Let's Play Every Final Fantasy Game In Order Of Release [Now Playing: Final Fantasy Tactics] Let's Play (2025)

Bikes are swirling all around are protagonists. Galbadian troops have entered the Garden. The situation is critical.

So anyway at this point I take an hour off to play with spreadsheets.

3. Junction Schmunction

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Okay, not spreadsheets as such, but I opened a gdoc so I could finally write out the various traits of all the GFs in one easily-referenced format so that I could try and craft something resembling actual builds. Not optimizing my characters as such, just trying to figure out how to do some combos.

Basically: Brothers grants Cover, a passive ability that lets a character take hits for his teammates. Carbuncle grants Counter, a passive ability that lets a character retaliate when taking a physical hit. Previously, I had Carbuncle on Rinoa, who was otherwise specced as a mage, but that meant her Counter was comically weak. If I want to take full advantage of it, I need Brothers and Carbuncle on the same character so I can combine Cover + Counter and Junction a strong spell to Strength so they hit as hard as possible.

Meanwhile, Diablos grants Darkside, as mentioned before, which hits really hard but costs 10% HP; however, if I had a GF with Status Attack Junction, I can junction 100 Drains to Attack, and Darkside will drain as much HP as it costs to use. However, the only two GFs with ST-Atk-J I have are Carbuncle and Siren. Seeing as Carbuncle is already going on whoever has the Brothers, that means Siren is the only other option. And given that neither Diablos nor Siren have Strength Junction, that means Darkside will be comically weak unless I also junction one of the GFs with Str-J: Shiva, Ifrit, or Pandemona (Brothers also have Str-J, but they're going on the Carbuncle team). Seeing as I have 9 GFs and three characters, so everyone gets three GFs, that means one character will specifically have Diablos/Siren/Shiva, Diablos/Siren/Ifrit, or Diablos/Siren/Pandemona. With me so far?

This is actually a fairly engaging exercise. It just runs into one problem: The actual effect of Junctions depends on what magic a character has access to. If my Darkside/Drain super-attacker has Blizzaga as their best Strength junction, they'll still be outcompeted by someone with Ultima junctioned to Strength.

This is ultimately what makes me give up on trying to handcraft perfect little builds. The magic menu is simply hell to navigate. Each character can have up to 4 spells on each page of their Magic menu, which has 8 pages maximum. This means each character can hold up to 32 individual spells. Which seems like a lot, except, this is easily filled up with instances of drawing 3 Blinds there or having 80 Thunders leftover from chargen, loading up the spell inventory with trash. In theory, members who aren't in the party could be used as a "storage chest" holding up the spells you don't need on your active members, and stray instances of 5 or 15 spells can be consolidated on one character. This is what I spent most of the first 20 hours of the game doing. It's just grown completely unmanageable over time. The tiny and inconvenient UI combined with the sheer glut of spells accumulated over time and the need to go back and forth between multiple menu to see if Blizzaga gives better Strength results than Quake gives better Magic results than Aura gives better Speed results than Tornado is a hell without escape or end. My previous approach of giving myself rules about junctions based on GF elemental affinities was fun while it lasted but, in case you think 'well just abandon that silly idea,' I already did that several hours ago; magic has simply grown too annoying to navigate even beyond that stage. The Magic menu management has defeated me. I abandon doing it this way and I just abandon managing Magic altogether. I just press "auto junction" and let the game do its thing.

My current build is: One character gets Diablos/Leviathan/Shiva (Darkside, Strength-Junction), Carbuncle/Brothers/Ifrit (Cover + Counter, Strength Bonus), Pandemona/Siren/Shiva (Strength and Magic Junction, Magic Bonus). This means I don't get my cool Darkside Drain effect, but the character with Siren gets Magic Bonus, which increases their Magic stat on level up, so I can train them to have a stronger magic baseline over time. Is this any good? Man, I don't know. I just wanna go back to playing the fucking game.

Anyway, I forget to turn off Enc-None for the next ten minutes so we just never run into an actual Galbadian attack force until I do.

4. Rinoa, Just Hangin' Out

MEANWHILE!

The Galbadian motorbike troops are racing past our characters, giving them little chance to intercept. They decide instead to run to the edge of the quad, to hit them directly as they land. Then they decide to take a break for romance.

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Zell pauses to give Rinoa the ring he got from Squall. He promises that he'll make her one just like it, and until then, she should hold on to it. That was their big plan - they noticed Squall had a cool ring with sentimental value to him, and Zell is planning to make it into a matching pair for Rinoa. Kinda like some kind of… Practice engagement rings? Rinoa asks Zell how he convinced Squall to part with his ring and Zell says he just told him to hand it over, which makes Rinoa laugh. She comments that the ring looks cool, but it's too big to fit on her finger. Hopefully, this won't lead to the ring slipping off or falling off her pocket or being lost or some other tired old cliché. Irvine reminds her that it's not like she's going to be wearing that ring, just the duplicate Zell makes for her that's in her size, and that they should get a move on.

Then Rinoa falls into a hole.

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No, look, it's a really cool cutscene, taking advantage of both the spectacles FF8's FMV are capable of and how expressive their character models are, I was genuinely impressed. What happens here is that Galbadian Garden clips the edge of Balamb with its halo, using it like some kind of buzzsaw ram and breaking off a chunk of the quad. Now Rinoa is left dangling off a rock from the cliff, which is things get weirder.

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Zell can't reach Rinoa, and Irvine says they should find something to pull her up. So far so sensible; this seems like a problem that could be solved with Float or superhuman agility or whatnot, but we know magic only exists outside of combat when the devs feel like it. So let's get a rope. That is sensible.

What is less sensible is… Just leaving the quad entirely and traipsing around half of Balamb Garden until we run into Squall again.

We find Squall at the front gate, where Zell and Irvine tell him Rinoa's in danger. But just then, Nida calls on the speakers, telling Squall the enemy is attacking the classroom upstairs, the one where the children are holed up, and then Xu warns that the enemy are coming in for a frontal assault on the gate.

Sick shot, btw.​

Zell shouts at Squall asking if he heard him, Squall shouts back that Rinoa isn't the only one in danger, Irvine accuses Squall of being heartless and tells him Rinoa is gonna die.

This is the most artificial possible drama. This is only happening because Zell and Irvine decided that, of all the things they could do to save Rinoa, crossing half of the Garden to find Squall and yell at him would be the most effective. Rinoa is dangling from her rock right now as we speak, waiting for any of these guys to stop yelling and instead find, I don't know, a rope, a tent pole, a daisy chain of convenient underclassmen, anything at all in this giant mercenary school full of people.

Anyway, Squall tries to focus. There are three tasks at hand: protecting the front gate with Xu, heading for the classroom to protect the children, and helping Rinoa. PCs need to be allocated to each task, but it's a very simplified choice - Zell is always the one helping Rinoa, so basically we choose which two of Irvine, Quistis and Selphie we want to head with Squall to the classroom, and the leftover character teams up with Xu to defend the gate.

Squall: "Zell, you help Rinoa. Do whatever it takes, alright!?"
Zell: "Leave it to me!"

…

I cannot emphasize enough that the sum total of Zell's actions after Rinoa fell over the cliff was to leave, run around the school until he found Squall, ask Squall what to do, berate him from thinking of things other than saving Rinoa, then be told "Do whatever it takes to help Rinoa," say "Got it!", and run back the other way to go and help Rinoa with no new help, orders, tools, or ideas.

This is stupid. This is a stupid subplot. The game is just hoping you're too taken in the rush of events and cinematic excitement of it all to notice.

Once again, Galbadia Garden rams Balamb Garden, shaking the whole structure, and we take over Squall to head for the classroom, and suddenly it's time for MORE SICK MIL SCIFI DROPS.

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A hangar opens up to reveal mechanized paratroopers that drop into the sky then turn on their exoskeletons that fly up to the Garden walls, using pistons to latch onto the surface? Oh, baby, talk dirty to me.

It's a little surprising that the exoskeletons are apparently use-and-drop, serving only to attach to the surface before the troops manually grapple and drop by swinging on ropes, but I guess they're not combat exoskeleton - it'll be more apparent soon but the mechs aren't articulated; they can be directed fluidly in the air but the arms and legs can't move and they don't have mounted weapons. Interesting tech.

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These are Paratroopers, a palette swap of the normal G-Soldier, who use Demi (so they can deal some real damage regardless of our resistance or HP) and Status effects. They quickly deploy Silence on Selphie and Squall, which could prove a problem, except my auto-junctioning happened to give Irvine a max HP in the 3k+, so his current 977 HP is enough to proc his Limit Break, and he blasts away the entire group with shotgun ammo.

Squall congratulates the SeeD girl on taking care of the trembling children (good leadership again!) and tells her to take them somewhere safe, then Nida calls on the speakers again - Dr Kadowaki is on the bridge and wants to talk to him. Maybe they could have sent a messenger to deliver whatever important message this is supposed to be, I don't know.

While we head back, Galbadia Garden rams into us once again, knocking down one of the fleeing kids and several students who moan that they're finished. When we reach the bridge, Kadowaki asks for an update on the situation and Squall tells her we were able to repel the first two waves of the attack, but there are many injured and he doesn't know if we can withstand another wave. Quistis (who was with Xu at the gate) that the gate force is holding its ground, but only barely.

Dr Kadowaki: "So… Looks like this is it."
Quistis: "Their Garden has more experienced fighters. On the other hand, most of our troops are students who are still in training. Like Squall said, one more wave and we'll be finished."
Squall, mentally: "(Maybe I should've focused on attacking in the beginning instead of concentrating on our defenses…)"
Dr Kadowaki: "Seifer is with them, right? You said it yourself. There's no way you can run from him… It's kind of like your destiny to face him." [She approaches Squall and leans in towards him.] "...Looks like it's now or never!"
Dr Kadowaki: "You've come this far already. What is there to think about? You're not gonna run away are you?"
Squall, mentally: "(Never!)"
Squall: "There's no way I'm gonna run from him! Besides, attacking him might be our only chance."

It looks like Dr Kadowaki has taken the role of 'reasonable adult figure who is giving life lessons' over from Cid. But it's weird that the school doctor is the one to summon Squall and tell him "it is your destiny to fight Seifer, do it now!"

Admittedly, Kadowaki has always seemed close enough to Cid and apart enough from the faculty that I sort of suspect she's an old friend of Cid and knows much more about his background and his designs than she's letting on, and she's acting here on prior knowledge that she hasn't disclosed with the SeeDs.

That aside, it's interesting that Galbadia Garden is winning against Balamb Garden, considering how one-sided all previous conflicts between SeeDs and Galbadian soldiers were. Presumably, the issue is that Galbadia Garden concentrates the Galbadian army's elites and officers, instead of large hordes of mooks with only a few of those elites dispersed throughout, and SeeDs benefit from acting like special operatives more than front line troops, so this is a bad match-up for them.

Which means it makes sense that they're doing worse when fighting in a defensive posture as opposed to, say, boarding Galbadia Garden and sending out a few times behind enemy lines to, say, disable their engines and kill their leadership, and it makes sense that Squall's big turn-around moment is deciding to do just that.

Squall: "The only problem is, how are we going to board their Garden?"
Irvine: "Say, how about if we crash into their Garden? I know it sounds crazy but at least we'll be able to get in. Their pilot's been ramming us all along. I'm sure Nida can do it, too."
Squall: "We have no choice. Let's do it."
[Zell enters stage left, alone.]
Squall: "Where's Rinoa?"
Zell: "Sorry, man. There's nothin' I can do! There's no way to get to the quad! Those bastards have the area barricaded. Man! The only way we can get to her is by going over the roof or flying there."
Squall, mentally: "(...Rinoa)"
Irvine: "Whoa, wait a minute. You just gave up on her, didn't you?" [He walks up to Squall.] "Listen… Do me a favor. YOU… go help Rinoa. It may be too late, but don't give up until you're CERTAIN that there's nothing more you can do!"
Squall: "I… I have to lead the attack."
Irvine: "I don't care what you have to do, or how you feel. Just do it… Please! For Rinoa."
Quistis: "Listen to Irvine, Squall. She's one of us."
Selphie: "What are you waiting for!? I can't believe you!"
Zell: "C'mon, Squall! Please! It's gotta be you! You're the one that has to save her!"
Irvine: "I'll take everyone inside Galbadia Garden. Don't worry. I know the place like the back of my hand."
Quistis: "We'll clear a path. Once Squall arrives, we move in."

…

It's not like I don't get what the story is going for here.

Squall does want to save Rinoa, but he feels shackled by his new responsibility as leader of Balamb Garden. That's why he sends Zell, rather than doing it himself: He's trying to make sure she's safe but can't allow himself to abandon all the students counting on him to do so. That's why Zell fails, and has to come back, and Irvine puts it to Squall that he has to make a decision. He has to save Rinoa himself or accept that she's lost (and he obviously can't do the latter). He is the protagonist and Rinoa's love interest, which imbues him with a special agency that means only he can pull off that rescue, regardless of the actual abilities or whoever is doing the task.

I could criticize that plot beat from two angles - one is that Squall's growth as a person, a friend and a team leader has been closely associated to his growth as the leader of Balamb Garden, so creating a sudden gap where he has to choose one of the two feels jarring. But that's minor. The other is that this sequence has the characters all but telling Squall "only you have the narrative agency to save Rinoa, we can't do it because we're not the main character, regardless of whether it makes sense or not," and that's also jarring with how FF8 has handled its themes so far - they're not usually this meta.

But no, most of that is just post-hoc rationalizing of why I am frustrated with this plot beat, which is having this entire, like, half-hour to hour of gameplay (depending on combat encounter length), of combat happening, running around the school, swapping party setups, reporting to Dr Karawaki, planning the next attack, all of it happening while Rinoa is suspended over the abyss dangling from a rock just waiting for everyone to have it all sorted out so they can actually come and help her is just. It's dumb. It's a dumb scenario. I mean, props to our girl for having arms of steel, but it's silly. Like, Galbadia Garden rammed into Balamb Garden, knocking everyone over, twice since Rinoa fell off!

5. Squall's Counterattack

Anyway, before we can actually do that, Karawaki chimes in to remind Squall that he is forgetting 'something important,' that is, before he leaves to save Rinoa, he should first climb up to the bridge and broadcast a speech to bolster SeeD and student morale. Again, while Rinoa is just casually dangling from a cliff face. She's just in a narrative timeout waiting for the camera to come back to her.

It's a good speech, too! (Also it's preceded by Nida telling Squall that he probably doesn't know it, but everyone in Garden looks up to him, and that they like him, which is sweet.)

Notably, these dialogue boxes start and end at their own rhythm; they are synced to the sweeping, inspiring music playing in the background and to the movement of the characters in the various vignettes looking up as Squall's voice inspires them.​

It's a really cool emulation of war movie montages where the camera pans over the characters going to their own missions, the medics carrying the wounded, someone taking care of the children, and so on.

Squall: "......Everybody. This is Squall. How's everyone doing? You're probably all too tired to even stand up after all the fighting. But I want everyone to listen to me… We still have a chance to win, and I need your help. This is going to be our final battle. We're going to attack them before they come in again. To do that, we're going to head straight into their Garden. So I want everyone to prepare for a major collision. Take care of all the junior classmen. Irvine, Quistis, Zell, and Selphie will lead the attack into their Garden. As for everyone else, please support them if you can. SeeD was formed to fight the sorceress; at least, that's what I heard. And Garden was created to train SeeDs. So this battle is Garden's destiny and also our destiny. It's a grueling battle, and I'm sure you guys are all exhausted. But I don't want to have any regrets. I don't want anyone to look back and regret this day. So just this once, I want you guys to give everything you've got! For yourselves and for me!"

Like, Squall didn't suddenly manifest implausible poetry and oratory skills since his last speech, but this was perfectly decent. He reaches out to everyone with sympathy (How's everyone doing?), he acknowledges the hardship they're being put through, he expresses his care for the children, then gives practical orders and leaders to look up to, then ties it up into the greater mission of SeeD and then into a sense of their destiny and their belonging as a group, and then asks them to give him their strength and exhorts them to give it their all. It's a perfectly good speech! He's really grown!

Then Squall orders Nida to ram the enemy garden, which he does; the two Gardens become somehow embedded together, and Quistis's party hop down from the front stairs onto Galbadia's courtyard.

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As for Squall, he's now solo running through Garden, once again passing through the classroom corridor, where he runs into… Heavy sigh. The SeeD in charge of the junior classmen. Who tells him that she can't find "Mark," one of the kids.

She advanced one screen since we last left her, in the process of running away, several minutes and a rousing speech ago.

No matter. We run to the backrooms, where Squall finds Mark alone and possibly crying, and Squall acts compassionately towards him then tells him to run over to the girl waiting for him, and the kid does so. Squall is good with kids now, character growth.

At this point, a health bar labeled "Squall" appears at the bottom of the screen. This is intended as a kind of stakes-raiser, a spooky thing, why would a health bar appear when Squall is alone and seemingly safe?

Unfortunately, it's a warning for the worst minigame in the game so far.

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One of the Galbadian exosuits flies in through the back door and rams Squall repeatedly, knocking him down and against the wall. We do not enter combat proper; the suit is just flying around rigidly and bumping into us every time I try to take a move action. Go left, get slammed. Go right, get slammed. Advance, get slammed. It's inexplicable and Squall's health bar is just depleting until…

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…we hit a pseudo-game over and the game offers me bonus HP to try again, as a pity difficulty adjustment. It is, somehow, infuriating. The problem isn't that I don't have enough HP, the problem is that I don't know the rules of the game you're asking me to play.

The answer, which I figure out on the second go, is that instead of trying to move, we should stay still and press X, which triggers a choice of option: Run away, threaten the enemy, call out to the SeeD girl for help, or press the emergency exit button. Only one of those sounds like it will do anything, so we press the button. The exosuit rams Squall again, only this time…

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…the door is open (complete with inflatable toboggans, airplane-style, natch), so they both go out tumbling through the sky, Squall thankfully managing to get a grip on the guy's armor before he can fall to his death.

What follows is, technically, kind of amazing, and it ties back into something we've been talking about since the beginning of FFVII.

We've talked about how pre-rendered backgrounds have one major asset (they can be much, much higher quality than the in-engine textures), and one major drawback (they are perfectly static, you can't move the camera around). But that's not… Entirely true. It's not that you can't move a pre-rendered background, it's that you often don't, because the pre-rendered background is, well, your background. If Squall is traveling down a busy city street, you might 'move' the camera by showing different sections of the pre-rendered background, but you need every reference to be mostly static so that it looks like Squall is 'by the bench' or 'interacting with the shop door' or 'standing in the street in front of the bus,' yeah?

But in theory any pre-rendered background is just, like, a movie you are displaying in the background of your characters. So if your characters are totally unmoored from anything physical and keeping consistency between in-engine models and pre-rendered background elements doesn't matter, say, if your characters are tumbling through the sky wrestling with one another, then… You can do this:

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In terms of spectacle, this aerial wrestling match between Squall and a nameless Galbadian Soldier is one of the highlights of the entire game. The game is playing an entire FMV that involves sweeping aerial shots and a battle scene featuring dozens of characters duking it out with swords and immense vista shots that capture pieces of both Gardens, while in the foreground our hero is engaged in a blow-for-blow fight for his life. I am genuinely amazed by what they did there with the technology of the time.

Which is why it's such a shame that the minigame that goes with it is absolute ass.

Basically, Squall and the Galbadian Soldiers both have a health bar, and they can each Punch, Kick, or Block on a given time unit. There is no explanation of how that works, whether timing matters, whether a particular type of blow can counter another, or whether it's possible to read a blow and react in advance. This is like the rock'em sock'em robots from VII, only flying around, with multiple camera angles obscuring character movements, and with several screens loading. It is basically impossible to play except at random, as far as I can tell, and I promptly fucking die, again.

It takes several attempts to get it right, and we need to cheat. A 'helpful hints' screen that appears when we fail tells us that a special move is unlocked by blocking multiple times. So, if we spam Block, we eventually unlock the option "Deathblow!" by pressing Circle, which deals massive damage. However, 1) Blocking is not very reliable, 2) Deathblow isn't a one-hit kill, 3) the Galbadian soldier can counter Deathblow sometimes, 4) If we move to a new screen while Deathblow is up, it will be canceled. So we die, again.

Finally, after a couple more attempts, we get it right and the guy plummets to his death. In any other circumstances, I would have a deep appreciation for 'random mook decides to put up and gives the protagonist an inexplicably tough fight'; "TRAITOR!" is my favorite bit of the otherwise very forgettable The Force Awakens. But the minigame is too tedious for me to think of this sequence as anything but a frustrating waste of my time.

Once the soldier falls to his gruesome death, Squall hangs onto the grappling rope dangling from the exosuit and proceeds to climb up on it and ride it to its final destination…

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Rinoa, who has been just chilling on her rock the whole time, jumps and grabs onto the rope, and Squall carries them to safety.

Or, well, "safety." He puts down the exosuit in the middle of a fierce melee between SeeD and Galbadian troops, which obeys the classic Hollywood movie style of 'everyone is wielding swords and squaring off randomly in a field in total chaos.

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Again using the 'pre-rendered backdrop as movie playing in the background' to great effect. I don't know why they waited until what I assume is the end of Disc 2 to pull that trick, but it definitely makes an impact when it comes in. The scene is really dynamic, there's a sense of actual fights happening, with casualties we see in real time, explosions going off, and so on. This is exciting! This is cinematic! This is action!

And now it's time for more teenage romance. Which, like, to be clear, this is the right moment for teenage romance. Squall just rescued Rinoa and ran through a battlefield with explosions going off and now they have a brief moment of peace, this is the perfect moment for it.

Squall tries to play off saving her as still being his job, what with their standing contract, and Rinoa laughs at that, since it's incredibly a transparent excuse, and tells him she couldn't afford to fall off that cliff and die: She has something very important that belongs to him, and she can't die until she gives it back. Which leads to a fascinating exchange.

Squall, mentally: "(I'm gonna kill him…)"
Squall: "That's my favorite ring. You'd better give it back."
Rinoa: "I'm sure it is. It's a cool-looking ring. What's this monster on it anyway?"
Squall: "It's not a monster. It's a lion. Lions are known for their strength and pride."
Rinoa: [She does a cutesy 'shuffling over with her hands behind her back' animation] "Hmm… Great strength… pride… …Kinda like you, Squall."
Squall: "I wish…"
Rinoa: "Hmm… So this L I O N of yours, does it have a name?"
Squall: "Of course."

Okay, I'm not crazy, that 'face portrait' is the necklace Squall wears in cutscenes, right?​

…

He gave his lion ring a name.

And that name is Griever.

And it's considered meaningful enough that we get an option to change it like we do GF names.

…

We'll see where that leads eventually, sure.

But no, what I'm getting stuck on is - Rinoa doesn't know what a lion is. An animal that is both entirely mundane and extremely popular as well as highly symbolic in our world is a 'cool-looking monster' to her, and Squall has to explain both what it is and what's associated with it. When she repeats, 'L I O N' spelling out the letter, it strongly gives the impression that she's repeating a name she only ever heard just now, she didn't simply mistake the ring's appearance for something else.

It's… entirely possible that apex predators like the lion 1) are likely target for the Lunar Cry to turn into a monster, 2) cannot survive as animals in a world where prey has turned into monsters stronger than they and other, more powerful predatory monsters are outcompeting them. The lion… May very well be an endangered, or even extinct species in Squall's world.

…

We know people raise chocobos. We know people have cats and dogs. We know Moombas are used as pseudo-animal labor. But we haven't seen any livestock, have we? Farm animals?

Like, in retrospect, 'sometimes moonbeams turn your cows into superpowered hornbeasts' would be an issue for farming. And furthermore, 'the minotaurs are interfertile with your cows, so even if you keep your cattle safe from the Lunar Cry sometimes they pass through your field and ten months later you have a brood of Catoblepas on your hands' would make it even more difficult.

(Fun story: My aunt raises organic, free-range pigs for a living. They had one sow that was always kind of temperamental, physically a little different from the others, not so much the runt of the litter as the aggressive delinquent pig of the family. When came the time to do the dirty deed, they brought her to a professional as they do all their pigs, who told them 'yeah, I can't take that one, that's a boar-pig hybrid, hygiene rules won't let us.' That's the kind of thing we deal with in that business, I suppose.)

FF8 has the same kind of empty world as FF7, with vast stretches of plains and wilderness and unoccupied places between human settlements, and I'm getting the impression that part of the reason for that, on top of the monsters just being monsters, is that their existence makes raising livestock impossible? Dogs and cats are small and have a personal relationship with you, and chocobos are kind of basically already monsters, just friendly ones, but sheep, cows, horses? I'd wager that perhaps the only animal you can raise for food in this world might be, like, chickens.

…

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Never mind, there's that UFO abducting a cow, forget everything I just said.

Rinoa: "You know Zell said he'll make me one exactly like it. Who knows, maybe I can become like a lion," too. That'd be crazy, huh!? I mean, everyone might, y'know, get the wrong idea about us."
Squall, mentally: "(If it's so crazy, why do you sound so delighted? Everyone is trying to get us together. It's so obvious even I can tell.)"
Squall: "You sound like you want everyone to get the wrong idea."
Rinoa: [She does a hand-wagging gesture.] "No-no-no-no-no!"

It's… cute? That Squall is able to recognize that everyone is trying to set him up with Rinoa? I mean, he would have to be incredibly dense to not notice, but there is a kind of like… Authenticity to the way this relationship is handled; the way instead the old romance cliché of Rinoa and Squall growing closer but in a weird way where they don't fully know why they feel until a dramatic kiss happens, Rinoa is very clearly coming on to Squall and teasing him about it, and Squall is aware that his whole social circle is trying to set him up with this girl, and his own feelings are too complicated to either go along with it or break it off with her, so whether this will actually pan out into a relationship is contingent on whether or not Squall can sort out his own feelings, but he's aware of it. He knows Rinoa is flirting with him and his friends are trying to push them to get together. He's not completely socially blind.

We now get the option to tell Rinoa to stay here or tell her to come on as we join up with the others; I didn't bother with the first. I grabbed Aura from a draw point at the back of the trees, and now, we're heading into Galbadia Garden.

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Whatever lies within, we'll find out next time.

…

Boy, that sure was a sequence. What a frustrating combination of high-octane cinematic action and baffling handling of straightforward plot beats. This is FF8 as its most 'war movie'-like since Dollet, and it really knows how to handle that aspect, from the chaos of battle, the grand speeches, the power of military technology in action, the sweeping vistas of conflict, the on-the-fly tactics and adjustments, all of that - top notch. When FF8 borrows the aesthetic of military sci-fi, it really finds its niche in a place no other FF game has before - FF7 was almost demilitarized by comparison, its focus entirely on its (outstanding) industrial aesthetic, the greatest army in the world merely a security corps playing second fiddle to giant robots and mad science projects. Rufus wishes he had a Garden to command. This isn't a value judgment between the two games; if anything, it's a criticism that FF8 doesn't quite lean enough into that angle that is really what it has of most unique, especially in combination with the geopolitical technothriller angle it had early on.

But also there's so much bullshit and I'm just not over Rinoa spending this entire update suspended above the void by the strength of her arms waiting calmly waiting for rescue. Or the weird placement of the ring stuff (and also I'm pretty sure it got changed from necklace to ring or the opposite at some point during development??). Not helped by me having to once again grapple with the junction mechanics for an hour to ultimately very little positive effect, all for two combat encounters total.

Also Odin was there I guess. Hopefully he'll show up as a summon in the next update, he has yet to do so.

Thank you for reading.

Next Time: Galbadia Garden Invasion!