FF8's Weirdest Secrets

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Its depressing that the shadow of the lake is likely being sincere with telling you of places not knowing those places are long gone and just rubble remains of the people it once knew

My favourite FF8 secret is that in Esthar you can access the escape pod that fell back to the planet after escaping from the Lunar Cry in space - the "Crash Site". There's no map marker, no specific information on where it is, but you can find it on the world map. Piet is there, and you can play cards with him in case you missed Alexander card!

Some of my favorite little secrets in FFVIII are that you can encounter a Galbadian solder trying to get the Grease Monkey in Fisherman's Horizon to fix the Ironclad and if you scare him off twice you can get some free items. And in Timber you can talk to a woman who was saved years ago from falling onto the tracks by a handsome Galbadian solder named "Loire". Also, if you check the messages from the Library Committee on Squall's console you can find out that Seifer hasn't returned a book about being a Sorceress's Knight. There are just so many fun little things sprinkled through FFVIII that I think a lot of people miss.

An awesome detail that you only get on a second playthrough is that Adel is the one causing all the comunications interference that doesn't let anyone transmit at the start of the game, and why galbadia wanted that communications tower...all that intereference, is she screaming in despair and rage over the planet. If you look at the static before Delling's broadcast goes out in Timber, you can read "I AM ALIVE HERE", "BRING ME BACK THERE", and "I WILL NEVER LET YOU FORGET ABOUT ME" on the screen

The girl who has a crush on Zell is the girl sitting with him on the ending cinematic where he's choking on bread

the ruined village is vaguely implied to be a remnant of the Lunar Cry that destroyed the Centra Civilization, but it could also be linked to the various sorceress wars in FF8's history. When you go through Time Compression you encounter incarnations of witches from various eras through history, and there's actually evidence of pre-Centran civilization. Centra was destroyed 100 years prior and according to the in-game lore the only structures that remained were Odin's dungeon and Edea's house, but the deep sea deposit that was discovered by the researchers in the optional dungeon contains ancient ruins that are similar to the Cetran architecture but slightly different. There's a whole ruined city down there, and they were somehow trying to uncover a powerful Guardian Force from the depths of the planet, which is interesting because GFs are barely elaborated upon in FF8 despite being so ubiquitous, you can actually hypothesize that the lack of information about GF origins is because of the memory loss, which actually gives the things a more sinister overtone. Not to mention other ruins like the Tomb of the Unknown King in Galbadia. In fact, the recency of Cetra's destruction means FF8 is arguably post-apocalyptic. Personally the coolest hidden secret is I think the Adel radio lore. In the story Adel is sent into space after being sealed by Esthar, and in her sealed state she still uses her power to knock out global radio communications, filling them with static. The characters mention this early on in the game without knowing why said communications were cut, but when you go to the Timber station you'll see a bunch of creepy messages on the screens- they say things like "IWILLNEVERLETYOUFORGETABOUTME" and so forth that are being sent by Adel from her prison. This is actually how the Ragnarok ship in the endgame got lost in space- the Esthar people used the ships to take her into orbit but when she was up their she ruined their communications, which is how the ship was unable to return home- and then after Adel is freed and returns to the planet, the radio systems work again, which is how Esthar's control tower is able to reach Squall and Rinoa in the cockpit and guide them into landing. It all fits together really well despite Adel being such a mysterious villain. The most cryptic stuff is probably Ultimecia's backstory, but her castle contains a lot of clues about it. It's a massive structure designed for lots of people but she's the only one there and it's in a state of disrepair- the implication being that it's somewhere she once ruled or served another ruler, but everything went to hell for her and the people there and she became depressed and isolated. If you go to the armory there's also a banner with a bloody red sword embedded in it, which could mean that she was perhaps betrayed and stabbed in the back by someone she trusted, or it could represent the death of someone or something she had attached herself to. Her last words in the battle against the SEEDs are also quite bleak as she reflects about how time robs you of everything, it doesn't sound the same as her pre-battle lines, and IIRC her original speech about prejudice she made through Edea was localized to be less despondent like it was in the original script. All in All, the implications of Ultimecia's life is that she had something very horrible happen to her to make her this way and it scarred her deeply. FF8 is a really great game, it holds a lot of mysteries and doesn't answer all of them to retain some of the world's mystique.

The secrets in old RPG games, specialy during the PS1 era, are just mindblowing. Great work!

I miss things like this in games. Just secrets that have no explanation, no guidance to them, and no clear indication that you just flagged a side quest. Things like this made games so unique and mysterious back in the day, I feel like we've really stepped away from that.

My 5: 1 - Fixed encounter strat: In the deep search lab, before you beat Ultima, If you equip enc-none you'll still get battles, but these are fixed, so you can know where and who you gonna fight. To my knowledge is the best to get Dark Matters (via tri-face) for unlimited ultima magic. From the save point, go down to the screen bellow. You'll face only tri-faces, then go back to the save point with more tri-faces. Then you enter the switch party option that is appears while on the save point to reset the enemies. 2 - Obel Lake quest end - By the end of the quest you mentioned, one of the faces always lies 3 - Visage-Lefty-Righty - You can find those enemies around Winhill town, but if you hug the mountains nearby, they always appear together like in the boss fight near the end and become immune to status effects just like the boss. Always! And it will never be another enemy encounter as well, just them. They're the best source of exp till ICTH. I think the boss Gargantua is originally from that mountain range. 4 - 10.000 needles - Jumbo Catuar is somewhat well known, but the thing that took me a while to know back in the day is that when it becomes a GF for you, it will start doing a normal cactuar 1000 needle damage. It's power actually scales with it's on level. For each ten levels, it will start doing a 1000 more damage capping at 10.000 just like the boss at level 100. 5 - CC Group at disk 4 - If you complete the CC Group quest till by the end of disk 3, when you get the Ragnarok back at disk 4, you can find them south of Esthar and play with them. Then, they will have every card in the game, even if you miss some before that. I have a Theory that if you refine your cards by then, you can get them back from them, but I never tested that... There's more. It is my favorite game by far...

I think all the little ways you can influence the Laguna segments (despite the game eventually telling you that Ellone's attempts at changing the past are futile) are interesting enough for their own narrative dive.

To elaborate fully - Islands of Heaven and Hell - both enemies there are Level 100, however on one island the enemies will try to brute-force their way through your team and on the other they'll aim to be more detrimental effects and ailments against you instead. The Library Girl with pigtails can be started as early as going to the Fire Cavern, and has to be finished before you find the White SeeD ship. It is best done during Disk 2. The Shadow Creature side-quest is essentially a scavenger hunt for a single super-rare item, the Three Stars that teaches a Guardian Force Expendx3-1, letting you cast a spell 3 times for one cost. Cactaur island is also the best place for farming AP; 20AP per defeated Cactaur. The Cactus Thorn they drop can also be refined into 100 Needles PuPu can also be killed, but doing so will grant you the Accelerator and you'll miss out on its card.

I felt like the smartest kid around when I junctioned „death“ with my weapon and insta-killed almost every monster encounter on those lvl99 isles.. it was some serious power levelling.

I knew the Islands closest to Heaven and Hell but I assumed it was just for drawing from the monsters there, I didnt realise there was so many draw points on them :O

Fun fact about the map of FF8: it's not actually a sphere; nor is it a cylinder like FF7, but actually a torus, due to the north and south of the map seamlessly bridging, the same as the east and west.

While not as complicated but still rather obscure, there is also the GF Doomtrain... Which you're supposed to figure out how to get by reading the Occult Fan magazines.

I remember as a kid, I was so freaked out by the space section. Was very late at night in a dark room. First it shows Adel who…well, she’s something. Then Rinoa gets possessed by Ultimecia and you’re powerless to stop it as she effortlessly swats Squall aside (first time that happened I almost jumped out my skin, was so not expecting it). Then the Lunar Cry which is nightmare fuel on its own lol. Great explanation for monsters though. All the times I’ve played 8, I’ve still never triggered any of Zell’s side quest lol.

This is one thing I truly miss about a lot of older RPGs. There are just far fewer secrets both big and small in games of the last 15 or so years and most side content is easily accessible. It makes sense, given that games take longer to make so fewer devs have time to quickly slap together their own side quests and secrets. But it's something that is endlessly charming about a lot of older games. Another way this manifests is how modern storytelling typically has a lot of games spelling out lore and story mechanics pretty plainly. Nothing is left to the imagination and it results in theorycrafting and story discussion for these games feeling like a giant dead end. I love interpretive storytelling and I think franchises like The Legend of Zelda and older FF games do a fantastic job of fleshing out their world and mythos without giving the player an answer to every question they might ask. It helps these games feel way more fun to think or talk about for years and years to come whilst also making them feel far larger than they really are. I am constantly coming across not just new details and secrets in games like FF7 or FFX, but also new theories as I think about specific events from a fresh perspective and wonder about why certain things are the way they are.

Man this takes me back. There's another secret not mentioned here with the Moombas. Now I'm going 100% off of memory here, but there's a Moomba you can interact with. It does a cute little animation and noise. If you continuously poke it, eventually you'll hear a roar and see a few other Moomba run into the screen. After that, every time you interact with it, the roars continue (if I remember correctly). I don't think there's any reward for doing this or any detriments. Just a random thing for players who pester those cute little things like I did when I was a kid.

I found all these secrets on my first playthrough {the Official Final Fantasy guide book did help} Selphie has the Best limit break called "The End"