Beorc Liveblogs Final Fantasy VIII

I just bought it for my PSP, so I figured I might as well try out a liveblog. I've never played it before and I don't really know much about it except for the names of a few characters and that a lot of people don't like it, so this should be interesting.

All right,getting started then. The game begins with a beach...and Ominous Latin Chanting. Next, words are showing up: "I'll be here...", "Why...?", "I'll be...'waiting', wink wink nudge nudge say no more"

More words show up and a woman (Rinoa, I believe) is standing in a field with flower petals floating all around her. The Ominous Latin Chanting is seeming kind of unfitting at this point. But then... thunder! And a sword flying toward me! Now we've got two guys (Squall and Seifer, I at least know that much) fighting in some barren area. Except Squall's sword just turned into feathers. Guess he loses. Oh, wait, but now some other stuff is happening with Rinoa and what looks like a witch. I can't keep track of what's going on at this point. It's reminding me of the opening of Kingdom Hearts II.

So, it's back to Seifer and Squall fighting with their Gunblades, yet neither seems to bother using the gun half of it. Instead, Seifer shoots Squall with a Fire spell. But as Squall is coming back to his senses, Seifer slashes him right across the face. Apparently Squall doesn't mind, because he gets right back up, his face covered in blood, and cuts Seifer's face.

Finally a bunch of pictures flash by way too fast for me to know what's going on, ending with what I guess is supposed to be Squall and Rinoa reaching out to each other, but looks more like Rinoa tripping and Squall about to catch her.

...I've got a headache.

I actually always liked the opening montage and the music that goes with it. As meh as the game is, the opening just gives you chills.

Well, now let’s move on to the actual game. Squall wakes up in an infirmary bed with bandages where he got cut. According to the doctor, it’ll leave a scar. I’d say he’s pretty lucky to get that nifty battle scar between his eyes. Anyway, his instructor Quistis shows up and tells him that he’s got a field exam today, and they head out to the hallway, where I get control of Squall.

Well, sort of. All I can do is walk forward. Ah, well. After a brief conversation between Quistis and Squall, we get a view of the school. Pretty. Back in Quistis’s classroom, she explains the schedule while Squall sits in the back row with his head hanging down, contemplating the meaning of the universe. After class, she tells Squall she needs to talk to him.

I head on over to the front of the room, but first I talk to some students loitering about. Apparently, it’s an honor to be called over by Quistis, or Instructor Trepe, and I should smile when talking to her. Well, let’s ignore the fan club for a bit and act indifferent. Apparently I have to go to a Fire Cavern as a prerequisite to the field exam (for becoming a See D, I guess). After finishing talking with Quistis, I talk to her fan club again. They go by the name, the “Trepies” and are all incredibly jealous that I got to talk to her. Something tells me that Trepies started out as a derogatory nickname from the other students and they embraced it not realizing what it meant.

Next, let’s check out the study panel Quistis mentioned. On it, I look at the “About Garden” section and “See D info”. So this place is called Balamb Garden, and a See D is a mercenary commanding Guardian Forces, which seem to be what summons are in this game. I’m too lazy to look at the tutorial; I’m sure I’ll figure everything out eventually.

On my way heading out, I run into a girl who’s new to this Garden. I decline giving her a tour, although I’m sure she’ll be important later. On my way down, I find the first save point, and I go ahead and save my game.

Y'know, it's interesting how the Final Fantasy series defines injuries. I can tolerate that the deaths of some characters are unable to be cured with Phoenix Downs, but a piddly little facial blemish that remains through even the most potent of Cure spells?

Now, to discuss future content. Is this going to be a 'get through the story ASAP' kind of thing, or will you take the time to do a few sidequests? Will you be using a guide to get anything that can be Lost Forever? Are you going to challenge yourself by setting a limit on things like your character levels? ...Actually, in this game, that might make things a bit easier.

Is this going to be a 'get through the story ASAP' kind of thing, or will you take the time to do a few sidequests? Will you be using a guide to get anything that can be Lost Forever? Are you going to challenge yourself by setting a limit on things like your character levels?

Since this is my first playthrough, I'm going to try to avoid using a guide unless I get stuck, so I'll likely miss out on quite a few things, but I'll probably do a few sidequests along the way. I'm not planning on doing any self-imposed challenges though.

Back to the liveblog...next I head out of the front gate and through what appear to be the gardens of Balamb Garden. Along the way, I find some pink sparks emanating from the ground called a draw point, but it says no one can draw. Moving along, I find Quistis.

Well, I guess I’m going through the tutorial anyway. She teaches me about how to “junction” Guardian Forces and magic, and the Draw command. I start out with two Guardian Forces, Quezacotl (presumably because Quetzalcoatl wouldn’t fit) and Shiva. Let’s go ahead and give Quezacotl to Squall and Shiva to Quistis. I also set their abilities, giving Squall Magic and letting Quistis summon. I go back to the draw point and get some Cures before heading out.

The Fire Cavern is just a few steps east of Balamb Garden on the world map. Along the way I learn that using the R button at the right time I can do a critical hit with my Gunblade, so it turns out the gun part is useful after all. At the Fire Cavern, my goal is to get a Guardian Force. It asks me what to set my time limit as; I’ll go with 20 minutes.

Inside I try out the Draw command for the first time and collect some Thunders, Scans, Blizzards, and Fires, although it makes the battles really slow. With around 8 minutes to spare, I make it to the end of the tunnel, and whaddya know, it’s Ifrit, everyone’s favorite spawn of hell. After drawing Cures and Scans for a couple minutes, I use Shiva. Ifrit seems rather surprised. I continue having Quistis use Shiva and Squall use the Blizzards I stocked (I also got Quistis’s limit break which says it’s Blue Magic but is in fact just her shooting lasers out of her eyes) and slowly but surely I defeat him with under two minutes left on the clock. I junction Ifrit to Squall and head out of the Fire Cavern.

Back at Balamb Garden, Quistis tells me to change into my uniform for the See D exam. I head back to the lobby and save my game once again.

Yeah, Blue Magic works a tad differently in this game than in others. Instead of 'get hit with something special and hope you survive', it's 'check what a monster drops and see if Quistis can learn anything from it'.

Anyways, that was a strong beginning, if I do say so myself. Got a bit close near the end, but I think that's actually better than if you finished within the first of the twenty minutes you asked for. Let's hope that what comes next goes just as swimmingly...

Of course, the fact he spent a fair bit of time drawing showed he could have easily finished earlier, but yeah, it adds dramatic effect to finish close to the time limit.

Yeah, you actually get more points (for something later) the closer you get the timer to 0.

Have fun with the game.

protip: play the damn card game a lot and don't overlevel.

It's a good thing for me if this game is actually easier the lower your level is, since I usually end up underleveled in RP Gs.

Anyways, I decide to explore the various sections of Garden before taking the exam. Things of note are the new girl from earlier not leaving me alone about joining the Festival Committee, the lunch lady ranting about her son going on a journey (my guess is that it’ll have some significance later), and finding a draw point with some Esunas in the library. After getting changed into my uniform in the dormitory, I return to the lobby.

My squad is made up of Zell Dincht, who Quistis describes as lively and Squall describes as loud. I meet him attempting to kill the air around him before he does a couple backflips just to show off. And, as it turns out, Seifer is our squad leader. I imagine this won’t end well. Quistis wishes him good luck, but Seifer tells her to save it for students who need it, and tells his entourage of Fuujin and Raijin to add Quistis to “the list.” Then he says that teamwork means staying out of his way. I’m almost getting the feeling that this guy’s a jerk.

Hey, it’s the Cid of the game! He’s the headmaster. He says we’ll be going with 9 See D members to a real battlefield. He also says he wants a gunblade specialist in See D (maybe I should just call it Seed so it stops showing up as a broken link). At any rate, on the way to the exam, Zell tries to get Squall to talk, and Seifer comes up with a nickname for Zell: Chicken-wuss. Ya see, he combined two different insults into one. We’re working with an evil genius here.

I drive the car over to the town of Balamb, where we get on a submarine to our destination. During the journey, a woman named Xu explains our mission to us. The city of Dollet has been under attack by the Galbadian army for about 72 hours, and Dollet has retreated into the mountains to reorganize their troops. Our job is to eliminate the remaining G-Army in the city and liberate it. When we land, I give Zell Quistis’s Junctions and magic and go to free Central Square.

…Later. First, I’ll save and take a break.

It's a good thing for me if this game is actually easier the lower your level is, since I usually end up underleveled in RP Gs.

Yeah, FFVIII is uniquely unsuited for a low level run challenge since keeping to a low level is no challenge at all. For FFVIII, a high level run is the actual challenge.

Yeah...I won't try to spoil anything major, but your future paychecks pretty much depend on how focused, brave, kind, and soldier-y you are in this mission. Also, unless you're on some kind of time limit, I suggest you Draw from any boss you come across from this point on.

Fuck Drawing, it's grindy and boring. Card, Card Mod, and [X]-Magic RF are where it's at.

Well, I have no idea what any of those are, so I guess I'll just have to settle with drawing for now. =P

Now, on to the exam. Almost immediately ahead of the save point, I run into my first battle with the Galbadian soldiers. They’re pretty easy to take down. While Squad A gathers info from the network system, I move ahead, running into another battle along the way. Seifer is out for blood; Zell comments that he’s an idiot, and I can’t say I disagree. After one more battle with a single soldier, we arrive at Central Square.

Seifer tells Squall and Zell to scout out the area, and I find one more soldier hiding behind a tank. We’re on standby now, but Seifer is still obsessed with fighting more, and he yells at a poor stray dog. After a while, we spot some Galbadian soldiers heading towards a tower. Seifer, always needing to be the hero, decides to follow them…and Squall agrees with them. Zell, seemingly the only intelligent one in the group, points out that this is an important exam and they should follow orders, but Squall and Seifer are adamant. Zell apparently isn’t as adamant, because he goes with them with just a “…Fine.” Maybe he’s not that smart after all.

Across a bridge and up some stairs, we run into some wounded Dollet soldiers. The Galbadian soldiers are in the Communications Tower which is a nesting ground for monsters, just like everything else in an RPG. In fact, we’re attacked by a giant snake right away. During the fight, I get to use Squall’s Limit Break for the first time and recall the system from Dissidia. Otherwise, the battle ends fairly quickly. At the Communications Tower, the G-Army seems to be doing some repairs. Meanwhile, Seifer has a prepared speech about how he loves battles and they lead to his dream and yeah, whatever.

Anyways, the girl from the Festival Committee shows up, and her name is Selphie. Seifer runs off, mentioning something about his romantic dream, and goes into the Communications Tower. I follow Selphie down to the tower after Seifer, although Zell seems hesitant (and his catch phrase seems to be “pu-lease”). Inside the tower I stock some Blinds from a draw point, save my game, and go up the elevator.

Biggs and Wedge are on top of the tower being the flunkies they always are. Just as we arrive, the tower’s satellite is activated and it fires a beam of light into the sky, ‘cause that’s just how things work around here. Next thing I know, I’m fighting Biggs. I spend a couple minutes having Zell attack while Squall and Selphie draw, until Wedge shows up and I decide to attack in full force. They’re pretty weak, so I’m doing fine until a tornado shows up and blows them away. The real boss is some sort of demon… thing named Elvoret.

The first thing I do is draw the Guardian Force Siren, along with some Double magic. This boss is considerably more dangerous, with an attack called Storm Breath that hits everyone in the party for over 150 HP. I have to resort to Limit Breaks to get the job done. Selphie’s is a gamble that you’re able to do over as much as you want, so I use Full-Cure on the entire party. After a few more turns, the Elvoret is defeated.

Afterward, Selphie tells us to return to the beach in under 30 minutes, and Seifer goes running off ahead again. Sigh. There’s a 30-minute time limit now, which should be plenty of time without any hindrances, but who really expects that? After leaving, we see Biggs setting us as the targets of…something. As we leave the Communications Tower, I find out what it is: an enormous spider-like robot called the X-ATM 092. It’s a pretty easy battle, but instead of defeating it, I just run away while it repairs itself, so I don’t even get any rewards.

…And now it’s chasing me again. I start hurrying back through the city, but it catches me once. I quickly overcome it, but it still just. Won’t. Die. As I finally escape, it crushes some poor sap’s car and Squall just barely manages to reach the submarine, although I still had a good ten minutes to spare. As the submarine moves away Quistis manages to finally destroy the machine with a turret.

Once we’re back in Balamb, Seifer takes the car and drives off without us. Pfft. Where we’re going, we don’t need cars. I go to the hotel and finally save my game.

You can choose the abilities you want your GFs to learn in the GF submenu. Card and Card Mod are abilities that Quezacotl can learn. Card turns your targeted enemy into a Triple Triad card. Card Mod lets you turn those cards into items.

The Magic RF abilities show up on a bunch of different GFs, and they let you turn items into magic. It's tons faster than Drawing, and if you play your cards right (hurr hurr) you can do some absolutely ridiculous stuff, like have 100 Tornado junctioned to Squall's strength before you even hit Dollet.

edited 13th Oct '10 1:25:26 PM by Theoneknownasme

Sorry about not updating for the last few days. I was on vacation. I'll try to update tonight.

Yeah, the thing about this game is that you either figure out how strengthening your characters works and proceed to obliterate everything, or you don't and end up really struggling as you never do much more than your starting damage through the whole game.

Even HC Bailly, who generally does his best to avoid using GameBreakers, had an entire army of people with 9999 HP doing close to 9999 damage a hit by the end, because there's really no other way to do it.

^Yeah, I feel like I'm missing something, because even Junctioning magic hasn't seemed to make a noticeable difference in battles for me.

Oh well, back to the game. In Balamb, I decide to try my hand at this Triple Triad everyone's talking about. Unfortunately, my deck kind of sucks right now, so it takes a lot of resetting to avoid losing my one decent card, Ifrit. Eventually I win a game though...and I proceed to spend about an hour building up a better deck of cards (including getting an incredibly good Zell card from playing Zell's mom). Eventually I pull myself away from the card game and head back to Balamb Garden.

Once we arrive, I find Headmaster Cid, Quistis, and Xu in the lobby talking. They say that the G-Army has agreed to retreat as long as the Communications Tower is kept operational. Interesting. Afterwards I head to the right hallway, since it's the only way I can go, and I run into Seifer. He says that if they hadn't told us to retreat, we could've been heroes. Then Xu shows up and tells him that he'll never be a SeeD, and calling himself a captain is a joke. I know the guy's a jerk and all, but that seems a little harsh...

Next there's an announcement for everyone who participated in the field exam to go to the second floor hallway. So I guess that's where I'm going. Once I'm there, Zell says they're calling in the new SeeDs one at a time (and Fuujin says "RAGE"). After a few seconds of waiting, some SeeD guy shows up and calls Zell Dincht and Squall Leonheart. Along with us, Selphie and some other guy have become SeeDs. Cid gives a brief speech and I get a battle meter before leaving.

Outside, Zell and Selphie are skipping around while the other guy forms his plans for world domination. Going back to the second floor hallway, Seifer stands still for a moment, then starts clapping for us. Aww. Afterward, I get a report for the exam. My starting SeeD rank is 4. I wonder how good/bad that is.

Later on, I get changed into my SeeD uniform and go to the inauguration party. Squall is standing in the corner by himself, of course. Selphie shows up and asks me if I want to join the Festival Committee again. I finally give in and say yes. Hopefully this doesn't mean they're going to expect any effort from me. Just after this, a girl (Rinoa) sees Squall and comes over to try and get him to dance with her. Squall insists that he can't dance, but Rinoa drags him onto the dance floor anyways. There's a fairly long FMV of their dance, and it ends with fireworks exploding in the sky behind them. Gee, I almost get the feeling that they're gonna end up together, or something.

However, immediately afterward, Rinoa leaves to go talk to someone else. Squall goes to the balcony to angst, but then Quistis shows up and points out that he'll dance with someone he doesn't even know, but he can't stand being around her. I think someone is jealous. Squall says it's awkward, but Quistis changes the subject to meeting her outside the training center to go to the secret area where students meet after curfew. She says it's her last order. Hmm...

I get changed back into my regular clothes and go to the training center. She talks about how to defeat a T-Rexaur and we head into the training center. I run into some plant things on the way to the secret area, but no T-Rexaur. At the secret area, Quistis tells Squall that she was told that she had failed as an instructor, and she is now a SeeD. Squall seems pretty uninterested. He says he doesn't have anything to say about other people's problems, and she replies that she just wanted him to listen. Squall then tells her to go talk to a wall. Well, that was rather rude.

On the way to the exit of the training center, I run into a T-Rexaur. Quistis tells me that sometimes it's better to run away, which makes me more determined to kill it. I use Shiva, which does 800-900 damage, so I figure it should take the T-Rexaur out fairly quickly. But no, this thing doesn't seem to die. I end up using Scan to check its HP...turns out it has 12000. Well, that explains a lot. But I still refuse to give up. Using Shiva repeatedly (and later on, Renzokukens) I eventually defeat it. For my time, three of my GFs go up a level, and I get a Dino Bone and 10 AP. Well, that was almost worth it...eh, not really.

Near the exit, we find a woman being attacked by creatures from the training center. The boss is a Granaldo and three Raldos, but the fight's a breeze compared to the T-Rexaur. Afterward, the lady is escorted off by the faculty, and Quistis questions who she is. Well, I'm sure we'll find out at some point. Moving along, Quistis tells Squall that not everybody can get by on their own. "Says who?" Squall retorts. Well, Quistis, obviously; I didn't think you were that stupid, Squall.

On my way back to the dormitories, Zell informs me that I've got my own room now that I'm a SeeD, conveniently placed right across from my old room. I go to sleep, and the next morning Selphie informs me that we have our first SeeD mission in the city of Timber. I head to the lobby (playing a few more games of Triple Triad on the way) and save my game.

edited 17th Oct '10 1:48:13 PM by Beorc

Remember to talk to the headmaster Cid before leaving or you'll miss the Diablo GF.

edited 17th Oct '10 8:35:33 AM by nightwyrm_zero

Right now, junctioning won't make much of a difference, but the Mag-RF abilities make it very easy to get powerful spells which will affect your stats a lot. In fact, even this early in the game, there's a very common item that will refine into Curagas.

I'm actually playing tis game as well.

Although I'm planning to break it like a dry twig.

^ Then you'll probably spend a lot of time playing the card game.

Due to Diablo's no-encounter ability, you can spend most of the game not fighting any enemy except bosses which helps keep your level low. My experience with FFVIII tended to be card game -> boss fight -> cutscene -> card game etc. At least half my time playing FFVIII was devoted to playing the card game or travelling to manipulate the card game rules.

edited 17th Oct '10 11:35:50 AM by nightwyrm_zero

My starting See D rank is 4. I wonder how good/bad that is.

Well, I think that you've already passed far enough that the following information won't be a spoiler. Please note that I have a Strategy Guide, and am not some supercomputer masquerading as a Troper.

In this game, monsters do not drop cash. Instead, you are given a salary by the garden determined by your rank. Now, depending on what you've done up to this point (as well as some things in the future), you can get/lose hidden evaluation points; the more you have, the higher your rank. Below are some of the factors that may have influenced why you began at Rank 4:

• Having lower time remaining when you killed Ifrit = more points
• Killing a whole bunch of enemies while in Dollet = more points
• Taking Selphie's shortcut off the cliff to the Tower docks you 5 points each time you use it
• Encountering the spider mech less often = more points, with optimal points awarded if you only have to battle it once
• Finding and saving a dog when running from the spider mech gives you 10 evaulation points
• Ducking into a cafe while running from the spider mech would cost you 20 evaluation points
• Having more time left when running away from the giant spider mech = more points
• If you actually get the spider mech's HP to zero, it will revive, but you'll earn 100 evaluation points

Tricks to avoiding the giant spider mech are using the D-pad when travelling on curved roads for better precision, holding the triangle button to walk down the mountain path to avoid losing balance, and faking out the thing on the bridge by taking a few steps one way, then dashing in the opposite direction.

Oh, and if you want to upgrade your rank, you can take tests by accessing the Tutorial menus. The higher rank you are, the more tests are available; thus, you can access four levels of tests right now if you wanted to. But since you can only take each test once, you might not want to do them all at once, in case Squall's evaluation points take a massive dive in the future.

edited 17th Oct '10 2:08:47 PM by EndarkCuli

^ To add to that, you get paid after walking so many steps and your rank will drop after a few paydays. Other than doing the exams, you can increase your rank by doing well in the upcoming mission and by defeating monsters.

More importantly, don't worry too much about ranks and getting paid. Later in the game, there are ways to make unlimited amounts of money from buying, crafting and selling stuff.

edited 17th Oct '10 8:19:01 PM by nightwyrm_zero

There's not a whole lot that you really need to buy anyway. For once in an RPG, money isn't really an issue.

Also, before you leave for your mission you might want to think about snagging the Quistis card from the Trepie in the cafeteria (or the one in the second floor classroom) and the Seifer card from Cid. You can also get MiniMog from the kid running around the main lobby. The card itself isn't that useful, but it does have a purpose with the Queen of Cards.

Basically once you get Seifer, Zell, Quistis, and Ifrit and/or Diablos, you're set as long as the place you're playing doesn't have the Random rule.

edited 18th Oct '10 5:58:00 AM by Theoneknownasme