Part 29: Part Twenty-Nine: Sorceress Edea's Speechmaking Class

Part Twenty-Nine: Sorceress Edea's Speechmaking Class


Rinoa status: knocked the fuck out.



Sorceress status: decided she needed a haircut.




Whoever said the sorceress dresses strangely was 100% right. Her outfit is very bizarre.



Behind her, Rinoa gets up, but she's not really there. Her head is lolling to the side, and she's not really moving naturally. Seems like the sorceress is just using her like a puppet.


After all, she needs at least one person to impress with the streamers that pop out of her dress. What's the point if no one sees it?


And there she goes, off to make her speech. Still can't be bothered to open doors like a normal person.


There are a lot of people here to see the speech, including Deling himself.

She's also got special speech-making music:



Unlike Quistis and co., Squall and Irvine have not ditched on their mission.



Rinoa being dragged along complicates things slightly, though.



: ...Rinoa?

I can't believe she got a better seat than us.


And the stage is set. Let's enjoy the speech.



Off to a good start.



Edea: Hailing the very one whom you have condemned for generations.

This is an interesting direction for the speech to take.


Deling is so ashamed that Edea would go off-script. Also note Rinoa here, swaying in the wind.


Edea seems to be a little upset about the sudden 180 on sorceress-hating.

Edea: The cold-blooded tyrant that slaughtered countless men and destroyed many nations? Where is she now?


It's at this point that Squall decides something might be a little off.



Jesus, Deling, does she sound alright?

President Deling: Ede..!


Seems like that didn't go well for ol' Vinzer.




...We might want to knock her off soon.


There are a lot of people here, and they are going nuts for Edea's speech, rather than freaking out because she threatened them. The whole thing smacks of the mind-influencing powers Edea showed off earlier with Seifer.



On the upside, she took care of Deling for us.



Edea: Your time will come. This is only the beginning.



Edea: I will let you live a fantasy beyond your imagination.


Good speech. Especially good use of murdering the old head of state to make a point.


And there she goes.


Now, Deling was no problem, but the only person left standing to sacrifice is Rinoa, so it looks like Squall and Irvine just got a new job.





Over on the gateway, these weird lizard statues come to life.



Then they tear off towards Deling's place.



It's right about now that Rinoa wakes up.



: The parade hasn't started yet. The gate's not open.
: You've gotta be kidding!

Squall is saying that they can't get in without making a fuss, and he's still on a covert mission. Irvine is saying that the right thing to do is forget Caraway's plan and save Rinoa. Most times in a JRPG, you'll do the right thing.


Here, though, we're gonna be Quistis for a bit.

: We need to get out of here, quick.


As you may recall, Quistis's team was locked in by Caraway. Our objective, then, is to find a way out and get back to the gateway.


We cannot break the window. It would be rude.



Selphie and Zell aren't very helpful right now.


There is a change to the room, though: this camera angle that shows the painting up close wasn't here before. It's a clue about what you need to do.



While we're here, Zell and Selphie will move around and get closer to giving a hint while they explore the room.



Well, Selphie will.


Zell just decides to admire the plants.


Then the art over here.


Anyway, here's what you do: take a glass from the shelf here.


And give it to the statue here, so that both the woman in the painting and the statue are holding glasses.



And that opens up Caraway's secret tunnel.

: Pretty sneak-y!
: Let's go.
: But we don't even know where it leads!
: No use stayin' here!


Off we go!




Apparently the tunnel leads down.


...And we're back in the sewers. Amazing tunnel, Caraway. Top notch.


I don't know what the waterwheel is here for, but we can ride on it.


This isn't a very long section, as the game stops here.


And pans up to this great ass shot of Squall and Irvine.


Over at the presidential residence, the parade is starting.

And, with it, the parade music is starting:


In 2004, the American synchronised swimming team at the olympics won bronze with a routine set to two Final Fantasy VIII songs. This was one of them, and the other was Liberi Fatali (the intro song).


There's Edea, enjoying the show.


Or, on closer inspection, looking bored with the show.


Wait, who's that on the left?


I guess Irvine's right, and we can worry about parade mysteries later.



And we're off!


Looking at this right now, I don't think anyone in this particular shot is repeated.



As we run, little shots of the parade like this are interspersed.


They include this one, a shot of Seifer waving to the crowd. It seems that rumours of his death were exaggerated.


There he is, no doubt about it.



We don't have time to stop and chat, though, so we'll deal with that later.


For now, we have a client to rescue.


This is the same way Rinoa took to sneak in.



It's very important that the characters have junctions set up at this point.



I decided to make sure every GF was junctioned to either Squall or Irvine. There's a boss coming up, and I wanted them all to get the AP from it.



Up we go.



The journey is quieter than Rinoa's was.


Squall also gets paid!


On the roof, we can corpse-check Deling. He's 100% definitely dead.


We can also tell the gathered crowds about our top ten celebrity couples.


Or, we can do our mission.




If we try to just leave Rinoa to die, though, Irvine won't play along.


I guess we can do the right thing, just this one time.


Yeah, there she is.


And so begins the boss fight against the Iguions.


What Irvine is saying is a tutorial for his limit break. You have to pull the trigger, just like Squall's gunblade, to shoot as many times as you can. It's scintillating.



The Iguions have exactly one interesting feature: you can draw a GF from them.


I also drew some Break spells, but Break really shines in a low-level game where you can use it against enemies you can't use Card on, so I probably won't make much use of it.


Other than that, the Iguions are fuckin' chumps that die in like two hits each. Their HP tops out at 1,747 at level 19, which is not much.

Bosses in this game often get level caps, but normal enemies don't. This makes level grinding a little more effective against bosses, though it's still not a great strategy.


This is the main reason that I junctioned every GF to these two. Now I never have to fight a random encounter again if I don't want to!


And a new GF, to boot!