Quote Originally Posted by Skyborne View Post
I have seen people gush over the time loop because it's 'very Final Fantasy' and 'nostalgic'. As far as I know the only games featuring them are FF1 and FF8. Correct me if I'm wrong since I didn't play 1 (I know, I know, fake fan), but wasn't it about breaking the loop and freeing the people from Chaos?
It was, yeah—the game ends with everything you've done to get to that point being negated. Garland never becomes evil, the Four Fiends never return to torment the world, and so on. Though the time loop in Final Fantasy I didn't come up until the very end of the game, and the rest of the game had no time travel whatsoever.

Final Fantasy 8 is a stranger situation. The story didn't need to establish where Cid and Edea got the idea to make the Gardens. Nor did it need to establish which Sorceress Edea got her powers from. But the writers decided "Squall told them" and "Ultimecia gave them to her" were perfect, even though they just bring more questions than answers, if you ask me. It should also be noted that, in sharp contrast to Meteion, Ultimecia legit could not be confronted without first allowing her to nearly succeed in her goal of consuming all of spacetime. Meteion could have been confronted at any point in the story, however, so long as the ones seeking to do so had access to a starship and knowledge of her whereabouts.