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
Next Goals - Rescue Squall and escape the prison.
~May the Crystals Guide Me~
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