It's another one of those story points that makes no sense for people who don't realize that U=R. The man dated R and then he became U's knight. Well that makes a lot of sense considering they're the same person. That's what makes him a good rival for Squall, they're in love with the same girl, except with two different versions of her.
He told me in another thread that he believes if he spams it enough Square will make it canon (lmfao). Hes incredibly autistic and so in love with his headcanon that he simply ignores all evidence that explicitly shows Rinoa cannot be Ultimecia. Its best to just ignore him.
Didn't Char get utterly BTFO'd by Amuro in their last encounter? I recall their last fight in the original series was a slugfest, but he basically stood no chance in CA.
>Didn't Char get utterly BTFO'd by Amuro in their last encounter?
On the movie, yes. Amuro Curb Stomps Char so hard it's not even funny.
But in the novel (and manga) Beltorchika's Children, it's more of the opposite.
Their final fight in CCA was close for the first 80%, but Amuro was gradually gaining the upper hand unti the very end. The main issue as I see it was that Sazabi lost functionality due to weird design decisions, whereas Nu Gundam lost weapons but the suit itself was perfectly functional at the end.
>Didn't Char get utterly BTFO'd by Amuro in their last encounter?
On the movie, yes. Amuro Curb Stomps Char so hard it's not even funny.
But in the novel (and manga) Beltorchika's Children, it's more of the opposite.
Their final fight in CCA was close for the first 80%, but Amuro was gradually gaining the upper hand unti the very end. The main issue as I see it was that Sazabi lost functionality due to weird design decisions, whereas Nu Gundam lost weapons but the suit itself was perfectly functional at the end.
She's the popular girl, he was one of the popular guys. She wasnt about thinking anything past that, how do you think she ended up as ultimecia, by making good choices?
He was literally the fake manly man turned basedboy people warn you not to become. >gets his entire personality from a stupid movie he watched when he was younger >if Ultimecia had a Twitch account and an onlyfans, he would have been one of her paypigs AND her janny, devoting himself to her for absolutely no measurable gain
Squall and company were real bros in the end to ultimately make Seifer see what he was doing was moronic
yeah, more or less. seifer was a talented individual with a bad attitude who preferred to romanticize instead of just keeping his head down and putting in honest work. ultimecia played on his insecurities and delusions of grandeur. actually, he's one of the better-written characters in an otherwise mess of a game
He's literally the weirdo that keeps a school shooter list.
[...] >quistis >supportive best friend
The very first time she interacts with Squall outside of work she just b***hes at him about shit he doesn't care about to the point he tells her to shut up.
He was under Edea's control. Even Fujin and Raijin who were super loyal to him admit that they no longer understand Seifer, which makes it clear that he was under her influence with magic involved
>i thought was pointing out the "everyone is depending on me even though I don't know what I'm doing"
I think that's a recurring theme for FF8. At the end of the, they're teenagers. They're highly trained and everything, but they lack experience. Plenty of times they are just clueless about what todo
These three combined is the answer.
+1 on the school shooter comment as well since he wore a trenchcoat and was egotistical and a little sadistic. He literally even attacks his school. Ultimecia played him like a fiddle. To the point that even Fujin and Raijin call bullshit. Some people compare him to Anakin and its not too far different of a character arc.
Ultimately it goes into the themes about finding purpose and not holding onto your past traumas, regrets, and desires when you have things right in front of you that will pass you by if you let it. Also that war is bad and love and understanding is good.
well obviously it's in Arabic but in the context of Islam as a religion because we're talking about literal Jesus and how they refer to the figure as Al-Masih (the Messiah) within that religion.
Jesus is called Isa by Muslims, just their spelling of the name. Sometimes Isa ibn Maryam (Jesus son of Mary) or Isa al-Masih (Jesus the Messiah). Al-Masih literally means "the Messiah", but not "THE the Messiah" if you're catching my drift, it doesn't refer to Jesus specifically, it's a title. There's quite a few prophets and messiahs mentioned in the Quran.
Nevermind, missed your first post, you already know this and all this was pretty pointless.
As such I will add this: Final Fantasy VIII either had an extremely complex plot that got lost in translation OR the game was pants on head. The card mini game was cool though. Overall I liked it less than IX, but enjoyed both of them more than VII.
>Final Fantasy VIII either had an extremely complex plot that got lost in translation
It's not extremely complex, but probably the most subtle Square have ever been in a Final Fantasy game.
She's the popular girl, he was one of the popular guys. She wasnt about thinking anything past that, how do you think she ended up as ultimecia, by making good choices?
He's literally the weirdo that keeps a school shooter list.
Square writers have this weird tic where they inadvertently write the main love interest as being an unlikeable roastie b***h and accidentally making the best girl the supportive best friend.
They did it with Aerith where Tifa was best. They did it with Yuna where Rikku was best. And they did it with Rinoa, where Quistis is the best. It's okay though because Squall is a effeminate Jap b***hboy who deserves to be cucked by her.
>quistis >supportive best friend
The very first time she interacts with Squall outside of work she just b***hes at him about shit he doesn't care about to the point he tells her to shut up.
>He was one of the most popular guys at balamb garden
Based on what? Quistis had a literal fanclub, and anyone who mentioned Seifer said they didn't like him.
This is one of the more moronic fanfic tier headcanons i see parroted here. If she was Ultimecia she would remember how things went down and just change her tactics for an easy win. Instead Ultimecia has to fumble around looking for Ellone because she quite literally has no idea where she is, unlike Rinoa who absolutely would.
Square writers have this weird tic where they inadvertently write the main love interest as being an unlikeable roastie b***h and accidentally making the best girl the supportive best friend.
They did it with Aerith where Tifa was best. They did it with Yuna where Rikku was best. And they did it with Rinoa, where Quistis is the best. It's okay though because Squall is a effeminate Jap b***hboy who deserves to be cucked by her.
In principle I agree but in practice I feel like they could have at least pretended to try harder. Or at least not have the goth wearing heavy furs live on the tropical island. I know nobody ever suffers the effects of weather in these games but you can at least make her thematically appropriate like she's from the snow region or some shit.
6 months ago
Anonymous
Apparently Lulu's design - particularly the belts - was Nomura trolling the graphics team to see if they could pull it off. She's absent in some FMVs, probably most notably when the party storm Bevelle from the airship by sliding down the cables , she's nowhere to be seen.
6 months ago
Anonymous
That was why he put the fur collar on Squall's jacket as well
Nomura likes challenging the modelers
6 months ago
Anonymous
>She's absent in some FMVs, probably most notably when the party storm Bevelle from the airship by sliding down the cables, she's nowhere to be seen.
She's not absent there, though. You can see her.
6 months ago
Anonymous
I could dust off my PS2 and check. But I get the feeling they added that in, in later releases. I mean, I'm sure it was always intended. But it was always a joke and I never saw evidence to the contrary until recently.
6 months ago
Anonymous
No, they didn't add that in later in the HD Remaster or anything, Kimarhi was always carrying Lulu in that scene.
6 months ago
Anonymous
I was the one who said Lulu wasn't in the scene and I've played through FFX multiple times and was genuinely shocked I had never noticed Kimahri was carrying her.
6 months ago
Anonymous
it's certainly a bit eye opening that she is, in fact, included but I wouldn't really say it's giving you the best look at her design if we didn't even know she was there either. Good on the team for not neglecting her but all the same.
I must not have played this shit in a while I didn't even know Laguna's movie had story relevance other than the moronic flashback where you fight the dragon.
Seifer's sword stance is the same as Laguna's from the movie. It is implied that Seifer watched the movie and that is where his sorceress knight dream came from. Others just say the stance is a reused asset. I lean towards the former.
I still think they just animated the duel with squall without actually knowing how they'd pay him off in the game and then the game went gold when they still had basically nothing for him to do
>argument on Ganker right now about how Ultimecia is Rinoa despite the interviews saying no >all because she knows about Griever on Squall's ring >game literally says he is picked from Squall's mind; it's his ring and on the cover of his gunblade >in non-mangled Japanese she says " "I will summon whom you believe to be the most powerful. The stronger you will him to be, the stronger he will become. You shall suffer." >in English it's the nonsense " “The most powerful GF… …You shall… …SUFFER…! HAHAHA…”
I really think FF8 needed a better translation. It's a shame there was no solid fan ones like there were for FF7. It really hurts the game in several areas, like when people think Squall is emo, or that there was a love triangle between him, Rinoa, and Seifer (on the train in JP she says "I wouldn't be here if I did (still have feelings for him)") whereas in English they fricked up and wrote that she DID still have feelings for him.
FF9 was similarly mangled iirc. I think the reason they're not talked about being bad translations is because unlike FF7, they look more polished with few glaring errors
>It's a shame there was no solid fan ones like there were for FF7
Well one of the biggest issues is that in addition to translation problems FF7 also had some pretty strikingly poor grammar. Nobody's really gonna notice if script was changed unless they've already played and can read the Japanese version, but you get a game full of shit like "THIS GUY ARE SICK" and that makes it a bit noticeable that quality of the translation might not be up to code.
>like when people think Squall is emo
Squall has a pretend lion he named Griever. I'll grant you that the translation went way too far on the "Whatever..." nonsense and I'll even concede that Japanese script at least gives him a bit more personality based on what I've seen. But whether you want to call him an emo scene kid or not he's still a depressive self absorbed introverted pud. People would have called him emo even if the translation was better.
I'm still on disc 1, but man is Squall as likable as mud. I wouldn't even mind them going the whole Solid Snake route with him. Make him appear thorny and cold on the outside while on the inside he's just a trained killer who is afraid to get close to others who may be dead tomorrow... but he's not that. He's cold on the outside and an absolute prick on the inside. He hates pretty much everyone he comes into contact with, he hates listening to others, he's constantly griping on the inside, he's insanely prideful, and if it wasn't for Irving, he wouldn't have even saved his love interest. Pretty much every character is more likable than him in this game.
the incredible ost, amazing background renders, cool setting, really neat way they combined the FMV with the gameplay (did any other game do this), and how fun it is to break the games balancing are keeping me playing, but this main character is horrible and I can only hope he has some self reflection across the 4 disc's at some point.
I liked him last time I played but I can't remember the exact reasoning. Everyone in ff8 except squall is a complete fricking idiot (even quistis), so he is almost always the smartest guy in the room being depended on by everyone else. That scene where you randomly hit switches trying to fly balamb i thought was pointing out the "everyone is depending on me even though I don't know what I'm doing" theme
He was under Edea's control. Even Fujin and Raijin who were super loyal to him admit that they no longer understand Seifer, which makes it clear that he was under her influence with magic involved
>i thought was pointing out the "everyone is depending on me even though I don't know what I'm doing"
I think that's a recurring theme for FF8. At the end of the, they're teenagers. They're highly trained and everything, but they lack experience. Plenty of times they are just clueless about what todo
Again, that would be fine if his internal dialogue didn't paint him as such a terrible person. Whenever he does something good for another character or you have the choice not to be a duck, that feels in spite of Squall and outside of his general nature.
If somebody tries to talk to him, he'd rather not be there. If somebody pours out their issues, he insults them. If he meets somebody new, he hates them. He's just not a good person on the inside which makes his outward interactions seem more manipulative or forced.
Haseo from .hack had similar character traits, but they gave him a reason for being such a dick, they are relatively shallow, he gets called out for them, and though it happens a bit early, he makes an effort to change until the change becomes genuine by the third game. Squall so far is just insanely unpleasant and I'm not sure if the game wants us to relate with him or if he's going to have a subtle change of heart at some point.
It's just Squalltism. He doesn't want to help "you" or give a frick about your problems, but he'll "help" you because the duty unto doing the right thing and helping others as a concept is what holds court in his esteem.
It's what zero empathy does to a motherfricker. It's not complicated.
A lot of MCs pulled off being an butthole better than Squall did and often with better reasons for butthole behavior. Ryuudo from Grandia 2 is a gigantic wiener to most people but he's acerbic, sarcastic and rude about it. He's a loner bounty hunter (geohound) with a tragic past and tends to keep interactions transactional and purposely pushes people away. He lives outside of normal society and wanders from job to job and a large part of society give him shit just as much as he gives it back. People assume he's a lowly illiterate. But even with all of that the game does push his nobler qualities, even if he's indirect about them. He very clearly can't abandon people, he does take pride in his work and while he grouses he also doesn't hesitate to be heroic.
The problem with Squall is that the game wants him to be aloof and distant but it also wants him to be the center of everything the coolest mofo around. The hot teacher is in love with him. Other students think he's cool as hell even he's being rude to their faces. He can't so much as return a handshake and yet everyone thinks he's their hero. And the big cap to all of his brooding and his arc? He didn't even have that bad of a life. Not really. He grew up in an orphanage but was surrounded by people who love him. He didn't want or struggle for food and comfort. The worst is his big sister got adopted before him but oh yeah, thanks to the oh so clever plot twist, he didn't even remember her anyways. And yes I know his foster mother got possessed and went evil but again, AMNESIA PLOT TWIST. God that plot twist ruined so much and added so little. You cut that out and not only does Squall's behavior become more justified it also better explains why anyone would want to put up with him for more than two seconds.
Now I just keep thinking of butthole characters that were done better. Even Luke has a better arc than that. At this point everything BUT Squall is keeping me playing. Like when Rinoa was attacked Squall was fully ready to let her die and only Irvine abandoning his post to help her caused Squall to act, yet this is the hero. This is who I'm supposed to get invested in? Depending on how the game ends he may be one of the biggest douchebags in all of vidya.
He was a moron but he wasn't stoic. Stocke from Radiant Historia is stoic. Stoic people can still be generally and openly kind and thoughtful. In fact they typically are. Stoicism is a virtue not a flaw.
A lot of MCs pulled off being an butthole better than Squall did and often with better reasons for butthole behavior. Ryuudo from Grandia 2 is a gigantic wiener to most people but he's acerbic, sarcastic and rude about it. He's a loner bounty hunter (geohound) with a tragic past and tends to keep interactions transactional and purposely pushes people away. He lives outside of normal society and wanders from job to job and a large part of society give him shit just as much as he gives it back. People assume he's a lowly illiterate. But even with all of that the game does push his nobler qualities, even if he's indirect about them. He very clearly can't abandon people, he does take pride in his work and while he grouses he also doesn't hesitate to be heroic.
The problem with Squall is that the game wants him to be aloof and distant but it also wants him to be the center of everything the coolest mofo around. The hot teacher is in love with him. Other students think he's cool as hell even he's being rude to their faces. He can't so much as return a handshake and yet everyone thinks he's their hero. And the big cap to all of his brooding and his arc? He didn't even have that bad of a life. Not really. He grew up in an orphanage but was surrounded by people who love him. He didn't want or struggle for food and comfort. The worst is his big sister got adopted before him but oh yeah, thanks to the oh so clever plot twist, he didn't even remember her anyways. And yes I know his foster mother got possessed and went evil but again, AMNESIA PLOT TWIST. God that plot twist ruined so much and added so little. You cut that out and not only does Squall's behavior become more justified it also better explains why anyone would want to put up with him for more than two seconds.
He was a moron but he wasn't stoic. Stocke from Radiant Historia is stoic. Stoic people can still be generally and openly kind and thoughtful. In fact they typically are. Stoicism is a virtue not a flaw.
If you think he was either an butthole or stoic you're misunderstanding his character. He's your average everyday shy and callow teenager who also happens to be employed as a political assassin with magic powers
6 months ago
Anonymous
I think Squall is like Holden Caulfield from The Catcher in the Rye in the sense that some readers find him totally insufferable and whiny whereas I found myself empathising with both of them. Maybe characters like these are not just for everyone.
I think Squall can be described as “stoic” in how he communicates with others, at least early in the game, whereas his inner monologues show a more nuanced characterisation. The development arc is also quite satisfying.
6 months ago
Anonymous
I would say laconic fits him better than stoic as he still shows his discomfort in situations by muttering"whatever"
6 months ago
Anonymous
Doesn't he actually say "...sorry" in nip?
6 months ago
Anonymous
Yes. Even less stoic. He's literally just your average callow teenager dealing thrust into a situation where he ends up having to deal with getting his first girlfriend despite having precisely zero game while also having to save all of time and space. If you're posting here, you identify with squall whether you want to admit it or not. FFVIII haters really just hate themselves.
6 months ago
Anonymous
I recall Cid admitting at one point that he thrust an inordinate amount of responsibility onto Squall that he should've taken on himself, largely because he couldn't bear to lead the fight against his own wife.
>The worst is his big sister got adopted before him but oh yeah, thanks to the oh so clever plot twist, he didn't even remember her anyways.
Him forgetting is actually the problem. How do you fix yourself if you can't even remember what hurt you? His most prominent childhood memory is being abandoned by someone he depended on. He doesn't know the context so he can't reexamine his feelings and accept that being separated by adoption is a not normal way to end a relationship that he should expect to occur again.
I'd grant you that would have been an interesting point but like most things in FF8 I don't trust that it was intentional.
Why is the GF shit the answer to everything when he didn't start using them until he was 18 and before the seed exam?
Well it's either a tutorial for the players too dumb to read the manual, Quistis being overly clingy or else GF induced memory loss again
The big problem with GF amnesia is that it's just too selective and convenient. Any implied amount of usage pre game starting completely wipes out huge chunks of their young lives but the way you spam shit left right and center never seems to have any meaningful effect on anything else. By all accounts they should all have Alzheimers by the end of disc 1.
That's the thing, Squall hates the whole "relying on other people" thing for reasons that are explained in the plot. I do think they could have done a better job at it though, by the time they finally start to explaining, most players will already have formed an opinion on Squall and the first impression sticks.
But it's more than that. If that's all there was to it even that would be forgivable, but his inner monologue towards everyone he meets is so bitter and hateful that it makes him completely unlikable and he really needs to be called out for it in a similar way to Haseo and Luke. Every time he meets an adult he has to comment on how stupid they are or how much he hates just talking to them. If somebody gives some general advice he takes offense to it and takes it personally. He doesn't willing do anything for anyone, and when he does it feels completely out of character to his general thinking. There's just nothing redeemable in his character at the moment.
>Squall hates the whole "relying on other people" thing for reasons that are explained in the plot.
The plot also tells you Squall doesn't remember any of the orphanage shit because of GF's, yet he still remembers Eleone but not his childhood friends.
I am always wary of theories made from the same people that write fanfictions and spend their years mentally dating characters from JRPG, anime, or that kind of stuff.
I've forgotten most of that game though, you guys are giving me nostalgia, I'd like to play it again but I don't want to spend too much time with random battles anymore...
I don't think there's enough info to believe that.
Cid probably did help Seifer so he wouldn't get expelled or something and his connection with Edea it's obvious, but beyond that there's not much reason to believe it.
I think this theory came about purely because Cid has Seifer's Triple Triad card and fans wanted to make a deeper connection there than there actually is.
Always wondered about this myself. That was clearly a homie.
My theory is that the longer a sorceress continues to hold a piece of Hyne and the more her powers grow, the more she comes to resemble him with horns and body markings and shit, hence the similarities we see in Adel and Ultimecia. And Adel was already so old that she had to find someone to pass her powers on to back in Laguna's time + 18 more years in space, which could account for her extra masculinity. It's kind of a stretch but it still makes way more sense than RU or Squall is dead
That's not how the junction machine works, and Griever is pulled from Squalls subconscious, not Ultimecias. You would have to be deliberately ignoring the entire game and all the lore and subtext it drops on you, not to mention basic common sense to unironically think R=U
My theory is that the more you have to rely on fan theories to make the plot work or the game sound interesting than the rest of the game is probably written inside out and backwards with no thought for connective tissue, context and what anything actually even means. See exhibit A.
So I argue the opposite. Rinoa can NOT be Ultimecia because that might actually be interesting.
Because no one else would want that job, think of how unpopular you'd be as a volunteer student disciplining your classmates. Only a mega dick would take that role. It makes total sense for the character as it plays into his delusions of grandeur and superiority over his classmates.
Because no one else would want that job, think of how unpopular you'd be as a volunteer student disciplining your classmates. Only a mega dick would take that role. It makes total sense for the character as it plays into his delusions of grandeur and superiority over his classmates.
It also appears that Cid had confidence in Seifer's potential even though he used to act like a moron.
All the main characters are incredibly insecure teenage soldiers (Rinoa isn't a soldier but everything else fits) each with their own method of coping. Seifer's happens to be putting on a front of bravado and wieneriness but he craves positive reinforcement and bends the knee to the first mother-like character that gives him any.
Funnily enough, despite being loud and obnoxious, Zell is probably the most mature and well-adjusted of the lot of them.
I think that is the case except for Quistis, who if I remember correctly was adopted by a family but it didn't work out and it wasn't long before she ended up at Garden.
To expand further because it got me thinking and maybe someone might be interested:
>Squall - abandonment issues, copes by being an anti-social prick >Quistis - imposter syndrome, copes by trying to be bossy and serious (although from the start of the game she drops this somewhat around Squall) >Zell - confidence issues from probably having ADHD or something, copes by somewhat playing into it >Selphie - bottles her emotions and copes by being childish and seemingly positive. >Irvine - confidence issues, can't deal with pressure well. Copes by putting on a confident act and womanising >Rinoa - unironically Daddy issues. Her cope is the entire Timber resistance thing. Probably the most immature character at the beginning of the game. > Seifer - craves positive reinforcement and acceptance. Copes by being a dick to almost everyone and covering his craving with wieneriness.
he had to follow up sephiroth
It's another one of those story points that makes no sense for people who don't realize that U=R. The man dated R and then he became U's knight. Well that makes a lot of sense considering they're the same person. That's what makes him a good rival for Squall, they're in love with the same girl, except with two different versions of her.
U=R makes for an objectively worse narrative.
He told me in another thread that he believes if he spams it enough Square will make it canon (lmfao). Hes incredibly autistic and so in love with his headcanon that he simply ignores all evidence that explicitly shows Rinoa cannot be Ultimecia. Its best to just ignore him.
EDEA WAS LIKE A MOTHER TO ME!
>Seifer was teenage Char all along
fugg
Char at least put up a good fight. Seifer gets easier with every encounter, except for the bit where he randomly one shots Odin
Didn't Char get utterly BTFO'd by Amuro in their last encounter? I recall their last fight in the original series was a slugfest, but he basically stood no chance in CA.
>Didn't Char get utterly BTFO'd by Amuro in their last encounter?
On the movie, yes. Amuro Curb Stomps Char so hard it's not even funny.
But in the novel (and manga) Beltorchika's Children, it's more of the opposite.
Their final fight in CCA was close for the first 80%, but Amuro was gradually gaining the upper hand unti the very end. The main issue as I see it was that Sazabi lost functionality due to weird design decisions, whereas Nu Gundam lost weapons but the suit itself was perfectly functional at the end.
Better /m/ discourse than on /m/ itself.
The best place to discuss any subject is on any board other than it's own.
That's right. It's the secret rule of Ganker.
Well, duh. Why else would he have the slicked back blond hair and scar on his forehead? And the garden he pilots is red too.
Seifers favorite bands are Korn and Slipknot.
Wait... he is literally me
Incredibly Based and RedPilled
Look here, motherfricker
Those are fighting words and you goddamn know it
The boy in you is telling you to come
He was literally the fake manly man turned basedboy people warn you not to become.
>gets his entire personality from a stupid movie he watched when he was younger
>if Ultimecia had a Twitch account and an onlyfans, he would have been one of her paypigs AND her janny, devoting himself to her for absolutely no measurable gain
Squall and company were real bros in the end to ultimately make Seifer see what he was doing was moronic
You need to spend less time on the internet. This is one of the most embarrassing posts I've ever seen.
>t. Seifer
yeah, more or less. seifer was a talented individual with a bad attitude who preferred to romanticize instead of just keeping his head down and putting in honest work. ultimecia played on his insecurities and delusions of grandeur. actually, he's one of the better-written characters in an otherwise mess of a game
These three combined is the answer.
+1 on the school shooter comment as well since he wore a trenchcoat and was egotistical and a little sadistic. He literally even attacks his school. Ultimecia played him like a fiddle. To the point that even Fujin and Raijin call bullshit. Some people compare him to Anakin and its not too far different of a character arc.
Ultimately it goes into the themes about finding purpose and not holding onto your past traumas, regrets, and desires when you have things right in front of you that will pass you by if you let it. Also that war is bad and love and understanding is good.
Jesus complex
>Seifer Almasy
>the name for Jesus in Islam is Isa ibn Maryam or Isa Al-Masih
>in Islam
Is Islam a language too now?
well obviously it's in Arabic but in the context of Islam as a religion because we're talking about literal Jesus and how they refer to the figure as Al-Masih (the Messiah) within that religion.
Jesus is called Isa by Muslims, just their spelling of the name. Sometimes Isa ibn Maryam (Jesus son of Mary) or Isa al-Masih (Jesus the Messiah). Al-Masih literally means "the Messiah", but not "THE the Messiah" if you're catching my drift, it doesn't refer to Jesus specifically, it's a title. There's quite a few prophets and messiahs mentioned in the Quran.
Nevermind, missed your first post, you already know this and all this was pretty pointless.
As such I will add this: Final Fantasy VIII either had an extremely complex plot that got lost in translation OR the game was pants on head. The card mini game was cool though. Overall I liked it less than IX, but enjoyed both of them more than VII.
>Final Fantasy VIII either had an extremely complex plot that got lost in translation
It's not extremely complex, but probably the most subtle Square have ever been in a Final Fantasy game.
he's just that blonde vampire guy of buffy. and squall is just the boring vampire guy from buffy. and rinoa is buffy. buffy is ff8.
He's literally pic related
Stuck in a shit game
What did she see in him?
He’s good looking and a romantic. Ye cannae hardly blame the lass.
Her strap on
She's the popular girl, he was one of the popular guys. She wasnt about thinking anything past that, how do you think she ended up as ultimecia, by making good choices?
>he was one of the popular guys
He's literally the weirdo that keeps a school shooter list.
>quistis
>supportive best friend
The very first time she interacts with Squall outside of work she just b***hes at him about shit he doesn't care about to the point he tells her to shut up.
He was one of the most popular guys at balamb garden, lots of "cool guys" are sociopaths. Deal with it.
>He was one of the most popular guys at balamb garden
Based on what? Quistis had a literal fanclub, and anyone who mentioned Seifer said they didn't like him.
He's literally me
Seifer had literally 2 friends.
This is one of the more moronic fanfic tier headcanons i see parroted here. If she was Ultimecia she would remember how things went down and just change her tactics for an easy win. Instead Ultimecia has to fumble around looking for Ellone because she quite literally has no idea where she is, unlike Rinoa who absolutely would.
Square writers have this weird tic where they inadvertently write the main love interest as being an unlikeable roastie b***h and accidentally making the best girl the supportive best friend.
They did it with Aerith where Tifa was best. They did it with Yuna where Rikku was best. And they did it with Rinoa, where Quistis is the best. It's okay though because Squall is a effeminate Jap b***hboy who deserves to be cucked by her.
>They did it with Yuna where Rikku was best
Rikku is an annoying child. Lulu is best
Correct
Lulu is completely pointless and makes no sense from any design stand point.
Nobody ever lost money putting a titcow in the rpg party
In principle I agree but in practice I feel like they could have at least pretended to try harder. Or at least not have the goth wearing heavy furs live on the tropical island. I know nobody ever suffers the effects of weather in these games but you can at least make her thematically appropriate like she's from the snow region or some shit.
Apparently Lulu's design - particularly the belts - was Nomura trolling the graphics team to see if they could pull it off. She's absent in some FMVs, probably most notably when the party storm Bevelle from the airship by sliding down the cables , she's nowhere to be seen.
That was why he put the fur collar on Squall's jacket as well
Nomura likes challenging the modelers
>She's absent in some FMVs, probably most notably when the party storm Bevelle from the airship by sliding down the cables, she's nowhere to be seen.
She's not absent there, though. You can see her.
I could dust off my PS2 and check. But I get the feeling they added that in, in later releases. I mean, I'm sure it was always intended. But it was always a joke and I never saw evidence to the contrary until recently.
No, they didn't add that in later in the HD Remaster or anything, Kimarhi was always carrying Lulu in that scene.
I was the one who said Lulu wasn't in the scene and I've played through FFX multiple times and was genuinely shocked I had never noticed Kimahri was carrying her.
it's certainly a bit eye opening that she is, in fact, included but I wouldn't really say it's giving you the best look at her design if we didn't even know she was there either. Good on the team for not neglecting her but all the same.
Japan has a different idea of what makes a good girlfriend than the West and what her role should be, your opinion is skewed by your culture
Quistis from the very first scene comes across more like a protective sibling than a love interest.
If you weren't in love with her while you were playing FFVIII as a teenager in 2001, bad news for you:
You are gay
>b-b-b-but the game is linear
Sorry, you are gay
I want to strangle this b***h.
Please see this ->>
BWC
He was obsessed with Laguna's movie and made his life's goal being a knight
I must not have played this shit in a while I didn't even know Laguna's movie had story relevance other than the moronic flashback where you fight the dragon.
I dont remember Seifer mentioning it at all.
Seifer's sword stance is the same as Laguna's from the movie. It is implied that Seifer watched the movie and that is where his sorceress knight dream came from. Others just say the stance is a reused asset. I lean towards the former.
Like most problems in the game he was completely underwritten with no real long term goals or personality that exists purely because we needed a rival
Literally an incel, that's it
just finished FFX, liked the characters but the linearity of it all can suck my ass. should I try FFVIII
He was a chuuni moron, unironically the most autistic FF character
I still think they just animated the duel with squall without actually knowing how they'd pay him off in the game and then the game went gold when they still had basically nothing for him to do
>argument on Ganker right now about how Ultimecia is Rinoa despite the interviews saying no
>all because she knows about Griever on Squall's ring
>game literally says he is picked from Squall's mind; it's his ring and on the cover of his gunblade
>in non-mangled Japanese she says " "I will summon whom you believe to be the most powerful. The stronger you will him to be, the stronger he will become. You shall suffer."
>in English it's the nonsense " “The most powerful GF… …You shall… …SUFFER…! HAHAHA…”
I really think FF8 needed a better translation. It's a shame there was no solid fan ones like there were for FF7. It really hurts the game in several areas, like when people think Squall is emo, or that there was a love triangle between him, Rinoa, and Seifer (on the train in JP she says "I wouldn't be here if I did (still have feelings for him)") whereas in English they fricked up and wrote that she DID still have feelings for him.
FF9 was similarly mangled iirc. I think the reason they're not talked about being bad translations is because unlike FF7, they look more polished with few glaring errors
>It's a shame there was no solid fan ones like there were for FF7
Well one of the biggest issues is that in addition to translation problems FF7 also had some pretty strikingly poor grammar. Nobody's really gonna notice if script was changed unless they've already played and can read the Japanese version, but you get a game full of shit like "THIS GUY ARE SICK" and that makes it a bit noticeable that quality of the translation might not be up to code.
>like when people think Squall is emo
Squall has a pretend lion he named Griever. I'll grant you that the translation went way too far on the "Whatever..." nonsense and I'll even concede that Japanese script at least gives him a bit more personality based on what I've seen. But whether you want to call him an emo scene kid or not he's still a depressive self absorbed introverted pud. People would have called him emo even if the translation was better.
>despite the interviews saying no
turns out the real GF was the no GF we had along the way
I'm still on disc 1, but man is Squall as likable as mud. I wouldn't even mind them going the whole Solid Snake route with him. Make him appear thorny and cold on the outside while on the inside he's just a trained killer who is afraid to get close to others who may be dead tomorrow... but he's not that. He's cold on the outside and an absolute prick on the inside. He hates pretty much everyone he comes into contact with, he hates listening to others, he's constantly griping on the inside, he's insanely prideful, and if it wasn't for Irving, he wouldn't have even saved his love interest. Pretty much every character is more likable than him in this game.
the incredible ost, amazing background renders, cool setting, really neat way they combined the FMV with the gameplay (did any other game do this), and how fun it is to break the games balancing are keeping me playing, but this main character is horrible and I can only hope he has some self reflection across the 4 disc's at some point.
I liked him last time I played but I can't remember the exact reasoning. Everyone in ff8 except squall is a complete fricking idiot (even quistis), so he is almost always the smartest guy in the room being depended on by everyone else. That scene where you randomly hit switches trying to fly balamb i thought was pointing out the "everyone is depending on me even though I don't know what I'm doing" theme
He was under Edea's control. Even Fujin and Raijin who were super loyal to him admit that they no longer understand Seifer, which makes it clear that he was under her influence with magic involved
>i thought was pointing out the "everyone is depending on me even though I don't know what I'm doing"
I think that's a recurring theme for FF8. At the end of the, they're teenagers. They're highly trained and everything, but they lack experience. Plenty of times they are just clueless about what todo
Again, that would be fine if his internal dialogue didn't paint him as such a terrible person. Whenever he does something good for another character or you have the choice not to be a duck, that feels in spite of Squall and outside of his general nature.
If somebody tries to talk to him, he'd rather not be there. If somebody pours out their issues, he insults them. If he meets somebody new, he hates them. He's just not a good person on the inside which makes his outward interactions seem more manipulative or forced.
Haseo from .hack had similar character traits, but they gave him a reason for being such a dick, they are relatively shallow, he gets called out for them, and though it happens a bit early, he makes an effort to change until the change becomes genuine by the third game. Squall so far is just insanely unpleasant and I'm not sure if the game wants us to relate with him or if he's going to have a subtle change of heart at some point.
It's just Squalltism. He doesn't want to help "you" or give a frick about your problems, but he'll "help" you because the duty unto doing the right thing and helping others as a concept is what holds court in his esteem.
It's what zero empathy does to a motherfricker. It's not complicated.
A lot of MCs pulled off being an butthole better than Squall did and often with better reasons for butthole behavior. Ryuudo from Grandia 2 is a gigantic wiener to most people but he's acerbic, sarcastic and rude about it. He's a loner bounty hunter (geohound) with a tragic past and tends to keep interactions transactional and purposely pushes people away. He lives outside of normal society and wanders from job to job and a large part of society give him shit just as much as he gives it back. People assume he's a lowly illiterate. But even with all of that the game does push his nobler qualities, even if he's indirect about them. He very clearly can't abandon people, he does take pride in his work and while he grouses he also doesn't hesitate to be heroic.
The problem with Squall is that the game wants him to be aloof and distant but it also wants him to be the center of everything the coolest mofo around. The hot teacher is in love with him. Other students think he's cool as hell even he's being rude to their faces. He can't so much as return a handshake and yet everyone thinks he's their hero. And the big cap to all of his brooding and his arc? He didn't even have that bad of a life. Not really. He grew up in an orphanage but was surrounded by people who love him. He didn't want or struggle for food and comfort. The worst is his big sister got adopted before him but oh yeah, thanks to the oh so clever plot twist, he didn't even remember her anyways. And yes I know his foster mother got possessed and went evil but again, AMNESIA PLOT TWIST. God that plot twist ruined so much and added so little. You cut that out and not only does Squall's behavior become more justified it also better explains why anyone would want to put up with him for more than two seconds.
Now I just keep thinking of butthole characters that were done better. Even Luke has a better arc than that. At this point everything BUT Squall is keeping me playing. Like when Rinoa was attacked Squall was fully ready to let her die and only Irvine abandoning his post to help her caused Squall to act, yet this is the hero. This is who I'm supposed to get invested in? Depending on how the game ends he may be one of the biggest douchebags in all of vidya.
Squall was never an butthole, he was just a stoic moron.
He was a moron but he wasn't stoic. Stocke from Radiant Historia is stoic. Stoic people can still be generally and openly kind and thoughtful. In fact they typically are. Stoicism is a virtue not a flaw.
It's STOW-IC not STOIK
If you think he was either an butthole or stoic you're misunderstanding his character. He's your average everyday shy and callow teenager who also happens to be employed as a political assassin with magic powers
I think Squall is like Holden Caulfield from The Catcher in the Rye in the sense that some readers find him totally insufferable and whiny whereas I found myself empathising with both of them. Maybe characters like these are not just for everyone.
I think Squall can be described as “stoic” in how he communicates with others, at least early in the game, whereas his inner monologues show a more nuanced characterisation. The development arc is also quite satisfying.
I would say laconic fits him better than stoic as he still shows his discomfort in situations by muttering"whatever"
Doesn't he actually say "...sorry" in nip?
Yes. Even less stoic. He's literally just your average callow teenager dealing thrust into a situation where he ends up having to deal with getting his first girlfriend despite having precisely zero game while also having to save all of time and space. If you're posting here, you identify with squall whether you want to admit it or not. FFVIII haters really just hate themselves.
I recall Cid admitting at one point that he thrust an inordinate amount of responsibility onto Squall that he should've taken on himself, largely because he couldn't bear to lead the fight against his own wife.
>The worst is his big sister got adopted before him but oh yeah, thanks to the oh so clever plot twist, he didn't even remember her anyways.
Him forgetting is actually the problem. How do you fix yourself if you can't even remember what hurt you? His most prominent childhood memory is being abandoned by someone he depended on. He doesn't know the context so he can't reexamine his feelings and accept that being separated by adoption is a not normal way to end a relationship that he should expect to occur again.
I'd grant you that would have been an interesting point but like most things in FF8 I don't trust that it was intentional.
The big problem with GF amnesia is that it's just too selective and convenient. Any implied amount of usage pre game starting completely wipes out huge chunks of their young lives but the way you spam shit left right and center never seems to have any meaningful effect on anything else. By all accounts they should all have Alzheimers by the end of disc 1.
Squall is literally just a Jotaro Kujo expy. Complete with his own Joseph Jostar expy co-protagonist in Laguna.
>Main villain has time manipulation powers
That's the thing, Squall hates the whole "relying on other people" thing for reasons that are explained in the plot. I do think they could have done a better job at it though, by the time they finally start to explaining, most players will already have formed an opinion on Squall and the first impression sticks.
But it's more than that. If that's all there was to it even that would be forgivable, but his inner monologue towards everyone he meets is so bitter and hateful that it makes him completely unlikable and he really needs to be called out for it in a similar way to Haseo and Luke. Every time he meets an adult he has to comment on how stupid they are or how much he hates just talking to them. If somebody gives some general advice he takes offense to it and takes it personally. He doesn't willing do anything for anyone, and when he does it feels completely out of character to his general thinking. There's just nothing redeemable in his character at the moment.
>Squall hates the whole "relying on other people" thing for reasons that are explained in the plot.
The plot also tells you Squall doesn't remember any of the orphanage shit because of GF's, yet he still remembers Eleone but not his childhood friends.
Why is the GF shit the answer to everything when he didn't start using them until he was 18 and before the seed exam?
Just because he didn't have his own personal GFs doesn't mean he wasn't using Garden provided GFs.
But he had to be taught how to use one....
Well it's either a tutorial for the players too dumb to read the manual, Quistis being overly clingy or else GF induced memory loss again
He doesn't remember Elone, he asks Quistis who was that girl in the infirmary when they're travelling to Dollet. He remembers her much later.
Because it's been more than 10 years since he last saw her and she no longer looks the same?
He shouldn't even remember she was there at all.
Then how does he even remembers he got abandoned, i.e. the source of him wanting so be self-sufficient and not rely/get attached on others?
The whole point of the conversation has been that massive pile of inconsistencies and the gigantic plot hole it causes.
He gets better, it's basically his game-long character arc.
People kept getting confused if it's pronounced cipher or say fur
He wants to be president.
Read a good theory once that Seifer was Cid and Edea's son. That makes his relationship with Edea even weider. Who knows what they did.
I am always wary of theories made from the same people that write fanfictions and spend their years mentally dating characters from JRPG, anime, or that kind of stuff.
I've forgotten most of that game though, you guys are giving me nostalgia, I'd like to play it again but I don't want to spend too much time with random battles anymore...
You can eliminate random battles entirely before you've even finished disk one via Diablos Enc-None ability.
Thanks man, I forgot that!!!
Ahhh, time to bring back the memories... and the feels!!! Aaaahhhh
I don't think there's enough info to believe that.
Cid probably did help Seifer so he wouldn't get expelled or something and his connection with Edea it's obvious, but beyond that there's not much reason to believe it.
I think this theory came about purely because Cid has Seifer's Triple Triad card and fans wanted to make a deeper connection there than there actually is.
Aizen moment
>Sorceress
>No breasts
What did squaresoft mean by this?
Always wondered about this myself. That was clearly a homie.
My theory is that the longer a sorceress continues to hold a piece of Hyne and the more her powers grow, the more she comes to resemble him with horns and body markings and shit, hence the similarities we see in Adel and Ultimecia. And Adel was already so old that she had to find someone to pass her powers on to back in Laguna's time + 18 more years in space, which could account for her extra masculinity. It's kind of a stretch but it still makes way more sense than RU or Squall is dead
That's not how the junction machine works, and Griever is pulled from Squalls subconscious, not Ultimecias. You would have to be deliberately ignoring the entire game and all the lore and subtext it drops on you, not to mention basic common sense to unironically think R=U
My theory is that the more you have to rely on fan theories to make the plot work or the game sound interesting than the rest of the game is probably written inside out and backwards with no thought for connective tissue, context and what anything actually even means. See exhibit A.
So I argue the opposite. Rinoa can NOT be Ultimecia because that might actually be interesting.
magic roids i guess
Junctioned 100 Ultimas to Testosterone.
Seifer was passionate unlike Squall, but still young and naïve. All of his problems stemmed from that.
Not a lot about the FFVIII plot made a whole lot of sense anyway. But it was decent enough just to play.
Aspergers
Maybe I missed something, but I don't understand how he became head of the disciplinary committee when he's the biggest problem child on campus.
Because no one else would want that job, think of how unpopular you'd be as a volunteer student disciplining your classmates. Only a mega dick would take that role. It makes total sense for the character as it plays into his delusions of grandeur and superiority over his classmates.
Huh, that makes a lot of sense. Thanks anon.
It also appears that Cid had confidence in Seifer's potential even though he used to act like a moron.
Mommy's issue evidently
All the main characters are incredibly insecure teenage soldiers (Rinoa isn't a soldier but everything else fits) each with their own method of coping. Seifer's happens to be putting on a front of bravado and wieneriness but he craves positive reinforcement and bends the knee to the first mother-like character that gives him any.
Funnily enough, despite being loud and obnoxious, Zell is probably the most mature and well-adjusted of the lot of them.
Wasn't Zell adopted the earliest? Meanwhile Squall and some of the others went straight from the orphanage into Garden.
I think that is the case except for Quistis, who if I remember correctly was adopted by a family but it didn't work out and it wasn't long before she ended up at Garden.
To expand further because it got me thinking and maybe someone might be interested:
>Squall - abandonment issues, copes by being an anti-social prick
>Quistis - imposter syndrome, copes by trying to be bossy and serious (although from the start of the game she drops this somewhat around Squall)
>Zell - confidence issues from probably having ADHD or something, copes by somewhat playing into it
>Selphie - bottles her emotions and copes by being childish and seemingly positive.
>Irvine - confidence issues, can't deal with pressure well. Copes by putting on a confident act and womanising
>Rinoa - unironically Daddy issues. Her cope is the entire Timber resistance thing. Probably the most immature character at the beginning of the game.
> Seifer - craves positive reinforcement and acceptance. Copes by being a dick to almost everyone and covering his craving with wieneriness.
He was a kissless virgin
Ginger. He never had a chance.