OOC: INFODUMP
You know, standard warning: Spoilers and stuff.
Also? My infodump has two settings: trickle and firehose. And this post goes back and forth between the two. Uh... Sorry?
So how can it be FINAL Fantasy if there's another one that came after it?
Who knows? Not important. The thing to know is that all the various Final Fantasy games share any number of similarities, but are set in completely different worlds, with different characters, different plots, and similar-but-different combat systems. Final Fantasy VIII is unique in that it introduced the really fucking annoying junction system. But more on that later. It's also unique in that its design is deliberately done in more of a European style than a Japanese one -- which is why Squall looks vaguely German. The important thing to know is that the world is fairly technically advanced -- just about present-day -- but there's also magic.
How is this plot different from all other plots?
What happens in FFVIII? Well, a loner kid with a big-ass sword sets out to do something totally random and winds up saving the world instead. And making friends. And a guy named Cid flew an airship. And two guys named Biggs and Wedge made a (Star Wars shout-out) guest appearance. And the person trying to take over the world, who you thought was the big bad, was defeated in the middle of the game, which revealed that there was someone ELSE, bigger and badder, trying to DESTROY the world. And there were chocobos and cactuars and tonberrys.
Uh. No, wait, that's EVERY Final Fantasy. Let's start over.
Squall and his friends are students at Balamb Garden (a military-type school), who at the beginning of the game are just about to pass their final practical test and become SeeDs, trained mercenaries-for-hire. Said "practical test" being "go stop the Galbadian army from invading that town over there". Anyway, so they do, and they become SeeDs. Except for their teacher, Quistis, who already was a SeeD. And totally has the hots for Squall. Except she doesn't. BUT ANYWAY.
Their first real mission is to go help a resistance movement liberate a town from Galbadian rule, and the leader of the resistance turns out to be Rinoa Loveinterest Heartlily. Who is pretty cool, but VERY immature. And they fail. But they get new orders -- to go to Galbadia and assasinate the evil sorceress who's actually in control of the country. And they fail. But only because she's a sorceress and magic and stuff!
So they get captured and stuck in prison. And then manage to escape. But they find out that the sorceress has taken over Galbadia Garden and is about to fire missles at Balamb Garden (home base, remember?) and Trabia Garden. So they rush off to stop the missles from being fired. And they fail.
But, hey, look! When they get to Balamb Garden to warn everybody to leave, Headmaster Cid (remember that name? Scroll up and look!) tells them about a secret defense system in the bowels of the building's basement. So they go find it and turn it on AND THE SCHOOL TURNS INTO AN AIRSHIP AND FLIES AWAY FROM THE MISSILES. *headdesk* Also, Cid decides Squall should be promoted to leader of all the SeeDs, just because.
And then you get a dramatic reveal -- EVERYONE in your party, except for Rinoa, were at an orphanage together when they were small. And the nice, kind, wonderful matron in charge -- who also happens to be married to Cid -- is the SORCERESS THEY'RE FIGHTING.
And then they go find her and defeat her, and it turns out that she wasn't actually evil, she was just being possessed by an evil sorceress from the future. And that she and Cid set up Garden in order to stop the sorceress. And there's all sorts of other stuff including flashbacks to 17 years ago, a super-high-tech country that's got a WALL AROUND IT THAT MAKES THE ENTIRE COUNTRY INVISIBLE, a freaky scientist wearing a ruff that's wider than some people are tall, a trip to space, and MONSTERS FALLING TO EARTH FROM THE MOON. And then time compression, which lets them go to the future and fight the sorceress. And they do. And they win. Huzzah!
So who's this Squall guy?
The hero! Except he doesn't want to be. He's a loner who doesn't get close to people because they'll just go away and leave him ZOMGTRAUMAFROMCHILDHOOD. He doesn't talk all that much, and when he does, he often doesn't say much more than "..." or "whatever" -- but he has internal monologue like whoa.
And he wears tight pants and a black leather jacket with a huge-ass white fur ruff collar. And he's all emo. He likes to lean against the wall with his hair in his face a lot.
His symbol, which is on fucking everything he owns, is a lion's head on a cross, which he calls "Griever". It symbolizes his strength, or his pride, or... something. He's got a Griever ring. And a Griever necklace. And red Grievers on the shoulders of his jacket. And his Keyblade has a Griever keychain gunblade has a Griever fob hanging off the pommel. Rinoa has someone make her a Griever ring of her own, because she wants one, and she hangs on to Squall's until it's done. Griever griever griever. And the sorceress, in the final battle, summons a GF named Griever that you have to defeat, so that's, like, symbolic of something I don't quite understand. But that leads us to...
Gunblade? Junction? GF? What does Squall DO?
Okay. So, the gunblade? Is a blade. With a gun on it. Sort of. It's a big-ass sword with a pistol grip and a revolver in the hilt. Way awesome. It's not actually a gun, though. The way it works is, if you pull the trigger at the same instant that you hit something with the blade, it does extra damage. It's a difficult weapon to master, and in the entire world only Squall and his miniboss rival Seifer specialize in it as their weapon of choice.
As for junctioning... Okay. In the Squall's world, only sorceresses are capable of actual magic. There are special monsters out there called Guardian Forces that, when "junctioned", allow people to cast para-magic -- but only if they have charges of it to cast. Charges of spells can be drawn from monsters or refined from items. Also, when junctioned, GFs a) can be summoned to attack your enemies, b) can give you special abilities, c) increase your stats based on how many charges and what kind of magic you have, and d) let you use items. I'm telling you right now, I'm breaking with canon there -- nobody should have to have a magic being hanging out in their brain just to be able to drink a potion.
Oh, yeah. That's the other thing. When junctioned, GFs sort of live in a back corner of your mind. Which causes memory loss. (Which causes fights with your fiancée. Which causes coming to FH.) This is why Squall and his friends didn't remember the orphanage until they were reminded of it. It also provides a nice way for me to keep Squall in Fandom indefinitely. Squall's not going to junction GFs unless he has to -- but his definition of "has to" might slip quite a lot. Without the GFs junctioned, Squall's an above average guy with above average fighting skills. WITH GFs junctioned, he's world-saving material.
So, what's with the Kingdom Hearts icons? And references?
Uh, Kingdom Hearts is awesome?
Also, those TOTALLY aren't Kingdom Hearts icons. They're Kingdom Hearts 2 icons. They got his jacket's collar wrong in KH.
Seriously, though. I'm taking Squall from a few years after the end of FFVIII, when he's just about the same age as in KH. Also, KH2 screenshots are MUCH better quality, because sprites on the PS1? Not so pretty. Also, Kingdom Hearts is awesome.
BUT he's Squall, not Leon. Nothing in KH happened to him. He doesn't know Roxas or Naminé, and won't try to kill Demyx. Because although KH is a better game, Leon is much more happy/sane/well-adjusted than old-school Squall, which makes for a less interesting character. And FFVIII gives him an awesome backstory. But I will be throwing in KH references from time to time, because KH is awesome.
For example? Although he looks completely different, Squall's voice sounds just like Seely's and Angel's.
ETA: Clarification
Couple more things. By "references", I don't mean "Squall will talk about that one time he killed some Heartless". I mean little in-jokes. Another example: I'm planning on him living in Kevin Flynn's old house -- and although he won't have Tron in the basement, Squall-o's bastion will still have some of the old security system.
Also, he won't know KH people. THEY will recognize him, if they know Leon. Feel free to WTF.
Also? My infodump has two settings: trickle and firehose. And this post goes back and forth between the two. Uh... Sorry?
So how can it be FINAL Fantasy if there's another one that came after it?
Who knows? Not important. The thing to know is that all the various Final Fantasy games share any number of similarities, but are set in completely different worlds, with different characters, different plots, and similar-but-different combat systems. Final Fantasy VIII is unique in that it introduced the really fucking annoying junction system. But more on that later. It's also unique in that its design is deliberately done in more of a European style than a Japanese one -- which is why Squall looks vaguely German. The important thing to know is that the world is fairly technically advanced -- just about present-day -- but there's also magic.
How is this plot different from all other plots?
What happens in FFVIII? Well, a loner kid with a big-ass sword sets out to do something totally random and winds up saving the world instead. And making friends. And a guy named Cid flew an airship. And two guys named Biggs and Wedge made a (Star Wars shout-out) guest appearance. And the person trying to take over the world, who you thought was the big bad, was defeated in the middle of the game, which revealed that there was someone ELSE, bigger and badder, trying to DESTROY the world. And there were chocobos and cactuars and tonberrys.
Uh. No, wait, that's EVERY Final Fantasy. Let's start over.
Squall and his friends are students at Balamb Garden (a military-type school), who at the beginning of the game are just about to pass their final practical test and become SeeDs, trained mercenaries-for-hire. Said "practical test" being "go stop the Galbadian army from invading that town over there". Anyway, so they do, and they become SeeDs. Except for their teacher, Quistis, who already was a SeeD. And totally has the hots for Squall. Except she doesn't. BUT ANYWAY.
Their first real mission is to go help a resistance movement liberate a town from Galbadian rule, and the leader of the resistance turns out to be Rinoa Loveinterest Heartlily. Who is pretty cool, but VERY immature. And they fail. But they get new orders -- to go to Galbadia and assasinate the evil sorceress who's actually in control of the country. And they fail. But only because she's a sorceress and magic and stuff!
So they get captured and stuck in prison. And then manage to escape. But they find out that the sorceress has taken over Galbadia Garden and is about to fire missles at Balamb Garden (home base, remember?) and Trabia Garden. So they rush off to stop the missles from being fired. And they fail.
But, hey, look! When they get to Balamb Garden to warn everybody to leave, Headmaster Cid (remember that name? Scroll up and look!) tells them about a secret defense system in the bowels of the building's basement. So they go find it and turn it on AND THE SCHOOL TURNS INTO AN AIRSHIP AND FLIES AWAY FROM THE MISSILES. *headdesk* Also, Cid decides Squall should be promoted to leader of all the SeeDs, just because.
And then you get a dramatic reveal -- EVERYONE in your party, except for Rinoa, were at an orphanage together when they were small. And the nice, kind, wonderful matron in charge -- who also happens to be married to Cid -- is the SORCERESS THEY'RE FIGHTING.
And then they go find her and defeat her, and it turns out that she wasn't actually evil, she was just being possessed by an evil sorceress from the future. And that she and Cid set up Garden in order to stop the sorceress. And there's all sorts of other stuff including flashbacks to 17 years ago, a super-high-tech country that's got a WALL AROUND IT THAT MAKES THE ENTIRE COUNTRY INVISIBLE, a freaky scientist wearing a ruff that's wider than some people are tall, a trip to space, and MONSTERS FALLING TO EARTH FROM THE MOON. And then time compression, which lets them go to the future and fight the sorceress. And they do. And they win. Huzzah!
So who's this Squall guy?
The hero! Except he doesn't want to be. He's a loner who doesn't get close to people because they'll just go away and leave him ZOMGTRAUMAFROMCHILDHOOD. He doesn't talk all that much, and when he does, he often doesn't say much more than "..." or "whatever" -- but he has internal monologue like whoa.
And he wears tight pants and a black leather jacket with a huge-ass white fur ruff collar. And he's all emo. He likes to lean against the wall with his hair in his face a lot.
His symbol, which is on fucking everything he owns, is a lion's head on a cross, which he calls "Griever". It symbolizes his strength, or his pride, or... something. He's got a Griever ring. And a Griever necklace. And red Grievers on the shoulders of his jacket. And his Keyblade has a Griever keychain gunblade has a Griever fob hanging off the pommel. Rinoa has someone make her a Griever ring of her own, because she wants one, and she hangs on to Squall's until it's done. Griever griever griever. And the sorceress, in the final battle, summons a GF named Griever that you have to defeat, so that's, like, symbolic of something I don't quite understand. But that leads us to...
Gunblade? Junction? GF? What does Squall DO?
Okay. So, the gunblade? Is a blade. With a gun on it. Sort of. It's a big-ass sword with a pistol grip and a revolver in the hilt. Way awesome. It's not actually a gun, though. The way it works is, if you pull the trigger at the same instant that you hit something with the blade, it does extra damage. It's a difficult weapon to master, and in the entire world only Squall and his miniboss rival Seifer specialize in it as their weapon of choice.
As for junctioning... Okay. In the Squall's world, only sorceresses are capable of actual magic. There are special monsters out there called Guardian Forces that, when "junctioned", allow people to cast para-magic -- but only if they have charges of it to cast. Charges of spells can be drawn from monsters or refined from items. Also, when junctioned, GFs a) can be summoned to attack your enemies, b) can give you special abilities, c) increase your stats based on how many charges and what kind of magic you have, and d) let you use items. I'm telling you right now, I'm breaking with canon there -- nobody should have to have a magic being hanging out in their brain just to be able to drink a potion.
Oh, yeah. That's the other thing. When junctioned, GFs sort of live in a back corner of your mind. Which causes memory loss. (Which causes fights with your fiancée. Which causes coming to FH.) This is why Squall and his friends didn't remember the orphanage until they were reminded of it. It also provides a nice way for me to keep Squall in Fandom indefinitely. Squall's not going to junction GFs unless he has to -- but his definition of "has to" might slip quite a lot. Without the GFs junctioned, Squall's an above average guy with above average fighting skills. WITH GFs junctioned, he's world-saving material.
So, what's with the Kingdom Hearts icons? And references?
Uh, Kingdom Hearts is awesome?
Also, those TOTALLY aren't Kingdom Hearts icons. They're Kingdom Hearts 2 icons. They got his jacket's collar wrong in KH.
Seriously, though. I'm taking Squall from a few years after the end of FFVIII, when he's just about the same age as in KH. Also, KH2 screenshots are MUCH better quality, because sprites on the PS1? Not so pretty. Also, Kingdom Hearts is awesome.
BUT he's Squall, not Leon. Nothing in KH happened to him. He doesn't know Roxas or Naminé, and won't try to kill Demyx. Because although KH is a better game, Leon is much more happy/sane/well-adjusted than old-school Squall, which makes for a less interesting character. And FFVIII gives him an awesome backstory. But I will be throwing in KH references from time to time, because KH is awesome.
For example? Although he looks completely different, Squall's voice sounds just like Seely's and Angel's.
ETA: Clarification
Couple more things. By "references", I don't mean "Squall will talk about that one time he killed some Heartless". I mean little in-jokes. Another example: I'm planning on him living in Kevin Flynn's old house -- and although he won't have Tron in the basement, Squall-o's bastion will still have some of the old security system.
Also, he won't know KH people. THEY will recognize him, if they know Leon. Feel free to WTF.