I lied...I regret.

I had hoped I would never replay this game. Sadly, due to nostalgia and having a song stuck in my head, let's go to Balamb.

I've had the Balamb Garden theme bouncing around my head for a few days, and it's triggered something inside me. It made me want to replay Final Fantasy VIII. I really don't like this game. I find the characters to be awful, the gameplay boring, and the story moronic. I last tried to do this in 2014 or so and got bored before the disk one climax. I knew the next several dungeons were gonna suck, I already wasn't having fun, so I stopped.

FFVIII is one of the few games I didn't buy locally. I picked it up on vacation in Wisconsin, so I didn't even play it for a few days. My cousins and I skimmed through the manual and thought the gunblade was really cool. Another cousin also bought it, but I don't know how she felt about it. Despite me owning it, though, I have to emulate it. My disk three is scratched to hell and freezes up on the Ragnarok. But enough of the 90s!

I start my game and select "new game." We're on a beach, and the camera flies out to sea as not-Latin starts to be chanted. We see many, many images of a woman calling out to someone before we see two men having a fight with their oddly shaped swords. They end up giving each other a scar on their face as we get one more look at this mysterious woman as well as another woman of unknown origins.

We jump to an infirmary as a nurse checks on us. We're Squall, a man with no personality, and our feud with Seifer, the other guy, is well known. Doctor Kadowamy calls for our teacher, Quistis Trepe, who looks at us dejectedly. But there was a strange girl there too... Quistis escorts us to class, mocking us the whole way. Squall is an easy boy to understand because he has no personality. When we get to class, Seifer is there. I guess he won the duel in the opening cinematic. Quistis reminds everyone that the test to become a SeeD will take place later today, but we need to finish our prerequisites first. Squall, especially. When we approach our beloved teacher, her fan club walks away. Quistis reminds us we need to get Ifrit before we can join SeeD, and she'll join us for the Fire Cavern, our tutorial dungeon. Make sure to pick up our first two Guardian Forces, Shiva and Quetzalcoatl.

Before heading there, though, we can explore the massive campus that is our school, Balamb Garden. I didn't, though. On our way to meet up with our teacher, a girl bumps into us. She asks us to give her a tour of the grounds, but Squall has no personality, so I blow her off. Make sure to speak to the guy on the bridge before the elevator. He'll give us cards, which we'll use to break the game. Take the long walk to the exit, and Quistis will tell us about junctioning.

The Fire Cavern is across to woods. We'll get taught how to junction magic to raise our stats because leveling is optional in this game. Two strange creatures will block our path until we tell them we'll finish this area in under ten minutes. This place in a test, but we won't get our grades until much later. The goal is to defeat Ifrit with less than seven seconds on the clock. I stopped paying attention, but I got close. The normal mobs are easy to defeat in one or two basic attacks, but make sure Shiva can be summoned if you're against bombs. Once Ifrit is down, the area is opened up, and you can leave.

And now I went to grind. I want to finish FF8 fast, so I'm setting myself up early. I ground out Quetzal's Card and Card Mod ability to make sure I don't gain exp and to make sure I have access to late game stuff early. Head to the beach and summon Quetzal. Have Quistis attack once before Squall uses Card. You'll get six AP, GF ability points, and no exp. FFVIII is odd because the higher your level, the harder the enemies are. I want to stay low. I did this for an hour and a half until I got the two moves I wanted and a few other junction skills. I went back to the Garden, and Quistis told us to get ready for the SeeD test. What I actually did was get better cards, which I'll use to get better cards until I use the Card Mod to get our ultimate weapons on disk one. I did enough, so I'll become a child soldier...

... tomorrow!

Why does Squall, a man with no personality, want to play a card game all the time?