Let's talk about last boss of FF VIII [spoilery things] and implementation in FF XIV.

I feel little uncomfortable, because not everyone beat Final Fantasy VIII, what means, not everybody know how this battle proceeded. So if you do not want to spoil anything yourself from FF VIII and potentially from FF XIV, leave this topic.

Like now.


I want to talk about your ideas about how battle with Ultimecia will be implemented in FF XIV? Battle with Ultimecia stick with me because I expect her to have second, maybe third form. But I never suspected that she will have 5 different forms. Every form has own music theme, mechanics and in 3 from 5 cases, own battleground. Every time when I "beat" her I put my controller away, thinking it was the end, but it wasn't. When I finally destroyed her in climatic finalle, I was exhausted, but it was so satisfying and memorable experience.

What is your idea of implement about battle with Ultimecia, that will have the same feeling of surprice? In that way, that will be faithfull to original but could be surprice even for someone that beat FF VIII?

Speaking for myself, I imagine it that:

• After beating first form of Ultimecia, it changes to another as we saw in other battles in the past.
• After second form, it looks like you beat her for good ("fanfare cutscene", UI information), but it's fake and turn out it's just beginning for next phase.
• The same for next two forms.
• After that everything is the same after somebody goes to "exit from dungeon" and everything goes to Final form of Ultimecia from FF VIII.
• But beating her is not the end. It's FF XIV not FF VIII so after Final Form of Ultimecia from FF VIII you fight her Final Form for FF XIV, so even FF VIII players will be surprised :p
  
• Every step has own music theme, battleground, mechanics.
• Whole battle is as long as Preatorium. Because why not :d

These are just ideas. They cost nothing. Instead of real production. So these are things what I would to see in game, but not what I realistically expects or demand (lol). Some of these are realistic, some not very much. But let's just release horses of your imagination. How you imagine battle with Ultimecia in FF XIV?

Sorry for butchering english.

I expect that E11 will be Griever as a voidsent.
Then E12 will be Gaia (possessed by Ultimecia from the Void), who will transition into Ultimecia proper, with a similar sort of red-herring cutscene you describe.
E12S will add a third phase in the middle where Gaia merges with Griever.

They could handle it the same way they handled the Kefka fight, which pretty smoothly transitions between his 'phases' in the original game as you slowly climb the god statue. Course that 'climb' isn't an option here to mask the different phases but it's a pretty solid example that they can handle it, because they've shown themselves capable of smashing several largely different phases of a long boss fight into something compact before. It'd just take some extra wiggle room, with perhaps some of her 'phases' being exemplified by either adds or attacks. Though they'd likely save the last 'form' for savage.

Ultimecia was thrown in there. The story made sense until she popped up.

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Originally Posted by Rasikko

Ultimecia was thrown in there. The story made sense until she popped up.

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She wasn't "thrown in" she was in the game from disc one, we only learned it was her in disc 3 though. If you retrospectively look at the story you see the hints as far back as disc one.

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Originally Posted by Anvaire

She wasn't "thrown in" she was in the game from disc one, we only learned it was her in disc 3 though. If you retrospectively look at the story you see the hints as far back as disc one.

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I think part of the problem is her implementation. While there are hints of her existence for the most part she's largely a non-presence until disc 3, and her integration into the story up until that point really isn't the best handled. She's nowhere near as bad as Necron and Yu Yevon, I still am scratching my head over both of them even if Yu Yevon at least made some sense beyond some allegorical death analogue, but for people who had issues with FF8's story her sudden presence really seemed to only exasperate existing problems rather than tie up any relevant plot threads. It's kinda why I hope all episodes of FF7Remake are successful, because if they handle the changes well in that remake they might consider going back and 'fixing' the parts of FF8 that need some tune ups to help the story (and Ultimecia's entire arc) flow a bit better.

honestly I'm just waiting for the XIV rendition of liberi fatali.

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Originally Posted by Enla

I think part of the problem is her implementation. While there are hints of her existence for the most part she's largely a non-presence until disc 3, and her integration into the story up until that point really isn't the best handled. She's nowhere near as bad as Necron and Yu Yevon, I still am scratching my head over both of them even if Yu Yevon at least made some sense beyond some allegorical death analogue, but for people who had issues with FF8's story her sudden presence really seemed to only exasperate existing problems rather than tie up any relevant plot threads. It's kinda why I hope all episodes of FF7Remake are successful, because if they handle the changes well in that remake they might consider going back and 'fixing' the parts of FF8 that need some tune ups to help the story (and Ultimecia's entire arc) flow a bit better.

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The Problem 8 has is that overall it is half of the story. They cut a lot of the Laguna side, reducing it to the small sections that we get, i think perhaps that would have explained it. I don't see it as much of an issue, as to me its a twist we weren't expecting. Necron though.. that literally came out of nowhere.

I really hope they do remake 8, its got so much potential. But then it is my favorite so I do have rose-tinted nostalgia ridden goggles on when I consider it.

if the final boss is not Ultimecia imma be a sad rabbit... wouldn't mind Edea tbh, she actually matches Gaia's color scheme better

I kinda hope we get an Adel like fight where Ryne or Gaia is fused to the boss, so you gotta keep her alive while killing the boss

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Originally Posted by Stepjam

I kinda hope we get an Adel like fight where Ryne or Gaia is fused to the boss, so you gotta keep her alive while killing the boss

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I like this idea, maybe the healers can help keep up the health bar of Ryne or Gaia during some phase (like the dungeon fight with Nidhogg and trying to keep Estinein alive)

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Originally Posted by SpiralMask

honestly I'm just waiting for the XIV rendition of liberi fatali.

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As long as we also get The Extreme and Eyes on Me (if only piano version).

Don't get the assumption people keep making that ultimecia is involved. There's nothing pointing to it at all except the FF8 references.

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Originally Posted by Katie_Kitty

Don't get the assumption people keep making that ultimecia is involved. There's nothing pointing to it at all except the FF8 references.

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Wasn't that the point?

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Originally Posted by Katie_Kitty

Don't get the assumption people keep making that ultimecia is involved. There's nothing pointing to it at all except the FF8 references.

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Because it's an ff8 raid series.

The ff3 series had us fight Cloud of Darkness.
The Ivalice series had us fight Ultima.
The ff5 and ff6 chapters of the last raid series gave us Exdeath and Kefka.

Gaia is showing clear signs of being influenced or manipulated by an outside force, similarly to how Squall did with Laguna or Ultimecia did with Edea.
This force is implied to be malevolent.

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Originally Posted by Seraphor

Gaia is showing clear signs of being influenced or manipulated by an outside force, similarly to how Squall did with Laguna or Ultimecia did with Edea.
This force is implied to be malevolent.

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A minor correction to that: Aside from protecting Gaia and trying to kill us, we know next to nothing about the source of Gaia's power. If the Voidwalker Boss (Possessed Gaia) is any indication, the mysterious force influencing Gaia may simply be antagonistic towards us rather than outright malevolent. And if Gaia's actions against Shiva were done with the support of... whatever it'd be called, it might not even remain antagonistic by the end of Eden's third act.

That said, it's probably going to be an Edea/Adel/Ultimecia-esque being.

Well we have 4 bosses left in Eden with only 2 plot threads left going into last tier, those being will Eden continue doing what Ryne has been asking it to do and Gaia's faerie. So anything can really happen.

I would like if Ultimamecia, if she is to show up to have at least some ties to ffxiv whether she is a denizen of the void or a transformed Ascian etc and not just be there because FFVIII like Kefka was for FFVI even Exdeath had a folktale about him, Kefka was literally thin air with 0 ties to FFXIV.

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Originally Posted by Crushnight

Well we have 4 bosses left in Eden with only 2 plot threads left going into last tier, those being will Eden continue doing what Ryne has been asking it to do and Gaia's faerie. So anything can really happen.

I would like if Ultimamecia, if she is to show up to have at least some ties to ffxiv whether she is a denizen of the void or a transformed Ascian etc and not just be there because FFVIII like Kefka was for FFVI even Exdeath had a folktale about him, Kefka was literally thin air with 0 ties to FFXIV.

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Absolutely. I'm not expecting it to be literally Ultimecia, but a character in XIV's world, perhaps a high ranking Voidsent, or a Sineater even, that is either very similar to her, or even has her name.

As for the four fights, I've already put my money on Griever (as a voidsent) and an Ultimecia fight for 11 and 12, but that still leaves two more.
There could be some purely original stuff there, or they could even find some way to fit a 'reimagining' of some more older primals or fights in there. For ARR, we're still missing Odin and Good King Moggle Mog. I wonder if they could combine those into fight somehow.

Eden 1 > Eden Prime, Voidsent, Water, Earth
Eden 2 > Lightning, Fire/Wind, Voidsent II, Ice

My prediction for Eden III to make the circle of elements complete

Eden 3 > Light/Sin Eater, Griever, Gaia/Oracle of "Darkness", and lastly Rinoa Heartilly, aka Ultimecia, Rinoa's future Bad Self as a Witch, as an only way that would make sense to put a Song like Eyes on Me into FF14 as its basically Rinoa's Song that should be played while we fight her in her normal human form, before she shows us her true self, that is Ultimecia

That way are all 8 Elements covered up with Light and Darknes being exceptions being not based on previous Primae Battles, cause there haven't been primaes of those elements we fought against in the past, because these two are basically Hydaelyn and Zodiark, so they are represented by a Sin Eater and Gaia being manevolently taken over by the powers the Oracle of Darkness inside her, that get in rage about Gaia getting closer with Ryne, the Oracle of Light, so that we have to bash Gaia back to senses, so that she learns to control her powers, so that they never get to control her instead again and lastly appears Rinoa/Ultimecia then, like a puppeteer controling the strings from the background of Gaia, coming up with a story around Gaia that explains why shes now here and we have to fight her to save the day xD

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Originally Posted by Gaido

I feel little uncomfortable, because not everyone beat Final Fantasy VIII, what means, not everybody know how this battle proceeded. So if you do not want to spoil anything yourself from FF VIII and potentially from FF XIV, leave this topic.

Like now.


I want to talk about your ideas about how battle with Ultimecia will be implemented in FF XIV? Battle with Ultimecia stick with me because I expect her to have second, maybe third form. But I never suspected that she will have 5 different forms. Every form has own music theme, mechanics and in 3 from 5 cases, own battleground. Every time when I "beat" her I put my controller away, thinking it was the end, but it wasn't. When I finally destroyed her in climatic finalle, I was exhausted, but it was so satisfying and memorable experience.

What is your idea of implement about battle with Ultimecia, that will have the same feeling of surprice? In that way, that will be faithfull to original but could be surprice even for someone that beat FF VIII?

Speaking for myself, I imagine it that:

• After beating first form of Ultimecia, it changes to another as we saw in other battles in the past.
• After second form, it looks like you beat her for good ("fanfare cutscene", UI information), but it's fake and turn out it's just beginning for next phase.
• The same for next two forms.
• After that everything is the same after somebody goes to "exit from dungeon" and everything goes to Final form of Ultimecia from FF VIII.
• But beating her is not the end. It's FF XIV not FF VIII so after Final Form of Ultimecia from FF VIII you fight her Final Form for FF XIV, so even FF VIII players will be surprised :p
  
• Every step has own music theme, battleground, mechanics.
• Whole battle is as long as Preatorium. Because why not :d

These are just ideas. They cost nothing. Instead of real production. So these are things what I would to see in game, but not what I realistically expects or demand (lol). Some of these are realistic, some not very much. But let's just release horses of your imagination. How you imagine battle with Ultimecia in FF XIV?

Sorry for butchering english.

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Ultimecia is, bar none, the most uninspired antagonist in the history of the series. She is the worst established foe... ever. I felt nothing killing her, and I will feel nothing seeing her in this game.

Give us Kuja or Sephiroth.

Fingers crossed they implement her well!

I honestly didn’t care much for the main story of 8 either until years later when I saw the fan theory that “Rinoa is in fact Ultimecia”, and that alone made the game so much better in my head.

If that had been the games original intent, it baffles my my mind why they didn’t work that more into the story because like some above posters, I really felt she was just tacked on.

Of course now it’s years later and while I can remember the early FFs almost completely (1-9 really), I kinda surprised myself now drawing a complete blank on the later half of 8. Reading this post I am thinking “wait who tf was Adel? And oh yeah, wasn’t Edea CID’s wife or something? And something something paradox?”

I don't understand why people think Ultimecia will be in the Raid, honestly. This is reminding me a lot of people insisting the Omega Raid would end with a battle against Sephiroth because of the first tier being V and the second tier being VI, as if Omega was just not going to be a factor in the story.

Thus far, it's been implied that Gaia is to Zodiark what Ryne is to Hydaelyn. If anything, I expect an introduction to Zodiark to some degree, especially since Raids are getting more tied into the story and Zodiark is kind of important. Introducing a boss from a previous game just because "The Raid has VIII music" would be extremely underwhelming to me. There has been little to no indication that Ultimecia would even exist in this setting, let alone Sorceresses as a whole.

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Originally Posted by Berteaux_Braumegain

I don't understand why people think Ultimecia will be in the Raid, honestly. This is reminding me a lot of people insisting the Omega Raid would end with a battle against Sephiroth because of the first tier being V and the second tier being VI, as if Omega was just not going to be a factor in the story.

Thus far, it's been implied that Gaia is to Zodiark what Ryne is to Hydaelyn. If anything, I expect an introduction to Zodiark to some degree, especially since Raids are getting more tied into the story and Zodiark is kind of important. Introducing a boss from a previous game just because "The Raid has VIII music" would be extremely underwhelming to me. There has been little to no indication that Ultimecia would even exist in this setting, let alone Sorceresses as a whole.

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Because it's the Eden raid, would be odd to have it focused around an FF8 related thing then literally have nothing else FF8 related. Also I believe I saw an image that showed some of light form Shiva's outfit resembles Ultimecia's outfit. Obviously the lore behind her would be different, she'd be a voidsent instead of a sorceress. Not saying it's a sure thing, but as we saw, Gaia still has her darkness powers in E8N which has been made explicitly clear isn't her natural powers, they are being drawn from something. So fighting voidsent is likely in the last tier.

And I doubt we are gonna fight anything related to Zodiark, he's been the looming big bad of the story, and as things are getting set up, none of the Scions will even be in the First by the time 5.4 rolls around.

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Originally Posted by Berteaux_Braumegain

I don't understand why people think Ultimecia will be in the Raid, honestly. This is reminding me a lot of people insisting the Omega Raid would end with a battle against Sephiroth because of the first tier being V and the second tier being VI, as if Omega was just not going to be a factor in the story.

Thus far, it's been implied that Gaia is to Zodiark what Ryne is to Hydaelyn. If anything, I expect an introduction to Zodiark to some degree, especially since Raids are getting more tied into the story and Zodiark is kind of important. Introducing a boss from a previous game just because "The Raid has VIII music" would be extremely underwhelming to me. There has been little to no indication that Ultimecia would even exist in this setting, let alone Sorceresses as a whole.

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I'd expect Zodiark to be relevant to MSQ more than the Eden raids.

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Originally Posted by Berteaux_Braumegain

I don't understand why people think Ultimecia will be in the Raid, honestly.

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You're making the wrong jump here. It's not "Gaia is to Zodiark as Ryne is to Hydaelyn", but rather "Gaia is to ??? as Ryne is to Minfilia".
To use an example:
Early in Shadowbringers' story, we're treated to an Echo flashback in which Minfilia possesses Ryne's body to inform Thancred of the current state of her existence and her plans for Ryne. When she released Ryne from her control, the girl had no memory of what transpired during this period of time, and had to infer the events through contextual clues.
When we face Gaia as the Voidwalker (Eden 2/Eden's Gate: Descent), she makes multiple odd declarations about us and demonstrates a mastery of her power far beyond what Gaia later demonstrates. When we later meet Gaia herself, she has no memory of that fight at all and isn't even aware of her own power until she uses it to defend herself.

The question everyone is coming to then is this: If Ryne is the Oracle of Light, and inherited her power from Minfilia, and Gaia is the Oracle of Darkness, who or what is her "Minfilia"?
There is also the matter of how Minfilia's soul continued to persist until she passed her powers on to Ryne, serving as a parallel to the FF8's Sorceresses being unable to pass over until they've relinquished their natural power over magic to a successor.
As an aside, I've done some thinking on this and I believe we've already had our Edea and Adel fights, in a manner of speaking. To wit: the Voidwalker is Gaia, but possessed by ???, paralleling how Edea spent the majority of FF8 under possession from Ultimecia. Shiva, meanwhile, had Ryne trapped inside of her, necessitating defeating Shiva while trying to avoid harming Ryne in the process. Mechanically, this did not play out the same way as the Adel fight, but spiritually it's the same idea as having to defeat Adel while making sure not to hurt Rinoa or otherwise let her die.
That said, I could still see them adding a proper Adel-esque fight, or phase, in the third Eden wing.

The Extreme is gonna be good