Final Fantasy VIII

aka: FF8, FFVIII, Finalnaja Fantazija 8, Zui Zhong Huanxiang 8
Moby ID: 1149
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Description official descriptions

Squall Leonhart is a young man in training to become of member of SeeD - a mercenary organization and the goal of all young students in Balamb Garden. Squall is not a particularly friendly guy and has troubles with his fellow students and teachers. On the eve of his graduation hostilities break out between the city-states of Galbadia and Dollet. As their final test, Squall and three other students are sent on a mission to assist in the fight against Galbadia. In the process they discover that there are other characters pulling strings from behind the stage, and eventually uncover a mystery that involves two decades of secrets hidden both from the world and from themselves.

Final Fantasy VIII is set in a "retro" environment reminiscent in some ways of the 1960's, with a few sci-fi and plenty of supernatural elements mixed in. The basic system resembles those of its predecessors: the player navigates a party of characters over a world map, accessing various locations and fighting randomly appearing enemies in turn-based combat of the series' trademark ATB (active time battle) variety. However, character development system has been re-designed.

Player-controlled characters in the game have no defined character classes. They can be customized by equipping magic spells, which can be "drawn" from enemies in battles. When used in combat, spells act like expendable items; there are no MP (magic points) in the game. When equipped, they act like armor, raising or lowering character parameters, including resistances to various kinds of magic (elemental, status-changing, etc.).

Monster summons (called Guardian Forces in the game) play a very important role in the customization process. They can be "junctioned" to to the characters, acquire ability points (AP) earned from battles along with experience, learn and "teach" characters new abilities, and can also be summoned in battles. Each character can also execute unique powerful attacks or support actions when his or her hit points are low. Many of these attacks require the player to press specific buttons at the right moment to increase their power.

New weapons are constructed by collecting materials and bringing them to a blacksmith. The player does not acquire money from random enemies, but instead receives paychecks over time based on the player character's SeeD rank. This rank increases when the characters defeat enemies in battles without summoning Guardian Forces; when the player takes SeeD tests within the game; or, occasionally, when the player chooses a correspondent action or decision for the protagonist during some of the missions. Payments are regular and are calculated by the amount of steps the characters make.

Visually, the game resembles its predecessor, featuring 3D graphics for battles and world map exploration, and pre-rendered backgrounds for individual locations. The game's 3D character models are realistically proportioned (as opposed to the "super-deformed" character graphics of the previous game), and the influence of anime art is less noticeable.

Like the previous installment, Final Fantasy VIII features several mini-games, the most prominent of which is the card game Triple Triad. Cards can be won in matches or acquired through side quests or by transforming enemy monsters. Many characters in the game can be challenged to a game of Triple Triad, so it is always possible to take a break from saving the world to play cards with the locals.

Spellings

  • Финальная Фантазия 8 - Russian spelling
  • ファイナルファンタジーVIII - Japanese spelling
  • 太空戰士 8 - Traditional Chinese spelling
  • 最终幻想8 - Simplified Chinese spelling

Groups +

Screenshots

Promos

Credits (PlayStation version)

113 People (107 developers, 6 thanks) · View all

Executive Producer
Director
Music
Main Programmer
Battle System Designer
Character Design / Battle Visual Director
Art Director
Scenario Writer
Image Ilustration
Movie Director
Movie Character Director
Character Modeling Director
Real-Time Polygon Director
Battle Effect Director
Motion Director
Card Game Director / Battle Camera Director
Lead Field Designer
Event Script Programmer
Battle Programmer
Event Director
Map Director
[ full credits ]

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 88% (based on 68 ratings)

Players

Average score: 4.0 out of 5 (based on 346 ratings with 26 reviews)

If you only play one game a year, make it this one!

The Good
Everything! I have played this game 10 times and loved every minute of every time. The storyline is great, once you figure it out. You will imagine that you are Squall in your free time for years. The characters are convincing, an improvement over the crappy characters in final fantasy vii, which my three year old brother could have improved on (or even my dog). They actually seem to have emotions and feelings, instead of being mindless robots. The fighting is good. One can go on side quests to make himself more powerful, and then it pays off when you're beating bosses by the hundreds. It is nice that it is possible to play the game with minimal understanding of the game's functions, but once you learn how to junction magic, it makes you more powerful. An altogether amazing game. Also, the triple triad mini-quest is awesome!

The Bad
When you go from one scene to the other, it takes 10 hours for the scenes to load. After each battle, you have to see how much experience you get, which takes about 22.763 hours, even if you run away! Some parts of the storyline just drag on and on (especially in the third disc), although it is not that bad. The bosses are not that hard, especially the second time around. The limit breaks are too easy to use, and do way to much damage. Finally, the GFs take about four minutes each time, and when you are summoning multiple GFs (especially Eden) it is just so boring. However, these are minor details, there are more good things about the game than bad things.

The Bottom Line
AWESOME. BUY IT. YOU'LL THANK ME LATER!

PlayStation · by Joe Fry (4) · 2002

4 discs of pure fantasy

The Good
Before I played FF8, I wasn't a huge fan of RPG's. The main reason was because I felt RPG's were just too technical and difficult to get into. I'm glad that this was the first Playstation game I ever bought, since I've never stopped playing RPG's ever since.

FF8 is beautiful. From the detail in the backgrounds, to the very nice cut scenes and the strong musical score. Everything about it is sheer bliss. The thing that made it so much easier for me to enjoy the game was the easy to get into battle system. Although certain things inside the battle system take time to develop, it isn't hard to get everything started. The earlier battles help to get you into the groove of things for some of the huge battles later on through out the game.

Something that many games lack of in recent times is a lasting factor. FF8 will last a long, long time. Not only is there 4 discs to get through, but trying to collect everything will take the most out of you. The addition of a card game on the side of the main story adds a nice balance to the game, and gives you something else to do instead of the same battle after battle routine that earlier RPG's sticked too.

I have to give credit where credit is due, to the amazing soundtrack. Square are one of a handful of developers that actually take time to develop a strong soundtrack to go with the visuals, and the score here mixes songs of power, love and comedy all in one. Great.

The Bad
There are moments with the graphics that don't look all that well. Blocky textures appear sometimes, thankfully not too often.

The Bottom Line
This is the best PSX Final Fantasy. It improves the visual detail built by FF7, and the overall quality and fun is a little higher than that of FF9. It will eventually be left behind by FF10 and 11, but FF8 will always find a place in my imagination. One of Squares biggest triumphs, and don't bother to even tell me otherwise.

PlayStation · by Kartanym (12418) · 2001

The Game That Brought Me Into the World Of Final Fantasy.

The Good
Final Fantasy 8 is one of those games you are amazed with from beginning to end. No matter what comes, you are simply stunned.

Final Fantasy 8 opens with a beautiful cinematic and a full orchestra playing in the backround. You introduced to the main hero Squall Leonhart (which is kind of ironic because one of his special attacks is called Lionheart) and his rival Seifer Almasy. They look like they are about to kill each other, but they are only training. As it turns out, Squall gets injured in the fight, and he is admitted the doctor in his college for mercenaries-in-training. Squall is approached by his instructor Quistis. It turns out Squall was supposed to take his final exam to become a member of SeeD (Yes SeeD is spelled like that). You are introduced to Balamb Garden and all of its facilities. The music in the backround is all nice and calm and it makes you enjoy what you need to do. Soon after that, you head off to pass your exam and guess what? You get to fight a big monster to pass! Colleges are getting so complicated these days....

Anyway, soon after you become a SeeD, you are introduced to a cast of characters for a mission, but you uncover a darker, more powerful force. It's no laughing matter and our hero doesn't care! This is one of the things that actually amazes me. No matter what the situation is, Squall doesn't care. He just cares about what he is told to do. He sometimes gets into hilarious confrontations with people and the comedy usually works. Squall is always in a situation that he really never asked for. That's what makes this game so fun.

The game has 4 discs in it and it is one long adventure. It takes you to places you never expected to be at all. A thing that amazes me is how the game is pretty hard. You get into fights and you may need to run or you will die. The enemies are all interesting and they are very exotic. You may even get to fight enemies so they will become your allies. Very cool.

The game has a system called the "Junction System" where you can equip magic. This is a first into the Final Fantasy world where MP is not used to do Magic. I found this helpful and much easier. This is also probably the only Final Fantasy game where you don't equip armor. It makes it so there are less problems. Along the way on your adventures, you may encounter and pick up forces called GF's (Guardian Forces). They help alot because you can summon them and they do a great deal of damage. There are many GF's to collect, but you have to look hard for most of them.

Final Fantasy 8 is a really great game for someone who never played Final Fantasy before. Sadly, for those who HAVE played Final Fantasy before Final Fantasy 8, they will have some problems with this one.

The Bad
After I played Final Fantasy 8, I went out and played Final Fantasy 7 and noticed the differences between the two. As I mentioned above, Final Fantasy 8 eliminates the armor equipping and the MP usage. They have been used in all of Final Fantasy. They just took it out so suddenly.

Final Fantasy 8 was just a little too dramatic. It had a romantic story going for it, but they pushed it waaaaaay over the edge. You like it at the beginning, but the next thing you know, the girl learns a strange secret about herself, and she flies off into space.

Which brings me to my next point, Final Fantasy 8 drives you to so many locations for small battles its absolutely strange. At some point in the game, you actually go off into space. Why? I don't remember. This game is so long and confusing I don't have time to recollect everything I saw in the game. In fact, the romance story is just a bit too romantic for a Final Fantasy game.

This is just one of the things I hate about the game. Some of the enemies are so powerful its ludicrous. One enemy in particular, he is sooo strong he is stronger than the last boss! It is absolutely insane. You actually need special items to actually combat this monster.

This may sound stupid after how I just ranted about the difficulty, but the ending boss was actually easy. If you strengthen up one character and do their special attack over and over, you can actually kill the last enemy.

The Bottom Line
Final Fantasy 8 is just an ok game. It is not for Final Fantasy hardcore people.

PlayStation · by NightKid32 (39) · 2005

[ View all 26 player reviews ]

Discussion

Subject By Date
Game with downloadable sounds soundbank MerlynKing Oct 24, 2016
A question-spoilers! GAMEBOY COLOR! (1990) Apr 24, 2011
OMG!!! TEH DEVIL!!! The Fabulous King (1332) Jul 24, 2007

Trivia

1001 Video Games

The PS1 version of Final Famtasy VIII appears in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die by General Editor Tony Mott.

Development

  • During production of the game, there were plans to originally call the Rinoa character "Lenore".
  • Parasite Eve was the 'testing ground' for the cinematic graphics used in FFVIII.

Innovations

As of 2013, Final Fantasy VIII is the first and the only Final Fantasy game where the playable characters don't equip any armor.

Music

The music in this game was originally composed and recorded as Dolby Digital 5.1, then "dumbed down" to normal stereo for the actual release. The original DD 5.1 score was rumored to be the one to be used in a PlayStation 2 re-release.

Ratings

When it was first released as a demo, it was rated M for strong language but was later toned down to a T rating.

References

  • Some names of the Guardian Forces (monsters you can summon in Final Fantasy VIII) are taken from mythologies of different nations. Quetzalcoatl is one of the main gods in the mythology of Central America's Indians; Shiva is God in Hinduism (he appears as a feminine incarnation in the game, although he is normally regarded as male); Diabolos is Greek for "devil"; Cerberus is a three-headed dog which guards the gates of Hades in Greek mythology; Siren is a beautiful and dangerous demi-goddess, also from the Greek mythology; Leviathan is Hebrew for "whale", this word is used to describe the sea monster that swallowed the prophet Jonas in Old Testament.
  • The game's most poweful GF is called Eden. This is actually the name of the paradise, "Garden of Eden" (Hebrew "Gan Eden"), from where Adam and Eve were expelled, according to the first book of Moses from the Old Testament. Why is the most powerful GF a garden? Because the universities where the heroes of the game study and train are called gardens. It is logical the most powerful garden is also the most powerful weapon.
  • In Esthar there is a shop called Cloud's Shop, a reference to Final Fantasy VII.
  • You can spot UFOs during battles in four areas of the world. The sightings are used in the 'Pupu card' sidequest, and can only be seen from the second disk onwards.

References to the game

  • In the 2004 Olympics, one of the American synchronized swimming teams chose to use a piece of music from Final Fantasy VIII as their background music . They used the song Liberi Fatali, the game's main theme
  • The game is featured in the movie Charlie's Angels. It's the game the two kids are playing in the scene where Drew Barrymore drops naked from Knox's house. Interestingly enough both kids seem to be playing it at the same time, apparently nobody figured to tell the production team that the game was single-player only.

Summonings

When the game came out, the #1 complaint everyone had was that there was no way of skipping the summoning animations - which were essential for making it through the early stages of the game. The creators claimed this was entirely intentional, and that it was somehow vital to the plot that the players be forced to sit through the same minute-long animations hundreds of times. They never changed it in FFVIII (even the later PC adaptation) but oddly, all subsequent Final Fantasy games with summonings include the option to shorten the animation...

Tech demo

The ballroom dance scene was used as the basis for a PlayStation 2 tech demo, showing that the PS2 was powerful enough to render the scene in real-time.

Version differences

  • The PC version includes a mini-game called Chocobo World. Previously, this was only available with the Japanese PSX version through the Dex Drive.
  • Seifer and Zell, two important characters of Final Fantasy VIII, were renamed to Cifer and Xell, respectively, in the German version, probably because the original names are common German family names and might have possibly offended their innocent bearers.
  • Disc 3 of the Windows version (US release) has a hidden audio track. It contains the song Eyes On Me, sung by Faye Wong. This song was released in Japan as a CD single and was part of the original soundtrack.

  • The original Playstation release included a Chocobo World minigame which required access to a PocketStation, a console that was only released in Japan. Gamers in other territories could only access that by importing a PocketStation from Japan. This was the only way to access some rare items in the game.

Information also contributed by Alan Chan, Foxhack, j. jones, NightKid32, Rey Mysterio, Tiago Jacques, YID YANG, WizardX and Zovni

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Related Sites +

  • FF-Fan
    A fansite that offers all kinds of information on the entire Final Fantasy franchise, including walkthroughs, game media, discussion boards and fan art.
  • FF8 Hints
    Final Fantasy VIII hints and solutions
  • Final Fantasy Extreme
    Site that contains movies, wallpaper, codes, guides, walkthroughs, and general information on the Final Fantasy series.
  • GameFaqs Files
    Comprehensive links to numerous Final Fantasy VIII files on GameFaqs
  • OC ReMix Game Profile
    Fan remixes of music from Final Fantasy VIII.
  • Wikipedia: Final Fantasy VIII
    Information about Final Fantasy VIII at Wikipedia

Identifiers +

  • MobyGames ID: 1149
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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Matthew Bailey.

PSP, PlayStation 3 added by Charly2.0. PS Vita added by GTramp. PlayStation added by Grant McLellan.

Additional contributors: MAT, Unicorn Lynx, Jeanne, Silverblade, DarkDante, DreinIX, —-, Paulus18950, Patrick Bregger, Thomas Thompson, Lain Crowley, Rik Hideto, FatherJack, 64er.

Game added March 26, 2000. Last modified March 18, 2024.