(Warning: This post contains spoilers)

Disc four of Final Fantasy 8 defied all definitions of common sense, by melding everything into one epic happy ending. To be honest, I really didn't understand most of what happened.

Despite the nonsense, disc four serves up an mind-blowing conclusion with gothic castles, blurry time travel and beautiful flower fields.

At this point, recapping the story is like trying to explain the end of the convoluted Matrix trilogy. Our protagonists are on a quest to defeat a sorcerer from the future, Ultimecia. To do this, a girl named Ellone has to trap Ultimecia in the past. This will force the sorcerer to initiate time compression, so that our heroes can meet the evil villain in the future.

There's a bunch of other stuff in this plan, but let's try not to worry about that.

At the end of the previous disc, the evil Seifer kidnapped a girl named Rinoa. She is the girlfriend of the main hero, Squall. Seifer was already a pretty big jerk, but he decides to become a bigger one by letting another sorcerer control Rinoa's body. Now Squall has to fight this sorcerer, Adel, who is now junctioned onto Rinoa.

This battle was tough, because Rinoa was literally attached to this mutant like a Siamese twin. I had to attack Adel and heal Rinoa at the same time. Thankfully, my group was able to survive countless magical spells, such as Meteor, Flare and Ultima.

After a few quick time warp moves by Ellone, Squall and the gang take an incredibly blurry dive through polygon backgrounds. A few more boss battles took place. The group finally arrived in a dark, cloudy world with dead magical knights lying all over the ground. I guess my team is the last hope for the universe.

My crew climbed up a long floating chain to find a gothic castle. This final section actually looked more like a pre-rendered 3D version of Dracula's castle in Castlevania. I'm a bit disappointed that we didn't fight a mutant vampire demon at the end, but this was still one of my favorite parts of the entire game.

The protagonists literally lost all their abilities, except for the attack command. The challenge added plenty of anxiety. I literally combed through the entire dungeon, because I had to fight bosses to earn those abilities back. Some of the sections had awful puzzles that I needed to solve with the help of a strategy guide. Thankfully, the art gallery riddle was the only one I had to struggle with.

The entire path to Ultimecia is tremendously dangerous, even when compared to the rooftop jumping section of Final Fantasy 13. In the final stretch, Squall and his friends had to climb precariously down a tall clock tower.