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Extra Tasty
Aug 5, 2014

This was my first Final Fantasy game so I have a really embarrassing fondness for it despite its shortcomings. The plot really is...something, but I can't help but ironically love it.

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Extra Tasty
Aug 5, 2014

While Dollet might be a dubious location for a bunch of child soldiers with no field experience, I really love the SeeD Exam sequence. That's the thing with this game, it really knows how to draw you in at the outset.

Extra Tasty
Aug 5, 2014

I really feel this game has some great characterization that gets criminally underrated. It's mostly subtle and I think that's really cool. Most of the characters behave as actual people and don't just flat out embody the themes that other characters in this series do. I really dig it. Quistis's crush on Squall is a great example of that. Granted I was pretty young when I first played this game, but she doesn't hit Squall or the player over the head with it, and I love it.

This game also utilizes body language in the characters really well considering the hardware they were working with. That whole Secret Area scene is chock full of it.

Extra Tasty
Aug 5, 2014

I do agree that this game commits, but to a bunch of really bad decisions. I really like the world in this game and it's upsetting because there could have been so much more to it than what we're given.

Extra Tasty
Aug 5, 2014

I think this is where the game loses a lot of people. I think the general perception was that Quistis is the most professional and focused of the group so this strikes people as being a monumentally absurd thing to do. I don't know though, I buy it. Maybe this is just me defending this game's story to ridiculous lengths but isn't Quistis, like, 19 years old? I get being frustrated because these people are supposed to be professional, but Quistis abandoning her post to apologize during a life or death mission strikes me as a totally teenager thing to do. I don't know. I feel the game tries to set up that everyone is just Really Bad at their jobs but the atmosphere for the last 45 minutes has been so serious that it's jarring to see them get sidetracked so easily.

Also re: Rinoa. I see what they were trying to do with her whole development here, and there's actual opportunity for there to be nuance and intrigue. The least they could have done was make Caraway a little more...I don't know, outwardly evil or something? Just to give her an actual reason to rebel against him beyond something so typical.

Extra Tasty
Aug 5, 2014

ApplesandOranges posted:

It comes up pretty late in the game as far as I recall.

In true FF8 fashion, far after the player has forgotten all about it. :allears:

Extra Tasty
Aug 5, 2014

This game loves being subtle. Sometimes it's really awesome and sometimes it's ridiculous. Quistis' behavior in this sequence is probably a good example of it being not so good. The player has to rationalize it for themselves and infer a lot, and when you don't really get into anyone's head besides Squall's that can be pretty hard to do.

Extra Tasty
Aug 5, 2014

Kajeesus posted:

Also, I don't think this is ever explicitly mentioned, but Irvine actually isn't a SeeD. That term only applies to Balamb graduates. It doesn't really make any sense when you consider the importance of the SeeD program and the fact that Galbadia Garden is the biggest Garden, but that's the way things are.

My understanding of it is that Galbadia Garden trains future soldiers for the Galbadian Army (whereas Balamb trains mercenaries for hire), so when you consider the quality of the average Galbadian soldier it calls into question the quality of education at the place. Also who even knows what the heck Trabia does since I'm pretty sure it's mentioned that they don't train SeeD's either (hence why Selphie transferred) and they have no army seriously why does that place exist

Extra Tasty
Aug 5, 2014

Bifauxnen posted:

But wait, there's more! Watch how that knight actually holds the gunblade in the movie!

Holy poo poo :stonk:

Anyway, if nothing else I've always found this sequence to set Edea up as a really neat villain. Too bad about the rest of the game though! I just wish Reflect wasn't so easily accessible like ten minutes before you fight her so she'd have an appropriately difficult fight. It could've been an actual time where strategic junctions mattered, but I guess asking for FF8 to not be horribly broken is like asking for rain in a drought.

Extra Tasty
Aug 5, 2014

Agreeing with whoever said that Laguna and Raine are one of the better parts of this game. Pretty rare for two rational (relatively speaking, in Laguna's case) human adults to generally have their poo poo together in a Final Fantasy game.

Extra Tasty
Aug 5, 2014

Zell and Rinoa for reasons.

Extra Tasty
Aug 5, 2014

I've played this game a lot, but I've just never really bothered with the CC sidequest. I had no idea Quistis was King before now :monocle:

Extra Tasty
Aug 5, 2014

Winhill is a chill place. The game captures the post-Laguna melancholy of it really well. It's a shame you never really have to go there for anything beyond a sidequest.

Extra Tasty
Aug 5, 2014

As wildly broken as this game can get mechanics wise, it's at least fun to utilize that broken system, and it's diverse and entertaining. This game definitely poorly explains its battle system in general, but once you get the hang of it then it's pretty diverse, which puts it ahead of XIII at the very least for me.

I always view FF8 through rose tinted glasses because it was my first Final Fantasy game. I think the game demonstrates a lot of strengths that have never been seen again in the franchise (like it's background world building often in places that a lot of players have never seen, the actual use of body language among its characters to such a noticeable degree, and the subtlety in a lot of the game's storytelling is quite good in my opinion until it stops being good and starts actively impeding the story that they're trying to tell). The world in FF8 will always intrigue me a ton because I think it feels more like modern Earth than any other FF. The concept of Garden, SeeD, etc are all interesting to me and I always wish the game had expanded on them more instead of what we got.

Extra Tasty
Aug 5, 2014

The whole Esthar reveal is a really fantastic moment. I remember being blown away as a kid the first time I saw it. For some reason, though, this is the part of the game that I always end up dropping the game and forgetting about it for a few months when I replay.

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Extra Tasty
Aug 5, 2014

Hey, this game is good actually!

I have such a fondness for this game's plot. I really like that they were going for something understated and subtextual, I just wish the execution was a little better.

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