If This Is Really My Final Fantasy, I'll Die Happy.
Written: Mar 29 '06
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Hugely Engrossing. The grapics still manage to hold up.
Cons: It ends. There could have been more character growth.
The Bottom Line: Why haven't you played this yet?
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| the_motleykid's Full Review: Final Fantasy VIII for PlayStation 1 |
As far as the Final Fantasy series goes, the fans are divided. Some love VII & IX, while they can’t stand VIII. Me? I love VIII, X & X-2, and could never get into VII & IX. Yes, I know, if you aren’t familiar with the series, what I just said was nothing short of gibberish, but for those that are in fact familiar with the franchise, old memories of the heated Final Fantasy debate would have came flowing back. I don’t think we are ever going to come to a conclusion on what game is truly the best, but what follows is my take on Final Fantasy VIII, which has gotten a lot of what I believe to be unfair bashing, partly based on the hyped romance theme and the new –at the time, of course- Junction system.
Final Fantasy –herein referred to as FF- has always had a somewhat respectful fan following, but it exploded when FF VII was released on PlayStation all those years back in 1997. The gaming world was taken by storm. The RPG –Role Playing Game- had officially taken off. No longer were video games all about side scrolling fighting games or first person shoot ‘em ups, the gaming audience finally had something deep to sink their teeth into. Of course, there were plenty of classic RPGs prior to Final Fantasy VII, but they weren’t really accepted by the majority of the gaming audience. Nowadays, the RPG is all the rage, and as I type this, FFXII is scheduled to be released hopefully by the end of the year –here’s hoping!- and the fighting game genre has been on the decline for around 10 years.
Although, out of any FF game, VIII has to be the most debated. Some folk didn’t like the Junction system, some didn’t like the main character Squall, some didn’t like this and that, but after very lengthy consideration –it’s been about seven years since it was released, so I have taken my time, haven’t I?-, I’d be lying to myself if I said this wasn’t my favourite FF. No matter how much FFX manages to dazzle me, I always go back to VIII. I’ve been meaning to review this game for about…well I guess about three years, and for one reason or another it inadvertently was put on the back burner. I remembered my intentions to review this game about three weeks ago, and considering that I never actually finished it all those years back thanks to a combination of my fiery gaming temper and a memory card malfunction, I started up a new file from scratch and only just finished it tonight, so my fascination with FFVIII has come full circle.
Squall is a 17 year old cadet –who wields a “Gun Blade”- at Balamb Garden, a facility that trains soldiers called “SeeDs”. The game kicks off in the medical ward of the garden, with Squall awakening after receiving treatment for an injury he sustained while sparring with his rival, Seifer.
They both have intense aspirations to become SeeDs, and before long, the field exam rolls around, Squall and a few others pass, while Seifer fails for poor conduct as the leader of his group. As a SeeD, Squall along with his allies –who you’ll acquire as you go along- are hired for relatively minor matters at first until the main story really comes into play well into the first disc –there are four discs in total-. All I’m going to tell you is the main story involves a sorceress and disrupting the peace of the world. Yeah, I know, we’ve been there before, but the game does manage to keep you enthralled right through.
Like I said, the main character Squall has had more then his share of haters among gaming fans, and it is understandable, but personally, I feel I understand him being a socially challenged teenager myself, and his character does grow throughout the game –although it is a slow and sometimes awkward process- as does all the other characters to some extent. Personally, I think there wasn’t as much focus on some of the characters as there could have been, but still, everyone’s role in the game was established quite well, and more often then not, you’ll be able to easily connect with the characters and the motivation for their actions.
There is an interesting mix of personalities in the game, you’ve got the carefree, energetic girl, Selphie, a somewhat misunderstood ladies man, Irvine, a highly emotional martial artist, Zell, an insecure instructor, Quistis & finally, Rinoa who is a strong willed, honest girl who takes a liking to one of the other characters. I’ve read criticisms on the game in other reviews stating that the characters are boring and are hard to care about, well, I didn’t have that problem. Although the story is far from what anyone could consider original, I bought into the characters, was interested in how things would turn out for them, and it kept me coming back for more.
Many people have major issues with the game play in FFVIII, namely the Junction system. Ok, it goes something like this; your character can only attack with their weapon while unjunctioned, and to junction a character you need a GF –Guardian Force- which is a summoned beast with special abilities. You start with only two GF’s but have the opportunity to get about fifteen in total. Some GFs’ you can’t avoid getting, but others prove to be a pain in the butt to gain to put it lightly. Anyway, GFs’ are handy during battle because if you chose to summon them, they will perform a powerful attack of their element –fire, ice, thunder, you get the idea?- & while they are being summoned they absorb all the attacks your character receives with the GFs’ own HP –hit points/health- but be warned, the GF can be knocked out, and if this happens, the GF cannot be used until you revive it. So, that’s the GF.
Back to the junctioning system. When you junction a GF to a character, the character takes on some of the abilities of the GF –like being able to use magic spells- and is able to start drawing magic of their own. Magic can be found at draw points –glowing pink areas- and you can also steal magic from your enemies. It gets more complicated then that, but Squall’s instructor, Quistis –yeah, I know, funny names, huh?- , provides tutorials for GFs’, Junctioning and other handy stuff.
Hot Tip: You can draw GFs’ from some bosses.
The battle system is rather simple. Each character has a bar next to their name and HP, which fills up over time –the higher the speed stat, the quicker it fills up-. When the bar fills, the character gets a turn to do what they please –attack, use magic, summon a GF, you follow?-. The battle system is very simplistic and can get very tedious when you are training your characters –training is very important, that’s how you raise your stats like strength and speed-. All you have to do to train your characters is to have them survive through battles, but you get very little or no experience if you run away from a fight and no experience for any character that finishes a fight knocked out. So just find areas on the world map that have monsters that are about as strong as your character, and fight them. You gain experience when you win, experience levels your characters up & when levels go up so does the all important stats. Crystal clear? Good.
Something fans agree on whether they hate FFVIII or not, the graphics are top notch. Even to this day, the game is very pretty regarding to the backgrounds, and still mind blowing in the FMV-Full Motion Video- cut scenes, but they are showing there age as far as the character models are concerned. Surprisingly, the character models are still bearable, but the only LARGE blemish on the games graphic resume is when you are on the world map, but thankfully, most of the time you spend on the world map is just going to another town/city, except of course with the training, you’ll be required to put up with it then, so keep that in mind.
During the battles, when you summon a GF, the visuals are absolutely superb for the GF animation, and way back when, that played a large part in getting me interested in the game, because I had never seen anything quite like it at the time. It wasn’t the selling point but the graphics made me weak at the knees they were so good.
For any RPG, it is simply not enough to have a gripping storyline, the Music has to really set the mood well. This stands especially true in any FF that appears on PlayStation, because the dialogue is NOT spoken, it appears as text in a grey box above the characters. So the music really has to delve deep into the emotion of the moment. Some of the music has a very military feel to it, which is fitting because Squall and his friends are soldiers, and when you are being chased by a mechanical spider, light hearted pixie music just wont cut it! Except for a few strange pieces of music, the correct emotions for the situation get enhanced very well indeed by Nobuo Uematsu, the composer for the game –in the gaming world, Uematsu is somewhat of a legend-.
Other than music, the only sounds we get are footsteps, various growls, groans and grunts –provided by the assorted monsters you’ll come across-, and all the battle sounds you’d expect from the situation-shooting a gun, casting Thunder magic ect-. All the sounds have aged decently, some more decent then others of course –the sounds of the GF animations are still extraordinary though-. Like I said, the main problem with the sounds is actually something that’s missing, the voices. A game like this really needed to have spoken dialogue, but at the time that just wasn’t in the cards for RPGs –I could be wrong on that-, although Legend Of The Dragoon had a few spoken words, it was nothing compared to these next generation games…
FF VIII has a ton of replay value, and it’s funny because when you beat the game, there are no prizes to carry over to a new file, but it is so engrossing, that no bonuses won’t bother you a bit. As I type this, I have a theme from the game stuck in my head and I’m still fondly replaying the moments in my mind. After my long hiatus of not playing the game, the memories just kept coming back when I started a fresh file three weeks ago. I was amazed at how much I’d forgotten about it, and I was thrilled to relive some moments that I only vaguely remembered.
Chances are, if you were ever going to play the game you would have by now, but if you somehow forgot to leave your cave in the past seven years, please pick up a copy and enjoy the experience. Even if you feel you are too into the new generation of gaming, like I said, FFVIII is still easy to look at graphic wise, well except for that horribly scrappy looking world map. The game play feels clunky if you are fresh of FFX, but even then, forty five minutes of VIII will have you fall right into the groove so to speak.
Despite what some gamers say about it, this is without a doubt my favourite fantasy.
Recommended:
Yes
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the_motleykid
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Location: Underarock, Australia
Reviews written: 88
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