Part 58: Part Fifty-Eight: Nothing Removes Sleep.

Part Fifty-Eight: Nothing Removes Sleep


Last time, we got a new GF through the most tedious quest in the game. His name is Nigel now.



Let's take a look at his abilities. Aside from the basic shit, he's got some interesting ones:

Haggle makes things in shops cheaper (25% off!). Sell High makes them pay more money (twice as much!) for shit you want to sell. These are handy because you can use them to set up an infinite Gil loop. Making money is hard in Final Fantasy VIII, you gotta take what you can get.


Familar makes new items show up in shops. This is useful for a few things, including being a part of a loop to make a bunch of Gil and also letting you buy items to refine into stat-boosters.



LV Up and Down are command abilities that let you raise or lower enemies' levels in battle. These are useful if something has a certain spell or item available at a certain level, or so you can raise/lower an enemy's stats. They don't work on bosses, though, and they're pretty situational.


Initiative is a sometimes-handy ability. Having high Speed and Auto-Haste is more generally useful, but if you absolutely need the first turn, there you go.


Move-HP Up is...an ability on this list. I've never used it, but I guess if you were short on healing items/magic?


Auto-Potion is another sort of situational thing I've never used, mainly because I don't usually keep enough healing items to sustain it.



As far as stat boosts, Nigel's got some rare ones. Unfortunately, they're probably also the least-useful ones in the game. Luck's a low stat by itself, and not terribly important. Eva+30% is a shit ability, because Evasion is about 10% of your Speed stat, and the best junction for it raises it by 24, so you're not looking at more than 50% and you're more likely to see 10%. That's out of 255%, by the way.

And that's Nigel. Neat stuff, mostly situational. Also Eva+30%.


Now, back to the Garden.


Before we leave the Centra continent, there's another structure to check out.



: It looks abandoned and run-down...

We can't go in there, but it exists. Just FYI.


Now, before we actually move on with the story, we have one last thing to take care of in FH.




You and Caraway can both eat me.


Also, before I got to Balamb, I did some running around in Dollet to get some content I'd missed.


And guess who decided to show up.





Odin fucking loves drama.



Unlike some games in the series, Odin only has one attack here.


斬 - zan, "beheading; decapitation".


鉄 - tetsu, "iron".


剣 - ken, "sword".


And that's how you spell 斬鉄剣 - Zantetsuken, "sword that cuts iron".


Cuts dudes, too. Maybe it should be 斬人剣.


No fuss, no muss.


Also, before I actually got to Balamb (this was done literally right outside the town) I decided to blow through a bunch of SeeD tests. I've prepared something of a highlight reel.


You can learn stuff from the SeeD exams. I always thought Poison was damage at intervals in this game.



(It changes the button depending on what it's mapped to.)


Some of these have questionable translations. This means "one of each rare card"; the answer is yes (which should really be "true").


Same with this one - it means "if you don't junction GFs or set abilities, you can only use Attack" and not "the only time Attack is available is if no GFs are junctioned or command abilities are set" but can be read either way.





This sounds very menacing to me.


I think this is funny because Kate Bush is also a person's name.



So, after all those tests, Squall's SeeD rank is 26 (max is 31, but it's called A). That means he's getting paid 18,000 Gil per cheque now, instead of 8,000.


Did you remember that I rented a car the last time I was here?




And now I'm gonna drive it on the tracks all the way to Deling City, fuckers!


...The game will not let you be the train.


So, after a million hours of fucking around, let's get to it.


Hey, someone parked in the road!


Someone parked in the road!



There are some problems in Balamb.




Huh. Interesting.


Stop and wonder? Has the news not made it over?

Fucking missiles hit like a mile over, did you not wonder then?


Wonder if Galbadia's fallen to the sorceress. What a dunce.



They must still be looking for Ellone, then. Ellone who went with Edea's SeeD. You know, what's up with that?


We're next? Do you mean the Garden? Do you not know?


So, anyway, we can't get in right now, so we're out I guess.


Also, now that the cat's out of the bag, I can show you this. Like Balamb Garden, Galbadia Garden can now fly (for no particular reason) and the Galbadians used it to come here.


By the way, ramming Balamb Garden into it does nothing.


Now, anyway, back to Balamb the town.

: ...What's Galbadia doing in a town like this?

No reason for Galbadians to be here, Garden's moved.

Galbadian Soldier: What do you want? Are you residents here?

No, we're See-

: YEAH, that's right! At least residents should be allowed in!

That is probably a better answer.

Galbadian Soldier: It's OFF-LIMITS! You cannot enter or leave. Do you understand?


Yes, punch your way in. That could not go wrong.


Squall takes over from Zell at this point.

: You said the town was off-limits... ...Does that mean we can't deliver a message, either? ...That's too bad. We have some info on Ellone...




I feel like this shouldn't work, not least of all because Squall is the number one enemy of the Galbadian state right now.




But, naturally.


I'm taking the same party we already had. Now, let's go tell the Galbadians what we know about Ellone. It's the honest thing to do.