Oh right, totally encountered that one in English myself.
The second line is straight up translated as "The Sorceress is a feminist?" Which was... somehow not a line of dialogue I was prepared for in a 20+ year old Final Fantasy game.
Let's Play Every Final Fantasy Game In Order Of Release [Now Finished: Final Fantasy Tactics]
- Thread starter Omicron
- Start date
- Let's Play
- Pronouns
- Him/He
This is the map of the Tomb of the Ancient King. We can open it at any time by pressing Select:
It even has a mercy mechanic in the form of pressing Triangle to instantly escape from the Tomb. Doing so results in the loss of a SeeD rank, but that's something we can easily manage with tests - we're still 'only' Rank 9 out of 30 and I'm still pretty much free of any possible money problem.
I'm not 100% sure, and I'm not able to find any confirmation in the spoiler filled guides, but I'm fairly sure that you have to pay for this map... unless Rinoa is in your party.
Not something you're likely to figure out without multiple playthroughs, and because Rinoa does have unique dialogue here a lot of people will keep her in the party just because.
There's no comment or reference to the gate guard helping Rinoa out, just a 'here's the map' as part of the explanation.
daniel_gudman
KING (in land of blind)
- Pronouns
- He/Him
You know, I wonder how much of this is downstream of the broader story weakness of GFs mostly existing in the gameplay menu instead of the worldbuilding.
Like, in terms of writing you could make it Work in a sensible way with a pretty simple dialogue tweak:
CARAWAY:
But the fact that Ifrit and now the Brothers were ensconced at the bottom of Dungeons or Shrines or whatever (and Diablo, in his genie lamp) makes we wonder if that's kinda like, the normal thing for GFs? That's getting ahead of the actual text of the game.
If also makes me wonder if the "beat me to use my power" thing sets up a chicken-and-the-egg problem, where it's easy to Junction, but earning the "authority" to junction is really hard without already having a GF buffing you. So the benefit of Balamb Garden was constructing a ladder of the correct order to junction....
But all of this is just speculation, because there's just not a lot of discussion in-game about how GFs fit in the world. And this means that Ghost Guy for example is pretty tenuously explained too, as a result of being in a whole Situation (the GF Dungeon) that was also poorly explained.
Like, my first-pass reading was "because I Junctioned this GF, my soul was trapped here after I died, woooo my chains weigh me down, beware lest the same fate befall you!" But that's not really a supported reading based on other description.
So I feel like this writing weakness of this dungeon is a symptom of the broader weakness around GFs; they didn't just say "yeah there's a GF there, go power up before the boss fight" even though that would work even inside the logic of the setting.
- Location
- Singapore
- Pronouns
- Singular They
It's weird, because the guard warns the player away from going deeper than just the entrance to the Tomb Of The Unknown King, based on how dangerous it is. He does specify that it's dangerous for "beginners" (初心者), so the confident player would likely want to explore anyway, but it's a strange warning if the original intent was to recommend Squall and co. to pick up a new GF.
I had wondered if the Tomb Of The Unknown King was like the Fire Cavern for giving Garden students a preliminary GF exam, but I don't know if that works geographically, and especially how the danger is emphasized. There are no Garden Faculty invigilators at the Tomb entrance either. And yet, Garden students still go there regularly, to the point where we encounter some running away, and we were asked to check on the student number of a missing student. (Curiously not to find the missing student, or even any trace of them, but merely to report the student number, which the guard mysteriously knows.)
Y'know, given that students being directed towards the dungeon is apparently a regular occurrence, it would be so easy to tweak the dialogue here to say that the student simply ran away and dropped his sword by the entrance, which the guard knows because the student told him.
Now go retrieve the sword.
I mean, the whole thing would still be weird for more broad reasons you stated, but at least those specific "how would you even know all this" questions could have had an easy answer.
daniel_gudman
KING (in land of blind)
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Yeah, it all feels like "leftover details that made more sense in an earlier draft" kinda stuff, descriptive text from a subplot that ended up getting mostly cut, something like that.
Honestly, they could even do a Thing where GFs are jealous (apparently there is a mechanic for this actually, where GF summon-speed speeds up or slows down depending on which spells you cast? I don't really know), so the more you Junction the harder it is to get more, reflected in them being harder fights proportionate to how many GFs you've unlocked, having a sort of quasi-scaling there just based on what. That would work better maybe in a game where you could go back and do GFs in whatever order you wanted, though.
Hell, speaking of quasi-scaling, maybe do a Thing where the more GFs you Junction, the deeper you get into the Fairy World, so that Monsters (invaders from Fairy World) bump up a level of power with each GF you unlock? Completely different story-logic than the Moon Monsters there, but that could be pretty good. You increase in power compared to Humans, but in exchange, you make the Monsters around you more powerful. A way to explain with in-universe Lore why monsters all get More Powerful as you go through the game.
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- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Yeah I totally forgot about the women arguing about what the Sorceress means for the feminist cause, absolute peak 10/10 environmental writing
We support women's rights and wrongs.
- Pronouns
- She/They
No no see, this is Galbadia Garden's true purpose, to train military sharpshooters that don't require a spotter where the gunner does all the calculations by himself in his head. It may not be as flashy as GF junctioning, but it promises to revolutionize warfare in its own way.
So you see Irvine is actually super cool and badass, I swear, you gotta believe me.
I'm pretty sure you get the map no matter what, because my party at this point was Squall/Selphie/Irvine and I still was handed a map no questions asked or extra payment necessary.
Also @Omicron, it looks like you marked the Tomb of the Unknown King Bestiary post as a Threadmark instead of Informational like the other ones.
Hm. According to the wiki, he does have blue eyes...
Are there any sandworm encounters around?
Egleris
Vagrant Dragon
- Location
- Italy
This is indeed the case.
Casting a GF increases compatibility (for the specific character doing the summoning only, obviously) with that GF by around 20 points, the compatibility with the opposite GF decreases by 10, and the compatibility with every other GF decreases by 1.5. There is one exception to this, who is the KotR-equivalent GF; summoning that one increases the compatibility with it by 2, and the compatibility with every other GF by 1, which is a strange dynamic. Also, not every GF has an opposite; Diablos, for example, since he's not-elemental. In those cases, it's just the +20 to itself and -1.5 to everything else.
For reference, Ice opposes Fire, Thunder opposes Water, Earth opposes Wind, Poison opposes Holy, and Negative-Status-Imposing opposes Positive-Status-Imposing, which should allow for instantaneous recognition of how to not pair GF without spoiling anything.
Casting spells also increases compatibility: ice spells increase compatibility with Shiva, while Fire spells decrease compatibility with Shiva; both of those work in reverse for Ifrit, naturally. Interestingly, Thunder and Wind spell both increase compatibility with Quetzacotl, but only the Wind spells increase compatibility with the Wind-type GF; and with Siren, every status inflicting spell increases compatibility, with Silence doing so by the largest amount, but using either Esuna or Dispel decreases the compatibility. And casting Ultima will generally increase the compatibility with every GF. In general, the idea seems to be to cast spells the GF would approve of, although, even in the most positive cases, such as Blizzaga for Shiva, the compatibility increases aren't that high (+2.5), and in the weaker cases the increase or reduction is meaningless (+/-0.2), so it isn't really something to think overly much about.
All this explained... Compatibility is of very limited meaning. It does matters, in that a 1000 Compatibility GF (that's the max) will have its charge time be just 2.8 seconds, while a 0 Compatibility GF (the minimum) takes 16.8 seconds to charge - that can be relevant when deciding which GF to attack with and which ones to use as HP buffers. But overall, the system has very limited importance, so I agree that having done more with that, even just on a narrative level, would not have been a bad idea.
I checked, and this does not appear to be the case; I got the map for free when the team was Rinoa and Irvine, and also got it for free when I went with the Quistis-Irvine combination. This suggest to me that the map is always free, although, as mentioned above, the dialogue without Rinoa is different; in Quistis case she says "that's an insult to SeeD" when they're ordered to go do this busywork of retrieving the code that was clearly left there on purpose.
I suspect that the whole sequence is just a flex from Caraway, that he's "putting these teenagers in their place", to show that just because they're superhumanly powerful doesn't mean he can't force them to do whatever he wants, and the whole "disappeared student" is an excuse.
- Pronouns
- She/They
Oh wow, all of that regarding compatibility is the most overwrought and underexplained mechanic in the most FFVIII way. Is there any information about it in game, or is it entirely in the realm of game guides/figuring it out yourself?
Now the idea doesn't strike me as terrible at first glance, some way to try and enforce a bit of a niche on characters by having them build up preferred elements/GFs over time, but something like that really needs some acknowledgement from the game itself.
Now the idea doesn't strike me as terrible at first glance, some way to try and enforce a bit of a niche on characters by having them build up preferred elements/GFs over time, but something like that really needs some acknowledgement from the game itself.
- Pronouns
- Him/He
Consider also that he's a General of the Galbanian army, and I'm assuming that's a position that actually does stuff.
Most of Galbanian's failed invasions have been... because of SeeD. So he, personally, has probably had a lot of shit go wrong in his professional life because of little shits like these kids.
Since the job is not from Caraway, but the Garden's themselves, you wonder how exactly they connected with him. Sure, they probably have official lines of communication, but figuring out which of the opposing side is open to assassinate the new right-hand-person of their nation's dictator is a tricky thing to float across.
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Ff7 Rebirth leaks are out in the wild, so best beware lest you spoil big plot twists like____________>:^)____________.
The Information tab in the Tutorial section, unsurprisingly, has at least some information:
So, doesn't really give you all the little details, but does alert the player that hey, this system exists, and you can do things to effect it. In particular, the items that change compatibility tend to be things like "using an Arctic Wind from the menu increases your Shiva compatibility", so that's at least a hint that it might be related to a GF's favored elements or magic types.Compatibility With GF said:
Egleris
Vagrant Dragon
- Location
- Italy
Right, the compatibility items also exists; I'd forgotten to mention those. Mostly because they raise the compatibility by pitiful amounts when compared with the fact that you can just summon a GF ten times to raise the compatibility with it by 200, and since most GF start near the middle of the compatibility bar (500-600), about twenty summons will give you max compatibility.
Still, the compatibility item could help, in theory. Most GF have only one (which adds +3.5 to them and inflicts -1.5 to all the others), although a few have a second, weaker option (+1.6 for them, -0.8 for others), which are obviously less useful. And then there's the ultra-rare "Love Love G" item, which raises compatibility by +20 for all GF.
Still, the compatibility item could help, in theory. Most GF have only one (which adds +3.5 to them and inflicts -1.5 to all the others), although a few have a second, weaker option (+1.6 for them, -0.8 for others), which are obviously less useful. And then there's the ultra-rare "Love Love G" item, which raises compatibility by +20 for all GF.
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21stCentury
Let's get down to bismuth
- Location
- Canada
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Personally, i never really "got" the GF system and as a result, GFs werent good and as a result, i didnt use them, causing them to stay not good.
If you just mean the compatibility/summoning mechanics? Yeah honestly I don't think I even have the GF command slotted in on anyone right now, because with decent junctioning it's just so much more efficient to beat everyone to death with weapons and magic instead. Even the fact that you don't really get any AoE outside of summons doesn't really matter that much because you're rarely fighting more than two or three enemies max anyways.
Egleris
Vagrant Dragon
- Location
- Italy
For any player that fails to break the game, GF remain their primary damage source all the way throughout.
Shiva in particular, due to being super-effective against a large amount of enemies, if used often can keep up with level and generally outdamage straight attacks until you reach 150 STR or thereabouts, and if kept on the same person it'll have max compatibility and so be fast enough you don't need to worry about charge times; put it all together and, against multiple enemies, summons will be the superior option over straight attacks. And the late-game GF will have an easier time reaching their max damage than attacks will.
The thing with GF is, they grow in power much faster than characters (as in, they have way better scaling with level), and since the enemies scale to party level and you're swapping out characters often enough that the average team level is usually lower than Squall's level, they outlevel the opposition and thus retain a certain edge for a while. They're the fallback option for players who can't figure out any better way to increase their DPS - it can get boring, but as a workhorse option, they do their job pretty well.
Shiva in particular, due to being super-effective against a large amount of enemies, if used often can keep up with level and generally outdamage straight attacks until you reach 150 STR or thereabouts, and if kept on the same person it'll have max compatibility and so be fast enough you don't need to worry about charge times; put it all together and, against multiple enemies, summons will be the superior option over straight attacks. And the late-game GF will have an easier time reaching their max damage than attacks will.
The thing with GF is, they grow in power much faster than characters (as in, they have way better scaling with level), and since the enemies scale to party level and you're swapping out characters often enough that the average team level is usually lower than Squall's level, they outlevel the opposition and thus retain a certain edge for a while. They're the fallback option for players who can't figure out any better way to increase their DPS - it can get boring, but as a workhorse option, they do their job pretty well.
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GilliamYaeger
M'crazy.
I have vivid memories of desperately summoning GFs as hard as possible because they had like four times the health pool of my characters during my first playthrough way back when I was a dumb kid. Literally the only way I could survive later game fights was by hiding behind my GFs.
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Egleris
Vagrant Dragon
- Location
- Italy
That's the other way to use GF, yes; of course, to make that work best, you want to have them lower compatibility, which is tricky when you're summoning the GF often. It can be a great way to deal with enemies who have otherwise one-hit-kill attacks, too. Sadly some enemies have attacks that bypass GF protection, so it's not a catch-all, but that's a very rare ability. Overall, using the GF as ablative HP pools is another great way they can be very helpful to players who have trouble with figuring out how to break the system.
I don't think we bring up the humor GF allows for enough
