Final Fantasy VIII

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.

The Good
If there was one game series that was worthy enough to go on the hall of legends for ANY platform, Final Fantasy would be it.

Final Fantasy VIII took a reality check from by providing more 'realistic' or 'human' graphics. An upgrade to my opinion, although I can't objectively say its better - each Final Fantasy series (well most of them anyway) present there own unique style.

Final Fantasy VIII would be the Playstation version of the PC's "Diablo" (of is it the other way around) -- Introducing 2-5 minute cut-scenes that are better than a lot of 2 hour movies.

The character's in the game represent different aspects of human personality. Obviously, the main hero - Squall usually represents the hero-rebel that most of us went through during our teenage years. The "secondary" game plot revolves around these personalities. The developers made a great detailed job of opening the mysteries of each character - their emotions, dreams, fears and personal lives making Final Fantasy VIII a whole bunch of little stories into one great big scenario of story telling.

This game is indeed a product of a master storyteller.

The Bad
Well, you can read about the more good stuff in other reviews. However, l'd like to focus mine on the bad stuff.

Although as much as I love Final Fantasy VIII, the process of loving it was a long and hard rough journey. As seen in the One-line Summary, it took me 4 times to play this game to completely appreciate the game. If it weren't because of Final Fantasy VII, I doubt I'd be as patient in trying out the game 4 times.

There are many features that were difficult to understand for players familiar with the Final Fantasy concept, much less for those unfamiliar with it. I would rate user-friendliness a low mark on that area, honestly. This game can be also frustrating if your a perfectionist-style player. I've re-played this game 5 times, and each time I've found-out something new. This would be one of those games where you'd better buy the clue book unless you miss something.

In relation to that, there are a lot of events that without the clue book/walkthrough, I'm sure you'll miss out on. I don't quite enjoy the fact that when you reach the final battle, someone tells you you've missed a couple of GI's. Such inputs can be very frustrating and annoying. This game is a good example that sometimes "too much freedom of choice" can have its drawbacks.

The Bottom Line
Get this game like your life depended on it.

The Good
First off...anyone who watches the intro to this game will be hooked.

The combination of the groundbreaking (for 1999) cgi effects and Nobuo Uematsu's intense score creates a cinematic experience that was unmatched in it's day. Even today, with 6 years of hardware and software evolution, few games can match the passion, excitement and mystery inherent in the INTRO of this game.

When the game actually begins, you are thrust into the role of Squall Lionhart, one of the most complex characters ever to appear in a video game. Squall is training to become a mercenary at an elite academy, and the story is centered on him and the group of soldiers that he leads. Squall is a pretty deep guy, with the type of complex personality that is more common in novels than in video games. On the surface he is a pretty uncaring dude, but as the game progresses you find out that most of his affect is due to a pretty crummy childhood (i.e. the boy has some abandonment issues to say the least.)

In fact the characterization inherent in this game is actually, for me, one of the best features of this game. Unlike FF-7 (or 5, or 3, or 1...what is it with these odd numbered FF games....) the characters in this game have real motivations, fears, etc. they are not interchangeable cardboard cut-outs. To put it simply, each character in the game has a reason to be the way they are, and the game delves into each character's psyche enough to make them all three dimensional characters. This is truly a character driven game, which is a bit of a departure from games like FF-7.

Another great feature of this game is the Junction system. This tends to be a "love it or leave it" feature of the game, and as a veteran of EVERY Final Fantasy game (except XI) I would have to say it lives up the expectations of fans of the series. The system if flexible, and powerful, without ever being too munchkin-y. It also tends to be the type of system that is really re-playable, since you can drastically alter stat progression and power levels for your characters when you know how to really use the system. Granted, some people will not like the junction system at first glance (I have a buddy who's a FF fanatic who WILL NOT play this game because of it) but I assure that when you spend some time with it you will find that it is one of the most flexible systems within the FF family of games.

Another feature that I really like is the fact that money is not as important in this game as in most RPGs, and monsters don't drop gil when they die. Money is normally only gained through your paycheck from SEED (the mercenary company your team works for.) Personally I feel that this adds a bit of needed realism to the standard RPG formula, I know that complaining about realism in a game populated with man-eating, magic-using monsters is kinda silly, but it's one of those RPG-isms that tends to bug me. (I mean where do these monsters get all their cash....stealing lunch money from school kids?) Instead, money is only used for things that tend to be "extras", like healing items, and car rentals.

Another great feature of this game is the Triple Triad card game. Your character can play this game against NPCs and build up a collection of rare cards that can be modded into rare items. If you delve into Triple Triad, you will find yourself ahead of the curve quite often in this game, as you will have access to spells and weapons that you would normally have to wait to get.

In closing I would have to say, this is a BIG game, bigger than FF-7. That being said though, it tends to be a bit more quaint than 7 in it's general scale, most of the conflict early in the game revolves around inter-city disputes, as opposed to the constant "save the world" vibe of 7. This scale helps center the story on the characters, as opposed to the world, which makes it all the more identifiable.

The Bad
I'm a pretty big fan of this game, so it's fairly hard for me to find points to criticize, but here goes.

I would have to say that the complexities of the junction system is something that took more than one play through to really learn. As this is about a 40 hour game, playing through once just to learn the ins and outs of the junction system is an investment of time that some people just will not make. While I like the system, I would have to say that more documentation on it from Square would have been nice. Granted, now you can just grab a FAQ and learn it, but still, a couple of extra pages in the manual or a better tutorial would have been nice.

Another feature that I do not really like it the in-game tutorial system. On your first playthrough it's essential, as it explains processes that are not examined in the game manual. On your second and subsequent playthroughs it can be a bit of a time waster, I really think it would have been nice it Square would give you the option of turning the tutorials off.

I guess the last thing I will mention is that, on my first playthrough, the lack of armor and the weapon modification system kinda bothered me. Granted once I learned the system better (i.e. your Strength stat determines how much damage you do with physical attacks; Vitality reduces physical damage like armor) I never had a problem again, but it's worth mentioning.

The Bottom Line
An essential part of the Final Fantasy series of games. If you haven't played it you should.