Introduction

What is there to be said about Final Fantasy VIII that hasn't already been said? Released in 1999, Final Fantasy VIII was the step Square took to show that it wanted to craft videogames that could also double as cinematic experiences. With lavish production values for the time, and cinematic camera angles out the ass in all of its FMV sequences, on top of its romantic storyline and epic soundtrack, Final Fantasy VIII could be seen as the first Hollywood: the RPG.

In my personal opinion, however, this game has not aged well. When I was a teenager, I was in love with this game (which was then superceded by my ongoing love for Final Fantasy IX), but as the years went by I began to see all of its flaws and now, I'm not sure how I feel about the game. Is it amazing? No. Is it great? Not really. Is it good? Perhaps.

Final Fantasy VIII is one of the more controversial entries in the series due to its bizarre gameplay mechanics (which are actually quite simple, in retrospect) and absolutely bonkers latter half of plot. It is speculated that the reason Xenogears had such a shitty second disc was that much of its funds were funneled into this project instead, which then also had a second half that falls apart.

My approach to this LP will be much in the vein of how I LP'd Suikoden II, although I tend to favor this game a little more for nostalgic reasons. There's a few really amazing sections to this game that I will laud and talk about at length, but there's also a lot of poor decisions that I feel really drag the game down as a whole. Think of the LP as an objective approach, sort of; to get it out of the way, I do not hate nor dislike this game, just to save you the endless posts that I received during my Suikoden II LP for finding a lot of problems with that game.

The reason I chose this game to LP is that I've never actually 100% completed the game before, nor did I ever touch Triple Triad in my few playthroughs of the game. This, of course, will be rectified in this LP, provided I can keep the momentum and not want to snap my discs of the game in half by the time I'm done.

Without further ado...

The Altimate Rewrite
Posted in the thread, this immature yet maybe hilarious reimagining of the basic plot of FFVIII was created over on RPG.Net about four years ago here. Mega massive spoilers contained within starting from the very first section, but if you're sane and realized how fucking crazy this game's plot is, you'll probably enjoy this much superior version.

For People Replaying The Game
Also posted in the thread, Hyne is a save game editor that works with any PSX save file that allows you to add in rare items, cards you've lost, whatever, to ease your playthrough of the game if grinding for cards and certain items becomes problematic.

Fanart

Shaezerus shows us how utterly random SeeD money deposits can be.

MissEchelon epitomizes Zell, Squall, and Selphie's characters to a T.

MythLisp realizes Selphie's love for trains; it crushes like a rocket explosion.

Shaezerus makes an astute observation about how goddamn annoying Odin can be when you're trying to farm items.

Pesky Splinter provided a very NSFW picture that takes FF8 in a very, very weird direction.

Pesky Splinter turns FFVIII into Twilight.

Pesky Splinter makes Ultimecia look better than she actually does.

Explosionface makes Laguna a Belmont.

Squall finds a use for his excess belt.
Squall gets a visit during the Timber Train Robbery.
Galbadian patrol at the door? Noooope.
There was one man in the crowd not under Edea's mind control. There was one man...

Selphie takes a ride on the Doomtrain. Choo choo.

Zeikier creates some hilarious sketches of random things in the game, like Selphie on Doomtrain.

http://i.imgur.com/9YNVM.png
http://i.imgur.com/2Unin.png

Heran Bago points out that not even Time Compression can stop a SeeD payment. (spoilers within)