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...)
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
Next Goals - Help out Fisherman's Horizon with the Galbadia problem.
~May the Crystals Guide Me~
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