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).Originally Posted by The Crystal
And why exactly do you think the time-travel plot was poorly utilized?
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.
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