- Location
- Lake Wobegon
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
Of course he will, he's a named character whom you interact with in any capacity other than combat.
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Let's Play Every Final Fantasy Game In Order Of Release [Now Finished: Final Fantasy Tactics]
- Thread starter Omicron
- Start date
- Let's Play
- Location
- Land of the Midday Sun
BTW, Degenerator is stupidly strong. Other than bosses and a handful of normal enemies it just deletes everyone. No resistances, no miss chance, just gone, and you get the drops and XP.
One of Quistis's Limit Breaks is an instant kill attack with a delightfully cheap looking animation. So kitsch.
Morganite
Happiness is a large book.
- Location
- Dynamis - Firefly Alley
Huh, now I'm curious. I remember reading a guide for a low level run of one of the earlier games, and manipulating the way characters entered and exited the party was part of it, because sometimes returning characters would get level boosted based on your levels when they returned, and sometimes they'd get boosted to a fixed level. But I'm not sure if the out-of-party characters were factored in. I've kind of been assuming that level scaling isn't affected by permanent party members leaving temporarily, but I'm not sure that's actually correct.
There was a Star Wars novel that did something interesting with this. The Empire had a prison that was constructed upside down, but with an artificial gravity generator. So if you went 'up', you were actually moving away from the surface.
There's something about the upcoming sequence that I really like that... maaaaybe wouldn't be a spoiler, but I'm not certain, so I'll put it off. And hopefully, having written this will be enough that I'll remember to bring it up at the right time.
-Morgan.
somewhatLazy
Serial Procrastinator
- Location
- lurking
When you hear the number 7… do you see it? Do you see the depths of minigame hell?
Rinoa is so much better at taking initiative and being the leader than Squall that she's even unlocked the power of duplicating herself to lead multiple efforts at once!
- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Alright, that's enough now, everyone's had their fun, you can stop bringing up the duplicate names now 
21stCentury
Let's get down to bismuth
- Location
- Canada
- Pronouns
- They/Them
i'm just sad you forgot Quistis.
- Location
- Te Ika-a-Māui
- Pronouns
- She/Her
The level scaling in 8 is (generally) determined by the combat party.
…Why would the Sorceress allow any of that? Didn't she just murder the President on live television then take a triumphal procession around the city, mind-controlling everyone into cheering as she promised them their doom? Why is Caraway allowed to keep caring about his daughter, who Edea attempted to kill immediately after the president?
I guess it could all just be beneath her notice. If the prisoners were just left for Seifer to decide what to do with, it could actually have been him who decided to let Rinoa go. But then why Irvine?
- Pronouns
- Him/He
Seifer didn't go to school with Irvine and wasn't part of any of his grudge list. If some general wants this guy to escort his Ex home, does he really give a shit?
And let me just say I was completely unsurprised that that there was a huge update gap while dealing with the D-district prison. It really feels like someone said 'hey, since all the characters are interchangable, and the player can just use the Switch Menu to change junctions, we can swap back and forth constantly to keep tension high and mix it up!'
And then after they did it they realized how annoying that was, especially when you're going back and forth between a full party and a single person.
It is not, outside of the starting cutscene bits, memorable or interesting.
As for the difficulty, I honestly think you might just want to level grind a bit. I'm sure the thread can offer a lot of advice on how to do so quickly, but monsters get new (more interesting) abilities, and you get better selection of magic all around.
The oft repeated story of 'got too high level and made it impossible to continue' story has left people with the assumption that 'leveling up is bad for difficulty' rather then 'leveling up is complicated and straying towards either of the end of the bell curve is dangerous'.
Not that this is something I think you need to put into action right away, but just something to consider.
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Thozmp
Gets my kicks above the waistline, Sunshine.
Is it weird that I can actually imagine a scene where monsters are about to attack and someone challenges them to Triple Triad, and with a sigh the monsters pull out their decks...
Stray sentence?
Egleris
Vagrant Dragon
- Location
- Italy
To expand on this, and for reference, the big break point between the low-level version of monsters and the mid-level version of monsters (in terms of attacks, abilities, drops/mug items, and spells to draw - the various stats have a more granular scaling with every new level) is level 20 for most of them. The break point between mid-level and high-level variants is level 30.
cB557
voOOP
- Pronouns
- He
For officers, it would be an ensign.
When asked about this, the prison warden had the following to say: "Ahahahaha, they're, they're going to get eaten! Ahahahahaaaa. Look at them running around like that!"
- Location
- Singapore
- Pronouns
- Singular They
Just a quick skim from me this time. I might make another post with more in-depth translation stuff, but for now I'll just go over the stuff that stands out.
Not only did Squall not bother to tell anyone about the missile launch, his "What?" is more like an annoyed "What is it this time". Like he's sulking at this time-wasting interruption, instead of this being rather important information.
I wonder if Squall is still kind of woozy from the torture, and so doesn't trust his memories of what he heard during that time.
It's also kind of vague and weird in Japanese too. The "Easier said than done" part is fine, but the next sentence is translated literally as "(After) choosing the members, if something happens, I..."
I'm going deep into speculation here, but I think the idea is Squall is reflexively avoiding responsibility as the SeeD squad leader. Just before this line, Selphie was insisting that Squall hurry up and decide how to split the team, invoking his position as squad leader. And then immediately after this line, Rinoa joins in:
In the Japanese script, Rinoa is calling for a vote, in her usual teenage girl sing-song announcement way. Specifically, the vote is on Rinoa's two-fold suggestion: Squall, as squad leader, is on the team to Balamb. Also, Squall should pick the members of each team. She goes "Anyone opposed please raise your hand", and immediately adds that she's fine with being on either team, so I assume nobody else on the scene reacted like they wanted to object.
Squall mentally snarks that Rinoa's an outsider, implying that she shouldn't be involved in any of this. The part where Squall mentally goes "I never asked to be squad leader" is placed after Quistis's reiteration that the squad leader should make the decision on picking the members.
So it does sound like Squall is being hypocritical and kind of whiny, possibly because he's actually panicking about suddenly having the responsibility of picking team members thrust upon him. Which is kind of weird, considering all the other responsibilities of being squad leader Squall had taken in stride until now, and even now Squall has not shown any self-awareness of how this sort of responsibility had been placed on others before, like Seifer or Quistis.
Something interesting in the Japanese script: Selphie here suddenly speaks in Kansai dialect. She has been speaking in "default" (ie "standard", "newscaster") Japanese for the rest of the game so far, filtered through her general energetic personality, so this is a subtle bit of characterization implying she had been trying to fit in with the rest of the group, and Balamb in general. It's highly likely Selphie's "natural" accent is Kansai, or Trabia in this setting.
There have been a lot of essays on the exact connotations and equivalents of the Kansai (and Kyoto and Osaka) dialects when translated into English, so it's best to just summarize it as "not from around here". I'm also both disappointed and sympathetic that the English translation evidently didn't bother trying to attempt working it into the text; it's an intriguing bit of characterization that's a pity to miss out, but I also don't have a good way of portraying it myself, so I can't throw stones.
I don't know if there have been other instances of Selphie speaking Kansai dialect that I've missed, but given this instance immediately jumped out at me, this is probably the first time it happened. And looking ahead a few more lines, Selphie appears to have gone back to the "standard" Japanese dialect.
Not only did Squall not bother to tell anyone about the missile launch, his "What?" is more like an annoyed "What is it this time". Like he's sulking at this time-wasting interruption, instead of this being rather important information.
I wonder if Squall is still kind of woozy from the torture, and so doesn't trust his memories of what he heard during that time.
Squall has a weird comment there:
It's also kind of vague and weird in Japanese too. The "Easier said than done" part is fine, but the next sentence is translated literally as "(After) choosing the members, if something happens, I..."
I'm going deep into speculation here, but I think the idea is Squall is reflexively avoiding responsibility as the SeeD squad leader. Just before this line, Selphie was insisting that Squall hurry up and decide how to split the team, invoking his position as squad leader. And then immediately after this line, Rinoa joins in:
In the Japanese script, Rinoa is calling for a vote, in her usual teenage girl sing-song announcement way. Specifically, the vote is on Rinoa's two-fold suggestion: Squall, as squad leader, is on the team to Balamb. Also, Squall should pick the members of each team. She goes "Anyone opposed please raise your hand", and immediately adds that she's fine with being on either team, so I assume nobody else on the scene reacted like they wanted to object.
Squall mentally snarks that Rinoa's an outsider, implying that she shouldn't be involved in any of this. The part where Squall mentally goes "I never asked to be squad leader" is placed after Quistis's reiteration that the squad leader should make the decision on picking the members.
So it does sound like Squall is being hypocritical and kind of whiny, possibly because he's actually panicking about suddenly having the responsibility of picking team members thrust upon him. Which is kind of weird, considering all the other responsibilities of being squad leader Squall had taken in stride until now, and even now Squall has not shown any self-awareness of how this sort of responsibility had been placed on others before, like Seifer or Quistis.
Something interesting in the Japanese script: Selphie here suddenly speaks in Kansai dialect. She has been speaking in "default" (ie "standard", "newscaster") Japanese for the rest of the game so far, filtered through her general energetic personality, so this is a subtle bit of characterization implying she had been trying to fit in with the rest of the group, and Balamb in general. It's highly likely Selphie's "natural" accent is Kansai, or Trabia in this setting.
There have been a lot of essays on the exact connotations and equivalents of the Kansai (and Kyoto and Osaka) dialects when translated into English, so it's best to just summarize it as "not from around here". I'm also both disappointed and sympathetic that the English translation evidently didn't bother trying to attempt working it into the text; it's an intriguing bit of characterization that's a pity to miss out, but I also don't have a good way of portraying it myself, so I can't throw stones.
I don't know if there have been other instances of Selphie speaking Kansai dialect that I've missed, but given this instance immediately jumped out at me, this is probably the first time it happened. And looking ahead a few more lines, Selphie appears to have gone back to the "standard" Japanese dialect.
Alright, that's enough now, everyone's had their fun, you can stop bringing up the duplicate names now
SolipsistSerpent
Endlessly Devouring
Yeah, that does sound like complaints I've heard about this game before from other reviewers.
On a lighter note, too bad Selphie's not on team "Hijack the train," I bet she'd enjoy that. You know, as a treat to take her mind off her worry about her home.
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ZerbanDaGreat
Daemon Noble of D E M O G R A P H I C S
- Pronouns
- They/them
Good news! Zell's Limit Breaks are special - because they're fighting game inputs performed under time pressure, you can just... do them. If you the player remember the commands from a previous playthrough (or just look them up) you can have him do any of his Limits from minute one. Can You Beat FF8 With Limits Only made extensive use of Zell repeatedly suplexing every enemy with Gravity weakness.
White Women Jumpscare and also Zell
- Location
- Columbus, OH
Did they construct it upside down, or did they just bury the star destroyer upside down? Wow, it has been a long time since I read those books.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
There's a room where gravity follows a line that spirals from "upside down" to "rightside up".
- Pronouns
- She/They
Oh boy, I've also been on team "Squall and Laguna are the exact same person" and I see I've been picking only the most correct interpretations of the game. As it is, I kind of hope he learns about that soon because he still thinks Laguna is the cringest man alive and would shrivel up on himself once he realized he was looking at past him. If he learns that after going through a bunch of character development it'll lose it's punch, you know?
As for Squall suddenly being hypocritical and flaky on the responsibilities of being a squad leader, I have to wonder if that's down to him being very recently tortured within an inch of his life? On top of almost dying beforehand.
Like if you think about it, up until now he's been coasting on this persona of the consummate professional mercenary, dispassionate and straightforward, here to get the job done, get paid, and go home. But within a fairly short window, we've had Squall have a mission he was in charge of fail miserably at every objective, he himself was nearly killed in the ensuing fight that was the backup plan, and he was then ruthlessly tortured - partially under the supervision of a fellow student he had a sort of grudging respect for - and then learned that Galbadia was planning to nuke the Gardens his personality was built around. And it's not a stretch at all to connect the missile strikes to his failed assassination attempt.
So really, he's just had a really bad time and I can very well imagine his worldview has been shaken quite a bit. In all honestly, I'm a bit surprised he's not responding with more hostility and lashing out, closing himself off even further would fit with what we've seen of him before, but maybe seeing how badly Irvine choked during the mission affected him more than he let on. But as it is, I can believe him just reflexively trying to shake off the responsibilities of being in charge, especially as he's had almost no time at all to sit and reflect on everything that's just happened.
As for Squall suddenly being hypocritical and flaky on the responsibilities of being a squad leader, I have to wonder if that's down to him being very recently tortured within an inch of his life? On top of almost dying beforehand.
Like if you think about it, up until now he's been coasting on this persona of the consummate professional mercenary, dispassionate and straightforward, here to get the job done, get paid, and go home. But within a fairly short window, we've had Squall have a mission he was in charge of fail miserably at every objective, he himself was nearly killed in the ensuing fight that was the backup plan, and he was then ruthlessly tortured - partially under the supervision of a fellow student he had a sort of grudging respect for - and then learned that Galbadia was planning to nuke the Gardens his personality was built around. And it's not a stretch at all to connect the missile strikes to his failed assassination attempt.
So really, he's just had a really bad time and I can very well imagine his worldview has been shaken quite a bit. In all honestly, I'm a bit surprised he's not responding with more hostility and lashing out, closing himself off even further would fit with what we've seen of him before, but maybe seeing how badly Irvine choked during the mission affected him more than he let on. But as it is, I can believe him just reflexively trying to shake off the responsibilities of being in charge, especially as he's had almost no time at all to sit and reflect on everything that's just happened.
Interesting thing to note. If you don't make your way toward the girls and stay in the middle of the bridge, you get a Game Over because Squall lose his grip during the screen transition and get mulched by the drill.Rinoa is initially confused, saying the prison didn't look like this when she came in earlier, and the group decides to head to the next structure to try and figure out a way to make it out, but before they can reach it, the bridge they're on starts folding away and the drills start running, driving the whole place into the sand! We have to play Squall hanging onto the ledge and trying to shimmy his way out before he is buried in the sand along with the facility, heading towards the girls who are already on the other side.
It's a really cool scene, making fantastic use of the FMV happening in the background while the game plays out in front of it, and the camera moving angles as the drill gets further and further down. Plus, the group is split up, they have no clear way to escape. There's real tension here. And then…
It just ends.
