These Video Game Checkpoints SUCK!
4. Adel Boss Fight - Final Fantasy 8
Ok so gather around kids as it's time for this wise old egg to tell you a story.
We begin in the long, long ago, also known as 1999 and we find ourselves a young boy by the name of Grools Jill (names have been changed to protect the innocent) who had just managed to get his grubby Tazo-grabbing hands on a copy of Final Fantasy 8 after saving all of his pocket money up for months.
After gleefully whooping and hollering in a way that only a borderline ADHD child could, I-I-mean-Grools feverishly made his way through the exceptionally enjoyable main narrative and thoroughly relished how the extremely moody Squall just spoke volumes to a bag of hormones such as himself, but then, upon reaching the double boss battle of Seifer followed by Adel, disaster struck.
You see, Grools was too much of a lizard brain at the time to appreciate the intricacies of JRPG's and how grinding is quite a big part of the experience. Here he was barely scraping by boss battles and often running from random encounters because he didn't think it was worthwhile and as such was left rolling in the deep dark waters of despair when it became very apparent he just didn't have the skills to beat the Adel!
Well, no matter you might think, surely he could have just left the area to level up? Well my friend this boss battle hits you right after you've switched to disc four on the PlayStation and as such you've just saved your game and given up your right to any sort of freedom from here on out. No matter what I tried (I'm dropping the pretense) I kept dying over, and over, and over, and there was nothing I could do about it seeing as the enemies scale with you and I hadn't learned any useful skills thanks to the frustratingly obtuse junction system.
Was this a case of my own idiocy leading to a checkpoint-based hell? Of course, but here's the thing, I'm not the only one this disc-swapping s**t of a boss screwed over, and to you my fellow dumb-dumbs I raise a glass, here's to checkpoints making a mockery of us just trying to enjoy the game.