Okay, so I have a question that goes back to when I first got this game for my Gateway back in the 90s. At the time, I had Windows 98, bought the PC version, installed the new DirectX, and then installed the game. It seemed to work all right, but there were a couple of quirks. First, during the summon animation, Quezacotl would make the high-pitch squeal of the Phoenix summon. Second, Odin randomly appeared on the Balamb continent right after leaving the Garden! Obviously, I hadn't gotten him from Centra so I have no idea how this was possible. And lastly, some really messed up stuff happened when I got on the train for the first real mission. Sometimes Squall would freeze, sometimes Zell would just bounce on the cushion without end, and every other time the game would crash when I started running through the forest as Laguna, Kiros, and Ward. Needless to say, I never got farther on the PC so I had to continue on the PlayStation version. I exchanged the game for a different version from the store but the problems were the same on the other one too.

Just thought this was a weird experience and I know it's been a long time, but I was wondering if anybody knew of a possible defect in the PC release, because it's been irking me for a while.

I know there were patches released for the game on PC. Did you get those?

No, unfortunately. I gave up trying to figure it out at around 2000, and if there were patches released by that time, it would still have been a pain to download them on my computer.

I see. I know one of the patches deal with graphical issues such as black blocks or something appearing when you're in the world map. Not sure about the other one. I know of 2 patches but not sure if there's more or what the other patch does but I've never had the problems you were experiencing back then. The first time I've actually heard of those kinds of problems for the PC version of FFVIII.

Well, there were other games (such as FFVII) that my computer wouldn't run properly, and others that would run fine. So I don't know if it might have been a problem with the PC and not with the game.

Can you run it now?

Well, there were other games (such as FFVII) that my computer wouldn't run properly, and others that would run fine. So I don't know if it might have been a problem with the PC and not with the game.

I can't really say much about that. I'm sure there were patches for FFVII too. I remember trying to play FFVII PC but my arrow keys wouldn't work in it so I never was able to get out of the title menu screen. So I don't know if I would've had those problems as well to help determine if it was just the game or your PC. But the first time I played FFVIII on the computer I had the patches for it already so that might've been why I've never ran into the problems you experienced.