Squall illustration by Stephen Maurice GrahamLooking for part one of this piece? It's over here, where the selections are explained. So before you head to the comments to complain about your favorite scene being absent, maybe click that way, first.Final Fantasy VIII gets a bit weird towards the end when everyone starts talking about time and space and all sorts of plot points that start to fall apart if you think about them for too long. The party willfully manipulates Ultimecia to compress time and space so that they can jump to a point where they can confront her in person. They defeat the sorceress, the game's primary antagonist, but this creates circumstances that set new events in motion, as the main player character Squall and Ultimecia are sent to our hero's childhood where he watches her pass on her powers to Edea. Out of time, however, Squall is stuck in some weird parallel-dimension limbo, where his memories begin to fade away, Rinoa's face gets all blurry and he's left alone in the darkness.Things start to get freaky and he begins to glitch out and fall down a lot, all alone on a big rock. Thankfully Rinoa, using her own magical powers, is able to find him and bring him back and everyone lives happily ever after. Except those of us that have seen those horrible hallucinations, because there's no going back from that.
Squall in limbo – Final Fantasy VIII
Advertisement
Kefka destroys the world – Final Fantasy VI
Advertisement
Fran's mist rage – Final Fantasy XII
Advertisement
Despite being tied up, Fran goes berserk, breaks free, and fly-kicks a bunch of soldiers in the face. It's totally awesome. It also prompts Balthier to tell a filthy S&M joke to a princess. Told you they were like Han and Chewie.I expected to hate X-2 so much that I avoided it for many years after it launched. I mean, they gave Yuna guns and a short skirt and turned her into a pop star for crying out loud—and then they teamed her up with a sassy blonde best friend and a new totally emo chick who wasn't so much a character as an aesthetic counterpoint to the other two and a stand-in for Lulu, who for some reason decided that her adventuring days were over and that she'd have some redhead's child instead. Essentially I found the entire concept of dresspheres vaguely insulting in a Final Fantasy with an all-female cast.But, it turns out, X-2 was awesome, the songs were dope, and the storyline was surprisingly dark. The whole adventure begins because Yuna believes she has seen Tidus in a really old sphere, but it turns out to be the spirit of a young man resembling him named Shuyin, who was the lover of a songstress and summoner named Lenne. The two were gunned down over 1,000 years ago, an event that made the unsent Shuyin mad with grief. It's recounted during Yuna's performance of "1,000 Words" in Thunder Plains, due to her dressphere somehow holding Lenne's essence. "1,000 Words" is a pretty good song. Yes it's cheesy as hell (then again, so was "Eyes on Me"), but hey, it's better than Leona Lewis's "My Hands."
Vegnagun destroys Spira – Final Fantasy X-2
Advertisement
Anyway, one of the best, or at least most dramatic moments from X-2 is one that the majority of players will never even see. Angry and vengeful, Shuyin wants to destroy the world, and with it ,any fear of people dying unnecessarily in war (that's some good logic there, sport). So he unleashes Vegnagun—basically a sort-of-sentient weapon of mass destruction. You face it down at the end of the game and, if you lose, X-2 actually shows the destruction of Spira instead of just going to a simple "Game Over" screen. Watching the blasts rip apart the Calm Lands is pretty horrific, to say the least. And yet most people were more horrified over the game's unbelievably kitsch opening, which was fuckin' A if you ask me. Lasers! Flying guitars! Magical costume changes! Sexy male back-up dancers! What's not to love about that?Cyan's a bit of an idiot. He's one of those party members who people always just tend to gloss over in favor of a more powerful or more interesting character (hey there, Cait Sith), and who's going to choose some faux-Shakespeare spouting nincompoop like Cyan when they can have Edgar, who's basically Batman? When the game forces you to, of course.Events early on in VI see Cyan join the party after he sneaks behind enemy lines during a siege on his home of Doma. This infiltration means Cyan alone escapes death after Kefka poisons Doma's water supply, killing everyone including Cyan's wife and son, Elayne and Owain. In his grief, Cyan tries to take on the Empire's forces alone but meets up with martial artist Sabin, and they escape into a nearby forest.
Cyan sees his wife and child cross over to the afterlife – Final Fantasy VI
Advertisement
Here they accidentally board a ghost train, transporting the souls of the dead to the afterlife. After Sabin actually suplexes the entire train, and it agrees to let them off at the next stop, they disembark just in time to see the souls of Cyan's wife and son boarding for their final destination. It's a sobering, heart-wrenching moment that you feel all the more because it comes right after a downright ridiculous one, and after an hour spent buying goods from ghosts and eating at a little phantom restaurant. As he runs alongside the train to the end of the platform and they say a few last words of love and encouragement and you're fairly sure you see the moment his heart actually breaks, you find new empathy and respect for a man who previously you'd only seen as kind of a loser.
Ramuh summon – Final Fantasy XV
Advertisement
This is by no means an exhaustive list, but I had to stop typing at some point. Shout-outs to the Opera, the coin toss and Rachel's temporary revival from FFVI; the motorcycle chase, leaving Midgar, the destruction of Nibelheim and cross-dressing in the slums in FFVII; Kuja destroying Terra and leaving Burmecia in IX (actually, Kuja doing anything in IX—his "Later, bitches" hair flip is everything); changing classes in the first FF; the petrification of Palom and Porom in IV, the ballroom dance and Sorceress Edea's parade in FFVIII; the sending, the wedding, and anything Kimahri or Auron are a part of in FFX, and Balthier and Fran's eventual fate in FFXII.Oh, and this obviously.Great, now I've got to go back and play them all again, don't I?Find Part 1 of this piece here.Follow Aoife and Stephen on Twitter.