Board 8 > what is going on in that ffviii intro (playthrough/spoilers)

(+) Yeah! (+)

The game has ton of great moments

the problem is the time between those great moments

colliding posted...

The game has ton of great moments

the problem is the time between those great moments

yeah it might be too short if you can believe it
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Not a lot of time, but some points of interest. Squall gets grouped with Selphie and Zell for the mission, which is in the city of Timber, continuing to undermine Galbadia. Before going, I collect a Cursed Lamp (?) from Headmaster Cid, who also sadly confiscates Zell's T-board. We head off to the train station, and it costs 3000 to get on. I have exactly 7000 before purchasing that ticket, which, damn, I had no idea!

The train doesn't have a lot of content, but I do like the way that Zell reacts by being super-excited at being on a train, while Selphie starts staring out the window and singing and dancing.

And suddenly, the music is cooler, the playable character is cooler, and my party is cooler. I'm controlling a small Gabaldian force starring Laguna. Unlike many other NPC-controlling experiences in RPGs, my equipment is familiar, as is everyone's levels. I really like this music as well as the battle music. (Is one of these "Man with the Machine Gun," or is that yet to come?) Squall (and perhaps the other two) think snarky comments as they watch Laguna make his way to a hotel.

At the hotel, Laguna sits at the lounge and watches a pianist named Julia. It's beautiful music played by a beautiful woman, and I feel bad for making her stop by approaching her. Ward and Kiros (who has this cool Voldo-esque battle animation) goad Laguna, who eventually finds himself in Julia's hotel room. She tells about her dream to become a singer in addition to a pianist; Laguna shares his about wanting to become a journalist.

Squall, Zell, and Selphie wake up and basically agree to pretend that collective dream never happened. Makes sense! We are escorted into the resistance, who bring us onto a shuttle, and then a train. Squall is designated to wake up the "princess," a task that he objects to, especially coming from the goofballs in charge. People seem to think this task unenviable, but the princess turns out to be Rinoa. We immediately get an infodump about Rinoa's dog Angelo, who appears as her limit break. So Rinoa is a love-interest Resistance girl like Tifa, but she's got a dog like Shadow. Got it!

Another explanation follows about how we're actually gonna pull off the heist: hijacking the president's train car. It'll involve swapping the order of some trains and whatever. But that's for next time!

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* It's cute how awkward Laguna is with Julia, though switching to a second playable character that all the ladies want makes the material feel a bit thinner and more pandering.

* Laguna still the best character of the game so far though.
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Yes, Laguna's battle theme is Man with the Machine Gun.

Save first, and then use the Cursed Lamp from the item menu.

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SeabassDebeste posted...

It's cute how awkward Laguna is with Julia, though switching to a second playable character that all the ladies want makes the material feel a bit thinner and more pandering.

it's understandable though, because it's Laguna. Squall is the unrealistic one imooo

(though I do love how he destroys Quistis)
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I mean, really only two girls want Squall! Selphie shows zero interest in him, and none of the other NPCs really do either.

Same with Laguna, really.

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MWTMG is so amazing. I remember as a kid wishing that was the normal battle theme, and I LOVE the normal battle theme.

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Man with the Machine Gun in my top 3 FF tracks

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This game quite a few good battle themes, Laguna's is probably my favorite.

Cavedweller2000 posted...

Man with the Machine Gun in my top 3 FF tracks

Reading stuff like makes me want to rank every FF track...

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Leonhart4 posted...

Save first, and then use the Cursed Lamp from the item menu.

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Don't bother saving. Just use the lamp.

I should play through this game again, but I know I'll just end up playing Triple Triad for hours. Not a bad thing, but the last few times I have tried to play through I have just ended up spending over half my play time on the card game.

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I really want to attempt the Requiem mod.

Anyone tried it?

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SeabassDebeste posted...

We do encounter one T-Rex early on, but Quistis is unable to put it to sleep because it turns out that the strength of junctioned magic depends on the quantity of magic you have (and Quistis only has 9 Sleep at the time), so we run from it.

Just making sure you understand here, the strength increase its talking about is if you junction Sleep to Status Attack, which gives your regular attacks that status effect. The effectiveness of casting Sleep as a spell isnt affected by how many you have in stock.
(IMO Status Attack junctions are the easiest way to make the game a complete cakewalk)

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i just saved the fake president, killed him, and used the cursed lamp

not looking forward to replaying that
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SeabassDebeste posted...

i just saved the fake president, killed him, and used the cursed lamp

not looking forward to replaying that

...why did you listen to the guy who told you not to save
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SeabassDebeste posted...

i just saved the fake president, killed him, and used the cursed lamp

not looking forward to replaying that

Oh no. At least that part of the game is cool.

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LeonhartFour posted...

...why did you listen to the guy who told you not to save

i had forgotten, but i noticed the item while attempting to refine items and thought "eh, idk when the next save point is, let's see"

that thing has a lot of hp huh
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draw Demi from him and use it against him

he rewards you for using his own tactics against him
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oh... i thought i'd drawn from it already and only found cure, but i guess that was the preceding boss
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SeabassDebeste posted...

oh... i thought i'd drawn from it already and only found cure, but i guess that was the preceding boss

The draw may fail several times but keep trying

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Sniperdog117 posted...

Oh have fun! By far one of the best Final Fantasy games.

Its one of the most love it or hate it FF games ever.

LeonhartFour posted...

...why did you listen to the guy who told you not to save

I have never died in that fight, except once when I fought him in a no junction game as a challenge. Guess I never found it hard. Even when I relied on GF's my first game I won easily enough, but I was probably lucky in retrospect.

Use blind on him if you have it - his physical attack is the only one that can kill a character (one at a time), any other attacks just bring characters to yellow health. Use limit breaks with your strongest character, save the other two characters with full ATB to use a phoenix down if needed (press circle to skip their turn if not needed) and you pretty much can't lose.

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Yes, Diablos isn't hard if you know what you're doing, but I wouldn't assume that everyone will figure it out their first time.

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Monopoman posted...

Its one of the most love it or hate it FF games ever.

Huh. I never knew people loved or hated it. I wish FFVIII had more stuff like it to be honest.

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The only rule that sucks is Random, and it's pretty easy to avoid having it contaminating your rule sets if you pay attention. ...and maybe keep a backup save in case.

Or you could just mod all your sucky cards, but I like having the full set.

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Not having open is kinda shit as well. You have no idea if the cpu is cheating or not then.

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UltimaterializerX posted...

It really isnt when the stupid rule sets show up.

This is unfortunately very true. Random is quite annoying, as are a few of the other ones. Still love the mini game itself though!

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It's not that difficult to manipulate the RNG to get rid of the rules you don't want.

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Leonhart4 posted...

It's not that difficult to manipulate the RNG to get rid of the rules you don't want.

No, but in your first playthrough it is a bitch

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Yeah, bad rules are annoying, but I don't think it detracts from how good Triple Triad is.
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Hell no. Best mini game ever

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Psh I wish I had a save file right before the train mini-game so I could do it over and over again!

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oh, i saved before fighting fake boss

fake president beated again, it seemed to take longer this time because i wasted time drawing and therefore needed to keep drawing because i gave him chances to hit me with status effects instead of using GFs to raze him immediately

wasn't able to pull that many off him unfortunately
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Yeah bosses are harder to draw from and it's not like, that worth it to grind them. Usually I just check them for GFs.

It's affected by your magic stat though so if that's high enough it can become good to do.

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Use an X-Potion on the second form because he's undead.

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You know... I've probably played FF8 at least a dozen times, maybe more, and I don't even know what happens if you get caught in the train game. Is it game over? Are you forced into battle? Or is it just an instant restart of the minigame?

It's a game over because the trains collide.

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Leonhart4 posted...

It's a game over because the trains collide.

There's no FMV of this though is there?

Never really tried to make them crash as it takes too long to repeat

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No, I don't think so.

There is one situation later in the game where there's a special FMV for failing though.

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i got caught twice. squall gives you the option to retry with a longer clock, i think.

the red/blue distinction was insignificant
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Wow I've never been caught before. Impressive.

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Ah you know, as soon as you said that, I feel like the longer clock scenario may have happened to me before... or it's a fake memory... but makes sense!

Leonhart4 posted...

No, I don't think so.

There is one situation later in the game where there's a special FMV for failing though.

Oh hell yeah I remember that one. Now that's a real "game over" moment right there.

Leonhart4 posted...

No, I don't think so.

There is one situation later in the game where there's a special FMV for failing though.

The Balamb Garden destruction?

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SeabassDebeste posted...

the red/blue distinction was insignificant

yeah square mini-games man

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The train game is a little bizarre, but I do get it done and of course have to kill a zombie thingy. Realizing that the real president wants to make a national TV broadcast (the first in seventeen years?!) we are then tasked with hijacking that broadcast. During this time we observe the silly huddle of Watts/Zone/Rinoa as they present the SeeD contract, which states that we're on the hook til Timber is independent. Well yeesh. Rinoa finally joins the party and replaces Zell in junctioning.

We wander around town for quite a while. Though the locals love Rinoa, the guards are out for us (and we kill a bunch in random encounters and a few in non-random encounters). We can't sleep at the inn, annoyingly, and I'm utterly confused until I realize there's another branch. There, we find Tim Mani, a comic book store, of which Squall has read several issues of their most popular mag. The editor there bores the bajesus out of Squall every time we try to talk to him. Not very nice - I was interested! Maybe I'm too old to be playing this game.

Anyway, we spend a bunch of time walking around a lady's house and looking out the back window, then through to empty train steps, getting stuck because it's unclear where you're supposed to get up and leave... and finally finding an off-ramp somewhere that takes me to a pub. I hand a card to a drunkard and off we go to the back route. Realizing that the president will likely have a guard around him, Squall presses Rinoa to make a decision... and this results in some conflict. Rinoa is distressed that we're not taking the Owls seriously, and she runs off.

As the broadcast comes on, the president informs us that he wants no peace... but that there is still unrest. So effectively, he tells us nothing with that. He also says he wants to bring into power a sorceress, who is quite obviously going to be key to the plot. At that moment, SURPRISE SEIFER AND QUISTIS. Honestly, to me it's extremely unclear what their motivation is, and what Rinoa's relationship to Seifer is, at this point. Like, what. We (Squall, Selphie, Zell) charge up and Zell spills the beans about our being SeeD, and the president laughs, pointing out that if he's harmed then Garden will be no more.

More confusion happens when the sorceress appears in the flesh and speaks somewhat seductively to Seifer and abducts him. Rinoa rejoins, and we hide out in the mom with the background alley (she once defeated many Gibaldian soldiers with strength, cooking, and seduction.) We're then bound for the East Station and the Gibaldian Garden.

I take the train and accidentally don't stop at East Station out of curiosity... which lands me at the end of the track. Fortunately, it's simple to follow the track back to East Station and the forest. During this time, I encounter a pterodactyl enemy from which I can Draw the Float ability, and that's a pause for now.

What a weird section. It felt like there were a lot of zones, but they were kind of empty and it was unclear what they added. I feel bad when I don't explore, but this time, the exploration just felt pointless. I assembled a party and got to use Rinoa for the first time, but there were no bosses to speak of, and Rinoa split during the big plot event, which the main party didn't even participate in. This isn't that atypical of early-game FF; diasporas and plans blowing up in the heroes' faces is pretty standard fare... but this feels particularly egregious because so much stuff happens and I barely did anything except walk around? I also feel like it's confusing and I'm only getting half the story for now, and it's weird that Rinoa had this storm-off and is now back and no one has really addressed anything yet.

Well, I expect things will get more interesting at the Gibaldian Garden,

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* One small characteristic I always enjoy is watching enemy soldiers when they're on their own. Star Wars doesn't have this, but (e.g.) Avatar The Last Airbender does. FFVIII enters that space, with soldiers who complain about how they're getting docked so much pay they can't even get engaged. Sigh.

* The characters' bouncing fighting animations, especially Selphie and Rinoa's, are just so goofy. Charming. But goofy.
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Yeah, Timber is a bit confusing to navigate, and all the stuff that happens at the TV station doesn't really add up at this point. Things will start falling into place a bit soon.

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this shall continue
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yes do not let this purge on my wedding day

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congratulations!! gonna peek at other topic!
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