It feels like Steal in the Final Fantasy games has several different issues, including reliance on RNG, extremes of "must steal now or lose it forever" and "literally just a Potion", and opportunity cost of using Steal rather than any other move that might end the battle quicker.
Yeah, steal suffers from a myriad of problems in RPGs, and it's kind of hard to balance. I think the best Final Fantasy steal system I've seen, at least where you're stealing largely mundane items, is in FFXII, and that's because the economy is more built around the idea, on top of things like the bazaar supporting the system even further. Though even then it's got plenty of quirks to it.
It is now, but I wonder how common it was back at the time. If you're going to have everyone change their dialogue that's an obvious event, but that requires in-story having a party leader swap.
FF8 has really been keen into keeping in mind the characterization of the main characters. In FF7 we had a few main-characters who all responded slightly differently to the world (when they got a chance), but how many NPC's responded differently to the characters wandering around and didn't just give the default answers?
FF8 seems really really keen on character interactions as a foundational experience, which is funny because it's not like there's Speech Checks or conversational boss battles, there's almost no 'gameplay' involved in all these character moments, it's just how they exist in the world without any mechanical interaction.
Which I think is neat. The writers don't need to gamefy each party interaction to figure out who Squall gets a date with, they can just hew closely to the character arcs and cores.
The question then becomes how far does the player need to "try everything".
As Omicron noted, even with Irvine as party lead (or, well, solo), most of the NPC dialogue is unchanged. Should the player be expected to talk to everyone again and go through all that unchanged dialogue in the hopes of potentially coming across a new interaction?
Also, while it's not relevant here due to emulation, on some hardware (and definitely the PS1 and PS2), "talking to everyone" would require a fair bit of zoning, and loading times begin to add up. I know there have been times I gave up on checking for dialogue or world state changes, because to do so means four loading screens one way and I was just tired of it.
I'll preface this by saying that I love discovery; how much lore and events are hidden in it, and the fact that it's structured with a big focus on that approach, is one of the reasons FFVIII is my favorite of the series despite me also acknowledging that it's not the best Final Fantasy (that would be FFIX), and in fact several games surpass it, either in total (FFVII, FFV, Tactics if you want to count it) or in some respects (FFVI, FFX). Despite this, I also think that the Master Fisherman was a bit too much, but I'm actually fine with the Irvine elements.
I mean, I love dicovery, but permanently missable content makes my teeth itch. If it's stuff you can miss because you didn't explore properly and you can come back and find it, there wouldn't be anywhere near as many complaints about it, but we're discussing a moment that is accessible only in an incredibly brief, completely counterintuitive window, and contains some pretty important lore for the game! That's not 'discovery', that's 'obsessively interact with every accessible thing every single time you move the story forwards by even a sentence'.
I think you're conflating "permanently missable", "accessible only for a limited time" and "completely counter-intuitive". These are three different things, and the reason I think the Master Fisherman's quest is a bit too much is that it factors all three.
Honestly, I feel like "completely counter-intuitive" is the biggest sin here, and I can't see any additional content that is gated by something a player has, not just no reason to try, but actually good reasons not to try, as being a good thing. There must be a logic to everything, because the player's choices can't matter if they can't even realize there is a choice to make.
On the other hand, "permanently missable" content I'm fine with, as long as it's done properly. Let's take the Rinoa FMV on the flying Garden, and Squall giving her a tour; it makes sense that those things wouldn't be available if the player doesn't chose to bring Rinoa along, but the problem is that the story than progresses as if those events happened. But if, instead of a fixed love story, FFVIII actually had a flexible love story where your choices determined which character Squall ended up with, then if you were on the route for a different love interest, it'd make sense for the scenes with Rinoa to be permanently missable.
And a limited time-window is fine, too, so long as the game makes it clear that you are in one. For example, say that, upon arriving at FH, Rinoa or Zell said "before we go to apologize to the chief here, maybe we should make a round of the town, apologize to the locals as well?", and then the route to the Master Fisherman was signposted properly (if I were to make a suggestion, maybe when you moved close to the ladder a "!" icon could pop up over Squall's head?), then it becomes a player choice if you want to prioritize speaking with the local authorities before speaking with the local populace, and I'd be fine with missing a scene if the player consciously made the choice to miss it.
So, as usual, I feel that it's a matter of how well-realized something is; I like permanently missable content, time-sensitive content, and really hidden content that only somebody who's scouring the game would find (such as Selphie's blog, which most people miss simply because you never have a plot reason to visit the classroom computer again), as long as it's woven into the game and makes sense. FFVIII goes overboard with it, and sometimes that's to its detriment, but I much prefer that to the often hand-holding attitude that modern games seem to favor.
The question then becomes how far does the player need to "try everything".
As Omicron noted, even with Irvine as party lead (or, well, solo), most of the NPC dialogue is unchanged. Should the player be expected to talk to everyone again and go through all that unchanged dialogue in the hopes of potentially coming across a new interaction?
Also, while it's not relevant here due to emulation, on some hardware (and definitely the PS1 and PS2), "talking to everyone" would require a fair bit of zoning, and loading times begin to add up. I know there have been times I gave up on checking for dialogue or world state changes, because to do so means four loading screens one way and I was just tired of it.
"How much time it takes to perform simple actions" is one of these things that's hard to convey in a screenshot-based Let's Play but that I am going to need to get into in one of the main entries at some point, because it's a not-insignificant component of why I end up doing some things the way I do, like not talking to every single NPC in Balamb Garden and so missing out on the pigtail girl conversation that was mentioned. The most common use I have for the 50x speed function of the emulator is in one-second presses to speed up the simple act of traversal. "Walking from one end of a screen to another, then waiting a few seconds for the next screen to load" starts out fine and by 20 hours in has become excruciating.
A significant portion of the game is spend walking, staring at a black screen, then walking again. As an example, since we're talking about Irvine's section, let's break down "Irvine goes from the front of Mayor Dobe's house to the library to talk to the pigtail girl." This takes 13 screens: The front of Mayor Dobe's house, the stairs climbing through the solar panels, the train tracks at the top, the approach to the elevator, the top of the elevator, the crane approach to Balamb Garden, the back of the 2F corridor, the 2F main corridor, the 2F approach to the elevator, the bottom of the elevator, the atrium, the corridor leading to the library, and the library itself." Each screen takes a few seconds to travel, and each loading screen lasts for 3-4 seconds. Then, you have to go back to the mayor's house. So we're looking at between one and two minutes of loading screens, between each you are just walking from screen to screen.
It's a very dull experience, and one the game typically ameliorates by throwing in events during traversal, like Squall running into Irvine on the way back to Balamb Garden, or by teleporting you around, like every time we fade to Squall lying in bed, conveniently skipping whatever movement was needed to get him to the next place. Even so, eventually, it adds up.
Yeah, the need to cross a ton of screens does put a dampen on exploration; that'll get worse from FFX on, too. Not sure there's many other ways for them to convey the sheer size of some places though.
Should the player be expected to talk to everyone again and go through all that unchanged dialogue in the hopes of potentially coming across a new interaction?
Should the player be expected to talk to everyone again and go through all that unchanged dialogue in the hopes of potentially coming across a new interaction?
The player always has the option of not caring and not doing that. If you want to find new interactions I regret to inform you that this does require interacting with things. Generally this sort of party leader swap restricts your movement enough that not literally every thing in the game has to be poked at. I think re-exploring one town is in theory a reasonable option to exercise if you want to see what differs.
In practice if the game is boring in general like what Omi said about load screens and how things have already taken a long ass time already then ehhhh. Still up to the player but it becomes much more understandable to just not bother.
I should point out that our last game before this one was Final Fantasy VII which did famously include a major party leader swap that amounted to jack shit in terms of new content
I should point out that our last game before this one was Final Fantasy VII which did famously include a major party leader swap that amounted to jack shit in terms of new content
Ironically, the next scene is a romantic soulful moment between Rinoa and Squall... and it fails if you picked the slow romantic song instead of the baffling out of place dancing song.
*old man voice* Young people nowadays. Back in my days, we had to check every NPCs twice between every plot beat and bactrack through towns and dungeon on foot, going through every loading screen and like it! None of that Quest Markers and Fast Travel nonsense.
Growlanser IV wayfarer of time (psp) locks some optional quests behind using inventory items in front of npcs. Now that is optional content. Pay attention or fuck off. Clarification: I don't mean talk to npcs with the item in inventory. I mean literally stand in front of them, open the menu and scroll down to the item and choose the use or give option (can't recall exactly).
Lots of things are considered bad design but the twisted personality of a gamer will enjoy it. Ehehe
Welcome back to Final Fantasy VIII 201, class. Today's lesson:
Village of the Blob People
Last time, we got through a bunch of missable events in Fisherman's Horizon. Today, we finally see the resolution to the band subplot.
Quistis tap-dancing.
As a reminder, we need to give our four cast members (sans Rinoa) each a score for an instrument. Initially, I found this impossible to do. However, once of my readers described one of the two pieces as a "romantic slow song" and the other as an "Irish jig." Once I had heard this, my ear was actually capable of picking up on the slow/fast tempo of the two pieces, and I was able to put together the four scores making up the "Irish jig" (which one can only assume is not Irish in this game's universe, but we don't get a title, so who knows): Those being the guitar, violin, flue, and tap-dancing. We put Zell on the guitar, Irvine on the violin, Selphie on the flute, and Quistis on tap, not that it makes any difference who gets which part.
Irvine says they have until tonight to rehearse, and Selphie adds they're counting on Rinoa, and we get back to Squall later that evening. He's bored enough by staying in bed all day moping that he actually has to get up and see what the others are up to.
I did kinda crack up at the casualness of Rinoa greeting Squall in her prom ball dress and the stiffness of her waving animation.
Rinoa: "So what's up?" Squall, mentally: "(Tired.)" Rinoa: "You look so down? Come on, Squall, how old are you? You're still a teenager. Why don't you act like one for a change?" Squall, mentally: "(...Just tired.)" Rinoa: "Ok, come on. Let's go to the concert."
It's interesting that Rinoa specifically appeals to their shared teenagehood to try and sway him. She can clearly see that Squall is making an active effort to appear more of an adult than he really is.
There's a dialogue choice between telling her we're not in the mood and going along with it, but I just went with it. This teleports us to the top of the stairs above the parabolic solar park:;
The presence of these two female students suggests that the concert has a broader attendance than "literally just Squall and Rinoa," but it's not clear; these two are the only other students we'll be seeing for the entire scene.
Irvine takes Squall aside and reveals that he's taken it upon himself to act as Squall's wingman; he's found a nice spot for the two of them to talk together, by the stage, and has indicated it by leaving a magazine there, telling him "You can thank me later. Have fun tonight. Just let it all out." Squall… Looks like you just shot his dog or something, it's incredible. He's genuinely distraught that someone is trying to set him up a nice date.
Then, Irvine moves on to make his own move on Selphie, only for Squall to bump into them and ruin his shot as Selphie greets him and heads down to the stage. Poor Irvine. He will never get his shot.
And now it's time. For the musical event of the year.
Selphie: "Squall! You big stud! This is all for you! Enjoy the show! Rinoa, don't let him get away!" Squall, mentally: "(Whatever…)" Selphie: "Ready!? A-one, two, three…"
I love Selphie so much. Perfect character.
The tap-dancing really elevates it.
This definitely feels like a scene that could take place in any high school anime, you know? The protagonist's friends put together a concert for an event so that he can have a chance to finally make explicit the burgeoning romance with the female lead that everyone knows has been sort of floating in the air but that neither has been ready to make a clear move on for different reasons, and he's trying to play it off because he doesn't want to open himself emotionally that way but now it's Rinoa who has him cornered.
And now, remember, the rest of this scene is set to this:
Fitting of Irvine's personality, the magazine he put down to indicate the spot is a 'naughty magazine.' Squall is obviously embarrassed, but Rinoa seems more amused than anything. They sit down to talk.
The discussion is primarily about Squall's new position as leader of Balamb Garden. Rinoa says they all anticipate difficulties in the future, and also that Squall will try to handle it all on his own (to which he thinks, "I probably will"). She says they all know him too well, even her, and as she says this, she starts mimicking his body language at that exact time, putting her hand on her forehead at the same time as she does. It's pretty funny but Squall is not amused and raises his hand as if to smack her, to which Rinoa backflips away then bursts out laughing.
It's a great bit but it's not a very good way to get Squall to open up, obviously. He warns that he's leaving, but doesn't do so immediately; Rinoa kneels behind him, telling him he can't just handle everything on his own…
…then she shoves him off the ledge.
High density of shenanigans tonight. It seems that Rinoa has decided to be more assertive than she usually is.
Rinoa: "That's it! Just let out anything! Anything… We want you to talk to us a little more. That's all." Rinoa: "Y'know, if there's anything you want to tell us, or anything we can do, don't hesitate to let us know. I know it's not easy but I wish you would trust us more and rely on us a little more." Squall, mentally: "(Am I that untrusting…? Maybe I'm this way because I'm scared. Nothing lasts in this world. It feels great to have friends who believe in you, and adults you can rely on. That's why it's so dangerous, even if you get used to it. Someday you're bound to lose everything. Everybody around you will be gone. Then what are you left with? Nothing. Nobody… It's so miserable. And it's inevitable. It's hard to recover from something like that. I never ever want to deal with that again. I can't. Even if it means being alone…)" Squall, mentally: "(...for the rest of my life.)"
God, Squall, I wish you would say this out loud to Rinoa who is right in front of you.
But yeah. This is a lot of elements of his character we already had that are being put together into a complete, coherent picture. Squall is scared of loss because he's lost before. He knows that having friends and reliable adults feels good - that's maybe the one surprising part - but he's scared of letting himself form these bonds because he thinks it's only opening him up for further pain and trauma. He's not naturally aloof; our boy here has been actively resisting his own social instincts this entire time as a maladaptive defense mechanism. He believes if he can just do everything on his own, it will hurt less. It's fucked up is what it is.
Rinoa starts walking in a circle then, musing about Squall.
Rinoa: "What a night. Great music… Good-looking guy… Not only is he good-looking. He's the sweetest guy… a great listener. Right now, he's seriously thinking about what I said. He's shy and doesn't say anything, but I know. So, what do you think? None of your business?"
Because of the ambiguity of text box dialogue, this could be read as sarcastic, but no, I think this is Rinoa making it clear that she knows Squall enough to tell that even though he's just standing there without saying a word, he actually is thinking about what she just said and coming up with answers of his own he just struggles to voice, and she's fine with it, with letting him that space to process things. It's a really interesting development in their relationship.
Squall: "I appreciate your concern… But…" Rinoa: [She raises a hand in front of his face] "No 'buts'! Just think about this. This might be the only time we'll all be together. So, as long as we're together, we might as well enjoy each other's company and… just talk, right?" Squall: "...Just for now, huh? Forget it. I don't want friends who won't be around tomorrow." Rinoa: [She laughs.] "Gosh, you're such a pessimist. There are no guarantees in the future. That's why TODAY, the time we have now, is important." Rinoa: "Squall, we wanna help you, as much as we can, for as long as we can."
[She reaches out and touches Squall's chest, which makes him flinch, then puts her hand to her heart.] Rinoa: "We all love you. There, I said it. Please don't freak out. We just wanna live, y'know, live through this time with you, together." Squall: "...Together…?" Rinoa: "Keep it in the back of your mind. Call on us whenever you need to. We'll be waiting. Like I said, who knows what's gonna happen in the future… but I have a feeling we'll be together for a while."
The central conflict here, between Squall's desperate pessimism and Rinoa having a normal, healthy attitude of "well maybe we'll end up growing apart but for now we're here together so let's make the most of it and help each other" is so good, but it's also so… High school. It literally is a senior-year high school drama playing out, only featuring magical superpowered mercenaries engaged in revolution against a sci-fi empire.
It's wild how the game let me think it had mostly just dropped the high school angle only for it to come back in full tropey force. Not that I mind, but - also, while "We all love you" is not really a confession in that the plural indicates everyone caring about Squall, this is still more of a direct acknowledgment of feelings than we ever got out of Tifa!
It's just good stuff.
Rinoa asks Squall if he has dreams, things he wants from life, and he has to admit to himself that he never thought about it, telling her he'd rather not talk about it. Then, in a stunning display of growth, he returns the question, asking Rinoa about her dreams… And she says she doesn't know and would rather not talk about the future and just stay here, with him, for now. We fade to black, and back to the stage, where the quatuor are still playing their hearts out.
Fade again to the same dream about Squall's sister (though we don't see anything new, it's the same as before), and to the next morning again.
This was really good. A very competently executed piece of high school drama, requiring no supernatural element, and a very aptly handled development in a slow-burn romance that is coming to earn its place on the CD cover of the game. I'm impressed.
…
So what happens if we fuck it up?
The Irish Song is the correct choice for this part of the game. It is what gets us the scene that we just had. But there's no indication I'm aware of in the game of which song is correct; even after figuring out which four scores correspond to each piece, we can still pick the wrong piece. And against all odds, that wrong piece is Eyes On Me (Concert), the specific remix of this piece for this scene, played on saxophone, piano, electric guitar and bass guitar.
Well, at first, nothing. The game proceeds exactly as before… Up to Squall's inner monologue, the line "Even if it means being alone…" and then before he can think "for the rest of my life," and where Rinoa would normally makes that comment about understanding him that bridges the gap between them… She starts getting distracted by the music.
Rinoa: "I don't get it. What's going on?" Squall, mentally: "(Huh!? What? Oh me?)" Squall: "Sorry about that. So… are we finished here?" Rinoa: "What? No, I didn't mean you. I was talking about the music. I love this piece but it's been terrible for the last few minutes. Geez, what's wrong with them?" Squall: "Oh. Well… I'll see you later, alright?" Rinoa: "Wait! You're not gettin' off that easy. You still owe me an answer." Squall, mentally: "(Answer for what…? Oh…)" Squall: "Fine. I'll ask for help when I really need it. I'll try to trust everybody more often. Ok?" Rinoa: "What is your problem!? Why do you have to be like that!? Are you mad or something? Tell me you are, because this really can't be you!" Squall: "I'm sorry." Rinoa: "You're not sorry! You just wanna get the hell out of here, that's all! Geez! Why does it have to be like this? Why!?"
[She turns around and storms off.]
Quistis Tap-Dancing Trepe, my guys.
I suppose this is the other side of that kind of high school drama. The messy, petty way meaningful and important communication breaks down. I was wondering why Eyes On Me, the game's Iconic Theme Song, would be the 'wrong' choice for the scene, and it turns out… The Selphie band is terrible at playing it. And that ends up distracting Rinoa in the middle of an important conversation, so she can't deliver her big, heartfelt speech, and worse than that, Squall at first think she's annoyed with him.
So our boy, in all his socially anxious glory, tries to give her an "I understand will improve on my behavior" speech that is so rote and falling short of what she's trying to have (an emotional conversation about embracing the fact that he has friends, rather than a professional reassessment of his tactics) that it ends up feeling to her like she's being curtly dismissed, so then she's mad, and Squall is just completely out of social tools to use and she storms off on him.
Like. In terms of psychological realism this is top-notch. In terms of please get me out of this room I can't keep watching these two fuck it up it's also up there. Do not want.
But can it get worse?
Of course it can.
If you pick any combination of scores that isn't either the Irish Jig or Eyes On Me, then the result is immediately, awfully discordant. Too late to fix it, unfortunately.
It starts the same, and again, the divergence point is the end of Squall's internal monologue.
Rinoa: "Gosh, this is so irritating." Squall, mentally: "(Huh!? What? Oh me?)" Squall: "Sorry about that." Rinoa: "What? Oh! No, no, no. I wasn't talking about you. I was talking about the music." Squall: "Oh. Well… I'll see you later, alright?"
[He starts heading off screen, brushing past Rinoa.] Rinoa: "Come on, don't go. It was a misunderstanding. I wanna talk more." Squall: "I'll talk about what I want, when I want, to whom I want." Rinoa: "I just wanna hear you talk. You don't wanna talk right now?" Squall: "I thought you didn't wanna talk with this annoying music in the background." Rinoa: "I never said that. Come on, I'm not good enough for you?" Squall, mentally: "(It's not you. I just don't feel like that.)" Rinoa: "Fine… I understand."
[She leaves.] Squall, mentally: "(...Oh well. This won't change anything… I think I was honest. I prefer to be alone, right? …Yeah…)"
Have you ever been so annoyed at the DJ's terrible music at a party that you accidentally gave your maybe-boyfriend the vibe that actually you couldn't stand his vibe and his long silences just pissed you off? This is awful. This is a traumatic flashback from my own high school years put to the screen. Evil. I want Squeenix banned from all the places where humans gather.
I mean it's good, it's good writing, but goddamn is it a painful punishment for fucking up the music selection minigame. At least you can reload as many times as necessary to get the music right?
Back to the present
With the correct version of the game's story in our history, it's time to move on. As usual, Squall is being forced out of his bed to head to the bridge (amusingly this is phrased as a direct order with a courtesy 'please' thrown in).
This is Quistis, Xu, and Nida. It seems like they're forming a kind of cadre of "SeeDs who aren't the weirdo wackjobs of the Sorceress Assassination Team"? Except Quistis who somehow managed to get an exemption? I'm not sure. And they've decided that Squall should have a title befitting his new station. Hence, "Commander."
Commander… Bridge… Ship… Oh damn, we are in proto-Mass Effect territory here. BIOWARE INVENTED NOTHING.
Ahem.
So, Xu is officially in charge of supplies, Quistis is "helping take care of students with Dr Kadowaki," and Nida has been assigned as pilot, freeing Squall to focus on setting a destination and planning battles. The Garden has been repaired by the FH residents, Nida was taught everything about piloting it, and so the Garden is now… Fully operational.
Xu strongly suggests heading to Balamb to find out what happened since we left, but we are free to pick our destination. And when we talk to Nida, a new announcement plays over the comms…
A+, no notes.
And there it is. After all this time, we have access to… Well, not an "airship." Not even a "ship." An architectural monstrosity, a shelter-school-cruise ship, with the power to sail the sea and hover above the land. We are, for the first time, given truly free reign to go around the world and explore at our leisure.
There it is.
…
It sucks so bad, guys.
THIS THING IS SO FUCKING SLOW. IT HANDLES LIKE A WARTHOG. IT TAKES MINUTES TO GET ANYWHERE. AND THE CAMERA IS UNFUCKING NAVIGABLE.
Look at this!! I have to manually turn the goddamned thing to even just get a good angle on my environment!
At least there's the cool halo effect when it reaches the land and starts hovering, but... gah. This is not as much of a liberation as I had anticipated.
Okay. The world is our oyster. Maybe? I'm not sure how many places we can visit in practice. But I am not heading to Balamb and the next plot beat before finding out at least one new location I couldn't access before. And as it so happens, hearing about the Shumi Tribe appears to have put the Shumi Village of the Trabia continent on our map.
So that's where I head first.
There's an extra limitation on our freedom of movement - Selphie can't come with us. She's tired from organizing the concert and the SeeDs very politely suggested we let her rest (her icon is greyed out, we have no choice). I wonder if that's going to lead to anything.
The frozen wastes of the north welcome us to a spidery-looking mechanical dome. It would appear the Shumi Tribe is going to be fairly technological in nature.
Inside, we meet our first non-hostile Shumi. Due to the game's use of a vertical camera angle, it's difficult to tell much about their appearance, but they do appear yellow and somewhat blob-ish; three Shumi greet us and tell us that they are guarding a Draw Point, which they will give us access to for a modest 5,000 gil fee.
It turns out the draw point is Ultima, and so well worth the price, especially as money is free in this game. We then head for a technological dome inside the dome, where everyone takes seats on cushions and a spacious, scifiesque elevator takes us down.
A holographic apparition of a Shumi gives us welcome and tells us we have been granted a special authorization to enter the Shumi Village. Once the elevator goes down, we leave and head out into…
A warm, flourishing natural environment, deep underground in the frozen wastes. I wasn't quite expecting that. Did the Shumi merely find a place kept warm by hot springs or something, or did they actively terraform this subterranean area to be an idyllic environment in the middle of the barren snows?
This Shumi here is a 'specialist'. And he's… Called 'Specialist.' Also, he - and all Shumi - refer to themselves in the third person. So he greets us with, "Specialist is surprised they let you in. Usually, only merchants are permitted to come into our village."
Shumi being named after their function is going to be a recurring trend, and it's getting me to think that "NORG" has such a bizarre and all-caps name because he gave himself a name after leaving Shumi society and "joining" (covertly) human society, but he wasn't really sure how to go about it, so he went overboard with personalizing it.
The principal activity of the Shumi is mining, and their main contact with the outside world is trading minerals with human merchants. They seem dwarfish in inclination; during our stay here we'll mainly meet miners and artisans dealing in sculpting and engineering. Specialist tells us "You think we built a village 323 meters underground just for fun? Actually, there was a little fun in it," which suggests they just enjoy working with the earth and minerals. Their architecture is nice, too, very comfy.
The above is the house of Artisan, which contains a Timber Maniac issue, our first hint that Laguna was here before. Artisan tells us a little about his story; the Shumi don't have much contact with the outside world, but one day he encountered a group of artisans near a "hopelessly foul wasteland" who were a major influence on his work and convinced him humans and Shumis have the same soul. He then shows us his human-inspired craft, which turns out to be… A bunch of model cars.
I guess he and Rinoa do share the same kind of soul.
And elsewhere, we find…
…
Look at this statue. No, I mean, really look at it. Even if you don't recognize anything else - the haircut.
Squall: "...Looks like Laguna."
Whaddaheck.
The Sculptor is surprised that we know of him. It soon transpires that, years ago, a Moomba found a wounded Laguna near Shumi Village and brought him in. They took care of him until his injuries healed. The Sculptor tells us we should talk to the Elder to learn more, and that the Moomba will let us pass.
Squall asks him if they raise Moombas in the village, and the Sculptor acts offended. Raise? They become Moombas.
Sculptor: "Excluding the ones qualified to become Elders, all Shumis evolve at a certain stage of our lives. We become what is in our heart. Often, those who fail to become honorable Elders turn into Moombas. The passionate ingenuity in their hearts gives rise to the red hair. It's common knowledge. Sculptor is surprised you didn't know." Rinoa: "But isn't it inconvenient if you become a beast?" Sculptor: "B-B-BEASTS!!!? H-H-HOW DARE YOU CALL THEM BEASTS!!!?" Sculptor: "Yes, the ones who become Elders are remarkable people! But what did you call them again? BEASTS!"
I ain't transcribing all that.
Okay. I guess sometimes, when they reach a certain age, the Shumi turn into animalistic mascot people who can only talk in single-word sentences and get conscripted by the Galbadian Army to serve as prison guards. I… I don't know what to do with this knowledge. And others turn Elders? And it's implied that some turn into other, non-Moomba, non-Elder forms, but not quite clear?
I swear to God if we come back to Garden and NORG has turned into a mascot animal that - I don't know. This is a return to classic "wacky Final Fantasy" hours and it feels unusually jarring considering how grounded the game's aesthetic and tone have been for the most part.
There's a Firaga Draw Point behind the statue incidentally, and a Blizzaga point near the elder's house, so I guess we're at about this stage of the game. My highest level character is still Squall at 27 with everyone lagging around lv 20, though.
This is, incidentally, some important information the Elder has to share with us. The Shumi encountered Laguna 17 years ago, while he was on his way to Esthar to save Ellone, who had been abducted by Esthar soldiers. So I guess they did capture her in the end. He stayed only long enough for his injuries to heal, and during his stay he tried to teach a Moomba how to speak, saying "words are useful and precious."
Elder: "I believe that Moombas don't need to know words, because the important things can be communicated without words. Perhaps, we don't need words, either. Even Master Laguna was not very good with words. His communication skills were horrible. But still we understood what he desperately wanted to say: how eager he was to save Ellone."
Love the subtle negging there. Also God, the whole Moomba thing just… Creeps me out. Let's not think about it.
Anyway, the reason they're building a statue is because they believe Laguna had something special, "the power to attract people," and they're trying to understand it better by building a statue of him.
Squall, mentally: "(...That bumbling clown…? I better not say anything.)"
The Elder would like to make us a gift to honor our coming, but Shumi tradition require that anything be earned by labour, so he asks us if we could help with the sculpting workshop so that he may present us with his gift. Sounds like a way of extracting free labour to me, but fine.
We head back to the sculptor, and he sends us on a fetch quest: To finish the statue, he must collect a shadow stone, a wind stone, a life stone, a water stone, and a blue stone. I… Sure. Whatever.
I'm going to mostly skip over this. The stone-fetching quest awkwardly straddles the line between an actual boring fetch quest and a quest making fun of fetch quest. For instance, for the blue stone, we're sent to talk to the Specialist to find one only to discover that the blue stone was right next to the Sculptor who somehow hadn't noticed it, while we're told the water stone is "near water," go check the river, find a stone, are we told we're idiots and this is literally a pebble, only to find out later the Artisan is keeping the water stone next to his sink. It's not absurdist or meta-referential enough to be funny, only to be obnoxious. Thankfully it doesn't take very long. Once all the stones are gathered, we don't even get a cutscene of finishing the statue, we're just sent back to the Elder, where…
…
The Shumi Elder holds out his hand. Squall is confused. The Attendant says he can't quite see the gift in the Elder's large palm. Quistis, Rinoa and Squall take turns saying they don't see anything, prompting the Attendant to wildly flail for an excuse.
Attendant: "...Ahh, isn't it amazing!? When he holds something in his palm, you cannot even see it. Such is the power of one who has attained eldership." Squall: "So, what's the gift?" Attendant: "...What else… The honor of seeing his hand. These great hands have shoved the earth! These great hands have created wonders! These great hands justify his eldership!" Attendant: "We are proud to send you off with this gift. Do stop by again. Good day."
…
It was a mistake for me to assume that NORG was especially bad and that's why he was an outcaste and his species would probably just be alright. THEY'RE ALL CHEAPSKATE BITCHES WHO JUST SCAMMED FREE LABOUR OUT OF US! OUR REWARD IS SEEING HIS HANDS? I AM BURNING THIS VILLAGE TO THE GROUND-
WHAT DO YOU MEAN I CAN'T DO THAT
Sometimes there is something to be said for the Bethesda Fallout 3 approach where you can randomly decide to pull a gun and murder everyone no matter how little sense it makes in-story.
Fine.
As if to rub it in your face, Quistis and Rinoa immediately leave while Squall lets out a pitiful "Hey…" and interacting with the Attendant has him tell us to "Please leave at once." He really is kicking us out now that they got what they could out of us.
Thankfully, perhaps sensing the threat of angry players showing up at Squaresoft HQ with torches and pitchforks, the developers throw in a last-minute saving throw: As we are about to leave, the Attendant calls Squall and tells us that he forgot to give us a souvenir. "It's embarrassing to present you with this silly thing after what we have already given you," he says.
Said thing turns out to be a "Phoenix Pinion." A pinion (a word I learned from Elden Ring, of all things) being part of a wing, the terminal feathers on it used in flight. So you might think of it as "Phoenix Down But More." I assume this means it will do something related to but better than a Phoenix Down, like raising someone with full HP, or casting Reraise on them. There are very strong odds I forget about its existence entirely.
…
Okay. Here is one last twist.
Rinoa and Quistis both complain about how they played us for fools and wasted our time, and Squall is given a dialogue option.
First is "Aah, why bother talking about it." The option most consistent with his actions in most of the game, but perhaps not accounting for character development. If we pick this, there is no further dialogue; we just leave.
If, instead, we pick "Explain why it all meant," we get a really interesting look at the new Introspective Squall.
Squall: "...I think it was true. He's kept his hands concealed since we met him. Judging from this place, they're pretty advanced, so they can't be stupid. They probably knew that the silly hand thing wasn't going to impress us." Squall: "They sincerely admire Laguna, so they wanted to treat us kindly, since we know him. They're (sic) kind gesture came out weird, that's all. But at least they tried. I think overall, it was a decent, heartfelt welcome." Rinoa: "I didn't think of it that way. That's nice." Quistis: "Perhaps we owe them our thanks." Squall: "Funny, the Elder humbly concealed his hands. NORG on the other hand showed them off."
…
I feel like I just got out-insighted by Squall. Do you know how humiliating that is? I was fully set on this all being a scam and then he just hit me with a thoughtful 'yeah their gift sucked but they were trying earnestly and I respect them for that.' Now I'm the asshole!
…or is he just extending too much charity to people who don't deserve it? It's entirely possible to read this as another continuation of the shaggy dog comedy plot of the fetch quest, with Squall imagining good intentions where there are none. Which may be why the game then breaks into another cutscene we also don't get if we pick the option to not think about it, only it's one our party doesn't see - we get a look at the Elder and his Attendant inside their home.
Attendant: "What a sham. They probably know." Elder: "Of course. There was a fierce shrewdness about their eyes, and an unimaginable destiny awaits them. There's no doubt that they know." Attendant: "Then why did you bother with the charade? You should have just said 'here, there's nothing." Elder: "I did not want to give them material things. I wanted to give them a moment of peace, and our heartfelt welcome." Attendant: "Hmm. Seems like a poor excuse." Elder: "I have an assignment for you." Attendant: "Yes?" Elder: "Assist the Sculptor in the shop. [Yellow flashing text] You will not rest or sleep [/yellow flashing text] until the statue is complete." Attendant: "W-WHAT!?" [With visible agitation] "Wait a minute. Y-You misunderstood me, Elder. Please! Mercy! NNNNOOOO!!"
…I just don't know what to make of these people. This scene seems to allude to the fact that the Shumi Village is so resource-poor that they really don't have anything to give us (except the Phoenix Pinion which they did give us and isn't being brought up) and it was halfway between what Squall was theorizing and just not having enough rewards, but also it ends on a comedy beat of the Elder just being absolutely awful to the Attendant for speaking his mind?
I am starting to think maybe these guys deserve to turn into Moombas.
And that is - almost - our entire visit to the Shumi Village. With just one last thing. If we talk to Specialist on the way out, he now has a lot more to say - about NORG, specifically.
Specialist: "Specialist heard about what happened to NORG. Specialist is not surprised. Many Shumis have left in search of something, perhaps hope, because life here is so destitute. Sad thing is, there's nothing out there, either. They haven't found anything. Instead, they've lost touch with themselves, with who they are. Yeah, we live in different worlds. You are free to determine your fate. We live in the confines of this remote village. That's our fate. But after you make a breakthrough in life, what you see is pretty much the same, out there or in there, Specialist thinks."
What a sad sentiment. I was taken in by the verdant environment of an underground cave under a frozen wasteland, but I guess these were surface appearances, and the Shumi don't have much either.
So, was this whole excursion worth it?
I mean I did get like 30 Ultimas out of it and a dozen or so Firagas and Blizzagas.
It turns out those Draw Points in Shumi village refresh fast. Fast enough that just in the process of doing the pointless fetch quest, we got to use them each about three times.
Oh, and there's that Timber Maniac, though we have to go all the way back to the 2F classroom to check it out…
Turns out, Laguna was in a movie. A movie that was shot near Trabia, even, making Selphie even more excited, though she muses that Laguna probably doesn't know how to act and speaks too highly of himself in this article - though she finds it odd that Ward is not in that picture.
Maybe we will find out more about this when we finally visit Trabia. Speaking of which, we know the Shumi Village is on the Trabia continent, so before we head to Balamb, how about we quickly check out Trabia Garden?
…hm.
Well, maybe it's a good thing Selphie's not with us for the time being. We'll just… be back… later.
Shumi being named after their function is going to be a recurring trend, and it's getting me to think that "NORG" has such a bizarre and all-caps name because he gave himself a name after leaving Shumi society and "joining" (covertly) human society, but he wasn't really sure how to go about it, so he went overboard with personalizing it.
Soon-to-be-NORG: "And to show how I've embraced the human world I shall name myself as one! I am NORG from now on!"
Cid desperately trying to keep a straight face: *You NEED the money don't laugh whatever you do...*
... Maybe he can't. Maybe he has been internal-monolouging for so long his jaw muscles has atrophied and he has become incapable of speaking sentences longer than 11 syllables out loud.
Similar things have been known to happen to other protagonists.
Not only the characterization but the Humor of the game is something different then previous FF's as well. Maybe it's more like one of the older pre-PS1 games in broad strokes, but even the jokes that are played on the player (not Squall and co) seem a lot more subtle and thinky then what you see in FF7 'funny' moments.
And actually, have we seen any slapstick jokes? Outside of Fujian and Raijinn I can't recall 'haha, so-and-so got hurt' humor, and I think that was a pretty common joke in FF7.
Unsurprisingly there's New Stuff you can do that I assume others out-of-thread can nudge you towards, but I would like to point out that you can visit old places too and often get updated incidental dialogue from quite a lot of NPCs.
. . And I'm not really sure how often it updates, just that it does and I don't want to be the one going back after every plot beat to talk to nameless NPC #8 to find out if they reference the last plot beat in relation to their geopolitical understanding. *cough*
I will say that there are no new cards to miss out on until you progress the plot, but a lot of previous ones you can go back to if you want. Any new cards are non-missable due to how you get them. You can also, theoretically, start the big new-card-quest but not finish it, and potentially lock yourself out of continuing it due to RNG for awhile. So I'd advise waiting until you can do the quest in one big update given it's a Lets Play.
Honestly, the truth behind the Moombas makes them working in a Galbadian Prison kind of fucked up. They've basically conscripted a bunch of senile old men who don't have the mental faculties to say "no" to what is functionally slave labor.
Soon-to-be-NORG: "And to show how I've embraced the human world I shall name myself as one! I am NORG from now on!"
Cid desperately trying to keep a straight face: *You NEED the money don't laugh whatever you do...*
Rinoa: "That's it! Just let out anything! Anything… We want you to talk to us a little more. That's all." Rinoa: "Y'know, if there's anything you want to tell us, or anything we can do, don't hesitate to let us know. I know it's not easy but I wish you would trust us more and rely on us a little more." Squall, mentally: "(Am I that untrusting…? Maybe I'm this way because I'm scared. Nothing lasts in this world. It feels great to have friends who believe in you, and adults you can rely on. That's why it's so dangerous, even if you get used to it. Someday you're bound to lose everything. Everybody around you will be gone. Then what are you left with? Nothing. Nobody… It's so miserable. And it's inevitable. It's hard to recover from something like that. I never ever want to deal with that again. I can't. Even if it means being alone…)" Squall, mentally: "(...for the rest of my life.)"
God, Squall, I wish you would say this out loud to Rinoa who is right in front of you.
Squall really is a goober, a man of incredibly deep and thought-provoking mental capacity, who proceeds to only ever speak outloud like 2% of said thoughts.
It's wild how the game let me think it had mostly just dropped the high school angle only for it to come back in full tropey force. Not that I mind, but - also, while "We all love you" is not really a confession in that the plural indicates everyone caring about Squall, this is still more of a direct acknowledgment of feelings than we ever got out of Tifa!
Being fair, FFVIII is also more overtly a romance game, what with the leads of Squall and Rinoa being on the case, in the opening cutscene, being the only characters you get to name... where while yeah, Cloud's relationship with Tifa is a part of the game, there's also Aerith, not to mention the entire Gold Saucer dating thing and background points for that.
I suppose this is the other side of that kind of high school drama. The messy, petty way meaningful and important communication breaks down. I was wondering why Eyes On Me, the game's Iconic Theme Song, would be the 'wrong' choice for the scene, and it turns out… The Selphie band is terrible at playing it. And that ends up distracting Rinoa in the middle of an important conversation, so she can't deliver her big, heartfelt speech, and worse than that, Squall at first think she's annoyed with him.
So our boy, in all his socially anxious glory, tries to give her an "I understand will improve on my behavior" speech that is so rote and falling short of what she's trying to have (an emotional conversation about embracing the fact that he has friends, rather than a professional reassessment of his tactics) that it ends up feeling to her like she's being curtly dismissed, so then she's mad, and Squall is just completely out of social tools to use and she storms off on him.
Like. In terms of psychological realism this is top-notch. In terms of please get me out of this room I can't keep watching these two fuck it up it's also up there. Do not want.
It's also possible that this somewhat bad rendition of Eyes On Me grates on Rinoa particularly hard because... well, it's her mother's song. I've no doubt she's heard it ten billion times throughout her lifetime, and by this point can pick out the intricate differences in every version and remaster and replaying.
Xu strongly suggests heading to Balamb to find out what happened since we left, but we are free to pick our destination. And when we talk to Nida, a new announcement plays over the comms…
Inside, we meet our first non-hostile Shumi. Due to the game's use of a vertical camera angle, it's difficult to tell much about their appearance, but they do appear yellow and somewhat blob-ish; three Shumi greet us and tell us that they are guarding a Draw Point, which they will give us access to for a modest 5,000 gil fee.
There's a Firaga Draw Point behind the statue incidentally, and a Blizzaga point near the elder's house, so I guess we're at about this stage of the game. My highest level character is still Squall at 27 with everyone lagging around lv 20, though.
We want your thousands of words long essay on the Moombas, and how whack it is to consider something like "what if humans digivolved into oversized house cats at a certain age, complete with now having the intelligence of a house cat?"
It was a mistake for me to assume that NORG was especially bad and that's why he was an outcaste and his species would probably just be alright. THEY'RE ALL CHEAPSKATE BITCHES WHO JUST SCAMMED FREE LABOUR OUT OF US! OUR REWARD IS SEEING HIS HANDS? I AM BURNING THIS VILLAGE TO THE GROUND-
WHAT DO YOU MEAN I CAN'T DO THAT
Sometimes there is something to be said for the Bethesda Fallout 3 approach where you can randomly decide to pull a gun and murder everyone no matter how little sense it makes in-story.
No seriously Ultima is ridiculously useful as a Junction spell, pretty sure it clocks in as best in class for most junctions. Wouldn't be surprised if min-max playthroughs screw around here for a while just to get 300 copies of Ultima and buff up the party.
Or NORG is just some kind of Shumi profession that doesn't have a clear analogue in human society. Perhaps the lack of NORGs is what makes it so Shumi "lose a part of themselves" when they live in human society
