While this was all interesting stuff, the most interesting part was at the end where Laguna is worried about going to sleep because he's afraid when he wakes up he won't be himself. Does Laguna live inside Rhek when he sleeps as Rhek lives inside him sometimes? What's going on, why don't I remember any of this? Did I play this game? I remember certain things so clearly but others are a complete blur and surprise.
When I'm back to the present or whatever I'm in control of Zell with Selphie and Quistis in prison. Zell awakes and mentions that when he was asleep he was Ward again, and was a janitor in a prison (this prison maybe...?). The team puts it together and realizes that Zell has pretty intimate knowledge of the prison. They call the guard in, conk him on the head and escape to get their weapons and find Rhek. We flash on over to Rhek, and he's being tortured by Seifer, under the orders of the Sorceress to find out what SeeD is really all about. Rhek has no clue, he's on his first mission still. Seifer leaves and the torture continues.
In the prison, helping the guards in ompa loompa fashion are these little standing tiger type creatures called Moombas. They don't really play a major role but they do help Zell escape and eventually lead Zell and the party to "Laguna", which turns out to be what they call Rhek. They cut Rhek down and face off with those guards from the comm tower once again, Biggs and Wedge. After they're down we make our way out but come under immediate fire from guards. Enter Irvine and Cysra to the rescue. We finally get outside and see that the prison is three gigantic screws sticking out of the ground in the middle of the desert. That part I remember.
We grab two buggies and head out. While we were in prison, we heard about the Sorceresses plan to fire missles and destroy all Gardens. Time to put a stop to that. The party splits in two groups, one to stop the missles at the missle base and one to warn Balamb Garden in case they fail. Tribia Garden has already been fired upon (Selphie is originally from Trabia Garden).
Selphie and her squad get to the missle base and attempt to divert the missles, then self destruct the base on a timer. Unfortunately Selphie, Quistis and Zell are trapped in the missle base when the self destruct goes off and they seemingly perish in a massive explosion. Remember that too.
We switch to Rhek's party and arrive at Balamb Garden to find it in chaos. The garden faculty is demanding the head of Cid, and some student factions have taken sides. Fighting has broken out inside the garden between Headmaster Cid and Garden Master NORG. Eventually we fight our way to Cid after looking everywhere. He tells Rhek that the Garden used to be a shelter of some kind. He has a weird key and tells Rhek the only hope is to try to go into the Garden depths to activate the shelter defense.
The party does so, arriving deep below infront of massive machinery. We start her up and rise on a platform into Cid's office. The Garden digs itself out of the ground and begins to float. The whole center begins to move and just barely avoids the missles as they hit where the Garden was only moments before in a very cool cut scene. Afterward, the Garden, out of control eventually crashes into the sea and drifts afloat. Very good stuff...
After we've basically saved the entire Garden from certain death, we're called down to talk to the Garden Master NORG. He informs us of a few important facts. 1- Edea the Sorceress is married to Cid (I actually remembered that but was still shocked cuz I'd forgotten), 2- NORG is not human, but some alien race which Cid recruited long ago to help him build Garden, 3- NORG wanted the Sorceress dead but wanted his subordinate Mintone (Garden Master of Galbadia Garden) to do it. Since that Garden Master sent us instead as pawns, NORG is now in the open against the Sorceress having failed. In an effort to appease her, he wants to send our heads on a silver platter. So yea, we kill that dick and Draw Leviathan from him.
Back up in Cid's office, we find out that Edea actually helped Cid build Garden and that the purpose of Garden is to kill the Sorceress. Suffice it to say that is a little confusing. Anyway, Garden is approached by a boat with the Sorceress' own SeeDs. Also confusing. They don't want to fight but they come in Edea's name to take Ellone away to a safer place. Cid agrees and sends Rhek to find her. Ellone? Of his dreams? Wah??
We head on out and find little three year old Ellone. Except she's not three, she's like twenty. And she's the mysterious brunette from the beginning of the game in the infirmary and then in the training grounds. The girl that knew us but we didn't know her. Anyway, after some discussion she admits that she's the one that's been manipulating Rhek and that she's trying to manipulate the past through him. Rhek pleads with her to stop but she says she's his only hope of trying to change the past... Whoa, ok... Not remembering this, but definitely getting interesting.
What comes next is several encounters where the game is trying to explain Rhek's dark moods. Apparently he was abandoned as a child or something. I think his sister died and she was the world to him. At least that's what I'm getting from flash backs. At the same time Cysra is warming up to Rhek and trying to get him to feel something back. The rest of the party is also trying to get him to open up.
In the meantime, Cid appoints Rhek as the commander of the entire Garden of SeeDs and gives him the mission to kill the Sorceress, his wife. After a bit more drifting, the Balamb Garden crashes into a small fisherman's town of pacifists. Well it's not long before the Galbadian army shows up looking for Ellone in the name of the Sorceress. Uhhhh didn't I JUST give you Ellone out at sea???
Anyway, we find and beat up Biggs and Wedge once more, then face off with a big monstrosity of a tank that looks a lot like the one Selphie and her people fought trying to escape the missle base. After it blows up, Selphie, Zell and Quistis climb out of the rubble. They don't explain it but I guess they hid in the tank when before the base blew.
With the whole gang back together, they do some side quest shit, put on a concert, etc...
After a bit more, the fisherman town finishes repairs on the floating Garden and we take off for Balamb city. Soooo now I have an airship -kinda.
I get to Balamb and find it under Galbadia Army rule and the people being roughed up. Zell's parents included. So I get to the center of town and find Seifer's minions Raijin and Fujin. I beat them up and run them out of town. Next up, Trabia Garden.
Couple of side notes:
-I really dislike the Draw system, but the game itself is getting pretty good and I'm enjoying myself.
-I don't like the leveling system either because it's always 1k to next level, but this makes it virtually impossible for anyone to catch up to Rhek and if mob levels adjust to his, the rest of my party is doing pitiful damage.
-This game, just like FF7 has no load times. I remember that was something Sakaguchi demanded and I've always appreciated it. It's always awesome seemless transition from gameplay to cut scenes.
-I don't like that there's no weapons or armor shops. Instead I have to find magazines, get parts and remodel my current weapons. So... I've found like three magazines, I have no clue how old they are in the game, and I can only make one or two level two weapons out of four levels because I don't have the parts. So I'm like using level one weapons still almost half way through the game. It's really fucking lame.
-The Limit Break system is similar to that of FFVI, which is to say that you only get to use it if you're almost dead. So it's not often. I much prefer the system of FF7 where I didn't have to be dead to use it.
-Did I mention grinding Draw spells for hours is really lame?
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