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.