Entry 1: Starting out and Ifrit's cave

I began this journey by watching the opening cinematic, before being escorted from the doctor's office to the classroom by our instructor, Quistis. We are controlling Squall Leonhart, a SeeD candidate at Balamb Garden. SeeD seem to be a very elite mercenary group, who train candidates from early childhood to become very strong, very capable combat operatives. Balamb Garden seems to be one SeeD academy, and we are told there are others throughout the world. The relationships between Gardens and other powers in the world is not clear at this point.

I remember when the game first came out, I was sure that Seifer was going to be the main antagonist and was surprised to see that he was one of Squall's classmates. Looking back, I was probably comparing him to Sephiroth, who takes a while to turn up in FF7.

After taking a transfer student for a tour of Balamb Garden, we were off with Quistis to Ifrit's cave, to find and battle the Guardian Force (GF), Ifrit. It seems like members of SeeD have the ability to use GFs to dramatically improve their combat prowess. It's not clear if this is something they are taught, or an inherent ability that perhaps prompts their selection to the Garden in the first place?

I was very pleased to get access to (a very limited) portion of the world map at this early stage in the adventure, and decided to make the most of it by exploring a little. I am sure Quistis would have been less than impressed at the detour!

Before long, we were in our first battle of the campaign! This time, our opponent was a Glacial Eye. About the Draw system: I am sure this is not the intended way to play, but I cannot help but attempt to draw 100 of each spell on each character. In these early battles, this is made very easy due to regular encounters against enemies with the Cure spell (including this Glacial Eye). This might become too difficult, or too tedious, as the playthrough continues.

Before setting out, I was given two GFs: Quezacotl and Shiva. In this game, GFs are assigned to characters by junctioning them. I junctioned Quezacotl to Squall and Shiva to Quistis. In this early section of the game, summoning the GFs in battle seems to be a good strategy: they hit for enormous damage and their separate health pool protects my characters from attack. In general, my strategy here is to fill up on magic by drawing from enemies, then finish them off with GF summons.

We continued to ignore our mission to Ifrit's cave in favour of a quick trip to the town of Balamb. I think this location lives most strongly in my memory from my initial, partial playthrough in 1999. The blue skies and blue water are really beautiful. In the above screenshot, I am standing right at a (somewhat) difficult to see Cure draw point.

Ifrit's cave, near the area where Ifrit is encountered

Eventually, we returned to task. Right from the beginning of the game, the environments are absolutely stunning. Ifrit's cave in particular has the feel of a late-game arena and you can easily be here within the game's first hour! I feel like this environment helps to sell the idea that even SeeD candidates are extremely capable individuals. A regular person would have a pretty low chance of survival even standing here!

Finally, it was time to do battle with Ifrit himself. My strategy here was fairly simple: Quistis repeatedly called upon her GF Shiva to use the Diamond Dust attack, while Squall was on hand for any Cures that were needed and to attack with his gunblade. In this battle, I found Quezacotl's attack damage on Ifrit too low to justify the animation time, especially when on a time limit!

A note about the time limit: because I was able to make a save state at the entrance to the cave, I decided to attempt the 10 minute challenge. I was able to manage this successfully, fighting 2 battles on the way into the cave before Ifrit himself. It was tight enough that I can imagine luck played a role in my success. My advice for anyone else attempting this: run from any random encounters (hold L2 and R2 simultaneously) to make sure you have plenty of time for the big man. 5 minutes should be plenty. There is no time limit on the way out, so you are free to grind and do some extra draw-ing at this point!

To finish up this session, I returned to the Garden and got debriefed by Quistis. My next objective: get changed into my uniform and undertake the SeeD field exam!