Final Fantasy VIII (1999)

Final Fantasy VIII is a classic and still considered by many to be one of the best in the franchise. I'm here to revisit that experience in its remastered form.

The storyline is immortal and still holds up to this day. The characters are likeable (Squall is by far one of the most badass Final Fantasy protagonists in terms of design). The score sounds as beautiful as ever. Although you now have an option to speed up the game, I never had to use it because I wanted to experience the magic of this game's OST again.

Unfortunately, there are still many things the remaster doesn't fix. The CG-rendered backgrounds remain unchanged, appearing grainy and pixelated, which is quite annoying, especially when interacting with the environment. There were also a lot of bugs (cutscenes not progressing, getting stuck at certain locations). The overall world map still feels a bit clunky, and the gameplay is still unbalanced but enjoyable.

Despite these flaws, I would say this is easily the best version of the game available. If you haven't played this classic, consider playing Final Fantasy VIII.

RATING

AESTHETICS : 9.16

Visuals - 8.5 Sound - 10 Theme - 9

NARRATIVE : 8.50

Plot - 8.5 Characters - 9 Execution - 8

GAMEPLAY : 7.83

Core - 9 Difficulty - 7.5 Consistency -7

VALUE : 9.33

-Cost - 10 Content - 9 - Longevity - 9

OVERALL RATING: 8.70

WANNA CHECK MY VIDEO GAME CATALOG? https://www.grouvee.com/user/169783-strategogaming/reviews/

You can watch the entire playthrough here:

I have to admit that I thought FFVIII was overhated at first, just as I thought FFVII was overrated. I'm mostly over my overrated/underrated stigma now. I either go for "overlooked" or "not my thing" now.

Why I thought FFVII was overrated and VIII overhated was because of my same 2 mistakes. I've powered through them as overpowered as possible with a sort of God Mode turned on. If you want to have the mostly intended experience, don't do that. It's part of a reason that will cloud an both positive or negative opinion about something.

Now back to the main game. As I've played it twice, once powering through it, once giving up partway in the beginning section, here's what I do and don't like about it. I have no comments on the story itself.

• However, the ending was emotional and hardwarming despite some of the shortcomings of the main story. I don't remember much of story, partially due to:
• It not having a soundtrack that had a huge impact. The ending theme, All Eyes on Me and Libery Fatali were fantastic! I liked the battle and boss themes, but the rest of it fell flat to me.
• Powering through the main story the gameplay didn't feel all that bad. But then I've tried playing it legit later. Keep in mind I've been playing it through the PC Remaster. The original game allowed full 360 degree directions. On a friggin PS1 game! The best they can do is literal 8 directions with a controller on the remaster? No mod to fix it, let alone no update whatsoever? Why? It's not even built for but 8 directions! I like the draw system, but it's kind of repetitive. Not having a guide, assuming someone skipped the tutorial and is a kid playing it and just draws like their life depends on it is not a fun way to enjoy a game. Triple triad cards can break the game, but without a guide, how do you know when which card is important, and which is not? That might've taken some serious dedication to it. That only works if you're already in love with the game.
• Triple Triad is a fun cards game, I have to admit it. Trying to get cards good enough to cover all corners will never not be satisfying. If you don't know how to play it, basically each number represents a power level. The card with the highest power level in certain directions overpowers the other. That's the basics of how it works. I don't like how it's basically required to get overpowered. I'm an advocate against it with every game ever. Hell, I've RNG manip'd the fuck out of getting a Gold Chocobo in FFVII just to avoid the races. I've finished the game without Cloud's Omnislash which required the Batlle Arena. Why would I even want to go for it?

That's about all I can rememeber without looking things up. It's not a truly horrendous Final Fantasy but is one of the weaker entries. I'd give it a 5,5 out of 10, hence why I chose 3 stars.

A weirder entry in the Final Fantasy series. FF8 takes place in a sort of futuristic fantasy setting, not unlike FF7. The beginning was rough to get engaged with, but it does pick up in both challenge and plot developments after Disc 1.

Combat resolves around a Draw system for magic is mostly tedious, and counter intuitive, as instead of managing MP for spells, you have to resource manage having a set number of spells that you can draw more of from enemies. You also junction or link these spells to your stats to boost your characters and what stats you can junction and abilities you can use will vary on how you decide to develop your GFs, or Guardian Forces that you also assign to each character. The GF junction system has potential and in some ways feels like an expanded Esper system from FF6. Unfortunately, it doesn't all come together in a way that adds enough value to out weigh the drawbacks.

I feel most early to mid game encounters are designed in a way you and the enemies all damage sponges with low damage output and high HP as a way to give the player breathing room and time to use Draw to stock their supply of magic on each character. I got around this mostly by Summon spamming which is a strategy that carries through most of the game without really being countered by anything. Additionally, the amount of party changing and swapping character moments that make you adjust or doublecheck your GF loadout to make sure the new characters are assigned GFs and will be able to do anything in combat only makes it more cumbersome for the player.

Combat aside, the story and characters did help save my experience. There are plenty of goofy, ridiculous moments, throughout an interesting if disjointed story. The story events are unique enough when coupled with how goofy the tone can get, that it's easy to forgive aspects that may not make too much sense, or the characters who may have limited appeal.

I really enjoyed a number of character designs, certain story moments, and the final battle enough to find myself having a good time with a flawed, yet somehow distinctly charming game.

Final Fantasy VIII is enjoyable despite some really weak story beats and a few too many experimental mechanics. I enjoy the bizarre fantasy/sci-fi elements that blossomed earlier in the series. Yes, the story meanders and has too many components. It suffers from feeling disjointed at times, with just a dump truck of ideas. It still feels like it has solid themes, and I think that's what saves it. Regret, attachment, duty. Even down to "junctioning" GFs. You attach these monsters to you and they sap your memories away (an explanation for the baffling concept that all the main characters grew up together, forgot, and then forgot that they forgot). This focus on duty is what SeeD, the military force you're being trained for, is all about. But we "junction" concepts to ourselves, too. Maybe it's another person, whether the love is unrequited or not. I remember being a teenager and being so focused on one person. "She is the only thing that can make me happy." When you're young that makes sense for some reason. Or maybe you've "junctioned" a vice to take the edge off, or help with the day's work. It's a classic risk/reward idea.

I can handle the story's floundering because some of it works well enough to keep you going. The amnesia thing? Not cool. A witch being held in stasis in outer space? Cool! The places and happenings aren't the real problem here. The most difficult part about the narrative is our hero, Squall. He is so resoundingly unlikable, yet every single character (except baddies like his rival, Seifer) positively throws themselves at him. Rinoa just cold walks up to him, calls him handsome, and demands he dance with her despite him bumbling, saying "no", and showing the emotion of a cinder block. She pursues Squall incessantly, regardless of his constant and very clear messages that he is uninterested. Except he's not? He loves her or something? Let's not even broach the concept of consent and "no" meaning "no." Rinoa also apparently used to love Seifer, so she's probably not the best at picking men. All of your companions bend over backwards to get Squall to open up because they inexplicably love him. They put on a concert for him and he couldn't care less. But fool me once shame on you, etc, etc. They should know better by then. At one point someone says "everyone in the Garden looks up to you!" HOW. He's such a prick to everyone he meets. My suspension of disbelief was really tested, here, and it made me wonder if I'm missing out on some greater cultural concept. Maybe this is just some kind of...I don't know...Japanese thing? That's the only thing I can come up with.

Final Fantasy VIII is known for its mechanical departure from the series. While each Final Fantasy has unique features, FF8 has what feels like too many new ideas. Guardian Forces? Cool idea. Junctioning? Cool idea. Drawing magic? Cool idea. Also there's scaling enemy levels, having only a few weapon upgrades instead of equips, no armor, Triple Triad, and whatever else I'm forgetting. All of these things are fine, and some of them are really fun! But all of them, at once, were a little too much. Thankfully, the game isn't super difficult. Cerberus demolished me many times in a row, but it turns out that one of the random encounter enemies in the area carries a spell that can be drawn and junctioned to make his magic less potent. Also the Ruby Dragons in the Bahamut quest obliterated me, but I took some time to collect some Ultima spells and junction them and was able to wipe the floor with them (that did take a few hours of prep, but it made me super powerful and able to cruise through the rest of the game). They are pretty good at giving you the tools to overcome obstacles as long as you take the time to engage with the mechanics.

Junctioning magic and GFs is a fun concept. Instead of equipping armor you take the magic you get and apply it to different stats. You can even junction status ailment magic to your attacks. The problem is that this game constantly jumbles your party up, so you spend so much time re-junctioning characters. They give you a way to automatically switch all junctions from one character to another, but there can still be gaps you need to fill. Cool concept, but maybe not for this particular story.

I hadn't played FF8 since it was first released. I was 13, and it's all I wanted for Christmas. I got it, played it and loved it conceptually. But it was my first RPG, and it was "too hard." I didn't understand any of the systems (granted, I never tried hard at anything as a kid), and the card game Triple Triad was impenetrable to me. I used a GameShark to cheat, but it felt like a hollow victory. Twenty-something years later I'm glad I played it again. It's not my favorite Final Fantasy, and it has some real problems, but for each of those it makes up by offering something fun, creative, or unique. Oh, and Triple Triad is super fun.

I remember trying to play this game a few years ago, and the tutorial made me feel like I was having a stroke. "Junction a GF to your party members...." I read the words "Junction" and "GF" so many times in the first hour, and I thought "Okay, maybe I'll skip FFVIII."

Cut to now, FFVIII Remastered is on Switch and I'm in the mood to play all of the beloved Final Fantasy games, so I gave it another shot. After a few hours in I was mad at myself for giving up so easily the first time around. Once you get used to the Junction system it turns out to be pretty neat. You basically steal magic from monsters and use that magic to increase certain stats, have stronger defense against certain elemental attacks, and give certain elemental attacks to your weapon. It's fun to play around with and you can make some broken ass characters whenever you get access to the better magic in the game.

The story was weird and I was disappointed by the ending, but the characters were all interesting and cool enough to keep me invested. I'm a sucker for a good romance subplot so I was all about Squall and Rinoa, even though Squall is very cold for most of the game. There are portions of the game where you play flashbacks as side characters named Laguna, Kiros, and Ward, and I couldn't seem to care about these parts at all...luckily they were pretty short.

One thing I did that I'm very angry at myself about was forgetting to get the deck of cards at the beginning of the game, and I was too lazy to start over and replay that 4 or 5 hours I had already sunk in...so I missed out on Triple Triad :(

I still prefer FFVII by a long shot, but I'm very glad I gave this game a fair shot! It's a lot of fun despite being a bit confusing.

I FINALLY beat FFVIII. It took many years, and an absurd amount of magic "drawing", but I did it! This game is almost exclusively peaks and valleys in design and implementation. So much to love, so much to despise. Speaking of love, this is basically Teen Romance, The Game.

While I did not cry during the first scene with Eyes On Me, the final cutscene, which included the song, brought the waterworks. I mean, Squall and Rinoa are fine, but Laguna and Raine are just so good! Last note: Rinoa's dog beat the final boss with an Izuna Drop. It was radical.

I want to separate my opinion in three parts: the original game, the remastered one, and a surprise third part.

1

I know that not everybody likes FFVIII. I think that, after FFVII, people were expecting something but FFVIII was something different. But in my case, I totally loved it. It's not perfect for sure. But I think the plot is really good and the way it is explained is really nice.

I don't like the 'extraction' feature. You need to extract magic and GF from enemies and then link it to your character. So, if you have 100 Piro linked to the VIT you have some value... but if you have 90 you have less VIT. This did (in my case) to NEVER use magic. You extract it, link it to increase your stats and never touch again. Combats are attack, limit breaks, and summoning. Speaking about the limit breaks, I didn't like that they appear when you are almost dying. When an enemy with a lot of VIT appears you must keep the VIT down for being able to trigger the limits and make some damage and you feel that you could die anytime. Again, it's not perfect but I really loved it.

2

After almost 20 years, these days I played the Remastered one and I must say that I was kind of disappointed. They have just remastered the characters... the rest of the game is the same. So it is quite strange to see the characters really good and then the scenario...

3

Some days ago Final Fantasy VII remake was released and the game is doing really good. Good reviews, good qualifications, ... I am not saying the game does not deserve it. I just feel that people are ok when Square Enix changes the games... but I am not. Remakes should be like the Resident Evil ones... imagine that Capcom says: we are going to remake Resident Evil 4.. and they convert it into an isometric strategy game. Does not make sense.. right? Square Enix is doing this and people are ok!! So I am giving 5 stars to this game (even is not perfect). It is my way to say: Final Fantasy should be turn-based, not action.

It's been a few years since I last really delved into a huge, classic JRPG and frankly this was kind of the perfect undertaking after such a long break from playing really any kind of video game.

As a work of narrative gaming, Final Fantasy 8 hits a lot of major highs but then, in the later sections of the game, stumbles far more frequently - not to a huge detriment but it's certainly noticeable. As a work of thematic exploration, FF8 works perfectly - it functions as a look at the various kinds of relationships we form throughout our lives and how that relates to being in the present moment, to time, to the breaking of cycles and patterns of behavior. In this sense, the game is often very moving and I'd say its central love story is one of the most effective and affecting I've found in a video game. In terms of the narrative itself, it often fails to deliver in terms of rhythm and actual delivery. I've brought up Final Fantasy 7 in previous updates but it was in playing FF8's later disks that really brought to my mind how this game's structure pales in comparison to that one's, and how FF7 is probably one of the most perfectly structured narrative games in the history of the medium.

FF7 works perfectly because it's narrative energy crescendos into a perfectly calibrated escalation of stakes and cause and effect. FF7's narrative builds and builds and builds, led first by the conflict with Shinra, then the mysteries surrounding Cloud and Sephiroth, then trying to understand those mysteries while being pursued by Shinra, then all three groups coalescing at the Great Crater. And this then leads into the narrative elements being ticked off one by one - Shinra and Hujo are destroyed, Meteor is called down. The only thing left to do then is have the final confrontation with Sephiroth. The narrative builds and then eradicates elements until there's only the final battle, and all of this is paced perfectly, all the narrative pieces placed in just the right order. It's narrative density and calibration is really unparalleled. In comparison, FF8's first two disks work mostly perfectly in terms of pacing and structure (all of Disk 1 is nearly-perfect in its build-up) and then three stumbles in trying to tie up its narrative ends, the flow of gameplay and narrative becomes convoluted and unsatisfying (for example, Lunatic Pandora is hugely dissapointing as a late-game dungeon despite the killer score - boring enemies, boring boss battle, it's too short and is too straightforward so it doesn't feel satisfying once you're done with it). Disk 2 trying to explain the back stories of the characters feels rushed and isn't terribly interesting (everybody just grew up together and everybody knows each other but the GF erased their memories, oh my god!) I do like the idea of finding out that you've just known your friends your entire life and didn't realize it but it could've been better executed, even if on a thematic level it functions perfectly. The whole ending of Disk 3 is actually very wonky and rushed - in FF7 the entire game builds up to the confrontation at the Northern Crater and the summoning of Meteor in Disk 2, which intensifies the stakes massively. In FF8 no such feeling of real build-up is present - you go up to space and then all of a sudden shit gets real and you have to deal with it. It's overall just structurally very wonky.

Squall ended up being an excellent protagonist and I highly enjoyed watching his development over the course of the game, along with the growth of the love story between him and Rinoa. It's a shame that she's relegated to the damsel-in-distress role for a good portion of the game but she's an engaging personality and in a lot of ways actually reminded me of my own girlfriend lol. I came to like all the other cast members as well, however it's a shame that neither Irving or Selphie have much to add to the narrative after Disk 2. I also have to add that Ultimecia is a dissapointing villain for the game - although I'd imagine it was difficult to come up with an antagonist that would be as iconic and engaging as Sephiroth. Cid is a dick-head - end of story.

Gameplay-wise, however, it was very satisfying in a lot of ways as someone obsessed with building up stats and abilities for maximum damage/defensive output. This was my final party and my final stats:

It wasn't until about 50 hours in that I realized the amount of a spell you have effects the power of that spell in relation to your stats (I'm an idiot) and thus a lot of the late-game was me drawing spells from enemies to boost stats. The problem being that drawing from enemies is interesting in theory but ultimately not very fun; it's actually a bit of a bore at points and the fact that you can only carry a limited number of spells per character makes things more of a hassle in spots than they needed to be. That and the junctioning of spells deinsentivizes you from actually using magic so as to conserve the rarer spells to preserve stat increases. By the end of the game you use maybe one or two spells (Aura, Meltdown, maybe Meteor) and focus on physical attacks and Limit Breaks. I bring up FF7 again because the Materia system is the best magic-system ever put into an RPG but the drawing and junctioning systems aren't nearly as fun, smooth or freeing as Materia. It makes up for it by being a god-send for numbers-minded people and thankfully being able to transmute items and such into spells made things easier in spots. Overall, the gameplay is fun and engaging for the most part, but it's imperfect and a bit of a drag at points.

I can say that Nobuo Uematsu's score for this one is certainly one of his best - whereas FF7's tonal modulations serve the grandiose, high-stakes narrative at play, FF8's is keen to exist in a liminal space that describes a variety of emotions and even a feeling of distance, of being outside normal tonal standards - the best example of this being the world map theme, this spacey and meditative piece that reflects the bizarro narrative perfectly. It isn't a score where I couldn't skip over a single track if I was listening to it in the car (unlike FF7's) but when you've got a track like Eyes on Me on it you can't say it isn't at least partially masterful.

To finish:

• Got all GF's in the game
• Beat Omega and Ultima Weapons
• Finished the CC Group Quest
• Finished the UFO/PuPu Quest
• Did not finish the Queen of Cards or Shumi Village quests. Should've started Queen of Cards earlier in the game to save myself the headache of trying to manipulate the RNG which I proved to be unsuccessful at
• Did not acquire all the cards in the game nor did I get everybody's ultimate weapons.

Triple Triad is a fantastic mini-game but the rule system is frankly a headache to try and work around and frankly by the end I didn't even bother. On replay I'll have to start and finally finish everything having to do with it. Same with Chocobo Village.

Overall I'd say that anyone who dismissed FF8 is doing themselves a disservice. It's genuinely really good and any YT Video Game influencer who whines about it is a baby and an idiot. It's a genuinely moving and engaging, if flawed, work that's frankly really underrated and deserves re-appraisal by fans of Final Fantasy.

Rating

Final Fantasy VIII? More like Final Fantasy 8/10 (I KNOW, I'M A MASTER OF COMEDY)

Mini-review

Third best Final Fantasy I've played. Decent characters although I hated Squall at first. Story was pretty good as was the world. Great music as always, hard to go wrong with Uematsu. Main antagonist came across a bit weak. Overall a decent game with some stand out moments.

Recommendation

Would recommend.