Nice Gallery!!

Base +1, Dodsferd +7, g0su +13, Kiranta +6

Yeah, I never liked how the game insisted on that Squall and Rinoa were soooo in love... I never found Rinoa all that appealing or interesting and the lovestory just felt like it was being forced down my throat. Worse was when they introduced Irvine as a love interest for Selphie was when the game really started pissing me off. They were paring up EVERYONE and with the worst possible people. Rinoa's only claim at having a personality was that of a "girlfriend", she had NOTHING going for her... and Irvine was just supposed to be this suave guy that hit on any female he came across, only he was really always in love with Selphie ect ect ect The whole thing reeked of bad fanfiction. Luckily at least in the case of Selphie/Irvine, the girl didn't show the slightest romantic interest in the sniper and he just came off as a big loser. Sure enough Selphie was a bit of a valley girl and possibly slightly retarded what with her going "Choo Chooo" every time they were on a train and her constant use of "BOYAKA!!!" but at least she didn't have "Square Lead heroine and girlfriend" branded on her forehead like Rinoa did.

That's another thing, despite Squall being an emo wuss... the three playable girls in the game all apparently were interested in him. The boring girlfriend, the train crazy chick and the "hot" leather-clad whip wielding teacher. Seriously, what was up with Quistis?? Sure she wasn't a boring "lead girlfriend" type of character, but she was such a walking cliche that it wasn't even funny. At first she seemed older than the hero since she was a teacher but later we found out that she was a "genius" (lol) so she was actually just a few years older than Squall. She also wore glasses and like I said, used a whip when fighting. Not surprisingly back then she was the most popular female character the USA and Europe while Japan loved their "waifu" girlfriend Rinoa.

But I digress...

Relevant to the first story found in this Doujin was that Selphie actually expressed a genuine interest in hooking up with Squall throughout the game, then when Rinoa shows up she gives up and keeps saying that Squall and Rinoa are a couple. What a gyp! As the player there is nothing you can do about it. Even if you NEVER EVER put Rinoa in your party, never talk with her and instead spend all your time with Selphie there is no way at all to convince her that "the waifu" don't mean shit to you. Apparently Selphie takes your Squall's normal emo bullshit as a sign of him thinking about Rinoa.

Okay sure, this isn't a dating sim... but I'd at least wish Square had given the player the option NOT to hook up with "the fated girlfriend". Much like how Quistis take Squall out on a date without him even knowing that it is one, you have something akin to TWO dates with Selphie. The first one when she bumps into you at the start of the game (Which is a gimmick used in many school-centered manga where the hero bumps into the main heroine), and she asks him to show her around campus. The second time if I recall correctly is just before the dance... before Rinoa shows up and starts dancing with Squall. You see Squall in his room when he hears a knock and Selphie comes into his room I think? Now I don't remember everything since it was more than 15 years since I played the game, but I think I recall that Selphie was hinting at that she wanted to date him. I'm pretty sure she did and I'm pretty sure that Squall either didn't have a clue wtf she was talking about or that he was his usual emo jerk self and ignored her. I am sure however that I was pissed at Squall for not allowing me to have him hook up with Selphie... and I got even more pissed when Rinoa was suddenly introduced and we were all supposed to like her? Sure we saw her from behind in the opening sequence but now she just showed up and stole a dance from Squall;following one of the most boring and lame cut sequences in Final Fantasy history. We knew NOTHING about her, only thing we did know was that her design sucked and that she was the girl we had seen in the opening sequence. So either she was one of the main baddies or she was the fated girlfriend. FF8 went for the girlfriend approach and the groans of many a non Japanese fan could be heard all around the globe. Sure, I don't think more than perhaps 2% of them liked Selphie, but they DID love Quistis... in fact there are still shippers out there that wanted Rinoa to die just so that Squall could get some hot teacher love.

In the end despite having possibly the worst love story and worst main female lead out of all the FF games (yes even worse than Yuna from FF10), there were a lot of good things I do remember from FF8.

1. It gave us the FF cardgame. Ironically the cardgame version is still the most fun in FF8 than it is in any of the later incarnations in other FF games (music is great too)

2. Shiva from FF8 is the most beautiful Shiva ever and the strongest too. All other incarnations of her suck compared to teh FF8 one.

3. Ultimecia. We find out next to nothing about her in the game and we can only glean some info about her from what she was doing when she was possessing Edea's body. Still, as interesting as Ultimecia is, she is another reason why the game sucks. The game pretty much bludgeons you with hints throughout the game that when you do fight her it seems "obvious" that she is Rinoa or a child/grandchild of Rinoa. What with Griever, how the magic must be passed from Sorceress to sorceress and even how people lose their memories the more they use GF. And Ultimecia was sown to have many MANY GF's in her castle so the possibility was quite real... add to this that she actually LOOKS quite a bit liek Rinoa and well... you have to admit -- it IS a good plot and would actually make the whole Squall/Rinoa romance important. I mean they forced it upon us the whole game so at least make use of it!! But then "word of god" (see Square) said that no, Ultimecia is/was NOT Rinoa ect ect ect... Gee thanks a lot Square. Even if this wasn't your intention when you wrote the script for the game... since what we were given made little to no sense and sucked... why didn't you simply accept this fan theory as canon? Still... they never said that Ultimecia wasn't Rinoa and Squall's daughter/grand daughter so I guess the left at least a small crack open for something slightly interesting.

4. Odin gets chopped in two and pwned by Seifer, then in the same battle Seifer gets blown away and pwned by Gilgamesh!! No serio8usly, that was just epic. He is the final boss of the 3rd disc and if you have Odin the fight will be won and end not by you, but by some random guy that shows up out of nowhere.

5. Laguna and his battle themes. IN fact Laguna's companions are far more interesting than Squall's gang.. then he becomes the President.

6. The trains. The train-sound is really soothing and you can by choice spend a LOT of time inside the trains.

7. Selphie's blog and "internet" site.

8. Al the little secret relationships at the Garden academy!!

and so on and so on...

Base +8, g0su -13, Hentai1987 +6, Kiranta +6, someguy54321 -6

http://www.doujinshi.org/book/137941/Fairy-Shape/

Base +55, g0su +13