Colors are not 'every moment in someone's life'. Every person exhibits bits of all five colors because (in Magic cosmology and philosophy) they are the most basic elements of existence. A black-mana aligned person can still have a moment of impulse or even selflessness. A red-mana person does not become red-blue because they used a library, once. This is somewhat displayed by character who have several versions with varying color identities. Sometimes this is for gameplay purposes (the primarily white-blue character is in a slot designated for a monoblue creature), sometimes this is to show changes in their mindset and personality.
It's about drilling down to the fundamental core of a thing, the things that are always true. That's why I'd agree that, for example, Shinra is white-black because order is just as important to them as the power. They aren't religious, but other than that you can definitely see similarities between them and the vampires of Ixalan or the Orzhov guild of Ravnica.
It's also important that White Is Not Good and Black Is Not Evil, although both have tendencies in those direction for obvious reasons. A selfless, community and order minded person is typically perceived as heroic and a selfish person who is looking out for Number One above all else is generally seen as villainous. You can still get counterexamples of both; we've had plenty of white-mana villains (fascism is monowhite, no pun intended) and even heroic black-mana figures like Liliana Vess. (She got her start in life by trying to heal/resurrect her dead brother but screwed it up, and later on she's had relatively noble moments like in Innistrad. Turns out a master necromancer is an asset in a plane with tons and tons of zombies. She's doing the right thing because the villain has a hold on her she'd like to break or because she's facing some multiverse-level threat and she happens to live in the multiverse, sure, but it's still a more positive response than just running away from it.
And IIRC I was just thinking as Selphie still being Selphie, but maybe that could work too.
...Now I'm imagining someone considering this large, muscular man, not wanting to offend him on account of how he looks like he could tie rebar into knots with one hand, and calling his skirt a kilt -- whereupon he happily and loudly explains that, no, he's crossdressing.
Though if we're making alterations like that... Iris Kinneas, flirty cowgirl sniper?
...Hm. Might also be awkward if this Selphie is as possibly-aroace as the canon one, though, given I imagine this one might have attractiveness similar to Skin Horse's Tip.
Tip Wilkin: Initially the staff's human liaison, Tip is ex-military, a psychiatrist, and a full-time cross-dresser, not necessarily in that order. He means well.
Those are from here, but as that page says, it has some spoilers on it. The first page is here.
...Good grief, that was back in 2007? I remember when it was The New One...
I mean.
We don't usually call people who conspire with their husband to move directly from "running an orphanage" to "running a mercenary army of brainwashed child soldiers" heroes.
Just because she and Ultimecia/Artemisia are different people doesn't me she, like Cid, can't be a villain in her own right.
Adloquium said:
I can only speculate that Edea's method of inviting Ultimecia to possess her is somehow different or special, leading to Edea's personality becoming unavailable. If Ultimecia possesses Adel in her own way, though, Adel will still be fully conscious and able to access Ultimecia's motivations, and vice versa. However, this is not stated in the text, possibly because Squall is mashing the Skip Cutscene button.
I'd guess that it's not actually about what Ultimecia(/Artemisia, but I think I'll just stick with typing the former) is doing, but about the differences between Edea and Adel.
Edea wanted to resist Ultimecia, couldn't throw her off or keep her out entirely, and so, to deny Ultimecia as much as she could, retreated into the depths of herself, beyond where Ultimecia could reach. This gave Ultimecia full control, but also denied her any help or knowledge Edea could have provided -- and potentially also required more of her attention, both because she'd need to run the body full-time and because she might have needed to be on watch for Edea sneaking something in.
If, by contrast, Adel is totally fine working with Ultimecia, Ultimecia can potentially just do a trade with her: more knowledge, more power, maybe even acting as an advisor if requested, in exchange for adding Ultimecia's goals in this time to Adel's own. Why fight Adel for full possession, or why give way entirely for Ultimecia, when they can both just mentally shake hands and pool their knowledge, power, and attention to accomplish both their goals?
(There is the question of what effect time compression will have on Adel's empire, but I could see Adel thinking that either a: time compression isn't actually going to work or b: time compression will work, and her established good working relationship with Ultimecia will then come in very handy for landing a prime position (possibly with advancement-via-backstabbing opportunities) in the new order.)
Egleris said:
Given this, I think the implication here is that Adel, who was already a tyrannical dictator of her own, would fight Artemisia and might be able to pull a reverse on her, taking Artemisia's power and using it for her own ends instead of being simply turned into a puppet like Edea was. While Artemisia has her nebulous goal of time compression and has done a lot of damage to search for Ellone, ultimately she's not interested in conquering the world; Adel, however, instigated a world war with that exact purpose. My best guess is that Edea (who was alive for Adel's Sorceress war, while our team was not born yet) is more scared of Adel than she is of Artemisia.
It might also be a combination of the two: they're willing to make a deal (potentially with one or both expecting to backstab the other), they know that neither would back down from a fight if the other challenged, and they're not sure just who would win that fight.
Not into MtG but it's an interesting thing to cover, and the point of early Squall and later Squall works.
Also, as frustrating as you found it, reading your description of that exposition dump scene and how Squall is nott engaging with it is, to me at least, a brilliant example of writing to the character and not the story or viewer. Obviously this is important story info, and obviously we the players probably want to know it. But Squall is not us. His concern is Rinoa, especially as he's coming to understand what she means to him. So his heart's not in this and he's quick to jump on "okay it's this problem we'll handle it" wiithout caring about other detail because, as a human being, his mind is simply elsewhere.
I never played FFVIII and I may not have liked this had I played it at release as a teenager, but as a 40-something and writer, I love it.
Final note: Does MtG really allow for all colors in one being as a feasible concept? That said, I can't really detect anything wrong with your judgement for the Warrior of Light of FFXIV, aka Azem and their latest incarnation.
Not into MtG but it's an interesting thing to cover, and the point of early Squall and later Squall works.
Also, as frustrating as you found it, reading your description of that exposition dump scene and how Squall is nott engaging with it is, to me at least, a brilliant example of writing to the character and not the story or viewer. Obviously this is important story info, and obviously we the players probably want to know it. But Squall is not us. His concern is Rinoa, especially as he's coming to understand what she means to him. So his heart's not in this and he's quick to jump on "okay it's this problem we'll handle it" wiithout caring about other detail because, as a human being, his mind is simply elsewhere.
I never played FFVIII and I may not have liked this had I played it at release as a teenager, but as a 40-something and writer, I love it.
Final note: Does MtG really allow for all colors in one being as a feasible concept? That said, I can't really detect anything wrong with your judgement for the Warrior of Light of FFXIV, aka Azem and their latest incarnation.
It's really irritating how often it seems like I'm hitting a good stride in playing through the game's next story beat, then suddenly the game unjunctions all my GFs from all my characters and shuffles my party, and I'm left having to remember which GFs junction to which stats and which abilities, and I just... Decide to put the game on hold and go back when I feel like manually doing all my junctions again, and then I have to decide between "do the Junctions" and "play more Elden Ring DLC" and a week has passed.
This happened twice in the course of the segment that will become the next update, which is why it's taking so long.
It's really irritating how often it seems like I'm hitting a good stride in playing through the game's next story beat, then suddenly the game unjunctions all my GFs from all my characters and shuffles my party, and I'm left having to remember which GFs junction to which stats and which abilities, and I just... Decide to put the game on hold and go back when I feel like manually doing all my junctions again, and then I have to decide between "do the Junctions" and "play more Elden Ring DLC" and a week has passed.
This happened twice in the course of the segment that will become the next update, which is why it's taking so long.
The fact that the game makes you shuffle characters so often is a real mark against FFVIII.
Eight really is a story driven game, which makes it really suck that its rather interesting gameplay mechanics turn into pure clunk when faced with story shifts in party composition.
Yeah, I harken back to my post about how this written LP is probably the best way to enjoy the game because it's just sounding like it's, well, not very fun to play. It could be fun and sounds like it even can be at certain points, but then it decides to hit a self-imposed wall and become annoying again.
Once more, I thank @Omicron for his brave sacrificing in playing Final Fantasy VIII so we don't have to
It's really irritating how often it seems like I'm hitting a good stride in playing through the game's next story beat, then suddenly the game unjunctions all my GFs from all my characters and shuffles my party, and I'm left having to remember which GFs junction to which stats and which abilities
I will repeat my suggestion to just link specific GF with specific characters, so that whenever this happens, you can just go "ok, so Ifrit belongs to Zell, Pandemon to Irvine, and Leviathan to Quistis", without having to double check everything every time. As I said before, optimizing for only three characters having all of the GF split between them, while appearing optimal distribution on the surface, will keep running into this problem - the game isn't going to stop, it'll force you to redo junctions all the way to the final dungeon if you let it. Whereas, if every character always has the same GF and you never exchange junctions between them so everybody has their own magic set that is always the same, junctioning goes much faster.
I will repeat my suggestion to just link specific GF with specific characters, so that whenever this happens, you can just go "ok, so Ifrit belongs to Zell, Pandemon to Irvine, and Leviathan to Quistis", without having to double check everything every time. As I said before, optimizing for only three characters having all of the GF split between them, while appearing optimal distribution on the surface, will keep running into this problem - the game isn't going to stop, it'll force you to redo junctions all the way to the final dungeon if you let it. Whereas, if every character always has the same GF and you never exchange junctions between them so everybody has their own magic set that is always the same, junctioning goes much faster.
I've considered it, but it just seems like a different flavor of pain? Several characters would be doomed to have only one GF equipped until we have a total of 12, meaning an extremely limited set of Abilities and Stat-Junctions for them and I probably wouldn't end up wanting them on my team so they'd continue to suck? Plus, not all GFs being on the team at the same time would mean widening the gaps in levels between GFs even higher and prolonging the time for them to learn abilities which would then make Junctions even more limited?
That's not the main problem I have with this idea, though. The main problem is magic. As in the spells. Junctions in and of themselves are meaningless without spells to pair them with. And short of spending hours grinding so that everyone has 100 of the Good Spells, then some characters will still be worthless because they only have like, 70 Blizzards and 50 Cures from ten hours ago. Having three characters with mostly full spell lists alleviates this problem mostly because I can just do "Exchange all" most times and just have whoever got hot swapped in get a full spell suite, but if every character is supposed to have their own 'locked in' set of Junctions then everyone who I don't spend hours on getting them a full list of tier 3 and tier 4 spells is going to suck ass?
I don't see how this isn't just shuffling around the nature of the problem rather than an actual solution.
Yeah, it's hard to escape the fact that VIII has a lot of great ideas... but they don't always gel well so the actual feel of the game is pretty janky.
I mean ... the differences in Stats - unless you've been obsessively using Stat Bonus abilities - is pretty low. Like, Quistis at level 10 has 8 Strength, and at level 100 she has, what, 46 Strength? Junctions are doing the vast majority of the work as far as stats go.
And as far as grinding for 'good spells' - play card games. Like, you got a bunch of Blobra cards? They refine to Rune Armlet, which refines to Shell. Tonberries refine to Chef's Knives (obviously) which refine to Death. Abyss Worms give you Tornado. Mesmerizes give you Regen. Like, broadly? You only really actually want/need a few Junctions - HP, an attacking Stat, and maybe a defensive Stat. The defensive stat depends somewhat on your team make-up; one character with HP/VIT/SPI can pull healer duty if needed, for example.
I mean ... the differences in Stats - unless you've been obsessively using Stat Bonus abilities - is pretty low. Like, Quistis at level 10 has 8 Strength, and at level 100 she has, what, 46 Strength? Junctions are doing the vast majority of the work as far as stats go.
And as far as grinding for 'good spells' - play card games. Like, you got a bunch of Blobra cards? They refine to Rune Armlet, which refines to Shell. Tonberries refine to Chef's Knives (obviously) which refine to Death. Abyss Worms give you Tornado. Mesmerizes give you Regen. Like, broadly? You only really actually want/need a few Junctions - HP, an attacking Stat, and maybe a defensive Stat. The defensive stat depends somewhat on your team make-up; one character with HP/VIT/SPI can pull healer duty if needed, for example.
It's really irritating how often it seems like I'm hitting a good stride in playing through the game's next story beat, then suddenly the game unjunctions all my GFs from all my characters and shuffles my party, and I'm left having to remember which GFs junction to which stats and which abilities, and I just... Decide to put the game on hold and go back when I feel like manually doing all my junctions again, and then I have to decide between "do the Junctions" and "play more Elden Ring DLC" and a week has passed.
This happened twice in the course of the segment that will become the next update, which is why it's taking so long.
It's absolutely wild to me how there's no way to like, save a GF set that you can then apply to a character. That way when you get a party shuffle, you could just say that okay, Zell gets the physical murder GF template and we can get on with our lives.
I have to wonder if this was an oversight like it seems to be, or if the devs did for some reason intend that every character would have some stuff junctioned to them, and so party shuffles would be much less painful affairs, and expecting you to manually swap out the party more often. I'd really love to pick the brains of some of the devs to see how much of this game's jank is intentional versus actual design failures.
I suspect the battle design team and the plot-development team were just on separate tracks while developing the game.
We haven't seen any sort of combat rewards in exchange for plot developments, all the shops have been exactly the same (outside the pet shop, which is just a different type of shop), the only real battle/story integration we've seen have either been 'pick a fight/don't pick a fight' and 'btw there's a timer during this fight'. Outside of that any field actions have zero impact on any of your battles.
Progressing the game plot unlocks new combat options, but these combat options have never been referred to in story outside of very minor one off lines like 'there's a GF at this fetch quest location by the way' and half the huge fundamental gameplay rewards/unlocks have just been 'draw a new GF from a boss battle that is never referenced or mentioned in the plot'.
It really feels like the battle team made their bespoke system with a bunch of abilities and magic and mechanics, and the story team wrote a plot where they were told 'all the characters are mechanically the same, so do whatever works for the story', and then once both were essentially done they just slapped the two of them together.
Avoiding this sort of 'uhg, I have to rebuild my characters' is also one of the benefits of breaking the game. Sure you can use synergy and combos to increase your combat power, but if you're walking around with end game magic against level 20 enemies, you can just equip every third GF to a character, auto-junction magic, fix the status-attack and face stomp everything with attacks.
I think there's a lot of people who really get in deep on the story/world of FF8, those that really enjoy messing with the battle system, and there are those that probably enjoy both, but the integration of the two is nothing to write home about.
That's not the main problem I have with this idea, though. The main problem is magic. As in the spells. Junctions in and of themselves are meaningless without spells to pair them with. And short of spending hours grinding so that everyone has 100 of the Good Spells, then some characters will still be worthless because they only have like, 70 Blizzards and 50 Cures from ten hours ago. Having three characters with mostly full spell lists alleviates this problem mostly because I can just do "Exchange all" most times and just have whoever got hot swapped in get a full spell suite, but if every character is supposed to have their own 'locked in' set of Junctions then everyone who I don't spend hours on getting them a full list of tier 3 and tier 4 spells is going to suck ass?
I can't believe I'm going to suggest this but maybe the best solution is to take some time, open a word document or notepad or the like, and remake the idea of those 'packages' you were using. Make 3 of them, one for Squall, one for character 2, one for character 3, and notate them all. That way you have a go-to reference for who gets what junctioned where. I know, it's ridiculous that I'm suggesting the use of a reference sheet just to play the game, but if the game keeps breaking the junctions it may help to cut down the recovery time.
(Every time I'm on the verge of saying "I can't believe how much of this game I forgot" I kind of want to punch FF8 in the face because of that memory loss plot device.)
That's not the main problem I have with this idea, though. The main problem is magic. As in the spells. Junctions in and of themselves are meaningless without spells to pair them with. And short of spending hours grinding so that everyone has 100 of the Good Spells, then some characters will still be worthless because they only have like, 70 Blizzards and 50 Cures from ten hours ago. Having three characters with mostly full spell lists alleviates this problem mostly because I can just do "Exchange all" most times and just have whoever got hot swapped in get a full spell suite, but if every character is supposed to have their own 'locked in' set of Junctions then everyone who I don't spend hours on getting them a full list of tier 3 and tier 4 spells is going to suck ass?
While I agree that this is a valid thing to be worried about, I think at this point you should have enough ways to obtain magic that it shouldn't matter anymore?
As in, at the point you are at now, you already have some of the top spells (Ultima, Triple, Full-Life, Meltdown, Pain, Aura), but not enough to equip a full team with them; but really, equipping everybody with them isn't necessary, you can get by with only having one or two high-power spells on a character and have the rest be lesser spells. You're at the point where 100 Curaga aren't game-breaking anymore, and those are very easy to refine 600 of (it's 60 Tents); you should also already have the materials to make 600 Dispel (that takes 30 Wizard Stones), as well as 600 Death, should it be needed (just 20 Chef's Knife, assuming you didn't draw any from the Tonberri fights), with no grinding necessary. 600 Regen (which require 30 Mesmerize blades) and 600 Quakes (which require 30 Dragon Bones) do require grinding to acquire, but a very minimal amount - a level 30+ T-Rexaur can be mugged for 8 Dragon Bones, and Mesmerizes are plentiful on the world map in both Trabia and Esthar.
Failing that, you should have crossed the lv 30 treshold for enemies now, which makes acquiring 600 Firaga, Thundaga and Blizzaga by drawing trivial.
That's really all you need in terms of having every member of the team with solid spells, and then you can spread those extra spells you have which are more powerful among the characters, so that each of them has one strong spell to junction to what should be their stronger stat.
I've considered it, but it just seems like a different flavor of pain? Several characters would be doomed to have only one GF equipped until we have a total of 12, meaning an extremely limited set of Abilities and Stat-Junctions for them and I probably wouldn't end up wanting them on my team so they'd continue to suck?
Right now, I believe you have the full top line (Quetzal, Shiva, Ifrit, Siren, Brothers, Diablos, Carbuncle, Leviathan), plus half the bottom line (Pandemon, Cerberus, Alexander, Tonberri), so that's 12; meaning, you do actually have enough to spread them around. Also, Rinoa is currently incapacitated, so having some people with three GF rather than two should be doable for right now.
Plus, not all GFs being on the team at the same time would mean widening the gaps in levels between GFs even higher and prolonging the time for them to learn abilities which would then make Junctions even more limited?
That's pretty much a given, yes, but on the other hand, are you really summoning all of the GFs you have? Carbuncle and Cerberus you'll likely keep using, but their level doesn't really matter, and if you are never going to be summoning, let's say, Siren, it won't matter too much if she doesn't level. And if you have GF who are still learning stuff, it might be best to have them on Squall, but that's more a matter of prioritization than anything else. And once Tonberri learns Familiar, you'll be able to bypass a lot of the hassle on that front.
Again, you don't need to follow my advice - I provided it in the hope it might help make the game less frustrating for you to play; if you don't think it will, ignoring it is perfectly fine.
I've been contemplating whether a full removal and replacement of the existing Junction system would be throwing the baby out with the bathwater for a while, but from everything that's been said and done so far it's beginning to seem like, if there was a baby to begin with, they've long since drowned.
In any case, the best replacement I've come up with so far would be one I proposed in the spoiler thread, where GFs act as a sort of merger of FF5 Jobs and FF6 Magicite - equipping one would, under this theoretical replacement system, give the character a set of stat modifiers and learnable skills and/or spells based on the GF - Ifrit giving Strength boosts, Fire-attributed physical attack skills, and some set of relevant spells, for example - that could eventually be mastered through increasing the GF's, uh, Junction Depth or whatever term gets used to replace Job Level here.
If Draw must be kept at all, have it be temporary effects - a buff that lasts until you use the spell you just got, with the spell being removed after use or when the battle ends to encourage actually using the Draw-Cast function - to remove the need to go "Okay this enemy has a good spell draw list, better sit here doing nothing but spam Draw for a while to make sure I get all I need."
Honestly, the core issue from my perspective is the party shuffling.
If you didn't have to deal with drawing/refining enough magic for six characters, when you are only able to draw up to max for the current characters (I will remind people that at times this means you are limited to only getting new magic for 2 or even just a single character, effectively a 200 or even 100 cast cap) and the items to refine magic are more grindy to get in reasonable numbers, then a lot of the problems would be more manageable.
If, for instance, it was just Squall who used junctioning and everyone else leveled up on their own for different skill trees, or if you had three set party slots that kept all the junctions and magic, and it just auto-rotated the extended cast in and out of those slots, then most of the issues would be massively reduced and you could play around with the mechanics more easily. It already almost does that second one a lot of the time, and it doesn't seem like it is ever really worthwhile to have everyone ready to go at the same time for at least two disks so far.
Welcome back, class, to Final Fantasy 301. Today's lesson:
The Sorceress Joined My Party And All I Got Was This Lousy Junction
Last time, we got some explanations from Edea and SeeD, Squall decided he didn't care much about the metaphysics of the plot, and we got our next clear lead: Find the White Ship with Edea's SeeD to find a clue on Ellone's whereabouts. Laguna was also there.
(We're going to need to talk about the handling of Laguna's subplot once we have the full picture; it's very strange how it's simultaneously clearly incredibly important to the overall plot and yet sometimes bizarrely trivial. The last flashback was basically just a comedy skit serving to have Squall and Ellone briefly talk mentally, which was the thing that actually mattered in that scene, not what happened to Laguna.)
So, let's start… With some light card games, of course.
This is the first of the Card Club's elite; we beat him and acquire Fujin and Raijin's card, after which he tells us there are 6 members of the CC above him whom he's never defeated, so we are in full on anime school shenanigans. They're all named after suits ("Card Knight Club" and so on), plus a mysterious "Card Magician Joker, whose ability is still a mystery." What does that mean, their ability? Well, we'll find out eventually.
For now, let's head back to the ruined orphanage to ask Edea about the White Ship.
We are told that Edea's SeeDs move constantly to avoid detection, but that they have a particular liking for Centra's landscape, so we might be able to find them by exploring the inlets of the Centra continent; in case we find them, Edea gives us a letter of introduction to show our good intentions.
Just… Try to take a moment and imagine someone saying, "We don't know where X is, but they've taken a liking to the South American landscape; try to find them somewhere around the continent" and then having to act on that absurd request. That's like…
Like…
…
Never mind.
Cid has a little bit of a background to give us; it seems like originally, the White Ship only had Cid, Edea, and Ellone, and its goal was to protect Ellone from Esthar. However, Edea was the captain and she started picking up orphans along the way, which seems to just be a thing she does pretty consistently, until eventually the ship became an ad hoc floating orphanage, and the children became referred to as SeeD. Which means they're probably more like honorary SeeDs than Balamb Garden's killing machines.
With directions, finding the ship isn't particularly difficult.
White SeeD: "...We meet again." Squall: "My name is Squall. We're SeeDs from Balamb Garden. I'd like to speak to your leader." White SeeD: "I'm in charge. State your business. Depending on what you say, we may ask you to leave immediately." Squall: "......I want to see Ellone." White SeeD Leader: ".....!?" Squall: "We pose no threat. Edea told us that you would be here." WSL: "Edea… How…?" Squall: "...Edea is no longer under Sorceress Ultimecia's control. She is now our ally. So there's no reason for you to hide Ellone's whereabouts from us. We want to take Ellone back to protect her from Ultimecia." WSL: "....." WSL: "Thank you for coming… But we have no reason to believe you. Please leave."
[The White SeeDs scatter and hang out around the ship. End dialogue.]
I have to admit I do find it very funny that Squall explains why they're here and the guy (totally reasonably) tells them he has no reason to believe that so fuck off because, I mean, yeah. Thankfully we have Edea's letter so this should be easy to clear up, but this is giving us an opportunity to investigate the ship a little. This is how we find out that, for instance, they seem to have continued to pick up orphans after Edea left:
The prevalence of orphans in the story is definitely angling for something to do with the toll war takes on children and families, though so far I don't think it's really gelled into anything deeper than "a world at war produces a lot of orphans, which sure is bad." Then we turn a corner and…
…yeah, I'm gonna be real, I had totally forgotten that Zone and Watts existed. Uh, long time no see, guys.
They're both happy to see us, unlike everyone else on the ship; apparently when the Galbadian soldiers came for them, they both tried jumping into the sea, and were barely rescued by the White Ship through sheer luck. Squall internally comments that he's amazed these "wackos" keep surviving, which, honestly, fair.
Zone: "So, how's Rinoa? Where's she?" Squall: "...Rinoa fought with us against Edea. For some reason, she went unconscious after the fight. She's resting in the Garden now. I don't know what happened. We couldn't protect her. I'm… I'm sorry." Zone: "YOU SON OF A BITCH!!! What did I say!!!? What did I say, HUH!!!? I told you to take care of her!!! That nothin' better happen to her!!! Scumbag! You pathetic, lyin' scumbag!!!" Watts: "Zone! C'mon! Easy, sir! Easy. She's not dead. They just dunno what's wrong with her, that's all. Ain't that right, sir? Squall would never give up on her. Am I right, sir?" Squall: "We came here to get Ellone because there's a new evil force after her. If we can get Ellone and Rinoa together, maybe… we can get Rinoa back." Wattz: "Really!? See, Zone!? I told you, sir! Rinoa's gonna be fine! She promised she would come back! We all have to free Timber together. Don't worry, sir!" Zone: "...All right. But I'm gonna say it one more time. If something happens to Rinoa again, I swear…"
Zone, my guy, I sympathize with being pissed at Squall, especially as you weren't there for most of his character development, but like… There really is nothing you can do to him aside from maybe trying to make him feel bad with your words.
At least we can ask Watts for some info.
It's very basic information, though it does confirm that there are no adults on the ship, only kids and "guys our age," which is information that can't really be easily conveyed visually with this game's graphics. Ellone left when some "other ships" came, ships crewed by Esthar soldiers; though Watts says that Ellone was smiling as she left, so it doesn't look like an abduction scenario.
Could it be that a decade after Esthar stopped looking for Ellone, she just dropped on their lap as if by the hand of providence, just as Ultimecia is threatening to take over/merge* with Esthar's Adel? How awfully inconvenient for us that would be.
*There's been some discussion about how weird the language surrounding Edea's description of Ultimecia and Adel's conjoining is in the thread that I want to acknowledge; previously, Ultimecia appeared to be in full control of Edea's body, with no access to her mind or memories, but Edea talks of Adel as if Ultimecia might in some way fuse with her in a being that has both Ultimecia's power and Adel's anger/ruthlessness. There are a few possibilities for why that would be, of which I'd guess the most likely is that Ultimecia had to do it that way with Edea because Edea 'invited her in' to draw her away from Ellone, but Adel might resist Ultimecia and force some sort of joint custody/merger of their two selves.
Anyway, Watts points us to the leader's cabin, though first we do a quick détour by the bridge to grab a Timber Maniacs and, uh, talk to Zone.
When we talk to him this time, Zone notices (somehow) that we have the… 'Girl Next Door' magazine… and asks if we can give it to him. We can ask for a whopping 25,500 gil for it (how did Zone get that much money?) but again, we have basically infinite money, so we just decide to give it to him for free. For this, he rewards us with the Shiva Card. You see, this is a joke about trading racy materials, because Shiva's model in this game is also - ah, you get it.
I really question the naughty magazine trading subquest's inclusion in this game, but whatever. It's done now. I don't know that we really have much use for Shiva's Card, but at least we have it. Let's just move on to the leader's cabin and show him the letter.
Once the air is cleared, Squall and the WSL bond over their similarities - they both call her Matron, they both remember her being a kind person, they both give the same kind of salute.
…hold on, what was that last part?
The leader says the salute hasn't changed "since SeeD was established," and it's like… These guys have military-style uniforms. They practice a military salute. They're SeeDs. The militarization wasn't something Cid brought to the table with Garden, it seems; Edea was already practicing it. This whole thing is messed up.
We grab Holy from a Draw Point then talk to the leader again, who explains to us that Ellone is no longer here.
After picking up Ellone from us near FH, they headed East. However, the Galbadian fleet soon caught up with them. In their escape, the White Ship broke down and left them stranded, just waiting for Galbadians to find them and grab Ellone. When the Galbadians found them, however, an Esthar ship appeared, and engaged the Galbadians in battle (from the way he says it, it sounds like this one ship was able to engage the entire Galbadian fleet in a standoff).
Esthar soldiers came aboard, and asked them to get on board their ship, which "sounded like an order to evacuate." The White SeeDs refused, as they didn't trust Esthar just like they didn't trust the Galbadians; the Esthar soldiers tried to convince them but, notably, did not use force. Instead, when the battle started turning against them, they began to withdraw, and it's at that point that Ellone rushed to the deck and yelled something to the Esthari, and jumped on board of the Esthar ship. The WSL still doesn't understand why she did that, and could not make out the words she shouted before jumping.
Hmmm. I wonder if Ellone used the tense standoff as a 'test' to see if the Esthari could be trusted - if they tried to force their way on board and grab her, they were still clearly the same monsters abducting little girls for Adel as she'd known in her youth; but them actually behaving decently, offering the White SeeDs an opportunity to evacuate and backing down when refused, convinced her that they had change and meant well? It's either that or some more mystical form of insight that just told her the plot required her to go to Esthar.
The Leader apologizes to Squall for being unable to protect Ellone (which parallels Squall's apology for not being able to protect Rinoa, of course), but Squall is uninterested in his feelings or in assigning blame. He now has a new lead, Esthar, and that's all he cares about. Flash back to the Garden Bridge, with a new lead: Esthar.
Always a great epithet to have added to your country's name.
According to Nida, the terrain of Esthar is unsuitable to fly the Garden, with a huge ring of mountains surrounding it, so we'll have to head there on foot. Specifically, we'll need to head to Fisherman's Horizon and, from there, take the intercontinental bridge to the Esthar continent. I was wondering when this'd come up.
Wait, sorry, I feel I may have misled you there. The game doesn't tell us that we'll need to head there through Fisherman's Horizon. It is entirely happy to leave us to poke at Esthar's impassable mountain walls for hours if we don't figure it out ourselves.
Including a few bullshit tricks where it lets us climb up to a land area, it's just not internally connected to the part of the continent we need to actually reach.
Because of the incredibly annoying and limited camera angle and direction, this could take a while. But eventually you'll figure out that it's not working and hopefully remember FH, and head there.
A few extra lore screens.
Now. This sounds simple, right?
Like.
There's a sensible thing to do here. First, we dock the Garden at Fisherman's Horizon. Then, our party of team-bonded badasses, all of whom are friends and want to see Rinoa get better, head out across the giant, ocean-spanning bridge. We reach the Esthar continent, infiltrate the Silent Nation, locate Ellone, and extract her.
If we wanted to make things more complicated but with a potentially more climactic payoff, we could take Rinoa with us. A coma victim would be much worse off in a long-distance trip than in the infirmary of BGU, but that way we don't have to worry about bringing Ellone back if she wants to stay in Esthar for whatever reason. Notably, we've established pretty thoroughly that Balamb Garden has cars, including Armored Personnel Carriers, that can cross large distance and which would be very convenient for carrying an unconscious person with us.
So, with all these facts established, what's the sensible next move?
Why yes, of course! Squall grabs Rinoa, pulls her on his shoulders, sneaks out of the Garden without warning everyone, and starts a trek through FH and across the full span of the bridge.
There's a line between big romantic gestures by characters who are so tormented they aren't acting rationally and just, insane person behavior, you know?
Like, don't get me wrong, I get why Squall is acting like this on an emotional level: He feels disconnected from the others because he's the only one to be affected by Rinoa's condition as severely as he is. This leads to a combined feeling of "I'm not going to bother the others with this, it's my burden to bear" and "I am the only one who truly cares about her and who can see her to safety." So he looks for a way to bear the (literal, as well as metaphorical) burden of Rinoa's condition on his own. But the behavior that emerges from that emotional crux is just. Ridiculous.
There's an actually kind of beautiful scene where Squall, too tired to go on, gently lays Rinoa down and takes a moment to sit by the bridge's ledge, watching the sunset as he rests for but a moment, and talks to Rinoa (which is really just a way of externalizing his own reflections about himself). It's a great bit!
Squall, mentally: "(I wonder what everyone's doing…? They're probably laughing at me. Or maybe they're angry…?)" Squall: "What do you think?" Squall: "To tell the truth… I worry too much about what others think of me. I hate that side of me… That's why I didn't want anyone to know me. I wanted to hide that side of myself. I hate it." Squall: "Squall is an introverted, unfriendly guy. It made it easy for me when people perceived me that way." Squall: "That's a secret between you and me, got that?"
It's a sweet bit of character growth, that Squall is able to fully admit to himself that he really, really cares how people see him, and he hates that he does, and his abrasive behavior is a way of coping with it, of managing and controlling his perception. Squall can't make sure people like him, he can't make sure they think he's cool, but he can make sure they perceive him as unfriendly and introverted as opposed to lame, uncool, or cringe. It gives him control over the narrative. And like, I get it. I think it would be nice if he were able to voice this to someone who isn't currently an unconscious whiteboard, but hey, baby steps.
But also this is like, a thirty seconds break and then he pulls Rinoa back onto his shoulders and continues crossing the hundred mile bridge.
So now, I want you to take a wild guess: What happens when Squall reaches the end of the bridge, the shore of the Esthar continent on the other side?
…
EVERYONE IS ALREADY THERE WAITING FOR HIM, OF COURSE.
And gently ribbing into him for being 'late' because this is meant to be the emotional moment where Squall finds out his friends had anticipated his ridiculous behavior and taken it with good-natured acceptance and let him get the whole savior complex out of his system by sweating a bit on the journey there before revealing that they were already at his destination, waiting for him, there to make light fun of him and tell him he can't escape his friends..
The problem is I am fully not bought into this moment. Squall went on a straight line across a single bridge that literally has no room to hide on either side, how the hell did everyone even get ahead of Squall? Did they took one of the Garden's smaller boats and simply sail along the side of the bridge? Couldn't Squall have done that instead of bodily carrying Rinoa on his back all the way?
I'm sorry, I shouldn't be thinking that way here, it's missing the point. This scene isn't about logistics, practicality, or common sense, it's about big, dramatic expression of romantic feelings and fire-forged friendship bonds. It's just the ridiculousness of the behaviors involved is such that I can't really immerse myself into the Vibe of it and am just left interrogating how all this works and why anyone would act this way. It's whatever. Let's just move on to the actually good part here: When Squall asks the others if they followed him all this way just to make Prince Charming jokes, they reveal that no, they are here on official business… As Edea's escort.
Wait a minute. We left Edea back at her old house on the Southern Continent, then sailed straight to FH, and there landed the ship with our whole party inside before heading across the bridge. When did they get back to Edea and then all the way to - never mind. This isn't the point. Just don't think about it.
The Sorceress Edea is here.
Now, remember how in Disc 1, Rinoa had this plan to use Dr Odine's gizmo to shut down Edea's power? Well, while everyone else seems to have forgotten it, Edea remembers.
Sorceress Edea: "Sorceress Ultimecia is alive. She is able to take control of my body at any time. If that were to happen… I would once again bring terror." Sorceress Edea: "I, too, value my well-being. I want to protect myself. If it were possible, I would like to rid myself of the sorceress's power." Sorceress Edea: "Dr Odine may know a way. He may be able to save me." Squall: "...I understand. Let's all go to Esthar."
What I appreciate about this exchange is that - as @Revlid pointed out earlier - it makes sense for characters like Squall (who just remembered and regained his kindly Matron) or Cid (who is a terminal Wife Guy) to not even consider the possibility of killing Edea rather than let her be possessed by Ultimecia again, but if Ultimecia is such an apocalyptic threat that she can't be sure won't take her over again, you'd expect Edea herself to, at one point, at least address the question. And here she implicitly addresses that question with the simplest and most realistic answer possible: She just wants to live. It's selfish, but also completely understandable. Despite her kindly demeanor and all the orphans she saved Matron is not, it turns out, some altruistic saint who will willingly volunteer her life to prevent the threat of Ultimecia possessing her again, at least not while she still has viable options like seeking out Odine's magic-nullifying technology. This inherently presents risks (the tech could not work, she could be possessed before she can access it) but, well, she values her own life. And who doesn't? She's even willing to sacrifice her magical power to protect her life. I appreciate her more for this tiny, relatable touch of selfishness.
And so, Edea joins us, and soon after, Irvine and Selphie are back from scouting ahead (which is a thing they had time to do after teleporting ahead of Squall by magic I guess).
This comments actually makes Squall blush.
And then, we head to the character selection menu…
…where Edea is now a playable character!?
…
I wish I could be more excited about this. Like, "the bad guy from the first two discs of the game joins up with the heroes" is a killer twist, I love it, and I do feel some degree of excitement over it. It's just, well…
I find it interesting how, compared to other characters' portrait illustration, Edea retains a distinct pallor and cold/hostile look, more reminiscent of Ultimecia than her alleged changes since then.
Mechanically Edea is Just Another Character, you know? Her stats aren't particularly noteworthy (although I am kind of squinting at that Vitality 6, which is absurdly low for her level), she has no abilities until Junctioned, and she is squarely in the middle of the pack in terms of character levels for this party. There is nothing new or exciting about her as part of the gameplay, at least not until we trigger her Limit Break.
It's genuinely kind of sad how much of a letdown this is - this is the Sorceress Edea. She inherited the power of a sorceress of old, she is explicitly capable of using magic, on her own, without the need for GF Junction that SeeDs are using to catch up with the power that was passed on to her, and none of this is reflected in her character, except in one small respect - her basic Attack has her flick a spell at the opponent instead of using a weapon. That's it.
Still, I'll add her to the team, how can I not.
She kept her swooshy cape from the Deing City parade, because why would she not.
We leave the lonely train station at the end of the bridge's railway, and soon we find ourselves facing some kind of… Icy passage…
…that's not ice, it's weirdly blue-white rock again that just looks like ice from a distance. Could this be the site of the Centra Excavation Site? We'll eventually learn that this area is called the "Great Salt Lake," so not quite - this is all salt, not rock.
The protagonists pause briefly (Squall is STILL CARRYING RINOA ON HIS BACK, this visual has stopped being romantic and just become utterly goofy, is he just going to spend days of trekking in the wilderness like this?). Selphie can't see Esthar past the rocky formations, Edea says the trip will be long, and Zell says everything will be alright and we'll be by her side. Edea, however, somberly reminds him to be alert in her presence, and that, should Ultimecia possess her again… "You all know what to do."
Well, actually, Edea, I don't. Are we supposed to kill you if we can't keep Ultimecia from taking you over again? At this point I'm not sure! We drove her out by beating you up once, so if she comes back are we supposed to just do that again, or just to write it off and kill Edea? I'm genuinely not sure what it is everyone 'knows to do'! Although everyone strikes a sad pose and Selphie comments that she wasn't paying attention and now the air is heavy, so I guess they do plan to kill her if she falls to Ultimecia again?
I love you, Selphie.
Selphie tells everyone that she once heard if you speak about bad things, they'll come true, and while it's a 'silly superstition,' she wants to believe it right now, so nobody is to bring up the topic anymore.
Remember Marlboro? It's a classic. Well, I just ran into it for the first time in this game, and, uh…
…yeah.
Bad Breath is absolutely brutal in this game, because status effects are brutal. If all my characters are hit with Confuse, then I get to just sit out the rest of the fight and watch the battle auto-resolve (this can take upwards of five minutes during which I am not able to enter any inputs). Now, this normally wouldn't be that problematic, because my group hits really hard and Squall is supposed to have 100 Confuse junctioned to Status Defense and be immune, so he can cast Esuna on everyone. He does not, however, have immunity to Silence (which makes him unable to cast Esuna) or Berserk (which also takes away control of the character), so in this case I just spend three minutes watching both Squall, Edea and Zell attack each other randomly while the Marlboro pings them down, until eventually Edea gets petrified.
That's… painful. I really need to shore up my status defenses, but the problem is, obtaining defenses against specific status effects requires me to go out and draw them (or refine them from items which isn't necessarily less time-consuming) and getting 100 Confuse for just one character was enough of the chore, I don't know what I even need to do to get, like, 300 Confuse, Berserk and Silent. I could just accept that weakness - that's what I've been doing so far, going 'well one character with Confuse immunity is enough, I'll try to problem solve on the fly if the need arises', but as you can see, this can easily mean 'no you don't get to try and compensate for your mistake you just Stop Playing for a while.'
More on that shortly.
We reload and thankfully don't run into another Marlboro and just head into the rocky, fossilized wastes ahead. And I do mean 'fossilized.'
Oh my god, he really IS going to carry her on his back this entire time!
Plenty of colossal beasts are scattered around the place, rendered to petrified skeletons. It's really remarkable, and makes me wonder if we're looking at the fallout of a disaster of some kind; the whole area is geologically similar, all salt rock for miles on end, and all of it is filled with skeletons.
Before you ask, no, I didn't find the path to this Draw point before I stumbled onto the next plot beat and completely forgot about it.
Could be a meteorite impact. Could be an 'elephant graveyard' of sorts. Could be moon-related. Could be both, frankly. I could say something about 'the meteorite that killed the dinosaurs' but those aren't dinosaurs exclusively. Most are fully skeletonized, but some seem actually petrified whole, skin and all, such as that Midgardsormr-looking snake in the background above. There are also an unusual number of visual glitches in this area, more than I'm used to even with the inherent shakiness of emulating the PSX, though I wasn't able to capture them in screenshots. Eventually, we reach a broad ridge with a save point, overlooking what looks like dozens of miles more of barren salty desert.
We could be spending weeks crossing through that.
From there, we take a left, and reach a chasm; as soon as we approach, a hideous, skeletal horror jumps from within and attacks us - the area boss!
That thing is called 'Abadon,' and Squall reminds us that this is an undead monster and to try "recovery-related magic and items."
This is going to be trickier than expected.
The first thing that happens when the fight opens is I check out Abadon's Draw list and see Flare in there, so I decide to harvest some from him instead of immediately healing Squall's low HP. This is grievously punished by Abandon immediately attacking the weak link, so now Squall is KO. No big deal, right? All I have is to cast Full-Life, the ultimate healing spell, on it, for an instant death or 9,999 damage, whichever way the game decides to go.
That… doesn't work. Full-Life, as far as I can tell, does nothing to Abadon, despite Squall's warning. The undead beast follows up with an attack that puts Edea into critical HP - and this is my first, and perhaps only chance of getting to see her Limit Break in action, so I decide to do that rather than play sensibly.
In the cheekiest move possible, Edea's Limit Break, "Ice Strike," is literally the attack she used to nearly kill Squall at the end of CD1. She does the same hand gesture, the same flare of light above, the same spears of ice forming in the air above her and striking at her target.
I had assumed that this cutscene was just showing Edea using one of the Blizzard lines of spell in a slightly stylized way, but no. Squall pushed her hard enough that she narratively entered crisis and used her Limit Break to take him out. This is the kind of gameplay-narrative integration that I crave and want more of out of this game.
Although… The fact that this is Edea's Limit Break but that Ultimecia used it against Squall suggests… Hm. No, it probably just means that Ultimecia can directly use her body's natural magical abilities even if she doesn't share its memories, which was implicit in her searching for Adel and Ellone.
Anyway, Abandon retaliates and Edea is KO, leaving only Zell up. Thankfully, Zell has Full-Life, and quickly brings Edea back to life, who immediately brings Squall back to life.
I want to emphasize this, because it's important. I was absolutely fucking around in the first leg of the fight, but then I realized the threat, put both my other fighters back up at full Health, and started throwing life spells at Abadon. There was a point where I was at a severe disadvantage because of my own stupidity, but here I have everyone up and a full arsenal.
This is important because I then instantly get wiped.
Well, no. It's not quite "instant." It takes several long minutes.
What happens is, Abadon casts Confuse on Zell. Zell immediately uses Break on Squall, petrifying him. Edea is my only character still up that I can control, but I have already queued her to cast a spell on Abadon; by the time her turn comes up again, she's dead. From this point on, the battle is out of my hands. I get to sit and watch for the next five minutes as Zell uses random commands against Abadon, himself and Squall while Abadon whittles him down. In a miracle, however, Zell uses Esuna on Squall just before dying, leaving our boy as the last man standing…
…whereupon I realize that he has neither Magic nor Item, because I wasn't planning on a boss fight like this and so left him Draw to get useful magic and GF so I could test out Alexander in the field.
Unable to raise Zell or Edea or to heal himself up, Squall perishes within two turns.
And with his demise, we'll cut for image count.
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Final Fantasy VIII, Part 25.B: The White Ship, The Great Salt Lake, & Laguna V
The worst thing that happened to me in this fight is that when Full-Life whiffed, it didn't say "Miss," so I just assumed that I had been too distracted by commands to see the damage number and tried again. But Full-Life doesn't work on Abadon. I got tricked into using a useless spell thinking it would be maximally effective and wasted several turns. When I adjusted to Curaga, I found out it dealt around 3000 damage, which is very respectable, but not "instantly obliterate zombies' high.
Abadon only gets instantly killed by Elixirs or X-Potions, turns out. None of which I could have used because none of my characters has Item equipped. So I just approached this fight completely wrong.
All this goes to show, FF8 can be a reasonably challenging game if you just play really badly.
Next fight we hit him with the Curagas. Squall still dies, but whatever. Abadon turns a petrified gray and falls apart, it's a really cool animation.
The next screen is similar to previous ones, but the visual glitches are more intense, and I finally realize that they're not actually PSX hardware/emulation glitches, they're fully diegetic; the air itself is 'glitching out' like a display screen. Which suggests this massive, empty salt lake in front of us, conveniently down a cliff we can't access… Might not be what it seems at all. It takes a lot of 'randomly pressing X in front of spots of empty air,' but finally we find some sort of command, and open a hidden hatch in the sky, along with an invisible ladder.
Once inside the access tunnel, we are surrounded by maintenance tunnels and an industrial complex; it's pretty clear there is a massive invisible complex sitting where the eye can only see the salt lake. Might have we found mysterious Esthar? Just in case the player might get confused, interacting with a console allows us to activate camouflage panels on our left:
Fun.
Soon, we reach an elevator that takes us through a wide, dark shaft, and everyone kind of just wonders what the hell is going on. And at last, at last Squall puts Rinoa down. Dude was giving me back ache just watching him carry her.
Noteworthy that Edea is as confused as everyone else.
Squall, mentally: "(I don't know what I'm doing, where I am…… I don't know if we'll ever get to Esthar. But I don't care…)" Squall: "I'm not turning back now."
As if in answer to his resolve, the elevator stops. Another access hatch opens. Zell asks what's the plan, Squall thinks to himself that he doesn't care and nothing will surprise him, and tells Zell to just keep going. Into the next room, where they are greeted first by darkness - then light.
The technological city of Esthar, hiding from the world in plain sight, under a guise of high-tech camouflage. I won't lie, as an intro this is pretty sick. Noteworthy also how brightly colored the place is - we already got a brief glimpse of Esthar from a Timber Maniacs, but it was small and blurry. This reinforces that Esthar's dominant colors are blue and gold, a city of brass and glass dominated by clear blue skies. This is no Midgar, it's far more futuristic than Deling City, and it's much, much bigger than any of the Gardens.
The platform on which stand our protagonist zooms through the air through some kind of aerial pneumatic tube, taking them into the docking bay of another vast technological building, much darker and more industrial on the inside.
Yeah Squall, I bet they do.
Everyone steps down from the platform into what looks like some kind of loading bay, probably meant to carry engineers and components to the outer shell of the city that keeps up the holographic disguise. How much power must that take? How does Esthar generate it? How does Esthar even feed its population? It's immense, entirely industrialized, and sitting in the middle of a salt desert. Hydroponics, maybe?
Unfortunately, before we have time for any of that… Squall and Zell start feeling the drowsiness sweep over them, and start collapsing. Squall barely has time to cry out "No! Not now," and they're out like candles.
Note that Edea isn't being pulled into the flashback and isn't included in the junction menu. This despite the fact we know Ellone's criterion for being able to take people to the past is 'has physically met them before,' which is why implicitly why Rinoa is never along for the ride. But Edea has met Ellone before, so… Is Ellone just avoiding her because she doesn't yet know she's free from Ultimecia's influence?
Once again, the "junction" menu is a filthy lie, the game is only exchanging spells, all the GFs have been unjunctioned from everyone except Squall and we need to reorganize everything in the menu as soon as we're in the flashback and this literally led to me just stopping for the night rather than deal with it. I hate this system.
This would make a good cliffhanger to stop on, but honestly I don't feel like the story has moved much at all beyond the admittedly fun (if underwhelming) twist of putting Edea in the party, so let's keep going. You, dear readers, get to experience uninterrupted continuity on to the next beat.
Laguna, Kiros, and Ward are in Esthar. How they ended up there I'm not clear on. Also note: This is Ward's first appearance since the second-ever flashback. You know, the Centra Excavation Site one where he got his throat hurt? So far, we've only heard about Ward second-hand from Zell and Kiros. What we saw of Laguna and Kiros's globe-trotting adventure seemed to be just them. I guess Ward… joined up, at some point? It's such a massive time lapse since his last appearance, though.
Laguna and his companions are currently getting yelled at by Esthar soldiers in their characteristic sentai get-up; it's not clear whether they're merely menial workers who took up jobs in Esthar, or if they were captured and are being forced to labour as prisoners. Given how sensitive some of the stuff they seem to be working on, it seems likely that they're captives, because this isn't stuff you'd entrust to a random foreigner on a three-month contract? But it's never made explicit.
The scene opens with Kiros and Ward being directed to go work on the 'Lunatic Pandora.' Lunatic, of course, does not just mean 'insane;' its etymological meaning is 'of the moon.' THE MOONSPIRACY DEEPENS.
Once alone, Laguna complains that he's hungry, and the guard berates him with a 'youth these days' spiel about how he used to work all day and night without sleep. Time passes, indicated by fades, with Laguna talking about, wondering what's happening to the others, and getting berated again. Meanwhile, the other man working in the same section, along with the Moomba doing the same, move around the room.
I've gone and looked at the Fisherman's Horizon to see if this old guy's model resembled any of the important FH characters, and he could be the tinkerman guy? But it's very dubious.
Laguna exclaims that it's time to eat, but the guard decides to withhold lunch time until his work is done as punishment for his "big mouth," as well as for the Moomba, with no reason given for the latter other than he seems to just not like Moombas. Laguna gets mad; his work will be done soon enough, but the Moomba won't be done for days and will starve. The guard, however, is pitiless, so Laguna decides to just help the Moomba be done faster. I can definitely start to see how his acquired his reputation around Moombas and the Shumi Tribe. Laguna tries to figure out what the Moombas is 'saying,' and deciphers its seemingly angry growling as just a sign of hunger. The old guy tells Laguna he's the only one he's ever seen care about Moombas; they get half the food and sleep humans do and get 'worked to death for no reason.'
Jesus. Give humans a species just intelligent enough to understand and perform spoken orders but 'lesser' than them and they reinvent slave labor instantly, I guess.
In the room above, we hear Dr Odine yell about a failed experiment. Meanwhile, Laguna fetches a tool the Moomba needs and tries to throw it, yelling 'catch,' and bowls the Moomba over the head, nearly knocking it off the railing.
One of the greatest characters of all time.
Laguna rushes over and barely manages to pull the Moomba to safety. Watching this, the Esthari guy comments he's a 'nice guy' and and a 'good candidate to be our leader.' I guess he was looking more at, uh, the morality of Laguna's actions than their effectiveness - he nearly killed that Moomba!
But yeah, turns out this unnamed geezer is one of those Esthar rebels who are dissatisfied with the way Adel is ruling Esthar and seek to remove her from power. Which I initially took to mean they were the guys who would go on to exile themselves to Fisherman's Horizon, but it could mean instead that they are the present-day ruling government of Esthar who successfully kicked her out? It could be either way; the game's refusal to give any of these people a name makes it frustrating to try and figure out.
Laguna: "A leader?" Unnamed Guy: "That's right. A lot of us are dissatisfied with the way Adel's been ruling Esthar. We may be disorganized now… But someday we'll gather our forces to remove Adel from power." Unnamed Guy: "We're overthrowing the ruler of our country. A sorceress, far beyond our powers. A half-baked plan would never work. We're waiting for the right time, now… Most of us involved in the Adel resistance are specialists. It's easy to research ways to fight Adel, but… There's no one to lead the movement. That's our situation right now. We've been looking for someone like you… Someone who's strong and righteous…"
At this point, the security guard comes back, decides we're "up to no good" even though he doesn't seem to have heard our conversation, and seems about to beat up either the old man or the Moomba, until Laguna steps in.
It's a singular soldier, so we dispatch him quickly. And Laguna kept his weapons, so I guess he isn't prison labor?
A cool FMV plays out of the elevator coming down across a gigantic technological wall shot through with translucent tubes.
Unfortunately, it's more soldiers coming out. Laguna laments his reckless actions, then tackles the guard, holding him in place and telling the resistance guy to leave, who takes the elevator with the Moomba. More guards pour in… Along with Kiros and Ward. They exchange some quick banter with Laguna, we're given a dialogue option to double check our junctions, and we wipe the floor with the next encounter.
A look at Kiros and Ward's stats with no active Junctions.
The Harpoon of Doom.
Laguna yells 'Jaaaail break!' and everyone piles into the elevator, heading upstairs.
It's time to meet Dr Odine. Or should I say…
Herr Doktor Odine!?
Yeah, for no reason I can explain, Odine has a German accent. Or, well, whatever accent has w-sounds replaced with v-sounds and s-sounds replaced with z-sounds in phonetic accents; it could be French but it seems more German.
Where is that accent coming from, in a world that only speaks English and in which no nation, from imperialistic Galbadia to secluded Esthar, has ever displayed any kind of accent? Who fucking knows. He's a scientist with dubious ethics, so he's German, is I think the logic here. Very curious if @Adloquius has something to say about the JP script there. Odine is also dressed in a truly bizarre outfit featuring a gigantic puffed collar wider than his shoulders and poofy pants and sleeves.
Laguna and the others approach Undine and his staff, but they're all too busy to even notice them. They mutter things like "Luna… Weapon…" and "Moon… listen…" so WE ARE GETTING CLOSER TO THE TRUTH OF THE MOONSPIRACY.
One of Odine's assistants says that "To use the Lunatic Pandora as a weapon, you would need a system to move it. How do you come up with such bold ideas?" *
So, it looks like Esthar, or at least Odine using Esthar's resources, is looking to weaponize the moon, or something found on the moon, but first requires some means of moving the… Relic? Weapon system?
Doctor's assistant: "Luna Base was built in space to observe the moon. So much money was spent on building it. Now why couldn't they give some of that money to this lab?" Doc Odine: "Zat iz ze way it is! Accept it!" Doctor's assistant: "The rumor goes that little girls are being abducted for the sorceress research. I have such a daughter myself. It disturbs me to hear such a story. How do you think their parents feel?" Doc Odine: "They will be proud to help ze research! Zat iz all zat matters."
Yeah, okay, Odine is definitely in the category of the amoral genius scientist whose only real preoccupation is with the research, goals be damned.
Hmm. If an orbital base was built to watch the moon, and there is a 'lunatic pandora' which could be weaponized if it could be moved… Could that be Hyne's legendary burial place, the grave of a god, that Esthar is seeking to bring down to earth to use as a superweapon?
I mean, it wouldn't be the first Final Fantasy game to rip off Evangelion…
We slink past the scientists and head for the great outside, where our new friends are waiting.
The Moomba runs off on its own, and soon enough, one of Odine's assistants walks out to join us; Resistance Guy tells us that he's with the resistance, so it's fine to talk to him - he's their main source of intel on what's going on inside the lab.
Doctor's assistant: "Is he a new member? Welcome to our group. You made quite a bit of noise down there… Well, this may be a good time to leave this facility." Resistance Guy: "DId something happen to the doctor? Or did Adel stop funding this lab?" Doctor's assistant: "No, it's Dr Odine. He… He's done it again. He's found a new toy he prefers over a big one like Lunatic Pandora… Some child named Ellone." Laguna: "Ellone!?"
Laguna explains Ellone is the reason why he's there in the first place, and the assistant tells him Odine would know where she is. He turns about to head right back inside, but before he does, Resistance Guy tells him he still owes Laguna for saving his life, and says that facing Esthar and Adel with only the three of them will be difficult; he offers to help them by providing all the info they'll need.
Kiros: "It's not a bad idea… We don't know anything about Esthar. I never want to go through all this again. I'm sure Ward feels the same way." Ward: "......" Laguna: "Huh? …..Hmm…. Okay, fine! We'll accept your help. In return, we'll help your Anti-'Azel' movement or whatever." Ward: "...." Kiros: "It's 'ADEL.' Start listening more closely, 'cause it's getting embarrassing…" Kiros: "...is what Ward would say. Can't you see it in his eyes?" Laguna: "Yeah, sure, I always see it! But… who cares!? I speak with passion, from the heart! That's what matters most." Resistance Guy: "Yes… That's right! It all sounds crazy, but… I like you! I really want you to be our leader…" Laguna: "Leave it to me! Once we find Ellone, I'll take up that offer!"
Honestly it's genuinely fascinating how much effort it takes Squall to actually make reliable allies, obtain people's friendship and assistance, how it's a labor of hours of character growth and effort, compared to Laguna just waltzing in and getting people confessing to being part of forbidden resistance movements and asking him to be their leader and promising their help. Without the contrast between the two characters, I'd just think it's cheap writing in the Laguna sections, but no, this is clearly deliberate; Squall is having ten times the difficulty that Laguna is facing thanks to Laguna's earnest, friendly go-getter nature. He's genuinely just having an easier time getting things done because people immediately like and trust him. Like, when Kiros berates him for not even remembering Adel's name right, and Laguna replies that it doesn't matter, he speaks 'with passion, from the heart, and that's what matters the most,' and the thing is? He's right. It is, in fact, what matters the most. What compels people to follow him, even (especially) Kiros and Ward.
Given that we know Squall is consciously observing this whole scene as a 'fairy,' that must really, really sting. As if to add insult to injury, this is followed up by Laguna's internal monologue in which he blames himself for answering questions before thinking them through, only to decide that things have been okay until now, so it'll just work out. Just, the opposite of Squall in every way.
Resistance Guy also asks Laguna if Ellone is his 'special someone', which leads to a weird bit of dialogue where Laguna misunderstands the romantic implication and says yes, Kiros corrects him that she's 'like his daughter,' and Laguna insists that he would never use an infantilizing term and would always treat Ellone like a lady, out of respect… and fear. This leads to terrified murmurs between him and Kiros regarding the 'J Disaster' when she was so upset, she put jam in Laguna's shoes. Just thinking about it gives him goosebumps.
Honestly, this would have been funnier if they just hadn't explained what the 'J Disaster' was, only that it traumatized Laguna and Kiros somehow.
We head back in the lab and, while Odine is gone from the room we were in before, we do find a Weapons Monthly magazine… In fact, the 'First Issue' of Weapons Monthly.
…are these ultimate weapons?
I mean, it literally shares its name with him. He's Squal Leonheart, this is the Lionheart, and it's described as 'the finest model' of gunblade. And Rinoa's is literally modeled after an angel.
It's kind of funny, really. In the FF series, older weapons have historically tended to be more powerful, with the most powerful weapons dating back to ancient forgotten civilizations of exceptional advancement beyond the modern age. So in FF8, where weapons are explicitly modern developments that have outpaced paramagic, the strongest weapons are… The ones from the first issue of the weapons magazine, in the ancient age of 18 years ago. It's such a goofy take on the old trope I can't help but kind of love it.
We need a bunch of items we don't yet have for those upgrades (there's also a gun for Irvine and a staff for Selphie), so we'll worry about that later. For now, we need to catch up to Odine. We head back into the facility; in the first room of this flashback, we catch up to Odine; Laguna demands Ellone's location but, before Odine can answer, the guards pour in!
The elasto-arm robot has Meltdown, so I kill the two arms and Draw a breezy 200 Meltdowns, or close to it, then dispatch it and it's time to interrogate Odine. He briefly tries to pretend he doesn't know any Ellone, but then just collapses instantly and without prompting, confessing that he knows Ellone, but then freaks out before saying more and running past our characters back into the elevator?
I'm starting to think this guy may be a little unstable.
Odine appears to try and jump into a car that slides up to us as if waiting for him to emerge; however, before he can get in, Laguna catches him by his oversized collar and appears to dangle him in the air, demanding to know Ellone's location. Odine tells us she is in 'O Lab,' his personal laboratory, and Laguna releases him. Odine's assistant (whom you can see hiding behind a pillar in the above screenshot, as his position would be threatened if his boss saw him) explains to us the directions to the lab. Laguna, however, just cannot process visual directions, so he tells Kiros he's in charge of getting them there. Everyone piles into the convenient car, and we scene transition to the lab in question.
There's a weird exchange where Laguna turns around and asks "Hey, where'd he go?" without there being any clue who he's referring to, and Kiros saying someone just jumped out of a car? It's incomprehensible. Then more fighting against Esthar soldiers, and we sit on a big round chair in the middle of the corridor which turns out to be an elevator taking us up.
We dispatch a few more soldiers, and find ourselves in a room with two notable features: a huge computer with a wall-mounted screen and a lot of keyboards, and a viewing bay overlooking a room below. Approaching the viewing window shows we're incredibly close to our objective:
She looks to be crying, the poor thing.
God knows what experiments Odine was running on her - most likely having to do with her time travel ability? Maybe.
Did Ellone always have the potential for time manipulation, or was that time manipulation introduced by Odine's experiments? The latter would explain where they come from, but… Not why Odine would have taken an interest in her in the first place. At the same time, Ellone showed no particular supernatural abilities while in Winhill, so how did he even become aware of her potential? Did he awaken a latent gift? It's too early to tell.
Unfortunately, Ellone can't hear us through the window, so we have to hammer away at the computer for a bit.
I don't really know what the trigger is there - it looks like it might just be that the background panel is divided into several sections and we need to interact with the one closest to the camera specifically. Once that is done, the door downstairs open, and Resistance Guy is waiting for us there, though his role is limited to urging us to hurry to Ellone's side.
And there she is, after all this time. Laguna has finally caught up to his surrogate daughter. How long were they separated? It's hard to tell, but probably no more than a year, considering the timeline and the fact that Ellone still looks the same as she did in the Winhill flashback.
This can't be the end, for obvious reasons. We know that Ellone ends up at Edea's orphanage, being cared for among the other, younger kids. How long from now is that? Even this rejoining lies in the shadow of further tragedy.
But, for now, Laguna and Ellone are happy. She shouts his name when he arrives, and he reminds her - he'd told he'd come save her. They hug, and the flashback ends.
He fell asleep with Rinoa slung across his back, and he wakes up still holding on to her. That is some determination.
While we were out, the others waited, Edea among them. Nobody was moved, and the Esthar authorities haven't arrived yet - though it's not long before they do; a badass hovercar slides in and touches down, and a man in the livery of Odine's assistants emerges, greeting Edea by name.
Interestingly, the man knows Edea by name and reputation and recognizes her on sight, but he has no idea why she's there. From his point of view, this must be as if Witch Kaiser Wilhem had just shown up on his door step for no reason, and he'd like to know her intentions. Squall demands to see Ellone, to which the man expresses only confusion; Edea tells Squall to calm down, trust her, and let her handle this. She's here to see Dr Odine. The man, probably sensing this is above his pay grade, tells everyone to come with me, and everyone gets into the badass hovercar.
Cue sweet transportation sequence.
I apologize in advance for this, but… These purple-and-white building remind me weirdly of Pokémon potions?
At this point, I have little doubt that Esthar is bigger than Midgar. FF8's cities are generally big, using the device of pre-rendered backgrounds to imply vastly greater size than we could ever explore, and Esthar is spectacularly big, a massive technological metropolis full of brightly colored buildings. A small world, living in isolation within their pocket of holographic camouflage. The rest of the world having no idea of the scale of their society, or its advancement.
And that, dear readers, is where we'll leave off for today: the sight of Esthar's skyscrapers rising in the far distance, a massive central building in their midst, and answers hopefully looming on the horizon at last. Soon, I hope.
That update was hitting a lot of notes, and some landed better than others. I like the concept of Squall taking Rinoa's unconscious body to try and journey alone a lot better than I like the execution, and the fact that they couldn't figure out any better visual way to handle it than have Squall literally carry Rinoa on his back through two hours of game and multiple areas of exploration especially feels less poignant than goofy, at least to me.
Still, we got an actually instructive Laguna flashback for once, Esthar is a pretty impressive sight and an interesting aesthetic take on the Kryptonian shining sci-fi metropolis, we got to see that even when you have a hundred Ultimas and Triples and Meltdowns boss fights can still be legitimately challenging provided you play very poorly, we also got to see the most annoying kind of difficulty in action (Confuse and Berserk, RIP) and why it's just, not good game design (kill me immediately, don't make me either unplug or wait for five minutes for my defeat to play out), we got new reasons to hate the Junction systems (the game broke my everything twice, the first time when Edea joined and Rinoa was removed from the character menu instead of just greyed out, the second time when we went into the Laguna flashback), and we, uh, peddled softcore pornography, I guess. Let's not think about that one too much. Oh, and the main villain of the game('s previous host body) joining our team in the third act is, like, really cool conceptually, shame it just… Doesn't amount to really anything more than a new undifferentiated body to put Junctions on.
...looking at a lot of little details over the course of writing this update, I have to say I wouldn't be surprised if it turned out Edea was actually faking being a good guy/still possessed, though I don't exactly expect it to be the case; there are just a few little elements that could qualify as foreshadowing.
Next time, I think I'll try to implement @Egleris's advice and just assign each character a set of GF rather than shuffling packages the way I've been doing. I'm not convinced it will improve things, but I do expect that the game will insist on shuffling my party again soon enough that we'll get to see for ourselves pretty clearly, because it clearly loves doing that.
The leader says the salute hasn't changed "since SeeD was established," and it's like… These guys have military-style uniforms. They practice a military salute. They're SeeDs. The militarization wasn't something Cid brought to the table with Garden, it seems; Edea was already practicing it. This whole thing is messed up.
Why yes, of course! Squall grabs Rinoa, pulls her on his shoulders, sneaks out of the Garden without warning everyone, and starts a trek through FH and across the full span of the bridge.
