Got the Ragnarok, so I'm basically done with disc 3. Time to farm some Malboros and get all those Espers and best weapons!

Here's some thoughts, since I made a lot of progress since my last update.
- I'm surprised with how cohesive and well put-together the story is. Honestly, VIII was one of those games I was least looking forward to, and it ended up being one of the coolest parts of this marathon, in part because of how well the plot is done.

- Though it has its quirks, I still think that overall it feels much more polished than VII which had really high highs, but incredibly low lows. I guess the fact that this is one of those entries where large parts of the fanbase consider it a "black sheep" makes me more lenient towards it.

- Disc 3 has a similar problem to VII's Disc 2, but not quite to the same extent. Like I said, the orphanage scene may have been heavy-handed, but it was subtly set up and I think it works fairly well. The stuff, here, however? Suddenly we're going to space? And then there's this big block? And apparently monsters come from the moon and they're about to fall but this hasn't been brought up by anyone until now even though it totally should have been because HOLY CRAP A MASSIVE CALAMITY IS ABOUT TO HAPPEN AND PEOPLE KNEW ABOUT IT!?

- No track embodies how I feel about the soundtrack better than the Esthar theme. It's a very nicely composed track, but the arrangement is just bafflingly terrible. Owl hoots and whistles? Seriously, Nobuo? That's how you want to introduce this marvelous high-tech society?

- That Ragnarok scene was unnecessarily padded. I like that there was a gimmick to beating the monsters, but it got incredibly irritating that only after beating half of them twice already that only then the game decided it should tell me how this thing works.

- I wish Edea could stay in the party for longer

- OK, seriously. What is up with Adel looking like a 12-foot-tall male bodybuilder? I'm mostly asking you here, Wolf Kanno, since you've probably read an Ultimania or something (it's kinda your thing). I don't even mean a story reason or anything, I just mean design-wise. What was Nomura's reasoning for this? I'm genuinely curious, since this was always one of those really interesting things about FFVIII that never get a proper explanation.