Combat Tutorial
-Time to dive into combat a bit.
-The tutorial has a section on “Battle Operation.” Seems like a good starting point.
-Active Time Battle bar, HP… all good so far. Attack, magic, GF (esper/summons), items. Easy so far. I’M THE COMBAT MASTER ALREADY. Lol.
-New term: “Junction.” It looks like spells get Junctions on them.
-Huh. Magic doesn’t have mana cost listed, but rather “stock.” Dunno what that is… wait, are they… no. Are they going back to the old system where you can cast a spell X times before you have to replenish rather than straight up magic points?
-Holy shit! Summons look WAY different here than in prior games. In prior games it was a spell with neat graphics. Here, it looks like the thing you summon has a certain amount of hit points.
It says that GF are “junctioned” to a character. So you equip it or whatever to one specific character.
-“Draw” seems to be the blue magic of FFVIII. It draws magic from an enemy, rather than drawing like a picture. (Though when I think of Relm, the two meanings of draw blended together rather nicely.) And when you draw it, you can either stock it for later or cast it immediately.
This changes EVERYTHING! If I understand it at least, which is a 30% chance. So instead of a character always having access to a spell once they learn it, now you adapt your spell choice based on the monsters you fight. Badass.
-So if you draw magic from enemies, what was that draw point in the library about? Maybe I’ll come back to that library and have to fight enemies there. Or maybe those draw points are like treasure chests – after all, in past FFs you often get items from combat, but also from chests. Maybe here you get magic from enemies but also from static draw points.
-Limit breaks are in the game. Rather than coming from accumulating hits, they only come up at low HP.
-I get xp from running from a fight as long as I damaged an enemy. It doesn’t explicitly say this, but I’ll assume it’s a scaled down amount of xp depending on how much damage I did.
-Can’t find an equipment window. All I see for Squall in terms of equipment is “Revolver” in his status window. I guess he’s a gun-wielder.
-A ton of stats.
INFORMATION OVERLOAD.
Really, REALLY specific ones, especially regarding defense.
-Both Quetzalcoatl and Shiva are level one. MY SUMMONS LEVEL UP WITH ME THAT IS SO COOOOL!! Such an interesting idea. I’m really excited to see how that plays out. Junctioned both of them to Squall for starters.
-I can shuffle around stuff for Squall’s ability options. I choose GF, Draw, and Item to start out with, but choosing those three means I can’t give Squall the option to use Magic.
-Squall starts at level 7. He also has a star with two bars below it next to his level. Rank?
-Starting items are pretty standard. Potions, Phoenix Down, Remedy, Tents.
-Ok. That’s enough for now. Let’s check out the Training Center.
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Training Center
-The entrance to this place makes me feel like I’m entering the raptor pen in Jurassic Park.
-Two doors, left and right. I’ll go left.
-No people here. It’s quiet (uptown).
-ATTACK! A plant monster thing attacks me. I think it’s a “Grat.”
-Used “Draw” twice and got two sleeps and seven silences. I’m able to draw the same spell from it multiple times.
-It’s not going down easily. Quite a few rounds. Really enjoying the music!
-Victory. My GF gained “two AP.”
-WAIT WHAT THE SWEET FUCK
-THAT “JURASSIC PARK” LINE WAS A JOKE EARLIER
-Ok. Going to summon Quetzalcoatl. He looks AWESOME.
I remember now, I remember now, why they call it thunderbird.
-Huh. He acted like a one-time spell, casting thunder and leaving. What’s the deal with the hit points then if the GF doesn’t stick around?
-I’m not doing too well. The dinosaur is eating me. Got to test out my limit break, Renzozuken (or something), but I have no idea what it did.
Something tells me this screen and I will become fast friends.
-Game over. A promising start! I’m guessing I delved too greedily and too deeply into the Training Center. Reloading and running back out.
-Alright, reloaded and running out. Ran into another Grat close to the entrance, so going to test out Shiva.
Her Diamond Dust ability is beautiful.
-Whoa now. I’m looking at the GF menu for Quetzalcoatl and Shiva, and there’s SO MUCH DEPTH!
It looks like I can choose to level them up in different ways, to make it so that the points they earn work towards either magic boosts or vitality or all kinds of stuff. Jesus! The ceiling for customizability is through the roof. This is super exciting.
-A downside of FFVIII from Crisis Core is that I can’t skip past these GF animations. I imagine that may get a bit tiresome if the animations are as long as Quetzalcoatl’s.
-Got what I needed: a first taste of combat and magic and GF. Not going to bother testing out the right door, since I’ll probably just get eaten by a literal pack of velociraptors.
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Next time: finally ready to move on with the story. I’ll try to find Quistis and the Fire Cavern.
"It's quiet (uptown)"
ReplyDeleteIs that a motherfucking Hamilton reference?!
(Only seeing this later, but) yes it is :D
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