Very Interesting FFVIII article *spoilers inside*

Remembering the Orphan: Final Fantasy VIII < Features | PopMatters

I am not marking my spoilers because the game is a decade old. If you are playing through this for the first time, then why are you in this thread?

*Last Spoiler Warning*

Anyway, the article made some really good points on what I thought were weak moments in the game. Though, I still say the "GFs made us forget" plot twist would have worked a lot better if they foreshadowed it (the optional blurb on Squall's internet Facebook desk thingy does NOT count) or at least built up to it better. I know they had it planned all along, but the way it was presented made it accidentally look like very lazy writing.

Your thoughts?

I thought it was a nice article!

I saw this article recently, it is pretty interesting and makes a good defence for my favourite game in the series. I'm not sure I agree with their criticisms of the script translation though, I never noticed anything wrong with that.

Made me appreciate the game that little bit more. I've always enjoyed the story, but never quite got to finishing it. I'm going to have to buy another copy now, so I can get past the damn space station.

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Originally Posted by charliepanayi

I saw this article recently, it is pretty interesting and makes a good defence for my favourite game in the series. I'm not sure I agree with their criticisms of the script translation though, I never noticed anything wrong with that.

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Yeah...I think I remember a line or two that sounded a bit odd, as if there was an idiom or something that didn't have an English equivalent, but that was all.

Definitely an interesting article, but it seems to me far too concerned with praising FFVIII for being ambitious while refusing to acknowledge that it failed to realized many of these ambitions.

i think the author is trying to get ppl to give it another chance with a better understand of the game and its mechanics, and maybe even convince some newer players to give it a chance despite the bashing it gets from "Jaded Old School Purists"...
either way it was a good article and succeded in getting me to toss it into the old PSone for another go...

VIII was good but it did have flaws! at least it wasn't as flawed as XII though, Am i right??!!

[QUOTE=Sephex;2675199Though, I still say the "GFs made us forget" plot twist would have worked a lot better if they foreshadowed it (the optional blurb on Squall's internet Facebook desk thingy does NOT count) or at least built up to it better. I know they had it planned all along, but the way it was presented made it accidentally look like very lazy writing.

Your thoughts?[/QUOTE]


I'll read the article another time (I'm interested, I'm just a bit limited today), but I'd like to just state something about the orphanage scene. I never thought it looked like lazy writing; I thought it was handled just the right amount of foreshadowing to be concidered good, and that is true FF style foreshadowing.

What basically happens is that the foreshadowing becomes more obvious after you've had the GF thing revealed amd played the game again - just like Cloud's memories in FFVII (slightly different because in that game is apparrent from earliy on that something doesn't add up about his memories, but it changes as the game goes on.) The "internet" thing is one, but it is not the main one. The main one is more subtle, it is in dialogue and expressions, notice the way the characters are when they have "just met" for the "first time". The scenes have an air of "do I know you?" and "For some reason I expected that of you". Other examples include Squall recognizing Edea's name the first time he hears it. I shall follow up on this when I can, I really should type all this up propperly, I know opinion is opinion, but I feel there are parts of VIII (and to a lesser extent VII) that don't get the credit they deserve.

Look forward to the article, try to read it ASAP.

And notice how Irvine goes right for Selphie when he joins the party :p

The one thing about FFVIII that annoyed me the most is that they would substitute words for their numbers. Like "What are you two doing?" becomes "What are you 2 doing?" It's silly!

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Originally Posted by Ouch!

Definitely an interesting article, but it seems to me far too concerned with praising FFVIII for being ambitious while refusing to acknowledge that it failed to realized many of these ambitions.

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Er...well that's probably because you think it did fail in those ambitions but the person who wrote the article thinks otherwise. Surely it's more logical to say that you disagreed with the author on this point, not that they were sticking their head in the sand over this aspect of the game.

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Originally Posted by charliepanayi

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Originally Posted by Ouch!

Definitely an interesting article, but it seems to me far too concerned with praising FFVIII for being ambitious while refusing to acknowledge that it failed to realized many of these ambitions.

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Er...well that's probably because you think it did fail in those ambitions but the person who wrote the article thinks otherwise. Surely it's more logical to say that you disagreed with the author on this point, not that they were sticking their head in the sand over this aspect of the game.

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Agreed.


I personally don't find that it failed, at all. Not in those "ambitions" - as I have said before, Final Fantasy has a great method of forshadowing - it's more obvious the 2nd time.

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Originally Posted by Ouch!

Definitely an interesting article, but it seems to me far too concerned with praising FFVIII for being ambitious while refusing to acknowledge that it failed to realized many of these ambitions.

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Probably about sums it up for me.

I certainly think he did praise the strengths really well but, as seems to be the consensus, wasn't quite so willing to confront many of the game's shortcomings. Having said that, the article did remind me of how much I liked various aspects of the game's visual style and particularly the set-up of Balamb Garden; an institution I felt could have been used more often within the game if only as a base for more SeeD missions or whatever.

I enjoyed the article.It did,as others have said,want me to give it another go and think less critical about it.For me FF8 is on the lower end of the game series,but I'l show you how little i understood it : i didnt gather from the game that laguna was squalls father haha,but yeah it definatly has gave me an urge to go through the game again(slowly!)and go in-depth where I failed to prevously

I really enjoyed that article. I'm always more interested in knowing the meaning behind certain scenes/scenarios. Although I had made a similar analysis by myself upon the billionth replay, I never actually really got what the hell was going on in that bit of the ending before Squall appears in the field of flowers.

And I didn't know Joss Whedon was a FFVIII fan. That's so awesome.