Final Fantasy VIII Part #57 - Part Fifty-Seven: Cool Boss (NOT AN IDIOT)

Part 57: Part Fifty-Seven: Cool Boss (NOT AN IDIOT)

Part Fifty-Seven: Cool Boss (NOT AN IDIOT)

For today's adventure, we're going to a whole new continent!

There are...a lot of rocks here.

And this weird tower. We're here for the weird tower, not the rocks. Sorry, rock fans.

Before we go in, I make sure Zell has Enc-None on.

If you were wondering, this is the Centra continent, and we're in the Centra crater. This is where the Lunar Cry struck 80 years ago and showed everyone why you should never fuck with the moon.

As soon as we enter, a timer pops up in the upper-left. We have 20 minutes on the clock.

Well, I'd ask whose voice this is, but the answer's right there.

Odin: To him who doth vanquish me, I grant my august powers.

Honestly, not a huge August fan. I mean, it's okay, but not one of the strongest tracks on the album.

Odin does not like if you leave. He won't do anything about it, but he's pissy.

Well, let's get to it. Welcome to the My Blue Heaven/Centra Ruins.

This staircase lights up. Who knows why.

There's a screen in between that one and this one, but I don't have a picture of it. It just leads here.

Going inside the structure, we can ride this incredibly unsafe cube-based elevator. Who built this?

The cube leads up here, where we have access to the puzzle of the Centra Ruins. I didn't look up how to do this, I went off memory. We have time.

The first step is going up the left ladder, then the other, shorter left ladder. Just fuckin' look at how unsafe this is.

Past the ladder is this, uh, this thing.

If you fiddle with it, it turns blue. Cool, great.

It also turns the thing at the bottom of the ladders blue. Did you notice the thing before? It doesn't matter, it's blue now.

Playing with the other thing makes the stairs come out. This is a valuable life lesson.

Now we can go up past that little platform.

I'm fucking up the puzzle right here.

See, there are two gargoyles.

Each has one eye.

You're not supposed to take this eye yet.

I took it out anyway, and put it in this statue.

This gives me a chance to put in a code, which I don't have yet. Whoops!

So I turned around and went back to this gargoyle.

Give it a full set of eyes...

And voilà!

Now we just grab the eyes, head back downstairs...

Throw 'em in this gargoyle...

Enter the code...

Ta-da! And with a fuckin' lot of time to spare.

There's the man himself.

Odin: The weak shall perish. The strong shall triumph. Prevail over my sword, and I shall grant it to thee. For honor...let us fight!

So, uh, welcome to the "boss fight" with Odin. This is where the timer comes in.

Just for fun, I scanned him. There's a front view of him on the horse.

And there's the other side/some info. Now, when they say "sleeps" they're only half-lying. Odin is awake, but he fuckin' doesn't do anything. He just sits there like a bump on a log until the timer runs down.

But he's got shit to draw.

Quistis is full up on spells though, so she doesn't have space to Stock. What a hassle.

Anyway, Odin's first spell is Triple. It lets you cast three spells in a turn if you cast it, but fuck that. Why you want Triple is because Triple is a kickass junction. It's the best in the game for Speed and Hit%. The only problem is that it's kind of a hassle to refine.

The good thing, though, is that Odin always has it on hand and just sits around while you pull 300 of 'em off him. This is one of only a handful of spells I'll ever bother to draw from bosses, cuz there's no threat unless you do something like level up to 100 without setting good junctions.

Another good junction my man Odin has is Death. Death is okay on stats, but at some point you'll want it on either Status Attack or Defence. It's easy to refine, but might as well just draw it off while I'm here.

I'm trying to run out the timer, but I actually had like five minutes left after doing all my drawing, so I just started looking at my items.

Eventually, though, it runs out.

Like I said, this is the only time Odin will do anything in the battle.

Once you run out of time, he just cuts you in half like nothing.

Most fights against Odin in the series work something like this, where you have to win quickly or he offs you, but 20 minutes is generally way too long, especially because his HP caps at 31,000 (which is very little if you know what you're doing).

I just whomped on him with a Renzokuken. His defences are pretty high, but he still had under 5,000 HP, so this wasn't a real problem.

Of course, no EXP.

Odin's card is okay.

He says "call on me," but Odin doesn't play by the same rules as other GFs. Instead of being summoned at will, he shows up randomly at the start of battles (12.9% chance) and kills everything with Zantetsuken. There are a couple of random encounters he won't show up against, and he doesn't show up against bosses. The wiki says you can increase the chance of Odin showing up, but I have no proof on that.

Editor's Note: It was pointed out by Vil after this went up, but the wiki is wrong - Odin has a flat 12.9% chance no matter what you do.

Anyway, that's Odin done.

And this is how good of a Junction Triple is.

As far as stats go, Death is a decent choice on Spirit (though, as I mentioned, its real utility is as a Status junction).

With all that finished, it's time to come down here (this is the screen that was omitted earlier).

I take off Enc-None at this point. There's fighting to do.

Specifically, fighting these guys.

Tonberry is an enemy in this game. They have a fair bit of HP (though their level progression on this is pretty front-loaded; they have 15,200 at level 1 and 35,000 at 100) and decent defences.

They also only ever have Death to draw, but we're full up on it and they're immune to it anyway. Additionally, Tonberries only give 1 AP and no EXP.

In fact, the only thing they do drop is Chef's Knives, which are good for 20 AP Ammo or 30 Death spells.

Tonberries are a shit enemy that sucks, so I just whomp 'em with Renzokuken.

Speaking of Renzokuken, have we seen Blasting Zone before?

If we haven't, what happens is Squall makes a huge beam of light come out of his gunblade.

Like, a huge beam of light.

Then he slams it down on all enemies.

This is weaker (44 attack power) than Rough Divide (48), but stronger than Fated Circle (40). It's my least favourite Renzokuken finisher, but it's alright.

Tonberries are the only enemy that shows up on this screen.

So we're gonna fight a bunch of 'em.

They mostly do nothing because they die too fast, but occasionally they'll bust out an attack.

Everyone's Grudge is a counterattack that 20 damage for every enemy the target has killed. On Zell here, it's nothing special.

On Squall it's pretty hefty (especially because I'm keeping him in critical HP).

Back attacks aren't a huge problem in this game, it's just a delay on how long it takes your party to move (this game doesn't have front and back rows).

Now, back to Tonberries.

Imagine this: Tonberries show up, Squall uses Renzokuken.

Occasionally, they counter with Everyone's Grudge and he gets KO'd, so I have to revive him and set up Blind/Silence to boost his Crisis Level.

Then it's back to Tonberries again.

I have to fight like twenty of these fuckin' things. This is a sidequest, and it blows.

This one countered Renzokuken.

So, naturally, that's when this guy shows up. Tonberry King here shows up after you beat enough Tonberries (at least 18).

He's got a larger draw list than the peasant Tonberries, and more stats (except for HP at levels under 7 - for some reason, Tonberry King starts with 2,500 and Tonberries start with 15,200. Search me.).

Anyway, fuck this guy. He doesn't have Everyone's Grudge, instead using an ability called It's Sharp (same thing but 30 points of damage per kill) and he counters every fifth attack with Junk, where he dumps garbage on your head.

I killed him with Renzokuken. I don't even care about being cheap with this dumbass "quest". The only reason to keep the King alive is because, above level 30, he has Full-Life in his draw list. I'll get it somewhere else.