Day 58

Game - Final Fantasy 8, Day 58
Hours Played/Hours Total - 10 hrs / 42 hrs
Starting Point - Fisherman's Horizon.
Current Goal - Help out Fisherman's Horizon with the Galbadia problem.

What Happened - So...just a warning right now, I'm trying to meet my monthly goal of finishing off Final Fantasy 8. This means that the next couple of posts will probably be super long and not extremely detailed where I can manage. I'm getting close to the mark, and I'll probably have to play at least 6ish hours every time I have the time to do so. It's going to be rough, but I shall succeed! Let's get to it!
     Starting where I left off, I had to run into town to help out the Mayor with the Galbadian forces. While running through town, I had to deal with a couple groups of soldiers. None of them were necessarily very challenging, and I managed to find the Mayor with little effort. As it turns out, his talking method of fixing things wasn't working at all. (WHAT A SURPRISE!) The soldier was demanding the location of Ellone (she took off earlier if you didn't remember), but of course, the Mayor had no idea who that even was. The soldier smacked him around a bit, and then stated that the Sorceress had ordered the town be burned down regardless. At this point, I decided to step in and deal with the soldier. When I ran over, a couple of soldiers came from behind me, and it was...regular battle time! It wasn't a boss battle because the battle was just two regular Galbadian soldiers and one officer. I easily defeated them, but I wasn't going to get off the easily. Just as the soldiers were defeated, we heard something coming from a ways off. Next thing I know, some vehicle is on the nearby road and moving towards us. It's the tank from the missile base! BOSS BATTLE TIME!
     This battle wasn't too different from the first time I fought it, but on the plus side, I didn't have a time limit this time. I started off by casting Protect on everyone, and then I followed up with Thunder-based magic and Quetzalcoatl. The thing was completely messed up from the battle and the explosion of the base. It was falling apart and barely seemed able to attack. I stole a piece of Adamantine from it (guide suggested it would be useful later). It really didn't take a lot of time or effort to beat the machine. Once the battle was over, the machine slid backwards out of the area and fell into the ocean. After it fell off though, I was in for a delightful surprise. As we were watching it fall off, a group of people climbed out of it...the team from the Galbadia base mission! (Selphie, Irvine, and Quistis) They had used the tank of sorts to survive and escape the explosion at the base. Squall was actually fairly happy to see them, despite his normal attitude. The group talked briefly, and then everyone, except Squall, returned to the Garden. Rinoa was all excited that Squall actually seemed to care about his fellow comrades. (Seeing as he is generally pretty silent and unemotional about things.) She went ahead and ran off, and I briefly spoke with the Mayor.
     He seemed remotely grateful for us helping him, but he said he wasn't going to thank us. As Squall, I was given a choice of responding to this. Squall admitted that he wished more things could be talked out as opposed to fighting, but he added on that sometimes things just come down to fighting. Talking can take too much time, and most of the time others won't even try to listen. Fighting ends up being the result. I leave the area for now and start exploring FH. There wasn't much to see, but I was able to finally upgrade a whole bunch of weapons for everyone. Talking to some of the people around there gave some general information about things. One guy mentioned NORG and asked if he had changed yet. I wondered what he meant, but all he responded with was NORG being a Shumi and that we were obviously clueless. Someone else asked us earlier if we were heading for the hi-tech country of Esther. Of course we weren't, but they said that many people walk through here trying to take the only path to Esther. As I returned to the Garden, I ran into Irvine. Irvine mentioned that the technicians were working on the Garden, and that he had a question. He wondered if it'd be okay to ask the techs to fix something else. Squall figured it'd be fine if it didn't restrict the Garden repair. I continued on towards the Garden.
     Before getting too far, Irvine mentioned something about Selphie feeling pretty down currently. She was supposed to be near the Garden Festival stage. I went over and found out the reason for part of her depression. The stage had been ruined during all of the Garden's movement, and Irvine figured they could cheer her up by rebuilding the stage, aka the technician question earlier. (Of course, he also seemed interested in her in general.) I spoke with her a bit and told her that everything was going to be all right. Squall was called to the Headmaster's office, and Irvine let her in on his plan. They'd get the stage rebuilt by the FH Technicians so the festival could go on. Selphie was planning to organize a band for it. The two began to formulate a plan as Squall made his way to the Headmaster's office.
     Once there, Cid was making an announcement to the entire Garden on their next goal. He and the rest of the staff would keep up with their jobs, but he appointed Squall as the overall leader of everybody. He wanted Squall to lead them in their fight against the Sorceress. However Squall wasn't completely okay with this. He wasn't sure why he was being appointed as the leader at all. Cid mentioned something about it being his destiny to lead the way in fighting the Sorceress. Squall had a bit of a breakdown after this. He didn't understand why it was being decided for him, and he even thought about walking away from it all. However, he ended up just giving in and going along with it all. Next thing I know, Squall's in his bed thinking about everything. Wondering how Cid truly feels about his wife, Sorceress Edea, being hunted down by SeeD. He sits there and thinks on it all as the game cuts to the rest of the group.
     The rest of the crew are in FH trying to figure out the band for the festival. Selphie has a musical score from Trabia Garden, but it got mixed in with another one (Oh no?). Listening to a group of eight instruments, you are supposed to choose four for the group to play and hopefully sound decent together. Rinoa was given a different job during this though. After choosing the four instruments, the group begins to practice and sets their plan in motion. The game switches back to Squall. He gets up and heads out to find something to do. While leaving his room, he runs into Rinoa who invites him to the festival. It doesn't seem like she'll take no for an answer, so the two head off. The festival was moved into FH, and I find myself nearby the Mayor's house. Irvine says he's set up a nice spot by the stage for Squall and Rinoa to go, but for now, he has plans of his own. I make my way down to the stage, and the group begins to play. I enjoy the music for a bit, and the two go off to the spot Irvine marked off. He marked it off with a dirty magazine...Regardless, the two sit down and start to talk.
     They talk for quite a bit, but the basic point of the conversation is as follows. Rinoa tells Squall that he can talk with and depend on the other members of the party. He doesn't have to do everything by himself like he seems to go with. Squall tries to go away, but Rinoa keeps him there for longer. Eventually, she tells him that they just want him to talk with them. Anything is better than nothing. Squall eventually tells her that he'll try to ask for help when needed, but the way he says it angers Rinoa. She claims that he doesn't really care and just wants to leave. She runs off, and the night ends. The next day, Squall is awakened by the intercom and is being called to the bridge. Once there, he's greeted by Xu, Quistis, and Nida (the other person who passed the SeeD exam in the beginning). The group has decided to refer to him as Commander, and each one has taken control over an aspect of Garden to help out. Before moving out, Quistis suggests giving Selphie a break after the base mission. The group also suggests Balamb as our next target. Figure we should go and check up on them. Using my flying fortress that is Balamb Garden, I make my way over there.
     As I get closer to Balamb, I notice something funny nearby the outside of town. What looks like a giant red airship, I figure it is Galbadia Garden and turns out that it can also fly! However, now is not the time for giant flying fortress battles. I jump off the Garden and make my way into town. First thing I see is a Galbadian soldier blocking my way into town. A little talking and a bit of lying on my part gets my group into town (Quistis, Zell, and Squall). The Galbadians were in town looking for Ellone. They weren't going to find her though, but they didn't know that! Looking about town revealed that everyone was okay though. The commander of the forces there was staying at the hotel, but I couldn't get to them without talking with the "captain." However, the captain seemed to be fairly irresponsible and not doing his job. This lead to the most annoying walk about town ever. I had to run all over the place talking to specific people and then running to another place to talk to other people. This captain was a pretty big idiot apparently. Caught, cooked, and ate bad fish....great stuff. I finally cornered the captain back at the hotel, and it turns out that the captain is Raijin! He said something about the commander being angry (obviously Fuujin) and attacked us! BOSS BATTLE TIME!
     Raijin charged at me with two Galbadian soldiers by his side. I smacked the soldiers, and they both went down immediately. All that was left at this point was Raijin. He really didn't have a variety of abilities though. All he did was strike physically ever so often. I cast Protect on everybody and slowly worked down his HP. This made the battle fairly quick. He ran off and inside to meet with Fuujin, and so I followed straight after him. Once inside, we came face to face with Fuujin. She was surprised to see us, but she wasn't about to let us ruin their plans. She wasn't alone though. It seems Raijin was ready for round two! BOSS BATTLE TIME PART TWO! Raijin and Fuujin made a pretty decent team, but they really weren't capable of high damage. Before doing anything, I drew a new GF off of Fuujin called Pandemona (wind-type GF). I then just did the same thing as last battle. I put Protect on everybody and started whittling their health away. They never did deal a huge amount of damage. Raijin had one super powered physical strike he did, but it never presented any form of a real problem. I beat Fuujin first who ran off and told Raijin to take care of us. That wasn't the case of course since Raijin went down shortly after. With the two beaten, the group wasn't quite sure of what to do next. The duo weren't really with Galbadia. As they had always said, they were on Seifer's side. However, seeing as Seifer was with the Sorceress, they would be against us and no longer with Garden. The duo agreed to this and left. The party was kind of sad to see them go, but it wasn't meant to be I guess...
     Once I got back to the Garden, the group was trying to think of their next action. Selphie came by and asked if we could possibly go to Trabia Garden to check on it. She was probably worried since those missiles managed to launch without any trouble. And so...I set my sights on Trabia Garden, or at least I certainly was planning to. However, I finally had an opportunity to explore the world, so I took it! I began to look into a couple of different side quests that were available now. The first one I went for was a small little village called Shumi Village. It is home to a group of people called the Shumi. They're like small yellow people with long hands. (If you remember, NORG was a Shumi.) The people here lived in a peaceful village hundreds of meters underground. There they lived a quiet and peaceful life of hard work and innovation. While walking around, I stumbled upon a Shumi known as Sculptor. He was working on a statue of Laguna, and thus I was introduced to the side quest. Sculptor asked that I talk to the Elder there. I was informed at several occasions that not everybody is normally let inside the village, and that it was a great privilege to even be down here. The Elder offered me a gift, but he said that it must be earned. he asked that I help with the statue of Laguna. This was a fairly easy task. All I had to do was walk about town and retrieve specialized stones that were scattered in specific spots around town. (I'd describe it, but I'm trying to wrap the post up and not much to describe anyways.)
     Upon completion of the task, the Elder gave us our gift...He showed us the palm of his hands. Apparently, I was supposed to be impressed by a "symbolic" gift. Before leaving, the Elder's attendant gave us a small souvenir for our visit. The item was a Phoenix Pinion. (If you use it in battle, it summons Phoenix. That does fire damage to the enemy and revives the entire team.) This was better than the symbolic gift, but it still wasn't much. However, as the group was leaving, Squall explained that the symbolism of what he did was supposed to be a great gesture to all of them. The game jumps over to the Elder and his Attendant who are wondering if the group actually got what they meant. Apparently, they didn't plan to give them anything, and the hand thing was to mean nothing other than giving them a chance to relax (something like that). As the two wrap up, the Elder tells the Attendant to go help finish the statue. The Attendant doesn't seem too happy about this but goes to help anyways. I head out for a bit and then come back for part two of this side quest. I'm to help recruit more Shumi's to help finish the statue. This goes fairly easily until I come to a Shumi known as the Artisan. Unfortunately, he's not overly psyched to help finish the statue either.
     I go to the Elder, and he requests that I find a way to convince the Artisan. Honestly, I'd be completely clueless of what to do right here if not for my guide book. I leave the village and have to backtrack back to Fisherman's Horizon. Once there, I seek out a man known only as Grease Monkey. Apparently, he met with the Artisan at some point and was given a small Moomba figure. The Moomba figure responds to our group, and he hears us out. Upon hearing the story, he lets us take the Moomba figure to give to the Artisan. So...I make my way back to Shumi Village. Once there, I make my way to the Artisan and hand over the Moomba doll. The doll delivers a message to him from Grease Monkey. Basically, he says he should go and help finish the statue. Shortly after leaving the Artisan's house, the group watches as he heads over to the Sculptor's. I finally report back to the Elder. He's happy to say that the statue should be finished quite soon with the trio of Shumis working on it. He gives us a Status Guard item (teaches a GF a special ability), and the side quest is finally complete.
     I didn't really explain everything out like I would have preferred to, but my schedule is getting tight. I'm ready to push through FF8, and descriptions are going to be thrown out of the door. Next up on the list is something known as the Centra Ruins. It's located on a continent to the south nearby an area known as the Centra Crater. I had to look around a bit, but I eventually spotted the tower. It's a pretty obvious structure once it comes into view. I enter inside and begin the perilous climb. There are several factors against you. The first thing that comes to mind is the lovely timer in the upper corner. You get twenty minutes to climb the tower and defeat Odin. Twenty minutes is more than enough, but it can also be a REALLY close call if you don't know what to do. (The guide is definitely helping here.) Next up on the "factors against me" are the enemies. I realize that enemies are always against you, but in this case, the game throws a fun and favorite specialty at you...the Tonberry!
     The Tonberry is another memorable creature in the Final Fantasy lineup. It's like a lizard standing on its hind legs, and it is wearing a robe while holding a knife in one hand and a lantern in the other. It is a strange creature with strange tactics. Basically, it slowly walks towards you while only countering with a special ability. It's a pretty strong counter, and once it closes the distance, it starts stabbing you with the knife for fairly massive damage. I can't stick around to kill any Tonberries though because they had like 20,000 HP each, and it took nearly 2 minutes to kill the first one I ran into. After that, I just ran away from them. I quickly made my way up the tower. There were a couple of branching pathways and a few switches to hit, but it wasn't overly complicated. After the Tonberry time waste, I had to just run away from any and all battles coming my way. I finally entered a large room with a massive sitting monstrous man. It was Odin himself. He told me that we would do battle and that the strong would survive while the weak would perish. BOSS BATTLE TIME!
     This wasn't too challenging of a battle, but by the time I got there, I had around 7 minutes to beat him. Thankfully, all he does is sit there and watch. This leaves it open for me to just pound away at him. While doing such, I did grab a handful of the new magic spell Triple. By casting Triple on a character, you're able to cast a selected spell three times. I used the Triple spell to cast Haste on the party and just go crazy. I kept away from GF and Magic since Odin has a strong magic resistance. Lucky for me, I recently gained some Ultima for Squall and junctioned it to his Strength. This resulted in a surprisingly strong physical attack (over 1000 per attack!). It took a bit of time, but I managed to defeat Odin...and with time to spare! (I think like 2 minutes?) With Odin's defeat, he offered us his power and joined the team. Odin works differently from other GFs in this game though. Instead of junctioning, Odin works on a random factor. I'm not sure about the factor, but ever so often, in a random non-boss battle, Odin will appear and kill off the enemies for you. I eagerly await his appearance. Now that Odin is gone...it's time for part two of the Centra Ruins.
     Odin isn't the only Guardian Force available in this tower. Remember the Tonberries from like...2 paragraphs ago? Well, the second GF available here is the Tonberry GF. You can only obtain him by defeating a pile of Tonberries (at least 18) and then fighting off a King Tonberry. Let me just say...this turned into a doozy of a side quest. While there, I had to have fought off at least 30 Tonberries. I didn't ever keep count, but it had to be more than enough. This wasn't fun at all either. Each Tonberry takes anywhere from two to five minutes each to fight off. They don't have any particular weakness. They have a large amount of health. On top of all that, you get zero experience and only 1 GP from them upon defeat. This just makes this side bit suck even more. I almost gave up on completing the quest, but I had a small hunch. I briefly left the ruins and went back in. It seems the game had "locked out" the King Tonberry since I had just obtained Odin. Upon reentering, I immediately met up with King Tonberry for BOSS BATTLE TIME!
     Now, I said that the Tonberries didn't have a weakness. This was a small lie. The spell Demi is useful for depleting their HP as is the Diablos summon (takes a % of their health based on his current level). Unfortunately, this isn't a viable option on King Tonberry. He's immune to the gravity-based spell and summon, so I had to deal with him the old fashioned and much longer way. I threw all I could at him whether it was spells, physical attacks, or summons. He wasn't necessarily very tough, but I did my best to keep up a layer of Haste and Protect to make the battle easier. (Looove the Triple spell.) The King Tonberry came with a fun amount of HP (I think it was over 60,000?) This made the battle take quite a bit since even my best attacks and spells weren't really breaking past 1500 damage. It was a slow battle, but he never really had the upper hand. The damage he dealt out was never immense, so I only had to heal a few times. Upon the final hit, the King Tonberry fell over and lost his crown. He shrunk back down to regular size and...apologized to the group (fairly funny actually). He joined my party, and I added a new GF to my roster! The Tonberry GF is a fairly unorthodox GF and comes with some fairly strange abilities like Haggle (lowers all shop prices) or Familiar (makes rare items appear in shops). With the Tonberry now apart of my group, I was finally done with the side quest. It was time to leave Centra Ruins and head for Trabia Garden.
     Or that was the plan, but I had one more side quest in mind before continuing with the story. Next up was  a visit to a new place that the current group had only visited in their dreams...Winhill. Winhill is the small village from the third Laguna dream sequence (when he was a monster hunter of sorts). The small town didn't offer much, but there was a small side quest of sorts to be done here. It's not a very large quest, and the rewards aren't great, but it does offer a little story of sorts. The large house in town is home to a richer family. Apparently, they're missing a very valuable vase that recently disappeared. To make a long story short, the vase hadn't disappeared on its own. It seems that some precarious baby chocobos (called chicibos) and "ghosts" had helped the vase move about. Two of the four pieces were in the hands of chicibos. They quickly relinquished their pieces and went about their way. The other two pieces were located in odd places. The first one was in the bar from the Laguna sequence. It was owned by Raine back then, but it was currently owned by a strange artist. She mentioned something about a mysterious flowery fragrance wafting from downstairs ever so often. Upon investigation, this revealed a ghost of Raine. When approached, it changed into a cat, and the cat had a piece of vase. The final vase piece was at the village's flower shop. The lady talked briefly about Raine and her love of the flowers. She also made mention of "that man" (Laguna) and how he was the reason for Raine's unfortunate end. The final piece of vase showed up in the flower shop among the flowers. With all the pieces in hand, I revisited the mansion and handed them over. The family was not happy to see it in pieces but was glad to have them nonetheless. The handed over a Holy stone, and I went along my way. (The Holy Stone is an item that acts as Holy when used. It can also be changed into a Holy spell with the appropriate GF ability.) With that done, it's finally time to return to the story and make way to Trabia!
     Trabia Garden was aaaaall the way back up north, so I had a fun trip trying to make my way back up. Luckily, I didn't deal with any monsters while flying, and I didn't run into much resistance when I disembarked. Upon approaching the Trabia Garden, it was very clear that the missiles had hit their mark. The Garden wasn't in good shape, and Selphie went inside to get a closer look. I followed quickly after her and discovered the Garden was very much in ruins. However, it seemed that many of the Trabia students had managed to survive it all. Selphie went all about checking up on her friends and former fellow students. There was quite a bit of emotion at this point. Among those there, it seemed that many of them had died during the missile attack. There was a lot of insight into Selphie as a person while going about the place, but eventually it came to an end. We all met up at a basketball course, and the group began to really talk.
     Rinoa brought up that she REALLY wished there was a way for the group to get out of having to fight. She wished someone could come up with an alternative to war and fighting. They all hoped for this, but they also knew that option wasn't going to be possible. However, they all agreed to fight on together regardless of that. During the next bit, things got really plot-y. The group began to talk about the past, and an amazing discovery was made. (A lot happened here so I'm going to try and summarize it.) Basically, Irvine helped the group rediscover their past. It seems that they had all already met long ago when they were kids. During a war that happened previous to the current time, they were all orphans in the same orphanage (minus Rinoa but add on Seifer). Their biggest concern during this time was trying to figure out how they forgot. The problem pointed towards an in-game problem about how GFs seemed to erase memories. It had something to do with the process of granting them powers in return for the space they take in their minds. Despite their memory lose, they agreed that they couldn't give away the power of the GFs. On top of all this, it seems that Ellone had lived with them at some point, and that they referred to her as Sis. On top of THAT, the woman who had run the orphanage was an Edea Kramer...That's right! Sorceress Edea (aka Cid's wife) had raised the group for a period of time. They had known her as Matron, and now the group was engrossed in more feelings and such. Quite a bit happened at this point, but I'm not going all out here. With all this in mind, the group felt like their next move was to find the old orphanage.
     With the orphanage in mind, I made my way south to Centra in search of the old orphanage. It was supposed to be located near a beach with a lighthouse, so I had to search quite a bit for those two things. However, upon my arrival there, it seemed that we were not alone. The flying Galbadia Garden was there, and it was waiting for us. They figured that this was their time for the final showdown against Edea, and despite their love for Matron, they knew they had to deal with her. I got to make an announcement as Squall. It was just a basic speech with their plan of attack, but I figured I hit the right mark. Everyone got into position, and the group prepared for the Galbadia forces. Quite a bit happened during this next bit. There was a lot of cutscene and things going down. The front line leader of their group was Seifer, so it was made clear that we would have to face him eventually. The Galbadian troops came first though. As we got into position, the first round of forces launched off the Galbadia Garden on MOTORCYCLES and jumped onto our Garden. (Seemed like a bit of an extreme tactic if you ask me.) The group was split into two parties who were each covering different parts.
     Zell, Quistis, and Rinoa were covering one area while the rest (namely Squall) had to go all over the place. He is the commander after all. As the fight started to break out, Rinoa had fallen down to a lower spot on the Garden. She was stuck there so Zell and Quistis had to go get help. This didn't go very well since they seemed to be unable to locate a damn rope. Things escalated quickly, and the Balamb Garden students and SeeD were quickly overwhelmed by all the Galbadian soldiers. They managed to hold their ground, but it was at a great cost. As the first couple of waves came to an end, the Garden was most definitely worse for wear. It was decided that they couldn't take another hit like that, so we needed to take the fight to Galbadia! The Balamb Garden rammed into the Galbadia Garden, and the group split up again. Everyone except for Squall ran off to infiltrate the Galbadia Garden while Squall made his way around to go rescue Rinoa. This wasn't going to be easy, and I started questioning how he could possibly pull it off. Luckily for him, Galbadia was using some strange and kinda funky looking flying suit things. I had to do a little fight scene between Squall and a single soldier (took me like FIVE tries because the game kept jipping me horribly). Once I finally succeeded, the soldier fell to his death as I gained control of the flight suit. Squall used this to go and rescue Rinoa. They took the suit upward and fell right into the middle of a giant battle. They ran along the side as Balamb SeeD and students faced off against Galbadian soldiers. It was a fairly epic looking battle.
     We just ran around that of course. The two made it to the edge of the other Garden and briefly talked there. She was grateful for Squall's rescue of her, and she also had something of his on her. Earlier on, she had Zell obtain Squall's ring from him so that she had something of his. So...while all this chaos goes on behind them, the two start talking about this ring of sorts. It looks like a lion, and Squall named it Griever. The lion was supposed to symbolize things and stuff, and she said it really resembled Squall. (I'm sorry! I'm ready to wrap this post up. If you want more details, you should probably go play it instead!) Yeah, I don't get how this is either important nor why they are doing this mid-battle, but whatever! He said she could hold onto it for now, and the two of them entered Galbadia Garden. Once inside, the group was waiting for us, and they all agreed that we needed to find Edea and deal with her once and for all. They weren't quite sure how they wanted to deal with Matron, but they had to set aside their feelings and do it. And thus...I saved my game and ended it there.
     I know that this post turned into a lot of summary, but I'm wanting to finish this before the month ends in...3 days. I've only got two more days where I'll be able to fully play it, so I'm going to be fast tracking it. I'll try to do more side quests before it is all said and done, but I don't think I really lack a whole lot else outside of ultimate weapons and a few extra GF. That is besides the point for this moment though. Hope you enjoyed this giant mess of a post, and you should stay tuned for another big post tomorrow! Yeah, that's right. I'm going to attempt another post tomorrow. It'll probably be pretty awful, but I'm hoping to cover a pretty good amount of in-game ground. Stay tuned for it!

Ending Point - Inside Galbadia Garden.
Current Party -

• Squall - Level 34
• Quistis - Level 20
• Irvine - Level 19

Goals Accomplished - Helped FH with the Galbadian problem. Got the Garden repaired. Successfully put on the Garden Festival. Liberated Balamb from Galbadia occupation. Obtained the Pandemona GF. Completed the Shumi Village side quest. Completed the Winhill Vase side quest. Completed the Centra Ruin's side quest. Defeated and obtained the Odin GF. Defeated and obtained the Tonberry GF. Checked up on Trabia Garden and got a whole pile of background story plot! Ran into the flying Galbadia Garden and started the epic battle of Gardens!
Next Goals - Infiltrate Galbadia Garden. Defeat the Sorceress!

~May the Crystals Guide Me~

Day 57

Game - Final Fantasy 8, Day 57
Hours Played/Hours Total - 9 hrs / 32 hrs
Starting Point - Galbadia D-District Prison.
Current Goal - Rescue Squall and escape the prison.

What Happened - Not much to say so...let's get to it!
     Picking up where I left off, I'm inside of the D-District Prison and trying to find Squall. I know that he is further up in the prison, but the rest of the group doesn't really know that...I think. There's always the fuzzy line between what I know and what they know. Damn you player knowledge! Oh well! Let's get through this mad house. I began my exploration of the prison by going downstairs. I kept going down until...there was no more down to be gone. There were monsters all about as well, so I did fight quite a few battles. However, they were nothing to be worried about really. I also found a few other prisoners while walking about. Many of them weren't interested in escaping, namely because they didn't want to die. Despite this, they were ready and willing to play card games...for a cost. Yeah, I had to pay them to play card games. I wasn't super psyched about this, but I was interested in obtaining more cards. I only played a handful of games, and it honestly wasn't worth the time. I continued on through the prison.
     Thankfully, it doesn't seem to be too big of a prison. I quickly ascended to the top of the prison where Squall was being tortured. However, the guards were all gone, and the moombas had let Squall loose. Zell handed over his weapon, and Squall was ready to go (despite the electrocution that just happened). The group looks about and tries to figure a way down. They notice the crane that moved Squall's cell and make use of it to lift the group down. Zell manned the crane while the rest of the group (Squall, Selphie, and Quistis) went down. However, once they hit the bottom, they found that the bottom had no exit. Upon opening a door, a bunch of sand poured inside. This was a most perplexing deal, but the worst part was the gunfire up above. It seems that Zell had run into some trouble.
     The game swapped back over to Zell who was running from some guards. I quickly fought them off and ran to cover. Just as he was about to be attacked by the Warden, Squall jumped out of nowhere and took him out. The rest of the group followed quickly but had to duck for cover from the gunfire. It seemed that our escape was about to fail, but of course, something good happened! All of a sudden, there seemed to be someone else firing, but that person was firing upon the guards! Irvine had shown up to help the group out...or so it seemed. He had run into Rinoa and was planning to rescue her. She pushed him into rescuing the rest of the group. The reason for her takeaway earlier on was because her father pulled some strings to get her and only her released. They also had an answer to our conundrum. They had come from upstairs and said that the only way out was up. The group split into two teams for the next part. For the escape team, I had Squall, Rinoa, and Quistis. For the defensive position team, I had Irvine, Selphie, and Zell. Mission...go?
     First up, I took the rescue team and began climbing to the top. I encountered a little resistance from soldiers and monsters but nothing out of the ordinary. I eventually reached the top, and the game swapped back to the other team. That group was currently stuck by the stairs and trying to hold off the guards. Irvine was doing what he could with his gun, but they needed to go up. They thought about it for a minute and eventually came to an idea. The crane that lowered the group down in the first place was still down there. They figured to make it down there and have the first group bring them back up. I swapped all the Junctions around (really tired of this XO) and started downstairs. It was just a few floors down with little resistance really. I made it to the bottom, and the group jumped on the cell. Then it jumped back to the escape team. They had just reached the top. I climbing upwards and finally made it outside. I was about to cross this bridge, but then I got assaulted for SOMEWHAT BOSS BATTLE TIME!
     I use the word "SOMEWHAT" because none of the enemies were boss-tier material. It was a high ranked Galbadian Soldier plus these two flying mech units (powerful but regular enemies). This was a pretty big pushover of a battle. I smacked the high ranking soldier once or twice, and he went down. The two mechs had a bit more health, but they proved to be no challenge either. I spent the rest of the battle stocking up on some magic (Haste and Dispel). I hit them with a few strong attacks and a couple of GFs for massive damage!...I also won. With them taken care of, the group was about to continue when they heard something. The defensive team were calling them to raise the crane. Luckily, we hadn't continued any further, or we would have missed them. Squall flipped the switch so they could climb up. While they were being brought up, the rest of the crew decided to head across the bridge. This...didn't go so well.
     The first thing they noticed was what the D-District Prison actually was. It's hard to describe, so I'm going to upload a picture to eliminate that complication! (Sorry to say this was the best I could find...)

Yup, that is a prison all right. I actually think it's a very interesting and useful design. Overly complicated? Of course, but it would work quite well in practice. With them all the way up at the top, even with no real wardens, they'd have basically no easy way to escape. Moving back to the game...Squall and company make their way across from their side (right drill platform) to the other one (left drill platform). As they were about to make it, the bridge began to come apart. Even worse, the giant drills began to start up and bring the prison down to the ground. The other two had made it across, but Squall was hanging on to the remaining portion of the bridge and trying to make it to the other side. It was close...but I did make it.
     Next thing I knew, the group was escaping in a pair of stolen Galbadian vehicles. They got a short distance away when they all got out to discuss the next move. As this happened, Irvine mentioned something about Galbadia launching missiles at Balamb and Trabia Gardens. The group knew they needed to hurry to the nearby missile base to stop it. However, as they were talking, a volley of missiles could be seen launching off into the sky. Irvine said something about Trabia Garden being the first target. Time was already against us. The group elected Squall as the leader and asked him what they should do. He split the group into two separate teams. Squall would take one group to head for and warn Balamb Garden of the incoming missiles. The second group, headed by Selphie, would make their way to the Galbadia Missile Base and do their best to stop the launch. For Squall's team, I took Rinoa and Zell. This left Selphie with Irvine and Quistis. Mission start!
     I gained control of Selphie's team and made my way to the missile base. I still had use of the stolen truck, so I quickly advanced towards the base. Once there, I was able to immediately drive onto the base. The infiltration party had put on Galbadian soldier uniforms to blend in. I infiltrated the base and went from there. I had a couple different ways I could have accomplished my goal, but in the end, I went the longer but sneakier route. This involves having to walk all about the base and complete a few small tasks (mostly delivering messages). After all this, I'm finally given access to the missile target settings. All I can do is simply increase the error rate and hope they miss though. With this done, I was able to get into the main control room. However, the soldiers in there (one was the commander) weren't going to be as easily fooled as the ones before. I had to defeat them (nothing special, couple soldiers and an elite one), and with their defeat, I was able to gain direct control of the missiles. The group stopped the launch and started the base's self-destruct sequence. I had a choice of 10, 20, 30, or 40 minutes. Seeing as I didn't figure a need for much time, I chose 10 minutes and got the hell out.
     As I was escaping, it turns out one of the soldiers managed to crawl over and start the missile launch. We were outside ready to run out of the base when the missiles took off. I simply hope the error setting affected something. I only had about eight and a half minutes to leave the base, but it seems I wasn't going to get out that easily...BOSS BATTLE TIME! A couple soldiers had jumped in a giant tank-like vehicle of sorts and were trying to stop us from leaving. I had to quickly fight off this large vehicle as the clock was quickly ticking down. Lucky for me, it had an extreme weakness to electricity, so I followed up with the Quetzalcoatl summon and any Thunder-based magic I could. It wasn't going too well though. I was able to defend my group with Protect spells I drew off the vehicles. It was a close match, but I managed to fend off the tank with a minute and a half left on the clock. Then things got even worse! A trio of soldiers jumped out, and I had to quickly finish THEM off. I was really getting close on time! Lucky for me, they didn't have a whole lot of health, and I easily took them down...with half a minute left on the clock. After the battle finished, I tried to exit the base...and found out I was trapped. I looked all over, and it seemed that we were stuck. The group sat down and simply hoped for the best. The game jumped over to a video showing the base blow up...and then jumped over to Squall's group.
     This group had managed to steal a train in Galbadia to charge on over to Balamb Garden. Once there, it seemed that things weren't going to be straightforward or easy. The Garden was in a massive uproar over something. The only thing I kept hearing from all the people and Garden Faculty was "Whose side are you on?" Apparently, there was a great difference between the Headmaster and the Garden Master. Before getting anywhere, I'm accused of aligning with the Headmaster and thrust into battle. The battle was nothing special, and all I had to fight was a generic monster. I quickly slayed the monster and made my way inside. It was chaos inside of the garden, and everybody was running about in search of Cid. I had to visit all of the different locations in the Garden and help out those in need (namely SeeD members). They had aligned themselves with Cid as opposed to this "Garden Master." Each Garden Faculty person unleashed monsters for me to fight, and I easily defeated each one. None of them were really anything special.
     After securing all the sections of Garden, I was told I needed to locate Xu. She was easy enough to find really. I spotted her going up the elevator and followed swiftly. I spotted her on the second floor, and she said that Cid had been in his office the entire time. They had played on the rumor that he was hiding somewhere around the Garden. The group informed Cid of the missiles, so he said that everyone should evacuate. Of course, the group had already told Xu, Raijin, and Fuujin of the missiles, so they were telling people to evacuate. Cid had one other idea to try and get us away from the missiles. He said something about the Garden being built on top of an old shelter. He figured that it could be used to protect from the missiles. He was planning to go down, but he wasn't feeling super well. Squall convinced him that they would go check it out in his place. Cid handed over a key for the elevator, and I made my way down.
     The elevator began its slow descent downwards. It got stuck at one point and wouldn't budge. I had to escape down the emergency hatch. The group barely made it out of the shaft before the elevator came down upon us. I walked through a strange and old looking tunnel. Squall made a mention of oil-covered monsters being weak to Fire. (The game really wanted me to junction fire to my Elem-Atk.) I then continued onward into this mysterious underground facility. I didn't encounter very many monsters though. There were a lot of ladders, and one ladder even broke off! (Thankfully, the circumstances lead to only Squall climbing it.) I further descended into this strange shelter and met up with a pair of monsters for BOSS BATTLE TIME! The monsters were giant oil-slug things called Oilboyles. They didn't really have any new magic for me, so I just started hitting them with everything. My greatest asset was Zell with his super strong, fire-based physical strikes. Coming behind him was Squall with Firaga magic. The slugs did get in some powerful strikes, but nobody ever went down. It only took me a few rounds to knock out the first one. A few rounds later, I was killing off the second slug, and I was victorious!
     I ventured past the slugs into a giant cylinder of a room. It had some strange looking equipment with it, and the group was completely clueless on what should be done. So...I started hitting random objects. Eventually, this sparked a reaction in the giant machine in front of me. The massive machinery began to spin about and come to life. Next thing I knew, it was cutscene time! The Garden began to move and kick up dirt. Turns out...the Garden has the ability to fly! The flight couldn't have come at a better time either. As it began to take off, the missiles came flying in and struck down right where the Garden was previously sitting. The explosion rocked the Garden a bit, but it was outside of the worst zone. The area I was in lifted up and shot us upward into Cid's office. We were at the control panel of the whole thing, but things weren't ready to calm down quite yet. The Garden was flying straight for Balamb. The group demanded that Squall fix the problem. He was wondering why they all thought he could fix it but gave it a shot anyways. He started mashing all the buttons and controls on the console. This managed to push the Garden towards the ocean. Disaster averted!
     However, this lead to another small problem. They were out of danger for the moment, but the Garden wasn't flying anymore. It was simply floating in the ocean, and nobody knew where it was floating towards. With nothing much to do, I began exploring the Garden a bit more. While looking around, a Garden faculty talked to me and told me to report to the Garden Master in the basement. Now we get some answers! And answers we go...This next section is highly spoiler alert, so if you don't want spoilers, then you probably shouldn't be reading any of my posts in general. Onwards to the spoilers!
     Upon going downstairs, we hear Cid yelling at someone in the background (assuming Mr. Garden Master). He comes forward, asks if we heard all that (we did), and decides to head up. Rinoa mentions that the Doctor was looking for him, so Cid acknowledges this and leaves. The group then approaches the Garden Master, and a lot of stuff is brought forward. First off, it is shown that the Garden Master is a giant yellow monstrous looking thing called NORG. He was demanding a mission report on the assassination. (This gets a tiny bit complicated) When he mentioned the order coming from Galbadia and Balamb, it is revealed that NORG already knew about Sorceress Edea's alliance with Galbadia. He learned of it through his subordinate Martine (Galbadia Garden headmaster). It's mentioned that Garden and the Sorceress are closely connected, and that is why she is trying to gain control of them all. NORG had sent the order for Galbadia Garden to complete, but Martine used the Balamb SeeDs (us) to throw the blame off of himself and onto NORG. It was mere coincidence that we got involved. When we failed, the Sorceress used her position to launch a missile attack against the Gardens (Trabia and Balamb). They needed to appease the Sorceress and were planning to do so by handing over the SeeDs responsible for the assassination. Squall asks why they aren't trying to fight the Sorceress and wonders why they do all the training. It is mentioned that Cid said the same thing, but NORG blames Cid for all this trouble as well. NORG claims that he put up all the money for Garden in the first place. He was planning to offer Cid to the Sorceress as well, but then Cid hid. He demanded the students look for Cid, but then most of them sided with the Headmaster instead of him. He claims that it is HIS Garden. Squall exclaims that it isn't just his, but then NORG asks if he is referring to the stupid married couple, Cid and Edea (dun dun duuun!). Squall is just confused by this, and then NORG is under the impression that Cid and Edea are trying to take the Garden from him, but he isn't about to let them do this without a fight...Of course, I get to fight this fight! BOSS BATTLE TIME! (Also would like to apologize for the mountain of text....Yeah, I had a hard time getting it remotely organized as is. Anyways, on to the battle!)
     NORG is situated inside of a giant machine pod. He closes himself inside of it and plans to blast us away with magic. Thus, this boss has multiple parts to it. There's the main pod where NORG is hiding under, and there are also two colored orbs. At the beginning of the battle, NORG yells something about blue, yellow, and red and claims that magic will be shooting out at us. The confusion of this is quickly answered when the orbs start changing color. Basically, if you don't attack the orbs, they eventually will charge up and fling magic at ya. I kept after them as I could and started drawing magic off of them. In between drawing and orb attacks, I struck at the Pod. This went fairly slow since my attention was diverted in three different places. However, I eventually broke the pod open, and this revealed NORG to me. Now I could finally attack NORG directly! Up until this point, I wasn't being attacked by anything. With NORG out in the open, he began to attack me. Most of his attacks were just average spells with no real consequences. He did have one special attack that dealt some decent damage, but I didn't lose anybody to this. I drew the Leviathan GF off of him and then started to let him have it. It didn't take long before NORG went down for the count. Overall, it was an interesting boss, but it certainly wasn't a challenging one.
     With NORG defeated, the group was unsure of what to do. Squall figured they should just forget about what happened for now. Rinoa questioned this, but Squall replied that they weren't even sure what was happening and nothing could be done about it for the moment. With this in mind, it was time to see Cid for some answers. I went back up and looked around for him. I forgot that he had went to the Infirmary, so I actually made a walk about before thinking on it. Once in the Infirmary, I was able to ask Cid questions. Squall was going to report to him, but Cid figured he already knew what had happened. Squall asked Cid what the real meaning of SeeD was (the question Seifer had for Squall during the torture). He said that SeeD is SeeD. They're an elite mercenary force working around the world, but he added a bit to that. He stated that SeeD will battle the Sorceress and defeat her. All their missions up to this point were simply training for that one goal. Now that the Sorceress has started moving, their true mission has finally begun. Squall then asked about Sorceress Edea. It seems that Edea was his wife. Cid confirmed this and added on that they met long ago, and he knew she was a Sorceress. They had lived happily together, and one day, Edea started talking about building Garden and SeeD. Cid became obsessed with it but worried about the end goal of SeeD...to eliminate the Sorceress. Edea claimed that she'd be okay though. He also explained NORG's part in Garden. It seemed that NORG appeared to him while he was trying to find funding for Garden. NORG gave them their initial funding and started the idea of the mercenary service to help build funding. Unfortunately, this ended up overshadowing Garden's original goal. In the end, Cid realized he should have never given up control. The only thing left to ask was..."What do we do now?" Cid figures we can only drift now and hopes that we can get things back on track. With nothing left to ask him, I went ahead and left the infirmary for now.
     Upon going outside, I ran into Xu. She asked where the Headmaster was. She was there to tell him of some trouble outside. A ship had appeared nearby the Garden. I went to go investigate it, and it turns out that it is a Galbadian ship. They approached us and claimed that they came in peace. They introduced themselves as Edea's SeeDs. This was questionable, but then Cid showed up and seemed to confirm this. They had come for someone named Ellone (for those not remembering, it is the name of the little girl from the last dream sequence waaaay back there). I actually ran into her earlier while giving Rinoa a tour of the library. She is the lady that I rescued waaaay back there on the first disc who knew Squall and Quistis. I quickly made my way back, and guess what? More plot! Upon questioning, she did reveal herself to be Ellone. THE Ellone. She knew Laguna and everything. Furthermore, she revealed something even crazier. It seems that she was the cause behind the group's dream world adventures. She said she couldn't explain how she did it, but she simply stated... "People can't change the past, but that if there is a possibility, then it is worth a try, right?" Squall started yelling at her over this and told her to not get him involved over all of this. He had enough problems as is. Xu came in to take Ellone away, and before going, she walked up to Squall and said something to him. The rest of this upcoming bit is just Squall thinking.
     You're my only hope. That's all she said to him. He started thinking about everything and wondering why people try to depend on each other so much. He was getting super emotional about all of this. He was definitely showing off his loner side. I could type it all up, but I honestly don't feel like it. If you are that interested, you can look up a game script of it. The best way to summarize it all would be...Squall doesn't want to have to depend on others. He wants to only depend upon himself. During this, a small scene played showing a boy standing in the rain. The boy (obviously Squall) said something about missing his sister, but he claimed that he was doing fine without her. That he could take care of himself. At this time, Squall is awakened by Rinoa. She wants to go on a walk around, but Squall doesn't really feel up for it. She eventually convinces him (me), and the two start walking about. However, they don't get too far when Cid calls them up to the bridge about something. Seems that we are about to hit land!
     The game jumps off the Balamb Garden and starts showing a random old fisher. He's sitting there trying to catch a fish when something catches his eye. The Garden starts crashing through some water windmills (windmills on the water) and closes in on the coast. It eventually comes to a stop, and we've finally hit land! Cid identifies the nearby town as Fisherman's Horizon. He requests that Squall and company go and apologize to the mayor. After that, they should explore the town itself. Squall wasn't overly excited about this, but he went with it anyways. We exit out of the second floor and come face-to-face with a few of the Fisherman's Horizon citizens (abbreviated FH). They simply ask that we don't start any form of armed fighting within the city. Squall identifies himself as a SeeD member of Balamb Garden coming in peace. They welcome him to the city and suggests that he go see the mayor. That was already the goal so...okay!
     There wasn't a whole lot to see in FH really. There was fishermen here and there, and a lot of them revealed themselves to be peaceful sort of people and avid mechanics. They seemed to welcome the group as I went by. I wasn't walking around too long when I happened upon the Mayor's house. I went inside and began talking with him. Thankfully, he got straight to the point. He simply asked "When are you leaving?" Squall was unsure about this since they had no idea how to even fly the Garden. The Mayor offered some engineers to help the group and told Squall to go get permission for them to enter. The reason for all of this was FH's main principle of the town. They were about talking out peaceful resolutions. They believed that violence simply brought on more violence, and that the Garden being there would simply attract that. They wanted them gone as soon as they could manage it. As I was making my way back, I spotted a familiar face nearby. It seems that Martine (Galbadia Garden headmaster) was no longer the headmaster, and he had drifted along to FH. Once there, the people welcomed him, so he stayed here. I played several card games with him and then decided to move on.
     Before I could make it too far, the Mayor's wife came along and told us about invading Galbadia forces. She demanded we deal with them since we had attracted them. As we were talking, the Mayor walked by and was planning to try and talk with the Galbadian forces. Seeing as this was going to fail horribly, I chased after him. However, I've gotten more than enough in this post, so I decided to save the game and end it there for now. Hoooo boy! This post has turned into a big pile of plot. The majority of this is just explaining background details and filling in gaps of information. I'm more than glad to get most of it, but it is a huge pain typing it up. I'm hoping that I have clearly given the information without it being confusing. Honestly, it is probably still confusing, but the only way to get it any clearer is to fully type everything. That...isn't going to happen anytime soon. I have a hard enough time keeping these posts short without saying every single thing. Anyways...I apologize for the long post, but I do thank those who end up reading this. You should tune in next time for Final Fantasy 8 Theater! Also...my next two to three posts will be a LOT of gameplay as I try to wrap up the entire game in a couple days of play. It is going to be painful...You should come read about it! OUT.

Ending Point - Fisherman's Horizon
Current Party -

• Squall - Level 31
• Rinoa - Level 21
• Zell - Level 25

Goals Accomplished - Rescued Squall. Escaped the D-District Prison. Made it to the Galbadia Missle Base. Sabotaged the base and the missile launch. Made it to Balamb Garden. Fought off the Garden Master allies. Managed to find Cid after a bunch of nonsense. Used the strange machine under the Garden to escape the missile attack. Met the Garden Master (NORG), learned a lot, and defeated him. Obtained the Leviathan GF. Learned more from Cid. Learned even MORE from Ellone (lots of plot going down). Made it to Fisherman's Horizon. Talked with the Mayor of FH.
Next Goals - Help out Fisherman's Horizon with the Galbadia problem.

~May the Crystals Guide Me~

Side Post!

Here we are again...and it is time for another Side Post.
It's been about a month since I last posted one, and I finally figured out what I should post!
For this episode of Side Post, I'm going to be making a quick and informative review of a Final Fantasy title. To be more specific, I'll be reviewing the newest title in the series. It's an off-title, but it still counts more or less.
The title....is Theatrhythm Final Fantasy.

Recurring Fantasy Side Post Theater Proudly Presents

Theatrhythm Final Fantasy - Tapping the Fantasies!

First off, I'd like to apologize for the tacky and overly long headline above. Next, to fully clarify, the game I'm reviewing is Theatrhythm Final Fantasy for the Nintendo 3DS. So before getting anywhere, the title has already alienated itself soley to the 3DS (although I bet it would run on the regular DS). However, I am jumping ahead of myself. Theatrhythm Final Fantasy (going to abbreavite it TFF from here on) is a music rhythm title featuring Final Fantasy music and characters. For the review, I'm going to cover three game aspects: game play, audio and visual appeal, and extras. Let's start off with the biggest point here...the game play! 

The point of the game is basically just rhythmically tapping the touch screen to popular Final Fantasy songs. That summarizes the entire game in a sentence, but there is more to the game than simply music. Aside from song choice, you also have a selection of characters available to you. Why would you need characters? You use a team of four characters to play through the songs. WHY DO YOU NEED A PARTY!? This allows them to throw in an RPG-aspect of leveling, items, and abilities. More aspects means more fun right? It can, and this game wouldn't really be a Final Fantasy title without at least basic RPG aspects. Even their fighting titles have to have some form of stats! (Dissidia...for those who didn't know) 

I'm going to try and make this explanation simple and understandable, but please bear with me! Your party is composed of four Final Fantasy title all stars. The starting selection is just the headliners. Each character has a level, HP, four basic stats (Attack, Magic, Agility, and Luck), and a selection of abilities at their disposal. As you level, you gain better stats and new abilities. The stats and abilities affect your character's progress as you play the game. There are even items that offer all forms of useful effects like healing. I won't go into it a whole lot more since it can get a little complicated, and I'm not even fully sure if I understand what all is affected. (Also don't want to waste a bunch of space...)

Now, there are three kinds of songs that you can play, and they each play in their own way. The types are Field, Battle, and Event. Field features your character walking across a field styled after the music's home game. As long as you successfully "tap" during the song, your character continues to walk. Failure causes them to trip and the next character takes their place. Failure also slowly depletes your total HP, which is the sum of all four characters HP. While you are walking, it is possible to meet Moogles (who give you treasure) and fully walking the span of the field grants you an item given to you by a selective character for the game (varies based on game obviously). Battle songs show you a battle going on between your four characters and selective monsters from the Final Fantasy series (Cactuars, Esther soldiers, and lots of memorable bosses and enemies). Successful tapping allows you to constantly attack the enemy and eventually defeat them! On occasion, an enemy  will even drop an item! Failure to tap allows the enemy to attack you and deplete your HP. The enemies are infinite in number, so you never truly destroy them all. The final type, Event, is just timed tapping with the icon going all over the screen. In the background, there is simply a video showcasing select scenes, battles, and cutscenes from the games. Failure at this part...simply drains your HP. It doesn't do anything aside from that. Besides just succeeding, it is possible to gain bonus portions of each type. Bonus on the field gives you a chocobo, bonus in battle brings in a summon, and the bonus on event simply extends the song.

Time to discuss more details! Being a rhythm game, the entirety of the game play is timing and reaction. The beginner's setting is pretty easy overall and offers a challenge without going crazy. Harder modes are...well, they're harder! Generally, it doubles the number of notes (easiest way to label them) thrown at you and makes them go almost twice as fast. I've put in nearly 6 hours into TFF, and I've already finished the main grouping of songs. They have a "Series" mode where you play each title with a selection of three songs per title (one of each type). They also have a challenge mode where you can freely select songs and play them at any of the three difficulty settings (Basic, Expert, and Ultimate). There is also a third game mode called Chaos Shrine. This offers an upgraded challenge to the regular gameplay (about Expert difficulty). You play a pair of songs, called a Dark Note, at Expert level (I think...), and by winning, you can unlock other Dark Notes as well as other items. It's also possible  to get new Dark Notes through Street Pass (strange Nintendo wifi thing by walking around with your 3DS...pretty meh). That's all there is to play really. There are lots of unlockables, but I'll discuss that later. Next up...the audio and visual factor!

Ah presentation! The staple of all Final Fantasy staples! If Final Fantasy almost always does something right, it's generally the overall beauty and look of the title. However, in this game's case, it goes in a bit of a different direction. Considering it is a rhythm game, the art direction is aimed towards a more "cutesy" look. It does mean that the game doesn't look even remotely serious, but at the same time, the look does work well for the game as it is. It's simple yet well done visuals. The different songs feature backgrounds and enemies from the games, all of which designed in the TFF fashion. The event song type shows off portions of the game as well as cutscenes from the later portion of the series. Coming into the game, you can't expect anything amazing and spectacular as far as the visuals go, but for what it is, they do work quite well for the game. As for audio...

This game oozes audio! Of course, one would hope a musical rhythm game would be good in the audio department. If it wasn't, wouldn't it be a huge pile of failure? In TFF's case, it goes above and beyond in musical selection! You get a nice showcase of music from all across the series. Each game gets 5 songs...3 from in-game plus the intros and outros. (I said earlier they only get three because the intros and outros are more of bonus games) Before playing it, I figured that this title would make heavy use of remakes and remixes as far as the music is concerned, but I was greatly mistaken! The game uses the original format of each song (the NES FF titles have the 8-bit music and all). This offers a great variety of different sounds. Overall, it's pretty cool seeing the evolution of the Final Fantasy music. Of course, all of the music sounds quite related when you hear it all together. The audio makes this game what it is...and it is good. Of course, this is limited to those who greatly enjoy the FF series's music. Overall, the visuals get a pass because they work, and the audio more than succeeds where it should. Now we come to my final point...EXTRAS!

This title does have one big thing going for it...That thing is the extras! To define what I mean by extras, I mean anything you can unlock for either game play, viewing, listening, or otherwise just purely decoration aside from the meat of the game. TFF doesn't disappoint in this category. There are all forms of unlockables available such as new characters, Dark Notes, collectible cards, and more! Although I haven't unlocked any new characters, I've looked over a list of those you can unlock, and it seems fairly decent. It's mostly just one extra character per title, but it is nice that they exist. Some of the choices seem funky (like Cid from FF3 or Princess Sarah from FF1), but there are obvious choices as well (Sephiroth from FF7 and Vivi from FF9). Dark Notes (see above) offer challenging and interesting combinations of songs to play. This is cool since the only other pairings in-game are by series.

After all this unlockable talk, you might be wondering..."How do you unlock them?" Well, it's a slow and agonizing process honestly. Every time you beat a song, you are rewarded with Rhythmia. Once you hit a certain preset amount, it unlocks something. However, the unlock marks are at five hundred and thousand marks (IE 3500 or 2000). The average Rhythmia reward for beating a song is anywhere from 90 to 150+. This means you'll have to play anywhere from 6 to 10 songs to unlock one thing. This does add replay value, but I've put in around 6 hours, and I've already beaten the Series mode. This means that dozens of hours will be necessary to unlock people and things...and I have yet to even unlock any characters!

The collectible cards showcase the art of the title, but they also give a brief yet detailed synopsis of the card's featured character/monster. The cards vary from main characters to summon monsters and even include popular enemies and bosses from throughout the series. Cards are picked up as treasure during gameplay. Multiple earnings of the same cards upgrade them to two different levels of rarity. This changes how they look as well as their design. On top of all this, you unlock a music and video gallery which feature a plethora of listening and viewing material. The music is generally composed of the songs you play throughout. The videos are overviews of each title and are very much like the event music stages. It's a nice additive to the rest of this fun and easy title.

Besides all this in-game unlockables, TFF offers DLC songs. It's the first 3DS title with purchasable DLC. With this, they are able to offer a larger selection of songs (playable in Challenge mode). I went ahead and tried this out by downloading a few extra songs (mostly FF9 songs...). This is a nice touch to it all, but I really only want a few of the songs. Each song is about a dollar each (which isn't bad), but I find myself wanting a pack deal instead. I realize this isn't as feasible as people would want specific songs per game as opposed to random pairings for a bundle. They already have over 10+ songs available! I don't want very many of the ones listed either. That's all for DLC though...and for extras in general!

I realize that my "review" has turned out to be super long and fairly unorganized, but I hope (if nothing else) to give people a small glimpse into the entirety of the game. But all things must come to an end, and so I'll try to wrap it up fairly soon. Up next would be my complaints section. Hoping for the best, I plan to wrap it up in a final paragraph following that. So...let's get to complaining!

TFF is a fun and simple game, so if I were to have a problem with it...It would probably be that it isn't enough. The story is explained in a few sentences, and it honestly doesn't exist. I realize making a retarded mixture of a story wouldn't be good, but they did it for Dissidia! As for TFF, it explains that the world is run by the two gods (Cosmos and Chaos). The world is kept aloft by a crystal (BIG SURPRISE!), and that crystal is starting to lose its glow (Chaos did that). The heroes must band together and refuel the crystal with rhythm energy (Yeaaaah, really summed up but still the basic idea). I realize that can't do much with the story seeing what it is, but this story feels stupid. They could have just had zero story...That would have been better.

The actual game play is generally well done and feels tight, but I sometimes find the sliding note hard to pull off. It wants you to slide it across the screen and not flick, but you don't always have enough time to slide it. I tend to flick them, and then I miss them all together! This is probably more of my fault than the game's fault, but I still wanted to bring it up. The unlocking process of the game...is too much. At the rate I'm going, I figure I'll have to play at least 30 hours (if not more) to unlock a majority of the things available in this game. A rhythm game...demanding like 30 hours. The worst part of that 30 hours is that I'll have to play each song like a hundred times to accomplish anything! At most, the game should allow me to unlock everything by about 15 hours, but that definitely isn't going to happen. Around 6 hours of gameplay, my main party (Zidane, Bartz, Squall, and Warrior of Light) has been my main crew for the majority of that. They are only in the mid-20s, and I figure this game has a max level of 100. It will only grow harder as it goes farther! That's all I've got though for complaints though, so let me wrap this bad boy up.

Apart from these mild complaints of sorts, it's a fairly good game. It's most definitely aimed at hardcore fans above anything else though. I couldn't really recommend it to anyone outside of either 1. diehard FF fans or 2. desperate rhythm game fans. The game play is fun and addictive. The audio is really well done, and the visuals accentuate the flow and style of the game. There's enough stuff to unlock that you could easily keep busy with the game quite a while. The only true downfall among it all is the lack of songs. Sure, there are quite a few (50+), but you'll have to play them all like a dozen times each to unlock everything. The DLC looks to rectify this, but it can only do so much. If I had to recommend the game...I'd probably still say yes. Of course, I would refer you back to the third sentence in this paragraph.
To make it simple...

• Do you have a 3DS? 
• Do you enjoy Final Fantasy? 
• Are you okay with the idea of a rhythm game?

If you answered yes to at least 2 of those questions, you should go for it. Of course, the first question of 3DS is probably the most important...since the game is impossible without it.
Theathrhythm Final Fantasy. It takes your favorite Final Fantasy music and throws it at you with tapping and rhythm and fun. If you stood through this review, you'll probably want to go buy it. If you didn't, then you aren't reading this part, so I don't care what you think! Looking over what all I have typed, I see that it's a great big mess, but hopefully, someone out there will find this at least moderately amusing before closing the page. To those people I say...KUDOS! Thanks for reading! Tune in for my next Side Post that should be coming up as soon as I can figure out what it should be about.

~May the Crystals Guide Me~ (This time, they're doing it rhythmically with song!)

Day 56

Game - Final Fantasy 8, Day 56
Hours Played/Hours Total - 6-1/2 hrs / 23 hrs
Starting Point - Nearby Galbadia Garden.
Current Goal - Make it to Deling City and prepare the plan to assassinate the Sorceress!

What Happened - Trying to truck right along in FF8! I'm not going as fast as I would like to, but I have a good feeling that I'll easily conquer it! With that all said...let's get to the core of this tasty post!
     So, first things first, I need to make my way over to Galbadia's capital city...Deling City. I jumped on the nearby train, and we shot over there. Once there, I am to meet up with someone named Caraway. He's a supposed to be a General (something like that). Before this, I quickly visited the shops all around town and did some buying. Thanks to a newly acquired ability, I was finally able to upgrade my weapons. The ability in question is called Card Mod. It allows me to change cards into items, and this is just such a great and useful ability. I kind of wish I had it earlier...Anyways, I upgraded a few weapons and went to Caraway's Mansion.
     Once there, a soldier told me I wasn't allowed to meet him until I succeeded in a small test. The test was to go to this mysterious nearby tomb and retrieve an item to show we had made it there. He suggested looking for an item lost by a student who went there recently and hadn't returned yet. Trying to put the fear in me, eh? I didn't buy it. The guard gave me a map of the tomb and sent me on my way. Onward to the Tomb of the Unknown King! (Sounds like a great name for a D&D dungeon o_o) The Tomb of the Unknown King is located a small distance from Deling City. A guide suggested that I rent a car, but I figured I could use the extra battles and just walked. I didn't meet very much resistance on the way there and had little trouble as far as monsters were concerned. And thus I entered the Tomb of the Unknown King! (Going to shorten the name from here on)
     Upon entering the Tomb, a couple of random students came running by and were yelling something about "Float." Of course, they are suggested the spell for some reason, but I will come back to that. The item I needed to find at the Tomb was in the very first area I entered. It was a broken sword with a Student ID number on it. I memorized the number (135) but decided to explore the Tomb a bit more. With it being such a big place, I knew it had to have more to it. Following a guide's suggestion, I stuck to the sides of the Tomb as to not get lost. You see, the big twist of the Tomb is that Squall always comes from the front of the room regardless of which way he went through the previous ones. (The Tomb is basically all cross-patterned pathways.) I bought a special locator from the guard in Deling City to help with this, but I quickly found this was unnecessary since I stuck with the guide's strategy. The enemies didn't offer much of a challenge while I explored, but I did find something very interesting. In one area of the Tomb, there was a large minotaur statue. I approached the statue and watched as it jumped to life. It then immediately attacked us for BOSS BATTLE TIME...SORT OF.
     The minotaur's name was Sacred, and he proved to be a somewhat tough opponent. First and foremost, I found out the reason for the students yelling "Float." If Sacred is touching the ground, he slowly regenerates HP every round. He was regenerating enough that this was completely unacceptable. On the plus side, it was an easy problem to fix. I cast Float on him and drew a bit of magic off him at the same time (Life...it's rare at this point!). As long as he stayed floating, he wouldn't regenerate. I had to cast it a couple of times, but with some fairly powerful strikes and a few GFs, he was easily conquered. However, it wasn't a victory for me quite yet. He quit mid-battle and ran off. Further exploration of the outer limits revealed some interesting switches. I flipped all of them without a second thoughts. After making the full roundabout of the Tomb, I made my way to the center. Once there, I found a small building in the middle of this crazy maze. It had a bridge at this point, but I figure that it wasn't always there (thank you random switches!). Heading inside the building, I came face-to-face with Sacred. However, this time he wasn't about to go it alone. He called out for his brother. Suddenly, another minotaur appeared! However, this one was a lot smaller than Sacred, but he also seemed a bit calmer and smarter. The two challenged me to a fight for BOSS BATTLE TIME! (For real this time)
     For this battle, I had the lineup of Squall, Irvine, and Zell. My opponents were the first minotaur, Sacred, and his brother...Minotaur (that's his name). They were a formidable team, and once again, I had to Float them both above the ground. Seeing as that heals them constantly, I cast Float on the both of them before going any further. I also cast Float on myself in preparation for their special attack. They're earth-based and would quickly fling out a earth-type attacked called Mad Cow Special. As long as I was floating, this attack would simply pass under me and do nothing! Once I had the minotaurs floating, I started throwing all my GFs at them. This...made the battle go quite fast actually. I only summoned a couple of GFs before Sacred went down. One GF later, Minotaur fell. With their defeat, Minotaur asked if I would bring them along. So I gained a new GF...Brothers!
     With them on my team, I now have a total of six Guardian Forces. This means I can have two per person and better Junction my crew. With everything done in the Tomb of the Unknown King, I left the Tomb and made my way back to Deling City. I took my time going back though so I could catch a few extra battles to help strengthen the team. That...and I needed to catch up the GF Brothers with the rest of the group (level-wise). I spent like an hour and a half exploring and random battling. This helped get some extra levels and GF abilities. Of course, I eventually grew tired of this and returned to Deling City. I went over to the Caraway Mansion and gave the guard the Student ID number I had found in the Tomb. With that in hand, I was qualified to enter and meet with the General. Strangely enough, the entire plan for assassinating the Sorceress was being staged by one of the Galbadian Generals (a point Squall brings up to himself a couple of times...he talks to himself quite a bit more than others).
     Anyways, I waited around inside of his mansion to speak with him. We sat around for quite a bit. Eventually, Rinoa stood up and said something about him always making people wait. She quickly clarified this upon walking out that this was her house. ...Way to throw that in out of nowhere. Finally, the General comes in out of nowhere. He confirms that Rinoa is his daughter, but that she hasn't called him "father" in forever. Moving right along, he begins to inform us of the master plan to kill the Sorceress (who gained a name during this talk...Edea). The plan revolves around a big parade that is being thrown for the Sorceress. She'll be riding on a big float and fairly exposed. The float will go around town and eventually come back through to the starting point. The path leads through this giant gateway, and that is the choke point for this whole operation. One team will be closing the iron bars on the giant gateway. The other team will sneak into the building where the float starts. They will go up top and pick up the sniper rifle on the roof. Using the rifle, Irvine will assassinate the Sorceress while she is trapped in the gateway. Not too bad a plan really...Let's get it going!
     I returned to the mansion while waiting for the event to happen. Once there, Rinoa came around with a special item. She said it was a special magical item that would nerf the Sorceress's power. However, this was met with some harsh criticism from Quistis. She asked if Rinoa had any form of a plan to get to her OR if the item would even work right. This upset Rinoa, but there wasn't anything more to be said because the group left for the mission at this time. Everybody went to their specified locations. Squall and Irvine went to their position as the sniping team. Quistis, Zell, and Selphie were waiting nearby the gateway as part of the gate team. They would wait inside the gateway to drop the bars whenever the Sorceress passes underneath. As I got in place, it seemed like the plan would go off without any problems. But of course, that would be too easy!
     Quistis was starting to feel bad for coming down so hard on Rinoa. She figured they had enough time before the parade to go and talk with her, so the three ran back to the Caraway Mansion. Unfortunately for them, Rinoa had already left the mansion to go enact her plan. They just barely missed her and got locked in the room. (Her father was going to lock her in to keep her safe.) I had to look about the room to find a way out. Lucky for me, it was an easy puzzle, and the solution opened up a passage into the Deling City sewers. Now, the timing of the rest of this kind of jumps around a lot, so I hope I tell it right. As the group entered the passage, the game jumps over to Rinoa who is trying to get to the Sorceress to give her the item. I sneak inside, and Rinoa attempts to "gift" the item to the Sorceress. Obviously, she isn't that easy to trick because she catches Rinoa and holds her captive for the next bit.
     The game throws in a cutscene to make sure I realize that she is super magical (not really a lot to it other than her moving about and changing her clothing for the moment). She proceeds outside to give a speech to the people. However, she comes off rather strong and rudely towards all of them. Basically talks about how they strangely seem to admire her now although they once despised her for the evil and destruction and all. Anyways, the President of Galbadia asks what is up with her, and she simply flings him to the side. Before the Sorceress goes to leave on her float, she brings a couple of lizard statues to life and sicks them on Rinoa. Squall and Irvine see all of this, and they plan to go up and help Rinoa. The game shoots off into a rather detailed and large cutscene showing the Sorceress (typing that word a lot right now it seems...) riding atop her float as people dance around and the crowd cheers. The cutscene also revealed that Seifer was very much alive. He was standing with the Sorceress on her flaot. This game really stepped up a notch on the cutscenes. They're actually quite well done! Anyways, once the float moves on by, I run up towards the building she was in. I climb up the same path that Rinoa just took and go up to help her. Looks like it is some BOSS BATTLE TIME!
     For this edition, I'm limited to just Squall and Irvine facing off two big lizard monsters. They weren't that hard really. However they did have the ability to petrify my characters, so I couldn't take them too lightly. The first thing I did was draw the Carbuncle GF off of them. After that, I just started whittling away while drawing magic.While they were both alive and kicking, they were able to deal out a decent amount of damage. This ended once I took one out though. I did spend some time drawing out some Break spells for junctioning. Once the battle was finished, Squall went to check on Rinoa. She seemed to be quite shaken up by all of it. The Sorceress had scared her quite a bit, and Squall said that she should stay close to him during all of this. The group continues with the mission and quickly find the sniper rifle. Now, I simply have to wait for the Sorceress to be in position. The game switches back over to the gateway group.
     The gateway group finds themselves in the Deling City sewers. I have to wander around here for a bit while I try to make my way back to the surface. There wasn't much resistance in the sewers though. The only enemy is a shadow creature called a Creep. They weren't much of a challenge though, so I easily decimate them. It takes a little time, but I finally made my way back to the surface. And as luck (and planning) would have it, the sewer lead me straight to the gateway control room. Once there, I simply had to wait a few moments as the Sorceress's float got in position. Then...we dropped the gate! Another couple of cutscenes go down during all of this. We did seem to get her by surprise, and now she was stuck! Next up, the sniper team again!
     Irving has the sniper rifle and is mostly ready to go, but he did end up with one problem. He ended up being nervous and thought he couldn't do it. Squall eventually convinces him that if nothing else, the shot will be a signal. If he misses, they will simply follow up with Plan B. Plan B is to simply and straightforwardly charge at and fight the Sorceress. Obviously, it's not the best way to go about it, but it is our only back up here. With a bit of convincing, Irvine mans up and takes the shot. Despite his perfect aim, the Sorceress manages to block the shot...with magic. With Plan A gone, I guess it is time for Plan B! Another cutscene ensues. Squall leaps off the building all action-like and takes off towards the Sorceress. He even goes so far as to jump in a nearby car to close the distance. Once closer, he climbs upon the float and charges at the Sorceress. However, before he can get to her, he has to go through Seifer first! BOSS BATTLE TIME!
     It was a fairly cool battle really. It was a one on one match between two rivals! The only unfortunate part of this is that he wasn't hard at all whatsoever. Most of his attacks weren't that powerful, and his best attack (the spell Fira) was really only a minor hit.  I actually could have beaten him in a few minutes, but I took some time to draw up a bit of magic off of him. With his defeat, the Sorceress takes it upon herself to deal with Squall personally. BOSS BATTLE TIME AGAIN! She comes at me ready to attack, but before the battle gets going, Squall is joined by Rinoa and Irvine. Rinoa wants to help, and Irvine wants to make up for his previous actions. I was expecting a pretty decent battle here, but I managed to cheat this battle somewhat. The GF Carbuncle casts Reflect on the entire party when he is summoned. If you do this, Edea (the Sorceress's name if you forgot) spends her turns Dispelling the Reflect off of everyone. During this time, you can get in some magic drawing and a few summons! I whittled away at her health here and there while I was drawing what magic I could. I eventually broke out a few big guns and summoned up a few GFs as well. After just a few (I think maybe 5 total?), I defeated Edea...sort of. Despite her defeat in battle, she isn't trutly defeated. As the battle ends, she shakes off the damage and prepares to attack the party. She summons up a large set of ice spears and throws them at the group. They go by most of the party and leave them unscathed, but Squall was not one of those people. He is impaled directly in the chest and thrown off the float. Rinoa reaches for Squall, but he passes out as he hits the ground.
     And that is where Disc 1 ends! Not nearly as long as FF7's Disc 1, but I believe that the main reason is the large number of FMVs. One can easily forget that the PS1 discs only held maybe 500-700 MB apiece, so the first disc was greatly dominated by cutscenes and thus caused it to not last nearly as long as the previous title. Anyways, move right along here. The game eventually comes to, and I find myself in another lovely dream sequence with everybody's favorite...Laguna! It seems to have been a while since they escaped the Esther situation, and Laguna is currently staying in some small backwater village. He's awakened by a little girl named Ellone. Laguna scolds her for going out alone to get to him, and that her parents would have been disappointed in her (I'm assuming they are dead). He explains that she shouldn't be outside by herself because of all the monsters about. She says someone is at the bar for him, so the two leave that house and head to the nearby bar. Once inside, it turns out the mystery visitor is Kiros!
     Laguna and Kiros spend a bit of time catching up while I learn about a couple different things. Ward is still alive, but he has lost the ability to speak. He's currently working as a janitor in some prison. Julie has gotten together with and married someone named Caraway (yup yup! It's the one you are thinking of). She seems to be doing fine, but there are rumors that her true love had gone off to war and never returned (HINT HINT). After catching up, Raine (the bar keeper and caretaker for Ellone) asks that Laguna go out and make his rounds about the town. Kiros decides to come with him because he's curious about what Laguna does now. Basically, all of the men in town have gone off to fight the war. The only thing in town are women, children, and elderly people. There are some soldiers in town, but they are only stationed there to fight off any possible Esther solder attacks. Laguna spends his time patrolling the town and fighting off any monsters that appear. For this part, I simply had to go to the front of the village and then report back to Raine at the bar. Along the way, Kiros started talking with Laguna and asking him about his current life. His biggest question if Laguna was truly satisfied with living where he was. Laguna mostly dodged the question, and the two continued through town. I walked around some and got in a few battles, but I was mostly just messing around.
     I finally returned to the bar, and the two caught Raine and Ellone in a conversation. Ellone was asking Raine if she liked Laguna. She pointed out a lot of his negative points first, but she eventually came around in a way that stated to the affirmative of liking him. Laguna finally popped up and reported in. I killed 28 monsters during my walk around town (it actually told me). She said that dinner was going to be ready soon, and that I should go take a nap before that. I went back to Laguna's house and was ready to lay down. Right as he was laying down, he said some sort of strange things. He mentioned something about hoping that he did wake up again in this town and not somewhere else. Talk about your strangeness!
     As he went to sleep, the game switched back to the group. As it turns out, the operation most definitely failed. Quistis, Selphie, Rinoa, and Zell were in a jail cell somewhere. They had been brought in for their attempt to assassinate the Sorceress. After talking a bit, the group figured they were in the Galbadian prison known as D-District. The game had made mentions of this prison earlier on while I was looking about. Supposedly, a lot of rebel faction members had been sent here upon being caught. The group was unsure of what to do now, and they were also worried about Squall. The game quickly switched over to Squall who was in a separate cell. The game showed the cell being moved further up inside of the prison. It was there that I came face to face with Seifer once again. He grabbed Squall and took him off to torture him. It jumps back to the other group sitting in the cell. Eventually, the guards come in and take Rinoa away from the group. Zell tries to resist and gets beaten by the guards. They walk off, and now the group starts trying to form a plan.
     The game yet again jumps back to Squall (this game is all over the damn place). He's currently being tortured by Seifer for information. Apparently, Sorceress Edea demands to know what SeeD means. Squall is confused by the question and wonders why Seifer doesn't know. He believes that actual SeeD members are told something when they become SeeD. He starts electocuting Squall to make him talk. Of course, Squall is clueless to the question or what he could possibly want to know. This continues as the game yet again switches back. The group are talking in the cell when a strange red-orange lion humanoid creature comes in and trips over with a plate. (Going to call them their real name from here on...Moombas) The guard comes in and tries to beat the Moomba for its mistake. Zell takes a stand for this and takes a hit. The Moomba seems to appreciate this, but it also doesn't seem to be able to talk. The group finally formulates a plan to escape. They all figure they could get out of there if they had their weapons. Zell is at an advantage here since his weapons are his hands. The girls pretend to be passed out, and Zell calls in a guard. He knocks out the guard and runs out to find their weapons. The Moomba tags along with him.
     Lucky for Zell, the weapons were only a few floors away and being guarded by just a few guards. They were sitting there and admiring all the "SeeD weapons." Zell got the jump on them though, and I fought them off (in battle of course). With the soldiers down, I grabbed up all the weapons and made my way back to the cell. Zell quickly handed over everyone's weapons (Quistis uses a whip and Selphie has nunchucks). With their weapons in hand, they were ready to find Squall and get out! However, it seems that the weapon retrieval timing was just right. As they were ready to leave, a guard come in accompanied by a couple of soldiers. The soldiers were old friends from a while ago...Biggs and Wedge! They had both been demoted and transferred after the loss in Dollet. They were about to give us a beat down when they noticed we were fully armed. The guard ran off, and the two were left to fight us for BOSS BATTLE TIME!
     The duo were not happy with their current situation. However, despite this, they were both more than ready to fight us to get revenge for their demotion. They weren't much of a challenge though. Even when I gave them little attention, the two soldiers were hardly a challenge though. I managed to draw some pretty good magic of the both of them though, so the battle was definitely worth it. Once those two were finished, we were finally able to leave the cell. As soon as we left though, the alarm began to sound. The game jumped back over to Squall once again. This was a bit before the alarm had sounded though. Seifer wasn't able to get an answer out of Squall, so he went on to do something else, but he asked the guard to continue questioning him. Eventually, the guard was called off to do something else, but he asked a group of Moombas to keep an eye on Squall. During this, Squall mentioned Laguna's name, and the Moombas seemed to react to this. They all started saying Laguna's name, and they released Squall from the torture device. The game jumped back to the trio escaping their cell. As they were heading on (with their Moomba friend in tow), a group of Moombas appeared and were saying Laguna all over. They were unsure about this, but they decided to continue up the prison. They needed to find Squall and escape quickly. Once the alarm went off, there was an announcement saying that the magic  barrier had been let up. On top of this, they had released monsters inside the prison to deal with the escaped prisoners. I had to get on the move and find Squall quickly!
     But I decided to pack it up there for now. I found a nearby save point and saved the game. I haven't accomplished as much as I wanted to in this post, but any progress is much better than no progress! I'm already halfway through the month, and I'm not quite halfway through the game. I figure I can keep up a decent rate and still finish in time though. So...that's all folks! You should stay tuned and keep an eye out for my next post! I'm also going to try and think up a new Side Post since it has been a while. STAY TUNED!


Ending Point - Galbadia D-District Prison
Current Party -

• Zell - Level 16
• Selphie - Level 16
• Quistis - Level 15

Goals Accomplished - Made it to Deling City. Made it to the Tomb of the Unknown King and completed the test. Obtained the Brothers GF at the Tomb. Returned to Deling City and learned the assassination plan. Obtained the Carbuncle GF! Went through with the mission but failed to kill the Sorceress. Finished Disc 1! Completed another dream sequence with Laguna. Managed to get my weapons back in the Prison.
Next Goals - Rescue Squall and escape the prison.

~May the Crystals Guide Me~