Final Fantasy 8 Remaster [split topic]

[Pink Gregory]

I don't care what anyone says, the train heist is rad as hell.  This is so much breezier than I remember.

[bgmnts]

I think the train heist is the part of the game that sticks out most for me in my memory, it feels like a proper action set piece.

[Cerys]

The less said about the Laguna film-making sequence the better.

[Thursday]

I think with Final Fantasy 8, I wish it never became a story about stopping a powerful megalomaniac who wants to destroy the universe.  Arguably true of quite a few in the series but none more so than 8 for me. I love the first half of the game but I think things really unravel once you get to Esthar.

[Pink Gregory]

Never liked Esthar, you have the beautifully realised dieselpunk-and-art noveau environments up to that point, with occasional strange places like the Centra Ruins; but then Esthar is revealed and it looks like a Mega Man X level and is far less interesting to look at or navigate.

All this after the achingly evocative Fisherman's Horizon as well.

[bgmnts]

Yeah Esthar is the apotheosis of bed-shitting - the crystal hyper-futuristic aesthetic, the navigation etc.

I do love the orphanage twist and the time travel element though, I will say - even if the former needed to be better explained. It feels like everything is almost right but not quite.

[Pink Gregory]

The Lunatic Pandora looming over the city is a great setpiece though, but then because Esthar is so much less knowable than Timber or Balamb, by virtue of mostly being long skyways, you don't feel much for it.

[Thursday]

It feels like a complete world, because you've got the cool hipster towns like Timber, traditional village like Winhill. Bustling city like Deling. The world that's been built sort of falls apart when you introduce those latter elements to it.

I was quite surprised when I went back to it, how much it breezes past some of these plot points. "So here's the people you've been having dreams about. Anyway time travel, just going to give you a brief summary, and off you pop." Rinoa setting free Adel is extremely "This is the one thing we didn't want to happen!"

[bgmnts]

Aye, or:

"How come we have amnesia then?"
"I dunno, GFs?"
"That'll do."

[Pink Gregory]

Aye, or:

"How come we have amnesia then?"
"I dunno, GFs?"
"That'll do."

It is seeded quite early on in the game but you have to dig for it, talk to everyone in Garden, read the terminal etc etc

I think if you talk to one of the Balamb Garden staff (the people in the weird hats) when you graduate to a SeeD they say something like 'Don't listen to the concerns about memory loss'

[bgmnts]

Eh I know I know, it is a legitimate explanation, it just feels a bit naff.

I think I'd have much preferred that the militant, cold and regimented life of the academy just made them forget those early years. I think that would have gone better with the thematic elements of the game.

[Pink Gregory]

Almost everything could have been solved with a few more lines of dialogue, you do wonder how much it's down to the translation.

Para-magic and GFs are vaguely described as 'energy', but there's a missed opportunity to explore themes of dehumanisation and conditioning in military education.  Might not have struck the right tone though.

[Pink Gregory]

fucksake I missed Diablos

That's going to make getting weapon upgrades harder

[Glebe]

Had it for the PS1 and played the PC version again a couple of years ago (getting all the cards and beating Omega weapon), 'twasn't the remastered version though.

It's really underrated next to VII.

[Mister Six]

Yeah Esthar is the apotheosis of bed-shitting - the crystal hyper-futuristic aesthetic, the navigation etc.

I do love the orphanage twist and the time travel element though, I will say - even if the former needed to be better explained. It feels like everything is almost right but not quite.

I've forgotten a lot of FF8, but I remember hating the orphanage twist because it seemed so absurdly contrived, and I kept waiting the whole game for it to be revealed as a false memory or something.

I did love the final cinematic, though. It felt like a really satisfying, warm-hearted ending, compared to the rather truncated, oblique one from FF7.

I've got FF7 waiting for me when I get back to the US at the end of the month and am now thinking I might do 8 and 9 in due order. I never finished 9, come to think of it.

[dontpaintyourteeth]

I never finished 9, come to think of it.

Do iiiiit. It's the best one I reckon

[bgmnts]

I've forgotten a lot of FF8, but I remember hating the orphanage twist because it seemed so absurdly contrived, and I kept waiting the whole game for it to be revealed as a false memory or something.

I did love the final cinematic, though. It felt like a really satisfying, warm-hearted ending, compared to the rather truncated, oblique one from FF7.

I've got FF7 waiting for me when I get back to the US at the end of the month and am now thinking I might do 8 and 9 in due order. I never finished 9, come to think of it.

I'll say that ALL FF games I've played shit the bed at the end and turn into utter nonsense, even IX, which to me is by far the best and most complete FF. I'd definitely recommend finishing.

But yeah I can understand hating the orphanage twist but I think it just hits me in the right spot, probably because the entire game after Balamb and Squall's 'death' is slightly contrived in its plot so it doesn't seem too out there for me.

[dontpaintyourteeth]

The ending of IX is good actually you POLTROON

[Pink Gregory]

At least Ultimecia's Castle is a good dungeon.  Sephiroth fight aside the Northern Cave was a damp squib for the end of FF7.

[Thursday]

fucksake I missed Diablos

That's going to make getting weapon upgrades harder

How do you miss it, you just get given the item to fight him?

Anyway this thread has got me replaying, might as well uninstall Starfield because I'm not going back now. Even after multiple playthroughs this is much more compelling.

[bgmnts]

Yeah won't lie I'm tempted to go through VIII and IX again.

Hearing that Balamb Garden theme and seeing Zell do those ridiculous somersaults and Mac karate kicks just brings me back to being a child like nothing else.

[Pink Gregory]

How do you miss it, you just get given the item to fight him?

Anyway this thread has got me replaying, might as well uninstall Starfield because I'm not going back now. Even after multiple playthroughs this is much more compelling.

I thought so too, I thought Cid gave it to you, but you need to actively speak to him before you go off to Timber.  It's annoying because you don't have enough GFs for one each until you get Carbuncle at the very least and you also can't get Mug until you get Bahamut, which is both optional and loads later.

[The Mollusk]

Esthar is a disgusting mess of a place, but that music tho 🤤

[Cerys]

Before or after the Lunar Cry?  Because the earlier Esthar music made me wonder if Nobuo Uematsu was having a stroke.

[Pink Gregory]

Yeah won't lie I'm tempted to go through VIII and IX again.

Hearing that Balamb Garden theme and seeing Zell do those ridiculous somersaults and Mac karate kicks just brings me back to being a child like nothing else.

I love that no one ever brings up his face tattoo.  When did he get it?  Why is he allowed to have it in a military academy?  Presumably it's healed up, so who's tattooing a 15 year old?  Was this made before Mike Tyson got his very similar ink?

But nah, it's just Zell, he is hot headed and he likes to eat, this is his personality.

It would just take one student walking around Garden to say "...fuck's that all about?"

[dontpaintyourteeth]

Christ I hate Zell

[The Mollusk]

Before or after the Lunar Cry?  Because the earlier Esthar music made me wonder if Nobuo Uematsu was having a stroke.

Before! Works so good as a solo piano piece as well:

[Pink Gregory]

Anyway, got the flying Garden now.  Surprising to realise how little you can get about until you have it, and how missable so many things in this game are.

You have absolutely no reason to go back to Dollet, but if you do there are a few, fairly elaborate, screens that you won't have seen the first time, loads of people playing out little stories, one of the Occult Fan magazines (which I only just discovered all these years after first playing).  It's all irrelevant, and with fairly few rewards, but it's there!

It's where the random rule starts showing up in Triple Triad though, so fuck that for a game of soldiers.

[bgmnts]

I love that no one ever brings up his face tattoo.  When did he get it?  Why is he allowed to have it in a military academy?  Presumably it's healed up, so who's tattooing a 15 year old?  Was this made before Mike Tyson got his very similar ink?

But nah, it's just Zell, he is hot headed and he likes to eat, this is his personality.

It would just take one student walking around Garden to say "...fuck's that all about?"

Teacher looks out into the hallway and sees some daft cunt backflipping past the classroom and just goes ah just Zell no worries like.

There is something irresistible about Mike Tyson seeing one of his kids play FFVIII, taking a look at Zell and going 'yes! That's how I want to look'.

[dontpaintyourteeth]

That chicken-wuss.