Let's Play the French version of Final Fantasy VIII ! FINALE

[SsnakeBite, the No1 Frenchman]

Warning you in advance that it will probably take a few days before I post the next part. I'm currently in the process of finally moving to my own place and it's going to take some time before I have everything I need to make the LP set up, not to mention enough free time to actually sit down and do it (seriously, if you haven't done a Let's Play yourself, you have no idea how time consuming this actually is).

In the meantime, what do y'all think of it so far?

[SsnakeBite, the No1 Frenchman]

Part 23: Who you gonna call?

Alright, everything's et up and we can get back to business. Let's continue the side-questing. We still have stuff to do in the Centra ruins and for this particular quest, I'm actually going to change my team, taking Irvine and Zell with me. There's a good reason for this: the quest requires me to kill a certain number of Tomberries (not a typo, BTW, the French name replaces the N with an M due to grammatical rules) and as with every Final Fantasy games, they are quite resilient.

Like in other games, they advance slowly towards a character and then unleash an extremely powerful attack. The FFVIII variant is especially dangerous and the attack is almost guaranteed to be an insta-KO, although you can get lucky and the Tomberry will trip and fall like he's possessed by the Shockmaster. In this game though, they ALSO have a very powerful ranged attack which is ALSO likely to insta-KO your characters.

What does that have to do with the character switch? Well, part of the reason why Tomberries can be such a threat despite taking several turns to get to you is that they have very high defence, so even your strongest characters will have a hard time taking them out before they reach you. However, there is an ammo type for Irvine's Limit Break called "Balles anti-char" (AP Ammo in English) which ignore defence. As a result, even at a low level, it does massive damage on any enemy, making it very useful to take out the Tomberries quickly. And conveniently, some of the enmies in the Centra ruins drop items which can be refined into that ammo!

I also upgraded Irvine's weapon to his second best, ensuring it does even more damage. The reason I also brought Zell along is to exploit the mechanic I mentioned early in the LP where the enemy's level is calculated based on your team's average. I felt if I kept either Quistis or Linoa around, the Tomberries would have more HP and would take longer to kill and would be even more powerful (and trust me, even at low level, they're plenty powerful enough), thus making it more likely for Irvine to be taken out. And if you're thinking "why not just use Quistis' Degenerator?", well, the Tomberries are immune to it. Simple as that

Plus his Limit Break is also pretty useful for this, especially since I have also upgraded his weapon to his best one, the Ergheiz (and Square fans will recognize a reference to one of their lesser-known titles). By the way, when upgrading Zell's weapons, skip the Gauntlet as the Ergheiz only requires one more item: an Adamantine. The other two items needed are much more difficult to get too so don't waste them and just hang on to them so you can upgrade to his best weapon directly.

Linoa's Selenium could have been useful, but other than that her attacks would be much weaker than either Irvine's or Zell with that technique so she wouldn't have been very useful and Selphie is simply not available at this point, so that makes this configuration the most appropriate one for the task in my opinion.

The first level of the ruins (the circular area with a big statue in the middle) ONLY has Tomberries in it so if you want to get straight to the huntin', just stay there and keep hacking away at them. However, keep in mind that your characters don't gain any experience from Tomberries (guess they have boss status despite being random encounters) so if you want your characters to level up, go into the other areas as there are other monsters although as I said before, grinding isn't really necessary in this game.

The number of Tomberries you need to kill to get to the next step of the quest (and you do need to kill them, using "Card" won't count, although you CAN leave and heal/save before continuing as the number of Tomberries you need to kill does not reset when you leave) is different in each playthrough but it's usually somewhere between 18 and 24. Once you get the right amount, this happens:




A giant Tomberry appears! It's called Tomberry Senior in French and Tonberry King in English. It attacks more frequently than the regular Tomberries but his regular attacks are not nearly as powerful, although he has some bigger ones that can do some damage, especially one called "ça coupe!" ("it's sharp!") whose damage is the character's kill count multiplied by 30 and at this point in the game, it's almost certain to do 9999 damage, so do make sure you have prepared for him, especially since he appears immediately after you've killed the last Tomberry so you don't get a break to heal or re-organize your junctions.

At high levels, he is one of the few enemies from who Vie Max (Full-Life) can be drawn. Unlike most boss battles, you can flee from him, although doing this WILL reset the number of Tomberries you have to kill for him to appear again. Once you beat it, it joins your team as a G-Force. I highly recommend doing this as soon as possible as it has many very good abilities, including some that are unique to him, such as one that makes rare items available in shops and one that makes items cost less money and two that allow you to raise or lower the enemy's level, making it easier to get the drops you want.

Let's cross another quest off the list and move on. In fact, let's move on to this small village:




Hm, this quaint little village looks familiar... yeah, it's Winhill! The place where Laguna recovered after his inability to stick the landing nearly killed him. I'm sure there must be some interestinf stuff there so let's just check it o...




... well that was weird. Anyway, let's visit Winhill! When you enter the town, you are in a square with Laguna's house and Raine's pub around. Not much to mention here except that when you go upstairs in the pub, there is a short scene where Squall thinks he's seeing Raine, only to find out it's a different woman who now owns the pub and she tells you to get out. More interestingly, to the north, you can now enter a larg mansion which was not accessible during the dream sequence.




Talking to the owner, he says that he's lost a precious vase which is a family heirloom and blames a ghost for a disappearance. Pft! Monsters, shared dreams, time travel, magic, I can buy, but ghosts? What's next, UFOs? His wife doesn't believe in the ghost theory but does admit that strange things have been happening, like their closet tidying itself on its own and theorizes that maybe it was caused by an earthquake. Yeah, okay, the ghost theory was actually more plausible than housekeeping quakes.

So it's up to Squall & co to investigate these ghostly occurrences. I suggest playing this music for full effect. If you look to the left of the screenshot above, you'll notice a conspicuous suit of armour. Don't know about you but if I were a ghost, I'd take that opportunity to haunt a badass medieval armour so let's take a look. Won't you know it, it actually says something! Although it's weird, it's saying it lost its feet and asks for help finding them. Wonder what that could mean.

Well,w e don't have to wonder long as Squall tells Quistis to stop. Turns out she was the one making the voice in order to freak out the other two, and she apparently does so frequently enough that Squall immediately knows that's the kind of shit she'd pull. Teacher, warrior, cards champion, ventriloquist... have I mentioned how f'n awesome this woman is? Linoa is not amused though as she actually fell for it.

After checking a piece of the armour that's leaning against the stares though, the armour starts moving! ... and it immediately starts falling to pieces and a chicobo comes out and runs away, leaving a weird item behind. It is a piece of the vase! The owner is sad to find the vase has been broken but he hopes to put it back together if you find all the pieces. Note that according to the FF wiki, this piece can only be found if either Quistis or Irvine is in the party.

To find the next piece, we have to head south. After crossing the bridge, we find an old lady going inside her flower shop. Inside, the old woman asks if we like flowers, saying yes has her say the white ones are her favourite and they were given to her by Raine. She also seems to resent Laguna as she says it's because of "that stranger" that she died.The reference to the white flowers is actually a hint that we have to check them to find another piece of the vase.




Next, we head further south, where the music suddenly switches to an 8-bit version of the chocobo theme. We find a chicobo repeatedly crossing the road and no, I don't know why the chicobo is crossing the road.



What I do know is that running at it as it crosses kicks it in the air, dropping another piece of the vase. You can do this two more times and you'll get a ChocoLégume and a Golgotha (the item that summons Phoenix, not the thunder-elemental G-Force. Oddly, the game mistakenly says that I got an MT-Psy instead. This mistake is present in both the French and the English versions, by the way, so I assume it's in all versions. You can keep kicking the chicobo after that but you won't get anything out of it other than the thrill of making an innocent and defenceless creature suffer you awful, awful person. If you do it enough times, an adult will swoop in to rescue the chicobo and kick Squall in retaliation.

Finally, we have to go back to the pub and go upstairs to talk to the owner until she mentions the flowers downstairs. Oh and by the way, you can talk to her cat too. And I do mean talk, as it actually speaks. By adding "iaou" at the end of words (as the French onomatopoeia for a meow is "miaou") and no, it's apparently not Quistis doing her ventriloquism act this time.



"Deow neowt deowsturb the leowdy". That is a thing I just actually translated.


So go downstairs and check the flowers, this will make Squall think he's seeing Raine again but it turns out it's actually the bloody cat, and he's got the last piece of vase. I'm going to go ahead and assume he ate the chicobo. Going back to the mansion, the owner is very thankful that we found all the pieces and gives us a Roc Sacré (Holy Stone) as a reward. Using it in battle casts "Sidéral" (Holy), one of the most powerful spells in the game and it can be refined into the actual spell with the right ability.

I'm going to stop this part now so it's a bit of a shorter one, but the reason for this is that we are nearing the end of the available side quests for now and what' coming next is a big one so I really want to give it its own part. So I'll be seeing you for part 24.

[SsnakeBite, the No1 Frenchman]

Part 24: I'm an idiot

Wanna know why I named this parts that? Because as I started working on it, I realized the big thing I hyped last time can't actually be done until CD3... good work, Ssnake, good work. Oh well, in that case, it's finalluy time to go back to Balamb! Getting there, we can see Galabadia Garden floating next to the town, which doesn't bode well and indeed, as we enter, we see Galbadian soldiers have taken over the town and put it on lockdown. Nobody gets in, nobody gets out and the guard at the entrance mentions that they're investigating and intend to liberate the town once they're done. Yeah, considering how it went in Horizon, I don't put much stock in that claim.

After I try and insist to get in, the guard starts getting annoyed and Zell joins us. Zell being Zell, he almost starts a fight, but Squall prevents it in the nick of time by actually using his smarts, claiming that they have info about Ellone they want to deliver. This convinces the Galbadian and he tells us to go see the commander.

For this part, Zell has to be in the team. You can also now use Selphie again but I will once again stick with Quistis as I feel her limit Breaks will come in handy during a coming boss fight. Also, for the duration of this part, you cannot leave Balamb... well... in theory anyway, as there is a trick that allows you to come and go as you please.

For starters, we head towards Zell's house, where he checks on his mom. During the conversation, she mentions seeing a grey-haired woman with an eyepatch, which you'll probably recognize as matching Fujin's look. You can see a little boy at the bottom of the screen.




Talk to him and he'll run out after saying he's worked on his special move. Yeah, better not let him do stupid so let's go look for him. I can't find him right now though, so I head to the hotel, where the commander supposedly is, but the guards there say he's on patrol so he have to find her ourselves.

I'm still worried about that kid though so going back to the house next to Zell's mom's, where he's cheering up a crying girl by telling her that he'll go find her parents, who are stuck outside the town.

So go back to the entrance and at the bottom left of the screen, you'll see the kid try to sneak out. Normally, he gets caught and is forced to go back in town, but if you distract the guard by talking to him, the boy will manage to get the attention of the girl's father and deliver a message to him.





If you do this, once you go back in town, the boy will be waiting for you and to show his gratitude, he'll help you leave town using the same trick for you as you did for him. And don't worry if you mess it up, you can retry as many times as you want.

Now it's time to look for the commander. Let's try the train station. Well, no luck, I only find soldiers ordering a guy to deliver food to the hotel. Let's go to the harbour then. On the first screen, there are only a few NPCs. There are two cars behind which is a hidden character who can give you info for a price but honestly, I don't find it that useful and it's way too expensive for what it is anyway. Going further, one of the soldiers mentions that the commander was fishing there, left after catching one and... that's it. Darn. I just can't find him. Guess I'll just go back to Zell's mom and see if she can think of something.

Going back, I can see smoke come out of the house. Wait, what are the Galbadians doing? Are they setting the house on fire?! No, going in, it looks alright, but there's smoke everywhere. Did these bastards toss a smoke grenade for shits and giggles in there? Nope, Zell's mom explains that a man used her stove to cook a fish and if the smell is any indication, he somehow managed to catch rotten fish. Well, at least we're picking up the commander's trail.

Before we go any further, I'd like to point out that you can now go inside Zell's room, where we can save. Before that, he didn't want you to go there, but since the hotel is not accessible at the moment, he makes an exception. Squall actually looks rather interested and Quistis amusingly points out that it's surprisingly tidy for a boy's room. She also brings up an accident Zell once had that Squall wasn't aware of, where he was riding his F-board in the BGU, took a turn too tight and ended up crashing in the girls' bathroom.

Where could the commander have gone with that fish? Hm... those soldiers at the train station were handling the food, perhaps he wanted to give them a suggestion for the next menu? Let's check it out!




Yup, they're out cold after eating the fish. Looks like their commander may have inadvertently discovered a new biological weapon. That's only more reason to stop him! But still, I can't find him. Well, one of the Galbadians at the harbour did have a sniffer dog and now that we reek of bad fish, maybe he can lead us to source of the smell? Indeed, the dog goes running and heads straight for the train station. Back there, it actually goes inside the train and out comes Raijin! Wow, what a shock that Raijin would be around the same place as Fujin.

Let's go back to the hotel, where Raijin is being thrown out! He's telling Fujin - who is off-screen - to calm down. Once he notices us, he attacks.




Raijin is an interesting opponent. He has some fairly strong attacks but that's not his biggest asset. Instead, it's the fact he is one of the few enemies in the game that actually absorbs some elemental magic, meaning it heals him. In his case, it's thunder and I learned that the hard way the first time I played the game when I summoned Golgotha against him. He is weak to poison (as are most human enemies) though so you might want to use that to your advantage.

Next, we meet Fujin inside the hotel. Squall tries to get her to surrender peacefully, but she wants to fight... and all the sudden, Raijin is back in action and in good shape again! I guess he took an hypra-potion. Or he cast Foudre X on himself. Anyway yes, that does mean you have to fight them both at the same time.




This is a pretty tough battle. Not only did Raijin soften you up before (and no, you don't get a break between the two battles) but they're both pretty strong. Raijin absorbs and uses wind magic and she has a special attack, Sai, which she normally only uses when she's low on HP (making her a rare case of a boss who has her own Limit Break!) but she can also use it when you attempt to summon a G-Force, killing it in the process. And like Raijin, she is weak to poison. Another very important thing to note about Fujin is that she has a G-Force, Zéphyr (Pandemona). Don't forget to draw it, especially as it makes Fujin unable to use magic. This also brings up another odd quirk of Raijin: he doesn't attack female members of your team, but don't take that to mean that as long as you dispatch Fujin and have a tleast one woman in your group, you're safe as he will drop his principle if he is on his own.

AFter beating them, I get some pretty sweet spoils, such as an item that permanently raises one character's strength and a magazine that teaches Zell a new technique for his Limit Break. Squall asks them if they really are under Edea's orders and they say that they follow their own path and basically, they follow Seifer. But then again, Seifer IS following Edea's orders so really, they're splitting hairs, here. Squall rightfully points out that it's a stupid that they'd fight when they all come from the same university. They reply that they can't go back and that they can't leave Seifer because without them, he'd be done which, really, is a fair point.

While he doesn't show it too much, Squall does seem affected by their choice and looks rather sadden by their decision to burn their bridges with the BGU but he makes it clear that they no longer have anything in common. Raijing and Fujin leave, taking the Galbadian army with them. That's another scene I really like as it shows that although Squall IS affected by this situation, he is also gaining the emotional maturity to deal with it and accept the consequences of both groups' decisions. It's kind of funny because on the one hand, he seems to be showing his emotions more but on the other hand, he is more collected about it than he used to.

Later, we fade back to the BGU, where Quistis wonders where to go next. Selphie pops up to make a suggestion: why not go to Trabia? Squall quickly figures out she wants to go there because, well, it's her native land and she wants to check on her old university considering it was hit by the missiles. Squall says he'll think about it and much like when your dad says that, it means "yes but I don't want to say yes". At this point, you get another opportunity to go on side quests but of course, we've already done everything we need to do for now so I'll be seeing you for part 25, where we'll go to Trabia! Unless I find out I forgot it can't be done yet again.

[SsnakeBite, the No1 Frenchman]

Part 25: Feels City

Alright, time to go to Trabia and... oh boy, this is gonna be another story-heavy and very emotional one, I'll warn you right away. It's also where we reach what is probably the most controversial point of the story. As the group arrives, they find the gates closed and the place looks wrecked, which isn't looking good. Selphie comes rushing and goes inside by climbing a grating that goes over the gate. We follow her and Zell and Irvine join us.




Yyyyeeeaaaaah the place has seen better days. We follow Selphie inside and... aaawwwwww the music! It's just so heart-wrenching in so many ways. This is undoubtedly one of Uematsu's greatest pieces. From the very first few seconds it draws you in and makes you want to cry with how melancholic yet strangely optimistic it is. Also, it is titled "Where I Belong", which is of course very appropriate considering the context. The first area shows a fairly large square with a broken-down fountain. There is a Foudre X draw point and Selphie can be found chatting with a friend of hers.

When you talk to them, the friend asks if we're looking for Selphie and we get a choice between "no" and "humour her". Choosing the former has Selphie tell her friend not to worry and that Squall is always like this, with the friend theorizing that it's his way of hiding his true feelings for her, which she excitedly agrees with. Choosing the later has Squall say Selphie has helped him a lot, and Selphie seems slightly embarrassed, saying Squall isn't usually like that. Either way, talking to Selphie some more makes her ask you to wait for her at the nearby basketball court while she meets back with her old friends.

This may seem odd to you if you played the English version because in that version, Squall's response either way is the classic "whatever" but yeah, the French version is more verbose and according to the FF wiki, so is the Japanese version (although apparently, in that one the friend asks if you've been supporting Selphie while she was away from Trabia rather than if you're looking for her¹). Weird that the English version changed it that way, maybe the translator was just being lazy. It's also another aspect that hints at the French version being based on the original Japanese one. Odd that some bits point at it being on the Japanese version and some point at it being based on the English one.

By the way, I don't think I have shown enough how much I like Selphie. I think her happy-go-lucky attitude contrasts nicely with Squall's "all business all the time" personality and I like how her optimism is shown to still be realistic. She doesn't come across as being naive or delusional, plus she still keeps it serious when necessary and she is driven and always ready to work hard to accomplish her goals. I may have mentioned this already, but this is what I love about the characters in this game: at first they may look like they are one-note but as the story develops, you really see just how much depth they really have.

Okay, back to the game. Selphie's friend has her Triple Triad card too but right now she can't be challenged, just keep that in mind for later. Going right shows us a rather sad sight:




A makeshift cemetery for the victims of the bombing. This has always stuck with me because as far as I can remember, this is the first time I saw a video game show the consequences of the conflict the characters are involved in, which is made all the more tragic by the fact that you've actually witnessed these events. Bizarrely, among the items left as a tribute to the deceased appear to be a jacket identical to Squall's.

Going left takes you to a shelter with two NPCs and a path going left or right. There's a weird small difference between the English and French versions here as if you talk to the sleeping student, he'll mumble about using a G-Force against an enemy. In the English version, that enemy is Tomberry Senior, which makes at least a bit of sense since it's an actual enemy in the game. But in the French version, for some reason they replaced it with the name Yodux, which doesn't appear anywhere else in the game.

Going right takes you to the remains of a room with a large computer. There's a save point and several NPCs. Going near the computer fades to a different angle that lets you see it better, as well as two NPCs working to repair it. You can turn the computer on, which makes the NPCs hope that it works and indeed it asks for a student ID, they try a random one and you can briefly see the profile of a rather familiar face:




But if you hope to find some dirty on the game's resident ball of energy, forget about it as immediately after, either the computer turns off on its own or Selphie herself rushes in to turn it off. I'm not sure what triggers either scene. going back to the left, Selphie is checking on the student sin the shelter when two children come to apologize, saying that they couldn't save a little bear that she gave them. I'd say they porbably mean at teddy bear, but considering it's Selphie we're talking about, there's a solid chance it was a real one. Anyway, she cheers them up, saying that it's much tougher than that and will keep watching them.

Going further left, there is a stage with a missile still stuck in it! A student reassures us that it can't explode any more but that it still needs to be removed ASAP as it could injure someone by falling over. There is a hidden draw point with some Aura (a status spell that makes it possible to use Limit Breaks even if your HP isn't low).

Further left is the basketball court. Squall tells the group that they'll leave as soon as Selphie is ready and observes to himself that Galbadia hasn't invaded the area yet and that they need to find the sorceress. Afterwards, the characters are sitting around and you can talk to them. Quistis wonders if the reason Galbadia wants Ellone is because Edea wants to travel back to the past, Zell wonders why Edea even bothers with this, irvine says he has to find a way to show Selphie she can rely on him and Linoa says that each time she's with the rest of the group, she is worried but she can't find a way to overcome this feeling.

Going to the right as if to leave triggers the next cutscene, where Selphie comes in, throwing a basketball as she does. She thanks everyone for accompanying her there and she swears she'll have her revenge on Edea for what she did to Trabia. Linoa, however, is hesitant:



"Are we going to have to fight? Is there no other way?"


She says too many people died already and that she would rather find a pacific and constructive way to end the conflict. Squall agrees with her and thinks to himself that war is the worst solution, but he also believes that no-one is doing anything and that everyone is complaining and pretending to think without actually offering any solution, making war the only option left. He thinks that each government criticizes the other but none of them is better. He further thinks to himself that as much as he'd like to help Linoa, what she is asking for is probably impossible.

Linoa urges him to talk, to express his feelings... and Squall does!

Squall: You were part of a résistance group in Timber. Instead of whining like everyone else, you took up arms... But now, you refuse the fight?

Linoa: I don't know... I'm scared. Sometimes... when I'm with you all... I... I feel like we're on the same wavelength... But as soon as we start fighting, things get different. Everyone goes back to their own little world, closes in on themselves and... I am no longer part of the group. I can feel that I'm different. In those situations, I no longer know who I am... And when we meet again, I am terrified at the though of losing one of you... For now, everything has been alright. But one day, one of us might not be so lucky. And they'll be injured or even killed!

Irvine then says that he knows what she means, but that's precisely why he fights². He then starts telling his story, that when he was 4 years old, he was sent to an orphanage after the end of the last occult war. He says there was a little girl he loved there, that she made him happy just by talking.



"Selphie, what are you playing?"


DUN DUN DUUUNNNN!! Selphie, I am your childhood friend! That's right! Selphie and Irvine are long lost friends who grew up in the same orphanage! And of course, they weren't alone as Quistis asks if it was a manor near the ocean, and Irvine confirms that all of them were in the same orphanage (except Linoa obviously, since her father was still alive through her entire childhood). He says he recognized them right away but didn't say anything as he couldn't believe they had forgotten.

You then get to play as Squall remembering the orphanage as well. One detail you can easily miss if you follow the rest of the child versions of the gang is if you go left:




You'll find Child!Squall and his stylish shirt, wondering where "Lellone" went. You can then go north, where Child!Squall asks their matron where Ellone went. Even if you see that part, you then have to go back to the first screen and go north. I once again find Child!Squall, who is saddened that Ellone is no longer there, and wonders if she left because she didn't want to be his friend any more. As much of a woobie as he is, Adult!Squall thinks he was being hard on her because obviously it wasn't her choice.

They then all remember a scene where they managed to get their hands on firecrackers, which kids weren't allowed to have, with Child!Zell threatening to tell on them. This makes Zell realize that if he remembers it too, it means he was there as well, and his parents aren't his biological ones. Then they remember another thing: Seifer was part of the group too! Interestingly, after that scene, you control Squall again and you can have him make a comment on each child version of the characters, after which they disappear, but he still doesn't remember Irvine. I guess they just weren't that close as children.

The rest of the group then figures what Squall already knew: he was there too. We once again go back to the previously seen flashback of Squall waiting for Ellone in the rain, with the adult version commenting that despite what the child version thought, everything did not go well on his own. He says that he considered her to be like a big sister to him. This also explains why she used them to flashback to Laguna's past: they were people she knew and could connect to, and is hoping to change the past using her gift.

I can then control Squall again and talk to the adult versions of the characters in the flashback. Quistis finds it scary that they'd forget their own childhood, Zell is still pondering that his parents aren't his biological ones, Selphie wonders where the orphanage actually is and Irvine says that although everyone liked Ellone, Squall was especially close to her. Squall notes that Irvine has a really good memory and tells everyone that it's odd that Seifer never brought up their time in the orphanage even though they were about 5 or 6 when they met again in the BGU and Squall doesn't remember any of it either (well, not until now, anyway).

Selphie thinks that maybe her time in Trabia made her forget her past, but she wonders why Quistis, Zell and Squall, who grew up together in the BGU, forgot as well. Quistis mentions that she used to live with foster parents, but they didn't get along so at age 10, she was sent to the BGU, where she reunited with Squall and Seifer. She recalls that the two boys were always fighting and Quistis always had to separate them, which is presumably how Quistis and Squall ended up becoming friends.

That said, it was apparently already like that at the orphanage as Quistis says she believes Squall stood up to Seifer to impress Ellone, and she even admits that she may have been a bit jealous of Ellone and that her relationship with Ellone was perhaps comparable to Squall and Seifer's (although frankly, it seems less bitter than theirs). She even begins to think that maybe she became an instructor to impress Squall. However, she also explains it was more out of a sisterly affection than her being in love.

You can once again interact with each character, but they don't really say anything new. Quistis wonders to herself if she's incapable of being in love and then thinks to herself that she lost all hope when Linoa arrived. She then says out loud that Seifer must have forgotten as well, but when he sees Squall, his subsconscious resurfaces and that's why he always wants to fight Squall.

They still wonder how they could have forgotten and Irvine suggests that it must be because of the G-Forces. They lend them their strength, but take the place of their memories. Quistis says she doesn't believe it and that Cid would never use them as guinea pig, to which Irvine responds that he remembers everything when they have forgotten and he just so happens to be the one who had almost never junctioned a G-Force before. Selphie explains that she actually had junctioned a G-Force before joining the BGU as she got one from a monster she fought when she was 12 and now she can't remember its name due to the other G-Forces she junctioned (it didn't happen to be Yodux, by any chance?). So yeah, seems like the G-Force theory is right... and Cid did use them as guinea pigs. Jolly old prick.

The group starts to debate whether it's worth sacrificing some of their memories to gain the G-Forces' powers, with Selphie suggesting keeping a journal so they won't forget anything. Squall and Zell even say they don't mind losing bad memories. And if you thought that wasn't enough bombs dropped on us, they start remembering who their matron was:



"Our matron was named Kramer... Edea Kramer!"


BOOM! Edea was their matron the whole time! They don't understand how she became a sorceress, but this brings Irvine back to his original point, that in spite of his fears, he will fight. They must face Edea to protect the values she taught them. He says it would be easier if the G-Forces had completely wiped out their memory of her, but their memories should not prevent them from doing the right thing. They can't sacrifice millions because of a few good memories. He also says that it's no coincidence that they got reunited many years after being separated and now they aren't kids any more and it's time for them to make a decision.

They all agree, including Squall, who is determined to fight Edea. He turns to Linoa and tells her its up to her to decide whether she'll go with them or not, basically letting her know that she doesn't have to get involved if she doesn't want to. Zell suggests going to the orphanage as they could find a clue as to why Edea became a sorceress. Squall says that whatever they find won't change the present but he wants to go there too. So it's agreed: their next stop is the orphanage.

The group leaves but Squall and Linoa stay behind. Squall tells her that this time, it's war. She seems impressed that they're scared of nothing, but Squall thinkins to himself that it's not so much that they aren't afraid as it is that that they try not to think about it too much. He says he would have liked to not have to fight. She gives him and understanding nod and we fade to black before going back to the overworld.

RIGHT. So, there's a lot to go over and I will attempt to be brief. First things first, let's address the elephant in the room. A lot of people hate this reveal as they feel it's a deus ex machina, with the G-Force thing being an excuse to give the characters convenient amnesia and... they're kind of right. To an extent, it is a sudden reveal made to advance the plot and make excuses for plot conveniences. However, what I strongly disagree with is that it's a bad idea or a bad reveal.

I actually really, really like this concept and I think this is another good example of FF8 being a good story that's poorly told. The idea of trading your memories for power is fantastic! It's a genuine dilemma (are your memories worth protecting if it means losing your ability to protect the present?) with lots of potential with parallels to real life, with people forgetting their own principles as they gain power.

However, I have to agree that it would have been better if the game addressed those ideas more as it doesn't do that much with it, and I also agree that it was brought up rather suddenly and awkwardly. Contrary to what many people claim, there actually WAS a little bit of foreshadowing, but it was very small and you really had to go out of your way to look for it to find it.

I feel they could have made it work better by dropping more hints, like having NPCs bring up theories that G-Forces eat your memories but other characters dismiss them as conspiracy theorist ramblings (which actually does sort of happen, but only in a post by Selphie on her website at the BGU), some characters bring up memories that other ones don't remember when they definitely should have. Hell, they could even have made it work with Squall's personality, making it look like he forgot out of disinterest for people when in reality it was because of G-Forces. Also, to Cid's credit, I think it's implied he used the G-Forces precisely to make them forget about Edea so it would be easier for them to carry out the mission (remember the SeeD was created specifically to kill Edea).

I also think they should have done more with Irvine. For example, when they first meet him, he could have gone "Wait, it's you!" all happy to see him, but when he realizes Squall doesn't remember him, he would have claimed he got him confused with someone else. Speaking of Irvine though, one of the best bits of foreshadowing was with him. Remember the assassination and how he said he couldn't do it because of the weight of changing the course of history? With that reveal, you realize the real reason behind his hesitation: he was hired to kill his mother figure. Yeah, no wonder it wasn't that easy for him.

Maybe they could even have had the effect be part of the gameplay, by having the characters' stats decrease slowly if the player overused G-Forces, without even bringing attention to it, letting the player piece it together, or have a few scenes change depending on G-Force usage.

I also feel the scene would have worked better if they didn't shoehorn in that many sudden reveals, like Selphie junctioning at age 12 or Quistis being with foster parents until she was 10. It's stuff they could have easily brought up earlier without spoiling the reveal, and it was overall rather unnecessary as all we really needed was to know the G-Forces made them forget the orphanage.

Hell, they didn't even need to make them forget that much as it was already established that they were orphans, so they simply needed to have them forget they were at the same orphanage. Then they could have the characters bring up anecdotes from their childhood while making it look like they were in different orphanages. They could even have had Squall say or at least think that he remembers being very close to kids in his orphanage, but he saw them leave one by one and never met them again, which made him feel awful, explaining his current behaviour.

Speaking of that though, I really liked that it did give more weight to Squall's attitude. He remembered the feeling of abandonment when Ellone was taken away but since he didn't remember why he felt that way, he didn't know what to make of these emotions and just applied them to everyone he met, feeling that they were doom to abandon him as well, creating a circle where he'd keep coming back to this awful feeling of abandonment.

But you know what? regardless of how you feel about these reveals, I think it's irrelevant because there are some awesome characters moment through this whole scene. First, we get some more insight on Linoa, and we really see the contrast between her desire to help and her refusal to face the consequences of her decisions. She wants to end the war, to fight the oppressors, but she can't deal with the thought of losing someone in the fight because she hadn't even considered that things wouldn't automatically go right just because she wants them to, and travelling with the rest of the group has made her realize that you have to accept the risks if you want to actually change things. And with this scene, you can tell that she is willing to accept those risks.

Of course, Squall also has great moments here. We've already seen quite a lot of changes in him since the beginning of the adventure, and I think this is the point where he completely overcomes his hang-ups and makes the decision to be straight with his comrades and tell them how he feels. He realizes everyone can benefit from him saying what he means and opening up to his brothers and sisters in arms. I get the feeling that realizing where his issues come from helped him actually deal with his emotional baggage and move on past it and realize that just because some people leave doesn't mean you should be afraid to connect with them and besides, who knows when you might come across them again? I also like that unlike in many games, he doesn't do a complete 180. He is still Squall but he has grown a lot as a character.

I also really like his speech to Linoa. It shows that although up until now he didn't want to admit it, he's always had a profound respect for her for being one of the few people in Trabia who stopped saying "someone should do something about the dictatorship" and instead became the one to do it, and it seems to me like his occasional frustration with her came from her not giving herself the means to achieve her goals due to not considering the consequences of her actions. And I also really like that he managed to put it in a respectful, constructive way too. And as I mentioned earlier, I also sympathize a lot with the notion that right and wrong or good and evil aren't a matter of side but a matter of individuals. This is a principle that is dear to me so of course I identify a lot with a character who feels that way.

And last but not least, you of course have a very good moment for Irvine, who gets an opportunity to show some hidden depths and I really liked his speech about having to face Edea out of duty to the principles she used to hold dear, having to destroy what she has become out of respect for what she was. Again, it fits with this game theme of staying loyal to your principles rather than to sides or individuals, and that if someone betrays your ideals, you shouldn't blindly follow them.

So basically, while I recognize that it was sudden and I can understand people calling it a deus ex machina, it is still a very, very strong and meaningful scene to me and much like the game a s a whole, I think people should look past the awkward presentation and focus on the actual message, which is in my opinion the best and most thought-provoking ones in the Final Fantasy franchise.

Well, that was somewhat wall-of-texty. Next time should dial it down a bit, so I'll see you for part 26, where we'll go to the orphanage.




¹ Turns out I forgot that in the English version, she asks if Squall has been looking AFTER Selphie. Since in the French version, she asks if he's looking FOR Selphie (which come to think of it, doesn't make much sense considering she's standing right next to her) and the Japanese version also has her ask if Squall has been supportive of her, it seems the French version is a mistranslation of the English one, so we have things that hint at the French version being based on the Japanese script AND on the English one in the same scene! ARRRGH!! It's a minefield!!

² At this point, Irvine picks up the basketball and takes a shot. Oddly, he can either score or miss, depending on how many battles you've won. Weird but interesting that they'd even bother to add such a detail. For the record, he scored in my playthrough.

[SsnakeBite, the No1 Frenchman]

Part 26: Battle of the Schools

Alright, let's get go visit the orphanage our heroes spent their first few years of existence in. Who knows? Maybe we'll find some more shocking info or at the very least some sweet memories. So the orphanage is at the South-West of the Centra continent, at the very end. But it's weird... I can't actually get inside. I even try to interact with it with the X button and Squall just says he remembers it and that there is something huge nearby. Something huge? What could he mea...




Oh... Ooooh... these guys are here too...

Nida summons Squall to the bridge and hands him some binoculars to show him Galbadia Garden on the horizon (the actual horizon, not the town). Squall thinks that either Galbadia already spotted the BGU, or the BGU needs to take the opportunity for a surprise attack. Either way, a battle is unavoidable. Squall is trying to figure out what orders to give, saying he has to keep it short and simple to avoid confusion. You actually get a list of of orders you can give:

- No order
- Manoeuvrer the BGU
- Prepare attack
- Prepare defence
- Call everyone
- Prepare Pretzels
- Protect the kids

While I think we can all agree that preparing pretzels is the most important task, by default, the cursor is on "Manoeuvrer the BGU" and truth be told, I have no idea if your choices affect anything and I'm pretty sure it doesn't since it seems you can keep selecting orders until you pick "no order".

Squall sends a message to the BGU to announce that they are about to engage combat with Galbadia Garden. He even says that Seifer is with them and that they "can count on [Squall] to eliminate this traitor". Holy shit, Squall ain't f'n around no more! He tells the grenadiers to get to the garage and wait for the enemy, the graduates to go to the first floor, arm themselves and prepare for battle and finally, the rookies to take care of the children.

Nida tells him that it's all basic stuff and to get to more important things, like defensive strategy. Squall orders people to give priority to the main hall and the campus. Suddenly, Irvine is calling and Squall goes down to the headmaster's office to see what he wants.

Quistis and Selphie are with him and Squall tells them that once Zell gets there, they'll make two teams, but Selphie says that he's taking a nap because he hasn't slept in ages. Squall pretty much has the same reaction as me and goes "are you kidding me?" and Quistis says that actually, what Zell is doing is a secret, which makes Squall have one of my favourite reactions of his in the whole game as he wonders if they're drunk. Still, he shrugs it off and says he's going to the campus. You get to pick two teammates but Zell and Linoa aren't available.

I pick Quistis and Selphie. Squall tells Irvine to find Zell and then go oversee the students. As we leave, Irvine interrupts and asks about Linoa and Squall just tells him to take care of her. Considering she's not a SeeD (ans ure, neither is Irvine but he's at least a soldier as well), I don't think he really included her in the battle plan.

The team gets to the second floor and you can talk to the various NPCs, at which point Squall gives them orders. Interestingly, one of them is the president of the film club (which seems to suggest there are areas of the BGU we never get to see as that club is never brought up at any other point in the game) and Squall makes him Lieutenant of section B. Gotta love promotions due to having to rush through a strategy. You can also find a child NPC who gives you a Saindoux. You can enter the classroom but it's really relevant for now. There's just a SeeD taking care of a few children there, although there is a nice bit where you can talk to a kid who says he's barely starting to use magic and Squall tells him to be careful or he'll get burned. Kind of nice to see a bit of a softer side of Squall.

Anyway, enough pissing about, let's go down to the first floor and actually get to the campus.




Once there, we find Zell, who assures us that the area is secure. Squall teases him a bit by saying he thought Zell was taking a nap. Zell very convincingly says that Squall's speech woke him up and gave him energy. He also adds that due to his rank, it's his duty to be there. And then he takes Squall aside to ask him about his... ring. Okay first, at no point before had it been brought up that Squall is wearing a ring (over his gloves, I guess?), it doesn't show up in CGI cutscenes and also, now is not exactly the best time to bring this up. In fact, even Zell admits it's an awkward time for this.

He asks Squall if he can borrow the ring for a few days. Squall asks why he wants it and quick-thinking Zell can't think of a better excuse than "it's a secret". Still, Squall doesn't even question this kind of shit any more and hands it to Zell, warning him not to lose it, or else. Zell is ecstatic and says that Linoa is going to be super happy. Well, you're like a bank vault when it comes to secrets, ain't ya, Zell?

Speaking of Linoa, she arrives with Irvine and says that she WANTS to fight. Squall doesn't protest and tells her to be careful. Nida calls him to the bridge again and Squall's team leaves, with Squall wishing Zell and Irvine good luck. Nida shows Squall that Galbadia is going right for them and Squall tells him to keep going forward. Seifer, of course, is leading the Galbadian troupes and he unleashes his secret weapon...




Soldiers on motorcycle that get launched into the air and crash into the BGU!! How's that for unconventional warfare? Man, just imagine if armies used this tactic in real life. Here you are, expecting enemy fire when suddenly, surprise! Motorcycles in your face! I am now in control of Zell's team, who has to repel the assault. You probably figured that out on your own but from now on, we can end up facing Galbadian enemies. This is also the only part of the game where you can fight a green galbadian soldier called ParaBorg (Paratrooper), which are slightly stronger versions of the regular soldiers and they can use status magic as well as Quartz so they can actually be a threat if you're not careful.

By the way, how weird is that name? The English name makes some sense as they at least dive from one place to another, even if they don't use parachutes, but the French version seems to imply that they're cyborgs. My bets guess is that the translator might have been under the impression that the helmets and gauntlets were cybernetic parts, but even then that's just weird.

Because he has seemingly lost all grasp with reality, Zell, stops to hand Linoa the ring. Irvine actually has to make them focus on the task at hand. However, Galabadia Garden then crashes into the BGU, knocking part of it off and things don't end well for Linoa:




She barely manages to hold on to the rubble in the nick of time and Zell and Irvine have to go find something to help her. They make it to the main hall, where Squall's team is dashing to stop the Galbadians coming from that side. They tell Squall that Linoa is in danger and ask him to come help them. Meanwhile, Nida also tells him to go to the classroom as the Galbadians are about to break in from there. Zell and Irvine further press on to get him to help and he angrily replies that she's not the only one risking her life. Irvine actually asks him if he has a stone where his heart should be but honestly, screw you on that one, Irvine. I don't think it's very fair to ask him to jeopardize the safety of the entire BGU just for one person, even if it's someone close to him. On top of that, Squall is the commander of the BGU and it's his duty to ensure the safety of everyone.

Anyway, Squall decides to make two teams again and bizarrely, the game gives you a list of which characters to take with you rather than use the usual swap menu. Another point of confusion in the French version is that Squall says "we'll split in 3". Now it doesn't sound too bad in English as it seems to mean they'll make teams of 3 people but in French, it sounds like he wants to make three teams of two people. Anyway, I keep Quistis and Selphie. Squall tells Irvine to go with Shu and Zell to go help Linoa. Meanwhile, his team will get to the classroom.

Squall & co get there just as 4 ParaBorgs break in and attack! After getting rid of them, Squall tells another SeeD to take the kids to safety and is then once again called by Nida, who wants him to get back to the bridge to talk to Kadowaki. Right after that, Galbadia rams the BGU, injuring many of its fighters. And I guess Linoa has deceptively strong arm muscles as she's apparently still dangling there.

At the bridge (or more accurately, Cid's office), Kadowaki asks Squall what the situation is and he says that while the first wave has been repelled, too many are injured to fight off a second one and Irvine says the same about the people at the main hall. I have no idea why kadowaki is suddenly supervising the battle, I'm guessing Cid promoted her after pissing himself at the thought of actually doing anything to help.

Squall figures that since their defence is toast, their best bet is to go on the offence and attempt an assault. Irvine suggests ramming them as it'll give the Galbadians a shock while giving the BGU an opportunity to get in there and surely Linoa can shrug off another quake. Speaking of that, Zell comes back but delivers the unfortunate news that the Galbadians have taken over the campus and put barricades everywhere so the only way to get Linoa is to somehow get there by flying or climbing down the outside of the BGU. Squall is torn between helping her and coordinating the attack, but Irvine tells him that he'll take care of that and the rest of the group support him, saying they'll prepare the terrain for Squall while he goes to rescue Linoa.

So that works for everyone but before Squall leaves, Kadowaki tells him he forgot one important thing:



"Talk to your comrades, Squall. Encourage them like a real leader."


... Yeah okay, that's real f'n cute, Kadowaki but LINOA IS DANGLING FROM THE SIDE OF THE BUILDING. Can't this wait?! No? *sigh* Okay...

And I've got to admit, as silly as it is to come now, the speech Squalls give is very good and very emotional.

Squall: Er... comrades? This is Squall. How are you holding up? I hope you haven't been hurt too bad. Listen to me, we still have a chance to win, but we have to stick together! We are going to take matters in our own hands and attack before they launch another assault. We are going to ram them! It's going to be extremely violent! I ask you to get to safety! Irvine, Quistis, Zell and Selphie will lead the military operations. Obey their orders and give it your all! The battle we face today has much on the line: the lives of each of us, of course, but also the future of the BGU and our democracy! This is why I ask each and every one of you to make one more effort, not only for yourself but also for everyone else. I'm counting on you! I ask you to do the maximum, for you and for others.

His rousing speech actually motivates everyone to go back to battle and it even gives some who were injured the strength to go on. Even Kadowaki congratulates Squall on it. So yeah, it's a good speech, I just wish it'd been done AFTER saving Linoa, or at least that the developers had Linoa's situation be not quite so desperate, like she could have found shelter on a small platform or something so it doesn't look like the characters are taking their sweet time and just kind of hoping that she doesn't let go.

Anyway, Nida rams the Galbadian ship and the BGU forces storm it:




And Squall finally gets to save Linoa! Squall goes to the 2nd floor bridge (the one near the classroom) and a woman asks him for help as one of the children has ran away. Squall finds him and tells him to go back to her when suddenly...




Oh shit! What is that?! A ParaBorg pins you against the wall. What you have to do is turn to the door behind you, which up until now wasn't accessible and interact with it. You get a choice between "run away", "strike back" and "do something else". The first two choices will only get you hurt (and as you probably guessed from the lifebar, if it depletes, you have to start over) so pick "do something else". Squall will look around and you get another four choices, "ask the girl for help", "open the emergency exit", "flee" and "threaten the enemy". open the door and the Galbadian will charge, causing you to go tumbling into the air!




And now we have to fight several hundred feet above ground while desperately clutching a teeny wire! You can press triangle to punch, square to block and cross to kick. Punching seems to be the fastest attack and most likely to land and kicking is slower but can block enemy attacks. Also, you can use a special attack that will finish him in one hit if you block several attacks in a row but it takes a while to wind up and CAN be blocked so be careful. I noticed that if the enemy blocks, your next attack is pretty much guaranteed to land as long as you do it quickly so if you do get the special strike, wait for him to block before you activate it.

Honestly, I'm not very fond of this part as it's a bit too random for my tastes. It's basically rock-paper-scissors so it seems the determining factor in winning is luck and it wouldn't be so bad if you didn't still lose a bit of life while blocking. At least if you lose you can choose to retry (and there's even an option for doing so with extra HP) rather than get Game Over. Also as far as I'm aware there is no SeeD rank penalty for failing (and no bonus for succeeding in one try). And you probably will have to because it's very, very difficult.




I eventually pull it off and rescue Linoa (Aw man! Just as she was getting comfortable too) and after epically dashing through the battlefield, we reach the entrance to Galbadia Garden. Linoa thanks Squall for saving her and he replies with an awkward "Oh! I, er... you're welcome!" and explains that it was strictly professional due to their contract and even Linoa chuckles at what a piss-poor cover that is. She then tells him he had much to lose had she dropped and that she can't die before giving it back, referring to his ring. Learning that Zell gave it to someone else, Squall is pissed. He says it's his favourite ring (wait, "favourite"? How much bling DO you own, Squall, you fabulous bitch?).

Linoa says it's pretty but asks what the monster on it is and Squall says it's not a monster, it's a lion, which symbolises strength and honour. Linoa makes a move by saying that Squall represents those values as well, to which he replies that he hopes to. She then asks if the lion has a name and Squall confirms that it does, at which point you get to name it.

Now there is another odd quirk of the French translation. In both the English and Japanese version, it's called Griever but in the French version, its default name is Cronos. That name seems to be a reference to a titan from Greek mythology, which I guess fits as a symbol of power. However, I also thought it might be a mistaken reference to Chronos, with an H, the god of time. But then, I realized there might be yet another explanation which could show a good deal of work from the translator as I feel this may be a reference to the main character from another Squaresoft RPG whose story is centred around time-travel.

Linoa explains that Zell was going to make a copy of the ring for her and that the only problem is that everyone would think they're a couple. Squall has a hard time believing she truly finds that to be a problem and thinks to himself that it's so obvious everyone dreams of them getting together that even he can tell, which is a nice bit of self-awareness from Squall to admit that he's usually not the best at reading other people's feelings. In fact, he even tells Linoa that he isn't sure it's really a problem, which actually catches her off guard and I like how when she asks what he means by that, he doesn't answer. It's kind of a nice role reversal with Squall teasing Linoa for once.

Linoa and Squall go inside and reunite with the rest of the group. Squall tells them that they have to forget the past and not let their emotions get in the way of doing the right thing. He tells Linoa that she's probably not interested in his little memories, but she says she is and she'd love to have him tell them about them and he promises that if they make it out alive, he'll tell her all about it.

And so on part 27 of Let's Play Final Fantasy VIII, we will fight Edea and this time, it is a fight to the death and the end of CD 2.

[SsnakeBite, the No1 Frenchman]

Part 27: The final battle against Edea

We are back in the Galbadia University and as you can guess, we have to find Edea and eliminate her once and for all. We start at a branching path with three directions. I'll start by going left. We arrive at a corridor from which we can access two rooms.The one to the right is empty and the one to the left is locked. There are actually several locked room and of course, we can unlock them later on.

Let's continue down the corridor. Turns out that door is locked as well. Bummer. Well in that case, I'm going back and to the right.




There is a similar corridor but with only one room, the spot for the other one being taken by a staircase. The first room is also empty and the end of the corridor is also locked. Before climbing the staircase, I want to see if I can go back and go through the middle path. The answer to that is no.

So going up the stairs...




Oh crap, it's them again! prepare for battle!!

Actually, they don't attack and in fact, talking to them shows that they're beginning to have doubts about Seifer and would rather not get involved any more. Surprisingly, Fujin is the one who seems the more tired of the fighting despite usually being the more aggressive one. You can go left or right. To the left is another corridor with two doors.

The one to the left leads to another empty room but this time, it's a dorm. The room to the right is also a dorm but there actually is a student there:




He doesn't fight you though and instead begs us not to hurt him, gives us a card that'll open some of the locked doors and explains that there are two other students with similar cards. This seems to show that the Galbadian students are being forced to assist Edea and the Galbadian army, which does make sense as it was established early in the game that the university is independent from the rest of the country, or at least it was until Edea took it over. Also, I find it interesting to compare the room with the BGU's since over there, students have individual rooms whereas here, they have 4-person rooms but the trade-off is that they get computers in the room.

Maybe it's just me but it gives me the impression that Galbadia favours general studies more whereas the BGU favours pure militaristic skills, which isn't surprising considering they mainly train mercenaries and Galbadia seems to train all sorts of careers. The door at the end of the corridor is closed (and not just locked) so I go back towards the staircase and go right this time. As you probably expect by now, there is another corridor but there are only more empty rooms and another closed door at the end.

We can go up again but it leads to a single locked door so for now, let's just ignore it and go back down to use that key card. It opens the left door in the left corridor, which leads to the hockey rink. Which leads to... oh boy...




... MONSTER HOCKEY PLAYERS.. I just... I love you, Final Fantasy VIII. I guarantee you, no other game is gonna give you monster hockey players! And no, they're not hockey players that happen to attack you, we had an NPC (that I mentioned in part 11) tell us they're monsters and using Scan on them reveals that they are indeed half human, half monsters). Oh, and while the English version gives them the weak-ass name of Slapper, the French version calls them Jason because at this point, why the f*** not throw in a Friday the 13th reference (which was also alluded to by the aforementioned NPC)?

I presume they were pretty much only put there as a little joke but seriously, I would have LOVED to see more of the birthplace and culture of those half-monster hockey players. Seriously though, how could would it have been to have a town full of half man, half monster creatures? And I really would have liked to see more half-monsters in the game.

Also, I kind of wonder if they are distant cousins of the Wendigo since those were sport-themed monsters as well but those used basketball moves. Another oddity about them is that if you look at the logo on their jersey, it says their team is the Galbadia Bears and using Scan confirms that they are members of Galbadia garden's ice-hockey club, so these guys are apparently Galbadia Garden's official team. As for skills, they can be pretty nasty. They take a lot of damage, their physical attacks are fairly strong and they have some powerful special attacks, one has them cast ice magic multiple times in a row (equal to the number of players), an especially strong physical attack and they even have an instant-KO move! So if you see them, tread carefully.

Anyway, we unfortunately have to leave the awesomeness of monster hockey players and carry on. Going through the rink and exiting through the other side takes us to another corridor. It can get a bit confusing because they all look so similar but this is indeed a new part of the university and going to the one accessible room lets us find another student, who also gives us a card.

The door at the end of the corridor is locked so let's go down. This unlocks a door and takes us back to the corridor where we first entered the rink, which by the way is complete nonsense as it implies that even though the two accesses to the rink are on opposite sides, they somehow lead to the same side of the university. Space is warped and time is bendable! My theory is that this is due to monster hockey player powers.

Anyway, with our new card in hand, we can now unlock the door to the third floor. This takes us to the outside part of the university. The group jumps down to access the yard with the tennis courts. Going right unlocks the door to the fork from the very beginning with the save point. Going left takes us back to the corridor leading to the main hall, the one with stairs going up where students were doing push-ups during our first visit. Let's go back to the main hall.




You'll notice something that wasn't there before... A GIANT F'N CERBERUS. This is an optional boss and a G-Force so I obviously recommand fighting it. It can actually be a threat as it has some strong spells such as Quake and it will cast Triple and Booster (Haste) on itself, making it attack multiple times per turn and said turns coming more frequently. Buuut its max level is 30 and my team being way above 60 and buffed as hell, I beat it in one turn before it even has a chance to use its spells.

I'll be honest, this is probably my least favourite G-Force. It's one of the few that does no damage whatsoever and instead casts Triple on the whole team. This can be useful I suppose, but only in very specific cases and even then you have to waste a character's turns until the G-Force is summoned so it seems to be kind of a futile effort to sacrifice turns in order to be able to cast spells multiple times in one turn. With most monsters, if your characters are good enough at magic that you'd even care about casting it multiple times, they'll probably go down witha few spells by the time you've summoned Cerberus anyway and with bosses, you'd be better off summoning G-Forces that actually do damage. It does have a lot of junction-related abilities so that's good, especially if you have a character who was lagging behind for that and it's got a skill that prevents attacks from behind.

Now let's explore the main hall. The corridor to the right is locked and to the left, we have another one with an empty room, but another one has the third student! She gives us the last card and tells us it unlocks the elevator which will take us to Edea. We can also unlock the path back to the corridor to the right of the first area. We can also now unlock the door to the right corridor in the main hall, which leads to another previously seen corridor. So let's go back the way we came and take the stairs to the second floor.

You can visit the parts you've already seen during the first visit here but there isn't anything new so let's get straight to that elevator.




We arrive in a luxurious room where Seifer and Edea are waiting. He seems to have remembered their past as well at some point as he questions whether they'll really kill their matron even though she is like a mother to them. He tries to use their sweet memories to get them to give up, even with Linoa as he brings up the time they dated (1 year prior, apparently) but all of them make it clear that they have burned their bridges with him. Squall even puts the final nail in the coffin by telling Seifer he is just one more monster for them to kill. Seifer brags that he is Edea's knight and thinks of himself more as a boss, which frankly doesn't sound as cool as when Sasha Banks says it. And then, he attacks.



"You're all going to die!"


He's got some new moves since we last saw him. He frequently attacks using Brasier + which isn't all that efficient on my team. He also seems to be even faster than before, which makes him more of a genuine threat and he does have some good physical attacks. He also now uses a Limit break of his own as when his HP is low enough he will use "Effilage" ("Demon Cross" in English), an attack which deals about 1500 HP of damage. Also, in the English version, before using that attack, he says "Ready to die Squall?" (lack of punctuation theirs, not mine) whereas in the French version he says "Is that the best you can do? None can defeat me!". You can mug some Mega-MT-Psy from him, which I don't think I need to tell you is a good thing. He too has a level cap so a few Limit Breaks take him out.

Edea mocks him, calling him a "poor useless entity" before escaping by phasing through the floor, with Squall saying that the auditorium is just below¹ so that's where we're headed to hopefully intercept her there. But strangely, once we arrive, Edea is nowhere to be found.




She suddenly bursts through the ceiling and gives Squall a threatening monologue. She talks about how he is the SeeD whose coming everyone speaks off, as if he was character of legend, which confuses Squall as he really only got involved a few weeks earlier tops. Seifer comes back only to be belittled some more by Edea. She says that all SeeD must die and attacks.




During this battle, Seifer and Edea are together and you must first defeat Seifer again before you can get to Edea. If you're lucky, you can mug some VERY good items from him: Invulnérable (Hero), which turns one character invincible for a few turns and Croisade (Holy War, which is an exact translation for once), which turns the entire PARTY invincible for a few turns. Note that the chance to mug is very low.

Even though Edea has a level cap, she can still be a threat due to her Maelström attack, which halves the entire party(s HP and casts Curse on it, preventing them from using Limit Breaks. Keep in mind you can cure Curse by using a Remède. She will also casts buffs on herself. Interestingly, she is vulnerable to Sleep, which is surprising for an end of CD boss. One very important thing to keep in mind is that she carries the G-Force Alexander, so make sure to draw it before you do anything else. Since she still likes to cast Anti-Sort, I still recommand summoning Ahuri so she'll waste turns doing that, leaving her open to attacks.

Once she is put to sleep and my team is safe from her attacks and free of the curse, it's only a matter of a couple limit breaks before she goes down. Defeating her nets me an Invulnérable, so you get at least one simply by defeating her.




After the fight, some pink energy thing is released from Edea and seemingly knocks down the group as we get a POV shot from Squall, who is on the ground, unable to move as he sees Linoa approach Seifer, but her movement is unnatural, eerie, almost ghostly. She drops to her knees and holds Seifer. She then seems to whisper something in his ear, after which he rises and quietly leaves, as if possessed. Then, Linoa collapses, which snaps Squall out of it. Quistis rushes to check on her when Edea starts talking to the team, but not in the hateful tone she used to.

Edea: Squall, Quistis, Selphie, Irvine, Zell... you grew up so much. I have been waiting for this moment for so long, but I also feared it terribly. Is it a day of celebration or of mourning? Where is Ellone? Did I succeed in protecting her?

So it seems that Edea the matron is back and has gotten rid of the evil within her. However, the main characters cannot rejoice as they are worried about Linoa's state and we end grimly, with Squall askig to himself what happened to Linoa. And on that bombshell, I will see you later for part 28 and the beginning of the third CD and the last third of the game (as the fourth CD is pretty much just the final dungeon).





¹ Another bit of spacial nonsense as the auditorium is actually on the opposite side above the main hall. I mean, I guess it's possible that they crossed a large area that did take them above the auditorium but it's never shown in the actual game. I'm beginning to wonder if perhaps this part was written with a different layout for the university at first but then they changed it and didn't change the scenario accordingly.

[SsnakeBite, the No1 Frenchman]

Another heads up, like last time, I'd like to take a little break in between CDs, especially since I'd like to do at least one more Great SsnakeBite Movie Experiment post before I resume the let's play. Shouldn't take too long though as I'm really in the mood for more FF VIII and I'm very much looking forward to CD 3.

I hope you're enjoying reading it as much as I do writing it. I think it's coming out quite well so far, I'm actually surprised at how little I forgot as usually, I forget at least one vital thing I want to do every time I go through another playthrough of this game, especially when it comes to drawable G-Forces.

[SsnakeBite, the No1 Frenchman]

Part 28: Creature of the Black Laguna

Welcome back, everyone! It is time to start the 3rd CD. The end of CD 2 didn't so much drop a bomb on us as it carpet-bombed the entire area. Edea was broken free of whatever spelled took a hold of her but Linoa seemingly became possessed by a forced that made her revive Seifer, who disappeared to do Hyne knows what, then she collapsed.

I should point out as well that we are actually getting pretty close to the end of the game. You see, the fourth and final CD is mostly just the final dungeon (there is a little bit more to it than that but it's mostly that) so we are now entering the last third of the game. With that said, there is a lot going on in that part so don't take that to mean that tjhere isn't much content left. In fact, this is probably the biggest of the CDs.

We open with Squall pondering the events following their battle with Edea.



"(So it's all over)"


While things are over with Edea, he wonders what's going to happen to Linoa and indeed thinks that things have only just begun. He then goes to visit Linoa, who is comatose in the infirmary, when Quistis calls him over the communications system to tell him that Edea is back at the orphanage and that they should visit her. You can now visit the BGU again and you might want to take a look around as there is a "Fanzine des Fanas de Flingues" magazine in the battle greenhouse.

Also, if you return to the basement (where we fought NORG), you will find two Shumis who have come to observe the weird cocoon he curled into when we defeated him, which loooks like it has broken open (I think. It's never adressed in the game so I don't know what the deal with that is). The Shumis apologize for NORG's behaviour and you can also draw some Cyanure from the pod.

Obviously, with Linoa in a coma, I can't use her any more so Selphie will be her replacement. We arrive at the orphanage and Irvine and Zell are already there. In the next screen is an issue ofTImber Maniacs and Cid appears. He shows some sense by assuming that we are mad at him and even he admits that he has a tendency to wuss out when things get tough. To his credit, he does raise a good point: if the SeeD lost, he'd lose his students; if they won, he'd lose his wife. Either outcome was a tragedy for him and he couldn't handle it. Good thing we lucked into a third option then, eh?




Cid and Squall's team go meet Edea, who is understandably distraught at the thought that she nearly killed the people she raised as children, not to mention the dialogue implies she was conscious the whole time but couldn't do anything about it. Squall, Quistis and Selphie tell her that they have no grudge against her and they understand she had nothing to do with it. Edea is visibly happy but she warns them that she could become her enemy again at any moment.

Edea informs them that she was under the spell of Ultimecia, a witch from the future, who will be born in many generations. Ultimecia wants to find Ellone to use her power. Apparently, Ultimecia originally wanted to possess Ellone herself but Edea stopped her and was possessed instead in retribution. Edea fears that Ultimecia will once again try to take over Edea because she still hasn't found Ellone.

She then brings up Adel, the hermaphrodite being who ruled Esthar during the last occult war¹. She says that many Galbadians believed Edea got her powers from Adel but that she actually gained her powers when she was 5. Edea believes that Adel is still alive and that Ultimecia used Edea to get to her, Adel being the one Ultimecia really wanted to possess as by merging her powers with Adel's, she'd be able to bend the world to her will.

Despite all this, the one thing that stays in Squall's mind is what happened to Linoa and he hopes she knows of a way to help her. Unfortunately, she does not know what happened and can't do anything about it. Cid then reminds Squall of his duties as commander of the SeeD and that Linoa's isn't the only life on the line. Still, Squall cannot stop thinking about her as Edea explains that Ultimecia hopes to use Ellone's power to gain access to the past, her goal being to cause a time compression: merging the past, the future and the present to create a universe where only she could survive.

At the end of the discussion, Squall decides to go back to the BGU to explain the situation and their new goal to find Ellone and eliminate Ultimecia to the entire university. Squall believes that Ellone must be on the White SeeD's ship since we last saw her leaving with them but unfortunately, he doesn't know where the ship is.

At this point, you can explore the world again and I originally intended to take that opportunity to hunt an enemy called Griffon (Ruby Dragon). Why? Because, especially at high level, they have a chance of dropping an item called Nuclide (Energy Crystal), which can be refined into Balles Pulsar (Pulse Ammo) which are needed to craft the Lionheart. Unfortunately, it took me about 30 random encounters to find one and when I did, it one-shot my entire team with a fire breath because I intentionally kept them low on HP to use limit breaks. Lesson learned. Also, I can't be bothered to try again for now. On the plus side, my G-Forces learned some very good skills. Tomberry has learned a skill that allows me to find rarer items, Zéphyr has learned an ability that allows a character to always be able to act right from the beginning of a fight. Alexander learned one that allows me to create the most powerful versions of elemental spells.

However, in order to continue the story, we have to go back inside the BGU and go see Linoa at the infirmary.



"(Linoa... you are so cold)"


Squall is getting desperate to find a way to save Linoa, remembering how joyful she was and lamenting that she is now almost dead. But as that happens, he suddenly collapses. Is Linoa's condition contagious?! No! It's just another Laguna dream sequence. We find him and Kiros in a snowy mountain path, arguing because Kiros insists that Laguna takes a role that's been offered to him by a movie director so they can actually pay the bills. Laguna is to play a medieval knight and his partner is a woman playing a sorceress (who, interestingly, is using the same model as Ishtar, the cards queen). The director then asks Kiros if he can replace the guy who was supposed to play a dragon, who is sick. Kiros agrees and goes to put on the costume while everyone else goes to the set. Once Kiros is out of frame though, we hear roaring.

Okay, before we continue, I have to bring up something weird about this sequence. Every walkthrough and every reference to this part of the game I've found in English language mentions Ward being part of the team here. I also remember some French walkthroughs mentioning him (although it's very plausible that they translated from an English language source without checking) and yet... every single playthrough I played, including the one for this LP, had only Laguna and Kiros for this sequence. I had absolutely no idea what that difference comes from. I wondered if the French version, for whatever reason, decided to cut Ward out of this sequence or if some previous actions in the game determined it or what.

Well, having looked it up for this playthrough, it turns out that last theory was correct. Turns out if you read the Timber Maniacs issue in the Shumi village before doing this scene, Ward won't be present. So there's your answer. They start filming, with some amazingly cheesy lines going on and the director calls for Kiros to make his entrance as the dragon.

The director is impressed with how realistic the costume looks... a bit too realistic even. Laguna seems to think all is well and Kiros is just very much into his role, until he gets attack and it finally dawns on him that it's a real freaking dragon! The director and the actress bail on him, leaving him to deal with the dragon.




This leads to a mini-game where you have to either block or attack at the right time. It's very similar to the fight with the Galbadian soldier but easier, thankfully. Also, another interesting bit of trivia is that if you look carefully at Laguna's mannerisms, they are the same as Seifer's, both their fighting stance and a pose Laguna took earlier. This is because this film actually inspired Seifer a lot and is the reason why he wanted to become a sorceress' knight and learn to use gunblade (as Laguna also uses one in the film).

After beating the dragon in the mini-game, Laguna flees but the dragon comes down, blocking his exit. Kiros finally returns and gives Laguna his gun and it's time to fight! Wait no, before that, I get an opportunity to save my game and prepare so I'll do that. NOW it's time to fight!




This is... um... this is a Griffon. Yeah, I know... I feel pretty silly now that I wasted time trying to find one when one was coming anyway. I thought this part came later, alright?! Anyway, because of how well this went last time I fought one of those, I healed my characters fully and as if the game was taunting me for my waste of time, this time the fight disappointingly easy. Granted I did spam my best G-Forces, but still... anyway, Kiros and Laguna escape and as they do, they notice an odd structure floating in the distance:




Before we can find out what it is, the dream ends and Ellone sends Squall a psychic message saying she can't desynchronise. Squall manages to speak with her and she explains that she calls surveying people's minds and memories "synchronising" but that her power is limited because she can only do it when she's asleep. She asks Squall to please let her keep going a little bit more and while all he wants is wake up so he can help Linoa, he hasn't much choice and she sees another scene, of Laguna speaking with Edea at the orphanage.

They are both extremely worried as Laguna has been searching for Ellone but cannot find her. They know she's been captured by Estharian soldiers, apparently because Adel is looking for a heir. Squall sees Laguna worry about Ellone and feels very similar about saving Linoa. He says that be it in the present or the past, he wants to see her again, and that maybe it's the way to save her.

Ellone warns him that you can't change the past and there is always a price to pay. She also explains that because Laguna went looking for Ellone once she got captured, he wasn't there when Raine died giving birth to her child. Gee, I wonder who that child could be. Ellone adds that she can only send people to the past of a person she already knows. She then desynchronises and Squall wakes up, convinced that he can save Linoa by going into the past. He wants Ellone to take her to right before Linoa fell into a coma but for that, he needs to find the White SeeDs ship and Squall realizes Edea would probably know where it is. And this is what we'll see in part 29. See you then!





¹ Weirdly, the only indications that Adel is a hermaphrodite is this one mention in dialogue and the game referring to her using female pronouns because other than that, she has a completely masculine appearance. I don't even know why they felt the need to specify that she's a hermaphrodite when it has no bearing on the plot. I honestly wonder if she was originally supposed to just be a male but then they decided they wanted all of Ultimecia's vessels to be females but they already did the cutscenes so they decided to make her a hermaphrodite so she'd be at least partially female.

[SsnakeBite, the No1 Frenchman]

Part 29: Salt Lake City

Edea tells us that the White SeeDs ship never stays in the same place very long, which makes sense considering their goal is to prevent Ultimecia from finding Ellone. However, they often hang around the various Centra creeks so this is where our best chance of finding them lies and indeed, that's where we have to go. Edea also gives us a note that we can give the White SeeD proving that we can be trusted.

By the way, I forgot to mention it last time but you can come back and challenge both Cid and Edea to Triple Triad at any time. As I mentioned before, Cid has Seifer's card and Edea has her own card, which is the best one in the game one of the few that has two A values. Edea also has almost exclusively high level cards but I have to warn you, she has the best AI in the game and the Centra rules use Random. I was very lucky to get a draw on my first try and to win my second try, where she did play her card.

On the WS ship, their leader ask who we are (rude! We saw you guys when you came to pick Ellone up). Squall explains everything but still, they don't believe us and tell us to leave. Man, they are sometimes referred to as "Edea's SeeD" but they seem to take more after Cid. No-one on the ship wants to talk to us, until...



"Here are our heroes! How's it going, Squall?"


Watts and Zone are here! They explain that after we left, they had to run from a Galbadian attack and found shelter on this ship. Naturally, they're curious about Linoa and Squall has to deliver the bad news and offers a sincere apology for failing to protect her. Zone gets mad and starts lashing out at Squall. Thankfully, Watts is here to calm him down and defends Squall. Squall then explains the reason for their visit. Hearing that, Watts reassures Zone that Linoa will be alright thanks to Ellone.

Zone leaves and you can ask Watts a few things about the ship, Ellone or the WS leader but only the one about Ellone is really interesting as Watts explains that she left on an Estharian ship. Squall wonders aloud why Esthar would want Ellone but Watts says that it looked more like she wanted to leave with them. You can explore the ship, which is rather small. You can go up or down and down is the leader so before that, let's go up and talk to Zone again.

In the room is a Timber Magazine and an NPC who doesn't say much. Zone appears to have calmed down and says that he loves to watch the ocean. Talking to him again makes him say that he's trying to learn to manoeuvrer the ship. Talking to him a third time finally gives us a payoff for holding on to "Comtesse Cochonou", that erotic novel we got back in the first CD. You can choose to keep it, sell it for 25 000 gils or give to him for free.

The best option is actually to give it for free as in exchange, he will actually give you the Shiva card as well as a "carte de baptême" (translates to "baptism card" and is called Rename Card in the English version) which allows you to rename a G-Force. Going to meet the leader, Squall hands him Edea's note which makes him change his mind and stop being such a dick. At this point, you can draw some Holy, which is a very powerful spell, from a draw point in the cabin.

Talking to him again, he confirms that Ellone has left. He explains that after they left the BGU, they were chased by a Galbadian ship. They managed to escape but the ship broke down, allowing the Galbadians to catch up with them. Then, as the Galbadian ship was going to attack, an Estharian ship appeared and they got caught in a crossfire! Estharian cyborgs then boarded the WS ship and order them to abandon it and come inside the Estharian ship. They refused and forced the Estharians to retreat but as they did, Ellone jumped on their ship! They have no idea why she did that but yes, Ellone is now in Esthar and back at the BGU, Squall orders Nida to head over there.

Now this is a bit confusing because you actually need to head to Horizon as the railway that crosses it the only way to Esthar. And if there is some stuff you want to do on the overworld, do it now because we are about to be gone for a long time once we start making our way to Esthar. And there actually is one thing I'd like to do before we go on our journey. If you go back to Balamb now that it has been liberated with Zell in your party and had him talk to the library girl witha ponytail or her friends in the BGU (it's not too late to do so if you haven't yet), this woman will tell Zell that the ponytail girl came to visit at his house:




You then have to go to his house, where Zell's mom will actually say that no-one came here. Odd. But then, if you go sleep at the hotel, Zell will be missing the next morning. Once you go down though, you will find him talking with the girl, who after a cutscene, gives Zell the "Baston Magazine 3" which teaches Zell another finisher for his limit break.

Now that that's done, we can go to Esthar by way of Horizon. Actually there is an even simpler way to start the trek: simply go to the infirmary and visit Linoa. This will trigger a cutscene where Squall puts Linoa on his back and actually goes off on his own to find Esthar, carrying Linoa on his back the whole time.



"Sorry, everyone"


He is obviously conflicted about doing this because he's basically abandoning his post as commander of the SeeD but he simply cannot go on with Linoa in this state. Not entirely sure why he just goes on his own though considering finding Ellone is something the BGU would want so he'd be justified in making it an officialmission since it's not just for him and Linoa. Also not sure why he doesn't take a car from the garage and just carries her on his freaking back. But at least it does lead to a genuinely moving scene:

Squall: I wonder what they think of me. They must think I'm mad. Or that I abandoned them... *to Linoa* What do you think? Really, I pay too much attention to what people think of me. But I hate being like that. That's why I don't let anyone truly know me. I want to hide this sensitive part of me that I hate so much. Squall is an unsympathetic and introverted boy. It's easier for me when people see me like that. *To Linoa again* It's a secret between you and I, okay?

It's a rather nice scene in my opinion and it also shows the dilemma between personal duty and public duty. Squall doesn't want to bail on the people who rely on him but he also cannot just leave Linoa like that. He picks her up again and continues his way...

... so is this really going to be Squall on his own while the rest of the team wonders where he's gone? Of course not! Squall eventually finds Quistis and Zell, who were ahead of him... somehow. Yeah, this whole part of the story is where it really shows that while it IS a good story, it is rather poorly told at times. Anyway, Quistis teases Squall, telling him he's late and even suggesting that perhaps a kiss from her handsome prince would wake her up. Squall is not amused and asks her if they came all the way here just to take the piss out of him and while that would be a noble cause, they're actually also going to Esthar as they are Edea's escort. As in... her bodyguards, not... you know what? Forget it.

Edea herself arrives and Squall asks her why she's going to Esthar and she explains that she is going to see Doctor Geyser, known as Dr. Odine in the English translation, a magic expert. She fears that Ultimecia might be able to retake control of her at any moment and make her the evil entity she was once more and she hopes Geyser can find a way to render her immune to Ultimecia's control. So, since everyone has a common interest in finding Esthar, they decide to team up once again. Selphie and Irvine come back as they had been scouting ahead (seriously, how did Squall not notice them?) but oddly couldn't see Esthar on the horizon even though it's supposed to be enormous and in the area. Time to make a team to go there and would you look at that:




That's right, you can take Edea in your team! It's only temporary so don't get overly excited but still, it's really cool, especially since she has a very powerful Limit Break; which is actually the ice spike attack she used against Squall at the end of CD 1. Hey, including gameplay mechanics into the story, I like it. Obviously, I can't pass up that opportunity so she's coming with me. For the third member, I'll take Selphie, partly because Quistis is already way over-levelled as it is and also because I'm hoping to cheese the level-based mechanic.

We arrive at the Great Salt Lake, near where Esthar should be but indeed, even though we can see for miles, Esthar is nowhere in sight. All we can see is a frozen wasteland. After a cutscene where Edea warns the group not to trust her as she could get possessed at any time, we can change our team again (yeah thanks for that, lads, that's really necessary) and here we go!

Once again, we get some gorgeous music, which complements the eerie feel of the area as it is filled with the remains of dead monsters. There are a few interesting things to find here. First, right from the start, you'll see a giant dinosaur skeleton to the right of the main path. You can climb it and you'll get to an area with a spinal column forming a bridge between two ledges. There is a Météore (Meteor) draw point and crossing the bridge/spine takes you to another draw point with some Foudre X. To get back on the main road, you can either backtrack or press X near the edge to jump down.

It's also worth noting that the main enemies here are three that we haven't met yet (well, I have, but I was doing off-screen stuff) called Cariatide (Vysage), Gangrène (Lefty) and Fatima (Righty). They all resemble mummified remains and are respectively a head, a left hand and a right hand. They can actually be pretty tough to beat as they have some very strong spells, especially Gangrène, which has Quake and Météore at high levels.

Going back on the main path, we eventually reach a dead end where a cliff is overlooking the horizon. To the right is only a save point so let's go left. Here we find...




JESUS SHOOTING STAR PRESSING CHRIST WHAT IS THAT?!! Well, this is Hornet (Abadon) and while it is an undead enemy, unlike President Zombie, healing items and spells hurt him, you can't just toss an MT-Psy on him for an insta-kill. It is normally crouching but it can also stand up, at which points it'll be faster and much more resilient to magic. I eventually defeat him (Jesus, he was way tougher than I remembered) and carry on. I arrive at another dead end... but there is something flickering in the air, like static. Let's see what happens if we touch it.




Apparently we break time and space! Well, there's no other way, so let's go for it. Once inside, we find a very sci-fi looking area with lots of electrical parts and wiring. We arrive at a platform which starts moving. In a short cutscene, Squall realizes he has completely lost control of the situation but still has no intention of backing down. The platform stops, a path opens and we get to a different platform and just as we step on it...




... Esthar appears before our eyes! It turns out that vast wasteland was merely an illusion cloaking Esthar from the rest of the world! The platform then takes us to the entrance of the city at a frankly downright irresponsible speed. Squall warns Selphie and Edea that the Estharians probably know that they're here. He doesn't have time to prepare for a welcome committee though as Selphie and him collapse, fading into the Laguna world.

He is working in some futuristic building, with Estharian soldiers guarding the area There is another man and a Moomba working there as well. This time, both Kiros AND Ward are with him, although they are sent somewhere else. This is seemingly slave or at least prisoner labour as the soldiers force them to work intensely, for days in a row without rest if the dialogue is to be believed. Laguna even sees his lunch break canceled simply for talking during work. The Moomba's break is also forced to keep working until he's finished.

laguna objects, saying that he himself can wait to eat as his work will only take a couple hour, but the Moomba won't be done for several days. After a fade, another scene has the guards leave for some unseen work to do, but they warn Laguna not to get any funny ideas as he's being watched by a camera. The Moomba is working in a precarious situation above a pit. Laguna talks to it, asking if it feels alright and it replies with "estomu gronde" (this basically means "stomach growls" but with letters changed tio give the Moomba an accent).

Suddenly, we can hear someone yell in a German accent "Experiments! More experiments! We need more test subjects! Nein! It's a catastrophe!". The NPC explains that it's Geyser yelling so loud they can hear him all the way down there. I go to talk to the Moomba again and he needs a tool. Laguna goes to pick it up. One the guards comes back and tells Laguna to go tell the people upstairs to send more guards. As he is about to leave, Laguna throws the tool to the Moomba, who loses its balance and falls to his doom!! Laguna is horrified by his accidental murder... but it turns out the Moomba was attached to a wire and so it climbs back up easily.

The NPC notices Laguna's generosity and reveals that he is part of a resistance group trying to overthrow Adel and wants Laguna to be their leader as they don't really have anyone disciplined enough to organize it. At this point, one of the guards returns and, seeing that Laguna hasn't left yet, attacks. Another guard arrives after the fight and Laguna manages to slam him against a wall and buy the others time to escape. Ward and Kiros then arrive, as do more guards. We take care of them and escape.

The team finds Geyser and two other people in a room but they sneak past them and leave the building. Outside, they find the resistance fighter and the Moomba. The Moomba runs off and one Geyser's assistants appears! Luckily, he is with the resistance and gives them info from the inside. He explains that Geyser is obsessed with a little girl named Ellone. Laguna wants to know where she is, but the assistant can't help, saying that Geyser must know and so Laguna decides to go back inside to make Geyser talk.

There is a save point here as well as a draw point for some Ankou. Back inside, the room where Geyser was is now empty but you can find a "Fanzine des Fanas de FLingues". The No1 issue, in fact, which details the recipes for the best weapons in the game. The team takes the elevator down and finds Geyser but soldiers arrive and attack. We get rid of them and Geyser claims he doesn't know an Ellone... before remembering that he acrtually does. Gotta say, it's a pretty clever twist on the scene of the villain lying about not knowing someone.

Geyser runs away and the group chases him all the way back up. They catch him outside the building and make him talk. He finally spills the beans, saying that she is in a place called the "Occult Research Centre". The resistance guy gives him directions, but Laguna admits that he doesn't get it and tells Kiros to handle it. After a fade, Kiros, Laguna and Ward arrive at the research centre. Esthar soldiers show up and we dispatch them. Also, there is a draw point for some Double in here. Laguna & co activate some transportation device which takes them to a control room with more soldiers.

After a fight, Laguna uses the control panel to unlock Ellone's cell. We go back down and Laguna finally reunites with Ellone:




We fade back to Squall's team where an Estharian official comes to meet them. Edea explains that they're here to see Geyser. Squall is getting impatient and demands that he tell them where Ellone is. Edea tells him to calm his tits (okay, she may have used more eloquent language) and to let her talk to them. The official takes them to the presidential palace, where Squall can lay Linoa on a couch (and about time too. Sure she's pretty small but his back must still hurt like a motherf'er by now). Edea explains her situation and Geyser makes a theatrical entrance, saying exorcising Edea will be very easy.

The assistant then offers Squall to meet Ellone and Geyser allows it but he also tells Squall that he should let him "examine zis charming kirl" because he apparently didn't come off as a creepy old pervert enough. Edea advises Squall to accept and he does, although he warns geyser not to do anything to her. The assistant tells them it'll take a few hours to prepare everything so they should go ahead and visit the city then go to Lunar Gate. But this part is already long enough as it is so we'll be doing that next time, in part 30!

[SsnakeBite, the No1 Frenchman]

Part 30: ... iiiiiiin spaaaaaaace!!

Now that we have arrived at scenic Esthar, let's explore the sights! The place is pretty big but thankfully there are seated transportation devices that can ta&ke you from one area to another so you won't get lost. Let's begin our visit outside the presidential palace. There is a draw point fro some Glacier (strangely low-level spell for this late in the game) and a few NPCs.

Let's go left and take the "omni-throne" as they call it. This one goes to Geyser Labs but you can choose to go via aerodrome (or air station) or via metropolitube, which takes you to different intermediate stops. The aerodrome can't be accessed for now and the metropolitube way allows you to visit more areas by foot.

I just want to get to Geyser's lab for now so either way works. The lab itself cannot be accessed yet either but it does have a Quake draw point so it's worth paying it a visit. I then take the omni-throne to the city entrance, where you can leave and rent a car. However, it's not time to leave for us yet so I'll just make a connection and head to the shopping mall, easily the most important part of Esthar as it's got some very good items you can but, especially if you have the "Connaisseur" (Familiar) from Tomberry Sr as it lets you buy rare items. An unusual thing about this place is that instead of physically going from one store to the other, when you approach one, you get to pick where to shop from a screen:



And apparently this is where Cloud went to retire after FF7.


You've got a pet shop, a weapons shop, a jewelry, a drugstore, a book store and a general store. Like in Timber, the pet shop allows you to buy stuff for G-Forces, including items to make them forget a skill and for teaching them new ones (this is very good if you have several who know the same skills junctionned to the same character but none of them have a skill you really want) but most importantly, it's got the last two issues of "L'Ami des Bêtes", the magazine that teaches Linoa's dog new Limit Break techniques.

Cloud's store is actually the general store. The jewelry isn't really a store but it does get you a free Hypra Potion, so that's nice. the drugstore is inexplicably the weapons shop. I think either the translation got weird or there was a mix-up between two stores. The book store allows you to buy magazines that you may have missed during your journey so go ahead and stock up. With the Connaisseur skill, you'll even find the ones that each your characters their best Limit Break.

Here's my haul: the pet shop magazines make it possible for Angel to learn "Angel Borzoï", which makes it find items during battle (this happens even if Linoa isn't in Limit Break state) and "Phantasm" (Wishing Star), the second strongest attack in the whole game. I also bought two Baston Mags to teach Zell his missing techniques and finally bullets for Irvine's Limit Break.

Now that I have everything I want, time to get to Lunar Gate, which is actually pretty far away. Once there, we are welcome by a lady and Angel even comes to see us.




Hang on, did SHE come all the way from the BGU, which is currently at Horizon?! Anyway, Squall reassures her that he'll take care of Linoa before following the lady inside. They meet with a scientist, who tells them that they'll be going on a long journey but it will feel very fast. When Squall asks were exactly they're being sent, the scientist answers that they're going to freaking space! They'll be put in cryo-sleep so they won't feel the travel. It's time to choose partners and before you ask, no, Edea can't come with us asshe has to stay behind to be exorcised.

Zell offers to stay behind to protect her. You can choose to accept or not, and I do. Linoa is already in the pod and I have to pick a third member. Since I agreed to leave Zell in charge of protecting Edea, I can' take him with me, but as you probably expect by now, I intended to take Quistis with me anyway so no biggie. Quistis and Squall enter the pod and we're off!!




Zell's team are heading out when suddenly, Angel starts freaking out and howling, before an earthquake strikes! They rush out and see THIS hovering over Esthar:




A giant coffin floating over a massively populated area doesn't sound like a good omen so they decide to get back to the city as quickly as possible. This is one of the few times you control a group Squall isn't part of and Edea HAS to be with it. I take Selphie with me as the third member. By the way, you might want to be careful in this area and maybe use "No-Combat" because there Xylomides here, Xylomide being the French name for Malboros and if you're a Final Fantasy fan, you know how dangerous they can be and this game is probably where they are the worst as they immediately start the fight by using an attack that casts Sleep, Confuse, Poison, Silence, Berserk, Darkness and Doom. You MUST have status magic junctioned in your mental defence if you are to survive a Malboro encounter and/or have one of your characters have the Genki ability (which allows them to act as soon as a battle begins) or get a lucky Zantetsuken.

I get to Geyser's lab which can now be entered. There is now a new draw point inside for some Fournaise (Flare). We find Geyser talking about Lunatic Pandora, that huge coffin thing. His assistant appears to believe that Galbadia is controlling it and while Geyser seems to agree, he doesn't believe they'll attack the city but are instead trying to reach a place called "Tears Point" (in English even in the French version).

Zell asks what's going on and Geyser tells the group that he's been studying it ever since they found it in the sea. Zell tells him to keep it short as he wants to enter it to stop it. Since they know its trajectory, they can use the omni-throne system to reach Lunatic Pandora. There are thee potential contact points. One's downtown, one's not sure but probably at an intersection between two tubes and the third one is north of the shopping mall. After the briefing, Geyser gets uncharacteristically sombre and says that "the culprit is not Galbadia".

We can talk to Geyser again so he can remind us of the contact points and we can also ask more info on Lunatic Pandora. He explains that monsters can sometimes drop from the moon and Lunatic Pandora influences their fall. Beginning now, we have a 20 minutes time limit to board Lunatic Pandora. There are also Galbadian enemies as random encounters. The clock keeps ticking during battles and the timing can actually pretty tight, especially since the omni-thrones are out of order during this segment so I once again recommand using No-Combat.

Now, something very important to remember is that for each contact point, there is a specific time slots during which Lunatic Pandora can be boarded (which are given to you by Geyser). If you get to those contact points early, the scene will not trigger until you leave and come back. Luckily, the game also indicates when a contact point can be reached. To get to the first contact point, we have to go left, past the air station and then keep going right. By the way, on the way there, you can talk to this soldier:



Cet homme n'a pas de bite.


Who will give you the Baston Mag 4 if you don't already have it, which... seems kind of pointless considering you can buy it from the mall and doing this wastes time but I guess it's a neat little secret. I make it to the contact point in time and after a fight, Zell's team boards Pandora. I really advise you to go for the first contact point as the fight before entering it is the easiest and shortest one so there is little risk of the time window running out before the end of the fight (at which point you can't enter any more and have to go for the next contact point).

Inside, we arrive at a stairway and there is a Météore draw point immediately right. There is also some amazing music. Going up, there is a hall with three elevators with a Soin Max draw point nearby. Be careful too as there can still be enemies here. Let's take the elevator on the left, which takes to a familiar-looking area and indeed, this is where Laguna and his team escaped and eventually jumped off from during the second dream! We arrive at a fork with a path going forward and one going right.

My gaming senses (and not AT ALL previous knowledge of the game) are telling me to go right. This takes us to a bridge in a very weird area full of shiny... tube... things. Unfortunately, the other end of the bridge is a dead end so let's go back and take the other way. This takes us to a corridor with a door at the end and getting ther-




WOW! Okay... this thing just came down and blocked our way. Edea, Zell and Selphie decide to attack but they are immediately stopped by the machine which makes them levitate and literally throws them out the Lunatic Pandora. They can only watch as it reaches Tears Point and have no choice but to fall back (with a very weird cutscene where the Pandora is inexplicably transluscent to the point of being nearly invisible. No idea if it's a glitch or what).


Meanwhile, in Space!




The pods Quistis, Linoa and Squall have been sent in arrive and are brought inside the space station. Squall and Quistis wake up and meet a doctor named Piet. They take Linoa to the infirmary. They place Linoa in a bed which is then sealed off. Piet then asks Quistis and Squall to follow him. He takes them to a room full of computers and control panels and tells them to look at one the screens. What they see is the moon covered in monsters and the technicians tell them that the monsters are being attracted towards the Earth and that the "Larme Sélénite" (Lunar Cry, literally the Lunar Tear) is about to drop again, meaning the monsters are about to rain down on Earth!

Piet then tells Squall that Ellone is on the second floor of the station. That's right, Squall is finally about to be able to have Ellone save Linoa! I can't wait! But we're gonna have to because that will happen in part 31! HA HA! Cliffhangers!

[SsnakeBite, the No1 Frenchman]

Part 31: a Space Odyssey

Time to meet Ellone and hopefully have her help Linoa! On the way there, you can find an NPC who gives some info that I'm surprised isn't really said during the main story. They explain that the space station was created to watch the sanctuary in which Adel has been put in cryo-sleep (as she apparently couldn't be killed), but it emits such powerful radio waves that it inteferes with all radio transmissions on Earth (hence why the medium was abandoned and all transmissions were made digitally until Galbadia had the Dollat tower reactivated). It is Esthar's president himself who inspects the sanctuary as he is also the one who designed it. They also explain that should their telepathic encryption be disrupted, Adel would be able to return and rule the world¹ again as she did 17 years ago.

By the way, I haven't really addressed this yet and didn't show it in screenshots but the area is full of funky camera angles to give the impression of weightlessness and presumably as a reference to various sci-fi films. It's pretty neat although it can get confusing. Anyway, we find Ellone in her room.



"I am so happy to see you again!" You and me both, Ellone.


She apologizes to Squall for putting him through so much physical and emotional turmoil and Squall says he understands why she had to do it, hoping that they could help her. She answers that they did help her a lot and that although she couldn't change the past, reliving it was enough for her to realize how much people cared about her. Squall gets to the point of their visit and asks if she can change the past but she answers that she can't, she can only make people relive it, in order to see things differently and understand them better, summing it up as "you're the one who changes, not the past".

Squall still insists that Ellone take him to Linoa's past, hoping that he can warn her and prevent what happened. Unfortunately, she can only connect people she knows well, which isn't the case with Linoa. Squall isn't about to give up so easily and still wants to give it a try, asking Ellone to follow him to the infirmary and BEFORE YOU DO ANYTHING ELSE, challenge Ellone to a game of Triple Triad. Why? Because she has the Laguna card, which can be refined into 100 Invincibles!! This pretty much turns the rest of the game into a cakewalk so unless you're going for a self-imposed challenge you really, really want this. Oh and even though she follows you, you can still challenge her by making Squall face her.

As we make our way to the infirmary, a cutscene starts, showing the bed Linoa was placed into unlock and open and ooooh no, the sinister music starts playing, that can't be good. Alarms starts ringing and a message through the speakers calls for an intervention in the infirmary. Squall immediately realizes that danger is afoot, tells Ellone to get back to he room and asks Quistis to protect her. Meanwhile, he goes to check on Linoa. As Squall arrives, he sees the guard who was on duty in the room get thrown away!




What the Hell happened to her?! She has become some sort of ghostly figure moving around with that creepy zombie-like gait and when Squall tries to touch her, he is ejected to the side. Linoa slowly makes her way to the control room and since anyway who touches her gets slammed to the side, no-one can stop her as she unlocks the first security level of Adel's sanctuary! Piet explains that unlocking the second level requires going to sanctuary itself and deactivate it manually so Squall goes after Linoa to try and stop her before it's too late. And as if things weren't bad enough, Quistis sees on the screen that the surface of the Moon is crawling with monsters, meaning the Lunar Cry is about to drop!

Squall gets to the second floor, where he can only witness the Luncar Cry happen as millions of monsters spill to the Earth, attracted towards Tears Point by Lunatic Pandora. Still, Squall can't lose his focus and finds Linoa, who has just taken a space suit and is about to dive into space to reach Adel's sanctuary. He puts a space suit of his own, ready to follow her. Unfortunately, after Linoa has left, the gate through which she escaped closes down and locks up, making it impossible for Squall to go after her and he has to backtrack.

On the way back, he comes across the president, who returned just as Linoa escaped. He wants to stay, presumably to try and prevent Adel's return (using an oddly familiar gesture...), telling his assistants to leave without him, but they drag him to safety, with him telling Squall to look after Ellone. Hm... he uses a familiar gesture and seems to care about Ellone. Nnnoooo... surely the president of Esthar couldn't be... nah, I'm sure I just have an overactive imagination.

Squall makes it back to the control room where they see Linoa deactivate the second level of security, awaking Adel and nearly getting caught in the Lunar Cry.




They have to evacuate and Squall is starting to freak out, not wanting to let Linoa tumble across space. Ellone tells him Linoa needs him and he asks her to take him to Linoa. She doesn't know if she can do it but she'll give it a try. They get to an evacuation pod and Piet's prognostic is grim, saying she only has 20 minutes worth of oxygen, plus a 5 minutes emergency supply. The pod is launched and we see the station get destroyed by the Lunar Cry as Ellone sends Squall back...

... Squall is sent to when Irvine came to rescue Linoa from the Desert Prison. They are in a jeep with Linoa yelling at him to go back and help the others and Irvine saying he's obeying Deling's orders. Linoa eventually manages to force Irvine to stop and jumps off the jeep. Irvine argues that they'll figure out a way to escape and don't need anyone's help, but Linoa retorts that Squall only obeys orders and so if no-one orders him to escape, he'll stay. Yeah... she's got a point there. She then gets physical and forces Irvine to go back and be a big damn hero. The scene then fades into another one...




Zell and Linoa are in the BGU's cafeteria (with a nice alternate angle) with Zell telling Linoa he doesn't know where Squall bought his ring. Linoa says she'd like the same one as she really likes it. I love how Zell asks if it's the one with a monster on it, which seems to confirm that Squall really is usually strutting around with multiple rings, which he apparently wears over his gloves. Seriously, check out Squall Leonhart, the pimp-master of bling. Anyway, Zell tells her he can make her a copy, bragging that he could have been a forger, which is presumably why there is a warrant for his arrest in three different cities.

Of course, he needs the original to make a copy but Linoa says she can't ask Squall. Being a bit slow on the uptake, Zell asks why and she replies that it's too embarrassing. Being VERY slow to the uptake, he once again asks why and finally puts it together that she fancies him, although she denies it, which seems oddly un-Linoa if you ask me.

That's all very sweet but as you may have noticed, that's not very helpful as he's been sent too far back. Ellone tries again and this time, Squall is back just after the second fight against Edea. He sees Linoa walk towards the downed Seifer and a figure flashes over Linoa. This time, he actually hears what Linoa whispers to his ear:

Seifer, noble knight. The Sorceress is alive.

Squall realizes that Ultimecia switched from Edea to Linoa after they beat the possession out of Edea. Ultimecia then tasks Seifer with finding Lunatic Pandora, deep within the ocean, promising that the Sorceress will fulfill all of his dreams once he's done so. Squall can hear Linoa call him for help just before she passes out and we get our first good look at Ultimecia:




Squall fades back to the present as Ellone collapses. He checks on her and she asks if he managed to do it, but he tells her he couldn't do anything and is getting desperate. Ellone says he gave her the same look as a child and that she called it the "beaten dog look" (the French equivalent of "puppy-dog eyes"). Squall tells her he must help Linoa and that nothing has ever been so important to him. Ellone then decides to take him to a very recent past.

Squall sees Linoa floating in space, having regained consciousness only for the system in her space suit to announce that she only has 15 seconds of air left. She wants to survive but cannot find a way to do it. After all, she is all alone, drifting in space. What COULD she do? The survival system runs out and we have a gut-wrenching scene of the usually happy and optimistic Linoa realising she has no solution and resigning herself to death. Her last thoughts are for Squall, telling him farewell. Seeing this, Squall yells at her to hold on, trying desperately to make her hear him the same way Laguna heard him.

Squall keeps talking to her, reminding her of the promise they made as we see her struggling to stay awake as she is running out of oxygen. He tells her that as long as one of them is alive, the other can't die. We see her close her eyes and then... nothing, silence. And I've got to admit, the first time I played through this, I got genuinely worried that they were actually going to go the tragic route and kill off Linoa there as we see her drift out of view with no sound whatsoever. Thankfully, after several harrowing seconds, she wakes up, seeing Squall's ring still attached to her necklace. Even she is surprised to still be alive but that sign of hope gives her the strength to activate her emergency oxygen supply. Afterwards, she calls out Squall's name, implying she heard him.

Squall has done it. He has given her the will to survive when she was at her lowest point, showing her that even when all seems lost, there is still hope and that she can't give up as long as there is still something she can do. Squall decides to go after her and leaves after giving Ellone a "thanks, Lellone!". Quistis begs him not to do it, with Piet saying he's crazy as his survival system is going to run out and they'll both die, but it's obvious that he'd rather die with her than live without her.




Squall dives into space and we get a mini-game where we have one minute and a half to position ourselves to catch Linoa by making sure she's at the centre of the screen when the timer runs out. It's not that difficult and you can press triangle to speed it up. Squall catches Linoa, who thanks him. She asks if they'll make it and he assures her that they will. But... they're out in space, Linoa has almost no oxygen left and they can't get back to the pod so how are they going to get out of this one?




...



...



... well that sure was convenient. Yeah, it's one of those things that even I can't defend. It's a straight-up deus ex machina. It wouldn't even be so bad if they'd at least established that this thing is around (and as we will soon find out, there really isn't any reason why they wouldn't) or maybe had Squall see it while in the space station so he'd at least know that it's there and you could argue it was part of his plan. Or maybe you could have had him see it during a flashback. Hell, they could have had Piet remote control it to recover Squall and Linoa when Squall said he was going to jump. As it stands it's really one of those "Well I'm sure glad that happened because I didn't really have any idea beyond that" moments. Also, Squall just knows how to open it. Do you see why I said this part was a good example of this game being a poorly told good story?

Anyway, they get to safety inside and are relieved to find there is oxygen in there. And in part 32, we will explore this ship and I promise there will be a little bit more action as this was, as far as I remember, the first all-story part in the entire Let's Play. Still, it was a nice story at least, even if parts of it make no sense.





¹ This confuses me a bit as up until that point, it was established that Adel ruled over Esthar, not the entire World. And since they say Adel was neutralized 17 years ago, that would make it around the time Laguna was still a Galbadian soldier fighting against Esthar, so it would seem the two nations did not have the same ruler and indeed, from what I understand it was already Deling who was ruling Galbadia back then.

[SsnakeBite, the No1 Frenchman]

Part 32: In which I get pissed at the writing

And we are back in action! Which is quite an apt thing to say after the very story-heavy previous part as this one is indeed gonna have more action, but first, let's allow Linoa and Squall to catch their bearings after the tumultuous events they just went through. They take off their spacesuits and Linoa is looking... expectant. Squall'w awkwardness shows as he he is rather flustered by this. Linoa thanks him from the bottom of her heart for saving her again. She then does this:




And still he doesn't get take the hint and she has to spell it out for him that she wants a hug. Unfortunately for all involved, Squall would rather make sure they are out of danger before celebrating. After all, they are still stranded in Space with no idea how to get back to Earth. Linoa is not as slow as him so she gets what he means and she too wants to get back to Earth and rejoin with the others so she and Squall do not "become memories" as she puts it. I kind of get that feeling but come on dude, couldn't you make a little bit of effort for your girlfriend after you guys just jumped into space? Ah well, no time to worry about that as soon after they start exploring the ship, they hear a loud roar. Looks like this ship isn't abandoned after all and indeed, they then see this:




Squall wants to sneak past them, which... isn't actually an option. Well, technically you can but you do need to defeat the monsters to advance the story. Gonna skip ahead a little bit as this is info you normally have to get to a specific room to get. Those are called Alienators (or Propagators in the English version). There is one of them in almost every room of the ship and they come in four colours: purple, red, yellow and green. There are two of each colour and you have to kill them in pairs. If you kill one of a colour and then another one of a different colour, they will respawn (although according to the FF wiki, killing twenty-five of any of them will stop all of them from respawning).

This is where the sneaking part comes in as the Propagators will charge when they see you and if they reach you, it'll start a battle so you have to get past them without getting caught in order to find the other half of the pair. They can be quite a pain in the ass too as they are pretty powerful so I'd recommand that you do kill them in pairs rather than try and kill 25 of them. I guess you might want to farm them for the magic stones they drop (including some for Ultima, Sidéral, Météore and Death), which can be refined into spells but I don't think it's necessary. They ARE susceptible to status effects though so you can try and use that to make fights easier for yourself. You can even use Ankou on them.

As you can see from the screenshot, the first one is purple so I might as well start with those. I defeat it and go to a room to the left, in which is a red one so I quickly run past it as it starts facing us and therefore spots us immediately. In the next room is the other purple one. I defeat it as well so that's already one pair down and two rooms cleared. Let's continue with the red pair by going back to the previous room. I then continue on, going past the room with the second purple guy and I arrive to a room with an escalator and two other ways out.

There is a green Alienator in the elevator but oddly, this one doesn't charge even if it sees you. Guess it's just happy sitting around the elevator. Well, too bad we're gonna have to ruin its day by murdering it later. To the left is another room, where a yellow Alienator is and where you can the info on the pairing system (but I'll ignore it for now) and finally, to the south is the bridge where Squall and Linoa saw the first Alienator (which, by the way, is utter spatial nonsense) and where the second red one is now standing. I beat it and that's another pair dealt with.

Crossing the bridge, I find on of the yellow ones. During that fight, I get an opportunity to show you a new mechanic:




Now that Linoa has been possessed by Ultimecia, she's become a sorceress herself and can use a new limit break! It's called Canonisation (Angel Wing) and what it does is dramatically increase Linoa's magic power (her stat is multiplied by 5, even if the base stat is already maxed out to 255!) and then automatically make her use a random magic spell each turn. Although I still prefer her Inu Limit Breaks (the ones with her dog), at least once you've got Linoa's best Limit Break, this can be very useful as it makes her spell ludicrously powerful even if you didn't raise her magic stat much and deal a lot of damage, even if they aren't especially powerful spells so this can be very good against strong enemies.

Oh and you might think the downside (other than being unable to make Linoa do anything else until the end of the battle or she is KO'ed) would be that it can use up junctioned spells, but it turns out that while she does need to actually have the spell in her magic "inventory", she doesn't actually use them while in this state. You can even cheese things out by getting rid of all but her most powerful spells so she will only use those (of course, that probably means sacrificing junctions as well). one thing to keep in mind is that she won't cast a spell on the same turn as she activates the limit break. That'd be a bit much. So be careful of when you use it (don't use it as a last resort if she's about to die, for example). And of course, since Angel is still on Earth, the Inu Limit Break isn't available for now.

So I backtrack a bit (there is now a Vie draw point next to the bridge) and go left of the elevator to find the second yellow guy. Interestingly, there is a special cutscene here with the Alienator outright shoving Linoa and Squall out of the room. I kill it too and with that, only the green ones are left so, sorry, Green Guy but it's time for you to go. After the that, the final Alienator is in a small room that can be accessed by going back to the one with the first purple Alienator and going through a small door to the right.

Well, now that the Alienators are all dead, it's time to get to try and get this thing back to Earth. The cockpit is accessed via the elevator so let's get to it. Once there, Squall and Linoa get a signal. Someone's trying to communicate! The people sending the signal are from an Estharian "orbital station" and tell us that the name of the ship is Hydre (the English name being Ragnarok). Luckily, they can locate its position and use the autopilot to take it back to Earth and that they will pick Linoa and Squall up once they land. They also mention that it's been 17 years since they communicated with the Hydre.

Squall sits down at the pilot chair and follows instructions to enter coordinates for the Hydra to get to. The Estharian guys then tell Squall that they're going to deactivate the artificial gravity to conserve fuel. Squall and Linoa are finally safe and have some time alone to relax and have a tender moment as the lyrical version of "Eyes on Me" starts playing for the first time. Squall advises Linoa to get in the seat next to him just as the gravity turns off and so Linoa starts floating. Squall comes to get her and once again advises her to put on her seatbelt to prepare for re-entry buuuut Linoa has a better idea:



"Will we be back home soon?"


This leads to one of my favourite dialogues in the entire game:

Squall: Why are you being so affectionate?

Linoa: You don't like it?

Squall: I'm not used to it...

Linoa: What about when you were a kid? Didn't you like to hug with your parents?¹

Squall: I never knew my parents. I have no memory of them. Thankfully... Ellone was there. She gave me a lot of love.

Linoa: And did you enjoy that?

Squall: Yes. But she went away... Ellone left me. And since that day... I've been afraid of getting attached...

Linoa: You're afraid of losing us? Is that why you're so cold and distant?

Squall: it doesn't make sense, does it?

Linoa: Now I get it. You must have missed many opportunities by acting this way... a lot of things are going to pass you by.

Squall: Maybe.

Linoa: Certainly. *pause* I like that. I loved it when my mom took me in her arms. Dad too... back when we weren't enemies yet.

Squall: I won't replace your parents.

Linoa: *chuckle* No, of course not. But you are the only one with who I feel good. You make me happy... and sad at the same time!

Squall: I'm sorry...

Linoa: Apologies.²

Squall: Go back to your seat, now.

Linoa: Wait a little bit longer.

Squall: (You'll be safer there)

Linoa: Are we going to go back home at last?

Squall: I hope so.

Linoa: Once we get there... we will have to break up.

Squall: Maybe. We have no certitude... the future is unpredictable. That's what you said, right?

Linoa: That's not what I meant.

Squall: We'll take care of the details later.

Linoa: *goes to her seat* They're all going to... hate me now.

Squall: Why?

Before she can answer, they get another call from the station, who say they collected the escape pods and were briefed on what happened. They ask for the passengers' names and when Squall mentions Linoa, the station guys are surprised to find that "the witch" is on board, confirming that she has indeed become one herself (as it wasn't made specific to the characters yet). Linoa says she can't stay with Squall now that she is a witch. The people from the station say that Linoa will be arrested as soon as they arrive and asks Linoa and Squall them to follow their instructions. Squall can hardly pay attention to them as he sees how distressed she is and she tells him she is scared and that no-one will hold her in their arms any more. As the station guys ask for a response, Squall turns off communications and holds Linoa in his arms as she says she doesn't want to go home any more.

I really love this scene, mostly because it feels very real, with the characters going through so many emotions in such a short amount of time. Plus, I feel most love stories even among the Final Fantasy franchise lack scenes like that where the two members of the couple just talk and pour their heart out to one-another. In most works, it feels like the two end up together because... you know, fate and shit but here, it really feels like they... well, they love each-other and that the other person is the only one with which they can truly be themselves and show them their most intimate feelings.

We fade to black as Squall has an inner monologue wondering whether to let Linoa go or not, knowing fully well how risky refusing to let her go would be. And unfortunately... after what is one of my favourite scenes if not my favourite scene in the entire game, what comes next is my least favourite moment in the game but I'll get into why a bit later.

They land and the Estharians (who describe her as "descendant of Hyne", who is the god of the FF8 universe) tell her to follow them and that her powers need to be neutralised for the good of humanity. She agrees and they congratulate her on making a wise decision. Before they go, she tells Squall everything about what happened to her in space. That she was possessed by Ultimecia, whose goal is to compress present, future and past to create a universe where only she can survive. And since Ultimecia will use Linoa as long as she's alive to accomplish her goal, Linoa has to disappear to prevent this fate. As she is about to leave, Squall begs her not to go and she thanks him, presumably for showing her that she matters to someone, but she has made her decision. She remembers she still has his ring and wants to give it back but he tells her to keep it.

After one last sorrowful look, she leaves with the Estharians. Squall is left behind and is horrified that he can't do anything about it. All he can do now is wander the Hydre. After he makes it back to the passengers room, Quistis arrives. She explains that she lost consciousness after they landed and when she woke up, only Piet was with her. Ellone was gone, and she apparently fought with people! Then the Estharians took Quistis to the ship. She also says she was impressed with Squall's reaction to jump into space to save Linoa and asks where "the princess who metamorphosed our Squall" is.

He doesn't have time to answer as Zell, Selphie and Irvine arrive as well. Zell is ecstatic to see Squall is alright and briefs him on the Lunatic Pandora situation, mentioning that Edea is no longer a witch as she transferred her powers to someone else and we know who. Squall gives them the news about Linoa. Quistis asks why he didn't stop it and he answers that he can't force her to do something against her will. Quistis snaps and tells him that it's not a solution and that it's pointless to save her life only to let her spend the rest of it isolated from the rest of the world; she even accuses him of just giving her to Esthar. She further says that the reason he saved her was so they could be together. Zell agrees and eventually Squall realizes there is only one thing left to do: get Linoa back.

And this right there is why I really don't like this scene: because Quistis is absolutely right. Squall was ready to carry Linoa on his back all the way to Esthar, he went to freaking space, dove into the unknown, fought aliens all to save Linoa... only to just let her go once they make it back to Earth?! That's... just... I have no words to describe just how asinine that is, and it's made even worse by happening just as Squall had completed his character arc and grew as a character, realizing how much he has to gain from admitting his feelings to people... and NOW is when he gives her up?!

And okay... I get what they were trying to do. They wanted to show that he respected her decision to choose her own destiny and considering how in Japanese society, the idea that men are the household chiefs and a good wife is supposed to obey is still strong, it's probably not innocent that Japanese game developers would show a male hero let the woman he loves make her own decision... but the way it's done is probably the worst way they could have gone about it. They have all those scenes showing how these two can't live without the other. Again, I can't stress this enough, Squall JUMPED INTO SPACE because he would rather die with her than live without her. Hell, there was that great speech Squall gave her in Trabia about how he respected her because she actually took arms when everyone else was just complaining, asking her if she's really going to give up now... and now they do just give up. And then he immediately goes to get her back anyway, nullifying the scene's intent!

There were so many ways they could have done this better. Maybe Linoa and him could have just decided to refuse to obey Esthar and become some sort of Bonnia & Clyde style outlaw couple (and as we'll see soon enough, it's not like it would have gotten in the way of them accomplishing their goal), how romantic would THAT have been? Or another solution I think is really what they should have gone with: Linoa, realizing Squall would rather fight the Estharians than let her go, pretends to agree to fight with him, only to use her newfound powers to knock him out as they land before following the Estharians, explaining to him that it's better this way. Then you can still have her be this strong, independent character, it still makes sense that she'd follow the Estharians, it even gives an example of her terrifying her powers could be should Ultimecia completely take her over AND it also makes sense that Squall would go after her immediately after. You could even have him still be conflicted as he understands her motive.

I actually really like the concept of the scene, with him respecting her decision but the execution is just... GAAAH!! I wish they'd at least put more time between Linoa giving herself up and Squall & co going to rescue her so they could develop the dilemma between respecting her wish and wanting to save her and finding another solution, instead of it just coming across like Squall is just going "oh yeah, that really was very f'ing stupid to just let her go, wasn't it? Okay, let's go fix that unnecessary mess I made". And this is the mainr eason why I said the whole space storyline is a prime example of this game having a great story that's poorly told (at times).

*sigh* Anyway... let's get back to the game. The group feels a shake and they suddenly take off! Turns out Selphie, who left with Irvine the moment Squall said that Linoa had gone with the Estharians, took the controls of the Hydre and somehow figured out how to fly it because at this point, that's the least nonsensical part of this. Okay I'm being harsh as they do acknowledge that it's unlikely and take that opportunity for a pretty funny moment as Squall asks if she really knows how to fly this thing and she admits that it just kind of took off on its own (I assume "on its own" means "after she started randomly hitting buttons until something happened") and then says she should be able to handle it... at least until they crash.

And so... that's right, we get to use the Hydre as a new ship! And check out its sweet theme tune! This will also allow us to access locations we couldn't get to before but for now, let's just go to the mausoleum where Linoa was taken. This allows me to mention one very useful feature of the Hydre: autopilot. It wasn't just a thing for the story, it's actually part of the gameplay. so if you get the full-screen version of the map, you can select one of the way points on it and the Hydre will automatically go there without you having to do anything.




We arrive at the mausoleum and the guards allow us to pass as they think we're here to give Linoa our last goodbyes. The group makes it to the control room where scientists tell us that it's too late, but Zell and Quistis just draw their weapons (or... pump up their fists in Zell's case), further showing that they could have just had Linoa and Squall fight their way out of this to begin with *groan*. Squall finds Linoa placed in a massive contraption similar to the one Adel was in. He draws his gunblade and cuts one of the pipes!




And as sweet as this moment is, that's another part of the reason why I dislike this subplot so much as I'm pretty sure the whole "giving Linoa up just to go save her immediately after" was just to get that shot of Squall and Linoa embracing... which I really think they could easily have gotten at any other moment without poking holes into the story. Linoa still isn't sure about escaping, saying she is a sorceress and Squall replies that he doesn't care. They then leave, finding Estharian soldiers outside but just as they are about to fight, a large man who is evidently an authority figure arrives and gestures at them to let the group leave.




Let's just... keep going. Back inside the Hydre, Linoa says she is ashamed (of making them worry and taking risks to save her) and that when they came to rescue her, she was so happy. The rest of the group tell her not to worry and that they merely did what's right. You can always count on Quistis to improve scene though as she says "I am an expert in Squall. Right now, he's thinking 'What mess did we get into?'" and then tells him to try and be optimistic for once.

Zell reminds them that they need to take care of Lunatic Pandora, which is controlled by Galbadia and therefore Seifer. Squall adds that Seifer is merely Ultimecia's puppet and Zell enthusiastically says that they have to stop her and that it's the SeeD's duty to "destroy all filthy witches", which makes Squall yell at him considering Linoa is one. Wow, looks like Zell found a new magazine and is now a master of the "foot in mouth" kung-fu technique. Linoa then suggests going to see Edea at the orphanage again since she was a witch herself and Linoa hopes she can guide her and so, that is their next destination.

Urrrrgggggh... that was tedious. It started out very strong with that fantastic scene between Linoa and Squall, but it was immediately followed by that mess. I need to relax after this nonsense so part 33, it's going to be faffing all the way!!




¹ It seems strange that she'd ask that when she was with the group when they mentioned being orphans. I suppose she may have thought Squall did spend time with his parents before joining the orphanage.

² This is pretty obviously a reference to Squall's catchphrase, which of course doesn't translate right in the French version since the translator decided to drop it. In the Japanese version, his catchphrase is "I'm sorry" instead of "whatever" (note how the Japanese version has him be diplomatic rather than dismissive. Again, I feel this contributed to make him come off as more of a jerk in the English version) so obviously, Linoa is supposed to finish it for him to show she knows him so well she can tell when he's gonna do it but again, it wouldn't make sense in the French version.

[SsnakeBite, the No1 Frenchman]

Part 33: Deep Blue Sea

As I mentioned last time, today will be a faffing episode for you see, with the Hydre in our control, we can now visit all locations in the World. Well, I suppose it's only faffing in the sense that it's not part of the main story but it IS a major side quest and one of the best ones in my opinion: The Deep Sea Research Centre.

But before that, I WANT MY BLOODY LION HEART. Been waiting for it since the first CD and now we can finally find a good source of Nuclides (Energy Crystals), which can then be turned into Balles Pulsar. This item can be dropped by three different enemies: Griffon, Behemoth and Sulfor (Elnoyle). You can actually find Griffons in the Deep Sea research centre but I'd rather have the Lion Heart before going there. You can also find it in the Island Closest to Hell which is at the North-Westernmost point of the map and has a bunch of extremely powerful enemies that drop great items and is of course a nice place to grind (although, again, it's really not necessary in FF8).

In my opinion though, our best bet is to stick around Esthar as we can find Sulfors on the overworld and Behemoths in the plains near it. Note that that both of these monsters only appear after the Lunar Cry so I could not do this earlier. And yes, the Luncar Cry does affect the gameplay, at least in and around Esthar. Also, if you're having trouble getting Sulfor to drop the item or if they're getting tough to beat, you can also use the Card ability as you can turn 10 of them into 1 Nuclide and since 1 Nuclide turns into 10 Balles Pulsar and you need 12 of them for the Lion Heart, you only need 2 Nuclides. Of course, you also need 20 cards that way so it takes a lot more time, and the ability only works after you've weakened the enemy enough. Anyway, with Quistis's Degenerator, it's not that difficult to hunt them anyway. And indeed, I quickly find a Sulfor and beat it, and it drops 4 Nuclides! Which means...




*sob* Oh it's beautiful! Finally we are re-united, my pretty! By the way, if you're lucky enough to get 4 Nuclides like me, you might want to hold on to those extra ones as Linoa's best weapon requires 2 of them and Quistis' requires 4. Speaking of weapons, one interesting thing I just noticed about the French version of the game is that Selphie's second-best weapon, called "Crescent Wish" in English, is known as "Islam Star" in the French version ("star" being in English in the actual text; it's not me translating) as the weapon features a moon crescent and a star, which frequently feature in Muslim art. This shows some of the cultural difference from one country to the other as French works are less shy about making religious references than English-language ones (or at least North-American ones).

Now armed with Squall's most powerful weapon, which also unlocks his most powerful attack, let's go to the research centre. You can find it at the the very South-West of the map and as I learned earlier, it is only accessible via the Hydre:




After we've landed, they wonder what this place is and Squall remembers hearing about it and explains that it's a mobile research centre which was searching the source of the magic draw points found all over the world. Interestingly, if Zell is in your party when you visit the place, he'll be the one giving the explaination and will actually give a few more details, showing his nerdy side. Also interestingly, in the Japanese and English versions (but not in the French on IIRC), and alternate name given to the centre is "Battleship Island", a reference to "Hashima Island", which also has that nickname and is also an abandoned complex that worked thanks to undersea digging, although the real one was a coal mine rather than a research centre.

Another common link is that both have a dark past as the real one became infamous due to the use of forced labour and the game one was sealed by the scientists that used to inhabit it in fear of what they had discovered. Once we get inside, we find this:




There is a large blue container which occasionally emits light and Squall wants to investigate it. We are then warned by a disembodied voice that "the blue light is a source of death". This is a clue that you shouldn't move while the light is shining. If we do, it triggers a random battle against enemies that you wouldn't think as particularly threatening as they are basic enemies you've encountered early in the game but at high level (as you will no doubt be at this point), they can have some strong attacks and be surprisingly dangerous, especially since whereas most random encounters have their level calculated by your party's average, the monsters in this area have theirs calculated by your average +15. The Succubes (Bomb) can be especially tricky as their explosion attack is now pretty much a death sentence. Be careful as sometimes, it tricks you as the light starts dimming but suddenly brightens again, so make sure it has stopped completely before moving.

Once we reach the container, the disembodied voice returns and asks "Do you dare defy me?" and although the answer is technically selectable, there is only one choice: "we come in peace". After selecting it, a fight against a Griffon begins. Needless to say, this part is very dangerous, especially if it does its fire breath attack which can 1-hit kill your entire party if they don't have high enough stats right from the start. I highly encourage you to have a character with Genki (Initiative, that ability that makes a character able to act as soon as battle begins) to use one of those Invincible which you have no doubt crafted from the Laguna card by now or use Degenerator in Quistis' case.

After we beat it, the voice asks another question "Do you scream for mercy?" and this time, we have a genuine choice between "unfortunately" and "never". Whichever one you pick you have to fight another Griffon, although you have to pick "Never" to advance. After that fight, the voice asks yet another question: "Poor cretins. Why wage war?" and you get a choice between "To protect something" and "mind your own business, pal". Neither answer is the correct one.

Seriously, if you pick either of them, you will just end up fighting Griffons and be asked the same question infinitely. What you actually have to do is go down after the second choice where you will be able to select a hidden third option with no text. Once you select it, it will have Squall (I presume) say "it is our nature. There is no justification", to which the voice will reply "impressive" and a fight will begin. Some people take that opportunity to farm Griffons and the Nuclides they drop but frankly, I find it unnecessarily risky especially since a drop is not guaranteed and you can't save or heal between fights. I find the Sulfor technique much more convenient in every way.

But anyway, it is now time to reveal what the source of the voice was:



"I am Bahamut"


None other than The King of Dragons himself, one of the oldest-running summons in Final Fantasy, Bahamut! Needless to say, he is an extremely powerful enemy. He is susceptible to Blind. Using it will make Bahamut miss with his claw attack so that's at least one way to make this fight a bit easier for you. Watch out for the Stop spell, which he can use and, as the name implies, prevents your character from acting for a few turns. And again, those Invincibles will come in handy. Another good thing to do is cast Carapace on your characters to defend against Ouroboros (Mega Flare), which he often uses twice in a row.

There is an interesting quirk to this fight as it has a unique animation for Squall's Renzokuken where he climbs on Bahamut's wings and dashes across his body to strike and he always strikes 6 times. And speaking of Limit Breaks, while Quistis obviously can't use her Degenerator here as this is a boss, Mitraille (Gatling Gun) is a very good alternative. I was going to recommend using Micro Missiles as well but as it turns out, it doesn't affect Bahamut.

I cannot stress enough just how strong he is and with the two Griffons before him presumably wearing your health down ( I highly recommand starting this with full HP), it's made even harder. After several tries, I do beat him and it's all thanks to a well placed Lion Heart, an attack which strikes 25 times and does massive damage with each strike. And it looks like this:




Bahamut is of course a very good G-Force to have as right from the start, it knows an ability that raises the user's strength by 60% as well as one that allows a character to activate 4 passive abilities at the same time AND an ability that allows you to craft forbidden magic (such as Météore and Ultima) from items. He's can learn other very useful abilities such as Piller, Atlas-HP (Move-HP-Up), which recovers health by walking, Auto-Carapace, which casts Protect on the character at all times and Sensor (Rare Item), which increases the drop rate of rare items.

After beating him, the group ends up in a room full of rubble with a hole in the ground and large roots coming from it. However, we can't go down there for now. We have to leave the centre and come back, then not only does a save point appear there but you can now climb down. Not sure why you have to leave before you can access the lower levels, my best guess is that it may have been done to fool the player into thinking that this is all there is to the area and make them miss the real pay-off. Yes, there is something even better than Bahamut in there.

So we go down and although the place is wrecked, it appears to still be functional as we can see steam coming from pipes. Squall finds a computer and we learn that in order to access the lower levels, we have to open a series of doors, which all require units of pressure. We start off with 20 and use 4 to open the first door. On the next floor, I can choose to use 1, 2 or 4 units. While 1 seems like the obvious choice to conserve units, using 2 will allow me to use more functions on lower floors, so I'll do this (no, using 4 does not unlock more functions, it just makes you waste 2 units).

On the next floor are two terminals, one opens the door to the next floor and one opens a pressure room. Note that this second terminal will not be there if you only used 1 unit in the previous room. Accessing the pressure room uses 4 units but inside, we can recover 10 (for a benefit of 6 extra units). From now on, you only need to use 1 unit per floor.

I arrive to a room which allows access to the archaeological site the centre was studying and activating the door to that uses up 4 units, leaving me with 10, granting us access to a very trippy area:





Now, here's something a bit weird. I have read several walkthroughs that claim the No-Combat ability does not work in this area because some of the fights are scripted. Well... obviously that's nor true because on every playthrough I've done including the one for this Let's Play, I used No-Combat here and it worked without any problem. The FF wiki does have an explanation for this discrepancy though as it states that in the room with the access door, you can have Zell force the door open instead of using pressure units and if you do that, the scripted encounters WILL occur even with No-Combat active.

I reach the bottom and find an excavation machine, which says that 10 pressure units are needed to "resume operations". What a coincidence! I just happen to have exactly 10 left. I activate it and a cable starts excavating something. A cutscene shows the cable going all the way back to the access door room. Things take a turn for the dramatic when an alarm goes off. Back at the bottom, the team sees that the crystals are starting to glow and a battle starts:




Ladies and gentlemen, behold! Monarch! Or as he is better known to the English-speaking world... Ultima Weapon! Yes, this is this game's version of one of the series' most famous recurring bosses and he proves he is worthy of his reputation immediately by KO'ing Squall immediately with two powerufl attacks right from the start. Extremely fast, extremely powerful, I don't think I really need to tell you but Ultima Weapon is a massive challenge. It is a damage sponge, boasting a whopping 160 000 HP at level 100. It uses some of the most powerful spells in the game such Météore, Quake or Gravija (remember? That one also used by Nosferatu that lowers your entire party's HP by two thirds?).

While he doesn't actually use the spell, you can draw Ultima from him, so if you fell the risk is worth it, go ahead and farm it from him. You can mug an item that teaches a G-Force an ability that allows the character to use three passive abilities at the same time but if you don't mug it, you get 100 Roc Ultima at the end of the fight, which can be used in battle to cast Ultima or refined into the spell, with each roc producing 1 Ultima. And oh yeah, you can draw Orbital (Eden) from him. It's only the most powerful Guardian Force in the whole game, no big deal.

Fun fact: you may have noticed from the screenshot that his design looks familiar. This is because it is basically an updated version of Ultimate Weapon from FF VII and it even uses Cloud's best weapon. Also, like with Bahamut, there is a unique sequence for the Renzokuken, this time causing 7 hits each time.

I spam Limit Breaks left and right and despite Ultima Weapon actually being stronger than Bahamut, I beat it on my first try and get Orbital out of the deal. Orbital is ludicrously powerful, being the only G-Force who can cause over 9999 HP of damage. In fact, it can easily cause up to 60 000 HP of damage when fully boosted with Turbo, which is easy to do thanks to his absurdly long summoning sequence, which allows you to max it out even if you screw up halfway through. It also knows Cannibale (Devour) from the start, a battle ability which allows the character to eat an enemy, killing it instantly and causing some effects to the user, ranging from full HP restoration and stats increase to massive HP loss and multiple negative status effects. It can also learn an ability that allows you to craft items that teach G-Forces abilities.

Hhaaaa... that power trip felt nice after getting so angry at the writing last time. Before we continue with the story, there are still a few things I'd like to do so we will see to it in part 34!

[SsnakeBite, the No1 Frenchman]

Part 34: Gotta catch 'em all

After we've acquired the two best Guardian Forces in the game, there are only two left before we have them all and I am going to get at least one of them in this part but before we do that, I would also like to advance the plot a little so first things first, since we're fairly close to it, let's go to Edea's orphanage.

Linoa and Edea finally meet for the first time (without counting the fights where it really was Ultimecia in Edea's body). Edea apologizes to Linoa for changing the course of her life but Linoa does not blame her and she asks Edea to help her become a benevolent witch. That's all there is to it for now so let's leave. We see Angel run towards another area to the side so let's follow her.



"It's really pretty"


The group arrives at a flowers field. Quistis says that in spite of the barriers Squall put around him, Linoa is part of his universe now and she is glad he is opening up. She even jokes that it's a good thing he didn't meet Linoa before the exam because he wouldn't have been able to think about anything else. Quistis then decides to leave the lovebirds alone and even Angel leaves, giving Squall a look that seems to say "don't blow it this time, dude!".

Linoa is worried about what she's going to become. Squall comforts her by saying that not all witches are evil. Linoa then says that even someone as good as Edea became possessed, and so it could happen to her too. She remembers how Ultimecia made her open Adel's sanctuary and is visibly scared of what else Ultimecia might make her do. She is horrified at the thought of turning evil, not only because she doesn't want to hurt people, but also because it would mean the SeeD would have to eliminate her, with Squall at their lead.

Squall replies that Linoa isn't the enemy, it's Ultimecia, and she is the one the SeeD has to eliminate. And yeah, that is a very good point. Killing Ultimecia's host is pointless as she's just going to hop to someone else and they'll have to do it all over again. He ends his speech by telling Linoa to stay close to him and he'll look after her. Linoa gets excited as those are the exact words "by which everything started" and indeed, if you go back to part 13, you'll see that he made that promise to her after Squall saved her from the Iguanors. Unfortunately, this just confuses Squall and Linoa gets upset, asking if he's already forgotten and then telling him to forget about it when he asks what she's talking about. Smooth as ever, Squall!

Squall apologizes, blaming the G-Forces for his forgetfulness although Linoa does not buy it (again, I love how she doesn't just take his shit). But still, she does feel better after he assured her of his support. She then confides in him about a nightmare she had. They promised each-other to go see shooting stars together. She dressed up and everything, even put on Squall's ring but unfortunately, Evan Bourne's match was canceled she couldn't remember where they were supposed to meet. She crossed plains, mountains, deserts, went to Timber, Balamb and Galbadia, desperately trying to find him. She realized she had nowhere to go and just wanted to see him and she screamed his name. Once she woke up, she was crying.

Squall says that it's just a nightmare and there is no need to try and make sense of it but he does give her a solution: he promises to be there. He explains that she couldn't find him because they never really made that promise, so he promises that if she looks for him, he'll be there and she says that she too will be there for him, echoing the words from the game's opening cutscene!

They are unfortunately interrupted by Zell, who says it's an emergency as they have been contacted by Esthar's government. They know how to kill Ultimecia, but they need the team's help. Squall worries that it might be a trap to make them take Linoa back, until Zell mentions that the guy who called them is named Kiros. This of course piques Squall's interest and they decide to go after all. One detail I'd like to mention because I find it cute is that as soon as he arrives, Zell turns around and delivers the news with his back to Squll and Linoa, as if he didn't want to disturb them in an intimate moment

Back at the entrance, Edea is waiting for us. If you go talk to her, she says that Squall was always looking for Ellone and wonders if he still seeks something. Trying to leave, she calls us and says she wants to talk to Squall about herself. She says she was a witch as a child and she became one again 13 years ago. She met a dying necromancer¹ and accepted to receive her powers so she wouldn't do it to one of the children. She then says that this sad tale ends today and tells him to follow his heart even if it means hurting someone else.

That... seems like a rather odd and questionable moral to this story. I think what she's trying to say is that her personal feelings for someone shouldn't prevent him from doing the right thing but it's an odd way to bring it up. You can now leave, but instead, I'd rather go back inside the orphanage and go talk to her again in the area where Cid is.

Here, she reveals that there is a way to remove the moral load of being a witch: she has to find a "dutiful knight", someone who will protect her to the death. She explains that since the dawn of time, necromancers have allied with fighters who supported them and guided them on the road towards good. She adds that Adel never had one. She thinks it's possible Ultimecia doesn't have one either; I guess Seifer is so pathetic he doesn't count. Linoa asks Edea if she has one. She says she does and he does all he can to help her. I assume she is talking about the pool boy because I don't see Cid doing that.

She goes on to explain that she can relieve herself of her worries through her knight, who won't suffer too much from it as he will receive her love in return. She asks Linoa if she thinks she can find a knight (what, is she as oblivious as Squall?) and Linoa jokes that her knight is not very dutiful (in the English version, she calls him an apprentice knight).

We can now leave and so it's time to go back to some G-Force hunting! So let's go to this island:



This place frustrated me a lot during my first playthrough as a kid because it looks like you could reach it by having the BGU hover from the mainland to it but no, it is just far enough that you will always just barely miss it. But now that we have the Hydre, we can just land there. You will notice a little green thing popping up there and moving from place to place. You may already have an idea of what it is and if you don't here's a hint: this isle is called "Île Pampa", which translates to... Cactuar Island.

Yes, continuing the trend from FFVI and VII, this game has an area full of Pampas (Catuar). As per tradition, they give very little experience but are great for other things, in this case, they all get you 20 Ability Points, which G-Forces use to learn new skills. Also as per tradition, they easily flee and are hard to kill due to having very high defence and evasion (meaning you will often miss). I have no qualms about using Limit Breaks on them to make sure they go down before they have a chance to escape.

However, the pampas themselves aren't the best part, it is that lone one on the overworld map. Because if you walk into it, it will trigger a fight against this guy:




Behold! Pampa Senior! (a.k.a. Jumbo Cactuar) And yes, it has a moustache, because this game is f'n awesome! Unlike his smaller counterparts, he doesn't flee, doesn't have as high defence and is a lot easier to hit (what with it being the size of a building). Still, don't think it's going to be an easy fight. IT has a ton of HP but more importantly, it has very powerful attacks such as "Badaboum" (Ker Plunk) where it just crashes into the ground, inflicting massive damage on the entire party. It also has 10 000 Epines (10 000 Needles), which causes 10 000 damage to a character regardless of their defence stat! Considering the player characters' HP caps at 9999, this is a problem.

Once again, Limit Breaks are recommanded as well using some of those 100 Invincibles. Note that this is another enemy with a unique Renzokuken and this one has 7 hits each time. Oh and remember when I said he doesn't flee? That's not entirely true as he will try to do that if his HP is below 5%. So he does flee, he just waits for you to be exhausted to troll you with it. One thing I always find amusing is that whereas every other monster in the game is lovingly animated with very complex moves that really show off the PlayStation's graphical capabilities, Pampa senior only has a handful of frames for his animations.

It takes me three tries but I beat him thanks to a well-placed Lion Heart. Defeating him nets me an item that teaches a G-Force an ability that raises the user's HP by 80%, which is of course excellent. And of course, I can now use Pampa Sr as a G-Force. Abilities-wise, it's nothing special but when summoned, his attack ignores defence so that can be very good against some of the tougher enemies, especially once you've raised his attack.

And now, it's time to get the last missing G-Force! This one takes some work so let's get to it. Remember those Occult Fan magazines we picked up? They gives hints for what to do although they are not necessary to complete the quest. First, we need to get to Tears Point. Be careful as there are enemies there including Ekarissor (Iron Giant), a massive enemy who deals heavy damage. Thankfully, his attacks are purely physical so blinding him renders him unable to do any damage as he will always miss. There are also two draw points, one for Vie and one for Boomrg.

Go to the large statue at the centre and you will see a round item which can be picked up:




Take it and you will be informed you obtained the station chief's ring (Solomon Ring in English). Next, you need 6 Samâdhis (Steel Pipes), 6 Remèdes + (Remedy +) and 6 Germes (Malboro Tentacle). Get it?! 6-6-6! Cute, FFVIII, real f'ing cute. The Samâdhis are only dropped by or mugged from Wendigos and Pikassos, but the Pikassos only appear during a few select events so off to Timber we go as the forest south of Obel Lake is full of them. Oddly, they don't drop any upon death at high level (whereas they do at low and medium level) but to make up for it, you can mug 4 of them at once. Since I already had two, this gets me the 6 I need. Oh and Squall also reached the level cap of 100.

Next are the Remèdes + which is a bit annoying because the only way to get those is to have Alexander learn an ability called Med NV + (Med LV up) that allows you to craft better healing items from basic ones, and before you can even make him learn that, he first has to know another ability, Schweitzer (Med Data) which doubles the effect of healing items and requires 200 ability points! Add the 120 points required for Med NV + and it's gonna take a while if you don't already have either of those. At least with the Pampas it doesn't take too long. Note that you'll need 10 Remèdes to create 1 remède + although you can just buy them at any general store and since I have the ability that allows me to browse stores from the menu, it's not an issue.

Well, all that's left is the Germes and since the English name is Malboro Tentacle you can guess who is the only monster that drops them. You can also craft 4 Xylomide cards into 1 Germe but finding those is a bit too random in my opinion so... we have to go Xylomide hunting and HOPE we don't get f***ed up by their attacks. The closest thing to a strategy I can offer is to have a character with the ability to act as soon as a battle begins and have them use their Limit Break or an Invincible on one of the characters before it has time to use its breath attack but even that will require a lot of luck so honestly, your best bet is to get a lucky Zantestsuken or maybe.

I also highly recommend junctioning status magic to your mental defence in order to resist at least some of the effects, especially Supplice (Pain) as boosting it to 100 can render the character immune to four statuses; this is where refining becomes especially useful as you can get 10 of these spells from 1 Weirdo (Curse Spike). Obviously, having Phoenix and Angel Daschund is very helpful.

There are multiple places where you can find Xylomides. There are some around Esthar City but they're fairly rare. You will find more on the Île de l'Enfer (Island Closest to hell) which I already mentioned before and the Île Paradisiaque, which is the easternmost of the three islands just north of the chocobo sanctuary. Both of these islands share two very attractive characteristics: they contain only the strongest and most dangerous non-boss monsters in the game, which all give a lot of EXP and drop great items and they are both covered in invisible draw points for extremely powerful magic such as Ultima so you might want to come here with No-Combat to fill up those spells.

In fact, you might want to do that BEFORE going Xylomide-hunting. There are also some in the Grandidi Forest near the Île Paradisiaque. In my experience, the Île Paradisiaque is where they appear most often. Another reason to go to there for that is the Adéphage enemy can appear there and they drop Weirdos, which you can also mug from them, so you can farm them to craft Supplices in preparation for the Xylomides.

Eventually, I do beat one (well, two but the first one didn't drop any Germe) and thankfully it was worth it as it dropped 8 Germes, more than I need. Like I said earlier, this and the Île de l'Enfer are full of monsters that drop great items for refining stuff and crafting the strongest weapons so do not hesitate to come back to either of them if you ever find yourself in need of anything. Just make sure you prepped for it.

Well, I now have all the items I need so let's go to the items menu and use the station chief's ring. This plays a creepy sound followed by text boxes saying "You summoned my power? My name is..."




Here is Helltrain, called Doomtrain in English. Not sure why he was renamed since it's still in English, maybe the translators figured French people would be more familiar with the word "Hell" than "Doom" but even that seems kind of pointless (and he is also known as Helltrain in Spanish according to the FF wiki). This GF presumably a reference to the Phantom Train from FF6 (which has a lot in common with 8, come to think of it) and it is fantastic for character building as it can learn a skill that allows four elemental magic junctions (for making the character more resilient to those spells) AND one that allows the same thing for mental magic (as in, magic that causes status effects). It also knows an ability that allows to junction a status magic to physical attacks and one that does the same with elemental magic from the get-go as well as one that allows you to use weapons shops from the menu.

As for other abilities it can learn, there are some very good ones as well such as refining objects into forbidden medical spells. Auto-Blindage which casts Shell on the user permanently as long as it's active. When summoned, not only does it cause damage but it also causes a variety of status effects on the enemy so it can be very good in combat as well. An interesting bit of trivia is that in the debug menu (accessible via cheat devices), he is known as "Death Express" which I've got to say is a much cooler name than either version but unfortunately, it was changed because it was over the character limit. However, the name of his attack in the French version is still Death Express.

And with him on my side...




... I have caught them all!! I have filled my pokédex and now all there is left to do is take on the Elite Fou- oh wait, wrong game. But yes, I have now collected all 16 G-Forces in the game, which will help me build my team to perfection. This is actually the first playthrough I've done where I have had them all before the 4th CD so I am very happy to have finally pulled this off and this is another way I keep discovering new things about this game over 15 years later. This is one of the major reasons why I love this game so much. It's the gift that keeps on giving and like an old friend, it always has something new fun for you to do with it.

But anyway, enough of that sentimental nonsense! I'll see you next time for part 35 where we will answer Esthar's call and maybe do some more side-quest stuff if there's time. Until then, see ya!





¹ Yeah, the French translation likes to occasionally refer to the sorceresses as "necromancers" and I don't know why considering their powers aren't related to necromancy and as far as I remember, it is not a thing in the English version and I don't think it happens in the Japanese one either.

[SsnakeBite, the No1 Frenchman]

Part 35: Make Esthar Great Again

Before we get to the meat of this part, I am happy to announce that I did some item-collecting off-screen and so, every character including the ones I usually don't use now has their best weapon. Also, Linoa learned Phantasm (Wishing Star), her most powerful Limit Break and the most powerful attack in the game when fully boosted. So that's all very nice.

We arrive at Esthar and things are looking bad. Monsters can now attack, soldiers are running around everywhere, some of then have been knocked down, citizens are panicking and this guy just straight-up broke:




We make it to the presidential palace and are allowed inside the presidential suite. There are two men in robes who Squall immediately recognizes as Ward and Kiros (which they spelled Kyros again) and there is also a long-haired doofus in a shirt, cargo pants and freaking flip-flops. Of course someone with this sort of fashion sense can only be Laguna, who introduces himself as the president of Esthar.

... pfffffrrrrt!! Funny joke, Laguna! But seriously, where's the president, this is kind of an emergency situation (despite me taking the time to f*** around last time)... Well? ... Oh my Hyne... it's not a joke, Laguna really is Esthar's president. He is very happy to finally meet the people he kept hearing in his mind and says that we don't have much time but he still wants to talk. Kiros says that if he gets going, we're gonna be here all night and suggests focusing the discussions on a few points. I can now move around again and talk not only to Laguna but the other NPCs as well and I do like how Linoa says that Laguna & co "look kind of funny". We get a list of topics:




The topics are: "how do we kill Ultimecia?", "Ellone's story", "Tell me about Raine" and "What are you doing here?". Well, I think clearly the most pressing issue is how Laguna managed to become president. Laguna is aware that Squall already knows a lot about him and he tells him what he learned from the dreams, my favourite part being him saying that he didn't like Laguna's humour. Still, he admires his leadership skills and wants to know how Laguna became president.

Laguna explains that Adel and Geyser (who Laguna obviously dislikes which I think is an interesting dynamic considering he still keeps him around) were willing to do anything to keep Ellone and he wouldn't have been able to rescue her without the rebels fighting against Adel. He explains that after rescuing her and ending Geyser's experiments, they had two problems: prevent the monolith (as in Lunatic Pandora) from attracting monsters and liberate Esthar from Adel. Their plan was to trap Adel using Lunatic Pandora.

First, using Geyser's knowledge and equipment (which I presume is why Laguna didn't just throw his ass in jail), they moved the crystal pillar (which is inside Lunatic Pandora) and tossed it into the ocean. This obviously pissed Adel off mightily and the second part of the plan was to lure Adel by telling her they'd found the person responsible for moving the crystal pillar and that they had taken Ellone hostage. Adel, obsessed with Ellone's power, fell for it and they managed to trap her into a device similar to the one Linoa was nearly imprisoned in:




However, even neutralized like that, she was too much of a threat, so they sent her into space using the Hydre and two other identical ships. After that, Laguna decided to stay in Esthar and he admits that even he doesn't know why he was named president. He also wishes he'd never sent Ellone back to live with Raine as when she died, the orphanage was the only solution for Ellone and he also regrets not being able to see Raine one last time. Before he could get to the orphanage and take Ellone back, she was gone without a trace. He no longer had the courage to go around the world and so he focused on his duties as president.

Asking about Raine doesn't achieve much as Laguna doesn't want to talk about it for now saying that it's another sad chapter of his existence. Asking about Ellone, on the other hand, is very interesting. Laguna explains that when Ellone was 2, Adel was searching for a heiress and kidnapping little girls everywhere she could. As a result, she attacked Winhill and ordered Ellone's parents to give up their daughter in order to find a heiress for her.

They refused and were executed but thankfully Ellone escaped and their neighbour, Raine, adopted her. She must have met Laguna soon after as he says he and Raine were "very close" and Esthar's cyborgs were after them both and eventually kidnapped Ellone. He managed to rescue her and sent her back to Raine in Winhill while he helped rebuild Esthar. Unfortunately, Rained died soon after and Ellone was placed in Edea's orphanage by the people of Winhill.¹

Squall asks why he didn't just stay in Winhill and live with Ellone. Apparently, that is what he wanted to do, hoping to return once his work in Esthar was done but sadly, Raine died before it could happen. Because Geyser was doing everything in his power to find her, Cid and Edea had the White SeeDs ship built for the specific purpose of guarding Ellone and sent her there and so when Laguna found the orphanage, Ellone was already gone.

Ellone lived there for 10 years and as time went by, the ship turned into an orphanage as well and Ellone even became the head of the orphanage. Not long ago, Galbadia attacked the ship but Esthar's cyborgs rescued Ellone and took her to Esthar. Since he was in space to check on Adel's sanctuary at the time, she was sent there as well and after all these years, he finally got to meet her again. Unfortunately, Galbadia captured her immediately after her pod landed back on Earth and she is now held captive inside Lunatic Pandora.

Finally, it's time to ask how to eliminate Ultimecia once and for all and his plan is simple: build a wall around Lunatic Pandora and make Galbadia pay for it. Wait, no, actually Geyser enters the room to brief us on the situation. Edea explained to him that Ultimecia is a sorceress from the future who possesses the current sorceress. Only her mind goes back in time, with her body staying in the future. Squall rightfully points out that this is similar to Ellone's power. Geyser originally thought someone with the same power was sending Ultimecia back in time but Geyser excitedly explains that it's actually his fault.

In Ultimecia's time, Geyser figured out the mechanism of Ellone's power and built a machine with the same power,allowing Ultimecia to set her plan in motion. This is also how Ultimecia discovered Ellone and began chasing her. So, really, this whole thing is Geyser's fault, we could just cut his head off right now and prevent that from happening. Sure maybe it wouldn't work due to multiple timelines and stuff and in fact, the game does seem to imply that's the case but still, that's worth a try, right?

Well, apparently, murder is not the answer and in fact, Laguna even says that it's pointless to get mad at Geyser because he doesn't understand a thing. Welp, can't argue with that. Anyway, geyser then explains that the only way to kill Ultimecia is to go back to the future and while that sounds crazy, there is one way. You see, in order for Ultimecia to exist, she needs to possess the present witch (which is what happened to Edea and Linoa) and Ultimecia needs to go very far into the past in order to make the compression happen. The machine can't do it, but Ellone can, hence why Ultimecia needs her.

Geyser says we have to use Ellone's gift and goes on to explain that there are actually two witches in the current day: Linoa and Adel, since Adel, now inside Lunatic Pandora, is about to awaken. Ultimecia wants to hop inside Adel and because Adel is so bloodthirsty, Linoa will have to keep Ultimecia under control. Then Ellone will send Adel back to the past, leaving her body defenceless so we can kill her, leaving Linoa as the only sorceress, forcing Ultimecia to hop into her body. Then Ellone will send Linoa into the past, at which point Squall will kill her too, traumatizing him for life. Nah, just kidding. What will probably happen according to geyser is that Ellone will have to send Ultimecia and Linoa into a past necromancer (again with calling the witches/sorceresses necromancers, as if the switch between the two words wasn't confusing enough).

Once in the past, Ultimecia will begin the time compression and Linoa and Ultimecia will be able to be sent back to their own time by Ellone. Past, present and future will have started to fuse, but with Ellone sending Linoa and Ultimecia back, the compression will be temporarily halted, allowing us to travel through time. Then we'll have to find Ultimecia in the future and kill her. Now is your last chance to move around the place and talk to the NPC. And most importantly, to challenge Laguna to a game of Triple Triad (actually I'm pretty sure you can challenge him later by coming back here but I'd rather not risk it)! Why is this important? Because he has Squall's card!

Laguna asks if we're gonna do it and of course we say yes! Laguna says that they'll have one last briefing inside the Hydre and that he always wanted to get inside it. Also as everyone leaves, you can see Ward now has a thick beard. In case all of that was a bit too hard to digest, Laguna gives us the simple version of the plan:

1. Rescue Ellone;
2. Fight Adel;
3. Since Linoa is a sorceress, Adel will transfer her powers to her before dying. After that, wait for Ultimecia to possess Linoa;
4. Send Linoa and Ultimecia to the past;
5. Bring Linoa back and wait for the time compression to begin;
6. Use the time compression to find Ultimecia;
7. Have sandwiches with Kill Ultimecia.

Linoa realizes that it is especially risky for her but she accepts her role without flinching. Laguna admires her bravery and tells the group to always think of the other members of the team. That way, they cannot get lost in the compression. They need to keep thinking about their friends and about a place that reminds them of them. He concludes by saying that they only need 3 things: love, friendship and courage. As everyone leaves, Squall tells him that it may sound silly but at the end of the day, love and friendship is all anyone really wants.

And we're off for Lunatic Pandora! ... Later! Because as you may have guessed from that briefing, once we get to Lunatic Pandora, we reach the point of no return before the end of the game. Well, we can leave LP before the end of CD 3 but I'd really rather do it all in one go so before we launch our assault on Lunatic Pandore, let's finish the side quests! Now I'm warning you right now, I'm not going to do them all right now and it's gonna require at least one more part, although as far as I remember, we don't have too much left to do before we can go on with the plot.

First, it's more an Easter egg than a side quest but if you go back inside the Hydre and inside the passengers room where Laguna briefed us. Talk to him and he'll say...




"We will talk again when it's all over. I have a lot of things to tell you. But, I would understand if you refused to listen to me." Wha... where did that come from? That was weirdly dark. Alright, erm... what does Kiros have to say?

"You take a lot after your mother." Wait, WHAT?! They know Squall's mother?! Ward! What do YOU say?! Oh right, you're mute, you don't say anything. Well, Kiros does understand what he means and explains that Ward says "What luck that you don't take after your father". Wait, now they know his mother AND his father?! And why are they saying that it's a good thing that Squall doesn't resemble his father? Who is h... wait. No? Nnnooooo?! No way! Laguna?! Laguna is Squall's father?!!

Well yes, I don't know how obvious to you guys it was but back when someone connected the dots for me (and to be fair, I had missed some of the dots to begin with), it blew my freaking mind. Alright so it's never explicitly stated and as far as I'm aware it hasn't been officially confirmed by Square but the game is full of tiny hints that Squall is Laguna's son he had with Raine. First, looking at their names in succession like that, you can see they're all connected to water in some way (granted, squalls are winds but they usually accompany rain). Then there's the fact that we were told that Raine died soon after giving birth but we were never told what happened to the child, which is especially odd considering she's a fairly important character and the love interest for one of the main characters.

The most obvious link of course, is that during the dreams, although different characters can be sent in Kiros and Ward's bodies, Squall is always sent in Laguna's, suggesting that Ellone is aware of their father-son connection and wants to give Squall an opportunity to learn more about his father considering he never got to grow up with him.

Then there were the Moombas, who can recognize DNA and went "Laguna!" upon meeting Squall. Why would they think it was him unless they recognized his DNA? There are also tons of other smaller hints like Laguna having Squall's Triple Triad card so I'm sure I'm forgetting a lot of things here. Apparently what happened (and is confusingly brought up earlier) is that after Laguna rescued Ellone, he sent her to live with Raine in Winhill while he stayed in Esthar to help fight Adel.

Unfortunately, Raine died while giving birth to Squall and both he and Ellone were sent to Edea's orphanage. Laguna came back too late, unaware of Squall's birth and possibly even of Raine's pregnancy and as mentioned above, by the time he found Edea's orphanage, Ellone had already been sent to the White SeeDs ship and it was presumably decided that for Ellone's safety, it would be best to let the White SeeDs handle it. And just to ruin the mood, I would also like to remind you that Laguna and Julia used to flirt, so Squall and Linoa were nearly siblings.

And on that bombshell, let's continue as we can finally end a quest that I have been on since the first CD, the Obel Lake. One of the hints the shadow gives you is "something is waiting for you atop the mountain near the cave's lake". This is a hint about the nearby Plateau Monterosa, which is only accessible via the Hydre.



Seen here


If you land at the top and check just above the river (not a lake, game and yes, that mistake is present in both the French and English version), you will get a text prompt saying a bird is warming an egg. You can choose to either check it or leave it alone. Checking it will start a battle against two Malakus and leaving at alone will just cancel although apparently, you can leave it alone and check back until the bird is gone to get some food to avoid the fight. After that, I find another carved rock and Squall comments that I now have them all, with the carvings being RRRY, OMS1, DAEA, ROOT.

Well that sure still seems to say nothing, it looks more like a software registration key than a hint. So let's go see if our friend the shadow can think of something. Well... not really, it just rearranges the signs as:

RRRY
DAEA
OMS1
ROOT

Wait! If I read the signs from top to bottom and right to left, I get: Y A 1 TRESOR A MORDOR (There's a treasure at Mordor). This refers to a location between two mountain ranges north of Esthar (interestingly, near the mountains where Laguna filmed his movie, and you can actually visit the area where that scene took place although there isn't anything of interest other than a save point and some weak monsters). I'm pretty sure this area is only accessible via Hydre as well since the mountains block the BGU's path. Look around and eventuall you will get a message prompt:




Squall found multicoloured stones that look like faces. The first one I find is called Azur and says "some of us repeat the same thing ad nauseam", "They call us the trickster stones", "Some us really just spout nonsense", "Some us say the opposite of what they mean" and "I don't know where to find the treasure".

Next, I find one called Oxyde which says "The treasure is West you idiot!", "The treasure is North, useless!". Since it repeats these two directions, I'm banking on it being the one saying the opposite of what it means and I got to the South-East.

I find one named Chine, who keeps yelling random directions so clearly that's the one who spouts nonsense.

I keep heading to the South-East and find another one, called Ebène. All it says is "the treasure is towards the North Star". Obviously, that's the one that always repeats the same thing.

With those directions, I basically go on an easter egg hunt, mostly using Exyde's hints and doing the opposite (a good trick is to keep pressing X when you find this guy until he gives you two directions so you have a more precise idea of where to go) until finally it says "The treasure isn't here, idiot!" at which point I check again and what do you know, the treasure IS here! It is a Trilogie (Three Stars), an item that teaches a G-Force an ability that makes the user only use up one spell while under the Triple status (so you'll still cast three spells but only use one). Not super great although it can be refined into 100 of the Triple Spell which is great for junctionning to speed or evasion so there's that. Plus I just wanted to do the quest for the sake of completion.

I'm gonna stop here for now so I'll see you next time for part 36, where we will finish the Cards Queen quest and hopefully more!



¹ I simplified a lot because it is very confusingly written, to the point I was under the impression that he was saying Raine was originally Estharian and left for Winhill after Adel killed Ellone's parents when in reality, both she and the parents always lived in Winhill. I was especially confused because in the dream sequence, we learn Laguna and Raine met after he fell from the excavation site and she nursed him back to health and she already lived in Winhill with Ellone then. The dialogue also has Laguna say he was the one who placed Ellone in Edea's orphanage when obviously it was the Winhill people who did it as he didn't know of the orphanage until he came back and every other piece of dialogue in the game goes in that direction.

It's even generally accepted in the fandom that Leonhart was Raine's maiden name and since the Winhill inhabitants resented Laguna, they decided to name her child after her so yeah, I'm pinning the line about Laguna placing Ellone in the orphanage himself as a translation mistake.

[SsnakeBite, the No1 Frenchman]

Part 36: I'm not saying it's aliens, but...

Welcome my friends, to what will be the last bit of faffing around that you will see for this entire Let's Play for there are only two side quests left to complete and in fact, we have already started both of them. For starters, remember that UFO carrying a cow near Winhill that I totally ignored back in part 23? Well, as you may have predicted, it wasn't just a random Easter egg, it is part of a side quest and now, we can complete it. Right, there three more locations where we can see it and each time, it carries a different item.

Note that these appearances are scripted, meaning that they happen even if you have No-Combat active, which is actually a great way of doing this quest without having to go through endless battles.I am currently next to Shumi Village so the closest location is this small island in Crête d'Heath (Heath Peninsula), which is east of Trabia:




As soon as I landed the Hydre, the encounter started, with the UFO carrying a weird green thing that's hard to make out but turns out to be a crop circle:



So that's two sightings down, two more to go. Next, I'm going to Kashkabald Desert, which is technically part of Esthar but is actually on the southern half of the Centra continent, North-east of Pampa Island. Really you shouldn't have a hard time finding it as it is large and is the only desert-like area on the continent. Stick around the westernmost part of the desert and you will soon have your third encounter of the closed kind. Wait, I think I got that wrong.




This one is carrying a pyramid around. We all need hobbies. For the fourth and final sighting, we need to fly over to Timber or more specifically, to a beach east of it called Mandy Beach. Again, shouldn't be very hard to locate as it is the only beach around, at least on the mainland.



This one is carryins a moai statue as the Square developers are apparently fascinated by those. I should point out that the battles apparently begin as soon as you enter the general area where they can occur, so don't be afraid about having to look around, it shouldn't take long to find them. Now that we have seen it lug those random objects around, we are finally ready to confront it! ... I guess. To do that, we need to travel to Grandid Forest, which we have visited before; it's that huge forest north of Eastar that has the Chocobo Sanctuary in it. In fact, we need to land on the mountains just north of the sanctuary.

Once again, a scripted battle begins even with No-Combat on.. This time, though, it really IS a battle as you can fight the flying saucer. Bizarrely, both the English and Japanese versions call it "UFO?" whereas the French version does away with the question mark. Also, it is still called UFO despite the French term being OVNI (for Objet Volant Non-Identifié)




After you've "beaten" it (not that it's much of a fight since it has vary little HP and doesn't attack), it goes out of control and crashes on the horizon (no, not the town). It will also drop a Shadow (Aegis Amulet), an item which lets a G-Force learn an ability that allows the user to junction magic to evasion, making them more likely to avoid physical attacks. This, by the way, is the only way you can obtain this item in battle and the only way to get it outside of battle is to refine 50 (yes, fifty) of an item that can only be obtained from Behemoth into one Shadow.

After that, we have to head towards Balamb and go visit the crater that has taken the place of where the BGU once stood get close to it and you will be confronted by this adorable bugger:




This is Koyo-K, known as PuPu in the English version. Note that in the Japanese version, it is known as Koyokoyo, which is is another hint at the French version being based on the Japanese one, although interestingly, the English version keeps the idea of having the name be a repetition of the same sound. Anyway, you can kill it if you want. And if you're awful. It is literally the weakest monster in the entire game and one of if not the weakest monster in the entire franchise, boasting a dizzying 10 HP no matter at what level he is.

If you find it in your rotten black heart to murder the little guy, it will drop the item Speedy (Accelerator), which teaches a G-Force Auto-Booster (Auto-Haste), a passive skill which, when active, casts Haste on the user by default.

If you are a valid member of the human species though, you will notice than he requests elixirs. You need to give him 5 of them to make him happy, at which point he will leave and give you his card. His card is... not so great. It does have one A but all the other values are very weak, so it will only come in handy in very specific situations. HOWEVER! It can be modded into a Régime (Hungry Cookbook), which teaches a G-Force Kannibal, which as I mentioned earlier is a very good battle skill as not only does it kill the enemy instantly (assuming they are weak enough) but depending on the enemy devoured can gets you amazing perks, including permanent stat boosts.

So yeah, overall, you have a lot more to gain from letting Koyo-K live. The only problem with that is even having 5 Elixirs as under normal conditions, they can only be dropped by a few specific bosses (one of which is in the fourth CD!) and one can be obtained from the dog side quest in Dollet. This is why I highly recommand having the Connaisseur ability before doing this quest as it will allow you to buy Elixirs from Esthar's shop.

And with that, we have only one side quest left to do, one of the very first we ever started in fact, all the way back in part 4: Ishtar, the Queen of Cards. She is still in Horizon (which you can land on with the Hydre, at which point you will enter Horizon from next to the mayor's house) and last time we interacted with her, I lost the Tauros card to her. So let's continue this investment and let her win the Chicobo card.

If for some reason you feel like it, you can also go back and visit the BGU and even use it again although it doesn't do anything the Hydre can and you will have to go back to Horizon to recover the Hydre. It is a good opportunity to go check on those Laguna stories that Selphie has compiled from the Timber Maniacs issues we found if you haven't done so yet though. You can check them by going in the classroom, using Squall's computer and going on Selphie's web page.

Anyway, after getting my card, Ishtar says that she'll go to Esthar so off we go. But before we go inside Esthar City, checking the FF wiki made me realize I missed something vital: the next card, Alexander. Now don't worry! We can still get it and in order to do so, we need to go to the Escape Pod Crash Site. Not ours, but Piet's. Indeed, you can find Piet's crashed pod and he is still next to it with a nurse at his side. This has got to be THE most secret location in the entire game as it is not only not marked on the map but there is no indication it exists on the overworld.

To find it, you have to go to the southernmost point of the Estharian continent. There is a strait there and the pod is on the Eastern side. More specifically, here:




You can find Piet here, where he'll say he's been fired (what, was he supposed to stop the Lunar Cry on his own?!) but he is still in the mood for a card game and he has the Alexander card. I win it but unfortunately, I lost some good cards in the process (including my newly-gained Koyo-K card ) and stupidly saved right after instead of resetting. As for IShtar, she's livin' it up in the presidential palace:




Due to the Random rule being applied, it's actually quite difficult to do this next part as I need to lose the Alexander part. However, it did teach me something surprising. You see, the trading rule is randomized each time you challenge her so you can keep challenging her and cancelling the game until you get the one you want, AND you can then use that to spread the trade rule you want. I also noticed that she does play the rare cards lost to her, but she needs to still have them until she goes back to Dollet for the quest to advance and once that happens, she won't have them any more but someone else will so fear not).

I also discovered that you can make her move by winning rare cards from her. Now, she doesn't have any by default so it can only be done by winning back your own cards and therefore won't help advance the quest but you can use that to mover he around and have her influence the rules of the region you want.

*Several hours later*

Uuurrrrrrgh... well, in a desperate attempt to get Ishtar to move to a place that doesn't use that f'n worthless piece of shit rule Random, I won back a card from her, making her leave for... Lunar Gate, the problem being that THIS area also uses random. In fact, it uses EVERY rule, making it especially obnoxious. I did eventually manage to lose my Alexander card (yay) so she'll be moving again. Of course, when she leaves Lunar Gate, her next location is random without even giving a clue as to where she's going because why should ANYTHING about this bloody quest be easy on the player?!

Yeah, in case you can't tell, I'm getting very frustrated. And now I have to lose my Chicobo card again too. *sigh* Here we go with travelling the World to find her. One good thing to come out of this is that during my travels, I discovered that the guy standing nect to the hotel in Balamb has the Zéphyr card so I at least got another rare card out of the deal. Well, I find her in Deling City and FINALLY manage to get rid of the stupid Random rule. So I lose the Chicobo card and... she decides to go to Horizon... meaning I have to lose more rare cards in order to make her go to Dollet. GAAAAAAAAH!!

Well, hopefully I can lose only one and win it back to get her moving. I do eventually manage to have her go to "Trabia", by which she means Shumi Village, so that's another layer of confusion to add to this quest. I mean yeah, Shumi Village technically IS in Trabia but would that be your first guess when there's a location called Fac de Trabia (Trabia Garden)?! Seriously, how did anyone ever complete this without a guide or walkthrough? On the plus side, when she goes there, she has a 50% chance of hauling her ass to Dollet so we're getting closer! Finding her is fairly easy as she'll be in the hotel's lobby, the hotel being the first building you see when you enter the village:




PHEW!! Finally I manage to lose the Chicobo card again AND she says she's going to Dollet. Amusingly, she says she's going to "teleport [her]self there". I wonder if it's another example of the French translation breaking the fourth wall. But yeah, at last we can move on to the second part of the quest. I find her on the second floor of the pub where talking to her shows an extra dialogue option: "your father is an artist?". She explains that he paints playing cards and adds that she gave her son the MiniMog card and her father used it as inspiration to create the Kiros card, which is in Deling City.

I... I see how a picture of a pink kitten with bat wings would inspire you to create one about a soldier who looks like a young Michael Jackson. At least it's nice that she tells us where to find it. She says similar things about the other cards. The Taurus card inspired an Irvine card (again, makes perfect sense) which is in Horizon. The Chicobo card inspired the GroChocobo (Chubby Chocobo) card, which is in the BGU and the Alexander card inspired the Helltrain card, which is in Timber (another connection between Timber and trains). Finally, she says she'd like to have the Helltrain card so her dad can use it as further inspiration. Couldn't he have just kept it? Oh, whatever.

So yeah, you can get the cards you lost back by beating her son at Triple Triad, her son being the kid who painted bones on her father's paintings in that earlier side quest. Before I get to that though, I'd rather go and get the Helltrain card so I can continue the quest so let's go to Trabia. The card is held by the pub owner (the man in purple at the back of the pub).

So I get the Helltrain card, lose it to Ishtar, she goes to Balamb and after sacrificing my Ifrit card, she goes back to Dollet and FINALLY the last card is made: Phénix, which you can find in the possession of the presidential aide in Esthar's presidential palace.

If you want the NPCs holding the other new cards: Kiros is held by an NPC dressed in black in the Deling City commercial district, Irvine is held by Flo and GroChocobo is held by a student sitting on the bench next to the BGU library.


Aaaaand done! The quest is wrapped up, mercifully, it's over and that also takes care of all side quests in the game. I'm terribly sorry it took me so long to post this part but it took me two days to finish this quest. TWO. BLOODY. DAYS. It's sad that it got me so frustrated because it can actually be a fun way to visit the game's world, especially if you do it near the end (and you'll have to since you need the Alexander card, which can only be obtained from Piet), it would give you an opportunity to take one last look at all the locations you've visited before moving on to the last part of the game.

Unfortunately, dealing with Ishtar's teleportation (even though you CAN try and cheese it by resetting the game when she doesn't go where you want although that's still tedious as hell) and desperately trying to manipulate the rule changes so you don't have to bother with f'n Random got real annoying real fast. So yeah, add this to the "neat idea, bad execution" pile.

And yet, as annoyed as I got, I feel it was worth it as for the first time, I got to finish every quest in my favourite video game of all time, a piece of my childhood. And I couldn't have been happier than by sharing it with you guys. So next time, it's part 37, where we will take our first step towards the end of the game by attack Lunatic Pandora. See you there!

[SsnakeBite, the No1 Frenchman]

Part 37: Complete lunacy

Oh jeez! Has it been over a week already?! I'm so sorry to have made you wait so long. Anyway, yes. It's time! Let's take on Lunatic Pandora! All characters in my party are level 100, have a max HP of 9999, are immune to all elemental magic, all have statuses associated to their physical attacks, all have their best weapons, all have their stats boosted. I'm ready for this! To board LP, we have to take the Hydre. Now, Pandora doesn't look like it has any docking station or anything so how are we going to board it?

Well... you know the saying "when all you have is a hammer..."?




You know, sometimes I love how this game gives not one single f***. Another thing I love is Selphie just sitting there smiling, seemingly very proud of what she's done:




Anyway, at this point you can still ask Selphie to take off and you can go back and explore the World if you want to although as I mentioned earlier, there is nothing left for me to do so I won't be doing that. Instead, let's go inside. Obviously, this entrance attracted the attention of the residents and it isn't long before we get a welcome service, who are none other than...




... Raijin and Fujin! They demand that we hand over Linoa. Of course, Squall replies that he'd never give her up to them (Esthar, it's a different story) and says they'll take back Ellone while they're at it. Obviously we are at an impasse here so we fight. The fight isn't very different from the first time we encountered them except they're a bit stronger and more resilient. I quickly neutralize Fujin by making her go to sleep thanks to Squall's physical attack junction. Raijin is blinded by Linoa's attack and since my characters' strength is boosted so much, he goes down after a couple more turns and Fujin follows suit soon enough. They drop a Megalixir as well as a Bonus Vgr (Str Up), an item which permanently increases a character's strength stat by 1. Noice.

They flee, claiming that we haven't seen the last of them. We proceed and eventually meet a familiar pair: a Galbadian commander and his solider acolyte. Indeed, Wedge and Biggs are here as well and... we don't fight them. In fact, they lament the fact that they have to follow some kids' orders and decide to quit on the spot. Biggs even invites Wedge to have a drink with him. Aw, those two, you know they're going to end up together. That said, they do worry about their pay... and they apparently decide to "leave" by going further down LP (then again, I don't imagine the regular exit is a large hole through the side of the structure).

We keep going and we come across a fork. Going left, there is an elevator that takes us to the hall Zell & co ended up in when they entered Lunatic Pandora. We can of course use the other two elevators but to keep it simple, I will first check the right path at the fork. It takes us to a tunnel which connects to an area where we can take elevator number 3 and also go back to the hall. Sweet, so I guess I don't have to check on that later on. This is also where we start noticing the consequences of what we did as Laguna's team as we can use a boulder moved by them to access this area without having to take a detour to use the elevator.




Speaking of Laguna's influence, if you takes the stairs at the bottom right, you will find an area with a ladder. use it and you will realize this is where Laguna found and lost a key. There is a Folie (Confuse) draw point here. I find it cute that it's located exactly where Laguna was standing when he lost the key. If you got the scene with the key, you can go into the tunnel to the right (which is a dead end) and you'll find an item called Amour Bestial (LuvLuvG) which raises a character's compatibility with all G-Forces by 20, making summoning them faster. Also, I would like to question the French translation here because it REALLY makes it sound like there is bestiality going on. Or at the very least some rough, animalistic sex.

If you go left, you will find the trapdoors Laguna's team opened, only they are now on the wall (as the crystal pillar actually turned 90 degrees since Laguna's time as it was on its side back then). This allows you to go inside and each one contains something good: V-Choc (Power Generator), which teaches Quistis the "Shockwave" (Ray Bomb) Limit Break¹ and the only other way to get it is to mug it from Tikal and be very, very lucky as there likelihood of getting that item is extremely low, a Silence draw point and a Golgotha (Phoenix Pinion), as in, the item to summon Phénix², not the G-Force.




Going further left, we find a Baston Magazine 5 which only appears if you had Laguna use the detonator. I already bought in Esthar (thanks to the "connaisseur" skill) so that's an alternate way to obtain it. If you all the way to the back and cross the doorway to the left, you will find an Ultima draw point. Nothing more to see here so let's climb the ladder back up and go through the path to the right. This takes us to a looooong tube which... is a dead end. Well, that's that so let's go back to the elevators hall and use elevator number 1.

This takes us to the hallway where Laguna's team moved the boulder? There is now a cavity in its place and going inside one can find a Livret Vts-A (Spd-J Scroll) which teach a G-Force an ability that allows the user to junction magic to speed. This is actually very good as Speed is a highly underrated stat in this game as not only does it make your character faster but it also influences the Evasion stat which raises the character's chance to dodge a physical attack (in fact, Linoa's is so high that she now dodged a quarter of the physical attacks against her).

Next, we arrive at another crossroads with a save point, which I highly recommand using. We can go forward or right and as we've seen with Zell's team, going right is another dead end so let's go forward. Raijin and Fujin are back but this time, they won't fight. Instead, they have a surprise for us:




This is Anakronox (Mobile Type 8), which you may recognize as the machine which threw Zell's team out earlier. This is quite a tough boss and is a rather good benchmark of whether or not you're ready for the fourth CD. Come to think of it, I'm pretty sure this is exactly why this boss exists in the first place. Now of course, being a machine it... has resistance to lightning?! Clever girl. And really, it doesn't have many weaknesses. One thing to keep in mind is that as long as its two pods are attached to the body, it will counter attack with homing lasers if you attack the body and these attacks can be very powerful, so it's wiser to attack the pods first and wait for them to detach before attacking the main body.

However, the pods detaching isn't all good news as it also means Anakronox can use its Corona attack, which reduces the entire party's HP to 1! So have a character on the lookout for an emergency healing. Thankfully, a well-placed Renzokuken made possible by the Corona finished the boss, hoist by his own petard. Raijin and Fujin retreat to a room at the end of the hallway. This is your last chance to save and/or exit Lunatic Pandora and finish side quests so take it if you need it because next time, we reach the point of no return: we fight Seifer for the last time and set the plan to execute Ultimecia in motion.





¹ This, by the way, is an attack used by Goliath. Remember that guy? The giant mechanical spider? From the very beginning of the game?

² It is incorrectly referred to as "Phénix" when found, a mistake I somehow didn't catch when it also happened in Shumi Village.

[SsnakeBite, the No1 Frenchman]

Part 38: a death in the family

Alright, this is it! No going back now. It's time to take on Seifer and rescue Ellone before we can start the time compression.



"We are here to take Ellone back!"


Seifer orders Raijin and Fujin to "give them a royal welcome!" and Raijin takes a few steps while our heroes ready their weapons. But before they can start another fight, Fujin stops him! That's right, Fujin of all people, is speaking up. Seifer is shocked as Raijin and Fujin explain that they've had enough, causing Quistis, Squall and Linoa to sheathe their weapons. Fujin frees Ellone and lets her go, with Squall telling her to wait for Laguna outside the room.

Raijin: Seifer, we're done. It's over. This is going too far...

Seifer: What are you talking about? I thought we were a team?

Fujin: We used to, yes. Yes, it used to be the case... We wanted to help you, Seifer. We would have done anything so you could fulfill your dream. But you were manipulated. You got lost. No more Seifer, no more dream. You became a slave. The old Seifer is the one we loved. And since we can't rely on you any more, all we have left is Squall! It's sad... sad to only have Squall left. Seifer! Do you really want to go all the way?

Seifer: *readies gunblade* Raijin, Fujin, you have entertained me well!

This is yet another great character moment to me and I am very happy that Fujin got to express herself so much. You really get the feeling that as much as she tried to look confident, she was in constant emotional turmoil, burying these feelings deep inside, and now she's letting them spill out in an attempt to show Seifer that that he has completely lost control of his own life and is nothing more than a puppet in Ultimecia's hands. It doesn't hurt that Fujin is right on the money with her interpretation of Seifer's actions.

I also like that she says she finds it sad that Squall is their only option left. It shows that she still very much believes in what Seifer used to stand for and hates the fact that Squall is a far better representative of those principles than what Seifer himself has become. Even Seifer has a pretty good moment with the cold dismissal of his childhood friends' concerns, showing that he no longer has any interest in his supposed values. He had to betray what little he believed in to get where he is and is now nothing more than a shell of the man he once was.

This part is also why I dislike the "Dalek speech" gimmick of the English version. It completely kills the scene's emotional impact because rather than coming across like someone who was trying to repress their emotions until she could no longer stand it and had to tell her friend she would no longer enable this betrayal of his own identity, it is downright comical that the girl whose most impactful line up to that point was "RAGE!" would suddenly give this long and moving speech.

Seifer drops down and mumbles some more insanity about how he would have loved to live during the revolution, always placing the bar high and not wanting to share anything with Squall. Squall reacts appropriately: he facepalms. And finally, the battle begins! Now this being the final battle against him, he's got some new tricks, so they key to defeating hi-...





...



what.



..



You... you can't be serious. Is Seifer seriously about to be sliced in half?!




OH SSSHHHIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEETTT!! Well... slicing a GOD in half certainly is one Hell of a way to begin a fight. And it's not over as Zantetsuken, Odin's sword, can then be seen flying towards the sky and be grabbed by a mysterious hand:




So er... allow me to regain my composure and let's go on with the fight. As you may have noticed, Squall' health is automatically refilled. This is because Seifer focuses on him mostly (and of course, the game wants Squall to be the most likely one to defeat Seifer). This of course means you're gonna have to strategize, using the other characters to protect him. Seifer still uses physical attacks almost exclusively and is still extremely fast. His attacks are very powerful so don't take them lightly. Also, when he is low on HP, he can launch his new Limit Break, called "Orgie" (Bloodfest) and before you get crazy, that term isn't as sexual in French as in English.

You can mug an Invulnérable from him and if you're really lucky, a Croisade, although if you get the 100 Invulnérables from Laguna's card, it's not really necessary and I'd rather use the ability slot for better attack or defence. You can also draw Aura from him. He is still level capped so he's not too much trouble for me but he is admittedly more of a challenge. Eventually, the team vanishes, as if Odin was summoned again, but instead, this character appears:




And if you're an old-school Final Fantasy fan, you probably recognize this fellow: it's Gilgamesh, now in possession of Zantetsuken! He taunts Seifer and then uses Zantetsuken to blow him away, ending the fight. Obviously, if you haven't obtained Odin by the time this fight occurs, this sequence won't occur (it's also possible for this second cutscene to not play if the fight lasts less than 14 rounds but you will still gain Gilgamesh). From now on, Gilgamesh will replace Odin and unlike him, Gilgamesh can appear at any moment in a battle, not just the start.

If that happens, Gilgamesh will randomly use one of his four swords: Zantetsuken, which kills the enemy party instantly (doesn't work on bosses and some enemies, of course); Masamune, which causes a high amount of damage to the enemies (about the same level as Bahamut's Ouroboros (Mega Flare)); Excalibur, which causes slightly less damage and Excaliberne (Excalipoor), which causes a single point of damage to the enemies.

The whole thing with Odin's death and being replaced by Gilgamesh may seem random but it's obviously because in the fourth CD, insta-kill attacks will become almost entirely useless so the developers wanted to give us something similar to Odin that would still be useful in the final dungeon. Seifer drops an Invulnérable after the fight.

With Seifer lying in the centre of the room, Linoa looks distraught at what he has become and leaves. Immediately afterwards, Seifer springs back up and tells Squall he's not done with him before bolting out of the room. Linoa can be heard screaming off-screen and Zell soon arrives, saying Seifer took Linoa. The group of course goes to rescue her... and set their plan in motion.

So ends the third CD. Join me next time for part 39, where we will fight Adel and begin the Time Compression.

[SsnakeBite, the No1 Frenchman]

Part 39: Back to the future

Not time to waste! Seifer has Linoa and he's about to give her to Adel. I take Selphie to complete my team and we go to rescue her. Just outside the room where we fought Seifer is a platform that we can use to access an upper level.




It leads us to another room, where we find Linoa begging Seifer not to give her to Adel. He seems hesitant but as Squall's team arrives, Seifer tells them to watch as he pushes her forward:






Adel has now fused with Linoa and attacks the group, who has to find a way to destroy Adel without harming Linoa (who is an independent target from Adel). This is a pretty challenging title as if Linoa dies, it's game over. This means that attacks that hit more than one target are a no-go and to make matters worse, Adel will keep draining Linoa energy to heal herself, meaning that Linoa will quickly die if you don't do anything about it. As a result, a good strategy is to cast Récup (Regen, which you can conveniently draw from Linoa) and Blindage on Linoa and have someone cast healing spells on her as often as possible.

Adel also has powerful spells such as Météore, Fournaise, Sidéral and Ultima, as well as powerful physical attacks so going for limit breaks is a rather risky (and Phénix can easily kill Linoa so even if you have it, it's not a sure-fire way to avoid losing). In this case, it is a lot wiser to have your characters fully healed and use the Aura spell, although even Renzokuken is a bit of a gamble here as two of the finishing moves. Best to leave Quistis in charge of limit break attacks on that one. A much simpler trick is to use the Kamikaze skill which you can learn from Pampa Sr, which depending on the character's HP can kill Adel in one hit (as it is one of the few attacks that can go past the 9999HP cap).

Following this technique (the Récup/Aura one, not the kamikaze one), Adel becomes manageable and after a few well placed limit breaks, Adel disintegrates in a pretty technicolor display, freeing Linoa.




Ultimecia has no other option than to possess Linoa again. Ellone arrives to enact her part of the plan, sending Ultimecia and Linoa's consciousness deep into the past before bringing Linoa back. Every piece is on the board and so the time compression begins, with one of the biggest mindf*** moments in all of Final Fantasy history, which is saying something:




The madness seems to stop as we arrive in what appears to be the room Edea was in before her speech in Galbadia, but right away you tell something is off as it is far too bright and as you touch the save point in front of the characters, several more appear, although only the first one actually works.



Once again, we have an utterly brilliant score which really captures the bizarre and otherworldly atmosphere of the moment. In an already wonderful OST, this has got to be one of the best pieces. I welcome Linoa back in the team as yes, we are going to need her very soon. We leave the room... or at least we try as after a bright flash, we are back at the entrance. This time however, there are no save points but there is Edea, although once again something is wrong. She is surrounded by a strange halo, like ghostly copies of herself, similar to what happened to Linoa in the space station. She eventually splits into two beings and attacks.




Oh, you thought it couldn't get weirder? You poor naive soul. Turns out these two beings only translate to one enemy, who is a sorceress (and this is one of the times where the French translation strangely refers to them as "necromancers" even though there is no indication that they reanimate the dead). Okay, so while there is only one of them at first, when you defeat her, more arrive. Oh and the battle backgrounds are various locations we visited during the game (presumably as a reference to the characters being told to think of places they associate with their friends), and they are all melting. What a world!

There isn't much strategy to them. They're pretty weak and use low-level spells so just use regular attacks and they should go down quickly. in fact, they can be killed with Ankou so you might try to do that if your attacks don't do the job quick enough. Eventually, they are replaced by different-looking, more powerful sorceresses and as you probably guess, as the battle progresses, they use increasingly powerful spells. They also attack in pairs rather than one at a time. Finally, after a total of ten sorceresses are killed, the big boss appears:




This one is a lot more dangerous than either of the previous two versions. She has a lot more HP, counters every attack with a physical strike that always does critical damage. It only stops when she begins a countdown and when she reaches zero, she casts Ultima. One possible strategy if your characters are low on HP is to wait until she begins the count and then lash down on her with all you've got as she won't retaliate then and hopefully you'll finish her off before the count ends. Me though, my characters still have a decent amount of HP and do a ton of damage so I just spam attacks until she explodes into her own technicolor pyrotechnic display.

After that, the team ends up in the orphanage (nice reference to Squall and Linoa's promise, game!). Once we go near the beach though, the sunny atmosphere turns dark, a massive structure appears in the distance and the corpses of future SeeDs (wearing the White SeeDs uniforms, interestingly) are covering the area. Here, Squall says that those SeeDs from the future were less fortunate than them and I actually like the English take on the scene better as he says that they fight across generations, which I find to be a much more meaningful line. After that, we get a good look at the structure in the distance:



Hello, I will be your final dungeon for the evening.


Moving on, we end up on large chains attaching the castle to the ground and forming a bridge. On the way there, we find a series of portals:




Those actually take us to various areas of the overworld. The first one takes us to the north-west of the Galbadian continent, near Deling City, the second one to the northern half of the Centra continent and the third one to a beach next to Grandidi Forest. Note that while you can still visit the overworld, almost every location is now inaccessible due to the temporal compression, which is why you can't really do side quests any more and it is pretty much only there so you can draw magic and grind should you really want to. There are a few exceptions though, notably locations where you can find G-Forces such as the Deep Sea Research Centre, the Tomb of the Unknown King and the Centra Ruins. Edea's orphanage, chocobo forests, Trabia Canyon (the place where Laguna acted in a movie) and the Fire Cavern are also among the exceptions.

However, before we end this part and raid Ultimecia's castle, there are still a few things I'd like to show you. If you go to the overworld and press select twice to make the map full screen, you will see a blinking red dot. This is the current location of the Hydre. However, it is on the southern half of the Centra continent. How do we access it, then? Well first, go through the second portal. If you go to the north-east, you will find a mountain range with a chocobo forest behind it. Get into the forest and go back in the direction of the portal and keep going south until you find a beach.

You will notice parts of the water are clearer than other, well your chocobo can walk on those. Following this path, you will be able to reach the southern part of the continent and from there, go to the Kashkabald Desert and reach the Hydre. There is also a fourth portal there. Crossing it will take you back to the chain bridge and make a fourth portal appear.

You can also go back inside where, if you did the cards club quest, you will find a familar face:




Nice! Shu has made it through the time compression. Quistis will be happy. In fact, it's not just her but the entire Cards Club who has taken refuge inside the Hydre. the Joker is here as well although he is present even if you haven't done the quest (as, while technically a member of the club, he isn't involved in the quest) and you can buy items from him and challenge him to card games. The CC Club members have all rare cards that the player doesn't have by that point except for Koyo-K.

Quistis can be challenged too if you go into the airlock, even if she is in your party. But WAIT! There's more! Remember the escape pod that we found near Esthar? Well that is one of the locations we can still access and that one has Ishtar, the Queen of Cards in it and she has EVERY card in the game. So if you want to complete your collection, you know where to go.

And that's it for today. In part 40, we will enter Ultimecia's castle and begin our journey towards the final battle. See you soon!

[SsnakeBite, the No1 Frenchman]

Part 40: Shiva betrayed us!

We arrive at the entrance of Ultimecia's castle and its very strange theme. The rest of the team arrives and they decide to once again split into two groups. I stick with my usual party. The massive doors slowly open and we enter.




As soon as we enter, a green glow flashes and slowly dissipates, with a message informing me that Ultimecia's powers have blocked me from using draw, save, resurrect, GF (including skills learned by them), Items, Commands (as in, special in-combat skills), Magic (although thankfully junctions still work) and Limit Breaks. Basically, we can only use regular attacks and can't even use items or magic to heal ourselves outside of battles. The effect only occurs inside the castle so if you want to go back to the overworld, it won't happen and you can go back outside to save. That said, that obviously means the castle will prove challenging.

Fortunately, there is a way to recover those abilities: the castle features eight bosses and each time we defeat one, we get to pick one ability to recover. This means that the castle is essentially on giant boss rush (well, not quite as you can heal and save between fights but you get the idea). Another important thing to keep in mind about these bosses is that each one has a G-Force that can be drawn if you missed it during regular gameplay (which apparently is only a park of the Western releases). You can also fight the bosses in any order, so there's a bit of strategy in that. You can also flee from these boss battles (at least some of them), which is a rarity, and it allows you to gauge a bit in what order you want to do this.

Finally, it is important to note that the castle does have random encounters, with the enemies level being random rather than based on your average. Some of the enemies are quite strong, including those two giant monsters we fought in the BGU's basement.




We are currently in the main hall. There is a door to the left and a large flight of stairs before us. You'll also notice a glowing green ring. This allows to switch between teams, which will become important in a moment. For now though, let's go up the stairs and confront the boss at the top as he is the easiest.




This one is called Brahman (Sphinxaur), a reference to Hinduism, which seems a bit odd to me. I guess the things on its back vaguely look like extra arms and maybe it looks vaguely like it is inspired by Indian aesthetics but it looks far more like a sphinx to me, which is probably why the English version calls it Sphinxaur. So yeah, the English translation makes far more sense on that one, especially since after you've hurt it enough, its mask will break down, revealing its face underneath which appears to be wearing a Pharaoh's headdress.

Speaking of that, the maskless version of the boss is called Sphinxara in English and in French, it's... Shiva. Yes, like the G-Force. No, there is no reason for it other than to further the Hinduism theme. Note that some French-language guides I've found refer to this form as Mithra, so I'm guessing they changed the name for later editions of the game after they realized they messed up and gave a boss the same name as one of the Guardian Forces.

Not much to say strategy-wise especially since it's usually the first boss anyone takes on, meaning you can only use physical strike. Either way, it doesn't have much HP and isn't particularly strong so physical attacks should be more than enough. After it loses its mask, it will start summoning regular enemies but those can be ignored as they aren't particularly dangerous ones, Shiva keeps summoning them if they die and attacking them just makes you waste turns. It is also the only boss that doesn't have a G-Force. Since my characters' strength is boosted almost to the max, it doesn't take long for me to defeat it. I gain a Megalixir and it's time for me to pick an ability to recover.

I choose Limit Breaks as I feel this will be most useful early on and I can just leave the castle if I really need to heal or save. Next, I go back down the stairs and through the door to the left. It takes me to a hallway, which, in turn, take me to a large circular room with two stairs and a giant chandelier hanging above it. The stairs can't be climbed, they're just for decoration, but there is a trapdoor on the floor and another door in the distance (with the one we came from being to the left). I try opening the trap door but it's rusted shut.

I decide to go back to the main hall, go back up the stairs and go through the door that was behind Brahman. Won't you know it, it leads us to the chandelier hanging above the circular room. We can walk across it, which allows us t-AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!




The chandelier drops under the characters' weight, displacing dust everywhere before slowly going back up. This actually scrubbed away the rust on the trapdoor and now, we can go down it, to a wine cellar. Ultimecia may be an insane witch trying to destroy all of reality and recreate it in her grotesque image but damn it she is a woman of taste and she will not pair her steak with water like some kind of peasant. Down there, we find the next boss I want to fight: Acron (Tri-Point)



This one already raises the bar. It has much more HP and some powerful attacks. One attack it has only targets one party member but it is very powerful (it can easily be a one-hit kill), ignores defence and can't be dodged. You'll know it's about to use it (and who he's going to use it one) when it casts Scan on a party member. Its other attack is Mega Spark, a lightning attack which hits the entire party if Acron is hit with anything but the element it is weak to (fire or ice; it swaps between the two during the fight). As I showed you a few parts back though, all of my characters absorb all elemental magic so I'm good. If you don't already have her, you can draw Ondine from it.

It drops SuperSonic (Rocket Engine), an item that teaches a G-Force an ability that raises the user's speed by 40% and I get to recover another ability. This time, I'm going with items so I can use Invulnérable or healing items in case of emergency. Let's go back up and for the next boss, it's gonna require a bit of fiddling. There is one of those glowing green rings in the circular room and when you use it, it says that "the lever has been depressed".

This will allow a team to cross the chandelier without it dropping, but I want to use Squall's team in battle so I have to take it to the circular room first, then switch and have Squall's team go back to the main hall and cross the chandelier. This takes us to a terrace where we meet our third boss:




Say hello to Krystal. Or as the English version calls it, Krysta, without the L. Not sure why such a small difference exists. Anyway, it doesn't have a lot of HP compared to the other bosses but it makes up for it by having very high defence and a massively powerful counter attack to all moves. on top of that, upon dying, it'll cast Ultima just as one last "f*** you" before biting the dust. If you've already recovered magic or G-Forces, it's best to use that against it, especially Météore for magic and Nosferatu or Pampa Sr for G-Forces. You can draw Ahuri from it.

It's not my case though so I'm having one character heal party members just enough to anticipate the counter attacks so it'll make us able to use Limit Breaks, then I use Invulnérables on my characters. That didn't go too hot as Quistis and Squall both went down but I did win in the end. It drops Anticho Elé, which teaches a GF an ability that allows the user to junction four spells to elemental defence. Nice!

I go back to the circular room and take the door in the back. This takes us to a courtyard with a fountain. Checking the fountain, I find a key to a vault. There is also a draw point for... something (the game won't tell me since I haven't recovered that ability yet), another door in the back and a path to the right. Following the path... is a dead end so let's go back to the main hall.

I go back up the stairs and to the right. I cross a door, which takes me to a smaller circular room with a flight of stairs going down. There is a rope which can be pulled but let's ignore it for now and cross the door downstairs. This takes us to this large yellowish green room:




It is full of paintings, the largest one being to the left and its title being unreadable. We have to figure out what it was by using the titles of the other paintings. Downstairs are four pieces called IGNUS (fire), INANANDATIA (flood), IUDICIUM (judgement) and INTERVIGILIUM (rest). There are more upstairs, titled INAUDAX (cowardice), XYSTUS (alley), XERAMPELINAE (castellan), Xyphias (Swordfish), VENUS (love), VIATOR (messenger), VIGIL (guard) and VIVIDARIUM (Garden).

Now that w've got all the titles, we have to not only pick the three right ones but also pick them in the right order. The correct answer is VIVIDARIUM-INTERVIGILIUM-VIATOR, creating a phrase that supposedly means "in the garden sleeps a messenger" but apparently doesn't actually means anything in latin. Your one hint at that order is really obtuse too. If you look at the bottom floor (you get a better view from upstairs), you'll see a clock painted on it, with the hands pointing to IV, VI and VIII.

How do those numbers indicate those paintings when they don't even follow any order in which you'd logically count the paintings? Well, you see, IV refers to INTERVIGILIUM, VIII, to VIVIDARIUM and VI to VIATOR. Why yes, that IS bullshit. Anyway, when you get it right, a cloud of smoke appears and behind you is now a giant golden creature.




Said creature is Flotix (Trauma). Its schtick is that it can summon minions called Bibendum (Dromas). Fun fact: Bibendum is the official name of the Michelin Man, so that's probably a reference to their round shape. They use a pulse attack and Flotix drains health from them, eventually killing them (dick). Note that when two of them die, Flotix uses a much more powerful version of the same pulse attack, so like with Brahman/Shiva, you'll want to focus on the main guy. You can draw Leviathan from it. I manage to defeat it before it launches its pulse attack and I get Assaut Elé, which teaches a GF the ability that allows the user to junction elemental magic to physical attacks.

That's four bosses down so we're already halfway through (sorta... you'll see) so I will end this part here and I'll be seeing you in part 41 for the second part of the raid on Ultimecia's castle.