Game - Final Fantasy 8, Day 55
Hours Played/Hours Total - 6-1/2 hrs / 16-1/2 hrs
Starting Point - In Timber.
Current Goal - Find out what the Forest Owls have planned and complete the mission.
What Happened - I am trucking right along through FF8! I hope I can keep up this pace and finish it up before the month ends. I'm looking forward to the rest of this game, so...let's go!
Where were we...oh right! I'm in the Forest Owl's train car, and I'm going to wake up the one known as "Princess." I move right along to the final room. Once inside, it turns out the "Princess" is the girl from the dance! During this, she reveals that she had tried multiple times to hire SeeD, but she finally got it after talking directly to Cid. She had been introduced by Seifer (and implied she knew Seifer decently). After talking for a bit, we finally moved back into the main part of the train car for the strategy meeting. She also revealed her name to be Rinoa! The fifth character in the FF8 lineup!!!
Their plan was a bit crazy, but it went something like this. Their target was the President of Galbadia. His train car was passing right along a point, and the plan is to intercept and swap out the cars. We have to get onto the train, uncouple a set of cars, slide the Forest Owl's train in there (they have fakes and doubles ready), uncouple the final cars, and then slide their train out of there with the Real President's car. The process requires sneaking across the top of the train where guards have sensors and entering codes to uncouple the train cards. Overall, it sounds kinda crazy and (as far as I'm concerned) a lot of holes for problems to exist. What happens if someone feels the train shaking from the coupling and uncoupling? I can't imagine it is completely silent. What if they try to move around in the cars and notice all of a sudden that "HEY! This isn't our car!" Oh well! It's a game after all, so I shouldn't complain about it. And so...I went forward with the mission!
I could describe the process, but I more or less just did...so yeah. The mission went off without a hitch, and we had the President captured. Rinoa went to interrogate him. Her plan was to force him to stop the occupation by Galbadia on Timber. However, we quickly found out that the man in the President's car...wasn't the President. It turns out that they that some group of resistance was listening in on things. They planted the info about the President moving by train and had replaced him with a double. Unfortunately, the double wasn't entirely human and attacked the group for BOSS BATTLE TIME! For the first bit, I had to fight off a strange battle against what looked like a regular guy. He was running up and biting the party members. He wasn't really that hard, but then...he changed. His second form was some horrific zombie monster thing named Gerogero. I never let him get control, but he wasn't any sort of a pushover either! I spent most of the battle drawing the rare magic off of him (mostly Esuna and Double). His attacks were fairly powerful, and he was constantly causing status effects (namely Silence, Blind, Curse, and Berserk). The Curse status disables a character's Limit Break ability. (I had to look it up...I couldn't really tell mid-battle.) The battle took some time since I was using most of the battle to draw magic. That...and he kept using Silence on characters that tried to summon GFs! He was defeated though, and so the game moves on.
After their bit of failure, the Forest Owls weren't quite sure what to do next. Of course, the party was curious if they were still even under their employ. Squall asked Rinoa for the contract. The first version she said was "too wordy", so Cid made her a second one. This one put it quite simply...SeeD is to remain with the Forest Owls until Timber is free and independent. Now that is how you make a contract both open and questionable. Basically, we are stuck helping them for as long as they deem necessary. The Owls try to come up with a new plan now that things have changed. It was mentioned a while back that the President had gone to the TV Station in Timber to broadcast something. This linked to their taking the Comm Tower earlier on in the game. Although I'm just questioning if it would even work...considering the whole "radio waves" thing I learned about earlier (stopped working 17 years ago mysteriously). The group wants to go over, stop the President, and make their own broadcast. So, I was released back inside of Timber, and we had to find our way from there.
With that part said and done, I briefly explored the town of Timber. There wasn't a whole lot I could do outside of buying some items. I bought up what I needed (namely items for GFs...fun fun). I had to fight Galbadian soldiers while I explored, but they weren't any form of a threat. Eventually, a few sources pointed me in the direction of the bar. They said an alley behind the bar lead to the old TV Station. I made my over to the bar, but I got into a set fight on the way there. A couple of guards had came out claiming how they beat some country bumpkin at cards. They saw us and attacked. I mopped the floor with them and gained the card in the process. Upon entering the bar, the "country bumpkin" was in the corner and drunk out of his mind. He was pissed about losing his card, and unfortunately for me, was blocking the path through to the back. I could have bribed him with a drink, but I simply chose to give him his card back. Turns out, he was so happy to see us with the card that he let me keep it and gave me another one. (They weren't great cards but whatever.) I proceeded through the back alley and up into the TV station.
Quite a bit happened between all the character at this part. Squall confronted Rinoa about her group and wondered if they were actually serious about the whole thing. She claimed that they were incredibly serious about it all, and she ran off. Just as she did, a giant TV in front of us came on and showed the President beginning to speak. However, before he got anywhere, Seifer and Quistis appeared! Seifer grabbed the President and looked like he was going to kill him. Quistis asked for the other group to come and help her right now. I ran on towards the TV Station, and once there, the group confronted Seifer and tried to get him to calm down. However, all he did was move to another part of the station. Once there, he was met by a mysterious woman. She talked with him a little bit and eventually convinced him to come with her. Seifer let the President go, and they both disappeared.
With all this done, the group had to figure out their next step. A woman came by and said we could stay at her house while things calmed down. We stayed low there for a bit and discussed the next phase of the plan. Of course, Rinoa was worried about Seifer, but nobody knew anything about what happened with him or where he went. Quistis mentioned something about the SeeD directive, and that pointed us towards the closest Garden...Galbadia Garden. We jumped on the last train out of town and left Timber behind. I got off the train at the first stop, and I did a little exploration. While walking about, I happened upon an old friend of a location...Dollet. (the town from the early mission) There wasn't a lot to do here, but I did walk around and play some card games. The unfortunate part is that I accidentally lost a few of my better cards right here, so I had to spend forever trying to win them back. Overall, all I did in Dollet was a bunch of card games with really stupid rules. The rule that really messed with me was the Random one. Just like the name suggests, Random picks a random group of cards for you to use. This means you might end up with really crappy cards or possibly put a incredibly rare card on the line (aka reason I lost a few rare cards and had to win them back). After winning them back, I left town and tried to find Galbadia Garden.
Turns out, I went the wrong way from the train stop. I made my way through a small forest going through a mountain pass, and I was treated to a little scene. The group was talking, and basically, Zell felt bad for bringing up that they were all Garden members during the President debacle. He was looking to Squall for a bit of comfort, but that's obviously the last place to look. Squall is definitely proving to be a brutally honest person. He told him straight forward that it is possible that what he said might cause the garden to be in trouble. Rinoa came forward to ask Squall if that is really how he should treat his fellow SeeDs, but about this time, a couple people in the group started passing out (to be specific, Squall, Quistis, and Selphie). It seems I was in for another strange dream sequence with Laguna.
The game switches to a different scenery, and we see Laguna, Kiros, and Ward in a different location. They have been sent here to patrol around the area. While looking about, they are surrounded by a group of strange looking soldiers that they refer to as Esther soldiers. They fight off the current group and run into the nearby strange cave of sorts. I ran all around trying to find a way out. There wasn't a lot to this cave though. Lots of interactive items in which Laguna tried to set up traps for the pursuing Esther soldiers. He managed to succeed with many of them, but in the end, the group finally hit a dead end. We had to face down a pair of fairly powerful Esther soldiers. It seemed that I had them, but as the battle was ending, the final soldier lashed out against Ward and Kiros. This attack had a lasting effect after the battle unfortunately...The three of them collapsed at the dead end. Kiros and Ward were greatly injured, but Laguna was trying to be hopeful. The dead end was a cliff and lead to the sea. Laguna saw boats down below and planned for the group to take off in those. He threw the two of them down there (he claimed they were "brave" in jumping down), and then he went down there himself (actually fell down...). And the dream sequence ended there...
The group awakened and found that Rinoa and Zell were both still going. They asked what happened, and Quistis was also quite confused. Squall thought about it and figured they should forget about it for now since there wasn't anything they could do (same answer as last time). So...we continued to Galbadia Garden. It was right nearby, so I made it there almost immediately after the incident. Upon entering the Garden, Quistis ran ahead of the group to speak with the Headmaster. She said she had both been here before and knew the Headmaster fairly well. After walking around a bit, an announcement asked us to wait upstairs in a sitting room. We weren't there long when Quistis finally came in. She informed the group of a couple different things. First was that Galbadia wasn't holding Balamb Garden responsible for Seifer's actions. So...Balamb Garden was safe for now. The second thing was about Seifer. It seems that his actions had been ruled over in Galbadia. He was already declared guilty and sentenced...to execution. As far as they knew, Seifer was already executed. Rinoa was taking this quite hard of course (the rest of the group as well but not as much). She came out and said that she felt a sort of love for him. The rest of the group mourned in their own way. Squall simply couldn't accept the way they were talking about Seifer as if he was gone. He stormed off, and I explored the Garden some more.
By exploration, I mean I found a couple of people and played a LOT of card games. Thankfully, after a couple games, I managed to get rid of the Random rule. One girl had a bunch of rare Boss cards, so I sat there trying to get all of them that I could off of her. I spent more than an hour getting all of the cards I could. When she stopped using them as much, I stopped and made my way back to the center of the Garden. Along the way, I met up with Raijin and Fuujin. They had come to deliver a message from Cid to the Headmaster of the Galbadia Garden. They didn't know what it contained inside though. The two asked about Seifer, and Squall revealed that he was believed to be dead. The two greatly disbelieved this, and they were both hell bent on searching for him. They took off, and I was left by myself again.
Shortly after, there was an announcement for me to meet by the gate, so I made my way there and learned the next step. The Headmaster came out and showed us what the message was. It turns out...the Gardens were aiming to assassinate the Sorceress. She had recently became affiliated with the Galbadia Government, and there was rumors that she was going to take over the Galbadia Garden as her base of operations. Her role in the government was claimed to be that of "Peace", but it was believed she would simply be used to threaten everyone. The plan involved the use of a Sniper to kill her from afar. Of course, we didn't have a sniper, but the Headmaster quickly remedied that. He called out to someone off in the distance. I was shown a cutscene revealing yet another FF8 character...Irvine!
So I left the garden, and I saved the game there. I didn't accomplish as much as I would have liked to, but I got a decent sized post out of it. It is not even remotely as long as previous posts, but I think that's a good thing in its own little way...so yeah! I'll overlook the lack of progress and try to feel that a victory was made here. Being as I have played this before, I know I'm getting fairly close to a turning point in the game...the next disc! I'm pretty sure it is getting awfully close. Anyways...thanks for reading and tune in next time for more Final Fantasy 8 Fever!!!
Ending Point - Nearby Galbadia Garden.
Current Party -
- Squall - Level 20
- Irvine - Level 13
- Zell - Level 12
Next Goals - Make it to Deling City and prepare the plan to assassinate the Sorceress!
~May the Crystals Guide Me~
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