Part 1: Part One: Magical Feathers and Metaphors

Part One: Magical Feathers and Metaphors


This is the title screen. Let's start a new game.


Ah, some nice peaceful waves on a sandy beach. It's good times ahead, I can tell.

While we enjoy our beach vacation, here's some nice music:



I don't like it when the sea talks to me.


It's weird, that's why.


Hey, fuck off, desert. Don't get passive aggressive with me.


The intro for this game is kind of...unfocussed.


Good question.




Good answer.


Suddenly, there are some flower petals blowing around.


These flower petals are not afraid to commit.



The girl in blue grabs one of the petals...


...And now it's a feather! This is how they fill pillows.


She watches it blow away again, because of metaphors. I mean, I think it's metaphors.


Then suddenly, it's dark!



The feather rises into the sky, and there's a flash of lightning.


Now the feather is a gun-sword!


You're gonna chip it like that.

This, by the way, is a "gunblade". This is a lot of people's favourite part of FFVIII. The gunblade is universally loved, like Brian Mulroney.


This is a pendant. I'm here to tell you what things are, and I love my job.


You can tell by the keychain on the end that the gunblade belongs to the same man as the pendant.


Who is in the middle of fighting someone, but forgot to bring his sword and had to get it delivered by magic feather. Kids these days are never prepared.



The feather magic has not entirely worn off.


Oh, we're back with the magic girl.


Or, uh, not. Who's this? One day you'll know.




Game, come on, pick one person and stick with it.




The girl in blue is awfully worried about the older woman walking through a wall. I mean, I would be, too, but hey.


Alright, back to fighting.


Come on, guys, you're gonna chip the blades. You know better than that.


The blonde guy takes a second to look smug, and you can see that his gunblade is built on a Beretta.


Then it's back to the fencing match.



Cross cut to some place we don't know, with Mr. Smug and the wall-walker.


Now it's back to fighting.


"Oh, no, go back! That one looked good!"


"Yeah, that's good! Stay here!"


Seeing the other guy rushing him, Mr. Smug charges up his fireball spell.



It doesn't go well for feather-sword over here.


In a sword fight, being knocked on your ass is what's called a "bad play".


When I first played this game, I was surprised that the intro contained blood. Now, I know that it's just not common for Final Fantasy games.


Blondie is either very good at the sword thing or very terrible to have left just that wound.



You can tell this is a serious attack because the feathers are black this time.


We cut to the girl in blue, running out of the cloud of feathers.


As bird-blade looks on longingly.


And she falls towards him, like they're about to embrace.


Next time: we actually start the game!