Squall’s Dormitory
-Time has passed. Squall is bored and restless, and has to report to the headmaster now that time has passed.
-OH CRAP RIGHT – he doesn’t know about Selphie and Irvine and Zell, who I refuse to believe are dead. Just narratively I doubt it. FF has never killed off three main characters at once so unceremoniously and I don’t think they started now.
-He rests.
-Hee! Rinoa comes in and looks at him when he wakes up.
Rinoa needling Squall will never get old for me. She gets him to agree to give her a tour of the Garden.
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Around the B-Garden
-lol, she’s critiquing him for being a boring tour guide.
-The tour brings them to the scenic cafeteria. “Some of the hot dogs are so rare you’ll be lucky just to see someone eat it.”
She also laughs at him for being so serious when giving the hot dog explanation. XD
(though tbh this makes me really hungry for a hot dog)
(you know what? Fuck it. This has an itch I’ve needed to scratch since early in FFVIII back in December. It’s 9:30pm but idc. Heading to the local gas station/convenience store. Brb.)
k. good to go.
-Students are seated in the cafeteria, including the three who were fighting for different factions outside the infirmary. Strange! The dude who fought for the Garden Master doesn’t really seem to say or possibly even know what was going on. The Sorceress is in play so I’m not ruling out some kind of mind control.
Probably not here, but not ruling it out.
-Trepe groupies are still here.
-This whole session is so relaxed. There’s just calm, friendly student chatter by the festival stage with some dude providing acoustic guitar soundtrack. Couples sitting together watching the ocean roll by, friends swearing eternal friendship beyond graduation.
-The sound of the ocean is in the background too, the surf and seagulls.
-The infirmary. Dr. Kadowaki asks Squall if Rinoa is his girlfriend. As a player I really, REALLY want to know what happens if Squall says yes, but I think there’s zero chance that’s what Squall would do.
…well… maybe a Freudian slip?...
Fuck it. Freudian slip.
Rinoa freaks out a bit, but not in an unhappy way necessarily. More “don’t start what you can’t finish.” Let’s roll with it.
SQUALL: “I’m serious.”
RINOA: “Woo. I’m speechless.”
FUCKING SQUALL NO DON’T RUIN THIS ah well. I did what I could. Now you look like a jerkface, but I should’ve seen that coming. I’m not really upset – it would’ve been weird for Squall to sincerely be like “yeah, you’re my gf now” just out of the blue, so he was going to defuse it somehow.
-whoa. Wtf. A faculty members tells Squall that the “Garden Master” wants to see him. Whoever he is, didn’t he just, like, lead a rebellion?
-Some nearby students confirm that they don’t know who the Master is. I was afraid he was someone obvious that I met, but this dialogue reassures me that it’s not just my terrible memory. I think this is someone new.
-A student mentions that card playing group, the CC Group. They haven’t challenged me yet. I assume that when I hit a certain number of wins or a certain number of cards, someone will approach me.
-The Triple Triad rules are now a mash-up of Galbadia’s and Balamb’s. Direct, Same.
-Heading into the Training Center. I hope I don’t die, and if I meet a T-Rex, I’ll run. Why the Training Centre? Because I’m curious what happens if we go to Lovers’ Lane.
-Dag nab it. Still can’t access that part of the Training Centre.
-I keep thinking about that third party member. One party member is a fighter, one is a GF’er, but the third as a magic-user isn’t that effective. Darkside isn’t the answer. I could make her another GF’er, but that’s kind of boring, so I have a theory.
The Brothers GF has an ability I haven’t learned yet called Defend. I used that ability extensively in FFVII to my detriment because it meant that Squall was the only one getting hit and learning new limit breaks, but FFVIII is different. What if I use the third person as magic-user – Selphie or Quistis – boost their magic, and keep them at low health for limit breaks? If Defend works as I think/hope it will, the fighter will be able to auto-protect them.
I’m going for it. If it fails, it fails, but a limit-breaker is way more interesting than someone with mediocre magic.
-Won a RubyDragon card in Triple Triad! Huh. After that win, “The Open rule was abolished from this region.” I wonder what triggered that. This’ll be the first time that Triple Triad wasn’t played with open hands.
-oh god I challenged the little running kid and he played this awesome looking card which might be a moogle and if I don’t win this game I’m going to be the saddest of all the pandas
…come on…
-YES!!!!! HAHAHAHAHA YES YES YES
It’s sorted in my catalog as a GF. I can’t wait to get her for real!
-Tour’s over. Let’s visit the Garden Master.
-Got in the elevator. It’s going down.
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B-Garden – B1
-djalfhdajklsfhadkls hno no no no no no I’m freaking out
-The music. It’s the music freaking me out. We got downstairs and this harpsichord starts playing that I associate with the Sorceress. Is it “Succession of Witches” (or whatever that’s called) or something else?
-A voice cries out “Please listen to me!” Not sure who. Quistis comes down on the elevator behind us.
-ok, it’s not the witch song. I was too quick to call that one. The Garden Master is dressed like a Balamb faculty member and fighting with Cid. Not sure what the argument is about – the Garden Master wants to do something immediately and Cid wants to wait.
-Oh, the faculty member wasn’t the Garden Master. He just works for him. Cid goes up to his office, and the faculty member brings us to NORG (who’s name is always capitalized so I guess I should use that too).
-The music is just fucking with me now. It’s hyper tense and dramatic now. Was that a roar sound effect I just heard?
WHAT THE EVERLOVING FUCK IS THAT
He’s this GINORMOUS MONSTROUS TENTACLE FACE DUDE IN A MACHINE WHAT THE HELL IS HAPPENING
-this is beyond confusing
-Squall takes this in stride, and starts giving his report as ordered. Every once in a while the angry NORG uses what seem to me to be nonsense phrases like “Bujurururu” which I take to be his version of the ents saying “burrarruummm.”
-The plot thickens! Squall reports about getting Sorceress assassination orders from Galbadia and Balamb gardens but NORG claims we were “fooled.”
-NORG knew all along about the Deling-Sorceress alliance. His subordinate is Martine, the Galbadia Garden master we met. I didn’t know that Martine was subordinate to anyone in Balamb. The Sorceress and the Gardens are “closely connected” (?????) and she’ll try to control all the Gardens. Maybe her power was the result of a SeeD experiment gone wrong or something.
-AH! Now I see. Martine ordered us to assassinate the Sorceress in order to get her to blame the Balamb Garden and NORG. We were cat’s paws. They were going to assassinate the Sorceress themselves and used us when we showed up at the last minute for cover.
-But it went wrong. The attack failed. The Sorceress is angry now and they need to quell
-hang on
-are you really doing this? I know we just met NORG, but wtf? You want to hand over the attackers to her? You’re giving US up? [Later edit: I don’t know in hindsight if he meant he tried to turn us over or plans now to turn us over.]
-NORG seems to just care about the Garden that he put up money for. He sees it as an investment and wants to keep making money. I just assume since he was a giant sea monster thing that he wanted something other than money and security, but nope!
-Cid is working against NORG though. He gave orders for other SeeDs to attack the Sorceress. Or is the faculty member who mentions this just saying that Cid gave the orders for Squall et al. to attack her? I think the former, but a bit confused.
OH GOD LOOK AT HIS HANDS
Wait are you fucking kidding me
Are you kidding me are you fucking kidding me
Cid. And Edea. Cid and Edea. I need background and details like right now.
-NORG now thinks Cid and Edea are teamed up and trying to take the Garden away from NORG.
-boss fight time. Against an angry NORG. I’m so fucked.
-At the start of the fight he gives a quick message about his attack patterns, but it goes by too quickly.
-Three parts to this boss. The “NORG pod” seems to be vulnerable to GFs while the other two pods are immune. A scan shows that the left orb is basically immune and heals him up so idk. Same with the right orb. Maybe I just shield myself up best I can, ignore the side orbs, and attack the NORG pod.
-Broke open the NORG pod, exposing NORG himself.
He reminds me of the king of the fish people from The Phantom Menace.
-Speaking of “king of the fish people,” I just drew Leviathan from him. Sweet!
-GOT HIM! Long-ish fight, but just kept Shiva-ing him, mugging him (got “Circlet”), and healing myself. He seemed to turn into a weird orb thingy.
I think you hit the nail on the head, bud.
We need to see Cid, but first back to the dormitory to save.
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So. I have questions. Like, a bunch. How did Cid meet Fishy McGee in the first place? What kind of creature is NORG? Did they start the chain of Gardens, or just this Garden? How is the Sorceress connected to the Gardens? When did Cid marry Edea? How? What? Huh?
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Next time: talking to Cid to get maybe one or two of those question answered.
