FFVIII – Part 18: Testing Knowledge

Summary: A preparatory session. I take a SeeD test *coughcough a few times coughcough* and think through party set-up.


Balamb – Alcauld Fields

-Before going further, I want to set up my party. What roles do I want for these characters?

-Interesting – Seifer is no longer listed as one of my characters in the bottom part of my screen. I wonder if that’s just temporary. I imagine it is – we’ll probably get him back later as a more mature character.

-Hm. I think I’ll try based on their limit breaks.

[Non-rhetorical question for y’all: is the power of the limit breaks impacted by what they seem like? Like, will Selphie’s limit break spells be impacted by her +magic? Will Zell’s duels be impacted by his strength?

[Even more specifically – does this mean Selphie’s and Quistis’s limit breaks go off of their Magic stat, while Zell’s and Squall’s go off their Strength stat?]

-Hold on. Wait. I came across a “Test” in my tutorials as I was looking for stuff on limit breaks, and it’s giving me a LITERAL TEST.

-Took it and got a 90. AND FAILED WTF.

Let me take a look at these questions. What am I not certain of?

1.“There are 8 elemental attributes.” I said yes, but not really sure. After checking, this is true. Fire, ice, thunder, earth, poison, wind, water, holy.
2.“HP-J is a junction ability.” I know it’s related to junctioning, but maybe “ability” is a technical term. I’ll change my answer to this.
3.“You can wear protective gear.” Reasonably certain, but not 100%. Still pretty sure. The crafted stuff is weapon upgrades, not armor.

Hm. When I changed that one answer, the HP-J one, I got 80% instead of 90%. My first instinct was right, and it IS a junction ability. What am I missing?

One of the questions asks true/false whether strength boosts physical attack power. Another says “Magic uses MP.” I thought the first was true and the second was false. Maybe I have to check those assumptions.

No. Not that. WTF GAME.

Let’s take this slower.

1.Draw takes magic. T.
2.GF stands for Garden Fighter. Lol no.
3.There are 8 elemental attributes. Yes.
4.Higher strength causes more physical damage. Yes.
5.HP-J is a junction ability. Yes.
6.You can’t assign specific abilities for your GFs to learn. No. (No here meaning “Yes, you can assign abilities for your GFs to learn. There’s a whole menu of choices.)
7.Magic uses MP. No. (Though I have to check this – I thought MP boosts magic skill, but now…)
8.You can name your GF. Yes. I was given the option to name my GFs when I first got them, but I kept their original names.
9.You can wear protective gear. I say no.
10.GF level up with AHAHAHAHA THIS IS THE ONE! “GF level up with AP.” I’ve said yes, but they DON’T! They LEARN ABILITIES based on AP, but their level is separate. Tricky tricky.

Bam. Success! I can now raise my SeeD level to 5, though I don’t know how that’s done. Probably through in-game stuff.

I actually want to take a look at the next test, just out of curiosity, though it probably deals with crap I haven’t seen. Let’s see.

I got a 70 on this. I’ll come back to it later, after I hit rank 5.


ANYWAY! Back to party set-up.

Let me take this time to mentally organize the strengths of the GFs in very general ways:

Quezacotl (I keep writing “Quetzalcoatl” and having to edit it down.): Magic
Shiva: Guardian Force
Ifrit: Strength
Siren: Hard to tell. Really hard to tell. She’s my only GF with Card, and has some magic stuff, but is kind of a grab bag.

Current levels, for any curious.

-Selphie’s limit break seems magic-based, so she gets Quezacotl. However, both Zell’s and Squall’s are physical. I’ll actually give Ifrit to Squall – the tiebreaker is the fact that I can pump up his attacks with trigger. [Non-rhetorical question for y’all: is the trigger boost amplified by his Strength?]

-I’ll give Shiva to Zell. Let him do the GF stuff for the moment when need arises. Selphie can take Siren and do the Carding for now.

-Whoa! Just noticed that Shiva can learn Doom. How did I not see that before? (Probably something she only gained access to after hitting a certain level. Or I’m just super unobservant.) Let’s try that. Probably not that great since it’s likely one of those “instant death after a counter” abilities that only rarely works, but it’s interesting.

-And now for abilities/junctions.

Zell: Auto junction defense. Draw, GF, and Item.
Squall: Auto junction attack. Draw, Item, and GF.
Selphie: Auto junction magic. Draw, Card, and Magic.

What? I really like Draw.

-That was about a half hour right there of testing and party set-up so I’ll call it for now, but I feel this was worth it. I’ll never grasp the intricacies of a game on the first try, but I want to at least make an attempt to play in a reasonable way.

Granted, there are some elements of games that will ever elude me until afterwards. I’M STARING HARD AT YOU, ORACLE JOB IN FFV. STARING RIGHT INTO YOUR FRIGGING AWFUL AND MASOCHISTIC EYEBALLS. HAAAAATE YOU FOREVER, AND I STILL DON’T UNDERSTAND YOU.

(See also: http://coldrungaming.blogspot.com/2014/10/ffv-par...

But this feels like a pretty good starting point.

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Next time: on with the story!