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

(+) Yeah! (+)

SeabassDebeste posted...

well "we grew up in the same orphanage" was even stupider than it sounds

LMAO

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Lmao yesss

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Its a very uncontroversial scene to me. Not one of the best twists in the series, but one that feels very natural to the game's themes at least. And the execution was fine, though the GF bit is a little iffy

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I was like "Gee whiz, awesome twist!" :D

My cousin was driven crazy by the 10,000 versions of the same song that plays during the reveal. There are still more spoilers, even if you hated that one.
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the scene just feels drastically undercut by the lack of anyone really caring about losing their memories. if the game is all about destiny reuniting them and the power of friendship - and so far, it definitely does feel that way - then i'd expect them to have a much bigger issue with suddenly finding themselves without their memories

the questions about edea being matron, seed, and garden are interesting, but even that feels undercut by the fact that "matron" and the orphanage were just introduced as a concept

i think the following could make the scene better in hindsight:

- more significant costs of using the GF; perhaps forgetting something that actually happens during the main events of the game
- evidence of time travel affecting the future

among things that weren't stupid plot twists, i'm already dreading what happens to raine in the past. she's not present when we go back, and ellone winds up at the orphanage...

i guess it's time to look for the orphanage now but i have no idea where to go
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How can they be shaken about losing memories they no longer have? It's been years since I played the game, but isn't it older memories that get replaced first? Perhaps I remember that incorrectly, but that scene felt more like learning about another lifetime to me.

Now the implications of turning an orphanage into a child soldier mill is another thing entirely, though I may be off base with that.
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It's weird to say they lost their memories when they clearly do remember them once Irvine reminds everyone. Squall remembers Ellone too. To me it feels like it was supposed to be a natural thing where you just don't remember your early childhood well, especially when you have a life as tumultuous as they did. If they were all like five when they left, it's very plausible they won't recognize each other or remember their names very well. (you lampshade the fact that they're anime characters with distinct designs that are identical to their older selves)

The GF explanation was thrown in to really make sure everyone buys it.

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evidently this is the final battle against the sorceress coming up. doesn't feel like i'm particularly close to the game ending though. squall definitely has a mind for tactics here.

zell and rinoa MIA. so i'm dragging along selphie and quistis for now, my two lowest leveled options (14; squall is around 21). the game tells me not to junction just yet.
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You know, I've played FF8 so much but never really thought what my favourite part/s of the game is/are... I think that part is among them if not #1.

pjbasis posted...

It's weird to say they lost their memories when they clearly do remember them once Irvine reminds everyone. Squall remembers Ellone too.

Seabass don't click this spoiler bar until you've finished Disc 2.

In my last FF8 playthrough I was thinking about this, when you fight Seifer again he talks about how they grew up together, how Edea was Matron, etc. And I never put it together before that like.... he doesn't know that they remembered their past, in fact just remembered it. Imagine if the Trabia scene doesn't happen, how awkward that'd be, looool.

about to storm galbadia garden and

1. i love the music and cinematics of this sequence with the paratroopers.

2. paratroopers are annoying enemies! but good to have tougher random encounters.

3. doom is fun to cast but i should probably de-equip it for the upcoming bosses

4. i hate that rinoa immediately became a damsel in distress and that zell's only move was to run for squall. and that characters then gave squall shit for prioritizing the entire garden over rinoa alone.

5. then i got killed outside of battle by a robot. what the hell...
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oh, and the game is building this up to be the finale pretty well!
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The Battle of the Gardens is incredible.

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Battle of the Gardens is a top tier video game sequence

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As much as I like FFVII, man it has one of the worst FF casts doesn't it?

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SeabassDebeste posted...

. and that characters then gave squall shit for prioritizing the entire garden over rinoa alone.

yeah I kinda never agreed with how they handled that, especially since he kinda just tells someone else to do it immediately after.


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pjbasis posted...

yeah I kinda never agreed with how they handled that, especially since he kinda just tells someone else to do it immediately after.

I believe they all have a go at him AFTER Zell tries and fails to reach her.

But I agree about the priorities. Garden > Rinoa

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Cavedweller2000 posted...

I believe they all have a go at him AFTER Zell tries and fails to reach her.

irvine and zell (un my rinoa party) start complaining the moment they see squall (who chooses garden first).squall tells zell to do it himself.
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Ahh, I was thinking about from the point one of them says ''You just have up on her didnt you?''

My bad

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Cavedweller2000 posted...

Ahh, I was thinking about from the point one of them says ''You just have up on her didnt you?''

My bad

Yeah, that's Irvine right before he makes Squall go.

I get the frustration there, but like they said, there's nothing they couldn't do in his place.


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More

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playing now

so how am i supposed to beat that mecha that hits me whenever i try to escape
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FFVIII was truly ahead of its time.

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ffviii has me really enjoying the arc of the story, but a lot of the character interactions and dialogue are cringe-y

i just spent 30 min assigning GFs so everyone could have coverage on the five stats. i've been farming a lot of rando encounters with draw at galbadia garden

despite my best efforts i was quickly eviscerated by cerebus after it silenced me. next time i'll junction treatment and maybe someone with item as well.
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SeabassDebeste posted...

ffviii has me really enjoying the arc of the story, but a lot of the character interactions and dialogue are cringe-y

i just spent 30 min assigning GFs so everyone could have coverage on the five stats. i've been farming a lot of rando encounters with draw at galbadia garden

despite my best efforts i was quickly eviscerated by cerebus after it silenced me. next time i'll junction treatment and maybe someone with item as well.

Dispel Double and Triple every time it casts it on itself and it's a much easier fight

Cerberus is one of the best GFs

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the bigger issue last time was the silence! but yeah i dispelled, then took it down

time to check out why cerebus is good
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If enemy spells are an issue, just use Carbuncle. That's what he's there for.

Or just have a party member or two with the Item command

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Did you mug Cerberus

....or do you even have Mug at this point, I forget what you were prioritizing on Diablos. I'd usually just go for Enc-None so I never really experience the random battles in the Garden. Though last time I didn't and I forgot all about the random battle enemy on the skating rink, lol

Ah, what a great part of the game.

The ice rink enemies literally only in that one place is such a weird but cool Easter egg

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I make sure to get into one random battle in that room so I can fight them.

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Just wrapped disc 2. I don't remember any random encounter in the ice area, so no comment there. Is it a missable item that requires me to replay it? Or is it just something funny I can glance at?

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I really disliked the orphanage sequence. After that, I also had no idea where I was supposed to go exactly, but eventually I ran into Galbadia Garden.

What the hell is this Zell/Rinoa ring subplot. The ring has never been mentioned before this, but it's suddenly meaningful. Is Zell shipping Squall and Rinoa? Or is he jealous of Squall and hoping to win Rinoa's heart himself? Either way it feels like it comes out of nowhere and has zero space to breathe, since Rinoa immediately becomes damsel in distress and Zell is utterly incapable of even trying to rescue her. Bleh.

That aside, the sense of action here is phenomenal. Seifer sneering as he deploys troops; the different waves that fly from Galbadia to Balamb; the sense of resolve and desperation that overcomes Balamb. Everyone trusts Squall implicitly - whether this is earned or not is debatable, but he does wind up justifying it. But for all Squall's defense tactics, Balamb Garden can't hold the line, so it's time for an all out attack. The speech he gives before they ram Galbadia for good is excellent. And naturally, since he's the hero, he can't possibly abandon one kid - and so he gets trapped into an unwinnable fight with a mecha.

At first I was exasperated by the robot punching, but when I figured it out, it was actually really cool... from a cinematic perspective. Love the swooping beautiful scenery as we soar above the water and the Gardens. The only problem is that the controls really suck, as FF minigames are wont to do. I wind up dying a few times only getting a sliver of damage onto the enemy combatant. But when I actually figure out the timing to do the doomstrike counterattack, I wind up killing him in two hits... leaving a ton of awkward remaining time as we soar around.

The disconnect between Rinoa's portrayal as a damsel in distress and her actual usefulness continues; she's clearly the second-strongest character after Squall for me, and it would be great if she weren't always the one we had to rescue. That said, the rescue is a swashbucklin' great cutscene. But when we land on solid ground, for ten seconds we change from an adventure movie to something out of Children of Men - a long pan across carnage as one Garden fights another in bloody combat. It's utter mayhem, and we need to sprint across the entire battlefield to begin the invasion. It might be the definitive shot of the game so far.

It's utterly separate from the gameplay itself, but Squall has several times now repeated that they have to see Edea and Seifer as the enemy. It's becoming increasingly clear that he's saying it to convince himself. It's flagrantly clear that being a mercenary doesn't mean being a good person. The game is aware of this but hasn't delved deep yet; despite Squall's misgivings, we still continue to press forward. Maybe at some point peace will win, but not yet.

I love Galbadia Garden's layout as a dungeon. It's got a clean aesthetic and lots of loops and backtracking. But it's got a save point in the center, and for all its backtracking, each time you empty out a wing, you're given a faster route back. It's nothing groundbreaking, but it does feel like FFVIII's cleanest dungeon design yet; it's the only one where I manage to develop a good sense of space and flow. I also appreciate Raijin and Fujin, who have dropped enemy status and again just want us to bring Seifer back to the light side of the Force. The enemies here are a mixed bag of strong and weak, but almost all of them have good stuff to Draw. I give Rinoa the job of casting Doom on them and Mugging them, then farm them with Selphie/Squall/Rinoa-post-Doom until they expire.

Or at least I keep doing that until I reach Cerberus. The first time through, he silences everyone, and I have no Item equipped. This prevents me from curing myself or Dispelling his Triple, so he quickly wipes me out as I'm doing puny damage with regular attacks, and soon he wipes me out.

Back to the junctioning board. I strip Selphie of her Draw command and instead slap on the Treatment ability. When we return, I immediately use Treatment any time someone is Silenced. I also discover the power of the Double spell, which I'd never even tried before; I save my Lv3 magic but hit Cerberus hard with 3x Double Lv2 spells after doing 3x Shell. I Dispel him whenever he Triples up and use Double-Cure2 whenever I'm feeling low, and eventually down he goes. Sadly I'm not able to farm him much; only a single draw on Quake and a few on Double.

One of the enemies I'm able to farm holds Silence. After reviewing, only one character has the ability to junction to ST-Defense: Selphie. She also happens to have Brothers, which gives her the highest HP. So I give her 100% Silence junctioned to ST-Defense. I'LL NEVER AGAIN BE SILENCED, SUCKERS.

After collecting the final keys, we go up and see Seifer and Edea, with yet another convenient save point right there. Thank you game. Seifer's up first, and he alludes to our past and how we can't fight Matron. Squall repeats his mantra that his enemy is a monster; then we dive in. Seifer's not too hard since I've junctioned the hell out of everyone, particularly with a fairly high Dispel score so his magic attacks don't hurt that much. I begin with Cerberus, which I realize gives everyone Triple. Since Seifer has no annoying status effects, we just hammer him with Lv2 and Lv3 spells, Tripled, with the occasional Cure2 to maintain dominance. Without even casting Protect or Shell, down goes Seifer.

We're very politely given the chance to re-junction and heal before we face Edea, who's run away, calling Seifer worthless... and Seifer pops in again. This dude has Vegeta-level will - he's literally on his knees as we fight. Again, I just cast Cerberus, and he's got even less HP this time, so I don't waste time casting protective spells and hammer him quickly into submission. The Scan tells me he's improved his skills, so I don't hold back and hit him with some Lv3 spells too.

Of course, that was with the expectation a battle would end, so that Shell wouldn't carry over. Whoops! It doesn't. Edea picks up right where Seifer left off. Problem: She immediately kills Selphie. What the hell. Fortunately Squall's got six Full-life (which I forget where I drew from), and we revive her quickly. Rinoa's doing a bit of Triple-casting Shell, Lv3 magic, and the like, but soon Edea begins using Silence and Slow and Dispel and Reflect. I start feeling pretty bad about de-junctioning the Treatment option when I realize Carbuncle doesn't cure status ailments! It's also beginning to waste my time as I scramble to make sure characters can use all their abilities.

During this time, while Rinoa's silenced, she Mugs away some sort of Crown from Edea. Cool?

In the end, Cerberus is killed in a single hit, so after the first few sets of Triple-Ice3s, I'm reduced to single-strikes. Squall of course is useful here, as his single strike is comparable to a Lv3 spell. Edea moves away from casting Reflect (and alleviates my reliance on Dispel); however, she picks up a nasty habit of casting Death. Often. This is the only thing that kills me. It's the worst when it hits Squall; he's the only one with Full-life and the only one with items, but I do have Life on other characters, so when he goes down I'm able to bring him back (and desperately Shell/Cure3 him).

Eventually I finally do a scan and see she's down to only 2000ish health, so I go all out with attacks, and down she goes.
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MartinFF7 posted...

Did you mug Cerberus

....or do you even have Mug at this point, I forget what you were prioritizing on Diablos. I'd usually just go for Enc-None so I never really experience the random battles in the Garden. Though last time I didn't and I forgot all about the random battle enemy on the skating rink, lol

Ah, what a great part of the game.

I prioritized Mug, which took forever. I forget if I successfully mugged Cerberus in the final playthrough. Obviously did in the one where Rinoa got killed superfast. What's the item so I can check?
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Spd-J Scroll

You'll have some GFs that learn Spd-J naturally (he's one) but it's another one. Actually I don't remember if there are 3 GFs that have that or not, but still. No better junction ability... other than St-J Def x4 I guess. Memory has it being the most game-breaking speed plus ability other than the Auto Haste + Auto Regen combo in FF9.

Woo!

The game continues to be divisive about all sorts of stuff so it'll be interesting to see where you land as a whole.

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Congrats on finishing disc 2!

Hope you got Alexander from Edea!

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SeabassDebeste posted...

I don't remember any random encounter in the ice area, so no comment there. Is it a missable item that requires me to replay it? Or is it just something funny I can glance at?

Nah no missable item and nothing really special, just a rather... unique enemy encounter. Can't find a good youtube video so here's a link to that fight in somebody's stream (11:35 mark, the embedded video doesn't open on the timestamp it seems...)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8KYOL1IB5k#t=11m35s

SeabassDebeste posted...

Seifer's up first, and he alludes to our past and how we can't fight Matron

This was my "spoiler" message earlier on the page, it's a convenience of the script that they can have that conversation because there's no indication beforehand that Squall and company remember their past, like Seifer has just conveniently also remembered.

So I like to picture that same scene happening without the Trabia scene having happened and how utterly awkward it'd be, lol.

The Seifer/Edea fight at the end of disc 2 is one of my favorite fights in the series in terms of atmosphere. It's so good.

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The Slapper enemy only being on the ice rink just blew my mind. Then i found out they don't even have a Triple Triad card either.

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MartinFF7 posted...

Spd-J Scroll

You'll have some GFs that learn Spd-J naturally (he's one) but it's another one. Actually I don't remember if there are 3 GFs that have that or not, but still. No better junction ability... other than St-J Def x4 I guess. Memory has it being the most game-breaking speed plus ability other than the Auto Haste + Auto Regen combo in FF9.

will check as soon as i start up the game again. does the scroll get used on a GF or on a character?

i often seem to blow a speed advantage anyway, navigating the initial menu so i haven't prioritized learning spd-J for anyone. have had that option though.

pjbasis posted...

Woo!

The game continues to be divisive about all sorts of stuff so it'll be interesting to see where you land as a whole.

i'm already very divided on ff8 as a whole!

Leonhart4 posted...

Congrats on finishing disc 2!

Hope you got Alexander from Edea!

absolutely did draw on edea! looking forward to trying out the new toy.

The Seifer/Edea fight at the end of disc 2 is one of my favorite fights in the series in terms of atmosphere. It's so good.

my fav phase of this was seifer's second wind. there's just something about punching bags...

MartinFF7 posted...

This was my "spoiler" message earlier on the page, it's a convenience of the script that they can have that conversation because there's no indication beforehand that Squall and company remember their past, like Seifer has just conveniently also remembered.

So I like to picture that same scene happening without the Trabia scene having happened and how utterly awkward it'd be, lol.

seifer's devotion to the sorceress was already kinda incomprehensible - his regaining his memory at least explains it. i actually think the audience might wonder about it, but squall would just be squall and say "stop saying nonsense! let's fight!" or something

going forward, we should finally get some real answers on what seed/garden is about
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Remember Seifer has a romantic dream

Also the scroll will be in the item menu, just select it and it'll let you choose which GF to use it on

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encountered the slappers lmao they are unique! battle seems pedestrian tho
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Yeah, they're nothing special. It's just a cool thing to find.

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which GF should i teach spd-J? i'm tempted to give it to queztlcoatl, who's permanently on squall. save the other two (pandemona and cerberus) for other battles.

really love this juxtaposition of narrative with squall's inner monologue. i'm sick of rinoa as a damsel in distress (again?) but i like that squall's worries about her override the (frankly, kinda ridiculous!) plot exposition
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wonder if we're gonna hear any more about the origins of seed

time to look for ellone, which i have no clues about
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SeabassDebeste posted...

really love this juxtaposition of narrative with squall's inner monologue. i'm sick of rinoa as a damsel in distress (again?) but i like that squall's worries about her override the (frankly, kinda ridiculous!) plot exposition

Imagine how hard it would be to pull this off with voice acting.

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to be fair i think the games i've played without voice acting quite easily outnumber those i've played with voice acting

anyway i ran around the world map for an hour and got bored not knowing what to do
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SeabassDebeste posted...

wonder if we're gonna hear any more about the origins of seed

time to look for ellone, which i have no clues about

Edea tells you where to look, although finding her is kind of a pain

All the Ultimecia stuff felt so unbelievable to me even as a 13 year old that I thought Edea was just lying to throw us off the scent but everyone just believes her!

But I do love that Squall's inner thoughts are front and center and the words of everyone else are in the corner without even identifying who's speaking. It highlights Squall's obsession with Rinoa's situation really well. FFVIII has top notch presentation.

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yeah i've heard ultimecia comes out of nowhere so i believe her. also this game has pointedly not killed a lot of people so it clearly is interested in redeeming matron

edea said to look for the white seed ship i thought. but i'll go back again. i've checked deling, dollet, winhill, and balamb so far...
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Talk to her again and she tells you where they like to hang out

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And the Ultimecia stuff makes more sense on a second playthrough with the benefit of hindsight because some of the stuff "Edea" says on disc 1 and 2 makes more sense when you realize it's Ultimecia, but it's still kinda silly.

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yeah i mean i don't doubt that it "fits," but none of it "hits" for me. edea is a character that i was told to care about literally right before i actually fought her, and cid has shown pretty much no reason i should care about her either
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