Part 73: I Fucking Shoot Myself in the Foot

Before we move on to actually discussing the events of Final Fantasy VIII’s third disc, I wish to impart all of those that have played this game with a little bit of schadenfreude at my own expense. As I was about to start my latest adventure with this game I had a quick conversation with my fellow Giant Bomb Moderator, Mento. During that conversation, we had a humorous debate on the possible twists, tropes, and/or idioms that I thought Final Fantasy VIII still had hidden up its sleeve. During which I made an admission that seems more than bit humorous in hindsight:

Mento: So what could this game possibly do to break your spirit?

ZombiePie: Well there’s one thing that the story could do that would totally destroy me.

Mento: Oh?

ZombiePie: If this game has time travel it may just kill me.

I should now mention that Mento then proceeds to not respond to me on Steam chat until after I was done playing Final Fantasy VIII. Now for those of you that have never actually played Final Fantasy VIII, let us now discuss why my prophecy above had me shaking my head in shame in less than one hour.

TIME COMPRESSION!

Part 74: Oh, Hey Squall is Finally Acting Like a Human Being….

Disc Three starts out with promise, and I say that without an ounce of sarcasm. Players witness Squall finally casting away his cold exterior, and finally showing some humanity regarding Rinoa. Rinoa is now suffering from what the players initially assume to be a coma, but because this is Final Fantasy VIII you are not entirely certain if that is the case. There is only one problem…this should have happened WAY EARLIER in the story. Now for those of you that have been following this blog series from the very beginning you may recall two episodes ago that I made a series of story related predictions regarding Final Fantasy VIII. Those predictions were solely based on Final Fantasy VIII strictly following “The Hero’s Journey” narrative pattern. If you actually look through my predictions you may notice that by Disc Two I assumed that the characters would experience the “Meeting the Shadow Self,” story beat. While one could argue that the “Orphanage Scene,” meets the criteria for that prediction; I instead would argue the opposite for one fundamental reason. The writers of Final Fantasy VIII have an almost stubborn insistence that for all of Disc Two Squall MUST MAINTAIN his vagabond and introverted attitude. This however is counter-intuitive towards creating a relatable and sympathetic protagonist and further sours most players on Squall. Another issue steams from the fact that having a bubbly and naïve female compatriot matched up with our brooding vagabond is too stark of a character contrast as they are literal polar opposites of one another. The ultimate result of these two factors is that every single scene featuring Squall and Rinoa together feels forced or incredibly awkward.

This is certainly the case when you first start Disc Three of Final Fantasy VIII. There you are immediately greeted with Squall looking over Rinoa, who is now in a coma, with none of the other provocative questions stemming from the conclusion of Disc Two addressed for a good half an hour. Yes…this is meant to be “Squall’s moment,” where he finally decides to show some emotion regarding Rinoa whom he has been fated to fall in love with for quite some time. Great job Final Fantasy VIII! You finally got around to doing something you should have fucking done by the end of Disc One! The scenes where Squall just ominously looks over the corpse of Rinoa, and muses about how much he misses her are simply put sigh inducing. If Rinoa had meant so much to Squall he should have made some effort to show those feelings at some point to either Rinoa or the viewers at home. Instead, it seems as if he just now has decided to fall in love with Rinoa. I would have accepted an internal monologue for pittance sake about how Rinoa makes Squall’s heart skip a beat before the end of Disc One or Two! However no, instead of any admission that he felt some feelings of attraction towards Rinoa; Squall just continued to be this blob of nothingness. Which is why this sudden change where he’s emotionally torn about the state of Rinoa just does not work for me even at a superficial level. But hey…that’s Final Fantasy VIII for you!

However, before we move onto the next part let me put on my hypercritical cap on for a bit. Where the fuck did Seifer go, and why did no one stop him from running away? Remember when Rinoa had that weird scene where she picked up Seifer? What the fuck happened to him, and if he got away why didn’t anyone go after him in order to prevent him from delaying or impeding the progress of Squall’s party again? Why didn’t someone just immediately run up to Seifer and put handcuffs on him, and then immediately throw him in the clink? You have now fought this fucker three times! Eliminating him as a threat should at least be your second priority going into your battle with Edea! Where was everyone else when Rinoa collapsed and Edea got the crazy knocked out of her? How about any of those SeeDs that you convinced to fight for you during the Battle of the Gardens sequence? Was Seifer able to ninja himself through them as well? Seriously...is there no reliable security in the world of Final Fantasy VIII?

Part 75: Please Send Me a Lifeguard! I’m Drowning in Information!

A major issue that I have with Final Fantasy VIII’s storytelling is that the game has some of the absolute worst pacing I have ever seen in a video game. Final Fantasy VIII’s story has two possible speeds. Those two speeds are: 1) A snail passed out drunk, and 2) An F1 racer on methamphetamines. Now certainly the slower parts to Final Fantasy VIII make sense given that it is intended to be a massive magnum opus with a story that casts a wide net so to speak, and that is part of the main draw to any entry in the Final Fantasy franchise. What is inexcusable, at least for me, is when the game just decides to stop everything in order to dump tons of information on you with very little reflection. By “very little reflection,” I mean that the game will honestly just have a character talk to you for ten or fifteen minutes and then expect you to just pick up the pieces afterwards.

This leads us to me finally progressing the story of Final Fantasy VIII beyond our last stopping point. You finally enter the ruins of the orphanage with the aim of “setting things straight” with Edea. There you conveniently meet up with Cid Kramer, and instead of punching him in the face for misleading you for the entirety of the story Squall just decides to let him go. THIS FUCKING ASSHOLE WITHHELD THE TRUTH ABOUT YOUR PAST FOR POTENTIALLY DECADES! Let us stop and think about this for a minute. Cid knew about Squall’s past, and instead of addressing any of his emotional or psychological trauma he just fucking carried on with employing him as a child soldier. How is he the good guy in this scenario? Someone please defend this. I DARE YOU!

Wait now…that’s actually something that I am still kind of confused about with Final Fantasy VIII. Were the Gardens created to prepare Squall and company with their fight with whatever evil sorceress that they have to destroy? So what was NORG’s deal? Did Cid need his support to assist in providing more children with room and board in the Garden? How about all of the other children both young and old...are all of them orphans like Squall? Are the children that look like they were born after the Sorceress Wars orphans as well? Do you mean to tell me that in the world of Final Fantasy VIII if you are an orphan your fate is to become a mercenary? Are Edea and Cid kind of like Sarah Connor in Terminator 2? Did they always know that Squall was capable of defeating the evil sorceress that could end the world? Why put in the most effort to train Squall over anyone else? Why assume that he is the best at killing the sorceress? Did Cid read the script?

Part 76: How Many Villains Can you Cram Into One Game?

Anyways let’s move onto the conversation that Squall and company have with Edea because FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!

It turns out that there is another evil sorceress to worry about and her name is Ultimecia! Sure why not, what Final Fantasy VIII needs right now is another character with overly ambiguous motivations. Ultimecia has the wonderfully story convenient power to re-possess Edea at any point meaning that Edea is not truly free of who or whatever an “Ultimecia” is. Now despite dumping a great deal of information on what Ultimecia is the game forgets to address two very important points that would have done wonders in explaining what the fuck is going on in this game. Those points would be: a) what is Ultimecia’s ultimate goal when she gets Ellone, and b) why is she evil? Those are some pretty big questions to leave lingering at the start of the third part to a four part epic. Not only that, but addressing these issues would have put everything that I experience later in the game in a better context, or at least a context that I can understand. Instead, I am left wondering who is Ultimecia, and what her motivations are. This is NOT how you tell a story.This is how you induce a brain aneurism.

Then Edea talks about another sorceress…Adel. OH GOD! My head is just spinning at this point. Please save me now. It is at this point that my eyes started to gloss over, and my brain just gave up trying to understand what was happening in the story. So Adel…is another evil sorceress that Ultimecia wants to possess so is that she/it can further increase her powers…for reasons. I guess Adel is stuck somewhere, but not dead. I do not know because the game stopped trying to make sense at Disc Two. By the way is Adel okay with Ultimecia possessing her and absorbing her power? Why doesn’t Adel do the same, but with Ultimecia? Also, where the fuck are all of these sorceresses coming from, and why are they all evil? Edea wasn’t evil until after she got possessed by Ultimecia…and she said that she knew that she was a sorceress when she was five.

So what is making all of these sorceresses evil and/or having a strong desire to end the universe? Why doesn’t someone just go up to Adel and/or Ultimecia and give them both a big hug and a box of Milk Duds? Why do they have to be evil? Why is anything in this game even happening? Why do I have to still ask that question while I play this game?

Wait a minute…did Edea just say that Ultimecia is a sorceress from the future?

Part 77: THIS GAME HAS FUCKING TIME TRAVEL!

I CANNOT BELIEVE THAT THIS IS HAPPENING RIGHT NOW! So you remember that conversation I had with Mento that I shared with you earlier? Yeah well…fuck it actually came true. Okay so Ultimecia is an evil sorceress from the future with the ability to possess other sorceresses or whoever she feels like it. So at this point if you try to boil down the entire premise for why anything in Final Fantasy VIII is happening it goes like this: An evil sorceress named Ultimecia wants to capture a woman named Ellone so is that she can go back in time to do something. Let’s all stop and think about that sentence for a minute. I still don’t even understand how Ellone has time travel powers in the first place. Now you add on top of that how I have no idea what all of these evil sorceresses want to do with Ellone once they get her, and I’m just a broken man. I am done. Are Adel and Ultimecia trying to accomplish the same thing? Are they collaborators in a crime, or totally independent from each other? What is the end goal for either of them? I get that both of them are evil, but what are they trying to accomplish? If Ellone has these world breaking abilities does that mean that she is a sorceress as well? Where and or how did Ellone get her powers? Instead of addressing any of these questions the game just continues with its information dump with worsens my confusion and frustration level.

However, the worst is yet to come. The game tries to give you important information that would make some of the game make more sense, but Squall decides to have a “moment,” and begins talking over Edea as she tries to explain what Ultimecia’s strategy is. I am honestly not joking about this. Squall actually prevents you from receiving critical information about what is going on in the story so is that he can mope about Rinoa’s present condition:

All right, so that is not cool. In fact that is the game once again doing a “dick move.” As the player, I want and if we want to be a bit dramatic NEED the information that Edea is providing here. I understand the need for Squall to have a moment regarding Rinoa, but standard storytelling usually dictates that he should just have a private aside once the rest of the party has left. Doing this right here, right now, means that the game front-loads a term like “Time Compression,” with the literal vaguest amount of clarity you could ever imagine.

Plus…FUCK YOU SQUALL! You gave zero fucks when it came to Rinoa until like thirty minutes ago, and now you are interrupting people when they can’t help your girlfriend? FUCK YOU AND YOUR FUCKING GUNBLADE!

Part 78: The Directionless Nightmare That is Final Fantasy VIII

Moving on, so let’s talk about how any reasonable person could fuck themselves over for most of Disc Three in Final Fantasy VIII. In my last episode I discussed how Final Fantasy VIII does a “ball rubbish” job at explaining where the player needs to go when given a vague and/or poorly explained mission objective. Despite the fact that Final Fantasy VIII has what I can only describe as the most dense and convoluted menu systems that I have ever seen, it is in fact lacking one critical thing that it desperately needs: a mission log. Having this would greatly assist someone like me in remembering what they are doing in the first place. Now admittedly a mission log would only eliminate about 50% of the aimless wandering that I subjected myself to, and that is because Final Fantasy VIII is a FUCKING LIAR about what it wants you to do in order to progress its story.

Take for example what happens after your long conversation with Edea at the orphanage. Once that is done with Squall goes back to the deck of the Garden and announces for everyone to hear, including the player, that they must “find Ellone.” Now any reasonable person would see that and interpret that to be their next mission objective. If you have any previous experience with Final Fantasy VIII’s side quests you could reasonably assume that there is either some incredibly obscured location in the Overworld, or a random NPC in one of the major locations that you can visit in order to accomplish this objective. So you could say…spend an hour or two just aimlessly wandering around all of the major cities hoping to locate an NPC that just happens to know where Ellone is. You would be searching tirelessly hoping to accomplish exactly what Squall announced that he wanted to get done. YOU WOULD BE IN IT TO WIN IT!

That is the wrong answer.

Final Fantasy VIII instead wants you to run back to the nurse’s office to look over Rinoa so is that Squall can once again share his current angst regarding Rinoa, and OH JOY! This will then immediately transition into another dream sequence with Laguna.

That is not okay. In fact…that is the worst fucking thing a video game can do with its direction. This is now the second or third time where you can actually overthink Final Fantasy VIII, and guess what? There are plenty more examples where thinking logically will just bite you in the ass. Scenes like this just REEK of the ending to Fallout 3 where an alternative solution that avoids unnecessary death, ala Fawkes, is just clearly present and obvious to the player. HEY FINAL FANTASY VIII! If you had wanted me to go check up on Rinoa, you should have had someone like Quistis or Irvine pull Squall to the side and explicitly tell him what he should do before starting a new adventure.

Well whatever, at least we have another Laguna sequence coming up.

Part 79: LAGUNA SAVE ME FROM THIS TRASH HEAP OF A STORY!

This scene with Laguna makes zero sense! It is tonally out of place with the previous set pieces, and does nothing to advance the story other than to highlight an ominous object at the very end. (Which has very little payoff in this scene)

That said…I loved this brief interlude with Laguna.

This scene even has one of those terrible button mashing moments. However, whereas Squall’s event was directed towards some random bozo, Laguna’s event has him FIGHTING A FUCKING DRAGON!

It is yet another event that further highlights how much better a protagonist Laguna is in comparison to Squall. Laguna just has this swagger to him that you understand and respect, whereas Squall comes across as a total dipshit. Part of this stems from the fact that Laguna’s goals are clearly stated to the player. Those around him have been built up as close confidants, or friends that either have assisted him, or vice versa. As a result, it makes complete sense that Kiros and Ward are with Laguna for the entirety of the story. In Squall’s case any reasonable person in SeeD that had been placed under the leadership of Squall should have quit. That is because he’s a complete jerk towards anyone other than himself. Why do Zell and Selphie continue to call Squall a “friend?” The sad answer to that question is that the story and the writers forced them to, and wanted to ensure that there were characters that even Cro-Magnon man could identify as “friends” of Squall. Why are Ward and Kiros friends with Laguna? Well because they treat each other with respect, humility, and kindness with dashes of humor to add to that. Laguna, Kiros, and Ward have been through a lot together, and you witness them all transforming as a result of their experiences. That transformation never felt sudden. Instead it felt justifiable and properly set up, even if it was only in a ten or fifteen minute cutscene.

Moments like these highlight why I think that Final Fantasy VIII deserves credit for being a “sincere” game experience. The writers and producers WERE capable of writing a story that fit in the world of Final Fantasy VIII. The problem is that they just had either too many cooks in the kitchen, or had no idea how to write a romance story, or maybe both. At some point I feel like we need to have a conversation about how in the world Final Fantasy VIII started from a faux slice-of-life school comedy, I mean seriously how else am I supposed to interpret characters calling each other “chicken-wuss?” To say…fighting an evil sorceress in outer space?

Anyways this scene setups how Laguna has fallen on hard times, and is working hard to provide a better life for himself as well as Ellone, and Raine. Eventually Laguna looks ominously into the horizon at a floating chess piece, which foreshadows a scene that users will experience another time. The scene then smash-cuts to Laguna approaching Matron Edea, and then reveals that he suspects that Ellone has been kidnapped. Guess what? This does an effective job at setting up the next scene where you take control of Laguna! Well shit! If you want to know how to do proper storytelling setups, then look no further than here!

Part 80: Fuck Everything About Trying to Find the White SeeD Ship

No seriously, this part of the game can go fuck itself.Remarkably, the game now wants you to find Ellone, but for realizes this time. Great…so what do I do? Looks like my best bet is to just scour an entire continent in the hopes of finding an obscure ship that is well known for being difficult to locate. I cannot preface how stupidly long this took me complete…no wait, yes I can! Oh boy it’s time to pull a Dudley Boyz and get the tables!

Time Wasted	Pictures of Progress
Ten Minutes: Aw fuck! I totally forgot which continent was Centra. In fact I forgot which continents were which…period. Is Fisherman’s Horizon considered to be Centra? Is Centra around the Shumi Village?
Fifteen Minutes: Well I’m an idiot. Yeah it’s not like in the previous episode I did a side quest that was honestly located in the “Centra Ruins.” Here’s one complaint directed towards Edea though. Why wouldn’t you just say that the White SeeD ship is near the orphanage? Like if someone asks me where to find a restaurant I don’t tell them “It’s in the North American continent!” That’s not how people talk!
Thirty Minutes: I have scoured every inch of this goddamned continent and have not found this fucking White SeeD ship! Where the fuck is this fucking ship!? I checked the main continent as well as all of the coves, but I haven’t found any ship yet. FUCK THIS! I’M LOOKING IT UP!
Forty-Five Minutes: This is the map that I found on the guide that I am using and I went exactly where the map is pointing to but I do not see any goddamned White SeeD Ship! Is this actually happening to me right now?
Fifty Minutes:WELL FUCK ME! The fucking thing is brown…in a brown environment! I know for a fact that I passed by this location eight or nine times. Not only that but this ship is all the way in this cove so the shitty camera angle that you are forced to deal with when controlling the Garden just makes this whole mission way harder than it has any right to be. What a bunch of bullshit!
Total Time Wasted Aimlessly Exploring the World:	FIFTY FIVE MINUTES

Part 81: Wait a Minute…I DID ALL OF THIS FOR NOTHING?!?!?!

Horary, that unmitigated nightmare is finally over! As you might expect Squall does all of the talking and proceeds to NOT give the White SeeD ship captain the letter that Edea gave him earlier which means that I have to do it for him. In the meantime, you encounter two familiar faces in the form of Zone and Watts. Wait why are these two allowed here, but I am asked to leave? Squall comes from the same organization as the White SeeD ship, and at this point of the story is essentially the captain of an entire Garden…so why would the White SeeD captain not trust him, but would trust these bozos to not compromise the secrecy of their ship? Whatever…

OH SHIT I’VE STARTED TALKING LIKE SQUALL! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Moving on, you approach the White SeeD captain and finally have the know-with-all to give him the letter that Edea instructed you to give him when you first arrived on the ship. It is at that point the captain reveals that Ellone is no longer on the White SeeD Ship anymore.

Woah hold-up…did you just say that Ellone is NOT HERE? I did all of this shit for nothing? Why would someone do this to his or her players? In addition, these fuckers HAD ONE JOB TO DO, and they couldn’t even do that! So the captain says that they were attacked by Galbadian troops, and the only thing that saved them were Esthar soldiers that came to their, and Ellone’s, rescue. All the same, the White SeeD army decides to turn them down because…reasons. Their ship is on fire and they turn down being rescued because ultimately the story needed Squall to board the White SeeD ship to progress the story further. That is honestly the only good theory that I have. Nonetheless, Ellone has half a brain and jumps onto the Esthar ship in order to free herself from this insanity. ELLONE! Please take me with you!

Oh God…what does this mean? Does this mean that I have to find an entirely different Esthar ship in route to some random ass location? Or does this mean that I have to scour the world again for hints and clues from a varying number of disparate locations? I’m just going to make a bee-line to Rinoa and hope for the best.

Part 82: Final Fantasy VIII Finally Has a Scene with Squall That Works! And Then Ruins it Almost Immediately!

I have started to develop an uncanny ability to parse out Final Fantasy VIII’s zany logic, and this is a little bit distressing to me. At any rate, we have another scene between the cadaver of Rinoa and Squall. Yet something is different about this scene versus the previous ones. Oh, I have it!

THIS SCENE ACTUALLY WORKS!

I am as surprised as you are at those words, but it is true. We finally have a scene between Rinoa and Squall that deals with their relationship that I actually think works in the grand scheme of things. Now admittedly part of this may stem from the fact that Final Fantasy VIII has been slowly but surely eating away at my insides, but I honestly liked this scene.

Here’s why I think that this scene works. Firstly, Squall has always been a character that has shown a great deal of contempt towards those that he interacts with and his surroundings. Thus, when he approaches Rinoa and reveals that he wants to do something to cure her present state you believe him, and buy into the concept that he would actually attempt to walk to Esthar by foot with Rinoa slumped over his shoulders. Secondly, I interpreted Squall’s actions here as the result of being frustrated at trying to do things the “traditional way,” and the sum total of hours of frustrating investigative work.

NAW FUCK IT! Just walk to Esthar by foot with Rinoa on your back!

When you see him just pick up Rinoa, slump her over his shoulders, and book it towards the border to Esthar…it at least makes sense in context. This seems like an actual thing that Squall would do as a last resort. Now if Squall had just broken down in tears, or called a meeting with his allies to develop a plan…that would not have made any sense because that is not how Squall has ever been depicted. Squall has always been shown as being someone that tries to get things done by himself first, and has his allies support him in his endeavors second. As illogical as walking by foot…with another person slumped on your shoulders…to a country you have never seen or been to before may seem it sounds like the kind of stupid shit that Squall would do. Because in the end he’s teenager, and teenagers always think that they can solve their problems by themselves.

When we have scenes where Squall shows signs of regrets when he realizes the consequences of his “tunnel vision” those scenes once again work! Squall should regret his decision to go it alone, and he should be worried if getting to Esthar will actually fix anything. Now at the risk of sounding like I have my head shoved straight up my ass I’m going to make a comparison that sounds absolutely insane to any person. This whole sequence reminded me of the ending to The Graduate.

Now wait a minute! Before you throw any objects at me, or hurt my family, just hear me out! At the end of The Graduate you had Dustin Hoffman and Kathrine Ross in the bus together after they decided to leave the wedding. At first, they are all smiles after beating their way through all of the insane hectic chaos of the wedding, but eventually the smiles subside and they realize how difficult dealing with the consequences of their decision will be. That is kind of the emotional state that Squall was in during trek to Esthar. Now admittedly, this scene in Final Fantasy VIII… is maybe ten percent of the ending from The Graduate, but it still kind of goes for the same emotional impact on its audience.

Now at the risk of being called a “backseat writer” there is one thing about this scene that I would have changed. Instead of having Irivine, Quistis, Selphie, and even Edea already be there waiting for Squall I would have made Squall get all of the way up to the next boss fight before he meeting up with any of his friends. In fact, because I am a bit of a sadist, I would have had Squall fight the Giant Evil Skeleton Monster for a bit before members of his party were able to reach him, and assist him in his battle. Having members of Squall’s party physically prove to Squall that he needs them, as much as they need him, would have been an incredibly emotionally moving scene for the audience. However, as it stands when you reach an abandoned gas station you discover that the “team” is effectively already there and waiting for you.

Yeah…this does not work for me. Why did everyone just decide to explore the border of Esthar without Squall? Squall and Rinoa have the most to gain from discovering Esthar, so why would you leave either of them out of the equation? Right before the end of Disc Two everyone complained to Squall that he doesn’t share enough of his feelings towards them, and that they want Squall to feel comfortable in sharing his honest thoughts with them. Well if you left me out your plan on saving the life of my girlfriend you could say that you have napalmed all of your bridges to me! Can we revisit the fact that when Squall arrives at the abandoned gas station that everyone just expected to see him there? How did they know that? Did they just assume that Squall would have a bit of a breakdown and would up and leave the Garden, for Esthar, on his own prerogative? Did they know that Squall would also bring Rinoa with him? Why would any one person, let alone an entire PARTY OF PEOPLE, assume either of those things would happen? Did they read the script?

Also, where the fuck did Edea come from? Didn’t we leave her ass at the orphanage with Cid? How did she get here? Did she just board the Garden without telling anyone? If she cares about the well-being of the children around her wouldn’t she want to keep herself as isolated as possible to minimize the number of lives at risk when Ultimecia re-possesses her?

Man…these issues kind of ruin all of the goodwill that I had with the previous moments leading up to this. That is the last time I ever say something nice about Final Fantasy VIII.

Part 83: Esthar Makes No Sense

Oh, hey it is another undead boss. How are you doing there undead boss? Do you want any elixirs in your life?

Well it looks like everything is hunky-dory with your party; right up until the game decides to throw you an invisible ladder in your way! I am not shitting you on this one…in order to actually enter Esthar you have to climb up an invisible ladder. It is at this point that I would like to remind my readers, once again, that this game was designed by assholes.

Okay then let’s talk about two aspects about Esthar in general that lack any semblance of logic. Judging from the game I can assume that Esthar has a force field that makes their entire continent invisible to the rest of the world. Disregarding the ridiculous amounts of electricity that such a force field would waste how does the rest of the world just up and forget where the fuck Esthar City is? While all of this chaos regarding Edea/Ultimecia is happening, why aren’t more people just up and leaving the other continents in favor of Esthar? In fact if Esthar is so concerned about protecting itself from the dangers of evil sorceresses, which we will discuss later, wouldn’t they play a bigger role in dealing with Ultimecia? Esthar fought a war with the rest of the world for decades, and even prior to that maintained relations with the other continents for thousands of years. How did everyone just up and forget where it was? Also, is this barrier like a solid wall? I’m guessing not because I was able to pilot a spaceship through the barrier. If the Galbadian Army just wanted to bomb the continent and its inhabitant into oblivion, could they do that? Or would the invisibility cloak repel the missiles? Man…that seems like technology that Trabia could have used.

When you finally enter Esthar you discover that their architecture resembles that of a Mormon church in the year 2525. All of their buildings look like delicious candies made by the M&M Company, and it has the aesthetics of The Fifth Element. There is just one nitpicky issue that I have with this futuristic set piece. The game mentions that technology from Dr. Odine has “leaked” out into the other continents of the world. How is that possible? In fact why isn’t Esthar sharing all of its technology with the rest of the world? I mean they did technically destroy most of the other continents during the Sorceress Wars so why didn’t they help with the rebuilding efforts? Maybe if they had assisted in rebuilding Galbadia and Dollet a despot like Delling wouldn’t have filled a giant power vacuum that was set into place after the war. Maybe they could have done something about these other sorceresses earlier rather than later.

Did you hear that Esthar? If you had done your job right Final Fantasy VIII wouldn’t have existed! Meaning that you are the real villain of Final Fantasy VIII!

Part 84: Laguna Soup for the Frustrated Gamer’s Soul

Just as I was about to get especially angry at the game it ups and decides to throw me another Laguna sequence. Here Laguna has successfully entered Esthar, but at a cost as he appears to be an indentured servant. Due to his cunning and charisma, Laguna is able to break out of the mechanical pit that he was located in. After this he learns of a resistance movement in Esthar that seeks to free the country from the clutches of Adel, which features the flamboyant, but NOT Chris Tucker from The Fifth Element, Dr. Odine. Odine promises to assist Laguna in locating and freeing Ellone, despite the fact that he’s the one experimenting with her in the first place.

Boom! That is a simple, direct, and involved story if I ever saw one. Right off the bat you know exactly where Laguna is, why he’s there, and what his ulterior and ultimate goals are. It’s simple, but effective storytelling that allows you, the viewer, to more easily immerse themselves into. That and given the futuristic setting of Esthar you feel like you are living an actual fantasy…maybe a final one at that. Ultimately, this is how the story for all of Final Fantasy VIII should feel like. Squall should slowly but surely have his cold exterior chipped away at as he fulfills clearly defined objectives that move towards accomplishing an end goal. You could still have all of the set pieces that the world of Final Fantasy VIII has to offer, but have each set piece add to the story in a clear way. In addition, DO NOT WAIT UNTIL DISC THREE to reveal who your ultimate villain is, because that delays the story’s ability to have any real weight to it, and that’s just stupid!

Now I know that it seems like I am spending a lot of time discussing these Laguna sequences, and that is true. However, there is a logic to my madness my wonderful readers. I feel that these Laguna sequences provide me with the best opportunity to discuss narrative patterns, because the Laguna sequences actually follow patterns. So this time, I want to discuss the importance of “storytelling scaffolding.” In the world of evolutionary biology scientists and philosophers use the terms “skyhooks,” and “cranes” when discussing theories and postulates that debate issues regarding the evolution of humans. Now don’t worry, this blog is not going to devolve into a meditation on the theories of Daniel Dennet, BUT I like to use the terms “skyhooks” and “cranes” when discussing the scaffolding that makes any story possible.

When it comes to storytelling a “skyhook” is a plot or plot point that exists out of thin air because the writer needs it to be there. There is no base for the skyhook, and in fact nothing really builds up or supports the skyhooks existence other than an otherworldly person needing this to be there. Much of Squall’s adventure has featured skyhooks to its own detriment. Now we also have “cranes,” and cranes have a base. The base to a crane provides a set up to a new plot development, and once that development is over the character in question is “elevated” to a new level in the story. From there a visible scaffold that guides the character to their ultimate destination. In my opinion most, if not all, of Laguna’s adventures have been setup by cranes.

Laguna is a great character whose adventures move across a logical plane. He has a trio of friends that have reason to follow him. He’s loved and lost, which justifies his desire to protect what he has gained from his relationship with Raine and Ellone. Most of all you actually understand what he’s trying to do, and what his end goals are. It also helps that there have not been any bullshit plot twists when controlling Laguna. I’m just continually flabbergasted that the person or people responsible for Laguna…also created the orphanage reveal. That just does not seem possible to me even the slightest.

Part 85: Navigating the Nightmare that is Esthar

Remember when I just talked about how Final Fantasy VIII works best when it has clearly defined story goals? Well, I am still not entirely sure how Esthar and Ellone are going to cure Rinoa’s coma. I get that there is this famous doctor named “Odine,” but honestly what the fuck is he going to do? Why are any of us here? Why is everyone so confident that Ellone will be able to cure Rinoa’s ailment? Worst yet when Edea asks Dr. Odine to exorcise Ultimecia from her he announces that he can do that easily.

Wait what? How is that possible? If Ultimecia is so powerful can’t she just possess anyone that she so chooses? How will a vaccine from a crazy German doctor prevent Ultimecia from possessing Edea again? Similarly, the assistant for the President of Esthar says that they can take Squall to Ellone, but he must allow the Esthar government to place Rinoa under “observation.” It is not until forty or so minutes after this scene that the game bothers to explain why the government of Esthar would want to do this. In fact this highlights a major issue I have with how Squall’s story is told. The story payoffs are never built up, and instead they just happen in a cataclysmic event at the end. At no point was there a buildup that something was so horribly wrong with Rinoa that thousands of lives could be at risk.

It is at this point that the second hardest moment of Disc Three is experienced: navigating Esthar. Firstly, none of the Futurama pipes take you to where you want to go. Secondly, because the art design of Esthar is heavy on the color blue everything in the background and foreground felt like a blur to me. I had an excruciating time discerning where the exits for any of the intersections in Esthar were. To add insult to injury the city of Esthar is designed in the form of a big loop so if you really do not know where you are going you will just end up where you started.

Do you want to know how lost I ended up getting after my conversation with Dr. Odine? I got control of a car and then had to ditch that car because it ran out of gas. This is because I kept driving it around in circles on the completely wrong side of the Esthar continent to where I was supposed to be. A little direction from the game would have gone a long way here.

In the end, Squall and company end up in this structure that looks like an incomplete rollercoaster loading station. Now I have to be honest with you when I first entered the “Lunar Gate” I didn’t quite know what was happening until this happened:

That’s when Final Fantasy VIII completely broke my mind.

In fact you will begin to notice that from this point forward that the quality of the writing for this blog will drop dramatically because I have still yet to recovered from what happened at this point.

I could have never been prepared for this:

Part 86: FUCKING WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT?

WE ARE GOING TO SPACE!? FUCKING WHAT THE FUCK IS EVEN GOING ON ANYMORE?!?!?! HOW? WHAT? WHY? CAN I JUST SAY THAT SHOOTING PEOPLE INTO SPACE IN BULLETS IS THE WORST FORM OF SPACE TRAVEL I HAVE EVER SEEN?

Remember when this was a game about some teenagers preparing for their college entrance exams? You know what? Let’s talk about that! Final Fantasy VIII is a game that sped through all of its set pieces at a breakneck speed. This is unfortunate because it prevents the game from really immersing the player into the ecosystems of those individual set pieces unless you really work hard to interact with them. A more fundamental issue facing the game on the other hand stems from the game’s almost avid genre blending. At some point this was about liberating cities from an oppressive regime, and now it’s about some space sorceresses and monsters from the moon. Between those two which do you think would make for a more compelling story? Well guess what? All are correct so long as your game just picks one or two good ideas and remains committed to them throughout the story. By trying to cast a wide net Final Fantasy VIII misses out on some really good opportunities to tell a more compelling and immersive story. What’s happening to cities like Timber or Dollet as the Galbadian army continues to occupy them? Who were the other orphans that were raised by Matron Edea? What are the social and psychological ramifications of SeeD’s militarization of children and young adults? None of those compelling stories will ever be told because someone decided that this game needed to about a dozen thing, one of which is to go to space! If you wanted a science fiction story you should have started with a fucking science fiction story! Trying to do everything all at once provides for more opportunities for your story to just fall flat on its face. AND THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN IN ABOUT THIRTY MINUTES!

I mean do you remember when your actual SeeD rank meant something important? Well I sure as fuck don’t, and maybe that’s because I have my Shiva GF junctioned as I type this! I really wanted to take Zell to space, but he was the first to volunteer to stay in Esthar to protect Edea. So instead I went with Quistis, because I want Irvine as far away from Rinoa’s corpse as possible, and fuck Selphie.

Part 87: Zack Fights a Giant Chess Piece…and Fails Horribly

Three billion human lives ended on February 11, 1999. The survivors of the nuclear fire called the war Final Fantasy VIII. They lived only to face a new nightmare: the war against the giant chess piece.

Apparently, the “Giant Chess Piece of Doom” is actually called the “Lunatic Pandora,” and that’s all I can really tell you. I can only assume it’s incredibly dangerous and could possible place the balance of life in the world of Final Fantasy VIII in jeopardy, or maybe not. I probably would know the answer to all of those questions but as Dr. Odine was going to tell me what the significance of the Lunatic Pandora was, Zell just responded to him with “NAW SON! WHERE DO I PUNCH THAT THING TO KILL IT?”

Zell you ASSHOLE, you prevented me from acquiring any knowledge as to what that giant thing is, and why we have to destroy it in the first place! This story is already hard to understand as it is with half of the cast in space fighting future space sorceresses, but when you tell another character with pertinent information to fuck off you sure aren’t helping. Whatever…Dr. Odine proceeds to give one of those longwinded mission debriefings that we haven’t seen since Disc One. If memory serves me right whenever you have a mission debriefing it usually means that the game is wasting its time explaining what will eventually amount to a very asinine mission that can be completed in five minutes tops.

Zell manages to break into the Lunatic Pandora, and immediately is defeated. You had one job Zack, YOU HAD ONE JOB! Stop the giant chess piece of doom and you couldn’t even do that!

Part 88: The Space Station of Stupid!

We really are in space, huh? While I was busy controlling Zell I have to admit that I was kind of hoping that we weren’t really going to space in this game, but well…that’s not going to happen now is it?

Can we stop and talk about how they “catch” the space bullets using force field nets to slow their acceleration? Man that sounds like technology that the Trabia Garden sure could have used. Anyways, it is in space that we discover the two most mind-meltingly stupid plot developments in Disc Three, thus far. Firstly, the moon is completely inhabited by all of random encounter monsters that you face in Final Fantasy VIII. By inhabited I should say that the moon is practically MADE OF MONSTERS!

How does this moon support an ecosystem to where all of these monsters can live and reproduce? Also how did any of these monsters get there in the first place?

Anyhow, the far more baffling plot development comes from the discovery as to why this space station was developed in the first place. That reason was to be able to observe the space sarcophagus of the evil sorceress Adel. I’m not lying, I swear! Just look at this REAL SCREENSHOT FROM THE GAME:

Let me get this straight…the Sorceress Wars ended around twenty or thirty years ago. During that time Esthar was able to defeat an evil sorceress, seal her away into a sarcophagus, and then send that sarcophagus into space? Not only that, but Esthar also managed to create a massive space station with complex mechanisms, and enough room to fit a small army in case anything bad happens to the sarcophagus? OH GOD I THINK THE LEFT HEMISPHERE TO MY BRAIN JUST DIED! Likewise, when you enter the space station it appears that the scientists have discovered how to create their own artificial gravity as you can walk on the station without floating.

Fine, I’ll accept that Esthar is so scientifically advanced that maybe they already had the pieces to a space station built even before the Sorceress Wars ended, or that they were so advanced that they have built it from scratch in twenty years. What I really do not understand is why they continue to have Adel just floating around in the vacuum of space conveniently close to their home planet. If I was in charge I would put the biggest rockets on that sucker and send it careening as far away from my planet as possible. Who knows…maybe it knocks into Jenova during its journey? Why would anyone think it is a good idea to keep an evil sorceress locked away close to your planet? Send her to the nearest black hole or sun for fucks sake! Furthermore, wouldn’t you want to locate the sarcophagus as far away from the fucking monster moon as possible? If something goes wrong with one having them both near each other means that the other will spill onto the next thus resulting in a disaster. Who thought that any of this was a good idea?

Part 89: A Family Reunion is Ruined Thanks to Zombie Rinoa

Squall is back with his long lost sister Ellone, and asks to go back into the past to prevent Rinoa from falling into a coma. I would like to once again state that I have no idea how Ellone’s powers work, or how she got them. I was of the understanding that Ellone was just able to induce memories of the past, and wasn’t actually able to physically send people through time. When Squall was sent back to his childhood thanks to Ellone I was under the impression that he was just re-witnessing those events and not actually “experiencing” those events. I honestly have no idea how her powers work so if any of you could provide an explanation as to what she could possible do to save Rinoa…please don’t tell me and just call for help. I need help…please help me.

Zombie space Rinoa is capable of flinging even Squall across a room. Clearly, Rinoa is possessed by whatever was controlling Edea earlier, because that’s the only logical conclusion you could reach at this point. However, because Squall is a dipshit he doesn’t realize this and just stands back in horror as zombie Rinoa proceeds to fuck everything up. In fact she practically blows the entire space station into oblivion.

Now here’s my problem with this scene. You mean to tell me that the people of Esthar took the time to seal away an evil sorceress in a space sarcophagus, and continued to monitor the sarcophagus, as well as the monster moon, without any lockdown parameters or failsafes? This game honestly wants me to believe that the people of Esthar never planned for a major disaster to hit their space station where they were monitoring one of the most dangerous persons in recorded history? I just…I just can’t. The whole premise behind the freeing of Adel is just insulting. It is almost as if the game assumes I am a teenager that wouldn’t care about these types of things.

Part 90: A Space Pimple Sends Unimaginable Horror to the World

I don’t get it. Is the possessed Rinoa responsible for creating the giant space pimple that unleashes all of the monsters from the moon onto the planet of Final Fantasy VIII? Alternatively, is that related to the Giant Chess Piece of Doom? I would not know because once again there are important scenes that the game just decided to give up explaining to me so I have to play this guessing game.

Likewise, I understand that the “Lunar Cry” is meant to be this breathtaking and awe inducing sequence where an unimaginable horror is brought onto the world of Final Fantasy VIII, but I just cannot take it seriously, as the damned thing looks like a giant pimple. The look of the thing just defeats any intended sense of awe or horror.

Part 91: Squall Gets Emotional and I Still Don’t Understand Who Ultimecia is

Squall has had enough of this bullshit, and wants his sister to send him back into the past in order to save his girlfriend somehow. Ugh, it was almost painful to write “girlfriend” there without any quotations. So what happens when Ellone sends Squall into the past? Well for one you find out about how Rinoa forced Irvine to not leave the party at the prison from Disc Two. It’s a funny little moment that was clearly inserted in order to show the first inklings of Rinoa’s developing feelings towards Squall. Even though at that specific point it makes zero sense for Rinoa to have those feelings towards Squall.

What is even more important is the big reveal as to what the fuck is wrong with Rinoa. You predictably discover that she is indeed possessed by Ultimecia, and the reason why Rinoa picked up Seifer was to convey a message to him. To be honest, this was actually a neat scene that justified all of my previous confusion. Now I still have no idea how Seifer was able to escape the Garden Battle without being detected or caught, but whatever it’s still a clever reveal. Unfortunately, this reveal is sabotaged by the fact that the game still has done nothing to develop what Ultimecia’s motivations are. If I have to question why your main antagonist is evil this late in the game…I’m sorry but you have fucked up. No really, why is any of this happening? Does Ultimecia want to conquer the world? If so why, and what does she plan on doing with the world once she has conquered it? Again…these are not questions that I should be asking if I am just a handful of hours away from completing the third disc in a four disc game.

Part 92: I Wonder About My Existence While Rinoa "Dies" in the Vacuum of Space

I’m in space and I have to save Rinoa, but the problem is that I have no idea what is happening, or how I am controlling any of this. In fact, can one of you tell me if I was I controlling Squall during this scene?

Or how about this?

Was I doing anything of importance here?

Now I do know that I was controlling the game at this point:

This was a legitimately tense sequence that I feel was done incredibly well. Even if I wasn’t controlling most of it I felt like I was helpless in saving Rinoa, and that feeling of helplessness greatly assisted in putting me into the shoes of Squall during that moment. Oddly enough it is one of the few scenes where I think Final Fantasy VIII hit all of the targets that it attempted to hit. It hit a strong note of emotional resonance, and it managed to characterize Squall as a desperate and sympathetic figure. More importantly not knowing when you were actually controlling the game added to the experience.

All I can really say is well done Final Fantas…wait a minute did the game just rescue Rinoa and Squall by pulling a Deus Ex Machina?

Oh my GOD! I’m intended to believe that after a massive space station exploded that there just happened to be…an abandoned spaceship that had breathable oxygen in it. That and it had a pathogen free environment free from alien microbes that Squall had no immunity against. The game never even stops to explain why literally no one else bothered to locate this abandoned spacecraft, nor why it was just drifting in the vacuum of space in the first place.

I’m sorry but why would Squall and Rinoa assume that this spacecraft would even be capable of safely transporting them back to their planet? OH GOD IT IS GRAVITY WITH SANDRA BULLSHIT ALL OVER AGAIN! SOMEONE SAVE ME FROM THIS SHITTY STORYTELLING!

Part 93: Whoever Made the Fucking Goddamned Propagators Should Be Sent to the Deepest Pits of Hell

So have I mentioned that I think that this game was made by assholes? I think the scene with the Propagators all but rests my case. When you enter the Ragnarok you discovered that it is populated by a myriad of carnivorous neon colored alien monsters. Carnivorous alien monsters that just happened to be able to survive on this spaceship without a livable ecosystem or prey. Speaking of which, how did they get on this ship in the first place? Is there a breach in the haul that Rinoa and Squall should be concerned about?

Back to the fucking Propagators. You have to kill these fuckers in a very specific order otherwise they come back to life, and you must fight them all to clear the Ragnarok. However, there is a catch to this deceptively simple premise. Each Propagator has a different color, and not only that but they each have a partner of the same color. The game requires that after killing one the player immediately kill its partner. If you fight a different colored Propagator, then the first one regenerates the one that you just killed. That makes this entire scene a literal load of bullshit.

Do you want to know what I also think is a load of bullshit? You must battle a green Propagator in order to gain access to the only Save Point on the Ragnarok. The problem is that the game wants you to fight the Green Propagators last thus meaning that the save point is totally useless. By the time you get access to it you have already exhausted your Esunas and other resources. Fuck these Propagators.

Part 94: Eyes on Me is a Bad Song, and People Who Like it Like Bad Music

Here we are my friends and viewers. In space and about to experience Final Fantasy VIII’s most audacious romance scene. I am honestly not joking in saying that the next scene was one of the most emotionally draining and exhausting exercises in mental fortitude that I have ever experienced in a video game. In fact let’s talk about how every time I play this game I’m exhausted both physically and emotionally. These blogs are exhausting in and of themselves as they are usually fifteen page behemoths that require two to three hours just to copy edit. Then you add on the fact that I actually have to PLAY FINAL FANTASY VIII…maybe you all can start to understand why this blog series isn’t weekly anymore.

Anyways…this scene is terrible, and in a break with tradition I’m just going to link a video of the scene in question so you can see what I am talking about. Now don’t worry, I am also going to provide commentary using timestamps! Without further ado, here’s this “doozy” of a cutscene:

• 0 seconds – The fucking goddamned gravity in the Ragnarok makes no fucking goddamned sense. For most of the scene Squall and Rinoa have no issue keeping their feet on the ground of the ship despite the fact that it is floating in the vacuum of space. Then in the next scene you see Rinoa just doing somersaults in the fucking spaceship. What the fuck? How is that possible if the Ragnarok has its own form of gravity/antigravity?

• 1 second - You know what? Fine whatever let the game have Rinoa just defy the laws of physics. Fine. Whatever. This fucking game hasn’t exactly been the most grounded in reality experience that I have ever seen anyways. Fuck me for trying to understand what the fuck is going on. FUCK ME!
• 3 seconds – So there are people from Esthar assisting Squall in piloting the Ragnarok…why would they assume that Squall isn’t some sort of evil person? Also, how does the home base have communications with the spaceship next to the moon with all of the monsters and the evil witch tomb? Isn’t long distance communication impossible? How is it that these people are even able to have a conversation with Squall in space next to the thing that prevents television from existing in Final Fantasy VIII? THIS GAME DOESN’T EVEN PLAY BY ITS OWN RULES!

• 21 seconds – Why would these people just assume that Squall would be a person from the space station? Wouldn’t you ask whoever is about to begin piloting a long abandoned spacecraft to first identify themselves? I say long “abandoned spacecraft” because once you start communicating with ground control they immediately start explaining how to pilot the Ragnarok and express surprise that the Ragnarok is being used. Why would anyone leave a fully functioning spaceship just floating in space? Did someone predict that the space station would blow up and someone may need to use it in order to get back home? That sounds like the stupidest thing ever.
• 36 seconds – Alright FINE! So the fucking Ragnarok has a “gravity generator!” But, how does creating your own gravity spend fuel? I could fucking drive my car at 90 miles per hour, but that’s not going to create my own gravity well…so what the fuck is the Ragnarok doing?
• 57 seconds – Ground control told me “godspeed.” That means that there is a GOD in the world of Final Fantasy VIII…but where are they and why aren’t they stopping the world from ending? Why doesn’t the “God” of Final Fantasy VIII just slap Squall across the face?

• 1 minute – Wait the fucking gravity is off and Squall is somehow able to just remain in his seat without a belt, and Rinoa is just standing in the background. Then (when the game’s story decided to turn the gravity off) Rinoa just starts doing somersaults in space. Isn’t the Ragnarok accelerating thousands of miles per hour as it makes the trip back to the planet of Final Fantasy VIII? How are Rinoa and Squall going to survive the G-Forces involved with re-entering the atmosphere without a space suit? Won’t they fucking die just from the sheer force? Do they not know that? Will I be able to release myself from this video game if they die?
• 1 minute and 40 seconds – WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS MUSIC!?!? Oh no…Rinoa ended up in Squall’s lap. That means that this game is about to get heavy on the romance. More importantly…WHAT THE FUCK IS UP WITH THIS MUSIC PLAYING RIGHT NOW? It’s so sappy and heavy handed. I mean when she ends up in Squall lap they lyrics “My last night here with you? Maybe yes, maybe no,” so this was clearly a deliberate attack.
• 1 minute and 50 seconds – HOLY JESUS I JUST GOT WHAT THE LYRICS ARE TRYING TO DO! “I kind of liked it your way. How you shyly placed your eyes on me. Did you ever know that I had mine on you?” Oh my fucking GOD! The lyrics are Rinoa’s perspective on her interactions with Squall…I…WHAT? (Author’s Note:Yes I know that the in-game story for the song is that it was written by Julia directed towards Laguna) In addition, these lyrics are incredibly “romantic.” "Shall I be the one for you who pinches you softly but sure," I mean yeah…pinching is about as romantic as you can get.
• 2 minutes – Yeah sure Rinoa let’s just start talking about each other’s past when you already know that Squall has long-term memory loss. That is a great conversation starter. I mean it completely makes sense that you would all of the sudden expect Squall to provide you with detailed commentary on his past so is that you have context on his current behavior and attitude. That makes complete sense.
• 2 minutes 38 second – Squall admitting that he has been a jackass all this time because of the pain of losing Ellone makes no fucking sense. For sixty percent of the game Squall didn’t even know that he had a sister in the first place. So how in the world did he know that was the origin behind his angst? How did he have any memory of the emotional pain of Ellone leaving him if he didn’t know who Ellone was until the Orphanage scene? His GF use destroyed all of his memories, so wouldn’t he have just rebooted as a blank slate? This game doesn’t even honor its own plot twists, and I’m here trying to pick up all of the pieces.

• 3 minutes – Good idea Rinoa! When you just got Squall to let down his guard you went ahead and shared your own positive memories of your childhood. That is not going to make Squall feel depressed or re-live his trauma at all. That last sentence was not sarcasm as Squall has the emotional spectrum of a cardboard box.
• 3 minutes and 47 second – NO! NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO! YOU CANNOT DO THIS! THIS IS NOT OKAY! We honestly just had the last four hours of this fucking game be about Squall professing his love for Rinoa, and how important she is to him.

• 3 minutes and 49 seconds - YOU CANNOT HAVE HIM ACT LIKE “SQUALL” TOWARDS RINOA ANYMORE! That is NOT OKAY! Look I know that the worst thing that anyone can do when they are a blogger is backseat write the story of some form of entertainment that they are enjoying but, I take exception to Final Fantasy VIII. By having Squall just revert to his old state now that Rinoa is alive…it just completely and totally undoes all of the good characterization that the game had before this scene. Squall was changing…in fact he needed to change…and now he’s back to normal.
• 3 minutes and 50 seconds - This is not okay, because as the viewer you are just forced to witness Squall being a jackass towards someone that you already know that he cares about, and those feelings are mutual. I understand that Squall is a teenager, but teenagers are very blunt about their emotions, and trust me, as a teacher I know this. Moreover, teenagers are social animals that feed on others agreeing or accepting them. Just having Squall say “I’m glad that you are back,” or “You have no idea how worried I was,” doesn’t jeapordize Squall being a badass. Instead it helps convert him into being a relatable protagonist, but I guess Final Fantasy VIII doesn’t want to do that so OH FUCKING WELL!
• 4 minutes – I fucking can’t do this anymore. Squall has an internal monologue where he shows a sense of care for Rinoa, but fails to vocalize it. Rinoa continues to get lovey dovey with Squall despite Squall continually rebuking her. Somehow she just “knows” how he truly feels about her. Worse yet is how “Eyes on Me,” is on an infinite loop during this scene. I don’t even know what’s real anymore. I think I’m a moderator of a video game website call Old Man Murray, and right now I am playing a game made by Hideo Kojima…oh right I’m playing Metal Gear Solid 2. I’m controlling Dante in his quest to rid the world of the blight which was created by his father! The blight is an evil that creates darkspawn capable of horrifying acts of destruction. The Darkspawn being creatures engineered by the Umbrella Corporation using RNA viruses and stored at the Spencer Mansion. I have to collect the four pieces to the power pellet and then finally I will be able to defeat Doctor Mario. It all makes sense now.

• 4 minutes and 53 second – OH NOW GROUND CONTROL STARTS ASKING QUESTIONS!
• 5 minutes - Wait…Rinoa is a sorceress? How? What? Why? Adel isn’t dead, or at least I assume she is not. So how did Rinoa become a sorceress? Is Ultimecia now permanently residing within her? I thought a sorceress had to die before another person could become a sorceress? A roll call shows that Edea, Ultimecia, and Adel are still alive, so what happened?
• 5 minutes and 49 seconds - Why does Rinoa have to be locked up if they didn’t do that to Edea? They let Edea live her life running an orphanage with her husband. Why is Rinoa required to be placed in some sort of prison for sorceresses? Are all sorceresses evil? If all of the sorceresses are evil why wasn’t Esthar’s first response to Edea walking into their country shooting her in the face until she died?

• 5 minutes and 50 seconds - Well okay now that I think of it…she did kind of blow up the space station and was directly responsible for releasing an evil sorceress onto the world. From that point I kind of understand where the forces of Esthar are coming from on this one. That said I am still utterly confused as to when and why Rinoa became a sorceress.

• 6 minutes – Hug and then fade to black.
• 6 minutes and 1 second - Wait no! Don’t fade to black! Why is any of this happening? Why is Rinoa possessed by the devil? OH, GOD SOMEONE TELL ME THAT I AM STILL ALIVE! I don’t know anymore…I need an adult.

You're a wonderful monster, Zeep.

Also, every Final Fantasy boss has the most baffling, shitty backstories in games. Worse than Revolver Ocelot. Worse than King Koopah. They are, all of them, usually awesomely designed characters with absolute disgusting baby diarrhea for backgrounds and motivations.

I appreciate you putting in the time to poke all the holes in FF8. It's still my favorite in the series, even though I was a teenager when I played it so I didn't care about things such as motive, logic, and character development. As I read your blogs, I keep nodding along cause you're totally correct in how the game treats its own plot. Yet, I'm still charmed by it's ridiculousness.

Thank you for continuing this blog series.

I guess I also like bad music.

So you mean to tell me that this game waited until DISC THREE to reveal its actual villain?

Yup, definitely your first Final Fantasy game.

Another problem with Final Fantasy (and JRPGs in general I guess) that you're experiencing here is the stuff with Laguna and friends having way better story/characters than the "main" protagonists. FFXII is one of my favourite games, but the real main characters of that story didn't get top billing because Square was afraid a game with a hairy man as the protagonist wouldn't sell-- so we get Vaan, a prettyboy who straight up says "I'm just along for the ride" at one point, as the "main" character (also FFXII is basically just Star Wars, you should check that one out somehow, someday). There was also a recent trailer for FFXV that showed a real sad dad who looked and acted like a really strong character who had a really strong story to tell, yet the actual story is about a band of four "hip" "hot" "happenin'" teens that I can't fucking stand to be around, based on the demo.

Also here is a cutscene from Kingdom Hearts in which Donald Duck calls Seifer a big palooka, and then a fat guy maybe hits on the latter? Provided with no other context, of course-- because I just want to know how this thing makes you feel.

So besides the absurdity in FFXIII your pretty much at peak FF absurdity right now. Any game in the series you play after this will seem tame in comparison. And just think you have all the insane fan theories to read over after your finished with VIII!

I hate this blog and I hate you. You are ruining my rose tinted memories of this game! My teenage self loved this game but now that I'm reading all these horrible truths I can feel my precious memories being liquified like the T-1000 in Terminator 2: Judgement Day. I can even hear the high pitched squeal in my head (squeal, squall? coincidence?).

Oh well, fuck it, I have pretty much realized that Final Fantasy is nuts ever since I tried playing 10 and had a meltdown similar to yours. At least I was smart enough to not continue playing and just say "fuck it" to the entire series from then on. Then again, I played through all of 7 and 8 and then tried 9 and 10, which I both hated. Boy oh boy how I hated those games and its characters and story and Square-Enix and JRPGS and and and...

I take back what I said. You, sir, are the bravest individual to have ever lived! I salute you!

This blog has now reached the point in which I can say this to you.

Final Fantasy VIII is the Twilight of video games.

It's been a long ride, but finally we have arrived at Squall and Rinoa's space-faring adventures. Truly it's the very definition of...romance (if you are 16 and incredibly, socially awkward).

Honestly I still like the whole space bit, sure it's flawed beyond belief and illogical (which really isn't anything new at this point), but I still think it's a nice intermezzo (kinda like the Laguna bits, but in a different way) for everything else that's going on in the game. I certainly agree though, that the song is terrible.

Also revealing the true final enemy extremely late in a story is something that happens in at least 80% of all JRPGs. I never liked that fact either, but have made peace with almost immediately.

Oh, and nice mention of Jenova, especially considering you didn't even know who/what Jenova was 4 weeks or so ago.

I don't actually think the time travel stuff is that bad in FFVIII and I am someone who is nearly allergic to bad time travel stories.

As for Squall's persona, I've said it before and I'll say it again: Having an aloof/unsocial/introverted (J)RPG protagnist is one of my favourite things about FFVIII. In fact, I would like to take a stand for all introverted protagonists in fiction, especially in character/story driven fiction. Too often is being introverted seen as some disease which needs to be cured (FFVIII is guilty of this as well) so I like to champion the instances where that isn't the case.

Oh boy, I can tell already that this is going to be a good one.

Well, on the bright side, at least you now have an airship so you can jet around the world a lot more easily, and you can get to some of the cool endgame areas that will let you break the game even more than you already have.

And, IIRC, the lyrics to "Eyes on Me" are supposed to be written by Julia about Laguna. (References to "on this stage," "in this tiny little bar," etc.) The parallels between Julia and Laguna and Rinoa and Squall should become more obvious later, if they aren't already.

Congratulations, you made it to space! This is the peak of FFVIII's insanity, so I expect a pretty smooth ride all the way to the end, with possibly one exception.

Also, you have to dive into the crazy fan theories surrounding this game. It was the Indoctrination Theory of its time!

They both have a certain "Fever Dream" quality to parts of their storytelling, don't they? Not sure if I buy that comparison wholly though. The difference is that Twilight was pretty much the butt of internet jokes from day one whereas FFVIII still seems genuinely well-regarded among the pantheon of late 90s/early 00s JRPGs... which is its own source of confusion for me (as someone who had a N64 and never played this stuff when it was relevant), but also makes it funnier to mock. Making fun of Twilight has always seemed too easy.

FF8 to me feels like it actually deserves the extreme polarizing opinions that FF7 gets. FF7 was an above average JRPG with very nice graphics for its time which gets hyped up and counter-hyped by people constantly. FF8 is a jumbled mess of ideas that, to me, makes the entire FF13 development debacle make a lot more sense.

Obviously nostalgia plays a giant part in how you view these games, as does age. I was 20 when FF8 came out and I made it to midway into disc two before I brought it back to WaldenSoftware. Aeris in 7 dying also didn't have near the impact for me at 17 that Nei had in Phantasy Star 2. FF8 also looked pretty damned good for the time so people who get off on graphics overlooked a lot of flaws in it (like Brad when he was at Gamespot).

@teddie: So funny story. I decided to look up who actually wrote the script for Final Fantasy VIII was, and discovered that it was Kazushige Nojima, and guess what? He also wrote the story to the Kingdom Hearts franchise. As you may, or may not, be aware of @thatpinguino is currently doing a retrospective of the Kingdom Hearts franchise, and that fact blew his mind. As you might anticipate he has discovered how Kingdom Hearts' story is up its own ass from the first handful of hours of playing the first game.

Checking out Kazushige Nojima's Wikipedia page is also a bit of a trip. I mean this is what his "Reception" section says:

Nojima has been called one of the "strongest voices" in the video game industry for his writing.[5]

Did fucking crazy people write this?

His stories have been noted for their complexity and fearlessness in delving into romantic plot lines.

NO SHIT!

I'm not prepared to experience my first Metal Gear Solid game...after this I think I want to play something simple like Resident Evil or Devil May Cry. I was planning on taking recommendations from @yummylee at some point.

Also, I'm not really getting what you are implying about Bowser's backstory in your fourth sentence.

I mean if we are being completely honest right now if I had played this game when it had first come out my opinion of it would be dramatically different. One way that I can contextualize this is how my opinion regarding Holden Calufield has changed over time. At some point I would have told you that Holden Caulfield was the greatest character in literature and that his experiences and outlook on life "spoke" to me.

Now I think he's a massive asshole that needs to take responsibility for his own actions. Squall is no different from Holden Caulfield, or if we want to go for the anime comparison Shinji from EVA. They are emotionless blobs that appeal to emotionless blobs.

I'm not playing Final Fantasy XIII by the way...I have limits. Thus far I have received like three requests to stop playing Final Fantasy VIII and start playing Final Fantasy XIII. I have no idea if these requests are ironic, or serious so I just ignored them anyways.

So I plan on writing a blog on this topic when all of this is done, but I still do not understand what the "appeal" of the Final Fantasy "franchise" is. In fact...I would be so audacious to argue that it isn't a franchise in the first place.

There's essentially no canonical storyline that connects everything together. None of the main characters from the previous games ever appear in future installments. The franchise is constantly changing its mechanics, and rarely revisits the good mechanics of previous installments. Worse yet is how thematically different each installment can be in mood, tone, and setting.

If each installment can be dramatically different from the previous one, what is the appeal in following this franchise? Especially if there is zero promise that future installments will ever honor what made previous installments special to you?

That sounds like you are just setting yourself up to get trolled for financial exploitation.

Being in space isn't the issue that I have with the scene, nor do I have any qualms with having a quieter scene interspersed with action sequences. Instead, what I do take umbrage with is how the game characterizes Squall and undoes much of my goodwill towards him in this single sequence. Squall was finally evolving as a character, and was lowering his guard to the audience. Then in this scene he just suddenly reverts to his previous character state as if nothing had happened to Rinoa in the first place. He honestly responds to Rinoa with "Whatever..." at some point!

That's a problem because it makes his relationship with Rinoa all the more unnatural. Why would Rinoa continue to put up with Squall at this point of the game? He's never shown any compassion towards he excluding a few internal monologues that only you and I have seen, and the half a dozen hours when Rinoa was in a coma. She has honestly NEVER seen him convey any kindness towards her.

As mentioned above, and before on this very blog series, it's not that Squall is introverted that is the problem. It's the fact that Rinoa, Quistis, Irvine, Zell, and Selphie continue to posture that Squall is somehow this close and reliable friend towards them. What are they honestly talking about? Squall uses them as vessels to progress the story, and never once stops to reflect on how helpful they are, or how much he appreciates them. When Zell, Selphie, Irivine, and Quistis performed a concert for Squall I was just baffled as to why they did the for Squall. This is because Squall never once justifies such kindness or concern prior to that scene in an explicit way to those characters.

An introvert does not need to be "cured," but they do need a relationship of understanding. Here I actually think that you prove my point as to why Squall's relationship with Rinoa does not work. Rinoa continually tries to pick away at Squall rather than just show a sense of understanding or mutual respect for him. Every time she is alone with him she tries to discover a new fact about his past, thus making it seem like she's forcing him to drop his guard and change for her. As I said in the previous episode...that is not how relationships work, and Rinoa's insistence on trying to discover more about Squall just further highlights how artificial and forced the relationship is. She is continually rebuffed by Squall, but still keeps it up because the story needs her to. Which is about as bad as it can get with romantic storytelling.

I got the point about Julia, and you can see that in my "hidden" author's note. However, how the fuck did Selphie know how to fly this thing?

How legitimate is the whole theory that Squall is actually dead after Disc One? Has anyone involved with the game actually come out and confirmed or denied it?

Also, is your one exception the boss rush with all of the LSD time sorceresses, which culminates with a battle with a caterpillar sorceress? Because that was fucking weird, and I still do not understand what the fuck that was all about.

So Arbitray I'm going to take you up on your idea. I'm going to explore various Final Fantasy fansites and see what die-hard fans of the Final Fantasy franchise have to say about Final Fantasy VIII. I'm wondering if there are actual apologists for the orphanage scene or how bad the relationship stuff is, but I have hope that most see how bad all of that really is in hindsight. I'll report my findings in a few days.

Moreover, how serious were you about playing Grandia II?

@zombiepie: I was grasping at straws for bosses with bad backstories. Dumb joke.

Oh man, this is the most bonkers part of Final Fantasy 8.

I love how Squall breaks down and falls in love with a comatose Rinoa, but as soon as she becomes a living person , he has no idea how to react to her. I thought that was somewhat charming. A teenager daydreaming about a cute girl, but too insecure and inexperienced to act on it during a conversation.

As someone who played those games as a 8 yo kid, i can't argue with the shortcomings of the story. It's incredibly hard to understand which sorceress has which goals and why / when / how Ultimecia controls who for what purpose.However, i still believe that the sheer amount of interesting enviroments and storybeats are commendable.

In disc 1 you start out by proving that you are SEED worthy. After you do that, you go on your first real mission to help some rebels kidnap the president. When you're done with that storypiece, you move on to the assassination on Edea. You get captured, you escape. You end up at a missile facility, the garden needs to dodge the missiles. The game has a lot of those cool little moments that feel very varied from eachother.

About the appeal of the franchise. To me, Final Fantasy represents fresh ideas regarding the battlesystem, while having familiar concepts in the storyline. All this presented with amazing cutscenes. Those cutscenes made people want to be able to participate in it, and the constant changes to the battlesystem eventually made the franchise become sort of real-time.

In the battle department, FF have shifted from turnbased (1,2,3, 10) to ATB meters (4,5,6,7,8,9) to quasi- realtime (12,13,15). In the story department, those games always focus on a group of characters and their journey through a world that has some issues that the group needs to solve. Chocobo's, summons and monsters are the constant factor between those games.Shiva, Ifrit, Odin, Bahamut, Cactuar, Tonberry, Alexander, Carbuncle, Marlboro, Ultima Weapon, Omega Weapon , all those characters have been seen in so many Final Fantasy games that it always feels cool to see the new version of that guy you saw in other Final Fantasies. Those touchstones triggers a sense of nostalgia, while having a complete new storyline to focus on.
It also helped that during the PS1 and early PS2 era there were only a handful of JRPG's i knew about. Therefore, Final Fantasy automatically became The biggest / highest quality JRPG for me.

@zombiepie: I fucking adore the XIII games and I do think everyone should at least try them but they aren't for everyone I guess.

this makes me not feel so bad about never really playing a final fantasy game before. Played some 13 when it launched but besides that, the most i have ever played of one, even close from what i understand is Bravely Default. Got 13 on steam. For anyone reading, is it really that bad of a game? i wanted to play it, but from what i read, everyone shits on it so much??? lol.

Well, yeah, Squall's characterisation is still weak and makes no sense (I remember even getting pissed at the end of the space part in particular when I originally played this game almost 20 years ago.), especially the weird back and forth between him "starting to care" and being an emotionless blockhead.

I guess they just tried to depict him changing as a struggle, but failed doing so in a relatable and somewhat logical way. As for why Rinoa still cares, you made the point yourself in this blog: teenagers are rash, a bit dumb and often suffer from a serious case of tunnel vision. What I'm saying is: If you are into someone as a teenager, you are real fucking into them, no matter if it makes sense or not (possibly especially when it doesn't).

@zombiepie: Oh I'm not saying FFVIII executes it well (quite the opposite in many ways). I just used the existence of Squall as a jumping off point for a little rant about how unsocial/introverted characters/people are treated in character/story driven fiction.

I do think you can't totally say he does not earn his party's respect or even friendship though. Even if it's not in a very overt way. These people have been allies/friends since early childhood (even if they are amnesiac wrecks now) and you need to read at least a little bit between the lines. This man (boy) has been leading them through all these conflicts and battles so it's not strange that they would at least respect him an awful lot.

Just compare it to soldiers on a battlefield and how close they can be even without being friends in a peacetime/civilian sense.

@sessh: Makes some good points as well. I think you are expecting way too much logical thinking out of everyone. As we all know, people are not inclined to think logically. Especially not teenagers and especially especially not teenagers in high-pressure situations. People's attitudes and behaviours are not a straight line, depicted on a graph it would be all over the place. Squall reverting to his non-romantic "Whatever" mode on the space ship is perfectly common and normal. As are Rinoa's unchanged feelings towards him.

The Ragnarok is pretty sweet though amirite?

@zombiepie: All I can tell you is that Patrick Klepek was being pretty troll-y about VIII being the best PS1 Final Fantasy when that came to Steam and Brad has remarked stuff to the same effect. People out there like this game. Those same people might not have played it in say... 16 years, but this game reviewed well when it came out.

As for Grandia 2, I think I am somewhat serious about giving that one a try at least...assuming my computer cooperates.

Watch out! You could replace @mento as the lame joke moderator if you keep this up!

I had a detailed conversation with @sparky_buzzsaw@thatpinguino and @mento about this issue, but this slow but deliberate evolution of a game over time defeats the whole purpose of calling something a "franchise" in the first place. A franchise is an interwoven story where you watch the same characters progress through a series of different but similar circumstances. For example, James Bond is a secret agent that needs to defeat an evil doer that is hellbent on ruining the world. Next you need to honor the gameplay and genre developments of the previous games, and this is where Final Fantasy fails spectacularly.

I like the junction system. There I said it. It is a system that you can improve without even engaging in battles (i.e. Triple Triad), and can exploit in order to allow yourself to be free from grinding. No Final Fantasy uses this system ever again. Final Fantasy V is coming to Steam soon, but how many games used its job system?

Final Fantasy isn't a franchise, and that's okay. However, what I question is whether people like the individualization between the games, or if the name "Final Fantasy," and what that contributes, actually means something.

Don't you dare do this to me. I'm not playing another Final Fantasy game for at least another year. Then I have to pick which game I actually want to play.

Final Fantasy V is going to be released on Steam. So now I have to add that to my list of games that I can check out from the franchise which right now looks like this:

1. Final Fantasy VII
2. Final Fantasy XIII
3. Final Fantasy V

If I can do this so can you. Join the darkside of the force...no really give it a try. Also if Demoskinos is to be believed XIII is worth at least seeing to the end.

SEE YOUR FIRST FINAL FANTASY EXPERIENCE TO THE END! IF I CAN DO THIS SO CAN YOU! DON'T LET A VIDEO GAME DEFEAT YOU!!!!!

Wait so what exactly did Sakaguchi do? Was he a producer, director, programmer, or something else? Did he ever write the stories to the Final Fantasy games? I don't understand what part of the Final Fantasy "formula" that he contributed to, and am interested in learning more.

The fucking thing is way too fast for its own good and they shouldn't have added a Z-axis to the vehicle because it just shows how they had no idea how to have that thing traverse through the environment. It honestly clips through everything. ALSO WHY THE FUCK DOES SELPHIE JUST AUTOMATICALLY KNOW HOW TO PILOT THAT THING?!?!?! WHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHY?!?!?!?!

I mean I can understand why people would "like" Final Fantasy VIII. The game has heart and is "sincere" as fuck. You have to give this game credit for trying to shoot all cylinders. The only problem is that it misses its targets by a yard.

Also, what I was getting at was whether or not you wanted to do your proposed Grandia II dueling blog feature.

That argument doesn't work because GF use should be destroying their memories of working together as team, right? How does Rinoa continue to remember who Squall even is if she has like seven GFs junctioned to her? Wouldn't having more GFs equipped expedite the memory loss process? Shouldn't everyone slowly but surely forgetting who any of them are? Shouldn't the memory loss be permanent as the game suggests that GFs take the place of long-term memories, and as such they wouldn't even remember their date at Fisherman's Horizon?

Will the game ever honor its stupidest plot twist?

Also I get enough of teenagers in my line of work. Get them as far away from my video games as possible.

@zombiepie

Also I get enough of teenagers in my line of work. Get them as far away from my video games as possible

I see you are already preparing for Persona 5.

I agree with your notion that Final Fantasy isn't a real franchise. In my opinion the same counts for the Call of Duty games. While the 'Black ops' and the ' Modern Warfare' stories are somewhat their own franchises, putting them both under the banner of Call of Duty makes it quite messy.

@zombiepie: I think the GFs attack long-term memory only/first? Something like that? I forget. :V
I actually really like the angle that these beings making you more powerful have a massive detrimental effect as well. Sadly it's only used as a plot twist/device.

Regarding Sakaguchi, he was the executive producer on FFVIII. The director was Yoshinori Kitase. Kazushige Nojima & Hiroki Chiba wrote the scenario.

@zombiepie: You need this TRILOGY in your life ZP.

@zombiepie: Heh, right! I had forgotten about that little proposal. My computer is being a temperamental piece of junk right now, so I can't say for certain if I could follow through with such a Grandia II-based blogging series at the moment. I'll let you know if I get things worked out. I'll probably be done with Metal Gear this week and I'm not sure how much Destiny I'm gonna play so my schedule might be open.

Also, I'd... strongly recommend against making XIII your next Final Fantasy game. I didn't even hate that game (I genuinely think XIII-2 is decent), but it's insulting to the player's time in a way that you'd think wouldn't be possible from something that has you run in a straight line 90% of the time.

@demoskinos: I love cats, but I have limits. That looks beyond stupid.

Not possible as I do not own any platforms that can play the Persona series, and it appears that this will continue to be the case. In fact I do not think that I have ever played a game developed by Atlus PERIOD.

I don't actually plan on going out of my way to play any of the Persona games either. I have always found games that depict compulsory education in a negative light incredibly uncomfortable, especially when teachers are depicted as being neglectful or downright cruel.

The problem is that the twist is only used when the story wants it to which is to say it is used to justify no one remembering who anyone is. Then it is immediately dumped and never addressed again. That's just terrible.

Alright...so what the fuck did he actually do? Calling @thatpinguino or anyone else that knows their stuff. What can you directly tied to Sakaguchi? Like who the fuck made this:

Keep me updated anyways I would be honestly interested in playing Grandia II with you. If not the plan is to ask @yummylee where I should start with the Resident Evil franchise.

So let's talk about my experiment from earlier. The results of exploring Final Fantasy fansites has been...frightening. I don't understand who these people are. At some point we need to talk about this.

@hassun: GFs attack memory when it's convenient for the story and only when it's convenient for the story. After that orphanage scene it never comes up again.

@zombiepie:Sakaguchi was a producer, meaning that he was responsible for overseeing the general direction of the project and coordinating the work of the designers, coders, and artists. He is credited with a lot of the creative vision of the FF games and of the early Square rpgs in general. I'm not sure who made the weird sorceresses. It was probably Tetsuya Nomura.

Your blog is so big it's made my phones browser crash twice!

The spacewalk sequence is what I was referring to earlier, where I feel the game manages to redeem the romance arc. It doesn't just fill a moment, it effectively captures the themes of young love; alone with the object of your affection in an endless black void, desperate for solid ground and in danger of suffocation.

Some of the time stuff makes sense when explained later and viewed with information you can't have yet, in the obnoxious anime fashion.

So Adel is a big reason for the radio wave interference they mention earlier. The big TV in Timber says something like "I'MSTILLHEREBRINGMEBACKIWILLNEVERLETYOUFORGETABOUTME" over and over. I read it in the moment and thought the game was getting pretty metal.

Alright so let's have some fun! I am going to direct this comment towards anyone who has been active on my blog series ever...that means:

@thatpinguino@mento@hassun@arbitrarywater@brodehouse@demoskinos@onemanarmyy@dudeglove@sparky_buzzsaw@marino@fredchuckdave@sessh@encephalon@teddie@kazona@cloudymusic@kidzombie@iburningstar@dochaus@hunter5024@drdarkstryfe@haruko@mikelemmer@devoureroftime@geraltitude@yummylee@lawgamer@spoonman671

Now I make no qualms about being a full-time teacher. It's not a fact that I brag or boast about on the forums, but it what I do for a living. Some users like @sweep are even shocked to know that this is my career. Anyways, I say all of this so is that you can all participate in an experiment that I have been thinking about since last week.

I am going to use one of my favorite teaching strategies on all of you.

Now I know that some of you may find this insulting, but hear me out! I'm doing this mostly for my own personal gain. I want you all to "help" me in becoming the target audience for Final Fantasy VIII back when it first released.

Now the strategy is called "Gallery Walk Role-play." Now the instructions for this are simple:

1. I am going to post a series of images from a variety of Final Fantasy VIII "super fans" from across the internet.
2. You will consult every single one of the images as if you are in a "gallery for works of art."
3. You will then PICK ONE image as your topic.
4. Once you have picked your image you will ROLEPLAY as the author of that image. Remember to identify which image you are using and even come up with a funny name for yourself. Publish your comment on this blog. Posting it elsewhere will not get you credit!
5. Your COMMENT must provide extra commentary explaining YOUR perspective, the CONTEXT of the comment, and your overall FEELINGS about Final Fantasy VIII. Failing to address all of these points will result in you getting partial credit.
6. I will then respond to your comment, and you are asked to provide ONE REBUTTAL addressing the question that I have asked.
7. Remember to be respectful! This is for educational purposes!

Here Are Your GALLERY WALK IMAGES:

Image #1 - A YouTube Comment on Video Montage Set to "Eyes on Me"

Image #2 - An Essay in Response to a Two Sentence Forum Post...That Turned Out to be a Misspelling That the Author of This Essay Misinterpreted

Image #3 - Steam Review for Final Fantasy VIII

Image #4 - YouTube Comment on a Video Explaining Why Rinoa and Squall are the Greatest Video Game Couple

Image #5 - Comment on a Blog Post on Why Future Final Fantasy Games Should Borrow FF8's Storytelling Techniques

Example Post:

Selected Image: Image #4

Role-play Name: Alan Dirckshner

Comment Context: Rinoa and Squall are the greatest because................................

@zombiepie: I'll indulge you, even though I know this is probably not good for anyone involved.

Selected Image: 5

Fake name: Chet Dudeguy

Comment Context: I vaguely remember talking about literary symbolism in my sophomore English class, which was a few years after I played through Final Fantasy VIII for the first time and I remember thinking about the feather and it all made sense in my head after that! Not actually being a fan of dumb books, I think the greatest stories come from JRPGs and Anime; Kill La Kill is one of my recent favorites. That show had deep sub-plots as well, what with the clothing being a real deep commentary on fashion and stuff. I love Final Fantasy VIII because of these deep themes. I haven't played it in a few years, but I'm sure it's still the classic I remember it being.

Hm... seems that the internet ate my previous post without me realizing it.

Like @demoskinos, I actually did enjoy XIII. Well, let's go through my history with the FF "franchise", shall we? I basically played and beat all of the games in the mainline series aside from II, V and XIV (I played XI but I guess I technically can't have really beat it); however, even I could not make it through XIII-2 and by the time Lightning Returns came out I had already moved on to the PS4.

I do remember liking VIII at the time but I don't recall the plot of it being this insane, though I remember not liking it because the Draw system was so tedious. It was to such a degree that even when the PSone classic versions of the games were on sale on PSN, I only bought VII and IX and skipped VIII. I think of the series, my favourites at this point are probably IV and IX, though X, VII and XIII are fairly high up there as well.

In regards to Sakaguchi, he was the original creator of the FF "franchise." He was also involved with other big Squaresoft RPGs back in the day such as Chrono Trigger, Super Mario RPG and Xenogears. I believe IX was the last one where he was majorly involved/invested in before he started to step back further, before eventually leaving Square (by then Square-Enix) and founding Mistwalker, a company that eventually made the Xbox 360 exclusive RPGs Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey.

Urgh, I am unable to bypass my cynicism over this to get into the mindset of someone who believes the Final Fantasy series started at 7. Alright, deep breaths...

Actually, how about this? I'm gonna tap into my inner geekboy and rave about my childhood Final Fantasy, 3 6. Why am I so smitten with 6?

• The PCs are adults. I didn't think this was a big deal at the time, but years of dealing with teenage protagonists whining about things has made me appreciate PCs that had shit go down in their pasts, but don't (usually) act stupid about it.
• The world is devastated halfway through the game, changing the map and the narrative from a linear quest to an open-world "get the band back together". You want a plot twist? That's a plot twist!
• After the world blows up, you spend 20 minutes playing Celes on a desolate island, tending an ailing Cid who wonders if they're the last people alive on the world. If he dies, Celes throws herself off a cliff in despair at being completely alone. Other FF's angst have nothing on that, and the game earns it.
• It has 12 main playable characters, and 9 of them have memorable, strong character arcs.
• A few events in the game have you controlling multiple parties.
• Kefka is FF's version of the Joker: snarky, sometimes hilarious, and a vicious, murderous psychopath that would eat Sephiroth for breakfast.
• The summons/limit breaks are 5-10 seconds long, tops.
• The customization aspect is easy to understand. In addition to every PC's unique abilities, they can also equip an Esper to cast its spells. If they cast a spell often enough, they learn it for good. That's it.
• You perform in an opera.
• You can suplex a train.

In all seriousness, I think FF6 is the closest the Final Fantasy series has ever gotten to a proper epic fantasy plot. Themes of loss, hardship, and sacrifice permeate the game without the angst that defined later Final Fantasies, and it puts a lot of emphasis on families and friendships. It struck closest to what Final Fantasy tries to achieve, before it got distracted by cutscenes and young protagonist angst.

Okay, teach, why not?

Image: 1

Fake Name: xxInTouchWithHisFeelings91xx

I wrote that comment after playing through FFVIII again last week, which is something I do every time I'm going through a rough period in my life (I'm talking about a break-up, of course.), since it's a game that just resonates with me on a really deep level.

You see, as it happens I'm a cool guy like Squall (I don't mean to brag, but we even look alike, just ask the ladies. Maybe not my last girlfriend though, too early.), but just like him I only appear rough and unfeeling on the outside, while I'm really all mushy on the inside. What I'm saying is: I'm a misunderstood soul and that fact once again led to someone I deeply care for tear out my heart and walk away, convinced they know everything about me, when they really don't.

Just like Squall (he lost his sister when he was young) I have reasons (albeit they aren't as dramatic) to not easily open my heart to all and anyone and I just keep on hoping that my friends and especially my love interest will be able to look beyond what’s on the outside and see the true me, even if I don’t always make it easy fort hem. That’s what love and friendship should truly be about, right?

And that is why I love FFVIII so much, it’s a story about love and loss, hardship and friendship as well as witches and monsters that symoblizes so many things. That scene in space, with the romantic song playing is the culmination of all these things and that’s why it’s perfect and makes me cry every single time. Crying is good for you and maybe one day you can do it in front of someone you love, proving that you aren’t just good looks. Give it a try, and play FFVIII!

I can defend FF8 and its characters and how Adel is there as early as disc one in the background and lore like a proper person but whenever I do it always sounds like fanboying out. Disc three is when the stuff happens because that's how PSX era Final Fantasy games work (seriously, go play FF9 and let me know when the plot happens - it's disc three). I don't think I've ever seen anyone not like Eyes on Me though. Out of the love themes that's probably the best one in a FF game since 13's doesn't count since it wasn't written for the game. It's not hard to know when and where Rinoa became a sorceress; she's one of the two sorceresses that the game explains how they got their power(s).

@zombiepie: maaan, I'm already throwing myself into a M.S. program and you want me to do more homework?

I'll edit this post when I have more time to formulate one, but I'm leaning towards #3.

Image 5

Name: Ronald Tharbes

Text: Clearly, the white feather was referring to cowardice! Not only is it extremely likely that the late 20th century Japanese authors of this game were referring to a British social occurrence that coincided with the Great European War, an occurrence that not even many English-speaking Westerners know about, but it wouldn't even matter if it wasn't! Because I am capable of connecting extremely disparate pieces of information, it then assigns authorial intent because Square presented information that allowed me to make the inference! The feather represents cowardice, and not purity or anything remotely angelic, and it is entirely symbolic and in no way something suggested to the computer graphics animators in order to challenge them to greater aesthetic heights!

DID YOU KNOW that the tattoo on Zell's face is actually a stylized mathematical equation, which when unpacked reveals the underlying physics that goes into hand-to-hand martial combat, and is subtly alluded to in his Limit Breaks, such as "Mach Kick" and "Booya"?! WELL IT'S DEFINITELY TRUE!

//////

With the shitposting out of the way, I actually think that game does carry a lot of subtext about generational exchange, and attempting to pass information down to younger people. There's stuff like conversation in the Timber Maniacs office, everything to do with Laguna and Ellone, and the entire orphanage/memory loss business.

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Name: Kane 'GetBzzySon' Simpleton

Explanation: So i've heard people harping on final fantasy 7 for years. And last year i decided to finally check it out. The gameplay is pretty close to FF8 so it's not terrible, but the game just doesn't hold a candle to Final Fantasy 8. You have this goody two shoes Cloud who not only looks like a clown, but also behaves like one. At one point the dude even crossdresses because his ladyfriend thinks it's a good idea. I don't know man, but that shit is wack. My boy Squall always keeps it real. Sure he doesn't please his friends all the time and people might perceive that as him being lame, but at Squall doesn't bend over backwards for the people around him. The dude isn't focused on friendship and pleasing people, he has to save the world by slaying sorceresses. Everything else is a distraction. And that's alright!

Where 99% of the RPGs makes your character say 'yes' to progress, Squall doesn't follow that script. He does things his own way, and while people might not like it, at least he's his own character. Rinoa certainly appreciates Squall being so dedicated to the cause.

Now i thought that all the spinoffs of FF7 made that story make any sense. Turns out that Cloud isn't even the main character in most of them. Even the creators realized how lame Cloud is and decided to focus on the other characters instead. Guess what? Those characters have even less character than Cloud. Walking puppets being led by their puppeteers. Let's give the guy with guns a third person shooter!. Sure, that sounds like innovation to me! ugh..

Final Fantasy 8 might be 4 discs long, but the ultimate goal in every disc is killing the sorceress. The game gives you always a reason to become more powerful, because there is always a powerful sorceress waiting to be slain. In the meantime, Cloud does dumb shit like gambling, raising chocobos and snowboarding. I'm sure that will save the world...

If you presented Squall with a snowboard, he would probably shove it up your ass instead.

Was nice to get this off my back, Thx teach!

Peace!

Oh, I'll play your game, you rogue.

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Name: Buck Bucksley
Location - My parents' spare bedroom
Current occupation - Assistant manager at a P-Zone X-Press Pizzeria at the food court, fanfic writer for crossover universe between Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Lord of the Rings, and Castle, full-time LARPer. You might know me as Sir Ronaldo the Dark Mecha-Elf-Godling.

Explanation:

Look, guys, we're all just in search of that special someone who really gets us quiet emo types, right? Going to the gym, working on social skills outside of my elite Dungeon of Warclash guild, and trying to interact with what I call "the fairer sex" (i.e. women for those who don't know) are really hard things to do and kind of boring. Squall and I are totally like each other - I mean, I live a quiet, badass life, he lives a quiet badass life. I've got this coworker Sally who I've been thinking about asking out for the last five years, but I just don't want to let anyone in to feel my emotions, you know?

So I'm really just like Squall, waiting for that someone to take the tie to crack my eggshell of toughness. That's what makes the Final Fantasy VIII (or as I like to call it, Final Fantasy Great) love story so awesome. It's just like me.

Alright I'll play.

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Name: Conner Templeton

Occupation: 8th grader

Location: Bumpus, Virginia

Explanation:

I'm 13 years old and all I know about girls is that I like them all of a sudden. I watch a lot of them on TV and those girls seem nice, not like the ones in my boarding school. I played Final Fantasy VIII because I saw it in a scene in Charlies Angels (the Camron Diaz one) and I liked the realistic graphics.

Squall speaks to me because I have a hard time communicating with people too and he makes me feel like I'm not alone in feeling this way. He makes me feel better about being antisocial. His relationship with Rinoa touched me because it showed that I don't need to take initiative and change the way I live. I can just keep doing my own thing and one day a girl will find me so interesting that she will put up with all of my bullshit and melt my icy heart. The right woman will see through my tough, dickish exterior and love me for who I am, despite our complete lack of mutual interests or goals and despite my visible indifference to her attempts at affection. And she'll totally be hot and bubby too. Also she'll be smart, but not like threateningly smart. And you know what? I'm worth the work. I got straight A minuses this semester and my hair-gel game is on point.

Alternatively:

Name: Holden Caulfield

Explanation:

This Squall guy knows what's up. Everyone just leaves you in the end! Adults are just phonies! Big phonies! I don't want people talking about me in the past tense either! That Rinoa girl seems ok though. She lives her convictions and sees them through to the end. Don't like the Galbadian government? Kidnap the president and to hell with the consequences! Be the change you want to see in the world! Not like those damn phonies.

@zombiepie: I expect no one else will want to subject themselves to the wall of terrible that is image #2 so I guess I'll do that one. (And also because the game would have been better if fan theories like "Squall is Dead" and "Rinoa is Ultimecia" had been true.)

Selected Image: Image #2

Role-play Name: Jeffrey Jouhortsmarn

Comment Context: (continuing my earlier post)

"fact 4: The cut between disk 1 and disk 2 in FFVIII is really brusque. You're performing an assassination mission on some kind of magical dictator and you get get horribly mauled and fall from very high up, seemingly to your death. Then suddenly you wake up somewhere else in captivity. Completely unharmed to boot!"

"fact 5: Compared to disk 2 - 4 the first disk of FFVIII is pretty straightforward. This is because Squall died a the end of disk 1. The rest of the game is either Squall in limbo or him hallucinating while dying. I'm not sure, I don't have all the answers. Just theories, but my theories are well-founded."

"fact 6: Ellone."

"fact 7: Who is Ultimecia? Ultimecia is, in fact, all sorceresses throughout time. She is Adel, she is Edea and she is Rinoa as well. People think she uses Time Compression to be able to absorb all of time and space but in actuality she is outside of time. For she is the personification of death and death wants to claim Squall (and all of existence) for herself while he struggles to stay alive."

During your most recent session in the game you went to space and Rinoa said something to Squall which should have tipped you off about her real identity:

"fact 8: The rest of the game represents Squall's struggle against this inevitability and his eventual acceptance of his fate, as witnessed in the ending cinematic of the game."

Now tell me, does it still surprise you that the airship in Final Fantasy VIII is called "Ragnarok"?

WAKE UP SHEEPLE!

P.S. Thanks to http://squallsdead.com/ but I also immediately rescind this "thanks" because the site uses the word "internets" unironically.

P.P.S. I intentionally added that video to get you to watch that Ragnarok scene again and force you to listen to Eyes on Me some more.

@brodehouse:

Assessment: Selecting more than one character to discuss in the comment was an incredibly nice touch. Discussing Zell and discussing his face tattoo added to the "character" of the overall post. The notes about Squall fit, but the comment lacked any commentary related to Rinoa.

Grade: A-

Rebuttal Topic: Author will respond to the prompt "Final Fantasy VIII is the most disappointing thing since the Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. Squall is a poor man's Cloud, and Zell is nothing more than a bad copy of Barret but with less attitude and sass. It will forever be in the shadow of a better game." The author of that prompt has cosplayed more than thirty times as Sephiroth to various anime conventions.

@onemanarmyy:

Assessment: The comment develops a character and follows through in analyzing the perspective of the original image. The author attacks FF7 as the image does, and provides extra context about what the mage means by their original comment. Comments regarding Squall and Rinoa are also appreciated, and fit with the image.

Grade: A

Rebuttal Topic: Kane 'GetBzzySon' Simpleton will respond to the prompt "Real Final Fantasy fans realize that Square SOLD OUT when they went with Sony instead of Nintendo! The "REAL" Final Fantasy games are all 2D and none of this 3D nonsense. When the series added a new dimension is lost a lot of its soul, and also started to become games for emos and losers!"

@sparky_buzzsaw:

Assessment: Author fully commits to developing a character in their post. Providing background information related to their "character" was greatly appreciated, and the fact that the background information was also historically correct

Grade: B+

Rebuttal Topic: Author will respond to the following rebuttal "Final Fantasy games don't need your emo bullshit! Instead it needs more anime! Final Fantasy is always at its worst when it tries to be all for realzies, so future entries should just be fun and filled with catgirls and furries! Same thing about Final Fantasy VII! It's just TOO DARK! Kawaii Desu~ Desu~ Desu~!"

@thatpinguino:

Assessment: Quantity is provided in the form of two comments instead of the normal one. However both comments fail to address a lot of the required prompts. Certainly Squall is an angsty teenager, but more context behind the original image would have been appreciated. Also, How does the author feel about the secondary cast members, or important in-game events?

Grade: C-

Rebuttal Topic:Conner Templeton will respond to the prompt "The Final Fantasy franchise is just filled with angsty teenagers like yourself! What it needs are adults! The next Final Fantasy game should have real men and women getting stuff done, and get rid of all of its ANGST!"

@hassun:

Assessment: The author of this comment has an almost UNCANNY resemblance to the original image. So much so that the teacher was confused which was which. The comment delved into the "madness" of the original source almost like a novelist of murder mysteries would.

Grade: A+

Rebuttal Topic: The author will respond to the following rebuttal "Do you want to know what's the ultimate problem with everything that you just said? Ultimecia is the worst villain in Final Fantasy HISTORY! Look back at Kefka, Sephiroth, or Golbez and tell me that Ultimecia holds a candle to them! Ultimecia seems like something that Namco would have made for their Tales of... series!"

@sessh:

Assessment: The author really makes a good connection between Squall and the chosen image. The author commits to the theme and roleplay aspect of the assignment. Discussing "friendship" and "Eyes on Me" was a nice touch. An example of things that Squall did in the game that supported the author's thesis would have improved the comment.

Grade: B+

Rebuttal Topic: xxInTouchWithHisFeelings91xx will respond to the rebuttal "The REAL cool guys are NOT playing Final Fantasy VIII! The REAL cool guys are playing Quake III Arena which is the REAL game of 1999!" This comment came from who just got back from QuakeCon 1999.

@arbitrarywater:

Assessment: The comment could have done more to share what the context of the image was. Author did make a connection between Final Fantasy VIII and anime, but the comment is incredibly anachronistic. The comment is also self defeating as it includes words such as "vaguely," and "haven't."

Grade: C

Rebuttal Topic: The author will respond to the rebuttal "If Final Fantasy VIII is like an anime that just makes you a jerk for enjoying it! You want to know a REAL Final Fantasy that felt like an anime? FINAL FANTASY IX! Garnet and Zidane are the best couple in video game history!"

@zombiepie: My rebuttal is a big fat raspberry.

@zombiepie: Welp, this mirrors my actual homework in that I get penalized for "not enough detail" after writing something up late at night. Whose to say that Chet Dudeguy wouldn't use "vaguely"? Is this response in character? Also, as a side-note, Grandia II runs poorly on my computer, so I'd table the idea of a competing blog series on that game until later.

Response: Naw son, Final Fantasy VIII is the truest to anime because it has emotions, y'know? Because Squall can't express his emotions, everyone around him has to compensate by being super emotional! In addition, Eyes on Me is basically something you'd hear out of these hot anime dub video tapes that I was watching around that time, complete with lyrics that seem a little wonky when translat. Final Fantasy IX is dumb kiddie anime by comparison, like Pokemon or Kiki's Delivery Service. It's not interested in being deep and mature, it's all fun times and kids with monkey tails. It's like comparing grown-up anime like Dragonball Z to kiddie anime like Dragonball.

@zombiepie My dog ate it.

I could literally read these all day though.

xxInTouchWithHisFeelings91xx: Okay, I can only say three things to you, my friend:

1) You wouldn't say that if you had actually played FF VIII. That's okay, even if it's a shame, but maybe don't just scream at me than? (You truly haven't played it, have you? You should give it a try, I'm sure you'd be pleasantly surprised by it.)

2) I actually love Quake III too, honestly who doesn't? But it's a different kind of game to me. It's a game I play when I'm feeling a bit angry and want to let of some steam, while FF VIII is something I play when I want to feel the real emotions, the deeper ones, I'm sure you catch my drift.

3) Just one single reason, on single word (Or maybe two? I'm not sure right now.) why Quake truly isn't as cool as FF VIII (and Squall): Gunblade (Gun Blade?) Rocket launchers are a-okay, but the Gunblade rules over everything.

With this I rest my case. Time to play more FF VIII.

Finding the White SeeD Ship was great. I've done that section twice. The most recent was on my playthrough where I finished the game back in March. I forgot that I used a guide so I immediately knew where it was. If I had to spend time searching the entire world map I would be pissed too. If it makes you feel better, I laughed at your misery.