Well, here it is. The last leg of this torrid tale - the final showdown at the last... ahhh, whatever, let's get going: Paramina's Final Fantasy VIII Walkthrough, Part 35, Disc 4, the last of the storyline related pages of this Walkthrough. It's been an awesome ride, comrades...
Konfronting the Sorceress[]
Enter the castle for our first proper look at Ultimecia. Yes, she is that woman with the coat rack attached to her head we saw possessing Rinoa a while back, but now we can actually see her in her entirety. She dresses like a lady of the night, if you know what I'm saying, and speaks with a rather strange, inexplicable accent (sorry, akkent). Still, the party crowd around her throne and she gazes down at them like insekts on her... I was going to say shoe but is it a paw? I can't really tell. Slowly, Ultimecia climbs to her feet and descends down to our team. Finally, we hear this rather shadowed villaness' true motives for her somewhat shoddy plan! She speaks!
"...SeeD... SeeD......SeeD...... SeeD, SeeD, SeeD! Kurse all SeeDs. Swarming like lokusts akross generations. You disgust me. The world was on the brink of that ever-elusive 'time kompression'. Insolent fools! Your vain krusade ends here, SeeDs. The price for your meddling is death beyond death. I shall send you to a dimension beyond your imagining. There, I will reign, and you will be my slaves for eternity. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Whom shall I exterminate first!? I'll start with you three!"
I'm still scanning this speech for a hidden message, yet I'm getting nothing. Nothing. Nada. Oh, Square, you give us our villainess but neglect in giving us a motive. Harsh.
| Boss Battle: Ultimecia |
What's a shame is that this battle is pitifully easy. *Sigh*, how I miss the days of really nails final bosses. The most annoying part of this battle is that she chooses whoever she wants as your party. Unluckily for me, I started with an Irvine, Rinoa, Selphie combo. Ouch. The only way to get your preferred party is to kill them off yourself - so I had a pretty good time using Irvine as executioner and shooting Selphie, Rinoa and Zell (Selphie's replacement) into oblivion and watching them "absorb into the time stream". Of course, when you finally get round to your awesome party, that's when the fight really begins. Start with a quick cast of Meltdown and then an Aura on Quistis so she can whip out Mighty Guard, which pretty much lasts all four bouts of this battle. You may also want a Triple Shell to take the edge of some of Ultimecia's spells, but they shouldn't hurt you too badly. Keep an eye out Maelstorm, which is her only real damager, and be ready to heal up after it with a Triple Curaga, or a White Wind. Keep up with the physicals and it's goodnight for Round 1. |
"The most powerful GF... ...You shall...SUFFER...! HAHAHA..." Oh dear. Ultimecia exacts this (rather promising) threat by summoning Griever, or whatever you called Squall's ring (again, who does that? Names rings?), the father of all GFs. I was ready for a real tough battle here, but again I was disappointed.
| Boss Battle: Griever |
I'm not sure about Griever's level range, but his HP's pretty paltry for a final boss. On the plus side, Maybe I'm a Lion is pretty awesome. Your buffs from Round 1 should still be in play, so you can afford to just go all out on the assault here. Use Meltdown, as expected. None of Griever's attacks are much to write home about, despite being "the ultimate GF". In fact, a couple of Renzokukens and Shots and he's back on the bench, though if you don't want this last battle to be mind-numbingly easy I recommend you just hammer him sans the super-human strength attacks. At his death, he'll perform his ultimate attack, Shockwave Pulsar, which would be awesome if Quistis couldn't do it, too. Basically make sure your HP is at a decent level because you don't want this send-off to wipe you out because you've been complacent. Admittedly, your stats and Shell should keep you alright, but you don't really want to risk the humiliation of being handed a Game Over by this guy. |
"I shall junction myself... ...Unto Griever!" Wow, she's still here? Hmm. Of course, if you went with awesome walkthrough writer Spatvark's suggestion, "Your Ass", then Ultimecia's quote here instantly becomes ten times more interesting.
| Boss Battle: Ultimecia-Griever. Ultimiever. Grievecia. Whatever |
Is she... is she naked in there? What a hussy! Strident strumpet, at least Cloud of Darkness was vaguely partially dressed at all times. This battle's no different. Top-up your buffs if they've fallen (don't think they will have, though), or if you want to make things challenging, then forgo them altogether. The main different with this (except the new hideous sprite we have to face) is that Ultimecia-Griver can summon these things called Helixes. All they do is increase the boss' magic power, but that's pretty much redundant in the grander scheme of this battle. Keep up with your physicals ontop of Meltdown, once Ultimecia-Griever loses about 70% of it's HP, it's tail will fall off (?), but nothing much really happens to worry you - it casts Quake but you'll have Float due to Mighty Guard, so yet another move is rendered pointless in this bout. Bring on Round 4. |
"Rghaah..." Not as epic as "Uboaaa!" but a decent closer. In fact, Ultimecia's best lines are just coming: "I am Ultimecia." Who? "Time shall compress... ...All existence denied."
| Boss Battle: Ultimecia, Final Form |
It's a sad thing when all four Final Boss boxes read 'Easy.' Do you know what though? As much as I hate on Ultimecia, her last form is pretty cool. See how she's hanging out at the bottom there? Reminds me of Anima, I wonder if this was what they based the design on? Ultimecia's most dangerous move here is Hell's Judgement, which will reduce your HP to 1, regardless of your buffs. A good way to counteract this is to have Quistis use White Wind, or even just Triple Curaga, though that can bounce off your Shell. Another super annoying thing Ultimecia can do is "blow away" your magic stocks, even if they're Junctioned to a stat. I was plugging away mid-battle when I learnt "Irvine's Tornado has been Blown Away!" It took me about five minutes to finally realise what the message meant, and luckily Tornado was only Junctioned to something stupid like Eva-J, but I can imagine this move would hurt particularly if she blew away Squall's Ultima or whatever. So to negate this we have to act as quickly as possible. Cast Meltdown and Triple Aura to unleash some Limits. Have Quistis throw out a barrage of spells and use up all your best Ammo on Irvine, because they're no use sitting in your inventory during the credits, are they? Pummeling with physicals in the mean time should keep this battle in your favour, and if you have a few spare turns, have Quistis Draw/Cast Apocalypse for Ultimecia to get a slap of her own hand. After a while the dialogue will kick in and you've just got to keep hitting with normal attacks for her to finally combust. What's sad is I'm still not really sure who I just fought. Ultimecia, you say? Oh, right... |
And that's the last of the battles! Victory is ours! Our ending sequence begins with the team running across a white background and looking all trippy like an MC Hammer video. I still have no idea what's going on and this scene does naught but add to my confusion as they run on the spot and say things like "Pick the right time guys!" and "Whatever you do, don't fall into a time warp!" Um, oky?
Admittedly, I'm not going to rag on the ending, because it's pretty satisfactory as far as RPG endings go, especially compared to others in this series (I'm not going to name it, but it rhymes with Shminal Shmantasy Shmeven), so here it is, one of the best endings in the FF series, for your enjoyment:
And that's it folks! Wow - I can't believe it's actually finished. Even though I complained a lot, this game does have it's awesome moments, and I enjoyed writing this for you guys. I just want to say thanks for reading my very first walkthrough for the wiki! I really can't believe I've actually done it! Wow. Anyway, I hope you found this walkthrough helpful and if you have any feedback at all, let me know. It's been a pleasure playing Final Fantasy VIII with you.
Peace out, suckers! - Paramina x (yeah, that's a little kiss - lucky you).