Final Fantasy 8

Why, oh why, god, did this game get ignored so badly by the general Final Fantasy community? For some reason, all the attention focused squarely on FF7 and FF10, and it seems like 8 and 9, both great in their own respects, got ignored. FF7 was a great game, but I don't think its so great to warrant ignoring FF8 OR 9. But I sound like a geek right now, so its time to get reviewing.

Final Fantasy 8 was the second Playstation Final Fantasy that Squaresoft made. It was noticably better than Final Fantasy 7, especially in regards to the graphics, sound, and presentation quality. Squaresoft by this time, via FF7, Bushido Blade, and other game experiments, knew the PS1, and exactly how to benifit from its system. And they did it.



Final Fantasy 8 has the strangest story in Final Fantasy history. You are Squall Leonheart, a SeeD (Don't ask me how to pronounce that. Seed? See-Dee?), or student, at Balamb Garden, a school for training mercenaries. Not going into much detail, as it starts out, Squall is ready to take the final exam and become a fully fledged SeeD, allowing him to work for Balamb Garden as a mercenary, working for various governments in various situations.

Of course, like any Final Fantasy game, its not THAT simple, but you get the idea. The game, to me, felt like they mixed two important themes: Final Fantasy battling, and a strange kind of futuristic school anime kinda thing. While the whole game is not you running around being a fag for Balamb Garden, this element to the game makes it quite interesting. It feels like it gives you less wandering ability than most Final Fantasies, though you actually have that time (Essentially, it feels like you're always busy, but you really could slack off at any time- a part I like, being as it is good time to build experience and level up).

The real part about this game that I liked was the combat system. While the ways to align magic and Guardian Forces (GFs, like summons, NOT like the internet slang GirlFriend) seems imposing at first, later you realize how well you can abuse this system. For example, by not leveling up (ever) and simply upgrading your magic, you can basically own this game's rear. This is also helped by the fact that there is no reason to level up (The enemies levels are determined by averaging your team's level), and stealing magic from strong enemies is very simple.



Another interesting aspect is that, going along with the semi-realism and semi-futureism of this game, you don't go and buy a million different weapons. Each weapon for every character can be upgraded, but you can't buy multiple weapons. This allows (theoretically) for cheaper upgrades, but Squaresoft decided to take the path where each upgrade is very expensive, forcing you to pick and chose your upgrades. Also, as a secondary note, the ultimate weapons require you to find the instruction guides for building them, etc, so its not as easy as you might think. This certainly keeps me from wondering things like I wondered in FF7, like "Where in the hell is Cloud storing all 10 of my buster swords???".



Oh yeah, I might as well mention it here, that this game was aimed as a "Love Story RPG" by Squaresoft. Thus, a lot of the game is based around the love story between Squall and Rinoa. While this might piss off and/or annoy most people, us who don't mind it tend to think it makes the game better. After all, its better than thinking about FF12 and how there's rumors about how the main character will be gay.

The graphics are impressive, if you remember what system we're talking about. The PS1, in todays standards, is a horrible graphic machine. However, Final Fantasy 8, like I mentioned before, involves a lot of knowledge of the PS1 system, and it does a pretty good job of presenting clear, crisp visuals. Along with the 2D backgrounds, I doubt anyone's going to be complaining its too hard to see.

(Note: This game is also available on the PC, but the graphics are the exact same as the PS1 versions, so you must understand that I'm rating this as it was presented on the PS1.)

The music is absolutely freaking great. I've always given Nobuo Uematsu virtual blowjobs for his orchestral work, but this was just beyond amazing. It marks another time when he's done a fully orchestrated song (In this case the multiple versions of Liberi Falati and FITHOS LUSEC WECOS VINOSEC, along with a great vocal of Eyes on Me sung by Faye Wong) as opposed to Final Fantasy 7, which everyone basically pissed themselves over the faux orchestration of "One Winged Angel". I actually liked the whole series so much that I imported the 4 CD set from japan specially. I would recommend you pick the music CDs up if you get this game, because of the outstanding greatness of Uematsu's works.



Overall, what can I say? Its an amazing game. I spent 80 hours of my life on this game through the first time I played it, even ignoring such essentials as eating, sleeping, or even sometimes going the bathroom.

You think I'm kidding. I holed myself in my room with a small television, my PSX, and a few sodas and did nothing but play it every waking hour until I beat it. I was that enamoured with it, and I don't regret a single hour of my time that went to the game.

If I havent made it obvious yet, go get this game. If you have a PS1, go get this game. If you don't have a PS1, go get it for PC. Either copy will cost you about $10-30, money well spent on a game that is about four times as long as any other game on the market. Just don't ask for my copy, I hug it before I go to bed every night as I listen to my FF8 CDs on my iPod.

5 star(s) out of 5

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