Man, my brain no work good need more sleep
For some reason I thought this WAS the spoiler thread so just went right into it when I saw Omi quoted, whoops
Let's Play Every Final Fantasy Game In Order Of Release [Now Finished: Final Fantasy Tactics]
- Thread starter Omicron
- Start date
- Let's Play
For some reason I thought this WAS the spoiler thread so just went right into it when I saw Omi quoted, whoops
- Pronouns
- She/They
I choose to take this as further evidence that Seifer is operating under official, if under the table, orders. If he had fully gone rogue, I doubt he'd care about leaking information in the process of this, and while he might have the sense to not leak that information himself, a rogue Seifer probably wouldn't care so much about Zell leaking it. When going back to read it again, he seems increasingly frustrated at Zell dropping names and organizations. He might care about Rinoa's name being revealed, but at the very least he shouldn't care about the Garden's involvement being mentioned.
If anything he's being quite professional about being a deniable asset here. The fact that he's been captured by someone who may have mind control will certainly have interesting results, even just with the information they're able to pull from him.
- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
One thing that I've been thinking about is that part of the SeeDs' reluctance to do Rinoa's planning for her is that...
Well she may or may not assume that they're dumb muscle, but even if she is, she's not even using muscle for what it's good at.
Her plan to abduct President Deling was daring, ambitious, well-executed, and it was specifically a plan to abduct Deling and the moment the body double told her 'but what if I resist?' she choked and had no answer, being barely saved from having to actually commit to a decision by the double revealing he's an undead monstrosity.
Then at the TV station, her initial plan is "we raid the station, hijack the broadcast, declare independence" while kind of leaving out what's supposed to happen to Deling in that scenario, and when she finds out the station is overly defended she backs down.
I think at some point Squall and the others realized that Rinoa was sort of circling around the giant "ASSASSINATING PRESIDENT DELING" shaped elephant in the room, because they'd sort of assumed she was planning on holding him hostage and/or killing him when they reached that bridge, and now they realize that she actually doesn't have the guts to call a real, purposeful assassination and is kind of hoping the 'what to do about the imperialistic dictator-for-life who's not above a cheeky bit of war crime' part will magically resolve itself without her having to deal with it in the messy way.
Which is the point where they lost what initial respect they might have for her as their client and Squall started pulling out the pointed questions.
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Kadmus
Dragon's teeth are surprisingly hard to sow
- Location
- Devon
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Yeah, like, the SeeDs are clearly a set of heavly-trained and enthusiastic killers; it's no wonder they find Rinoa and co. to be deeply annoying, because they think they're a bunch of weak-stomached civilians who find the idea of deliberate cold-blooded murder to be repellant instead of a fun way to spend an afternoon. Even Selphie, the girl who slots into the 'cheerful bubbly slightly off' role, and who loves trains, is very enthusiastic about killing people.
Seifer one-man-armied his way through the Galbadian military, and it's likely Squall and co would have had even less trouble, but the Forest Owls were unwilling to commit, and unable to understand the scale of what they'd been given. They didn't have three extra warm bodies, they had a full and serious military commitment equivalent to, like, a big chunk of a normal army, as far as I can tell.
Seifer one-man-armied his way through the Galbadian military, and it's likely Squall and co would have had even less trouble, but the Forest Owls were unwilling to commit, and unable to understand the scale of what they'd been given. They didn't have three extra warm bodies, they had a full and serious military commitment equivalent to, like, a big chunk of a normal army, as far as I can tell.
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... Actually, since Balamb SeeDs - and whichever Garden Selphie transferred from, but I do recall it being mentioned one of the three abstains from GF usage, which, uh, isn't that the primary distinction between SeeDs and 'regular' highly-trained mercs - have 'Junction GF, get superpowers' as their whole ~thing~, is there anything to indicate which one Seifer is using? It looks like he doesn't bring his own for the Dollet mission but I'm wondering if that's just a gameplay conceit or if, say, he's in a continuous loop of 'Get GF to attempt SeeD exam > Fail exam for whatever reason > Get GF confiscated by Garden faculty > Get GF to attempt exam > ...' and had to either grab one from somewhere for this 'unlicensed' op or got slid one under the table so to speak.
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- Pronouns
- Him/He
Not even enthusiastic about killing people, she was straight up assuming the plan was to murder a perfectly good train and was on board with that plan.
She loves trains. But not even that will make her pause in the pursuit of her mission.
Sure it'll give her problems?
"the thing I love most about trains? Sending them to a fiery grave!"
- Location
- Singapore
- Pronouns
- Singular They
I have to emphasize this too. Selphie's line in Japanese is very casual, like she's pre-empting the expected statement of the plan. It's not "whee, blow it up!", but more a calm "we're going to use a rocket launcher to blow it up into tiny pieces, right". To her, it's stating the obvious.
Which is somehow inexplicably scarier than if Selphie was overtly enthusiastic about it.
E.I.G.
Robo-Bird
- Pronouns
- It/They
I just recently noticed that this thread had reached FF VIII, decided to just reader mode to get through the part of the first 7 that I had not managed to catch up on for this thread, and then spent the past two days catching up to where this thread is at for my first Final Fantasy game. Well, only Final Fantasy game really, I basically just tried this one to any real degree.
Actually, I can only say I made it to the end of the first disk myself, because apparently it is just common for the second disk to have loading issues, but I did spend a lot of time watching and helping someone else play this one*. I saw a very large chunk of the game with teenager watching someone else play levels of context, but I have long been interested in the way the Junction system worked. Admittedly we had a guide book for how to do the very many missable things this game throws at you, and weren't really of the mindset to really understand breaking the game, even if some of that did happen.
This Let's Play is making me want to start up my never-installed Steam copy, and actually has made me want to try and break the game. Because this in depth exploration of the story is making me somewhat interested in being able to play the game with the full absolutely broken power of GFs unleashed, to show off how these kids are actually a bunch of one man armies.
* I'm going to put this in a footnote, the situation with that someone else is a complicated mess of good memories of a bad person.
Actually, I can only say I made it to the end of the first disk myself, because apparently it is just common for the second disk to have loading issues, but I did spend a lot of time watching and helping someone else play this one*. I saw a very large chunk of the game with teenager watching someone else play levels of context, but I have long been interested in the way the Junction system worked. Admittedly we had a guide book for how to do the very many missable things this game throws at you, and weren't really of the mindset to really understand breaking the game, even if some of that did happen.
This Let's Play is making me want to start up my never-installed Steam copy, and actually has made me want to try and break the game. Because this in depth exploration of the story is making me somewhat interested in being able to play the game with the full absolutely broken power of GFs unleashed, to show off how these kids are actually a bunch of one man armies.
* I'm going to put this in a footnote, the situation with that someone else is a complicated mess of good memories of a bad person.
Final Fantasy VIII, Part 9: Laguna Loire, Redux
- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Welcome back to Final Fantasy VIII 101, class. Today's lesson:
The Playthrough-Ending Hell Dungeon
We are now officially on Part 9 of this Let's Play. In FFVII, Part 9 corresponded to the end of the Nibelheim flashback - what we might deem the end of "Act 1" of the game (which has little relation to the Disc split). VIII does not give us nearly as convenient a narrative dividing line at this stage, but that might be due to different narrative pacing just as it might instead be due to different update pacing on my part; I'm just pointing it out as a comparison point.
Last time, we failed to attack the Timber TV Station, Seifer tried abducting President Deling and was captured by the enemy Sorceress while Deling escaped, and now everything's a mess and we have to leave Timber.
After briefly backing up to pick up a naughty magazine, because apparently this is important for later somehow. I can't emphasize enough how much randomly missable content that allegedly pays off later there is in this game. This is what we call 'foreshadowing.'
We find Zone at the train station, in disguise as an old man. This is the last train out of Timber before everything shuts down, and there are no tickets left. ("Super-Duper-Mega-Bummer!" Selphie exclaims; this is an escalation from a previous line where she said "Mega-Bummer!" that I didn't realize might be a running gag.) Thankfully, Zone snatched the very last tickets, one for Rinoa, one for him, and three for the SeeDs with her.
…which leaves Quistis, whom Zone hadn't anticipated being around, in the lurch. After a brief moment's consideration, Zone decides to give his ticket to Quistis - he's a local with a talent for disguise, she's a foreigner who stands out like a sore thumb and was just on live TV taking part in an assault on the President, she needs it more than he does. I appreciate the game actually acknowledging that Quistis wasn't planned to be around and that it's an actual choice on Zone's part to give something up for the sake of an ally he doesn't know well. Quistis tries to refuse the gift for his sake, at which point he has, or probably fakes, one of his stress-induced stomach aches so he definitely can't come with them, go right on ahead. It's a sweet interaction.
Rinoa: "Zone… We're gonna see each other again, ok? No matter what, we have to survive. We have to liberate Timber together, remember?"
Zone: "I know, I know. I'll go hide in a bathroom or something.
Zone: "Ouch… Take care of Rinoa, will you? I'll kill you if anything happens to her."
Here's to hoping Zone and Watts don't share the fate of Biggs, Wedge and Jessie from the previous game.
We get onto the train without issue, which gives everyone a moment to breathe.
Squall has a rare moment of overt empathy and tries to tell Rinoa that they'll all be fine, however, he is drowned out by Selphie yelling and gesticulating to get into the passenger compartment and he has to personally go and open it for her. Rinoa asks if he was trying to say something, and once again we have the option to try again or to tell her to forget it.
These dialogue options are weird, honestly. In VII, Cloud's dialogue choice were mostly not directly impactful on his characterization unless they directly built into the dating meter, which was kind of its own thing, but I somehow doubt that FF8 has an alternate ending depending on how Squall talks to Rinoa, yet the game gives us a lot of these options where he can try to talk to her or just deflect and withdraw, and I'm not sure if they're meant to build up to anything.
Quistis tells Rinoa she'll have to thank Zone for helping her out, Rinoa tells her he's into naughty magazines, and Quistis laughs and says she'll remember it. I'm guessing this is hinting that this Girl Next Door magazine we picked up will have to be given to Zone later for a reward of some kind.
Soon enough, the train drops us at East Academy station, which stands in the middle of fucking nowhere. You can't see it on this picture, but Galbadia Garden is actually behind that narrow mountain pass with the forest in-between.
So of course we immediately turn around to explore the small chunk of the world map that just opened to us. Why follow the rails when we can go out and get a bit wild?
I can't be sure of it, but I think like the overworld map of VIII is much bigger than VII. It'll only be apparent once/if we get an airship and can travel freely, I'm guessing, but even just now, the fenced-off area we currently have access to feels like it has way more range and depth of geography than the previous map.
Anyway, if we turn around, explore a bit, we can find, what's this…
…look familiar?
That's right. We found Dollet. Just a little ways off the path, completely missable.
The place is visibly doing much better than last time we were here - the Galbadian troops have left, the locals have returned to living their lives, we can access most screens we found last time plus a couple of new ones.
It didn't really strike me last time when it was deserted and overrun by soldiers, but Dollet is clearly angling for the vibe of a European, Mediterranean seaside town, a place in Southern France or Italy, with bistro-styled bars, mosaic-tiled plazas and fountains, old fortifications and so on.
Dollet is kind of one of these places there's more and more of where I have to question my approaching to LP writing because nothing plot critical happens here, it's pure vibes, literally just building ambiance from the world; on the one hand ambiance is incredibly important, on the other hand I don't want to find myself just paraphrasing or transcribing a dozen atmospheric conversations and turning this into busywork, you know?
So we'll gloss over it fairly quickly and just hit a couple of landmarks. The most plot-relevant conversation we can listen to is that between the old man and the old woman standing by the fountain in the picture above:
Old Woman: "Hey, old man, would Galbadia try to attack us again?"
Old Man: "Maybe… Controlling the communication tower won't satisfy them. Can't believe Dollet soldiers became puppets to the Galbadian soldiers."
Old Woman: "So, what would happen if they attacked us again?"
Old Man: "Dollet soldiers are hopeless. We'd probably hire SeeDs again, like last time."
Old Woman: "Mister, I heard SeeD charges a ridiculous amount of money."
Old Man: "At least they're better than those useless Dollet soldiers over there. Isn't that right, grandma?"
Old Man: "Back when I was in the military, things were still decent. Hiring SeeDs will raise our taxes again… Better get me a young bride and start havin' children."
Okay, gross final comment aside, this is kind of fascinating. It looks like there's a real breakdown of popular trust in the Dollet army in tune with their inability to face Galbadian forces; SeeDs' dominance as the world's foremost mercenary force capable of opposing Galbadia is interesting in that context, suggesting that it's probably the same everywhere - we've seen how helpless the Timber militia felt; Galbadian's military edge has everyone feeling utterly helpless, and allowing SeeD to name their price and gouge people. They're not beating the sinister allegations.
Anyway, covering the rest very quickly:
And that's Dollet. There's definitely a huge amount of care and love put into revisiting this town and finding out what life is like there when it's not at war.
Of note, because the fact that we just passed through a town with stores reminded me of it: We are now at about… 10 hours as of this save, 11 by the end of my last play session, Squall is around lv 15 right now.
We still can't upgrade our weapons. We haven't found the materials for it. I haven't looked up what they are, because I wanted to see if I would 'organically' end up in the same situation as when I was a kid and I basically ended up never upgrading my weapon to the end of the game, and so far it's looking like, yeah. It's not happening. Our damage is steadily dropping off compared to enemy HP and only being propped up by characters having Strength junctioned to 100 attack spells, and there's not an upgrade in sight.
We'll see if it stays that way for long;
But now, it's time to rent a car and head for Galbadia Garden!
Intercontinental bridge just like in FFV, so cool.
Driving around a car in the middle of the Galbadia desert is just plain good fun. There isn't much to do there, beyond run into Galbadian barricades that prevent us from venturing out of the region, but just having a car and going 'vroom vroom' satisfied a childish part of me. Mostly though, this is a way to avoid random encounters while heading back to the forest crossing to Galbadia Garden.
That forest looks… Kind of familiar, doesn't it? Let me just…
…okay, yeah; the two backgrounds aren't literally identical, but it's clear that it's because some flowers and vegetation have grown in within the ferns of the original, and you can tell that where the Laguna screen has a fire burning in the trunk of that broken tree, the modern screenshot has that exact same tree, still broken, now dead and overgrown with moss. It's the same place, but with some years added on. That's a really neat bit of artistry.
Quistis: "We're not too far from Galbadia now!"
Selphie: "Heeey, I was just thinking… There might be some bad news from the Galbadian government. What if we get caught and then get broadcast to the whole world?"
Zell: (Really excitedly) "Whatever happens, happens! Now come on! Let's just keep going!" (Then he deflates.) "I, I'm worried about Balamb Garden. If anything happens to Garden, it's all my fault. I'm the one who said we were from Garden…" (He approaches Squall looking for support.) "You think the president will target Garden?"
Squall: (Looking away) "Maybe."
Zell: (Slumping in sadness) "...Figures… B-B-But, we have a whole bunch of SeeDs at Balamb Garden! They wouldn't lose to the Galbadian army, would they?"
Squall: "Depends how strong the army is."
Zell: "I know, but…"
Rinoa: "Oh, you're just a great leader, aren't you…" (She walks over to Squall, doing her 'hands-on-knees' stock pose.) "Do you actually have fun acting so callous towards your comrades?"
Squall, mentally: "(...Not again.)"
Rinoa: "Zell wants your support."
Squall, mentally: "(I knew it was gonna be something like that…)
Rinoa: "Any kind of encouragement will make…"
Squall, mentally: "(That's just to ease your mind. Am I the only one who thinks that? No, I'm sure Seifer…)"
Rinoa: "Don't you ever worry about or even think about the well-being of your comrades?"
Squall, mentally: "(I don't believe in relying on others.)"
Rinoa: "Don't you understand!?"
Squall, mentally: "(...Whatever.)"
Rinoa: "Are you listening, Squall?"
Oh, how the turns table.
I mean, she's right. Obviously she's hoping to get back at Squall for his earlier comments, sees her chance and goes in for the stab, but the opening she spots is completely real: Squall is kind of a terrible leader. He ostensibly doesn't care about his teammates, doesn't give a shit about morale, actively undermines their hopes for a positive resolution by being maximally pessimist, shows no interest in or reaction to their visible distress… And while Rinoa's reaction to being justifiably called out on her lackadaisical approach to a life-or-death struggle was to run off in tears, Squall's reaction is to just stand there not saying anything or reacting in any way while mentally retorting so he's having a one-sided conversation in his head that he's winning while in the real world Rinoa is dressing him down in front of his subordinate unchallenged.
It's bad on all levels. It's bad in a different way than Rinoa's issues were, but they're basically both correct about the traits they call out in one another.
But before things can come to a head and either Squall finally comes up with a retort or one of the other steps in, something happens.
The same fatigue as before comes over Squall, Selphie, and Quistis, and all three collapse.
…
I was expecting the next Laguna sequence about as soon as I realized we were in the same forest as in his previous flashback.
But I was expecting one of two things: Either everyone is hit and succumbs to the magical sleep before watching another of Laguna's scenes unfold, or the same characters as before do - Squall, Selphie, and Zell.
Instead, Zell has been replaced by Quistis, and both him and Rinoa get to stay perfectly awake and watch the other three as they slumber. Which means that this effect, 1) isn't area-targeted (it's not "everyone in this area falls asleep"), and 2) isn't keyed to specific characters aside from maybe Squall (Selphie isn't "paired with" Ward and Zell isn't "paired with" Kiros, they can be swapped out). There's no field of plausible deniability, even if our characters hadn't realized the dreams must be magical the first time around, the fact that they all got hit at once while Rinoa and Zell didn't would make it very obvious that is magical and targeted, yet simultaneously not so targeted as to always hit the same people.
That's… weird. Really, really weird.
Laguna, Kiros and Ward are standing at the top of a hill, overlooking what looks to be a landscape of industrial ruins; it's not called out explicitly, but checking the Codex afterwards will reveal that it has updated with information on Centra, the destroyed kingdom, so this is most likely where are three soldiers are.
And they're lost again. Because Laguna got the wrong map.
And not a little lost; "no Galbadian troops in sight, gotta hoof it all the way across the ruins" lost. Why they are in Centra, where they were supposed to be heading for instead of this, what they're looking for, we don't know yet. One thing will become apparent though: They're not alone here. This is another of Galbadia's conflict, and the ruins are crawling with soldiers from the mysterious nation of Esthar. More on them in a moment.
It looks like whatever industrial mining operation was going on here is still running - at the very least those treadmills still function and carry stone. In fact, Laguna has the same question as me, wondering what the hell this "big pile of rock" is about and theorizing that the whole thing is carving tombstones, of all things.
This may be a kind of joke aimed at the fact that Centra was destroyed yet the whole place is still running so it's making tombstones for the Centra dead, but I think it's just Laguna being a goofball with wild-ass guesses.
There's a brief gag where Laguna is animated with a special run cycle with his head down until Kiros and Ward ask him what the fuck he's doing and he explains he's 'being cautious'; he's basically trying to come up with a way to run while dodging bullets, I think? It'd be a potentially funny skit but it's underplayed and I only got the joke on going through it again through screenshots. While everyone is bickering, though, THE ESTHAR NATION ATTACKS
…are those Kamen Rider cosplayers?
I mean, I can't be certain, but they definitely have something like a sentai-esque aesthetic.
I unironically love it when there's a place that signaled as different from the rest of the setting by having a quirky genre aesthetic baked in at the troop level. I'm not talking 'country of hats' stuff where everyone is a different national stereotype; I'm talking about a world that mostly has a codified aesthetic (in this case, "90s casualwear and industry with an Art Déco/Art Nouveau aesthetic") and then there is one nation who inexplicably has super sentai cyborgs as their basic unit model.
The basic Esthar Soldier is very weak; at lv 14, they have 280 HP, meaning they die in about three attacks. A single summon cast can kill a group of three, but under three opponents it's not efficient and it's better to just hit them with basic attacks or spells (1 attack + 1 Fire/Thunder/Blizzard will kill them slightly quicker than three attacks but it's all about the same).
This will be relevant soon.
After clearing two fights with Esthar Soldiers (comedy beat again: Laguna sees a single soldier rush them and is like "what's the big deal!" at Kiros and Ward's warnings because he doesn't turn around to see the three soldiers flanking them the other way), our group declares that there is "no end to them" and that we need to find a way out through the mining complex - dungeon time.
You can see that there's a fork in the bridge above; we can go left and right, I pick right, and we end up climbing down a ladder into the depths of the complex.
Laguna complains he's out of shape and needs to stretch before he 'exercises,' Kiros and Ward tell him that this last battle doesn't count as exercise.
…
I remember this place.
After so many years. With no recollection of the upcoming sequence in Galbadia Garden. Not remembering anything about Laguna's pianist. Retaining no memories whatsoever of the Timber TV Station raid. After all these sequences I experienced as if they were brand new, with no memory of them.
I remember that place. I remember individual fucking screens of this place.
This Hell.
In my memory, this is "the Ice Cave." And you can see why I'd think that; the whole place is carved through blue-green material that's kind of round-shaped and which is reflective in a way that you might mistake for transparency. It's not, though; that was a misread on my younger self's part. As I go through it now, I realize that it's rock. There's a term for what kind of rock, the kind that gives those particular formations with these very smooth surfaces and bright colors, but I can't figure it out off the top of my head. This isn't ice, it's just rock.
The moment we approach, we stumble upon a strange interaction; Laguna sees something on the ground and can pick it up. If he does, this turns out to be an "Old Key"; however, the moment he stores it, he feels a breeze on his butt and realizes that there is a hole in his trousers' back pocket and the Old Key fell and he can no longer find it. There is no way to find the key again by interacting with the environment, it's gone.
This is when it hits me. When I realized what the game is doing. We started this sequence when Squall and the others reached the Timber Forest where we saw the first Laguna dream. Therefore, it falls to reason that we will also visit this mining site with Squall later in the game.
This Old Key interaction is set-up. By finding and losing the Old Key in the past, Laguna triggers an event flag that means Squall will, in the future, have a chance to access something or other when he himself goes through the same mining site.
Such interactions are about to constitute the entirety of this dungeon.
…
I have brought up a couple of times already FF8's approach to town design, using limited, highly detailed backdrops to maximize the amount of visual impact of any given town screen, and creating the impression of a much larger city by stringing together a series of these screens that feels like us walking through a real city. This is a positive development and a fantastic innovation I am in favor of.
The Centra Mining Site uses the same approach for a dungeon, and that's where it all goes wrong. This dungeon is made up of, as far as I can tell, 14 separate screens, each of them connecting to at least two of the other other screens, forming a maze of screens without clear exit and without a clear map.
This is a screen from FF7's North Cave. It is, obviously, larger than you can see in the game, which is pretty low res and only zoomed in on any given chunk at a time, but Cloud starts at the top of this screen, navigates his way through a clear map of the environment to the bottom of the screen, where he exits onto the next, similarly large and navigable screen. There's a clear direction, a clear exit, and you have no reason to ever go back unless you're actively trying to backtrack and leave the dungeon, as I did myself a couple of times.
Instead, the Centra Mining Site is a constant back-and-forth of backtracking and walking up and down ladders and obtuse puzzles and it's impossible for me to keep a clear mental map of it where I know exactly where each screen connects to each one, because half of it looks like this:
These are four different screens, in case you were wondering.
…
Now, it's possible to be in and out of the Centra Mining Site in a jiffy. Minimize time spent there and resulting frustration. In fact, it's entirely possible to do so by accident. You see, one one of the screens has a save point; if you head north of that save point, at random, instead of any other direction you could take, because there is no sign that this direction is special, you will accidentally trigger the ending of the dungeon.
Laguna, Kiros and Ward find a cliff and are cornered by Esthar Soldiers; we fight them, but more come, a seemingly endless wave which I assume runs out eventually but I gave up at around the fourth or fifth wave when I realized that I was fighting the final waves of the dungeon and would be locked out of exploring it at all if I committed to this course and had to close and to reload.
You can take the wrong turn in a corridor, accidentally trigger a wave defense sequence, then realize you just locked yourself out of the dungeon, and have to turn off the game and reload at the save point so you have a chance to get the dungeon's potential rewards.
Which is a mistake.
Because there are no rewards at this point in time.
That's the next trick the Centra Mines pull on you: There are no rewards available to Laguna's team. Everything, everything (aside from a couple of Draw points) is set up for Squall's later visit.
But not, like, legible set-up. No, no that would be too easy.
It's all inane puzzle bullshit.
I've said before that there are dungeons and puzzles that I simply don't respect. Well, I tried doing it blind. I figured out the gimmick myself from the Old Key, then I ran into a boulder with fuses you can detonate and decided to cautiously explore the whole cave so I could make an inform decision on how to trigger them, and then I wandered into the wrong screen and got locked into the ending sequence.
That's the point at which I realized this dungeon was pulling my leg. Not just because of its bullshit navigation and arbitrary locks, no, not just that. Because if you're playing it blind, there is no feedback. No real way to know that you did it right, or indeed that there was anything to do right. Your rewards, if you did things correctly, will be hours from now.
That's the point I decided that despite attempting to play VIII as blind as possible, this dungeon I did not respect. And I went and looked it up so I could do each puzzle in this dungeon perfectly.
It turns out? It still fucking sucks.
It's pretty, at least.
Let me show you a sample puzzle from this dungeon.
This area has three metal hatches. The levers on the hatches are loose.
Laguna sees this, and have the bright idea to pry out the levers so that the hatches will swing the moment they face a slight push. His idea is that the next Esthar Soldier to rush after them through this corridor will trip the hatch and fall to their death. This is clever! It has the unfortunate side effect that we won't be able to pass through this area again, but that's a small price to pay.
Then, once we have done so with the middle hatch (which is the one we need to trigger first or the others won't have a prompt), we need to trigger the other hatches, which means we have to go all the way around the dungeon to find the one on the other side of the one we just disabled. I don't know if it's necessary or if I missed the input at first, but in my case, I had to do the full run around twice: Middle hatch, all the way around to get to the left hatch, then all the way back around for the right hatch. Now, both times you try to manipulate the left and right hatch, Laguna, Kiros and Ward have a bit of dialogue about how that's a stupid thing to do, and Laguna gives up on tweaking the hatch, so it seems like it was entirely pointless, except not, guides agree that this is in fact necessary for later rewards.
And all the while, random encounters. Except. In a weird game like FVIII that is so easy to break, random encounters could be one of two things: a way to increase the difficulty through leveling up to keep things challenging, or an opportunity to gain AP and Magic to junction to break things even harder.
It's neither of those things. 90% of encounters in the Centra Mining Site are just this guy:
And I do mean 'guy,' singular. As in just one of them, every time.
This encounter is over in three physical attacks, or one physical attack and one spell, meaning the whole thing takes, like, probably a minute if we count the splash screen transition and victory fanfare in and out of each fight, and the result is a paltry sum of XP (so it won't move the needle on difficulty either way) and 1 AP. One. Fucking. AP. So no meaningful progress is made on any GF ability. It's all a waste of time.
Except of course it will turn out by the end of this session that we did make meaningful progress on GF Abilities simply through sheer density and number of 1 AP encounters due to BACKTRACKING MULTIPLE TIMES AND GETTING CONSTANTLY LOST.
There are other encounters, of course. There's "this guy, but two of them," "this guy, but three of them," "this guy, but the upgraded cyborg version with a palette swap," and two different and cool robots (we will encounter each robot exactly once in our entire time there).
This one is static for most of the fight and when it reaches low HP, goes absolutely apeshit with its limbs while firing lasers at the party.
Eventually, we've checked everything, go back to the explosive fuses, trigger them, which causes two boulders to roll across the dungeon, chasing some poor Esthar Soldiers and presumably crushing them to death off-screen. Perhaps more importantly, the rumble and quake of the boulders rolling across the tunnels shakes those hatches from earlier loose and opens them.
And this is it. We have done everything that was in this dungeon, and gained absolutely nothing. (Okay, technically we Drew a few spells from the robot encounters and environmental draw points.)
…
This took a breezy two hours. That's fine. That's nothing. Two hours for a small dungeon at the start of the game is nothing (my entire playtime for FF7 is 46 hours btw).
Look. Listen. Here's the thing. I've said before that this is one of the few bits of the game I fully remember with clarity.
I remembered the Dollet attack and Black Widow fight because it was sick. I remembered the Train Heist and Gerogero confrontation because it was really cool and then really creepy. Both of those are clear, positive memories in my mind, while the Timber TV Station attack which I have criticized at length did not bother me enough to warrant storing in my long-term memory.
This is the only part of FF8 I've played that I remembered before getting to it that I only had a vague feeling of "urgh, don't wanna" about.
I played FF8 once, over twenty years ago as a child, up to a soon coming beat where my disc broke. I then played FF8 again, a decade ago, when it was first ported on Steam. I didn't really use guides the way I do now, I wasn't referencing these puzzles or trying to complete the dungeon optimally, I just went at it as it was presented to me, "naively" so to speak.
What I am realizing now is that this is the part that killed my last playthrough in 2013. This is the part I hit while exploring that game from my childhood I had never gotten to finished, and where I gave up on it and never played it again.
This bland series of twisting blue-green stone corridors (and, to be fair, a few genuinely cool-looking pieces of industrial architecture) filled with encounters with a weak, unthreatening monster, killed my last playthrough.
And while playing it last night, I thought to myself, "you know, I can kinda see why."
Maybe, if this dungeon had any plot at all, instead of us being randomly transported into it while in the middle of a genuinely interesting story moment in the present day, with no context for what it is, who our opponent was beyond 'Esther Soldiers,' and no idea why we're even here except 'Laguna got lost', I could have tolerated it.
But it was all of that, and a bad dungeon to boot.
I didn't want to be there. I wanted to reach Galbadia Garden. What a waste of time.
But it's over now. And as it turns out, doing all these oblique puzzles seems to have reduced the enemy count in the final encounter; instead of wave after wave of enemies, we only face a single wave once cornered at the cliff.
Upon their defeat, the cyborg soldiers use Soul Crush, a special attack which deals enormous damage, setting Ward to 1 HP and… probably doing the same to Kiros if he wasn't in HP summon mode, actually.
This is not just a gameplay thing; this final super-attack aimed at Ward and Kiros specifically and putting them at death's door is actually a justification for why, once the fight is over and even if we did the puzzles and skipped the multiple waves of enemy doing attrition damage on the group, once the fight is over, Kiros and Ward are both critically injured.
All three friends crawl to the edge of the cliff, but Laguna is the only one who actually has the strength to even talk properly.
There's an… Actually pretty touching scene in which Laguna is trying to keep up their traditional friendly banter and teasing while Kiros and Ward both feel like they're dying; Ward, whose throat was injured, barely manages to get out a halting, syllable by syllable, "It was fun, you guys." Laguna calls the ships below "boats" and Kiros corrects him that they are 'vessels', but his own voice is fading. It's honestly kind of moving.
Then Laguna grabs them both and bodily tosses them off the cliff.
Listen. If we assume that this setting operates on action movie rules where water is always a soft cushion for a fall, then this is hilarious. If we don't, Laguna just murdered both his friends. But I think this is meant to be a deliberate comedy twist on a fakeout death scene. If not, and we find out later that Ward and Kiros died, I'll be pretty annoyed at the game's poor signaling. But right now, taking it as it is given, it is very funny.
Especially because Laguna, in his typical hypocritical fashion, immediately gets cold feet himself on 'jumping off the cliff,' says that his friends "Sure have guts" (They didn't ask to jump, he threw them off) then tries to slowly climb down the cliff face, only for his foot to slip, and he falls into the water along with the others.
Fade back to the Timber Forest, where Squall, Quistis and Selphie are waking up.
Zell: "Was it Laguna again…?"
Selphie: "Sir Laguna's in BIG TROUBLE! I hope he'll be ok…!!!"
Quistis: "Doesn't seem like the first time for you all. What is this?"
Squall, mentally: "(If it were just me, I could tell the others it was only a crazy dream…)"
Squall: "We'll just be wasting our time trying to figure it out. Let's keep going."
Zell: "Yeah, let's go! I think we're almost there."
(Zell, Quistis and Selphie all start walking off into the forest; Rinoa stays behind and approaches Squall.)
Rinoa: "Umm… Squall… I think I may have said too much. I'm sorry."
Squall, mentally: "(Forget about it.)"
Well. It's nice that after they both tore into each other, they both apologized afterwards, first Squall back then and then Rinoa now. Maybe there is hope for these two yet.
They still have a lot to work on. I don't mean as a couple, at this point it seems pretty clear Rinoa's main relationship is with Seifer, I mean as a team. But maybe there's hope yet.
And now…
There it is. The place I remember nothing at all, and am very excited to discover: The first of the non-Balamb Gardens.
Last update was awkward, with things kind of creaking at the seams, some good beats and a lot of stuff that made me really question the story's integrity. This was the first point in the game I would genuinely call a 'low point.'
It sucked. But it's over now.
Except for when we have to go through it as Squall again, I guess.
Thank you for reading.
Next Time: Galbadia Garden.
The Playthrough-Ending Hell Dungeon
We are now officially on Part 9 of this Let's Play. In FFVII, Part 9 corresponded to the end of the Nibelheim flashback - what we might deem the end of "Act 1" of the game (which has little relation to the Disc split). VIII does not give us nearly as convenient a narrative dividing line at this stage, but that might be due to different narrative pacing just as it might instead be due to different update pacing on my part; I'm just pointing it out as a comparison point.
Last time, we failed to attack the Timber TV Station, Seifer tried abducting President Deling and was captured by the enemy Sorceress while Deling escaped, and now everything's a mess and we have to leave Timber.
After briefly backing up to pick up a naughty magazine, because apparently this is important for later somehow. I can't emphasize enough how much randomly missable content that allegedly pays off later there is in this game. This is what we call 'foreshadowing.'
We find Zone at the train station, in disguise as an old man. This is the last train out of Timber before everything shuts down, and there are no tickets left. ("Super-Duper-Mega-Bummer!" Selphie exclaims; this is an escalation from a previous line where she said "Mega-Bummer!" that I didn't realize might be a running gag.) Thankfully, Zone snatched the very last tickets, one for Rinoa, one for him, and three for the SeeDs with her.
…which leaves Quistis, whom Zone hadn't anticipated being around, in the lurch. After a brief moment's consideration, Zone decides to give his ticket to Quistis - he's a local with a talent for disguise, she's a foreigner who stands out like a sore thumb and was just on live TV taking part in an assault on the President, she needs it more than he does. I appreciate the game actually acknowledging that Quistis wasn't planned to be around and that it's an actual choice on Zone's part to give something up for the sake of an ally he doesn't know well. Quistis tries to refuse the gift for his sake, at which point he has, or probably fakes, one of his stress-induced stomach aches so he definitely can't come with them, go right on ahead. It's a sweet interaction.
Rinoa: "Zone… We're gonna see each other again, ok? No matter what, we have to survive. We have to liberate Timber together, remember?"
Zone: "I know, I know. I'll go hide in a bathroom or something.
Zone: "Ouch… Take care of Rinoa, will you? I'll kill you if anything happens to her."
Here's to hoping Zone and Watts don't share the fate of Biggs, Wedge and Jessie from the previous game.
We get onto the train without issue, which gives everyone a moment to breathe.
Squall has a rare moment of overt empathy and tries to tell Rinoa that they'll all be fine, however, he is drowned out by Selphie yelling and gesticulating to get into the passenger compartment and he has to personally go and open it for her. Rinoa asks if he was trying to say something, and once again we have the option to try again or to tell her to forget it.
These dialogue options are weird, honestly. In VII, Cloud's dialogue choice were mostly not directly impactful on his characterization unless they directly built into the dating meter, which was kind of its own thing, but I somehow doubt that FF8 has an alternate ending depending on how Squall talks to Rinoa, yet the game gives us a lot of these options where he can try to talk to her or just deflect and withdraw, and I'm not sure if they're meant to build up to anything.
Quistis tells Rinoa she'll have to thank Zone for helping her out, Rinoa tells her he's into naughty magazines, and Quistis laughs and says she'll remember it. I'm guessing this is hinting that this Girl Next Door magazine we picked up will have to be given to Zone later for a reward of some kind.
Soon enough, the train drops us at East Academy station, which stands in the middle of fucking nowhere. You can't see it on this picture, but Galbadia Garden is actually behind that narrow mountain pass with the forest in-between.
So of course we immediately turn around to explore the small chunk of the world map that just opened to us. Why follow the rails when we can go out and get a bit wild?
I can't be sure of it, but I think like the overworld map of VIII is much bigger than VII. It'll only be apparent once/if we get an airship and can travel freely, I'm guessing, but even just now, the fenced-off area we currently have access to feels like it has way more range and depth of geography than the previous map.
Anyway, if we turn around, explore a bit, we can find, what's this…
…look familiar?
That's right. We found Dollet. Just a little ways off the path, completely missable.
The place is visibly doing much better than last time we were here - the Galbadian troops have left, the locals have returned to living their lives, we can access most screens we found last time plus a couple of new ones.
It didn't really strike me last time when it was deserted and overrun by soldiers, but Dollet is clearly angling for the vibe of a European, Mediterranean seaside town, a place in Southern France or Italy, with bistro-styled bars, mosaic-tiled plazas and fountains, old fortifications and so on.
Dollet is kind of one of these places there's more and more of where I have to question my approaching to LP writing because nothing plot critical happens here, it's pure vibes, literally just building ambiance from the world; on the one hand ambiance is incredibly important, on the other hand I don't want to find myself just paraphrasing or transcribing a dozen atmospheric conversations and turning this into busywork, you know?
So we'll gloss over it fairly quickly and just hit a couple of landmarks. The most plot-relevant conversation we can listen to is that between the old man and the old woman standing by the fountain in the picture above:
Old Woman: "Hey, old man, would Galbadia try to attack us again?"
Old Man: "Maybe… Controlling the communication tower won't satisfy them. Can't believe Dollet soldiers became puppets to the Galbadian soldiers."
Old Woman: "So, what would happen if they attacked us again?"
Old Man: "Dollet soldiers are hopeless. We'd probably hire SeeDs again, like last time."
Old Woman: "Mister, I heard SeeD charges a ridiculous amount of money."
Old Man: "At least they're better than those useless Dollet soldiers over there. Isn't that right, grandma?"
Old Man: "Back when I was in the military, things were still decent. Hiring SeeDs will raise our taxes again… Better get me a young bride and start havin' children."
Okay, gross final comment aside, this is kind of fascinating. It looks like there's a real breakdown of popular trust in the Dollet army in tune with their inability to face Galbadian forces; SeeDs' dominance as the world's foremost mercenary force capable of opposing Galbadia is interesting in that context, suggesting that it's probably the same everywhere - we've seen how helpless the Timber militia felt; Galbadian's military edge has everyone feeling utterly helpless, and allowing SeeD to name their price and gouge people. They're not beating the sinister allegations.
Anyway, covering the rest very quickly:
- A Dollet repairman mentions that he'd like to get his hands on those SeeDs who 'helped' the town, because they're on the hook for over a million gil in damage for the destruction wreaked by the Black Widow mech.
- There's a beat about an old man doing landscape paintings and his grandson ruining them with doodles which actually serves to point to a hidden spot, but the reward for it is just a Potion.
- There's a disabled teenager in a wheelchair and his sister and he talks about how people underestimate him but he's really a passionate scuba-diver and swimmer, which is neat.
- Local bar owner challenges us to a card duel, which is my first time running into the 'Random' rule that forces you to use whatever cards the game picks for you, which makes victory extremely difficult.
- There's a couple scavenging what remains of the mech on the beach.
- There is yet another beat about an older woman flirting with Squall, only… Heavy sigh… This time Squall has the option to rudely ask her if she's really a woman, at which point she deflects and we get a bit of internal monologue from her about how her heart is racing that Squall somehow sensed that she's 'really' a man.
And that's Dollet. There's definitely a huge amount of care and love put into revisiting this town and finding out what life is like there when it's not at war.
Of note, because the fact that we just passed through a town with stores reminded me of it: We are now at about… 10 hours as of this save, 11 by the end of my last play session, Squall is around lv 15 right now.
We still can't upgrade our weapons. We haven't found the materials for it. I haven't looked up what they are, because I wanted to see if I would 'organically' end up in the same situation as when I was a kid and I basically ended up never upgrading my weapon to the end of the game, and so far it's looking like, yeah. It's not happening. Our damage is steadily dropping off compared to enemy HP and only being propped up by characters having Strength junctioned to 100 attack spells, and there's not an upgrade in sight.
We'll see if it stays that way for long;
But now, it's time to rent a car and head for Galbadia Garden!
Intercontinental bridge just like in FFV, so cool.
Driving around a car in the middle of the Galbadia desert is just plain good fun. There isn't much to do there, beyond run into Galbadian barricades that prevent us from venturing out of the region, but just having a car and going 'vroom vroom' satisfied a childish part of me. Mostly though, this is a way to avoid random encounters while heading back to the forest crossing to Galbadia Garden.
That forest looks… Kind of familiar, doesn't it? Let me just…
…okay, yeah; the two backgrounds aren't literally identical, but it's clear that it's because some flowers and vegetation have grown in within the ferns of the original, and you can tell that where the Laguna screen has a fire burning in the trunk of that broken tree, the modern screenshot has that exact same tree, still broken, now dead and overgrown with moss. It's the same place, but with some years added on. That's a really neat bit of artistry.
Quistis: "We're not too far from Galbadia now!"
Selphie: "Heeey, I was just thinking… There might be some bad news from the Galbadian government. What if we get caught and then get broadcast to the whole world?"
Zell: (Really excitedly) "Whatever happens, happens! Now come on! Let's just keep going!" (Then he deflates.) "I, I'm worried about Balamb Garden. If anything happens to Garden, it's all my fault. I'm the one who said we were from Garden…" (He approaches Squall looking for support.) "You think the president will target Garden?"
Squall: (Looking away) "Maybe."
Zell: (Slumping in sadness) "...Figures… B-B-But, we have a whole bunch of SeeDs at Balamb Garden! They wouldn't lose to the Galbadian army, would they?"
Squall: "Depends how strong the army is."
Zell: "I know, but…"
Rinoa: "Oh, you're just a great leader, aren't you…" (She walks over to Squall, doing her 'hands-on-knees' stock pose.) "Do you actually have fun acting so callous towards your comrades?"
Squall, mentally: "(...Not again.)"
Rinoa: "Zell wants your support."
Squall, mentally: "(I knew it was gonna be something like that…)
Rinoa: "Any kind of encouragement will make…"
Squall, mentally: "(That's just to ease your mind. Am I the only one who thinks that? No, I'm sure Seifer…)"
Rinoa: "Don't you ever worry about or even think about the well-being of your comrades?"
Squall, mentally: "(I don't believe in relying on others.)"
Rinoa: "Don't you understand!?"
Squall, mentally: "(...Whatever.)"
Rinoa: "Are you listening, Squall?"
Oh, how the turns table.
I mean, she's right. Obviously she's hoping to get back at Squall for his earlier comments, sees her chance and goes in for the stab, but the opening she spots is completely real: Squall is kind of a terrible leader. He ostensibly doesn't care about his teammates, doesn't give a shit about morale, actively undermines their hopes for a positive resolution by being maximally pessimist, shows no interest in or reaction to their visible distress… And while Rinoa's reaction to being justifiably called out on her lackadaisical approach to a life-or-death struggle was to run off in tears, Squall's reaction is to just stand there not saying anything or reacting in any way while mentally retorting so he's having a one-sided conversation in his head that he's winning while in the real world Rinoa is dressing him down in front of his subordinate unchallenged.
It's bad on all levels. It's bad in a different way than Rinoa's issues were, but they're basically both correct about the traits they call out in one another.
But before things can come to a head and either Squall finally comes up with a retort or one of the other steps in, something happens.
The same fatigue as before comes over Squall, Selphie, and Quistis, and all three collapse.
…
I was expecting the next Laguna sequence about as soon as I realized we were in the same forest as in his previous flashback.
But I was expecting one of two things: Either everyone is hit and succumbs to the magical sleep before watching another of Laguna's scenes unfold, or the same characters as before do - Squall, Selphie, and Zell.
Instead, Zell has been replaced by Quistis, and both him and Rinoa get to stay perfectly awake and watch the other three as they slumber. Which means that this effect, 1) isn't area-targeted (it's not "everyone in this area falls asleep"), and 2) isn't keyed to specific characters aside from maybe Squall (Selphie isn't "paired with" Ward and Zell isn't "paired with" Kiros, they can be swapped out). There's no field of plausible deniability, even if our characters hadn't realized the dreams must be magical the first time around, the fact that they all got hit at once while Rinoa and Zell didn't would make it very obvious that is magical and targeted, yet simultaneously not so targeted as to always hit the same people.
That's… weird. Really, really weird.
Laguna, Kiros and Ward are standing at the top of a hill, overlooking what looks to be a landscape of industrial ruins; it's not called out explicitly, but checking the Codex afterwards will reveal that it has updated with information on Centra, the destroyed kingdom, so this is most likely where are three soldiers are.
And they're lost again. Because Laguna got the wrong map.
And not a little lost; "no Galbadian troops in sight, gotta hoof it all the way across the ruins" lost. Why they are in Centra, where they were supposed to be heading for instead of this, what they're looking for, we don't know yet. One thing will become apparent though: They're not alone here. This is another of Galbadia's conflict, and the ruins are crawling with soldiers from the mysterious nation of Esthar. More on them in a moment.
It looks like whatever industrial mining operation was going on here is still running - at the very least those treadmills still function and carry stone. In fact, Laguna has the same question as me, wondering what the hell this "big pile of rock" is about and theorizing that the whole thing is carving tombstones, of all things.
This may be a kind of joke aimed at the fact that Centra was destroyed yet the whole place is still running so it's making tombstones for the Centra dead, but I think it's just Laguna being a goofball with wild-ass guesses.
There's a brief gag where Laguna is animated with a special run cycle with his head down until Kiros and Ward ask him what the fuck he's doing and he explains he's 'being cautious'; he's basically trying to come up with a way to run while dodging bullets, I think? It'd be a potentially funny skit but it's underplayed and I only got the joke on going through it again through screenshots. While everyone is bickering, though, THE ESTHAR NATION ATTACKS
…are those Kamen Rider cosplayers?
I mean, I can't be certain, but they definitely have something like a sentai-esque aesthetic.
I unironically love it when there's a place that signaled as different from the rest of the setting by having a quirky genre aesthetic baked in at the troop level. I'm not talking 'country of hats' stuff where everyone is a different national stereotype; I'm talking about a world that mostly has a codified aesthetic (in this case, "90s casualwear and industry with an Art Déco/Art Nouveau aesthetic") and then there is one nation who inexplicably has super sentai cyborgs as their basic unit model.
The basic Esthar Soldier is very weak; at lv 14, they have 280 HP, meaning they die in about three attacks. A single summon cast can kill a group of three, but under three opponents it's not efficient and it's better to just hit them with basic attacks or spells (1 attack + 1 Fire/Thunder/Blizzard will kill them slightly quicker than three attacks but it's all about the same).
This will be relevant soon.
After clearing two fights with Esthar Soldiers (comedy beat again: Laguna sees a single soldier rush them and is like "what's the big deal!" at Kiros and Ward's warnings because he doesn't turn around to see the three soldiers flanking them the other way), our group declares that there is "no end to them" and that we need to find a way out through the mining complex - dungeon time.
You can see that there's a fork in the bridge above; we can go left and right, I pick right, and we end up climbing down a ladder into the depths of the complex.
Laguna complains he's out of shape and needs to stretch before he 'exercises,' Kiros and Ward tell him that this last battle doesn't count as exercise.
…
I remember this place.
After so many years. With no recollection of the upcoming sequence in Galbadia Garden. Not remembering anything about Laguna's pianist. Retaining no memories whatsoever of the Timber TV Station raid. After all these sequences I experienced as if they were brand new, with no memory of them.
I remember that place. I remember individual fucking screens of this place.
This Hell.
In my memory, this is "the Ice Cave." And you can see why I'd think that; the whole place is carved through blue-green material that's kind of round-shaped and which is reflective in a way that you might mistake for transparency. It's not, though; that was a misread on my younger self's part. As I go through it now, I realize that it's rock. There's a term for what kind of rock, the kind that gives those particular formations with these very smooth surfaces and bright colors, but I can't figure it out off the top of my head. This isn't ice, it's just rock.
The moment we approach, we stumble upon a strange interaction; Laguna sees something on the ground and can pick it up. If he does, this turns out to be an "Old Key"; however, the moment he stores it, he feels a breeze on his butt and realizes that there is a hole in his trousers' back pocket and the Old Key fell and he can no longer find it. There is no way to find the key again by interacting with the environment, it's gone.
This is when it hits me. When I realized what the game is doing. We started this sequence when Squall and the others reached the Timber Forest where we saw the first Laguna dream. Therefore, it falls to reason that we will also visit this mining site with Squall later in the game.
This Old Key interaction is set-up. By finding and losing the Old Key in the past, Laguna triggers an event flag that means Squall will, in the future, have a chance to access something or other when he himself goes through the same mining site.
Such interactions are about to constitute the entirety of this dungeon.
…
I have brought up a couple of times already FF8's approach to town design, using limited, highly detailed backdrops to maximize the amount of visual impact of any given town screen, and creating the impression of a much larger city by stringing together a series of these screens that feels like us walking through a real city. This is a positive development and a fantastic innovation I am in favor of.
The Centra Mining Site uses the same approach for a dungeon, and that's where it all goes wrong. This dungeon is made up of, as far as I can tell, 14 separate screens, each of them connecting to at least two of the other other screens, forming a maze of screens without clear exit and without a clear map.
Instead, the Centra Mining Site is a constant back-and-forth of backtracking and walking up and down ladders and obtuse puzzles and it's impossible for me to keep a clear mental map of it where I know exactly where each screen connects to each one, because half of it looks like this:
These are four different screens, in case you were wondering.
…
Now, it's possible to be in and out of the Centra Mining Site in a jiffy. Minimize time spent there and resulting frustration. In fact, it's entirely possible to do so by accident. You see, one one of the screens has a save point; if you head north of that save point, at random, instead of any other direction you could take, because there is no sign that this direction is special, you will accidentally trigger the ending of the dungeon.
Laguna, Kiros and Ward find a cliff and are cornered by Esthar Soldiers; we fight them, but more come, a seemingly endless wave which I assume runs out eventually but I gave up at around the fourth or fifth wave when I realized that I was fighting the final waves of the dungeon and would be locked out of exploring it at all if I committed to this course and had to close and to reload.
You can take the wrong turn in a corridor, accidentally trigger a wave defense sequence, then realize you just locked yourself out of the dungeon, and have to turn off the game and reload at the save point so you have a chance to get the dungeon's potential rewards.
Which is a mistake.
Because there are no rewards at this point in time.
That's the next trick the Centra Mines pull on you: There are no rewards available to Laguna's team. Everything, everything (aside from a couple of Draw points) is set up for Squall's later visit.
But not, like, legible set-up. No, no that would be too easy.
It's all inane puzzle bullshit.
I've said before that there are dungeons and puzzles that I simply don't respect. Well, I tried doing it blind. I figured out the gimmick myself from the Old Key, then I ran into a boulder with fuses you can detonate and decided to cautiously explore the whole cave so I could make an inform decision on how to trigger them, and then I wandered into the wrong screen and got locked into the ending sequence.
That's the point at which I realized this dungeon was pulling my leg. Not just because of its bullshit navigation and arbitrary locks, no, not just that. Because if you're playing it blind, there is no feedback. No real way to know that you did it right, or indeed that there was anything to do right. Your rewards, if you did things correctly, will be hours from now.
That's the point I decided that despite attempting to play VIII as blind as possible, this dungeon I did not respect. And I went and looked it up so I could do each puzzle in this dungeon perfectly.
It turns out? It still fucking sucks.
It's pretty, at least.
Let me show you a sample puzzle from this dungeon.
This area has three metal hatches. The levers on the hatches are loose.
Laguna sees this, and have the bright idea to pry out the levers so that the hatches will swing the moment they face a slight push. His idea is that the next Esthar Soldier to rush after them through this corridor will trip the hatch and fall to their death. This is clever! It has the unfortunate side effect that we won't be able to pass through this area again, but that's a small price to pay.
Then, once we have done so with the middle hatch (which is the one we need to trigger first or the others won't have a prompt), we need to trigger the other hatches, which means we have to go all the way around the dungeon to find the one on the other side of the one we just disabled. I don't know if it's necessary or if I missed the input at first, but in my case, I had to do the full run around twice: Middle hatch, all the way around to get to the left hatch, then all the way back around for the right hatch. Now, both times you try to manipulate the left and right hatch, Laguna, Kiros and Ward have a bit of dialogue about how that's a stupid thing to do, and Laguna gives up on tweaking the hatch, so it seems like it was entirely pointless, except not, guides agree that this is in fact necessary for later rewards.
And all the while, random encounters. Except. In a weird game like FVIII that is so easy to break, random encounters could be one of two things: a way to increase the difficulty through leveling up to keep things challenging, or an opportunity to gain AP and Magic to junction to break things even harder.
It's neither of those things. 90% of encounters in the Centra Mining Site are just this guy:
And I do mean 'guy,' singular. As in just one of them, every time.
This encounter is over in three physical attacks, or one physical attack and one spell, meaning the whole thing takes, like, probably a minute if we count the splash screen transition and victory fanfare in and out of each fight, and the result is a paltry sum of XP (so it won't move the needle on difficulty either way) and 1 AP. One. Fucking. AP. So no meaningful progress is made on any GF ability. It's all a waste of time.
Except of course it will turn out by the end of this session that we did make meaningful progress on GF Abilities simply through sheer density and number of 1 AP encounters due to BACKTRACKING MULTIPLE TIMES AND GETTING CONSTANTLY LOST.
There are other encounters, of course. There's "this guy, but two of them," "this guy, but three of them," "this guy, but the upgraded cyborg version with a palette swap," and two different and cool robots (we will encounter each robot exactly once in our entire time there).
This one is static for most of the fight and when it reaches low HP, goes absolutely apeshit with its limbs while firing lasers at the party.
Eventually, we've checked everything, go back to the explosive fuses, trigger them, which causes two boulders to roll across the dungeon, chasing some poor Esthar Soldiers and presumably crushing them to death off-screen. Perhaps more importantly, the rumble and quake of the boulders rolling across the tunnels shakes those hatches from earlier loose and opens them.
And this is it. We have done everything that was in this dungeon, and gained absolutely nothing. (Okay, technically we Drew a few spells from the robot encounters and environmental draw points.)
…
This took a breezy two hours. That's fine. That's nothing. Two hours for a small dungeon at the start of the game is nothing (my entire playtime for FF7 is 46 hours btw).
Look. Listen. Here's the thing. I've said before that this is one of the few bits of the game I fully remember with clarity.
I remembered the Dollet attack and Black Widow fight because it was sick. I remembered the Train Heist and Gerogero confrontation because it was really cool and then really creepy. Both of those are clear, positive memories in my mind, while the Timber TV Station attack which I have criticized at length did not bother me enough to warrant storing in my long-term memory.
This is the only part of FF8 I've played that I remembered before getting to it that I only had a vague feeling of "urgh, don't wanna" about.
I played FF8 once, over twenty years ago as a child, up to a soon coming beat where my disc broke. I then played FF8 again, a decade ago, when it was first ported on Steam. I didn't really use guides the way I do now, I wasn't referencing these puzzles or trying to complete the dungeon optimally, I just went at it as it was presented to me, "naively" so to speak.
What I am realizing now is that this is the part that killed my last playthrough in 2013. This is the part I hit while exploring that game from my childhood I had never gotten to finished, and where I gave up on it and never played it again.
This bland series of twisting blue-green stone corridors (and, to be fair, a few genuinely cool-looking pieces of industrial architecture) filled with encounters with a weak, unthreatening monster, killed my last playthrough.
And while playing it last night, I thought to myself, "you know, I can kinda see why."
Maybe, if this dungeon had any plot at all, instead of us being randomly transported into it while in the middle of a genuinely interesting story moment in the present day, with no context for what it is, who our opponent was beyond 'Esther Soldiers,' and no idea why we're even here except 'Laguna got lost', I could have tolerated it.
But it was all of that, and a bad dungeon to boot.
I didn't want to be there. I wanted to reach Galbadia Garden. What a waste of time.
But it's over now. And as it turns out, doing all these oblique puzzles seems to have reduced the enemy count in the final encounter; instead of wave after wave of enemies, we only face a single wave once cornered at the cliff.
Upon their defeat, the cyborg soldiers use Soul Crush, a special attack which deals enormous damage, setting Ward to 1 HP and… probably doing the same to Kiros if he wasn't in HP summon mode, actually.
This is not just a gameplay thing; this final super-attack aimed at Ward and Kiros specifically and putting them at death's door is actually a justification for why, once the fight is over and even if we did the puzzles and skipped the multiple waves of enemy doing attrition damage on the group, once the fight is over, Kiros and Ward are both critically injured.
All three friends crawl to the edge of the cliff, but Laguna is the only one who actually has the strength to even talk properly.
There's an… Actually pretty touching scene in which Laguna is trying to keep up their traditional friendly banter and teasing while Kiros and Ward both feel like they're dying; Ward, whose throat was injured, barely manages to get out a halting, syllable by syllable, "It was fun, you guys." Laguna calls the ships below "boats" and Kiros corrects him that they are 'vessels', but his own voice is fading. It's honestly kind of moving.
Then Laguna grabs them both and bodily tosses them off the cliff.
Listen. If we assume that this setting operates on action movie rules where water is always a soft cushion for a fall, then this is hilarious. If we don't, Laguna just murdered both his friends. But I think this is meant to be a deliberate comedy twist on a fakeout death scene. If not, and we find out later that Ward and Kiros died, I'll be pretty annoyed at the game's poor signaling. But right now, taking it as it is given, it is very funny.
Especially because Laguna, in his typical hypocritical fashion, immediately gets cold feet himself on 'jumping off the cliff,' says that his friends "Sure have guts" (They didn't ask to jump, he threw them off) then tries to slowly climb down the cliff face, only for his foot to slip, and he falls into the water along with the others.
Fade back to the Timber Forest, where Squall, Quistis and Selphie are waking up.
Zell: "Was it Laguna again…?"
Selphie: "Sir Laguna's in BIG TROUBLE! I hope he'll be ok…!!!"
Quistis: "Doesn't seem like the first time for you all. What is this?"
Squall, mentally: "(If it were just me, I could tell the others it was only a crazy dream…)"
Squall: "We'll just be wasting our time trying to figure it out. Let's keep going."
Zell: "Yeah, let's go! I think we're almost there."
(Zell, Quistis and Selphie all start walking off into the forest; Rinoa stays behind and approaches Squall.)
Rinoa: "Umm… Squall… I think I may have said too much. I'm sorry."
Squall, mentally: "(Forget about it.)"
Well. It's nice that after they both tore into each other, they both apologized afterwards, first Squall back then and then Rinoa now. Maybe there is hope for these two yet.
They still have a lot to work on. I don't mean as a couple, at this point it seems pretty clear Rinoa's main relationship is with Seifer, I mean as a team. But maybe there's hope yet.
And now…
There it is. The place I remember nothing at all, and am very excited to discover: The first of the non-Balamb Gardens.
Last update was awkward, with things kind of creaking at the seams, some good beats and a lot of stuff that made me really question the story's integrity. This was the first point in the game I would genuinely call a 'low point.'
It sucked. But it's over now.
Except for when we have to go through it as Squall again, I guess.
Thank you for reading.
Next Time: Galbadia Garden.
Centra Mining Site is a best hits of terrible JRPG dungeon design of the era.
Makes me want to chew my controller. So long. So boring. So much xp I didn't even want.
Makes me want to chew my controller. So long. So boring. So much xp I didn't even want.
E.I.G.
Robo-Bird
- Pronouns
- It/They
I suddenly feel like I have excellent timing for catching up, because this moment is Final Fantasy VIII for me.
This hell puzzle is my main memory of the game, and strangely enough I freaking love it.
Again, as a teen we had a guide for this place. We had the spoilers on what to do, and I am fairly sure that it is a place we were stuck for a while.
... actually I cannot recall if the guy actually playing the game was having a hard time or not, but this is seared into my memory as the moment of FFVIII.
It is the greatest example of why I am considering "do I really need to do all the minor stuff?" along with my thoughts on trying a "break the game" attempt. Because this is the easy one for me, because I know from the burn marks on my soul that it will come up and I will need a guide again to pull it off properly.
I will not argue that it is a good thing. The puzzle here is obtuse as hell, and unfortunately one where the logic on why it matters later is most easily seen. Compared to all the randomly placed magazines and such it is very clear in what it is setting up later by changing the place when you visit in the present.
This hell puzzle is my main memory of the game, and strangely enough I freaking love it.
Again, as a teen we had a guide for this place. We had the spoilers on what to do, and I am fairly sure that it is a place we were stuck for a while.
... actually I cannot recall if the guy actually playing the game was having a hard time or not, but this is seared into my memory as the moment of FFVIII.
It is the greatest example of why I am considering "do I really need to do all the minor stuff?" along with my thoughts on trying a "break the game" attempt. Because this is the easy one for me, because I know from the burn marks on my soul that it will come up and I will need a guide again to pull it off properly.
I will not argue that it is a good thing. The puzzle here is obtuse as hell, and unfortunately one where the logic on why it matters later is most easily seen. Compared to all the randomly placed magazines and such it is very clear in what it is setting up later by changing the place when you visit in the present.
GilliamYaeger
M'crazy.
Those puzzles were 200% designed to sell game guides.
- Location
- Spain
Puppets? Did the Sorceress just outright mindcontrol all Dollet soldiers?
- Location
- Texas
The puzzles? For sure. The random flags for different dialogue? Probably just the developers having too much fun.
Hey now, it's not that bad as long as you just run straight through and ignore the rewards, right?
(I missed the second ladder for circling around for about an hour while replaying alongside this LP)
(Fuck this dungeon)
Well, everyone except Selphie anyways, she's gonna scream herself blue in the face pretty quick if Squall doesn't do something about it.We get onto the train without issue, which gives everyone a moment to breathe.
Again, I do personally really like how the game just... has all of Dollet tucked away in a random corner her, entirely optional and yet filled with completely pointless people to talk to (and also some card sidequests but we'll get there).
This guy has a rare card, by the way, though as mentioned Random makes it a serious pain in the ass to get. Actually Dollet is the first place with some major variation on the base Triple Triad rules, since iirc it has Same, Elemental, and Random to potentially deal with.
Anyways, if you'd rather not have to deal with the hellhole that is random, there is in fact some RNG manipulation that can get the rule erased entirely from Dollet: This article covers the steps if you drop by again later. No spoilers present on that specific page beyond "a card game sidequest exists" but that's been mentioned previously in the thread, pretty sure.
Weapon upgrades are... sadly a bit lackluster in FFVIII. I mean they aren't useless or anything, but compared to going "oh cool new dope special weapon" in a lot of older games, or getting more materia slots and bit attack boosts in FFVIII, the vast majority of FFVIII weapons are just "Attack increases by 6". That said, prioritize Squall if you do find materials for weapons for Reasons.
Huh, never noticed that before. Neat touch.
These two feel like they've got a pretty toxic relationship, for what (judging by the opening cutscene and boxart) are presumably the main romantic couple. Ah well, we've still got three and a half disks to develop it over.
CYBORG BUG WARRIORS TIME
Having just replayed through this area last week... I feel you. I feel you deeply, even if half my issue was being blind to a specific ladder.
Oh boy, can't wait until this will be relevant and you finally know what you did for Squall in... checks watch... Idunno like 80 hours probably.
Surprisingly, I have a pretty clear mental map of the area at this point - it's basically just two giant loops with a hallway connecting them. Doesn't make it any less samey to look at for the most part (though I do like the catwalk room inside the caves, not pictured here).
Yup, for every puzzle solved correctly you get one less wave of soldiers you have to beat up. Not that it makes a huge difference to be honest these guys are barely a threat especially with junctioning thrown in, but still.
Although on that note, one thing that did annoy the shit out of me for this sequence? So the previous Laguna sequence, you only had three party members in the first place, so you've probably already transfered your junctions and magic to them, all fine and dandy.
This one? Since it specifically grabs Selphie and Quistis, if you didn't have any magic on them (GFs can still be transfered thankfully)? Go fuck yourself, shit outta luck, Laguna is pulling ALL the weight for the forseeable future. Guess which two party members were not in my party when I entered the forest?
Oh Laguna, what a goddamn goober. I love him.
Anyways I'm suuuuuure they're fine.
He'll be fine too.
Probably.
Oh, absolutely and undeniably. There is zero chance you perfectly figure things out on a first playthrough, let alone even realize the effects until way later.
Anyways, guess it's time for me to pick up speed again, I've been stalling around Galbadia Garden for a bit and grinding levels offhandedly.
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ChildishChimera
A umbran summon
- Location
- New York
I assume they mean puppet in the classical sense in that the Dollet Soldiers are enacting the Galbanians will on the town, it also fits with the old man talking how weak the current army is and how they need to relay on SEED to fight back.
Also, we haven't done this in a few updates since Omi's been catching most of the scans + not a lot of new enemies, but being able to wander this chunk of the world map brought us a lot of new encounters (that Omi may or may not have seen whoops I'm posting them anyways)!
- Pronouns
- Him/He
A thing to point out is that between the TV station and this conversation, Zell atypically says basically nothing the entire time. Even when being cooped up in a room, or on the train, Zell is entirely in the background and motionless. Completely different from his typical behavior, but you can see in this conversation that the TV station is really eating at him.
He's doing a pretty good job of keeping it under control however. This is the first time he brings the subject up, and is trying hard to be sensible about what may or may not happen.... but Squall is no help, as noted.
As someone who recently redid this section without random encounters.... it still fucking sucks. Even using a guide.
Story wise, I'm cool with Laguna hijinks personally. He's a fun guy, and the pay off at the end where one of his 'everyone says' is actually something Kiros's grandma said is great payoff.
. . .To the plot stuff. There's no payoff that makes all the triple-backtracking for those fucking doors worth it.
That's pretty surprising. I had completely assumed you couldn't go back to Dollet, until I noticed a minor half a page about it hidden in the back of my strategy guide. On that note...nyway, if we turn around, explore a bit, we can find, what's this…
…look familiar?
That's right. We found Dollet. Just a little ways off the path, completely missable.
You gave up too quickly. If you repeat the process (just finding the dog in the repeats), you'll also get a Phoenix Down and a Soft. Make sure you come back in Disc 3, where there will be more valuable rewards.
Did you find some magazines in the pub (Timber Maniacs and Occult Fan)?
Important question: when you found the detonator switch, did you make sure to press the red switch before the blue switch? If not, you'll miss out on a rare and valuable item.
Also, did you find the second key? Not finding it means missing out on a few more things, including a magazine.
RogueIce
Noctis Æternæ
- Location
- New Lunar Republic, Equestria
Back in the day, I quit on FF8 because the game was just not fun to play. I don't know if it was the Junction system (it was probably the Junction system tbh) or what, but I couldn't get into it. And even watching an LP of it, from an LPer I usually very much enjoy (HCBailly) I still found myself...bored with it and struggled to finish the LP. Because, well, it turns out the game was also just not fun to watch.
But I feel like this format, a written summation with screengrabs of important/humorous bits, might actually let me enjoy the game - or at least, the story it's trying to tell. Because I get to really focus on the story and get all the insights I probably glossed over before (whether playing or watching) because I just wasn't enjoying it.
So thank you @Omicron for taking on the burden of this project and maybe, just maybe letting me enjoy FF8 in some kind of way.
But I feel like this format, a written summation with screengrabs of important/humorous bits, might actually let me enjoy the game - or at least, the story it's trying to tell. Because I get to really focus on the story and get all the insights I probably glossed over before (whether playing or watching) because I just wasn't enjoying it.
So thank you @Omicron for taking on the burden of this project and maybe, just maybe letting me enjoy FF8 in some kind of way.
ZerbanDaGreat
Daemon Noble of D E M O G R A P H I C S
- Pronouns
- They/them
Kinda makes me think of the FF13 weapon upgrade system, which is also totally obtuse and annoying yet can basically be forgotten about too.
Quistis: "We're not too far from Galbadia now!"
Selphie: "Heeey, I was just thinking… There might be some bad news from the Galbadian government. What if we get caught and then get broadcast to the whole world?"
Zell: (Really excitedly) "Whatever happens, happens! Now come on! Let's just keep going!" (Then he deflates.) "I, I'm worried about Balamb Garden. If anything happens to Garden, it's all my fault. I'm the one who said we were from Garden…" (He approaches Squall looking for support.) "You think the president will target Garden?"
Squall: (Looking away) "Maybe."
Zell: (Slumping in sadness) "...Figures… B-B-But, we have a whole bunch of SeeDs at Balamb Garden! They wouldn't lose to the Galbadian army, would they?"
Squall: "Depends how strong the army is."
Zell: "I know, but…"
Rinoa: "Oh, you're just a great leader, aren't you…" (She walks over to Squall, doing her 'hands-on-knees' stock pose.) "Do you actually have fun acting so callous towards your comrades?"
Squall, mentally: "(...Not again.)"
Rinoa: "Zell wants your support."
Squall, mentally: "(I knew it was gonna be something like that…)
Rinoa: "Any kind of encouragement will make…"
Squall, mentally: "(That's just to ease your mind. Am I the only one who thinks that? No, I'm sure Seifer…)"
Rinoa: "Don't you ever worry about or even think about the well-being of your comrades?"
Squall, mentally: "(I don't believe in relying on others.)"
Rinoa: "Don't you understand!?"
Squall, mentally: "(...Whatever.)"
Rinoa: "Are you listening, Squall?"
Oh, how the turns table.
Something about Rinoa's pose and the way she's craning her neck to look up at Squall just gives me vibes like
he just like me fr
But seriously, one thing I like about this thread and how it linearly progresses through the series is that it's very easy to see the ways in which subsequent games are in conversation with previous ones. Like here, Squall is very much reminiscent of Cloud, and the way Rinoa is needling him evokes Aerith - but while Cloud was brain damaged and Aerith was a gremlin who liked fucking with people, Squall is genuinely just kind of a piece of shit and Rinoa is outright antagonising him over a serious flaw in his interpersonal conduct. It's also within a wildly different context, where Cloud was broadly a stranger to the FF7 party save Tifa, the FF8 party is at this point 80% people who have gone to the same school for 12 years. Squall is a shithead but the others are just inured to it by now, where they aren't totally on board with him in some scenarios such as the various Timber Owls fiascos. It's just Rinoa as the odd woman out, the total stranger who Squall can't brush off so easily.
And all the while, random encounters. Except. In a weird game like FVIII that is so easy to break, random encounters could be one of two things: a way to increase the difficulty through leveling up to keep things challenging, or an opportunity to gain AP and Magic to junction to break things even harder.
It's neither of those things. 90% of encounters in the Centra Mining Site are just this guy:
And I do mean 'guy,' singular. As in just one of them, every time.
This encounter is over in three physical attacks, or one physical attack and one spell, meaning the whole thing takes, like, probably a minute if we count the splash screen transition and victory fanfare in and out of each fight, and the result is a paltry sum of XP (so it won't move the needle on difficulty either way) and 1 AP. One. Fucking. AP. So no meaningful progress is made on any GF ability. It's all a waste of time.
Except of course it will turn out by the end of this session that we did make meaningful progress on GF Abilities simply through sheer density and number of 1 AP encounters due to BACKTRACKING MULTIPLE TIMES AND GETTING CONSTANTLY LOST.
Bro they were smoking some wicked nefarious moonsorcerer dark evil pack when they came up with his dungeon. Honestly it's feeling like the big ol Plot Board at the office had a 'LAGUNA SEQUENCE GOES HERE' marker, because they want to remind the player of the Laguna Flashback thing while also throwing some twists on it so they're thinking about it more deeply than a one-off dream, but ran out of time to really make it... fun. Or maybe the present version with Squall & Co took too long, idk, we'll see.
There's an… Actually pretty touching scene in which Laguna is trying to keep up their traditional friendly banter and teasing while Kiros and Ward both feel like they're dying; Ward, whose throat was injured, barely manages to get out a halting, syllable by syllable, "It was fun, you guys." Laguna calls the ships below "boats" and Kiros corrects him that they are 'vessels', but his own voice is fading. It's honestly kind of moving.
Then Laguna grabs them both and bodily tosses them off the cliff.
Listen. If we assume that this setting operates on action movie rules where water is always a soft cushion for a fall, then this is hilarious. If we don't, Laguna just murdered both his friends. But I think this is meant to be a deliberate comedy twist on a fakeout death scene. If not, and we find out later that Ward and Kiros died, I'll be pretty annoyed at the game's poor signaling. But right now, taking it as it is given, it is very funny.
Especially because Laguna, in his typical hypocritical fashion, immediately gets cold feet himself on 'jumping off the cliff,' says that his friends "Sure have guts" (They didn't ask to jump, he threw them off) then tries to slowly climb down the cliff face, only for his foot to slip, and he falls into the water along with the others.
holy shit laguna is the fucking character of all time
Krios: "i don't think i'm gonna make it boss"
Laguna: "you might not make it to the pearly gates but you're making it to that fucking boat down there, c'mere" *immediately gets cold feet about jumping then slips on a banana peel and pratfalls off the cliff anyway*
That key-drop moment earlier was foreshadowing - Laguna has to be Squall's father because only one genetic line could be so precisely evolved to spill spaghetti at every opportunity.
- Location
- England, unfortunately.
- Pronouns
- She/They
Fuck youuuuuuuu, I repressed that.