The PlayStation was the console to have back in the day if you were an RPG fan. It was the system where Final Fantasy took root and Square-Enix created some of the most beloved games the series ever saw. Ask any older gamer today and those were the RPGs they loved and wish would be resurrected. Final Fantasy VIII however, seems to have had a darker tone than the rest.
Spoilers Ahead
Rumor has it that Squall is killed during the end of the battle with Edea in Deling City. You feel you won the battle when Edea summons a huge ice shard and impales Squall with it and then he falls to his demise. As Squall falls, he’s supposedly dreaming, and that’s where the rest of the game takes place, from disc two ’til the end. This really doesn’t explain his appearance in Kingdom Hearts though, but I guess that’s a matter for another time.
Insert disc two and you find that Squall’s wound is gone and he’s in a cell in the Galbadian desert prison. Squall doesn’t even know what is going on, when he awakens he questions his health, where his wound has gone and what happened with Edea. Squall shrugs this off and continues with his quest, never again questioning how he was healed or where the wound went. This is also where the game takes a shift in realism, at least on the first disc most of what you encounter, other than monstrous enemies, are human, no weird aliens here.
After the super heal, Moombas and Fushururu are everywhere. There are plot points that mean nothing to the story, the boss battle with NORG and the sudden shotgun wedding of Cid and Edea. All of these points are explained, but make no sense to the overall plot, just like the random comings and goings in dreams.
The game also seems to focus solely on Squall’s wants and desires, just like in a dream. During the first disc, Squall vainly attempts to woo Rinoa and fails at every turn. Squall gets a dance, she leaves abruptly to find Seifer, the man she’s actually interested in from disc one. Seifer, Rinoa’s crush, was also in a gray area during the first disc, while not exactly friends with Squall they still accomplished many things together, just as rivals. Conveniently in disc two and so on, Seifer loses that gray quality and becomes a hardcore villain to Squall and team. Seifer’s turn to evil solidifies the fact that Rinoa has lost interest in him and can now openly pursue Squall. Couldn’t have dreamed it up better myself to get the girl.
The end of the game is the most confusing and perhaps holds the most clues to this being the dying vision of Squall. Once you defeat Ultimecia, all of the cutscenes are shown and some are downright terrifying. They seem to be Squall’s life flashing before his eyes – you see Rinoa at the dance, but her face is blurry, and she gets blurrier as the cutscene continues. Could this be Squall replaying his memory over and over in his head so that he can make sure he remembers it?
Other scenes cut in – blurry ones after the fight with Edea, clear images of Seifer, Rinoa floating in space with her helmet cracked, and a creepy, faceless Squall. A sound of a sword is heard, and Squall cries one tear, Squall’s definitely dead now and maybe the rest of the cutscene’s Heaven for Final Fantasy characters. You get to see all of them happy, and celebrating, even ones thought long dead during the course of the game. And after the credits Squall and Rinoa are standing on a balcony, you notice the Squall remembers something, but Rinoa puts her finger up to stop him.
Could that be Squall remembering all that’s happened, or did he finally remember the first time he laid eyes upon Rinoa? Was this game suppose to be dream sequence, or is that something that fanboys have thought up over the years? We may never know, but we do know that Final Fantasy VIII holds a special place in the hearts of RPG fans.
What do you think?
Special Thanks to Squallsdead