Part 0: A Long Day’s Journey into Night

There was a time when I gloated. There was a time when I boasted. There was even a time when I questioned the judgement of those that have completed the journey that I trek. Those times are gone…I was wrong. I was so wrong.

I finished Disc Two of Final Fantasy VIII, and I have been changed for the worst. I do not even know who I am anymore.

I was not ready. I was not ready for the “true” craziness of Final Fantasy VIII. My previous bragging of having climbed “Mount Stupid,” was so incredibly shortsighted that I am ashamed to even think about such statements. Now when a user chimes in that things are going to get crazier in Final Fantasy VIII I believe them, but immediately start to experience shivers down my spine. What more can this game do to challenge my sanity? What more can this game do to challenge all notions of good storytelling?

I have begun to develop lingering questions related to if any of this is real or not. Existential questions that rock my own being to its core. All I know is this: I will beat this game.

I MUST beat this game.

Part 56: Side Quest Nonsense – CC Group

Okay, so the next handful of parts of this blog will detail a number of side quests that I played leading up to my completion of Disc 2 of Final Fantasy VIII. Side quests have thus far been the sanest and most straightforward aspect of Final Fantasy VIII terms of my experience with the game. This is also to the game’s detriment in some regards as many of the side quests feel like needless window dressing. Final Fantasy VIII also does a "stellar" job at having its side quests be completely removed from the main game, and as a result downright impossible to locate if you don’t have a guide. If one does decide to engage in these side quests they quickly realize that they are structured in the most annoying manner possible. Case and point the CC Group, where Squall decides to inexplicably stop his quest to defeat a universe-ending sorceress to play Triple Triad a whole bunch. Stop for a minute and think about that last sentence for a bit.

This CC Group side quest is far more time consuming than it has any right to be. Firstly, to start this side quest you have to defeat an unknown number of regular students strewn across the Balamb Garden. Then you have to locate an unnamed NPC that previously would not play Triple Triad with you somewhere on the campus. Now this leads me to a major contrivance that I have with Final Fantasy VIII’s side quests in general. The amount of direction that Final Fantasy VIII provides you when trying to complete side quests is balls rubbish. Take the CC Group for example, not only do you have no idea when you have gained the ability to start the side quest in the first place, but you also have no idea who, as well as where, all of the members of the CC Group are. If you are a sad sap that refuses to use game guides then you are subjected to whole bunch of random wandering about. I will have you know that I have very little tolerance for this kind of game design so I looked up the locations for all of the CC Group members on a game guide. Secondly, once you have defeated enough regular students you have to hope and pray that the CC Group members spawn and appear in the places where they are supposed to be. Take for example this image:

See where I am standing? I know that it may be difficult to understand, but there should be a member of the CC Group standing where I am, but because he hasn’t spawned I had to walk in and out of this zone eight or nine times before he finally did. For those that are still confused understand that in some locations in Final Fantasy VIII NPCs are subjected to a random number generator in deciding if they appear or not, and all I can say about that is: FUCK THAT NOISE!

The game should just have a trigger when I started this whole ordeal of a side quest where all of the CC Group members just reported to their places. Then they would stay there until I beat them. But noooooo that would make too much sense now wouldn’t it? The big payoff here is that you discover that Quistis of all people is the leader of the CC Group. However, the more disconcerting fact about this is how Quistis challenges you to your “climatic” card battle against her. After resting in your dorm she just appears out of nowhere to challenge Squall. Now at this point of the game Squall has essentially become the “general” so to speak of the Balamb Garden, so either Quistis hacked her way into Squall’s dorm, or the Balamb Garden just has shit security. Are you watching this Edea or Seifer? You honestly just need to sneak up on Squall while he is sleeping if you want to kill him!

Payoff: Minimal – I mean sure you get a handful of cards that allow you to build an “awesome” Triple Triad deck but as you will quickly discover I am most likely not playing anymore Triple Triad anytime soon….

So let’s talk about how I RUINED TRIPLE TRIAD FOR MYSELF! Realizing that thatpinguino had not acquired the MiniMog card from the running kid in the Balamb Garden I booked it to that particular NPC and challenged him to a match. He asked to “mix rules,” and not understanding what that meant I went forward with the match. It was at that point that I discovered that I was playing with the “Random” ruleset, but I still went forward with the match to get the MiniMog card. The matched ended and the game announced that the “Random rule had spread.” Again not realizing what this meant I just carried on with my duties, and it was until I went back to Balamb and was working to acquire the “Pandemonium Card” that I discovered how terrible a mistake that I had made.

Needless to say Triple Triad is officially DEAD TO ME FOREVER!

Part 57: Side Quest Nonsense (Again) – Odin and More Questions about the GFs

I just want to state this for the record: I am not going to 100% Final Fantasy VIII. I am in no way going to get all of the Triple Triad Cards, not going to spend any time with Chocobo World, and definitely NOT going to beat the superboss so don’t even ask. That said I am committing to one slight challenge: I’m getting all of the proper GFs. Now yes, Odin is NOT a “proper” GF, but I have been informed that he is worth getting prior to Disc 3 (no spoilers please).

Now I have to be honest with all of you…I used a guide when dealing with this segment of the game. In fact for most of the side quests I used a guide. Firstly, if I hadn’t used a guide I wouldn’t have found any of these side quests in the first place. There are no indicators, in-game announcements, or dialogue to suggest that any of these side quest locations exist in the first place. In fact how the fuck am I supposed to know where to go anywhere in this game. There are so many cases where the Final Fantasy VIII mentions a location in big Legend of Zelda “you ought to know this font,” but then follows this up with absolutely no direction whatsoever. Despite having one of the most dense menu systems that I have ever seen, Final Fantasy VIII lacks any form of a mission log.

Anyways, the Centra Ruins were crazy to do without a guide, but needlessly asinine with one, so pick your poison. The only thing I really want to mention about the ruins themselves is that pushing glowing orbs, and picking up the red orbs and putting them in the statues REEKS of Myst as well as 90s era PC adventure games. The most impressive part of all of this is how Odin has managed to develop the ability to shape fire into numbers that you can input into a code in order to unlock the chamber where he resides.

Payoff: 100% Yes! This leads us to the penultimate phase of “Operation: Break This Game!” Odin does not attack you until the timer that you started when entering the Centra Ruins in the very beginning reaches zero, and at that point he just kills your entire party. By the time I had reached Odin, and thanks to thatpinguino junctioning Quake to all of my attack junctions, I was able to dispatch Odin in about two to three minutes. So you might be wondering what I was doing for the extra ten to twelve minutes that I had at my disposal, and the answer to that is: drawing the “Triple” spell. Now junctioning “Triple” to everyone’s attack junction had enormous results; Squall’s attack reached 186, and everyone else has reached between 170 to 180. Needless to say, Odin was the last battle that I had that took me over two minutes to complete. Every battle that I experienced from that point forward, including the boss battles of Disc 2, were absolutely inconsequential.

Anyways I still have a ton of questions about what all of these GFs are. Not only are they named after Eastern and Western deities, but they continue to show the ability to communicate to the characters. So when I “acquire” them…am I essentially enslaving them? Or is this like Pokémon? Is Squall trafficking GFs? Do GFs have rights? So the manual suggested that all of the monsters from the random encounters come from the moon…is that the case with the GFs? Are the GFs in this world just lost? Is there some sort of unknown GF civilization where they live happily? Where are the GFs going when I acquire them? If they go into the Squall’s head for example…how is that possible? How does a material creature turn into an immaterial apparition? Why am I asking these questions?

Part 58: Side Quest Nonsense – Fuck the Tonberry King

Getting the Tonberry King fucking sucks. I dare anyone to defend this "side quest," and tell me that they had any amount of fun fighting the Tonberries twenty times and waiting for the Tonberry King to spawn. I double dog dare you!

Not only do you have to fight the Tonberries twenty times, but the way that the Tonberries attack you suggests that whoever made this “mission” is a horrible troll. Firstly, the Tonberries don’t attack you in the traditional sense. Instead, they slowly and ominously walk closer and closer to your party. Once the Tonberry reaches any given party member it proceeds to use its knife to KILL THAT PARTY MEMBER IN ONE HIT! Fucking creepy, right? However, what is far more annoying is the main attack for the Tonberries as they trudge towards your party, that attack being “Everyone's Grudge,” which I believe further proves my point that Square Enix’s Final Fantasy VIII programming team was filled with trolls. Everyone's Grudge does damage, to the attacker that has done the greatest amount of damage to the Tonberry, based on how many enemies that character has slain. Now if you are running with your “A Team,” this essentially makes Everyone's Grudge an instant kill. Did I also mention that Tonberries are giant walking damage sponges? Even with my hilariously overpowered party, each individual Tonberry felt like an absolute SLOG!

Just getting the Tonberry King to spawn took me at least forty to fifty minutes. Luckily, the Tonberry King was WAY EASIER than fighting the regular Tonberries. That or I was just incredibly lucky with my encounter with the Tonberry King. When the Tonberry King finally spawned Irvine AND Squall were able to shoot off their Limit Breaks. Once those two salvos were done the Tonberry King went down for the count and apologized for attacking me…despite the fact that he only appeared to defend his own kind after I had murder twenty of his own people. I'm not exactly seeing how Squall and company are the sympathetic figures in this confrontation.

Payoff: Debatable – I'm actually torn on this. The Tonberry King GF has actual cool abilities, but you have to go through an hour of bullshit to get access to those abilities. With the Tonberry King you can seriously fuck up the game by not only leveling down difficult enemies, but also by gaining access to the best buyable items in the entire game. HOWEVER, why would you EVER hide these abilities behind a FUCKING SLOG LIKE THIS? This is something that you should be able to do after you reach level fifteen on a random party member. This shouldn’t be hidden like this. I deserve the cool items without having to deal with Tonberry battles. IN OTHER WORDS THIS GAME WAS DESIGNED BY ASSHOLES!

Part 59: Side Quest Nonsense that Doesn’t Make Any Sense – Winhill Village

I found this to be the “least annoying” side quest in Final Fantasy VIII thus far, though it was still a little bit annoying. For example, you need to have either Quistis or Irvine in your party in order to “engage” a quest critical moment, but the game doesn't tell you this information at any point. So here I was with Squall, Rinoa, and Zell…just running around in circles for twenty minutes thinking that my game broke. That right there is what I like to call a “dick move.”

Anyways, once you get the first piece to a broken vase you go on this fetch quest, which PLAGUE a vast majority of the side quests in Final Fantasy VIII by the way, to collect all of the pieces. However, while attempting to complete this you are visited by the ghost of Raine, and quickly discover from your adventures and interacting with the other villagers, that Raine met a premature end.

Payoff – Uh I guess. You don't really gain any interesting items or stuff as a result of going through Winhill, but it was interesting to learn more about Raine, Ellone, and Laguna. I just wished that the information dump had been more substantial than "Raine grew flowers," "Raine died," and "Ellone and Laguna disappeared."

Part 60: Side Quest Nonsense (OH GOD WHY AM I DOING THIS?!?!) – Shumi Village

Oh God…why did I do this entire side quest? Oh God…what have I done with my life? Why am I subjecting myself to this?

The Shumi Village is in the middle of nowhere, and once again I question how anyone on their own time would be able to find this location with the "Flying Porpoise" (aka the Garden). Alright so let’s talk about what I THOUGHT this mission was going to entail first. I thought that Squall and company would confront the leader of the Shumis, and ask him what NORG’s deal was and why he was an evil bastard to well...everyone. Then the Shumi leader would ask me to locate all of the Shumis that have left their village and try to convince them to return to the village in order to prevent further harm to the outside world. Whilst on this journey Squall and company discover how and why the Shumi Civilization is in decline and deteriorating. Sounds kind of interesting, right?

Instead, there are two phases to the Shumi quest line. The first, and I am NOT bullshitting you here, involves you collecting stones to put on a statue of Laguna. Yup…we are doing ANOTHER fetch quest, but this time we are creating a statue to a person that we have never met, and have no idea why he’s important. This is what my life has come to now…completing fetch quests. I thought my years of college would amount to so…so much more than this.

This mission just sucked. It sucks because the locations for the stones lack any logical consistency. The game tells you that the “Specialist” will provide you with hints as to where you can find the stones, but instead he just says shit like this:

Phase two involves you going on this unceremonious journey back to Fisherman’s Horizon to locate the “Grease Monkey” in an effort to convince the “Artisan” Shumi to help out with making the statue. Oh by the way, it’s a fetch quest to locate a robotic toy Moomba. I should however mention that there is the revelation that most Shumis turn into Moombas when they get older, and that's kind of fucked up I guess. Then for all of your efforts you get an armband that allows you to do a better form of Strength Defense Junction…which is cool I guess?

Payoff – Ehhhhh. One could argue that the reward for doing this quest has little to do with material gains, and more to do with story gains. You discover the Shumi Civilization and their acceptance of “destiny.” You also discover that Laguna is a character that encountered the Shumi in a difficult journey to save Ellone after she was kidnapped. These plot points are actually interesting and help develop the world of Final Fantasy, but yet again I question how the game goes about presenting this information. You as the player have to travel to an arctic tundra, in the middle nowhere, and complete a series of haphazard fetch quests in order to gain this knowledge about your surroundings. How in any way is this intuitive, or even good design?

Part 61: Please Stop the Side Quests……I Hate Chocobos

This is what my life has come to. I’m pressing the “S,” "X," and “C” buttons on my keyboard in hopes of catching chocobos. This all started when I ventured into this forest to discover a young boy called “Chocoboy.” How this orphaned child has been surviving with nothing but a gaggle of giant birds is beyond me. I mean does he eat the Chocobos? Where are his real parents?

I’m not lying about the interactivity regarding the Chocobo Forests. All you do when you enter the Chocobo Forests in Final Fantasy VIII is hit the “S,” "X," and “C” keys to make all of the baby Chocobos appear. Then there needs to be only one baby Chocobo on the screen…because “reasons.” Once you get that accomplished, the mother Chocobo appears and you have it dig for treasure…but you have no idea where the treasure is so you just aimlessly run around in circles mashing on buttons. Even if you already know where the treasure is you have to mash the buttons eight or nine times just to get the mother Chocobo to dig the treasure up. Have I riveted you yet? Well guess what the treasure is? It’s a bunch of single-use stones that allow you to use magic spells while in combat! That and you get to use “Gysahl Greens” in order to summon “Boko,” the protagonist of Chocobo World!

Oh and I played Chocobo World for like thirty seconds, and boy was it fun! During my time Boko just walked for like fifteen second and then fell asleep despite not having encountered any enemies or items. I thought about waking the fucker up, but then I realized what I was doing with my life, and just gave up. In fact…I’m never doing anything related to the Chocobo Forests ever again. Even the novelty of seeing Squall ride a Chocobo could not convince me that repeating this process six or seven more times would be worth it. Again…you just get a handful of one-use stones which allow you to use magic in combat, WHICH I HAVE ALREADY COMPLETELY BROKEN!

Payoff: ZERO – IF ANY OF YOU HAVE OPINIONS REGARDING WHETHER OR NOT I SHOULD PLAY MORE OF CHOCOBO WORLD PLEASE SEND SUCH INPUT TO IDONTGIVEAFUCK@COMCAST.NET

Part 62: The Game Spoils ANOTHER Major Plot Point

On my last blog someone mentioned that I needed to “discover” Selphie’s hidden blog post where she posts updates related to major plot points in the story. SURPRISE, Selphie knowns how to program a website in PERL!

Can we talk about how Selphie hacked her blog onto the school’s computer terminals? If Selphie leaves SeeD or Garden can future students read her blogs? Why does this school allow Selphie to take up space on its computer system to promote her activities? Also, why is Selphie surprisingly reigned in when posting on her blog, but batshit insane when you meet her in person?

Anyways, whoever told me to look this up must have forgotten that doing this before the end of Disc 2 spoils a major plot point. The spoiler in question being this which I will now post without comment:

Part 63: Liberating Balamb

Alright it is time to get back to the main story of Final Fantasy VIII! Following their little concert Squall and company indicated that they wished to return to Balamb in hopes of freeing it from the control of the G-Forces and Seifer.

Liberating a village from its oppressors sounds awesome. However, this act of heroism is completely sabotaged by Final Fantasy VIII’s zany logic. So without further ado let’s break out the tables and create a guide on how to liberate an occupied city, according to Final Fantasy VIII:

Steps to Liberating a City	Visual Evidence
Step #1: Pilot your giant floating porpoise like island to the occupied city; in this case Balamb. Don’t worry about anyone noticing it this giant flying island, because they won’t.
Step #2: Just walk up to the front entrance of the occupied city, and do not worry about being identified by any of the guards. Despite the fact that you are essentially the most wanted people right now for attempting to assassinate the evil universe-ending sorceress, none of the guards that are taking orders from the aforementioned universe-ending sorceress know what you look like.
Step #3: Relax at Zell’s house, or visit anyone that you know that may be living in the occupied city. Hey despite the fact that the universe is at risk of being obliterated why not just take some time off to chat with some friends in whatever city you are in?
Step #4: Just walk right up to where the commander(s) of the occupation are located. Don’t worry about the security at this incredibly important location shooting you, or getting freaked out by your gigantic gunblade…because they won’t.
Step #5: Visit Zell’s room and have a completely out of place slapstick comedy scene. I cannot preface enough how this may well be the most important part of the entire guide. I could have made a forty-five point guide on how to defeat an evil occupation in your town, and all of the points could have just been this. If you cannot complete Step #5 of this guide…you might as well as just give up and not even bother. Remember how we DID NOT liberate Timber from earlier? Well this is why!
Step #6: Trace the steps of the people in charge of the occupation. Don’t worry about anyone getting suspicious of your activities, or possible gunblades in your possession, because like before they won’t. Most likely you will acquire the scent of, or a tangential smell from, the commander which leads us to....
Step #7: Locate a bloodhound to trace the smell of the commander of the occupation. Even if you are living in a science fiction world, where there are giant tanks and mech-suits, dogs are still the most reliable way to track down people that you are trying to find.
Step #8: Run after the commander and fight him in front of the occupation's headquarters. Don’t worry about the fight because you should already have “Triple” junctioned to “Attack.” “Quake,” and “Water” are also acceptable.
Step #9: Battle any parts of the occupation that still exists. *Also, remember to “Draw” Pandemonium from the lady with the eye patch.
Step #10: Watch the occupation just go away. Do not worry about the occupation calling in for reinforcements, or sending soldiers to infiltrate you because they will not. Don’t even worry about GPS or tracking devices being placed on your giant floating island because they won’t do that either. In fact…don’t even worry about the occupation in the first place because the army most likely is run by dipshits in the first place!

Did you get all of that? Well good, because not only do you now have the ability to lead your own insurrections, but you are also now on the NSA’s database for knowing such sensitive information.

Part 64: Visiting Trabia (i.e. the Game Flip-Flops on Depicting Selphie as a Human Being with Emotions and Human-like Behaviors)

After liberating Balamb Selphie is the one to propose that the garden make the long trek to visit what can only be assumed to be the smoldering ashes of the Trabia Garden. The same Garden which is responsible for “creating” Selphie in the first place. Now as the title may suggest this sequence constantly flip-flops in regards to Selphie’s characterization. This is a shame because the game essentially blows its last possible chance at making Selphie a character worth learning more about. For example, there is an incredibly touching scene where Selphie is at the grave sites of her now dead friends. However, that specific scene is then followed up with Selphie encouraging Squall to play basketball, as well as Selphie having fun conversations with her friends that are still alive. This is essentially the verbatim definition of "cognitive dissonance." If you are trying to convey the emotions of "grief" and "tragedy," you cannot have a scene like this:

Followed up with this:

I get that the intent was to both characterize Selphie’s grief whilst also maintaining her bubbly attitude, but by doing this we experience that “character stagnation” that I have been so apt to criticize from earlier portions of the game. The writers either should have had Selphie experience an emotional breakdown while viewing the ruins of her former home, OR doubled down on her bubbly manic pixie dream girl attitude as being a defense mechanism when confronted with the dark realities of life. By trying to have both at the same time, the game contradicts itself, and I as the player completely fail to understand or sympathize with what Selphie is feeling. Just as you wouldn’t mix ice and fire or heavy metal and classical music; you should NEVER mix two entirely different and contradictory emotional states within the same sequence. That’s just “Storytelling 101.”

Part 65: The Orphanage or: AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

All right everyone, let’s now deal with the elephant in room for a blog about the end of Disc 2 of Final Fantasy VIII…we need to discuss Irvine’s speech about “the orphanage.” Now before we do let me just use this opportunity to excuse anyone who has been reading this blog series that has yet to actually play Final Fantasy VIII.

Now for those of you that have been reading this blog, but have never actually played Final Fantasy VIII you have been warned that from this point forward the biggest (shit everyone, I sure hope it is) plot twist in Final Fantasy VIII will be spoiled. You have been warned, and honestly it’s something that you should experience yourself before reading about it by someone else.

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Let me first describe how I physically reacted to this plot twist. So here I was just listening to Irvine spin his little tale about him being an orphan when this happened:

Now when I first saw this screen I immediately proceeded to pause the game. I then stood up, and walked outside of my apartment. At that point, I decided to have a thirty-minute walk around my neighborhood, before even thinking about coming back to my laptop. Once I was done with my walk I trudged up to my apartment door and took a deep breath before opening it. I sat down in front of my laptop and then unpaused the game to see the same screen. It was at that point that I just accepted that this was real, and was in fact happening. Ten seconds after that I was greet by this screen:

The game then just doubled down on me:

Boy this can’t get any worse can it? Oh shit it did:

I don’t even know where to begin. For as open minded as I may be…I have limits. This revelation exceeds my limits.

So let me get this straight about you Final Fantasy VIII; you have a cast of six people. Of those six people four of them lack the ability to remember their childhood, and five of them were raised in the same orphanage. The one of them that was an orphan, but does remember the past, was able to keep that a secret to the other orphans for…weeks or even months without telling or confronting anyone about it. Now one of the problems I have with this is that Squall, Quistis, Zell, and Selphie forgot their memories, but the cure was to have Irvine do a speech…how does that even work? If it was “real” memory loss wouldn’t they have just looked at Irvine funny, then ask him to shut up because they have no idea what he is talking about? How does one person describing a location all of the sudden cure decades worth of memory loss?

Wait let’s go back to that point…once Selphie and Quistis are prompted by Irivine they suddenly realize that they use to live together. Why didn’t seeing Irvine for the first time result in a wave of previously forgotten memories from their childhood? What makes the cowboy person talking so special? Is he secretly Rasputin? Why did it take Zell and Squall a little bit longer to remember that they were also in the orphanage? Then Squall is revealed to be Ellone’s younger brother…and all I can say about that is “say whaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?” How do you forget that you had a sister? How is that even possible? Ellone was in the same garden as Squall so did she just passively observe Squall for the next eight or nine years as he grew up without ever expressing her relationship with him? Is Ellone secretly GOD?

Wait a minute…so Irvine isn’t a SeeD? Then why the fuck would the Headmaster of the Galbadian Garden trust him with an important assassination mission that would determine the fate of the world? Shouldn’t the headmaster have sent another, more experienced, student to fill the role of “sharpshooter” for that mission? Did the headmaster secretly know Irvine’s relationship with Squall and his entourage? How was it possible that the one sharpshooter from a completely different Garden happened to get teamed up with his former orphan mates? (Huh “Orphan Mates…you could make a Saturday morning cartoon show called that.”)

Going from that note about the cast being orphans…are all of the SeeDs orphans? Are Nida and Xu also orphans? If we put them in the same room as Irvine would they have some sort of revelatory experience about their childhood as well? Are all of the SeeDs in the Balamb Garden subjected to the same unknown memory loss effects? Did an actual human being write this story?

Part 66: OH MY GOD IT WON’T STOP PLEASE MAKE IT STOP!

So this just happened, and I just have this strong desire to punch whoever wrote this in the face…and keep punching:

Are you fucking serious Quistis? You saw Rinoa, and your first reaction was to just give up on your romantic feelings related to Squall just right there on the spot? Despite the fact that Squall never once expressed a physical or emotional attraction to Rinoa? Despite the fact that Squall never once treated Rinoa with much care or respect? Or despite the fact that Squall never so much as viewed Rinoa as being anything more than a massive nuisance? So you just gave up…despite all of that? That doesn’t make any sense whatsoever! Why would any sane person come to that conclusion? I’m sorry Quistis did you read the script?

As seen above, the game eventually explains that Quistis had the desire to fill the role of Squall’s missing sister in his life. That’s not creepy at all. So when Quistis was like seven she already developed a maternal instinct related towards Squall? How? Why? Like wouldn’t she still be playing with toys or being a kid? I don’t ever remember having any female friends when I was a kid that explicitly wanted to become someone’s sister or mother figure for their entire life…because that would be FUCKING CREEPY!

So it now appears that Quistis is just being written off into oblivion. Bye bye Quistis! You could have been a contender, you could have been somebody! Worse yet this means that the game is going to hit hard and furious when it comes to Squall’s and Rinoa’s relationship pretty soon. OH MY GOD this relationship between Squall and Rinoa is honestly being SPOON FED BY FORCE down my throat!

PART 67: OH GOD IT’S ONLY GETTING WORSE!

So the game’s justification for all of this “plot by convenience” is….drum roll please….this revelation:

So if that is the case does this mean that Squall has completely forgotten the lava cave of doom from the first scene in the game? I mean when I first gained control of Squall at the very beginning of the game he didn't have any GFs. In fact, Quistis was the one that gave him Shiva and Quetzalcoatl in preparation of the lava cave of doom. Did Squall have perfect memory before that, and could he still remember his childhood before then? Did he experiment with GFs before he became a SeeD? If Squall did, how did a child Squall get access to a GF by himself? Related to that, what happened to those GFs? Did Squall just forget them? How do you forget a GF? I mean they are talking monsters that all of the sudden become summons! How much time needs to pass before the GFs start to destroy your memories? If I hold onto a GF for a couple of minutes am I still fine, whereas if I hold onto a GF for hours I start to forget the color of my socks and underwear? I mean Rinoa has been doing fine since joining the party...did she already forget who her father is?

At this point Selphie reveals that despite the fact that she grew up in the Trabia Garden, which prohibited the use of GFs, that she experimented with a GF when she was kid…but she forgot it because it was a long time ago. So what happened to that GF? Is it dead, or stuck in some sort of purgatory for forgotten GFs? Is there a foster home for forgotten GFs? How did Selphie as a child defeat a monster that could be converted into a GF by herself? In the world of Final Fantasy VIII are children just running about killing horrible monsters on their free-time? Thus far all of the GFs in Final Fantasy VIII have been these giant monsters or boss battles, so how did a baby Selphie beat one of those by herself? Can the regular monsters that you fight in random encounters be turned into a GF? WHY CAN'T I DO THAT NOW?

Okay so the GFs destroy memories … how? Don’t give me that shit about how you have a finite amount of space in your brain for long term memories, because that’s a crock of shit. Knowing my grandmother’s clam chowder recipe doesn’t jeopardize my memory of the Quadratic Equation! So what's the difference? Do GFs have some sort of chemical reaction to your brain? How does an immaterial object, like a GF, destroy material memories in your physical brain? In fact how does a physical creature get converted into immaterial memories?

So take Squall for example. How do you go from “I have a sister named Ellone,” to “I don’t have any relatives?” If you are Squall growing up don’t you at some point just stop and wonder who your parents are? Wouldn't ANY normal human being stop for a minute and wonder how they got here if they didn't already know? Wouldn’t asking yourself these questions results in a flood of fragmented, but still existent memories? Wouldn't the same sort of thing happen to Quistis, Zell, or Selphie at some point in their lives? Wouldn't you begin to realize that you are losing grasp of your past memories and try to fight back against memory loss? I’m losing my grasp of reality just typing all of this shit.

Even then...let's commit to the idea that you do indeed have a finite amount of space in your brain for memories. If that is true, and GFs take up that space, then the lose of memories would be permanent because they would permanently take over the space of old memories. So Irvine attempting to tell his tale wouldn't work, and thus this scene cannot logically happen in that scenario. THIS GAME IS MAKING UP ITS OWN SCIENCE SOMEONE CALL STEVEN NOVELLA!

I guess you can mention that Squall was starting to have flashbacks to when he was a child after his first trip to the Laguna World. Okay, but why would traveling to an alternate timeline to see and witness the experiences of someone you have no idea who they are start jolting your memories? Wouldn't you have to first experience something that you kind of remember before the flashbacks start to surface? Squall has thus far shown no evidence of having ever seen Laguna in person, so what justification is there that this starts to inspire him to re-experience his past? Is the sandman fucking with his sleeping pills? Did someone put LSD in Squall’s milk? Will the story ever make sense again?

Part 68: OH GOD IT GOT WORSE…AGAIN

Guess who the matron of the orphanage that Squall, Quistis, Zell, Selphie, and Irvine went to was? Well here’s the answer:

So the matron is/was Edea. She must have used a GF at some point because I don't think she remembers who Squall is. In fact, in a future battle you draw a GF from her. Does that mean that when she recruited Seifer to be her lackey that she didn't remember who he was? Did the Alexander GF fuck up her memories of the past, and she has no idea who Seifer is, and by pure chance she just recruited him? What about all of the other people and bosses that I drew GFs from earlier? Does eye patch lady not remember what she had for breakfast? Minutes ago I drew the Pandemonium GF from her, but where the fuck did that come from? How did she acquire that GF? Alternatively, does Edea have some superpowers to avoid the memory loss induced by GF use?

As I type this I'm starting to feel dizzy and my face feels numb. Is that normal? Do I need to go to the hospital? If I die of an aneurism as a result of this game can I sue SquareEnix?

Part 69: To BATTLE!!! And I Over Think the Game Again

It’s over, OH GOD it’s all over. That nightmare of a plot twist is finally behind us, but forever haunting Final Fantasy VIII from this point forward. Now the game wants you to find the orphanage, but yet again doesn’t tell you where to look. So you as the player are just aimlessly exploring the continents until you find it. Which I guess is a good thing because it allows for the game’s plot twist to settle down in your brain and possibly induce an aneurism.

Once you reach the orphanage you are immediately confronted by Seifer who starts attacking Squall instead of searching for Ellone…because reasons. I know that I have mentioned this opinion before, but it is worth mentioning again, I think the CG cutscenes in this game have held up well. In this case the garden battle is an awe inspiring and climatic battle that uses its cutscenes well and appropriately. When the game occasionally cuts to moments where you witness the Balamb Garden being wrecked by Seifer you cannot help but lose your breath. My only complaint about the CG in Final Fantasy VIII stems from how the game transitions back to the in-game experience. Oftentimes there will be a CG background with the in-game character being controlled as normal in the foreground. Scenes like these are incredibly awkward, but a minor issue in the grand scheme of things, because the set pieces are so awesome.

Now the problem that I have with this set piece is how the characters react to their dire situation. All of the sudden Squall has developed the qualities of a confident and skilled commander. Another issue that I have is how all of the students indicate that they look up to Squall. Despite the fact that the extent of Squall’s relationship with the students of the Balamb Garden in my game thus far involved him beating them all horribly at Triple Triad. On top of that the game constantly barrages you with the responsibilities of being a leader, despite the fact that these responsibilities are a farce. Like take preparing the garden for battle for example:

So Seifer orders an army of soldiers to mount themselves on rocket powered motorcycles that launch themselves into the Balamb Garden. Oh, I am not joking about that:

Then he sends mech-paratroopers:

Now while all of this is happening Squall’s party breaks apart and forms teams at a breakneck speed. The most important pairing is when Zell, Selphie, and Rinoa confront the motorcycle soldiers at the back entrance which apparently does not have a door that can be closed. You get there, and the flooring crumbles leaving Rinoa hanging precariously on a ledge. Now here is where I once again overthought Final Fantasy VIII. I see this and immediately thought that I had to save Rinoa with Zell and Selphie. So I frantically spent like twenty minutes exploring the first couple of screens for items to use to rescue Rinoa. I mean even a professional body builder only has so much upper body strength.

Needless to say I got nowhere and felt hopelessly lost in the game. So what was the answer? Leaving Rinoa behind to convince Squall to rescue her instead by himself. I should mention that Squall is in the front gate of the garden and a half a dozen screens away from Rinoa. So not having Zell and Selphie rescue her makes ABSOLUTELY ZERO SENSE! Now I know what you are going to say, because the game barraged me with this answer as well, “Something something destiny…something something fate.” Whatever, at this point I just know that once the rescue is done Squall and Rinoa are going to have some forced ham-fisted relationship scene. Fuck my life….

Part 70: I Play the Worst Fighting Game Ever Made

As Squall runs to Rinoa’s rescue he is attacked by one of the paratroopers in a mech-suit that inexplicably bursts from a door to nowhere. In order to beat said paratrooper you first must fight against Final Fantasy VIII’s adventure game logic. By that I mean you have to interact with the door that you are pressed against, and then press a button that opens an emergency door that blows both Squall and the paratrooper outside. This alone took me two tries to figure out, but luckily the designers realized that this might be a hard part in the game so they put a quick reload to this exact sequence if you meet a premature end during it…which I think means the developers realized that this scene sucked.

Once you get through the bad adventure game you have to deal with what I can only describe as the “worst fighting game that I have ever played.” Which means that it is yet another edition of “ZombiePie complains about Final Fantasy VIII’s PC controls!” Oh, I’m guessing that you thought we had seen the last of me complaining about the PC controls! Well, you were sadly mistaken, and overestimated the men and women in charge of this PC port! Anyways here’s what the PC controls for this one sequence are:

So we have “C” for punch, “S” for block, “X” for kick, and “V” for super attacks. Now I want you to place your choice of fingers on each of these buttons on your keyboard and tell me how that feels. If you answered “painful” you most likely are using one hand like I did, and if you said “awkward, but not painful” you are most likely using two hands like I should have. So you whale on this enemy like a crazy person and block when the enemy attacks you. Sounds simple, right? Well the enemy also attacks you during dynamic camera changes and it is downright impossible to judge if you should attack or block during these changes. Like can you tell me what’s going on here?

If you answered “he’s punching Squall in the face and you should be blocking,” well you know more than I did at the time. This sequence is just downright bad, and the best way to beat it is to just brute force your way through it, which is always a sign that something went horribly wrong with the design of a game segment.

Part 71: Love on a Battlefield…While People are Dying for Me

Now that Quistis is essentially “out of the picture” the game decides that it is yet again appropriate to have Squall and Rinoa flirting with each other. Although by “each other,” I should really just say that it’s Rinoa trying to get Squall to express more than two emotions towards her. I want to just point out that there’s a war happening and hundreds of people are fighting as this is happening. People are DYING because of Squall and he just stops…to talk to Rinoa for five minutes. That’s a great way to honor the men and women who are dying for you captain!

I get what the game is trying to do here. By having Rinoa possess something important to Squall, he is forced to let his guard down, and share information about himself that he would not normally share with other people. That type of scene makes sense…anywhere besides a battlefield where people are dying by the dozens! Now the item that Rinoa possess is a ring with an emblem of his apparent favorite animal, the lion, which is also emblazoned on his gunblade. Whatever…at this point it is pointless to complain about Squall being set up with Rinoa because you know it is going to happen as all arrows now point to Rinoa. The main reason why I continue to discuss how off-putting this relationship is stems from the fact that this relationship only works because the script demands that it work. If Rinoa and Squall were real people they would be at wits end and hate each other’s guts. Squall’s introverted nature, while not completely incapable of fostering long term relationships, is too much of a clash against Rinoa’s frothing optimism and naivety.

Now I can almost predict that someone is going to chime in that “opposites attract,” but that is beside the point. Those that form relationships with people that are their “opposites” come to have a mutual respect for one another, and accept their partner’s differences for what they are. Rinoa makes it a constant battle to permanently change Squall for what she believes to be a better version of Squall. That’s not how relationships work! Introverts shouldn't be forced to change their personalities! They should be accepted for who they, and viewed as being no different from anyone else. Squall on the other hand makes no effort, besides the story critical points that the writers deliberately added, to convey a sincere care or interest in Rinoa. Why does Rinoa continue to try ferment a relationship with Squall if she constantly gets rebuffed for her efforts? The only answer that I can come up with is that the writers wanted her to, and that my dear reader is a sad and depressing answer. Everything about this relationship does not work.

If you need more evidence of everything that I am talking about then just look at this scene from the game:

Part 72: Disc 2 Ends in a Chorus of Wet Farts

Disc 1 of Final Fantasy VIII still stands as one of my all-time favorite video game conclusions. Disc 2 on the other hand, welllet’s just say that the ass band will play a song of farts to celebrate its failure. Things start out poor right from the get go. Once Squall and company are in the Seifer controlled Galbadian Garden they quickly discovered that all of the doors have been locked. This forces the party to go a meandering quest to locate three key cards that will unlock all of the doors that impede their progress. The player acquires these cards from the few remaining students in the Garden who were allowed to be here, because reasons.

For those that are wondering I did in fact confront Cerberus, which can be found in the center of the Garden. Now I would like to say that Final Fantasy VIII’s rendition of Cerberus is one of the worst renditions of the mythical beast that I have ever seen. I mean look at this thing…it looks like a damned Pokémon!

With Cerberus acquired, my progress of acquiring every single GF is still well under way, and for those that have played Final Fantasy VIII before rest assured that Cerberus is indeed leveling up Speed-Junction. From this point you pretty much just waltz to Seifer and Edea. Luckily, there is a hilarious placed save-point right beside Seifer and Edea that you can use before fighting them.

As I set up my junctions, and save my game, Seifer and Edea are just watching me in anticipation while they do nothing. During the various timed missions the game establishes that time passes while you are in the menu system, so that essentially means that Seifer and Edea are just standing there waiting for me to get my shit together. Well uhhh…this is awkward.

So I get to the climatic final battle with Seifer and Edea and…I blow through both of them in about two minutes. No joke Irvine got his Limit Break at the very beginning of the battle with Seifer and just wasted him in the very first attack. I jammed at the attack button so much that I started to get “zeros,” and not realizing that this meant that Seifer was dead I just kept jamming on it even faster thinking that each zero signified a miss. So when that was done Edea just teleported away to a different location. I actually went to the slumped over Seifer and interacted with him thinking that doing so would engage some sort of redemptive arc for him….NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOPE!

Anyways the game gets back on track, albeit temporarily, by having Edea breaking through a pane of glass and having the opportunity to convey some good old fashion evil gloating. I should also mention that Edea also has some really awesome music while she does this.

When the battle starts lo and behold the prodigal son, Seifer, has returned. Being the asshole that I am I once again had Irvine Limit Break on his ass. I don’t know if it is because I have broken the combat in this game, but this battle was a lot easier than the previous battle with Edea. Not only is she obsessed with status ailment attacks but I’m doing a ton of damage to absolve me of any risk of losing the battle. Now I did draw the GF “Alexander” from Edea, and I have been informed that the Alexander summon is awesome, and the character itself is a recurring character in the Final Fantasy franchise. I’d like to see if any of that is true by people who know more than a bucket full of spit about the Final Fantasy franchise.

Now the concluding scene following this battle is what causes me to describe the ending of Disc 2 a “chorus of wet farts that serenade me as I crawl into the fetal position.” Edea essentially gets the crazy knocked out of her and begins acting like the Matron of the orphanage as if nothing has ever happened. Maybe a GF corrupted her and turned her into an evil sorceress? I honestly am punting in the dark on this one.

Worse is that Rinoa has a confusing moment with Seifer where she picks him up and cradles him. The screen during this sequence is smeared with this disorienting light bloom effect, and after her moment with Seifer, Rinoa just passes out.

Then the game does a smash cut to black and just ends.

Well if the game isn't going to put any effort into its conclusion then I won't either! I'll see you all for the next episode!