Let's Play: Final Fantasy VIII - Part Seven

Part Six

Masterpost

Day Four: Two Times Three 

 So once I'd finished mucking about and maxing out Zell and Selphie's relevant stat junctions, I actually headed into to town to make my way to Timber.

 On the way I managed to open the mini map, so just look at this:

Seriously? That's so... silly

 In case you can't make it out, the green thing is the field of view for the camera, and that grey thing represents the player location.

 And it's a gunblade.

 You can push it all you want, Square, but the gunblade is just stupid.

 Okay, it's not that bad with Lightning, hers is actually much better designed and is much closer to being a functional piece of kit (although the concept is inherently flawed).

 But Zog's? Yes, it looks pretty, but it's stupid as hell. It's functionally just a sword with a funny handle because there's no way he can fire the gun portion. The only thing that stops it from being the stupidest weapon ever is the fact that Seifer's is even worse.

He'd break his wrist

No wonder only two of the students at Balamb Garden decided to specialise in gunblades, it's just not a very sensible weapon choice.

 Punching things, however, that's just common sense.

 (Okay to be fair, gunblades do sound cool, and Revolver does look nice, and I've suspended my disbelief for much more obviously stupid weapons before. I'm looking at you, Nero from Devil May Cry IV. But I'm having serious trouble suspending my disbelief for the gunblades in Final Fantasy VIII entirely because of how not cool and not plausible Seifer's is. And remember, at this point, I think he's the better character.)

 Of course, a couple of parts ago I found a magazine that allows you to upgrade your weapons.

 Only when I went into the junkshop, I discovered that the magazine I had only allowed me to upgrade my weapons into the ones I already had.

 What?

 WHY?

 Okay, okay, I do understand why I would be given the option to revert the weapons back to their original states. Kind of. I'm assuming that they can become less reliable as you upgrade them.

 However what I do not understand is a) why I have that ability to do that even though I cannot upgrade them at this moment and b) why it requires resources to functionally revert them back to factory conditions.

 Honestly, when I went into the shop I assumed that the option Revolver was there to allow me to upgrade Revolver, not upgrade to Revolver.

 Grah, grah, many times grah.

 While in town I took the time to go to Zell's house.

 I just thought I'd mention it because his mother seems like a lovely lady.

 Also, he's adorable when he asks Zog not to go into his room.

 So after that mucking about I went to the shop and bought some supplies before going to the train station.

 Where I was charged 3,000 gil to get a train ticket.

 The bloody robdogs.

 So the train goes into a tunnel and then once the game allows me to see Zog and Co. again, I notice that despite the fact that we're in a tunnel I can clearly see daylight outside. Not to mention that Selphie is looking out of the window like there's something noticable out there, but we're supposed to be in a tunnel.

Then what the hell is she looking at?

 The only thing I can assume is that the underwater tunnel is like the Marine Tube in Pokemon Black 2 and White 2. Which is ridiculous.

 In Pokemon the Marine Tube is basically just the Sea Life centre, only in the sea. It's not particularly long and is meant to be taken at a sedate walking pace so you can look at all the Frillish and Basculin, it's basically a tourist trap.

 Making a train tunnel out of glass for transcontinental travel would be ridiculously expensive and ultimately pointless due to the speed of the train and the fact that light can only penetrate so much water. This tunnel would have to be virtually at the surface to get that amount of light through its windows.

 And it's clearly daylight, it's bright white.

 It's at this point that Zog, Selphie and Zell all pass out. Interestingly enough, Selphie goes first and Zog last. Just thought it was worth mentioning.

 Of course this was after Zog was mean to Zell even though I expressly told him not to be.

Oh, fuck you, Zog.

 It's a good thing Zell's so oblivious, really.

 The passed out trio then have a weird dream/vision of three blokes running away from a war zone and fighting mutant mushrooms.

I have a soft spot for 'shroom enemies, what can I say?

 These three guys are Laguna, Kiros and Ward. Who go from pretty, to prettier, to definitely pretty enough to hang with this crowd.

 What? He's not bad looking.

 So, why are these three running away from a war zone?

 Because Laguna wants to go to a bar.

They named their hotel after an entire country? That's weird

 Specifically the basement bar of this hotel.

 Why? As yet I am unsure, though I'd hazard a guess that drunken make outs with Kiros have something to do with it.

 But I guess we'll find out next time, in Part Eight - Day Five: Cramping Zog's Style