The First Disc

[Trumpet Thief]

The first time I played Final Fantasy VIII, which was maaaaannyyyy years ago, I fell in love with it. It was at the time, my favorite Final Fantasy (I had played IV, IX, and X). I came back to it a few times after, and I still consider it to be the Final Fantasy that gave me the most genuine laughs, up there with FFVI.

I'm sure people have discussed this before, but man have I noticed it. The First Disc in Final Fantasy VIII, is to me, absolutely amazing. Now if you don't like the Junction system to start off with, that's fine, as that doesn't change throughout the game. However, I really feel like the storytelling was superb, as was the atmosphere, the presentation of the characters... you name it. I liked Squall as the asshole that he was, and all of his personal monologues were actually quite enjoyable for me. The sorceress storyline that was being built was pretty interesting, and just being a part of a big military organization was entertaining. By the peak of the Disc (I sure hope you guys still don't use spoiler tags here ), where SeeD was hired to assassinate Edea in Deling, it was just plain awesome. We had all of the characters split up, and focused on seperately. Squall thinking about what 'good' and 'evil' were, and Irvine's breakdown before shooting Edea, had me sold. And by the end of it, Squall jumps into a car, drives up, and goes to kill her himself. Surely you can imagine how excited I was to put in the second disc

And so I did. And as much as I hate to admit it, it broke apart a lot of what I loved about the game. Squall suddenly becoming the LEADER of SeeD just did not feel right to me. To me, he started becoming a softy way too quick (that's just me), and then when we find out that everyone except Rinoa came from the same orphanage, I basically lost hope.

Now, I still love the game, and it is still one of my three favorite Final Fantasies, just for how fun it was to play. And it is still really fun to talk about, with at least one wacky yet entertaining Final Fantasy 8 theory coming out every year. But man oh man, sometimes I just wonder how great the game would've been if it followed the somewhat realistic and atmospheric mood of the First Disc (and yes, to me the first Disc was realistic ).

Wasn't the first disc awesome? Did you guys notice a big shift in how the game felt after it, or was it really just me?

[Levian]

The first disc is awesome indeed, I love the whole idea of the garden, just going on a mission to get Ifrit was awesome in itself. I liked the whole game though, not sure if I ever noticed a turning point where things started becoming bad.

Might be a first disc thing though, atmospheres tend to be more calm in the beginning of games.

[Trumpet Thief]

Well I wouldn't say they were bad, I still enjoyed the game for the most part. I guess I just really expected the game to go another way, and that the plot twists in Disc 2 just came really fast and hard (Edea being Cid's wife, NORG, The Orphanage Stuff, Squall becoming leader). Still glad we have some common ground, and yeah, I think it is a first Disc thing haha

[McLovin']

Exactly how I felt, man.

I thought saving Garden from the missiles was pretty fun.

[ChickenHeart]

Oh yeah, disc 1 and 2 were golden...then you reach disc 3 and the story goes downhill although near the end of disc 2 it goes down alot too.

[Goldenboko]

I agree that the first disc of this game did give a good impression of how the storyline will go. But it was bad plot turn after bad plot turn after the first disc.

[Christmas]

Ya, since it involves a lot of bloodshed and clash of violent swordmen right at the beginning FMV.

[Future Esthar]

I found the opposite.
If the game maintained the realism of the first disc it would be utterly boring and would be on my list of least favorite.
I loved the turn around that happened on the second and mainly on the third discs.
Because I love everything sci-fi and irrealistic.
Too much realism mades a game boring.

[Marshall Banana]

For me, the disappointment comes when Ultimecia is introduced, because Edea's flair of mystery disappears forever, and she becomes completely unimportant. I like her best as the main villain.

[Goldenboko]

For me, the disappointment comes when Ultimecia is introduced, because Edea's flair of mystery disappears forever, and she becomes completely unimportant. I like her best as the main villain.

Agreed.

[Wolf Kanno]

I'm in agreement as well, though I do like the whole game, I felt the plot went from having some great premises to suddenly having it ignore it and go to some really sketchy and sometimes just plain bad writing. The cast as a whole dwindles in importance after the orphanage twist oddly enough and I agree that Ultimecia's appearance into the plot sky dived the whole thing into B-Movie territory.

[Mo-Nercy]

I love the whole game, but it's true - the first disc is absolutely amazing and incredibly immersive (but only if you're into the characters and story, I suppose). I think the second disc is great too. Garden Wars was particularly fun to play through. It all went downhill with Ultimecia's introduction, of course, but hey, still a great game.

[Iceglow]

If Edea had been the big bad there would have been no Time Compression to contend with, no paradoxes and most of all no R = U theories! I could so live with that!

Seriously though the first disc of VIII was seriously immense the only nag I had with it and actually I guess this goes for VIII in general and VII too. Aside from Triple Triad (Queen of Cards quest is actually entirely possible on disc 1 if you're patient enough to reset to get the queen running between balamb and dollet with exception of the recovery of the card the Queen loses to Martine) there really isn't any side quests to do in VIII especially not on the first disc. I think perhaps having added more options such as contracts to perform for SeeD and Garden would have been awesome but then until the disc 3 roam around and power up for the final conflict there is a lot of story driven things the side quests wouldn't really fit with the game story though they would be awesome!

[Mo-Nercy]

If Edea had been the big bad there would have been no Time Compression to contend with, no paradoxes and most of all no R = U theories! I could so live with that!

Seriously though the first disc of VIII was seriously immense the only nag I had with it and actually I guess this goes for VIII in general and VII too. Aside from Triple Triad (Queen of Cards quest is actually entirely possible on disc 1 if you're patient enough to reset to get the queen running between balamb and dollet with exception of the recovery of the card the Queen loses to Martine) there really isn't any side quests to do in VIII especially not on the first disc. I think perhaps having added more options such as contracts to perform for SeeD and Garden would have been awesome but then until the disc 3 roam around and power up for the final conflict there is a lot of story driven things the side quests wouldn't really fit with the game story though they would be awesome!

Definitely. I think many of us expected that to come out of being a hired mercenary. Something similar to FFXII's mark sidequests would've been good.

I guess you can consider getting Brothers a side quest. You don't actually have to go in and get them to continue the story - you can just get the ID number and leave if you want.

[Wolf Kanno]

I'm still sad at how underutilized the trains on the Galbadia continent were. In my last playthrough I went out of my way to explore and I used the trains alot but there really is very little to outside of the story. I think the game gave you Garden too soon.