I believe that there is no enemy in the entire game which is immune to Vit 0, yes. Also, you have 7 casts now, right? Check how much that raises your VIT by, and then extrapolate to what 100 would be like. It's a strong candidate for the best spell in the game, certainly in the top ten and probably in the top five.
Honestly, I will put it at top 1. Decent damage, always efficient in fights, very good for junctioning.
It's the only spell which is always useful, even useful at the end of the game, which is quite a rare feat to achieve, specially in a FF game and specially for a statut spell on enemies.
The reason is that spell is not only a statut spell, but a debuff spell. Unlike other statut spells which can one-shoot everything or make a cheese of every fights, this one don't do that and so, devs don't need to render boss immune to it. Which makes this spell revelant all the game along.
As far as I remember, Meltdown is the first debuff spell for enemies in FF main games. And now, this kind of debuff are just the norm.
As said above, Slow is the first debuff and it's here since the start.
Mini also is a debuff for enemies from FFIV foward (earlier is anothe kind of Instant Death on enemies).
In this game Blind also disables the gunblade trigger, so it's indirectly a damage debuff for Squall and Seifer.
As I said, it has a solid case to make for earning the top spot, but there are some spells that have just as strong a claim, each for their own reasons. Ultima, Triple, Aura, Meteor, Pain and Full-Life are all very potent, with a good claim of being better than Meltdown, or at least its equals, each in its own way and/or particular niche. Still, it's certainly a contender.
And a lot of them, too. If you don't like the last one, just wait five lines and there'll be something new completely recontextualizing the entire situation.
Because Squall - who has always similar to Seifer, displaying a somewhat different personality, being less open about what he really wanted, but fundamentally seeing a lot of himself in the older boy and resenting him in part because of that - sees this, sees everyone eulogizing Seifer, talking about whether they hated or loved him, about their feelings towards the man he was, only minutes after learning he died, and he freaks out.
Squall: "(I liked him… wasn't really a bad guy… He was one of us… Seifer… You've become just a memory. Will they… Will they talk about me this way if I die, too? Squall was this and that. Using past tense, saying whatever they want? So this is what death is all about… Not for me. I won't have it!!!)" Quistis: "What's wrong, Squall?"
I'm wishing I could find it again, but I read a piece by a trans woman about how one of her bulwarks against suicide was the fucking carnage they would do to her memory after her death, at her funeral, by people fitting her into their own personal frameworks because the dead conveniently do not speak and shatter images made for them. There's mortality here (Squall's 'I don't know, I try not to think about it' when asked about if he's scared to be in real battle shows he's been pushing examining that away for a while), but he's also being confronted with the violence of interpretation, here in the form of retrospectively sanding someone's harsh edges away.
Rinoa clings on to Squall, repeating that she was scared, really scared. "It's over now," he says first, then asks, "You're used to battle, aren't you?" When Rinoa keeps insisting that she tried to fight alone but couldn't, he mentally reflects that she "isn't ready for all this."
It's honestly kind of heartbreaking - Rinoa is clearly looking for a word or gesture of comfort after being mind controlled and set upon by monsters, and Squall is totally incapable of providing it.
Squall: "Irvine Kinneas!!!" Irvine: "I… I can't… I'm sorry. I can't do it. I always choke like this…" Irvine: "I try to act all cool, joke around, but I just can't handle the pressure…" Squall: "Forget it, just shoot." Irvine: "My bullet… The sorceress… I'll go down in history. I'd change the history of Galbadia… Of the world!" (He turns around.) "It's all too much…" Squall: "Enough! Just shoot!" Irvine: "I can't, dammit!" Squall: "Irvine, calm down. Everyone's waiting on you." Squall: "I don't care if you miss. Whatever happens, just leave the rest to us. Just think of it as a signal. A sign for us to make our move." Irvine: "Just a signal…" Squall, mentally: "(That's it.)" Squall: "Please."
The contrast between these two beats is interesting, given they happen back to back; is Squall incapable of comforting people, or is it something where he doesn't see why he should do it? Part of it might be Squall's opinions on those involved; as has already been pointed out by others, he's primed to see himself in a fellow mercenary using bluster as a coping mechanism, as opposed to Rinoa whose worldview he's already on record as seeing as naive and who his opinion of took a dive during the Timber fiasco. But it's probably that while her pointing out that morale is actually pretty important was easy for him to mentally brush off at the time, here events have presented him with both a hard and fast choice and a refutation; comforting someone is the only way the mission can be achieved. It's utility has been plainly put in terms he can't deny without denying other more core aspects of his identity as a mercenary, and so he has to think fast, make an effort, and apply himself to reaching out to another human being.
It is very funny to imagine the alternative though, of Squall having a character sheet along the lines of this:
Mercenary Stuff 3
Winning Arguments In Your Head 2
Improvisation Under Pressure 2
Triple Triad 2
Communication Skills -1
And his metaphorical player staring at it for a bit before lifting their head and saying 'So, I can use Improvisation for this right?'
…okay, so now I'm kind of wondering at the logistics of this. Like… Laguna is clearly in contact with the Galbadian army, they are literally right here. How did Laguna somehow end up stranded in a place where no one knew how to find and contact him? Weird.
I wondered if Kiros lost access after leaving, but even with that it still implies him being blocked or frozen out a bit in some way, since it's not like it would have been a state secret. We do know General Carraway hated Laguna's guts and now has married Julia on the premise of his absence, so it's possible he's still invested in making sure the guy stays far away and unfindable.
This confused me for a bit until I realised Laguna doesn't seem to have a record player or the like in his room, and everyone in town hates him too much to ever jam with him; if he's heard music while here, it's only been music that he's heard Raine play in the pub, so she would know.
The plot of The Sound of Music is based on [briefly goes to ask on Discord] a retired naval officer and governess who bonds with children over music over a backdrop of the rise of fascism and a coming invasion leading to them having to flee to Switzerland.
Which isn't beating the allegations. Also in hindsight the fact that everyone hates him might explain why he's staying in a house whose owners are too dead to object... it's rough all round, because that probably doesn't help with the aforementioned everyone hating him. This village is a clotted wound, and it's the complete opposite of what he wants, but his every action makes it sting because as has been pointed out, he's unshakeably a symbol of what has happened and that's all they can see when they look at him. There's Raine and Ellone, but he's otherwise completely isolated as a person.
It's so funny, when you think about it. Vinzer Deling established a modern military dictatorship, used mass imprisonment against his political opponents, started conquering nearby regions, seized Dollet and Windhill… And then stalled about as soon as the Gardens opened up and neighbouring nations started hiring SeeD for their defense, and has been stuck in a holding pattern for the past seventeen years or so. All while continuing to extoll military strength as a virtue and maintain an authoritarian regimes, which, implicitly from what Deling City looks like, justifies itself based on its wealth and prosperity - wealth and prosperity it must surely struggle to sustain without further conquest. Meanwhile, Deling himself is an aging politician, a gray-haired man in a suit, increasingly unable to live up to the mythos he's himself built.
Then in comes Edea, a woman with literal supernatural powers, who could probably take on a solid chunk of the Galbadian Army on her own, and goes everywhere dressed for the Met Gala. She's the fulfillment of the ideology of power and extravagant wealth that permeates Deling City.
Carraway: "Galbadia is completely at the mercy of the sorceress. This country is now merely a tool for her. Fearing the sorceress, the rest of the world will unite against Galbadia. I fear it will be the Sorceress War all over again…" Carraway: "Our enemy Esthar was also ruled by a sorceress… The same thing is happening with Galbadia. How foolish of you, Deling…"
Edea: "...Lowlifes." Edea: "...Shameless filthy wretches." Edea: "How you celebrate my ascension with such joy." Edea: "Hailing the very one whom you have condemned for generations." Edea: "Have you no shame? What happened to the evil, ruthless sorceress from your fantasies?" Edea: "The cold-blooded tyrant that slaughtered countless men and destroyed many nations?" Edea: "Where is she now?" Edea: "She stands before your very eyes to become your new ruler. HAHAHAHAHA." Edea: "A new era has just begun."
The revelation that Esthar also had a sorceress does a lot to contextualise this last quote. Galbadia almost certainly put out a lot of propaganda denouncing Esthar and it's ruler; a lot of fiction has fantasy prejudices depicted as being nebulously just sort of there rather than as things that are actively maintained and spread in order to create wherewithal to act against a group, so this grounds it in history in a neat way. It roots the contempt Edea expresses here for the Galbadian people and their hypocritical cheering for a 'monster' if she's on their side, doing atrocities for them. How many times has this cycle occurred throughout history in FF8? Not as an inevitable certainty, but as a low energy state result of a person being magically powerful enough that they must either hide or bring to bear geopolitical implications no matter who they align themselves with or command, a person who did not spring into existence, but was chosen with a life history and experiences and opinions already attached, shaped by the world they've lived in and it's past.
Soldier #1: "You think the Esthar soldiers are really comin'?" Laguna: "That was 2 years ago, right? They would've been here by now." Soldier #1: "But… You never know what a country ruled by a Sorceress could be up to…"
later Esthar "took over the world" with the power of a Sorceress, until they were defeated and driven back into isolation into their homeland. In one of the Laguna flashbacks, we saw she had her soldiers hunt for girls to pass on the power of a sorceress to; quite possibly Edea is one such girl, having inherited the power of the Sorceress.
One minor change in dialogue is that the Galbadian Soldier who talks about Esthar's kidnappings says they're looking for "a woman" to be Adel's successor, rather than "little girls", and further says that both Ellone and Raine would be in danger, not just Ellone herself. A minor change, but since Edea seems like she's older than "Ellone's age in the dream +18" (that'd be somewhere in one's mid-twenties; Edea is visibly more adult than that), one I thought was worth pointing out.
If Edea turns out to be Raine instead, I will be hollering and pointing at the screen.
But the implications here are interesting. Being a sorceress doesn't seem to make you immortal; every dictator has to contend with their lifespan and the passage of time sooner or later, as Deling found out the hard way in the newest refination of the 'overthrown by the monster I've created' formula. We don't know how long the Sorceress War and it's aftermath have been going on - Edea mentions 'generations' but that could be hyperbole or reference to sentiment dating back even before the War - but the mass kidnapping of women and the recent lack of Esthar attacks at this time seems to point to a nation that was desperately trying to find Adel's successor, someone, anyone who could fill whatever esoteric criteria were needed, and completely failed to... perhaps trying to hide their ruler's death for as long as possible, but still running out of steam as a conquering force in the end.
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.
Seifer responds by approaching Squall, leaning on him and putting a hand on his shoulder, and saying, "You want to wreak some havoc, don't you?" Squall pushes his hand aside and says it's just 'a good opportunity to test his training.'
He's not fooling anyone, though. Including Zell, who calls them out on acting all buddy-buddy all of a sudden. This is the first thing we've had resembling a moment of bonding between Squall and Seifer, and the context is… really interesting.
Squall wants to seek out battle, he wants the excitement of the fight and to put his training to use for real. But he doesn't want to openly acknowledge it, to sound like a bloodthirsty maniac like Seifer, or to openly break orders. So defaulting to the Captain's authority, putting the responsibility on Seifer, is convenient to him. Meanwhile, this acknowledges and validates Seifer's role as squad captain, which in turn satisfies Seifer's ego.
Seifer laments that he grew up at Balamb Garden and it's a pity it has to be destroyed, but orders are orders. It really feels like his romantic dream of becoming a sorceress's knight mostly resulted in him being some fascist lieutenant who doesn't think beyond his orders and is happy to resort to torture and weapons of mass destruction.
'Orders are orders', says the guy who didn't make SeeD because he didn't follow orders. It's more subtle a change than on the face of it, since Seifer ignored orders in service of the overall goal rather than objection to it, but it's definitely a meaningful transformation. I do love how it's genuinely ambiguous as to how much of his alignment with the Sorceress is the result of mental influence and or genuine persuasion hinging on his existing desires.
Seifer: "This must be your first real battle. You scared?" Squall: "...I don't know. I try not to think about it." Seifer: "I love battles. I fear nothing." (He raises a hand to the sky.) "The way I look at it, as long as you make it out of a battle alive, you're one step closer to fulfilling your dream." Squall: "What!? Your dream?" Seifer: "You have one too, don't you?" Squall: "...Sorry, but I'm gonna pass on that subject."
Seifer: "I was hoping you'd be there, Squall. So… How'd I look in my moment of triumph? My childhood dream, fulfilled. I've become the sorceress' knight."
Yeah, there's definitely a kind of kinship between Seifer and Squall. A very adversarial one, to be sure, but they recognize something of each other in one another - an ambition to fulfill a secret dream, a lust for battle, while Seifer only has contempt for Zell. Also, obviously, they're both gunblade wielders, and…
Zell has quite the reputation and life in Balamb where he grew up, he could have been local can-do guy. Selphie is all about trains and the garden festival, and even Seifer had (has?) his Romantic Dream!
But what does Squall want other then to be a SeeD? I'm struggling to think and I can't remember anything that he wants other then to be a SeeD.
In hindsight, I think Seifer was both right and wrong about Squall; I think he's right about Squall's hidden lust for battle and restlessness under the stoic facade... but he's wrong about Squall having a secret dream.
To have a dream, an ambition, means looking towards the future. If Squall had a dream once, I think it was to become a SeeD, or like Seifer, or whatever else it meant that he chose a gunblade specifically, and because he's currently living it, because he's let all other parts of himself fall by the wayside or carved them off in service of the idea, he no longer has a dream at all, only frustration when he can't act as what he has made himself. He has calcified. And this is important because...
Yeah, he has huge theatre kid energy, damn. His life dream was to become some kind of storybook figure affiliated to an almost unanimously hated and despised fairy tale character and now he wants Squall to be his fated rival. That's what he'd been seeing in him this whole time, wasn't it? The potential for a shounen rivalry, only in Seifer's head he's the Naruto and Squall is the Sasuke, or whatever.
And then, on the other side, is this other guy, almost as good a fighter, but he's a teacher's pet, knows that the rogue is right but doesn't follow him unless it's part of his orders, and of course he was the one who took part in the assassination attempt - his job is to kill people for money. Which of these two would sound like the hero, and which one the villain, if you didn't have any other details to go on?
I'd note how Seifer has fallen into a kind of...I'd call it storybook thinking? He is 'The Sorceress' Knight', a hero fighting the villainous mercenaries who kill for money, and refused him promotions because he disobeyed orders to fight The Enemy, which would have made his team Heroes. Like, he's ignoring his own reasons a bit, in that going rogue in Dollet was really more about getting in a fight, but the way that the SeeDs behaved in Dollet...he's not wrong in thinking it hardly made the Garden look like The Good Guys.
He did say after the SeeD exam that they'd be 'heros' for what they did if it wasn't for the withdrawl. But being heros isn't really what SeeD is for, they may go up against tough odds, but that's part of their job. The sort of triumph over evil is just not part of SeeD's culture that we saw, just cold pragmatic 'points of views in conflict, and our point of view is we can make money from that'
Seifer can't conceptualise that. He's living his dream in an entirely different way; he's luxuriating in it, ensnared Don Quixote style in his ideas of How Things Go, in these sorts of stories of good and evil, in the afforded adulation and recognition of the role he's always wanted. He can recognize elements of himself in Squall, as a foil, but he also can't see Squall as anything other than this role he's made for him, a sort of extension of his own personal narrative and self-concept. Squall for his part ranges from not opposed to eagerly taking part in the rivalry, but there's a disconnect caused by the images overlaid on top of him; he has been rigidly interpreted, and is made to suffer where Seifer cannot accept the framework of his idea is inaccurate or considers it calling for it. In this way, his feared death occurs in the torture chamber while he's still alive.
Or I could be reading too far into it. The recurring elements of fantasy and dreams and aspirations do keep running through this though, especially where they come into contact with reality or are overlaid onto it.
Also Edea says "fantasy" (幻想, "gensou") a lot, to make a point in her speech: sorceresses feature significantly in the "foolish fantasies" of the masses, and now they assume a "fantasy" that this fearsome sorceress is now their ally. So Edea will dispel that fantasy, and trap them in her own newly-created "ultimate fantasy" that is "not as kind as you think". It will be an "eternal fantasy" where life and death will be "sweet dreams", all of Galbadia will be her slaves, and it will all be an eternity of the rule of sorceresses.
Anyway Ellone doesn't care about any of that, she likes Laguna and wants them all to be together, at which point Raine admits the real reason she's afraid of the idea: Laguna's true dream is to travel all over the world. She doesn't believe he could stay tied down in a little country town like this, even if he honestly tried. And that's… Probably fair, honestly.
Kiros: "Hey, Laguna… Are you doing this patrol thing every day?" Laguna: "'Thing'!? What're you callin' 'THING'!?" Kiros: "Weren't you aiming to become a world-travelling journalist? You've heard of 'Timber Maniacs,' right? I had a talk with the chief editor. He said he's interested in any article related to world travel." Laguna: "That's great!" Kiros: "We should go talk to him sometime." Laguna: (Turning around) "Y-Yeah…"
It's notable to me that Kiros, the stranger who arrives one day to remind Laguna of the world outside, is also the one who is shocked at the development regarding Julia getting married and not waiting for her 'true love,' because Laguna seems… Resistant to that thought, to the idea of this soulmate he's left behind, because Raine is right here and he's… Probably genuinely in love with her? But to accept that, he has to accept that he no longer wants to travel the world.
Also, Laguna and Ellone refer to Raine as the "Commander" and to Ellone as the "Assistant Commander," and Ellone does an excited pose and tells Laguna to 'report to the Commander!', which is unbearably cute.
And here there are two dreams not only warring with reality, but each other. It's hard to give up on an aspiration you've had for a long time, it's hard when something that was comfortingly a fantasy becomes all too terrifyingly possible and becomes a source of stress rather than a comfort because you have to make a decision or act instead of daydream and then put the indulgence back in a drawer, it's hard when there's something you might still want to do but it has become indelibly tied with trauma and it's hard when you know comfortable ritual and hard work won't complete the dream you're trying to construct, because so much of it is tied up in events and beliefs out of your control but also it's the only thing you have. With Kiros here as an agent and reminder of the world's motion as well as a friend, Laguna's joys and sorrows have mixed and become difficult to sort from one another. Like Squall, he's going to have to make choices between courses of action with indelible consequences and inaction is in and of itself one of them.
Also, Laguna and Ellone refer to Raine as the "Commander" and to Ellone as the "Assistant Commander," and Ellone does an excited pose and tells Laguna to 'report to the Commander!', which is unbearably cute.
Laguna is experiencing that problem common to veterans; figuring out what to do after leaving the military, with it's patterns having worn deep grooves into you. He patrols, he kills monsters, and here he reports to a superior officer... joking as it is, it speaks to him having not much but habit to fall back on as a vocation. It's all he knows how to do.
Kiros: "Hm? What's the matter?" Laguna: "I get scared sometimes. Scared of waking up somewhere else… Scared of not seeing Ellone…" Kiros: "Scared of not seeing Raine?" Laguna: "What happened to me? I feel… What is this I'm feeling?" Laguna: "Oh, please let it be this room when I wake up! Please let me be in this puny bed when I wake up!" Kiros: "Laguna, you've changed."
Notably they don't get much in the way of detail. They can't actually tell what the SeeD kids are thinking at them, just a vague impression of 'presence' and 'activity'. Makes sense they'd call them fairies really, they might be able to tell that something happening makes the 'fairies' agitated, but not exactly what or why.
And I think that similarity probably doesn't help this deep fear of returning to that life. That said, this is intense enough I wonder if Squall's own emotions are bleeding through and amplifying it here, a resonance occurring as with a dim, dreamlike sense, Squall subconsciously knows he's waking up and doesn't know where himself.
It's interesting, isn't it, that the bit just after Squall was struck down and left for dead, is also the bit where we see Laguna stuck in a rut with no idea what to seek for in his future?
Also a bit where they are both recovering from cliffhanger injuries, while meanwhile Zell has prison dreams. There's a weird sort of synchronicity to these sequences; not enough to fully line up every time, but enough for it to be notable. To some extent this is just an inevitable result of the ability to use this setup to create narrative comparisons, but in universe it means a flashback is more likely to connect two similar experiences than two different ones.
but what you don't need to lock up a bunch of activists and anarchists and political nerds is individualized steel cell that are disconnected from each other and moved through a complex crane system.
Au contraire, what better way to prevent collusion between likeminded prisoners than to ensure they are both isolated and never near each other long enough to truly talk, let alone form bonds and plans? The psychological damage and disorientation alone from having no idea where you are or when you'll be moved and torn away from any reference point or garnered stability in a way you are helpless to prevent can't be denied either. It's like if someone heard about the Panopticon and was like, that's cool, but here's my idea. And then a dictatorship decided that such a torment nexus seemed like just the thing to spend reams of boondoggle money on.
No wonder everyone wants to play Triple Triad. It is the only constant in this world.
Back in the main cell, a group of guards comes in to harass the SeeDs (and also Rinoa). Zell reflects that he doesn't like the guy in charge at all, and the guy comments that they can now hear the sound of their friend being tortured (no sound effect to go with it so it's just kind of confusing).
I was briefly amused by the idea that the reason they initially couldn't hear the screams was because Seifer was still gloating at that point, but no, really they just can't hear him, maybe the guy was being metaphorical about it.
But of course, the real question is, what do they even want to torture Squall for? Well, sociological conceptualization of torture as a form of group-bonding behavior rather than genuine information-seeking aside, they have a question to ask him. There's just one problem.
It's not a question Squall actually knows the answer to.
NOOOOOOOO- oh this is metal as hell actually. I reverse my opinion of this development entirely. Also I guess putting a pin in here for possibly getting a flashback to Laguna being in icy Trabia or finding this guy in Galbadia or something? Either he actually left Winhill or this happened when he was still traveling, in which case we'll probably hear about it secondhand instead since the flashbacks seem to be chronological.
It has strong 'mascot' energy, I don't trust it. It's carrying some kind of plate, which it drops after tripping. It's not clear what it was hoping to do but Mean Guy hears it, comes in, yells "You again?" and proceeds to kick it several times, as if we didn't already know he's a petty, violent asshole.
Ok, more seriously, I have mixed feelings about this sequence. On the one hand, it's nice to see once more monsters being incorporated into the narrative and actively affecting the story. On the other, it sure feels like nobody cares about man-eating monsters that much. Even Laguna treats his self-imposed monster hunting as an excuse to stick around rather than a vital job that must be done.
Yep, got it in one - the Faculty members opened the gates to the training center and unleashed the monsters, presumably retaining some kind of control over them somehow.
Biggs stammers that he's going to 'teach us a lesson' and that, while it might seem cowardly to to fight unarmed prisoners, we have to understand his position, it's tough being a Galbadian officer.
This is when Zell realizes, having somehow not thought about this until now, that his weapons are his fists. Everyone else is a specialist trained exclusively in the use of a specific weapon, but he just knows 'punching.' And, as Selphie points out, because he experienced this place as Ward, he knows the place's layout!
(Weirdly enough Zell mentally comments that this isn't really the case, 'all Ward did was mop the floors,' which doesn't seem like it would in any way change that he would know the layout of the prison which would be useful to Zell. Dunno why.)
I wonder if Zell just doesn't want to admit that mentally ridesharing with a guy he can't chat with, who just mops floors for hours, in identical rooms and corridors, was utter hell for his ADHD and he retained no useful information from the experience, and is hoping Squall will take the heat off of him here.
Selphie and Quistis quickly arrive, and Selphie asks Squall why he ran off ahead of them, 'is Zell that important to you?' This obviously causes Squall even more mortification while, on the other side, Zell strikes a pose like he's playing it cool. I'm not saying I'd ship it, but-
It's character development for sure, but also, this is more reaction than when Rinoa was in trouble with Irvine being the one insisting on helping her... I'm just saying...
I mean, I guess it's as good a way as any to emphasize that Galbadia runs off corruption and nepotism, but, like… Rinoa and Irvine fought Edea. They weren't in some out of the way location like the Gateway Team, they personally joined Squall in fighting the Sorceress. But apparently Rinoa's father wasn't bothered at all, and Irvine was released, and Carraway had him sent to retrieve Rinoa? This is so strange. Also apparently Rinoa is a cat and scratches people when she's angry? Wild.
Yeah, this would have worked so much better if it was two members of the Gateway team who joined Squall in that particular fight - but then we wouldn't have been able to have the FMV shot of Rinoa reaching for Squall as he falls from the parade platform, or the declarations of courage/willingness to redeem themselves from Rinoa and Irvine that they open that particular fight with.
It really does seem to be a casualty of having specific scenes in mind and then having to find a way to glue them together. I think leaving Irvine at the clocktower would have been the easiest way to thread this needle, since he's the only one whose face was not seen and the beat of him redeeming himself could be replaced with him being relieved in multiple senses as the others go ahead, but you'd need to find a way to bring one of the Gate crew into the combat party while leaving the others somewhere...
Deling was clearly concerned enough about a direct confrontation between Galbadia and Garden to agree to the plausible deniability of the 'rogue SeeD' attacking him.
The relative independence of the Gardens is interesting, in a state vs corporation way - it makes me think of Special Economic Zones. They have campus grounds in various nations, but aren't tied to any particular one... however the devil's in the details, because they're still within them and drawing on the population for orphans left lying around to turn into students, so there's a sort of delicate dance that has to be done. There's probably a soft moratorium on hiring a nation's Garden against that nation, so a job like that will get passed on to one of the others, and so it makes sense that contributing Irvine to the assassination is a major indication of where Galbadia Garden is tossing it's hat.
I want to see the as-builts for this place, the foundations must be fascinating.
.........................oh.
So that's the prison, not that other building complex in the desert I've been mentally picturing this whole time. Disorientation really seems to be the tenet with which this thing was made, what with the moving cells and the going up and down into the sand... It's like the architect was told to build a monument to the Confusion spell.
…wait, did Squall just not tell anybody about the missile launch? Like, Selphie just said they learned about it from Irvine, does that mean Squall just forgot to mention it?
Not only did Squall not bother to tell anyone about the missile launch, his "What?" is more like an annoyed "What is it this time". Like he's sulking at this time-wasting interruption, instead of this being rather important information.
For a hot second I thought he'd told them and the 'What?' was in response to their reactions to the news, but man, he must be really out of it. He's not the best communicator but he does at least usually relay this sort of mission-critical thing.
Needless to say, Squall is horrified. He might not have a lot of attachment to a lot of people, but Balamb Garden is the only place where he belongs, SeeD is all his life, and now it's all about to be destroyed.
It makes sense if it's all tucked away in a ball labelled 'Bad' at the back of his brain that he's not touching with a ten foot pole for the sake of his sanity. Seifer would be pissed if he knew his grand performance was being brushed away under the mental carpet, but he's only got himself to blame!
Selphie: "Squall, we have to report to Balamb! Who are you taking?" Zell: "C'mon, Squall!" Quistis: "You have to decide, Squall!" Rinoa: "Squall, think carefully now!" Squall, mentally: "(I've had it up to here with this leader thing… Alright, alright… I'll choose.)"
I don't know if the implication is that he's growing more attached to his party members or… What? Is this a cheeky reference to Aerith dying shortly after leaving the party last game? Is this meant to be treated as an OOC warning, 'the characters you send on this mission might die/leave the story for a while'? As a bit of characterization it could be effective if that was a fear Squall had ever expressed before, but as it is it just feels odd.
It's a callback to the scene with Irvine, I think, a soft reversal. Squall's was grappling with mortality and remembrance last disk, and now it's his turn on the 'the potential weight of my actions and choices is terrifying' ride. Squall was never outright appointed leader so much as sort of stepped into the role, but it's downsides are now becoming apparent, and also our boy is fresh out of being tortured - suddenly things going badly wrong might be much less theoretical and way more visceral as a concept, especially since he does seem to be connecting to his squadmates despite himself.
That said it is also absolutely an Aerith tease. There's probably a less jarring way to have done this.
In the Japanese script, Rinoa is calling for a vote, in her usual teenage girl sing-song announcement way. Specifically, the vote is on Rinoa's two-fold suggestion: Squall, as squad leader, is on the team to Balamb. Also, Squall should pick the members of each team. She goes "Anyone opposed please raise your hand", and immediately adds that she's fine with being on either team, so I assume nobody else on the scene reacted like they wanted to object.
I do love these little hints through her of the Timber Wolves' day to day, how they operate and interact with each other. It's been fun seeing their approaches to hierarchies clash; this is her bounce back from wanting to brainstorm the bangle with the others and being shut down. Both Rinoa and Squall have been growing as leaders in different ways, it's cool to see.
God, I love Selphie. When she first showed up I never expected one of her most consistent character traits to be "love of random destruction and carnage."
…also, we're getting Selphie's internal monologue. I hadn't immediately noticed, but outside of Laguna flashbacks the game is specifically always showing us the internal monologue of the party leader; 90% of the time that's Squall, but we've never had Selphie Thoughts before that I can recall, and now that she's party leader we're getting a front row seat to her live comments (she thinks this guy is a weirdo).
…but Selphie had Quezacotl just about to be unleashed as the last spell hit the Iron Clad, meaning these soldiers run right into a full-screen 1000+ damage, coming in clutch and sealing the victory. Our reward? Another Weapons Monthly magazine and 4 AP.
when the guard sees us pass, he first stops us to examine us then comments that 'walking in a single file' means we must have been raised with good manners. I'm pretty sure that's directly alluding to how conspicuous it is, in-game, that our characters are always moving single-file everywhere they go.
I've heard of this creature called 'sargeant' which can identify a wrong salute at 500 paces.
I do like this detail though; apart from Irvine and Rinoa, the team isn't from Galbadia. I like the idea they're not saluting incorrectly so much as this is a regional difference that has finally tripped them up. They got impressively far, considering!
Selphie I think we might be infiltrating a SCP facility.
Garden Faculty: [To students] "Find the headmaster!" Squall, mentally: "(What's going on? Are they evacuating?)" Garden Faculty: "Seize him! Kill him if you have to! Go!" Squall, mentally: "(What!?)" Garden Faculty: "Go!"
It's a laudable sentiment, but unfortunately people are already fighting to the death. The situation really seems extreme - how quickly can it have degenerated like this? This seems less like the result of an afternoon's spat and more like days or weeks of building tensions and consolidating allegiances.
Now I'm wondering if years of electing only small number of SeeDs and letting most students only pass through with a default graduation into wherever they go next might not have ended up building resentment and a kind of class divide that's now blowing up on everyone, with the students who feel they'll never make it into SeeD siding with the Garden Master both out of resentment and promises of better alternatives.
This entire sequence reminded me of the time the Chinese rocketry program broke into two factions which genuinely tried to kill each other and also the soldiers sent to try and get them to stop, for months. Office politics can get ugly, especially when homemade armored vehicles get involved.
But also, an uprising against the talented students by the more numerous and passed over ones is something I now have two nickels for, thanks to Danganronpa. I wonder if this is something that occurs elsewhere in Japanese media.
It's also interesting to see that focus on orders. This is a school that trains students to 1) follow orders and 2) for the highest bidder... and who's in charge of a student's grades? The faculty. I rest my case.
It's truly incredible to me that this guy can watch the whole school busy trying to kill each other and go 'I, an enlightened centrist, understand that there are good people on both sides.'
Irvine: "So like… if you knew that your enemies were pure evil, you'd get more fired up to fight them, right?" Squall, mentally: "(Right and wrong are not what separates us and our enemies. It's our different standpoints, our perspectives that separate us.)" Squall, mentally: "(Both sides blame one another. There's no good or bad side. Just 2 sides holding different views.)"
Different perspectives really seems to be something the game is going for in general, huh, as an extension of that communication theme. The segments with Laguna, Kiros and Ward, and even habitually splitting and cutting rapidly between the party really do play into this.
Raijin: "Hey, just like Fujin said, ya know!? We're with Seifer. Always have, always will."
[They leave.] Squall, mentally: "(Seifer… He's sided with the sorceress. You guys alright with that?"
I also love these two. They really are team Ride or Die and I think it's why they click so well with Seifer, who despite bucking authority, really values and upholds pledging oneself, even if his loyalty while intense is interchangeable because to him it's a role in a play and also he wants to feel accoladed in it. Unlike Seifer, they're very clear-eyed about who they're throwing themselves in with and why and don't care for other regards; they're the other side of the coin of the idea, I think.
Turns out, the Moombas, those mascot critters from back at the prison, are from there! And it's a wild and inhospitable place inhabited only by said Moombas and the 'Shumi tribe,' plus Trabia Garden.
I love how there is absolutely zero connective tissue between what Selphie loves or finds cute and why she's fine gruesomely destroying for the sake of the mission. Train? Blow it up with a missile! Cute furry mascot? Skin him for a disguise!
This is something I've been noticing more and more: even as my damage is completely failing to keep up with enemy HP, my Summon damage remains competitive. A Blizzara cast from Squall, who has decent Magic damage, deals maybe 200 damage out of an HP pool in the thousand. But Quetzacotl hits for 900, Ifrit for 600. Even taking account the increased casting times for summons, GFs are literally my most efficient form of damage dealing at this stage.
Looks like you fulfilled both criteria for increasing your SeeD rank here: you get an increase if you get through setting the self-destruct without getting caught prior, and for getting out in the 10 minute limit.
RIP to whichever Balamb student was already infiltrating the base as a long term asset. This does get funnier the more I think about it, though; they can tell Balamb Garden you fucked up that robot but good, but not that it's getting missiles launched at it? That's impressive levels of sticking to the contract. Either that or the faculty intercepted the message and are ignoring it for some reason.
Or... we know that 'support' students are often dismissed and don't get many chances to distinguish themselves in order to get SeeD rank. Perhaps this is the revenge of those telecomms students from way back when? Perhaps the occasional fantasy of school blowing up has finally manifested?
One of the 'prisoners' we can run into, who runs an item store out of a cell, reveals that he's actually a Balamb Garden student undercover as a prisoner who is actually working for Galbadia right now.
There's another student hiding out in the training grounds (since, you know, most of the monsters have left for the rest of the school, lmao) who keeps a standard item shop.
Incidentally, these dim interiors with the rusted steel and ancient machinery? A jarring shift from the Garden's sleek iPod Future aesthetic. We are in a different world here, the prehistory of Balamb Garden.
Listen, we've seen giant glass tubes in both VI and VII at this point, and in both cases they were very bad news. What the fuck was going on in this building? And why is the aesthetic so much grungier, more, like… Rusted dieselpunk?
The shutters we opened, it turns out, revealed the lower levels of the oil tanks that are still full of oil. And unlike in our world, it looks like some creatures were happily living in said oil and are unhappy about our interference.
At least, Omicron can be proud of his Selphie doing a great job. Because there is another FMV if Selphie doesn't do her job properly in the base (begins at 1:07) :
The beautiful mechanical halo which sat above Balamb Garden starts spinning and lighting up. It then goes down, its center forming a pillar of light that enshrouds the whole garden,
I'm going to be honest, I completely thought that halo was set dressing. I was not prepared to see missiles knock it to the ground and break it as if it were a physical object that could be interacted with. I absolutely was not expecting it to sink into the earth and become a means of propulsion.
I just thought this thing was pretty, not foreshadowing for the office being the bridge for an airship - Cid, probably
Seriously though, what's up with the haloes, now that we know they're a signifier of magitech? Whose magitech? There's a delightful incongruity in this fantastical technology being powered by crude oil.
Apropos of nothing, I also love how scuffed this renderite looks. How did Cid renovate the whole thing without compromising it's design principles or knowing it had any?
They're also coming in incredibly close to the water, close enough to cut a wake through it, which is… Actually what you want cruise missiles for? The ability to fly close to the ground and escape detection and interception.
Just like in the game over cinematic for failing to modify their parameters, the missiles approach Balamb Garden and then veer off, up into the air, then immediately dive back down, looking in the process like nothing so much as birds of prey trying to confuse and terrify their target.
I think that's what's on board of these missiles. A bird-like, or cat-like intelligence, that sees Balamb Garden's strange displays of light and shielding halo and it hiding in the smoke, and treats it not as a static building, but as prey, some kind of intelligent animal to be outfoxed with swarm tactics and misdirection.
It probably was just to look cool and sinister, but the choice of a vertically slit pupil is very interesting here in terms of how the missiles behave; this kind of pupil shape is very good for keeping track of motion if you have a perpendicular plane for reference, which is why you see it on animals that hunt low to the ground and therefore the horizon like snakes and cats. There's a synergy between the natural behavior of the entities inside the missiles, and the programming; coming in low means less chance of detection, but also likely lets them get a good bead on their target before they make the final swoop. I wonder if they were made for use against moving structures, since Balamb has proven it's entirely possible.
Squall, mentally: "(...I don't know… Because you might screw up.)" Squall, mentally: "(…Because I want to do more than announce the evacuation.)" Squall, mentally: "(Because this place is important to me, too.)" Squall, mentally: "(Because I want to find out your plan.)" Squall, mentally: "(Because this is my home.)" Squall, mentally: "(I have too many reasons. I don't know why… Who cares?)" Squall: "My feelings have nothing to do with it, sir."
I just love how much we get into Squall's head in this game, really seeing him struggle with his emotions over time. And consider what the other characters are seeing, Cid asks why Squall wants to help and he just stands there gormlessely for a solid ten seconds before trying to brush it off entirely.
Just have whomever joins the fight open up with a line like "the others are keeping the Galbadian reinforcement occupied!", or something like that. Justifying that is simple enough.
Also, having Rinoa and Irvine not be involved in the assassination so that they can be those who springs the group from the prison would eliminate the scene where Caraway has to get Rinoa out of prison, which would make the narrative stronger by not rising the question of what Caraway's situation currently is, with regard to his power within Galbadia's military.
For context, the word used is 層, "sou", which is the generic word for "layer" or "stratum", so I can understand why that was the word used in the translation.
However, 層 is also occasionally used for "storey" or "floor", in the sense of "fourth floor" or "basement two floor". So another potential interpretation is this is the floor dedicated to oil, like "floor for menswear".
Also "oil" is in katakana, オイル, rather than the usual kanji 油 ("abura"), or possibly 石油 ("sekiyu") to refer specifically to petroleum and such rather than cooking oil. So I'm leaning towards the "floor for oil" interpretation.
Notably this interpretation does not imply anything about the actual environment being covered in oil, so the comment about fire-weak enemies just kinds of assumes fire-weak enemies will be hanging around the general vicinity of oil, even if the oil is in containers. It's not much weirder than monsters being down here at all, I think.
It's a callback to the scene with Irvine, I think, a soft reversal. Squall's was grappling with mortality and remembrance last disk, and now it's his turn on the 'the potential weight of my actions and choices is terrifying' ride. Squall was never outright appointed leader so much as sort of stepped into the role, but it's downsides are now becoming apparent, and also our boy is fresh out of being tortured - suddenly things going badly wrong might be much less theoretical and way more visceral as a concept, especially since he does seem to be connecting to his squadmates despite himself.
To be pedantic, Squall was appointed leader, way back when Squall, Zell, and Selphie were first given their assignment to Timber. Cid appoints Squall as squad leader, and everyone accepts it without comment, because it's completely routine.
It's just that the scope of the mission has expanded ridiculously beyond "provide support to the Timber Resistance", and Squall is still considered leader, despite his "squad" doubling in size and including more experienced SeeDs like his former teacher.
In any other competent organization, any of the events since Timber would have resulted in acknowledging a change in mission parameters, and thus a reshuffling of roles, but everyone here just assumed Squall would continue to be Squad Leader.
But also, an uprising against the talented students by the more numerous and passed over ones is something I now have two nickels for, thanks to Danganronpa. I wonder if this is something that occurs elsewhere in Japanese media.
The idea of "less talented people rebel against the more talented people" is a very common theme in Japanese media, yes. The popularity of school settings does make this "student vs student" quite often.
As with every theme, there are portrayals supporting both sides. On the "less talented are the good guys" side, it's usually based on perceived unfairness of the measurement of talent, often with "my low-rank skills are actually overpowered". On the "more talented are the good guys" side, it's usually based on "they're letting jealousy and envy get the better of them".
It's also often inserted into various dramatizations of historical events, to explain away why various rebellions or betrayals happened. The Japan Warring States period is full of this, which matches how much media has been made of that historical setting.
It's kind of weirdly refreshing that for FFVIII, this is just one of the side events happening in the course of the game's story, rather than the primary conflict. There might have been a long and passionate debate about this form of meritocracy in Garden causing resentment and tension, but Galbadian missiles are about to blow up the entire place.
To be pedantic, Squall was appointed leader, way back when Squall, Zell, and Selphie were first given their assignment to Timber. Cid appoints Squall as squad leader, and everyone accepts it without comment, because it's completely routine.
Ah thanks, I missed that! I did go back to double check, but I must have skipped over it. This does change the valence of him griping about it; he sure didn't protest at the time, iirc, and also fits more with the contrast with Rinoa.
Ah thanks, I missed that! I did go back to double check, but I must have skipped over it. This does change the valence of him griping about it; he sure didn't protest at the time, iirc, and also fits more with the contrast with Rinoa.
I can still see the validity of complaining about being leader, although as usual it would have helped Squall more if he bothered actually voicing these complaints to others. Squall expected to be Squad Leader for one (1) mission, which turned out to be a lengthier contract than he expected, and then suddenly he had to deal with the aftermath of a rogue Garden student, oversee an assassination attempt, get tortured, and then have to potentially send some of his squadmates to die.
And through it all, everyone is assuming that Squall is the leader, because of course he's the leader. Even his former teacher is acting like his subordinate, as are the head of the Timber Resistance movement and the one SeeD who bothered to volunteer for an organizational leader position as the Garden Festival Organizer.
I speculated earlier that a big part of it might be Squall realizing how much easier it was to "just follow orders", like the Dollet mission, and which Rinoa had accused him of doing back at the Timber Broadcasting Station.
Goddamn, the sentient demon missiles and the flying Balamb reveal go so hard though?? Spectacular, if I'm honest.
It's sombering (though not, strictly speaking, believable from a player POV) that the team that went to mess with the missiles is just gone like that, especially after the surprisingly effective hype that Selphie got for that whole section as she showed off her character and determination. That standout moment focusing on Squall's internality again as he runs his mind through his reasons, and his justifications, and finally his uncertainty and deeper need to get answers and understand this, is also engaging. Feels almost like another tipping point. I'm curious to see how the story continues to develop Squall's characterization with the contrast between his internality and his outwardly expressed motives.
The revelation that Esthar also had a sorceress does a lot to contextualise this last quote. Galbadia almost certainly put out a lot of propaganda denouncing Esthar and it's ruler; a lot of fiction has fantasy prejudices depicted as being nebulously just sort of there rather than as things that are actively maintained and spread in order to create wherewithal to act against a group, so this grounds it in history in a neat way. It roots the contempt Edea expresses here for the Galbadian people and their hypocritical cheering for a 'monster' if she's on their side, doing atrocities for them. How many times has this cycle occurred throughout history in FF8? Not as an inevitable certainty, but as a low energy state result of a person being magically powerful enough that they must either hide or bring to bear geopolitical implications no matter who they align themselves with or command, a person who did not spring into existence, but was chosen with a life history and experiences and opinions already attached, shaped by the world they've lived in and it's past.
Or, perhaps, Edea might be not just metaphorically but literally Esthar's Sorceress. Esthar may have stopped trying to overtly conquer Galbadia, but that might just be because their Sorceress decided to go for a more subtle rice of forcibly possessing a new body through magic and then infiltrating the highest ranks of Galbadian government.
In other words, she's much better at assassination plots than our heroes.
This entire sequence reminded me of the time the Chinese rocketry program broke into two factions which genuinely tried to kill each other and also the soldiers sent to try and get them to stop, for months. Office politics can get ugly, especially when homemade armored vehicles get involved.
