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Kajeesus posted:Drawing 100 spells isn't that painful as long as you junction your magic stat up first. Using what spells?
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Dec 22, 2014 23:05
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Water, Tornado or the -agas. Hell, with enough card playing and Siren's status magic RF you can get the (second) best magic junction.
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Dec 22, 2014 23:11
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Come to think of it, how does the Junction system work from a physical standpoint anyways? Do the spells turn into materia and hang off of the body like Christmas ornaments, or is it something else? And Satan knows how the hell Magic: The Gathering cards transmute into massively powerful spells that can be potentially wielded by a Girl Scouts company over in the next neighborhood.
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Dec 22, 2014 23:55
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Variant_Eris posted:Come to think of it, how does the Junction system work from a physical standpoint anyways? Do the spells turn into materia and hang off of the body like Christmas ornaments, or is it something else?
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Dec 23, 2014 00:05
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ArchWizard posted:I thought that at some point it's explanied that drawn spells get crammed into your brain, kinda like how D&D wizards store their spells when they memorize spell charges. I don't have much of a problem with the lore of this particular system, it's really only a thing to think about because FF8 is 3D - in FFV, nobody bats an eye if Galuf changes his clothes from a wide-brimmed hat and blue robe to no shirt and bandana and now can suddenly punch things better instead of magicing them to death. Whatever... My biggest gripe with junctions themselves is actually the inconvenience of managing the drat spells. They try a lot by allowing you to shuffle freely between party members etc., but it's still too tedious. Especially the 100 spells per character limit, it should still be a 100 junction limit, but a shared inventory with a 300 total limit. It is also nonsensical how Tornado is better on health than Curaga is and Blind is slightly better on Magic than Scan but worse than Fire, and that uh Esuna is better on Spirit than Regen (pulling this out my rear end). It's annoying to test that and it really doesn't need to be that complicated, especially as in the end, you will really only have to decide between two optimal setups with on emphasizing health and one strength a tiny bit more (or something).
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Dec 23, 2014 00:21
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Simply Simon posted:But then again, GFs might cause memory loss (don't jump down my throat for mentioning that - it was in the datalogs) so that also makes perfect sense together. That's only true if you believe the FILTHY LIES spouted by anti-Garden propaganda rather than trusting your Friendly Garden Faculty. Don't listen to any of that rubbish criticism; ignore whatever you hear from other Gardens or military forces! 
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Dec 23, 2014 00:25
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Simply Simon posted:My biggest gripe with junctions themselves is actually the inconvenience of managing the drat spells. They try a lot by allowing you to shuffle freely between party members etc., but it's still too tedious. Especially the 100 spells per character limit, it should still be a 100 junction limit, but a shared inventory with a 300 total limit. It is also nonsensical how Tornado is better on health than Curaga is and Blind is slightly better on Magic than Scan but worse than Fire, and that uh Esuna is better on Spirit than Regen (pulling this out my rear end). It's annoying to test that and it really doesn't need to be that complicated, especially as in the end, you will really only have to decide between two optimal setups with on emphasizing health and one strength a tiny bit more (or something). In the catalogs you can also find detailed descriptions of what spells do and which stats they're good for! 
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Dec 23, 2014 00:35
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Simply Simon posted:But then again, GFs might cause memory loss (don't jump down my throat for mentioning that - it was in the datalogs) so that also makes perfect sense together. MagusofStars posted:That's only true if you believe the FILTHY LIES spouted by anti-Garden propaganda rather than trusting your Friendly Garden Faculty. Don't listen to any of that rubbish criticism; ignore whatever you hear from other Gardens or military forces! Yeah, don't believe Ondore's lies! You probably think Wily's behind the next round of 8 gimmicky robot attacks.
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Dec 23, 2014 00:37
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Managing the spells isn't actually all that big a pain unless for some inane reason you want to have more than three spell sets. Especially since you'll always get a chance to gently caress around with your junctions between any time your regular party changes (with one noteworthy major exception that is a very very far way off). In the Switch section of the main menu is an option called Junction Exchange. Pick this, pick two characters (even ones who aren't available to be party members at present, such as Zell and Selphie during the recent training center stuff, or Quistis during the Dollet mission), and boom - their magic stocks, junctioned GFs, what spell is on what stat, current commands and abilities, are all exactly swapped. Basically you just set up three characters the way you like them and then simply move those setups from character to character as people enter and leave your party. No manually moving magic around between characters (unless you have less than 300 of it and want the spell in question to be in setup X instead of setup Y), no manually reassigning junctions, no figuring out what magic's best for what stat all the time. You get things set up once and then simply update from there. There are a handful of exceptions related to something we haven't seen yet (but will soon), which can force you to set up your junctions again from scratch, but they're pretty few and far between. I'll talk about that more when we get there.
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Dec 23, 2014 00:39
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MagusofStars posted:That's only true if you believe the FILTHY LIES spouted by anti-Garden propaganda rather than trusting your Friendly Garden Faculty. Don't listen to any of that rubbish criticism; ignore whatever you hear from other Gardens or military forces! So...Balamb is America and the rest of the world is North Korea?
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Dec 23, 2014 00:39
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Vil posted:Managing the spells isn't actually all that big a pain unless for some inane reason you want to have more than three spell sets. Especially since you'll always get a chance to gently caress around with your junctions between any time your regular party changes (with one noteworthy major exception that is a very very far way off). This is, in my opinion, the biggest weakness of the game's mechanics, and it's an issue in FF7 and FF10 as well, where in the end, the only major thing differentiating the characters is their Limit Breaks. And Squall's 255% hit rate.
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Dec 23, 2014 01:00
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255% hit rate doesn't even matter that much in a game where enemies not named Cactuar all have zero or practically zero evasion. The Hit stat literally only ever matters if fighting Cactuars (in which case you're better off using an upcoming character's limit anyway for being multitarget and quick) or if blinded (in which case you cure the blindness or step up your ST-Def game). I agree though, having characters be mostly blank slates, while it's good for scratching the "everyone can be good at everything" itch, really just makes them carbon copies of each other in many scenarios. I think FF10 handled it best: characters start out specialized, and if you want to go out of your way (or use the expert grid) you can change from their default, but you don't really get into omni-competence until the postgame. At which point it's honestly fine.
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Dec 23, 2014 01:49
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The ability systems in FF7 and FF8 are best regarded as failed experiments. It's good that they tried out new things, but those particular approaches didn't pan out, and it's not clear that there's any simple way to fix them. Now we have a better idea of what not to do.
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Dec 23, 2014 02:00
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ultrafilter posted:The ability systems in FF7 and FF8 are best regarded as failed experiments. It's good that they tried out new things, but those particular approaches didn't pan out, and it's not clear that there's any simple way to fix them. Now we have a better idea of what not to do.  Yeah, and this is why ATB systems don't exist in real life. In all seriousness though, VIII's battle system was pretty bad if you didn't know what to do. And VII...well, I don't really remember VII in all honesty. Can anyone bring me up to speed?
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Dec 23, 2014 02:33
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I don't really think those games had that many sameness issues. In FF7, there's not enough materia/slots to make your characters samey, outside of the ludicrous enemy skill materia. In FF10, your characters would only be samey once you started maxing out the sphere grid, which is not happening unless you're doing the monster arena side quest, at which point you can kill any in-game bosses in two hits at most. FF8 has fewer limits, but limit breaks are a lot more relevant and it's still good to have a physical attacker, a high magic character and a support/tankish fellow. You might as well say the job system games are samey because you have a squad of four ninjas. I think it was only really an issue in 12, where skills consisted of a super-expensive party-wide unlock followed by a dirt cheap per-character unlock, and they actually did release a second version of the game with an overhauled system.
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Dec 23, 2014 02:38
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I think that your characters start out pretty similar, since you don't have access to much in the way of unique abilities, and if you focus on having all the best junctions, you end up with three characters with all the same spells and stats that are only a couple points out from each other. The differences come up if you just junction what you have handy and if you make a lot of use of special commands.
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Dec 23, 2014 02:58
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Part Thirteen: Fun With Chattin' and Readin' Well, yesterday Squall got his head cut open, tamed a GF, did his SeeD exam, danced with some girl he didn't know, and shut his instructor down when she wanted to have a heart-to-heart.  Today, Selphie is waking him up to go to work.  : Looks like we're going to Timber. Meet by the front gate. Hurry! Sounds urgent. I guess we'd better go. Now we have control of Squall in his new, smaller room.  The first thing we can do is pick this up. This is our second issue of Weapons Monthly, but the first is kind of lovely, so I held off on it. Let's check both out now.  Like the item description says, Weapons Monthly is a weapons research magazine.  Each issue tells you about a model of weapon, like the Revolver here, and what items you need to use to remodel your weapon into it.    The March issue describes basic weapons for Squall, Zell, Quistis, and Selphie. Like I said, it's kind of lovely. There's no reason to ever remodel to basic weapons.  Let's check out the April issue.  Every issue of Weapons Monthly has a gunblade in it; Squall has the most weapons in the game, but most of them (like the Shear Trigger here) just change out the hilt.  You can easily get the materials to upgrade Squall and Zell's weapons from playing cards in Garden.   These last two weapons are for characters we don't have yet, but they're also basic weapons so who the gently caress cares? PS. Guns are just weaker than swords in Final Fantasy VIII's world.  Oh, here's a fun trick you can do at home. I took Squall's Curagas off of his HP.  If your new junction means you'll have lower max HP, the game has to lower your current HP to match that.  So when I put those spells back on his HP, Squall is now instantly in critical condition. You can do this to get someone up to use limit breaks after you get a full heal.   I also get Selphie's magic back from Quistis. Quistis won't need magic for a while now.  Blah blah blah junctions.   Since I have more than enough Fish Fins for the entire game, I gave Zell 100 Waters for his Strength.  Now, let's go chat.  There used to be three girls hanging out here, but now the group is mixed-sex. Guy 1: Huh? What incident? Girl: You were fighting, remember? Guy 2: Fighting...? We were never fighting, were we? Guy 1: Nope! Girl: Haa... Whatever... I wasn't really worried anyway... Fascinating!  See ya round, jogging kid! I have a mission!  Hey, thanks, Xu. Xu: Looks like they have high hopes for you. See ya round, Xu.  poo poo, look at that. We haven't even done anything yet and we're already gettin' paid. Hell, our rank even went up.   Hey, nice uniform, hosed-up torso guy.  There are a few SeeDs that you can find in their natural habitat like this guy (or Xu), but you generally don't see many. SeeD is a pretty small group, and it's likely that more than one SeeD has died before.  Squall is just staring the poo poo out of that guy. Conceited SeeD: Oh, I'm in no rush. Besides, I don't have much time to read.  You know what I've noticed running around Garden? There are a lot of black people in the place, for a Japanese game. Only one playable character is black, but there you go. Library Committee Member: P-Please stop by again!  Here you can see the conceited SeeD taking a second to make sure the stick is still firmly lodged up his rear end.  Yeah, good luck with my mission, you mean.  When you said you were busy with the budget meeting, did you really mean the anime cliché meeting? Library Committee Member: That SeeD comes to the library often. He's been the topic of our conversation lately. Well, you just keep on keepin' on, Library Committee Member.  A Fuckin' Nerd: That's why I'm scoping out a book now.  Well, thanks. See ya.  I don't even know why I went to the library.  I hope we were all enlightened. There are probably a bunch of new conversations to be had around Garden now that we're a SeeD, but I want to move the story ahead.  Here's another SeeD in the wild. We talked to her before our exam, but I wanted to point her out. This means we've met 8 SeeDs at this point in the game.   The gossiping girls over by the directory have new lines, as well. I like that there's so much incidental dialogue around Garden, it makes the place feel a lot more real and fleshed-out, but it's so easy to miss.   While I'm still around Garden, I relieve the gatekeeper of a couple of cards so I can turn them into upgrade materials.  Fun fact: fast travel is still unavailable at this point. It will become available shortly.  There's a stupid errand I want to run in the cafeteria, so let's talk to this sad guy on the way. Don't be so sad, buddy. Fun fact: even the hallways in Garden have different sets of NPCs they can draw from. There are a lot of NPCs in Balamb Garden.  You'll never get anywhere with it if you put it off.  Well, at least they're not out of food yet.  This cafeteria lady is feeling a bit more talkative. (PS, remember how I implied I wouldn't be spending a long time on dialogue? Well, poo poo, I lied.) Cafeteria Lady: I must say, being young is so great. It's like this burst of energy flowing within you...constantly, and...  You get a chance to duck out of listening to her story, but...well, you know what kind of run this is. Cafeteria Lady: But seriously, with all these youngsters around, I'm beginning to feel young myself. I'm starting to think to myself, 'Hey, I'm still all that!' You know what I mean! I'm glad your life is so fulfilling for you. Cafeteria Lady: Ahahahahah! What am I saying!? Ahahahahah! Well anyway, I have a son just about your age, but he is just so incompetent, and...  This is one of those long stories you hear about. Cafeteria Lady: So my son, he's not as bright as you all here, so I was worried about his future. Then about a year ago... 'I'm goin' on a journey to see what I can do!' he said. Can you believe him!? Leaving to go backpacking in an attempt to find yourself seems a little more dangerous in Final Fantasy VIII-land, where T-Rexes are just around. Cafeteria Lady: I was really surprised at first, but my son had this serious look I'd never seen before. So I built up enough courage and told him to go for it. Well, when I look back at it now, all he did was make my husband and me, worry. But now, my, has he matured. He's grown up, I tell you. It sure gets lonely without him. ...Oh my, I'm sorry. I got carried away. Whenever I see you youngsters I just get nostalgic. I wonder where he is now... I wonder if we'll ever see her son around.  Over in the eating area, these guys have new dialogue. Lotta that today.  That's our Seifer! Guy in the Back: Again? He never learns...  This makes it sound like he didn't do that before. You know, we never do find out why Seifer failed his exams before this one. It's left to the player to make up a reason. Guy in the Back: I see why he never passes the field exam. He's well qualified to be a SeeD, though! Guy on the Left: You should talk! You never pass the written test! Guy in the Back: And look who got cold feet during the field exam! So why don't you just shut up! Now, now, don't fight, boys. Guy on the Right: Now, now... Calm down, easy... Guy on the Left: I'm better off than Mr. Paper Test Boy here! Try makin' it to the field exam, why don't ya! Well, that was...edifying.  Anyway, what I came to the cafeteria for was this. I played the Trepie guy until I won 20 Elnoyle cards. With the magic of savestates, this took me 20 games. Without savestates, this takes loving hours and hours, and like 100 games of cards at least. I've done it. It lets you do something early, but saves you no time. It's not worth it at all.  Now, let's rejoin our regularly-scheduled plot.  It, uh, looks like we're waiting for something.  Do I have time to go play a billion more games of cards?  Oh look, here come some pixels.  Hey, it's Zell. Hey, Zell.  Zell Dincht: almost late for his first day.  The "t" is for "hover". : Oops, sorry! But this is really cool. It may come in handy on a SeeD mission, someday.Garden Faculty: We'll be the judges of that. Confiscate it.  And so Zell, who was having fun, fun, fun, gets his t-board taken away.  Garden Faculty: Nevertheless, you're still students at this Garden. Didn't we just graduate, though?  Garden Faculty: Furthermore, because you are SeeDs, you must set an example to all others and abide by the Garden's rules. Understood!? drat, the faculty here are real sticklers. First we lost a rank for hauling out a deadly weapon in the hallway, and now this.  Yes, back to the task at hand. Headmaster Cid: You are to go to Timber. There, you will be supporting a resistance faction. That is your mission. Pretty vague mission. Headmaster Cid: A member of the faction will contact you at Timber Station.  The Garden Faculty guy just takes over from Cid here. Garden Faculty: At this time, you must reply, 'But the owls are still around.' Hey, do you think there is anywhere more secure in the entire Garden to give us the call phrase?  No? Alright, that's cool, too.  What if they order us to jump off a bridge, huh? Should we do that? : Uh... Just us 3?Garden Faculty: Correct. We have agreed to do this mission for very little money. Why do I have a feeling like this isn't a top-of-the-stack mission? Garden Faculty: Normally, we would never accept such requests, but... Headmaster Cid: Enough talk about that. It seems like Cid has concerns other than money. What are we not being told? Headmaster Cid: Well then, Squall, you are the squad leader. Use your best judgement based on the situation. Oh, you use the English judgement, but gently caress me on colour, honour, and organisation, eh, game? Yeah, I see how it is. Headmaster Cid: Zell and Selphie, you are to support Squall and give your all to carry out the faction's plans. We're not given anything on what the plans are, mind you.  And that's the end of the briefing.  How come every game I LP that involves a CO involves a forgetful CO? Headmaster Cid: It's a cursed item, but if one with great enough power uses it, it should be of great help. Oh boy, a cursed item. Just what I've always wanted.  I'll cherish it forever. Headmaster Cid: Best of luck on your first mission.  If you talk to Mr. Stickler over here, he reminds you of the password. I already know the password. I will never forget the password until the day I die.  Now, let's step outside.  If you look at the Magical Lamp in the inventory, it tells you to save your game.  So save your game before you use it.  Once you do, you're immediately forced into a battle.  Somebody got up on the wrong side of the bed. This enemy is Diablos, and it's a pushover if you know what you're doing.  The first thing I do is have Selphie cast Blind.  It misses.   In retaliation, Diablos hits her with Demi, which takes off a quarter of her current HP. Demi can't kill you.  You could draw it, but all my characters have lovely Magic, so they can't.  The second time I try Blind, it sticks. Diablos is pretty much a non-threat now.   This is his other spell, Gravija. It knocks off three quarters of your current HP. Still can't kill you.  This is a very good fight for using limit breaks, because Diablos uses so many spells that will put you in critical HP but never kill you outright. If you have him Blinded, you can get very, very close to dead but be in no real danger.  We've seen Squall's limit break about a hundred times by now, so let's look at Selphie's.  Selphie's limit break is Slot, which gives her a semi-random spell, cast a semi-random number of times. Which spells she gets are based on crisis level and character level, which makes her limit the only one directly affected by character level.  She also has access to four unique spells in her limit break. Full-cure heals everyone to full HP (quelle surprise).  Diablos gets a lucky shot in on Zell while I decide to cast Aura, which will give the party a fairly large boost to their already stupidly high crisis levels.   If you're yellow, it means you can use limit breaks like crazy. This game makes it super easy to get limit breaks.  I even have Squall toss a Phoenix Down at Zell so he can get in on the fun.  Here's Zell charging up to release his limit break, Duel. (Not pictured: Zell)   With Duel, you get a bit of time (up to 12 seconds, based on crisis level) to input commands like you would in a fighting game. You can do flashy combos with complicated inputs, but a better use of your time is to just chain the two simplest moves into each other a bunch of times, which does way more damage, way faster. Duel is considered a top-tier limit break, like Renzokuken is, because of this combo ("Apocalypse Fist").  Here's Selphie's second unique limit spell, Rapture. Rapture is an instant death spell. It does not work on bosses, so it is useless here.  Instead, I have her cast Full-Cure, since the fight is almost over and the guys already have limits queued. If a limit is queued, it uses the crisis level at the time of input to determine how it's going to function.    So, everyone is healed up.   And Zell busts out a 12-second long Duel combo.  Diablos has quite a bit of HP (around 9,000), but this still does him in.  These...may never be used.  This will definitely be used.  Thanks, Kate Bush.  And now we have Diablos as our very own GF!  Diablos is a good GF because he learns the very useful Enc-Half, as well as Time and ST(atus) Mag-RF. He's also got a bunch of other good abilities.  So I junction him directly to Selphie so he can start to accrue AP.  Diablos also starts with the Ability x3 ability, which lets a character equip 3 passive abilities at once instead of 2. This means I get to equip Selphie with 0, because all her GFs are know-nothing assholes.  Now that that's done, let's pop back into Garden and go harass Cid.  This is our first chance to see the entrance to Cid's office. It's fancy.   Cid is so important you don't even get to ask him questions.  He likes to play cards, though. I like to imagine that Squall just silently pulls out his deck to propose playing cards.   I have to play a few games to get Cid to cooperate with me, and so I get a Tonberry card (can be used to make Death, which is great for Status Defense) and a Chimera (can be used to make Full-Life, which is both useful in battle and the second-best HP junction in the game, but you need 10 Chimera cards to make any).  Eventually, I also win the Seifer card off him. It's a good card, and rare. Rare cards are generally good to refine, but some are pretty dull, like Seifer's, which makes 3 Diamond Armors, which teach one GF the GFHP+40% ability. I mean, it's useful if you summon GFs for defence a lot, I suppose, but there are far better abilities out there.    While I'm here, I use the handy-dandy magic split function to give Selphie and Zell some of Squall's Curagas. Zell's go on his Spirit.  I was going to put Selphie's on her HP, but Queso's a touch short on AP.   Also, if we look in the GF menu, it looks like we're already missing one. We're not, but it looks like we are. It's annoying.  Peace, Cid.  Now, let's go to the library, where Zell can hassle the library staff about his holds.  Unfortunately, the library staff absolutely cannot control their horny levels. Library Girl with a Pigtail: I...I'll put a search on that... P-Please hold on a second... I don't like her just being called "Library Girl with a Pigtail". She should have a real name.  While we're waiting for her to find Zell's book, let's go hassle this faculty member. That's always good for a laugh.  "Oh no the desk is dirty. I'm a stupid nerd and I suck." - Garden Faculty  "Oh no the kids are talking to each other I'm old and nobody likes me." - Garden Faculty  Yeah, they're as annoying as you are ugly. Eat it, Garden Faculty.  Now, let's go interrupt the Balamb Garden Book Club. Male Student: Oh, you mean that bloody murder mystery? Female Student: Did you find out who the killer was? Male Student: Y'know... You should read somethin' more enlightening. "Let me tell you about the works of one Ms. Ayn Rand." Female Student: So, like... You found it boring? Male Student: It was good... But what I'm tryin' to say is... Female Student: So you liked it! Then you'll like this one, too! Male Student: ...Oh, ok... Female Student: So, like, this book is written in a new style. The narrator is actually the kil... ...tmaker. She was going to say "kiltmaker". Male Student: Hey! Geez, don't give it away! What book am I thinking of where the guy is explicitly a killer and the audience knows it and the whole conflict is whether or not the police know it? Anyway, that was another rousing meeting of the Balamb Garden Book Club!  And three of them are here to listen creepily to you two talk.  Try-Hard: I'll have to try and try even harder! Fact-Knower: Yes. Quite impressive. I heard one of them was a girl. Try-Hard: Oh, that's encouraging.  Howdy.  The whole time. See ya.  I mean, see ya immediately to talk about makeup. Lipstick Haver: Sure thing. Is this the one? Lipstick Admirer: Yeah! I can't find this color anywhere. Lipstick Haver: Oh really? I know where you can get it. I'll pick one up for you. Now that the SeeD exam is over, it seems that Garden life has returned to the normal high school status quo.  You can also talk to one of the girls for this line.  Here's the real good poo poo on the second floor, though. If you go back to the study panel, you can find this on the Garden Festival page.  : So, I guess that makes me the chair! As the Garden Festival chair, I plan to make full use of this page. So, here we go! Who wants to be on the Garden Festival Committee!? C'mon everyone, join! Let's all work together to make the Garden Festival a success! (Personally, I want to have a concert! What do you all think?)Yes, this is Selphie's homepage now, complete with bright colours and a flower cursor straight off of a geocities page. It's great.  This is not so great. Selphie has no friends.  : This is a great chance for me to make friends! And then we'll work together to make the Garden Festival a reality!She doesn't let it get her down, though. Enthusiasm is a big part of Selphie's character, and she's pretty strong-willed, too.  Other than that, we get to read her diary. That's why you're all here, right? To read a teenage girl's diary?  Let's start from the start. My First Day posted:Booyaka! I like Selphie's diary as a source of characterisation - Selphie isn't well known, so she has to speak for herself, rather than have others talk about her the way Squall, Zell, Seifer, and Quistis have. It gets her personality across (not that it was hard to get from when she does actually speak) and it also contains little bits of lore, like all SeeDs being stationed in Balamb and Trabia's transfer program. Passing the SeeD Exam posted:I passed the SeeD exam! Whoo-hoo! Just wanted to let you know! This one is kind of interesting for Selphie's take on Seifer; she's the only one so far who didn't know him beforehand, and she seems to view him very differently than those who do. My First Mission posted:Booyaka! Hmm, there's that "GFs cause memory loss" thing back again... Anyway, I think they get the tone of a teenage girl's blog down pretty well here, and it's quaint to see the events of the first bit of the game from Selphie's view. I also like that they actually went back and did something more with the study panel/Garden intranet, rather than just having it at the outset and ignoring it completely afterwards. Next time, I guess we go to Timber, but who really gives a poo poo? We all know we were all here for Selphie's diary. Cool Ghost fucked around with this message at 04:59 on Mar 31, 2015 |
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Dec 23, 2014 08:50
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We got a new GF in this one, you know the drill. You have until noon on Wednesday to get those name votes in!
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Dec 23, 2014 08:52
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We should obviously give Library Girl with Pigtails a name too. In keeping with series tradition, she can be Sarah. Diablos kinda has a perfect name already though. I mean, I guess if El Diablos fits, but I don't think it does.
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Dec 23, 2014 09:18
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Fresh meat
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Dec 23, 2014 09:19
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CmdrKing posted:We should obviously give Library Girl with Pigtails a name too. Oh poo poo, you're right. You have until Wednesday noon to name Library Girl with a Pigtail, as well.
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Dec 23, 2014 09:20
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Booyaka seems like the only possible choice now.
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Dec 23, 2014 09:25
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Regalingualius posted:Booyaka seems like the only possible choice now. For Diabolos, Library Girl With Pigtail, or both? I vote both, personally.
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Dec 23, 2014 09:38
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Regalingualius posted:Booyaka seems like the only possible choice now. yeah, this e: for every character in the game
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Dec 23, 2014 09:43
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Regalingualius posted:Booyaka seems like the only possible choice now. This person is correct.
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Dec 23, 2014 09:46
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I love Selphie's diary so much. Girl: Relm Diablos stays the same
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Dec 23, 2014 09:48
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When I played the game, I had the habit of giving the GF horribly unfitting name subject to one rule, starting with the same letter. In the spirit of that, I propose we name our grimdark buddy Dwayne.
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Dec 23, 2014 10:02
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Since we found him in a lamp, we should call him Jeannie.
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Dec 23, 2014 10:03
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Diablos is one of the strangest parts of this game's design, and it constantly baffles me. I like to think about the hows and whys of things were put into games, but I really can't imagine what they were thinking. It is obvious that Diablos is meant to be too hard for you to take on immediately; they warn you, they make you save, he has a shitload of HP and on paper, he can kill you pretty well. But: you can (presumably) draw-cast his Demi spells back at him, he has a crippling weakness to Blind, the game has been rather explicitly telling you "hey yo Status-J, try it", and of course there's the entire Limit thing - even without Blind, you could reasonably obliterate him just with Zell and Squall murdering the poo poo out of him. It is very possible that nobody thought of the ramifications of Limits being absurd again, but that "explains" only a fraction of the problems with Diablos. Either way, the Blind weakness alone signals that they expected a sizable subset of players to get Diablos very early or even immediately. The problem I have with that is Enc-Half and what comes next, but I'm going to talk about that once we know what it is and what it entails. Everything around Diablos exemplifies what I think is fundamentally wrong with the gameplay of FF8, and the fact that you can get him right out the gate is only a small part of the nonsense equation.
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Dec 23, 2014 11:17
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Name him Jay Leno for that incredibly powerful chin of his. He could spear a fish on the thing.
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Dec 23, 2014 11:24
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ArchWizard posted:Since we found him in a lamp, we should call him Jeannie.
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Dec 23, 2014 12:16
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A few notes on some mechanics in this update: Limit Breaks are based off something called a Crisis Level. As the party member gets in more danger (lower health, status effects, allies are KO'd), the Crisis Level goes up, and that affects how strong their Limits are. For instance, Zell's Duel lasts 4 seconds at Crisis level 1, but goes up to 12 seconds at level 4. What might not be obvious is that the Crisis Level for a Limit is confirmed as soon as you select the Limit. So you can do something like have Zell at really low health, select Duel, then have Selphie do Full-Cure; Zell might then be at full health and pull off a 12 second Duel. Also, you might notice we won 2 cards off Cid instead of one. That's because of the card win mechanics, which sometimes change. The usual rule is One, which lets you take one card from the loser. Other variants are Diff (shown in the update), which allows you to take the number of cards that equals your advantage at the end of the game. So if you won 6-4, you take two cards. 7-3, you take 4. Any more than that, you take all their cards. There's also Direct (each player takes whatever cards they control at the end of the game), and All (self-explanatory).
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Dec 23, 2014 13:00
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ApplesandOranges posted:A few notes on some mechanics in this update: Cool Ghost mentioned all this (well, not the numbers, but pretty much everything else, especially the last part); I don't know why you felt the need to rehash it.
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Dec 23, 2014 13:22
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Regalingualius posted:Booyaka seems like the only possible choice now. This is the correct choice.
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Dec 23, 2014 13:35
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I'm pretty sure I know the answer to this but you're gonna show off more of Selphie's page since it updates as the game progresses. Plus, she adds another section to it a bit later which also updates. Also, throw in another vote for Booyaka
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Dec 23, 2014 14:48
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I vote for the higher level Booyaka, Booyakaga
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Dec 23, 2014 16:00
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I have never even heard of Selphie's blog thing, wow.ArchWizard posted:Since we found him in a lamp, we should call him Jeannie. Regalingualius posted:Booyaka seems like the only possible choice now.
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Dec 23, 2014 16:35
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Weavered posted:I vote for the higher level Booyaka, Booyakaga Oh god this
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Dec 23, 2014 17:23
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Diabolos came out of a lamp, Genie was voiced by Robin Williams, Headmaster Cid looks like Robin Williams, and Cid gave us the lamp. Obviously he's Iago.
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Dec 23, 2014 17:30
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| # ? May 16, 2024 19:41 |
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Weavered posted:I vote for the higher level Booyaka, Booyakaga I'd like this too.
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Dec 23, 2014 17:37
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