Final Fantasy VIII (1999)

I had such a great time with this game!

The junction system was kind of half-baked but also very fun. I would like it to make a comeback after some revamping as it turned summons into something more than spells with long animations and I absolutely loved it although on the other hand grinding spells was kind of tedious and a bit counterproductive since leveing party made beating the game harder and discouraged me from actually using them.

The graphics were a huge step forward, comparing to Ff7 and the music was just as great. But there are downsides to this game too. The story is a nonsense, that is even worse than FF7 and perhaps it is not told very well, as I saw multiple resources online for people trying to figure out what happened in the game they had played. There wouldn’t be such a demand for them if the story itself was logical and well told. Ot also drags for a bit too long. Occasionally, there are some horrible design choices which make playing without a guide very frustrating at best but thankfully we’ve got many of them available for free. The worst of them all was the remastered PC version which was way inferior to fanmade engines available for FF7 and 9. It felt as if I played the PSX version enhanced with an emulator rather than a remastered and also deprived me from using any modded content available on the web. I wish i hadn’t read that Reddit comment praising it.

During my journey through this game, I never found out if I was in a hyper lucid dream or if I was under the influence of a drug so powerful that not even the most hardened glue sniffer would dare to touch it; Is this thing the real director? Wait a moment, are we the baddies? Demons on the moon? Why are there dinosaurs in my room? Why are we dancing in space? Are we dreaming of Laguna or is Laguna dreaming of us? I have no idea what the heck I just played or what the game was about, I just know that I loved it and that I recommend the game to anyone who wants to experience the effects of fentanyl through a screen.

Insights from @thelemonadestandman YT Link: 2zcYnelNDrQ

I was replaying FF8 not too long ago, and while replaying the SeeD exam, it had me thinking about why Squall, Zell, Selphie specifically passed the SeeD exam and not Seifer, and why you get penalized so much for talking with the other characters during the exam. Typically I wrote it off in my head as just quirky game mechanics (which it is that too) and story going the way it has too. But this time it suddenly occurred to me that what the Garden Faculty who are loyal to NORG are looking for most are mindless soldiers to promote. Seifer didn't follow direct orders and he failed the exam again. Meanwhile Squall, Zell, and Selphie all followed his directions which were against orders but he was in charge and issuing orders as a superior and they were promoted. Furthermore siting quietly and not interacting with your peers rewards you with a higher score on the exam. The goal of which is likely to prevent personal connections between these super soldiers Garden is producing. These are all qualities I'd imagine the NORG faction Garden Faculty want from the best of the best SeeDs, people who will do as they're told by who ever is in charge, regardless of who they're being directed to fight or if it contradicts previous goals. Especially if a situation were to occur and all the students were told to turn against the quirky Headmaster Cid in favor of an unknown investor who actually legally and financially owns Balamb Garden even if they have no personal loyalty to him.

In that way, NORG-alligned Garden Faculty probably saw Squall as one of the more controllable SeeDs they had. And Cid hastily signing away Squall's group to Rinoa's cause for an indeterminate amount of time for little pay to Balamb Garden was probably his way of keeping Squall's group out of NORG's control. Ironic, because while the outside world see's Squall as a confident and unquestioning soldier, we get to peek inside his mind and he's constantly at war with himself and what his goals are.

Final Fantasy VIII is wild. The aesthetic of the setting is unlike anything I've seen in a JRPG and mixed with the story it is so off the wall that it makes the end of Final Fantasy IV look tame. It also has I think my favorite magic system in the series thus far. Maybe my favorite ever. Like I love the junction system. It gives you so much control over your characters and lets you completely cheese and break the game if you want to, which is what makes it so much fun. I wasn't a fan of Triple Triad though, so I mostly avoided it during my playthrough. Thankfully, the game fully accommodates that type of playstyle.

Barring Final Fantasy XIV for obvious reasons, this game took me the longest of the entries in my tour of the series so far. I'm not yet sure why exactly. I had some other games I wanted to play at the same time and maybe those just excited me more. Or maybe the plot of this game just didn't grab me. So I was deliberating whether to give this game 4 or 5 stars as I made my way through the final dungeon.

It was that final dungeon, the last boss, and the ending cutscene that pushed me over the edge into 5 stars. The game feels very aimless throughout a lot of its runtime, to the point where I ended up using a guide for a lot of its second half, because it doesn't really give a great indication of where to go. But once you get to Ultimecia's Castle everything comes together in a really great way. The castle itself is a lot of fun to explore. It made me feel like I was back in the first Devil May Cry game with its dark but corny medieval design. The way the castle and the final boss toy with the junction system is very cool but never felt like it was messing with my team too much.

The story and characters are sort of a roller coaster of quality. Squall and Rinoa feel well fleshed out and I enjoyed their dynamic throughout the game. But the remaining four party members felt kind of like minor NPCs in comparison, with maybe Selphie coming the closest to having some real depth. I was impressed how much dialogue they dedicated to her with the journal she updates throughout the game.

This feels like a somewhat valid time to mention that I opted to play the original Steam release of this game from 2013 rather than the recent remaster. I did this because it felt like the more authentic experience, considering the remaster makes big revisions to some character models and also removes the Chocobo World minigame. I think overall I'm glad I played this version, because the original character model for Squall suits his personality way better than the remastered one. That said, if I could do it over again, I'd play the remaster. The issues with the original Steam release, like the MIDI soundtrack and button icons not working properly are a pain to work around or mod in fixes for. Chocobo World is cute, but I never got to use any of the stuff I unlocked because you gain access to that stuff through an optional endgame side quest that I missed. So yeah, if it's your first time, the original PSX release is king, then the remaster, and last the 2013 Steam release, imo.

The plot, like I said before, often feels aimless, with the group doing stuff simply because the plot necessitates it, rather than being motivated by anything in-world. For example at once point Squall and Rinoa get dragged into a spaceship and when they ask "Where are we going?" they get told "To space. Get in." and then they just... do it? Like why would you do that? It's probably just weirdness with the translation, but this type of thing happens all the time in this game.

The game does have these really awesome prerendered cutscenes throughout though. These scenes are really really cool and do a lot of heavy lifting for many of the more action oriented moments of the story. Many of these scenes also manage to be surprisingly disturbing in the way they're shot, like the reveal of the Sorceress at the parade early on in the game. And then that final cutscene. God damn, that was heavy. Like the tone shift into psychedelic horror came out of basically nowhere and hit like a truck. It was legitimately scary, but I loved it.

I could probably harp on the magic and battle system some more, but I'll spare everyone and just say that I'm very disappointed that the junction system doesn't seem to have been revisited by any JRPG since this game's release. I'd love to play another game that does something similar and maybe cleans up some of the rough edges present here.

Before I wrap up I feel like I should point out just how much optional stuff there is in this game. Like just weird little side quests, character interactions, and special items you can pick up. There's a ton to discover here if you explore or use a guide, and most of it seems worthwhile. Like I said, I barely even touched the Triple Triad minigame, skipped many sidequests, and still squeezed over 50 hours out of the game. And I had a great time during almost all of that. I give this game a big recommendation for anyone interested.

Finally finished! Took 6 months, to the day.

[Major Spoilers for the Ending Below]

Not gonna lie, for a while there I was convinced they just killed Squall off in the ending cutscene and was mortified. Like damn, that would have been so cold of the devs after all he'd been through. I think I would have liked it, but for different reasons than I like the ending as it actually is.

Also holy shit the way the game goes full horror for a bit there before revealing he's okay was a lot. It made me realize how much I'd enjoy a Final Fantasy with a darker psychedelic tone kind of like that ending scene but across the whole game. The FMV scenes in this game are jaw-droppingly good imo. Like every time one showed up I couldn't help but be in awe at how well they've aged. They must have been even more insane to watch back in 1999.

I'll probably write up my full thoughts on the game tomorrow. I need to process everything a bit.

You are absolutely unsure what to do, you stumble upon things as you go and start feeling things in a way you did not know until now. It is the first time you experience this so everything feels uncertain and new, but it is so exciting, so enthralling.

That is how first love feels.

Man I cannot comment on this game without enormous bias. This was my first Final Fantasy, the one that turn me into an absolute FF maniac (wink). I have played from start to finish three times in my life, and still holds up as a really entertaining piece of media. I got to admit that during the third playthrough (when I was like 29), the cracks in the story stuck up like a sore thumb, the teenage milicia, the convulted time travel, that lackluster final villain (Imagine if Rinoa=Ultimecia was canon, dayum). Then again: Man, I cannot comment on this game without enormous bias.

It was the first one, not only my first Final Fantasy but my first JRPG ever, so that guarantees at least one more star than it objectively deserves.

You are absolutely unsure what to do, you stumble upon things as you go and start feeling things in a way you did not know until now. It is the first time you experience this so everything feels uncertain and new, but it is so exciting, so enthralling.

That is how first love feels.

Man I cannot comment on this game without enormous bias. This was my first Final Fantasy, the one that turn me into an absolute FF maniac (wink). I have played from start to finish three times in my life, and still holds up as a really entertaining piece of media. I got to admit that during the third playthrough (when I was like 29), the cracks in the story stuck up like a sore thumb: the teenage milicia, the convulted time travel, that lackluster final villain (Imagine if Rinoa=Ultimecia was canon, dayum). Then again: Man, I cannot comment on this game without enormous bias.

It was the first one, not only my first Final Fantasy but my first JRPG ever, so that guarantees at least one more star than it objectively deserves.

So I've bought and played Final Fantasy 7 through 10 & 13 on their original release (I am persistent) but hadn't actually managed to finish a single one of them. First of all JRPG's just isn't my genre, I've tried and tried all kinds of critically acclaimed ones and I've never got drawn into the story, characters or gameplay. I find them a mixture of annoying (I had to turn the sound off on X because I couldn't take the voices any longer) outright tedious (how many times do we have to re-junction GFs in VIII) and their characters one dimensional (God help me with this lot, at least FFVII had more rounded cast of characters other than type 1) emo or 2) irritating). Unfortunately FFVIII is all of that, the characters I can't even call poorly written as there's barely anything to them, it's like trying to describe the standout characteristics of a character in George Lucas' The Phantom Menace, they're simply there to progress things closer to the credits rolling and Squall just broods whilst he's pushed along a plot that meanders about aimlessly from one set piece to another that I didn't care to follow (those film critics that didn't like Spirits Within should give this game a try).

Technically Square have done a good job updating character models however they haven't updated the (entirely 3D) world map so that looks as shit as it did back in 1999 and is painful to traverse once you get going on floating building you travel on. Probably one of the reasons I've managed to see it out this time around is because of the Android port; I was able to play it whilst doing something else and the in built cheats (speed boost and no random battles) stopped me from sobbing out loud (no idea why they didn't enable save anywhere - a mobile port seems to cry out for that and it was an option if you had a cheat cartridge back on the PS1 days).

I like videogames. I don't want to be closed off to a whole genre of them (I'm certainly not like that with music or film) but JRPG's just feel incomprehensible to me. At least I can say I've finally finished one of these things.

I'm definitely in the FF8 > FF7 camp. While FF7 was sort of a rollercoaster of enjoyment for me, FF8 was a steady climb, getting better and better the entire game. I'll admit it wasn't until about the 15-hour mark when I decided I was really into the game, but by the climax of Disc 3, I was fully in love. Disc 4 had me shaking my head a little bit at how they expected anyone to find all the secrets without using a walkthrough or something, but it may have been the first time I've actually taken my time in a Final Fantasy endgame instead of blasting through it out of exhaustion.

I feel like the most controversial aspect of the game is the Junction system. Personally, I thought it was great. At first, I thought it was a bit of a slog trying to draw all my magic, and I really didn't use a whole lot of magic throughout the game because I wanted to save it for the Junction system. However, I found it made character building for more enjoyable than any other Final Fantasy. And between the draw points and abilities that allow you to turn items and cards into magic, there are plenty of ways to get around the slog of drawing from enemies.

Overall, I think that's what I really liked about this game. There are a lot of built-in ways to get around things you don't like. For example, I personally don't like the card games in any Final Fantasy game. I find them boring and confusing. But in Final Fantasy 8, I didn't feel like that detracted from my experience, because I could just use an ability to turn enemies into cards and still get the same benefits.

I also found generally that the story progression felt far more balanced than other games. Far less grinding, walking, and dealing with forced party combos than its PS1 counterparts. I'm not going to go into the story, as there are plenty of sources to learn about that, but while it wasn't quite as compelling as other games, it was far easier to follow. Which is funny, because when you think about it, the plot is actually pretty bonkers.

Lastly, I want to address a common conception that the Junction system makes it possible to break the game and make it too easy. While that's technically true, my advice is to just go into the game blind and not read about how to break strategically OP your characters. That's what I did, and by the time I really got the hang of the system and had enough magic to start making Squall practically invincible, I was deep enough into the game that I felt I deserved it. Besides, you can make your characters OP in any Final Fantasy game if you spend enough time grinding and buffing them. This game just has you do it a little differently. You still need to spend the time and figure out the strategies in order to make it happen.

So far, this is my second favourite game in the series. My current ranking is as follows:

1. Final Fantasy VI
2. Final Fantasy VIII
3. Final Fantasy VII
4. Final Fantasy IV
5. Final Fantasy IX
6. Final Fantasy
7. World of Final Fantasy (if that counts)

Fans of final fantasy may be upset at me for the score but let me explain myself. Compared to 7 (My first FF) This was a huge let down, not as good in any way. There were only 2 things I enjoyed, 3 if you count my favourite part the card minigame. The music was phenomenal a variety of sooothing , action and intimindating tracks can be found in this game. Also the combat was fun and unique....when I actually understood it halfway through the game. You see the game dose a poor job of explaing its different combat system throwing a bunch of long tutorials my way at the start that still left me confused. There are still better turn based games in the series including the more deeper yet simple to understand 7. Also the game is very unbalnced just spqm gfs to win. The game looks ugly while other old games make up for that with interesting settings and charm 8 has nothing. The best location is baland garden which is the first area. Speaking of which the seeds and garden were so interesting but the silly origin story behind the garden and the fact that you see very littel merchinari work ruins it. The game has a boring and sometimes irritating cast expect squall until that is he turns in to a baby in the last half. Also the origin of the main cast is the stupidest twist in video games. There are still enjoyable parts in this but it is overshadowed by the fact that this is the Final Fantasy after 7.

An ok game but a dissapointing 2 out of 5.

A long time ago, I started this using a Gameshark, made it to Timber, and stopped playing because I had no idea what I was doing. Fast forward twenty years, subtract one Gameshark, and I may just have a new favorite FF. ...Maybe not, but it's up there.

A list!

• Triple Triad is so much fun. Random is a terrible rule. Trying to abolish Random everywhere is not a fun time. But tracking down cards all over the world was a highlight.
• I enjoyed this cast a lot. The characters felt so much more well-rounded and even likeable than in 7. I may be in the minority, but I really liked Squall as the lead. It's easy to say he's boring and emo, but I found a lot of depth and development. Starting from the early moments where he's always in his head and the outburst of "I won't have it!" (referencing being talked about in the past tense after his death), coming into his own and being a decent leader (encouraging and comforting Irvine after the failed assassination attempt), to finally letting go of some baggage, beginning to rely on and actually look out for others and be vulnerable. It was nice to see his smile at the end.
• The ridiculous moments are just so goofy and absurd that you kind of love them. The memory loss orphanage bit? OUTER SPACE RESCUE? Incredible.
• The pacing, cinematography, graphics, and presentation really stand out. 8 feels like such a leap forward in the series.
• I'm not sure everything paid off, but I admire the risks they took in retooling many of the systems. I didn't love drawing magic (thank goodness for the x3 speed feature), and then never using magic to keep stats up, and never really using summons at all in battle. But doing away with armor, adding all the customization to the junction system, the weapon re-tooling, card modding, and so on really stand out as bold choices where they could have just leaned on the status quo and let things get stale.
• I love just how much heart and humor are in this game. Which is incredible because no one really says anything outright funny. But, I mean... the hot dogs, the moombas, balancing treats on Angelo's nose or launching her into some nasty villain (Angelo easily star of this show), Zell taking a lap around the planet to smite his foes, Selphie gleefully piloting the Ragnarok and launching missiles at Lunatic Pandora, Tonberry King's contrite loss in the Centra Ruins, freaking Cactuars, like a good quarter of the summons... just made me smile or downright laugh out loud.
• Thumbs up on having enemies scale with you to keep you on your toes. Thumbs down on putting a level cap on the last dungeon's bosses. The last boss gauntlet was good, but most of the castle was too easy. I'm a completionist but I'm also trying to maintain some challenge in these games, and most of the time those things don't mix. Omega Weapon was the only truly difficult challenge, and even so, the Aura spell and Angelo's Invincible Moon almost made it trivial. Special shout out to Griever and Ultimecia, though, their ability to delete spells from your repository can seriously mess you up.

I wasn't sure I would love a game about teenage mercenaries with memory loss, but FF8 just really checked a lot of my boxes. I may have even shed a few tears.

Pros:

• Ambitious presentation, with an often awe-inspiring stitching together of game engine and pre-rendered cutscenes — feels years ahead of its time with dozens of memorable scenes
• Flexible progression system allows character skills and attributes to be assigned and exchanged on the fly. Magic spells can be extracted from random enemies and bosses to cast immediately or to store to be “junctioned” to character stats to up their power or apply an offensive effect or defensive resistance - very cool and unique!
• Squall is a compelling “coming of age” style protagonist whose internal conflicts are given as much respect and spotlight as anything else presented to the player. Rinoa is his more immediately likable counterpart, whose flaws make for an endearing, relatable character. The romance between the two was a big highlight of the game
• Evocative, memorable music throughout, especially some guitar parts that made me just stop and enjoy the moment

Cons:

• Story occasionally devolves into the confusing and nonsensical — sometimes the disorienting feeling it invokes works to its benefit, but in many cases, characters’ decisions or other plot contrivances feel forced just to allow certain “reveals” and interactions to occur
• General problem for me with many longer JRPGs — the pacing of the game itself doesn’t seem to match the relatively fast, urgent pacing of its narrative. I especially found a Disc 4 difficulty spike really rained on my parade just when I wanted to see the rest of the story

This was a flawed game, but the parts that I enjoyed were so good that I can overlook those flaws. I made use of some of the Remaster’s “assists” (aka cheats) to iron out some of the parts that dragged on, which really made a difference to my experience. Hopefully soon I’ll finally get to play VII Remake (my PS4 is in another state during stay-at-home orders), and looking forward to playing IX and XII when they join Game Pass later in the year!

What an absolute adventure. Right off the bat, I fell in love with the characters. Final Fantasy has always been really good at creating memorable and unique characters to play with and this game is no different. I loved the main romance and wished I could spend more time with the whole squad. Outside of the characters, I liked the story enough, but just like a Final Fantasy game at a certain point, it goes off the rails which makes it tough for me to follow or care about any more. However, the ending of this game is so memorable and heartfelt that it makes me miss the team even more. Gameplay-wise it has that old school style that I just don't have the patience for, the junction system while interesting was not something that I liked, and the navigation/quests managements were horrendous. When you play old games like these you just have to accept some technical or useful features we have in modern gaming just won't be available. Once I endured that, I had a blast and fell in love with Final Fantasy VIII. (After the FF7 remake my fingers are crossed for a follow up with this game. Lastly, FF7 > FF8, but very close).

PROS

• Astounding production quality for a PS1 game
• Features some of the best character/monster/environmental art in the series
• Sumptuous, emotive soundtrack
• Many of the mission sequences are surprisingly exciting
• Outlandish story is a blast to follow despite its poor reputation
• Well-developed, believable characters (yes, even Squall)
• Unprecedentedly experimental for a high-budget JRPG
• Full of creative twists on established genre mechanisms
• Numerous ability and stat-manipulation systems will appeal to tinkerers
• Some very creative dungeons that even have (gasp!) puzzles
• Triple Triad, enough said
• The Remaster's fast-forward feature makes the tedious parts of the game much more tolerable

CONS

• Almost every aspect of combat is clumsy and easily exploited
• Junctioning system completely eschews any sense of satisfying progression
• Drawing magic from enemies is an interesting idea, but boring in practice
• The game rewards digging around in menus more than it does exploring its world

This game had been sitting in my Steam library for quite some time, and after the recent anniversary I was reminded that I still wanted to give it a try. I was still a bit hesitant, as VII just never did it for me, playing it too shortly after VI, and just being annoyed with how it wasn't doing all of the things that made VI such a great game to me. XIII was a long and painful road for me to slog through, and XV recently just not being able to capture me either, I had kind of given up on the idea of liking a post-SNES-era Final Fantasy.

But then this came along and it just quickly won me over.

I've read how much of a controversial entry it is, and I can certainly see where that would come from, but I honestly think it's an amazing work of thematics. The plot itself might not be the most cohesive, the characters might not all have the most charm, the mechanics might not be the most intuitive (but it's also such an amazingly rounded and complete system with just the right learning curve for me personally, and in general so much more fun than level-grinding)

But in the end, nearly every part of this game works to enhance the others, to paint a thematic picture, much more than 'just a story'. The themes in my eye being Time and Relation. Much more than just the romantic love at the centre of this game, the game explores all the different types of relationships in which we exist: maternal love, paternal love, fraternal love, rivalry, mentor-student, remembrance and more. The reason I think this is interesting, is because of the way the final sequence is preluded. Laguna, in the final briefing, says the way to not get lost in time is to remember your friends, because by virtue of you existing in someone else's mind, you exist.

This cut me back to about a year ago, when I was reading Heidegger's (funny enough the name of a character in VII) Sein und Zeit, and the chapter that made the largest impression on me, in which Heidegger posits that our being is always to others. We exist 'to others', which is something that Squall in the beginning of the game does not do. He starts out being very much ungrounded 'thrown into the world' with no real past, no parents, no relations, but as these relations, past and parents become the main focus throughout the game, Squall ends up as 'being' much more than he was at the start.

The second half of the book concerns itself with the existence of time, and our own temporality (as he puts it, we 'are towards death'), which I feel is also the other main theme of the game. Of course, Ultimecia's goal is the collapse of time, in which this theme becomes apparent, but also in memories (which is pretty much relations in time, combining both themes) be it in the form of flashbacks, time-travel dreams, lost/repressed memories, commemorations (zell's altar to his grandfather and the laguna statue in the shumi village). And fate through this also becomes a theme linked to time, as it's a stable time loop, and the idea of choice is very much called in question at certain points in the game too, being a convenient explanation for the highly coincidental occurances and deus ex machinas throughout the story.

And just about everything ties into those themes, to a ridiculous amount. Besides all this metaphysical babble though, I just really enjoyed some of the heartfelt moments, some of the amazing set pieces and surrealistic ways in which the game kept defying my expectations. I loved the games systems, and the high amount of customisation, while at the same time being very 'perfectible'. I enjoyed spending time in the world, and doing various sidequests for both the challenge and the little bits of worldbuilding it provided, and that's honestly something I don't feel very often.

I am going to revisit VII soon to see if it does click with me now, and I've already started on IX, I hope I can expand my love for the SNES-era of FF with more love for the PS-era.