15 Things That NEED To Be Cut From The Final Fantasy VIII Remake

15 Things That NEED To Be Cut From The Final Fantasy VIII Remake

Will Squall and the SeeD crew return to our consoles someday? Square Enix really need to make some changes before we welcome Final Fantasy VIII back.

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The upcoming Final Fantasy VII Remake is one of the most highly anticipated video games of this generation. Not everyone is ready to welcome Cloud Strife and the members of AVALANCHE back, however, as Final Fantasy VII has a bad reputation among some RPG fans. A lot of what made Final Fantasy VII unique has been copied to death by other games, so the things that made it so groundbreaking no longer seem special.

There are a lot of people that prefer Final Fantasy VIII to its predecessor. This was a game that had big shoes to fill and managed to become one of the best JRPGs on the PlayStation. The story of Squall’s journey is a lot more personal and deals with humanity on a more grounded level than Final Fantasy VII ever did.

Takashi Katano suggested during an interview that remakes of Final Fantasy VIII and IX would follow VII. We are here today to look at the elements of Final Fantasy VIII that need to be dropped in the inevitable remake of the game.

From the arcane methods of unlocking the best items in the game to the most distracting mascot creatures in the series, here are 15 Things That NEED To Be Cut From The Final Fantasy VIII Remake!

15 The Quistis Apology Mission

Quistis Trepe is supposed to be one of the smartest people in Balamb Garden. She was considered to be a child prodigy and completed the SeeD exam at the age of fifteen. Quistis would later go on to become a teacher at the Garden, though she would step down from this position and become a regular member of SeeD again.

One of the most frustrating scenes in Final Fantasy VIII involves Quistis being incredibly dumb. The group has taken on the incredibly dangerous and secretive mission to kill the Sorceress Edea. This involves impeccable strategy and timing, as they are assassinating a foreign ambassador.

Quistis decides to abandon her post mid-mission so that she can go back and apologize to Rinoa for being mean to her earlier. This causes Quistis’ team to get trapped in General Caraway’s office. They are able to escape through the sewers thanks to a secret passageway that they discover.

This whole sequence might be the stupidest storyline in the series. What makes it worse is that it has no bearing on the plot, as Quistis’ team returns on time.

14 A Villain Without A Cause

This isn’t a problem that is unique to Final Fantasy VIII, as several Final Fantasy antagonists weren’t given any motives other than “wants to kill the party.” Does anyone know what the Cloud of Darkness or Necron’s desires were?

The issue of Ultimecia having no character or explanation behind her motives stands out more as she is sandwiched between a group of awesome Final Fantasy villains that had a lot of character and became fan favorites as a result. Ultimecia looks bland when compared to the likes of Kefka, Sephiroth, Kuja, and Seymour.

The Final Fantasy VIII Ultimania guide gave Ultimecia a motive, as it explained that she knew that she was destined to be killed by a member of SeeD, so she wanted to control time in order to prevent it from happening. It would have been nice if she had explained that in the game, instead of leaving her motives in the supplemental material.

13 Ragnarok Out Of Nowhere!

One of the best scenes in Final Fantasy VIII happens when the Lunar Base blows up. Rinoa is trapped in outer space and Squall goes out after her so that he can activate her emergency life support.

Squall knows that his rescue mission is doomed, yet he still goes after her anyway. The two of them float in the darkness of space while awaiting their inevitable fate, yet at least they are still together at the end…

Then a spaceship shows up out of nowhere and saves them. The Ragnarok is barely mentioned up until this point, which makes its arrival a total Deus Ex Machina. It’s also incredibly fortunate that it just happened to float near Squall and Rinoa when it has the entire vastness of space to move around in.

This scene would have been vastly improved by establishing the Ragnarok’s existence beforehand and maybe explaining that it has some sort of automatic security system that makes it try and save nearby individuals who are floating in space. It’s a flimsy excuse, but its far better than what we got.

12 The Guardian Force Amnesia

The most controversial scene among fans of Final Fantasy VIII is the reveal that all of the characters actually grew up together, yet they forgot due to magical amnesia. The exception to this is Irvine, who decided not to talk about it until it was relevant to the plot.

It is revealed that Squall, Seifer, Quistis, Selphie, Irvine, and Ellone all grew up in an orphanage that was owned by Cid and Edea. They were all separated over time and the kids who went to Balamb Garden forgot about it due to the Guardian Forces erasing their memories. Irvine kept his memories as he went to a Garden where they didn’t use Guardian Forces.

There are numerous things that don’t make sense about this development and it ultimately adds nothing to the story. It would have made more sense to have just had Squall and Ellone belonging to the orphanage, as it is only relevant to their stories. The idea that the SeeDs were fighting their adopted mother could have been a grief carried by Squall alone without having to add magic amnesia to the story.

11 The Secret Methods For Acquiring Cards & Guardian Forces

Final Fantasy VIII suffers from the same problem that affected VII and IX. Squaresoft was heavily involved in the strategy guide business, which is why their games included secrets that no sane individual would ever find on their own. Would anyone work out on their own how to breed a Gold Chocobo or meeting all of the friendly enemies that you need to encounter in order to hit Ozma?

Final Fantasy VIII might be the worst in this regard, especially when it comes to finding specific cards and Guardian Forces.

In order to win specific Triple Triad cards, you need to lose certain cards to the Queen of Cards. This will allow you to win different cards from other individuals. The player is given no indication that you need to do this.

There are a few optional Guardian Forces which the game doesn’t tell you about. In order to get the Tonberry King you need to defeat around twenty Tonberries, while the Cactuar requires you to seek out the Jumbo Cactuar and defeat it.

10 Squall Is Dead (In The Remake)

Yoshinori Kitase answered several questions relating to fan theories during an interview with Kotaku. He officially debunked most of them.

One of the most interesting responses that Kitase gave during the interview was that they might include the infamous “Squall is Dead” theory into the Final Fantasy VIII remake. For those who are unaware — the Squall is Dead theory suggests that Squall was killed when Edea shot him with the ice shard during the assassination mission.

The rest of the game is just his dying dream, which explains why the story of Final Fantasy VIII becomes so bizarre. Squall finds out that his real father is the President and he ends up getting the girl in the end because his mind is finding solace before it passes on.

This would be a huge mistake, as the notion of the protagonist being dead/in a coma all along has been done to death in fiction. It wouldn’t add anything to the story of Final Fantasy VIII, other than explaining some of the weird and out of place stuff that shows up later in the game.

9 Attaching Spells To Stats

Final Fantasy VIII is by far the easiest game in the series to break. This is due to the Junction system being so easy to abuse. It’s possible to make characters who are unstoppably strong at a very early point in the story, without doing that much hard work.

The reason Final Fantasy VIII has these issues was due to the Junction system. This allowed you to attach spells to your stats in order to make them stronger. Using more powerful spells meant that the stat would be increased further.

The ability to draw magic from enemies meant that you had a limitless source of energy to call on. You could also use Guardian Force abilities to refine weaker spells into stronger ones or transform Triple Triad cards into groups of powerful spells. All it took to make Final Fantasy VIII laughably easy was a little creativity with the Junction system.

8 The Empty Future

Final Fantasy VIII is a game about time travel, as the main villain is actually a Sorceress from the future who has found a way to manipulate events in the past. She is able to control the mind of a Sorceress who exists in the present day, which is what happened to Edea.

Squall and his teammates must travel to the future in order stop Ultimecia. This involves going to Ultimecia Castle and defeating the guardians that reside within, before taking on the Sorceress herself.

The most annoying thing about this segment of the game is that you can explore the world of the future, but everything is covered in a forcefield that prevents you from entering, save for the Ragnarok, where you can win the last few Triple Triad cards.

Why did Square include a future world map and then do nothing with it? They should either give the player a chance to see Ultimecia’s future or restrict their trip to the Castle.

7 The Special Triple Triad Rules

Triple Triad is one of the best minigames in Final Fantasy history. It’s easy to get lost in Squall’s journey to become the King of Games instead of fighting enemies. This is why Triple Triad was one of the minigames chosen to appear in Final Fantasy XIV.

One of the biggest problems with Triple Triad in Final Fantasy VIII is the special rules. Each region has its own special rule that both players adhere to during their match. These include the likes of Random, which means that the game randomly chooses your five cards, and the All trade rule, which means that you lose all of your cards when you lose.

It is possible to get rid of these annoying rules, but you need to jump through hoops in order to do so. Triple Triad is an awesome game on its own and these special rules made it really frustrating to play. If Square still wants to include them, then they should at least be optional and easy to get rid of.

6 The Chocobo World Paywall

The idea of games hiding features behind paywalls (like DLC or amiibos) is a controversial one among modern gamers. This is something that has been happening for a long time, especially when you consider arcade games like Double Dragon 3 allowed you to buy extra weapons if you put more coins in the machine.

Final Fantasy VIII was also guilty of this, as it had a minigame involving Chocobos that required you to buy an accessory called the PocketStation.

The PocketStation was a VMU that acted in a similar way to the Dreamcast memory card. It could download minigames from specific games that you could play on the PocketStation.

The Chocobo World minigame was the only way to acquire certain rare items and Guardian Forces in Final Fantasy VIII. What made this even worse was that the PocketStation wasn’t actually released outside of Japan, which meant that the Chocobo World rewards were unavailable to most players.

5 Seifer Killing Odin

The version of Odin that appears in Final Fantasy VIII is unusual for a lot of reasons. He lives in a castle in the middle of nowhere and seemingly waits for new challengers to attempt to battle him. Once he is defeated, he will then show up randomly at the start of battles to use his Zantetsuken attack to instantly defeat the enemy.

The most unusual aspect of Odin is that he can be killed, even though he is a magical spirit. When the party battles Seifer for the final time, Odin will show up and attack with Zantetsuken. Seifer will then use the Zantetsuken Reverse and counter Odin’s attack, which kills him instantly.

The game never explains how Seifer gained the ability to counter the most powerful attack used by the player and permanently kill a Guardian Force. This entire sequence made no sense and comes off as an ass-pull of the highest order.

4 The SeeD Quiz

Squaresoft still included incredibly hard to find secrets in the Final Fantasy games, even after it became common knowledge that you could just go on GameFAQs and look up thorough walkthroughs for free.

There are numerous guides online that explain the easiest ways to break the rules in Final Fantasy VIII, which includes exploiting the Junction system and spamming Zell’s first two Limit Breaks over and over again.

Final Fantasy VIII invites the player to cheat with the written SeeD exam. It’s possible to select a written exam on the menu which gives you questions about the game. Completing these quizzes allows you to increase your SeeD rank, which means that you will be given more money at regular intervals.

By completing all of the written tests straight away, you can earn more money than you could ever spend. The Final Fantasy VIII remake needs to close all of these holes that make the game way too easy without any hard work.

3 The White SeeD Ship Mission

One of the most important characters in Final Fantasy VIII is Ellone. She has the ability to send a person’s consciousness back in time. Ultimecia uses a machine that was based on Ellone’s powers in order to do the same thing. Ellone’s abilities are so powerful that she is protected by the White SeeDs, who keep her moving at all times.

At one point in Final Fantasy VIII, Squall needs to find Ellone. The only information he has on her whereabouts is a letter from Edea that hints at Ellone’s location.

You need to find the White SeeD ship, which is hidden in a small inlet around the Centra Crater. The game isn’t so generous with this information, however, which means that most players will be stuck hugging the coast while swimming around every continent and island in an effort to find the White SeeD ship.

This is something that was so easy to avoid, yet it became one of the most frustrating quests in the game.

2 The T-Board Tease

The Final Fantasy series has featured several minigames that switch the genre into something else. Final Fantasy VII was notorious for this, as it included Mog House (feeding a Moogle the right amount of food so that he can get laid), the tower defense game that you play at Fort Condor, the submarine attack game, the snowboarding game, and the bike race.

Final Fantasy VIII teased an awesome minigame and then never followed up on the promise. Zell shows up to a mission briefing while racing around on a hoverboard, known as a T-Board. He suggests that they might come in useful during a mission… and we never see them again.

The introduction of the T-Board felt like it was building up towards some kind of racing minigame and then it drops the idea and never mentions it again. Why introduce such a great idea to the player and then never follow up on it?

1 The Moombas

This might seem like an unusual complaint, considering Final Fantasy VIII is set in a world where people use giant yellow chickens as mounts, but there is no denying that the Moombas are the most distracting thing about Final Fantasy VIII’s story.

When Squall and his friends are sent to prison after their assassination attempt fails, they encounter a race of dumb cat people who are used as slave labor. It is later revealed that these creatures are actually the final evolution of a highly advanced race called the Shumi, who turn into a Pokémon as they get older for some reason.

The presence of the Moombas within the story is so distracting because they play such a large role at certain points, yet their goofy cartoon aesthetic doesn’t gel with the realistic style that the rest of the game goes for. Final Fantasy VIII was an attempt at making the series more mature in terms of the tone of its story and its visuals, and the Moombas drag it right back down to the SNES era.

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What do you think? Are there any other parts of Final Fantasy VIII that should be left out of the potential remake? Sound off in the comments!

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Scott has been writing for Screen Rant since 2016 and regularly contributes to The Gamer. He has previously written articles and video scripts for websites like Cracked, Dorkly, Topless Robot, and TopTenz. A graduate of Edge Hill University in the UK, Scott started out as a film student before moving into journalism. It turned out that wasting a childhood playing video games, reading comic books, and watching movies could be used for finding employment, regardless of what any career advisor might tell you. Scott specializes in gaming and has loved the medium since the early ‘90s when his first console was a ZX Spectrum that used to take 40 minutes to load a game from a tape cassette player to a black and white TV set. Scott now writes game reviews for Screen Rant and The Gamer, as well as news reports, opinion pieces, and game guides. He can be contacted on LinkedIn.

Link Source : https://screenrant.com/final-fantasy-viii-remake-things-left-out-cut/

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