LogFAQs > #926891365

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So while the opening FMV with Liberi Fatali gets all the hype (and for good reason), this sequence that plays if you let it idle on the startup screen for long enough has been overlooked. For one, Overture (the song that plays here) is an underrated track. Then I like the slow scroll through the cast and locations in black and white photos (all while never fully showing the face of the characters). One of the things that strikes me with FFVIII is that they were going for a very cinematic presentation with this game. It's almost like they wanted it to be like a Hollywood movie with the way the FMVs and other things are done. It gives the game a grand sense of scale, at least to me. Presentation is a huge thing for me, and few games have it the way FFVIII does.

The game tries to grab your attention from the onset. It feels like there are a ton of FMVs within the first few hours of the game, and they're pretty spread out through the rest of the game. The opening FMV really goes all out on the production values, complete with Latin chanting, words across the screen, rapid-fire panning from scene to scene, transitioning from Rinoa's feather floating up in the air to Squall's gunblade dropping in out of the sky, and culminating in an epic battle between Squall and Seifer...which we find out immediately afterwards was merely a training session. The game goes all out right away. Squall and Seifer giving each other matching scars is an extremely memorable (and gruesome, by the series' standards) moment. For the record, I bought a Griever necklace off of eBay shortly after this game came out, and I still own it. Also, it's kind of amazing how much the opening FMV "spoils" of later moments in the game. The game acts as though it's no surprise that Squall and Rinoa will eventually fall in love. It's treated as inevitable. Their embrace is the friggin' logo of the game (and LOVE is famously the game's main theme), and they show (a very much prettied up version since the real scene happens in a very mechanical and drab environment) Squall and Rinoa about to embrace and cut it short right before they meet in each other's arms. How they manage to get there from where they start out is the real mystery of the game. As is the case with GameFAQs Character Battles, it's the journey, not the destination.

These new character models are super sharp. They look fantastic. I feel like I never really knew what these minor NPCs (like Doctor Kadowaki here in the opening scene) looked like, but it's clear as day now. We also get a quick sneak peek at Ellone. She says one line about meeting Squall again and vanishes just like that. It's a "blink and you miss it" moment that you'll probably forget ever happened after you learn who she is. I do kinda like that Squall and Rinoa are the only characters you get to name. It gives the game some leeway to give the other characters nicknames, like Quisty.

We get some glimpses into who Squall is early on, when Doctor Kadowaki tells him to ignore Seifer, but he says he can't just run away from him. He's got too much pride to back down from a fight, and this comes up again later on. It was his way of proving that he could take care of himself without Ellone, that he didn't need anyone's help. And speaking of Quistis, she has a character establishing moment where she makes fun of Squall by perfectly predicting and copying his responses to her questions. The irony is that Squall's statement, "I'm more complex than you think," is completely accurate. He just lets Quistis see what he wants her to see, and while she here declares that she's starting to figure him out, she later learns that she truly didn't know him as well as she thought she did.
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