FFVIII: Odin, Everyone's Grudge and a Gaint Cactus!

Today, was a good and a bad day... First the bad... I realised that by missing Alexander, from Edea, I now can't get Doomtrain... GRRRRRR....

But I did have some fun today I recieved Odin. I got surprised when it only took one of Squall's limit breaks to stop him. He'll now appear randomly and cleave enemies in half. I also fought Tonberrys at the Cetra Ruins, if you defeat about 20 it's easy if you keep Squall in Critical(yellow) HP Zone and Limit break them. You then face the King Tonberry, I just let Squall take him out too, after his defeat you get the Tonberry GF. This is the point in the game where the battles change from GF's all the time to Limits all the time. I also beat Jumbo Cactaur and got the Cactaur GF, Squall got 10,000 needled in the fight, but using Life kept him in critical and his limit did the dirty work.

I was going to get Bahamut in the Deepsea Research Base, but it's too hot out and it's hard to hold the controller when you're hands have sweat beading up on them. Tomorrow though I will defeat Bahamut, learn his Rare Item skill, upgrade my 3 characters weapons to ultimates, then go and fight Ultima Weapon at the bottom of the Deepsea base. I'll also try to finish the game tomorrow if I can, I've got the Pandora bit of Disc3 and then the last hour or so of Disc 4, so it is a possibility. Till tomorrow then.

(34h 13 m)

FFVIII: Drawing? Heaven or Hell?

Just a little update for you all. Today I ran around the Islands Closest to: Heaven and Hell, these Island contain powerful monsters that give good items, but I'll get to that in a future post. All I did today was run around the islands and draw the best spells from their many draw points. Spells like: Aura, Meteor, Full-Life, Holy, Triple, Quake and Flare are available.

Unfortunatly, you can only draw from each once until they restore again after a time. Another thing is they only give maximum FIVE uses of each spell. Most time you get 2 or 3. But I'm going to finish some other sidequests tomorrow.

(32h 10m)

FFVIII: In Space, Lunar Cry, Ragnarok and Meeting Laguna

I played a lot! So here it goes!

After getting the Soloman's Ring from Tear's Point, the next goal is the Lunar Gate. Once there Squall, Rinoa, and a character of your choosing get launched in to space. The other party headed up by Zell heads back to Esthar, to talk to Dr Odine about the huge ship that has appeared. That ship as they find out is the Lunatic Pandora. There is a little timed based Mission that takes place it's really easy, but it gets a bit over dramatized. You have 20 minutes to intercept the Pandora at one of three locations, but even if you are totally lost you can get it to the first contact point before it even gets there at 15 minutes. Once inside the characters run into a sentry robot that boots them out.

Now it's time to see how the space bound characters are doing, after a really great FMV, Squall takes Rinoa to the medical room and puts her in a special bed. Next is the bridge of the Lunar Station, here on a monitor you see the Lunar Cry begin. After that you meet with Ellone, as you are taking her to the bridge, Rinoa awakens, and begins stumbling from the medical room. Squall runs off to go check on her, if you touch her Squall gets slammed to the wall. Once Rinoa gets to the bridge, she begins to release Adel from here holding device. Chasing Rinoa to the locker room, and into the airlock(after putting on a space suit, of course), she beats you out and the air lock is locked down. Making your way back to the bridge, a cut-scene of Rinoa unlocking Adel from the hold. Following this is the amazing Lunar Cry FMV! It's one of the most amazing things you can see. So many monsters that they flow of the moon like a tear, and down to the planet below. Adel is collected inside the Pandora and now the Lunar Station is in trouble!

After a flash back scene for Squall courtesy of Ellone, he goes out to save Rinoa who is running out of air. In the little mini-game you have a cirtain amount of time to get yourself positioned infront of Rinoa who floating towards you and catch her. The game doesn't really tell you how to control the game. But a bunch of presses of Circle and left will get you in the right spot. After a little scene floating in space, Squall and Rinoa's last chance is to float to a derelect spaceship called Ragnarok. Inside this ship, there are a bunch of aliens that you have to defeat in pairs. It's not to hard, but there is one that can be hard to find, it's the last yellow one, that is hiding in the first screen of the ship. After the ship is cleaned out you head to the bridge where a little musical scene begins. It's one of the best in the whole game, so I just put the controller down(and let the text boxes change themselves), listen to the music, and smile. It's really well done.

Once the scene ends Rinoa decides that now she has Edea's powers and is a sorceress, she had better go and be sealed away, incase Ultimecia decides to take her over again. And Squall lets her. Silly Squall. He soon realizes what he has done though, and she is rescued from Esthar Sorceress Memorial. After heading to Edea's house Squall and Rinoa have another good scene, it's the one that explains the text that you see during the intro FMV... "I'll be here waiting... I promise."

Soon after that the main cast finally gets to meet Laguna in person! He explains his whole story, and if you pay enough attention you can figure out that he is Squall's father. I know there was a quote somewhere that hints at it, but I don't remember when it happens. It could be on the Ragnarok. Anyway, Laguna and Odine explain how that they plan for the SeeDs to stop Ultimecia, and so on... Now comes one of the fun parts of the game! GF hunts, Magic Drawing on the Islands, Weapon Upgrading, and lots of side quests! So that's what I'm probably going to do for the next couple of posts.

(30h 58m)

FFVIII: Disc 3 Start, SeeD Ship, Salt Lake and Esthar

After disc 3 starts you head to Edea's house, there she tells you about how she was controlled by a sorceress from the future called Ultimecia. And that she wants to compress time using Ellone's time abilities. Edea is worried that Ultimecia may try to take over the body of the Sorceress Adel. After all that Squall talks to Rinoa who is still unconcious for unkown reasons. Squall then falls asleep and you're take to the next Laguna scenario.

This one is pretty comical as the Laguna scenes tend to be, in this one they are actors in some movie. Laguna dresses up as a knight and Ward and Kiros are going to dress up as the dragon. In a spin a real Ruby Dragon shows up and attacks Laguna, you play a game where you have to defend the blows of the Dragon and whack it with your little sword. After you damage it enough you run down the hill where you battle the dragon for real. This battle is very slow, attacks do very little or no damage, so you have to use GFs to win. It takes quite a bit of boosting to win, and it tires out you fingers. After the fight you see the Lunatic Pandora doing something in the back ground and then the game returns to Squall.

The next mission is to find the white SeeD ship, it can be tricky if you don't know where to look. After you find it you find out that Ellone is no longer on the ship and that she maybe in Esthar. So after a short flashback, the game returns to the bridge of B-Garden. You head to the infirmary and get Rinoa, and Squall starts of on his own to Esthar. He has a little scene where he opens up to the unconcious Rinoa. It turns out his friends where going to Esthar with Edea, so they meet up and head through the Great Salt Lake. At the end of this path is a boss, it's easy to defeat, just draw-cast it's Cura spells and it'll go down. At a cirtain point after the boss a the scene will flicker, it ends up opening a passage in the middle of the sky. After a bunch of lifts the giant city of Esthar is revealed. At the end of the lift, Squall and the others again fall in to the dream world. For the FINAL Laguna Scenario.

In this scenario Laguna is in Esthar working as a prisoner, after a few battles they escape. Dr. Odine (he looks really wierd), tells them where Ellone is being kept. A locked door in the next building is opened by a computer up stairs and Luguna is reunited with Ellone.

Back to Squall again, a "Man" comes to pick you up and take you to the Presidential Palace. There Squall and friends meet Dr. Odine. Odine agrees to let you meet with Ellone, but he want to examine Rinoa first. So it's off to see the sights in Esthar City, it's a pretty big and confusing place, but it's pretty easy to get out of if you learn the path. You even get to visit the stores on the way out. The last thing I did was get the Solomon's Ring from Tear's Point. Tomorrow it's time to head into SPACE!!

(28h 19m)