I've been playing through FF8 and wanted to jot down a few thoughts. I'm still not good at Cohost so I'm not sure if these would be better off as separate posts, but oh well. I'll make a cut here to avoid it just being a huge mess on people's timelines.
First, one thing that's really surprised me is how good the game's comedic timing is.
One of the ways they achieve this is by being a lot more aggressive with having dialog boxes overlap and cut off one another; I remember seeing a bit of this in the previous games, but they're really leaning in here.
Here's a fun exchange where it gets shown off: https://youtu.be/Tqp0Svb9DmY?t=366
Not timing related, just a great burn: https://youtu.be/oQO6eKAc6qU?t=855
They also do a good job using animation to create some fun moments.This bit from the Dollet mission totally caught me off-guard in such a charming way: https://youtu.be/oQO6eKAc6qU?t=2571
They also play with the way shots are framed; this joke takes great advantage of two camera angles that were in use throughout this scene: https://youtu.be/L9JFFcDzkIA?t=2691
Also I remember stumbling across this article a while ago, but since I'm playing the game now it was a good opportunity to revisit it.
It's a breakdown of a bunch of things Squall says in the game that were often quite varied in Japanese but all god condensed down to his signature "whatever" in English. It was cool to see that while he did have his own catchphrase in Japanese (warukatta na), he also had a lot more nuanced responses in some ways. It's funny to think of how much nuance there can be to indifference, but I think they captured a few good flavors of it in Japanese, and I'm a little bummed we got a flatter version of his character in English, even if it's just in this small regard.
One final thing that struck me; I had never realized that Eyes On Me and Waltz for the Moon shared a motif.
Here's a bit of it from a piano arrangement of Eyes On Me: https://youtu.be/tMLcegKyjpU?t=27
And here's the relevant section of Waltz for the Moon: https://youtu.be/JlAOZUCqBhE?t=7
It's a cool way of establishing early musical continuity between the two major romances of the plot.
Anyway, it's been fun to revisit this game, especially coming right off finishing FF7. It's wild to see what they did in the two years since 7 released.