"Rinoa, Ditch Squall, I'm A Real Man!" My Second Submission To The SS W/O
Written: Jun 26 '01 (Updated Jun 26 '01)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Great graphics, nice soundtrack and sweet FMVs to boot, Gotta love the Love Story
Cons: Where's the fantasy? Futuristic setting? Almost Non-Existent Villian, More Development for Irvine!!!
The Bottom Line: Vote on your favorite Final Fantasy game in the comments section below!
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| kenshin-guy's Full Review: Final Fantasy VIII for PlayStation 1 |
Everyone who hated FF8, please move to the left side of the room
Thank You
Everyone who loved FF8, please move to the right side of the room
Thank You
Anyone Who Has Never Played Final Fantasy 8 Please Sit In The Middle
[Aaron stands up on the podium and addresses the three groups.]
Now I know that Final Fantasy 8 has received it's amount of bashing so far, I've given it a good bashing from time to time too. So that's why I had the readers of this move to different areas of the room. Please don't hate me for liking the game, it's just in my genes I guess.
Oh jeez, he's gonna tell us a story now...
I can still remember when I got Final Fantasy 8, yes, I'm that big of an RPG nerd. I can really remember it and how cheap I was in getting it. I went to up a Sam's Club of all places and got it on sale for about $34 bucks. I went with my friend who was pestering me through out the whole trip. "Sheesh, it's just a game, don't get so excited." and such other praises as "It looks stupid, I mean, that guy's sword is so big it's retarded." Yes I know, my friends are idiots and they don't have a big vocabulary. But nonetheless I ignored their dumb comments and quickly loaded up Final Fantasy 8. And here is where the fairy tale ends. You see, what happened over the next few hours was a blur of very good, and horribly bad.
Sure I loved playing the game, but it's like a double-edged sword. It has a side of sweet goodness and a side of rancid badness, if you want it in better words. Hmm, so what shall I rant on first? Well, I guess I'll tell the storyline cause that's like a middle thing.
The Storyline
Guess what? Time to save the world, AGAIN! These guys at Square never give up on that idea! Anyway, you play a SeeD soldier by the name of Squall. You and a group of rag-tag battling buddies are assigned to take down an evil sorceress named Ultimecia. However, the element of love comes in the way. A rogue group called the Timber Owls helps you and slowly, Squall starts to fall in love with Rinoa, the Owl’s leader. In the midst of a hostile takeover from the witch, Squall and friends fight for freedom and Squall does it for love. So it turns into a struggle against worlds, love, freedom and the life of the people you know now. Nice eh?
[The Left Side Of The Room Cheers]
O.k., I'll go with the bad stuff.
O.k., whoever has played a Final Fantasy game knows that there is always some supernatural thing in it. I'll name a few, Final Fantasy 6 had the Espers and Kefka, one of the best villains to grace a game. Final Fantasy 7 had Make and Sephiroth, and Final Fantasy 9 had the Eidolons and Terra and the crystals and ect. I only named the newest ones because there's no way I am going into Bartz and Final Fantasy 5 right now. Anyway, for the fantasies, I just didn't see it in Final Fantasy 8. Sure, the game had its summons and magic, but these powers were as plentiful as rocks. Also, the use of another futuristic setting didn't help it much either I think. Fans were very cautious of that when it was done in Final Fantasy 7, and I don't blame them. I liked the traditional settings like Final Fantasy 5 & 6 better.
I think Square tried to duplicate a certain success from Final Fantasy 7 and hoped to get a bigger, and better reaction for Final Fantasy 8. In FF7, you had certain summons and they were so few and far between you just reveled in their power and were so happy to get them. In FF8, you could pick a new one up every 2 hours, literally. When I first started, they give you 3 summons (Read: Espers, Guardians Forces, Eidolons, but in Final Fantasy 8 they're called Guardian Forces, AKA GFs) which makes the game extremely easy from the start. I had just flown through the first 2 discs without a hint of a problem. As much as Square tried to beef up the factor of harder enemies and bosses. It didn't work with me. You see, the bosses and enemies progress through levels the same as you do. Example: Squall and his party are at level 40, all of the enemies will be at level 40, give or take a few levels. This does make the game a tad harder later in the game when you fight an insane amount of bosses but does little to make the player want to play more and level up.
So you see, in other Final Fantasy games, I wanted to level up more and more to prepare and when I did it here it just seemed useless. So it knocked a good 5-10 hours off my playing time. That's not really a huge problem because you see, the game will take you a good 40+ hours to complete anyway. 40+ Hours of TERROR! Well, almost, here's why.
FF6 had Kefka, FF7 had Sephiroth, but the main villain is sorely lacking here in FF8. The villain is pretty original; a witch named Edea AKA Ultimecia. While the idea of an evil witch intrigued my mind in the world of Fantasy when I played it, the cruel team at Square never really gave her enough screen time to establish herself as a world dominating power that would strike fear into you. Her character was badly developed and unlike previous villains, I didn't actually feel or care for her so I was almost robotic is trying to defeat her. And believe me, defeating her was no problem, here's why.
Unlike some other RPGs and Final Fantasy games, you can just beef up your character with whatever you want and be like a Godsend team. I had a team with multiples summons and Ultima magic (Read: Ultima is the most powerful magic in the game) and I totally devastated the competition within minutes. In other games you had to use strategy and use certain characters because only they could use certain magic and summons. Here, you don't have to and the importance of the characters is questioned. This undermines the value of the characters and it's just basically puts out a message that the characters are filler, somewhat anyway.
The plot is also a tad slow. It's like a train running on limited fuel. It reaches a certain point in the game where you're expecting a huge plot filler that will change the game, but it steeps low enough to do a corny flashback piece that destroys most, if not all, of the good story it had behind it. That's all I can really say because it will give away major spoilers.
[Aaron turns to the right side of the room]
That's not to say that Final Fantasy 8 doesn't have it's good parts. It's got PLENTY of good points but among the best are these. Many people have heckled at the game for it's bad points but I believe they're just not looking at all of the good things.
First off, the graphics will strike you in a very deep way. They're very lush and beautiful in achieving the futuristic look that they want. Most of the first disc is spent at Gardens (Read: Bases for soldiers and SeeDs, not flower gardens). These Gardens have such lovely architechual design and structure that the colors just seem to jump off them. And it's not just the settings that are good; the character designs are great! Taking a different path from previous games, Square developed characters who looked real, unlike the midgets in Final Fantasy 7 and unlike the big headed characters in Final Fantasy 9. I felt I could connect to these characters better because I think I saw them more real in their design. I thought it was a person in the game, not a character. Especially Rinoa Heartily, the female lead. While I could see her personality being very real and pleasant and I knew she was a character, I actually felt her feelings and emotions. And I know Rinoa is a video game character, but Square designed her to be a hottie. That being said, read on.
If you consider the Full Motion Videos in the game graphics, then you could say the graphics are just heavenly. Squaresoft has created the best FMVs I've ever seen, no buts about it. I think they're even better than Final Fantasy 9. If you saw them you would know. The littlest detail in put into every single frame on the videos. It's like Steven Spielberg directed them; they're filled with action-packed cinema and drama. It's like a mini-movie whenever a FMV is played. One minor complaint, it seems like Square is putting too much effort and time into the FMVs and not enough into the story. The movies are played so much it's like I'm watching a movie and not playing a game, oh well, it's still good.
Which brings me to another strong point. The characters in the game were very well developed except for that of Irvine Kinneas. We all see the characters go through one change or another throughout the game but the biggest has got to be Squall's and his love story. The writers wrote a magnificent love story for Squall and Rinoa that shows the battling against themselves and their pasts in their quest for finding each other. It's really a beautiful thing and being the guy I am, I never expected to like it but in the end, I thought it was one of the best sub-plots in a Final Fantasy game ever.
As in previous Final Fantasy games, Nobou Uemastu has done the score and soundtrack for Final Fantasy 8. Once again, he conducts his music with great detail and fine tunes that will soothe the soul, mind, and even body if you want to dance to it. Such great arrangements like the main world theme of Blue Fields is great in the game and even better when it's orchestrated. The one that stands out in my mind the most is Liberi Fatali, a composition of a huge orchestra with singers. Although these singers are performing in a different language, I have the lyrics to it in English. It's a beautiful song, English or not and it fits in with the game very well. All of the in-game music is fantastic and there's many fun tunes like The Man With The Machine Gun, Laguna Loire's theme. If you don't get these tunes stuck in your head, then you must have earplugs in your head! Also, I love the sound of Squall's gunblade (Read: Giant Sword with a gun mechanism on it) hitting the enemies, it makes a very distinct sound from any of the other Final Fantasy games.
There's one thing I admire about the Final Fantasy games, the gameplay is always fun. I always found something useful to do and was always occupied with some quest or ability to do something. The whole first disc is packed with gameplay but it seems to lag off in disc 3, but with discs, you'll be pretty busy so don't worry about it. The gameplay is very fun as I said, this time a Junctioning system is brought into play. The Junctioning system is rather simple. You just equip your magic to your statistics to make them better.
For example: Squall has 1000 HP, I can equip my 60 fire magic to my HP to make my HP a nice 1200 HP. It's that simple. You can also junction your magic to your defense/offense to inflict a certain magic with your weapon. Equipping fire to your offense will make your attacks have a fire effect to them. Putting Fire in your Defense will make you somewhat immune to the fire attacks.
[Aaron turns to face the people in the middle of the room]
So I bet you're asking yourself the question, "Should I buy Final Fantasy 8? Well, in a perfect world, we'd all love the game and cherish it but there's some people that think Final Fantasy 8 doesn't match up to the rest of the series. They have good reason to believe so because really, it's not like the other games. But still, for $19.99 you have a win/win combination. Buying a Square game is like buying a new car with a great trade-in value and good gas mileage. Indeed the game is not for everyone, but it's for most. You don't need to be a die-hard fan to love it, but you don't have to be a die-hard fan to hate it either. It's more of a beginner's RPG.
It's A Wrap
So with that I will end my second submission to Xeno3998's Squaresoft write-off.
Among the other participants we have
-Kanga14
-Xeno3998
-Trackgrrl
-Crazy3237
-Guile176
-Mike_Bracken
-Sephiroth2000
-Rader6795
-WretchedPyro
-Shampoo-Girl
-Jeremy1456
-Kenshin-Guy
-Chris_Billings
-Crucify
-GasJocket214
-Orestes84
-Y2JMcDohl
-Annexation
Copyright 2001 Kenshin-Guy Productions
If you steal this, you will be attacked by a swarm of African killer-bee that will sting you until you look like a freak of nature and people will cross to the other side of the street to avoid you. So don’t steal my review!
Happy Gaming!
~Aaron the Kenshin-Guy
Recommended:
Yes
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kenshin-guy
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Member: Aaron J. Amendola
Location: Erie
Reviews written: 86
Trusted by: 101 members
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In it to win it.
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