Final Fantasy VIII Finito

So I just finished playing through Final Fantasy 8 for the 2nd time, SO much better than I remembered. Story made a lot more sense, as did the combat system which, as I explained last post, is very strange.

My final battle was always very dramatic because I had forgotten that when you start your battle with the final boss the party is randomly selected. So my carefully honed party of three had an ill-prepared member thrown into the mix and sudenly found itself in dire straits. Needless to say it went down hill from there, though I made a valient last stand as main charcter Squall dealt a finishing blow to the 2nd of 4 forms you must combat, only to succumb to the irremovable Doom status at the beginning of the 3rd form. Tragic, and yet Epic. Of course I then spent 30 mintes re-Junctioning the various GFs to different supplementary characters (Irvine, Zell and Selphie, also known as the comic relief team) only to enter the final battle a second time with all thee of my best best characters. I was happy yet slightly frustrated that my beautiful re-Junctioning was for naught. The first form passed quikly as I dealt a punishing blow with the ultimate GF "Eden" and a few deft blows from Squall's nigh ultimate Gunblade quickly dispatched the minor menace. Then it was onto Griever, a GF under Ultimecia's control that has a fortunate weakness to Holy (And I a fortunate surplus of Holy spells to Triple cast, along with the use of the GF "Alexander") So before too long he curled up into a little ball, but then Ultimecia is all like "I'm gonna combine my power with his" and she does, so I'm all "Yeah, well, eat Eden!" So, I started to summon Eden, but got interdimensionally pimp slapped and she took out Eden in a single attack! I wasn't taking that, and after a little thinking I determined "Aura time..." So I slapped Aura on Quistis and tried a few things til I discovered that Aqua Breath was doing 9999 damage. So basically, I beat her down with a giant squirt gun. I felt vindicated. But.... The fight was not yet over. The true form of Ultimecia arose from the darkness of a Space-Time void to confront my party. Changing tactics yet again, I stuck Aura on Squall and Rinoa while leaving Quistis to Triple Cast Curaga. Why? Because Ulti had this nasty little move called Hell's Judgment that knocks everyone down to 1 HP. Didn't do me no trouble though, just kept whaling on her with Squall's Renzokuken (Multi-Gunblade hit combo with a powerful finisher on a perfect, which ain't hard to get) and Rinoa's attack combo with... Her dog (Don't ask me why, all I know is that she's got this move "Wishing Star" that has run out of bubble gum if you take my meaning, and she conveniently did it ALOT.) So this poor defenseless final boss basically had no chance, though I was a little disappointed that she didn't last at least long enough to finish her little mid-battle speech. She ended on "And..." So I'm left wondering "And what? And remember to brush your teeth? And remember to be excellent to each other?" The world may never know.... Unless they just google it.

So yeah, lots of flashy explosions and escaping from compressed time, happy ending finale. Now I'm going to play through Final Fantasy IX. I've actually already started and am remembering all sorts of stuff I'd forgotten about it. Maybe the identity of the Final Boss will make more sense this time....

Long time no post.

So, I haven't posted anything in almost two weeks, so I thought I should. This is probably largely due to the fact that I still can't really move back into my room entirely because that would simply mean moving stuff back out again once its decided when and whether we're getting my room refloored. Its not really a big problem since I can still use my bed, its just inconvenient. But, thats what happens when the power goes out after its been raining for a day and a half, thus making the sub-pump inoperable, and then your basement doesn't really flood, but just enough to totally ruin the carpet. *Sigh* Oh well.

I've been re-playing Final Fantasy VIII recently because I haven't played in about, oh, 8 years. I definitely understand its system better this go around, but its still a pretty odd system. Basically its such an odd system that it turned off a lot of Final Fantasy fans and most will say to this day "Its great in the graphics and music, and I like the story, but what were they thinking with the game mechanics?" Too explain the strangeness of the system to those not familiar with the series, imagine if normally your character could attack, cast spells that he learned or bought with a set number of magic points, summon magnificant creatures to devestate your foes, and you could choose which spells and such you had equiped along with weapons, armor and accessories. Y'know, normal gameplay. In Final Fantasy 8 unless you equip yourself with one of those summonable creatures, all you can do is a normal attack, which quite frankly is a really weak attack. You don't learn spells, you draw them out of enemies and little magical fountains that replenish after awhile, and then you very rarely use said spells in combat aside from healing spells, and really the main purpose of the spells is to use an incredibly strange system in which you equip various spells through your creature (or creatures) to boost your character's stats. Also this generally takes the place of any purchasing of armor or accessories you might do, especially considering that you can't purchase any armor or accessories. You also don't purchase new weapons, instead you collect random junk that's dropped by or stolen from enemies and take it to a shop where they "Remodel" your weapon. So yeah, really weird right? I mean, as a fan of innovative gameplay I appreciate it nowadays, but I totally understand why fans were unhappy after coming off of 7 games before that had kept largely the same system in place. The story, music and graphics are still outstanding for the time though.

Anyway, I'm off to Austin Grill for dinner and then the midnight showing of Indiana Jones later.

Ja ne.