/vr/ - Retro Games

>>3897868
> when compared to an anonymous witch with vague motivations who we don't even meet properly until the final battle in the game?

You failed to comprehend why Ultimecia does what she does.

Ultimecia lives in a far away future, but in the world of FF8, due to time travel, past, present and future are all connected.
In this future a prophecy tells that a sorceress called Ultimecia will try to compress all time, and that Squall&co will come to defeat her. Think of it that way: after Squall&co defeat Ultimecia and go back to the present, their story lives on in history books.

In other words, when Ultimecia gets born, her fate is already foretold. Everyone thinks she'll be "evil" before her first word and SHE knows Squall&co will come to destroy her. BECAUSE of that she wants to use time compression, which she believes is the only way she can survive, beat destiny.

Now, think for a second.
Ultimecia wants to kill everyone and time itself, because Squall&co want to kill her and she thinks.
Squall&co want to kill Ultimecia because she wants to compress time and kill everyone.

It's the snake biting its tail, and it's EXACTLY the strength of FF8's story; It goes WAY beyond the cliché jRPG villain "bad guy wants to conquer/destroy the world/galaxy/universe".

On the contrary, FF8's story tries to go beyond and put things in perspective. For instance, the game tells you "not all sorceresses are bad".
Then, there is also the mayor of Horizon which tells believes conflict can be avoided if the two sides would sit around a table and talk. Squall thinks that's bullshit, but only because he was a born soldier, brought up solely to be a sorceress killer and trained soldier. It turns out that the mayor of Horizon was right, if Ultimecia and Squall stopped and talked for a second, they'd both realize they only want to kill each others because the other party wants to kill them.