Alright, just finished FF VIII last night, PS1 version. The final battle was a nail bitter and also made me realize how much I hate that I cannot get Lion Heart every time with my desperation attack. I was really surprised at how the battle ended up though, and I wonder if it was kinda coded in a way to make it like that. I kept getting flashbacks to FF VII final battle, when you use Omnislash to defeat Sephiroth, and it is only Cloud on the field, etc. I basically had the same ending, but it was not scripted, or at least it didn't seem scripted to me. I felt like at any moment I could have been killed, but I did get a lot of those Judgement attacks from Ultimecia that bring your HP to 1, but not kill you.
Anyway, the game is still great. Very epic, but as always the story is not very cohesive. I don't understand why there are 3 "big bads" in the game. The focus of the plot keeps shifting until you are told about a character that you have never met and have no understanding of. Who is Ultimecia? Why does she want to Krompress time? I felt that it should have been either Edea stay the bad guy the whole time, or Adel be the person who is manipulating people from afar, which would make more sense. You find out about the Sorceress wars and Adel being the instigator, she is overthrown, etc. Adel has way more reason to want to destroy the world.
Still, with all that gripe on the story (didn't really bring up the love story part of it) I really enjoyed the game. I liked playing through it without really drawing any magic from enemies, I just used card mod and when I finally got encounter none I was really flying through the latter half of the game. If you haven't played FF VIII yet then you shoudl at least check out the first disc playthrough.
