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

(+) Yeah! (+)

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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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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You can literally open up the map in the Ragnarok, find the dot on the map, and it will automatically fly you there after you click on it.

Esthar is the entire continent, not just the city.

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oh my god yes
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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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You can do some of that after the next part, but yeah, entering Lunatic Pandora is kind of a point of no return.

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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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you probably had the Random ruleset there too which sucks and you should do your best to avoid

Also save beforehand so you don't lose your rare cards (although you can win them back)

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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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Practicing in Balamb Garden should be good.

If you mean the Centra Ruins they're on Centra lol >_> on the southern part of a big chunk of land.

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yeah make sure you get Odin before you go into Lunatic Pandora if nothing else

you'll thank me later

and yeah, just play in Balamb Garden because you can eventually unlock a card game sidequest by playing enough games in there

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Shuffle or Boogie

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Finish the fight

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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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If i remember right you have to win a certain number of games there first then challenge the lowest ranked one.

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how do i win a certain number of games to begin with though?
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Just challenge random people in Balamb Garden.

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Press square or the equivalent on your controller to challenge someone to card battles.

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I always start with the kid that runs around balamb. You can win Mini Mog from him and aside from mini mog his cards aren't completely unbeatable. The cards you start with are pretty awful so it's a good place to start. Then the doctor has better cards you can win better cards there. Also go to Zell's house in Balamb and win the Zell card from her. By this point in the game you might have been given a few strong cards after winning fights so you might be better off than the normal "starter cards" anyways so that should help.

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I think you get a few free GF cards from fights so yeah he should have no trouble winning rounds in the Garden if there's no weird rules on.

Edit: Yep he should have Ifrit, Sacred, Minotaur, Diablos and Cerberus unless he's refined them, and there's a few other free ones Seabass if you want to do some other sidequests first (like the Centra ruins).

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Just remember that not everyone plays cards.

But after you play a certain number of games and you talk to the first guy, he'll automatically introduce himself to you to initiate the sidequest.

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Also remember that its totally ok to skip this if you think its too much hassle!

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Yeah, the reward for this sidequest is just several rare cards (although the last one you can win refines into something really good, for what it's worth), so if you don't care about that and get bored, it's okay to move on.

Getting Odin is the only necessity before tackling Lunatic Pandora.

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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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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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Yeah, if you have the best cards, you'll win most of the time as long as you avoid the Random ruleset.

You can still get undone by Same/Plus every now and then, but that's rare.

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this is pretty neat. i've fought the garden's pilot, the doctor, quistis's groupies (who gave me a quistis card?!)

just beat jack and club. not sure where to move on to the next 4-5 of these guys!

(edit) didn't expect those girls in front!
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They're all in Balamb Garden for that quest, you have to do them in order so it might be someone you already tried.

Next player is in the main hall by the info board, you have to wait for them to get into position.

There's also a player you can challenge anytime in the training center.
..
But if you're getting into TT there's people all around the world with good cards, generally NPCs with a connection to major characters hold that character's card, it's worth wandering around after the Balamb stuff if you're enjoying it.

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If you want to get other character cards, I can tell you who has them. I think the only one you couldn't get right now is Laguna's because Ellone has it.

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this miniquest is pretty great! the spade guy was, of course, the dude sitting in the 2F hallway. and he alludes to HER... which must be xu!

i assume cid is the boss since many have brought him up. also assume he has the edea card?
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SeabassDebeste posted...

this miniquest is pretty great! the spade guy was, of course, the dude sitting in the 2F hallway. and he alludes to HER... which must be xu!

i assume cid is the boss since many have brought him up. also assume he has the edea card?

Cid does have a character card, but it isn't Edea's.

Edea is the only character who carries her own card.

The last part of this quest can be tricky to figure out, so just let me know if you get stuck

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It's weird that they didn't give Cid Edea's card, it would've made more sense than what they actually did.

And yeah after you beat the CC Queen to trigger the final part of the quest you have to soeak to Dr. Kadowaki and rest, then there's a random chance of the next step triggering in the dorm. I'm using the wiki for this as I didn't remember myself and can't find my old Prima guide.

There's also a separate Queen of Cards quest but that one is way more annoying and fiddly and involves intentionally losing cards to gain others, you might be better off using a guide (or Leon) for that, I never bothered with it at all.

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andylt posted...

It's weird that they didn't give Cid Edea's card, it would've made more sense than what they actually did.

And yeah after you beat the CC Queen to trigger the final part of the quest you have to soeak to Dr. Kadowaki and rest, then there's a random chance of the next step triggering in the dorm. I'm using the wiki for this as I didn't remember myself and can't find my old Prima guide.

There's also a separate Queen of Cards quest but that one is way more annoying and fiddly and involves intentionally losing cards to gain others, you might be better off using a guide (or Leon) for that, I never bothered with it at all.

You also have to choose to rest alone and boot the other party members out.

The Queen of Cards sidequest is super annoying. I don't know that I've ever finished it all the way.

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so i talked to most of the characters again and the doctor says she WAS the former king, and that now some girl is the king.

thought for sure it was quistis. she knew that xu played cards, and all her groupies play cards. but... nope.

also "plus" just got added and i have no idea how it works.
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Don't worry no one really understands Plus

But just know the computer will exploit it every time if it's available

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k yeah, now i'm lost for sure. which of the spoiler bars should i try first? (last thing to happen was beating xu)
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Mine and Leon's last ones combined tell you what to do. It's very unlikely anyone would figure it out without a guide.

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i just read the first spoiler and wow i just got annihilated by joker in the garden. lost the quistis card. whoops!
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Yeah, the Joker can be tough. You can reclaim any cards you lost from the player you lost them to, but there's no guarantee they'll play the card.

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....... okay, so it was quistis, as expected.

but she wouldn't show up normally. she's wearing black leather and visiting squall alone in bed.

welp, here we go.
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so i drew with quistis, and then she told me to meet her upstairs. i went and beat her, but no text was triggered. did i have to beat her during her visit?
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okay, enough for today. i got seifer from cid, but couldn't get edea from herself. the random rule absolutely sucks.
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Yeah, I guess you had to beat her the first time to get the unique text. It isn't anything special though. Just make sure you get the Gilgamesh card from her at some point.

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Everyone who has ever touched Triple Triad despises the random rule. You can wipe it from a region using the Queen of Cards I think but idr how to do that.

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Leonhart4 posted...

Don't worry no one really understands Plus

But just know the computer will exploit it every time if it's available

If it's like FFXIV (which it probably is), plus means if you put down a card and the sum of each set of touching numbers is the same, you flip any opponent's cards that are touching.

So say there is an opponent's card above and to the right of yours. If the opponent's card above has the bottom number of 4 and your card's top number is 1, and the opponent's card to the right has a left number of 2 and your card's right number is 3, both add to 5 so you'd flip both cards. Plus leads to some very strange chain card flipping even if you do understand how it works.
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andylt posted...

Everyone who has ever touched Triple Triad despises the random rule. You can wipe it from a region using the Queen of Cards I think but idr how to do that.

She has to move to that region, which requires losing a rare card to her, or winning one back from her. Then you pay her to change the rules

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I mean, I understand the basics of Plus, but I'm never looking for it for myself or guarding against it. Same is a lot easier to track.

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i read up exactly what plus does, but yeah, i just don't have the patience to stare through all the possibilities when planning my move. i can look for opportunities to use plus when it's actually my turn, but i'm never trying to set something up

don't think i have a very good chance at beating edea while random exists, so i might just be moving on for now.

my guesses:

- squall: no idea
- rinoa: her dad
- irvine: no idea
- selphie: her garden?
- quistis: have it
- zell: his adoptive parents
- edea: have to beat her, which is impossible

maybe it's best i just move on to looking for odin again
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Irvine's is tied to the annoying Queen of Cards sidequest (as is Kiros), the others are all acquirable normally. Idk if you want the answers but I'll say you're thinking along the right lines at least.

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wait so the queen of cards subplot isn't over, right? what's the actual next step? i beat quistis and it didn't trigger anything
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