Final Fantasy 8's Characters

If you're gonna ridicule stuff in RPGs, sooner or later you've got to to cover FF8, I think. Whether you like the game or not, you can't really deny that there's plenty there to poke fun at. So today, I'm gonna cover why its cast is the most idiotic ensemble in all RPG-dom, as long as you don't count Star Ocean 2 or FF5 or FFMQ or Phantasy Star 3 or FF10-2 or the Dragon Ball Z RPG or...well, okay, so it's not even close to the MOST idiotic. But it's got a lot of special moments.


Squall: Basically, Square wanted to create a badass protagonist who wasn't a nice guy even while he did nice things. To this purpose, they decided that the only way to do this was to create a character whose apathy towards people who care for him and whose general irritation at life itself is so great that he alienates any player not immediately swooning over his bishy-dishy profile. To fix this problem, halfway through the game they have him immediately, no warning whatever, fall completely and totally for a girl who up until that very second annoyed the piss out of him. It's the ultimate high school romance story.

Of course he still acts like an asshole to all his other friends, except when he needs their help to go rescue the dumb bimbo again (the frequency of her need to be rescued, of course, DOES mean that his illusion of niceness is maintained with remarkable consistency).


Rinoa: "Look look Squall look at me Squall look Squall look at me I'm doing something hey Squall look look Squall did you see me do that Squall?"


Angelo: This dog is the most powerful warrior in the world, thanks to battle tips it gets straight from a pet magazine.


Quistis: Quistis is kind of unique, actually, in that after losing Squall to Rinoa (no big loss there), she doesn't mope and moan or find a replacement immediately, but rather just takes the loss in stride, realizes her feelings weren't romantic love anyway, and continue to be her own character.

Of course, since that kind of originality isn't easy to write, Square has her shut up for the most part after 1/4th of the game is through.


Selphie: Selphie is character evolution in action. Square started with the energetic, cheerful, not incredibly bright Yuffie in FF7. Then, they removed half her brain mass and replaced what they had taken with glitter and sugar to create Selphie. The next step after her will be to remove half of what brain mass remains and replace it with Lisa Frank stationary to create Rikku, then later take out the last bits of brain and replace them with a Britney Spears album to create FF10-2 Rikku.


Irvine: He's a cowboy sniper playboy who can't actually shoot his target. The sad thing is that this all adds up to one of the more interesting characters in all this.


Edea: People sometimes wonder why Edea is married to videogaming's very own Robin Williams, Cid Kramer. The answer seems simple enough to me once you look at what she wears. She's obviously into the whole dominatrix thing. And who in that game could POSSIBLY be a more attractive husband for her than the Grand Master at grovelling, Cid? I mean, the man can rebelliously grovel. That takes talent.


Seifer: "WAAAAAAH I'M BETTER THEN U AND WAAAAAAH U GUYS JUST SUX TOO MUCH TO SEE IT WAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH I'LL SHOW U SOMEDAY HOW MUCH COOLER THAN I AM THAN EVERYONE ELSE PLEASE GIVE ME A HUG MOMMY PLEASE WAAAAAAAAAAH!"


Zell: Frankly, I'm of the opinion that there cannot be too many jokes about his obsession with putting long, tubular meat in his mouth. I mean, usually, jokes like that are overdone, but half his dialogue in the entire game seems to revolve around wanting hot dogs, and in the ending, he's stuffing them in with a gusto that I don't think even Futurama's Hedonism Bot could keep up with.


Laguna: What the hell is a deep and interesting character doing here?


Kiros: Also known as Lando.


Ward: If Ward could talk, he'd say he needs more characterization than interpretive blinking.


Ultimecia: "Today's Sesame Street has been brought to you by the letter K."