Story Edit
Main article: Final Fantasy VIII story
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Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow. (Skip section)
Promotional artwork of Squall and Rinoa.
Squall graduates into SeeD, a mercenary group whose members are hired out to various
missions by Balamb Garden. His childhood dream fulfilled, Squall and his fellow rookie
SeeDs are sent out to help the rebel group Forest Owls to free the occupied nation of
Timber from Galbadia. The SeeDs' contact with the group is a girl called Rinoa, and
protecting her—as she lacks combat experience—becomes part of the group's mission. On
the way to meet with the Owls the party finds themselves in a dream world that depicts
events from the past through the eyes of a Galbadian soldier named Laguna Loire, an
event that is to become a recurring mystery along their journey.
The Owls fail to abduct the president of Galbadia as planned, but a rogue SeeD cadet
Seifer takes him hostage to help Rinoa's cause. Squall's party joins his former teacher
Quistis and they try to de-escalate the situation, but Sorceress Edea—whom the president
was to announce as the nation's new ambassador—spirits Seifer away with her.
The group flees Timber with Rinoa and takes refuge in Galbadia Garden where they are
hired to assassinate Edea, as the headmaster of G-Garden and the head of Galbadian
Army conspire to save the nation from her influence. The assassination mission fails even
with the help of G-Garden assassin Irvine, and they discover Seifer is now working for
Edea as her "sorceress' knight".
Edea kills the president and usurps power in Galbadia and wants to destroy all Gardens
besides the one she has now taken over: Galbadia Garden. Though Trabia Garden is
demolished in a missile strike, Squall's party saves Balamb Garden by making it mobile,
and they begin to use it as their base to travel the world. Squall is promoted the head of
SeeD by Balamb Garden's founder Headmaster Cid who claims the SeeD's true purpose is
to enter a fated battle against a sorceress and that Squall is the one who must take on the
mission.
During their travels they learn Edea used to operate the orphanage from where Squall and
his friends sans Rinoa grew up in. When Galbadia Garden led by Seifer and Edea launches
an attack upon them, the SeeDs defeat Edea whose personality entirely changes, and
Rinoa becomes comatose. Edea had been possessed by a sorceress from the future
known as Ultimecia who seeks to unmake the world with a time compression spell.
Squall's quest to revive Rinoa from her coma leads him to discover the hidden nation of
Esthar and that Rinoa has become a sorceress, having inherited Edea's sorceress power
when they defeated her. Now having restored his childhood memories, Squall seeks out his
"Sis" from the orphanage, Ellone, who has a mystical power to send a person's
consciousness back in time to inhabit another person. She has been sending Squall back
in time to inhabit Laguna for a reason she doesn't divulge, and Squall finally finds her from
the Estharian space station. Squall has brought the comatose Rinoa with him, but Ultimecia
possesses her to release Sorceress Adel from her spacebound tomb. Adel is Esthar's
former dictator who was entombed in space to prevent her from passing on her sorceress
power, but now Adel becomes Ultimecia's new vessel while Rinoa is left to die in space.
Squall saves Rinoa, and the president of Esthar, Laguna, hires the SeeDs to fell Ultimecia.
They learn Laguna looked after the orphaned Ellone when she was a child before they
were separated and Ellone ended up in Edea's Orphanage. She has been wishing to
reunite with Laguna and Squall, and thus sent Squall back in time in a dream, trying to
change the course of events.
The SeeDs defeat Seifer and Adel, and with Ellone's help trigger the time compression
and travel to the future where they defeat Ultimecia. As the timeline is fixed Squall goes too
far back in time with the dying Ultimecia who passes on her sorceress power to the Edea of
the past orphanage. Squall unknowingly sets his own destiny into motion by telling Edea to
found the Garden, but with Rinoa's help he returns to his own time. Everyone heads to
Balamb Garden to celebrate while Seifer returns to a normal life and Ellone has finally
reunited with Laguna.
Spoilers end here.
Themes Edit
Deling City.
Final Fantasy VIII strives for thematic combination of fantasy and realism. It was the
first Final Fantasy game to have realistically proportioned characters—a departure fr
