Aliya
Someone I might become
- Location
- Kazakhstan
- Pronouns
- They/She/It
Hi, I am Selphie! Selphie the SEED!
Let's Play Every Final Fantasy Game In Order Of Release [Now Finished: Final Fantasy Tactics]
- Thread starter Omicron
- Start date
- Let's Play
Hi, I am Selphie! Selphie the SEED!
- Location
- United States
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Selphie's not flowey for one reason, Selphie wouldn't wait to get bored before she starts killing.
Last edited:
deadcrystal
Slaaneshi Cultist
- Location
- The Warp
We knew Irvine was a ridiculous poser from his introduction, but now we're past the reveal from when he couldn't make the assassination shot initially, which means we can get characters dunking on his attempts to look cool.
I think the bottom door is an emergency panel of some kind, and is never actually useable under normal circumstances. I think the gimmick is that the prison is only accessible when submerged, and it only does this to let people into/out of the prison. When in the air there's no way off, thus making it an 'inescapable' prison. As long as the guards can retain control of the main mechanism, even a riot can't go anywhere. Plus we know that Galbadia have flying power armour and mechanical units, so in an emergency military forces could provide support from the outside.
A massive over-engineered boondoggle of a prison for political prisoners, but absolutely something that a state like Galbadia and Deling would do as a show of 'strength'
...It's all beginning to make sense. This is why they had a clear copy of the Arc de Triomphe, and they're full of people who simp for powerful women stepping on them. We're in Omicron country.
It's interesting that you've commented on how the Gardens seem to have become prominent by acting in reaction to Galbadia, when it seems that Galbadia became what it is itself in reaction to Esthar.
I'm afraid you will struggle to proceed much further on your path without learning the Deep Magic. Namely the secret mechanics for manipulating the card games rules. By strategically playing games in certain regions and also losing cards to the Card Queen you can change the rules of Regions. The most common strategy which people follow is to permanently kill the Random rule from the world entirely, and generally also to spread Open and Same as well.
I do love that on the best version of the missile base run when you're only exposed at the end, the game forces you to participate in preparing the attack that you're here to stop. It does wonderfully for building tension, because you don't want to blow your cover, but also what you're doing makes the danger more prominent.
This guy definitely accuses soldiers of being spys all the time, he just got lucky on this occasion.
It is a bit, but I will excuse it in this case specifically because the party is racing the clock.
This is video games doing something that no other medium can do. Much like you discussed in FF7 with Cloud at the forgotten capital, the illusion of control can be illustrative like nothing else. Here, the game lets you retain control, so you think that there is something you can do. It puts you in the shoes of the characters, desperately looking for an escape, some option, some action you can take, until you realize that there is nothing.
It does bring up a lot of questions, but would cut the urgency if it showed a bunch of irrelevant interstitial scenes right now.
Unlike the missile base, in this case every scene with the Faculty where you have a choice operates independently, so you're never committed, though it ultimately makes little difference.
Worth noting it was the Faculty who cut Cid off when he started talking to Seifer saying he wanted them to be able to make independent decisions, and now they're running around demanding blind obedience again.
You thought he was in the game for a one-off gag, but here he is again!
One of the best spells in the game, notably for not only retaining use into the endgame, but also improving effectively. As enemies and bosses get beefier their defence stats get chunkier as well, effectively making Vit 0 a more and more useful status. Also worth nothing that it doesn't expire with time, and that enemies are incapable of curing it.
Very funny moment to hit this if you've been lucky previously and never encountered them in the training centre.
I mean we've seen that Squall's identity is tied up in being the cold professional mercenary who completes the mission, who obeys orders without judgement, because as mercenaries they cannot be blamed for their actions. Unironically I can see Squall complaining that they've ruined Balamb Garden by bringing politics into things.
He's the head of the school for the most elite mercenary force on the planet. The group that can fight wars, conduct sabotage, infiltrate as spies, and assassinate heads of state. Do you expect the Faculty to seriously believe the Headmaster of that institution would hide under his desk in his office, the first place they'll look for him? Of course not, it would be beneath his no doubt impeccable dignity, so they didn't even bother to check such an embarrassing hiding spot.
Squall continually put off by people showing their humanity and emotions in front of him. He wants Cid to give him a firm decisive order, not waffle about the emotions that drive him to do it.
It should definitely be 'residue' rather than 'stratum'. To indicate that the entire area is heavily stained with it.
The aesthetic is great. We're clearly in some sort of 'lost forgotten technology of an ancient civilization' zone...but it's also clearly more primitive than the tech Balamb garden normally uses.
I would love for more settings to do this. Pull an Eva and pull back the veneer of high-tech futurism and reveal the flesh beneath.
Sick as all hell/
Hey, if no-one was using it, it's free real estate. Plus there's a feeling of security in building a military academy on the foundations of some secure structure.
Ah, but don't forget, upgrading weapons also increases accuracy, and unlocks finishers for Squall's limit breaks.
We have already seen that there are certain factions in the Garden that don't want independent thought, just a focus on how to build the Garden's reputation.
You know maybe it's because I bought the Etrian Odyssey games on Steam since previously posting, but suddenly I'm reminded of those games calling each new environment/set of floors a "stratum" and just picturing the underground machinery part of Balamb Garden going on for hours of dungeon exploration.
Ah, fair, fair - I didn't consider either of those since I was comparing to Squall's weapons which always have max accuracy and forgot that was how he gets more finishers. Still don't think equipment makes a particularly big difference compared to the rest of the series, but yeah that's a factor to consider.
- Location
- Columbus, OH
I'm glad I kept reading for FF8 despite knowing nothing about it, because otherwise I wouldn't understand this new remix where Raijin and Fujin taunt Squall until they're interrupted by Seifer. Or at least, I wouldn't have found it half as funny.
The fact that Zell gets a callback like this makes me wonder if there's anything in this sequence for Quistis, if you bring her. I mean, she was a teacher, right? The Garden Faculty are her coworkers, she ought to know them personally.
- Pronouns
- Him/He
Not that I recall, except for one minor moment.
When Cid says 'Quistis was right, you have trouble expressing your emotions' Squall glares at her while she does one of the 'awkward' poses before moving on.
- Location
- Land of the Midday Sun
Accuracy increases by very little for all characters bar Squall and Selphie with better weapons. Excluding Selphie and Squall weapons give you at best +10 Hit%, while junctioning 100 Double gets you +40 Hit%. 100 Triple gets you +150 Hit%, but Triple is also the best spell to Junction to speed and you might want it on that stat.
TBH Squall getting better finishers is tha main reason you care for unpgrading weapons, Str/Hit% are secondary concerns at best.
TBH Squall getting better finishers is tha main reason you care for unpgrading weapons, Str/Hit% are secondary concerns at best.
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.
A lot earlier, on BGN :
https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/f...st/scale-to-width-down/1000?cb=20191019023735
Seems she supports him from a long time. I am cheering for you, library girl with a pigtail ! As you don't have a name, let's hope you will not die before dating Zell !
(btw, without Zell, she only gives you a Remedy...)
Egleris
Vagrant Dragon
- Location
- Italy
That's because they're the better team to bring to Balamb, since, as mentioned, bringing Zell means getting a Mega-Phoenix (which is a rare item that revives the entire team when used, so a great reason to always have a person with Items), whereas otherwise:
That. And not only it's obviously impossible to give Rinoa a tour of the Garden if you leave her to be exploded at the Missile Base, but the FMV where she looks around as the Garden is flying only triggers if Rinoa is in the team; if she's not, then you get only the first half of the FMV, showing the flying Garden but not the other characters.
In the Italian version, Quistis also has a minor line to Xu about "you don't trust me?!", or something to that effect (I haven't replayed that far yet) when you're explaining about the missiles.
Irvine, unsurprisingly since he's never been there, has no particular interaction with anybody at Balamb Garden, so bringing him along is the worst option, from an objective standpoint.
Last edited:
Thozmp
Gets my kicks above the waistline, Sunshine.
It's Galbadia, where monsters have a right to be flying murder/suicide drones if they wish.
Actually thinking on it, could these missiles be some sort of evolved/advanced bombs, you know the monsters that also like to explode in people's faces? Like, can you imagine a scene where some Galbadian scientist is convincing a bomb to be borged up to increase their explosive potential?
Well, since we started considering Bombs from the lore perspective, that actually begs the question: is exploding in your face a part of their reproductive cycle?
Middens said:
- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Well, all of my characters have 100 of a -ra spell junctioned to Strength, Magic or both, depending on whether I mainly use them as a physical attacker or a magic user or both. If the game is expecting me to have 100 Firagas at this stage of the game, I'm not sure how I'm supposed to achieve that.
I did wonder that. It's such a funny choice of recurring point too, in a game that's otherwise completely linear 'did Squall agree to help Selphie with the festival' is a funny beat to bring up again.
I am indescribably annoyed that this Bomb blew itself up before I could fully stock up on Firaga and Meltdown. Especially because I could have just wacked it with a Sleep Attack and made it easy, but I didn't expect it to be a one-off and the other Bombs in the area to have low-level draw lists.
Especially because one of the Tri-Faces actually Confused Zell into casting one of those few Meltdowns I did manage to grab... On himself.
Hmm, yeah, a quick look tells me that most of my characters have their main damage stat in the 40s. That's significantly lower than 90, but like I said, they all have 100 Thundaras or equivalent linked to Strength/Magic. Zell has Ifrit junctioned but he still doesn't break 50...
...and that's because I just checked and found that he doesn't have Str +20%/Str +40%, I gave him Cover and Str Bonus, what am I even doing? Even just swapping those two for Str +20% and Str +40% pushes him to Str 75 which is a massive improvement. Granted I'm not going to do both because I am trying to get his Strength up thanks to Str Bonus but still.
This fucking system, I swear. It has so many fiddly bits.
Squall lives in his own head to a degree that's genuinely impressive and uncommon by video game standards. The result is that we, the player, actually see a totally different person from what everyone within the story is seeing. It's a fascinating bit of characterization. Especially compared to VII, which kept Cloud's cards a lot closer to its chest for the sake of its multiple character-based plot twists.
Speaking of which, I totally forgot to check the progress on Rinoa's Limit Breaks until this post, so I just went to check and it turns out Invincible Moon was complete probably ages ago and I never got a pop-up for it or anything.
I need to go back and reread the thread from earlier because as I recall some of Angelo's LBs aren't desirable to unlock due to interactions with the game's RNG.
...so I'm confused now, because I distinctly recall upgrading at least Squall's weapon to the cool red flame-looking blade, but I'm looking through my screenshots and it turns out I did not in fact do that. I couldn't have; I found the magazine for that weapon back during the Assassination Attempt, and the only time I've had access to a weapons store since then has been when Selphie's party got to drive around a bit between the Prison Escape and the Missile Base. In between, I actually got a fourth magazines with new weapon upgrades.
So no, Squall is still stuck on his second weapon, the Shear Trigger. All the other characters are still on their first weapons due to crafting material shortages, although I expect that will have changed after I burned my entire card library for parts back in the prison.
Well, one thing to be looking forward to whenever we actually get to a store again, I suppose.
Yeah, it's a very strange bit of dialogue. Looking at a playthrough of that sequence, it seems like the dialogue is much clearer with other characters; it's just a weird quirk of picking Zell and Rinoa specifically.
Wait wait wait.
Meltdown works on bosses?
I should finish 13 Sentinels.
How utterly baffling. It's not like there are any rewards for winning with fewer characters or penalties for losing, either! FF8 is full of bizarre and random ideas.
He really is the most relatable Final Fantasy protagonist to date, fr fr.
That's literally the climax of AC7 though!! The drones even sing a nursery rhyme tune while we get a close-up on their camera lens lighting up in red!!
It's fascinating to me that I remember the Final Fantasy series at some point having a reputation for its protagonists being brooding loners who are too cool for school when the games systematically tear down and make fun of characters who try to embody that archetype.
I can't believe I provide you with dozens, HUNDREDS of THOUSANDS of words of trenchant video game analysis, only to be VICIOUSLY ATTACKED like this!! You will be hearing from my lawyer!!!
who designed this and what's their address, i just wanna talk to them
Yeah, very much so.
Although it gets a little trickier in the Internet era, where it's entirely possible that a player faced with that kind of calculated helplessness will just figure that they are missing the input they're supposed to enter to advance the story, put the game on pause, and go look up how to advance the story, and see 'no you're not missing anything, this is on purpose,' thereby robbing the beat of much of its effect.
Not that this would ever have happened to me.
More than a dozen times.
T-Rexaur is kind of emblematic of the perils of FF8's game system - in any other game, either you would obtain some kind of reward for defeating such a tough opponent early in the game, or you would come back later and now comparatively overpowered and satisfyingly crush the beast that gave you so much trouble when you were younger and weaker.
Here, neither is possible: the T-Rexaur is always a giant wall of high-damage HP no matter when you encounter it, and while it does give an impressive XP payout, that's not inherently valuable due to the game's level scaling. Nor does it have a particularly interesting Draw list at any point I encountered it.
I guess it does drop the Dino Bone, which is one of the few ways I've found to make Quake spells - I should make more of those actually. But for the most part there's not that much reason to actually fight the dinos.
My girl is getting robbed in this game, fr fr
...it's genuinely wild to me just how you can miss by not bringing Rinoa along. And she'd be presumed lost along with everyone at the Missile Base, which considering that she is on the cover of the game, makes it even more obvious those characters aren't actually dead? But that much missable content is wild.
I don't imagine you get some particularly unique dialogue from bringing her to talk to her dad in Deling if you put her on the Missile Base team, either?
Connelly
As useless as a penguin with mittens
- Location
- Salamanca, Spain
*applies this reaction to face like a balm*
Ah. So refreshing.
Well, considering Sabin's skills scaled better overall buileing for magic...
-ra tier spells are actually just... surprisingly weak, for junctions? I mean they're well-rounded so you can slap them on any stat where you don't have anything better, but in general if you've stocked up more specific spells a lot of those work better. Like cure/life spells for HP, Protect/Shell for Vit/Spr, and so on. I mentioned Water, and that sits somewhere between -ra and -ga tier spells in terms of viability and is available stupid early with refining because of fish fins, so it's a good starting point.
Sounds to me like you gotta slap some Diablos on there for 3 abiity slots, then you can have ALL THE STRENGTH on Squall.
Or you can use the FFVI strat of constantly swapping around abilities when someone is close to a levelup so they have Str/Vit/Mag/Whatever bonus at the right time and place. You know, if you hate yourself like I do.
The Zombie spell, weirdly, is one of the better strength junctions I've found 'till this point in the game (that doesn't need any of the cheesier card refine exploits). It's been on a few monsters by now, and refines out of an item I think you can find in shops.
Last edited:
E.I.G.
Robo-Bird
- Pronouns
- It/They
So honestly, having Water available for any single skill to boost it almost feels intentional. In a "here is a taste of power" sort of way to push you to looking for whatever obscure monster items you can turn into strong things if you attempted that GF skill earlier on.
Honestly, I'm half tempted to try a "no to playing the card game, yes to refining only the cards from monsters you can battle" run, but I stalled out before the train heist a bit ago.
Egleris
Vagrant Dragon
- Location
- Italy
Yeah, at this point in the game you're supposed to be sporting values between 50 and 100. If you're above 100 on anything, you're too powerful.
That's mostly done through the +20% and +40% stats, but in terms of junction, your workhorse spells right now should be Bio and Break for general stats, possibly Zombie for HP, and if you have them, Protect and Shell for defenses. Upgrading some weapons could net you a bit extra, but as mentioned before the difference between the weaker weapons and the ultimate weapons is around 30 points, with about +5 per weapon for Squall and about +8 per weapon on everybody else, so it might help round up some numbers but it's not too important.
I believe that there is no enemy in the entire game which is immune to Vit 0, yes. Also, you have 7 casts now, right? Check how much that raises your VIT by, and then extrapolate to what 100 would be like. It's a strong candidate for the best spell in the game, certainly in the top ten and probably in the top five.
Last edited:
- Pronouns
- She/They
I love those nerds so much, they're the best. And honestly, even if we do wind up fighting in the future, can we blame them? I mean if I found out my friend decided to simp for a hot evil sorceress and help her take over the world, it's just being a good friend to help him out.
I just love how much we get into Squall's head in this game, really seeing him struggle with his emotions over time. And consider what the other characters are seeing, Cid asks why Squall wants to help and he just stands there gormlessely for a solid ten seconds before trying to brush it off entirely.
Like, especially after his outburst when he first hears of Seifer's death, the rest of the party has to be cottoning on to the fact that he gets way too deep into his own head when shocked or uncomfortable, I have to wonder how much exactly they're figuring out about him as time goes on.
"Why did the missiles in that one FMV do unnecessary dramatic backflips," you all asked earlier?
That's simple.
The missiles are sentient, evil demon planes.
.....
Galbadian Engineer: "Okay, sure we could program these missiles to swarm the target right before impact, but what if we just shoved a monster brain in em? I'm sure we have a few hired already that would love to be turned into high-yield strategic weapons."
"..."
"..."
"... how would you feel about a promotion?"
Okay that character beat with the valve just struck me as a fairly straightforward metaphor for "Squall can't shoulder everything by himself, he needs to accept help from his friends to succeed." Honestly it's odd that it's even theoretically possible before the others pitch in.
Points to him for just letting the others help and not trying to play it off for anything though.
It's fun to think about how other characters perceive him. To them, he's this stoic silent figure who occasionally has just completely unprovoked meltdowns. Quistis can see right through him, though.
Well, it could be another story/gameplay integration thing. You can't win alone, Squall, gotta ask for help from your buddies, much as you loath it. It's not as strong a beat as helplessly searching for exit that isn't there, but it kinda works?
TBF, they ARE brooding loners too cool for school*. The games do demolish that archetype with relish, but I think for many people the early presentation sticks in their minds more than how those characters evolve over the course of the story. Not to mention people who've only learned about the games from osmosis or bounced off them early on (possibly precisely because they didn't jive with lone puppies protagonists).
*Well, OK, Squall is actually a teacher's pet, but only because he goes to Magical School of Wetworks and Waterboarding.
Who's your lawyer, and why's she wearing knives for heels?
That ties into what we talked about re: playground rumors back in FFVI era. Knowledge that used to be obtained through trial and error or sheer luck and shared among friends is now just a few clicks away, which irrevocably changed how we engage with games. I don't think it's necessary always a bad thing (I'm not a teenager anymore, I don't have the time to comb through games in search of every secret, so it's nice to have them delivered to me on a silver platter), but it is a genuine cultural shift that's worth noting.
I think that's part of the appeal of (semi-)blind let's play threads like this: to see a game experienced unsullied, even if only vicariously.
Hear, hear! Once again I preach: level scaling is a mortal SIN! Excised it must be from all and every game lest they lead you straight to HELL!
I mean, I guess level scaling has allowed for Balamb Garden encounters to remain competitive without the need to introduce new monsters and the like, but was preserving the difficulty of this one area really worth everything else? So far, it really feels like a bizarre choice for a linear game.
Last edited:
Kuja
I'M A SQUIIIID
- Location
- AZ
- Pronouns
- He/Him
THE MISSILE KNOWS WHERE IT IS AT ALL TIMES
- Pronouns
- Him/He
You picked up the 'random' card rule in dollet, and spread it like an STD. It was optional for you to go to that place, and play card games, so most people don't realize they fucked up with card rules until they lose like, four unique cards due to a plus-combo. It probably wasn't super-play tested for this.
Since you've been pretty open about asking for specific card spoilers, here's a general method for rule changes from a post 13 years ago (which was over a decade since the game was released).
Now while there are regions that broadly cover everyone in them, there are exceptions. There's a guy in Balamb (the town, not the garden) who is his own region with no rules. There's a lady in the shopping street Deiling City that will only play with FH rules, letting you literally cross the street to play games with regions, and inside the Garden is always Balamb rules, even when lost at sea.
If I recall Random is a rule that starts out naturally in three places. Two of which you're not really going to play in for a long time (if ever), and one is Dollet, which if you're exploring is the third region you can reach, probably long before you understand how the card game rules work since you've never had the freedom to travel between rule regions freely before.
And a word of warning about '100% sure RNG manipulation' guides, they work differently for different versions, so if you do try and use one, double check which version you're playing with. I think you're using the legally allowed PC storage of a PS1 disc set you legally own?
Side note, you can 'purge' yourself of foreign rules just by challenging for a game, and declining without ever going to the TT screen several times.
Wait, Triple Triad is so important in this setting it has its own Sovereign Citizen bullshit going on specifically for card game rulings?
- Location
- Te Ika-a-Māui
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Triple Triad is the most significant children's card game in any work that isn't specifically about that particular children's card game.