "And if I do resist… What would you do…? Young lady?" Rinoa: (She backs away) "!!!" Squall: "What's wrong?" President Deling: (He stands up.) "Boo-hoo… Too bad… I'm not the President. I'm what they call… a body double." President Deling: "All these rumors about the many resistance groups in Timber… You pass along a little false information and they fall for it… How pathetic… Seems like there are only amateurs around here." President Deling: (He stands up from his seat.) "Ahh… My butt hurts from all this sitting… Young… LADY…" (He starts shambling towards a horrified Rinoa.) Ahh… So what did you have in stORE for me had I resiSTED…? Why doN'T you teLL mE…"
Fake President Deling: "QuiTE aMUsing thouGH… For beINg such amAtEurs…!!! HoW daRe YOU InSUlt tHe presIDent!!!"
Well then.
Setting aside his unnatural posture, our closer look at 'Deling' is interesting - as a body double, we can assume that his appearance is identical to the real President's, and that appearance is almost obnoxiously generic. This could be literally any US politician in the 90s, it's refined almost to an art.
…I think the trick where Deling's mannerisms starts distorting is the first time I was ever exposed to 'alternate capital letters and small letters to suggest that the person's voice is breaking and going up and down in pitch' trick in fiction, which now seems really common. It definitely made an impression. It makes me wonder what the first historical use of that trick was, though; these days I associate it more with online amateur fiction or comic lettering than published prose.
Fake President Deling is, as a fight, a pushover - but that's clearly intentional; he is 'just' a man in a suit shambling around, lurching for my characters and biting their necks. It's unsettling (and boy did it unsettle me as a kid), but not dangerous. We just blast it with spells and attacks until its HP runs out. At which point…
An animation plays out in which the fake president's body starts writhing and melting, shadow fumes reaching out of him, and he melts into the ground, then a light emerges and this fucking thing comes out.
Gerogero, an undead monstrosity, its hideous body twisted and deformed.
…
This is is the first time we've seen monsters actively employed by humans in this setting. So far, they have exclusively been encountered in the form of hostile wildlife. So that the first we see of it is the imperial power of Galbadia using a fully sapient shapeshifting undead horror to secretly impersonate their president as part of a rebel trap has… Somewhat sinister implications.
Gerogero is a status effect check - it can breathe out noxious fumes to inflict Slow and Darkness, and can also cast Silence, Sleep, and Berserk. It therefore has access to multiple sources of status effects to go around our status defenses or deplete any Remedies we may have. I remember finding it a deadly opponent and something of a roadblock as a child - among other things it was my first encounter with the Berserk status effect and losing control of my characters entirely with no idea how to get them back was a hell of a scare. As for damage, it mainly punches with its enormous bloated left arm, but that's really just a finisher for when status effects have screwed you out of doing anything.
…
Anyway this is our 8th FF game so we just pull out a Phoenix Down and instakill it.
Those dark clouds are the Blindess status indicator, I like it.
In retrospect, this was a poor decision; I forgot to Draw. Gerogero has powerful spells, mainly Esuna and Double, but I got distracted by the vicious satisfaction of one-shotting my childhood nemesis. Maybe I'll reload, we'll see. Thus ends Gerogero, the Deling impersonator.
And now that the mission is over, it's time for the debrief!
I wonder if the game is going to keep that mission-based pattern going forward. So far, both Dollet and the Train Heist followed the same scheme, arrive somewhere, get briefing, follow mission, get debriefing. A formula isn't necessarily a bad thing and so far VIII has leaned pretty strongly into the 'this is a job' vibe, so it'd be interesting to do; I'd expect the game to break that pattern but it could happen at the end of Act 2 in a major plot shift just as it could happen within the next hour and play the rest of the game totally differently.
Zone: "Man, I can't believe the president was a fake!" Rinoa: "I can't believe we fell for it!" Watts: "Info, sir! New info! It's big news! I found out the real reason why the president's here, sir! The president's going to the [TV Station]! Security's super tight, sir!" Rinoa: "...The [TV Station]? Why in Timber? They can broadcast just as easily from Galbadia." Selphie: "Do you think the Dollet communication tower has anything to do with this?" Zone: "What's that?"
(The next bit of dialogue is overlaid on a comedy montage of Biggs and Wedge working on the tower with Wedge getting shocked by electricity while Biggs doesn't see it.) Squall: "Dollet has a communication tower that can transmit and receive radio waves. It had been abandoned for a long time, but the Galbadian Army got it up and running yesterday." Zone: "Ohhhh… I get it… The only TV station that can handle broadcast over the air is in Timber. Other stations use HD cable, which only supports online broadcasting." Rinoa: "So, what's that supposed to mean?" Zone: "They're planning to use radio waves. This way, they can transmit to regions without cable." Rinoa: "I know that…! What I want to know is, what is the president going to broadcast!? Why use radio waves? There must be something they want to say to the whole world." Selphie: (She does a little dance): "Everybody! Love! And Peace!"
(Zone, Watts and Zell all make an 'are you kidding me' gesture.)
I love Selphie.
Zone: "If I remember correctly, radio waves haven't been used in 17 years." Rinoa: "It's been that long? Wouldn't it be wonderful if the first broadcast could be the declaration of Timber's independence?" Zone: "Hey! That might be possible." Rinoa: "Let's come up with a plan then!"
(All three sit in a circle and start whispering.)
I was somewhat confused by this dialogue at first because the mentions of radio and cable and who can transmit over what to where didn't scan cleanly to me at first, but it made sense eventually: Because of what we know of the world communication system, communication between most places is limited by HD cable integrity. President Deling can be filmed in Galbadia and be seen in Timber fine because they're part of the same empire and their infrastructure is working, but he presumably can't broadcast to Balamb because there is no established cable network between the two. The Dollet radio tower is powerful enough (see those multiple smaller dishes and this giant jet-mounted mega-dish) to handle at least one worldwide broadcast even over the worldwide radio wave interference, and the Timber TV Station is the only TV station currently setup to handle radio broadcast, ironically because it's old and obsolete.
So Deling needs to come to Timber so he can broadcast himself making an announcement to the world at the Timber TV station, that broadcast will be picked up by the Dollet Communication Tower, and the tower will spread it across the world, ensuring President Deling delivers the first successful worldwide TV address in 17 years.
Sure! That makes enough sense given the parameters of how the world works. And it's definitely interesting - Deling went to the trouble of invading Dollet just for that tower; this public address is important enough he was willing to cause an international incident and kill a bunch of people for it.
He's a dictator, of course, so some degree of megalomania is expected, but I still doubt this is about announcing the release of his new book. I'm actually curious, now.
The SeeDs aren't, though. In fact, they don't give a shit about of that, as far as they're concerned their job is done. Selphie asks Squall if they can just go home now while Zell is just in disbelief at the Owls' lackadaisical approach to rebellion. When we talk to Rinoa again, she starts talking about how they have a plan and Squall asks if he can see their contract first, very obviously in hope that he can tell her 'nope, we were good for one mission, you're on your own now.'
Incredible. We were all expecting Balamb Garden to pull some shady shit like they did in Dollet, withdrawing SeeD at the last minute to maximize conflict potential or something. What I wasn't expecting was for Squall, Selphie and Zell to be the one to go 'these weirdos are cringe, we need to bail.' Our protagonists, everybody. I guess I can't blame them for soaking up the culture of BGU and repeating the same behavior their teacher tries to inculcate in them, but it's hardly heroic.
The initial contract is written in legalese (not that it's particularly hard to parse, but it's clearly meant to make the uninitiated player recoil just like the characters do), so Rinoa produces a second contract Cid gave her after she complained the original one was too confusing, saying he's 'such a nice man.'
It turns out though, he just might be.
There's a very agitated Cid walking across the screen under the message the whole time we read it.
This contract effectively loans Squall, Selphie and Zell to the Forest Owls on indefinite retainer, until Timber achieves independence.
They could be spending the next twenty years of their lives fighting for the Timber resistance. And while they are still getting paid by Balamb Garden, the Garden itself isn't being paid by the Owls. Cid accepted a one-time payment in exchange for indefinite service of three of his newest SeeD recruits. And sure, they are green troops without battlefield experience, but like…
There are only two ways this makes sense:
Cid is genuinely as much of a doddering nice guy principal as he looks and the moment Rinoa talked to him in person he fell in love with her cause and made a ridiculous grand gesture that Garden Faculty couldn't stop him from taking, purely because he liked the cut of Rinoa's jib.
All of this is is part of the Moonspiracy and he's effectively using Squall, Zell and Selphie as sleeper assets because he trusts that in the process of fighting for the Timber resistance they will unwittingly (or by being contacted at the appropriate time) fulfill his actual goal for this operation.
If I were Rinoa, I'd be genuinely worried about option 2, just because this is way too good to be true. But I don't get the impression this is her style - our girl here doesn't seem like the suspicious type.
As for me… This is honestly such an over-the-top thing to do, it genuinely pulled me back closer to possibility 1. It's just such a ridiculous thing to do even as part of a grander nefarious scheme.
Zell: "Until Timber's independence!?" Selphie: "That is soooo vague!" Rinoa: "Hey, you're paid professionals. No complaining!"
Honestly the character dynamics of this are so funny. Like, on paper, the SeeD party has no reason to care; they just found steady employment for people who are, while kind of goobers and frustrating to deal with, essentially wholly dependent on them to accomplish anything, and because their salary comes from Garden they don't have to worry about getting paid, this is a cushy job (aside from the whole 'fighting the strongest army in the world' angle). It's BGU who is now saddled with a three-SeeD contract that will bring no further revenue until Timber's independence, which could come never.
But they're teenagers. Obviously the idea of getting stuck on this job for years working with these dorks, when SeeD was supposed to mean traveling the world and going to cool new places and taking exciting new jobs all the time, is a huge blow to their morale. They don't want to be the permanently embedded CIA instructors within this LatAm rebel paramilitary! They already miss Langley! This place probably doesn't even show the Super Bowl!
Well, nothing to it, then. They just have to release Timber from the Galbadian yoke if they want to taste BGU's cafeteria hot dogs again.
Our next mission: To head to the TV Station and hijack the broadcast. And for the first time now, Rinoa is playable as a member of the party.
…
How, though?
It was obvious that Rinoa was going to be playable from her role in the OP, let alone the fact that we literally got a Limit Break tutorial for her dog earlier. But so far, the game has been consistent in who gets to be a party member: SeeDs and SeeD students who trained at Balamb Garden and learned to junction GFs. So why can Rinoa join the group? How does she know how to junction GFs? Because she absolutely can - her mechanics work the same as everyone else's.
Something's weird here. It could just be a gameplay contrivance that we're not meant to interrogate, but Rinoa seems too prominent a character to be handwaved like that when all the other characters we've had so far have all had the same backstory justification for using junctioning. It could also be that GFs are actually as easy to Junction as Materia were to use, so Squall just handed Rinoa one and told her 'just, uh, mentally bind yourself to it somehow' and she Just Did It, but that seems weird both in- and out of character.
An alternative possibility is that… Seifer taught her. They knew each other, after all. Hmm. This may have legs to stand on.
That aside, hey! New party member! And the first opportunity we actually have to switch our party. It's interesting that the party select screen shows party members who are not here as grayed out, kind of confirming that Quistis is a regular who'll be back while Seifer, who doesn't get a portrait, was a guess party member.
That was fun. Solid action sequence, cool monster, decent spooks. And it's interesting just how in-depth the game goes in on the like… Texture of its geopolitics, the realism it's aiming for with President Deling and Galbadia's imperialist history, at the same time as it retains the goofy anime antics of its resistance cell that make them seem kind of endearing but also like they are in no way prepared for this fight.
But hey, maybe seizing a TV station will somehow just make it all work out and achieve Timber's independence in one fell swoop!
And with this update, we have exhausted the knowledge I have of FFVIII's plot outside of some vaguely remembered things I think I might've picked up from Dissidia.
Selphie: "By the way… this model's nice but the president's car looks kinda shabby. …Why is that?" Watts: "Yeah, Rinoa made it. That's why. We bought everything else at the gift store." Zell: "Oh… I thought some kid made it. The paint job sucks, too." Squall, internally: "(...? Yeah… It kind of does.)" Rinoa: "Oh, shut up! I made it look like that on purpose. It represents my hatred towards Deling." Zell: "Hatred, eh…? Yeah… right." Selphie: "It's one of the… ugliest things that I've ever seen in my life. You must really hate him." Squall: "...." Rinoa: "Are you guys finished!? Enough about the model! Can we get on with it now!?"
I like to imagine that Rinoa is being honest here and not just making up an excuse. The idea of her angrily stabbing a toy train with a paint brush is precious.
But they're teenagers. Obviously the idea of getting stuck on this job for years working with these dorks, when SeeD was supposed to mean traveling the world and going to cool new places and taking exciting new jobs all the time, is a huge blow to their morale. They don't want to be the permanently embedded CIA instructors within this LatAm rebel paramilitary! They already miss Langley! This place probably doesn't even show the Super Bowl!
3. The full, actually legally binding version of the contract (as opposed to the Cliffs Notes version that Cid gave Rinoa) also has a careful definition of "full independence", which Cid fully expects will be achieved soon, possibly by another team (ie assassinating the Galbadian president or whatever). This will plunge the world into another huge war full of business opportunities, an ocean of blood for Cid to get his beak wet in.
Or some similar twisty devil in the details sort of thing; we should not underestimate Cid's capacity for Evil Schemes.
To be fair 'these guys are incompetent fucking morons and their dumbass 'plans' are gonna get all of us fucking murdered' is a legit concern for the SeeD team to have, considering everything. They're elite mercenaries, not babysitters/suicidal.
(Also Cid could be 5D chessing something involving Timber's resistance against Galbadia that isn't part of the Moonspiracy thing, maybe option, like, 2b? Co-ordinated Garden resistance to Galbadia because one supermassive empire ruling everything would put them out of a job maybe?)
Zombie Deling was genuinely scary as hell as a kid, man. That was also my first exposure to taLKinG sTRanGEly and the entire vibe was so, so freaky. Even if FF8's logistics and geopolitics are a little wonky sometimes I feel like it's actually pretty decent at doing emotional beats and stuff.
Oh my god, a train piracy heist. Ordinarily this would be enough to kick my suspension of disbelief in the shins, but I can't bring myself to care because of the sheer style of it. I'm in love.
The Dollet radio tower is powerful enough (see those multiple smaller dishes and this giant jet-mounted mega-dish) to handle at least one worldwide broadcast even over the worldwide radio wave interference
I'll be honest though, this part has been confusing me. I got the impression that somehow 17 years ago radio waves just ceased to function as expected, rendering radio technology functionally ineffective. But this suggests that it's just largely mundane interference, which can be punched through with a powerful enough signal, which I can't help but question.
Like, if the Dollet radio tower is strong enough tk transmit across the world, shouldn't it have been usable this entire time? Dollet would have had an effective monopoly on radio broadcasting, giving them a hell of a political and strategic edge, but they just left the tower to rot. Did they not realize the potential it would have for them? That seems unlikely. Maybe the worldwide radio interference has been weakening over time, and only Galbadia realized? Or maybe the radio tower needed to be overlooked and this broadcast threatens to fry its circuits? I don't know, but this feels like a bigger deal than the game has treated it so far.
Okay no this has to be part of the Moonspiracy, right? Like this is too good of a job to be anything but incredibly shady. Either the party is being used as sleeper agents to be given their actual objective when the time comes, or this is a reassigned to antarctica moment and someone wanted them out of the picture, but they don't seem like they would have enough enemies for that to be the case. Like I cannot see this as an actual good-faith contract from Cid, even if he is as kindly and doddering as he seems. At best he is legitimately giving them a break, but someone behind the scenes in the Faculty okayed it so they can use SeeD as sleeper agents later.
Now that Rinoa is in your party, it's probably a good idea to keep here there. The plot-important relationship between her and Squall really works better with the optional scenes you only see if she's a party member.
No, seriously, I suspect this was meant to be an ASCII art map but the English version couldn't display the relevant characters so everybody threw their hands up and said 'fuck it' because it wasn't that important.
Zone introduces himself as the leader of the Forest Owl and offers his hand for Squall to shake, which Squall pointedly ignores, so Zone instead moves to offer his hand to Selphie, who does shake it, at which point Zell holds out his hand to Zone, who ignores him just like Squall did him.
Blue Girl, from the party. Well, she's actually blue now, at least. Squall introduces himself by name, and says he's with SeeD; Blue Girl is overjoyed, and by that I mean "literally jumps out of bed to hug Squall in delight."
She then reveals that she had been sending Balamb Garden requests for a long time but had never received a reply, until she went to the party and was able to meet with Cid personally… Thanks to Seifer introducing them. She talks about Seifer like she knows him personally, too, and asks Squall if he came with them, and is disappointed when she hears he hasn't.
It looks like we have found a whole third person in the world capable of standing in Seifer's presence and not want to punch him in the face. Truly wonders never cease.
God, I hope this won't be a love triangle, though… Ah, who am I kidding. Seifer, Blue Girl and Squall are literally on the cover of the CD box.
Then everybody takes a break to roast Rinoa's arts and crafts.
Selphie: "By the way… this model's nice but the president's car looks kinda shabby. …Why is that?" Watts: "Yeah, Rinoa made it. That's why. We bought everything else at the gift store." Zell: "Oh… I thought some kid made it. The paint job sucks, too." Squall, internally: "(...? Yeah… It kind of does.)" Rinoa: "Oh, shut up! I made it look like that on purpose. It represents my hatred towards Deling." Zell: "Hatred, eh…? Yeah… right." Selphie: "It's one of the… ugliest things that I've ever seen in my life. You must really hate him." Squall: "...." Rinoa: "Are you guys finished!? Enough about the model! Can we get on with it now!?"
WHY ARE THEY DRAGGING THAT POOR GIRL SO HARD OVER A TOY TRAIN
Absolutely ruthless. SeeDs really are taught to leave no survivors in their wake.
Holy shit. I think the lowkey best part of this exchange is that Squall is now just down bad enough for Rinoa that instead of trying to stop the roast or partaking he just stands there like a lemon waiting for the moment to end and hoping nobody engages him first.
f I look at the Forest Owl's "Raider" train base as this setting's equivalent of Trotsky's train, then it all makes perfect sense. Which would make Rinoa… Trotsky???
I am un-junctioning Ice from all my characters as a safety precaution.
An animation plays out in which the fake president's body starts writhing and melting, shadow fumes reaching out of him, and he melts into the ground, then a light emerges and this fucking thing comes out.
Gerogero, an undead monstrosity, its hideous body twisted and deformed.
…
This is is the first time we've seen monsters actively employed by humans in this setting. So far, they have exclusively been encountered in the form of hostile wildlife. So that the first we see of it is the imperial power of Galbadia using a fully sapient shapeshifting undead horror to secretly impersonate their president as part of a rebel trap has… Somewhat sinister implications.
Gerogero is a status effect check - it can breathe out noxious fumes to inflict Slow and Darkness, and can also cast Silence, Sleep, and Berserk. It therefore has access to multiple sources of status effects to go around our status defenses or deplete any Remedies we may have. I remember finding it a deadly opponent and something of a roadblock as a child - among other things it was my first encounter with the Berserk status effect and losing control of my characters entirely with no idea how to get them back was a hell of a scare. As for damage, it mainly punches with its enormous bloated left arm, but that's really just a finisher for when status effects have screwed you out of doing anything.
…
Anyway this is our 8th FF game so we just pull out a Phoenix Down and instakill it.
Those dark clouds are the Blindess status indicator, I like it.
This brings to mind that one gif of Luffy simply fluoride staring as he calmly walks up to a zombie and pushes it back into its grave. Squall's expression never changed for one microsecond, he is already thinking about nothing but gunblades and what selfies he'll upload onto DeviantArt next.
In retrospect, this was a poor decision; I forgot to Draw. Gerogero has powerful spells, mainly Esuna and Double, but I got distracted by the vicious satisfaction of one-shotting my childhood nemesis. Maybe I'll reload, we'll see.
Kitase's trick, he got you again you fucking fool.
But seriously I know damn well that having to stop and draw magic from every boss in case they had something really good I'd never see again for 20 hours and also inevitably forgetting about it and kicking myself for remembering too late would drive me up the fucking wall if I was the one playing this.
Incredible. We were all expecting Balamb Garden to pull some shady shit like they did in Dollet, withdrawing SeeD at the last minute to maximize conflict potential or something. What I wasn't expecting was for Squall, Selphie and Zell to be the one to go 'these weirdos are cringe, we need to bail.'
There's a very agitated Cid walking across the screen under the message the whole time we read it.
This contract effectively loans Squall, Selphie and Zell to the Forest Owls on indefinite retainer, until Timber achieves independence.
They could be spending the next twenty years of their lives fighting for the Timber resistance. And while they are still getting paid by Balamb Garden, the Garden itself isn't being paid by the Owls. Cid accepted a one-time payment in exchange for indefinite service of three of his newest SeeD recruits. And sure, they are green troops without battlefield experience, but like…
There are only two ways this makes sense:
Cid is genuinely as much of a doddering nice guy principal as he looks and the moment Rinoa talked to him in person he fell in love with her cause and made a ridiculous grand gesture that Garden Faculty couldn't stop him from taking, purely because he liked the cut of Rinoa's jib.
All of this is is part of the Moonspiracy and he's effectively using Squall, Zell and Selphie as sleeper assets because he trusts that in the process of fighting for the Timber resistance they will unwittingly (or by being contacted at the appropriate time) fulfill his actual goal for this operation.
If I were Rinoa, I'd be genuinely worried about option 2, just because this is way too good to be true. But I don't get the impression this is her style - our girl here doesn't seem like the suspicious type.
As for me… This is honestly such an over-the-top thing to do, it genuinely pulled me back closer to possibility 1. It's just such a ridiculous thing to do even as part of a grander nefarious scheme.
Honestly I'm still thinking it's 2. Like, if it was just 'SeeD deployment will last until Timber achieves independence' by itself would lend some credence to Cid just having a giga-simp moment. But 'no replacements of any SeeD members can be made'? That means that this otherwise do-anything contract specifically disallows the Timber Owls from swapping out Squall, Selphie and Zell for any reason. That's insanely sus. It feels more likely that, for whatever reason I couldn't possibly guess at, Cid specifically wants to keep those three hard stuck in Timber for the next however-long.
3. The full, actually legally binding version of the contract (as opposed to the Cliffs Notes version that Cid gave Rinoa) also has a careful definition of "full independence", which Cid fully expects will be achieved soon, possibly by another team (ie assassinating the Galbadian president or whatever). This will plunge the world into another huge war full of business opportunities, an ocean of blood for Cid to get his beak wet in.
Actually, that's a good question. Did they say if the simplified version of the contract Rinoa shows is fully legally binding, or are they bound by the full legalese text and the one that Cid gave her is in nice friendly english that just so happens to leave a bunch of key details out?
This is a very simple top-down map. The filled squares are train platforms, numbers correspond to cities the rail lines lead to. The empty squares are the walkable areas, and all the names are probably enterable buildings.
The initial contract is written in legalese (not that it's particularly hard to parse, but it's clearly meant to make the uninitiated player recoil just like the characters do), so Rinoa produces a second contract Cid gave her after she complained the original one was too confusing, saying he's 'such a nice man.'
"The party of the first part shall be known in this contract as the party of the first part."
.
.
.
"Hey, you can'ta fool me! There ain't no such thing as a Sanity Clause!"
You know, after seventeen years and all, even if the Dollet Tower could send a Radio broadcast world wide, considering that the President had to go to an entirely different country with an ...active? rebellion in order to send out his broadcast in the first place...who else out there can even still receive Radio signals?
@Omicron, I wanted to mention, on the assumption that you've had the chance to see Rinoa fight, that now might be a good time to give a watch to the FFVIII Demo; I'm not sure how to link to it - other people might - but there's different versions of it on YouTube. It's not yet entirely spoiler free (the demo contains a monster and a GF that have not yet shown up in FFVIII proper), but it's now almost so, and I think it makes for an interesting vector of speculation in terms of what had already been decided about FFVIII at that point in time, vs what had not been established yet.
Cool it there, Kautsky. Where are, say, Weitling or Eccarius in this broad, sweeping scheme? Or, indeed, Bebel the lathier? Petit-bourgeois predominance in the ranks of socialist theorists is just that, a matter of predominance, not exclusivity. And one which is supposed to most especially characterize the first generation or two of such theorists in each country -- as the workers' movement trains up its organic intellectuals in its inherited theoretic tradition, they can replace the transplants from alien classes.
Honestly I'm still thinking it's 2. Like, if it was just 'SeeD deployment will last until Timber achieves independence' by itself would lend some credence to Cid just having a giga-simp moment. But 'no replacements of any SeeD members can be made'? That means that this otherwise do-anything contract specifically disallows the Timber Owls from swapping out Squall, Selphie and Zell for any reason. That's insanely sus. It feels more likely that, for whatever reason I couldn't possibly guess at, Cid specifically wants to keep those three hard stuck in Timber for the next however-long.
I interpreted that as just 'if you manage to get them killed you're not getting another', but yeah, I suppose it does mean, they, specifically, are stuck there.
I interpreted that as just 'if you manage to get them killed you're not getting another', but yeah, I suppose it does mean, they, specifically, are stuck there.
Like, SeeDs are salaried employees of the Balamb Garden, and the contract is between Balamb Garden and the Timber Owls. Balamb Garden pays Squall and co on the dot every however-many days no matter whether they're actively on the job or fart-assing around in the woods, the worst that happens is taking too long slacking will see your payscale slowly degrade. Under those terms it should be completely meaningless which SeeDs are fighting for Timber's independence, and presumably if they just got killed off Cid would be required by the terms of the 'until independence' contract to just keep sending more.
Well the last part of the contract explicitly states thar "no replacements of any SeeD members may be made" - that strikes me as very much "if you get your assigned mercenaries killed, you're not getting any more and the contract is null and void."
Presumably most contracts that put SeeD under direct command of an external power have some similar clause that allows them to pull out if whoever they're contracting to keep getting their mercenaries killed.
Rinoa having A Type and that Type being 'mercenaries with cool facial scars' is so funny to me
Omicron said:
This is is the first time we've seen monsters actively employed by humans in this setting. So far, they have exclusively been encountered in the form of hostile wildlife. So that the first we see of it is the imperial power of Galbadia using a fully sapient shapeshifting undead horror to secretly impersonate their president as part of a rebel trap has… Somewhat sinister implications.
This still sticks with me today as the moment where Teenage Me went from 'These timber guys are kind of cool in a tree clubhouse way' to 'Oh no the Resistance is goofballs'
Well the last part of the contract explicitly states thar "no replacements of any SeeD members may be made" - that strikes me as very much "if you get your assigned mercenaries killed, you're not getting any more and the contract is null and void."
Presumably most contracts that put SeeD under direct command of an external power have some similar clause that allows them to pull out if whoever they're contracting to keep getting their mercenaries killed.
Well, yes, that's also possible. It's just that the unreasonably open-ended contract period which is called out as Cid for some reason going out on a limb to give Rinoa an unreasonably good deal on hiring SeeDs plus inherent sus-ness of Balamb Garden has me side-eyeing the whole affair pretty hard.
