Parasite Eve 2 has a gun blade 
Let's Play Every Final Fantasy Game In Order Of Release [Now Playing: Final Fantasy Tactics]
- Thread starter Omicron
- Start date
- Let's Play
Everybody asking Omi when he's going to watch Spirits Within, but nobody asking him when he's gonna watch the FFV OVA directed by Rintaro(!), FFVII Last Order, or if you want to really get lost in the weeds: Final Fantasy Unlimited.
Is there anything to all of these, or it's just for completionist sake?
lol
lmao
Edit: Non meme answer, no, not really. Legend of the Crystals has some nice production design and early 90's anime vibes, but really isn't much more than a curiosity that doesn't do a whole lot with it's connection to FFV. It's pretty short though, so hey. Last Order is Nibelheim flashback *again*, but in anime form. It's *fine*. FF Unlimited is an oddball pop-fantasy anime that also has very little to do with FF beyond some naming conventions and a chocobo and the MC hero having a gun that shoots Summons. As in, the gun shoots out Summoned monsters instead of bullets. Again, it's not the worst thing ever, but it's not anything to go out of your way to watch unless you really like that era of early 2000's character design.
tl;dr: Eh, nah.
Last edited:
Connelly
As useless as a penguin with mittens
- Location
- Salamanca, Spain
The FFV OVAs are at least entertaining for what they are. Forgettabley old school, "90s cringe", minimal connection to FFV's plot (so really, nay to including them here), but entertaining.
I just got a look of Unlimited art and WTF, mang, and why do I feel like I need a restraining order.
I just got a look of Unlimited art and WTF, mang, and why do I feel like I need a restraining order.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
There's a pretty good chance that I'm the biggest fan of Final Fantasy Unlimited on SV. It's decently fun if you're in the mood for what it offers, which is a fairly generic anime of its time. I enjoy its good bits, and it does have a pretty good track record for foes interrupting big cutscene attacks if they don't want that cutscene attack to happen, which is surprisingly hard to find much of outside this.
Black wind
Train
Space flea boss out of nowwhere.
I watched it live back in the day.
Final Fantasy VIII, Part 21.A: Winhill & Trabia Garden
- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Welcome back, class, to Final Fantasy VIII 201. Today's lesson:
A House by the Sea
Last time, I found out that I'd fucked up my saver order and had missed Leviathan hours ago despite going through hoops to retrieve it after missing it the first time.
Today, I download the Hyne Save Editor over at Nexus and engage in a little bit of cheating. This process was daunting at first, but turned out to be excessively simple: Simply download Hyne, open it, direct it to the correct folder where your ROMs are saved, select the specific save you wish to edit, and it will open directly on a page listing out the game's GFs. The ones that you don't have even have a washed out effect overlaid on them, so if you're like me and have grown a master at avoiding looking at inconvenient things, it's easy to select Leviathan, add it to the save, and presto! We're back in action.
Leviathan's a bit underleveled, but it's whatever.
Leviathan is important in part because he's the one who grants us access to Support Magic Refinement, and it seems likely at this stage that we're getting each refine abilities only from a single GF each.
And now we are back to where we were at! Which, if you'll recall, was "Selphie wants us to visit Trabia Garden to make sure everyone there is alright." But first, we'll do a little détour back in time.
Remember Winhill? The village in which Laguna lived for a while with Raine and Ellone? Well, we can park our Garden next to it and explore it a bit.
Initially, there isn't much; it's mostly interesting watching how the place has changed in the years between, but it's mostly turned into the sleepy little rural town it wanted to be and couldn't due to the monsters and Galbadian occupation. Immediately, we run into men in uniforms who claim to be Balamb graduate who were hired as mercenaries to defend the town; they get kinda cagey when we introduced ourselves as also SeeDs and eventually admit to being dropouts who never completed their training, but protecting a small town like this is the right job for them.
There are a lot of old people in Winhill; it's kind of a dead-end town and all the youth leaves to chase their dreams. Once of the old men reminisces about Raine's beautiful flower wreaths and Ellone, who'd wear them and look "like an angel."
Going into Raine's House is the most remarkable bit, because upon climbing up the stairs like Laguna did all those years ago, Squall sees Raine… Only for it turn out to have been a trick of his mind.
This random woman alone in the world acting like we're weirdos for barging into her house uninvited is a little funny, I will admit. We're not supposed to take the hint and respect her wishes, though - instead, if we press her, she starts talking about ghosts, and how there are 'spirits' dwelling within her house, which inspire her art. When she sits alone, she can smell the fragrance of ghostly flowers.
The big house at the end of town, which I'm guessing is the mayor's house or something, also has a couple of people referring to ghosts and how there's no such thing as ghosts, a vase has disappeared mysteriously, and strange things have been happening around town lately. Spooky! Unfortunately there doesn't seem to appear to be anything more for us to do at this stage.
…is what I would have said if someone hadn't pointed out to me that this was another case of missable content that you need specific party members for. Specifically, either or both of Quistis and Irvine, it seems like. Now, you might expect this (as I briefly did) to be because this will in some way connect to those characters' own arcs and personalities, but… No, not really. It all starts when we interact with a random decorative suit of armor on display in the manor:
That dialogue is utterly incomprehensible.
While Quistis and Irvine are arguing, the armor starts moving on its own! It advances towards the protagonists, who back up as if frightened (even though this would rank far down the list of the spookiest supernatural things to happen to them), until the armor suddenly starts collapsing as it walks, and a chocobo chick escapes.
Or, as they call it, a "chicobo." Adorable.
The chicobo drops a piece of a broken vase as it leaves, thus clarifying our mystery (OR DOES IT?): the 'ghost' was a miniature bird getting into places it shouldn't, making spooky noises by knocking things over, and so on. When talking to the unnamed man who was lamenting his vase was missing, he tells us that if we find more pieces, he might be able to glue them together. So, time to go on a scavenger hunt!
There are three other vase pieces to collect in the village, and I'll be brief on them:
One is in the flower shop, and is triggered by a new conversation with the old woman who says the white flowers in her shop were gifted to her by Raine, who is "no longer with us"; she blames Laguna for this, as does another old man in Winhill who says Laguna "stirred up a major disaster." If you'll recall, the flower lady was the same old woman who was 'nicely' indicating to Laguna that such a small remote village must be boring to a young man like him and he should leave.
The second is at the Chocobo crossing, which this time has actual chocobos, or rather chicobos, crossing it. We need to do a timed X press to knock the chicobo into the air for it to drop the vase piece. Doing this more than once results in two other rewards - a phoenix down and a Gysahl Green whose function in this game is unknown at this time - but going further than this results in an amusing incident:
The third and final vase fragment is found in Raine's house, in a truly bizarre interaction:
Interacting with the artist who hears spirits in her house leads to her cat standing up and telling us to not bother the lady in distorted nyan-speech. The cat doesn't explain anything, just saying that cats can talk as if this were obvious. Heading back down to the first floor, we can find white flowers; interacting with them causes Squall to see a ghostly apparition behind the bar's counter - Raine herself?
But interacting with Raine's ghostly forms only results in the screen flashing white and us seeing the same cat as before, rolling on the counter expecting us to pet it, and Squall discovers the vase piece nearby shortly after.
…
Is the implication here that this talking cat is Raine's spirit reincarnated? That there is a double-fakeout where the "ghost" turns out to be just a baby chocobo running amok, but behind it is an actual ghost in the form of Raine's spirit? This is, after all, the second time Squall hallucinates her in one passage through the town.
We won't be getting an answer today. But here's one last thing: If we talk to the old lady at the flower shop again after we got her in a sad mood by reminiscing about Raine and Laguna, she says:
Old Lady: "Flowers bloom over and over. I wonder if people do the same?"
Which seems further evidence of reincarnation mattering to the plot of the game.
Anyway, once the vase pieces have been collected, we return them to the guy at the mansion, who thanks us and gifts us a Holy Stone, a consumable item which can be used to cast Holy once, or to learn one instance of Holy with Life Magic Refinement. Which is… Fine, I guess. All in all, this was weird and inconclusive and not altogether helpful, which I guess is about right for an ambiguous ghost tale détour in the vein of Maupassant's fantastique.
…
Also I ran into a UFO.
I don't have screenshots for this. I had Enc-None equipped so I shouldn't have been running into any fight, and yet when I approached Winhill I just saw. A fucking flying saucer. With a tractor beam pulling up a cow. I am really sorry my wits totally left me and I failed to take a picture, it was utterly baffling.
Oh, huh, and we field tested Pandemona, of course.
Despite the intimidating associations of its name with both madness and Hell, Pandemona appears to be straightforwardly "the Wind Summon." It does Wind damage and nothing else I'm aware of. It also has an animation which… Hm.
It's vore inflation. Pandemona appears out of a tornado, then inhales another tornado, which causes the enemy to be swallowed into its mouth, which causes a sac at the end of her tail to fill up, before it exhales the wind again, spitting out the enemy to impact the ground with great force and deflating its tail-sac.
Let's not think about this again!
And that's Winhill done! Let's take an image count break here.
A House by the Sea
Last time, I found out that I'd fucked up my saver order and had missed Leviathan hours ago despite going through hoops to retrieve it after missing it the first time.
Today, I download the Hyne Save Editor over at Nexus and engage in a little bit of cheating. This process was daunting at first, but turned out to be excessively simple: Simply download Hyne, open it, direct it to the correct folder where your ROMs are saved, select the specific save you wish to edit, and it will open directly on a page listing out the game's GFs. The ones that you don't have even have a washed out effect overlaid on them, so if you're like me and have grown a master at avoiding looking at inconvenient things, it's easy to select Leviathan, add it to the save, and presto! We're back in action.
Leviathan's a bit underleveled, but it's whatever.
Leviathan is important in part because he's the one who grants us access to Support Magic Refinement, and it seems likely at this stage that we're getting each refine abilities only from a single GF each.
And now we are back to where we were at! Which, if you'll recall, was "Selphie wants us to visit Trabia Garden to make sure everyone there is alright." But first, we'll do a little détour back in time.
Remember Winhill? The village in which Laguna lived for a while with Raine and Ellone? Well, we can park our Garden next to it and explore it a bit.
Initially, there isn't much; it's mostly interesting watching how the place has changed in the years between, but it's mostly turned into the sleepy little rural town it wanted to be and couldn't due to the monsters and Galbadian occupation. Immediately, we run into men in uniforms who claim to be Balamb graduate who were hired as mercenaries to defend the town; they get kinda cagey when we introduced ourselves as also SeeDs and eventually admit to being dropouts who never completed their training, but protecting a small town like this is the right job for them.
There are a lot of old people in Winhill; it's kind of a dead-end town and all the youth leaves to chase their dreams. Once of the old men reminisces about Raine's beautiful flower wreaths and Ellone, who'd wear them and look "like an angel."
Going into Raine's House is the most remarkable bit, because upon climbing up the stairs like Laguna did all those years ago, Squall sees Raine… Only for it turn out to have been a trick of his mind.
This random woman alone in the world acting like we're weirdos for barging into her house uninvited is a little funny, I will admit. We're not supposed to take the hint and respect her wishes, though - instead, if we press her, she starts talking about ghosts, and how there are 'spirits' dwelling within her house, which inspire her art. When she sits alone, she can smell the fragrance of ghostly flowers.
The big house at the end of town, which I'm guessing is the mayor's house or something, also has a couple of people referring to ghosts and how there's no such thing as ghosts, a vase has disappeared mysteriously, and strange things have been happening around town lately. Spooky! Unfortunately there doesn't seem to appear to be anything more for us to do at this stage.
…is what I would have said if someone hadn't pointed out to me that this was another case of missable content that you need specific party members for. Specifically, either or both of Quistis and Irvine, it seems like. Now, you might expect this (as I briefly did) to be because this will in some way connect to those characters' own arcs and personalities, but… No, not really. It all starts when we interact with a random decorative suit of armor on display in the manor:
That dialogue is utterly incomprehensible.
While Quistis and Irvine are arguing, the armor starts moving on its own! It advances towards the protagonists, who back up as if frightened (even though this would rank far down the list of the spookiest supernatural things to happen to them), until the armor suddenly starts collapsing as it walks, and a chocobo chick escapes.
Or, as they call it, a "chicobo." Adorable.
The chicobo drops a piece of a broken vase as it leaves, thus clarifying our mystery (OR DOES IT?): the 'ghost' was a miniature bird getting into places it shouldn't, making spooky noises by knocking things over, and so on. When talking to the unnamed man who was lamenting his vase was missing, he tells us that if we find more pieces, he might be able to glue them together. So, time to go on a scavenger hunt!
There are three other vase pieces to collect in the village, and I'll be brief on them:
One is in the flower shop, and is triggered by a new conversation with the old woman who says the white flowers in her shop were gifted to her by Raine, who is "no longer with us"; she blames Laguna for this, as does another old man in Winhill who says Laguna "stirred up a major disaster." If you'll recall, the flower lady was the same old woman who was 'nicely' indicating to Laguna that such a small remote village must be boring to a young man like him and he should leave.
The second is at the Chocobo crossing, which this time has actual chocobos, or rather chicobos, crossing it. We need to do a timed X press to knock the chicobo into the air for it to drop the vase piece. Doing this more than once results in two other rewards - a phoenix down and a Gysahl Green whose function in this game is unknown at this time - but going further than this results in an amusing incident:
The third and final vase fragment is found in Raine's house, in a truly bizarre interaction:
Interacting with the artist who hears spirits in her house leads to her cat standing up and telling us to not bother the lady in distorted nyan-speech. The cat doesn't explain anything, just saying that cats can talk as if this were obvious. Heading back down to the first floor, we can find white flowers; interacting with them causes Squall to see a ghostly apparition behind the bar's counter - Raine herself?
But interacting with Raine's ghostly forms only results in the screen flashing white and us seeing the same cat as before, rolling on the counter expecting us to pet it, and Squall discovers the vase piece nearby shortly after.
…
Is the implication here that this talking cat is Raine's spirit reincarnated? That there is a double-fakeout where the "ghost" turns out to be just a baby chocobo running amok, but behind it is an actual ghost in the form of Raine's spirit? This is, after all, the second time Squall hallucinates her in one passage through the town.
We won't be getting an answer today. But here's one last thing: If we talk to the old lady at the flower shop again after we got her in a sad mood by reminiscing about Raine and Laguna, she says:
Old Lady: "Flowers bloom over and over. I wonder if people do the same?"
Which seems further evidence of reincarnation mattering to the plot of the game.
Anyway, once the vase pieces have been collected, we return them to the guy at the mansion, who thanks us and gifts us a Holy Stone, a consumable item which can be used to cast Holy once, or to learn one instance of Holy with Life Magic Refinement. Which is… Fine, I guess. All in all, this was weird and inconclusive and not altogether helpful, which I guess is about right for an ambiguous ghost tale détour in the vein of Maupassant's fantastique.
…
Also I ran into a UFO.
I don't have screenshots for this. I had Enc-None equipped so I shouldn't have been running into any fight, and yet when I approached Winhill I just saw. A fucking flying saucer. With a tractor beam pulling up a cow. I am really sorry my wits totally left me and I failed to take a picture, it was utterly baffling.
Oh, huh, and we field tested Pandemona, of course.
Despite the intimidating associations of its name with both madness and Hell, Pandemona appears to be straightforwardly "the Wind Summon." It does Wind damage and nothing else I'm aware of. It also has an animation which… Hm.
It's vore inflation. Pandemona appears out of a tornado, then inhales another tornado, which causes the enemy to be swallowed into its mouth, which causes a sac at the end of her tail to fill up, before it exhales the wind again, spitting out the enemy to impact the ground with great force and deflating its tail-sac.
Let's not think about this again!
And that's Winhill done! Let's take an image count break here.
Final Fantasy VIII, Part 21.B: Winhill & Trabia Garden
- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
It's time to head to Trabia Garden.
On the way, we ran into the chocobo forest and grabbed a chocobo. If it seems odd that I am glossing over it, let me sum it up this way: there is a confusing and complicated tutorial on how to play a minigame to catch a chocobo that can be bypassed by paying a trivial amount out of our infinite supply of money to just get the chocobo, so we do that.
As we saw earlier while we were touring the world, it looks like Trabia Garden was hit by the missiles, and pretty hard at that. It looks like the Garden was surrounded by some kind of wall, and in order to access it, Selphie must cling that netting to the side, with us following shortly after.
Trabia Garden was destroyed, but that doesn't mean everyone inside it was killed. Implicitly, it seems like it may have served its initial Centra purpose as a shelter, although no one is going to mention that explicitly; the buildings are rubble, but there's a lot of people trying to figure out what to do now. The death toll is never mentioned, so it's unclear how many perished in the attacks, but it seems like most of the population might have been able to take shelter before the hit.
The whole party gathers to follow Selphie, which is our first hint that we're in for more than just a Selphie-centric beat.
In fact, to my surprise, Selphie may end up the least prominent character involved in what's to come.
Selphie runs ahead, and Irvine (who it's growing apparent specifically has a crush on Selphie separate from his general horndog behavior) tells us that she must be in shock. Following her, we find our first Trabians.
We have the option to tell a friend of Selphie's that she's "Been a great help," whereupon Selphie does one of those stock anime poses with both her hands pressed under her cheeks and swaying back and forth, saying "That's not like Squall at all!" and he does one of his internal "...Whatever." It's cute. Selphie tells us to find a basketball court at the back of Trabia Garden and wait for her there while she "catches up" with her friends.
This sure looks like a makeshift graveyard with headstones made out of pieces of the rubble, and students' guns or jackets deposited there in memoriam. So it's pretty clear not everybody made it. Grimly, that place contains a hidden Draw spot for the spell… Zombie.
There's a small camp with students, where someone mentions the Tonberry King in their sleep, though it's not actionable information at the moment. Some of the students seem to allude to secret stuff we might be able to find around the Garden, though we're going to be distracted pretty quickly.
A blink and you'll miss it shot of what looks to be Selphie's personal information.
We can briefly turn Trabia Garden's "personal data bank" computer back on, though it immediately shuts down again. Ultimately we're not going to be of much help to anyone here today.
Like Balamb, Trabia Garden also has children running around. There is a very sweet scene where the children ask Selphie to forgive them, because she gifted them a teddy bear before leaving for Balamb Garden, and that teddy bear was lost or destroyed in the attack, and she reassures them.
Selphie: "My teddy bear is a lot stronger than you think! As long as we're all safe, Mr Bear's very happy." [She does a little dance-like pose.] "Heeey! I can hear him! Mr Bear's watching over you secretly. So don't be naughty or sad all the time! Just remember, Mr Bear is watching you!"
Turns out Selphie's great with kids. Who could have known?
There's a straight up unexploded missile stuck in what appears to be Trabia Garden's own concert stage (with an Aura draw point next to it). The set design is impeccable as always.
Squall wonders where the Sorceress is, the others repeat their worries about her nature and motives (Quistis wonders if the Sorceress is trying to get her hands on Ellone with the purpose of traveling to the past, which seems as good a guess as any at this time), Irvine worries about showing that Selphie can rely on him, and eventually Selphie shows up and thanks everyone for coming along and supporting her through a difficult time.
Selphie, lest we be fooled into forgetting the rainbows and confettis in her mind spell out "murder," specifically says she "wants to get even," she "wants revenge." Entirely understandable under the circumstances, but it's fun to see a female character who's suffered such a personal loss immediately pivot to revenge, rather than grief?
I say this in part because of what happens next - Rinoa steps up, and she has qualms about this whole "revenge" business.
Rinoa: "Do we… have to fight? Isn't there another way? Y'know, to avoid any bloodshed?"
Zell: "Yo!? What the…!? What are you sayin' all of a sudden?"
Rinoa: "Maybe someone really smart can come up with a way, so we wouldn't have to fight anymore…"
Squall, mentally: "(What are you getting at…? If someone can come up with something, that'd be great… But no one's doing anything… They're all scared, uneasy. All they do is complain. They just pretend to be thinking. They criticize each other, but in the end, they can't do anything either.)"
Squall, mentally: "(Rinoa, why all this? What do you expect from me? I grew up in Garden. I'm a SeeD. Do you understand?)"
Rinoa: "Squall? You have to voice your feelings, or else I won't understand."
SHE ACTUALLY SAID IT, YOU GO GIRL.
Squall: "You were… part of a resistance movement in Timber, right? Unlike others who were all talk, you took to your weapons and fought… And now you're saying all this? What happened to you?"
Rinoa: "I guess… I'm getting scared."
At this point, in a cool bit of cinematography, the camera frames Rinoa alone and closer up, leaving everyone else out of the picture.
Rinoa: "Sometimes… When I'm with all of you… I… Feel like we're on the same wavelength… you know?"
Rinoa: "But when the battles start happening, it's different. Everyone's tempo seems to pick up and… I get left behind. I try to catch up, but it's no use…"
Rinoa: "How far is everyone going? I can't hear anyone… Once I catch up, I wonder… Is everyone safe? Will they welcome me with open arms?"
[Here the camera pulls back to the whole group.]
Rinoa: "......Is everyone ok? Will we make it all back together? When I start thinking like that…"
This is a really tricky beat and I think the game does it kinda right but runs into inevitable problems as a result of the game being, well, a game. Rinoa's conflict, about not being a SeeD, not coming from a Garden, lacking their training, being afraid of being left behind or losing others, is entirely relatable… But it being framed as being unable to 'keep up' has the problem that, well, it's not true? She is mechanically identical to everyone else, and in fact since I'm always taking her along to not miss beats of her relationship with Squall, she is my second highest level character. She is, quite literally, stronger than everyone else, and I didn't even have to try!
Of course, we understand that a game is a game is a game, Rinoa's stats don't necessarily reflect her role in the story, but… Well, they could have sidestepped this entirely by just not having her frame her isolation and struggle to fit in in terms of combat strength, just emotional connection.
Anyway, this doesn't matter, because now Irvine is speaking up.
"Oh," I think, "Irvine is being supportive because he has his own issues with being afraid to choke and fail his comrades and so he can relate to Rinoa outside his usual horndog ways, that's neat."
Ha.
Haha.
Hahahaha.
No, that's not what's happening here.
I mean, it seems like it at first. "Rinoa, I understand. Someone might not be there. Someone you love might disappear before your very eyes. It's tough to live your life thinking that way."
But then, he starts telling us 'why he fights,' and it starts with the story of an orphanage.
Through this whole scene, our characters are going to be wandering through the orphanage as if they were there. It's metaphorical; we occasionally drop back into reality to remind us everyone is in fact still standing around on the basketball court.
You see, when Irvine was a kid, "around 4 or so," he was in an orphanage, full of other orphans, whom Irvine suspect lost their parents in the Sorceress's War, though it's not like he asked them. And out of all these other orphans, there was one Irvine was most attached to. "I really liked this girl, and it made me so happy just talking to her." Cue a little girl in green overalls and a yellow shirt walking on stage in Irvine's memory, and Irvine's own childhood self appearing to greet her.
She called him 'Irvy.' And he called her…
…'Sefie.'
This is it, people. This is the big twist and it's coming in a way I had no way of expecting, through Rinoa going "I'm afraid of being left alone" and Irvine going "yeah big mood, let me tell you about my childhood" and then just -
Just in case there was any doubt, when 'Irvy' asks 'Sefie' what game she wants to play, her answer is an enthusiastic, all-caps "WAR!"
In the present, Selphie asks Irvine if that orphanage was "a stone house", and when Irvine confirms, Quistis steps up and asks "An old house made of stone? …By the ocean?"
Irvine: "I knew right away, when we first met!"
Irvine: "It just kinda sucked that I was the only one who remembered… Spunky little Sefie and bossy little Quisty."
Selphie: "That is just sooo weird…"
Quistis: "Huh?"
[In the memory, a door opens, and another boy walks in.]
Zell: "Hey… Do you guys remember setting off fireworks?"
At this point, a ghostly apparition of Squall manifests, and we take control so we can move around the memory between screens. And upon leaving the stone house and heading for the beach, we meet one familiar face.
Squall, mentally: "(What a shameful sight.)"It will surprise no one at this point that Squall was also there.
The most shocking thing we learn here is that Zell used to be a narc.
The other kids called Zell "crybaby Zell," and there was a whole incident after he snitched on them for the fireworks that got everyone into trouble. But Zell is confused; what about his parents in Balamb? Quistis guesses that he must have been adopted.
But it's not over yet. Because while the other kids are busy bullying Zell for snitching back at the orphanage, another orphan walks in.
SEE THAT, BOTTOM RIGHT? OF COURSE SEIFER WAS THERE! OF COURSE HE ALREADY HAD AN OBNOXIOUS HAIRDO LIKE HE WAS TRYING TO BE A 'COOL KID'! OF COURSE HE WAS ALREADY THROWING AROUND MEAN NICKNAMES!
As Irvine talks the others through their memories, they start to remember more. How Seifer was always Zell's "archenemy." Squall's ghostly form still doesn't remember Irvine, but he does now remember that Seifer 'was always Seifer,' that Quistis was 'difficult to deal with,' that Selphie was 'always full of energy,' that Zell was 'always crying and screaming.'
Everyone was there. They all went to the same orphanage.
Except Rinoa.
IRVINE'S REACTION TO RINOA TALKING ABOUT HOW SHE FEELS ISOLATED FROM THE OTHERS AND IS WORRIED THEY'LL LEAVE HER BEHIND WAS TO REVEAL THAT ACTUALLY THEY ALL GO EVEN WAY FURTHER BACK THAN THEY REMEMBERED, THEY LITERALLY ALL GREW UP TOGETHER EXCEPT RINOA.
She actually puts a hand on her chest and lowers her head in one of her 'wistful/sad/thoughtful' poses at this.
Fucking. Impeccable.
Selphie turns to Squall, who still hasn't said anything, and he goes to sit on a piece of rubble before admitting that, yes, he remembers now. He too was there.
The flashback plays out again, with Squall standing next to his childhood self, and this time when the child says 'I'll be ok without you,' Squall turns around, puts a hand to his forehead and admits internally that he 'didn't turn out ok at all.'
Sadder and lonelier than the other orphans, always waiting for 'Sis' to come back.
And now, he remembers who that 'Sis' was. Her childhood nickname was Elle.
For Ellone, of course.
She wasn't Squall's sister, as far as he remembers. She was just a little older than the other kids, and so she was, collectively, everyone's 'big sister,' and everyone called her 'Sis.' Everyone loved her, but as Irvine tells him, Squall specifically kept 'hogging her all to himself.' Which explains why he was so hurt by her departure, wherever she went.
Squall: "Quistis, Zell, Selphie, Irvine, Seifer, Ellone and myself… Yeah… I'm not sure what the meaning behind all this is, but we were definitely together."
Zell: "You mean, Sis is Ellone?"
Selphie: "She's the one that takes us back to Laguna's time period."
Squall: "...She said she wanted to change the past. I don't know why…"
Quistis: "There can only be one reason for that."
Selphie: "She must not be happy with the present."
Zell: "If that's the case, I'm definitely up for helpin' her! She's part of our orphanage gang!"
Selphie: "You didn't even remember who she was!"
Irvine: "Hey, Selphie… That goes for you, too!"
Quistis: "It's pretty scary we've forgotten all these things…"
Zell: "(sigh)... So, Ma and Pa aren't my real parents…"
Selphie: "I wonder where the orphanage is…?"
Irvine: "Hmm… So, Sis was Ellone, eh? Everyone was fond of Sis, but you, Squall, you kept hoggin' her for yourself."
Squall: "You sure have a good memory… This is really strange. I don't think I was adopted because of the way I am. Probably the same with Seifer, too. You two [I don't know who he means there, Irvine?] must have been at Garden by the age of 5 or so…"
Squall: "Even so, he's never mentioned anything about growing up in an orphanage. And nothing about this has ever crossed my mind when I see him, either. Don't you find that odd…?"
Why yes, Squall! That is a good question! Why didn't any of you remember any of this? I wonder!
Selphie has an incredible justification here, which that she had so much fun after going to Trabia that she just kind forgot all about her life before. Of course that's it, Selphie. Of course.
Quistis: "I… remember. Yes, I remember now. Things didn't work out too well at my new home. So I came to Garden at the age of 10. That was when I first noticed Seifer and Squall. Seifer and Squall were always fighting."
Squall: "Yeah… Quistis used to break us up."
Quistis: "Yes! That's right! Seifer was a kid who always needed to be the center of attention. But Squall always used to ignore him… But eventually they would end up fighting. Squall could have easily walked away from it, but always took up the challenge. He should have just ignored him, bu Squall, almost in tears, would say…I gotta do my best by myself. Or else I won't be able to see Sis."
Quistis: "I guess I was trying to take Sis… I mean, Ellone's place. I tried, but to no avail… That's probably it! Even after becoming an instructor, I couldn't stop thinking about Squall. I thought it was… Love. I had to hide my feelings because I was an instructor, but I've come to realize it wasn't. It was my childhood feelings as a big sister that lingered… Oh well…"
[At this point, Quistis walks away a little, turning her back on the others.]
This is a really fascinating character beat, that Quistis thought she was romantically attracted to Squall, but that it was a sisterly affection that she didn't fully remember. She admits that she had given up anyway once Rinoa came into the picture, and then realizes that Seifer must be the same - not romantically, (although it's kinda homoerotic let's not lie), but he doesn't remember Squall yet every time he sees him 'his inner feelings start to boil' and it ends up in a fight.
Which, I mean… Squall was what, 4 to 5 when he was at the orphanage? And he was at most 10 when he left for Balamb Garden, but probably younger than that? Squall, Seifer and Quistis all spent more of their life at Balamb Garden than they did in that orphanage. Not to diminish its clear formative role in their lives, but their rivalry at Garden has been far longer than their rivalry at that orphanage.
The reason for these memory troubles is obvious, of course, but they really don't want to believe it. When Irvine suggests that this is "the price you pay for using the GF," that the Guardian Forces are stored within the area of the brain or mind were memories are located, Quistis protests that this is just a rumor spread by "GF critics" and that "there's no way Headmaster Cid would allow such a thing!"
But that's when Irvine gives us one incontrovertible piece of evidence: He didn't junction a GF until he joined the party for the assassination mission, in Galbadia Garden.
Irvine remembered everything this entire time.
The moment he walked on screen back in Galbadia Garden, you know, that scene:
He recognized everyone as kids from his orphanage. And didn't say anything!?
From his perspective, talking shit to them was probably… friendly banter? And then nobody responded as expected?
I'm off two minds on this. On the one hand, it stretches disbelief that Irvine at no point even suggested "hey, do you remember me?" or like, acted in a way that clearly indicated he was weirded out that nobody was remembering him at all, to the point that it kinda feels like that specific beat might have been added later in scripting.
On the other hand, this is the funniest shit that has ever happened in a Final Fantasy game.
He has been holding it in the entire game. Slowly going mad on the inside as everyone just kept acting like they didn't recognize him or, indeed, each other from before Garden. Slowly withering inside from thinking about the sheer social awkwardness of bringing it up. Increasingly realizing that everyone but him and Rinoa have brain damage from excessive GF use.
It might seem odd that Selphie's memory issues are as severe as everyone else's despite being a transfer student, but she revealed that when she was 12, she joined an outdoors training mission and found a GF inside one of the monsters she killed, and junctioned it for a while - a GF whose name she now cannot remember anymore.
Yeah, it's bad. Junctioning just eats up entire chunks of your life.
But as Squall then points out, it's not like they can stop, either. It's the GFs that grant them the power to fight against the Sorceress, to stand up to the might of an empire and the most powerful magic user on the planet as just a team of six. If his memories are the price to pay, Squall says, he'll gladly pay it.
Selphie suggests what she's already been doing - keeping a diary so that even if her memories fade, she'll have a way to remember. Zell is not so hot on that idea; he says he doesn't care about forgetting his childhood if it turned out Seifer was always picking on him, but I think it's more that he would rather not know what he's forgotten than have evidence of it and still not remembering. Besides, his parents and Balamb adopted him and loved him, and he won't give up any power that can help him protect them.
And then.
The hit that I should have seen coming.
Because this is not over. This socially awkward hell of being around your childhood friends that don't seem to remember you at all and now you're afraid to bring it up, that was only half of Irvine's torment.
Because Quistis asks everyone if they remember 'Matron.' She uses the word Matron as a proper noun, without a particle, which is really weird because the dialogue makes it clear that she means the matron, as in the person in charge of the orphanage.
Who was 'very kind,' had long black hair and dressed always in black.
THAT'S FUCKING RIGHT. WHEN I SAID EVERYONE WENT TO THE SAME ORPHANAGE, I MEANT EVERYONE, BECAUSE EDEA WAS IN FUCKING CHARGE OF THE PLACE.
Everything. Everything about this whole plot development is so much. Not just by itself, but the way it happens like Irvine just finally took up his courage in hand, overcame Tifa-tier avoidance issues, and just, kind of, spilled the beans that he knew most of the plot this whole entire time.
The absolute fuckboy.
He explicitly namedrops the matron as "Edea Kramer," which means the whole assassination mission, he knew that he was planning to shoot his childhood caretaker.
No fucking wonder he choked! After Edea parried his bullet, he acted apologetic and ashamed of his failure, even though it wasn't really his fault; one interpretation is that if he had fired in time instead of being delayed she might not have been able to do that, but another possibility is that his shot was never going to make it - even if Edea hadn't blocked it, he would have missed on purpose. Because what did Squall tell him when convincing him to fire?
Squall: "Just think [your shot] as a signal. A sign for us to make our move."
Irvine: "Just a sign…"
Because that's his mother figure, down there.
When I called Edea "evil dommy mommy" I never realized I was being almost literal.
Fuck. Just, like, going back and reading all of Irvine's interactions in a completely different light now-
But also that's insane? This entire plot beat reveals that the fate of the world is being played out between an orphanage matron, her divorced husband, and six of the kids that she used to have in her care (and Rinoa is also there)? The entire scope of the conflict currently setting the world ablaze and pitting armies against each other has just been reduced to a domestic drama between nine people.
This is an absolutely unprecedented level of Final Fantasy being itself.
Or more like ten people. Edea, Cid, Seifer, our six party members…
Selphie: "Why is the Matron…?"
Irvine: "Why? You're wondering why Matron would take over a country, or fire missiles and whatnot? At this point, we probably wouldn't comprehend it even if we talked about it."
Squall, mentally: "(...You're probably right.)"
Irvine: "...Hear me out. SeeD and Garden were all Matron's idea, right? I'm not a SeeD, but I share the same feeling as all of you. SeeDs are supposed to fight the sorceress, right?"
Squall, mentally: "(This is strange. That's right… It was when I was being tortured by Seifer. He wanted to know what SeeD was. Matron should know… But Matron is Sorceress Edea. There's no denying that. What does it all mean?)"
…and whoever is currently running around in Edea's skull. There were hints before, but the fact that Edea Kramer 1) underwent a total personality shift from 'kindly caretaker figure' to 'evil mind-controlling murderess' and 2) does not have information that she by all rights should have access to, all but confirms it.
With that said, we've gone back to Sinister Cid, because it seems clear that, like… Cid would have known most of this stuff. He had to. That was his wife, and this would have been happening at a time when it seems like they were together? At the very least he was aware of the dangers of GF use being more than just ill-intentioned rumors and still carried on with it while hiding it from his students. But what was Edea's goal with that small orphanage by the sea, in which she didn't seem to have been training into child soldiers at that time. And where does Ellone fit into this?
The people of Winhill strongly implied that Raine died shortly after the last Laguna flashbacks. I had previously thought Edea might have been Raine, but we've now seen a younger Edea at around the same age Raine would have had and they're clearly different women. If Raine tragically died, that would easily explain why Ellone ended up in that orphanage, overseen by Edea. But then… What?
There are still too many unknowns.
Irvine: "So like… this is what I wanted to say. Let's see… Oh yeah."
Irvine: "I understand what Rinoa's saying. I understand, but still I'm gonna fight. I want to stay true to everything I've stood for. I'm sure it's the same for everyone. That's why I thought it'd be best if everyone knew we would have to face Matron."
Irvine: "You've all heard this before. How life has infinite possibilities. I don't believe that one bit. There weren't many paths for me to choose. Sometimes, there would only be one. From the limited possibilities I faced, the choices I made have brought me this far. That's why I value the path I chose… I want to hold true to the path that HAD to be taken."
Irvine: "I know our opponent is Matron, whom we all love very much. We might lose something very important on account of the GF. But I don't mind. It's not like I drifted here on the tides of fate. I'm here because I chose to be here."
Irvine: "And more importantly… We all grew up together. But due to various circumstances, we were all separated. As a kid, you couldn't really go out on your own… There were no other paths to take… All I did was just cry. But…"
Irvine: "But somehow, we're together again. Just like old times, though a lot's changed. We're not kids anymore… We're strong enough to take care of ourselves. Make our decisions… We're confronting a big one right now. Do we fight Matron or not…? I say we fight… Shoot for a common goal… Hey, at least it'll keep us together a little longer."
Zell: "...Yeah. Let's do it. We can't run from her for the rest of our lives."
Selphie: "It's just such a bummer… I can't believe we have to fight Matron."
Quistis: "I know… But Zell's right. We can't run from her forever."
Squall: "Rinoa…" [He advances towards her.] It's up to you. We're gonna fight… I think it's the only way we can move on with our lives. If that makes any sense at all, come with us. I'm sure that's what everybody wants."
And then it starts… Snowing?
I'm not sure why that's weird, they're in a snowy northern mountain land.
God, can you imagine being Rinoa and just, fucking, hijacked out of your big moment of doubt and character conflict by everyone else having a goddamned revelation in front of you that you are not part of?
I really wasn't expecting Irvine to be making the big rallying speech that lays out the stakes and the group's commitment, but it worked! It makes sense for him based on his character and what he's known and been keeping to himself this whole time! The inherent cost of using GFs make this whole thing tense and almost tragic in a way 'if we fail we'll die [we can't fail because we're protagonists in a story]' never quite can achieve! The reveal that Edea is someone who means something to them, someone they used to care about, but that they forgot they cared about her, plays really well into Squall's own personal themes regarding bonding with others and acknowledging that there are emotional stakes and costs to caring about people! It would have been easier for them to kill Edea if they hadn't recalled any of this, but the truth has inherent value that is worth facing for its own sake! These are strong, solid themes!
Just. It's baffling to me that this is how this major reveal is brought up.
Everyone agrees that they should check out what remains of the orphanage and hopefully find clues as to Edea's transformation. Squall muses again that the past is the past and that whatever truth they find won't change the present, but that he wants to see. He'll do it for himself, ignoring the nagging voice in his head that tells him it's pointless to express curiosity and interest rather than just blindly follow orders without question.
Squall and Rinoa have one last exchange. She tells him that they're 'fearless' in an admiring way, and Squall thinks to himself that it's not really fearlessness - rather, everyone is too afraid of thinking too hard and being 'lost.' He, too, wishes they didn't have to fight. But constantly moving forward in a decisive fashion is the best way Squall knows to stay alive, whereas Rinoa perpetually suffers from overthinking and getting trapped between possible choices and potential consequences.
In that way, they balance and compliment one another.
We are sent straight back to Balamb Garden, rather than making us go through Trabia Garden again. The game does a lot of these convenient plot-based teleportations to avoid unnecessary traversal but, well, owing to recent events, I find myself wondering if there isn't new stuff in Trabia Garden that I am going to need to go back and check out, which rather defeats the point.
But that… Was this update. There was a lot to dig in there, all of it plot-based - I fought a couple of random encounters, but not much. Squall did hit lv 30 though, so that's nice; we should eventually be seeing those fabled lv 30+ scaled random encounters. (Although Zell is still, like… Level 19… This game's progression pacing is fucked.)
Edea's House doesn't appear to have been added to our map. However, I am pretty sure I found it while sailing around just checking the coasts for Stuff.
So… That's where we're headed next time, probably, unless there's another important sidequest I missed.
Thank you for reading.
Next Time: Revisiting the Orphanage!
On the way, we ran into the chocobo forest and grabbed a chocobo. If it seems odd that I am glossing over it, let me sum it up this way: there is a confusing and complicated tutorial on how to play a minigame to catch a chocobo that can be bypassed by paying a trivial amount out of our infinite supply of money to just get the chocobo, so we do that.
As we saw earlier while we were touring the world, it looks like Trabia Garden was hit by the missiles, and pretty hard at that. It looks like the Garden was surrounded by some kind of wall, and in order to access it, Selphie must cling that netting to the side, with us following shortly after.
Trabia Garden was destroyed, but that doesn't mean everyone inside it was killed. Implicitly, it seems like it may have served its initial Centra purpose as a shelter, although no one is going to mention that explicitly; the buildings are rubble, but there's a lot of people trying to figure out what to do now. The death toll is never mentioned, so it's unclear how many perished in the attacks, but it seems like most of the population might have been able to take shelter before the hit.
The whole party gathers to follow Selphie, which is our first hint that we're in for more than just a Selphie-centric beat.
In fact, to my surprise, Selphie may end up the least prominent character involved in what's to come.
Selphie runs ahead, and Irvine (who it's growing apparent specifically has a crush on Selphie separate from his general horndog behavior) tells us that she must be in shock. Following her, we find our first Trabians.
We have the option to tell a friend of Selphie's that she's "Been a great help," whereupon Selphie does one of those stock anime poses with both her hands pressed under her cheeks and swaying back and forth, saying "That's not like Squall at all!" and he does one of his internal "...Whatever." It's cute. Selphie tells us to find a basketball court at the back of Trabia Garden and wait for her there while she "catches up" with her friends.
This sure looks like a makeshift graveyard with headstones made out of pieces of the rubble, and students' guns or jackets deposited there in memoriam. So it's pretty clear not everybody made it. Grimly, that place contains a hidden Draw spot for the spell… Zombie.
There's a small camp with students, where someone mentions the Tonberry King in their sleep, though it's not actionable information at the moment. Some of the students seem to allude to secret stuff we might be able to find around the Garden, though we're going to be distracted pretty quickly.
A blink and you'll miss it shot of what looks to be Selphie's personal information.
We can briefly turn Trabia Garden's "personal data bank" computer back on, though it immediately shuts down again. Ultimately we're not going to be of much help to anyone here today.
Like Balamb, Trabia Garden also has children running around. There is a very sweet scene where the children ask Selphie to forgive them, because she gifted them a teddy bear before leaving for Balamb Garden, and that teddy bear was lost or destroyed in the attack, and she reassures them.
Selphie: "My teddy bear is a lot stronger than you think! As long as we're all safe, Mr Bear's very happy." [She does a little dance-like pose.] "Heeey! I can hear him! Mr Bear's watching over you secretly. So don't be naughty or sad all the time! Just remember, Mr Bear is watching you!"
Turns out Selphie's great with kids. Who could have known?
There's a straight up unexploded missile stuck in what appears to be Trabia Garden's own concert stage (with an Aura draw point next to it). The set design is impeccable as always.
Squall wonders where the Sorceress is, the others repeat their worries about her nature and motives (Quistis wonders if the Sorceress is trying to get her hands on Ellone with the purpose of traveling to the past, which seems as good a guess as any at this time), Irvine worries about showing that Selphie can rely on him, and eventually Selphie shows up and thanks everyone for coming along and supporting her through a difficult time.
Selphie, lest we be fooled into forgetting the rainbows and confettis in her mind spell out "murder," specifically says she "wants to get even," she "wants revenge." Entirely understandable under the circumstances, but it's fun to see a female character who's suffered such a personal loss immediately pivot to revenge, rather than grief?
I say this in part because of what happens next - Rinoa steps up, and she has qualms about this whole "revenge" business.
Rinoa: "Do we… have to fight? Isn't there another way? Y'know, to avoid any bloodshed?"
Zell: "Yo!? What the…!? What are you sayin' all of a sudden?"
Rinoa: "Maybe someone really smart can come up with a way, so we wouldn't have to fight anymore…"
Squall, mentally: "(What are you getting at…? If someone can come up with something, that'd be great… But no one's doing anything… They're all scared, uneasy. All they do is complain. They just pretend to be thinking. They criticize each other, but in the end, they can't do anything either.)"
Squall, mentally: "(Rinoa, why all this? What do you expect from me? I grew up in Garden. I'm a SeeD. Do you understand?)"
Rinoa: "Squall? You have to voice your feelings, or else I won't understand."
SHE ACTUALLY SAID IT, YOU GO GIRL.
Squall: "You were… part of a resistance movement in Timber, right? Unlike others who were all talk, you took to your weapons and fought… And now you're saying all this? What happened to you?"
Rinoa: "I guess… I'm getting scared."
At this point, in a cool bit of cinematography, the camera frames Rinoa alone and closer up, leaving everyone else out of the picture.
Rinoa: "Sometimes… When I'm with all of you… I… Feel like we're on the same wavelength… you know?"
Rinoa: "But when the battles start happening, it's different. Everyone's tempo seems to pick up and… I get left behind. I try to catch up, but it's no use…"
Rinoa: "How far is everyone going? I can't hear anyone… Once I catch up, I wonder… Is everyone safe? Will they welcome me with open arms?"
[Here the camera pulls back to the whole group.]
Rinoa: "......Is everyone ok? Will we make it all back together? When I start thinking like that…"
This is a really tricky beat and I think the game does it kinda right but runs into inevitable problems as a result of the game being, well, a game. Rinoa's conflict, about not being a SeeD, not coming from a Garden, lacking their training, being afraid of being left behind or losing others, is entirely relatable… But it being framed as being unable to 'keep up' has the problem that, well, it's not true? She is mechanically identical to everyone else, and in fact since I'm always taking her along to not miss beats of her relationship with Squall, she is my second highest level character. She is, quite literally, stronger than everyone else, and I didn't even have to try!
Of course, we understand that a game is a game is a game, Rinoa's stats don't necessarily reflect her role in the story, but… Well, they could have sidestepped this entirely by just not having her frame her isolation and struggle to fit in in terms of combat strength, just emotional connection.
Anyway, this doesn't matter, because now Irvine is speaking up.
"Oh," I think, "Irvine is being supportive because he has his own issues with being afraid to choke and fail his comrades and so he can relate to Rinoa outside his usual horndog ways, that's neat."
Ha.
Haha.
Hahahaha.
No, that's not what's happening here.
I mean, it seems like it at first. "Rinoa, I understand. Someone might not be there. Someone you love might disappear before your very eyes. It's tough to live your life thinking that way."
But then, he starts telling us 'why he fights,' and it starts with the story of an orphanage.
Through this whole scene, our characters are going to be wandering through the orphanage as if they were there. It's metaphorical; we occasionally drop back into reality to remind us everyone is in fact still standing around on the basketball court.
You see, when Irvine was a kid, "around 4 or so," he was in an orphanage, full of other orphans, whom Irvine suspect lost their parents in the Sorceress's War, though it's not like he asked them. And out of all these other orphans, there was one Irvine was most attached to. "I really liked this girl, and it made me so happy just talking to her." Cue a little girl in green overalls and a yellow shirt walking on stage in Irvine's memory, and Irvine's own childhood self appearing to greet her.
She called him 'Irvy.' And he called her…
…'Sefie.'
This is it, people. This is the big twist and it's coming in a way I had no way of expecting, through Rinoa going "I'm afraid of being left alone" and Irvine going "yeah big mood, let me tell you about my childhood" and then just -
Just in case there was any doubt, when 'Irvy' asks 'Sefie' what game she wants to play, her answer is an enthusiastic, all-caps "WAR!"
In the present, Selphie asks Irvine if that orphanage was "a stone house", and when Irvine confirms, Quistis steps up and asks "An old house made of stone? …By the ocean?"
Irvine: "I knew right away, when we first met!"
Irvine: "It just kinda sucked that I was the only one who remembered… Spunky little Sefie and bossy little Quisty."
Selphie: "That is just sooo weird…"
Quistis: "Huh?"
[In the memory, a door opens, and another boy walks in.]
Zell: "Hey… Do you guys remember setting off fireworks?"
At this point, a ghostly apparition of Squall manifests, and we take control so we can move around the memory between screens. And upon leaving the stone house and heading for the beach, we meet one familiar face.
Squall, mentally: "(What a shameful sight.)"
The most shocking thing we learn here is that Zell used to be a narc.
The other kids called Zell "crybaby Zell," and there was a whole incident after he snitched on them for the fireworks that got everyone into trouble. But Zell is confused; what about his parents in Balamb? Quistis guesses that he must have been adopted.
But it's not over yet. Because while the other kids are busy bullying Zell for snitching back at the orphanage, another orphan walks in.
SEE THAT, BOTTOM RIGHT? OF COURSE SEIFER WAS THERE! OF COURSE HE ALREADY HAD AN OBNOXIOUS HAIRDO LIKE HE WAS TRYING TO BE A 'COOL KID'! OF COURSE HE WAS ALREADY THROWING AROUND MEAN NICKNAMES!
As Irvine talks the others through their memories, they start to remember more. How Seifer was always Zell's "archenemy." Squall's ghostly form still doesn't remember Irvine, but he does now remember that Seifer 'was always Seifer,' that Quistis was 'difficult to deal with,' that Selphie was 'always full of energy,' that Zell was 'always crying and screaming.'
Everyone was there. They all went to the same orphanage.
Except Rinoa.
IRVINE'S REACTION TO RINOA TALKING ABOUT HOW SHE FEELS ISOLATED FROM THE OTHERS AND IS WORRIED THEY'LL LEAVE HER BEHIND WAS TO REVEAL THAT ACTUALLY THEY ALL GO EVEN WAY FURTHER BACK THAN THEY REMEMBERED, THEY LITERALLY ALL GREW UP TOGETHER EXCEPT RINOA.
She actually puts a hand on her chest and lowers her head in one of her 'wistful/sad/thoughtful' poses at this.
Fucking. Impeccable.
Selphie turns to Squall, who still hasn't said anything, and he goes to sit on a piece of rubble before admitting that, yes, he remembers now. He too was there.
The flashback plays out again, with Squall standing next to his childhood self, and this time when the child says 'I'll be ok without you,' Squall turns around, puts a hand to his forehead and admits internally that he 'didn't turn out ok at all.'
Sadder and lonelier than the other orphans, always waiting for 'Sis' to come back.
And now, he remembers who that 'Sis' was. Her childhood nickname was Elle.
For Ellone, of course.
She wasn't Squall's sister, as far as he remembers. She was just a little older than the other kids, and so she was, collectively, everyone's 'big sister,' and everyone called her 'Sis.' Everyone loved her, but as Irvine tells him, Squall specifically kept 'hogging her all to himself.' Which explains why he was so hurt by her departure, wherever she went.
Squall: "Quistis, Zell, Selphie, Irvine, Seifer, Ellone and myself… Yeah… I'm not sure what the meaning behind all this is, but we were definitely together."
Zell: "You mean, Sis is Ellone?"
Selphie: "She's the one that takes us back to Laguna's time period."
Squall: "...She said she wanted to change the past. I don't know why…"
Quistis: "There can only be one reason for that."
Selphie: "She must not be happy with the present."
Zell: "If that's the case, I'm definitely up for helpin' her! She's part of our orphanage gang!"
Selphie: "You didn't even remember who she was!"
Irvine: "Hey, Selphie… That goes for you, too!"
Quistis: "It's pretty scary we've forgotten all these things…"
Zell: "(sigh)... So, Ma and Pa aren't my real parents…"
Selphie: "I wonder where the orphanage is…?"
Irvine: "Hmm… So, Sis was Ellone, eh? Everyone was fond of Sis, but you, Squall, you kept hoggin' her for yourself."
Squall: "You sure have a good memory… This is really strange. I don't think I was adopted because of the way I am. Probably the same with Seifer, too. You two [I don't know who he means there, Irvine?] must have been at Garden by the age of 5 or so…"
Squall: "Even so, he's never mentioned anything about growing up in an orphanage. And nothing about this has ever crossed my mind when I see him, either. Don't you find that odd…?"
Why yes, Squall! That is a good question! Why didn't any of you remember any of this? I wonder!
Selphie has an incredible justification here, which that she had so much fun after going to Trabia that she just kind forgot all about her life before. Of course that's it, Selphie. Of course.
Quistis: "I… remember. Yes, I remember now. Things didn't work out too well at my new home. So I came to Garden at the age of 10. That was when I first noticed Seifer and Squall. Seifer and Squall were always fighting."
Squall: "Yeah… Quistis used to break us up."
Quistis: "Yes! That's right! Seifer was a kid who always needed to be the center of attention. But Squall always used to ignore him… But eventually they would end up fighting. Squall could have easily walked away from it, but always took up the challenge. He should have just ignored him, bu Squall, almost in tears, would say…I gotta do my best by myself. Or else I won't be able to see Sis."
Quistis: "I guess I was trying to take Sis… I mean, Ellone's place. I tried, but to no avail… That's probably it! Even after becoming an instructor, I couldn't stop thinking about Squall. I thought it was… Love. I had to hide my feelings because I was an instructor, but I've come to realize it wasn't. It was my childhood feelings as a big sister that lingered… Oh well…"
[At this point, Quistis walks away a little, turning her back on the others.]
This is a really fascinating character beat, that Quistis thought she was romantically attracted to Squall, but that it was a sisterly affection that she didn't fully remember. She admits that she had given up anyway once Rinoa came into the picture, and then realizes that Seifer must be the same - not romantically, (although it's kinda homoerotic let's not lie), but he doesn't remember Squall yet every time he sees him 'his inner feelings start to boil' and it ends up in a fight.
Which, I mean… Squall was what, 4 to 5 when he was at the orphanage? And he was at most 10 when he left for Balamb Garden, but probably younger than that? Squall, Seifer and Quistis all spent more of their life at Balamb Garden than they did in that orphanage. Not to diminish its clear formative role in their lives, but their rivalry at Garden has been far longer than their rivalry at that orphanage.
The reason for these memory troubles is obvious, of course, but they really don't want to believe it. When Irvine suggests that this is "the price you pay for using the GF," that the Guardian Forces are stored within the area of the brain or mind were memories are located, Quistis protests that this is just a rumor spread by "GF critics" and that "there's no way Headmaster Cid would allow such a thing!"
But that's when Irvine gives us one incontrovertible piece of evidence: He didn't junction a GF until he joined the party for the assassination mission, in Galbadia Garden.
Irvine remembered everything this entire time.
The moment he walked on screen back in Galbadia Garden, you know, that scene:
He recognized everyone as kids from his orphanage. And didn't say anything!?
From his perspective, talking shit to them was probably… friendly banter? And then nobody responded as expected?
I'm off two minds on this. On the one hand, it stretches disbelief that Irvine at no point even suggested "hey, do you remember me?" or like, acted in a way that clearly indicated he was weirded out that nobody was remembering him at all, to the point that it kinda feels like that specific beat might have been added later in scripting.
On the other hand, this is the funniest shit that has ever happened in a Final Fantasy game.
He has been holding it in the entire game. Slowly going mad on the inside as everyone just kept acting like they didn't recognize him or, indeed, each other from before Garden. Slowly withering inside from thinking about the sheer social awkwardness of bringing it up. Increasingly realizing that everyone but him and Rinoa have brain damage from excessive GF use.
It might seem odd that Selphie's memory issues are as severe as everyone else's despite being a transfer student, but she revealed that when she was 12, she joined an outdoors training mission and found a GF inside one of the monsters she killed, and junctioned it for a while - a GF whose name she now cannot remember anymore.
Yeah, it's bad. Junctioning just eats up entire chunks of your life.
But as Squall then points out, it's not like they can stop, either. It's the GFs that grant them the power to fight against the Sorceress, to stand up to the might of an empire and the most powerful magic user on the planet as just a team of six. If his memories are the price to pay, Squall says, he'll gladly pay it.
Selphie suggests what she's already been doing - keeping a diary so that even if her memories fade, she'll have a way to remember. Zell is not so hot on that idea; he says he doesn't care about forgetting his childhood if it turned out Seifer was always picking on him, but I think it's more that he would rather not know what he's forgotten than have evidence of it and still not remembering. Besides, his parents and Balamb adopted him and loved him, and he won't give up any power that can help him protect them.
And then.
The hit that I should have seen coming.
Because this is not over. This socially awkward hell of being around your childhood friends that don't seem to remember you at all and now you're afraid to bring it up, that was only half of Irvine's torment.
Because Quistis asks everyone if they remember 'Matron.' She uses the word Matron as a proper noun, without a particle, which is really weird because the dialogue makes it clear that she means the matron, as in the person in charge of the orphanage.
Who was 'very kind,' had long black hair and dressed always in black.
THAT'S FUCKING RIGHT. WHEN I SAID EVERYONE WENT TO THE SAME ORPHANAGE, I MEANT EVERYONE, BECAUSE EDEA WAS IN FUCKING CHARGE OF THE PLACE.
Everything. Everything about this whole plot development is so much. Not just by itself, but the way it happens like Irvine just finally took up his courage in hand, overcame Tifa-tier avoidance issues, and just, kind of, spilled the beans that he knew most of the plot this whole entire time.
The absolute fuckboy.
He explicitly namedrops the matron as "Edea Kramer," which means the whole assassination mission, he knew that he was planning to shoot his childhood caretaker.
No fucking wonder he choked! After Edea parried his bullet, he acted apologetic and ashamed of his failure, even though it wasn't really his fault; one interpretation is that if he had fired in time instead of being delayed she might not have been able to do that, but another possibility is that his shot was never going to make it - even if Edea hadn't blocked it, he would have missed on purpose. Because what did Squall tell him when convincing him to fire?
Squall: "Just think [your shot] as a signal. A sign for us to make our move."
Irvine: "Just a sign…"
Because that's his mother figure, down there.
When I called Edea "evil dommy mommy" I never realized I was being almost literal.
Fuck. Just, like, going back and reading all of Irvine's interactions in a completely different light now-
But also that's insane? This entire plot beat reveals that the fate of the world is being played out between an orphanage matron, her divorced husband, and six of the kids that she used to have in her care (and Rinoa is also there)? The entire scope of the conflict currently setting the world ablaze and pitting armies against each other has just been reduced to a domestic drama between nine people.
This is an absolutely unprecedented level of Final Fantasy being itself.
Or more like ten people. Edea, Cid, Seifer, our six party members…
Selphie: "Why is the Matron…?"
Irvine: "Why? You're wondering why Matron would take over a country, or fire missiles and whatnot? At this point, we probably wouldn't comprehend it even if we talked about it."
Squall, mentally: "(...You're probably right.)"
Irvine: "...Hear me out. SeeD and Garden were all Matron's idea, right? I'm not a SeeD, but I share the same feeling as all of you. SeeDs are supposed to fight the sorceress, right?"
Squall, mentally: "(This is strange. That's right… It was when I was being tortured by Seifer. He wanted to know what SeeD was. Matron should know… But Matron is Sorceress Edea. There's no denying that. What does it all mean?)"
…and whoever is currently running around in Edea's skull. There were hints before, but the fact that Edea Kramer 1) underwent a total personality shift from 'kindly caretaker figure' to 'evil mind-controlling murderess' and 2) does not have information that she by all rights should have access to, all but confirms it.
With that said, we've gone back to Sinister Cid, because it seems clear that, like… Cid would have known most of this stuff. He had to. That was his wife, and this would have been happening at a time when it seems like they were together? At the very least he was aware of the dangers of GF use being more than just ill-intentioned rumors and still carried on with it while hiding it from his students. But what was Edea's goal with that small orphanage by the sea, in which she didn't seem to have been training into child soldiers at that time. And where does Ellone fit into this?
The people of Winhill strongly implied that Raine died shortly after the last Laguna flashbacks. I had previously thought Edea might have been Raine, but we've now seen a younger Edea at around the same age Raine would have had and they're clearly different women. If Raine tragically died, that would easily explain why Ellone ended up in that orphanage, overseen by Edea. But then… What?
There are still too many unknowns.
Irvine: "So like… this is what I wanted to say. Let's see… Oh yeah."
Irvine: "I understand what Rinoa's saying. I understand, but still I'm gonna fight. I want to stay true to everything I've stood for. I'm sure it's the same for everyone. That's why I thought it'd be best if everyone knew we would have to face Matron."
Irvine: "You've all heard this before. How life has infinite possibilities. I don't believe that one bit. There weren't many paths for me to choose. Sometimes, there would only be one. From the limited possibilities I faced, the choices I made have brought me this far. That's why I value the path I chose… I want to hold true to the path that HAD to be taken."
Irvine: "I know our opponent is Matron, whom we all love very much. We might lose something very important on account of the GF. But I don't mind. It's not like I drifted here on the tides of fate. I'm here because I chose to be here."
Irvine: "And more importantly… We all grew up together. But due to various circumstances, we were all separated. As a kid, you couldn't really go out on your own… There were no other paths to take… All I did was just cry. But…"
Irvine: "But somehow, we're together again. Just like old times, though a lot's changed. We're not kids anymore… We're strong enough to take care of ourselves. Make our decisions… We're confronting a big one right now. Do we fight Matron or not…? I say we fight… Shoot for a common goal… Hey, at least it'll keep us together a little longer."
Zell: "...Yeah. Let's do it. We can't run from her for the rest of our lives."
Selphie: "It's just such a bummer… I can't believe we have to fight Matron."
Quistis: "I know… But Zell's right. We can't run from her forever."
Squall: "Rinoa…" [He advances towards her.] It's up to you. We're gonna fight… I think it's the only way we can move on with our lives. If that makes any sense at all, come with us. I'm sure that's what everybody wants."
And then it starts… Snowing?
I'm not sure why that's weird, they're in a snowy northern mountain land.
God, can you imagine being Rinoa and just, fucking, hijacked out of your big moment of doubt and character conflict by everyone else having a goddamned revelation in front of you that you are not part of?
I really wasn't expecting Irvine to be making the big rallying speech that lays out the stakes and the group's commitment, but it worked! It makes sense for him based on his character and what he's known and been keeping to himself this whole time! The inherent cost of using GFs make this whole thing tense and almost tragic in a way 'if we fail we'll die [we can't fail because we're protagonists in a story]' never quite can achieve! The reveal that Edea is someone who means something to them, someone they used to care about, but that they forgot they cared about her, plays really well into Squall's own personal themes regarding bonding with others and acknowledging that there are emotional stakes and costs to caring about people! It would have been easier for them to kill Edea if they hadn't recalled any of this, but the truth has inherent value that is worth facing for its own sake! These are strong, solid themes!
Just. It's baffling to me that this is how this major reveal is brought up.
Everyone agrees that they should check out what remains of the orphanage and hopefully find clues as to Edea's transformation. Squall muses again that the past is the past and that whatever truth they find won't change the present, but that he wants to see. He'll do it for himself, ignoring the nagging voice in his head that tells him it's pointless to express curiosity and interest rather than just blindly follow orders without question.
Squall and Rinoa have one last exchange. She tells him that they're 'fearless' in an admiring way, and Squall thinks to himself that it's not really fearlessness - rather, everyone is too afraid of thinking too hard and being 'lost.' He, too, wishes they didn't have to fight. But constantly moving forward in a decisive fashion is the best way Squall knows to stay alive, whereas Rinoa perpetually suffers from overthinking and getting trapped between possible choices and potential consequences.
In that way, they balance and compliment one another.
We are sent straight back to Balamb Garden, rather than making us go through Trabia Garden again. The game does a lot of these convenient plot-based teleportations to avoid unnecessary traversal but, well, owing to recent events, I find myself wondering if there isn't new stuff in Trabia Garden that I am going to need to go back and check out, which rather defeats the point.
But that… Was this update. There was a lot to dig in there, all of it plot-based - I fought a couple of random encounters, but not much. Squall did hit lv 30 though, so that's nice; we should eventually be seeing those fabled lv 30+ scaled random encounters. (Although Zell is still, like… Level 19… This game's progression pacing is fucked.)
Edea's House doesn't appear to have been added to our map. However, I am pretty sure I found it while sailing around just checking the coasts for Stuff.
So… That's where we're headed next time, probably, unless there's another important sidequest I missed.
Thank you for reading.
Next Time: Revisiting the Orphanage!
Zap Rowsdower
Ex-cultist vagrant
- Location
- Bright lights, big city
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Now realize that you, not the game but YOU, decided to take Irvine, The One Guy Who Remembers Edea Is Basically His Mom, to Deling City to listen to everybody openly simp for how sexy Edea is and how much they want her to step on them.
And he couldn't afford to freak out or act disgusted because he was still figuring out why his two sisters with him weren't.
And he couldn't afford to freak out or act disgusted because he was still figuring out why his two sisters with him weren't.
Last edited:
- Pronouns
- He/Him
WELL THEN
I KNEW IT
I KNEW THE AGES WERE IMPORTANT
NICE TRY SUCKERS
I KNEW IT
I KNEW THE AGES WERE IMPORTANT
NICE TRY SUCKERS
GilliamYaeger
M'crazy.
Now that you've been to Triad, I can post this masterpiece without fear of spoilers:
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDvgHkUCCtA
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDvgHkUCCtA
Zap Rowsdower
Ex-cultist vagrant
- Location
- Bright lights, big city
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Not really. It's actually relatively unusual for everybody at an orphanage or foster home to be within a year or two of each other AFIK. They could easily have a wider age spread with the same backstory.
Egleris
Vagrant Dragon
- Location
- Italy
Yeah, I think in their effort to make the twist as high-impact as they could, they overdid it. There's no real reason for Quistis, Zell and Selphie to have belonged to the orphanage Edea was running; the story, and even the twist, would work just fine if only Squall, Irvine and Seifer were there. And it'd give narrative space to provide more unique backstory for Selphie and especially Quistis.
This is the most famous and controversial plot twist in FFVIII, by the way - a large majority of the people that dislike the game point to this twist as one of the primary reasons why.
Yeah, if you check the Centra continent, in the middle of the map, you'll find a building with two interesting quests - a timed mission, as well as a special random encounter that requires you to fulfill a certain condition before it appears. The building will remain accessible for the entirety of the game, so you don't need to rush there if you'd rather focus on the story, but completing each of the two side-quests would be highly beneficial.
There's three more encounters with the UFO on the world map; the best way to get them is to use Encounter None to find them, so you can hunt them down without running into random encounter. They're part of the UFO sidequest, which can only be completed in the second half of Disk 3.
That should actually be a Phoenix Pinion; maybe check your inventory to make sure - I remember that the game sent the wrong message there. As for the Gishal Green, you first need to capture a chocobo in the forest by completing the minigame, instead of paying for it, and then you'll be able to use the item in battle.
E.I.G.
Robo-Bird
- Pronouns
- It/They
Ah yes, another of the moments I have been waiting for:
The reveal that Irvine has been living in something like a horror movie this whole time.
... so, Cid and Edna both ran an orphanage that had most of its orphans turn into mercs when their plan shifted to "make super-mercs to stop super-mages", and on reflection that is kind of fucked up?
I mean, Cid doesn't seem anything but happy to see Squall turn into a driven combat machine, despite having once been fairly responsible for raising him as a kid.
They presumably mean for the best, but that is still child soldiers as their core plan with a possible cherry on top of "look, we already have some kids to start with".
The reveal that Irvine has been living in something like a horror movie this whole time.
... so, Cid and Edna both ran an orphanage that had most of its orphans turn into mercs when their plan shifted to "make super-mercs to stop super-mages", and on reflection that is kind of fucked up?
I mean, Cid doesn't seem anything but happy to see Squall turn into a driven combat machine, despite having once been fairly responsible for raising him as a kid.
They presumably mean for the best, but that is still child soldiers as their core plan with a possible cherry on top of "look, we already have some kids to start with".
Entropy Judge
Recurring Bouts of Misanthropy
Ah, yes, un-signposted sidequests with almost no in-game information about them. This is actually a useful sidequest, and the best thing about it is that it's actually kind of difficult to pull off without being mad about exploration or looking it up.
daniel_gudman
KING (in land of blind)
- Pronouns
- He/Him
My first time playing this game, my honest, genuine response to all this Orphage Stuff was thinking "oh no. I'm beginning to worry that we're never going to kill Cid!"
I remember it so clearly.
The Sandman
So Zetta Slowpoke
- Location
- Wherever I am, which isn't where I'm not
So in other words, getting a GF makes you forget about your friends?
...yeah, that checks out.
...yeah, that checks out.
Zap Rowsdower
Ex-cultist vagrant
- Location
- Bright lights, big city
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Officially Licensed Strategy Guide available wherever books are sold from BradyGames, only $14.99 MSRP*!
*1999 dollars, $28.04 in today's dollars
- Location
- Singapore
- Pronouns
- Singular They
Not a lot to say about the translation here, for a variety of reasons. As mentioned, the script site I'm using doesn't have optional content, so the entire present-day Winhill sequence has no entry.
And the Trabia Garden visit, with the big reveal about the Secret Backstories of the party members, is missing on the script site. As in there's an entry for it, but the page goes to 404, so it's probably a missing (or mis-named) page on the site maintainer's end.
I do recall a while back that the other NPCs in the Trabia Garden area do speak in Kansai dialect, like Selphie when she's not trying to fit in. I'm a little curious now if Selphie's Kansai accent had been around since her orphanage days, or if she picked it up when she moved to Trabia. Children tend not to express the dialect very strongly, so it might be hard to tell from the very limited sample size of Selphie's lines in the orphanage flashback.
I do agree with the general consensus on how the reveal about the orphanage is done in an utterly bizarre manner. To this day I have no idea what the writing decisions were that led to this bit happening in this particular way.
ZerbanDaGreat
Daemon Noble of D E M O G R A P H I C S
- Pronouns
- They/them
NGL I would maul Irvine with my bare hands like a puma if I were Rinoa and he pulled this shit on me.
"INFORMATION" rip "THAT COULD" tear "HAVE BEEN BROUGHT" rend "TO MY ATTENTION" maul "YESTERDAY!!!!!!!!!!"
- Location
- Te Ika-a-Māui
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I dunno, him going "yes, yes, very sad, ANYWAY" is hilarious.