Perhaps one of the most controversial titles in the mainline series, serving as the pseudo
black sheep of the franchise.
While it may not have possessed the depth or infamy of some of its predacessors, FF8
boldly stepped outside of the realm of the conventional final fantasy.
It was unapologetic in its rawness and edginess, leaving most of the fan base either loving
it or hating it.
No matter how you felt about it, there was always something special about it.
This is the final fantasy 8 iceberg: deep dive.
This video serves as the continuation of the previous FF8 iceberg video, correcting mistakes,
adding new entries, and of course sharing some of the great feedback that many commenters
shared.
So without further ado, let's dive in.
Pronunciation Corrections.
Many...Many....many people remarked on the pronunciations of certain character names
in the first video.
I will be the first to admit I may have mispronounced some.
While this game came out before the era of voice acting, and its still a hotly debated
topic, One name in particular rustled more jimmies than anything else on the channel.
My child mind couldn't wrap around the complex pronunciation of ultimecia.
So... apologies for that!
Squalls Appearance in KH2 This user (OneEyedDragonStudio) commented about Squalls appearance during
Kingdom Hearts 2 which was not mentioned in the original video.
Squall has a supporting role during the story of the game, appearing briefly during various
cutscenes, he is most memorably involved in the battle of 1000 heartless, where he and
cloud, iconically fight back to back.
Leviathan Exploit Bahamut Dragon brought to our attention a glitch involving Leviathan,
they state "When leviathan hits a target, it is pushed backwards on screen, this is
a display indicator for a hidden state called washing away.If leviathan can be summoned
again before the target takes its turn, the target is instantly defeated.''
This works on many enemies in the game allowing many important battles to be trivialized and
beat rapidly.
The True symbolism behind the scars "User Liam Nehren wrote a comment detailing a beautiful
interpretation of the meaning behind Squall and Seifers scar and what it means for the
story of final fantasy 8, it reads ""(It's also interesting to note that the way Squall
and Seifer got their scars while being in the same fight and the same type of weapon
have different meanings.
Seifer strikes downwards from a position of power after having used magic to I imagine
cheat, considering that squall had 2 summons but didn't even have them with him, as evidenced
by them being in his terminal at the beginning of the game after having been rushed straight
to the infirmary and so couldn't use magic this would be seen as unsportlike for a practice
duel.
Seifer's cut was cruel and unnecessary born out of a need to dominate.
Squall's cut on the other hand comes from below, cutting upwards is against the force
of gravity especially from the ground so you have to put more strength into it than a downward
chop, possibly already there showing that Squall is more powerful of a swordsman and
at the same time has a good old protagonist attitude of always getting back up to continue
the fight.
also you could say that Seifer is going down like he does in the game, falling from grace
to become the brainwashed lacky of the big bad while squall rises to glory as the leader
of seed."" Considering everything that happens during the story and how the characters end
up, this is one of the best examples of subtle symbolism in a video games story."
Debunking Squall is dead theory In the last video, one of the entries covered was about
the popular squall is dead theory, evidence was provided for it but not much was provided
against it.
However this user (GamingSpirit79) left a comment with a decent counterargument to the
fact that many people believe squall is dead because of all the unrealistic things that
happen after he gets struck with the ice spear, they propose that things just as unreal happen
before he gets struck and that it wouldnt make sense to use this as a point for the
theory.
They also mention the developers outright saying the theory isnt true.
What do you think about this theory? is Squall dead?
Rinoa isnt Ultimecia Users PC-98 and Despair Embodied, point out that the reasoning for
the similarities between Rinoa and Ultimecia isnt because they are the same person (as
the popular fan theory suggests) but due to the way Square would make its character models
very similar for FMV sequences.
Developers have also debunked this.
However despite the fact that it has been debunked this theory still gains traction
to this day, many of you have let me know that the evidence is just irrefutable.
Let us know down below what you think is the real answer.
Angelo Search exploit This user brought to our attention a popular Glitch involving Rinoas
dog, Angelo.
They explain that by purposely not getting Odin and Gilgamesh, and not teaching Angelo
anything other than Search it is possible to enter a scenario where if the player casts
confuse on a Turtapod in the Esthar region, it will allow Angelo to find an item every
13 seconds.
Leaving this on for long periods of time will allow the player to find almost every item
in the game with little to no trouble.
Laguna's Role This user left a very detailed examination of the events surrounding Laguna,
by connecting all these dots, its evident that Laguna not only created most of the problems
in the game but also solved them.
Strap in because this is a long one.
So, it starts when the party is on their way to Galbadia-occupied Timber to aid the Owls,
the anti-Galbadia resistance movement to which Rinoa joins at the start of the game, the
main characters experience their first dream about the past.
Laguna is one of the Galbadian warriors fighting at the Siege of Timber in the dream.
Laguna abandons his station in order to visit Julia Heartilly, the pianist-turned-singer
who wrote "Eyes on Me."
Laguna and Julia fall in love, but Laguna is ordered back to his post.
Julia assumed Laguna was killed in the war after he narrowly avoided an ambush by Esthar
soldiers and went MIA, and she went on to marry General Caraway, aka Rinoa's father.
After an unspecified amount of time Laguna flees town after Raine's daughter Ellone is
taken by Esthar soldiers, unaware that Raine is pregnant, and seeks to enter Esthar's state
by whatever means necessary.
Laguna began working for Timber Maniacs, the revolutionary anti-Galbadia periodical that
inspired the Timber Owls (and later Rinoa), with whom his son Squall eventually assists.
Laguna was essentially at the root of all of Timber's troubles, as well as the solution
to them.
Something like this really makes me appreciate how well written final fantasy 8 is, most
people dont really make that connection, and seeing it all these years later is great,
its why final fantasy 8 is one of my favorite rpgs of all time, speaking of which, you should
go check out my Top 10 RPGS of all time list and tell me how wrong i am :)
An FF8 Murder "This user briefly mentioned this case to us, José Rabadán, a youngster
from Murcia, Spain, killed both of his parents and his sister with a katana in April 2000.
Final Fantasy VIII was accused by the media of inciting Jos to do it, with one magazine
claiming that ""he was merely copying his hero, Squall,"" who thinks he must kill someone
close to him at one point in the story, referring to Rinoa.
José Rabadán, on the other hand, had not completed the game or even reached the point
when this event occurred, demonstrating that the writer jumped to conclusions.
José was apprehended and sentenced to eight years in prison.
Since then, he has been known as ""El asesino de la Katana"" (The Katana Killer)."
Seventeen years after the crime, a documentary produced by the DMAX channel was broadcast
in which Rabadán declared that he had been rehabilitated.
In this documentary, it is revealed that he has become a member of the Evangelical Church
, has married and has a daughter.
Origins of Seed This user pointed out that in our original video, we did not do a good
job explaining the origin of seed (((If you want to play a clip here of the original entry
with maybe a sepia filter or something i think it would make more sense))), they go on to
elaborate further on what the true meaning is, here is a summarized version of their
comment.
Edea didn't simply "think" that Squall would one day vanquish a sorceress; she knew he
would because his future self had informed her so in the past.
The entire game is a loop of time.
A man tells Edea one day that a sorceress is threatening the fabric of reality and must
be stopped.
He instructs her and her husband that they must establish the Garden, whose main mission
would be to train students from childhood to adulthood in how to combat the witch.
Edea knows the man as Squall, one of the children in her care, and she knew what would happen
if she didn't do as she was told.
Squall grows and is assigned to the mission of destroying the sorceress.
The length of the game plays out as we all know with Squall and the party's journey until
the end, and when reality starts to become distorted during the pursuit of Ultimecia,
the true sorceress threat, time compression accidentally sends Squall into the past, where
he meets a younger Edea and urges her to take precautions against the threat of the future,
bringing us back to the beginning of the time loop where everything is destined to happen
again and again in different ways.
Selphie Can One Shot Omega Weapon This Commenter pointed out a strategy against the omega weapon
that we didnt cover last time.
Selphies ultimate attack, the End, is capable of one shotting the omega weapon when used
under the correct circumstances.
The Great Hyne This topic was brought up by this user who seemed really hurt we didnt
include it in the first video, this ones for you buddy.
The Great Hyne is character mentioned in Final Fantasy VIII, He is attributed with creating
people and being the first sorceress, although oral tradition varying on whether he is a
divinity or a person.As a mark of respect, a sorceress can be referred to as "Hyne's
descendent."
The legends circulating about Hyne started the sorceress tradition and the passing down
of their witch abilities.
Throughtout the game there are two instances where we are told a story involving Hyne,
however they are too long and detailed to be done justice in this video.
Also, the story of Hyne casting off his skin is most likely a reference to Hein from Final
Fantasy III.
Hein is a skeleton who also happens to be a magician.
Hein and Hyne are spelled the same in Japanese.
Most people use this as evidence to connect both games to the same contuinity.
Squall is Jealous of Seifer A commenter brought to our attention that there is a scene where
Squall and Rinoa are onboard Ragnarok, where Rinoa tried to dissuade a fit of assumed jealousy
in Squall for her having dated Seifer in the past.
When Squall did not catch on Rinoa commented that Squall does not care about other people's
histories.
This was apparently cut from the final game but only wouldve have been shown if you had
Rinoa in your party during the most recent fight where Seifer, Seifer would comment "Youre
fighting me too?
Just the other day we-" as she would interrupt him yelling at him to Shut Up.
The True Strongest Character in the original video, many of you brought to our attention
that we incorrectly made a segment saying that Rinoa had to most damage potential in
the game, however turns out Zell actually has the highest damge potential.
With the right set up his damage potential can take down the hardest bosses with no problem.
Phoenix Summon odds can be manipulated.
This user mentions a fun fact about the phoenix summon and even shares a bit of a personal
story surrounding the topic.
They go on to claim that the chances for the phoenix to show up in battle actually is based
on the amount of phoenix feathers in your inventory.
However, this is actually not true, the chance of the phoenix spawning when all party members
are knocked out is always locked in at 25.4% . Was this a playground rumour?
or maybe a mandela effect, let us know down below.
Seifers second limit break "A few of you commented how we neglected to mention Seifers second
limit break, Demon Slice.
Demon Slice is only used when he is faced as a boss at Galbadia Garden.
It inflicts non-elemental physical damage to one target, and incidentally Seifer likes
to target Squall the most often with this attack.
Its also a Level 10 Gunbreaker skill in Final Fantasy 14.
" Adels creepy messages now this is a creepy
fact im sure most of you dont know, we certainly didnt, this user brings up the chilling fact
the antagonist Adel, They only speak a total of 3 lines throughout the game, but when Squall
and the party visit TV Timber Station, there is a big Screen that im sure most of us have
passed numerous times, however on closer inspection you can see that its actually repeating a
few key sentences such as "IWILLNEVERLETYOUFORGETABOUTME" (I will never let you forget about me), "IAMALIVEHERE"
(I am alive here), and "BRINGMEBACKTHERE" (Bring me back there).
This is a phenomenal attention to detail as, canonically, most technology in the world
is rendered useless after Laguna and his crew send Adel to orbit the moon.
Showing that Adel is still actively trying to seek his revenge in the present while we
deal with him in the laguna flashbacks is a great way to add to the immersion.
Its stuff like this that make Final Fantasy 8 one of my favorites.
The Demo Artifact In the original ps1 demo of FF8, you begin just before the first mission
with Zell and Seifer as normal.
You are given a brief rundown of the story thus far, reading, "The Dollet Dukedom, at
war with the Galbadia Army have requested 'Garden' to dispatch 'SeeD'.
The world renowned special team 'SeeD' from 'Garden'.
The high-speed vessels in which they ride are about to land in Dollet Dukedom."
It then plays the epic cinematic that would go on to entrance a generation, with several
minor differences from the full game.
However when the vessel crashes into the land, it's revealed your third party member is Rinoa
and not selphie.
Quistis is also not present.
Obviously this changed in the full game, but the game proceeds forward with mostly small
tweaks with differences in situations and dialogue to reflect the new characters and
allow for players to get acclimated to the game quickly.
And Rinoa does not seem to have any dialogue so it appears that this was definitely a simple
replacement for demo purposes instead of a larger change.
All of the cinematics and dialogue were changed to adust Quistis and selphie's appearances
instead of Rinoa.
Near the end of the incredible escape cinematic, there's a soldier that takes Quistis's normal
place as the gunner.
Also, there was one minor mistake in the final game's cinematic.
You can see jut a few frames of Rinoa despite not being present in the game at this time.
Though it's most likely a simple mistake, it's still interesting to see an artifact
of old make its way into the modern game.
and thats the deep dive in final fantasy 8, my personal favorite final fantasy, let us
know what you thought and if we missed anything..again.
Also recommend us a game we can deep dive into next.
Thank you all for wathching.
Maker Out.