I finished my most recent playthrough of Fianl Fantasy 8 tonight on the 10 anniversary of its North American release of September 9, 1999.

I have a lot to cover, but won't be able to finish tonight.

In space we get Marian into their sickbay and go to see Ellone. It's never a bad time to play cards, especially when you're on a space station... in space... with lots of cool things to see and do, I'm sure... but screw it, it's Triple Triad time.

Back on the bridge we see the President of Eshtar checking the seal on Adel's tomb. Apparently they do this once or twice a day to make sure everything's ok. Don't want her getting loose again or anything. Checking the monitors, we see that there's a lot of strange activity happening on the moon. The monsters are gathering in preparation for the Lunar Cry. That's not a good sign. That's about the time that the warning bells start going off inside the station. Uh oh. Better get to Med-lab

As I'm coming down the hallway Marian busts out of sickbay throwing people all over the place. There's somethign wrong with her and I can't talk to her or she can't hear me and throws me around too. She makes for the bridge, scares everyone shitless, and disengages one of the seals on Adel's tomb. Then she leaves to grab a spacesuit. This is looking bad. On her way out of the space station she floats by the President and his men who are returning from their spacewalk. She releases the seal on Adel's tomb as we watch from the bridge as the Lunar Cry starts. The force of the thing knocks Marian away into space.

I don't really understand the Lunar Cry. What exactly is that bubble that forms made of? It's blue and then all the monsters get inside it and it bursts? How do they survive the fall through the planet's atmosphere? Does the red stuff clinging to the monsters protect them in some way?

Everyone on board the station jumps into escape pods and gets out of there. Crazy about losing Marian I appeal to Ellone for help. She says she'll do her best to get my consciousness to Marian so she can hear me.

Meanwhile Marian is floating through space and almost dies from her life support running out. Fortunately when I'm able to talk to her through Ellone's powers she wakes up and hits the reserves. Then I fly out of the escape pod to certain death. But at least I won't die alone.

Eshtar is crazy.

Docked at FH I can't take it anymore and lift Rinoa out of bed and do what any other sane person would do and start walking my ass to Eshtar. No train, no car, no giant flying city. Walking. Like a man.

Squall finally opens up to Rinoa about his real feelings for her. Unfortunately she can't hear him because she's in a coma. Timing, my friend, timing. Clearly you need help in gauging your audience.

Somehow my friends got in front of me though, because by the time I reach the end of the train line they're waiting for me. Skills. Oh, the Sorceress is with you. That explains everything. Now I put Edea in my party because it's not like I'll really be able to use her a whole lot in this game. The problem with this is that when you finally bust through the invisible wall, play with some control panels and get into the City, it's time to go to Laguna Land. So your junctions get all thrown out of whack cause it's not like Ellone is taking Edea back in time.

In Laguna Land this time we learn a little bit about Laguna's time in Eshtar. He was captured and forced to work on Lunatic Pandora along with Kiros and Ward. I don't know how long a time he spent there, but they finally broke out, joined the resistance against the ruling dictator, Sorceress Adel, and rescued Ellone.

We wake up just in time for the welcoming committee to drag us to the Presidential Palace. There we meet the brilliant mad scientist Dr. Odine. Crazy little bastard. "You vant to go outside? You vant to fisticuffs?"

Odine says he'll take a look into Edea's condition. We, on the other hand, have to take Rinoa to Ellone. So we take a car to the Lunar Gate. Where are we going? Up, apparently, cause when we ask the guy just points straight up in the air. Me, Rinoa, and Selphie get loaded into a giant gun and shot at the moon. Wheeeeeee!

Meanwhile, my level 15 Zell was left in charge of Edea. I've had better ideas. At least Irvine was there, and under my express orders to kill everyone except Quistis if the Sorceress started acting funny. Irvine's my bro. So Zell, Edea, and Irvine notice something weird headed for Eshtar. As Irvine's loading his gun to shoot Zell the call comes in that Eshtar needs their help. We go talk to Odine to find out that Lunatic Pandora is being operated by Galbadians who are driving it to Tear's Point to artificiially cause the Lunar Cry, and even that brings thousands of monsters raining down from the moon. So my brave trio runs, jumps inside the monsterous flying skyscraper, and goes up an elevator. They reach the top and go down the passage only to be immediately kicked out by a giant robot. The thing keeps moving. Didn't even notice us. It was that pathetic.

Up in space, Squall and friends are arriving at Eshtar's orbital platform. I'll pick up here next time as this is already pretty long. I'm at the point in the game where I have a ton of sidequests to do before moving on in the story. Next time

I did the Winhill sidequest, the ghost hunt. Even though it turns out the mystery was the work of some mischievous chocobo babies you have to wonder if a bit of Raine isn't still around.

We went to Edea's house but encountered Galbadia Garden hovering right outside. The battle was fierce. Galbadian soldiers had comandeered the garden and attacked us mercilessly. They didn't seem to have a problem going after the kids either. Seifer is an asshole.

I'm not sure how Rinoa was able to hang on to that ledge so long, but I'm glad she managed it. Fighting the guy on the hover suit in mid air is always tough for me. I don't know why. I kept loading a save state until I was able to beat him and not use the offered handicaps.

Once inside Galbadia Garden I was able to find some students still lurking about. They helped out by handing me security card keys that eventually let me unlock the elevator and confront Edea and Seifer.

Seifer makes a good point when you find him. We accuse him of being a monster for all that he's done, but he says that we're the monsters. We're the ones attacking him in a group, an uneven three on one match. I don't buy it though. He needed to be dealt with and I was happy to do it.

Then Edea floats through the floor and someone says "The Auditorium is right below." But that's bullshit cause I had to run all the way around to the other side of the building in order to get to the auditorium. After defeating Edea we all got knocked down and back, but something was controlling Rinoa. It felt like a betrayal as she knelt down next to Seifer and raised him back up again. I didn't like the way she was looking at him either. He gets up and walks off. Who knows where

Rinoa falls into a coma and we all get back up to find that Edea has been released from Sorceress Ultimecia's control. Yeah, we also find out about Ultimecia when we visit Edea at her old house.

I really like the look and feel of the old house. The sea is dark and choppy and the dark gray clouds linger overhead with only a few breaks where sunshine streams down. It reminds me a lot of my favorite painting "Ruin by the Sea."

Ultimecia is attempting to achieve something called Time Compression, but needs to find Ellone in the present to do it becuase her conciousness can only travel so far back in time using her own methods. Suck.

It took a while because of the random rule, but I finally got the Edea and Seifer cards from Cid and Edea.

Back at Garden I went down and sat with Rinoa a while. But then Ellone pulled me into Laguna time. And we are now making a movie! Sweet! Afterward Ellone and Squall have a little talk and Squall gets the idea that if we find Ellone he can travel back to the moment the weird thing happened to Rinoa and prevent it.

Edea says that Ellone is with the White SeeDs and they are usually around the inlets of the Centra Continent. But when we find them Ellone is no longer there. Turns out the Galbadians had caught up to the shipi back when we were elaving FH. There was a battle as some Eshtahr ships came on to the scene. Ellone left with the Eshtat fleet, so I guess that's our next destination. That place hasn't been heard from in almost 20 years. This should be interesting

Well there was some shit going down in Balamb town. The whole place had been occupied by the Galbadian army. Apparently they're out looking for Ellone everywhere.

I had some trouble finding the right people to talk to in order to advance the story here. Once I figured it out though things went smoothly. It was frustrating to see Raijin and Fujin were commanding the occupation. I know they're drawing the foundation now so you can see the parallels later when Squall and Rinoa have their talk about staying together no matter what happens. They're showing Seifer having that role with Edea and Seifer's friends being dragged into it out of loyalty, but at some point they have to realize that what they're doing is wrong. Raijin and Fujin decide they can't be a part of Garden anymore (obviously) and Squall tells them to go talk some sense into Seifer.

After Galbadia leaves we head to Trabia to check in and see if there were any survivors at Trabia Garden after the missile attack. Trabia Garden is in ruins. I brought Selphie and Rinoa with me. Selphie talks to everyone she knows and does her mourning. She takes it all pretty well considering the state of the place.

Out back the group sits down and has a long talk about what they're doing and what the proper course of action is. Irvine begins telling the story of how they actually all know each other from their childhood. I like this part of the game and I think it was well done. To me it didn't seem overdone or too unrealistic in the context of the story. I really like Irvine's line where he says "I'm not here because of Fate. I'm here because I chose to be here."

Once everyone is on the same page and we remember the true identity of the Sorceress it's time to take care of her once and for all. But first, side quests!

I visited Shumi village. The scenery here is really nice, but something about the place really weirds me out. I think it's the Shumi themselves. I have a hard time relating to them. They seem simple, but at the same time, not. I don't think I've used the Phoenix Pinion in any of my FF8 games. I'm going to try it out in this one. It summons Phoenix for you the first time you use it. Then, if your party is wiped out at any point in the game after that there is a 12.5% chance that Phoenix will show up and fully heal you.

The Card Club quest was next. I love Triple Triad. I think it's a legitimately fun game. I don't understand why a lot of people don't like it. You can get a lot of good refining items from the cards too. I beat all the card club members and snagged the Leviathan and Gilgamesh cards. Nice

Then I went to the Centra Ruins. It took a little while for me to find the right place. Once in Odin's Tower I let Irvine and Squall get beat up a bit until they were both in the yellow. Then I just used limit breaks to tear through the monsters. Funny story, Odin doesn't like AP ammo being shot at him. As a matter of fact, neither do Tonberries or the Tonberry King. Killing 20 Tonberries was tedious, but the rewards were worth it. Tonberry King himself is really easy. You can draw Full Life from him and also Curaga. So what I would do is draw draw draw Full Life and when he took someone down to critical I would have that person use a limit break and have someone else draw-cast Curaga on them. Once everyone was full on new spells I beat down his 75k hp.

Next stop: Winhill
 

Spoke with Mayor Dobe. Impotent piece of shit. He told us that he'll fix our Garden because it would get us out of FH faster. What an ass. He's one of those pacifists who believes that everyone in the world is a reasonable person with whom you can talk to settle your differences. That's simply not the case. Some Galbadian soldiers show up to prove my point too, which was rather satisfying. So of course I save his ass, but then, I don't think he even thanks me. I explain to him that the world needs people like him, but it also needs people like me. People who will fight for what they believe in. The conversation ended with him just staring off in silence. Yes, you were wrong. If you're so high and moral you'd think you'd be able to admit that you were wrong, but you won't. That makes you an asshole.

It was great to see Selphie, Quistis, and Zell safe. They ended up hiding in the tank that they fought at the missle base. They had been picked up by the Galbadians later and taken to FH to help subdue the city.

So the Garden got fixed up, Headmaster Cid made Squall the leader of the Garden, and Selphie was motivated to put on a concert. Not quite a Garden Festival, but it was still a good idea. I really like this part in the game. Choosing the instruments that everyone will play is really fun. I like listening to all of them before I set everyone up. I went for the Irish tune, of course. Wish I had an .mp3 of that one.

Rinoa brought Squall down from his room to the concert and  they had a long talk. It's good to see that openings are starting to form in Squall's emotional armor. Now we're off to see how the town of Balamb is doing. We're all a little concerned that the Galbadians seem to be out in force looking for Ellone. It's reminiscient of the hunt for her years ago during Sorceress Adel's rule.

Level 25 and 25 hours in

I've been talking to a lot of people in game and I've probably played about an hour of Triple Triad. After NORG there's a guy on the second floor on your way to see the boat that has a ton of good cards including all the level 6 boss cards. Nice. I got a couple of Elastoids from him so I can refine them into steel pipes to finally upgrade to gunblade level 2

So Selphie did a really good job with the missle base. Quistis commented on it to at one point in the base. We were able to sneak in, and play it cool all the way til the end when the base captain finally recognized that something was wrong when we did the wrong salute. I noticed for the first time that on one screen inside the base you can see the MRV in the background under a tarp. Thought that was kinda cool.

The battle with the MRV wasn't too bad. Selphie used Quetzcotl and Zell and Quistis used physical attacks. I cleared the thing within a 10 minute time limit. I still feel really bad every time my party gets trapped in the base with the self destruct going off. I feel like I sent them there and that it was somehow my responsibility that they're not coming back. I'm glad they thought fast and crawled in that beat up tank.

I got the Weapons Monthly June somewhere, I think maybe from beating the tank. So I must have missed May somewhere along the way

Back at Garden there was some shit going down. I ran around and killed all the monsters. You fight that T Rex in the Training Center, but if you hit it with Blizzara and Shiva it doesnt' take too long to knock down. I went inside the actual training center to see if I could get back to the Secret Area, but you can't actually go in there. I ran into a second T Rex so that made a total of 20 AP between the two of them. Nice.

I don't know about this for sure, even ten years later. It's still speculation, but I still think that when you head down to the MD level it looks like one of the Midgar pillars. Gotta wonder if those mobile shelters out of Centra weren't each a piece of the city or something.

I like how everyone stops fighting once they realize how close they were to being blown up. The cutscene with Rinoa on the balcony is still really nice.

I like where Squall gets to show Rinoa around the Garden. Good fun. And I like the guy playing guitar in the Quad. The Balamb town song he plays with the waves in the background is really nice.

So I paid close attention to what NORG was saying. Turns out that the order to assassinate the Sorceress was actually technically a joint venture between Balamb and Galbadia Gardens. The deal is that the only one from Balamb who was in on it was NORG. He and Martine schemed to get rid of Edea. That's fine. The problem was that it was supposed to be Galbadia Garden's soldiers who carried out the attack. Instead, Martine, the Headmaster of Galbadia Garden, sent the SeeDs who showed up on his doorstep. That way no one would know Galbadia had a hand in it and if the plan failed, the blame wouldn't come down on Galbadia Garden. So in retaliation Edea shoots missles at Balamb and Trabia Gardens. Why Trabia? My theory is that she could care less about the assassination attempt and whose fault it was. She knows SeeD is her enemy so she moves to destroy them. The only reason Galbadia Garden gets spared is because she wants it as a base.

Kicked NORGs ass. Then he turned into a fart cloud that I can draw Bio from. And yeah, I agree. You probably don't want that shit going through your air conditioning.

The White SeeDs have a pretty sweet looking boat. Squall got all depressed and needs to sort himself out. He went to sleep and Rinoa just came and woke him up.

Funny line from this installment: "Yeah, I'm serious. Seriously joking."

I like Laguna. I think he's a really cool guy. I don't know about Winhill though. I mean, it's a nice town and all, but there really is nothing going on there. Maybe the place is more actve at night or when there isn't a Sorceress War going on, but seriously, that place is country.

So turns out Laguna washed up near here about a year ago and has been helping to keep the local monster population down. I wonder if they eat those things afterwards cause when I ran through there I slaughtered 36 of them and that could probably feed the whole town for a year.

The D District prison was no fun, but I did get to stock up on stuff like Regen, Haste, and something else that I can't remember right now. I found a guy in one of the cells who upgraded my battle meter so now I can see how many kills and deaths each character has.

We see that Seifer has fallen pretty low and doesn't really care or realize that he's turned into just an asshole. And General Caraway pulled Irvine to get Rinoa out of prison. The fatherly thing to do, but Irvine seems to have little or no loyalty to his friends yet. Which is weird considering he's the only one who remembers that they all grew up together. I'm having a hard time sorting that guy out.

Missles were launched at Trabia Garden which was pretty depressing. I've seen Trabia Garden on past playthroughs obviously, so I can feel for Selphie. My party to return to Garden is Squall, Irvine, and Rinoa. Not only do I like these characters more than the others, but when you think about, it makes sense in the story too. I have to report to Garden. They have to take out a Galbadian missle base. Which objective sounds more dangerous? It only makes sense to send my three SeeDs to take care of the missle base. They have the training and combat experience that Rinoa lacks. And I'm not sure I would trust Irvine yet not to turn them all in to the Galbadians.

Oh yeah, favorite line from this part is when Squall, Irvine, and Rinoa steal the train and a Galbadian soldier starts running after them and Irvine says something like "Uh oh, Squall. Here comes your buddy"

Dude you've really gotta slow down on this thing. You've already hit Disc 3 and I JUST got to Disc 2 last night. haha I'm playing this game casually, but you're blasting through. Slow it down a notch now that you're at Disc 3. You're leaving me in the dust

I still haven't been able to upgrade anyone's weapons except Rinoa's. For some reason parts for her weapons just fall from the sky. I can't find steel pipes anywhere.

Now that my cross-continental excursion is over I went in to Deling City and tried to get into General Caraway's house. This part didn't make a lot of sense that he wants you to leave the city to get a code number from a location up north. Well, whatever. So I went to the Tomb of the Forgotten King. I really like this place. The music fits the mood so well, and the steady water sounds that are also playing make this place have some of my favorite music in the game. It also looks really cool. I like the dual channels of water running along the walls.

I drew Life, Protect, and I think Shell and Double spells out of Sacred and Minotaur so my party was rockin'. They were pretty easy too. That Curaga from Tents trick is riddiculous.

The code this time was 31. I reported back to the guard and was let into Caraway's house. Hung out there for a little while. Caraway's kind of an asshole. I don't remember the particulars, but I wonder if he changed after Julia's death. So he gives us the plan and shows us around town. I like how he runs all over the place showing you what's going to happen and he's doing it right in front of the Presidential House.

So we start the mission and Quistis is a real ass to Rinoa who actually had a pretty good idea. Put the thing on the Sorceress to nullify her powers. If they could have managed that then Irvine's bullet would have hit dead on. So they leave, but Quistis decides she'd been too hard on Rinoa and goes back to the house. But they end up getting accidentaly locked in. Fuck. So we find a secret passage leading to the sewers.

I like Rinoa because she has a lot of determination. She goes and confronts the Sorceress all by hereself. That takes guts. But the Sorceress seems to know what's up and mind controls her. Then she flows through the door, gives the worst inauguration speech ever, and kills the president. Then she calls up some monsters to eat Rinoa. Squall and Irvine to the rescue!

It actually took me three tries to beat these two monsters. The first time I thought they had cast Death on me so I had a Life spell ready to cast on Irvine when his counter got low, but mine was also getting low. I cast it, and it didn't do anything. That's when I realized it was Petrify. So my counter hit zero too and I died. So then I went to do it a second time, but this time I forgot to switch my junctions and found this out when the battle started. No options except the attack option. I just reset. The third time I did it right, grabbed Carbunkle, and everything was good.

The sewers are too long and pointless for what they are

Irvine, what the fuck. Chill out. How can you not be ready for this. Just shoot the satan motherfucker in the head and quit your whining.

The fight with Seifer was cool.

I let everyone get 100 dispel from Edea. We already had 100 of everything else she had on her. She just kept casting dispel because I just kept using Carbunkle to get Reflect on everyone.

I looked closely as Squall got impaled by the giant icicle. I hits him at what looks to be just to the left of his right shoulder. I don't know if there's anything vital there, but when they take that fucking thing out they better have the best goddamn doctors in the world. That thing had some diameter. So yeah, I'm not quite sure how he survives that either. AND he falls what is presumably at least a 10-15 foot drop. Head first. So if the giant spear in his chest didn't do it, there's also a good chance of him cracking his head open on the pavement below.

End of Disc 1

Hey there, Laguna! Been awhile!
 

That's interesting about not needing the Weapons Monthlies, but now you know where the April one is if you ever want to get it. It seems like there's a Timber Maniacs in every hotel room so stay a night at them all and pick them up. I'm still not specifically sure what they do, but they must expand on the Laguna scenes.

You were right about the lines on the big TV outside the station building. I even took a screen shot, but the words were still hard to read. Some of it appeared to say "I am alive" and "I will not let you forget" or something like that. It's pretty cool and pretty creepy that Adel's thoughts are being transmitted over the planet as radio waves.

I think when Squall and friends bust into the TV station Quists and/or Seifer must have taken down the guards that we saw earlier when the two ran into the building. Either that or the guards retreated under Seifer's threats. It's interesting that Seifer seemed to have a good motive for going to Timber. He was apparently worried about the SeeDs sent there. But his actions with attacking the President by himself are just reckless. So when Edea grabs him he's confused and angry and doesn't know what the hell to do with himself so he just goes, probably realizing that he doesn't really fit in at Garden.

I agree that the train scenes are nice. They're well placed and not only give you that sense that you're traveling a distance but also get to let you know your characters. I went right to Galbadia Garden. I also explored the entire place and picked up all those draw points. The haste one is nice. When they hear about Seifer's execution I understand Squall's reaction. It makes sense to me. The line "I don't want anyone talking about me in the past tense" was really good. It's kind of funny that he runs out of the room and goes downstairs and Zell is already there doing pushups. How'd he get down there so fast? Apparently Zell is a ninja. Watch out for that. It's cool when they're doing pushups and the guy is like "There's one good thing about this" and the girl walks by.

Irvine comes off as an asshole. I don't remember, but he might stay like that until his breakdown before he shoots the Sorceress. I think after that he mellows a bit. I took the train to Deling City. I looked around at the stores, stayed at the inn, and left without talking to any triggers. I walked all the way across the continent to Dollet.

Dollet's a cool town. Especially down by the waterside. There are some really nice views. I talked to everyone. If I remember right, I think there were two Timber Maniacs in the town. I did the little side quest with the paintings and the dog. You don't really get anything good though. I beat the card guy on the second floor of the bar on the first try. You go back to his card room and he gives you a bunch of commons. The town seems to be cleaning up pretty well.

I went back to Timber and got the Tim Mani from the hotel there. I also picked up Pet Pals vol. 3 and 4, but I don't remember if I did that on this recent visit or before I left Timber the first time. Then I walked back to Galbadia.

I haven't gotten Mug yet which probably explains why I can't find any steel pipes. I've been able to upgrade Rinoa's weapon to the Rising Sun though. I don't know why her items don't seem to be that hard to find.

It's time to talk to Caraway and overthrow Sadam Hussein. I mean President for Life, Vinzer Deling

I just took care of Deling and we're about to hit the TV Station.

The boss at the top of the communication tower was no problem. Once the timer kicked in for the giant robot spider to come after me I headed down and saved. I forgot I was being timed and spent a few minutes looking through junctions and the Information page. I lost seven minutes but still had enough to get down to the boat.

I don't know what it is, but there are a lot of harsh people at Garden. Xu's comment to Seifer "You'll never be a SeeD. Calling yourself a Captain is a joke" is a little... yeah. I know he's an arrogant asshole and all that, but you can't stoop to that level to deal with him. They should appreciate his abilities and try to work with him rather than insulting and thereby egging him on. It shows some character on Seifer's part thoguh that he's the first one to step forward to clap for the newly graduated SeeDs and that he's the one to introduce Rinoa to Cid. He obviously has dreams too, as he says to Squall "One of these days I'm going to tell you about my Romantic Dream!" Romance here probably meaning both "Arthurian-like romance" and "romanitc love." So my point is that he's not JUST the asshole that everyone sees.

The dance scene is awesome. You can tell a lot about Squall and Rinoa just from this short scene.

Again, about people being overly harsh, it's Squall who comes off as the asshole in the conversation with Quistis. He obviously doesn't give a damn about her and shows absolutely no emotion at all. When he says "Why don't you go talk to a wall", that's exactly what she HAS been doing. She's been talking to Squall. I'm really happy that he turns into a human being later in the game. I agree with you that this first part of the game probably overdoes the character personalities a little. I don't think Quistis would honestly be the type of person to consistantly put up with Squall's shit.

The Man confiscated Zell's hoverboard.

I found a Timber Maniacs in the Balamb Hotel which changed the Laguna scene. I found Weapons Monthly April in Squall's new room at the garden.

Laguna and friends still make for a good time. Those guys are really cool. This time because I read that Timber Maniacs some stuff was different. I don't remeber for sure, but this part may be different: The three jump out of the car in Deling City and Kiros and Ward start saying that Laguna is only here to see the "Piano Lady." Laguna freaks and says "DON'T CALL HER THE 'PIANO LADY'"
Best line: "I think you cut about a -3 on the manliness scale"
Later in Julia's room (again because of the Timber Maniacs) she offers Laguna some wine and after talking for a while he passes out. When he wakes up the conversation just seems to procede as normal. Weird.
Next best line:
Selphie: I had such a nice dream
Squall (thoughts): I had a dream too. But it wasn't nice. I drempt I was a moron.

The Timber mission is interesting. I think you're supposed to sympathize with the new SeeDs that the Timber Owls is an unorganized noob outfit, but I didn't get that impression. To formulate the plan that they did for kidnapping President Deling was really well thought out. The SeeDs to me seemed really arrogant. They had the attitude that they were too good to be messing around with this group. Granted the team  only kidnapped the fake president, but the plan itself was well organized and executed well.
Best nostalgic line: How dare you insult the President!!!
Especially the part where they all start bitching about the train model. Guys, seriously. The group is obviously not well funded, but their intentions are good and they have some quality skills. Make the best of it. You're here to help, not whine. If you have problems with the way the group is doing things then you can show them another way to do it without being assholes. One of the guys in the train, before you talk to Deling, gives you a history of the Timber Owls. It's pretty brutal and makes you feel for the group
I found Pet Pals vol. 2 in Rinoa's room. It's not there right away, but before you talk to Deling you can go back there and pick it up. It gives you Angelo recover which is pretty sweet.
I'm not sure exactly how Rinoa convinced Cid to let her have three SeeDs. The Garden beurocrats obviously didn't want to do it as they say "We would never usually take a contract for this small amount of money." Is Cid just a really nice guy? He seems to be a bit more of a ditz this time around. Not like I remember. I'm not sure they ever explain his reasons for doing it. Maybe just to get Squall out of the Garden since he knows that a gunblade specialist will be the one to defeat the Sorceress

On to the TV Station

Ok, so I haven't really written about Japan on here in quite awhile. Or anywhere really. I've been too busy with other projects and the people who actually want to keep up with me get all that stuff on Facebook anyway.

So my friend Ron and I recently started playing Final Fantasy 8 again. It's one of my favorite games of all time. Since we're a world away from each other we'll be discussing our thoughts about the game online. I figured I might as well post my half of it here in case anyone else is interested. This was originally a reply to an email, so that may explain some things.

Setup:
 I think I'm going to just leave the GuardianForce names as the defaults. There aren't enough characters in the Ancients' Saga for me to name them all and I don't want to give them the same names they had when I played it in HighSchool. Squall is Quinn and Rinoa will be Marian. I think of all the FF women Rinoa is the most like Robin. I think Amber's too cynical to be Rinoa, but as it's your game someone else probably wouldn't work so well. I was really surprised because I'd forgotten that you can only name Squall and Rinoa. So when it came time for Quists to make her appearance I was already thinking of names and then it just came out in dialog "Your teacher is... Quistis." You can tell for each character that there was a spot where they were planning on letting you name the characters, but for some reason they left it out. I think this is the first Final Fantasy where you can't name your characters.

Intro:
The introduction is beautiful. Still. 10 years later. I think it's great that I'm playing this game in the year of it's 10th anniversary. If this wasn't a game, and was instead a movie, the opening fmv would be the perfect movie trailer.

Beginning:
I explored the Garden. A lot. I went to each area and talked to everyone. I like the part where Seifer and friends are in the cafeteria and Zell runs in looking for hotdogs. Outside I got me and Quistis all the magic there was to get before heading to the Fire Cavern. I did the Fire Cave within the 10 minute time limit.

Dollet:
I really like the Dollet mission. It's a great start to the game. There's a simple objective to focus on, nothing complicated at first. It develops the characters' personalities well too. I didn't equip Seifer with a GF because I knew he wouldn't be around for long. Once I got to the Communication Tower I found a soldier with most of the spells the other characters had and let Selphie draw them all. I saved before heading up and I'm about to continue now
 

Monday, April 27, 2009

I'm responding to a survey Kent State University sent to graduates. In response to "Additional Feedback" I've written the following:

"Kent's a great school, but I would encourage the administration to scale back support for the behemoths of drudgery like the school of Business which only churns out mindless jocks to mindless desk jobs and focus more on the departments that actually contribute something to society and humanity. Support the arts and support the sciences. I guarantee you that the desk jobs will always be there for the people who can't pull their eyes from the TV long enough to read a book or culture themselves at a museum."