Game Discussion of the Week: Final Fantasy VIII

I like this game a lot.  I've played through it many times over the years, and I enjoyed the hell out of it.  Once again, I played it on the PC, and I really enjoyed the story line, the music, the junction system, and the card game (until stupid continental rules were forced on you).  I loved the time travel bit, and I always thought the mercenary story would work amazingly well with sequels or prequels.  I'd love to see a modern twist to this with smaller to mid level merc missions.  It would be great to see it online, and you could create a character who can accept or decline missions and level up accordingly.  That sort of thing suits the story well.  The only thing that REALLY annoys me is the amnesia trope (scipioafricanus hates it more than me!), but it sort of makes sense with the junctioning system.  The graphics really hold up much better than 7, and the music is phenominal.  The score at the end of the game gives me chills to this day, and yet many people don't know the music as much as Jenova from 7.  I really think that is a shame.  The love story made me roll my eyes at first, but it has become endearing to me over time.  I really wish they hashed out the Blue Island in Centra more when you got Odin.  The abandoned experimental ship needed some DLC too.  I wanted to learn so much more about those two stories.   Overall, this is a great game, but if you were to play it cold, it may annoy people in 2019, because the first disc is mostly a "how to" set of chapters.  The game really picks up after the assassination attempt, and I adore the story for what its worth. 

On a side note, the "Squall is dead"  and the "Ultimicia is Rinoa" theories really made me love the game even more about a decade ago. That really messed up my head for a while after reading it.  It was one of those situations where you see something that rocks your cognitive structure and you just  say, "Damn..." and get depressed.  I've read that Square has debunked it, but wow....that would be some messed up story telling right there. It is fun to pontificate, though.