Let's Play: Final Fantasy VIII - Part Fifty One

 Part Fifty

 Masterpost

 Day Twenty One: It Was Like Trafalgar, Only Invisible

 By the way, Zog and the white Seed leader have this little moment of talking about Edea and about what is was like being raised by her, seeing her turn evil and having to fight her.

 I know I sound like a broken record. In fact I sound so much like one that the government has sent me a free voucher in case I wanted to change my name to 'Harriette Broken Record Reece' by deed poll.

 But this has no weight. We've not seen any of this!

 We've barely seen any impact from the whole 'Edea was our pseudo parent!' thing.

 During the flashback where we learned this, there was barely any sign of Edea acting as a parent. There was more interaction between the members of the party.

 Not to mention that there's not really been any sign of these characters learning how to deal with these memories. There's no been turmoil, and since there was no turmoil or opportunity to know good!Edea, harking back to those memories means nothing to the player.

 And, and she became good!Edea a shockingly short amount of time after the revelation that she was once good!Edea and a pseudo parent to Zog and Co. How did they think this was ever going to work?

 "Oh no! The evil sorceress was my mum all along! Oh, wait, she's good now and was never really evil in the first place. Well... okay then."

 Like it all you want, but I am judging you.

 The white SeeD leader tells the story of how Ellone ended up not being on the ship.

 Basically, the white SeeD ship was located by the Galbadians and tried to outrun them. They did just about manage to escape, but then their ship broke down.

 ... C'mon guys, really?

 Fate of the world on your shoulders, and you don't do proper maintenance?

 Get it together lads!

 (Clearly the woman is a combat specialist, and this is outside of her area of expertise.)

 They prepared to fight to prevent the Galbadians from getting their hands on Ellone, and the Galbadians did finally catch up to them.

 But an Esthar ship appeared and engaged the Galbadians in a fierce battle.

 Much to their continued surprise, another Esthar ship came up beside them.

During this fierce sea battle.

 Since they didn't trust the soldiers from Esthar any more than they did the Galbadians, the white SeeDs declined their offer of help and didn't evacuate onto their ship.

 Now this is the point where things get weird.

 At least, get weird for the white SeeDs.

 Instead of staying on the ship in the middle of the raging sea battle, she went with the Esthar ship instead of staying on a broken down ship with five people capable of fighting on it.

 ... Actually, why are they confused again?

 Maybe she's more interested in not dying.

 But if that's true, why do this?

During the raging sea battle.

 Sometimes I fiercely wish that this was a traditional let's play, this is one of those times.

 The white SeeD leader said she jumped, but I swear she kind of flopped down there. Oh, I wish I could show you.

 On the other hand, you would end up sitting through a lot of grinding. A lot of it wouldn't even be necessary.

 As you can see, this story was just a round about way to tell us that Ellone is in Esthar. We didn't get anything actually useful out of it. No items, no weapons, no GF. Just a story and some fake bonding.

 I wouldn't be surprised if we never saw these people again. They've clearly outlived their usefulness.

 They claim that they'll journey to Esthar when their ship is repaired, but I both doubt that they will and don't think that they'll be able to.

 The coast of Esthar is lined with mountain ranges, as I know to my cost.

 I spent many minutes trying to land on the coast of the continent to no avail. I couldn't even land near the forest I was actually trying to get into.

 Not only do I know that you can't just sail to Esthar, pretty much everyone who has ever spoken on the subject knows that you can't just sail into Esthar. Aside from defying gravity and flying in, there is only one way that we've ever heard of to get into Esthar.

 But we'll get into that in a moment.

 In the scene following leaving the ship, Zog gives Nida the order to set a course to Esthar.

 Nida, like me and half the characters in the game, knows that you can't just get in there with the Garden.

Listen to him, please, Zog!

  Zog's response?

You're terrible at your job.

 Sorry? Were you not listening?

 Nida basically just told you that he can't do it, and you tell him to go ahead and do a thing he just told you cannot be done.

 You're meant to listen to your lieutenants (no, I don't know why it doesn't have an 'f' in it either), not just ignore them because the plot hasn't deigned to tell you how to get to the place you're supposed to go.

 Oh yes. The game hasn't told me how to get there.

 Okay, I did say that I do know a way to get to Esthar. That is true, but it's also true that I learned that way a long time ago and no one brings it up now.

 I spoke with Quistis and Xu, but they both just talk about how Esthar is a very xenophobic and isolationist country that is hard to get to and has creepy soldiers.

 Although, considering all of the events of the game so far, I do not blame them for closing their borders. If there were roving bands of child soldiers who can summon elemental forces hanging around, my border controls would be quite strict.

Glory to Artstotzka

 Not to mention that we know that Galbadia will happily invade any country that has something that it wants.

 ... Was this accurate geopolitical satire in 1999? I can't remember.

 Either way, it is now.

 So, how do we get to Esthar?

 Well, that would involve going to Fisherman's Horizon. There's a long railway bridge that spans the ocean between the continent that holds Timber and Galbadia, and the continent that holds Esthar and Trabia.

 Zog and Co. can use that bridge to get to Esthar.

 Will we see more hot train action?

 We can but hope.

 Find out next time, in Part Fifty Two.