A MONTAGE OF THOUGHTS ABOUT SEVERAL GAMES

thx you're a real bro

grs that was two sentences

Squall: Most people seem to dislike Squall. Once again, they dislike him for shallow and petty reasons, like he's angsty/emo. This is not really an accurate description and doesn't really do him justice. I liked Squall, he was a good character, he was a very decent, down to earth protagonist who was easy to identify with. My problem is more with his supporting cast. We are supposed to be presented early on with the idea that Squall is a selfish jerk who can't stand anyone. This is presented as a negative attitude for him to have. The problem here is that most of the people around him are either jerks (Irvine) or morons (Zell/Selphie) so when he rejects their offers of friendship, this comes across to me as the logical thing to do, rather than him being a jerk. Oddly, the one character he seems to have a decent relationship with is Seifer, with whom he shares a grudging yet mutual respect. Despite their obvious similarities they find themselves on separate sides of the battlefield simply because of their own beliefs: Squall believes it is his duty to defeat the sorceress, Seifer believes his is to protect her. In this sense, Squall is a very stoic character who believes in doing what is necessary regardless of his personal feelings on the matter

i am in complete agreement, and i have this to add: iirc this is a deliberate irony that highlights squall's conflict in emotion, and not picking up on this is what causes people to categorise him as angsty, emo etc. that's not teenage dramatics, that's legitimate anxiety!

Given this, his sudden reversal on this position and openly grieving/pining for Rinoa is completely unsupported by anything that has happened so far. This is not to say there's no reason for him to change his nihilistic attitude and grow as a character, just that there is no justification in the story for this change in his attitude. None whatsoever.

i am going to put this simply: you don't miss the water till the well's dry. it's not until squall loses rinoa that he discovers and understands his true feelings for her, and it's this that spurs him on to change his ways and drives his character growth. sure, it's a bit of a trope, but it also makes sense in the situation. most conventions become conventions because they are based on actuality!

The Orphanage Scene: Probably the most contentious moment in the entire game, the writers suddenly expect us to swallow the pill that five of the six playable characters and two of the main villains all grew up together as a family and they all just conveniently forgot. As you mention, this is just a little story about how it was always their destiny to face the sorceress; after all, Edea raised them specifically to stop her if she ever went mad. But this scene and this plot twist are terrible for a couple of reasons.

going to reiterate what i said in the other topic at this point: this seems like a terrible plot twist because it is not meant to be a plot twist. people give undue weight to this (fairly short) scene for reasons i don't fully grasp. sure, this scene doesn't work for a lot of people, i can see why that would happen. it is hardly as fair a reflection of the story as a whole as some people would like, though, and doesn't really detract from the experience in a global way either. i get the feeling a lot of it is preconception and an element of bandwagoning! i tend not to believe hype and i equally tend not to believe.. unhype. what is the negative form of hype

1. The whole GF amnesia thing is clearly something added in simply to justify this very weak plot point. It is only mentioned once beforehand in an optional text in the very first room in the game that 99% of new players will miss, and this problem with GFs is never mentioned again, nor does it influence the plot in any other way.

2. Selphie suddenly drops the revelation that she has used a GFbefore transfering to Balamb Garden! This was some random GF she apparently found on a beach. Selphie does not come equipped with this GF, said GF was never mentioned before, is never mentioned again, and cannot apparently be found in game. In other words, this whole revelation is just some drywall paste stuffed into a massive plot hole to give Selphie amnesia. The writers could easily have brought this up earlier in the plot or made it relevant somehow, but they did not. This is just a lack of effort.

3. Irvine never lost his memory but never mentioned recognizing any of the party members or their target, the sorceress. His excuse for this was "he didn't want to say anything." Aside from making him look like a huge idiot, this is yet another opportunity for character growth wasted. The only hint to this in any way is his reluctance to fire on Sorceress Edea in Galbadia, and this is presented in game as being for entirely different reasons (and does not stop him from joining in the battle with her moments later.)

this is kind of expanding on the previous point but none of this is terribly important to the story! the reason it wasn't developed earlier is because it isn't supposed to be relevant in a huge way, just another link in the chain that binds together this little scene touching on the theme of predestination (and the foreshadowing of the imminent predestination paradox if ultimecia has her way)

summary: oh no weak plot / plotholes in a single scene where they are inferior in importance to the dominant theme this game is terrible i am going to smash up the discs with a hammer

However, like so much else these scenes start to fall through near the end of the game and we end up with pointless, random nonsense that makes little sense. Apparently it was necessary for us to play as Laguna pretending to be an actor, but moments like him defeating Sorceress Adel could sufficiently be conveyed in a 14 second cutscene.

Ultimecia: After two discs of chasing Sorceress Edea around the world and watching her commit horrible atrocities and some vague world domination scheme, she is suddenly vindicated of all fault because she was being mind controlled by another sorceress...FROM THE FUTURE. More accurately, the writers ran out of plot at this point but needed to extend the game another four hours so they made up a new villain on the spot, a villain with no foreshadowing whatsoever. Despite having no lines and no screen time, Sorceress Adel would have been a more compelling character for this role because she is at least referenced in the game before this point. More importantly, Ultimecia has no depth. she is a completely flat character with vague, unknowable motives doing something weird for reasons that are never explained. Is she just supposed to represent the ultimate culmination of what happens when the world persecutes sorceresses? This is certainly never explained or even hinted at, Ultimecia herself offers no reasons for her actions other than hatred for SeeD (given its an organization devoted to destroying her, its not an unreasonable hatred, but it does nothing to explain her actions.) Personally, even if its mostly unsupported nonsense, I find the Rinoa/Ultimecia theory very compelling because it provides this otherwise completely blank and empty character with rationale and motives for all her actions. But given we spend the final third of the game fighting some mystery villain from the future who is trying to destroy the world for vague and unexplained reasons, it really detracted from the experience for me.

that small excerpt ties in to the sacrifices laguna makes for someone he cares for (ellone in this case) and subsequent parallels with squall / rinoa but i'll concede that it is done in a strangely abstract way. all adds to the flavour from my point of view

woe betide a villain IN A FINAL FANTASY GAME be flat and shallow and only introduced towards the end of the game to fill a gap don't you agree zemus ;) but yeah this is definitely a flaw (and it is certainly a flawed game, i'm not arguing with that), but again not one that compromises the experience. although:

a villain with no foreshadowing whatsoever

ENTIRE THEME OF PREDESTINATION

final, overwhelming point: not very much of this matters to the extreme because it's still an immensely fun game to play!



there are things i missed from my original post but w/e

an equally pertinent question is how much of what you assume is my filling the blanks is what Square actually intended because the point is moot

look at it this way: this is the same person responsible for FFVI and chrono trigger (in the same way as hideo kojima is responsible for the metal gear games; it's kind of unique to the japanese industry)

you wanted a montage of thoughts; you got them

yeah that's why nobody did

Final Fantasy VIII is an odd game in that I look back and remember it fondly, yet when I categorically analyze the game it fails on almost all levels (not the music).

This review/Let's Play voices many of the gripes I had with the game:
http://spoonyexperiment.com/category/final-fantasy-viii/page/3/

post=118425
yeah that's why nobody did

Then I must've misunderstood this

post=118369

post=118361
Huh.

I thought FFX's first 20 minutes were some of the most exciting I've ever seen.

maybe this has something to do with why some people like action films and i like the ipcress file and the like. i'd like all these fancy explosions to mean something

post=118558
Then I must've misunderstood this

post=118369

post=118361
Huh.

I thought FFX's first 20 minutes were some of the most exciting I've ever seen.

maybe this has something to do with why some people like action films and i like the ipcress file and the like. i'd like all these fancy explosions to mean something

yup. i didn't say either way had any more merit, it's just a point of preference. i can't pretend to understand it but i guess people like the explosive blockbusters!

Uh I recall FF8 having explosions, MISSILE EXPLOSIONS