Why was the story so unnecessarily complicated?

It's YA tier, how fucking illiterate are you?

>>713125452 (OP)
It wasn't. You're just too mentally challenged to understand it despite the vast majority of "complicated" shit getting spelled out for you in plain English multiple times throughout the game.

i fucking hate how they shit all over the remaster so much

>>713125603
There was literally no need for any of the characters to have amnesia, the final stretch of the game to take part in the future, the Laguna past part to even exist and Squall & Rinoa to have a forced Lovestory that didn't fit the game or characters at all.

>>713125452 (OP)
what if they extended the first disc, fleshed out the characters a bit more and the game ended with squall unavoidably dying? how do you think the reception would have been

>>713125672
what are you talking about

>>713125672
>buying remastershit
It's your own fault. Just emulate the original.

>>713125927
it's disc 4 that needs to be extended to include laguna's traveling to ishtar and over throwing adel
>but you actually see h-
not just two shitty cutscenes dumbfucks

I completed the game last year and literally didn't understand almost anything.

I can easily say it was the most incomprehensible piece of media I've ever seen.

>>713125452 (OP)
it literally wasn't

>>713126058
Try Chrono Cross next.

>>713125929
ff8 remaster was censored to shit
I rubbed out a few to pic related and shiva back in the day, before I had internet. it was a better time

>>713125452 (OP)
I'm actually thinking about replaying FF8 on my PS1. Haven't touched it since it came out. Same with 9.

>>713126058
it’s actually a pretty cool story the problem is that you don’t get all of the context just from playing the story. you need clues from interacting with and talking to things in the overworld also. it’s really kind of a simple story once you know what it is, it’s the character arcs that are complicated imo

>>713125452 (OP)
Because they wanted to out do FFVII, which itself had a boogus story.

>>713126145
I wanked it to Shiva and Selphies pantyshots WITH access to internet.
A fucking miracle I only got a dress fetish and not a dominatrix fetish with Quistis, dodge a fucking bullet there.

>>713126480
FF7 had one of the most complete story in the modern FFs alongside 10. FF8 and 9 and 12 in contrast were blatantly cut short and pathworked.

>>713126058
>no mass communications
>somehow seifer knew rinoa was taking over a tv station that is going active for the first time in 20 years
>seifer got to city despite trains being shutdown
>no car or boat because quistis came too and would have offered it on the way out

This is just one of many plot fuckups this game had. I completely understood it, and it was completely fucked up and wrong.

This game went through massive rewrites and problems and the big reveal of Irvine deciding to conveniently tell everyone they were orphans together came out of left field, and when confronted with why he didn’t tell anyone his answer was “because you didn’t remember”.

>>713126829
The best part to me is that right after Irvine told them this, squall has a flash back and remembers them all EXCEPT for Irvine.

Where he says “Irvine? Don’t remember you”

I’m certain this is a jab thrown by a writer in regards to how hacked this was.

Ff8 had so much potential, but it was ultimately a rushed cash grab to capitalize off of ff7’s success. It needed major reworks to the story and game mechanics. Draw sucked. Combat sucked.

>>713125452 (OP)
It's not complicated, it's missing

>>713126829
>seifer leaves with Edea at the TV station
>quistis reveals he has been sentenced to death by galbadia as if he's been captured
>simply shows up next to Edea during the parade
seifer being supposedly captured and sentenced to death made no fucking sense given the events

>>713126829
it's fun to play ff8 and realize how ff7 was like one rewrite, a rearranged section or two, and a couple of plot elements from being just as cracked.

>>713125452 (OP)
It wasn’t, you were just 11.

>>713127139
I never even realized this.

And I guess neither did the writers.

>>713125452 (OP)
Was this your first Final Fantasy game? They are all convoluted nonsense.

The translation is really bad.

>Yeah so uh we are a paramilitary organization training teen soldiers and-
>oh shit we caused a global war, haha just like the good old days *flashback*
>what's that? evil timetravel witch is trying to destroy existence itself?
>better go to space and uhhh anyway lets try to headshot her with the AWP from Counter Strike

>>713125452 (OP)
forced love story with rinoa made it shit
forced memory loss also made it shit.

>>713125452 (OP)
It's a story about love

>>713127363
Ff5

Look at this dog shit.

>>713127139
it was probably the president saying he'd be sentenced to death but edea stepped in to claim him. I mean edea did tp out of the tv station with seifer and then edea killed the president

>>713127583
no this happens after she kills the president at the tv station and leaves with seifer. She is the ruler of galbadia at this point, it made no fucking sense.

>>713125452 (OP)
>We decided to keep the story simple and make the characters more involved because previous stories in the series got very complicated
- Yoshinori Kitase, 1999

meanwhile FF7 actually made sense despite having a checkov's gun plot

fucking amazing game (the original not the low birthrate sloppa)

>>713127451
the memory loss was a blatant last minute addition

>>713125452 (OP)
Because everything after disk 1 takes place in Squall's fading mind as he passes away from the ice shard to the heart. It's essentially Jacob's Ladder in JRPG form.

>>713127696
isn't quistis saying he'll be sentenced to death at galbadia garden when they're waiting to talk to the headmaster? then squall freaks out about not wanting to be talked about in the past tense and then meets fujin.

>>713126771

>>713127891
yes, they talk as if he didn't leave with the leader of galbadia herself and simply got caught...

>>713125841
iunno, i always figured Irvine thinks he's the coolest thing ever, and probably thinks the rest are trying to be just as cool and professional and not all gushy plushie with each ither about when they were kids

>>713127893
I understand that 8 9 and 12 can look like finished packages to the mentally impaired such as you but it's just not the case.

>>713128117
Last (You).

>>713128203
concession accepted. Now go back to XVI, faggot.

The thing about Seifer being "dead" is that it was a Japanese pun. The word for "knight" and "sentenced to death" are the close.

>>713128017
yeah so the timeline is
>seifer threatens president at tv station
>edea shows up, takes seifer with her
>president runs away
>team goes to galbadia garden
>quistis says word is seifer will be executed
>get to galbadia to assassinate edea
>edea kills president before getting on float
>seifer on float
seems normal to me. the biggest tragedy is the angle of irvine's shot is all wrong since the float is moving away from him giving him no line of sight

>>713126058
>>713126103
There's something endearing about these two games for that reason though. They're just such fucking messes, but I still love them

>>713126145
didnt realize how dude-ish they made her face. Played it a couple months ago too

>>713125452 (OP)

It was effectively written by 3 men. Kitase came up with the premise and what the come should be about, Nomura designed the characters (and wrote all of their dialogue) and Nojima wrote the entire scenario for them.

You have to understand that Nojima is fucking insane. Its widely known FFVII is just a Highlander 2 inspiration, a ton of early 90's media went into the creation of FFVII like Akira and Gundam also.

But what inspired FFVIII was the likes of Nomura's obsession with western television and cassette futurism that was sweeping through Japan at the time. Its visually shown in the designs. That and Kitase's love of Wizard of Oz. Its a fucking kaleidoscopic shit show of absurd order, with some many incoherent themes designs and ideas just not blending together well at all.

>>713128464
Edea is de facto ruler and she decided to take seifer with her, it's not like the president isn't aware of it and she went on some covert coup d'etat. it makes no sense.

>>713128743
when crazy shit happens there's always plenty of speculation. it's not completely out of left field to think there'd be talk of seifer getting executed for his attempted assassination of the president

It's really not complicated if you look at the main plot and ignore all the nonsense that was obviously bolted on to pad out the runtime

>>713126058
Dumb zoomer.

>>713128875
but they talk like he's been been in custody, went on trial and got executed...

qtpie

>>713129140
god i really dislike the
>pristine high-res models
>blurry ass backgrounds

>>713128875
>>713129140
Yeah this shit made absolutely no sense. Quistis confirms he's been executed already, like wtf?

>>713125452 (OP)
It isn't complicated, it just sucks.
>Main characters are mercenaries from an academy called Balamb Garden
>Galbadia, a country ruled by dickhead, has this new bitch in town named Edea, and the main characters have been hired to kill her because she's a bad bitch
>Turns out Edea is actually possessed by an even badder bitch named Ultimecia
>Ultimecia's plot is foiled
IF THIS IS WHERE THE GAME ENDS, IT WOULD HAVE BEEN GREAT! But no, we continue.
>for now, but she still has control of Seifer, a huge douchebag that wants power because reasons, and is capable of controlling Galbadia all by himself because reasons, to find this thing called the Lunatic Pandora, which can cause a lunar cry
>What's a lunar cry? Well monsters aren't just a part of the world in FF8, no they came from the moon, because reasons, and imprisoned in outer space, is a sorceress named Adel, who Ultimecia can possess but only if Adel is freed, which can only happen if the lunar cry happens
Yes, it's this retarded.
>It happens, Adel is freed, possessed by Ultimecia, and who is then defeated by the main party
>Fearing that Ultimecia will come after another power woman, Ellone, they let one of the party members, Rinoa, get posessed by Ultimecia, who will cast a magic spell called
Holy fucking shit this plot is retarded
>time compression, and Ellone, using her powers, will be able to send the main party to Ultimecia's time when that happens. How it all works? I don't know, this is FF8, we're retarded fuck you for asking.
>The main party defeats Ultimecia, everyone lives happily ever after, you are not the father, auld lang syne, fuck you good night.
It's like they had a decent story, and then some executive had to let his retarded nephew write the second half because he lost a bet or something.

>>713125452 (OP)
I'll give this to the insufferable contrarians, the first disk may have been the peak of all of Final Fantasy. Too bad it so blatantly shits the bed after.

>>713125927
Masterpiece >>713130443, 1990's square, hire this man!

>>713130413
Now do FF4!

>>713128705
Fucking kek. The perfect picture. What else did Nojima do?

>>713130413
It is complicated to the point they didn't even know how to answer what the fuck was happening you just have to accept shit happens. Like time compression makes sense but why the fuck does Ultimaceia even want to do this and what does she gain? Also a lot of the plot despite being spelled out is convoluted. Also why the fuck is Ultimaceia's GF named after whatever you name Griever. Like what was the idea there? All the fan theories fall through.

>>713126145
>PS1
It didn't come out for that. It came out for the PSX.

>>713131667
I haven't even heard of the Playstation 6, 7, 8, or 9 yet

>>713125452 (OP)
I mean it's usually every FF except the real;y early ones.

>>713130070
Quistis and Selphie my loves

>>713132408
X is the roman numeral for 50, stupid.

>>713132408
It just hit me I'll be retirement age when 9 comes out... To be 15 playing FF8 again.

>>713130936
IV's story is just caveman level retardation.

There's two decisions the player can make that will cause them to miss significant Squall-Rinoa events that are important for the Squall-Rinoa love story to make complete sense to the player on a single playthrough.
In particular- there's two scenes late in the story between Squall and Rinoa that has Rinoa reference prior conversation between them that may or may not have actually happened depending on those player choices. If this was entirely intended by the game developers or not is a bit of a mystery- between memory loss, time travel elements, and even the way these scenes can take on slightly different meanings for the player depending on what has happened before provides a lot of room for player interpretation.

In addition, the game is extremely Squall focused and only in a few areas does it even bother to show events unfolding outside of Squall's personal experience. This seems to be an intentional design choice to pair up with the fact that we get to see into Squall's thoughts very often, but that kind of framing can go over the head of a typical jarpig player, and the fact that it wasn't executed with 100% consistency is just enough to further muddy something that's already not clear to the average person.

Lastly, a very significant part of the world setting and exposition is explained in completely optional dialogue with NPCs, reading information in computer terminals, or even in optional items. A person who makes no effort to obtain, understand, or track this can see the world as nonsensical- but also in a way that can parallels Squall's limited understanding and perspective.

However, an insightful player who gets through these challenges can find themselves enjoying what is perhaps the best Final Fantasy game ever made.

>>713130176
The remaster is pure slop. the OG version with the natural AA effect of the 480i screens it was designed to be played on looks way better

>>713125452 (OP)
The story is 10x better if you go down the other rabit holes like RInoa is the Sorceress or Squall is dead.

Ya I know "word of god" is thats not the story but 100+ people developed the game. There was enough non finished plot points and shit that goes nowhere like NORG that leaves a lot up to interpretation.

>>713126103
I like the interpretation that the final cutscene at the end of the game is an adult stalking a playground because the girl was from the past life.

>>713125452 (OP)
Because it was a death dream. The whole story is is Squall's head as he slowly dies to an ice spear through the lung.

>>713125452 (OP)
pressure of following up 7 which had a simple but intriguing story. they threw everything at the wall and sloppily stuffed in mechanics that were ill conceived.
>use Draw command if you want to cast/stock magic
>except here's a GF that refines magic from drops in the first couple hours so Draw is completely useless in 90% of situations

>>713132946
NORG wasn't meant to go anywhere, but frustrate you by forcing you to divert your attention. It's like if you're trying to fuck your wife, and you hear your kid knock on the door and be like "Daddy, I had a nightmare!"

>>713132726
As someone who just played through FF4 for the first time this is hilarious

They should make one for Cid too

>>713133260
no that's a stupid take.

FF8 has great JRPG mechanics in the sense that you can play the game how you want to play. If you want to spam summons, you can spam summons. If you want to just duke it out with empowered stats, you can do that. If you want to draw and hit with spells, you can do that. If you want to craft items and use them, you can do that too. If you want to turn off random encounters and just play for plot, yeah that works too. You don't have to grind levels or items or anything if you don't want to, or you could and get rewarded with bigger and flashier booms.

There's literally not one "right" answer on how to play, the game was designed to be easy enough that whatever you wanted to do you could do. Of course /v/ autists struggle with this concept because they're obsessed with their being an "optimal" way to engage with the combat, rather than doing anything for fun.

Why was the moon birthing demons

>>713125452 (OP)
Final Fantasy Stories are always nonsensical garbage. I don't think they really started having a cohesive narrative that wasn't shit posting until after 10. Doesn't mean they're bad games or that you can't like the characters but how the fuck does pushing a statue make you a god and why would someone trust anyone else near it ever? Why would anyone want to compress all time into a single point that only they exist in? How is a dude so strong he dies and goes to hell just to take it over?
It's just narrative shitposting.

>>713125452 (OP)
Multiple scrapped drafts.

>>713133625
>FF8 has great JRPG mechanics in the sense that you can play the game how you want to play.
No you can't. It literally punishes you for trying to play it like a normal JRPG and level up. You can literally soft lock the game at certain story points if you don't stock enough spells.

ooooooooh, maybe it's all the supernatural wankery messing up people's brains about this game. Magic and magical brainwashing and moon monsters n crap

>>713126058
>>713126103
A lot of old PS1 games had weird nonsensical stories.
Maybe it was due to time constraints.

>>713131627
>why the fuck does Ultimaceia even want to do this and what does she gain?
Compression of time and space + sorceress powers (which is a fundamental ability to manipulate proximate reality akin to being God) means being effective God of all time and space, allowing her to vanquish her gripes and regrets with existence. Alternatively, she may have been looking to junction herself ever farther back into the past to achieve even some other kind of goal. The only real explanation she truly gives is when she laments that the past slips away and she thinks people suck.
Again, since Sorceress powers are actually the fundamental ability to manipulate the space around themselves akin to being a God, she creates Griever from Squall's mind.

>>713134342
>It literally punishes you for trying to play it like a normal JRPG and level up.
that's literally gamefaqs-tier misconception about the levelling system.
Monsters have level caps on how much they level up, which means you can outlevel most enemies in the game. The player character's relative strength to monsters gets better as you level up.

FF8 level scaling rewards you for levelling up, without it being necessary.

>>713127764
Aeris teleports a whole continent after keystone
Tifa is worse than Irvine
Rufus needing cids airplane
Aeris falling don miles in a puddle
Cloud drowbing through a whole ocean till midel
7 is far worse than 8

>>713134643
Which is fine until the game forces you to use certain characters and put you in areas with no monsters to grind and spells to stock. I remember being softlocked on the space station as a kid because I had a lvl 50+ squall and a lvl 10 rhinoa.

>>713132793
thanks niggerGPT

>>713134480
I get grievar but if she's a god that can just do whatever why doesn't she pull something from Squall's mind that Squall thinks can beat him instead of his OC donut steel ring GF.

>>713131627
>Like time compression makes sense but why the fuck does Ultimaceia even want to do this and what does she gain?
>>713134480
Never played but I'm pretty sure it's an Oedipus situation where attempting to thwart a prophecy leads to its fulfillment. Ultimecia learns that a SeeD is destined to kill her so she tries to compress time to stop everyone else's existence.

Gotta love how the reveal that they all grew up in the same orphanage doesn't affect any of their characters except Squall's (and only because of the *bonus* reveal that Squall had a sister who disappeared, which is the origin for his fear of abandoment).
Gotta love even more the reveal that one of them actually remembers that they grew up in the same orphanage but never said anything because...

>>713134342
what are you even talking about I level up squall and quistis to 100 before getting ifrit out of boredom and steamrolled the rest of the game

>>713125929
They ruined Squalls face. The remaster looks like a canned JRPG protag.

>>713125452 (OP)
it was all about card and hero potions

>>713125841
>There was literally no need for any of the characters to have amnesia
true, except where it underscored the danger using GFs poses (first mentioned in the classroom terminal on the first screen in the game)
>Squall & Rinoa to have a forced Lovestory that didn't fit the game or characters at all.
more a consequence of Rinoa's latent sorceress powers. "You're going to like me" she said at the dance as she unknowingly cast a spell

>oh yeah there's this race of homunculus people
>they all just live in some tiny village in bumfuck nowhere antarctica
>and they can just evolve into anything
>or you can evolve into a big fat jew and then evolve into anything
>nobody rounds them up and investigates this biological insanity because ummmmmm
>they're quite smart but like to turn into barely sentient marketable plushies the most because uhhhhhh
>bye!!!

>>713135147
>true, except where it underscored the danger using GFs poses (first mentioned in the classroom terminal on the first screen in the game)
that's something they added after the fact since it didn't require rewriting entire pans of the story.

>>713134925
>I get grievar but if she's a god that can just do whatever why doesn't she pull something from Squall's mind that Squall thinks can beat him instead of his OC donut steel ring GF.
his OC donut steel ring GF is literally that though
Squall is a turboautist, the literal "while you were getting a GF (both versions) I studied the blade" except that his studies actually gave him 100% hit accuracy with the hardest to use weapon and locked him in on his fated destiny of defeating Ultimecia
>>713134963
>Never played but I'm pretty sure it's an Oedipus situation where attempting to thwart a prophecy leads to its fulfillment.
it's literally the ending. After her defeat she shows up at the orphanage in her last gasps while Edea is looking for young Squall, her death turning Edea into a sorceress and letting young adult Squall tell Edea about the need for sNeeD so they can accomplish what they just did, completing the loop.

The plot is awfully close to FF1

>>713125452 (OP)
Filtered.

>>713135231
NORG were jews
it's explained in detail here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nPOCkD32HM

>>713135231
the humans aren't really in control in the FF8 world setting. a whole continent (in fact the most civilized continent) of people had been wiped out just 100 years prior by monsters, sorceress wars had just gone on for 20 years and that isn't necessarily a new thing, everything is timey-wimey fucked, etc.

>>713135651
This image triggers me to play the game again.

>>713135651
I really really like this picture.

>>713135013
The amnesia actually runs really deep through the plot. It's why Cid keeps acting like a busy father who thinks his kids know what all this SeeD business is really about through disc 1, while Squall gets annoyed about how "weird" the headmaster keeps acting with him.
Childhood fights is why Seifer and Squall beef with each other so hard but Seifer still risks everything when he thinks they're in danger, and Quistis getting caught up in it trying to play the mediator. It's why random dudes in Fisherman's Horizon get so annoyed with Squall when he doesn't remember them, when they were the ones who had turned Garden into the school it was in his lifetime.
It's the framing that makes disc 1 Squall wear the mask of the cold mercenary SeeD- with SeeD as this infallible monolith in his mind he grounds that identity on, allowing for the snowballing deconstruction of what he thought SeeD was and his own rigid identity in disc 2.
It's the narrative device to put the cost of their destiny (SeeD are empowered as soldiers because of their signature use of Guardian Forces) against realizing what it is they're even fighting for (that teenage love experience of Squall and Rinoa), and so on.

Over two decades later and anons still don't understand that the entire plot / theme / point of the game is that you can't alter fate.

The universe quite literally asspulls multiple events to ensure that Ultimecia dies. She learns of her own death and the entire events of the game are triggered by her attempting to stop it.

The group of people destined to kill her split up as they get older? They get rammed together again. Floating helplessly in space? No problem, there is a spaceship floating by to ensure they can get back home.

"For we are the fateful children"

>>713136486
What.

>>713137289
having actually played the game with an IQ above 70 and not just parroted things I read on the internet, I can examples of why the amnesia element is very interwoven into the plot of FF8 and effects the characters significantly.

It's not complicated at all, you're just making it that way by trying to make fan theories make sense and refusing to accept the game for what it is: a tragic story about a persecuted sorceress from the future self-fulfilling her own death prophecy. The story has issues and there's a lot of handwaving going on, but that's nothing new for games around that time period, especially Final Fantasy.

God this thread just shows how illiterate the average rpg player is. The game isn't difficult to understand and there isn't some stupid ass theory that magically fixes the non-existent issues the plot has.

>>713132946
"Squall is dead" doesn't make anything better. Any variant of 'it was all a dream' is ultimately leaving you with less story than you would have otherwise.

now that the dust has settled, was squall /ourguy/ or cringe

>>713138040
>there isn't some stupid ass theory that magically fixes the non-existent issues the plot has
True.
R=U is simply a theory that improves the story.

>>713138309
No, no it does not. Fix your brain you retarded shitstain. The story and lore tidbits alone disprove your shit theory.

>>713138179
>carry this in front of American cop
>get shot

>>713135013
wasn't actually his sister but another older orphan that was like a big sister to all the squirts. Irvine recalls how Squall hogged her all to himself all the time

>>713138426
Should have junctioned meltdown to your defence

>>713138365
Calm down lil bro. We're all friends here.

>>713138179
Genderbent Squall would have been such a sexy moody bitch, holy shit. Wouldn't even need to change the character.

It wasn't, it was just shit. Still the best FF game, though.