Title: Final Fantasy VIII
Original Release: February 11, 1999 (PS1)
Finished Release: North American PS1 Release (1999)
Hey look everybody, the Final Fantasy series is back for one more round this year! This is actually, of all the FF games I've finished, the one I have the earliest association with. I came into the series with VII, then continued with VIII and so on, and only went back and discovered the others a bit later. Not all that much later, but it's worth mentioning.
Now, some of you may not know this, but VIII is something of a black sheep in the series, for reasons we'll probably get into. I will say right away that I was very surprised when I learned that fact. Even though I had never finished it (because, again, I never finished anything), I had always had fond memories of this game, and always had plans to sit down and play through it.
So, was I disappointed? Let's find out.
We begin with that favorite staple of late '90s video games, FMV! Unfortunately, it's not live action FMV, just CG. Two slightly fem dudes with jackets and silly swords are locked in an epic duel. These characters, we'll learn soon enough, are Squall (in black) and Seifer (in white), and they don't like each other all that much.
The fight, like any good fight scene, goes back and forth, with each combatant trading control of the fight back and forth. We even see magic being cast, not to mention moves that will turn out to be Limit Breaks in the game proper. Anyway, the duel ends with the guys giving each other a spiffy scar right between the eyes, completing their respective "anime boys" ensemble.
I poke fun, but this cutscene is actually pretty sweet, and it's considerably less ridiculous than a lot of things we've seen from this same series, not to mention other things that were going on at the time. I'll also just go ahead and say that Squall might be my favorite main character in the whole franchise, so that might tell you what to expect as we go along.
Anyway, once the cutscene is over, we learn a bit more about our characters. It turns out Squall and Seifer are both students at Balamb Garden, a fancy futuristic-ish boarding school that apparently trains kickass mercenaries, known as SEED. As it happens, we meet our characters on the eve of their final exam, but Squall has a few things he has to get done first in order to be eligible. I guess he doesn't have enough credits to take his exam yet?
I'm not going to go over any more plot details, since it rapidly spins out of control, but of course Squall completes his exam. He makes some friends, gets his first real mission, and before long he's caught up in a war against an evil sorceress with designs on destroying everything but herself. He also keeps having dreams about some dude named Laguna, and apparently the dreams are connected to the major conflict of the game. Huh.
So, I'm not really into comparing one Final Fantasy game to another one. I view them all as being pretty much separate. But I will give one little piece of advice to any aspiring game designers out there. If you own a game series, and the latest game in the series puts itself (and you) on the map with a larger audience than you've ever had before, the next game in the series is going to be a very delicate thing. And the opening of the game is a major part of that.
Final Fantasy VII begins with your character, a former member of an elite PMC currently hired by a group of revolutionaries, jumping off a train, fighting slews of city guards, and blowing up what is essentially a nuclear reactor. You then head off to blow up another one!
Final Fantasy VIII begins with your character, a student, losing a duel, moping about it in class, being talked at by a bunch of people he doesn't really like, reading through seemingly-endless tutorials, and doing schoolwork. Yes, that schoolwork does involve fighting giant flaming monsters, but your character is pretty bored all the same. You then head off to take a test. Which, admittedly, leads to tons of explosions in its own right.
Jokes aside, you can see the disparity between those two openings. FF7 hits the ground running and doesn't let up for hours, whereas its little brother is a bit more of a slow burn. Now, neither of these approaches is bad, depending on the kind of story you want to tell. And it's not like you can really judge a game, especially an RPG, by its opening anyway. Hell, Persona 5, which is fantastic (you can read about that right over here), begins with two hours of dialogue about laws, and probation, and school. Still, I can't help but feel like FF8 could have used a bit more of an early-game hook, especially when you consider the precedent the previous game set.
Thankfully, that doesn't keep up for long, as once Squall's exam is past, it quickly becomes obvious that something sinister is afoot. If anything, the mundanity of the early hours just serves to highlight how insane things eventually become.
So I know that the story is one of the aspects that the game's detractors love to lobby shots at. Some people like to say that it's confusing and impossible to understand. Well, confusing it definitely is, but that's mainly because the ideas the story is playing with are so huge. We're talking about things that, in everyday life, already become incomprehensible when you think about them for too long. As for impossible to understand, I honestly don't think so. Big, yes, but the story's ideas are internally consistent. The English translation could be a bit tighter, sure, but it's drastically better than its predecessor. As it is, I can look back on the story after playing through it once, and keep most of the details straight. That's more than I can say for some things, and I like to consider myself a pretty clever so-and-so.
The characters are, by and large, pretty great, though I definitely have my favorites. As far as the franchise goes, Squall is probably the main character I relate to the most. By that same token, Rinoa is the main love interest I would most like to have a nice dinner with. It's difficult to go into detail about each character without going into too much detail, but the cast is definitely memorable. I found myself missing all of them when I was finished.
As far as graphics go, FF8 does a bit better job of harnessing what the power of the PS1 was capable of. This time around, Squaresoft were able to eschew the blocky character models on display in FF7, instead going for more realistically-proportioned ones. No, they still don't hold up, especially when stretched out on a modern HDTV, but they're a marked improvement, and not displeasing to look at.
The music is pretty great, with lots of rockin' tunes that get stuck in your head. This is also, to my knowledge, where the series' streak began of having a vocal song in each of the next several games. The song featured here, Eyes On Me, isn't my favorite of that group, but it's nice to listen to all the same, and perfectly accompanies a few key scenes.
From what I can tell, the gameplay seems to be the biggest sticking point with people who dislike Final Fantasy VIII, and I guess I can understand why. Maybe. Actually, I guess it isn't even really the "gameplay" technically, since the fights are still as fun and satisfying as ever. It's more the game's mechanics that people seem to have a problem with. It's difficult to explain, but I'll do my best.
Basically, levels aren't really a big deal in FF8. Instead, it's more based around what's known as the "Junction" system. Throughout the game you'll collect different monsters, known as Guardian Forces (GFs), which you can attach, or "junction" to any character you want. These GFs take the role of the series' summon monsters, being large, awesome creatures you can bring into a fight for one big attack. Each GF junctioned to any given character will also give that character certain abilities that they can then use in battle, such as using magic.
Magic is important to this system, and it's handled differently from the normal approach the series takes. Rather than certain characters having certain spells (or learning them through some other system), magic is acquired through the "Draw" system, and it works thusly. You go into a fight with an enemy, you use Draw on that enemy, and they'll have certain spells you can draw from them. If successful, you'll get a few uses of that magic added to your pool. This essentially turns each spell into its own resource, rather than spells using MP as a separate resource.
You can hold up to 99 of each spell, and those spells can also be junctioned to specific character stats (based on which GFs the character has junctioned), with each stat reacting better to certain spells. The Cure spells, for example, have a high effect on the character's HP.
So to sum up, a character junctions a GF, draws a bunch of magic from enemies (and certain points on the map), then junctions that magic to the stats the GF opens up for them, thus increasing that stat, sometimes tremendously. Profit.
Whew! Hopefully I explained that all well enough. It is definitely confusing at first, and it takes some serious getting used to. But keep in mind that that doesn't make it bad. In fact, I wound up really enjoying the whole Junction system. I'd get frustrated, sure, when the story would force me to switch party members and I'd have to go redo all of my junction stuff again, but this doesn't happen often enough to be a deal breaker. And yes, due to the system, levels aren't all that important, making random battles often pointless.
BUT. It's still a fun system once you get used to it, if only for how absolutely broken you can make the characters. I also like to give each character GF junctions that I think fit them, like Shiva being junctioned to Squall because of his icy nature, or Ifrit being junctioned to Zell because of his fiery temperament, or Quezacotl (sic) being junctioned to Rinoa because I ran out of good reasons. It's like the game is built around a puzzle, and solving that puzzle gets you stronger characters
But even beyond that, it's unique, and unlike anything I've seen before. With a few tweaks it could've really been something worth keeping around.
And so that's Final Fantasy VIII. In the end I wound up enjoying myself immensely, even more than I thought I would. If you hate the game and you're angry I don't, I'm sorry I guess? On the other hand, if you've only ever heard bad things about it, give it a shot with an open mind. It's definitely a thinker, but if that's something you're up for, I don't think you'll be disappointed with this one.
Until next time!
Current interests:
Listening - Christmas stuff (Various)
Playing - Azure Striker Gunvolt (2014)
Reading - Hyperion (Dan Simmons, 1989)
Watching - Christmas stuff (Various)
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