VillainFan42
Ex-Soldier
My friend and I finally beat Final Fantasy VIII, and… what the heck did I just play?! I mean, I enjoyed it, but it also had some absolute garbage moments. I can’t quite quantify whether or not I liked it, but I still want to review the game so I’ll make a complete list of our observations throughout the game.
-Squall did not leave a good first impression as a main character. One of the first things out of his mouth was “I’m more complex than you think.” That line is so stupidly vapid that we started off hating his guts. It only got worse in that one scene where Quistis was venting about getting demoted, only for Squall to reply that he wasn’t listening and doesn’t care. At least in FF7, when Cloud acted condescending and aloof, it was obvious that he was showboating.
-Why did we need to start the game off in Balamb Garden? It’s an hour-long stretch of the worst tutorials we have ever seen (coupled with the ugliest UI I have ever seen. They don’t even let you change the color of the menus!) We feel like the game should have started with the Dollet landing with GFs pre-equipped, with the specifics explained later, like the Mako Reactor from FF7.
-I’ll get into Seifer in a bit, but for now, here’s what we think about Fujin and Raijin. Raijin is dumb. His only identifiable character trait was punctuating every sentence with “ya know?” which got really annoying, really fast. Fujin, on the other hand, we absolutely love. We found her gimmick of one-word all-caps sentences absolutely hilarious, and combined with her design and the fact she is clearly the dominant of the two, she’s one of our favorites.
-Okay, here we go. The Junction System. One the one hand, we love the way summons work in this game. Them not costing MP to cast, acting as a damage buffer, and having a large charge time are really balanced in our opinion. We like how they level up and gain abilities and you can equip them. We actually don’t mind the draw system that much, we actually like it. No, our problem comes from equipping spells to stats. You have to spend a long time drawing and refining to get some stats off the ground, the system is easily exploitable, and worst of all, casting spells if they’re junctioned to your stats makes you weaker. This system actively discourages you from casting spells, and we find that to be just plain poor design. If the GF system and the Draw system had remained separate, we’d like it a lot more.
-Limit Breaks. Remember how awesome Desperation Attacks were in Final Fantasy 6? No? Well, we went back to using that instead of the near flawless Limit system from FF7. Why be able to strategically hold on to Limit charge when we can let the Random Number Gods decide when we can let them loose? And who needs a tutorial, anyway? I mean, why explain how a complicated mechanic vital to the game works?
-Zell annoys us. Selphie annoys us. We like Quistis okay, but she ceases to be revelent to the story after the first hour or two.
-For all our negativity about the early game, the Dollet landing was an absolute blast. The music, the stakes, the chance to play as Seifer, the bosses, the chase that ends with Quistis gunning down the robot with a heavy machine gun… it was such an adrenaline rush. And it’s immediately followed by the waltz scene, which I have such a huge soft spot for. There’s just this adorable sincerity to it that’s hard to put into words. It’s just fantastic.
-At first I was convinced the party passing out into the Laguna flashbacks was just a rip-off of Zack being in Cloud’s head from 7, but you know what? I LOVE the Laguna flashbacks. Laguna himself is such a relatable, likeable, interesting character. I kinda wish he was the protagonist instead of Squall. The Man with the Machine Gun is a great song, Kiros and Ward are pretty likable as well.
-The Timber Owls are bland, annoying, and not memorable in the slightest. I think one of them was named Zone and I can’t remember the other guy. I like Rinoa all right, though. I also like how her dog Angelo sometimes attacks enemies like Intercepter did in FF6. I wish other characters in this game had more unique mechanics like that, but it’s just Squall with his gunblade and Rinoa with her dog.
-I greatly dislike the train mission. The briefing makes everything more complicated than it needs to be- do we really need like 2 minutes explaining what the guards do? They all show up at the same time so what’s the point of outlining their different properties? Couldn’t they have just said “get back to the roof before the guards reach the window?” I know it’s to tie into the SeeD level, but it’s a little insulting that if you fail, you continue with MORE time than you start out with.
-Why does the Galbadian national anthem sound like America the Beautiful? And more importantly, why is it called “Cactus Jack?”
-The incident at the TV station was really intense and well put together. The camera being knocked over while Seifer grabbed the president was a really nice touch, and Edea’s proper introduction was absolutely fantastic.
-I feel like the narrative really missed an opportunity in regards to Seifer’s assault on the president. I was expecting Galbadia to blame Balamb for the attack and use the incident to declare war. That would’ve made the plot really interesting. I was a little disappointed when they flat-out said Galbadia wouldn’t hold Balamb responsible. Still, the way the scene did play out gave me chills; After hearing that Seifer may have been killed, the group wants to have respect for the dead but can’t think of a single good thing to say about him, and Squall has a breakdown when he wonders if people would think the same about him when he died. When the writing in this game is good, it’s really good.
-I like Irvine. He’s got a cowboy hat, and I dig that.
-It was at about this point in the game I realized I hate the weapon upgrade system. I get what it was trying to do, but I hate this system. Grinding for the components to upgrade weapons was a chore, I only really managed to do it like 3 times, and the difference was negligible most of the time. I would much rather have just bought new weapons the normal way, but FF8 seemed to make it its mission to have as many unneeded, complicated gameplay mechanics as humanly possible.
-Did Quistis really think that right before the super-important assassination mission would be the best time to apologize to Rinoa for being too hard on her? Oh well, it could lead to something interesting. I wonder what the payoff will be- A SEWER LEVEL?! WHY?!
-Horrendous sewer level aside, the rest of the assassination mission was absolutely AMAZING. The music, the parade, the ascent up the clock tower, it was all perfect. Even Irvine’s breakdown was a compelling character moment, and it was the first time Squall actually nutted up and acted like a leader. Edea during that scene was terrifying- nonchalantly immobilizing Rinoa with her powers, that unsettling way she gets up, that absolutely scathing speech she gave to the mind-controlled cheering crowd, it was just so unsettling. The bosses against Seifer and Edea make for a fantastic way to close out Disc 1.
-The third Laguna flashback is one of my favorites. I especially love Laguna’s internal monologue where he desperately hopes that after everything he went through in the war, this new idyllic normal life isn’t just a dream. I really, really like Laguna.
-I don’t like prison levels. I don’t like desert levels. Of course FF8 has a Desert Prison. (Wait, didn’t FF7 have one of those too? I don’t think that’s a coincidence) As confused as I am about why Zell is the backup hero when Squall isn’t around, I have to admit that it was brilliant how he know the layout of the prison because he was in Ward’s mind in the past while Squall was in Laguna’s. That was cool.
-It was around here that it became apparent that Seifer is one of my favorite characters. I understand his motivation, he’s a credible threat to Squall, I love his design, his romantic knight fantasy is pretty unsettling and makes for a unique and memorable rival. I honestly feel like Seifer is Kain done right. (Yeah, I never understood Kain’s popularity. He has, like, zero depth to him. He only fights against the heroes because he gets mind-controlled, and the only reason he’d have animosity towards Cecil is because of a love triangle, and let’s face it- love triangles are never good.)
-The Moombas. THE MOOMBAS. WHY THE MOOMBAS?!?!?! Okay, they’re not… bad, per se. They just feel incredibly out of place. I mean, if you dropped a Moomba into, say, Final Fantasy 9, they’d fit right in. But in the more grounded, military political story of 8, they clash horribly with everything else. Clearly their design was meant to be bargain bin Red XIII. (yet another example of FF8 coasting off of 7’s success) And then there’s Shumi Village, but that’s it’s own can of worms.
-The Galbadian Missile Base was pretty cool. Enough said.
-What even is the point of the Garden Civil War? From a narrative standpoint, it only exists so we can learn that Cid and Edea are married. But NORG... what even is NORG? Why is he here? I feel like the reason for the Garden Civil War was kind of weak. Going back to my remark about Seifer’s attempted murder of the president, wouldn’t it have made sense if the battle broke out because Galbadia did hold Balamb responsible and NORG was trying to save face for Balamb’s actions?
-Fishermans Horizon has an interesting design- a circular city where every roof is a solar panel, making the entire place look like a radar dish- but the subplot that happens there went approximately nowhere.
-Let me just come out and say it: The twist that everyone except Rinoa grew up in the same orphanage and doesn’t remember because of GF overexposure… is just stupid. Pure and simple. I get what the idea was- to have a cast of characters who were dominated by unhealthy coping mechanisms but can’t remember why. But the way it’s handled is incredibly forced, and even though Irvine knew the whole time, there wasn’t enough foreshadowing aside from him cracking under pressure during the assassination. I completely lost it when someone asked why Selphie didn’t remember since she transferred to Balamb fairly late and didn’t work with them in Trabia, and she answered to the effect of “Well, there was this one time I found a GF in the dumpster or something.” That’s stupid. This twist is stupid. Also, Quistis says the memory loss thing “is just a rumor spread by GF critics.” That sentence makes me want to facepalm with the Infinity Gauntlet.
-The Battle of the Gardens was pretty cool. I got a kick out of ordering the students to defend the hot dogs, it was gratifying to save all the students around the school, and I can appreciate the Galbadians invading via flying motorcycles. I love pointlessly cool stuff like that. Unfortunately, that entire, otherwise awesome segment of the game is completely ruined by…
-THAT F@#%ING PARATROOPER.
I mean, wow. WOW. This is by far the absolute worst thing I have ever experienced in a Final Fantasy game, possibly any game ever. To start with, the gameplay suddenly gives the character a health meter, indicating that the gameplay style changed. Fair enough, but right at the start, you take forced damage with no way to avoid it right from the outset once the Paratrooper appears. Yep. Forced damage. This is already objectively horrendous game design right there. I like the whole concept behind the fight- and I was amused to realize it was an evolution of the slap fight from FF7. The humor wore off quickly though once I realized the mechanics for the fight were garbage. The controls have this horrible delay to them, and the game clearly wants you to appreciate the visuals, which are cool, but you can’t because you’re too busy starting at the Paratrooper trying to read its movements. And you can’t just mash buttons- that doesn’t work. No, you have to guard until you get the death move which is visually boring (and the game doesn’t tell you about it until AFTER you have already been killed by the paratrooper, which WILL happen!) and based on how long the FMV is, you’re supposed to be fighting the entire time. But the only way I have been able to win is with the death move, and that finishes him about a minute in, and the FMV, while cool at first, gets kinda boring when Squall isn’t fighting anyone during it. Wait, let me rephrase that- it will end in a minute unless the Random Number Gods randomly decide to smite you by having the Paratrooper interrupt the move during its painfully long startup. And finally, just to throw salt into the wound, when you inevitably fail, the game gives you the option of redoing the fight with double the health, as if to say “We know you suck. Do you want us to give you a bigger health bar? Let us hold your hand so you don’t scrape your knee or something. Here’s a juice box, go take this coloring book and sit in a corner.” To make a long story short, I hated the Paratrooper fight and it ruined the Galbadia Garden battle completely for me.
-The subsequent fights with Seifer and Edea were cool though.
-When the party tries to find Ellone on the White SeeD ship, WHY IN HYNE’S NAME DIDN’T SQUALL OPEN BY GIVING THE GUY EDEA’S LETTER INSTEAD OF GIVING THE GUY EVERY REASON TO MISTRUST HIM?! That entire scene I was chanting “Give him the letter. Give him the letter. Give him the letter. Give him the letter. Give him the letter.” When the White SeeD told Squall to get off the ship, I was just about ready to strangle Squall for being so stupid.
-By Disc 3 the story completely forgets where it was going. Galbadia suddenly ceases to be a major player in the story, Edea was revealed to have been possessed by Ultimecia all along, plot points like the Legendary SeeD, the Lunar Cry, and Time Compression are suddenly thrown at you with little context or time to process them, and suddenly we have to go to space? It’s like Disc 3 onward was the story the developers really wanted to tell, but Square’s executives were like “Final Fantasy 7 was a smash hit, so for Final Fantasy 8, just copy what that one did.” Nothing can convince me otherwise.
-What is up with Dr. Odine’s weird clown collar thing? And why does he sound like Dr. Wily with his German accent? Is he a good guy or a bad guy? He’s working for Adel one minute, and suddenly he’s switched sides and is working alongside Laguna? Am I missing something? Odine is weird.
-Okay, I guess we’re going to space now. Okay. Truth be told, the transition to going into space to get to Lunar Base was kind of sudden, but all the same I can appreciate the cast getting loaded into capsules and being shot into space by a giant moon gun. The choice of music for Lunar Base was just perfect.
-Why wasn’t Adel the main villain? She would’ve been far more compelling. We have a little bit of backstory, not much but enough to go off of; she could be possessing Edea, Rinoa, and the other Sorceresses from her containment at Lunar Base similar to Zemus. (only here it’d be actually foreshadowed and wasn’t just some last-second cop-out because the writers of FF4 didn’t know how to give a villain a proper motivation. For the record, I don’t hate Final Fantasy 4, but the story completely drops the ball in the second half.) You wouldn’t even have to change that much, just have her be sealed the entire game instead of in the future.
-The Lunar Cry. I can’t take it seriously once I discovered that it wasn’t just a cool name, it was a literal cry. Like, with the monsters piling into a giant teardrop. That’s equal parts disturbing and silly. Plus, given that it’s a normal thing this world experiences, I would think there should have been some kind of foreshadowing. I did think it was cool though that through most of the game you’re fighting original monsters, but after the Cry you start facing more series staples like Behemoths and Iron Giants. That was a nice touch.
-When Rinoa is possessed by Ultimecia, that scene is absolutely terrifying. Ultimecia may be about as interesting as a cardboard box, but she is easily the most terrifying villain in the series.
-The space suit minigame. Sure is nice of the game to give me the controls AFTER I failed it once.
-At first I thought it was stupid how they just sort of stumbled into the Ragnarok, but after learning that it was one of the ships used to launch Adel into space, I guess I can buy that.
-The Eyes on Me segment was incredibly corny, and I love it. However, because I’m a terrible human being, I will now ruin the song for everyone: “Oh hey Squall, let’s have a really romantic moment to the tune of the song my mom wrote that time she almost screwed your dad!” You’re welcome.
-Another plot point that went absolutely nowhere: Esthar attempting to seal Rinoa once she becomes a Sorceress. That could have been interesting if that were explored, but the second Squall breaks her out, we never hear anything about it ever again and President Laguna is really chill about the whole thing.
-This is a minor pet peeve of mine, but it bugs me how they never use “the” when talking about the Lunatic Pandora. They always just talk about “getting aboard Lunatic Pandora” or “stopping Lunatic Pandora.” It just sounds awkward without a “the.”
-SEIFER CUT ODIN IN HALF AND GILGAMESH GOT ODIN’S SWORD AND BEAT UP SEIFER AND NOW GILGAMESH IS MY ALLY THROUGH THE REST OF THE GAME HOLY CRAP THIS IS AMAZING *ahem* sorry, I just had to gush. The final fight with Seifer was so amazing- not only was Odin getting cut in half a shock, but because you can draw Aura from him, I finally got to go hog-wild with Limit Breaks for once.
-The idea that Adel junctioned Rinoa is brilliant. But for a character with as big a role as Adel, she sure died pretty quickly. Also, she’s a sorceress, right? Then why does she have the body of a male model?
-When Time Compression happens, I love how surreal it all gets. The icing on the cake was when the party hits the save point, and then fifty more save points suddenly appear. And they aren’t even decoys, they’re all real, functional save points. That’s like something I would see in Undertale, and gives a good indicator of what the next 3-5 hours are going to be like. It’s affecting the game so much that the characters wandered out of Final Fantasy 8 and into my Symphony of the Night save file! I’m just kidding, of course, but you can’t deny Ultimecia’s Castle looks like it was ripped straight out of Castlevania.
-At first I kinda liked the idea behind the final dungeon. All your abilities are sealed while within the castle walls and you have to fight multiple enemies around the castle to get them back. I was really digging it… until I discovered that you have to get the ability to bring KO’d party members back separately from Magic or Items. That’s kind of pushing it. What, did they need one more so they could have exactly 8 abilities sealed?
-I got Rinoa’s Limit Break during the Tiamat fight and discovered that the Angelo Strike had the dog picking up and suplexing the target. In this case, a dragon about 10x bigger than him. And then Rinoa gives him a treat afterwards. Angelo has to be the goodest good boy I have ever laid eyes on.
-Eden’s summon animation is too long to be cool, and I can’t even tell what it looks like. At least the Devour ability is amazing.
-You never see Ultimecia in person until the end, and her design… is not good. I think it’s too over-the-top, with the plunging neckline, those hair horns, and the pointless wings. I mean, look at Edea- her character design is absolutely perfect.
-I had heard that the final boss randomly picks 3 party members for the fight but my main party stuck together, so I guess I was mistaken. Either that or the Random Number Gods were smiling upon me.
-Ultimecia may be my favorite final boss in the entire series. The first phase is a warm-up, then the real fight begins once Griever is summoned. I love the idea of a Guardian Force being created as a manifestation of Squall’s insecurity and loneliness (implying that drawing from someone’s subconscious is how all GFs are created, which would make sense given the memory loss side-effect) and the fight did an excellent job creating an atmosphere of sheer terror, once I realized that A) It killed GFs the second I tried summoning them, and B) it can destroy spells from my inventory. I was on edge the entire fight, which is something I can appreciate in a game. The design for Griever, its junctioned form, and Ultimecia’s final form are appropriately cool and terrifying. Ultimecia, as a final boss, was challenging without being frustrating (a happy medium between the harmless damage sponge Sephiroth and the annoyingly cheap Necron) and it was satisfying to use all the Auras I had accumulated and let loose with all my Limit Breaks. It’s up there along with Kefka and Vayne as my favorite final boss in the series.
-Okay. The ending. I like it, but I wish it hadn’t gone on too long. I like how it keeps distorting the scene of Rinoa’s introduction to be more and more surreal and horrifying, but it went on a good 2 minutes longer than it should have.
-The ending is satisfying enough. I mean, Squall finally smiles and finally gets to kiss Rinoa, Cid and Edea are happy together again, Seifer is inexplicably good again… but Timber never got independence! We never hear from Timber again after Disc 2! We never get any closure between Rinoa and General Caraway, we never hear what happened to Galbadia ...Wait, who was in charge of Galbadia after Ultimecia left Edea’s body, anyway? The main characters all get closure, but nothing for the pre-Disc 3 storyline.
And there you go. My complete, unabridged thoughts about the most divisive game in the series. Do you agree? Disagree?
-Squall did not leave a good first impression as a main character. One of the first things out of his mouth was “I’m more complex than you think.” That line is so stupidly vapid that we started off hating his guts. It only got worse in that one scene where Quistis was venting about getting demoted, only for Squall to reply that he wasn’t listening and doesn’t care. At least in FF7, when Cloud acted condescending and aloof, it was obvious that he was showboating.
-Why did we need to start the game off in Balamb Garden? It’s an hour-long stretch of the worst tutorials we have ever seen (coupled with the ugliest UI I have ever seen. They don’t even let you change the color of the menus!) We feel like the game should have started with the Dollet landing with GFs pre-equipped, with the specifics explained later, like the Mako Reactor from FF7.
-I’ll get into Seifer in a bit, but for now, here’s what we think about Fujin and Raijin. Raijin is dumb. His only identifiable character trait was punctuating every sentence with “ya know?” which got really annoying, really fast. Fujin, on the other hand, we absolutely love. We found her gimmick of one-word all-caps sentences absolutely hilarious, and combined with her design and the fact she is clearly the dominant of the two, she’s one of our favorites.
-Okay, here we go. The Junction System. One the one hand, we love the way summons work in this game. Them not costing MP to cast, acting as a damage buffer, and having a large charge time are really balanced in our opinion. We like how they level up and gain abilities and you can equip them. We actually don’t mind the draw system that much, we actually like it. No, our problem comes from equipping spells to stats. You have to spend a long time drawing and refining to get some stats off the ground, the system is easily exploitable, and worst of all, casting spells if they’re junctioned to your stats makes you weaker. This system actively discourages you from casting spells, and we find that to be just plain poor design. If the GF system and the Draw system had remained separate, we’d like it a lot more.
-Limit Breaks. Remember how awesome Desperation Attacks were in Final Fantasy 6? No? Well, we went back to using that instead of the near flawless Limit system from FF7. Why be able to strategically hold on to Limit charge when we can let the Random Number Gods decide when we can let them loose? And who needs a tutorial, anyway? I mean, why explain how a complicated mechanic vital to the game works?
-Zell annoys us. Selphie annoys us. We like Quistis okay, but she ceases to be revelent to the story after the first hour or two.
-For all our negativity about the early game, the Dollet landing was an absolute blast. The music, the stakes, the chance to play as Seifer, the bosses, the chase that ends with Quistis gunning down the robot with a heavy machine gun… it was such an adrenaline rush. And it’s immediately followed by the waltz scene, which I have such a huge soft spot for. There’s just this adorable sincerity to it that’s hard to put into words. It’s just fantastic.
-At first I was convinced the party passing out into the Laguna flashbacks was just a rip-off of Zack being in Cloud’s head from 7, but you know what? I LOVE the Laguna flashbacks. Laguna himself is such a relatable, likeable, interesting character. I kinda wish he was the protagonist instead of Squall. The Man with the Machine Gun is a great song, Kiros and Ward are pretty likable as well.
-The Timber Owls are bland, annoying, and not memorable in the slightest. I think one of them was named Zone and I can’t remember the other guy. I like Rinoa all right, though. I also like how her dog Angelo sometimes attacks enemies like Intercepter did in FF6. I wish other characters in this game had more unique mechanics like that, but it’s just Squall with his gunblade and Rinoa with her dog.
-I greatly dislike the train mission. The briefing makes everything more complicated than it needs to be- do we really need like 2 minutes explaining what the guards do? They all show up at the same time so what’s the point of outlining their different properties? Couldn’t they have just said “get back to the roof before the guards reach the window?” I know it’s to tie into the SeeD level, but it’s a little insulting that if you fail, you continue with MORE time than you start out with.
-Why does the Galbadian national anthem sound like America the Beautiful? And more importantly, why is it called “Cactus Jack?”
-The incident at the TV station was really intense and well put together. The camera being knocked over while Seifer grabbed the president was a really nice touch, and Edea’s proper introduction was absolutely fantastic.
-I feel like the narrative really missed an opportunity in regards to Seifer’s assault on the president. I was expecting Galbadia to blame Balamb for the attack and use the incident to declare war. That would’ve made the plot really interesting. I was a little disappointed when they flat-out said Galbadia wouldn’t hold Balamb responsible. Still, the way the scene did play out gave me chills; After hearing that Seifer may have been killed, the group wants to have respect for the dead but can’t think of a single good thing to say about him, and Squall has a breakdown when he wonders if people would think the same about him when he died. When the writing in this game is good, it’s really good.
-I like Irvine. He’s got a cowboy hat, and I dig that.
-It was at about this point in the game I realized I hate the weapon upgrade system. I get what it was trying to do, but I hate this system. Grinding for the components to upgrade weapons was a chore, I only really managed to do it like 3 times, and the difference was negligible most of the time. I would much rather have just bought new weapons the normal way, but FF8 seemed to make it its mission to have as many unneeded, complicated gameplay mechanics as humanly possible.
-Did Quistis really think that right before the super-important assassination mission would be the best time to apologize to Rinoa for being too hard on her? Oh well, it could lead to something interesting. I wonder what the payoff will be- A SEWER LEVEL?! WHY?!
-Horrendous sewer level aside, the rest of the assassination mission was absolutely AMAZING. The music, the parade, the ascent up the clock tower, it was all perfect. Even Irvine’s breakdown was a compelling character moment, and it was the first time Squall actually nutted up and acted like a leader. Edea during that scene was terrifying- nonchalantly immobilizing Rinoa with her powers, that unsettling way she gets up, that absolutely scathing speech she gave to the mind-controlled cheering crowd, it was just so unsettling. The bosses against Seifer and Edea make for a fantastic way to close out Disc 1.
-The third Laguna flashback is one of my favorites. I especially love Laguna’s internal monologue where he desperately hopes that after everything he went through in the war, this new idyllic normal life isn’t just a dream. I really, really like Laguna.
-I don’t like prison levels. I don’t like desert levels. Of course FF8 has a Desert Prison. (Wait, didn’t FF7 have one of those too? I don’t think that’s a coincidence) As confused as I am about why Zell is the backup hero when Squall isn’t around, I have to admit that it was brilliant how he know the layout of the prison because he was in Ward’s mind in the past while Squall was in Laguna’s. That was cool.
-It was around here that it became apparent that Seifer is one of my favorite characters. I understand his motivation, he’s a credible threat to Squall, I love his design, his romantic knight fantasy is pretty unsettling and makes for a unique and memorable rival. I honestly feel like Seifer is Kain done right. (Yeah, I never understood Kain’s popularity. He has, like, zero depth to him. He only fights against the heroes because he gets mind-controlled, and the only reason he’d have animosity towards Cecil is because of a love triangle, and let’s face it- love triangles are never good.)
-The Moombas. THE MOOMBAS. WHY THE MOOMBAS?!?!?! Okay, they’re not… bad, per se. They just feel incredibly out of place. I mean, if you dropped a Moomba into, say, Final Fantasy 9, they’d fit right in. But in the more grounded, military political story of 8, they clash horribly with everything else. Clearly their design was meant to be bargain bin Red XIII. (yet another example of FF8 coasting off of 7’s success) And then there’s Shumi Village, but that’s it’s own can of worms.
-The Galbadian Missile Base was pretty cool. Enough said.
-What even is the point of the Garden Civil War? From a narrative standpoint, it only exists so we can learn that Cid and Edea are married. But NORG... what even is NORG? Why is he here? I feel like the reason for the Garden Civil War was kind of weak. Going back to my remark about Seifer’s attempted murder of the president, wouldn’t it have made sense if the battle broke out because Galbadia did hold Balamb responsible and NORG was trying to save face for Balamb’s actions?
-Fishermans Horizon has an interesting design- a circular city where every roof is a solar panel, making the entire place look like a radar dish- but the subplot that happens there went approximately nowhere.
-Let me just come out and say it: The twist that everyone except Rinoa grew up in the same orphanage and doesn’t remember because of GF overexposure… is just stupid. Pure and simple. I get what the idea was- to have a cast of characters who were dominated by unhealthy coping mechanisms but can’t remember why. But the way it’s handled is incredibly forced, and even though Irvine knew the whole time, there wasn’t enough foreshadowing aside from him cracking under pressure during the assassination. I completely lost it when someone asked why Selphie didn’t remember since she transferred to Balamb fairly late and didn’t work with them in Trabia, and she answered to the effect of “Well, there was this one time I found a GF in the dumpster or something.” That’s stupid. This twist is stupid. Also, Quistis says the memory loss thing “is just a rumor spread by GF critics.” That sentence makes me want to facepalm with the Infinity Gauntlet.
-The Battle of the Gardens was pretty cool. I got a kick out of ordering the students to defend the hot dogs, it was gratifying to save all the students around the school, and I can appreciate the Galbadians invading via flying motorcycles. I love pointlessly cool stuff like that. Unfortunately, that entire, otherwise awesome segment of the game is completely ruined by…
-THAT F@#%ING PARATROOPER.
I mean, wow. WOW. This is by far the absolute worst thing I have ever experienced in a Final Fantasy game, possibly any game ever. To start with, the gameplay suddenly gives the character a health meter, indicating that the gameplay style changed. Fair enough, but right at the start, you take forced damage with no way to avoid it right from the outset once the Paratrooper appears. Yep. Forced damage. This is already objectively horrendous game design right there. I like the whole concept behind the fight- and I was amused to realize it was an evolution of the slap fight from FF7. The humor wore off quickly though once I realized the mechanics for the fight were garbage. The controls have this horrible delay to them, and the game clearly wants you to appreciate the visuals, which are cool, but you can’t because you’re too busy starting at the Paratrooper trying to read its movements. And you can’t just mash buttons- that doesn’t work. No, you have to guard until you get the death move which is visually boring (and the game doesn’t tell you about it until AFTER you have already been killed by the paratrooper, which WILL happen!) and based on how long the FMV is, you’re supposed to be fighting the entire time. But the only way I have been able to win is with the death move, and that finishes him about a minute in, and the FMV, while cool at first, gets kinda boring when Squall isn’t fighting anyone during it. Wait, let me rephrase that- it will end in a minute unless the Random Number Gods randomly decide to smite you by having the Paratrooper interrupt the move during its painfully long startup. And finally, just to throw salt into the wound, when you inevitably fail, the game gives you the option of redoing the fight with double the health, as if to say “We know you suck. Do you want us to give you a bigger health bar? Let us hold your hand so you don’t scrape your knee or something. Here’s a juice box, go take this coloring book and sit in a corner.” To make a long story short, I hated the Paratrooper fight and it ruined the Galbadia Garden battle completely for me.
-The subsequent fights with Seifer and Edea were cool though.
-When the party tries to find Ellone on the White SeeD ship, WHY IN HYNE’S NAME DIDN’T SQUALL OPEN BY GIVING THE GUY EDEA’S LETTER INSTEAD OF GIVING THE GUY EVERY REASON TO MISTRUST HIM?! That entire scene I was chanting “Give him the letter. Give him the letter. Give him the letter. Give him the letter. Give him the letter.” When the White SeeD told Squall to get off the ship, I was just about ready to strangle Squall for being so stupid.
-By Disc 3 the story completely forgets where it was going. Galbadia suddenly ceases to be a major player in the story, Edea was revealed to have been possessed by Ultimecia all along, plot points like the Legendary SeeD, the Lunar Cry, and Time Compression are suddenly thrown at you with little context or time to process them, and suddenly we have to go to space? It’s like Disc 3 onward was the story the developers really wanted to tell, but Square’s executives were like “Final Fantasy 7 was a smash hit, so for Final Fantasy 8, just copy what that one did.” Nothing can convince me otherwise.
-What is up with Dr. Odine’s weird clown collar thing? And why does he sound like Dr. Wily with his German accent? Is he a good guy or a bad guy? He’s working for Adel one minute, and suddenly he’s switched sides and is working alongside Laguna? Am I missing something? Odine is weird.
-Okay, I guess we’re going to space now. Okay. Truth be told, the transition to going into space to get to Lunar Base was kind of sudden, but all the same I can appreciate the cast getting loaded into capsules and being shot into space by a giant moon gun. The choice of music for Lunar Base was just perfect.
-Why wasn’t Adel the main villain? She would’ve been far more compelling. We have a little bit of backstory, not much but enough to go off of; she could be possessing Edea, Rinoa, and the other Sorceresses from her containment at Lunar Base similar to Zemus. (only here it’d be actually foreshadowed and wasn’t just some last-second cop-out because the writers of FF4 didn’t know how to give a villain a proper motivation. For the record, I don’t hate Final Fantasy 4, but the story completely drops the ball in the second half.) You wouldn’t even have to change that much, just have her be sealed the entire game instead of in the future.
-The Lunar Cry. I can’t take it seriously once I discovered that it wasn’t just a cool name, it was a literal cry. Like, with the monsters piling into a giant teardrop. That’s equal parts disturbing and silly. Plus, given that it’s a normal thing this world experiences, I would think there should have been some kind of foreshadowing. I did think it was cool though that through most of the game you’re fighting original monsters, but after the Cry you start facing more series staples like Behemoths and Iron Giants. That was a nice touch.
-When Rinoa is possessed by Ultimecia, that scene is absolutely terrifying. Ultimecia may be about as interesting as a cardboard box, but she is easily the most terrifying villain in the series.
-The space suit minigame. Sure is nice of the game to give me the controls AFTER I failed it once.
-At first I thought it was stupid how they just sort of stumbled into the Ragnarok, but after learning that it was one of the ships used to launch Adel into space, I guess I can buy that.
-The Eyes on Me segment was incredibly corny, and I love it. However, because I’m a terrible human being, I will now ruin the song for everyone: “Oh hey Squall, let’s have a really romantic moment to the tune of the song my mom wrote that time she almost screwed your dad!” You’re welcome.
-Another plot point that went absolutely nowhere: Esthar attempting to seal Rinoa once she becomes a Sorceress. That could have been interesting if that were explored, but the second Squall breaks her out, we never hear anything about it ever again and President Laguna is really chill about the whole thing.
-This is a minor pet peeve of mine, but it bugs me how they never use “the” when talking about the Lunatic Pandora. They always just talk about “getting aboard Lunatic Pandora” or “stopping Lunatic Pandora.” It just sounds awkward without a “the.”
-SEIFER CUT ODIN IN HALF AND GILGAMESH GOT ODIN’S SWORD AND BEAT UP SEIFER AND NOW GILGAMESH IS MY ALLY THROUGH THE REST OF THE GAME HOLY CRAP THIS IS AMAZING *ahem* sorry, I just had to gush. The final fight with Seifer was so amazing- not only was Odin getting cut in half a shock, but because you can draw Aura from him, I finally got to go hog-wild with Limit Breaks for once.
-The idea that Adel junctioned Rinoa is brilliant. But for a character with as big a role as Adel, she sure died pretty quickly. Also, she’s a sorceress, right? Then why does she have the body of a male model?
-When Time Compression happens, I love how surreal it all gets. The icing on the cake was when the party hits the save point, and then fifty more save points suddenly appear. And they aren’t even decoys, they’re all real, functional save points. That’s like something I would see in Undertale, and gives a good indicator of what the next 3-5 hours are going to be like. It’s affecting the game so much that the characters wandered out of Final Fantasy 8 and into my Symphony of the Night save file! I’m just kidding, of course, but you can’t deny Ultimecia’s Castle looks like it was ripped straight out of Castlevania.
-At first I kinda liked the idea behind the final dungeon. All your abilities are sealed while within the castle walls and you have to fight multiple enemies around the castle to get them back. I was really digging it… until I discovered that you have to get the ability to bring KO’d party members back separately from Magic or Items. That’s kind of pushing it. What, did they need one more so they could have exactly 8 abilities sealed?
-I got Rinoa’s Limit Break during the Tiamat fight and discovered that the Angelo Strike had the dog picking up and suplexing the target. In this case, a dragon about 10x bigger than him. And then Rinoa gives him a treat afterwards. Angelo has to be the goodest good boy I have ever laid eyes on.
-Eden’s summon animation is too long to be cool, and I can’t even tell what it looks like. At least the Devour ability is amazing.
-You never see Ultimecia in person until the end, and her design… is not good. I think it’s too over-the-top, with the plunging neckline, those hair horns, and the pointless wings. I mean, look at Edea- her character design is absolutely perfect.
-I had heard that the final boss randomly picks 3 party members for the fight but my main party stuck together, so I guess I was mistaken. Either that or the Random Number Gods were smiling upon me.
-Ultimecia may be my favorite final boss in the entire series. The first phase is a warm-up, then the real fight begins once Griever is summoned. I love the idea of a Guardian Force being created as a manifestation of Squall’s insecurity and loneliness (implying that drawing from someone’s subconscious is how all GFs are created, which would make sense given the memory loss side-effect) and the fight did an excellent job creating an atmosphere of sheer terror, once I realized that A) It killed GFs the second I tried summoning them, and B) it can destroy spells from my inventory. I was on edge the entire fight, which is something I can appreciate in a game. The design for Griever, its junctioned form, and Ultimecia’s final form are appropriately cool and terrifying. Ultimecia, as a final boss, was challenging without being frustrating (a happy medium between the harmless damage sponge Sephiroth and the annoyingly cheap Necron) and it was satisfying to use all the Auras I had accumulated and let loose with all my Limit Breaks. It’s up there along with Kefka and Vayne as my favorite final boss in the series.
-Okay. The ending. I like it, but I wish it hadn’t gone on too long. I like how it keeps distorting the scene of Rinoa’s introduction to be more and more surreal and horrifying, but it went on a good 2 minutes longer than it should have.
-The ending is satisfying enough. I mean, Squall finally smiles and finally gets to kiss Rinoa, Cid and Edea are happy together again, Seifer is inexplicably good again… but Timber never got independence! We never hear from Timber again after Disc 2! We never get any closure between Rinoa and General Caraway, we never hear what happened to Galbadia ...Wait, who was in charge of Galbadia after Ultimecia left Edea’s body, anyway? The main characters all get closure, but nothing for the pre-Disc 3 storyline.
And there you go. My complete, unabridged thoughts about the most divisive game in the series. Do you agree? Disagree?
