Let's Play: Final Fantasy VIII - Part Eighty Five

 Part Eighty Four

 Masterpost

 Day Thirty Six: I'd Make a Terrible Art Historian

Omnomnomnom

 Okay, we've finished the pancakes, so it's time to get that key and beat those boss monsters again.

 ... After I make sure that I actually junctioned everyone correctly so that they don't get punked out by some random Torama again.

 Which takes about five minutes because I've got to wrestle with the menus again.

 Look, I like the idea of Death Lvl 5, but there really should be some kind of algorithm to deal with when you've maxed out a party, because a maxd out party should not be killed in one go so damn easily by a regular monster.

 After finishing up fixing what the developers should have already dealt with, I headed back to the storage room in order to get the key again.

 This is where I continue talking about the lift puzzle some more.

 Last time I had Irvine, Zog and Nina on the right hand side, but this time I happened to have Quistis, Zell and Selphie on the right. It didn't work this time and it took me a moment to figure out why.

 It's not a case of stepping on a button or pressure plate, this is basically a massive set of scales and two young women and a teenage boy aren't heavy enough to counteract the weight of Zog's angst and Irvine's massive coat.

 So, we head back into the storage room, feeling more confused than ever as to why Ultimecia would make her storeroom a team effort to get to, and grab the key.

 Head back to the armoury and dungeon to take down Gargantua and Red Giant again.

 This time however, I chose to break the seal on using GFs so I could use Him on Red Giant, because if you do, he says this.

It was last time, I just didn't summon the devil on you.

 Eh, it was interesting, so I went for it.

 Now we've played catch up, it's time to move onto pastures new and beat up some other bosses.

 In order to get to one of them, you need to go to the fountain in the courtyard-y place and grab the treasure vault key.

There's a sparkle to let you know that it's there.

 I explored the waterway, and there's a Three Stars there if you really want one, but apart from that, there's really nothing of interest there, you just end up in the dungeon again.

 Before heading to the vault, I went to the art gallery and solved the puzzle there in order to face another boss.

The puzzle basically consists of looking at this one big painting and working out what the title of that painting is by looking at other paintings in the gallery and working out what the title of the painting is.

 This would have been much easier for me to work out if the painting didn't look like this.

What the hell even is that?

 I know what it is now, and I still can't see what the hell that is. Doug could see it, I couldn't.

 Long story short, the names you need to pick out from the list are as follows.

Viator, Intervigilium, Vividarium

 Picking the name makes the painting change and a boss monster pop out.

Purdy.

 This thing is called Trauma and it is weak to wind based attacks, so guess what I spammed it with.

 Apparently, if you Mug the little sidekicks it spawns, you can get Meteor stones, but I didn't know this when I fought it, I just Tornado-ed and Aero-ed it to death.

 Incidentally, there's a painting of a lady wearing red in this gallery. Maybe this is what Ultimecia used to be like.

That, or Ib in Medieval cosplay

  The last boss (for my play through anyway) can be found in the treasure vault, which is on the left side of one of the long corridors.

 There are a bunch of empty chests that you need to all open in the style of one of those 'you turn this thing, the things adjacent turn too' puzzles that Zelda games love so much, once you do, this guy shows up.

He looks like a recoloured Behemoth.

 This guy was really funny to fight.

 I have my characters junctioned so that they get healed when they get hit by most elemental attacks, including Thunder. Which this guy just kept using.

 I think he used a regular attack maybe... once or twice, but he just kept using Thunder based magic on me, which just healed me up, so he was incredibly stupid during this whole fight.

 "It's healing you? Maybe it won't this time."

 Oddly, considering he had a unique spiel at the beginning of th fight, he doesn't say anything at the end of it.

 Huh.

 With his death, we break the last annoying seal and can go on to fight Ultimecia.

 Or the Omega Weapon.

 Which... Well, I'll give it a shot, but I'm not going to win. So, find out how badly I lose next time, in Part Eighty Six!