Standing up for FF8

[maybee]

True, but when you start out you're expected to draw as many spells as you can until you learn the ability to refine. Also the game does a poor job of explaining its mechanics to you, which leads to a lot of confusion.

Do agree with you that the mechanics to the game could've been explained alot better. Quistis trying to tell you things among a greyish screen is very tedious.

Except they act more like they're seven as opposed to seventeen. Especially Rinoa, the most brainless and vapid bimbo in existence. Also some characters i.e Quistis simply drop out of relevancy once their arc is over and they do absolutely nothing for the rest of the game. Except I'm kinda wrong on that example as Quistis doesn't even have a proper arc, she tries to open up to Squall, he tells her to smurf off, then she just stops being relevant without having learned anything. Hell the one time she actually does something meaningful - when she tells Rinoa what a useless retard she is - she almost undoes it when she decides to abandon her post in the middle of her mission just to apologize for hurting her feelings. I mean, come the smurf on.

How is Rinoa a "useless, stupid, bimbo " ? Rinoa is the one that truly sees through Squall's facade, and she knows that Squall cannot just push people away all the time, and she tells him this. She knows that it's the happy memories with others that count, which is very deep and mature, and wise for her age. She smurfs up during the parade, but she was frustrated and just wanted to prove to everybody that she wasn't some useless girl who needed to be locked up in her own house.

Rinoa has previously mentioned is willing to give up her own freedom and sanity to be locked away in some sort of prison in space for all eternity, so others won't fear another witch dictator possibly coming to power like Edea and Adel.

That's the opposite of acting like a child.

Rinoa : Ok, I'm sorry. I can understand why you wouldn't be in the mood. You're probably still thinking about what the headmaster said today. He put a lot on your shoulders. It all happened so fast.

The characters are bit immature sometimes yes, but that's because most of them ( not just Squall ) are wearing masks in order to cope.

Irvine :

A lone ranger. I was alone in my battles: my battles against pressure, my battles against death. It almost drove me nuts at times.

Irvine :

And you...judging us... Who are you?

Still doesn't change the fact that for well over half the game she's annoying as hell, does nothing but get in everyone else's way, and she's defined by her contrived, one-dimensional obsession over Squall, even though he does nothing but brush her off, but more on that later. She's the very definition of a manic pixie dream girl.

You are mistaking obsession with just wanting the man to open up and trust people more.

Actually in retrospect I like Squall, at least until a certain infamous twist takes a steaming trout all over his characterization. He's the only one who actually does act his own age, I mean sure he can take his jerkassery too far but in some cases he wasn't ENOUGH of a jerkass. I know it sounds crazy, right? But I'll get to that in a moment.

He wasn't enough of a jerkass ? Wtf ?

I think saying to Quistis to go speak to a wall after confessing that she's just lost her career and she feels like a failure is pretty damn top douchebag. This is coming from somebody who likes Squall and hates Quistis.

Except neither of their actions make any sense. Why is Rinoa so obsessed with Squall in the first place? Why does Squall suddenly decide he can't live without Rinoa, and just contradict his entire character up to that point, when she's done nothing but annoy the trout out of him (and everyone else) and has proven to be a much bigger liability than ally? To be honest I don't know why Squall doesn't get angrier and try even harder to push her away the more she tried to get close, when he did that to literally everyone else in the game. And the way the rest of the team actually has to intervene and force you two together (i.e when Rinoa is dangling from a ledge and the others insist that YOU have to be the one to save Rinoa when literally anyone else could, because it's not like you have more important things to do i.e commanding and managing an entire army in the middle of a battle) only highlights how little chemistry there is between them.

She's not obsessed with Squall. At the beginning of the game it was just a cute flirt and dance for her, and her main crush at that stage is actually Seifer. During Timber she's frustrated and upset with him because she learns that this guy she had fun with at the SeeD dance, is a douche, and she actually asks him the question ( in her own words ) that he " has fun treating his team-mates so callously " ? At the beginning of the game, ( minus the dance ) she thinks that he's a heartless asshole.

It's not till the parade and Squall stays that everything will be alright and to stay close to him, that she starts to look at Squall in a different light.

Because Squall loves Rinoa. It's Squall that has feelings for Rinoa at the beginning, not her having feelings for Squall. Though due to having trust-issues, fears that loved ones are going to leave him- he fails to open up to those feelings till he feels like he was too late. Before the parade, Rinoa was clearly into Seifer.

I feel like you wanted Squall to be this massive douchebag, and you got disappointed when you found out that his jerkness at the beginning was only because of childhood trauma and he's actually a boy who secretly wants to be friends with everybody and love Rinoa, but he's too scared too. He's not the character that you thought he was.

As for the garden part and saving Rinoa from the cliff- Squall does mention how strange this is that everybody is trying to push him closer to Rinoa while a war is going on.

As I've said before, the orphanage twist is bad and not just because it's a convenient excuse for everyone to feel closer together. Also maybe it's just me missing something but if Squall has amnesia, why does he act so aloof and distant 24/7? I mean, if he can't remember having a trout childhood, why does he feel the need to push everyone away from him? He 's constantly trying to avoid something he shouldn't remember happening from happening again. And he never once stopped to think about why he acts the way he does? Just seems silly to me.

Because he doesn't have amnesia ? Otherwise he wouldn't of had dreams about his young childhood about Ellone. Does the game call it amnesia ? Because it's more like blocked-out-memories than amnesia.

Maybe(e)

I c what u did there.