Final Fantasy VIII vs. Final Fantasy X-2

[Jessweeee♪]

My point is, it's like saying green is a better color overall than purple and if you think otherwise it is illogical, when in fact logic plays no part in determining whether or not green is indeed a better color than purple.

[Wolf Kanno]

You did miss my point, I have no issues of the escalation (I'm a Xenogears fan after all) it does have to do with the poorly utilized time travel story

And why exactly do you think the time-travel plot was poorly utilized?

Beyond turning out to be an over-glorified flashback, Time travel comes into the main focus of the story until late in the game and its all held up by the giant Doomsday McGuffin which is Time Compression. Which is a plot element that comes out of nowhere with no real explanation as to why its even important to the villain or where she came up with the concept of it, or even why she felt the need to do it in the first place. When the Time Travel plot device is revealed, Ellone pretty much lays down the rules on how Time Travel works in VIII but suddenly Time Compression pops in and because of it, most of the rules can be thrown out the window travel to the future, and having your body travel through time instead of your consciousness).

Mostly TC is poorly explained and just used as a plot device to give the Big Bad another reason why she needs to be stopped and let the heroes travel to the future to kick her ass. Because of its rather vague descriptions in the game, its allowed some fans to come up with any crackpot theory they can imagine and have a semi-legitimate excuse to say its okay no matter how much of a paradox it may be.

Let's also not forget that the game never explains how Ellone got her power and why she's apparently the only person who has it. Once again, its basically a plot device with little explanation and painfully ignored by the rest of the games cast. Its this type of bad writing that makes me feel like VIII is basically four of Nojima's stories (Time Travel, Witches, Teen Mercenaries, story of breaking out of your emotional shell) that weren't going anywhere on their own and he just decided to haphazardly combine them all into a huge mess.

[The Crystal]

You did miss my point, I have no issues of the escalation (I'm a Xenogears fan after all) it does have to do with the poorly utilized time travel story

And why exactly do you think the time-travel plot was poorly utilized?

Beyond turning out to be an over-glorified flashback, Time travel comes into the main focus of the story until late in the game and its all held up by the giant Doomsday McGuffin which is Time Compression. Which is a plot element that comes out of nowhere with no real explanation as to why its even important to the villain or where she came up with the concept of it, or even why she felt the need to do it in the first place. When the Time Travel plot device is revealed, Ellone pretty much lays down the rules on how Time Travel works in VIII but suddenly Time Compression pops in and because of it, most of the rules can be thrown out the window travel to the future, and having your body travel through time instead of your consciousness).

Mostly TC is poorly explained and just used as a plot device to give the Big Bad another reason why she needs to be stopped and let the heroes travel to the future to kick her ass. Because of its rather vague descriptions in the game, its allowed some fans to come up with any crackpot theory they can imagine and have a semi-legitimate excuse to say its okay no matter how much of a paradox it may be.

Let's also not forget that the game never explains how Ellone got her power and why she's apparently the only person who has it. Once again, its basically a plot device with little explanation and painfully ignored by the rest of the games cast. Its this type of bad writing that makes me feel like VIII is basically four of Nojima's stories (Time Travel, Witches, Teen Mercenaries, story of breaking out of your emotional shell) that weren't going anywhere on their own and he just decided to haphazardly combine them all into a huge mess.

That's what I meant, but it seems you missed my point. I wasn't talking about the escalation in conflict, but the plot-twist that comes out of nowhere at the end of the story, and the confusing time-travel/loop aspect.
Many FFs have those things, so it's not fair to blame only FFVIII for it.

And the game does explain why TC is important to Ultimecia and why she felt the need to do it. It's all there, in Ultimecia/Edea's speech in Galbadia, Odine and Laguna's explanation about TC, and the Scan you can use on her during the final battle.

[Wolf Kanno]

That's what I meant, but it seems you missed my point. I wasn't talking about the escalation in conflict, but the plot-twist that comes out of nowhere at the end of the story, and the confusing time-travel/loop aspect.
Many FFs have those things, so it's not fair to blame only FFVIII for it.

I don't consider the other FFs to be nearly as bad (well IV is really guilty of this so VIII isn't really alone and XIII is just plain... bad) but I really felt VIII did it in a way where it just felt half asses. Other games have bad plot points but often or not its just poorly executed or its a scene that should be taken more for comical reason. VIII is pretty much poor execution and just head scratching "wtf?!" moments. Its all still very entertaining, I was never bored but I never was able to take the game serious anymore after the second disc because the plot just spiraled down towards absurdity imo.

Other games pull some really stupid plot twist here and there but VIII was the one that tended to do it early and often compared to a majority of the FF games.

And the game does explain why TC is important to Ultimecia and why she felt the need to do it. It's all there, in Ultimecia/Edea's speech in Galbadia, Odine and Laguna's explanation about TC, and the Scan you can use on her during the final battle.

I should have made that more clear. I know its important cause she basically wants to conquer everything and become a god, but the game gives no real inclination as to why. Ex-Death is a malevolent incarnation of man's evil and wants to use the Void to rule the cosmos, Ghestahl wanted world domination, Sephiroth felt it was his birthright to become a god, Kuja wanted to defeat Garland, and so on and so forth.

Ultimecia basically shows up and says she's going to compress time to become a god but there is no reason as to why. Even Ex-Death has a logical reason to do the crap he does, even if his Freudian excuse is simply that he is irredeemably evil. Ultimecia lacks any real backstory, and while I feel that Dark Bahamut has come up with a decent idea for why she is the way she is and in fact makes her quite sympathetic, I must point out that the evidence is circumstantial at best and heavily needs for the interpretor to look at her dialogue from a sympathetic "victim" standpoint.

On the other hand, I feel you can also look at it simply as the "I R EVIL" speech it does come across. Her speaking of persecution always gave me the opinion she was simply speaking of it in a casual manner, not in the "You persecuted me specifically" and more of a "you persecuted sorceresses, my people". Because of this, I am skeptical of any theory of her motive being revenge or self-preservation as I feel she is far too narcissistic and arrogant to be doing her actions to save herself from some threat, especially when her dialogue shows over and over again, that she pretty much considers everything around her to be dirt.

Though I am not one to count a spin-off title as canon, Ultimecia in Dissidia does give her personal reason for TC, and it was simply because she wanted to be a god, worshiped forever by her frozen domain. I feel this better reflects what we see in VIII. That she was simply an atypical megalomaniac with a god-complex, who just happened to have a time theme. There is very little justification for TC as she really doesn't have much of a defined motive. She wants to become a god? Fine but why? and why would TC be the option and how the hell did she discover or create the notion to even do TC, how does she even start? Every question just leads to another question and just shows that none of this was really thought out or the writer just assumed the player wouldn't care.

[The Crystal]

Other games pull some really stupid plot twist here and there but VIII was the one that tended to do it early and often compared to a majority of the FF games.

Well, in my opinion many FF games presented a huge, and "really stupid", plot-twist at the middle or end of the game. For example:

FFI was about defeating the elemental fiends and saving the light of the crystals. But this all changes at the end, when a nonsensical time-loop caused by the first boss of the game is revealed to you at the last minute.

FFII was about fighting against a magical evil empire wanting world domination. But this all changes by the middle/end of the game, when the enemy you killed randomly returns from death, and you need to fight against the forces of Hell and Heaven.

FFIII was about stopping an evil wizard of stopping-time/conquering the world. But this all changes at the end, when you have to fight an evil cloud that wants to send everything to some Void, and there is something about a "balance between light and darkness" that wasn't mentioned before.

FFVI was about fighting an evil empire trying to take over the world. But at the middle of it, you need to save a post-apocalyptic world from a mad god.

FFIX was about stopping Terra's souls from replacing Gaia's souls, but at the end of it, there is some Crystal(never mentioned before), and you need to save it from the bad guy who is going to destroy it, ending all existence.

I could cite more examples, but I think my point is clear. Random and unexplained plot-twists that come out from nowhere at the end or middle of the game, are common in FF.
FFVIII isn't the only one.


Obs: If it isn't clear yet, In this post I'm not refering to what you said about the orphanage scene, but to what you said about the sudden change of direction in FFVIII's plot after the end of Disc 2.
That "sudden change of direction" is pretty common in FF games, and blaming ONLY FFVIII for it, is not fair IMO.

[Wolf Kanno]

Obs: If it isn't clear yet, In this post I'm not referring to what you said about the orphanage scene, but to what you said about the sudden change of direction in FFVIII's plot after the end of Disc 2.
That "sudden change of direction" is pretty common in FF games, and blaming ONLY FFVIII for it, is not fair IMO.

You are really caught up with my comment on "change in direction" aren't you?

You miss the other elements of my comments on the story though, the problem here is not just the change in the direction but the fact that the new plot elements are utterly ridiculous (Orphanage Scene) or poorly explained (Ellone's power) or more often than not both (Time Compression and Ultimecia's reasoning). I also said that VIII wasn't alone in this, I commented that IV is pretty bad about this as well, and how it is pure nostalgia that saves it from me hating on the title though I would also count the cast in there as being a redeemable feature of the title.

The other games you mentioned I either don't agree cause the plot twist still fits in line with the story overall, such as the Time Loop, CoD's intro, and the WoR or the scene in question is basically a silly bad ass moment (Mateus conquering Hell and coming back to conquer the world which basically is best summed up with a quote from Kill Bill:

"You didn't think it was going to be this easy did you?"

"You know, for a minute there, I did"

I'll give you the one from IX but I find it amusing you left out VII since it has quite a few as well.

I'm talking every new plot element added being stupid and changing the premise from something respectable to something that feels like a really bad sci-fi/fantasy piece. Its hard trying to recount the plot of VIII without noticing how utterly silly it sounds on paper. The other titles have a generally ascent of escalation which despite being a bit silly at times, still fits into the narrative as a whole instead of completely redefining everything, thus it rarely destroys the suspension of belief for the player.

Despite all this, I still like the game but I can't argue with people who feel the plot is stupid or poorly implemented cause I wholly agree. VIII works best as a character piece, as a story its like a bad M. Night. Shyamalan picture. Despite all this, I feel VIII has one of the most ridiculous plots but its not the worst in terms of bad writing. I just feel that VIII had a lot of great elements going for it and it basically went into a bizarre direction, like a half finished Beatles song that Yoko Ono got a hold of and decided to add some "improvements" to. VIII's story frustrates me cause it tries to deal with these bad story twists when there are so many more interesting elements going for it.

[Forsaken Lover]

FFIX was about stopping a war on Gaia. Terra being involved at all and trying to assimilate Gaia is the escalating conflict of the game.

The Crystal is just the climax.

[Breine]

FFX-2 had a fun battle system, and was lighthearted. But c'mon! FFVIII is by far the best one out of those two!

Get real

[Christmas]

Kinda like apple and orange as the approach plus direction for both are completely unique. But VIII got devour so it takes the cake.

I like devouring things.