That young man returns the favour as some black feathers appear and a bunch of scenes from the game flash before our eyes before we arrive to the girl again
After saying she knew it would be me or Seifer, we head back and Quistis attempts to make conversation, which gets shot down. She knew it would happen though and openly mocks Squall for it
The prereq is fighting a giant fire demon in the Fire Cavern. I feel like maybe I shouldn't have waited until the day of the exam to take the prereq. Just sayin
We head outside where we are bumped in to by a cute girl, anime style
We learn that she is a transfer student and offer to show her around the Garden. We learn she will be joining the Garden Festival Committee and asks Squall if he wants to join, which he answers noncommittally
We head to the front gate to meet up with Quistis and do some stuff on the world map. Get some magic, strengthen our GFs, the usual. When ready, we head to the Fire Cavern, where we choose a time limit to complete the trial
The less time you have remaining by the end, the better your SeeD score. I don't particularly care about my SeeD score though and screenshots take more time, so I went with 20 minutes which was more than enough. I could have probably done it in 10 but better safe than sorry.
Inside the Fire Cavern, Quistis tries to ease the tension by bragging on herself
So question. It says the prereq test is to obtain a low level GF. So does everyone get Ifrit? Is there more than one Ifrit? If they don't get Ifrit, who do they get? Because this is like... a tiny island, where are they finding these other GFs?
Can I expect three pages worth of DRAW DRAW DRAW or Triple Triad rule manipulation? :p
06-17-2017, 11:51 AM
maybee
Quote:
We head to the cafeteria where we see Seifer and his minions, Raijin and Fujin]
* Gets horror flashbacks from that minions movie * :lol:
06-17-2017, 05:58 PM
Skyblade
FFVIII had my favorite incarnation of Shiva as well.
06-17-2017, 10:34 PM
Bubba
Best thread Ciddies 2017. I am SUPER excited about this!
You are a winner, Ashton. You WILL pass the SeeD exam.
06-18-2017, 03:18 AM
Lyndis Highwind
Aww man, I love this game! So much nostalgia and awesomeness. :)
06-23-2017, 04:17 AM
Pumpkin
Hey guys, sorry its been a while. I was having trouble with my imgur. It would say 20 images uploaded but there would only be 17 and of those 17 only some would work yada yada, but it seems to be working now so hopefully I can update more regularly! (SPOILER)
Now then, when we left off we were told to go change and go meet Instructor Quistis for our SeeD exam. The first order of business is getting our team assignments. And the first member of our team is
Why he's the squad leader when he's already failed the SeeD exam a few times is beyond me, but whatever. Seifer and his posse show up and Quistis wishes us luck on our exam
It's long and pretty dull. Seifer and Squall are ~special~ because they're gunblade specialists. Again, why put your only two gunblade specialists on the same team? But whatever
Off we go on our exam in this hideous green and yellow car
The older I get the less clever that nickname seems. Chicken and wuss are both basically ways of saying coward so its like he's calling him coward coward. That's not clever. That's just dumb.
Quistis gets up and fusses at them to settle down and Squall changes the subject to the mysterious girl in the infirmary
After fighting off some baddies in the central square and meeting a doggy friend, Seifer starts to get impatient until the dog alerts us to some more soldiers. We hide to see what they're up to
It seems that they're all headed for the com tower in a large group. Seifer decides we should go after them and Zell pitches a fit because it's not their assignment. As for Squall
After beating on them a little bit, something else decides to finish the job. Although note that Wedge has cure if you need it to cast without going in to your stock of magic
If you've played this game enough, done enough grinding, or have access to cheats, go ahead and beat it like I did for some points. If not, just keep running away. Not worth game overing for it
And what happens if you don't defeat it? Well, that's something I'd like to keep as a surprise for those who haven't played it yet but SURELY WILL SOME DAY but it's cool and it involves this
I remember playing through the SeeD exam the first time round and thinking "This is gonna be better than FFVII!" It didn't quite live up to it in the end but this is still an excellent entry in my opinion.
Fun fact: I have never defeated X-ATM092
06-23-2017, 09:56 PM
Lyndis Highwind
Zell has always had my favorite entrance cutscene! This is reaallly making want to play this game again.
06-24-2017, 04:07 AM
Pumpkin
On our way back from our exam, we stop by Zell's house, which is in Balamb (SPOILER)
That's a pretty sad number. The four are Squall, Zell, Selphie, and some rando
Cid starts making a speech about how we are mercenaries but one day we will fulfill the true purpose of SeeD but before he can tell us what it is, Faculty Member interrupts him again
Also, Zell and Selphie are skipping around happily over there. Good for them
We head back to the hallway where everyone is waiting, including Seifer, and it's awkward for a minute. But then Seifer decides to be a big man and start applauding. Everyone else follows suit
In case you're wondering, the 5 pts is because I had bunches of time left in the Fire Cavern, I think. But a rank of 8 is actually pretty good. 6+ is where you want to be! Not too shabby~
If I were you I would focus on offing two of the round dudes on the ground and draw some Protects and whatever else you need from the last one. The wasp will just occasionally do things like drop him on you
When you have what you need, take out the round dude and focus on the wasp. The round dudes are much more harmful on their own. And if you stat Junction sleep to your attack you can keep the wasp dude asleep for the fight if you cast his own magic at him
Once that's done, two dudes in white suits show up for the girl
Quistis is clearly one of those weird people that have raw onion in their salad.
Oh man, that "Go talk to a wall" line is brutal and really put me off Squall. I don't care if you're naturally quiet and introverted. That is just really unpleasant.
Xu is hot.
06-24-2017, 05:32 PM
Lyndis Highwind
Yeah that talk Squall and Quistis had made me finally decide that Squall is a total jerk. Also "Waltz for the Moon" is one of my fav FF tracks ever! I love that scene.
06-26-2017, 05:47 AM
Pumpkin
It's time to get ready for our first official mission as SeeD! (SPOILER)
But first, if you head back to your desk, you can see that Selphie has already gotten started with the Garden Festival Committee!
Also, I like how three of the recent graduates are going on this mission, but that one rando dude is just nowhere to be found. Poor guy. It's not easy being a random NPC in video games
So Cid gives us our mission. We will be heading to a place called Timber
The magic lamp he gives you contains the GF Diablos. By defeating him you gain him as a summon. It's been my experience that he starts off near useless but his growth is great. He also gets harder to fight the longer you put it off I think, so might as well get it over with. Just head to the world map, save, and use the item
You will need 3000G to board the train but since you're SeeD now, you receive a regular salary, so it shouldn't be a problem. You can also improve your SeeD rank by taking tests under the Tutorial section of the menu
We get on the train which Zell and Selphie are mega hype about
After they disembark, Laguna suggests they hit the bar for some drinks. He isn't fooling his friends though, who know he's not going to the bar to drink
Remember how I said his friends gave him some privacy? Yeah, well, the camera pans out to show the entire bar crowded around their booth listening in. So Laguna agrees to meet Julia in her room
When he arrives, Julia tells him to take a seat. So he awkwardly tries out a few. Julia doesn't seem bothered
They agree and shortly thereafter, we arrive in Timber. We are quickly greeted by the person we're supposed to meet and, after giving the password, he asks us to follow him
We follow the man, named Watts, to a rickety little train, where we meet a resistance group, lead by a man named Zone. Before the meeting starts though, we get asked by Zone to wake up their 'Princess' which upsets Squall because they weren't hired to run errands. Zone also rejects Zell's handshake. Poor guy
The group also takes the time to poke fun at the one model train Rinoa made, which she defends by saying she made it ugly on purpose to represent her hatred for the president
With that, we head out on the mission by sneaky sneaking around. Turns out the baddies re having some troubles of their own as the President is not a kind, patient man, who doesn't like having security check up on him. This leads to one soldier losing his salary for the month
Dang it, I was sure that this group of six that had strategy meetings by huddling up on the floor would succeed without fail when it came to kidnapping the President!
So I would show you some of the fight but it was boring because the game decided to unjunction Zell and Selphie for NO REASON so all they could do was attack. Wah wah waaahh
After the fake President is disposed of, we head back to base to discuss what's going on. Watts has some new intel for us
And so she, Watts, and Zone huddle around the floor to discuss their next plan. Squall starts to become concerned about going beyond the scope of the contract and so he asks Rinoa to see it
You can also go visit an old man who offers you his magical healing water for free, since the Inn isn't available for use. Don't steal his money though or he won't let you use it anymore
We head to the bar which we need to pass through to get to the TV station, but the door is blocked by a drunk who is angry that the Forest Owls tried to kidnap the president and screwed everything up
Anyways, you can get him to move by buying him a drink or by giving him the card he lost that you get by defeating some baddies outside of the bar. If you give him the card he lets you keep it and gives you another one
With that we finally get a path cleared to our destination
Unfortunately, Rinoa is having second thoughts about what she should do since there's a lot of security guarding the President (who would have thought)
Reason #1 Quistis was fired: Lacks Leadership skills
Reason #2: Apparently doesn't know anything about her own students
Reason #3: Acts like crazy girlfriend towards her student when he dances with a pretty lady at his graduation party
Don't you worry, there will be more
They ask what happened to Seifer and Squall says he may already be dead. Because of the whole assassination attempt on the President thing
Rinoa does not take kindly to his considering the possibility of his death and says she hopes he's okay. Squall says what she wishes for is her business
With our destination in mind, we head over to the train station where we run in to our old friend Zone who is disguised as an old man. He informs us that all of the train tickets are sold out buuuuut
Unfortunately, he didn't know Quistis would be showing up, so he kindly offers her the ticket he had planned to use to escape. She tries to reject it but
So we hop on the train for a short time. Selphie interrupts Squall's motivational speech a few times to ask for the pass to be let in to the train hallway to gaze out the window. Shortly afterwards, we arrive at our stop and head through a forest to get to our destination
Unfortunately morale is low and Selphie worries about them getting arrested while Zell worries about Balamb Garden being attacked because of his earlier slip up
Rinoa once again doesn't approve of the military student giving a realistic rundown of possibilities instead of telling them what they want to hear. She says that he needs to give words of support and encouragement to Zell instead
But before Rinoa can fuss at him more (I'll give you a rundown of their early game relationship: Rinoa fusses at Squall and Squall gets confused and exasperated) the high pitched noise starts up again
Anyway, we head down to the weird place where weird mining is being done and find ourselves surrounded by Esthar Soldiers. One can only assume these are soldiers from a place called Esthar
This may seem pointless but all of the extra little things you do here that seem to have no effect do end up having an effect later on
Here's a quick note in case you play the game!
*Pick up the Old Key near both entrances
*Remove a lever from a floor panel
*Find the detonator and flip the red switch followed by the blue switch
*Move the boulder away from the tunnel to reveal the Cure Draw Point
After doing all of that we find an exit. Unfortunately some Esthar Soldiers find us and the exit led to a cliff. Roc and hard place
Quistis is confused about what the heck just happened but we all decide its best to put it out of our minds for now and keep going to Galbadia Garden. But not before Rinoa apologizes to Squall
Stay tuned for next time when we get another party member!
07-01-2017, 12:18 PM
Karifean
Don't forget to mention setting the lever on the other two trap doors. If you do, the fuse explosions will end up breaking them and open those two doors as well, revealing some more goodies later on.
07-02-2017, 05:13 AM
Darth Ganon
Don't the Laguna flashbacks screw with your junction system? I would expect that being why Zell and Selphie were unequipped during the boss fight maybe.
07-02-2017, 07:17 AM
Bubba
I do love Laguna. He's such a loveable douche. I can take or leave Kiros but Ward was also pretty great.
I thought the junctioning in the dream sequences was a direct correlation? Squall/Laguna Zell/Ward Selphie/Kiros? I could be wrong.
FF8 is another FF game where I get heavily distracted by mini-games because Triple Triad is life. HAVE YOU BEEN PLAYING? WHAT CARDS DO YOU HAVE? I DEMAND TRIPLE TRIAD PICTURES.
07-02-2017, 07:23 AM
Pumpkin
Yeah it depends on the scenario who becomes which character
FF8 is another FF game where I get heavily distracted by mini-games because Triple Triad is life. HAVE YOU BEEN PLAYING? WHAT CARDS DO YOU HAVE? I DEMAND TRIPLE TRIAD PICTURES.
