Seifer's animations during the second battle.

Is there a reason why Seifer's battle animations are different in the second battle, and then they go back to normal for every other battle?

His standard attack is usually him slashing his Gunblade in a horizontal manoeuvre, and in the second battle it is the same except he turns around before attacking, and when he is on critical (used as his "defeated" animation" when you fight him) is slouch down, Gunblade lowered, and pointing outwards. However in the second battle his defeated animation is to kneel with his Gunblade pointing down.

Anyone know why Square did this? I'd understand if they kept it up for the later battles, because then it could be something like he'd updated his fighting style or something, but they just go back to using regular animations later on.

Are you talking about the battle where it's versus him and Edea at the end of Disc 2? I think you fight him solo immediately before, and I thought in the second part (with Edea) the idea is he's in a "critical" state the whole time. Then later in the game he's back to snuff so goes back to his normal battle stance.

I might be misremembered some details, haven't played FF8 in a while...

Yeah, I'm not sure if your confusing this a bit... I just watched the battles and its the third fight where Seifer's animation is different and its because he just got finished getting trounced by the party literally 10 minutes before this fight. He always does the spin in his normal attack except in the third fight.

Fight 2 in Galbadia

Fight 3 in Galbadia with Edea

Fight 4 in Lunatic Pandora

There is nothing different between his fight 2 and fight 4 animations beyond his coat being shredded, so I'm not sure if you spotted something different or just simply mistaking Fight 2 and 3 together.