Alright, so with the recent announcement of a PC re-release of Final Fantasy 8 I thought it an appropriate time to take another look at the game. Final Fantasy 8 is a pretty polarizing entry in the series. Personally I enjoy, let's say MOST of the game. I like it more than 7, not as much as 9. But it ranks high up there in terms of soundtrack. I'm not here to talk about the merits of 8 versus the others in the PSX era FF games. I'm here to tell you that Square fucked up in their choice of main antagonist.

Okay, so who is the antagonist in FF8? For the first two discs it is Edea. The sorceress who kills the President of Galbadia, prevents her own assassination, and begins a plot to destroy the Gardens and thus SeeD from the world. At the start of disc three it is revealed that all of Edea's actions were not her own, but instead those of future time witch/sorceress Ultimecia. Ultimecia, shown briefly at the end of disc two, has the ability to send her consciousness into the sorceresses in the past in order to further her own goal. Unfortunately for Ultimecia, there are only three sorceresses left in the period where the game takes place, and one of them is in space.

But what is Ultimecia's plan, exactly? Why does she need the sorceresses? Ultimecia suffers from a similar problem that many JRPG villains also suffer from. She wants to be a living god. But why? Arrogance? Her space alien mother? Nope. She just wants to escape her fate. Her fate being the defeat at the hands of the 'Legendary SeeD'. Which is why she uses Edea to carry out her destruction of the Gardens. But the eradication of SeeD is only one step of her goal. Ultimecia wants to compress all of time into one so that she could absorb all of time, space, and whatnot. She can't just do this from her castle in the future, she needs to go far enough back in the past so that all of time can fall under her spell.

Which is where Ellone, that mysterious girl that Squall often meets, comes into play. Ellone has the unique ability to send one's consciousness into the past, which she does various times to send Squall into Laguna's past. Ellone is Ultimecia's second goal with Edea. By having Ellone send Ultimecia/Edea further into the past, time compression could begin. But, since this is a JRPG, Edea is defeated and Ultimecia is forced to change plans by entering Rinoa's body.

Now, here is where I begin to suggest a different villain should have been used. Ultimecia is all well and good if you like your villains to exist in the future and only interacts with the party by silly body take over moments. No, I'm not suggesting Rinoa be the main villain because that would spark a Rinoa = Ultimecia debate and no one wants that. But, if you'll go back a paragraph or two you'll note I said that there were three sorceresses in the game, Ultimecia not included. Hell, if you've played the game you know exactly who I mean. Adel.

Adel should have been the main villain in Final Fantasy 8.

Here comes the part where I tell you why she would make for a more threatening and villainous villain than Ultimecia.

Adel, unlike Ultimecia, is responsible for many events in the game's past. You experience a lot of events caused by her through the eyes of Laguna. At points throughout the game characters make reference to the Sorceress War, the war seventeen years ago that left Squall and friends orphaned and under the care of Edea/Matron. You take part in bits of this war when you play as Laguna. Adel is directly responsible for this war because she got a bit too power hungry and wanted to dominate the world. And really, when you and you alone have access to powerful magical abilities, what else are you going to do? Adel, the ruler of Esthar, began a two year war for control that was slowly going in Galbadia's favor thanks to them winning Timber. Adel then discovered the Crystal Pillar which could evoke the Lunar Cry.

The Lunar Cry calls monsters down from the moon. Because space whales airships aren't the only thing from the moon these days.

But Adel, as a sorceress, needed to pass her powers onto someone else. Enter Ellone. Ellone was just a little girl in Winhill at the time. She was raised by Raine after Esthar soldiers killed her parents (also Adel's fault) and shortly after Laguna entered her life as well. Eventually Ellone was kidnapped by Adel and Laguna took action to get her back. Adel was unable to be killed by normal means, being a sorceress and all so Laguna, being the master tactician he is, decides the best course of action would be to launch her into space. So they do. And in doing so they rendered all wireless communication useless for a good 17 years.

So Adel is pretty vital in the backstory of Final Fantasy 8. Ultimecia is not. But that's not reason enough for why Adel would make for a better villain. Adels presence and status is hinted at as early as disc one. In Timber, when Squall, Rinoa, and friends witness Deilng's broadcast on the huge television, there is a brief flash on the screen where three sentences can be seen.

"I AM ALIVE HERE" "I WILL NEVER LET YOU FORGET ABOUT ME." "BRING ME BACK THERE."

Adel is alive and super fucking pissed. She has had seventeen years to hold a grudge against the planet and its people for keeping her in deep freeze up in space. A pissed off sorceress with an affinity for domination makes an interesting case for a main antagonist. And, in my opinion, is much more interesting than a sorceress who wants to be a god because she accidentally caused her own time loop cycle of death.

Adel is built up by Odine and various others in the game as being incredibly powerful and smart. So all you would realistically need to do would give her Ultimecia's power of being able to send her consciousness into sorceresses. Odine created the machine that allows Ultimecia to do it, and Odine is not exactly a loyal guy so it could be written that he junctioned it onto Adel and she used it to control Edea so that Edea could restart the war with Esthar. Change the SeeD system slightly. SeeD is a group whose goal is to kill 'the sorceress'. But they are pretty much mercenaries. After the failed assassination on Edea/Adel instead of punishing Garden to get rid of SeeD, Edea uses the Galbadain army to attack Esthar. This would bring Squall into the battle as hired mercenaries to back up the Esthar war effort. Squall would fight Edea and knock Adel out of her. Adel would then inhabit the nearest sorceress, Rinoa.

Rinoa would then proceed to do what she does in the game: release Adel's tomb while Squall and friends talk to Ellone up in space. Back down on Earth, Seifer raises the Lunatic Pandora/Crystal Pillar from the ocean and starts the Lunar Cry to bring Adel back to life. While Squall and Rinoa are fucking around on the Ragnarok, Adel, now with a bunch of monsters and a seventeen year grudge against the world, begins her plan of total domination. The Sorceress War starts again, but this time it is the united efforts of a Laguna-led Esthar, a pissed off Galbadian army, and Balamb against Adel and her Knight, Seifer.

Now here is the part that needs some work, but this is just one person coming up with a silly idea so bear with me. The party would be unable to defeat Adel in their time so they would turn to Ellone who would send them back sometime either before or during the Sorceress War with the express purpose of stopping Adel. By going to the past there would create that self-fulfilling time loopy business where Squall and friends would be the cause of them going to the orphanage in the first place, similar to how Squall was responsible for Edea starting the SeeD program to kill Ultimecia. Have Odine create some plot device similar to the bangle from disc one that would prevent Adel from passing her powers onto Rinoa by removing her sorceress powers in the first place. I dunno, I didn't think that bit through.

But think about it, having Adel as the villain would not be that much of a stretch. You could even have a similar ending where in trying to return to their time, Squall gets lost in time until he is saved by Rinoa. Adel has about five lines of actual dialog in the game and is still a better antagonist than Ultimecia. Her motivation would be simple revenge. She has an actual presence in the game's established history and the party has a connection to her, as small and coincidental as it is.

Sure, having a future sorceress who is the cause of her own prophecy of her downfall is cool, but I think having Adel as the central antagonist would've made for an interesting direction for FF8 to take. Granted it wouldn't fix some of the game's other problems, but eh, those are just details. Adel could've been so much more than just a simple boss fight.

If you've read all of this, thank you. Obviously it's not perfect, but I've been talking with friends about FF8 recently and the topic of its villain was a frequent point of discussion. I'm interested to hear thoughts.

I've played FF8 a number of years ago and after reading your post made me realize that I remembered absolutely nothing of the story.

It made me realize that the turning point (where I realized that I didn't like the game) came at disc 2, after you defeat Edea or whatever.

So you like the train wreck that is the story of FF8 why again? It boggles my mind that people think 7 sucked, but the absolute monstrosity of plot that was 8 was good, and the god of generic forgettable 9 was excellent. Suffice to say, yes Adel would have made a better villain, but a one armed monkey from outerspace with the power to shoot lazerbeams out of their eyes would have been a better villain than Ultimecia. So that isn't saying a whole lot.

I guess I didn't dwell on it too much at the time or even afterwards, because Final Fantasy games often start you off with a small villain only to find out there's someone higher up pulling the strings. However, Edea's transition from enemy to ally did seem unusual, but it also has the misfortune of tying into the whole orphanage thing and how the characters were linked essentially from childhood. Even when I was 17 I thought that was a bit much.

@evilnights:

That sounds like something I remember not liking about the game, too.

I'm in this boat. It also makes me want to re-play it again. I gotta get my hands on a copy.

I think FF8's story has a lot of interesting bits in it that are pushed aside in favor of the sloppy romantic angle they push between Squall and Rinoa. There's a lot of really interesting backstory to the world of 8 and I like that aspect of it. The aspect of time travel and its heavier sci fi leanings, anyway. The problem with 8's plot is that it has an identity crisis halfway through.

Squall is the main antagonist of FF8. Everything after the intro cutscene occurs in his head. Also the game takes place in the Metal Gear universe which, in turn, takes place in the Assassin's Creed universe.

These facts explain literally everything about the plot.

Most people tend to say the 'takes place in his head' bit happens after he gets ice speared by Edea.

But the plot makes sense. They just breeze past some lingering important bits. But it makes sense.

I swear, if that headline spoiled even a little bit of FF8 for me I am going to be... so mad. Changing villains? Does the game literally change the antagonist on you... Dude I just started playing the game and as opposed to FF7 I know nothing about the story in this game. I was so excited and now you may have ruined something pretty major for me. You should really change that headline.

The headline doesn't contain spoilers. The post itself does.

@donchipotle: Oh thank god!

You can't have a spoilers on a PSOne game.

I definitely lost interest in the ending of the game sometime in the third disk, and ultimately stopped playing in the final dungeon. It's a game I'll probably try again someday, though.

My feelings exactly. The story never really captured my attention and it took half the game for me to finally start coming around and "liking" it. It took 20 hours to make me interested in seeing where this was going and then they pull that bullshit of "Edea isn't your main problem here pal...".

I gave up for a good long while after that. After multiple failed attempts to get another game going for more than 10 hours i finally stuck with it all the way through something like 10 years later. It wasn't good.

Great soundtrack though.

I don't know about the villain, but can I get a different hero?

I'm not happy with the one I was given, I'd like to exchange him.

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.......... well, s***. >:(

See, I'm noticing a pattern that people seemed to fall off the game at precisely the same moment. After the end of disc 2 and the revelation that Edea was just a pawn. But the problem there stems both from Edea up to that point being the only visible threat and a faceless, vague "she is a powerful future sorceress" reveal is a terrible thing to just lay on the player with no build up.

I'm not saying removing Ultimecia would fix the plot issues, but having Adel take that role would at least tie into the game's history, the game world, and even the character of Laguna.

It still would be a bit hard to swallow that "Oh this lady isn't the villain after all" but it'd be easier to swallow than "she lives in the future and shit"

haha same here. That story goes off it's rocker after disc 2.

Favorite part: Soundtrack

Least Favorite Part: Disk 4/ Romance sub-plot (main plot?)

I like your ideas, and I agree that Adel would've been a way better main villain.

FFVIII is my favorite Final Fantasy. Edea was a better villain, but Rinoa's possession made it interesting. And the whole space section of the game was fucking awesome. Part of what made FFVIII so great was the flashbacks with Laguna, and I remember when you first meet him, thinking for a moment that he may have become an antagonist in some way and that would have been pretty cool.

There are a lot of reasons most people (out side of hipsters and people jumping the bandwagon) think FF 6 and 7 are the best FF's. Chief among them is the villain. Kefka and Sepiroth are both introduced to the game fairly early, in Kefka's case like in the first hour. You interact and deal with them throughout the whole story. Ultimately you are given a laundry list of reasons to not like them and actual specific examples of why the characters in your party will hate them. Sepiroth burned Clouds hometown to the ground and killed his mother, Kefka killed Terra's father and shoved him in a materia, etc etc. Even better these things are not told in a "two years ago blah blah happened" you either have to play through them as flashbacks or you actually participate in them as real time events you are trying to stop. Kefka even had that annoying laugh and most people wanted to kill Sephiroth for no other reason than being a stupid looking bishie.

Point is, by the end of the game you knew the villains, understood them to a point, had build up a relationship with them, and they (plus the party) have matured or changed based on the events you experience first hand in the game. All this comes down to one thing... you wanted to take them down by the time you got to the end of the game. It was personal, you didn't like them, and they didn't like your characters.

Then you have the other FF's....

Who is the villain of FF10 again? Do they even "have" a name? FF8 you get Ultimicia... no comment even needed as most FF8 players don't even know who she is. FF 9 you got.... some dude whose name I cant recall but he gets replaced by an even more emo Vegeta at the end anyway. I can give more examples, but in my opinion that is one of the big reasons FF 6/7 are normally the favorites of the series on any poll with a large number of votes. Especially if the people grew up with final fantasy instead of grew up with 9 being their first or some such.

Sin? Yunalesca? Seymour? The church? I'm not at a loss for options.

@video_game_king: That's the problem dude. There is no central villain, it is a collection of random dudes out of left field and this overall "organization".

@karkarov:

Out of left field? Seymour was there the entire game, and he was tied into all those other guys I listed (except Yunalesca, I guess). Organization sounds an OK criticism, but "out of left field" certainly doesn't, at least for X. I think a translation issue makes that more of an issue for IX, though (Necron was supposed to be a personification of death in the original Japanese, or so I've heard).

The central villain of Final Fantasy 10 is Seymour. Seymour is the one pulling the strings within Yevon and directly opposes the party at multiple turns. He is a recurring boss and even has the ominous villain theme.

As for FF9, the central villain in that is Kuja. Garland shows up to muck around with Kuja's plans but there is only one central antagonist in that game and it is Kuja. He's not emo, he's a narcissist. If you are talking about Necron since he is the final boss, he isn't the antagonist. That's like saying Cloud of Darkness is the antagonist of FF3 because it is the final boss. Necron comes into conflict with the party directly BECAUSE of the actions of Kuja, the antagonist. Necron is the embodiment of death and after witnessing all the death and chaos caused by Kuja, Necron believes that organic beings only exist to seek death and he decides to grant that wish.

FF9 and 10 have issues, but clear villains are not one of them. It is perfectly clear who the villains are in that story and how they interact with and change the protagonists.

8's main villain, while not as strong, has her motivations. Her problem is that she never directly interacts with the characters other than a young Squall and a young Edea. But Ultimecia is directly responsible for the entire direction Squall's life takes in Balamb.

Also all the stuff about flashbacks you mentioned? That happens in FF8. Laguna's flashbacks as well as the Rinoa flashbacks. That's largely the point of the Laguna sections. It's why Adel makes a better case for being the main villain than Ultimecia because she has more connections to the central cast than Ultimecia.

Allow me to rephrase. Did you ever actually take Seymour seriously as a villain? Was he the "main villain" or was he just a "bad guy"? Were you able to guess he was a villain within say.... 30 seconds of meeting him despite pretending to be a good guy?

Sure he doesn't "come out of left field" fair enough but he is still a crappy cornball B tier villain. Predictable, never felt like a serious threat, and he wasn't even a "primary" villain. He was a how to put it.... glorified yes man in a lot of ways. He was the face of the villains for quite some time but he was never more than a face, he wasn't in control and he wasn't the real threat.

Meanwhile Yunalesca? She definitely had a big presence in the game before you actually fought her.... actually no she didn't. The "Church" again is a big faceless organization, they aren't even technically bad guys because what they do is "bad" but it does save society even if only for a temporary time. Sin works I guess but that is more like making your main villain a tornado. I hate that my house was destroyed, but can I really "hate" the tornado? It isn't a person it is like a brainless force of nature that just is what it is.

I don't remember. My memories of FF10 come in bits and pieces. "Creepy Jimmy Neutron Kid, running through future city, I'm hungry, prayer, blah blah blah, ice palace looking place, blah blah blah, fights, blah, Seymour tongue fucks Yuna, blah blah, cat people singing on snowy mountain or something, blah blah, that Yunalesca fight, blah, Rikku suddenly looks disturbingly Asian (uncanny valley)" then the rest of the game after that. Which isn't a lot.

However, my memories of Seymour seem to be bleeding into my very current memories of Takaya from Persona 3, maybe with a tad less "Jesus allegory" overtones.

Seymour is billed almost as soon as he is introduced as someone to be revered because of how he rose from his heritage to become a leader of Yevon. And then he calls the most powerful Aeon to cement how incredible his ability is. If his appearance doesn't scream "This guy is not a good guy" then the part where the party meets him on the Mi'Hen Highroad is. He abuses his power and tells Wakka, the voice of "THIS RELIGION SURE IS GOOD, GUYS" in the game, to 'just forget how un-holy I am being in this clear violation of the teachings and my station'. He even sends the Crusaders to their death without so much as a second thought. He wants to become Sin specifically to destroy Spira.

Seymour was the main villain of the game.

seymour is the only real villian of that game, he is actually a bad guy who killed his own dad and just wants power and control, although really you could say that's the fault of sin/the church for having his own mom be killed in order to be his aeon (kid must have some ptsd). either way yu yevon isn't really a bad guy, more like a benign guy who just wants to preserve the memory of his city after war nearly wiped it out, which in turn led to sin and that in turn led to the church being a kinda shitty organization. i guess there is no main super bad thing in the game if you don't count seymour, but that's kind of interesting isn't it?

Fair enough but he was the skinny red headed white kid of villains. He was never going to get what he wanted and he was so mustache twisting cliche it was funny. So if you want to say he was the main villain, fine, but that doesn't mean he was a "good" villain.

But the discussion wasn't whether he was a good villain or not. Just that he was the main villain. I don't think I would turn to any Final Fantasy game if I was looking for a good villain. He was an effective villain. If his doofy appearance didn't make you want to stick a sword in his beer gut, his underlying mommy issues and stupid plan did. And his creepy raper eyes and tongue ramming towards Yuna didn't help.

Holy crap, I do not remember much of the story to a game I call one of my favourites. Time travel... orphans... something... goddamn.

Don't forget the memory loss!

I have to say I definitely share your opinion that Adel should have been the main villain. I could have done without all of the time compression crap and possession of sorceresses. Adel herself was bad and powerful enough, just with the things she did before they froze her, to be the real antagonist. It's already been said but there's very very minimal connection to Ultimecia except a bunch of story telling. When you finally meet her, she's lame as hell. Adel was 4x the size of Rinoa and creepy as hell. I think they really dropped the ball on that one.

I totally agree with you. When you hear about Adel, you're like ohh.. this is the future sorceress they've been talking about! And when you beat her you realize that theres ANOTHER future sorceress to be beaten. An even more faceless sorceress, without any build up or personal interaction.

I remember playing FF8 multiple times, but just giving up at the final boss, because the story just turned to shit at that point for me.

I really think we need a "Hey, this topic has been dead for x years, do you really want to post a comment?" notification for people.

Holy shit , i just realized how old this thread is. Now i'm embarrassed that i responded :P

I was already thinking, what is this re-release of FF8 they're talking about?

@gaff: the most funny thing about that is that it's always the person's first post that brings back dead topics.

FFVIII to me seems like a rushed game, with a lot of story potential that was never expanded upon or fulfilled. A love triangle between Seifer, Rinoa and Squall, also who is Ultimecia? I always liked the idea of Rinoa being Ultimecia, that idea is interesting as hell, but apparently disproved, but who knows, again it comes across to me as a rushed game with a lot of plot holes from what I remember.