Final Fantasy VIII - Part Twenty-One
Posted on 11/29/2010 by Trambapoline
Well, Disc 4 certainly lasted a while, huh?
I originally thought it'd take at least four/five entries to work my way through it, but apparently I overestimated just how much content it had. Oh well. I'll do a big write up of Disc 4, and the game in general, at the end of this here post. As for now...
Last chance, Squall. Do you want to fight the destroyer of all time, or become a simple mechanic in Balamb?
No?
Well, okay, just thought I'd make sure.
Let's get this shit wrapped up!
Well, well, well, look who's decided to finally show their damn face?
It's only been, what, 35 hours?
Yup. That's them.
Ultimecia: Sorceress from the future! Destroyer of all time and space! Vocabulary of a Pokemon!
Oh great, she suffers from Mortal Kombat Syndrome...
mo' liek your FACE disgusts me. Swish!
Wait.. I thought we already did Time Compression? That's how we got here!
Okay, so.. we have still stop TC from happening, despite the fact that it already has, and we're in a place where the Past/Present/Future are combined, making most usages of tense meaningless, except for the part where it apparently also hasn't happened, and therefor we have to stop the starting of--Oh no, I've gone cross-eyed...
So, we'd be alive then?
Kinky!
Please be Zell, please be Zell, please be Zell, please be Zell, please be Zell, please be Zell, please be Zell!
Right. This is it!
ULTIMECIA MUST BE STOPPED
NO MATTER THE COST
GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY PARTY!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Aw yeah, Team Awesome's all up in this bitch!
SHAZAM!
Bitch, please. Bring it on!
o shi-
This could be bad...
Eh, I've kicked the arse of everything else in this game. What's the worse this little pansy could d-
OwOwOwOwOwOwOwOwOwOwOwOwOwOwOw!
Right. That's it, punk!
WE NEED GFZORD POWER, NOW!
WYRMKING!
HELLHOUND!
SERPENT!
ICE WENCH!
SHITHEAD!
MEGAZORD, BATTLE MODE!
BLAMMO!
Time to finish this little pansy off!
*FWOOOOSH*
wut
Told ya it'd be worth it!
JUNCTIONING DOES NOT WORK THAT WAY!
Not that it'll do you much good anyway.
Good lord, that's the second largest laser-based phallic tower I've ever seen!
I bet you're regretting this whole "Man, FUCK SeeD!" notion now, aren't ya?
No? Well, you're about to!
Do your thing, Hotness!
Mwahahahahahahahahaha!
BOOM! HEADSHOT
Ready to call it quits yet?
Y.. Yeah, you probably are.
Well, you can't say I didn't warn ya!
That was a lot of fun! So, what happens now that we've defeated the wicked wit-
Uh-oh...
What the fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck?!
BUT IT ALREADY HAS
Oh, you wanna rumble, do you?!
Suits me just fine. I've been throwing your sorry arse across this arena for the past three fights!
One more won't stop me!
This is Apocalypse, which is a Spell that can only be Drawn from Ultimecia.
I think we're a bit... beyond Drawing spells, however.
She also has an attack called Hell's Judgement.
That was cute, Ultimecia. Now let me show you how a real fighter does it!
Let's see you top that, bitch!
Not that you could, as I have 10 Holy Wars to use. Just to add insult to, well, insult.
Q____Q
Hey, Ultimecia?
PISS OFF!
And that's how it's done!
God, I hope so.
Fall into a time what? How would that even work?!
No, that's your hand, silly!
In the only place that's as DARK AS YOUR SOUL ;___;
Hello, Other!Hotness. How did I get here?
Ah, crap.
No, the janitor, stupid.
Well then, we must not let her do that! I'm not letting this crap repeat over and over for the rest of eternity.
NO YOU WON'T
Look, I'll just stab her with the pointy end of this here sharp-stick. That oughta do the trick~
DID YOU EVEN LISTEN TO ME?!
Ohhhhh, I get it! Edea got the idea of SeeD and Garden from Future!Squall. Even though that raises the paradox of where the fuck did the idea come from in the first place, if both got it from the other. But you know what? Compared to all the shit I just went though, this actually seems the most plausible.
... I think I'm going to go cry now.
Sounds like complete bullshit, doesn't it?
Well nuts to to you too, then!
"And what's with the dorky GAP get-up?"
NO BECAUSE NOBODY IN THIS GAME HAS EVER FUCKING EXPLAINED THIS SHIT
No, wait, it seems to be working. Phew! Crisis averted.
Or maybe not...
"Darn, I could've sworn I parked the car around here somewhere...."
Or maybe not.
And then, for no reason at all, Squall seems to start tripping out and sees creepy visions of Rinoa.
Well, hey, maybe it's not all bad!
If you have no idea what the past five images could possibly mean, welcome to my world!
I watched it, and it still doesn't make any fucking sense!
OMG ART
And so we come to the ending~!
Very much like the opening FMV, it holds up surprisingly well and is quite pretty, but it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Well, at least the Squall/Rinoa bit, but that's really not much a shock after twenty-one entries about this game. But, bitterness aside, the Seifer and Laguna/Raine sequences are really nice, and it was great so see those characters get a nice little send-off at the very end.
Especially Laguna, who was the best part of this game.
But, oh no, we're not done yet!
DON'T DEVOUR THE CAMERA, SELPHIE
I have no idea what Irvine is doing, but it clearly isn't working...
Well, shit, this is the first time you've appear in an FMV since way back at Dollet in Disc 1, isn't i-
OH GOD AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
Yeah, I don't think that impressed her.
>:|
"That's right. Bow before your new overlord, pathetic wretche-!"
"GOD DAMN IT SELPHIE ARE YOU TAPING THIS TURN IT OFF NOW"
Uh, Irvine? You're holding it the wrong way...
WHOOPSIE-DAISY, IRVINE
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA SERVES YOU RIGHT ZELL YOU LITTLE WANKDINGY
Nooooooooooooo don't help him!
And, even at the end, despite everything the group went through, nobody likes him.
And that's the true reward of this game!
Aw, that's so sad~ Rinoa's gone insane with the loss of Squall that's she's resorted to scolding walls!
... She's kind of stupid like that.
Okay, that's just fucking disturbing.
Awwwwww.
You know, this would probably be romantic if either character actually had any chemistry with the other.
"MR SULU, PLOT A COURSE FOR RIGEL-7!"
Well, after lord knows how many hours playing, resizing images, uploading and writing, Final Fantasy VIII finally draws to a close! So, what did I think of it? You know, I have to say, despite the storyline in Disc 3 and 4 seemingly going out of its way to make no sense whatsoever, the game is still pretty darn good. If nothing else, the pacing is almost impeccably great, outside of the oddly-rapid start to Disc 3.
The setting for the world is probably what I enjoyed the most about it. There's this really nice combination of modern and futuristic design throughout the world, and the high quality of the pre-rendered backgrounds (for a PSX title) really helps bring everything to life. Balamb Garden, Esthar and Winhill are probably my favorite locales, with each having its own vastly different atmosphere and charm, which is hard to find in a lot of RPGs these days, where most of their worlds are the same meadow or town copy/pasted to an obnoxious degree.
But, again, I really can't get far into VIII without discussing the story. As I mentioned in the Disc 2 summary, you really could have just ended the game at the end of 2, and have it so Edea passed away, or lost her powers in the ensuing battle. It would've have wrapped itself up quite neatly right there and then, but... I dunno, I guess SE really wanted to make this a 40+ hour RPG like VII, but only had the original plot for 20, so they essentially made up an entirely new and much more insane plot half-way through the game. It's very jarring, and.. despite the stupid orphanage scene near the end, I actually rather liked the Edea-focused storyline.
That's not to say the Ultimecia storyline isn't entirely without merit, as the idea is actually pretty neat, but the execution is just so abysmal. Near the end it was almost impossible to go through a cutscene without one plot-hole or another being formed. The biggest being, of course, Junction Machine Ellone. Why even introduce it if you're never going to go back to it, and it does literally nothing but create problems for the already wonky storyline at that point?
On the same hand, the characters also suffer in the storyline to this game; as in after the Missile Base everyone that isn't Squall or Rinoa may as well just drop dead, as they no longer have any significance to any storyline going at any time. Which is a shame, because I feel a lot could have been done with Irvine or Quistis as secondary characters. Hell, even Selphie could have been developed quite a lot more then she was here. But, no, they're not Squall or Rinoa, so they're cast aside.
Which is odd, because Squall and Rinoa aren't even all that well developed, despite the huge amount of screentime both get.
Rinoa spends 3/4 of the game being incredibly bratty, if not outright insulting to a few other party members, and Squall spends roughly the same amount of time ignoring or acting hostile towards Rinoa. They both eventually change their ways, but it's not a gradual development. Both just instantly snap into these new personalities, and it's incredibly weird and off-putting. Afterall, why sacrifice your potentially very strong secondary cast to focus on the 'mains', if you're just going to half-arse their development anyway?
The game was trying to juggle a major romance plot and a typical 'Save the World' storyline at the same time, and as a result there wasn't enough effort put into either to make them seem worthwhile.
But, to get away from the negativity, I really did love the Laguna sequences, and him, Kiros and Ward as characters. They were done almost perfectly, with my only real issue being that we didn't see enough of them! I'd love to play a game about Laguna and friend's days in the Galbadian Military, or them just running around the world, getting lost and being all silly~! And, to stay positive, while I do have problems with the development of the entire main cast, at the finale I ended up liking all of them in one way or another, except Zell, so they obviously had enough charm and likability to them.
I think Final Fantasy VIII's biggest strength is its atmosphere. From the fantastic musical score, the scenario that would be currently playing and the feeling being evoked, VIII is at its strongest when you're being caught up in the moment, or being immersed in the world. When it tries to do other stuff, like having 'explanations' for its plot-devices, or going towards the romantic edge, the entire thing starts to fall apart.
But I'd be lying if I said I didn't have an absolute blast playing it. It's stupid, it's often complete nonsense, but it is a really fun game if you let it be so. Oh, and the Junctioning system is about as stable as a nuclear reactor that's being held together with sticky-tape. Just had to get that in there somewhere!
My opinion of VIII is probably the same as when I started. Very enjoyable, but equally dysfunctional at times.
Moving on slightly, I had a lot of fun doing this entirely stupid Let's Play thing, and many thanks to the various people -- friends and random silly people alike -- who gave me information on stuff, general encouragement, constructive criticism, and ideas for a fair few of the silly antics I got myself into. I'm definitely going to do another Let's Play, as people still keep asking what I'll do next.
So, yeah, you're not done with my crap just yet!
Well, unless you stop reading, naturally. But that would be mean ;;
Not entirely sure what game will be next, as I'd like to do one alongside the short and sweet Parasite Eve, but one'll be coming soon enough!
I guess there's nothing else to say but...
PEACE OUT, Y'ALL
