Lurker > SeabassDebeste

i beat zell at a card game

shortly after i beat a guy with a crush on pigtail girl and squall is now wearing navy instead of neon blue

cerberus/ifrit/raijin fujin/diablos/minotaur do seem to obviate need for much strategy
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yet all azuarc of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

yeah i'm not necessarily trying to complete a sidequest, but i do want to... you know, play triple triad and understand it a bit
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yet all azuarc of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

how do i win a certain number of games to begin with though?
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yet all azuarc of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

ok so how do i actually challenge the balamb guys to cards/where are they

i think i've talked to them but then they don't play cards with me
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yet all azuarc of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

junie is truly terrible
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yet all azuarc of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

perceive should always have stayed out of court, like in AA5 and forward
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yet all azuarc of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

man i really didn't like 5-1, but ad you're having a good go with it so far

i guess the aftertastes of aa4 and aai2 are veey different
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yet all azuarc of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

where's a good place to play? (and yeah, i lost cerberus and obviously quit)

also, having trouble finding that viking doom lair or whatever from before.
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yet all azuarc of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

went to winhill and played a few games and i uess i should learn the rules because i had no idea what i was doing and lost every time
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yet all azuarc of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

also a fan of 4-2, though not necessarily above 4-1
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yet all azuarc of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

Llarian posted...

Hoo boy. I loved the MASON system of investigation. That almost single handedly saved the game for me, and certainly gave me renewed energy towards finishing it. For those of you who dont know me, I love all manner of productivity strategies, and to-do lists are one of my faves. This was so fun, investigating each chapter of both past and present, getting those satisfying glowing check marks, and continuing to break Psyche Locks left and right. It was like we had the old operations back together again.

yes! glad you liked it as much as i did.

also i don't think i see anyone talk about it, but i believe this segment also has AA1's jail music which is the absolute best.

i think investigations is definitely worth it, especially if you intend to play AAI2 (requires an emulator). DD is better but if you don't want to leave the DS behind just yet...
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yet all azuarc of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

Oh yeah so Sunday progress. Like most movement, flying the airship sucks. But the Pokemon-style teleportation is fantastic. We rescue Rinoa with absolutely zero resistance (uhhh) thanks to a benevolent, mysterious man, and she wants to head to the orphanage and hang out for a bit. "Whatever." Then we're summoned by the president of Esthar...

Laguna! We get the gaps filled in for his story. It's mildly interesting, and it's a surprising relief to find out that he's alive and hasn't turned evil! You'd expect the leader of such a creepy futuristic utopia/dystopia to be evil, and on top of that, he's a character we knew back then, and he had a statue of him. But nope, time has given him more responsibility but no more evil. Seems obvious that Laguna's statue is for rescuing the world from Adel (who is apparently a giant?!), whose motivations are unclear. She wasn't possessed by Ultimecia, right?

He unveils some silly plan involving time travel to travel to the future to kill Ultimecia. First step is to get Ellone, then slaughter the sorceress Adel. Then we travel to the past or something and Ultimecia attempts to possess Rinoa, but we rubberband ourselves into the future and kill her.

Sure, whatever. Well, we got Laguna on the airship now! Am I correct in assuming that this is the proper time to start doing sidequests? i.e. playing some cards, getting whatever GFs are left?
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yet all azuarc of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

Llarian posted...

Were back to reality [oh! There goes gravity!] next time in Ace Attorney,

will the real slim shadi please stand up

anyway, 4-0's ending is terrible and some of the stuff about it feels off, but i actually quite enjoy the (awful) story of the magnifi brothers otherwise

the next investigation segment is easily my favorite part of the game, so hopefully you enjoy.
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yet all azuarc of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

oh my god yes
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yet all azuarc of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

well i romped about esthar's capital city a bunch looking for the sorceress whatever and found nothing, so i assume i waa doing it wrong. i spent most of the battle time drawing for life/death so i've got some boosted junctions now.

but will have to keep searching for rinoa i guess. maybe the moon?
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yet all azuarc of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

landed back and esthar and god i just got beset by this stupid dragon/cheetah combo that status'd me until i gave up. confuse is somehow as bad or worse than silence - berserk i can live with, but zell was casting my hoarded magic randomly!
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yet all azuarc of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

oh hey there is progress

i really do think AAI1 is a step above this, even if it's not on the tier of 1 or 3!

4-4 has some really good stuff in it (mixed in with the awful) - stick with it plsss
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yet all azuarc of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

archiving this tomorrow!
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yet all azuarc of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

cool, so i caught rinoa!

The whole sojourn in space is... bizarre. It's unclear why Rinoa had to come here exactly, but naturally, things go awry almost immediately, undercutting the hilarious music that reminds me of Lordly Tailor in AA3. Lunar Pandora is somehow summoning a giant beam of monsters from the Moon to Earth; Rinoa gets possessed yet again; Sorceress Adel is freed about 120 seconds after we're told how dangerous she is but hey we're keeping her in check; the space station gets wrecked and people need escape pods.

(I had to consult my notes 'cause it'd been so long, but apparently Lunar Cry was also what wrecked the Centra continent and caused that giant crater. Interesting!)

I guess part of it is just that the game designer liked space and wanted to set some scenes here, because they like the look of the harder sci-fi and the sensation of the loneliness out there. There are few settings with the sense of isolation that space gives, and poor Rinoa of course, in one of our only times in her head, has to experience it. I both enjoy and roll my eyes at the off-screen flashbacks that give her identity - the scene where she berates our sniper friend (whose name I just had to look up in this topic) is fantastic; the scene where she asks Zell for Squall's ring is... kinda dumb and pointless-feeling (and it explained a very dumb scene to begin with.)

Squall goes out and gets Rinoa, because that's what heroes do. But what confuses me is... he literally had no plan whatsoever? He was really planning to die out there alone? We do wind up happening across a conveniently empty Ragnarok, but... what? I mean, it winds up in a nice scene, so the ends clearly justify the means, but it's not like Squall just goes out there in a deranged state; his friends actively encourage him to! It winds up working out because he's the main character, but yeesh!

Anyway yeah, Ragnarok has air, and we disrobe from the spacesuits. Rinoa is back to normal almost immediately, flirty and cute. The ship presents an odd sort of puzzle, with a bunch of different creatures. With a massive level gap (34 to 20), we tackle a whole bunch before reading that we need to kill consecutive creatures in consecutive colors. This is one of my favorite "dungeons" - no random encounters, a clear goal, and the chance to develop familiarity with the environment. These tentacled beasts are pretty intimidating, and they deal boss-like damage. Luckily though, Rinoa has taken Edea's junction set, which includes the Sleep-junctioned-to-Attack module... and these enemies are vulnerable to that. I wind up maxing out everyone's Thunder3 and Esuna junctions using Draw here.

Once I figure out the pattern and establish where all the monsters are, I take them out in order:
- Purple - the first enemy we encounter. I only need to duck one Red enemy (doors are very close to each other) to attack the second Purple dude.
- Red - this dude is sandwiched between the two Purples, so after taking out Purple, I kill it, then double back to the entry bridge and kill the other there.
- Green - there's one in a room by itself, and a second sitting on a pod. Both are very politely available and navigable.
- Yellow - there's one guarding the room where I learned the secret to defeating them, and one in the original entry save point room. (I originally tried going after Yellow first, but the Red dude on the bridge obstructed that plan.)

Killing these enemies finally frees up the path to the cockpit. I alluded to it already, but Squall and Rinoa have an incredibly sweet scene here as we manage to make contact with a port. The English-language music is really pretty, and Rinoa almost annoyingly keeps insisting on staying in Squall's lap. But the reason for her insistence on extend the present becomes clear as we approach landing: she has become a sorceress and is now a possession risk, so she will need to surrender herself, terrified that no one will view her as anything other than a threat now. It immediately doubles the power of the moments preceding it. Squall has saved Rinoa's life and they've reunited for this euphoric moment as they head home... and that moment is all that they have. It's been a long time since I started the game, but this is likely my favorite scene of it.

Squall is torn when we land, but Rinoa gives herself up, and it tears him apart. The power of that agony is of course almost immediately undercut by everyone showing up and saying "dude let's just get her then?" Seems like it was an avoidable situation! We're now dealing with three threats: Lunar Cry and all the monsters; Adel possibly coming free; and Squall losing Rinoa. There's really no competition at all for Squall: Let's get the girl.

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* Squall: You'd better not do anything to hurt her! (dramatic hand gesture)
Rando staffer: All right, all right, you're her knight in shining armor, I get it.

* For a dude who's all but said he loves Rinoa, Squall sure is reticent about even giving her a hug. Japanese teen media FTW.

* And unfortunately, I'm also very disappointed by the damsel in distress storyline. We just got Rinoa back. Send one of these other losers into jeopardy, if this orphanage storyline is so important!

* When it comes to a love story, I do love a "screw the world" decision point. Heavens Feels had this going on in Fate/Stay Night, and it works great here in FFVIII too.

* And so, this segment as a whole kind of is a microcosm for my entire FFVIII experience! The sublime and the cringe-y and the goofy and the ugly and the satisfying, all rolled into one little bizarre, unnecessary trip into space. Here we go, onward.
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yet all azuarc of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

i think daryan himself is actually pretty enjoyable on the stand, but that cross-examination is SO unfun. i think i wound up looking up what to do and not regretting it at all.
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yet all azuarc of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

i thought that little thing might be rinoa (and i was in first person view), but then the controls were so unresponsive i thought that might have been squall and i was in third person view
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yet all azuarc of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

whoops

got stuck on another dumb minigame, trying to rescue rinoa in space...
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yet all azuarc of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

hmm... sounds interesting for sure. with no true hobby game nights in my near future, might be worth investing in for the non-gamer friends...
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yet all azuarc of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

Llarian posted...

This game its so unfortunate.

yup!
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yet all azuarc of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

great series! not really surprising that multi-parters take the top few slots (though i'd combine them - they don't feel like they stand on their own as much)

really enjoyed the writeup about boiling rock part 1. also not enough "that's rough buddy"
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yet all azuarc of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

so zell/edea/selphie boarded the lunar pandora and immediately got booted off (i think?)

meanwhile squall has landed in the space station, which looks pretty cool!
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yet all azuarc of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

thanks

back from vacation so this will continue soon
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yet all azuarc of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

finally!
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yet all azuarc of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

well it's too late to play in balamb garden lol
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yet all azuarc of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

i have played zero card games
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yet all azuarc of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

bump - will archive this next week
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yet all azuarc of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

ozai on a non-sozin's comet vs non-avatar state aang would've been awesome!
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yet all azuarc of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

didn't realize this was still around. will watch more after this week in case it's relevant!
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yet all azuarc of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

i didn't go explore centra's ruins

i was sick of waiting for the story to advance, and i didn't realize i'd be locked out of returning!

hopefully i'll get a real airship that won't be godawful to navigate soon

in the meantime, not sure how to handle this lunar pandora thing
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yet all azuarc of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

ellone rescue in the last get

leaving rinoa with this creep in the present seems like a BAD IDEA (tm). gonna result in her becoming the new ultimecia or getting sacrificed for lunar sky or something.

this capital city reminds me of the sky city in gulliver's travels - it has a very "sky city" look to it and the people are very proud of themselves. i got lost in the city for sure.

passed ozine's out-of-city lab - now time to enter the lunar gate

there was a random enemy that cast a thousand status afflictions on everyone and almost killed me. ran just in time
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yet all azuarc of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

i did give stuff to everyone at first, but junction exchange and magic exchange, plus deliberate junction breaks, and the fact that GFs need to be in battle to gain experience, all seem to encourage you to do otherwise!
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yet all azuarc of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

oh that reminds me

i had all my magic junctioned to edea, and she wasn't an option to switch over to any of the three party members i've got atm

so ward actually has no magic attached to him. i'm able to give him a bunch of GFs but i have to draw all over again in order to actually get anything junctioned to his stats

i'm sure it won't matter pretty soon, but it's actually a bit of an issue!

(edit) also i have rinoa at 20, selphie/zell at 19, quistis at 18 as well - i actually have been rotating, and that seems to even everyone out relative to one another, but increase the gap with squall!
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yet all azuarc of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

Made my way around the Galbadian continent and to the Fisherman's Horizon. A pretty tune plays as Squall carries Rinoa along the long walk, as he admits to her unconscious form how much his shell is meant to protect himself from rejection. The walk continues.

Edea suddenly appears and warns us yet again that she's probably gonna be turned into Ultimecia at some point, and that we "know what to do" if that happens. I mean, we kinda tried to kill her the first time, too... this game has been pretty merciful compared to other FF games about killing people in battle!

Er, but anyway, I decide to let Edea (lv26) join my party (Squall lv30, Irvine lv18) and we go forth into a whole new continent. I'm surrounded by glaciers and dinosaur skeletons here, and the random encounters are terrifying because they cast Stop/Petrify. BAD CREATURES.

Eventually we come to a split in the road, and I go left for starters. Almost immediately I'm beset by a crazy-looking boss, but Squall informs us that it's undead. I'm able to Draw from it to cast Cure3 for massive damage. It also has a ???, though it's not a GF.

Past that, we reach a shimmering hologram of a hole in the sky. Turns out we're able to climb up the invisible wall into an extremely futuristic elevator/shuttle-thingy. When we disembark, Edea informs us that we're on the lookout for Dr. Odine...

... and then flashback to Laguna, in the same area. He's in compelled labor at the moment (it's annoying how they skip what lands us in these situations!), but his kindness to another adorable Moomba compels a fellow prisoner to nominate us leader of the Adel resistance. Kiros and Ward are brought back, and a few battles ensue.

I didn't have Magic or Item junctioned to Squall, and he's been Blinded, so I'm actually not able to deal damage... however, I do have draw, and damn, this enemy has some awesome spells! Four different lv3 magics! I draw myself to 100 on all of them, using Recover as needed, and then wipe him out easily using his own Firaga.

We witness a scene where Odine is clearly unhinged and eager to experiment on children for some sort of special weaponry technology, but we stay hidden. His assistant is also with the resistance, so while we've escaped the lab/factory complex, we're still amid the conspiracy or whatever. Save point for now in Laguna-land.

(Is a gap in levels that big typical? I have to assume it is - Squall is always in the party, and any rotation of other characters at all will result in Squall jumping way ahead.)
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yet all azuarc of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

ah, just clicked your spoiler link. i took "crossing the bridge" to mean passing through the mountain so i just went into that nightmare of random encounters again
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yet all azuarc of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

do i need to catch this chocobo in order to progress
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yet all azuarc of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

i mean they bolt on me so i haven't had a chance!
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yet all azuarc of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

So, I used Spd-J-Scroll on Queztlcoatl, then promptly realized that Alexander is also junctioned to Squall. This was after about 30 min unsaved (but mainly exploring), so I reset the game and taught it to Ifrit, who seems pretty worthless otherwise (sorry bud).

After a lot of putzing around, I finally find the white SeeD ship nestled between two north-south stacked, east-west length-wise rocks. It was visible coming off a mainland area. I just want to say that navigating this Garden is absolute misery. I hate the camera angle, I hate that it forces rotation on you, I hate how slow it moves, and I hate how little access it actually gives you to the world at large. Would vastly prefer fast-travel like Fly in Pokemon, or just a top-down view. (I'm annoyed that the World Map as a whole isn't top-down, in fact.)

After the reset, I board the White SeeD ship with Irvine and Quistis for real, and the captain there demands proof that Edea sent us. Rinoa's buddies are also there, having been rescued by Ellone from Galbadia. We scuttle back to Edea, who gives us a letter, and then the captain of the SeeD ship tells us that Ellone left with an Esthar ship during a dogfight with Galbadia.

We switch to Selphie and Zell and take to the Talle Mountains, the only region where I've found the name "Esthar" show up, but the area past the pass blocking off the Balamb Garden doesn't seem to have any town areas, so I'm at a loss again. I do wind up farming that spider enemy with Draw to the point where all three of my characters are saturated with Water and Esuna, and I also take some from the mysterious cactus enemies that provide Haste. What an interesting area.

But yeah, not sure where to go again!
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yet all azuarc of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

is phoenix pinion actually good

also who should i use that speed scroll on? does quezlcoatl just make the most sense?
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yet all azuarc of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

no, he didn't :(
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yet all azuarc of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

hm, no luck finding the ship yet
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yet all azuarc of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

yeah, there's no overarching storyline in spyfall. it's more like one night werewolf.
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yet all azuarc of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

don't care for waterbending master or library much

blind bandit definitely belongs up here though. totally changed the tenor of the show for the better.

looks like all the top 5 are multi-part action episodes, so blind bandit is a very deserving #1 among standalones
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yet all azuarc of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

that laguna sequence is hilarious. great music, too. though kiros coming with no junctions was not good! surprised the dragon was so easy despite its high HP

where's centra?
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yet all azuarc of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

the ending to d1's trial is so stupid. i like the reveal of lamiroir's blindness though.
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yet all azuarc of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

two classic sides of the hank hill coin

tells interim manager it's unethical to raise propane prices during a demand spike of snow

complains about being given flex time, which is for pregnant women and other disableds
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yet all azuarc of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness