Finally, they encountered Ultimecia, a goofy horned wizard woman who spoke bad English in all capital letters. The battle wasn't especially hard, until she started removing spells from my hard-earned magic collection. Thankfully, she didn't deplete our most powerful attack spells, such as Ultima and Meteor. The fight was tense. Every few minutes, she casted a lethal spell that reduced my party members' hit points to one.

This wasn't the worst final battle, but it was the flashiest one I've ever seen. The arena was constantly washed out with blurry polygons, starry skies and constantly changing environments. After some big explosion, the screen turned completely white.

The ending was surreal, to say the least. All of the characters ran in blurry motions, trying to find the time they belong in. Squall was the only one who was completely lost in his own hallucination. He somehow found his old orphanage, where Ultimecia was living the final minutes of her life. The matron of the orphanage, Edea, told Squall that Ultimecia would pass the time compression power on to her.

Through this final gesture, Edea finally finishes all the unfinished story threads in one big magnificent cutscene. Then the final conclusion somehow made sense. Through the strange power of time compression, Edea gave everyone the happy ending they all deserved. I should have known that this was what time compression was all about.

Well, I guess that's what SquareSoft was intending anyways. The ambitious storyline of Final Fantasy 8 makes even less sense than the preposterous god-like complex of Kefka in Final Fantasy 6. Oddly enough, this is probably why Final Fantasy 8 is one of my favorites in the convoluted mystical chronology of Final Fantasy games.

I don't know if I'll ever play through this one ever again, but it is one of the few RPGs with a believable romance. It also brings all of the ridiculously incredible moments of Final Fantasy together in one spectacular bombshell. Believe me, I would definitely play this just to watch the inter-galactic monster invasion sequence again.

What other Japanese RPGs fuse together the most unbelievable visuals in video game history? What are some of your favorites that stick out from the rest of the crowd? Write about them in the comments section below.