insidergamer

Hey kai,

I wasn't able to see the entire thing, but from what I had seen, you definitely established a really good rapport with Adam, so the questions and transitions, I thought, were rather smooth. Making it a comfortable environment for the interviewee is important, and I thought you did that very well. Both of you seemed well relaxed so some good conversation was able to come out of that.

Very simply, IMO, pretentiousness is when a game pretends to be more than it is.

Some of the trailers I've seen for FF13/14/Versus strike me as pretentious. The nonsensical stream of archaic words on-screen (like someone just went straight for a thesaurus) makes it seem as if Square is trying to pad the game's premise.

Me too. I care very little about the advantages. I just want to support them. The Premium video content is nice though, especially Random PC Game (RPG).

Sorry for derailing the conversation guys, but that's a great point. And like I mentioned, how Seifer also manages to time it such that the flow of Lunar's Cry is exactly in trajectory with the Lunar Base's orbit is ...pretty amazing.

Also now I think of it, I do remember the Codex in FFVIII. I checked it out maybe, once or twice, and that was that.

Actually: You seem to have a good grasp of the story's events. Want to explain one more thing for me? Spoilers ensue: At the end of game, upon beating Ultimecia, Squall warps to the Orphanage alongside a dying Ultimecia after the final battle. Ultimecia passes her powers onto Edea before fading away. The end cutscene begins thereafter.

If I'm not mistaken, during the story's events, Edea mentions she received her powers from a dying sorceress. A odd man in the future was also there (Squall). So is there some timeloop thing at play here? Don't quite understand.

@thatpinguino:
You asked, "Also, why does Lunatic Pandora exist again?"

I know this is a little OT, but also not having played FFVIII in years, I was always similarly confused about the Lunatic Pandora. In fact, most of the game's plot was relatively straight-forward until the Lunatic Pandora, Monsters From Space!, and Esthar.

Reading up on it briefly, apparently years before the game's start, a crystal pillar fell from the Moon onto the game's planet. In FFVIII, monsters are the result of Lunar Cry's; spillages from time to time of monsters from the Moon onto the planet. This fallen crystal pillar held certain potent properties that Laguna was dispatched to investigate at some point. Tears Point (a certain spot on the World Map) is a likely location for Lunar Cry's to occur. As a result, Dr. Odine establishes a laboratory there to conduct research. A housing for the crystal pillar is formed (the shell of what is now termed the Lunatic Pandora -- this is why when you explore the Lunatic Pandora in-game, its walls are crystal as it is the crystal pillar, now with a fancy enclosure. Side Note: This enclosure is also what allows for its hovering capability.) and Dr. Odine discovers that when the Lunatic Pandora aligns with Tears Point in a certain way, he can induce a Lunar Cry, basically allowing for the fall of monsters from the Moon at will. This now-weapon is deemed valuable for the Sorceress War that happens prior to the game's events. The unexplained crater in the World Map around Esthar is a result of one of using the Lunatic Pandora to induce a Lunar Cry and summon monsters from the Moon. At some point, the powers of this device are considered too powerful, and it is sunk into the ocean.

Now, when Adel was captured, they knew they could not simply kill the sorceress (as in the game, they can pass their powers onto another individual), so they decided to place her in suspension in orbit and constructed the Lunar Base to keep watch over her. In the game's events, Seifer, under the influence of Ultimecia (or whatever), raises the Lunatic Pandora from the ocean, somehow moves it to Tears Point, which activates a Lunar Cry. I don't believe he cares for the monsters raining down from the Moon, but the plan is to use the Lunar Cry's 'flow' of monsters from the Moon to push the Lunar Base (holding Adel) down onto the planet so she can escape, and Ultimecia can take possession of her as well. I mean, I guess Seifer waited until the Lunar Base's orbit aligned with the Lunar Cry's trajectory with Tears Point before pulling this stunt?

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I hope that made sense. I'm glad I looked into it, because I had NO IDEA any of this was the case. Was it because I was young when I played FFVIII or did they simply do a GARBAGE job explaining any of that? I mean, to be honest, a lot of that was interesting, and there was no reason to obfuscate any of that.

When I played through FFVIII, I had NO IDEA why I went to space or what the hell the Lunatic Pandora was or so many things. Why is it that 10+ years after playing the game, I have to come back and read a Wiki to understand this?

That being said, I enjoyed FFVIII.

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Back on topic: I did not enjoy FFVIII's battle system. Drawing endlessly like we JRPG fanatics are wont to do (because we want perfect characters) and junctioning magic to stats is basically an incentive to never use Magic. And maybe it was my fault, but because the Card Mod abilities were never given much focus, I did not end up giving that much of a try. As well, it look me a while to even understand enemies were leveling up alongside me, such straight-up grinding is ineffectual. Not that everything needs to be explained, but I would have liked the heads-up.

I don't jump in often in these things, but I watched the Dishonored QL yesterday. I thought it was great.

I really wanted to know more about to game to decide if I wanted to buy it at launch, and indeed, Patrick was able to demonstrate a good overview of the game and its systems to help me with just that. I liked how he loaded a few saves here and there to show off a few different scenarios. And what's more? He seemed VERY competent when flying through the game (with all those double-jump Blinks and engagements with enemies). I thought it to be a very flattering QL of the game and it did what I wanted it to.

Is it one of those "Rogue Warrior" QL's where it's almost pure entertainment and less so on everything else? No, but I don't think it always needs to be one of those.

Re-subscribe. I could defend my decision a little more, but I love the stuff these guys put out and want to keep on supporting them. There's not a day that goes by as of late that I do not visit the site or re-watch an older video. Every Tues, I go to the Podcast tab and refresh away until something comes up.

Just watched Fast Forward: Making of ReBoot. Man, I can't believe how good the first CG televison series happened to turn out. Re-watching a lot of the episodes on YouTube ...again.

Jeff, followed closely by Vinny. I find both to be quick witted when it co to videogame/cultural references, and capitalizing on them for comedic effect.

But gosh, watching Jeff bull**** for hours on that 'GB Is The New Wikipedia' video is enough to put him on top for me. Jeff + Vinny working together (see Deadly Premonition ER) is brilliance itself.

Maggi