One thing has always bothered me. How many days does FF8 take place over, within the game? Well, I counted, and it's 12. This isn't intended as any sort of commentary on the story. After all, this is an alien planet, a day to them might be a week to us. Plus, it's way less fun if your characters are tired after barely walking across half a continent and need a nap, even if that is more realistic.
- Day 1: wake up in infirmary, fire cavern, SeeD exam, ball.
- Day 2: Timber Mission, Galbadia Garden, Deling City, Sorceress mission.
- Day 3: Wake up in the prison, escape, missile launch (simultaneous), back to Balamb, start drifting
- Day 4? - While garden is drifting. Squall is lying on his bed and wonders how long it's been, and states that they've cleared all the monsters out of garden. Could be later on day 3, could be a week later. He falls asleep, Rinoa wakes him up. I'll call this another day
- Day 5? - Defeat Norg, SeeD Ship shows up. Squall thinks things over in his bed again. It's daylight and he's fully dressed, so I think that's just his thinking spot. Squall has a dream/repressed memory about his childhood. Woken by Rinoa. Squall claims he wasn't sleeping, but he was dreaming. Claiming to have not been sleeping is a bit weird if it was supposed to be nighttime just then, so I won't count another day. Deal with FH Mayor and become leader of the garden. Then we're back to Squall thinking on his bed while Irvine meets the others to set up a band. Irvine can go and check on him, and it's clearly daylight, so I'm interpreting this as Squall dealing with his problems by trying to fall unconscious for a bit rather than him going to bed for the night. Selphie and Irvine set up the garden concert for that evening, when Squall gets up. After the concert, Squall goes back to his bed - and the room is actually dark now, so the other times really were just daytime depression naps - and dreams of his childhood trauma again.
- Day 6: Squall takes control of garden. Note that, at this stage of the game, you can dismiss the rest of the team by having Squall sit on his bed, put his head in his hands and say "sorry, can you leave me alone?". He's having another depression nap. Facing King (CC club) clearly happens at night, so I'll call the sidequests another day.
- Day 7: Free Balamb, visit Trabia. I think another day might have passed - it starts snowing while you're there, then you're on the bridge and it's not snowing if you go back, so there's clearly some kind of time skip. I'll call it another day.
- Day 8: The attack of Galbadia Garden. Rinoa becomes a sorceress. There's a time skip from the end of the battle, when Rinoa collapses, to when Squall is summoned to the bridge from her bed. I think this timeskip was also overnight.
- Day 9: Visiting Edea at the orphanage, Laguna films a movie and fights a dragon, back to Edea to find the White Seed Ship. The only time skip here is when you jump from speaking to Edea to being on the bridge, which I don't think represents another night. Squall kidnaps Rinoa. The sun sets as we walk.
- Day 10: Arrive at the Salt Lake Flats, then at Esthar. Get sent into space. There is no indication of night passing, but you do go into hyper sleep and there's clearly a bit of a time skip, so I'm going to count an extra day here. After all, you'd have to wait for Gaia to rotate at least once so you can land in the same place you took off from.
- Day 11: Adventures in Space!
- Day 12: I assume another day has passed on the Ragnarok and re-entering "earth's" atmosphere. Hand Rinoa over to Esthar, then change your mind. There are more sidequests to do here, but none indicate that a night has passed, so I won't count another day. Visit Laguna, enter the Lunatica Pandora for the second time, defeat Adel, and head into Time Compression. Day or night has no meaning in time compression. There is something of a timeskip before the ending sequence over the credits, could be days, weeks, or months.
I never really noticed before - because I wasn't paying explicit attention to whether it was dark or light - just how many times Squall tries to sleep his way through stress.
Oh, I also updated the walkthrough I made in 2015. The Card Queen subquest is tighter - finished earlier - and I included the scenes you need to see to be able to hear what Zell and the Ponytail Librarian are saying to one another. I also included a reminder to have Seifer level Ifrit to at least level 10 in a low level game.
I am currently playing the Banner Saga (though slowly) but I'm also playing the Phoenix Wright Trilogy, .Hack//infection, Vandal Hearts II (and intending to finally finish my guide for that), Octopath Traveler, and Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles. Basically, I'm avoiding my uni work.
