somewhatLazy
Serial Procrastinator
- Location
- lurking
Let's Play Every Final Fantasy Game In Order Of Release [Now Playing: Final Fantasy Tactics]
- Thread starter Omicron
- Start date
- Let's Play
GilliamYaeger
M'crazy.
I feel like the words "later in the game" should not appear in this thread at all.
- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Generally I just stop reading and move to the next post when I see a post that starts with those words but I'd appreciate more discretion, yes.
- Pronouns
- She/They
I get the desire to talk about what happens later but it does make speculating about the game from a completely blind perspective a bit... challenging.
At the very least having more of it under spoiler bars would help.
At the very least having more of it under spoiler bars would help.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Concerning Cid: Balamb Garden is presented, pretty much right up front, as being super sketchy.
It is also presented, again right up front, as being founded in accordance with Cid's ideals.
I think that says something about what those ideals were.
It is also presented, again right up front, as being founded in accordance with Cid's ideals.
I think that says something about what those ideals were.
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GilliamYaeger
M'crazy.
We do have a spoiler thread if you're concerned about that.
- Pronouns
- She/They
Oh no I'm the one speculating blindly, I've been avoiding the spoiler thread for that reason.
As for this, really the one thing that's been throwing me is between banana mengele Cid and domestic abuse Cid, I can't help but wonder if they're going to softball war profiteer Cid. Just a question of if they're going to follow through on all this buildup.
GilliamYaeger
M'crazy.
Maybe just mark it as speculation at the top of the post, then?
HEY GUYS TODAY I LEARNT THAT YOU CAN, IN FACT, BOUNCE RADIO SIGNALS OFF THE MOON.
So as someone who hasn't played the game, I'm wondering if we're going to get Banana Mengele Mark 2, where Cid does a lot of heinous shit but he's let off because he feels bad about it afterwards.
- Pronouns
- She/They
I knew it, damn moon's eating our radio waves
- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Seeing people who, like myself, haven't played the game speculate blindly just as I'm doing the same is one of my favorite parts of this thread, tbh.
(Not to say I don't appreciate all the useful advice and engaging feedback of people who have played the game and know what's up, but trying to figure out WTF is going on together is great fun)
As for 'softballing Child Soldier Raising Project Cid,' yeah. It's definitely a concern I have with a direction the game could take. That said, the game's been so overtly sinister with Balamb Garden's practices that I can't help but feel it knows this would be a bad take and is going to avoid it... Which leaves the very real possibility of Cid's doddering old man demeanor being a front.
I suppose we'll have to wait and see.
21stCentury
Let's get down to bismuth
- Location
- Canada
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Oh sure, when Big Boss does it it's a war crime but when Cid Kramer does the same damn thing he gets awards.
Zap Rowsdower
Ex-cultist vagrant
- Location
- Bright lights, big city
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Look, being played by Latter-Day Sean Connery gets you very different treatment than being played by Robin Williams.
How Cid will be considered will be if he's played by fun movie Robin or sad drama Robin
Played by Hook!Robin, obviously - kinda sorta cares about the kids, but his work is way more important until he gets back in touch with his inner child on Disk 3 and learns how to fly.
This is also how we get the airship for the game, we just sky-surf on Cid's back.
Also for whatever reason I'm picturing it to Secret of Mana's flight music.
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Final Fantasy VIII, Part 5: The Prom Ball
- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Welcome back, class, to Final Fantasy VIII 101. Today's lesson:
The SeeD Party
After receiving our grades and rank, we fade out to Squall's dorms, where Selphie is showing off her SeeD uniform. She's really excited and happy with it, it's cute. She also tells Squall to get changed so they can get to the party, which means… Another alternate costume? I'm getting spoiled. Now I'm really starting to wish the game will eventually have a costume closet where we can pick Squall's outfit.
Hmm. I'm actually not sure which I prefer. The school uniform has a kind of… Elegant simplicity to it. The SeeD uniform is a little ostentatious. Makes sense given how prestigious they're meant to be, I suppose.
Selphie welcomes Squall back with… Let me just quote her.
Selphie: "Heeey! Lookin' good! Alright! Let's hit that PAAH-TAY!"
Honestly her enthusiasm is infectious. Well, to me, anyway. Squall isn't impressed.
Oh my god.
He's literally this meme:
Squall, as someone who has been the kid standing in the corner watching people dance and thinking I'm above these trivialities, nobody thinks you're cool. C'mon. Relax a little.
Well tries to get Squall to do a high five, and Squall does not even bother replying, pointedly drinking from his cup while Zell just stands there like an idiot. What a dick. Zell tells him he's his still his typical self even as a SeeD, then leaves, whereupon he is ambushed off-screen by Selphie who tries to recruit him to the Garden Festival committee, at which point Zell comes up with a bullshit excuse and leaves.
Oh, yeah, I guess I did agree with Selphie to take part in the Garden Festival committee. Her dialogue didn't seem different depending on my choice so I assumed the game wouldn't keep track of it, but I wonder if I accidentally stepped into some Consequences.
And then… Squall looks above his glass, to the crowd, and…
And so she appears.
We haven't been introduced yet, but even with a different outfit, it seems pretty obvious that this is Blue Girl from the intro. What's her deal? Well, we aren't going to find out quite yet. Our girl is standing there alone, looking at shooting stars in the sky, then turning to smile at Squall - and, like a deer in the woods, our poor loner is seized upon by a terrible foe: an extroverted girl who finds him attractive and refuses to acknowledge his 'go away' aura.
Girl: "You're the best looking guy here. Dance with me?"
(Squall ignores her.)
Girl: "Let me guess… You'll only dance with someone you like. Ok then…"
Girl: (She puts her hand in front of his face like she is a hypnotist.) "Look into my eyes… You're-going-to-like-me… You're-going-to-like-me…"
Girl: "Did it work?"
Squall: "...I can't dance."
Girl: "You'll be fine. Come on." (She grabs him by the arm and pulls him away.) "I'm looking for someone. I can't be on the dance floor alone."
Incredible. Our boy was defeated instantly. He put up absolutely no resistance. She carved through him like butter. Honestly, I like her already.
Credit to the animation team on this one: Squall is actually terrible at dancing. His GF bonding has granted him absolutely no shmoves (or perhaps the GFs aren't helping because he's now doing some 'GF bonding' of his own HO HO HO HO HO). He is awkward, needs the girl to constantly correct his footing, and actually bumps into other people. Honestly, after being such a dick all evening (and about to be even more of a dick), seeing Squall getting owned a little is satisfying.
However, he adapts very quickly (probably those enhanced SeeD reflexes). After he nearly storms off in embarrassment, the girl pulls him back again, makes him take a few steps, and he quickly starts moving much better, until he is twirling the girl around his arm like it was nothing. At the end of the dance, we move into a slow, the lights dim, and the fireworks explode; our two lovebirds look up. It's a really nice scene.
The girl does not give Squall her name - she sees something over his shoulder that draws her attention, parts from him, and leaves while he stands there, watching her. We fade from the FMV to Squall standing on a balcony, alone, and then Quistis slowly approaches.
Quistis: "You really are an excellent student. Even that dance was perfect."
Squall: "Thank you."
(A moment passes.)
Squall: "Yes?"
Quistis: "So you'll dance with someone you don't even know, but you can't stand being around me?"
Squall: "...Whatever." (He turns to look at her.) "You're an instructor, and I'm your student. It's kind of awkward when you don't say anything."
(Quistis chuckles.)
Is she… jealous?
She is jealous.
Flirting with your student is one thing (a bad thing, to be clear! You shouldn't do it!) but then getting mad at your student for being interested in another girl is just - this is a fantastic level of insecurity and unhealthy teacher-student dynamics, that's incredible.
I get the impression that 'insecurity' is Quistis's defining issue, honestly. Like - Squall is just kind of aloof and a bit of an asshole to everyone, but here she says, "you can't stand being around me," like he hates her, when he's just uncomfortable with the flirting and otherwise no worse to her than he is to everyone. But I think Quistis is extremely rejection-sensitive and struggles with her self-image, and Squall not being responsive to her flirting makes her feel like he genuinely hates her.
More on that in a moment.
I don't really understand the segue into "it's kind of awkward when you don't say anything" and how that connects to anything, but Quistis chuckles.
Quistis: "That's true. I was like that myself. …Oh, I completely forgot. I wonder what's to become of me? I've come to give you an order. You and I are to go to the 'secret area.' It's where students secretly meet up and talk after curfew. It's inside the [training center]."
Squall: "What do you want to do there? Are we going to tell everyone they're violating curfew? If that's the case, forget it. Leave that for the disciplinary committee."
(Quistis laughs.)
Quistis: "Go get changed and meet me in front of the training center. This will be my last order."
She is abusing her authority as a teacher to order her student to meet her at Makeout Point, incredible.
Well, not much to do but go along with it. First, we get Squall changed back into his casual clothes, and then meet with Quistis on the way to the training center.
There are special versions of the backdrops that have night lighting.
We meet Quistis and head inside the Training Grounds. We've only briefly been there before, enough to fight a couple of plants, but now we're exploring them fully. So what are those monsters that are being fed to the students to practice their fighting skills?
Well, you see, the training grounds have two enemy types. One is the Grat:
Grats show up alone or in pairs. They are ambulatory plant lifeforms which are weak but have a few notable features - their Vampire attack lets them drain a small amount of health, their Gastric Juice attack has a small chance to cause Poison, and their Sleeping Gas attack is a move that hits the whole party with Sleep, putting them in a state of inaction until struck by a physical attack. This can make Grats more challenging than their low HP and damage would suggest. In turn, we can draw Sleep and Silence spells from them, which could potentially be useful finds, depending on how viable status effects are in this game.
Exploring the Training Grounds mostly just results in Grat encounters. In terms of aesthetic, I want to say that this place has been pretty obviously influenced by Jurassic Park - check out the jungle setting, the winding metallic fences, and the heavy equipment:
I say inspired by Jurassic Park because of the aesthetic similarities to Isla Nubar, but also because of the other denizen of the Training Grounds…
…T-Rexaur.
Variations on the tyrannosaur have been a mainstay of the series and they are usually pretty powerful. Now, in any other game, the fact that we encounter T-Rexaur so early would be a bit underwhelming; sure, it's a nasty surprise right now, but if we come back in five hours we'll eat half a dozen for breakfast. However, as we've established, FF8 uses scaling levels, which means T-Rexaur's threat level is theoretically going to continue to escalate just as our ability to cope with it does (I, of course, have no idea if we'll eventually overwhelm it completely or if it'll stay a threat). But by the same token, that means it should be a real challenge but still something we can defeat right now, right?
So let's give it a Scan.
T-Rexaur has 15,187 HP.
That thing has nearly three times the HP of the Galbadian spider mech, while we are working with only two party members. We are, uh, not defeating that any time soon. Like, that thing is weak to Ice, right? (Either as a reference to 'cold-blooded dinosaurs' or as an ice age joke). So let's throw a Blizzard at it…
275 damage.
Killing it would only take 60 casts. Meanwhile, it deals 200-300 damage with every attack. So I'm going to be casting one Cure for each Blizzard I manage to sneak in.
Yeah, we're not doing this today. I elect to run away.
The T-Rexaur is a hilarious jack-in-the-box to throw at players and I kind of respect the game for it, honestly. I'll get around to fighting it later, but right now we're running like hell.
…
Too bad the game spoils you on it though.
When you meet Quistis in the corridor leading to the Training Center, she first asks Cloud if he has any experience fighting T-Rexaur.
Which means, if you haven't been, or have only been a little (because, for instance, each previous instance where you could have had Squall being alone and you didn't want to level him up ahead of the rest of the party's curve), then Quistis just spoils one of the game's funniest sneak attacks, where the surprise of seeing it for the first time is part of the fun. It's a bit of a shame… Especially because this doubles as a tutorial on how to beat that seemingly invincible foe.
This is yet another tutorial, the Status Junction tutorial. It's simple: By junctioning status effect magic to Attack, you can cause your attack to have a chance to deliver that status effect, while by junctioning a status effect to Defense, we gain a chance to ignore that effect, like with VII's Added Effect Materia. The way it works is that the number of stored cast influences the odds; having 100 Blinds junctioned to Defense grants a 100% chance to resist Blindness, while having 100 Sleeps junctioned to Attack grants a… 80% chance to inflict Sleep with physical attacks? I don't think it goes up to 100%, but this is a massive increase over VII's Added Materia which only gave a 20% chance to inflict the status. This could potentially make physical attacks incredibly powerful. Additionally, junctioning a multi-status magic will instead grant lower chances to inflict/resist all those magics; Esuna, for instance, when junctioned to Defense, grants a small chance to ignore every status effect.
Again, the thing to remember: We do not have access to Magic Junctioning by default, only through GF abilities. We need to actually unlock these abilities before we can give Squall a 100% chance to Silence every enemy with every attack or whatever.
So what's Quistis's advice on defeating T-Rexaur? "Junction Sleep to physical attacks." Which… Actually sounds like it would be effective? It would bounce T-Rexaur in a constant state of sleep and allow me to take a break between attacks to heal whenever I want. Intriguing.
Unfortunately in order to do that I need both the Junction Status Attacks ability and enough Sleep spells to make attacks have a decent chance at proccing it; just doing a few Draws to have like 20-30 Sleeps and junctioning them (on Quistis, since I have only one GF with the Junction Status Attacks ability for now, so only one character can equip it) doesn't get me a high enough chance of Sleep to stop T-Rexaur's onslaught at all.
The game is actively pushing me to Draw 100 of every spell I care to Junction, it's growing more and more obvious; even the Tutorial screens use 100s as their default example. The game wants me to Draw-farm. So… I guess I'll do that?
Not now, though. T-Rexaur lives to see another day. We have plot to deal with.
God but the shots in this game are gorgeous.
She literally did take Squall to Makeout Point, god. There are even student couples around in their own corners being lovey-dovey to each other.
So, what's this all about? Did Quistis use her authority as a teacher to force her student to follow her to Makeout Point to do a confession or something? Well… No.
Quistis: "What time is it?"
Squall: "It's after midnight."
Quistis: (She slumps forward.) "Oh well…"
Quistis: "I, Quistis Trepe, am no longer an instructor as of now!"
(She turns to Squall.)
Quistis: "I'm a member of SeeD now, just like you. Who knows, maybe we'll end up working together."
Squall: "...oh really?"
Quistis: "Is that all you're going to say?"
Squall: "If that's how it was decided, you have to abide by it."
Quistis: (She slumps again.) "They told me that I had failed as an instructor. Basically, that I lacked leadership qualities. I was a SeeD by the age of 15, got my instructor license at 17… It's only been a year since I got it… I wonder where I went wrong… I did my best…"
Oh, my god, she's a child prodigy burnout. Fuck. The relatable levels are off the chart.
Yeah, I see it now. She's… God, she's bad at this. That's the painful thing: As much as "Quistis pulls a machine gun and blows up the spider mech" was an all-timer moment, as much as I enjoy her needling Squall and Seifer, I think her superiors are… right? She can't maintain the distance required between friend and student, whether that's actively flirting with Squall or trading barbs with Seifer, whom she hasn't been able to assert authority over.
And of course she hasn't! She's the same age as her oldest students. She graduated at 15 and immediately threw herself into instructor training, and instead of a TA-like position they shoved her into a teacher position and made her oversee active warfare. That was a bad use of a gifted student. Balamb Garden is to blame for this!
I'm getting a serious 'chew them up and spit them out' vibe for this. Plus, if Balamb Garden has only been operational for 12 years, the number of teachers who are graduating SeeDs can't be that high, can it?
Pushing Quistis out of the way means keeping the shady Garden Faculty in charge without requiring navigating around someone who's naive about BGU's goals and isn't 'in' on whatever Moonspiracy is going on here… How convenient.
And Quistis doesn't really know how to deal with any of it, so she's reaching out to the one person she's been trying to reach out to, in a way where I'm starting to think her flirting is less actual flirting that it's just… Awkwardly using what little social skills she has to tease him, try to get him to open up to her, to make a connection.
But she's not very good at this. And also, she's picked entirely the wrong person for it.
Squall: "Are you done yet…? I don't wanna talk about it. What am I supposed to say about other people's problems?"
Quistis: "I'm not asking you to say anything. I just want you to listen."
Squall: "Then go talk to a wall."
Quistis: "Aren't there times when you want to share your feelings with someone?"
(Squall looks away from her, folding his arms and staring at the ground.)
Squall: "Everyone has to take care of themselves. I don't want to carry anyone's burden."
(He leaves.)
Quistis, to herself: "...No leadership qualities… Failed instructor… Perhaps they're right…"
(The camera pans to the sky; fade to the Training Center.)
Jesus, Squall. What a dick.
Our boy clearly has some issues of his own. Trauma of some kind? I don't know, but holy shit. "If you want someone to listen to you, go talk to a wall"? Like, Quistis's behavior has been highly inappropriate (although she's not even a teacher anymore), but she's helped him, fought with him, and her attempt to open up about her insecurities have him go "skill issue, fuck off."
Like… Man. Squall is starting to grate on my nerves a little. And I will admit: Part of it is definitely me running into Quistis at the tender age of like, nine and being profoundly changed forever and as a result being biased towards her side of this exchange even if my perspective on the whole 'bad teacher' thing has changed with age, but still.
The attempt at a Moment now thoroughly ruined, we're walking back in silence to the exit of the Training Center - only for a scream to suddenly alert us; somebody is calling for help!
…is that Blue Girl from the OP? I think it's her, but it's hard to tell - she would have a different dress than she did during the dance scene, but then Quistis and Squall also changed in the time between, and her hair is a shade lighter than it was then..? Okay, now I'm genuinely not sure if I'm supposed to recognize this as Blue Girl from the OP and the dance scene or if this is a wholly separate character.
You can make naturalistic models with detailed clothes in the PSX engine and still run into facial recognition issue, I suppose.
…also, although we don't know her name, she's referring to Squall by name and to Quistis by the cutesy nickname 'Quisty,' which I haven't heard anyone use before. So, huh.
That's weird.
Anyway let's fight a giant bug.
This boss battle is interesting. It's a group battle; the giant flying bug, Granaldo, is hiding behind three carapaced opponents called Raldo. Granaldo's mode of attack is fairly unique; it picks up the Raldos, and throws them at us like huge boulders. It's an interesting design but ultimately these opponents are fairly weak (each Raldo has 243 HP, Granaldo has 1538), meaning we can wipe out most of the Granaldo with a single Summon.
This is by far the coolest Ifrit to date.
…I've realized something.
Until and unless the game introduces multi-hit magic, we do not have omnispells in this game. We cannot toggle Fire to hit all opponents the way we could use in some older games, and we cannot pair Fire with an All Materia to do so either. Which means our offensive spells are single-target only. But, unlike in VI and VII, Summons do not hard hard caps on how many times they can be summoned during a given fight.
Which means summons have effectively taken the place of omnispells. Ifrit doesn't hit that hard all things considered, but he is our only way to cast a fire attack on all opponents. So that's an interesting niche for GFs to fulfill. Will it matter? Not sure.
Once a GF has wiped out the Raldos, Granaldo is left to resort to its very weak physical attack, and we can just punt him around while making fun of his hair until he dies.
Mystery girl falls theatrically once the threat is past, but before we can ask her anything, two dudes in uniform surround her, talking to her in the particular "deferential but urgent" tone of bodyguards; she agrees to leave, and they guide her out while she extends a glance with Squall and one of the bodyguards bows to us, which seems to be a gesture of thanks for saving her life, but they don't pause for any more than that, or any explanation.
As she leaves, Quistis crosses her arms and asks, "...who was that?"
…yeah, as I suspected, this girl may know her, but neither Squall nor Quistis have any clue who she is.
Oh, and given that Quistis did see Squall dance with the girl at the party but isn't recognizing this girl, that was probably a different person.
Although… Wait.
That's the blue girl from the infirmary intro, saying 'so we meet again,' which at the time I did think was Blue Girl from the OP.
Okay. I'm just completely confused now. The girl in the OP, the girl whom Squall danced with at the party, and the girl we just saved from monsters who watched him in the infirmary might be one and the same, or they might be two different girls. I have no clue at this stage, and I don't think I'm supposed to be confused, I think this is just a matter of characters still lacking in defined facial features outside of FMV and no voice acting.
I'll just keep going and it'll be sorted out eventually in the course of the plot.
At the exit of the Training Center, Quistis parts from Squall with one last warning "it's not like everyone can get by on their own, you know?" She leaves, and Squall says to himself, "...Says who?"
We head back to the dorms, where Zell is waiting for Squall and saying he's been looking all over the place for him - now that they are members of SeeD, they get their own rooms!
…yeah, this is nostalgic. Not in a 'playing this game as a kid' way, in a 'I had a dorm room very much like this one' way. I thought the rooms they had previously were individual, just connected to a central space, but I guess not - this is a full room with a desk and a wardrobe and stuff. It's nice. You're moving up in the world, Squall.
…Squall, you absolute freak, do you just sleep in your day clothes lying on top of your bedsheets!?
I get that animating a blanket would be unnecessary effort and costs and Squall doesn't need an extra outfit model for 'pajamas,' but my god dude, please take care of yourself a little!
On Squall's desk is another issue of Weapons Monthly, which reveals a few potential upgrades as well as new weapons for characters we haven't seen yet, serving as a stealth preview of sorts, like when we got one of Vincent's guns very early on in FFVII.
So, two ranged fighters, one using a thrown disk, and another using just straight up guns. Interesting! The game hasn't yet established range rules, I don't think? I wonder what's the mechanical impact here, I don't remember seeing a situation where a flying or faraway opponent is immune to bullets like we saw in VII yet.
Also, while this new magazine gives me the 'recipe' for an upgrade to Squall's revolver, I… Have no idea where the hell I'm supposed to find a Steep Pipe or Screws. I don't think any of these items has dropped yet and I haven't seen them in a store.
…come to think of it, "how the fuck do I upgrade weapons, I have the magazines but none of the crafting mats" is a frustration I distantly recall struggling with as a child playing this game. Huh.
Well, we'll see if we run into Pipes and Screws eventually. For now, we've been called to the front gate to get the details of our assignment.
There's a lot of incidental dialogue to be found across BGU which is mostly just students living their lives, commenting on the SeeD exam, having crushes, congratulating Squall, and so on. It's a really nice means of immersion into the living universe of Balamb Garden.
We make our way to the gate, where we find Selphie, Cid, and one of the Faculty members. Everyone just quietly waits for Zell to show up late, which seems to be typical. But when he arrives…
Oh, my god.
He's riding a hoverboard. And look at his outfit.
Zell is distilled 90s energy, from his hairdo to his facial tattoo to his ADHD extrovert affect to his clothes to his fucking hoverboard, it's incredible. He also gets instantly denied, with the Faculty member confiscating his 'T-Board.'
We're definitely sneaking into a locker room to steal that thing later, aren't we?
Oh, also, this is our first look at Zell and Selphie's casualwear. Selphie's outfit is fine, her yellow dress is cute, very sunny, nice boots. Zell… I'm sorry, I do not vibe with shorts. Good color scheme, though.
The Faculty member berates Zell that as SeeD, not only is he subject to the same rules as normal students, but on top of that he is supposed to set an example for others to follow.
If we take this at face value that might partly explain Seifer constantly being failed in the exams, but… By now it seems clear these motives aren't fully honest.
But who cares about that, it's time for our first-ever mission as official SeeD!
Cid: "Well, about your first mission… You are to go to Timber. There, you will be supporting a resistance faction. That is your mission. A member of the faction will contact you at Timber Station!"
Garden Faculty: "This person will talk to you and say, 'The forests of Timber sure have changed.' At this time, you must reply, 'But the owls are still around.' That is the password."
Cid: "Just follow the faction's order."
Zell: "Uh… Just us 3?"
Garden Faculty: "Correct. We have agreed to do this mission for very little money. Normally, we would never accept such requests, but…"
Cid: "Enough talk about that. Well then, Squall. You are the squad leader. Use your best judgment based on the situation. Zell and Selphie, you are to support Squall and give your all to carry the faction's plans."
…okay, I am starting to love just how awful Balamb Garden is, in like a perverse way. Sure, why not! "The pay they had for us was so small we'd normally have laughed them out of the room, but just this once we decided to take the contract and give it to three SeeDs who literally graduated yesterday, without a senior member or instructor for oversight." Just, hilariously venal and callous.
Now, the exchange 'We would never accept such requests, but…' // 'Enough talk about that' suggests that there is a reason for this that isn't just 'we had three low ranking new SeeDs so we figured why not grab the easy money even if it's beneath our usual standards'; there's a reason they felt like taking this contract even for cheap. And this time it's not the Garden Faculty interrupting Cid, but the other way around; so another notch on the 'Cid is the real mastermind with a falsely pleasant persona' scoreboard.
Really curious where the game is going with this now.
And I'll suppose we'll find out shortly! It's soon time to head out to Timber (bizarre town name btw) and join forces with a resistance movement. Could it be against Galbadian occupation? More geopolitics to come? Excited for it!
…Just one thing before we leave.
Before we head out, Cid had a gift for us. Or perhaps 'gift' is too strong a word.
He gives us the 'Magical Lamp,' which he describes as 'a cursed item, but if one with enough power uses it, it should be of great help.'
Now, looking at the Magical Lamp in the menu only says one thing: "You should Save your game before using it!"
So we do just that. We Save the game, and then we trigger the item.
…
Everything goes dark.
We fade to a sunless place of endless clouds under the dark.
And…
…
No notes.
Anyway, Diablos annihilates our entire party within moments.
Thanks for reading!
Next Time: To Timber!
The SeeD Party
After receiving our grades and rank, we fade out to Squall's dorms, where Selphie is showing off her SeeD uniform. She's really excited and happy with it, it's cute. She also tells Squall to get changed so they can get to the party, which means… Another alternate costume? I'm getting spoiled. Now I'm really starting to wish the game will eventually have a costume closet where we can pick Squall's outfit.
Hmm. I'm actually not sure which I prefer. The school uniform has a kind of… Elegant simplicity to it. The SeeD uniform is a little ostentatious. Makes sense given how prestigious they're meant to be, I suppose.
Selphie welcomes Squall back with… Let me just quote her.
Selphie: "Heeey! Lookin' good! Alright! Let's hit that PAAH-TAY!"
Honestly her enthusiasm is infectious. Well, to me, anyway. Squall isn't impressed.
Oh my god.
He's literally this meme:
Squall, as someone who has been the kid standing in the corner watching people dance and thinking I'm above these trivialities, nobody thinks you're cool. C'mon. Relax a little.
Well tries to get Squall to do a high five, and Squall does not even bother replying, pointedly drinking from his cup while Zell just stands there like an idiot. What a dick. Zell tells him he's his still his typical self even as a SeeD, then leaves, whereupon he is ambushed off-screen by Selphie who tries to recruit him to the Garden Festival committee, at which point Zell comes up with a bullshit excuse and leaves.
Oh, yeah, I guess I did agree with Selphie to take part in the Garden Festival committee. Her dialogue didn't seem different depending on my choice so I assumed the game wouldn't keep track of it, but I wonder if I accidentally stepped into some Consequences.
And then… Squall looks above his glass, to the crowd, and…
And so she appears.
We haven't been introduced yet, but even with a different outfit, it seems pretty obvious that this is Blue Girl from the intro. What's her deal? Well, we aren't going to find out quite yet. Our girl is standing there alone, looking at shooting stars in the sky, then turning to smile at Squall - and, like a deer in the woods, our poor loner is seized upon by a terrible foe: an extroverted girl who finds him attractive and refuses to acknowledge his 'go away' aura.
Girl: "You're the best looking guy here. Dance with me?"
(Squall ignores her.)
Girl: "Let me guess… You'll only dance with someone you like. Ok then…"
Girl: (She puts her hand in front of his face like she is a hypnotist.) "Look into my eyes… You're-going-to-like-me… You're-going-to-like-me…"
Girl: "Did it work?"
Squall: "...I can't dance."
Girl: "You'll be fine. Come on." (She grabs him by the arm and pulls him away.) "I'm looking for someone. I can't be on the dance floor alone."
Incredible. Our boy was defeated instantly. He put up absolutely no resistance. She carved through him like butter. Honestly, I like her already.
Credit to the animation team on this one: Squall is actually terrible at dancing. His GF bonding has granted him absolutely no shmoves (or perhaps the GFs aren't helping because he's now doing some 'GF bonding' of his own HO HO HO HO HO). He is awkward, needs the girl to constantly correct his footing, and actually bumps into other people. Honestly, after being such a dick all evening (and about to be even more of a dick), seeing Squall getting owned a little is satisfying.
However, he adapts very quickly (probably those enhanced SeeD reflexes). After he nearly storms off in embarrassment, the girl pulls him back again, makes him take a few steps, and he quickly starts moving much better, until he is twirling the girl around his arm like it was nothing. At the end of the dance, we move into a slow, the lights dim, and the fireworks explode; our two lovebirds look up. It's a really nice scene.
The girl does not give Squall her name - she sees something over his shoulder that draws her attention, parts from him, and leaves while he stands there, watching her. We fade from the FMV to Squall standing on a balcony, alone, and then Quistis slowly approaches.
Quistis: "You really are an excellent student. Even that dance was perfect."
Squall: "Thank you."
(A moment passes.)
Squall: "Yes?"
Quistis: "So you'll dance with someone you don't even know, but you can't stand being around me?"
Squall: "...Whatever." (He turns to look at her.) "You're an instructor, and I'm your student. It's kind of awkward when you don't say anything."
(Quistis chuckles.)
Is she… jealous?
She is jealous.
Flirting with your student is one thing (a bad thing, to be clear! You shouldn't do it!) but then getting mad at your student for being interested in another girl is just - this is a fantastic level of insecurity and unhealthy teacher-student dynamics, that's incredible.
I get the impression that 'insecurity' is Quistis's defining issue, honestly. Like - Squall is just kind of aloof and a bit of an asshole to everyone, but here she says, "you can't stand being around me," like he hates her, when he's just uncomfortable with the flirting and otherwise no worse to her than he is to everyone. But I think Quistis is extremely rejection-sensitive and struggles with her self-image, and Squall not being responsive to her flirting makes her feel like he genuinely hates her.
More on that in a moment.
I don't really understand the segue into "it's kind of awkward when you don't say anything" and how that connects to anything, but Quistis chuckles.
Quistis: "That's true. I was like that myself. …Oh, I completely forgot. I wonder what's to become of me? I've come to give you an order. You and I are to go to the 'secret area.' It's where students secretly meet up and talk after curfew. It's inside the [training center]."
Squall: "What do you want to do there? Are we going to tell everyone they're violating curfew? If that's the case, forget it. Leave that for the disciplinary committee."
(Quistis laughs.)
Quistis: "Go get changed and meet me in front of the training center. This will be my last order."
She is abusing her authority as a teacher to order her student to meet her at Makeout Point, incredible.
Well, not much to do but go along with it. First, we get Squall changed back into his casual clothes, and then meet with Quistis on the way to the training center.
There are special versions of the backdrops that have night lighting.
We meet Quistis and head inside the Training Grounds. We've only briefly been there before, enough to fight a couple of plants, but now we're exploring them fully. So what are those monsters that are being fed to the students to practice their fighting skills?
Well, you see, the training grounds have two enemy types. One is the Grat:
Grats show up alone or in pairs. They are ambulatory plant lifeforms which are weak but have a few notable features - their Vampire attack lets them drain a small amount of health, their Gastric Juice attack has a small chance to cause Poison, and their Sleeping Gas attack is a move that hits the whole party with Sleep, putting them in a state of inaction until struck by a physical attack. This can make Grats more challenging than their low HP and damage would suggest. In turn, we can draw Sleep and Silence spells from them, which could potentially be useful finds, depending on how viable status effects are in this game.
Exploring the Training Grounds mostly just results in Grat encounters. In terms of aesthetic, I want to say that this place has been pretty obviously influenced by Jurassic Park - check out the jungle setting, the winding metallic fences, and the heavy equipment:
I say inspired by Jurassic Park because of the aesthetic similarities to Isla Nubar, but also because of the other denizen of the Training Grounds…
…T-Rexaur.
Variations on the tyrannosaur have been a mainstay of the series and they are usually pretty powerful. Now, in any other game, the fact that we encounter T-Rexaur so early would be a bit underwhelming; sure, it's a nasty surprise right now, but if we come back in five hours we'll eat half a dozen for breakfast. However, as we've established, FF8 uses scaling levels, which means T-Rexaur's threat level is theoretically going to continue to escalate just as our ability to cope with it does (I, of course, have no idea if we'll eventually overwhelm it completely or if it'll stay a threat). But by the same token, that means it should be a real challenge but still something we can defeat right now, right?
So let's give it a Scan.
T-Rexaur has 15,187 HP.
That thing has nearly three times the HP of the Galbadian spider mech, while we are working with only two party members. We are, uh, not defeating that any time soon. Like, that thing is weak to Ice, right? (Either as a reference to 'cold-blooded dinosaurs' or as an ice age joke). So let's throw a Blizzard at it…
275 damage.
Killing it would only take 60 casts. Meanwhile, it deals 200-300 damage with every attack. So I'm going to be casting one Cure for each Blizzard I manage to sneak in.
Yeah, we're not doing this today. I elect to run away.
The T-Rexaur is a hilarious jack-in-the-box to throw at players and I kind of respect the game for it, honestly. I'll get around to fighting it later, but right now we're running like hell.
…
Too bad the game spoils you on it though.
When you meet Quistis in the corridor leading to the Training Center, she first asks Cloud if he has any experience fighting T-Rexaur.
Which means, if you haven't been, or have only been a little (because, for instance, each previous instance where you could have had Squall being alone and you didn't want to level him up ahead of the rest of the party's curve), then Quistis just spoils one of the game's funniest sneak attacks, where the surprise of seeing it for the first time is part of the fun. It's a bit of a shame… Especially because this doubles as a tutorial on how to beat that seemingly invincible foe.
This is yet another tutorial, the Status Junction tutorial. It's simple: By junctioning status effect magic to Attack, you can cause your attack to have a chance to deliver that status effect, while by junctioning a status effect to Defense, we gain a chance to ignore that effect, like with VII's Added Effect Materia. The way it works is that the number of stored cast influences the odds; having 100 Blinds junctioned to Defense grants a 100% chance to resist Blindness, while having 100 Sleeps junctioned to Attack grants a… 80% chance to inflict Sleep with physical attacks? I don't think it goes up to 100%, but this is a massive increase over VII's Added Materia which only gave a 20% chance to inflict the status. This could potentially make physical attacks incredibly powerful. Additionally, junctioning a multi-status magic will instead grant lower chances to inflict/resist all those magics; Esuna, for instance, when junctioned to Defense, grants a small chance to ignore every status effect.
Again, the thing to remember: We do not have access to Magic Junctioning by default, only through GF abilities. We need to actually unlock these abilities before we can give Squall a 100% chance to Silence every enemy with every attack or whatever.
So what's Quistis's advice on defeating T-Rexaur? "Junction Sleep to physical attacks." Which… Actually sounds like it would be effective? It would bounce T-Rexaur in a constant state of sleep and allow me to take a break between attacks to heal whenever I want. Intriguing.
Unfortunately in order to do that I need both the Junction Status Attacks ability and enough Sleep spells to make attacks have a decent chance at proccing it; just doing a few Draws to have like 20-30 Sleeps and junctioning them (on Quistis, since I have only one GF with the Junction Status Attacks ability for now, so only one character can equip it) doesn't get me a high enough chance of Sleep to stop T-Rexaur's onslaught at all.
The game is actively pushing me to Draw 100 of every spell I care to Junction, it's growing more and more obvious; even the Tutorial screens use 100s as their default example. The game wants me to Draw-farm. So… I guess I'll do that?
Not now, though. T-Rexaur lives to see another day. We have plot to deal with.
God but the shots in this game are gorgeous.
She literally did take Squall to Makeout Point, god. There are even student couples around in their own corners being lovey-dovey to each other.
So, what's this all about? Did Quistis use her authority as a teacher to force her student to follow her to Makeout Point to do a confession or something? Well… No.
Quistis: "What time is it?"
Squall: "It's after midnight."
Quistis: (She slumps forward.) "Oh well…"
Quistis: "I, Quistis Trepe, am no longer an instructor as of now!"
(She turns to Squall.)
Quistis: "I'm a member of SeeD now, just like you. Who knows, maybe we'll end up working together."
Squall: "...oh really?"
Quistis: "Is that all you're going to say?"
Squall: "If that's how it was decided, you have to abide by it."
Quistis: (She slumps again.) "They told me that I had failed as an instructor. Basically, that I lacked leadership qualities. I was a SeeD by the age of 15, got my instructor license at 17… It's only been a year since I got it… I wonder where I went wrong… I did my best…"
Oh, my god, she's a child prodigy burnout. Fuck. The relatable levels are off the chart.
Yeah, I see it now. She's… God, she's bad at this. That's the painful thing: As much as "Quistis pulls a machine gun and blows up the spider mech" was an all-timer moment, as much as I enjoy her needling Squall and Seifer, I think her superiors are… right? She can't maintain the distance required between friend and student, whether that's actively flirting with Squall or trading barbs with Seifer, whom she hasn't been able to assert authority over.
And of course she hasn't! She's the same age as her oldest students. She graduated at 15 and immediately threw herself into instructor training, and instead of a TA-like position they shoved her into a teacher position and made her oversee active warfare. That was a bad use of a gifted student. Balamb Garden is to blame for this!
I'm getting a serious 'chew them up and spit them out' vibe for this. Plus, if Balamb Garden has only been operational for 12 years, the number of teachers who are graduating SeeDs can't be that high, can it?
Pushing Quistis out of the way means keeping the shady Garden Faculty in charge without requiring navigating around someone who's naive about BGU's goals and isn't 'in' on whatever Moonspiracy is going on here… How convenient.
And Quistis doesn't really know how to deal with any of it, so she's reaching out to the one person she's been trying to reach out to, in a way where I'm starting to think her flirting is less actual flirting that it's just… Awkwardly using what little social skills she has to tease him, try to get him to open up to her, to make a connection.
But she's not very good at this. And also, she's picked entirely the wrong person for it.
Squall: "Are you done yet…? I don't wanna talk about it. What am I supposed to say about other people's problems?"
Quistis: "I'm not asking you to say anything. I just want you to listen."
Squall: "Then go talk to a wall."
Quistis: "Aren't there times when you want to share your feelings with someone?"
(Squall looks away from her, folding his arms and staring at the ground.)
Squall: "Everyone has to take care of themselves. I don't want to carry anyone's burden."
(He leaves.)
Quistis, to herself: "...No leadership qualities… Failed instructor… Perhaps they're right…"
(The camera pans to the sky; fade to the Training Center.)
Jesus, Squall. What a dick.
Our boy clearly has some issues of his own. Trauma of some kind? I don't know, but holy shit. "If you want someone to listen to you, go talk to a wall"? Like, Quistis's behavior has been highly inappropriate (although she's not even a teacher anymore), but she's helped him, fought with him, and her attempt to open up about her insecurities have him go "skill issue, fuck off."
Like… Man. Squall is starting to grate on my nerves a little. And I will admit: Part of it is definitely me running into Quistis at the tender age of like, nine and being profoundly changed forever and as a result being biased towards her side of this exchange even if my perspective on the whole 'bad teacher' thing has changed with age, but still.
The attempt at a Moment now thoroughly ruined, we're walking back in silence to the exit of the Training Center - only for a scream to suddenly alert us; somebody is calling for help!
…is that Blue Girl from the OP? I think it's her, but it's hard to tell - she would have a different dress than she did during the dance scene, but then Quistis and Squall also changed in the time between, and her hair is a shade lighter than it was then..? Okay, now I'm genuinely not sure if I'm supposed to recognize this as Blue Girl from the OP and the dance scene or if this is a wholly separate character.
You can make naturalistic models with detailed clothes in the PSX engine and still run into facial recognition issue, I suppose.
…also, although we don't know her name, she's referring to Squall by name and to Quistis by the cutesy nickname 'Quisty,' which I haven't heard anyone use before. So, huh.
That's weird.
Anyway let's fight a giant bug.
This boss battle is interesting. It's a group battle; the giant flying bug, Granaldo, is hiding behind three carapaced opponents called Raldo. Granaldo's mode of attack is fairly unique; it picks up the Raldos, and throws them at us like huge boulders. It's an interesting design but ultimately these opponents are fairly weak (each Raldo has 243 HP, Granaldo has 1538), meaning we can wipe out most of the Granaldo with a single Summon.
This is by far the coolest Ifrit to date.
…I've realized something.
Until and unless the game introduces multi-hit magic, we do not have omnispells in this game. We cannot toggle Fire to hit all opponents the way we could use in some older games, and we cannot pair Fire with an All Materia to do so either. Which means our offensive spells are single-target only. But, unlike in VI and VII, Summons do not hard hard caps on how many times they can be summoned during a given fight.
Which means summons have effectively taken the place of omnispells. Ifrit doesn't hit that hard all things considered, but he is our only way to cast a fire attack on all opponents. So that's an interesting niche for GFs to fulfill. Will it matter? Not sure.
Once a GF has wiped out the Raldos, Granaldo is left to resort to its very weak physical attack, and we can just punt him around while making fun of his hair until he dies.
Mystery girl falls theatrically once the threat is past, but before we can ask her anything, two dudes in uniform surround her, talking to her in the particular "deferential but urgent" tone of bodyguards; she agrees to leave, and they guide her out while she extends a glance with Squall and one of the bodyguards bows to us, which seems to be a gesture of thanks for saving her life, but they don't pause for any more than that, or any explanation.
…yeah, as I suspected, this girl may know her, but neither Squall nor Quistis have any clue who she is.
Oh, and given that Quistis did see Squall dance with the girl at the party but isn't recognizing this girl, that was probably a different person.
Although… Wait.
That's the blue girl from the infirmary intro, saying 'so we meet again,' which at the time I did think was Blue Girl from the OP.
Okay. I'm just completely confused now. The girl in the OP, the girl whom Squall danced with at the party, and the girl we just saved from monsters who watched him in the infirmary might be one and the same, or they might be two different girls. I have no clue at this stage, and I don't think I'm supposed to be confused, I think this is just a matter of characters still lacking in defined facial features outside of FMV and no voice acting.
I'll just keep going and it'll be sorted out eventually in the course of the plot.
At the exit of the Training Center, Quistis parts from Squall with one last warning "it's not like everyone can get by on their own, you know?" She leaves, and Squall says to himself, "...Says who?"
We head back to the dorms, where Zell is waiting for Squall and saying he's been looking all over the place for him - now that they are members of SeeD, they get their own rooms!
…yeah, this is nostalgic. Not in a 'playing this game as a kid' way, in a 'I had a dorm room very much like this one' way. I thought the rooms they had previously were individual, just connected to a central space, but I guess not - this is a full room with a desk and a wardrobe and stuff. It's nice. You're moving up in the world, Squall.
…Squall, you absolute freak, do you just sleep in your day clothes lying on top of your bedsheets!?
I get that animating a blanket would be unnecessary effort and costs and Squall doesn't need an extra outfit model for 'pajamas,' but my god dude, please take care of yourself a little!
On Squall's desk is another issue of Weapons Monthly, which reveals a few potential upgrades as well as new weapons for characters we haven't seen yet, serving as a stealth preview of sorts, like when we got one of Vincent's guns very early on in FFVII.
So, two ranged fighters, one using a thrown disk, and another using just straight up guns. Interesting! The game hasn't yet established range rules, I don't think? I wonder what's the mechanical impact here, I don't remember seeing a situation where a flying or faraway opponent is immune to bullets like we saw in VII yet.
Also, while this new magazine gives me the 'recipe' for an upgrade to Squall's revolver, I… Have no idea where the hell I'm supposed to find a Steep Pipe or Screws. I don't think any of these items has dropped yet and I haven't seen them in a store.
…come to think of it, "how the fuck do I upgrade weapons, I have the magazines but none of the crafting mats" is a frustration I distantly recall struggling with as a child playing this game. Huh.
Well, we'll see if we run into Pipes and Screws eventually. For now, we've been called to the front gate to get the details of our assignment.
There's a lot of incidental dialogue to be found across BGU which is mostly just students living their lives, commenting on the SeeD exam, having crushes, congratulating Squall, and so on. It's a really nice means of immersion into the living universe of Balamb Garden.
We make our way to the gate, where we find Selphie, Cid, and one of the Faculty members. Everyone just quietly waits for Zell to show up late, which seems to be typical. But when he arrives…
Oh, my god.
He's riding a hoverboard. And look at his outfit.
Zell is distilled 90s energy, from his hairdo to his facial tattoo to his ADHD extrovert affect to his clothes to his fucking hoverboard, it's incredible. He also gets instantly denied, with the Faculty member confiscating his 'T-Board.'
We're definitely sneaking into a locker room to steal that thing later, aren't we?
Oh, also, this is our first look at Zell and Selphie's casualwear. Selphie's outfit is fine, her yellow dress is cute, very sunny, nice boots. Zell… I'm sorry, I do not vibe with shorts. Good color scheme, though.
The Faculty member berates Zell that as SeeD, not only is he subject to the same rules as normal students, but on top of that he is supposed to set an example for others to follow.
If we take this at face value that might partly explain Seifer constantly being failed in the exams, but… By now it seems clear these motives aren't fully honest.
But who cares about that, it's time for our first-ever mission as official SeeD!
Cid: "Well, about your first mission… You are to go to Timber. There, you will be supporting a resistance faction. That is your mission. A member of the faction will contact you at Timber Station!"
Garden Faculty: "This person will talk to you and say, 'The forests of Timber sure have changed.' At this time, you must reply, 'But the owls are still around.' That is the password."
Cid: "Just follow the faction's order."
Zell: "Uh… Just us 3?"
Garden Faculty: "Correct. We have agreed to do this mission for very little money. Normally, we would never accept such requests, but…"
Cid: "Enough talk about that. Well then, Squall. You are the squad leader. Use your best judgment based on the situation. Zell and Selphie, you are to support Squall and give your all to carry the faction's plans."
…okay, I am starting to love just how awful Balamb Garden is, in like a perverse way. Sure, why not! "The pay they had for us was so small we'd normally have laughed them out of the room, but just this once we decided to take the contract and give it to three SeeDs who literally graduated yesterday, without a senior member or instructor for oversight." Just, hilariously venal and callous.
Now, the exchange 'We would never accept such requests, but…' // 'Enough talk about that' suggests that there is a reason for this that isn't just 'we had three low ranking new SeeDs so we figured why not grab the easy money even if it's beneath our usual standards'; there's a reason they felt like taking this contract even for cheap. And this time it's not the Garden Faculty interrupting Cid, but the other way around; so another notch on the 'Cid is the real mastermind with a falsely pleasant persona' scoreboard.
Really curious where the game is going with this now.
And I'll suppose we'll find out shortly! It's soon time to head out to Timber (bizarre town name btw) and join forces with a resistance movement. Could it be against Galbadian occupation? More geopolitics to come? Excited for it!
…Just one thing before we leave.
Before we head out, Cid had a gift for us. Or perhaps 'gift' is too strong a word.
He gives us the 'Magical Lamp,' which he describes as 'a cursed item, but if one with enough power uses it, it should be of great help.'
Now, looking at the Magical Lamp in the menu only says one thing: "You should Save your game before using it!"
So we do just that. We Save the game, and then we trigger the item.
…
Everything goes dark.
We fade to a sunless place of endless clouds under the dark.
And…
…
No notes.
Anyway, Diablos annihilates our entire party within moments.
Thanks for reading!
Next Time: To Timber!
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Kemayo
A Certain Cheerful Tone Of Voice
- Location
- Missouri
I feel like I remember Diablos being beatable pretty early on, though I also have a faint memory of it being something I'd fight in Timber. I guess future updates may jog my memory as to why I'd have waited until then. 😂
It's pretty in-character with everything else he's done so far, to be fair...
Dybbukpossesed
Falling Somewhere
- Location
- California
Oh my God Squall, even Squall is more social than you and have you met that guy?
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Timber isn't that weird a name, is it? By itself it's a little odd, but there's all sorts of places named Timber Whatever on account of the forests around.
daniel_gudman
KING (in land of blind)
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Cid is so powerful and so evil he probably has like 30 of them. Just give them out to every fresh SeeD and see what happens