Well, this thread spurred me on to make an account here, and I just want to say that it's been fascinating reading through the whole series so far like this. I first started reading to learn a bit more about the early FF games I didn't really know that much about, but it's been especially great seeing an impression of FFVI, my second favorite, through a fresh perspective, immediately followed by going through FFVII, which I'd only learned about through the usual osmosis of the internet. And seeing how different that perspective was from the actual content of the game was an experience.
As for FFVIII, this one I know almost nothing about, but I'm loving the offhanded implications of Balamb Garden, and Cid in particular, being incredibly sinister and sketchy, especially in the FR translation. No idea if it's going to amount to anything, but it would definitely be interesting to have a straightforwardly villainous Cid just hanging out in the background like that.
We get a Choice menu with two options labeled ????, and upon picking one of the two, we get the choice to Stock or Cast. Selecting Cast then causes a really cool animation to play out where orbs of light flow out of the Bite Bug and into Squall…
I though I should point out, to store magic, you need to select Stock, not Cast. If you choose Cast, you actually immediately cast that spell on the enemy, which is notable because that doesn't deplete the spells you have stocked. I do think that Draw-Casting doesn't use your own MAG the same way normal spells do, but don't quote me on that - I very rarely use it. I think most people even forget that it is possible.
Draw-Casting is really only relevant when you're facing an enemy who has rare high-powered spells that you don't want to consume your stock of because you have them junctioned, and by the time that's an issue, magic has usually fallen off in potency compared to other options. Although, some spells do only show up in certain boss battles late in the game, and Draw-Casting those can be quite fun, if only for the uniqueness factor of testing a new spell in battle that you've never seen before.
I do think that Draw-Casting doesn't use your own MAG the same way normal spells do, but don't quote me on that - I very rarely use it. I think most people even forget that it is possible.
Can confirm there's definitely something along those lines happening with Draw-Cast vs just casting from stock - just in the early game, I've had Squall heal a difference of 200-300 more hp using his own cure spells compared to ripping them out of enemies.
Can confirm there's definitely something along those lines happening with Draw-Cast vs just casting from stock - just in the early game, I've had Squall heal a difference of 200-300 more hp using his own cure spells compared to ripping them out of enemies.
I was curious about this too, so I checked the wiki. Draw Casts use your own magic stat, but the damage goes through an extra bit of RNG that causes damage to fluctuate betwen about 6.67% and 176.67% normal strength.
Draw Casts are on average 85% effective with some wild variance befitting spells slapdashed together in combat.
"I'll just do the whole SeeD Exam in one update," I thought, "it's not that long, it'll have to be split in two because of the picture load but it's not like it's going to spiral and take 9k word to write out, there's a beat I really want to hit towards the end rather than split it in two separate updates so we'll just cover it all in one go"
In your defense, the SeeD exam feels like a breeze when you're playing through it, so it sorts of slips the mind how many moving parts there are that are worth commenting. So, it was an honest mistake to make.
"I'll just do the whole SeeD Exam in one update," I thought, "it's not that long, it'll have to be split in two because of the picture load but it's not like it's going to spiral and take 9k word to write out, there's a beat I really want to hit towards the end rather than split it in two separate updates so we'll just cover it all in one go"
The Seed exam really is the bombing mission of FF7, but because of the slower 'day-in-the-life' start to it, it gets to be even denser in story and context because it can both introduce a lot of concepts to you quickly like an intro, but also call back to the stuff it set up in the slower bits.
I'm actually replaying the game sorta-alongside you (I imagine I'll probably outpace you really fast since I'm not having to then produce a full analysis of it) and yeah, there's a lot going on explicitly, let alone in subtext and context.
Yeaaah, suffice to say I'm on the last bit of the SeeD Exam right now, and it's totally longer than you'd expect if you take into account all the fiddly little bits.
And of course, that's not including me doing things against the game's very nature for grinding purposes to both achieve a better rank and also get tons of AP
And of course, that's not including me doing things against the game's very nature for grinding purposes to both achieve a better rank and also get tons of AP
When I started playing I swore that I wasn't going to do that, the game is easy enough, I was just going to get through it and remind myself of the plot beats.
. . .And then I was watching something in the corner and just level grinded for a couple hours while it played. I am not good at self control.
Welcome back, class, to Final Fantasy VIII 101. Today's lesson:
The Seed Exam
Please stay tuned for the best FMV in cinematic history.
Before we do this, though, first a brief détour by the early game after a fresh save to visit the rest of Balamb Garden! For the purposes of this update we'll just pretend this isn't missable content that I had to restart the game to get. This will also serve as our tour of the Garden, since we skipped a chunk of it to head for the Fire Cavern last time!
On the way to the Quad, we run into Transfer Student Girl, who's apparently decided to throw her lot in with the executive committee for the Garden Festival and is now trying to find other students who play instruments to join her band. From the Balamb Network we learned that the last president of the committee had a breakdown and quit BGU leaving everyone in the lurch. So hopefully her enthusiasm can keep things afloat?
There's a stage under construction, and Transfer Student Girl is here again to ambush us and try to rope us into the committee.
I think this is one of two missable scenes; the second one is more substantial and is found in the Cafeteria, introducing several characters.
So far, we don't know much about Seifer other than he's an asshole, authority figures don't trust him, and Squall doesn't like him. This, however, is when we find out that he actually holds a powerful position: He is president of the 'disciplinary committee', which is apparently a student group tasked with enforcing school rules on other students? No wonder those guys are unpopular. As far as I can tell, this is an anime trope that is rooted in a heavy distortion of how student councils in Japanese high schools actually work and also, again, probably something that'd make more sense if this was a university. Given that Seifer is liked by neither students nor teachers, how he got that position is a mystery.
The other two characters around Seifer round up the rest of the disciplinary committee; they are Fujin and Raijin. Fujin is the girl, and she expresses herself entirely in single-word all caps sentence, which makes me wonder if she's supposed to be a robot or something. Raijin, meanwhile, has the distinction of seemingly being the only normal guy in this group - he's even friendly to Squall! He and Fujin seem to have a comedy routine where he says something insensitive without realizing it and she reacts by shouting 'RAGE!' and hitting him. So far so anime comedy.
Another blonde guy appears partway through that scene, rushing to the cafeteria counter asking if there are any hot dogs left only to be crushed by learning that he's too late. He leaves, dejected, then after a few moments Seifer remembers that running is against school rules and the disciplinary committee run off after the guy.
…
I'm going to have to start skipping most of the ambient dialogue with unnamed NPCs, I think - in previous games I tried to give at least a flyby overview of all NPCs in a given space but there's just so much incidental dialogue in FF8. There are entire screens that are only there so you can listen to a conversation between friends about how exams suck or which teacher they're crushing on.
Get it? SeeD, SaaD? I'm gonna have to look that pun up in French aren't I.
It does a huge amount to convey the sense that this is, like, a school; a living place, with its own people going about their own lives who have their own shit going on. It does so at the cost of efficiency of information, though; a lot of that dialogue doesn't actually tell us anything specific about the world, it just contributes to the general chatter of students being students, so checking every conversation can feel like busywork.
And then every now and then you have a conversation that incidentally clarifies that yes, this school does house literal children, and they are being trained as mercenaries.
I also make a very brief détour by the Training Grounds before deciding I don't feel like fighting monsters on my own. Enough to see one of its monster encounters though:
Look, they have Victreebells!
I don't stick around long enough to run into the other resident of the training grounds, that's for sure. If you know, you know.
And with this, we've about covered everything, so it's time to reload to the present day, cover the campus grounds again for any new dialogue, and then head to our room so Squall can change into his uniform!
Not a bad look.
Hmmm.
Lord knows I don't know when the idea of 'alternate costumes' for characters was introduced to video games, but it was most likely early on, many years before FF8. But as for the PSX era specifically, there's one series I'm familiar with: Resident Evil. As early as Resident Evil 1 in 1996 (which we theorized previously in this thread might have influenced some locations and enemies in FF7), Resident Evil presented its player with the ability to unlock new costumes for its two playable characters, Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine. This was initially very straightforward: Beat the game with the best ending for one character, unlock a costume room where you can swap your character from their cop outfit to a 'casual' civilian outfit.
Jill Valentine, casual mode.
Then as the series went on, things got more involved. RE2 required a special series of events be taken to unlock new costumes, RE3 had an in-game boutique unlocked after beating the game, and the number of alternate costumes steadily increased; what started out as 'put your character into casualwear' expanded into 'do you want to see Jill cosplay Regina from Dino Crisis?' type stuff.
The point is, as graphical fidelity increases - as we move away from sprites into 3D models that aim for a kind of realism, rather than the Playmobild model of FF7, then alternate costumes start feeling like a natural idea. After all, it's a skin; you don't need to rig a new skeleton for the player character, you just make a new texture over the same rig. There's no real point to alternate costumes in FF7 - we see Cloud wearing different clothes at one point (specifically his Shinra uniform), but his field model is so flat it doesn't particularly impress. Meanwhile, Squall (and the rest of the cast) have much better models with, like, facial expressions and discernible clothes, to the point that we can actually see his jewelry and the little adornments on his pauldrons, which means the game decides to lean into that and give us Casual!Squall, Uniform!Squall, Field!Quistis and Uniform!Quistis. Which is neat! It's a good use of the medium. We probably won't be finding a Costume Room that lets us swap at will between outfits like this is RE but it's still neat.
Meanwhile today those costumes would be paid DLC that you have to microtransact access to-
(This is partly a joke, although only partly. Whether what would in older games have been unlockable becomes paid DLC in modern games is purely a matter of studio practices rather than some kind of inherent evil of modern gaming. RE2Make, for instance, has one alternate costume for each character available by default and a bunch more as paid DLC, but Spider-Man PS4 integrates over 20 costumes in its game by default.)
With Squall in his new fit, it's time to head to the atrium for the roll-call to the SeeD exam.
"Zell Dincht. Quite a lively fellow."
And thus, our next party member is introduced. I remember very little about Zell other than he is…Feisty.
Right. Feisty.
It looks like every party member is being introduced by their own little FMV, which is really cool and kinda serves to replace the little intro poem that FFVI party members had and that VII felt kind of like it was missing. Zell is our resident punchman, like Tifa before him and Sabin before her; like Sabin, we are briefly introduced to a menu that shows us Zell's Limit Break is based on fighting game moves.
I ain't gonna remember that.
Squall is immediately dismissive of his new teammate and asks Quistis if he can't just switch, which, rude. Zell immediately proves just as insensitive by going 'Hi Squall I heard Seifer kicked your ass,' Squall goes 'it wasn't a real fight we were just training,' and Zell goes 'Yeah ask him if he believes that.' Squall is extremely coping about his duel that definitely was just training, it's honestly pretty funny.
This is when Quistis interjects to say that Seifer… is actually Squall and Zell's team leader. Zell reacts poorly to this information.
He's just going to take that posse everywhere, is he.
Notably, while Squall and Zell (and Quistis) put on their uniforms, Seifer pointedly did not. We know from the Network that uniforms are more of a polite request than they are a hard rule, but he's clearly flouting Quistis's authority by doing this.
Which makes the next exchange even funnier.
Quistis: "You're the squad leader. Good luck to you." Seifer: "...Instructor. I hate it when people wish me good luck." (He does an unbearably smug hand-scale pose.) "Save those words for a bad student that needs them, eh?" Quistis: "Ok then." *beat* Quistis: "Good luck, Seifer."
(Seifer is speechless and gestures angrily.) Seifer: "Add Instructor Trepes to the list." Squall: "The list…? What is it?"
Oh my god. Does Seifer have a grudge list? Does he have a list of everyone is planning to Get Back At on the day of the revolution or something??? I love it, what a shithead.
Quistis tells everyone to remember that teamwork is of the utmost importance, Seifer clarifies that his interpretation of teamwork is "everyone staying out of my way," and it's time for Headmaster Cid to make his first appearance in this game as he comes out to see everyone off.
…huh.
I think this is the most normal-looking Cid we've ever had. Even FFV Cid had that kind of 'dignified scholar' vibe, this is just… This is literally a principal. Headmaster. Whichever. He's a middle-aged dude with little spectacles and a vest. I would bet actual money his trousers are tweed. He probably has a British accent! Look at him, he's wearing a tie.
He's so mundane-looking it has to be a trick. Let's be on the lookout for any evil plans.
Anyway, the exam will involve 12 members divided into four 3-men squads, of which we are Squad B, overseen by 9 SeeD members, and then he reveals (which implicitly was known to the characters but not to us, the player) that said exam will be part of a real battlefield engagement. 'Life and death, victory and defeat, honor and disgrace,' they will be very much real.
So yeah, I'm not quite going to call them 'child soldiers' because they're not really children, but they absolutely are throwing their students into actual war. Cid tells us to prove ourselves worthy of joining the 'pride of Balamb Garden, the elite mercenary force, SeeD,' and wishes us luck. (Seifer notably doesn't mouth off to the Headmaster the way he does to the inexperienced junior instructor Quistis, lmao).
Cid reveals that gunblade specialists are rare and he's been looking forward to Seifer and Squall joining SeeD as the first, which might explain why they get away with more stuff than most students.
So we head for the parking lot, and it's time…
To drive a car.
Cars! Well, we've had the Hovercraft in IV and the Buggy in VII, so it's not all that new, but this one is getting a lot of love from the camera, driving and bouncing around and with a special interior.
Zell pesters Squall to let him see his gunblade and Squall stonewalls him with no answer, until finally Zell asks him to say something, what's on his mind?
Is that a car, a van, or an armored personnel carrier?
This routine where Quistis can anticipate Squall's next line also showed up in the briefing and it's consistently pretty funny. She absolutely has a bead on her student's affect. Then Zell decides to start doing punches and kicks at the air (oh god, he's ADD. That's what's going on, he literally can't sit still), Seifer gets annoyed and then one of the weirder running gags in this sequence starts: Seifer calls Zell a 'chicken-wuss.'
Now, Zell is offended by this, obviously, but like… I don't get how it connects to the scene? Like, Zell has had no opportunity to show himself to be cowardly (or, for that matter, brave); they haven't been in combat, and his major sin right now is 'being annoying.' It's not that I don't buy that he would be offended to be called chicken or a wuss, it's that I have no idea why Seifer picked that attribute at random to insult him with when it has no connection to anything.
From a quick online look, it seems like it might be a translation issue? Seifer does call Zell a chicken, but the compound word he's using might be better translated as 'chickenshit'? It's not clear, though.
Like, if you google 'Chicken-wuss', every result you get is referencing FF8. This insult was essentially made up by the translator to try and convey whatever the JP script was getting at. Is Seifer calling Zell a coward or not? It's not clear.
Anyway, Quistis tells them to knock it off, and there's a bit of silence, before Squall asks what's been on his mind all day, apparently.
It looks like I was wrong about him not noticing Blue Girl. Quistis deflects the question with a pose that suggests she's being deliberately evasive, like 'A girl? What girl? I certainly didn't see any girl,' and Seifer moans that he has to deal with both a 'chicken-wuss' and 'a guy who just reached puberty' on his squad.
We briefly take control of the car, though we can't get off until we get to Balamb.
Oh, those are some cool, futuristic-looking ships, I dig it.
The SeeD staff shout at us to move faster and get on board now now now, with one of them dropping a comment about how Squad B is the "problem team," which they ascribe to Quistis being a 'rookie instructor.'
…ouch. I can kind of see the shape of it; Seifer is a violent asshole who doesn't work well with others, Squall is a broody loner who is marginally less hostile but no better at teamwork, Zell has ADHD written all over his face, and Quistis suffers from clearly being new at the job. So we are dealing with a black sheep squad of sorts, it looks like.
With everyone aboard, the ship is en route to cross the ocean.
The other SeeD here is Xu, a fellow instructor who has probably been assigned to oversee her junior; as everyone exchanges greetings she asks, "Seifer, how many times has it been now?" and he replies "Oh, I just love these exams…"
Right. Seifer isn't just a trouble-maker, he's a student who's been held back, seemingly more than once. Which, considering that by all indications he's perfectly competent as a fighter, is almost 100% down to his behavior and refusal to follow instructions or work as part of a team.
…which also means that his attitude towards Squall is less a rivalry between peers and more him bullying his junior, which is significantly more pathetic.
Honestly at this point it's a wonder he managed to be in charge of the disciplinary committee. Maybe it's a case of people thinking 'well he's a petty thug, and what's the best place for a petty thug but rules enforcement?'
But who cares about that! It's briefing time.
Oh fuck yes we have a tactical screen with diagrams and shit, I am living.
It's time for our first glimpse of world politics. So far, the whole thing with SeeD mercenaries being dispatched across the world has been fairly abstract, but this makes it clear that we are dealing with a world in conflict. To sum it up:
The nation of Galbadia (which you might remember from Galbadia Garden, meaning they most likely have their own SeeD-equivalent) attacked the independent city-state known as the Dollet Dukedom 72 hours ago. The Galbadian push has been relentless, and in only 48 hours, they managed to reach the inner city, at which point Dollet's troops evacuated to the mountains and requested SeeD assistance. The Galbadian army has scattered to mop up Dollet remnants in the mountain, giving SeeD its opportunity; we will arrive by sea, hit Dollet, clear the city of Galbadian forces, then eliminate the Galbadian forces as they turn around to come back to the city.
Seifer doesn't like that plan. It's not clear what he takes objection to from the dialogue, but I think it's because he wants to directly chase the 'G-Army' (the game calls them that) into the mountain, rather than sweep a skeleton garrison in a surprise attack and then sit on his ass waiting for the G-Army to turn around and come back with the city.
I don't know if any of this makes real strategic sense as events to happen in a war, but it's delivered with enough serious and confidence, with visual aids while aboard a military vessel, that it feels believable.
Everyone exchanges some banter (Quistis is professional and reminds everyone that an order to evacuate takes precedence over glory hound tendencies, Seifer tells everyone they just have to take orders from him, the captain, Zell is nervous about getting into his first battle and Seifer mocks him for it), and then it's time for Operation Overlord.
When did Saving Private Ryan come out? 1998? Yeah, I believe that. It's Omaha Beach time, baby.
They do that incredibly cool visual trick where it looks like the camera is looking at the moon only to reveal that it's actually showing the reflection of the moon in the water just as the ships emerge from the side of the screen and move across the moon.
There's this incredible FMV that plays out where Squall is watching the advance, the beach is shaken by explosions, Squall look at tactical maps, the Dollet troops advance on the beach ahead of SeeD while under explosions, then Squall's ship somehow rams through a marine wall and comes to a halt on the beach, disgorging Squad B.
It's genuinely incredible work and cinematic as shit, and it does the whole 'transition from pre-rendered FMV to in-game character models' thing that VII did so well in a few instances and this game clearly loves even more (rightly so).
Quistis tasks us with taking the Central Square, reminds us to equip our GFs, and we're off.
We actually have Seifer as a party member, which I wasn't expecting. Like Squall, he has sky-high accuracy and high Strength, higher than our boy's even. Zell, meanwhile, is a speedster with also solid strength and decent luck and is otherwise terrible, so I guess we want him to hit as hard and as quickly as possible. I'm going to be shuffling GFs across a the group a bit, it doesn't matter too much, what matters is that each character has one GF.
We meet Squad A on the beach (note Transfer Student Girl here), who are in charge of communications, and are thus staying behind while we secure the beachhead.
Immediately, we are met with a small group of Galbadian soldiers who engage in combat.
…
They're kind of familiar, aren't they?
Sorry, let me give you a closer view.
Those are SOLDIER.
Like, the model is a lot more detailed, and the pants are slightly less puffy, but they have the same blue color scheme, the same style of pauldrons with a breastplate and a helmet that fully conceals the eyes but not the mouth, and they wield (smaller) swords. They have Shinra Trooper elements folded into their design, such as the three-eyed optics that are hard to see in this shot, but for the most part they are clear visual homages to the 3rd Class SOLDIER from VII, and they even share a fighting style, using a combination of magic and sword-fighting.
However, unlike SOLDIER, those aren't an elite unit of Galbadia, they are their rank and file troopers. We know that para-magic can be wielded by any individual with the right training, but that without a G-Force bond, it struggles to match the power of conventional weapons; in other words, we have the special sauce that is this game's equivalent of Mako/Jenova Cells, and they don't.
Each Soldier at this stage has 87 HP, which means they die in two hits or one critical hit from standard attacks, or a single spell. They also come with a full basic suite of Fire/Thunder/Blizzard/Cure and do very little damage, so there is very little reason not to just hit them for spells until we get bored. Granted, farming Draws off a single opponent does get boring pretty quickly, but as a balancing factor I'm not sure how much that holds.
Once the edge of town has been cleared, Squad A moves in and boasts about their role tapping into the 'Information Network System' without 'the use of radio waves,' whatever that means (hack into the town's Internet???), and all of Squad B, including Squall, comments that support duty is boring and doesn't reward any glory, which gets them labeled 'meatheads.'
Which honestly, fair.
Dollet is really well realized as a town, and showcases more of VIII's philosophy of town design that we saw with Balamb - avoiding 'single-screen towns' with a three-quarter view like in an Infinity Engine game, and instead use multiple screens.
Hmm. This does a lot to make those towns feel much bigger, like real towns with a lot of buildings we can't enter or which are implied to be exist 'off-screen,' and the varied camera angles keep things visually fresh, but I also suspect this is because the town backdrops are now more detailed, and that means two things, 1) you have to pull in the camera a lot closer for the audience to see those details so you can show as much on the screen at once, 2) the graphics load of each screen is higher and the town couldn't be modeled all at once even if the devs wanted to.
On balance though, for me this is a net win. I feel a lot less like I'm walking through miniature doll sets.
We fight through more G-Soldiers, encountering Squad C on the way (they appear to have found a restaurant and be too busy sampling Dollet cuisine to help), and finally we secure the Central Square.
D'aw, a doggie!
Seifer is kind of a fight-hungry idiot the whole time, actively calling out enemies to come and face him and charging ahead without regards for tactics or cover or surprise, but, well… He's strong enough that it doesn't matter. Once all enemies in the area have been eliminated, we are on standby, which goes over… less than well with our dear leader. (Also he shoos off the dog when it tries to show him affection, what a dick.)
…
I rag on Seifer, but they're all teenage boys trained for battle and sent into their first battle with an opportunity for glory and resenting being made to stay put. Squall is marginally better at keeping a lid on it, but he's looking for excitement as much as the others, he's just more sullen about it. Just as Seifer is ranting about being subjected to 'dog training,' the group sees a large file of Galbadian soldiers rush across the plaza without seeing them - they're headed towards this tower you can see in the top left of the screenshot above.
Seeing as our party (for some reason) doesn't have radio comms with the rest of SeeD, they are faced with a dilemma: Either stay put like their orders instruct them too, or follow the soldiers to investigate. Seifer obviously wants to follow while Zell, who was very bored but is a Good Boy, wants to follow orders and stay put. This isn't a democracy (Seifer is squad leader, after all), but implicitly part of the decision rests on Squall. And Squall says… "I stand by the captain's decision."
Seifer responds by approaching Squall, leaning on him and putting a hand on his shoulder, and saying, "You want to wreak some havoc, don't you?" Squall pushes his hand aside and says it's just 'a good opportunity to test his training.'
He's not fooling anyone, though. Including Zell, who calls them out on acting all buddy-buddy all of a sudden. This is the first thing we've had resembling a moment of bonding between Squall and Seifer, and the context is… really interesting.
Squall wants to seek out battle, he wants the excitement of the fight and to put his training to use for real. But he doesn't want to openly acknowledge it, to sound like a bloodthirsty maniac like Seifer, or to openly break orders. So defaulting to the Captain's authority, putting the responsibility on Seifer, is convenient to him. Meanwhile, this acknowledges and validates Seifer's role as squad captain, which in turn satisfies Seifer's ego.
They're both giving each other exactly what the other wants in that exchange. What they want just isn't very nice.
To reach the facility on that peak, we need to cross that bridge, which…
Okay that moon is really fucking big though, innit. This is the third shot we've seen emphasizing the moon's massive, dominating presence in the sky: First in the landing FMV, where the ships were tiny dots across the surface of its reflection; then just before in that huge close-up above the roofs of Dollet, and now here, taking up half the sky in this long shot of us crossing the bridge.
Are we going to go to the moon in this one again? That would be rad.
On the mountain path to the Communication Tower, we run into several Dollet soldiers, injured on the path - I assume those are the same soldiers who 'retreated into the mountains', the mountain on which we now, presumably, stand.
As we climb up the stairway, a crawling soldier emerges; Squall tells him we're here to help and he warns us that the soldiers have entered the Communication Tower and that, furthermore, the place has always crawled with monster and we should be very careful, only to suddenly scream for help as he is dragged into the bushes, initiating battle.
…a weird side-effect of the Triple Triad game is that it spoils most of the monster bestiary for us?
Like, I have encountered significantly more monsters as cards than I have as monsters so far. Tripe Triad effectively acts as a preview of a solid number of monsters and, even, some bosses! This here is Anacondaur, a 'venomous snake that uses squeeze attacks' with a hefty 1400 HP. Seifer opens the fight by saying that 'the finishing blow determines the XP, so leave it to me,' which I find confusing because as far as I can tell that… isn't true? Battles always seem to give out evenly divided XP to all characters. Strange.
This fight is our first look at Seifer's Limit Break, No Mercy, which has me doing the DiCaprio pointing meme because it turns out it's the same technique he uses in the OP - cast a fire spell to blind the opponent and put him off guard, then dive in with a heavy sword blow, although in this case it's more of a sword beam.
Mostly though the fight is decided by the fact that Anacondaur is weak to Ice and Shiva hits him for 900 damage, quickly settling things.
Like I said, identical EXP to everyone.
Dealing with the monster thankfully saves the soldier who had been dragged into the bushes, and we quickly make our way to the comms tower.
My initial assumption here was just that the Galbadians were trying to establish contact with their main army to call in reinforcements against the SeeD attack, but this seems more complicated - they're using extension cables and auxiliary power and so on. Seifer doesn't care though, he only cares about the battle.
Seifer: "This must be your first real battle. You scared?" Squall: "...I don't know. I try not to think about it." Seifer: "I love battles. I fear nothing." (He raises a hand to the sky.) "The way I look at it, as long as you make it out of a battle alive, you're one step closer to fulfilling your dream." Squall: "What!? Your dream?" Seifer: "You have one too, don't you?" Squall: "...Sorry, but I'm gonna pass on that subject." Zell: "Yo! Let me in on it, too!" Seifer: "Mind your own business." Zell: "Frickin' hell…" (He makes punching motions at Seifer.) Seifer: "What's the matter, Zell? Swatting flies?"
(He turns around and leaves.) Zell: "Damn you!"
Yeah, there's definitely a kind of kinship between Seifer and Squall. A very adversarial one, to be sure, but they recognize something of each other in one another - an ambition to fulfill a secret dream, a lust for battle, while Seifer only has contempt for Zell. Also, obviously, they're both gunblade wielders, and…
The game hasn't drawn attention to it in writing at all so far, unlike with Sqall, so you would be forgiven for not noticing, but if you look closely at Seifer's portrait in the Status menu, you'll see something that we also caught in a single shot of the OP:
Squall wasn't the only one who got dealt a facial scar in that opening duel. Though the camera cut away before the blow and nobody has mentioned it in-character yet, Seifer now bears a scar that exactly mirrors Squall's own. They each dealt each other perfectly symmetrical blows.
The symbolism is pretty strong here. Like there are few Magic Battle High School Manga rivals that are this symmetrical.
Before the group can follow Seifer, a voice interrupts them, and we cut to a new character intro.
Oh, good lord, it's the Clumsy Genki Girl.
You might actually recognize her from her hairdo: this is in fact Transfer Student Girl, the girl we showed around the campus, whom we saw earlier on the beach with Squad A.
It's interesting that the game kept her name hidden and didn't show her in an FMV until just now, when she is (spoilers) about to join the group as a full-fledged party member. It's almost like the game is trying to do a twist, but she was such a minor presence before that it doesn't feel like a twist? I don't know.
Her name is Selphie. As a messenger, she's supposed to speak to Seifer.
…you know, between GFs and the girl named Selfie, this game sure has a bunch of names that have gotten funnier in retrospect.
Down in front of the Tower, Seifer says "One of these days, I'm gonna tell ya 'bout my ROMANTIC dream!" and races into the tower; Selphie follows him by jumping down the cliff and telling us to follow; Zell says maybe jumping down a cliff when there is a perfectly fine road around the bend is maybe a stupid idea (for the resident ADHD Punch Man he is surprisingly rules-abiding), and I agree, so we circle around, fight some monsters, and link up with Selphie.
Then it's the Zell bullying hour.
Selphie: "What took you so long? It would've been much quicker if you'd just jumped." Zell: "...Much quicker? Pu-lease… You wouldn't normally jump off a cliff, OK? Ain't that right, Squall?" Squall: ("Yeah, I guess so.") // ["I don't know about that…"] Squall: "I don't know about that. Perhaps anyone but the Chicken-wuss can make it." Zell: "WHAT DID YOU SAYYYY!!!?" Selphie: "...Hm? Since you're so angry, I guess you're Chicken-wuss." Zell: "What the…!!! WHY IS EVERYONE…? I AM NOT A CHICKEN!!!" Selphie: "Well… If you don't like CHICKEN, how 'bout… PIG! Oh, but you look more like a CHICKEN, anyway." Zell: "Chicken, pig, whatever… Call me what you want!!! I don't care anymore!!!" Squall: "Don't take it so personally, Zell." Zell: "Tch…"
Again with that weird 'chicken-wuss' insult. At least here it makes more sense for someone to call Zell a chicken for taking the safe route instead of making the jump.
Selphie has a more magic-oriented profile than Zell or Squall, although she still has higher Strength, and her highest stat is actually Luck; her weapon of choice, though labeled 'flail,' is actually… A nunchaku.
A nunchaku so large it has to be two-handed.
Sure, why not!
Galbadian soldiers are actually seen running out of the tower because they're scared of Seifer's crazed assault. What a man. I am honestly kind of warming up to him; I guess all it takes for me to start liking someone who's been a total dick for 90% of his screentime is for him to shout about his "ROMANTIC DREAM" while Leeroy Jenkins-ing himself at a fortified position alone and for the enemy to be the ones coming out running in fear.
Actually, wait, before we head in and towards the big boss fight, let me just… See something…
Selphie joins us with a lot of magic. Specifically: All the magic that Seifer Drew while he was on the team. Additionally, ever since Quistis joined Squall for the Fire Cavern exam, she's been visible in the Menu - she's in a separate section as an off-team member but we can, at any time, see her status, Junction or un-Junction GFs from her, and do other menu stuff.
Seifer doesn't join Quistis in the menu, and he transferred all his Magic to Selphie. Which suggests to me that his guest appearance on the team was not intended to last - he was there for a brief sequence, and now he's gone for good, or at least for a pretty long while.
This ties into something weird I've noticed - Seifer's No Mercy LB seems to appear at random. He doesn't need to be at low HP for it, and if it appears on one round and I don't use it it's gone, then reappears later. I think they gave him a special mechanic where his Limit Break appears randomly but semi-often so the player would be guaranteed to see it for the little while Seifer is in the party.
So, yeah. I wouldn't expect Seifer to rejoin the group any time soon.
That moon is obnoxiously large I am turning full conspiracy theorist
Oh, while we're there, let me briefly touch on GF ability progress.
All Summons obtained so far have a very cheap ability called "Boost," which costs only 10 AP to learn. It is supposed to allow us to enhance the damage dealt by that GF when summoned with repeated button presses; however, the game does not indicate how to do that, so I haven't been able to work it out yet. So far, Shiva and Ifrit have both unlocked Boost, and have started on… I think I put Shiva on the ability to refine Ice magic out of items, and I forget what I gave Ifrit. Quezacotl, however, has a rather more unique Ability; Card is a Command ability which allows its user to turn enemies into Triple Triad cards.
I'm vaguely aware that card abuse is one of the main ways of breaking the game open, although I don't know how, haven't looked it into it, and am not interested in hearing at this stage. I've set Quezacotl to learn Card strictly in hopes of boosting my Triple Triad selection with more cards to win more matches, that's it. However, while Quezacotl has learned Card by the time we reach the Tower, the only enemies within are Galbadian units, who appear immune to Cards.
Maybe we're not allowed to turn human beings into monster cards like this is Yu-Gi-Oh. Lame.
A save point, a brief trip up the lift, and we reach the top of the tower, where we are greeted by…
Well, 'familiar faces' would be the wrong way of putting it. More like unfamiliar faces, but familiar names.
Biggs and Wedge. Unlike VII, where they were fairly prominent allies in the first act of the game, they're reprising something like their original role in VI, as faceless soldiers of the enemy army. But with a lot more personality - they look to be the resident enemy comedy duo, kind of like Ultros. Wedge is trying to alert Biggs to sightings of a monster-shaped shadow on top of the tower, but Biggs doesn't listen to him, being busy trying to repair the tower's systems and ranting against his useless tools and all his wires. Wedge tells him he'll go check on the monster sightings, but Biggs isn't listening, and when he turns around, it's to face not his subordinate, but… us.
The game then plays this incredibly cool FMV that zooms in on the floor next to the character, where the tower shaking to life causes a bag of tools to start vibrating, causing a wrench to fall between the plates, and the camera dives in after it, and then towards the engines at the bottom of the tower as everything comes to life and a bunch of panels slide and open and stuff moves in pure sci-fi fashion even if it's not clear what is happening, until a giant metal rod thing emerges from the center, opens up to reveal a parabola, and the antenna at its center fires a beam of light at the sky.
Now, what that antenna is for, we can only guess at, because this looks like a lot more than 'send a message for reinforcement to the Galbadian army.' The group tries to confront Biggs but, well, we're unlikely to get straight answers here.
Squall: "What do you think you're doing!?" Biggs: "Huhhhh? Likewise, MISTER! What do you think you're doing!?" Biggs: "H-HEY! What happened to all the soldiers down below? WEDGE! Take care of these twerps!"
(He looks around confused.) Biggs: W… Wedge? I… ah…" Biggs: "Well… ah… I seem to be done here, so I'll just be on my…"
(He tries to sidle over towards the lift while everyone just stares at him.) Biggs: "I-I'm leaving… Move it! Move! Move!"
(At this point, Seifer emerges from the lift.) Seifer: "Sorry to crash the party."
At this point, Biggs freaks out at the sight of the gunblade-waving maniac, Seifer tells him to shut up, and the battle is on.
Oh this guy is fucked. The goddamn anacondaur had more HP.
However, after checking him for useful Draws and then hitting him hard with normal attacks, Wedge quickly comes to the rescue.
However, seeing as Biggs wasn't listening to him when Wedge explained what he was going off to do, his reaction to Wedge's arrival and possible saving of his life is to ask him where the hell he was doing and dock his pay for the month.
Like I said, comedy duo.
Even together, Biggs and Wedge aren't much to write home about. They aren't defeated conventionally, however; instead, after a certain point (probably based on HP totals), a tornado suddenly comes out of nowhere, sweeping the tower and blowing them both away!
Enter the true boss of the Communication Tower, Elvoret.
With 2872 HP and an impressive Spirit stat, Elvoret is tanky and resistant to magic and has no elemental weaknesses. This will be a long fight. He's not, however, very threatening; every three turns he uses Storm Breath for ~150 damage to all three party members, but in between he uses basic physical attacks and the Fire and Thunder spells, so it's not too hard to mitigate his damage, especially with a plentiful supply of Cures and the ability to fall back on GF summoning when my characters are at low HP (as GFs, remember, replace character HP while in trance).
Elvoret also contains the seeds of his own demise: his Draw options include Scan, Esuna (nice), and Double. Double is a spell new to the series, and its effect is that… It creates a status effect that allows a character to Dualcast?
A character affected by Double always has the ability, when using Magic, to either cast as Single or Double. Double spends the chosen spell twice to cast it twice, affecting either the same target twice or two separate targets.
That's… interesting. This is definitely earlier than I would expect such a power to show up, but also the way Draw and Magic work means that there are controls put on it; because I can only access it when the game lets me access it.
Of course, I could, in theory, farm 100 Doubles for each character off Elvoret; I went into this fight with enough Cures to potentially last forever. I could also just give up on this entire LP and go play something more fun, like a game of Basketball where the ball has nails glued on points-out. Double has a significantly lower rate of Draw than Tier 1 spells like Fire, netting only one or three at a time. I'm content to make sure each of my three characters has at least one Double and move on.
…
Even more importantly Elvoret has our first instance of something huge: One of his Draws is listed as "Siren."
Siren is a Guardian Force. Drawing her from Elvoret is, as far as I'm aware, the only way to obtain her, and if we miss her in this fight, she's missed forever. That's a pretty huge deal… and we are given no warning of this. The game fully expects us to have, by now, internalized that we should always Draw-check every enemy we encounter to see if it has anything we want. Which, considering that enemies so far have mostly had one of a small selection of spells that repeats often, is a pretty big ask!
I didn't end up missing Siren either here or in my original long-ago playthrough (she's called Ondine in FR btw), but I think the first totally missable GF that is supposed to serve as your 'going forward, always check bosses for GFs!' might have warranted some highlight.
Still. I decide that, since I haven't seen Selphie or Zell's Limit Breaks so far, I might as well play close to the wire, avoid Cure abuse, and try to stay in the danger zone to trigger Limit. My characters end up dipping into critical range several times, and their Limit… never shows up.
Aside from Squall, whose Renzokuken still shows up as normal when in crit HP, neither Selphie nor Zell ever ends up giving me a prompt to try a Limit.
So. That's a disappointment. Eventually, I decide I've been taking too much risk, and just blow up Elvoret with a Renzokuken and Selphie's Double-enhanced spells.
Elvoret actually has an incredible death animation where it fucking explodes, like it is rocked by multiple shockwaves while light comes out of it, as dramatic as Sephiroth's own death animation. If this is how every fight is going to play going forward, then I'm all for it.
First 'true' boss battle (with Ifrit as a tutorial) verdict: It's cool, and the bosses are tanky enough to put up a resistance, but the Draw system creates weird incentives regarding how to approach a fight. Now, if FF8 was difficult enough that boss fights pause a simple risk/reward challenge of 'how much are you willing to risk a Game Over to get those sweet sweet Draws," that would be one thing, but with Elvoret it was mostly a question of how much I was willing to drag this out and get bored.
I think the game's balance, such as it is, is going to rely a lot on me following the path of least resistance and grabbing only as many Draw spells as I have to, rather than going around stockpiling spells in random encounters.
…
Also at some point we should talk about the level-based opponents.
For those unfamiliar with the game: Unique among Final Fantasy games at least up to now, FF8 has monsters that scale with player level. You know, like a Bethesda game.
Is that good? Is that bad? I have no idea. The thing is, the game hasn't talked about this at all. In much the same way as Skyrim never tells you 'enemies grow in level with you btw, there are not truly any low-level or high-level areas' in mechanical terms, you only know it by talking to other people or figuring it out by putting 2 and 2 together in your own experience of the game, FF8 just doesn't talk about its scaling system at all. People have raised it in the thread a couple times, and I was aware of it, I just haven't talked about it because… It's not explained. I suspect you could play the entire game blind and you would never find out.
I don't know how I feel about it, because I don't know how it works and I don't know how it will impact the gameplay. I know there are are advices on how to break FF8 that involve a lot of more or less circuitous methods to go through the game without ever gaining XP, like ways to beat random encounters that only reward AP but no XP so your GFs learn Abilities without increasing enemy levels, and I don't… want that? I have zero interest in playing that way.
We'll see as we go, I guess. For now, the beast is defeated, and we've cleared the Communication Tower.
And that means Selphie can finally deliver her message to Seifer.
Oh, it's the order to withdraw.
…
We decided to just chase after these Galbadian soldiers halfway across the city forcing Selphie to chase after us so she could deliver the order that the whole time we were meant to be withdrawing.
Astounding stuff. The pride of Balamb Garden, everybody.
Seifer wants to stick around to kill more enemies, but Squall reminds him that we will miss the ship and be stranded in Dollet with a bunch of angry Galbadian soldiers, then Seifer checks his watch and realizes that withdrawing at 1900 hours means we have 30 minutes to get to the beach.
It's going to be tight.
…
Why are we withdrawing?
There are, essentially, two possibilities I can see:
Mission accomplished. Whatever SeeD agreed to do for Dollet, it did not include holding territory. We retook the town and defeated the Galbadian soldiers coming back from the Mountain, job's done, time to exfil. I don't think this one is very likely, just because you'd think we'd pause long enough for thank yous and good byes and making sure we're getting paid, whereas this seems like we're acting in a hurry.
Mission not accomplished. The Galbadian counterstrike was too overwhelming, or the Dollet troops couldn't do their part as basic infantry so we're left with literally 21 spec forces member, 12 of whom are children, which is in no way enough to hold a position, so we have to exfil before things take a turn for the worse. We haven't necessarily 'lost' as such, but whether it's our fault of the Dollet troops's, we have to pull back with our objective unfulfilled.
I originally started this saying that the third and most likely reason was that SeeD knows what the Communication Tower's true purpose is, and now that it's online and its message was sent the mission is a wash and there's no point staying, but that can't actually be the case because… Selphie was already looking for Seifer before the tower was online. So it can't be that.
Ah well. We'll find out back at Balamb Garden, I suppose. For now, let's hit the bricks.
Siren's ability list. 'Move-Find' allows us to see Draw points that are normally invisible in the environment; I zero in on this immediately.
While we leave, Biggs reveals himself to be alive, crawls towards a radio and orders someone on the other hand to chase after us and 'DESTROY [us]!!!'
Well, I'm sure that's going to be no trouble at all.
We exit the tower, and then hear a noise above; the group looks up, and from the top platform emerges a crawling form… Which promptly leaps down to us.
Oh boy.
A spider mech.
I love it. I have loved spider mechs ever since seeing Ghost in the Shell entirely too young and understanding just about zero of it and…
*slow blinks*
Wait. Did I watch Ghost in the Shell? That doesn't feel right.
Like, this is strange, but although I do remember watching GitS entirely too young (though mostly in a 'the plot and themes flew over my head' sense, not a 'traumatized by it' sense), one of the things I remember about the movie was thinking, 'where are the cute spider robots'? Which… considering that I wasn't even aware of Stand Alone Complex until years after its release…
The Ghost in the Shell game for PSX released in 1997 might actually have been my first exposure to Ghost in the Shell. Or games with anime openings. Or the concept of piloted mechs. Or, indeed, the concept of anime itself.
This is a lot to take in.
THE POINT IS. This spider mech isn't cute at all. The Black Widow (like fuck I'm typing X-ATMwhatever every time) is a deadly autonomous machine, with deadly attacks such as Crush, in which it grabs a party member in its pincers/mandibles, or a beam attack which sweeps the ground and then explodes. It's incredibly intimidating and incredibly cool.
It's also a nearly unwinnable fight. The Black Widow has 5700+ HP, and it can heal itself back to full HP up to five times. While we are on a 30 minute window. We are not meant to fight it, except as a deliberate challenge; instead, when the Black Widow has lost 20% of its HP, it temporarily goes down and enters a self-repair state, which is signaled in increments of 20%, until it heals back to full (so there is no point trying to damage it while it's in that state).
Instead, when the mech is down, we are able to escape again, which we can't do while it's active. This is our cue to run like hell, although the mech is in prompt pursuit.
The mech catches up with the group at several points. There are ways of avoiding some (all?) of these encounters with the proper timing or zig-zagging, but I don't know them and I'm not super interested in looking them up, so we end up fighting the mech four or five times. Thankfully, like Elvoret, its damage is low; it mostly presents a threat of attrition, forcing us to deal several thousands of damage over multiple encounters while healing regularly, all while a timer is running. It's a little hair-raising. Thankfully, we have both Quezacotl and a plentiful supply of Thunders, so we're able to make good timing.
When we reach the Central Square, that poor stupid dog is still there, but interacting with it causes it to run off before it can be squashed by the mech; when we reach the restaurant where Squad C are still lazing about, they take stock of the threat and run away.
And then, with a solid 14 minutes left on the counter, we reach the end of the gameplay chase sequence, and start the best cutscene in video game history.
Listen. Look. I know I'm biased. I can never escape my childhood self who sat through this sequence after this series of at the time really difficult fight and had his mind absolutely blown.
You'll agree. Witness.
The Black Widow comes crashing in, hitting the wall at speed while Squall is frantically trying to outrun it, then the mech starts racing down the street after them, so large it is squeezed between the building, scraping them as it bears down on its prey. It smashes through the arches to the beach front, Squall is sent toppling down head over heels, putting him behind all his comrades as they make a run for the ships.
The beast crashes on the beach, for a moment seems immobilized; Selphie pauses and turns around to see if Squall will make it and if the mech is truly down, but then it stirs to life, starts running up the beach towards Squall, towards the ship, and we see through its black and white vision, in which Squall is highlighted in a blinking white outline…
Squall makes a desperate final jump for the ship as the mech bears down on him.
Then we see the click of a gun and see the flash of a red visor.
Junior SeeD Instructor Quistis Trepe, holding the ship-mounted machine gun, lights up the mech with a flurry of gunfire that literally paralyzes it, pins it in place like a bug under repeated impacts. Squall lands on the craft as it starts pulling away; the mech, actively riddled with holes, rears up to try and push through the gunfire. Quistis, a rare expression of anger on her face, keeps firing.
The Black Widow is blown the fuck up.
…
Of course there have been dozens, hundreds, if not thousands of CGI cutscenes of video game characters blowing mechs up with machine guns since FF8 came out. But at the time? With this level of graphics? With this cinematic attention to detail, to movement, to sound and fury, to battle damage? The way the Black Widow moves through Dollet, smashing everything in its path, the way it has so much weight you briefly almost believe it's gone down under its own weight, the way its pursuit of Squall is so relentless, getting closer and closer until you see through its eyes, and then the sudden heroic reversal and the power of the machine gun?
In 1999? Come on. This was a revelation.
The more I see of FF8's cinematic, the more it's no wonder to me these animators started to think, foolishly, and in the event erroneously, 'you know what? I think we can pull off a feature-length Final Fantasy movie.' It didn't work, but goddamn. Can you blame them for getting high on their own supply at this stage?
…
Thus ends the SeeD exam. Or at least the battlefield portion of it. There is no debrief on the way home; we follow the ship as it crosses the sea in overworldview again, and then we land in Balamb, where we are given free quarters until sundown.
…wait a minute… are Fujin and Raijin to Seifer as Zell and Selphie now are to Squall? The mirror elements are growing by the minute.
Fujin and Raijin are there waiting for Seifer, who departs with them without so much as a glance or a good bye; so much for our bonding moment in the field. Quistis gets out, tells us we did a good job, and gives us rendezvous at Balamb by sundown.
We're free until then. Which means we're free to revisit Balamb, mostly (Zell's parents live there, as was implied by previous dialogue; we'll visit them), and most importantly, to save and take a break.
…
So that was the SeeD exam.
Goddamn what a setpiece. Fuck. The game lulls you into a sense of quiet with the start, and I think that's mainly because the mechanics are so original and so complex that it needs a quiet period where you're free to walk around, experiment and go through the tutorials piecemeal, until you fully understand the basic layer of mechanics. This means the game has a crazy onboarding cost, players will just bounce hard off a combination of 'start slow just hanging out for half an hour before even getting into a fight while getting a bunch of exposition and lore dumped on you' and 'have a bunch of baffling mechanics you've never seen the like of thrown at you in several scattered tutorials.'
FF8 is not making it easy to get into it. But once it has gone through that slow, leisurely opening, it hits you with the SeeD Exam, and holy shit.
In some ways, this is similar to the Mako Reactor #1 Raid: Take a small group of combatants, attack a specific place, go through a linear sequence dispatching enemies until you seize an enemy, then exfiltrate on a time limit. There's even a bug-themed giant mech that tries to kill you!
But the presentation. The scenery of Dollet, the Saving Private Ryan landing scene, the fight through the town, the characterization thrown at us with Seifer and Squall's constant conflict yet obvious similarities (more on Zell in a minute), the multi-stage boss fight that starts with comedy antagonists Biggs and Wedge, escalates to a proper boss monster, and then the timed pursuit by the scary fucking robot, all culminating in it being blown apart with a 50 cal by Quistis… Outstanding.
It'll take me some time for me to settle my thoughts on the gameplay of the game. So far, it's engaging but it's clear that abusing Draw is eventually going to be a quick way to make the game completely unfun while significantly reducing the challenge posed by fights, but in the worst possible way ('I have 300 Cure casts so I can never die' rather than being too strong and blowing up the boss too fast). And I'll have to find my own balance on this, because the game leaves it entirely up to me whether I murder my own fun or not. We'll see how it goes.
Still, so far, the game impresses. We now have a new GF to test out in battle next time, too.
(Sidenote: It is possible to defeat the Black Widow conventionally. I'll cover that next update, it's a bit superfluous to this update.)
…
So now we have the beginning of a cast, which means I have to ask: What do I think of these characters?
It's complicated. Squall is starting to appear more clearly: He's a broody silent teenager with a cold demeanour, but he's actually still someone who is hungry for excitement, for battles, for acknowledgment. We've learned more about Seifer than we had in the previous two updates, and while he is a total asshole, he is also clearly somewhat more complicated than that; part of his persona is clearly the affect of a delinquent held back several times who really struggles with authority and so has been stuck in a rut for a while, failing to pass exams not because of his skills (which are impecable) but because of his attitude (and who, paradoxically, ended up in charge of student discipline), and who sees something of a kindred spirit in Squall, even if he also sees him as beneath him. He's also clearly charismatic enough to have a friend group of his own, even if they're two weirdos. As for Quistis, her initial presentation as the confident, exasperated-but-fond teacher who is actively on Squall's side (perhaps a little too on his side in some ways) is increasingly being nuanced by the reveal that she's a junior instructor, one who is perhaps not held in her colleague's highest esteem; she is nearly as young as Squall, and her flirtatious behavior from earlier in the game can be explained by the fact that she's roughly his age and struggling with the teacher/student boundary that is effectively entirely new to her.
In other words, Quistis is bad at her job, but in sympathetic ways. And also she just saved our lives by blowing up a giant robot with a 50 cal, so you know.
Ultimately I think the game still struggles with the nebulous idea of what a 'teenager' is in high school media, whether that's in Western TV or Japanese anime, blurring the line between elements of characterization that would fit more for college students than high schoolers, and Quistis's official age still feels entirely too young even with these new elements of characterization.
…
Meanwhile Selphie and Zell are… Well, I'm not going to come down hard on them. This is their first update; they haven't had a lot of room to reveal themselves yet, especially Selphie who came in just before the boss fight. But by comparison to Barret, Tifa and Aerith, all of whom are introduced incredibly efficiently and have really cool, clear-cut designs that are immediately iconic. Meanwhile, Zell and Selphie are wearing the same uniform (in boy/girl version) with a hair do as the main thing setting them apart from every other BGU student, and their personality so far are fairly simple - Zell can't stay in place, gets easily excited, wants to be friendly but comes across as annoying, is afraid of breaking rules, and is easily to make mad by making fun of him; Selphie is clumsy (at least if we take her intro FMV as indication) and genki, likes to make fun of people who can't keep up, and that's about it.
Presumably they'll receive their own unique outfits once everyone is out of the BGU uniform mandated for the exam, which will be one step. But it's still striking that, compared to the diversity of ages and silhouettes we had in VII's initial cast, so far these characters are variations on 'high school/university student with a moderately eccentric haircut.' As for their personalities, like I said, we'll have to wait and see more, they just haven't had time to cook yet.
But the Squall/Quistis and Squall/Seifer dynamics, so far, have been pretty strong, and all three of these characters have shown some strong character traits. They have my interest.
We've also, quite aside from our character dynamics, established some goddamned geopolitics, with Galbadia as a possible state antagonist, war across the world as a clear motivator for further SeeD actions in the plot, small nations overrun, and mysterious (POSSIBLY MOON-RELATED??? WHAT WAS THAT ANTENNA LASER AIMING AT) goals pursued by their agents.
Whew. Was there anything else?
Oh, right, fuck, the French comparison - yeah that'll have to wait another day. I'll make a small post tomorrow or something.
I think we're good for today. There was a lot to cover, and I have no doubt I left a bunch out.
Thank you for reading!
Next Time: Balamb and then back home for debriefing.
"I'll just do the whole SeeD Exam in one update," I thought, "it's not that long, it'll have to be split in two because of the picture load but it's not like it's going to spiral and take 9k word to write out, there's a beat I really want to hit towards the end rather than split it in two separate updates so we'll just cover it all in one go"
When we reach the Central Square, that poor stupid dog is still there, but interacting with it causes it to run off before it can be squashed by the mech;
With the way the game works, 'missable' things is basically an entire book depending on how you group it. You've put down a pretty good standard on not wanting to know all the OP stuff, which I think is good sense.
But I was reading the update with a critical eye to ensure that this one dog was taken care of. Everything else is 'well, whatever'.
Onto the plot, replaying it I was struck by just how fast they put in such character complexity, and showed it off. It's not just 'this character has a persona and it interacts/sparks interestingly with other characters', but there's depth and layers to what's going on.
Zell is the same throughout this entire update, and he points out that Squall and Seifer are not treating each other the same throughout the entire thing. Different aspects of their personality are shown, and the other characters respond with different aspects of their own when that happens.
Seifer and Quistis are kinda assholes to each other, although Quistis was outright praising him to Squall during the fire cavern.
Squall and Seifer's antagonistic fight is known by everyone, but they've shown zero hesitation to not only back each other up in combat (as expected by professionals, which neither are officially) but reveal personal bits about themselves (with some limits) when given the option.
FF7 really went in on depth with it came to the minds of characters, but they started off as simple archetypes before developing.
FF8 kicks off showing us quite a lot more layers of the character right away, that it's a built in assumption that these characters have emotional depth and interior-ness with their actions, even if we only see that from a few so far.
It's not just that characters have depth, but characters all assume (well, mostly assume) that other characters have depth and are trying to dig it out. Quistis and Seifer are both trying to get inside Squalls head, Zell is trying to make connections and gets bounced off. It's a big step up and continuation from what the others were developing, all within the first ten hours.
. . .Or in the first hour or two if you're not breaking the game in half. *cough*
1. Seifer was probably put in charge of the disciplinary committee in an attempt at trying to get him to actually be responsible for once - giving him a leadership role with power he could potentially abuse (likely with oversight so he doesn't actually get to abuse that power, naturally) in order to train him to not pull the shit he evidently keeps pulling during the exams. Seifer's an excellent warrior, so Balamb Garden has a vested interest in getting him to actually pass the exam so they can start making money off him.
2. With how Squall and Seifer treat each other in this update, there's a good chance that Squall wasn't just coping when he said he thought their pre-game scuffle was a simple training fight. He clearly respects Seifer - or at the very least Seifer's strength - and he's just socially awkward enough to hear Seifer go "hey let's 'train' (read: I want to haze the shit out of you)" and take it at face value.
Another alternative for Seifer being head of the Disciplinary Committee (not too out there with RL Military Academy equivalents) is that it's a matter of being the most Senior Student. Since he could have graduated a few times by now, clearly he trumps all in seniority. Also his martial skills and (possibly) high scores on an individual level probably play a part.
2. With how Squall and Seifer treat each other in this update, there's a good chance that Squall wasn't just coping when he said he thought their pre-game scuffle was a simple training fight. He clearly respects Seifer - or at the very least Seifer's strength - and he's just socially awkward enough to hear Seifer go "hey let's 'train' (read: I want to haze the shit out of you)" and take it at face value.
Seifer himself doesn't mention their fight at all, leaving noted communicationist Squall to explain what happened.
Given how he responds to most requests for information relating to himself or his actions, I imagine the 'training' is more a 'fuck off' excuse rather then what Squall may or may not actually think.
Dr Karawaki in the first update seems to get a more honest and truthful response, and as the doctor who is noted for her 'good advice' from Squall, probably does have position of trust that say, his flirty teacher or annoying classmate he doesn't want on his squad, don't have.
Ah, see, this took me a while to figure out when I first played, too. The answer to the conundrum of why the game appear to be telling you something which is false is as follows:
The character who delivers the killing blow (to every enemy in the game, not just the Anacondaur) does actually gets bonus EXP (I think 10% of the total or thereabouts?), but the GF also count as characters. If Shiva delivers the killing blow, the extra EXP are going to her. It's a very weird way to handle things, but then, FFVIII and weird mechanics go hand-in-hand.
It's interesting that the game kept her name hidden and didn't show her in an FMV until just now, when she is (spoilers) about to join the group as a full-fledged party member. It's almost like the game is trying to do a twist, but she was such a minor presence before that it doesn't feel like a twist? I don't know.
See, I have a theory about this. If you remember, when Kadowaki asked the name of Squall instructor, it went something like this:
Dialogue Box 1: Now, what was the name of your teacher again...?
- insert pause -
Dialogue Box 2: ....right, Quistis Trepe. Calling her now.
This was followed by an FMV introducing Quistis.
Then, when Quistis introduces Zell, it goes like this:
Dialogue Box 1: as for your team
- insert pause -
Dialogue Box 2: Zell Dintch.
Followed by the FMV.
And finally we have Selphie, who gets her FMV first, and then introduces herself with, again, a notable pause between saying "who am I?" and then providing her name.
So, my theory is that, as far as the main party members are concerned, you were in fact originally meant to be able to name them, just like in the previous two Final Fantasy; then, at some point very late in development, when the structure of at least the introductory section of the game was set in stone already and the FMV for their introduction already recorded, a change in direction happened and the developers decided to give them all fixed names. I have no proof that this is the case, but the way the introduction of each character is structured, with the awkward dialogue that has a clear pause between dialogues boxes that almost screams "insert name here!" to me, makes me pretty confident that this is the case.
Which means, of course, that they weren't setting up a twist with Selphie - they just wanted to keep up the pattern of letting you name the characters immediately before/after their introductory FMV played out, so they delayed giving her name until then when initially structuring the game's opening sequence, and then things were set in stone and they didn't want to do the work necessary to change them. Or, at least, that's my take.
So, my theory is that, as far as the main party members are concerned, you were in fact originally meant to be able to name them, just like in the previous two Final Fantasy; then, at some point very late in development, when the structure of at least the introductory section of the game was set in stone already and the FMV for their introduction already recorded, a change in direction happened and the developers decided to give them all fixed names. I have no proof that this is the case, but the way the introduction of each character is structured, with the awkward dialogue that has a clear pause between dialogues boxes that almost screams "insert name here!" to me, makes me pretty confident that this is the case.
Which means, of course, that they weren't setting up a twist with Selphie - they just wanted to keep up the pattern of letting you name the characters immediately before/after their introductory FMV played out, so they delayed giving her name until then when initially structuring the game's opening sequence, and then things were set in stone and they didn't want to do the work necessary to change them. Or, at least, that's my take.
EDIT: Actually disregard this, I have no clear memories of a game I played literally this week.
*cough* You can actually name the entire party. Omni is skipping the actual 'select name' screen because they aren't worth the screenshot, but the full party's first name is selectable to be anything really, just like GFs.
Their last names (when mentioned) aren't changable, considering we see Zell's mom referred to by various NPC's, that's probably pretty sensible.
One thing to note is that we never had a chance to name Seifer, which might have implied his guest-star-party-member status more keenly then anything else in the game.
Quistis: "You're the squad leader. Good luck to you." Seifer: "...Instructor. I hate it when people wish me good luck." (He does an unbearably smug hand-scale pose.) "Save those words for a bad student that needs them, eh?" Quistis: "Ok then." *beat* Quistis: "Good luck, Seifer."
This is the first thing we've had resembling a moment of bonding between Squall and Seifer, and the context is… really interesting.
Squall wants to seek out battle, he wants the excitement of the fight and to put his training to use for real. But he doesn't want to openly acknowledge it, to sound like a bloodthirsty maniac like Seifer, or to openly break orders. So defaulting to the Captain's authority, putting the responsibility on Seifer, is convenient to him. Meanwhile, this acknowledges and validates Seifer's role as squad captain, which in turn satisfies Seifer's ego.
They're both giving each other exactly what the other wants in that exchange. What they want just isn't very nice.
2. With how Squall and Seifer treat each other in this update, there's a good chance that Squall wasn't just coping when he said he thought their pre-game scuffle was a simple training fight. He clearly respects Seifer - or at the very least Seifer's strength - and he's just socially awkward enough to hear Seifer go "hey let's 'train' (read: I want to haze the shit out of you)" and take it at face value.
Possible, but I think it's more likely that this was a training session that got out of control because both of these characters are fight-happy maniacs who don't know when to stop.
Squall absolutely wouldn't want to put the leash back on if the alternative wasn't 'We will literally be left on this side of Balamb Sea', and I gave it 50/50 if Seifer would let even that stop him.
*cough* You can actually name the entire party. Omni is skipping the actual 'select name' screen because they aren't worth the screenshot, but the full party's first name is selectable to be anything really, just like GFs.
Their last names (when mentioned) aren't changable, considering we see Zell's mom referred to by various NPC's, that's probably pretty sensible.
One thing to note is that we never had a chance to name Seifer, which might have implied his guest-star-party-member status more keenly then anything else in the game.
I'm absolutely slipping on what you're drooling, Omi. This whole sequence is great, and is honestly what turned me around to giving the game a bit more benefit of the doubt. Even with the "dated" visuals, everything about the actual direction of the cutscenes is immaculate and is still in the upper echelon of videogame CG's. I think I rewatched the radio tower scene ten times after I first saw it. There's something very interesting to be said about the the sort of super-linear, high spectacle showpiece that this era of FF really starts leaning into, and how that starts creating friction against what people might think of as "real" RPGs.
Selphie and Zell...I'm glad I'm not the only one that kinda didn't like them at first for literally just being like...two normal-ass people. Like, Zell looks like the second or third bad-guy of the week who'd get beaten up in a WSJ battle shonen, and Selphie would be the main heroine's friend that has two lines and only shows up in group shots. Like you touched on though, they do start to grow on you once you realise they do have actual (very quirky) personalities. I also can't find it in myself to hate a girl who literally does the eto bleh thing. Also, I'm genuinely sorta impressed that the game went out of its way to show that Quistis is genuinely struggling as an instructor and probably too young for her position, and it's not just rote anime highschool tropes that go unexamined.
The other two characters around Seifer round up the rest of the disciplinary committee; they are Fujin and Raijin. Fujin is the girl, and she expresses herself entirely in single-word all caps sentence, which makes me wonder if she's supposed to be a robot or something. Raijin, meanwhile, has the distinction of seemingly being the only normal guy in this group - he's even friendly to Squall! He and Fujin seem to have a comedy routine where he says something insensitive without realizing it and she reacts by shouting 'RAGE!' and hitting him. So far so anime comedy.
As might be apparent from their names, Fujin and Raijin are unusual in that their names are Japanese kanji. Meaning "Wind God" and "Thunder God" respectively. I don't know if this is somehow significant or symbolic, especially since calling someone "Fujin" or "Raijin" is usually a way of addressing a title, rather than a given name. So in the world of FFVIII, apparently parents can give their kids names like "Thunder God" and nobody thinks this is odd.
Fujin and Raijin also have very consistent verbal tics, presumably to give them easy-to-remember character quirks. Fujin in the Japanese script speaks almost entirely in kanji, and only kanji; the only exceptions are proper names (rendered in katakana, like "Seifer" or "Squall" or "Balamb"). This is a surprisingly common go-to for "quirky character speech" in a lot of anime (and anime-adjacent) media; it's usually translated into terse single-word sentences as well, although the all-caps here is probably overdoing it.
Raijin has the verbal tic of ending every sentence with "mon yo", which is very unusual and difficult to translate. It's basically placing double emphasis on every sentence, except the "mon" emphasizer is kind of childish, while the "yo" emphasizer is kind of "what teenagers think is cool". If I recall, the English translation turns it into "ya know". I admit I can't think of any other translation that fits, since it doesn't mean anything other than "quirky verbal tic".
From a quick online look, it seems like it might be a translation issue? Seifer does call Zell a chicken, but the compound word he's using might be better translated as 'chickenshit'? It's not clear, though.
The word Seifer uses is チキン野郎, "chicken yarou". To unpack, the "yarou" part is a rude way of addressing someone, like calling them "bastard" or "SOB" or some such. Quite common for a rude insult.
The "chicken" part is strange. It's "chicken" in katakana, which normally is used for chickens as food, like chicken skewers or chicken nuggets, or chicken meat as an ingredient. I have no idea why Seifer chose this insult.
Going deep into speculation without evidence, there was mention earlier about how Balamb Garden's "hot dogs" were originally other foodstuffs in Japanese. So I'm wondering if the scene earlier where Zell rushed into the cafeteria while the Disciplinary Squad was there had something to do with chicken meals, and Seifer calling Zell "chicken yarou" is the equivalent of calling him "hot dogger". Without even the English language implications of "wiener", too.
Otherwise, I have no idea why "chicken yarou".
(The lack of optional and incidental dialogue in the Japanese script site I'm using is really hurting.)
As minor trivia, "romance" and "romantic" in Japanese as a loanword does not always mean "love romance" as it does in English, but it often does. In general it means the sort of dreamy fantasies that people would imagine in terms of "if literally anything was possible". Like being a pretty princess, or piloting a cool mecha, or going on a cruise vacation.
And of course, it includes the romantic dreams like "being a prince who falls in love with a princess".
Here, Seifer draws out the "ro" in "romantic", so he's not just emphasizing "ROMANTIC", he's effectively saying "super-duper ROMANTIC".
Continuing the odd food-based insult of "chicken", Selphie here is actually proposing to call Zell "pork". As in "pork" in katakana (ポーク), again used to mean pork as an ingredient.
Not only that, she proposes calling Zell "pork" as a compliment, because she thinks Zell's objection to "chicken" is because he doesn't like chicken dishes, so she suggests "supersized pork" as a more appealing alternative. Then she second-guesses herself, because she realizes that calling someone "pig" (ブタ) is probably not complimentary.
