Final Fantasy VIII Part #56 - Part Fifty-Six: Sidequests!

Part 56: Part Fifty-Six: Sidequests!

Part Fifty-Six: Sidequests!

While we're pissing about, let's hit up Deling City.

There's not much going on (none of the dialogue has changed since Selphie's visit), we have some business with Caraway.

I want the card.

General Caraway: However, I'll think about it if you give me your Ifrit card. Of course, you will need to beat me to get my daughter's card.

So let's play.

I mean, after I say no to this a dozen damn times. I don't want to spread Random.

Now, let's play.

Okay, gotta lose Ifrit.

Go, Geezard army!

No shit.

Thankfully, the AI just takes whatever your best card is, so there's no random element here.

Okay, cool.

Now just to get Rinoa's card.

The other what? Dude, we played that game ten seconds ago.

You what? He's in fucking Fisherman's Horizon. How did you even do that?

Just give me the girl card, you son of a bitch.

Man, go fuck yourself Caraway.

And this hallway makes your house smell like a damn sewer.

I assumed (blindly) that there would be a Timber Maniacs here.

And there it is, right under the corner of the bed.

We're done in Deling City now.

So, let's take a jaunt over to Timber.

It's been a while, eh?

First screen of the place and we've already learned something!

Timber is a lot quieter than the last time we came through.

Well, if our thing with the Sorceress goes how we hope it will, I guess everything in Galbadia's territory will become independent by default.

This is one of the biggest dramas going on in Timber right now.

Was that a secret?

One thing we can do here that we couldn't before is stay at the hotel.

I assume Zell had to sleep on this bench.

Another hotel, another TimMani.

We also get the pleasant experience of listening to the talking gate.

And then when I'm going past the tracks, this guy starts trying to hit on Quistis.

He gave me a fucking Potion! Potions suck!

Then he just fucks off! You can leave the screen and come back to get more Potions, if for some reason you feel a need for Potions.

This guy's down in the dumps. I can't find any record that we didn't encourage him, so it must be his own fault.

While we're in Timber, let's check in with that lady who sheltered us last time.

Are we helpful to our parents? The closest thing to a parent I've seen for Squall is Cid, I guess, and we saved his life once? Ah, good work.

Hey, now we know some more Timber family lore: the kids are adopted.

Speaking of, let's check on the other kids.

As near as I can tell, the cat is not getting bigger.

But I do admire its ways. There's nothing else to do here.

Finally I get some respect.

Yeah, these SeeD guys only have maybe three years left in 'em.

Well, you two have fun.

On the next screen over, AKA the one where the sidewalk just leads directly into the train tracks...

This fuckin' dumb kid fell down.

Here comes the train, dumbass. Squall's gonna stand on the tracks, too, just so that you both die. Spite-based suicide.

Nah, we saved her.

And there we are right on the first page of the TIMBER FUCKING NEWS.

And she ditched this idiot who likes to play on the train tracks.

I'm not rescuing a dog, nerdo.

I'm going to this quaint little village, instead.

A touch I like in this game (and I think it's in FFIX, too) is that all the world map areas have names, so right now I can tell you we're hanging out in the Lallapalooza Canyon.

In fact, we're getting into a fight in the Lallapalooza Canyon.

Or, I mean, we would be. Looks like the enemy forgot to show up.

I...

Sure. Yeah.

Okay, time for a real fight.

It's time for the title card, Squall vs. Hands.

Who put this enemy in the game? It's just a fucking hand coming out of the ground.

At least IcyNips got something out of it.

And now we can hit the town.

The town may look familiar, by the way. This is Winhill, where Laguna lived with Raine and Ellone.

It seems a little cheerier now.

Sounds like the monster hunting is taken care of.

...Just not by Laguna. We will not be seeing Laguna today.

That's just a bit of Winhill backstory.

Unfortunately, this is not a real question and we cannot spend all 250+ thousand gil on flowers.

Wish we could just buy some, though.

Oh well. At least we got these fuckin...Dispels.

Now, let's see some sights.

First of all, the house Laguna was living in is still all shot up, nobody did anything about that.

And this Draw Point (Curaga) never refills.

Over at the bar, there's nobody working.

But hey, Raine's upstairs.

Oh, nevermind.

I mean, that's reasonable.

We're not leaving, but it's reasonable.

That's exactly what a ghost would say.

Well, it is a bar.

Have we fought any ghosts? Is a GF a type of ghost? Look, anyway, I don't think we have a reason to be afraid of spectres.

Do you mean...can I smell them?

I'm gonna go talk to the cat now.

Scintillating. Let's check out the mansion - Laguna was not allowed inside of it.

Nice place.

The vase!

Rearranged by itself? Or rearranged by a ghost?

You know, I saw a UFO just outside town. Just sayin'.

Could be aliens.

That's all we'll ever get on "the car that crashed into the Winhill mansion" which I think is a shame.

Also, all the doors in the mansion are painted on, we're not going anywhere besides this foyer.

Look at the ends of your legs.

: Oh, you knew?

: Yo, man... Quit jokin' around. It ain't funny.

Yeah, it's extremely disrespectful to ghosts, who may live in our brains.

Speaking of, do you think Squall signs the cheques now? Does he chat with Zell and then just cut himself a cheque for a cool 8 g's?

As we're leaving, the armour starts walking around.

...Then falls apart like a chump.

There was a bird inside.

Ah, a chicobo. I think this is the only Final Fantasy game where they're named, but a chicobo is just a chocobo chick.

Thanks to that chicobo, we've found a piece of the vase!

This guy is not as enthused about that.

That's the way.

So, welcome to the Winhill Vase Quest, which is the thing we're doing now. Like Dollet Dog, this is a C-list sidequest that involves some running around and looking for crap.

As we go down the road, the lady outside this shop goes inside.

Looks like a flower shop.

Even though she went inside when we approached, she'll still make small talk with us.

I came here because... I saw a UFO?

If we look at the flowers, she asks this.

First of all, let's lie.

Flower Shop Lady: Flowers are amazing. The more heart you put into them, the more they respond.

Well, there you have it.

Now, let's tell her the truth. Flowers are great, I love flowers.

Where is Raine, anyway?

...Oh.

Flower Shop Lady: If only she had stayed away from that outsider... Nobody understood flowers as well as Raine.

So, yeah, Raine's dead, and it sounds like at least one person in Winhill blames Laguna for it.

People do not flower, as they are not plants. Thank you for your time.

Continuing on, this road is more modern than it was when Laguna was here.

There's no carriage down here.

On my way down, I spotted people and wanted to see if I could hassle them.

The old guy saved me the trouble, though (you can't get over there from here).

Well, back to town.

This scene hasn't changed much since we were here as Laguna (the colours do seem a little less saturated, though).

For comparison's sake.

Moving on, there are some more folks to talk to in this house. Folks who are just okay with having bullet holes in their fridge. Come on.

Ms. Fridge-Neglecter: If you love flowers, I'm sure you'll enjoy your stay here. That's all we have. Not many youngsters come here or stay here... They're all outside, chasing their big dreams.

I thought Raine owned the bar.

Mr. Fridge-Neglecter: Her wreaths of white flowers were most beautiful. We'll never see wreaths like that again. Ellone was so adorable... Wearing those wreaths over her head and prancing around like an angel. How long has it been since Raine passed away? ...I hope Ellone is doing well.

Ellone was okay as recently as the day before yesterday, so at least there's that.

Down at the end of town are...a SeeD and a Garden cadet? Who let you out?

They must have been on a mission during all that fuss.

Okay, two things: A, if you graduated from Garden, why is that guy in a cadet's uniform; B, I think that means Squall's your boss.

Squall does a salute here.

This guy must not have had classes with Quistis. They must've been here for a couple years, at least.

...Like I said, I think Squall's above you on the org chart.

And then the guy salutes back.

You know that Garden will just pay you for whatever, right?

Hm. I wonder.

So, yeah, these guys aren't real SeeDs. A few things don't track about their story, like the one guy's uniform.

The guy is bowing to Squall here.

More power to ya, dude. Lotta SeeDs probably gonna die when we go after Edea.

There is no option to just talk to this person.

And I'm not fucking mixing rules! Fuck off!

The flower restaurant: restaurant that serves flowers? Restaurant for flowers?

Sounds kind of nice.

Since Winhill is a small town, you can just walk into the room at the inn. There's nothing here, though.

And we can be reminded here that we're tolerated, not accepted.

So, back to the task at hand, the vase quest.

Over here is a chicobo crossing.

If you stand here and hassle the chicobos...

...one of them drops a vase piece.

There are some other items you can get, too. I think you can make a mother chocobo pop out if you hassle the babies long enough, but that seems rude, so I didn't do it.

The next vase piece is in the flower shop, hidden in the white flowers.

And for the last one, we have to go back to Raine's bar.

Inspecting the flowers makes her ghost show up.

Let's talk to a ghost.

When we do, the ghost turns out to actually be a cat. I don't really know how Squall made that mistake. Maybe Seifer did a little more than cosmetic damage.