Alright, so I said "Final Fantasy 8 (all of it) is a dreadful tactical choice. Why I think so:
To start with, I never liked the choice of a gunblade as a weapon. Granted, there are a number of unorthadox weapons in Final Fantasy, this game being no exception, but I feel the choice to pursue the explodey-gun-swordy-thing was probably a bad choice on Squall's part alone. Lord knows his father (Hey, I'm IN the spoiler tags, so no worries.) simply favored a machine gun. But then, many of the characters make poor decisions. We all know that Seifer is basically retarded for charging blindly into things, getting all of his teammates into trouble with a botched assassination attempt, and then willingly working for the bads as well. We all know that Rinoa also fails in tactics (and that's part of the STORY), more or less screwing up everything for everyone else every time she makes a move. Incidentally, points for Edea for ever being a sorceress in a world that bloody HATES that sort of thing, even before the villainess came back through time and stuff. I'm sure NO CONSEQUENCES SHALL BEFALL US.
Oh, hey! Junctioning and drawing magic systems! In or out of the game, this was a poor decision. Yes, let's design a system where you have to collect magic to junction to your stats or use for a limited amount of time since apparently MP doesn't exist in a world of SORCERY. GOTTA DRAW THEM ALL!! No, seriously. And going after GFs and having to junction THEM (and getting them forcibly removed just when you had things the way you wanted 'em too) was a poor decision in whoever decided to make it that way in the world and just the designer of the game as well. But while we're on the subject of poor decisions in making the game, let's also include the idea where you never get stronger than any of the mooks or most of the bosses. We keep adding different enemies, but we also want the same shit you dealt with on Level 1 to be a fucking threat. WHY? After fighting 15,000 of these, I should be the Blobra-Killing MASTER even with its damage reduction. Tactical failure on the part of the characters for not knowing how to grow and adapt against ANIMALS. And by the way, whose idea was it to put a goddamn T-Rex in the school?
Okay, the school itself. Or any of them, really. Hmmm, a militaristic school designed to transform the youth into soldiers to fight an assumed enemy. Welp, nothing could go wrong there! That's certainly not going to ruin their lives in some mental or physical fashion, and putting these monsters into their brains certainly won't cause ANY problems whatsoever. I'm sure I'd remember something like that, right Ifrit? Sure, boss. What? You're saying I should randomly give them this magic lamp containing a harmful demon too? Okay! You train these young people, and then your final exam is a real warzone. Most of them are still naive and wet behind the ears. Oh, is that a self-repairing death-bot? I'm sure you'll all be fine. HAVE FUN, KIDS! Let's not forget that the uhhh...Gardens? Yeah, they're mobile for some reason, and apparently it's a good idea for you to take them directly into battle with each other, right? Well, maybe if you're the BAD GUY, who brought motorcycles and power-mechs to launch when all Balamb has is the Scooby Gang. Nice one, Cid!
Okay, let's see what else we got here. Mr. President, there is a SORCERESS on the line, as in our HATED ENEMY OF MANKIND. She wants to come into the capital WHERE YOU LIVE and throw some kind of party. Are you in? Yes? Okay... Nice knowing ya! (Dead.) Heh, so...we decided to throw a cage around the sorceress and then shoot at her with a bullet. Are we missing anything here? (How about the obvious barrier?) So, we threw this bitchy sorceress into stasis where she's helpless and put her into space, next to the monster-filled MOON. Anybody else thinking we should say...blow her up? Or send her hurtling off into space? No? (By the way, why aren't we bombing the moon that's full of MONSTERS?) Hey, we're in the super-advanced Esther civilization full of technological marvels! Should...somebody, I dunno, maybe consider shooting down that giant obelisk before it gets to us or, in fact, the thing that gives it power? (Geez, is EVERYONE here nuts? Damn it, it's like the place is run by a total mor- Oh HEY Mr. Machine Gun-Toting President!)
But the poorest tactical decision (aside from making the game) in the whole game is the plot itself. Check this out. The sorceress, Ultimecia, lives in the future and is ultimately unchallenged because everyone else is probably dead. She rules a dark future, basically. Oh, but she heard some prophecy or gained some information that a gang of sorceress-killers were going to kill her somehow in her future. So hey... Let's mess with time. Apparently, throwing your mind back into receptive individuals (flipping sorceresses) is the 'In' thing to do, so let's go mess up history, 'cause we're gonna compress time. Don't know why the fuck that's a good idea. In fact, what the hell WAS going through her mind at the time? What do you think, Griever? I...have no comment at this time. Right, so! Let's do this thing. We're going to hijack Edea (That's strange, this power she has seems kind of familiar...) and take over a country that deposed its own sorceress-ruler. This isn't unusual at all! Lets also kill the President of another country and assume control, but when it comes to killing, you know, THE PROPHECIZED ENEMY...we're gonna skimp a bit. Oh, what? They somehow managed to escape your cunning plans? Despite the fact that we have a TIME MACHINE and probably watch their every move? The devil you say! So, yeah. Despite all things, time compression happens. Great, you stupid STUPID *****. You brought it on yourself, dumbass. The heroes are HERE. Good work! Your entire plotline made you dead. Otherwise doing nothing about it would've allowed the dark rule to continue. Which is fine by me, because it was most bullshitty battle EVER (which requires an additional rant to get into), so YOU DESERVE IT.
*Sighs*
This concludes my session of 'Jack Gets Something Off His Chest'. Thank you for the time and Dr. Pepper. No, I will not return the unused portion. The rest of the time I asked for was so you'd have time to read it.
