Which makes me particularly puzzled, because I did type in "shuugyou" (due to carelessness and not paying attention) and got that kanji, so apparently Microsoft Japanese IME has some form of autocorrect that's smarter than I am.
(If anyone was wondering, I made the mistake because the first kanji, 授, is read in Chinese as "shou", and I made an incorrect assumption.)
A little bit behind the games, but I've been playing the Super Mario RPG remake and it reminded me of the mini game hell that was FF7. Except, you know the mini games were actually good.
But I think that that is where Square picked up their love of mini games from
Update time: I'm at The Shinra Building and things are getting tense/ Just completed Kingdom Hearts Re:Chain Of Memories, Ansem was frustrating (I literally had too keep doing the duel mechanic to stop him from running me down) /so far FF7 is easier but I expect some bonus bosses to be bruiser's such as what I've heard about "Emerald Weapon"
Welcome back, class, to Final Fantasy VIII 101. Today's lesson:
Random Dungeon Hours
Nothing here is going to be as bad as the Centra Mining Complex, in fact I even had fun, but we're about to see what's probably the most jarring "Here is a dungeon because you gotta have a dungeon" moment in the game so far.
Last time, we recruited Irvine Kinneas, got our orders to assassinate the Sorceress, and were sent to meet with one 'General Caraway' in Deling City to get our instructions. Which means…
…it's time for more trains!
Irvine, horndog that he is, is musing about which of the girls in the group he's planning to hit on next. Squall decides not to head into the compartment because, and I quote him, 'Selphie might throw a fit if I go in first,' at which point she appears, heads inside, and tells Squall "Hee! You caught on!"
So I guess Selphie has now claimed rights of… First entry into train cars. I know she's passionate about trains, but that one's a little weird.
Irvine heads in after her, Quistis and Rinoa suggests maybe Squall should check in on them, and then…
Here is Irvine declaring that it is fate for them to be together (note: he was basically doing eenie-meenie-whiny-moe about which girl to hit on literally two minutes ago).
Irvine: "Selphie… We're destined to be together!" Selphie: "Y-Yeah right…!" Irvine: "A sigh of love?" Selphie: (Jumping in place awkwardly) "N-No…"
(Irvine leaves the room.) Selphie: "My heart's pounding… What is this I'm feeling?" Squall: "It's an important mission. Get used to handling pressure while you still can." Selphie: "...(sigh)"
Selphie. Selphie my girl. Please don't tell me the bishie cowboy act is working on you. You deserve so much better. Irvine probably doesn't even like trains.
Back in the outside compartment, Quistis is admonishing Irvine for his behavior, and I just… I can't believe this guy.
Irvine: "Rinoa…" (He's obviously going to hit on her but before he can say anything else he's interrupted.) Quistis: "Irvine Kinneas! You're playing a major role in this mission. Now behave yourself!" Irvine. "No one understands me… Sharpshooters are loners by nature…" (He takes a dramatic pose, tilting his head back with a hand on his forehead.) "We hone our instinct, pour our whole being into a single bullet. The pressure of the moment… An instant of tension… That's what… I have to face alone… It's not easy. So like… Just do me a favor, and let me be! You get my drift?"
Irvine you dramatic bitch. Oh my god. I cannot fucking take him serious, what a… What a teenager. Fuck. You know, I give Squall a lot of shit, but at least our boy has yet to turn to the camera and say "I am so tormented you guys, none of you understand my paaaaaain, any way let me slide into your DMs queen."
Zell takes poorly at this, and in his typical hot-headed fashion, his reaction is to punch the ground… So hard that the entire train shakes and the lights briefly go out.
Incredible stuff.
Anyway, with that skit out of the way, we are headed for Galbadia.
The overworld view when traveling by train really enhance the experience IMO, makes the world feel bigger.
Honestly, this train station really does look like some I've been to in Paris, although with a more art déco vibe. It feels almost like home. And here we are: Deling City. There's lights everywhere and a few landmark that seem kind of baffling until I realize that they are, I think, floats? You know, giant balloons for a parade of some kind.
Like that bizarre thing in the top right corner.
Rinoa says that to head for General Caraway's mansion, we should take bus 08. Squall remarks that she's pretty familiar with the place and she doesn't answer, but yeah, that is curious. She clearly knows where Caraway lives already and is familiar with the Deling City public transport system - that sounds like a native, not like a visitor. Squall, however, is distracted from this by the fact that, despite having never been here, he recognizes the city:
It's all just like in Laguna's dreams. Same fountain, same triumphal arch, same hotel if we go there…
No sign of Julia or any other familiar character from those dreams, though. Not that I was expecting there to be, but I had to check, just to be sure.
Our obvious next step, as indicated by Rinoa, is to take the bus and head to Caraway's estate. But… I'm not gonna do that. First off, I want to visit more of Deling City, which is huge, and has a bunch of screens Laguna didn't have access to.
Is that… A giant jester-shaped balloon set?
Notably, Deling City doesn't have just the one bus to take us to the General's residence: It has a whole-ass public transport system, with bus stops on pretty much every screen we can use to travel to other locations within the city. That's really cool!
But what I want is to explore further.
Instead, we rent a car and head out to the map to see what we can explore.
So, a really cool thing this game is picking up from VII: Both games have that thing where the time of day changes depending on where you are in the world. Now, that makes figuring out exact timelines for stuff like the Dollet invasion kind of hellish, but given that day/night cycles are probably impossible for a game of this generation, it's a really neat way of conveying the sense of time passing with travels. In VII, that was most noticeable with Cosmo Canyon's perpetual sunset, with Midgar being arguable (it seemed like it was night most of the time but also the population was so thick it's possible sunlight just never went through), and here it's with Deling City which is always in nighttime, with the skybox changing as we approach… And it's reflected in the random encounters, too.
So, where can we go from here? Well… Quite a few places, actually!
There's a "missile base" out in the desert that we can seem to be able to enter, and we can also find the infamous desert prison set up by President Deling, although we're not allowed in. We can also drive as far back as Dollet and Timber, though there's not that much to do there beyond checking out some updated dialogue (we do save a little girl from getting run over by a train though, which nets us a free stay at the Timber hotel where we can grab another issue of Timber Maniacs).
I've noticed that there seems to be a Timber Maniacs issue in most inns and hotel rooms; I've been collecting them, but I have no idea what, if any purpose that will eventually serve. This included one issue in the Galbadia Hotel Room, the same one Laguna met Julia in, but we didn't find anything else relevant to those characters.
So, let's head back to Deling and meet with General Caraway!
…or not.
There's a guard at the entrance who denies us entry. When Squall explains that we are awaited, the guard says he's aware of that, he has been instructed not to allow us in until 'our skills have been tested.' Rinoa muses that Caraway is "still so skeptical of people," again hinting that she knows Caraway.
Dude. You're the one hiring us. If you think SeeD isn't up to the task, then we don't have anything to prove, good luck doing it yourself?
This is probably the most jarringly 'video game-y' moment in the game so far, in that we are given a sidequest that is very obviously a sidequest under flimsy pretenses that don't really hold up to scrutiny. There is a place outside Deling City called the Tomb of the Unknown King, and Caraway's test is for us to go there and come back with proof - specifically, retrieve the lost ID number of a Galbadia Garden student who also wanted an appointment with Caraway, was also sent to the Tomb 'yesterday' and never came back.
There's no evidence that this student died or anything, it's only been one day, they could have just backed down and left to go anywhere, but this is our test. The guard adds that we will find what we're looking for very close to the entrance (How would he know that?) and that we shouldn't go any further as the place is highly dangerous.
Then he gives us a map of the Tomb. Which is nice of him. Before we head for the Tomb, we can also buy extra stuff from him - a 'hint' for 3000 gil, or a 'location displayer' for 5000 gil. At this stage I could easily afford it (my SeeD salary has been piling up due to not really have anything to spend it on), but I decide to just do things the hard way.
Our car sadly runs out of fuel midway to the Tomb, so we do the rest on foot. The moment we enter the area, we see two Garden students run out of the tomb in a panic while shouting 'F-Float!'
Okay, so Float is going to be relevant to the dungeon in some way or another. Got it. Too bad we don't have Float - there's a random encounter in the area that has it but I will only see it after we're done with the Tomb. So we'll have to just figure it out.
Great scenery for the outside environment, though. So let's head in.
It's ancient, it's gloomy, it's damp, that's a dungeon, for sure.
Just as the guard had told us, we actually found the item we're looking for immediately upon entering: It's a sword, likely the student's personal weapon, which they dropped, hopefully while escaping and not while being dragged into the Tomb's depths by monsters.
Which makes this dungeon entirely optional. That makes a lot of the bullshit that's about to follow more tolerable: We can literally just leave any time we want, come back later, buy those hints from the guard, all that stuff. That's nice!
Of course I fully intend to tackle the thing immediately just as I did Diablos. It won't even be that hard.
It might be a little tricky to explain to you, though. I have visual aids but it's not quite the same as experiencing it. Let me see if I can try.
This is the map of the Tomb of the Ancient King. We can open it at any time by pressing Select:
It even has a mercy mechanic in the form of pressing Triangle to instantly escape from the Tomb. Doing so results in the loss of a SeeD rank, but that's something we can easily manage with tests - we're still 'only' Rank 9 out of 30 and I'm still pretty much free of any possible money problem.
We're still not gonna do it, but mostly out of pride.
So. How does the Tomb work?
It is, pretty much, a series of identical corridors and crossroads. We pick a direction, and move to the next screen. Usually, it's another identical crossroads.
And I do mean identical. That is to say, they're identical no matter which side you enter from. That means, the crossroads screen you see above is the entrance screen of the Tomb. If we advance forwards, we land on this screen:
Which you may recognize as identical minus the sword. Now, if we turn back, we find… This exact same screen. There is no change in background to reflect that we came from the north. Or the east, or west, or south.
Which means that a given crossroads screen, by itself, contains no indication of which direction we're facing, and which exits will lead where. We cannot know if we are facing North, South, East or West.
We have to rely on memory. Navigation goes something like this:
"I am on the first screen, facing North. I will take the left-hand road, going West. This means on the next screen, I will be facing West; I will then take the right-hand road, going North."
Do you get what I mean? It's pretty much designed to fuck with an innate tendency to get cardinal directions and personal positioning mixed up - left/right/front/back and North/South/East/West are unrelated, but we tend to get them confused. Of course, not all screens are crossroads: There are bends, which are linear, and can serve as useful references on the map if we get lost.
So what do we do inside that tomb?
Well, since it's optional, we're not given any indications or objectives. However, from the map, it's easy to see that is a central location as well as three unique rooms at the West, North and East. The central location is inaccessible due to being surrounded by a moat:
So, that's not going to help us. As for the other rooms, the West and North rooms are similar: Each one sports a massive stele blocking the way.
The original script carved on the stele is unknown and can't be deciphered, but the poor student who was there before us has scribbled something about how he's utterly lost, can't find what he's been asked to find, and can't take it anymore. He's not qualified to be… A SeeD…? I thought the student we were after was from Galbadia Garden. I guess this was written by a different student from Balamb? Or maybe the earlier implications that 'SeeD' is a turn that only applies to GF-using Balamb Garden graduates was in error?
Both steles contain detailed instructions on which series of movements to take in order to get out of there, but we don't need it - just referencing the map and planning each step gets us through the maze efficiently.
…until we run into a random encounter.
This is Armadodo. He's a fun monster! He's got high HP and very high Defense, but shit Magid Defense, so we whack him with spells until he dies; he has several attack animations, including one where he rolls into a ball and slams into us, and if we hit him hard enough he falls over on his back and can't do anything for a few turns. As a monster it's got a lot of personality.
Unfortunately going through that much HP while drawing a few Protects takes time, and by the time the encounter is over… I don't remember which direction I was facing before the fight began.
And there is no way to find out. There are no reference points I can use to find my way. The only thing I can do is just blindly advance and wait to eventually land on a recognizable screen I can orient myself from.
We also fight these giant living jell-os on the way; their gimmick is that they are nearly immune to all damage except one element and the element changes based on the individual jelly so we need to scan them every time.
It takes a while. Eventually though, we find our way to the West room. And this time, there is no stele blocking our way - we enter a small room, where a statue of a minotaur stands on a pedestal. If we try to interact with it…
It attacks.
This is "Sacred", probably one of the most bizarrely named GFs in the game. He is a minotaur wielding a giant mace, and he has a simple gimmick - every turn, he heals a small amount of HP (a little over 100). This isn't enough to make him an invincible foe, but it does mean his nominally small 1940 HP is somewhat inflated by the constant healing.
Now, Scan identifies Sacred as an "Earth GF," and says that he "recovers by power of the earth." Between this and the students who were shouting about Float when we entered the tomb, it seems pretty obvious that casting Float on Sacred will shut down his healing. Unfortunately, we don't have any stocked Floats, so we have to do things the hard way. Now, Sacred is also vulnerable to Poison and Wind damage; however, we have yet to encounter a source of Bio or Aero that I am aware of, so we cannot take advantage of this either. So we'll have to do things the extra hard way.
It's time to spend that handful of -ga tier spells I've gathered from one-off Draw points and item refinement.
Tier 3 spells have some of the most impactful animations in the whole series so far, each one making the screen shake, producing SFX that take up most of the enemy screen, and exploding with tremendous flash and fanfare.
Against a regenerating opponent like Sacred, DPS is the way to go. It burns through some of our more limited resources, but with each Tier 3 deleting a quarter of his health, Sacred soon gives up and…
…runs away!?
Wait a minute, you're not allowed to do that! I beat you, you're supposed to join me now!
Well, it's clear we'll have to continue to explore the dungeon - once Sacred jumps off his pedestal, his weight no longer holds it down and it's revealed to be a switch, the kind that needs constant weight over it and which automatically releases once that weight is gone. Elsewhere in the dungeon, new paths have unlocked.
It takes a while to navigate our way back to each of the North and West rooms, but once we do, we find that the illegible steles blocking the way have receded into the ground, allowing us passage into the rooms previously sealed.
As far as 'ancient dungeon filled with contraptions inexplicably still working after hundreds of years,' the Tomb of the Ancient King is honestly one of the more grounded depictions I've seen. Its architecture feels old, worn by time, but at the same time there's a simplicity to the mechanisms at play here like this simple waterwheel, and the way we occasionally catch these sights of the bright sunlight and lush greenery outside help sell that this is a place which exists in the world.
In the West room, we crank a waterwheel. The purpose of this isn't immediately obvious, and I only end up managing to do it because the lever stands out conspicuously on the ground so I have Squall interact with it and then he just does whatever the thing that needs doing is. Once that's done, we head for the North room, where the stele has also lowered.
There's a… Sluice, I think is the word, here. That Draw point on the left is, thankfully, a Float point; it nets us 9 Floats, which is going to be a bit tight, but we'll make it work. The next step is unhooking that chain in order to lower the sluice gate, causing the water to pour in in a suitably dramatic fashion.
FLUID ANIMATIONS WOOOO
The internal logic is clear enough - if you'll remember, there was an empty moat around the central building of the Tomb; with the sluice gate opened, the water pours in, filling the moat; since the bridge was lowered down into the chasm and is made of wood, it floats up, bridging the moat and allowing us to cross.
Sacred notably has a very familiar register. It wasn't obvious at first but the more he talks the more it's clear that he talks like… A bro? Yeah, a bro.
Sacred: "Y-YO, YOU BACK AGAIN!?" Sacred: "TOOK IT EASY ON YOU LAST TIME BUT NOT THIS TIME! T-THIS TIME, M-MY BIG BRO IS WITH ME! N-NOW'S YOUR CHANCE TO RUN AWAY, MAN! BRO!"
At this point, a huge transparent image of another minotaur appears, sort of like a spirit manifesting, and resolves into a physical shape…
Minotaur: "yeah bro." Sacred: "Y-YO BRO, THESE GUYS CRUSHED THE TOMB! P-PLUS, THEY ATTACKED ME!" Minotaur: "oh, really… they attacked you? not bad for a human…" Irvine: "Hah! This shorty? That's a surprise!" Sacred: "Y-YO BRO! T-THEY'RE MAKING FUN OF US!" Minotaur: "...foolish little humans. …i'll show you not to judge a book by its cover…"
Irvine, why did you have to deliberately antagonize the fun-sized divine spirit.
Alright, this is the real boss of the Tomb of the Unknown King: A duo battle with Sacred and Minotaur. Minotaur, despite its smaller size, is much tougher than Sacred, having over twice as much HP and a significantly more powerful healing ability - Minotaur regens around 330 HP per turn. That's as much damage as I do with two first-tier spell; we could be here for weeks.
Fortunately, the time has come to confirm my hypothesis:
Float has a sick-ass angel wing and halo effect… And once Minotaur is levitating, he no longer regenerates HP. Score.
…what's that? "Your HP seems dangerously low?" That's fine, that just means more Limit Breaks, I haven't been threatened by an enemy in ages-
…ah.
Okay, so I forgot to heal before entering this fight, and instead of healing I was doing the Float strategy and it turns out Sacred and Minotaur hit a little harder than I'm used to.
So. I try to save things with Irvine using Phoenix Down and healing items, but I can't outpace the damage coming. Though it does give us a hilarious opportunity to see what Rinoa's Limit Break, Angelo Cannon, is like:
She mounts her dog on her arm and launches it like a cannon.
Absolutely outstanding.
I also try out Irvine's Limit Break, Shot. Unfortunately, it turns out that Irvine explained its mechanics once, an hour ago, and it's not explained in the moment again and I have no idea how it works and end up inflicting zero damage. The gist is that we have to buy Bullets ahead of time, then select which kind of bullet, then press the button to shoot as many as possible during the LB time window. This is not obvious.
So anyway, that's a game over. The Minobros' last attack was the 'Mad Cow Special,' a tandem attack in which they strike the ground so hard it causes an earthquake.
Let's cut this post for image count, and try again.
Final Fantasy VIII, Part 11.B: Deling City & The Tomb of the Unknown King
This time, I have a much more rational plan of battle. First, cast Float on the Minobros. Then, cast Protect on my own party, which halves most if not all the damage the Minobros dish out, as it is physical damage. Then, cast Float on my own party to make them immune to Earth damage.
This is not as smart a plan as it looks like, because the thing I'm overlooking here is that damned 'no multicast' aspect of the game. It takes a total of eight actions to cast Float on five characters and Protect on three, and both of those are on timers and run out fairly quickly.
Anyway. Check out the coolest animation in the game.
Diablos's summon animation is this insanely cool FMV where he descends from within an orb of darkness, spreads his wings, pulls down liquid darkness from the sky, and flattens the entire enemy side with gravity, before scattering into a flock of bats.
…
Too bad it sucks shit.
Diablos is a Gravity damage summon, which means he deals percentage-based damage, and unfortunately that percentage is level-based. As in, based on the level of the GF. And while I grabbed Diablos as early as physically possible, it's still low enough level that it hits opponents for less damage than any of my other GFs even when they're at max HP.
Ah, well. At least his suite of abilities is still top tier.
Soon enough, Float starts running out on first the Minobros, then my characters, then Protect also starts running out. So, fuck it: I just blast everyone with my remaining Tier 3 spells, Shiva and Ifrit, and try to just DPS race the Minobros.
It works.
It was scuffed as hell, but we made it.
Minotaur calls us "Mighty ones" and asks if they can join us, adding a new GF to our repertory!
(I will proceed to forget to Junction them for the rest of this update. Thankfully I've had Encounter-Half the whole time so it's not like they missed a lot of fights.)
Yaaay!
In case you were wondering, Minotaur and Sacred function as a single GF, named "Brothers." Neat!
Once they're gone, the stone casket on which they stood opens, revealing…
…whoever the heck that is.
Ghost: "...You are quite the powerful ones to have defeated the 2 brothers. Thanks to you, I am now free from this cramped stone coffin… However, there is something I have been thinking of for a very long time. Is it really necessary to entomb those traveling to the other world, after such a long and tiring journey through life?"
[The ghost disappears, leaving behind the Minotaur Card.]
I…
Okay???
I am guessing that this is the titular 'Unknown King' whose tomb this is, but, like… Could I have any context at all about what is happening here. Was he being sealed by the brothers? Protected by them but his protection accidentally ended up an imprisonment? Did we just hard confirmation of an afterlife?
Judging from his dialogue, it looks like some funeral practices, perhaps ones meant to preserve the spirits of the dead and prevent their vanishing, might actually trap them within their tomb or their own body, denying them the ability to move on to whatever 'the other world' is. That's fairly grim, but it also seems like it might have been an accident of people not knowing better and seeking to honor their dead?
How strange.
Squall, Rinoa and Irvine are completely unbothered by meeting a ghost who reveals aspects of the afterlife to them, by the way. They have zero dialogue lines. So I guess we'll just… Move on.
…
Also I am ashamed to say that I did not twig to what was going on with "Sacred" on my own despite this Let's Play being what it is. Look:
Final Fantasy V had a boss named Sekhmet which pretty much looked exactly like Sacred, who had a brother called Minotaur. This is an FFV reference.
…
Siren was also an early boss in FFV, and she is also now back as a Guardian Force. Quetzalcoatl wasn't in FFV, but a different feathered serpent, Archeoaevis, was.
I hadn't made the connection previously, but from now on, I'll try and keep my eyes peeled for additional references to FFV in this game.
So: Tomb of the Unknown King. Dungeon Rating?
Honestly a solid B+. I was fully expecting to hate the gimmick, but actually it… Engaged my brainmeats in a pleasing way? It was a fairly simple navigation challenge with basic memory checks ('don't forget your positioning during fights'), a good aesthetic, engaging random encounters, a fun antagonist/boss fight, and a solid reward. Despite the mind-numbingly bullshit sound of 'labyrinth where all screens are identical,' it was actually fun to play through. This was a very nice palate cleanser after the Centra Mining Complex.
And now, it's time to head back to Deling City.
…that is a fucking castle.
Look, I've compared locations in VIII to Europe, the Mediterranean, and even Paris specifically, and it's clear there is a deliberate European information, but now I'm wondering if, like… The devs thought that rich people in Europe just routinely live in castles.
Which. They don't not do. It's been known to happen. It's just - it's not that common. Right?
I think?
Hrm.
Squall, mentally: "(Both Balamb and Galbadia Garden are joining forces with the general from the Galbadian army. …Why? …No point in me thinking about it. 'SeeDs aren't meant to question why.'*) [*This is presented as a quote Squall is repeated.] Rinoa: "Umm… Is my contract… still in effect?" Squall, mentally: "(...What is it this time?)" Rinoa: "Don't leave me in this house, ok? Want me to explain why?" Squall, mentally: "(This might take a while…)" Squall: "You should know by now. Just tell us what to do and we'll do it." Rinoa: "Okay, then. Thanks."
Fade to an interior room of the estate; everyone is waiting. It's always interesting to watch which little touches of personality the animators put in these scenes of characters just waiting: Here, Rinoa and Quistis are both sitting in the fancy chairs waiting, while Selphie is standing at the window watching the city sights, Zell is pacing around the room, slumped over and clearly angry at waiting for so long, while Irvine is sitting at the owner's own desk, with his feet on said desk.
Everyone is growing increasingly impatient and angry at being made to wait for so long, incidentally, even Selphie or Quistis who are physically pretty relaxed.
Rinoa: "Hmph… He always does this! So discourteous… making people wait." (She gets up.) "I'm gonna go complain. Everyone wait here." (She pauses at the door and turns around. "Oh, by the way, this is my house. So don't worry."
(She leaves the room.)
…well!
Yeah, okay, I don't know why I didn't figure 'General Caraway is Rinoa's dad' from the clues so far, I must have been pretty tired that day.
And indeed, the man himself promptly steps into the room and confirms it.
He immediately does the opposite of endearing himself to me by responding to Squall asking where Rinoa is with:
General Caraway: "She has not received the type of training you all have, and may become a burden. It's for the best that she stays out of this operation." Selphie: "So you're Rinoa's father?" General Caraway: "I can't remember the last time she called me that." Zell: "So the father's a top military officer, and the daughter's a member of an anti-government faction!? That's bad… Really BAD!" General Caraway: "Yes, indeed. It's a serious problem. But it doesn't concern you. It's our problem. " Squall, mentally: "(That's not the case…)" General Caraway: "Besides, we have far more important things to worry about." Squall, mentally: "(Garden's directive and Rinoa's orders have the same value to us.)" Squall: "Once our mission is accomplished here, we're working for Rinoa, as per our contract. I don't know what your situation is, but please don't interfere when the time comes."
General Caraway: "And if I do?" Squall, mentally: "(What's his problem?)" Squall: "We're all SeeDs here. We'll act accordingly."
Okay. Okay that is a lot to unpack here.
First off: Caraway's timing is conspicuous. He didn't show up until Rinoa got tired of waiting for him and left the room, then immediately appeared and told us to not worry about where she was; he definitely was waiting for her to come out and had some of his staff take her away and lock her in her room or something similar so he could get her out of the way and somewhere 'safe' where she won't be a 'burden'.
Second, what a dick. Now, to be clear - not being a teenager myself anymore, I can, to a degree, have sympathy for adults who see minors walk into situations of extreme danger and go 'holy shit, I have to stop them from doing that.' But stories aren't the real world, the stakes and challenges aren't the same, and when you as an overbearing father figure show up in a story to actively deny your child's agency without their input, especially when it ties into well-trod themes of sexism regarding the stern military father Knowing Best what his daughter should be going, you're the bad guy, unambiguously.
Third… I've been wondering the whole time if Zone and Watts's comments about the 'princess' were meant literally and figuratively, and it turns out they probably meant it figuratively but it was also most likely a joke about her being the daughter of somebody important… And also it turns out she's a foreigner. She not a Timberian! She's not fighting for the liberation of her homeland! She's a Galbadian who took up the cause of a people not her own, and ended up their leader figure, creating an awkward situation in which the resistance to Galbadia is led by a daughter of Galbadia - is this just a continuation of imperialism from another direction? It's a real question that arises in revolutionary movements. The implications are fascinating.
And finally… Squall. Squall, my man. You're trying to thread a pretty tough needle here and fucking it up.
Like, I get what's going on. He has conflicting contracts - long term work towards Timber's independence under Rinoa which Balamb Garden has pointedly not invalidated yet, and the immediate mission to assassinate the Sorceress. So instead of starting a confrontation with the vital contact for the assassination mission, he decides to compromise by going "Dude, I'll roll with it for now because we don't have time but once the assassination is over if you try to keep me from taking Rinoa back I'm killing you and everyone who stands in my way," and admittedly the latter part ("We're all SeeDs here" is pretty obvious in what it's implying) is pretty badass, but also, well.
He just broke Rinoa's trust by doing the one thing she specifically asked him not to do: Leave her behind trapped in her father's house.
So. Yeah. Sorry, broody boy, you've fucked that one up as well.
Rinoa's face is greyed out because we cannot currently take her on the team. Also, Zell is still lv 10, leading me to assume that this game does not have any XP sharing. Considering the scaling XP, I can already feel a headache coming over the question of how to make everyone keep up.
Before the discussion between Squall and Caraway breaks down into outright hostility, Irvine has a rare moment of usefulness by reminding everyone that we're all here on account of a conspiracy to commit murder, so why not stay focused on the plan, right? Caraway takes that cue to start explaining his plan and leads the group out .
And we have a name for the Sorceress! This whole time it's been bothering me that I felt like I remembered her name being 'Medea,' one of mythology's famous witches, but I knew that it wasn't actually that and couldn't remember the truth, so I'm glad we've cleared that up: They took 'Medea' and chopped off a letter, calling her 'Edea.' Hence my brain's confusion.
Caraway's explanation is long and complex, involves traveling over most of the city (which is inexplicably empty while he's standing around a public plaza explaining firing angles in plain sight of everyone), and the plan itself strikes me as over-complicated and too in love with its own cleverness. I'll sum it up as simply as I can:
President Deling and Sorceress Edea have scheduled a ceremony to commemorate their alliance, which will be held at the President's residence. The party will split in two, the Sniper Team and the Gateway Team: The Gateway Team will enter the Gateway (the triumphal arch) and lie in wait, while the Sniper Team will wait among the public near the Presidential Residence.
Now, and here is the part where it gets bizarrely involved: When the ceremony ends, a parade for the sorceress will begin; she will leave the Presidential Residence, at which point the Sniper Team will slip by into the Presidential Residence, sneak up to the clocktower on top where a sniper rifle will have been placed ahead of time, and wait there.
The parade will circle the town, then at 20:00 precisely, pass under the Arch. The Gateway Team will act, dropping the gates, locking the Sorceress's float, or carriage or whatever she'll be riding during the parade, inside the arch. The "carousel clock" in the clocktower (which is a clock that is also, literally, a carousel) will rise up at that time, giving the Sniper Team a clear shot from the roof of the Presidential Palace to the Gateway.
I feel like there are so many better ways to pull off a classic American movie sniper rifle assassination. I think the part that really gets me is how the plan is predicated on Caraway having enough access to the Presidential Residence to plant a sniper rifle and let the Sniper Team sneak in, but they're only doing that after the Sorceress has left the Residence, because they are literally only using the building as a vantage point. And also the part where instead of shooting Edea by surprise, the plan is to warn someone with unknown magical powers by dropping gates around her parade carriage before taking the shot. Like… She's just gonna cast Protect or something, you know?
But, well, there it is. That is Caraway's plan to assassinate the Sorceress Edea. I assume that the Gateway team will be the ones tasked with engaging the Sorceress in close combat once the sniper inevitably fails, but for now, that's what we got.
Caraway tells everyone that they have free quarters until the fateful hour, and to report to his estate (his freaking castle) when they're ready. He sternly adds to "Stay out of trouble," which annoys Squall, who thinks to himself 'Who do you think we are? We're not like your daughter') and flatly responds "We are SeeDs."
It doesn't look like either side of this operation is set to ever like the other. SeeDs are special forces operatives with a loose chain of command and teenagers, Caraway is a career military man who expects military discipline and doesn't respect people this young. Why Caraway even wants the Sorceress killed, we don't know; they don't seem to have much interest in discussing anything but the practical, immediate concerns of their plan, and Rinoa's shadow hangs over the whole thing.
And that will do it for us today. We are swiftly approaching the point where my playthrough of the game as a child ended; right now, we're free to roam around, although I am not sure how much there is to do - we already cleared the Tomb of the Ancient King, we've visited most of Deling City (but given its configuration I'm sure there's a screen or two I missed), but, well, we might as well go around, fight some monsters, try and get those weapon upgrades (as little change as they'll make), we'll see.
Oh, yeah, I also unlocked another way of breaking the game.
I've mentioned this before, but Quezacotl has a Command Ability called Card, which allows us to transform monsters into cards. I originally grabbed it for Triple Triad purposes, but that ended up not really mattering, as we very quickly started getting enough high-level cards to win matches without needing to transform random monsters. However, Quezacotl also has the Ability Card Mod, which allows us to transform cards into items.
It looks like I've finally found a way to get those damned upgrade items. The Geezard card, for instance, turns into 5 Screws. And some of the items we can derive from Cards can be then be refined into spells with the proper ability!
Also, unique cards like boss cards or character cards can be refined into huge rewards: Angelo's card, for instance, converts into 100 Elixirs. That's nothing to sneeze at.
I'm just… Not going to think too hard about this right now. Without a guide, it's not obvious which Card/Item refinement combos can break the game beyond "having 100 Elixirs sure sounds busted but I don't want to give up my precious Good Boy card" and I'm not going to look it up.
For now, we're taking a break - both in-game and possibly in real life; I have a trip scheduled soon and I might not end up updating again until I'm back. Unsure yet, we'll see how it goes.
I've mentioned this before, but Quezacotl has a Command Ability called Card, which allows us to transform monsters into cards. I originally grabbed it for Triple Triad purposes, but that ended up not really mattering, as we very quickly started getting enough high-level cards to win matches without needing to transform random monsters. However, Quezacotl also has the Ability Card Mod, which allows us to transform cards into items.
It looks like I've finally found a way to get those damned upgrade items. The Geezard card, for instance, turns into 5 Screws. And some of the items we can derive from Cards can be then be refined into spells with the proper ability!
Also, unique cards like boss cards or character cards can be refined into huge rewards: Angelo's card, for instance, converts into 100 Elixirs. That's nothing to sneeze at.
And the other shoe has dropped. While refining magic can let you break the game, it's using Card Mod on rare cards like the character or GF cards that lets you absolutely obliterate the game's difficulty. You've got access to enough rare cards just on the island of Balamb to turn your party into functional demigods that nothing in the game has a hope of standing against, and even with just regular cards they give you enough magic that drawing from both monsters and draw points functionally becomes obsolete.
Just like in Yugioh, playing a children's card game is the true secret to ultimate power.
(I will proceed to forget to Junction them for the rest of this update. Thankfully I've had Encounter-Half the whole time so it's not like they missed a lot of fights.)
Yaaay!
In case you were wondering, Minotaur and Sacred function as a single GF, named "Brothers." Neat!
If you haven't done so by now, I need you to summon the minotaur bros. Even if it's just once. Even if it's just a random fight. Don't play through FF8 without summoning the minotaur bros.
Irvine you dramatic bitch. Oh my god. I cannot fucking take him serious, what a… What a teenager. Fuck. You know, I give Squall a lot of shit, but at least our boy has yet to turn to the camera and say "I am so tormented you guys, none of you understand my paaaaaain, any way let me slide into your DMs queen."
The absolute, best, most amazing part of this scene?
Squall going 'the loneliness of a sniper.. I guess he has a point', buying into this tortured persona 200%.
There is exactly one person on this train that fell for his heart-throb performatory angst, and it's fucking Squall. I guess it's easiest to fool a fooler sometimes.
Between this bit and the whole Vibe with Seifer it's really really easy to what Squall's type is... and it's not exactly someone with a caring and supportive personality.
Nothing here is going to be as bad as the Centra Mining Complex, in fact I even had fun, but we're about to see what's probably the most jarring "Here is a dungeon because you gotta have a dungeon" moment in the game so far.
Back in the outside compartment, Quistis is admonishing Irvine for his behavior, and I just… I can't believe this guy.
Irvine: "Rinoa…" (He's obviously going to hit on her but before he can say anything else he's interrupted.) Quistis: "Irvine Kinneas! You're playing a major role in this mission. Now behave yourself!" Irvine. "No one understands me… Sharpshooters are loners by nature…" (He takes a dramatic pose, tilting his head back with a hand on his forehead.) "We hone our instinct, pour our whole being into a single bullet. The pressure of the moment… An instant of tension… That's what… I have to face alone… It's not easy. So like… Just do me a favor, and let me be! You get my drift?"
Irvine you dramatic bitch. Oh my god. I cannot fucking take him serious, what a… What a teenager. Fuck. You know, I give Squall a lot of shit, but at least our boy has yet to turn to the camera and say "I am so tormented you guys, none of you understand my paaaaaain, any way let me slide into your DMs queen."
Everybody likes to point at Squall and scream "EMO EMO LOOK AT THE EMO MAN", but holy shit just look at Irvine go. He might not look the part nearly as much, but this is the most teenager depresso shit I've ever seen, it's great.
Yeah, it's been... what, 15, 16 years since the first Laguna flashback? That's what we established right, since they were fighting against Timber and the Timber takeover was around that long ago? Not too surprised none of those characters would be hanging around the same hotel over a decade later.
At this stage I could easily afford it (my SeeD salary has been piling up due to not really have anything to spend it on), but I decide to just do things the hard way.
A common problem in FFVIII, to be honest - between SeeD Salary being a consistent source of free cash, and the fact that there's genuinely almost nothing of value to spend said money on, you rack up a massive nest egg. Turns out when you don't have to constantly equip your party with weapons, armor and accessories, there's not much to worry about.
It even has a mercy mechanic in the form of pressing Triangle to instantly escape from the Tomb. Doing so results in the loss of a SeeD rank, but that's something we can easily manage with tests - we're still 'only' Rank 9 out of 30 and I'm still pretty much free of any possible money problem.
We're still not gonna do it, but mostly out of pride.
Frankly, the maze isn't nearly maze enough for me to even consider the quick exit option, especially since there's multiple spots inside with scribbles on the walls that go "DAMN THIS PLACE SUCKS HERE'S THE PATH TO THE EXIT".
This is "Sacred", probably one of the most bizarrely named GFs in the game. He is a minotaur wielding a giant mace, and he has a simple gimmick - every turn, he heals a small amount of HP (a little over 100). This isn't enough to make him an invincible foe, but it does mean his nominally small 1940 HP is somewhat inflated by the constant healing.
Now, Scan identifies Sacred as an "Earth GF," and says that he "recovers by power of the earth." Between this and the students who were shouting about Float when we entered the tomb, it seems pretty obvious that casting Float on Sacred will shut down his healing. Unfortunately, we don't have any stocked Floats, so we have to do things the hard way. Now, Sacred is also vulnerable to Poison and Wind damage; however, we have yet to encounter a source of Bio or Aero that I am aware of, so we cannot take advantage of this either. So we'll have to do things the extra hard way.
While there hasn't been an opportunity to draw any wind or poison magic as of yet (at least that I've seen), there is a fairly common enemy on the Galbadia continent that drops Shear Feathers, which can be refined into the Aero spell for some basic wind capacity. So, there's that option.
Okay, so I forgot to heal before entering this fight, and instead of healing I was doing the Float strategy and it turns out Sacred and Minotaur hit a little harder than I'm used to.
Can't deny it, I was also unpleasantly surprised by how hard The Brothers can hit you. Was a bit faster on the draw with pulling some Protects for the party and healing up, granted, plus Squall had 100 Curas junctioned to his HP so he was at a lot less risk.
Also, Minotaur and Sacred are I believe the first time the Life spell is available to draw! Did you grab a few for future use? They scale HP pretty well as a junction, too, if you aren't just playing Curaga Cottages.
Diablos's summon animation is this insanely cool FMV where he descends from within an orb of darkness, spreads his wings, pulls down liquid darkness from the sky, and flattens the entire enemy side with gravity, before scattering into a flock of bats.
…
Too bad it sucks shit.
Diablos is a Gravity damage summon, which means he deals percentage-based damage, and unfortunately that percentage is level-based. As in, based on the level of the GF. And while I grabbed Diablos as early as physically possible, it's still low enough level that it hits opponents for less damage than any of my other GFs even when they're at max HP.
Ah, well. At least his suite of abilities is still top tier.
IIRC Diablos' Gravity Damage is actually based on the enemy's max HP and his level, rather than current HP, so it's still pretty decent being able to just go "AoE attack, I chunk 10-15% of your max health right here and now" at this point in the game. But yes, you can probably do more with actual attacks or other summons right now.
I hadn't made the connection previously, but from now on, I'll try and keep my eyes peeled for additional references to FFV in this game.
So: Tomb of the Unknown King. Dungeon Rating?
Honestly a solid B+. I was fully expecting to hate the gimmick, but actually it… Engaged my brainmeats in a pleasing way? It was a fairly simple navigation challenge with basic memory checks ('don't forget your positioning during fights'), a good aesthetic, engaging random encounters, a fun antagonist/boss fight, and a solid reward. Despite the mind-numbingly bullshit sound of 'labyrinth where all screens are identical,' it was actually fun to play through. This was a very nice palate cleanser after the Centra Mining Complex.
In my memories, this dungeon was a lot more confusing, not gonna lie. But as the map shows... you can honestly just hug the right wall the entire time and you'll hit literally everything you need to. Still, just complicated enough that I'm glad it's optional, and hey said optional reward is great not gonna complain about getting another GF!
He immediately does the opposite of endearing himself to me by responding to Squall asking where Rinoa is with:
General Caraway: "She has not received the type of training you all have, and may become a burden. It's for the best that she stays out of this operation."
Alright, so on one hand? Caraway is totally correct, if you don't take gameplay into account then Rinoa is the only person here who isn't some form of child supersoldier with elite training (or so I assume). Like, I totally get not wanting her involved, doubly so because she's his daughter.
On the other hand, yeaaaaah 100% a dick move to just shove her in a room somewhere the second he gets a chance then go "just ignore it guys go do your job".
Rinoa's face is greyed out because we cannot currently take her on the team. Also, Zell is still lv 10, leading me to assume that this game does not have any XP sharing. Considering the scaling XP, I can already feel a headache coming over the question of how to make everyone keep up.
Yep, to my knowledge XP sharing just... isn't a thing in FFVIII, so you'll probably end up with something like "this is my main party they are all in the 80s, those are the ones I don't use, they're all level 12". To be fair, a good chunk of your stats in FFVIII comes from junctioning so it isn't a huge issue as you get more stats covered with more GFs unlocked (you have four sources of HP-J at this point), but it can still feel a bit silly.
I feel like there are so many better ways to pull off a classic American movie sniper rifle assassination. I think the part that really gets me is how the plan is predicated on Caraway having enough access to the Presidential Residence to plant a sniper rifle and let the Sniper Team sneak in, but they're only doing that after the Sorceress has left the Residence, because they are literally only using the building as a vantage point. And also the part where instead of shooting Edea by surprise, the plan is to warn someone with unknown magical powers by dropping gates around her parade carriage before taking the shot. Like… She's just gonna cast Protect or something, you know?
But, well, there it is. That is Caraway's plan to assassinate the Sorceress Edea. I assume that the Gateway team will be the ones tasked with engaging the Sorceress in close combat once the sniper inevitably fails, but for now, that's what we got.
Come now Omi, what makes you think an assassination of a major villain while still on Disk 1 with a plan that has blatantly noticeable flaws at a single glance would ever potentially fail? Besides, you get to just go down and beat her up yourself if Irvine fucks things up! No Final Fantasy game would ever force you into a losing battle!
And that will do it for us today. We are swiftly approaching the point where my playthrough of the game as a child ended; right now, we're free to roam around, although I am not sure how much there is to do - we already cleared the Tomb of the Ancient King, we've visited most of Deling City (but given its configuration I'm sure there's a screen or two I missed), but, well, we might as well go around, fight some monsters, try and get those weapon upgrades (as little change as they'll make), we'll see.
Oh, yeah, I also unlocked another way of breaking the game.
I've mentioned this before, but Quezacotl has a Command Ability called Card, which allows us to transform monsters into cards. I originally grabbed it for Triple Triad purposes, but that ended up not really mattering, as we very quickly started getting enough high-level cards to win matches without needing to transform random monsters. However, Quezacotl also has the Ability Card Mod, which allows us to transform cards into items.
It looks like I've finally found a way to get those damned upgrade items. The Geezard card, for instance, turns into 5 Screws. And some of the items we can derive from Cards can be then be refined into spells with the proper ability!
Also, unique cards like boss cards or character cards can be refined into huge rewards: Angelo's card, for instance, converts into 100 Elixirs. That's nothing to sneeze at.
I'm just… Not going to think too hard about this right now. Without a guide, it's not obvious which Card/Item refinement combos can break the game beyond "having 100 Elixirs sure sounds busted but I don't want to give up my precious Good Boy card" and I'm not going to look it up.
Yeaaah, suffice to say Card Mod is the one refine ability that, when combined with others, really breaks the game. There's the obvious fact of unique cards generally breaking into absurdly useful items (often things like "here's three copies of an item to teach your GFs +60% stat abilities", or "here's an item that refines into 100 copies of an endgame spell"), but even if you don't want to get rid of your rares there's plenty of lower tier monsters that refine into decent items.
For example, for a relatively common one I've gotten some good use out of? Geezards, the bottom-tier little lizard fellas that die to literally anything, their card mods into 5 screws so you never have to worry about one basic crafting material again. And that's super minor in comparison to some of the others that do things like "refine into item that refines into multiple copies of a high-tier spell".
In the end, Tent -> 10 Curagas is just the tip of the iceburg for snapping the game wide open. Suffice to say I've just been... mostly ignoring it and using MidMagic Refine instead.
However, Quezacotl also has the Ability Card Mod, which allows us to transform cards into items.
It looks like I've finally found a way to get those damned upgrade items. The Geezard card, for instance, turns into 5 Screws. And some of the items we can derive from Cards can be then be refined into spells with the proper ability!
Also, unique cards like boss cards or character cards can be refined into huge rewards: Angelo's card, for instance, converts into 100 Elixirs. That's nothing to sneeze at.
I'm just… Not going to think too hard about this right now. Without a guide, it's not obvious which Card/Item refinement combos can break the game beyond "having 100 Elixirs sure sounds busted but I don't want to give up my precious Good Boy card" and I'm not going to look it up.
It's not an exaggeration to say what you can't do with card mod and GF abilities is easier to list then what you can do. That's not to say all things are equally worth doing. Some tricks requires you to get something like 50+ copies of a single high level monster card (And you saw how some players don't like playing specific high level cards for you to win from them.), but others require you get like, five specific cards to get something broken.
But you see why a real powergamer might spend literally hours playing cards after the fire cavern, and thus become an unstoppable god for the SeeD exam.
I would advise there's no real cause to start refining unique character/GF cards, and just collecting all the high level cards just to have them.
They do unlock a lot of powerful stuff that is difficult or near-impossible to get through other methods, especially early on. . . But do you really need them at this point? With that said, if you see something you wanna do, it won't cause a secret game over or anything.
Sharpshooters are literally trained to work with spotters you dweeb! Also they tend to be math nerds because holy shit there's a lot of math in calculating a bullets trajectory.
Third… I've been wondering the whole time if Zone and Watts's comments about the 'princess' were meant literally and figuratively, and it turns out they probably meant it figuratively but it was also most likely a joke about her being the daughter of somebody important… And also it turns out she's a foreigner. She not a Timberian! She's not fighting for the liberation of her homeland! She's a Galbadian who took up the cause of a people not her own, and ended up their leader figure, creating an awkward situation in which the resistance to Galbadia is led by a daughter of Galbadia - is this just a continuation of imperialism from another direction? It's a real question that arises in revolutionary movements. The implications are fascinating.
Second, what a dick. Now, to be clear - not being a teenager myself anymore, I can, to a degree, have sympathy for adults who see minors walk into situations of extreme danger and go 'holy shit, I have to stop them from doing that.' But stories aren't the real world, the stakes and challenges aren't the same, and when you as an overbearing father figure show up in a story to actively deny your child's agency without their input, especially when it ties into well-trod themes of sexism regarding the stern military father Knowing Best what his daughter should be going, you're the bad guy, unambiguously.
Alright, so on one hand? Caraway is totally correct, if you don't take gameplay into account then Rinoa is the only person here who isn't some form of child supersoldier with elite training (or so I assume). Like, I totally get not wanting her involved, doubly so because she's his daughter.
So, locking Rinoa in her room (or wherever) is a total dick move, and yeah, that she isn't a child supersoldier makes it rather easy to justify, but I think that there is an additional complication that comes from Rinoa leading an anti-Galbadian cell. Which is that should that information get back to the President or maybe a rival in the military, Caraway is dead (or maybe imprisoned?) and any advantages Rinoa enjoys (protection, information, money?) dries up.
Like, Caraway has to desperately hope that any Galbadian soldier that learns what Rinoa is doing is permanently silenced, and that's got to be a weird position for a general.
General Caraway: "She has not received the type of training you all have, and may become a burden. It's for the best that she stays out of this operation."
On my playthrough, after he said this I immediately resolved to always keep Rinoa in the party, because it's both funny and awesome watching her kick just as much ass as the child supersoldiers.
On my playthrough, after he said this I immediately resolved to always keep Rinoa in the party, because it's both funny and awesome watching her kick just as much ass as the child supersoldiers.
It does bring up an in-universe question of "what's the point of the Gardens if this un(der)trained princess is able to fight on par with the child supersoldiers?"
Sharpshooters are literally trained to work with spotters you dweeb! Also they tend to be math nerds because holy shit there's a lot of math in calculating a bullets trajectory.
When I first played the game (long time ago, was about 16, I think, and far more interested in reading the latest fantasy novels than anything else so my social skills... pretty much weren't) I initially totally bought into Irvine's bit.
As time has gone on... yeah, he's really over the top the way he works.
Snipers and math... heh. From my limited understanding: air resistance, wind speed and direction along the entire path of the bullet, bullet drop, *freaking Coriolis effect math*... yeah, spotting out a shot gets really complicated really fast, and the math involved has to be absolutely horrendous.
Caraway publicly showing how the assassination is going to play out ... yeesh. With the benefit of hindsight, let me just say ouch.
Sharpshooters are literally trained to work with spotters you dweeb! Also they tend to be math nerds because holy shit there's a lot of math in calculating a bullets trajectory.
Sharpshooters are literally trained to work with spotters you dweeb! Also they tend to be math nerds because holy shit there's a lot of math in calculating a bullets trajectory.
