FFVIII – Part 13: Card Capture

Summary: Exploration of the Balamb region and the town itself. I experiment with the Card GF ability, hunt for weapon upgrade items (mostly unsuccessfully).


Balamb

-Now that I have Siren, going to add junction her with Selphie and add Boost.

-AHA! Just found the “Icon Explanation” in my tutorial, where it tells me what the icons for GF stuff mean. After the GFs finish what they’re working on now, I’ll see if I can get them each a Menu Ability.

-Zell’s home. His relationship with his mom is already kind of adorable.

-Reading through the weapons manual I got before, and it relates to the Junk Shop. That seems to be the place I go to upgrade the weapons, and this book has recipes. I need a screw, a fish fin, and a weapon fragment.

Hm. Maybe if I check around the docks again I’ll see a fish fin? Or maybe I just get that from combat… no luck.

I got a Spider Web already, one of the components for a whip upgrade that Quistis already has, but I don’t know where it came from.

-Zell still won’t let us see his room even though he’s here with us.

-The fisherman’s kid is home! He’s telling the kid a story which I bet will have relevance for us later, about a strong god from when the world was made named “Hyne.”

-Jesus. This story got creepy quickly. Hyne made the world, got tired and rested, and was freaked out by seeing so many people when he woke up that he removed the children. The people fought back, and were about to win when Hyne in desperation gave up half his body.

The half that Hyne ran away with had the stronger magic though. That half is still out there.

Hyne = the game’s Big Bad? Or a superboss? Probably one of those.

-I was hoping I’d find a fish scale in his house, but found backstory instead.

-A “Help” tip says that Quistis can learn “Blue Magic” and “Ultra Waves.” She already knows “Blue Magic” – I assume at this point that its effect varies by which enemy she’s up against.

-I’m going to try for the fish scale by fighting monsters on the beach a bit.

-Tried Siren in battle. On one hand, I love the wings from her head and the harp. And her mass Silence is pretty nifty!

On the other hand, it’s not lost on me that both female GFs so far are basically naked. Come on, game.

-Trigger only seems to work for Squall. It’s either a unique feature of the gunblade, or my timing with everyone other than Squall is terrible.

-Success! I got a Fish Fin from the first fight here. Gonna head back to Balamb and upgrade Zell’s knuckles into Metal Kunckles.

-Wait. Not yet. The other two upgrade items I need are a Screw, and a Bomb Fragment. Not sure where I’d find the Screw, but a Bomb Fragment maybe I can get from the Fire Cavern.

-BRILLIANTTTTT!! Quezacotl learned “Card,” and it DOES turn monsters into card. Equip that shit.

-I see a bunch of abilities that say “Refine items blah blah blah.” Some abilities refine items into card, some into fire spells, etc. I don’t know what these mean, so I’ll get one and try to figure it out. Maybe it’s a way to convert those random M-Stones into useful things?

No particular reason for this picture. Just amused by the caterpillar monster’s design.

-Cool ability on Siren, which I have her learn: “Move-Find.” It enables the party to find hidden Draw/Save points. Not sure yet how it works, or how it shows me the hidden ones.

-HELL YES. The “Card” ability can miss, but it literally transforms a monster into a card. That’s awesome.

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Fire Cavern

-I can’t seem to land “Card” on Buel. I remember though from Scan that it has massive Spirit and is highly resistant to magic, so that’s probably why. “Card” likely counts as magic.

Carding a Bomb.

-Can’t land “Card” on a Red Bat either, and the Bat has high evade but low spirit. Hm. Maybe it’s just a low percentage ability. (The more I think about it, the likelier this seems. After all, it doesn’t just give me a card, it destroys the enemy. If it were a high percentage, it would be ridiculously OP.)

-Finally! Got a Buel card.

-The “Card” process will probably go faster if I get that ability on all my characters. Triple the chance of landing it in a round.

-Giving up. I killed 6-7 Bombs and got no Bomb Fragments. I’ll watch for that item later. For now, I’ll just grab the knuckle upgrade.

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Overworld

-I have a theory I want to test. I now think that the items like Bomb Fragment and Fish Fin don’t drop from enemies, but from environments. Spider Web from forest, Fish Fin from beach, and Bomb Fragment and Screw from places I don’t know yet.

-Got an achievement for 100 fight victories!

I’ll test this out by going back to the beach and seeing if I get more fins.

-Didn’t find another fish fin. Still a theory I’ll keep an eye on.

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Balamb

-The mechanic at the car shop needs help, and Zell is there for him, helping fix a car. They have some nice banter about the mechanic trying to hire Zell. It’s sweet and friendly, and Zell – who I was expecting to be purely comic relief – is already far and away my favorite character in the game.

-I guess I already had the Metal Knuckle? Oh well.

-LOLOL – a kid just raced by in the street. His mother was behind him. Her “title” is brilliant.

-A random dude here has been traveling to Timber on business. It sounds like an industrial city with technology and bad air pollution.

-Met a woman called the “Queen of Cards.” She says that this region has an open rule. If I pay her 30k gil, she’ll change that. Good to know!

-Another “Eureka!” moment. That whole “Same” / “Plus” etc. thing I was unsure about before gets cleared up here. She offered to change the rule from “Open” to “Same.” “Same” is a ruleset, not a basic rule of the game or way to flip cards in every game.

-Ah, this is a train station connecting with Galbadia.

-“Found an old issue of [Timber M*****s]… …. … You finished reading it!” …ok. There was a joke about this also in Zell’s house that I didn’t understand, like how he found something there that was that same magazine or paper and it wasn’t?

-There’s going to be a parade in Galbadia, and a woman wants me to be her photographer.

-Found an item shop. Bought 5 of most of the status cures like Eye Drops and Soft, just in case. They also have Ammo and Shotgun Ammo. Bought some of those because I want to know what they do.

-I’m impressed by how dynamic the town of Balamb feels. Residents wander the town from place to place, the dialogue changes, we see relationships develop.

And everyone loves Zell’s mother.

-Done here for now.

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Next time: heading back to the Garden. For real this time. Though I’ll probably try more Triple Triad before moving on with the story. I got cards now!