Hopefully Conquering Final Fantasy 8: Part 1

I’m sure you’ve all heard me complain about it, many times before, but I was never able to beat Final Fantasy 8.  I think it was due to a complete lack of understanding as to how Junctioning works, along with the fact that enemies become more powerful the more you level up, that accounted for my struggles with the game.  Rarely do I fail to complete a game I have started, but after many hours of struggling against the final boss, barely able to leave a dent in their lofty HP, I had to accept that victory was miles beyond my reach.

Several years have since passed, and I have returned.  And this time, I mean business.  By business, I mean that I am taking advantage of every piece of advice anyone has ever given me, and consulting an online walkthrough, because darn it, I am not going to work my way through four discs just to fail again!  I am drawing magic like crazy, trying extra hard to learn how to properly Junction magic, and…playing cards?

I am not the kind of person who enjoys extra diversions in video games, particularly anything that is, or feels like, a mini game.  I mean, I never…ever…ever played Blitzball in Final Fantasy 10, except that one time when they made me.  Likewise, when I first played FF8, I had no desire to play Triple Triad, a card game to which you can challenge random people throughout the game.  It just didn’t seem like a good use of my time, so…I probably played one game and never bothered again.

Well, I heard that it was actually beneficial to play Triple Triad, and now that I’ve looked up some tips on getting stronger cards, I’ve actually become quite addicted to it.  And I have developed a perfectly grand strategy.  What I do is…I save after every successful game and kill my characters off if I lose (not because Squall has lost the will to live, but because I don’t like losing my good cards).  Ha ha, I have never officially lost a game!  Not one that I have saved after, anyway, and that still counts!  Thus far, I have gotten Ifrit, Minimog, Diablos, and a few stronger cards I either won from people or obtained from catching enemies in the Fire Cavern, which has certainly made my endeavors far easier.  Needless to say, building a stronger card collection is a lot more fun than I had expected.

Aside from that, I haven’t progressed too far into the game story-wise.  I got just past the mission in Dollet where you get chased by the spider robot.  When I first played the game, that robot caused me so much trouble.  This time, I looked up some tips for avoiding it, and I only had to fight it that first, initial time it appears.  I even saved the dog!  Yay!  Cheating is fun!

I’ve got a good feeling about my second playthrough.  This time, I will beat the game and add it to my list of victories!  Then again, even if I don’t win…

Whatever…

That was a joke.  Because I’m totally finishing the game this time.  The Duck shan’t fail.

I Think a Far Cooler Name for the Main Character is Squall Duckheart

This post was originally published on Virtual Bastion on February 6, 2018.