Forget all the (awesome) analysis of the realmism of Edea being the natural endpoint of a fascistic imperialistic state like Galbadia. The best part of Galbadia's internal politics...
Is how the Step On Me caucus has also come out in stampeding droves.
One thing that's notable to me is that most of the characters commenting on Edea's beauty or charisma... are women? It's sometimes hard to tell from the very pixelated models in the street screens, but it appears that way to me. My favorite may be this one:
"Edeaotic." Iconic.
Anyway, impressive of the game to capture the SV sapphic demographic twenty-five years ahead of time.
Though it is inherently funny how FFVIII starts as, like, not, like, realistic, but grounded techomagithriller about very important geopolitics focused on what's essentially more blunt USA...
And then suddenly fucking scene Jadis takes over the country and promises to plunge it into nightmare eternal. She still uses missiles, though.
Like, revealing an elemental force of evil behind a petty dictator is not exactly new ground for the franchise, but I think the modern aesthetic and the, like, mundanity of the conflict before that amplifies the dissonance.
It's like Die Hard turning into Backrooms creepypasta halfway through the movie.
Can't argue with the results, though. The boot of oppression was never as attractive.
When looking at the broader picture it's really fascinating how the game starts as a Magical Battle High School story with student drama, people worried about passing exams, complicated teacher-student relationships, a transfer student and a prom ball arc, then veers sharply into geopolitical technomagithriller, then gets taken over by a hot goth wizard lady. At this point I'm fully expecting another genre shift within the next couple hours!
Taking all bets! How did the missile base team survive? I refuse to believe they killed off those characters for the reasons Omi listed so here's my guesses as someone who's never played this game.
Got blasted Team Rocket style to another location where we'll reunite with them.
Mystery person swooped in with some kind of transport at the last second.
Thrown into the past and that's what's causing the weird flashback sequences.
Found a shelter somehow and are still alive but trapped in the ruins of the base.
- I'm kinda torn on the obvious sacrifice fakeout, coming so soon as it does after the previous obvious sacrifice fakeout. I think they're leaning too hard on the whole 'wOooOo we killed Aeris, we'll kIlL characters! wOoOoooO, be afraid!' thing and it's just, uh, kinda campy and dumb? On the other hand, it's a pretty good bit here where the Squall bit just completely fell flat.
This is another one of these moments where I'm glad I'm doing this whole LP sequentially, because it's incredibly obvious that the FF8 team is banking on player expectations and fears from FF7 just a year before in a way that might not have been if I'd just played the game on its own without VII as context. It's very clear that the writers are dangling Aerith's death in front of the players as a 'aren't you scared we'll do it again?' ploy... Possibly to the point of obnoxiousness!
At least, Omicron can be proud of his Selphie doing a great job. Because there is another FMV if Selphie doesn't do her job properly in the base (begins at 1:07) :
Like the missiles randomly veering off to do a parade turn before flying back in is one thing, but they also hit the Garden and then get stuck in the walls with thrusters still firing for several seconds before finally exploding??? What is going on here.
Wish you had explored the equipment section of the control panel more, as it has some interesting stuff on the weapons and tech in the Galbadian Army. Plus, if you press the arrow and square keys (PlayStation controls, at least) there, you will see a Galbadian Soldier or Elite Soldier dance.
I tried exploring the equipment section but I didn't find anything else other than the screen showing the launcher and the screen showing the missile. If there's more stuff on Galbadian tech it was extremely non-obvious to find.
... Wait, why is Balamb Garden getting destroyed a full-on bad ending instead of a tragic doomed 'hometown' event?
All your characters except maybe the ones at the missile base are still around and have been operating semi-independently of Garden orders for a bit now anyway, all the Garden getting blown up does is kill off background NPCs and remove the people assigning missions, giving rankings, and sending money to Squall's account every so often.
I mean, yeah, it's a tragic waste of human life, but the main cast has kinda been cut off from Balamb ever since it turned out their contract with the Timber Owls had no end date and they weren't going to be able to just leave. Why does their journey's success or failure hinge on the upper management who only care to send the occasional check surviving?
Edit: Like, are we really sure "Oh no, the people randomly docking your pay for doing things that tarnish the reputation of their child soldier mercenary academies reliant on memory-loss-inducing giant monsters for powerups are dead" is a Bad ending? Is all this just because the programmers refused to make an alternative to the SeeD Rank mechanics for how your party funds their misadventures?
There's one reason, which is what illhousen said - games like FF8 simply aren't designed for or capable of that level of variable storytelling, they're linear journeys. There's one story, and that story goes through Balamb Garden next. To create a full alternative 'route' would have been massively too complicated, especially as I can only assume there are further secrets to unlock in Balamb Garden, and at least one probably-important character (Cid) who is probably here right now and whose death would probably also needs its own branching storytelling path.
That's the high-level, 'nature of storytelling' reason. The more simple and practical reason is that Squall and his team are in Balamb Garden right now. If the missiles blow up the Garden they die too. That's a pretty standard reason for a game over.
I feel like that would depend on the type of explosive in the warhead itself - a nuclear or magitech equivalent could probably have the rocket blow up without triggering the actual warhead, though a more conventional explosive might not be as safe.
I really am starting to wonder what these are packed with though, if these are proper ICBMs it makes sense to stuff your biggest boom into them, and with vague magitech being a thing it's hard to tell what scale they're operating at.
I suppose we'll see first hand when we eventually visit Trabia Garden, or if we visit the craters from the sabatoged missiles that went towards Balamb.
What I suspect is going on here is the same thing that gave us the "N² missiles" in Evangelion: Japanese media of the 90s sometimes wants to use nuclear weapons because they're a very important aspect of modern geopolitics and warfare, but actually referring to them as nuclear weapons still broke a kind of post-war taboo. So writers use workarounds like 'future humanity as designed explosives that are as powerful as nuclear weapons but aren't nuclear' in NGE, and here, simply referring to Galbadia's weapons as 'long range missiles,' strongly implying that they're ICBMs with nuclear warheads, but not actually saying it, so they could 'merely' be ballistic weapons with the power of a nuclear warhead because of Reasons.
But I think, given the way both the Galbadia Missile Base and Balamb Garden are destroyed in their respective game over cinematics, within the story they are nuclear weapons.
Either that or they're paramagic-technology hybrids... Actually, yeah, come to think of it: What if the payload here are devices designed to cast Flare or Ultima on detonation? That seems like it'd suit the universe's technomagic sensibilities.
Like the missiles randomly veering off to do a parade turn before flying back in is one thing, but they also hit the Garden and then get stuck in the walls with thrusters still firing for several seconds before finally exploding??? What is going on here.
Like the missiles randomly veering off to do a parade turn before flying back in is one thing, but they also hit the Garden and then get stuck in the walls with thrusters still firing for several seconds before finally exploding??? What is going on here.
Like the missiles randomly veering off to do a parade turn before flying back in is one thing, but they also hit the Garden and then get stuck in the walls with thrusters still firing for several seconds before finally exploding??? What is going on here.
I just want to know what was going on in the design room when these things were proposed. Like, did someone just go:
"Alright, we've just finished designing these missiles systems but hear me out, what if we made them fly around the target wildy for a few seconds before actual impact? The additonal fuel and maneuvering thruster requirements would cut their effective range by several hundred kilometers of course, but think of the benefits!"
Either that or they're paramagic-technology hybrids... Actually, yeah, come to think of it: What if the payload here are devices designed to cast Flare or Ultima on detonation? That seems like it'd suit the universe's technomagic sensibilities.
This does make me imagine a world where like, some great archmage invents a spell that can level entire cities, but physically cannot be casted without the user also being in the blast radius. But then in the future once technomagic becomes a thing, someone rediscovers that spell and realizes, hang on, we can just slap the trigger mechanism to a giant rocket engine and launch it at our enemies from across an ocean.
Magitek is really fascinating when you start to really think about how it's developed and how the world would be shaped around it.
I wasn't sure whether to bring up this song earlier, because while it's introduced in-game only around this time, "Eyes On Me" was also the song used to advertise FFVIII everywhere, as its theme song. We can hear its motif in lots of other places, like the "Waltz For The Moon" BGM during the SeeD graduation ball, and Julia's theme itself.
"Eyes On Me" was sung by Faye Wong, the stupendously famous Hong Kong singer. So at least in this region, there was additional interest in FFVIII from people outside of gaming, entirely due to that; it's like having Madonna sing the theme song to a JRPG.
It's also very Engrish, which in hindsight is not surprising, given the disconnect between writers and translators at the time, and as can be seen in the translation efforts here. Faye Wong herself largely sings in Cantonese, with a few songs in Mandarin, and almost never English.
Also damn, I hadn't listened to Eyes On Me before, but that context is fascinating - I would have totally missed it. Looking at Wikipedia, it was apparently a massive hit, at least for a video game soundtrack piece?
After negotiations were made, "Eyes on Me" was recorded in Hong Kong with an orchestra.[62] The song was released as a CD single in Japan and sold over 400,000 copies,[69] setting the record for highest-selling video game music disc ever released in that country at the time.
When looking at the broader picture it's really fascinating how the game starts as a Magical Battle High School story with student drama, people worried about passing exams, complicated teacher-student relationships, a transfer student and a prom ball arc, then veers sharply into geopolitical technomagithriller, then gets taken over by a hot goth wizard lady. At this point I'm fully expecting another genre shift within the next couple hours!
It's funny how the whole shonen school has lasted all of tutorial level when in a modern media it would've been the whole game, with geopolitics awkwardly sharing space with exams and proms. Can you imagine getting to the Balamb Garden now to discover it's doing an annual inter-Garden tournament?
When looking at the broader picture it's really fascinating how the game starts as a Magical Battle High School story with student drama, people worried about passing exams, complicated teacher-student relationships, a transfer student and a prom ball arc, then veers sharply into geopolitical technomagithriller, then gets taken over by a hot goth wizard lady. At this point I'm fully expecting another genre shift within the next couple hours!
Well, at a minimum there's still whatever wild shit is presumably going on with the moon to address at some point. I mean come on, you can't not make use of the moon when there's a whole background detail of "oh btw monsters come from the moon, like literally millions of them just hop down in a giant wave called The Lunar Cry that can wipe out nations".
Well, at a minimum there's still whatever wild shit is presumably going on with the moon to address at some point. I mean come on, you can't not make use of the moon when there's a whole background detail of "oh btw monsters come from the moon, like literally millions of them just hop down in a giant wave called The Lunar Cry that can wipe out nations".
I tried exploring the equipment section but I didn't find anything else other than the screen showing the launcher and the screen showing the missile. If there's more stuff on Galbadian tech it was extremely non-obvious to find.
It does not seem so far off from some names of real world firearms, at any rate. ( Consider PAP M59/66A1, M1903A3, or L40-A1, to borrow some from EPU's Gun of the Week. With an honorable mention to the SMLE No. 1 Mk. III*, because of course the asterisk is part of the name and if you omit it you're not talking about the same gun anymore.)
If you're playing for the fun of playing rather than to collect cards, it's actually quite fun, since you never know what you'll get and need to adapt. It works best when there's also Same, Plus and Elemental, it makes games really interesting puzzles to solve.
I did, by the way, wonder from the update (I don't recall whether I wondered back when I played the game myself) why the missiles have that error bar setting both at all and distinct from the primary targeting system, and I came up with a hypothesis:
These are, as the video Corti linked showed, cruise missiles, and they maintain the ability to actively maneuver right up to impact, with no ballistic phase (at least at this range). That means they in theory have some ability to maneuver to avoid countermeasures, but they presumably only have so much onboard intelligence to manage those maneuvers. Thus, the error bars are setting their evasiveness; the less error, the more they fly straight at the target, and thus the more likely they are to hit it but the easier they are to shoot down, while with more error, they fly less predictable courses/have more freedom to actively evade counterfire but might fail to predict their own courses or dodge so far that they miss the target. It's set separately from the primary targeting because the system's designers anticipated that there might be last-minute updates on the expected countermeasures at the target.
Omicron said:
so they could 'merely' be ballistic weapons with the power of a nuclear warhead because of Reasons
@Corti re missile hit scene:
...They're explicitly not ballistic weapons, though, as we saw in this update? They're not even boost-glide, as was seen in the posted bad end video.
Yeah, what I meant here was "conventional," I just accidentally swapped in "ballistic" because we'd been talking about ICBMs.
With that said, these are apparently intercontinental cruise missiles? I guess an entirely unseen worldbuilding layer of this game is that Galbadia figured out the secret to infinite fuel efficiency?
Either that or the world is just very small, again.
It does not seem so far off from some names of real world firearms, at any rate. ( Consider PAP M59/66A1, M1903A3, or L40-A1, to borrow some from EPU's Gun of the Week. With an honorable mention to the SMLE No. 1 Mk. III*, because of course the asterisk is part of the name and if you omit it you're not talking about the same gun anymore.)
I think it might just be standard Galbadia training to play possum when possible. Which might well mean the group should be prepared for it, but both at the missile base and at the Dollet communication tower, the group was on a timer, so I think it might make sense that they didn't waste time confirming the kills, in those particular situations. It's still annoying from a narrative standpoint, but perhaps justifiable in-character.
Was the party even in the room during these possum reveals though? Or was it (to their view) just a "oops, guess we tripped something to release the monsters/mecha/missiles" situation?
Was the party even in the room during these possum reveals though? Or was it (to their view) just a "oops, guess we tripped something to release the monsters/mecha/missiles" situation?
The party wasn't, actually, now that you mention it. Which adds to the "audience is annoyed, but characters have no reason to suspect anything amiss" view of the situation. I hadn't considered that, but it's quite true that they don't know it was an enemy they failed to double-tap that got them in trouble; not like Biggs admitted to siccing the X-ATMO92 on them either. No reason they would know.
With that said, these are apparently intercontinental cruise missiles? I guess an entirely unseen worldbuilding layer of this game is that Galbadia figured out the secret to infinite fuel efficiency?
With a quick measurement on Google Earth, the SM-62 listed there, in service 1959-1961, could, for example, be fired from the Las Vegas, Nevada area (not that as far as I know it was ever deployed there, but I needed some place to measure from) and have most of Europe in range; fired from somewhere on the equator, it looks like it can reach either pole.
Either that or the world is just very small, again.
And there's that, yeah. Given the above, on a planet with half the circumference of Earth, something like the SM-62 could have antipodal range.
IRL as I understand it development of intercontinental cruise missiles was cut short by improvements in ICBM technology, but maybe Galbadia is worried about Moon Weirdness or something. Might be more appealing to avoid poking space as much as possible when space is already known to sometimes drop apocalyptic hordes of monsters without any apparent provocation; the last thing you'd want is it actively deciding to poke back and at you specifically.
With that said, these are apparently intercontinental cruise missiles? I guess an entirely unseen worldbuilding layer of this game is that Galbadia figured out the secret to infinite fuel efficiency?
Also damn, I hadn't listened to Eyes On Me before, but that context is fascinating - I would have totally missed it. Looking at Wikipedia, it was apparently a massive hit, at least for a video game soundtrack piece?
I'm listenin to it right now and it's pretty good...
...but my personal tastes really align more with Liberi Fatali, I gotta say.
Yeah, "Eyes On Me" is based more on what was called "Oscar-bait" type of songs, back in the 90s: songs that are associated with the context of the media they are from, but also intended to be listenable as a single unconnected to anything else. Back in the 90s, this usually meant some sort of slow love song. Most of them are so formulaic they may as well come from a template.
A significant part of the appeal was, as mentioned, the star power of Faye Wong being the singer. Apart from whether it's objectively a good song, I do think it's more notable in how it represents the culture of the 90s: a song crafted to be bait for Best Soundtrack Oscar nominations, sung by as big a name as the budget can allow, and spammed everywhere in advertisements. "Eyes On Me" was unusual in that it was for a game, rather than a blockbuster movie.
If you're playing for the fun of playing rather than to collect cards, it's actually quite fun, since you never know what you'll get and need to adapt. It works best when there's also Same, Plus and Elemental, it makes games really interesting puzzles to solve.
I should probably qualify that, although I hate it as a player too, I was thinking in in-setting terms. Just having antes at all is controversial, it's hard to believe you'd get an entire region to go "yeah, that sounds legit" about using a random subset of their cards on top of that.
On the missiles veering off before coming back in, that's not that unusual. Granted, it's usually anti-ship missiles that do that, the idea being that the missiles come in just above the water before popping up and slamming down on the ships deck. The idea is that the low approach minimizes the chances of the missile being shot down, and the last minute redirect targets the least armored parts of the ship.
Did you know that in the initial draft of this scene, everyone except for the other two character chosen for your party were supposed to fucking die, cut down by anti-aircraft fire? This was rightfully changed for being deranged
Welcome back, class, to Final Fantasy VIII 201. Today's lesson:
Hey! Teacher! Leave them kids alone!
Last time, Selphie, Quistis and Irvine were presumed lost in the destruction of the Galbadia Missile Base. Now, we are back with Squall, Rinoa and Zell, who have just arrived in Balamb Garden (no word on how they did the trip).
Squall's first thought on seeing the Garden seemingly unharmed is that the others probably did their part of the job, but the missiles could still be on their way - they won't know until they hit, so they should still report to Headmaster Cid and tell him to evacuate Balamb Garden until they're sure it's safe.
Which seems reasonable, although that could easily lead to tragedy considering that the missiles did launch but Selphie messed with their error margins so that they would go off-course, which means having everyone evacuate to areas around the Garden… Eh, not like Squall could have any way of knowing.
However, on our way to Cid, we encounter our very first sign that something's wrong with the Garden.
And I do mean 'encounter.'
Only a few steps towards the gates and we run into a Grat, one of the plant monsters we met in the Training Grounds. Did someone open the Training Grounds and release the monsters? At least that enemy is easily dispatched, allowing us to move on to the next step, where, huh…
Well, it's chaos.
Garden Faculty: [To students] "Find the headmaster!" Squall, mentally: "(What's going on? Are they evacuating?)" Garden Faculty: "Seize him! Kill him if you have to! Go!" Squall, mentally: "(What!?)" Garden Faculty: "Go!"
…okay, so. That's not quite what I was expecting. The Faculty members seem to have turned against Cid, and they are actively giving students orders to hunt him down. On the next screen, same scene, students running around while a Faculty member directs them, but this time he intercepts us.
Squall, mentally: "(What the hell is going on?)" Garden Faculty: "You three, which side are you on?" Squall, mentally: "(Huh?)" Garden Faculty: "Answer the question! Are you with the Garden Master, or are you with Cid!?" Squall: "I don't understand what you're talking about." Garden Faculty: "Do you swear your allegiance to Garden Master NORG?" Squall: ["(...I guess… for now)"] / "(...I don't get it)" Squall: "Can you tell me what's going on?" Garden Faculty: "I'm the one asking questions! You're just supposed to follow orders! Hey, what kind of attitude is that!? You're with Cid, aren't you!?"
[Combat begins.]
Notably the Faculty member isn't part of the encounter, he vanishes as soon as the fight starts.
…
Ooookay.
The whole situation where BGU has Cid as a headmaster and then a mysterious "Garden Master" who is only known as NORG and never referred to or seen was always weird. If you'll recall, we've seen only one mention of NORG before, in the desktop tutorial, where he is simply listed as "Garden Master." I always got the impression that there was some kind of tension or conflict between the Faculty and Cid, but… Damn, things degenerated quickly while we were gone.
It looks like Cid slipped whatever leash they had him on. I previously suspected mind control, but it could really be anything. So, who's NORG? What precipitated this sudden conflict? Why are the students following the Faculty's orders? All questions for later. For now, we quickly dispatch those two monsters, but by the time we do so, the Faculty member is gone, so we proceed onwards.
Incidentally, if we choose to swear allegiance to NORG, the guy lets us go through without a fight - however, I don't want to end up accidentally locking myself into having to fight other students if it turns out that's required to keep up the pretense, so I won't be trying to bluff my way through like I did with Selphie. I could have kept two saves to check both options, but I end up very quickly running into a situation where I'm given the chance to save SeeDs or leave them to their doom, so I would have blown my cover pretty quickly regardless.
Yep, got it in one - the Faculty members opened the gates to the training center and unleashed the monsters, presumably retaining some kind of control over them somehow. And it looks like this student, at least, isn't on their side. There's also clear mention of 'factions' now - sounds like Faculty loyalists and Cid loyalists are duking it out.
In the atrium, we run into our old acquaintances, Fujin and Raijin.
Did they ever end up finding Seifer? We can't tell from the dialogue. This is going to be a consistent feature of this scene - between the total chaos at the Garden, and the threat of incoming missiles overriding all other concerns for Squall, very little time is taken to properly explain what the hell is going on.
Squall: "What's going on here?" Raijin: "I dunno. At first, they were sayin' somethin' 'bout roundin' up the SeeDs, ya know? Now, everyone's either sidin' with the Garden Master or the headmaster and fightin' everywhere, ya know?" Fujin: "DISTURBING." Raijin: "Disappointin' for the disciplinary committee. All our work for nothin', ya know?" Squall: "Why are SeeDs being targeted? And where's the headmaster? Is he safe?" Raijin: "We got no clue." Squall: "We need to see him right away. It's important. Galbadian missiles may be heading this way." Raijin: "WHAT!? We gotta get outta here!"
[Fujin kicks him in the shin.] Raijin: "OOOUUUCH! Geez, alright! We'll warn everyone about the missiles! Man, this is no time to be fightin', ya know?" Squall: "We'll look for the headmaster." Fujin: "CAUTION!" Raijin: "Yeah, the fightin' is intense everywhere! And watch out for those Garden Master goons, ya know!" Zell: "Yo, guys…" Rinoa: "The headmaster?" Raijin: "Hey, just like Fujin said, ya know!? We're with Seifer. Always have, always will."
[They leave.] Squall, mentally: "(Seifer… He's sided with the sorceress. You guys alright with that?"
I really like Raijin and Fujin, I do. They have a great dynamic, they're friendly to us but in a way where it's clear we'll probably end up in conflict when they realize that Seifer is our enemy now, but they're not bad guys. Fujin's EN version manages to do a lot with single-word sentences and physical acting.
With all that said… I'm guessing they never ended up finding Seifer's trail after his 'death,' so they don't know he's working for Galbadia now. Our collaboration is temporary.
Also, the Garden Faculty aren't just trying to capture or kill Cid, but also all the SeeDs?
…
This has to be connected to Edea, right? We know she hates SeeDs, and all of a sudden a mysterious master 'NORG' tells all the Faculty to round up the SeeDs? But if she has that kind of connection, what does she need the missile for, exactly? And if the Faculty are working with her, why are they just sitting there waiting to be nuked? Part of it could of course simply be the communication issues we know this world has meaning that people are operating dissociated, but… I can't see the full picture yet.
A Garden Faculty member tells us that he knows Cid is definitely hiding on this floor (how?) and to check the whole floor. It seems very obvious that Cid will be upstairs, but I guess we have to check every other room in BGU first. That's fine. We haven't been here in a long time, after all! Might as well have some fun touring the facility!
In an exciting display of NPC competence, we run into a Faculty Member and his faction students being stalled by two SeeDs. When the teacher decides to call in the monsters, we're given the option to intervene.
Once again, the Faculty member vanishes as soon as the fight starts. It's very strange.
This is Granaldo, which you might recall from prom night when it cornered the Girl In Blue. It was never very tough, though, and without its trio of armadillo bugs to throw at us it's a pushover.
Once the fight is done, the Faculty member is gone along with one of the students, but another remains, injured, and we see a familiar face.
Dr Kadowaki, the first face that greeted Squall in the game, helps the student. When he protests that he's with the Garden Master's faction and asks why she's helping him, she tells him to not be ridiculous. She doesn't care about 'sides,' only that there are students in need of care.
It's a laudable sentiment, but unfortunately people are already fighting to the death. The situation really seems extreme - how quickly can it have degenerated like this? This seems less like the result of an afternoon's spat and more like days or weeks of building tensions and consolidating allegiances.
…
You know, when after the SeeD exam we saw that there were only four graduates out of the entire SeeD expedition in Dollet, I thought that was a little on the low side, but not necessarily exceptional for a very elite organization that doesn't benefit from expanding its ranks too much.
Now I'm wondering if years of electing only small number of SeeDs and letting most students only pass through with a default graduation into wherever they go next might not have ended up building resentment and a kind of class divide that's now blowing up on everyone, with the students who feel they'll never make it into SeeD siding with the Garden Master both out of resentment and promises of better alternatives.
Either that or it's just mind control again.
Kadowaki asks Squall why he needs to see Cid, he tells her about the missile, and she says she definitely has to stay - what if people get hurt? She tells us Xu might know where Cid is - Xu was that senior SeeD who briefed us during the Dollet attack.
It's really interesting how we're seeing a split between people who believed in Balamb Garden as an institution, who care about its teachers or students, and people who seem to have treated it in a purely cold-blooded fashion, as an instrument of some conspiracy. Before we leave, she gives us an elixir, and we meet the SeeDs on the other side…
We are greeted by another student labeled as Nida, a name I've never heard before, and Squall asks him pretty rudely who he is, whereupon it turns out it's the fourth student from the graduation ceremony, you know, the only other guy to make it into SeeD, who was on the same exam and at the same ceremony as Squall, who plain doesn't recognize him.
Squall, you're so bad.
Next up is the Quad.
Another Faculty member stands in our way; he throws a Bomb and a Glacial Eye at us, we tear through them, and meet on the other side with more SeeDs.
They do a dynamic entry pose.
Notably, Squall does comment that the festival set-up "doesn't look damaged so far" - are we caring more about Selphie's big project than we're letting on, Mr Leonheart?
The SeeDs ask us who we're with; answering Cid gets us "That's what we thought," while answering "the Garden Master" has a funny beat where the SeeDs freak out until Squall says "yeah, that's what I told them to make things easier" and the relieved students say they really weren't looking forward to fighting him.
Apparently, Cid had most of SeeD evacuate the Garden, and said something about 'the true battle for SeeD' is yet to come, and now's not the time. Still no idea where he is, though they give us an X-Potion.
I gotta say I'm really impressed with how there isn't a single "Balamb Garden combat screen," but one for every individual corridor, modeled after its pre-rendered version. Also, I must have tripped a level gate on the way, because the last Bomb I fought had only Fire in its Draw list, but this bomb has Fire, Fira, Firaga, and Meltdown. If you'll recall, in VI Meltdown was a spell that was stronger than Ultima but dealt massive damage to its caster as well as its target. Here, it's… Different.
Let's go to the menu to find more.
This is a page from the informational menu on magic. A reader mentioned this a while ago, and I totally would have missed it if they hadn't, but the informational menu contains a description of every spell in the game. This is genuinely surprising to me; every previous game would have reserved the surprise effect of some magic by only revealing them once you have access to them. But here, perhaps because the menu is very bad at showing you what your options will do in the combat menu, there is instead a full list of every spell in the game, from Fire to Aura to Ultima to Flare.
So what does Meltdown do? "Target receives damage under Vit 0. Also causes Vit 0." Given that in VI, Meltdown was a self-destruct spell, I'm worried what this means. Well, it turns out this information is incomplete; what "Vit 0" means is that Meltdown deals damage and sets its target's Vitality and Spirit to 0, those being the resistance stats of the game. So it sets the enemy's Defense values to 0.
This is… probably really good? Unfortunately, I only have a very small window to actually Draw those spells from the Bomb - within two turns, it has inflated itself to triple size and self-destructs, taking out Rinoa.
I still managed to get 9 Meltdown casts out of it, though, so hopefully these'll be handy later.
The Cafeteria is on the other side. According to the SeeDs, they gathered in multiple places to give multiple potential locations for the Faculty to hunt down, scattering their forces, so that they wouldn't be able to make a coordinated assault. That idea was Xu's brainchild, apparently.
Talking to the girls at the counter has them ask us if we'd like some hot dogs. Zell shouts in triumph; finally, after all this time, he's finally getting the much-desired cafeteria hot dogs!
It turns out they already finished the last of the stock. Peak comedy.
We fight more Faculty on the way to the dorms, but there's not much to see there, so we move on to the Parking lot.
That 'Grendel' opponent is… new. And problematic. It has a powerful Breath attack that deals damage to the whole party and a ton of HP. It also has Double in its Draw list (plus Fira and Blizzara) so it's really easy to get greedy, not realize how dire the situation is getting while Drawing as much as possible, and then…
Oops. That's a game over.
Even actually paying attention and keeping my Drawing to a minimum, Grendel is tough, mostly because it's really hard to deal meaningful damage to it with stuff that doesn't hit its elemental weaknesses… Except for Summons.
This is something I've been noticing more and more: even as my damage is completely failing to keep up with enemy HP, my Summon damage remains competitive. A Blizzara cast from Squall, who has decent Magic damage, deals maybe 200 damage out of an HP pool in the thousand. But Quetzacotl hits for 900, Ifrit for 600. Even taking account the increased casting times for summons, GFs are literally my most efficient form of damage dealing at this stage.
And with their help, Grendel is soon down, and we move on.
Cid! We finally found the headmaster! Thank goodness, I thought this might take longer.
It's a hologram. The moment we approach it it flickers out and the SeeDs proudly explain their trick. I do have to admit, it was funny, and besides, they give us a tent.
Training grounds are next. The Faculty member is pursuing a SeeD who is with the 'junior classmen' - those children we saw play in Balamb Garden at the start of the game. The boy shouts that he's gonna fight; the rebel student sneers 'this should be interesting' like a cheap anime villain, and gets instantly owned as a cheap anime villain by the boy kicking him in the shin, which in this universe appears to be an incredibly powerful disabling technique.
Then Squall - wait a second.
Squall intervenes by diving in with his sweet pose just like in the D-District Prison… Except in that prison he could do that because he was on the upper floor, so he literally saw the fight happen below and jumped down.
Did Squall climb up on the trees and circle the scene just so he could dramatically jump in from above for the sake of looking cooler???
That boy, I swear.
Oh yeah, baby. It's T-Rexaur time.
The game ended up leaving Balamb Garden earlier than I'd thought, and so I ended up never taking the chance to beat the biggest non-boss monster in the game at the time. But now it's back, and stronger than ever. It has 16,000 HP, which is much higher than anything we've fought so far, boss or not.
…but it's still vulnerable to Sleep. And I still have Squall junctioned with 100% Sleep on his physical attack.
The name of the game is simply to use Squall's attacks to put the dino to sleep, then spam Blizzara, using Double to make it go faster, and then run down the thing's enormous HP bar with Squall doing more attacks whenever it wakes up. This ends up being a very easy fight… And as good an opportunity as any to try Meltdown.
Oh hell yeah baby, it's Hyper-Beam.
It even does spaghettification effects on the T-Rexaur's model, that's outstanding.
Once the T-Rexaur is under Meltdown's effect, its model gains a purple tinge, and it takes noticeably more damage from spells - nothing like double damage or what not, but it's a solid extra 100-200 damage per hit. Useful!
The beast is down, the SeeD girl and children thank us, moving on. There's another student hiding out in the training grounds (since, you know, most of the monsters have left for the rest of the school, lmao) who keeps a standard item shop. Our next Faculty member is on the way to the library and sends a Grat after us, which is honestly beneath my dignity to post screenshots of.
Oh my god, one of the students in the library has a crush on Zell. That's adorable. Good for you, Zell. She manages to stammer her way through giving us a 'Mega Phoenix,' which is an item I've never seen before in the series but from the name alone I'm gonna guess it's a Full-Life item.
And with this, we've done a tour of all the sections of the Garden… And no trace of Cid yet. Where could he possibly be? When we come back in the atrium, the group spots Xu heading upstairs!
A quick elevator trip later, we find them in a remote area. She, understandably, feels cornered and threatened, and in his eternal sense of diplomacy, Squall says that he is on 'neither' side.
It's truly incredible to me that this guy can watch the whole school busy trying to kill each other and go 'I, an enlightened centrist, understand that there are good people on both sides.' But anyway, he explains that there may Galbadian missiles on their way, which is his sole concern right now. Xu is shocked, but agrees with the emergency of the moment and says she'll warn Cid.
Who was…
Drum rolls please…
In his office.
He was. In his own office. The entire time. "We made it look like he's hiding," Xu says, "but he's been there all along."
I'm just.
I'm gonna have an aneurysm.
How was this not the very first place the Faculty looked up? How are they not placed there right now, just in case there's something useful to be found in the headmaster's own office?
Ah, well.
Incidentally that door at the back led to this… Viewing deck? Observation platform? That has no obvious purpose but which we haven't seen before.
Anyway, Cid time.
Headmaster Robin Williams is back.
Xu already told him about the missiles, he dispatched her and Fujin and Raijin to evacuate all the students (the intercom is out so he can't broadcast the warning), the Faculty were disposed of by our very own care, now all that's left to worry about is those damned missiles.
Headmaster Cid: "I want you to assist them and then evacuate." Squall, mentally: "(...What's on your mind?)" Squall: "But I have a lot to report." Headmaster Cid: "You can tell me later." Squall, mentally: "(You might be dead later…)" Headmaster Cid: "Do you have a problem with that?" Squall, mentally: "(Yeah. What are you going to do?)" Squall: "Sir, what are you going to do?" Headmaster Cid: "I'm going to stay here and see this to the end. After all, this place is like my home." Zell: "You're plannin' on dying here!?" Rinoa: "No…! You can't! Just come with us, please! You can always rebuild this place!" Headmaster Cid: "You can rest assured. I am just going to try something. There still may be a way to save the Garden."
[Cid takes a few step, but then visibly weakens and falls to his knee.] Squall, mentally: "(Against missiles…? How?)" Headmaster Cid: "Heh heh… I'm too old for this." Squall: [He steps forward.] "Sir, I'd like to handle whatever it is that you're planning." Headmaster Cid: "And why is that?" Squall, mentally: "(...I don't know… Because you might screw up.)" Squall, mentally: "(…Because I want to do more than announce the evacuation.)" Squall, mentally: "(Because this place is important to me, too.)" Squall, mentally: "(Because I want to find out your plan.)" Squall, mentally: "(Because this is my home.)" Squall, mentally: "(I have too many reasons. I don't know why… Who cares?)" Squall: "My feelings have nothing to do with it, sir."
[Cid laughs.] Headmaster Cid: "Heh heh, Quistis was right. You do have a hard time expressing your feelings." Squall, mentally: "(Why bother. And what is this? Am I being judged?)" Squall: "Sir! Please tell us your plan!"
God, sorry about the extended direct dialogue quotes, but I love this bit. Like… This whole exchange where Squall is struggling with the density of feelings he has towards Balamb Garden and everything else. We still don't know anything for sure about Squall's origins, about his family, but it's incredibly clear that this is his home. The only place he's ever really known. The only people he's ever formed any kind of relationship with. He cares about Balamb Garden. But not just that! It would be too easy if he'd grown enough for that care to be the only motivation he needs. Squall has learned to trust his own close circle of friends to get the job right, but he doesn't trust those outside that circle; Cid may be the headmaster, but he's an ailing old man who might fuck up. And Squall is a SeeD, a mercenary hero, he can't see himself stuck just running around giving people evacuation orders. This is a waste of his skill.
Balamb Garden matters to him, and he wants to save this place, and that means not trusting strangers to do the job, and committing to the hard part himself, because he believes he's good enough. And beyond it all, snuck through in a single line of dialogue, our boy does grasp that there's more to this than he's seeing, he does want to figure out what's going on, what Cid's plan is.
So, Cid decides to trust Squall with that plan.
According to Cid, "This building used to be a shelter, long before it was remodeled into the Garden as we know it." He tosses Squall a pair of key that will give him special access to the elevator to reach the 'MD level,' whatever that is. Going below that 'MD level', we will find some kind of control system. Cid has never gone there or seen the system himself and doesn't know what it does, but it dates from when the building was a shelter, so Cid believes it might be useful to protect against the missiles.
That is… a lot to be hanging off assumptions and rumors, if I'm honest. Also, 'the building used to be a shelter' is a fantastically unclear sentence. Was Balamb Garden literally built on top of a bunker? Is the structure of the building itself the shelter with just a few coats of paints used to turn it into a school?
We'll have to find out.
Squall mentally notes that this is farfetched (thank you) but better than nothing. We head back to the elevator.
A brief, but extremely ominous FMV plays of the missiles streaking through the clouds and towards their target. In the elevator, the party hears a loud noise, the elevator shakes and the lights briefly go out.
Concerning. Unfortunately, the elevator is now stuck. We have to unlock a trap door in the floor in order to escape through the shaft.
If you've ever thought during this LP, "you know Balamb Garden's overworld model is really huge for how small its interior is, I guess it's just a gameplay abstraction" we're about to find out that no, it's not, we've just only been exploring 10% of Balamb Garden so far.
Incidentally, these dim interiors with the rusted steel and ancient machinery? A jarring shift from the Garden's sleek iPod Future aesthetic. We are in a different world here, the prehistory of Balamb Garden.
I don't know what an 'oil stratum' is supposed to be in this context. Like, you'd normally talk about this in geological term, looking for oil deposits in the ground? But the way Squall talks about it is like there is an entire layer of the garden that is, like… Oil-filled? Oil-based?
And it's full of monsters. There is an entire underground complex of oil machinery, untouched by human hands in years, full of monsters, inside Balamb Garden. Incredible stuff.
Squall gives us a reminder of the Elemental Attack Junction, but unfortunately my current rules prevent me from using Fire Elemental Junctions on anyone except the character with Ifrit attached (Zell in this case). I can, of course, always break these rules if they prove a real impediment to progress, but so far they've spiced up the game a little in interesting ways.
In order to advance, we must unlock the way to some kind of oil tanker using this wheel. The "press square as fast as possible" minigame seems impossible to do with Squall alone - I wonder if there is some interaction between the PS5 controller, PC and emulator that makes it so these kinds of inputs don't register the way they would have on the original console. Luckily, each time we fail, another of our teammates join in, first Zell, then Rinoa, which gives us a chance to look at Rinoa's hilariously dainty animation for pushing a heavy object:
Girl, you are not putting in the work.
Anyway, the valve (that's the word I was looking for) finally works and we open the giant tanker and head into the depths.
Like I said: Gargantuan.
Also… what are those… huge glass tubes..?
Listen, we've seen giant glass tubes in both VI and VII at this point, and in both cases they were very bad news. What the fuck was going on in this building? And why is the aesthetic so much grungier, more, like… Rusted dieselpunk?
The Suspicious Glass Tube Room has a huge pillar in its center. It also has a Full-Life Draw point, which is sweet. Unfortunately, we eventually reach a dead end - this room just goes in a circle with no exit but the one we just came through. At least until Zell manages to spot a ladder climbing that pillar.
Rinoa asks Squall what to do, and we're given the odd choice to either climb the ladder as a group, have Squall do it alone, or send someone other than Squall to do it. I went with Squall alone because it seemed less likely to backfire somehow but I have no idea what would have happened otherwise. Our boy leaves the party behind and climbs the ladder.
So, hey, remember how I keep bringing up that this place looks rusty and disused and hasn't been visited in forever?
The ladder falls off the wall, and Squall smashes through a glass window.
Which turns out to be oddly lucky: It turns out the metal floor around the central area of the Suspicious Glass Tube Room are rotating shutters, and this room contains the computer that can turn them off.
Look at the delightfully antiquated appearance of this computer, clearly outdated by Garden-era standards.
We head down, meet up with the group, Rinoa says Squall must have been scared as hell and we get a chance to either admit to it or play it off as nothing new, which makes everyone do an exasperated sigh gesture. I like that by now they can see through Squall's bullshit and show it sometimes.
They do a dynamic entry pose.
