Fynn's Final Fantasy Fmarathon

[Fynn]

Already got five GFs! Woohoo! I think I'm only missing Brothers and Carbuncle from Disc one, and the rest are on later disks, I think?

I'm starting out by teaching Diabolos Darkside because I just want some more variety in my party's abilities. Also, since I've started really doing amazing in Triple Triad, I taught Quetzalcoatl (I called him "Quetzalli" after another summon from earlier because I could not stand to look at that terrible spelling) Card and am now teaching it to refine cards, because that supposedly gives you a lot of neat things!

So I'm off to Timber now. Thanks for the tips, Pumpkin. Though I probably won't be paying attention to compatibility much - at first, at least. I'm gonna stick to three builds that I'll just exchange between the party members I get, and when I can finally stick to one party, that's when I'll build up their compatibility. I'll probably go with Squall, Rinoa, and Zell. Squall and Rinoa are a must because adorbs and Rinoa's limit breaks actually encourage you to use magic, but the third character is still kinda up in the air. I kinda want it to be Zell because he's more focused on physical stuff and whatnot, so that'd be a cool way to balance that, I think.

[Pumpkin]

Yeah you should only be missing those two from disc 1 I think

[maybee]

Final Fantasy eighhhhhhhht yeeeesss

[Fynn]

I'm at Timber, btw! Had my first Laguna flashback. Also, Timber uses the Same rule which I still don't really get :O Still, it's not bad. I just hope the Diff trade rule doesn't spread :/ How do I get All to spread?

[Forsaken Lover]

I'm at Timber, btw! Had my first Laguna flashback. Also, Timber uses the Same rule which I still don't really get :O Still, it's not bad. I just hope the Diff trade rule doesn't spread :/ How do I get All to spread?

As best as I can recall, you gotta find the Queen of Cards because her Trade Rule changes all the time if you just keep opening up the TT menu but then exit. So challenge her to a card game but then exit out before starting the game if she's using any rule other than All. Once All does come up, actually play that game and win. Go start a card game with some other NPC and see if they're using All. If they aren't, head back to the Queen and repeat the previous steps until All always comes up.

This MIGHT work for other NPCs too...I'm not sure. Maybe you can try to challenge them repeatedly until All comes up but I never did that. Whatever rule you play repeatedly with will be the one that everyone uses though so just don't play the game if Diff or whatever comes up instead of All.

In any event, unless you sent the Queen to Dollet or Deling City, you won't be seeing her again this disk.

[Fynn]

I... didn't

*Curb Your Enthusiasm theme plays*


I guess I'll wait for the later discs for that

[Fynn]

Got to Galbadia Garden. Shiva just learned refining ice magic. I got 87 Blizzagas.

[Night Fury]

I'm that person who just gets stuck in a TT hole for hours. I love it!


Also boo you all for dissing on the soundtrack!

[Karifean]

I'm at Timber, btw! Had my first Laguna flashback. Also, Timber uses the Same rule which I still don't really get :O Still, it's not bad. I just hope the Diff trade rule doesn't spread :/ How do I get All to spread?

As best as I can recall, you gotta find the Queen of Cards because her Trade Rule changes all the time if you just keep opening up the TT menu but then exit. So challenge her to a card game but then exit out before starting the game if she's using any rule other than All. Once All does come up, actually play that game and win. Go start a card game with some other NPC and see if they're using All. If they aren't, head back to the Queen and repeat the previous steps until All always comes up.

This MIGHT work for other NPCs too...I'm not sure. Maybe you can try to challenge them repeatedly until All comes up but I never did that. Whatever rule you play repeatedly with will be the one that everyone uses though so just don't play the game if Diff or whatever comes up instead of All.

In any event, unless you sent the Queen to Dollet or Deling City, you won't be seeing her again this disk.

I suppose I'll expand on this. The actual mechanics involved are a little too complicated to explain here, but there are two primary ways to spread the card trading rule you want.

1. Single Spreading: You move the Queen of Cards to your desired area. Whenever you play the QoC, the trading rule in the area is randomized. You can use that to easily get whatever trading rule you want in the area she's in. Note: Just to make things more confusing, the trading rule in the area is NOT the same as she uses in her games with you. You need to play other players to see what rule is prevalent in your area.
2. Global Spreading: You play the QoC in any area until she uses the trading rule you want her to. Then you play against other people in the area over and over again (simply challenging + aborting on the TT screen is enough, you do not need to actually play). As you do this, the trading rule in this region will spread to other regions.

Both ways are kind of hard to control since the way the QoC moves is frustrating and the random spreading to other regions is, well, random.

One thing I do feel the need to point out regarding the All trading rule though is that as you play it will eventually 'degrade' into the next lower card trading rule which is either 'Direct' or 'One'. So you might end up with Direct accidently in some regions as you do this. With Diff this doesn't happen as Diff always only degrades into 'One'. Although similarly to how All and Diff degrade, you can also always degrade 'Direct' into 'Diff' or 'One' by playing more games. Although that Direct trading rule might spread to other regions in the meantime...

I recommend just doing some Global Spreading but with Diff instead of All. I prefer to avoid having to deal with Direct as much as possible, and Diff, more often than not, still gives you 4 or 5 of the enemy's cards if you win. =P

[Fynn]

Got to disc 2. Had a small heart attack because it looked like the data on my vita memory card got corrupt, but everything went back to normal after a reboot.

[Fynn]

I honestly forgot how strong the cast of this game is. Sure, there's the shared backstory cop-out, and the way people keep passing the idiot ball to each other is just mind-boggling, but I actually get the feeling that these are people who are interacting with each other and they all have a specific chemistry with each other - which is much more than I can say about VII's cast which felt very bland in comparison.

Maybe part of that is thanks to the translation, though. It's sooooo much better this time

[Fynn]

Ugh

The memory card is acting up. Checking if transferring stuff to another card will help matters.

[Bubba]

Who has been hating on the soundtrack for FFVIII?? It's one of the strongest ones!

[Fynn]

I think it's one of the weakest. Granted, it has a few good tracks - like the main Battle Theme, Force Your Way, Maybe I'm a Lion, or The Extreme - but I'm just pretty underwhelmed by things like Man with the Machine Gun (good composition, weak arrangement, symphonic version is MILES better), Balamb Garden (boring), Blue Fields (bleh) and a whole bunch of weird synth stuff that just sounds incredibly uninspired. Uematsu was experimenting with more electronic sounds and ambient here, and it doesn't always work, sadly. The best tracks here are those that are fairly in-line with his usual 80s rock-inspired stuff (see again Force Your Way, Maybe I'm a Lion, etc.). Overall, though, there's way too little really enjoyable stuff among the plethora of weak tracks, and even those aren't really Uematsu's highest highs. I think VIII has one of his weakest FF soundtracks (along with III, which was just eh even though it wasn't that experimental, or IV, but at least IV had several tracks that are actually super iconic in my eyes). This is especially glaring because it comes after V, VI, and VII which are all easily Uematsu's greatest soundtracks made for the series.

[Bubba]

I think it's one of the strongest.

Fixed.