History Videogame / FinalFantasyVIII

Squall (he's "more complex than you think"!) is an unflappable agent with more issues than National Geographic. He's the best at what he does, but his personal life is effectively zero, and he shuns the companionship of others. During his first mission as a [=SeeD=], he's deployed to lend aid to a [[LaResistance resistance movement]] fighting the expansionist nation of Galbadia. There he meets his opposite: Rinoa Heartilly, an UptownGirl naive to the realities of battle. The cold war heats to a boil with the emergence of [[GodSaveUsFromTheQueen a mysterious new figurehead named Edea]] who unravels the secrets surrounding [=SeeD's=] [[MysteriousEmployer unstated mission]].

The main character this time around is Squall Leonhart, who attends an ElaborateUniversityHigh known as a Garden. The organisation who run Balamb Garden, [=SeeD=], take in pre-pubescent orphans and [[ChildSoldiers train them to become soldiers]], requiring them to graduate before their twentieth birthday.

** The ''entire'' Shumi sidequest in Fisherman's Horizon. Try finding the ladder to the old fisherman without knowing it's there. Said fisherman also has one of the aforementioned Occult Fan magazines that's LostForever if you don't visit him immediately upon arriving in FH.

* DeconstructedCharacterArchetype: Deconstructs the KidHero by way of overt comparison to ChildSoldiers. Your party of heroic 16- and 17 year-olds is just as mentally damaged and scarred as child soldiers tend to be in real life, not helped by using {{Phlebotinum}} which erases their memories, thus taking time to deconstruct the AmnesiacHero as well. Also, their various missions are purely "get in, get out" affairs, and none of the geopolitical conflicts they get involved with are resolved by the game's end. In fact, they are outright {{Failure Hero}}es throughout the first disc, repeatedly screwing up at important junctures as much as one might expect from a team of [[RecruitTeenagersWithAttitude overbearing, overemotional humans.]]
* {{Deconstruction}}: Oh so much. For example, Squall is utterly broken when compared to a typical teenage-orphan EasternRPG protagonist, precisely because he's a teenage-orphan EasternRPG protagonist.

* AluminumChristmasTrees: The [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pistol_sword Gunblade]]. Many people thought it was made up for the game but versions of this weapon actually ''did'' exist in real life. The functionality of the game's gunblade is described as a form of VibroWeapon and it has no ranged capability. This is unlike the real-world attempts at gun/sword hybrids meant to combine the range of a firearm with the melee utility of a bladed weapon.

* DeconstructedCharacterArchetype: Deconstructs the KidHero by way of overt comparison to ChildSoldiers. Your party of heroic 16- and 17 year-olds is just as mentally damaged and scarred as child soldiers tend to be in real life, not helped by using {{Phlebotinum}} which erases their memories, thus taking time to deconstruct the AmnesiacHero as well. Also, their various missions are purely "get in, get out" affairs, and none of the geopolitical conflicts they get involved with are resolved by the game's end. In fact, they are outright [[Failure Hero]]es throughout the first disc, repeatedly screwing up at important junctures as much as one might expect from a team of [[RecruitTeenagersWithAttitude overbearing, overemotional humans.]]

* DeconstructedCharacterArchetype: Deconstructs the KidHero by way of overt comparison to ChildSoldiers. Your party of heroic 16- and 17 year-olds is just as mentally damaged and scarred as child soldiers tend to be in real life, not helped by using {{Phlebotinum}} which erases their memories, thus taking time to deconstruct the AmnesiacHero as well.

Squall Leonhart attends an ElaborateUniversityHigh known as a Garden. The organisation who run Balamb Garden, [=SeeD=], take in pre-pubescent orphans and [[ChildSoldiers train them to become soldiers]], requiring them to graduate before their twentieth birthday.

* EverythingsBetterWithSpinning: Zell's final Limit Break causes the enemy to spin.

* FightingWithChucks: Selphie uses nunchucks as her weapon of choice.

Eighth entry in the [[RunningGag break-dancingly popular]] ''Franchise/FinalFantasy'' series, released in 1999.

* TechPoints: Ability Points.

* NotTheIntendedUse: Selphie's Limit Break scrolls through random skills, including 'The End', which instantly destroys all creatures. It worked on bosses. An easy abuse of this skill was to open the top of the Playstation which puts the game into a pause like loop where you can keep scrolling through her skills until you get 'The End'.

* DanceOfRomance:

* CannotStandThemCannotLiveWithoutThem: Squall spends the first two discs of the game grimly resisting Rinoa's efforts to get him to open up to her, but gradually giving way. When she [[spoiler:falls into a coma at the end of disc two, however, he realizes how much he doesn't want to lose her, and she becomes his main priority.]]
* {{Cap}}: [[LampshadeHanging Lampshaded]] with a middle-aged man who mentions that, [[UsefulNotes/PowersOfTwoMinusOne for some reason]], he's unable to count more than 256 cats.

* TheMutiny: The team returns to Balamb Garden after breaking out of D-District Prison to find the school undergoing one by students and staff loyal to NORG, with the [[AntiMutiny students and staff loyal to Cid are opposing them]].

* NoGearLevel: An unusual example occurs in [[spoiler:Ultimecia Castle]]: the game mostly lacks equippable gear to deprive you of, but achieves similar effect by locking all abilities - including item use, magic, summoning, reviving [=KOed=] party members, and even the ability to save the game - upon entry to the dungeon. The player is obliged to unseal each of these abilities by defeating bosses in various different parts of the dungeon before progressing onward to face [[spoiler:Ultimecia.]]

* LateArrivalSpoiler: The PSN version of this game actually blows Ultimecia's identity right in the product description. Normally, this would be TrailersAlwaysSpoil, but as the game is ten years old and the PSN version came out well after ''VideoGame/DissidiaFinalFantasy'' included her as the main villain representing ''Final Fantasy VIII'', it ends up falling under this trope due to sheer age. But woe to the newer generations playing this for the first time...

** The ''entire'' Shumi sidequest in Fisherman's Horizon. Try finding the ladder to the old fisherman without knowing it's there.

* MonoNoAware: Despite the game's European trappings, its heart is purely Buddhist. To wit, the plot is about the main characters learning to stop clinging to their past so they can end their suffering in the present, a very Buddhist theme. Taken UpToEleven with the game's villain, [[spoiler: who plans to destroy the very fabric of time itself so she won't have to face her future[=/=]past (it's complicated).]]

* NoHeroDiscount: Though there is one exception in Timber, when saving some kids from being hit by a train gets you a free hotel stay. Played straight for everything else: ''how much'' for a train ticket? '''[[UpToEleven HOW MUCH]]''' for the Queen of Cards to spread a new rule?

* SceneryPorn: Background bitmap detail compared to ''VII'' was cranked UpToEleven.

* UpToEleven: Quistis's "Shockwave Pulsar" Blue Magic is the first spell in the franchise that can break the {{Cap}} of 9,999 damage in a single hit.

* CutsceneIncompetence: Outside of battles, the characters are unable to do things during the story that they can easily do in battle, such as summoning [=GFs=].

* MindScrew: It is not exactly clear what the GF Eden is, nor what exactly happens [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZbfDMzynwg during its attack]], except that the universe appears to fold in on itself and back out again.

** The concert scene has you pick four instruments out of eight, since there was a mixup of two songs: a slow jam version of "Eyes on Me," and an Irish Jig that sounds like "The Keel Row." One would think the correct song is the former because it's one of the game's main themes, but even if you correctly assign everyone Eyes on Me, Rinoa will complain about how terrible it sounds and her date with Squall ends badly. It's actually the Irish Jig that will make the date go well.