Hello all,

Final Fantasy VIII was my first Final Fantasy. It's also my favorite, to the point where I would name myself after the protagonist on a message board and be here almost 14 years later. Other entries such as VII, IX, X, and XII are getting the next gen treatment and being added to Xbox and Switch. However, VIII is not on the current lineup. And since we're coming up on the 20th anniversary (February 11th, 2019), and my beloved game isn't in the spotlight, I thought it would be fitting to do a Let's Play. Sort of.

laguna-squall1.jpg


So what do I mean by nontraditional?

This is a Let's Play for people who are already pretty familiar with this game. In fact, if you've never played Final Fantasy VIII before, this Let's Play probably isn't for you. As someone who has played this game dozens and dozens of times since childhood, I want to go through and do things I've never tried before. And see if I can find interesting facts, uncommon scenes, or just give general thoughts to places I've visited now that the years have gone by and I can give my adult take on them.

This is going to be a trip through Final Fantasy VIII for people who have already played the game. I'm going to presume you know what Balamb is, what Timber is, who the Brothers GF are, etc. There may be places or events I don't mention at all, if I don't feel I can add something to them.

So I will not be walking you through the story. "First we go to the Fire Cavern, and after that we go back to Garden", I'm not doing that narrative description style. Basically, this guide is my commentary to talk about interesting tidbits or facts I discover or think of during this playthrough, as someone who has played the game for hundreds of hours in the past.

The basic premise is, if I can find something new and interesting as someone who has played the game a lot, than you might find it to be interesting, as well. I will also include memes (You're the best looking guy here!) and music covers on YouTube whenever I get to relevant parts of the story. I also want to keep track of who turns into whom in the "Dream World", and see the stats on who becomes whom the most.

So just for the record, not that it will necessarily effect my commentary, but here's my setup and playstyle:

I'll be playing Final Fantasy VIII as a digital download on my PlayStation 3.

I'll be doing a complete playthrough, but not a "perfect" playthrough. In other words, I won't be getting 99 of every item, but I will do every sidequest and attempt to get at least 1 of every item. I will also attempt to:

-Exploit Card Mod to break my game early
-Defeat XATM092 during the Dollet mission
-Use the Magic Lamp to summon Diablos as soon as I get it
-"Read" Timber Maniacs to intentionally decide what scenes I see during the Laguna flashbacks and Selphie's website.

I want to say it has been roughly 5 years (maybe more) since my last playthrough, so while I remember a lot, there may be a lot I have forgotten, as well. Note that since this is a port of the original console version, I won't be able to use the Pocket Station features of "Chocobo World".
To end this initial post, here's my first "Thing you might not have seen before". The Insert Disc 1 image.

DiscInsertScreen-ffviii-disc1.png


Unless you put the wrong disc in when you start a new game, there's no practical reason you would have ever seen this image.

I'm still not quite sure I've adequately explained what I intend to do with this playthrough, but hopefully as I start to post, you'll get a feel for the concept.

Thank you and enjoy. Maybe you'll learn something new, maybe you'll just enjoy the nostalgia.