Innovative ideas not always the best
Written: Apr 13 '00
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Great graphics, good sound, good story, innovative game play, gorgeous summoning sequences, long playing time
Cons: Summoning sequences TOO long, game's theme of "love" might not be acceptable, lack difficulty, too much innovation can be a bad thing
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| fallen_lord_34's Full Review: Final Fantasy VIII for PlayStation 1 |
While Final Fantasy VIII is a great achievement in terms of innovations in RPGs, it is ultimately more of a movie that you could control rather than a hardcore RPG that plays like a movie.
Graphics
The graphics are simply breath-taking. The lush terrains on the overworld map as well as the gorgeous prerendered backgrounds mark a high point for which all RPGs shall be compared to. Characters are not super-deformed anymore, as the faces are not actually distorted...much. The character designs are not done in an anime-ish fashion anymore, instead, FFVIII is designed to appeal to more teenagers. The monsters in battles are simply awesome, all of which are completely rendered in polygons. The summoning sequences, however, "overachieve" many aspects. It seemed as though so much care have been put in to the summoning sequences, that the game designers forgot to consider how many times a player will have to sit through the animation over and over again. The only flaws in graphics are A). Summoning sequences are too long. and B). Colors are a little bit on the dull side occasionally.
Sound
The music this time around is much more memorable than FFVII. While the overall composition is still not as good as FFVI, but this is about as close to a perfect track as any game can get. The memorable songs such as the battle song for Laguna, to the song for sorceress, are all masterpieces. The rest are your standard comforting town themes and mysterious overworld exploration themes. A fully vocal song sang by Asian pop star Faye Wong recieved a mixed bag of opinions. While a vocal track is an excellent edition to a RPG, but even with the theme being the universal "love", that song is not taken in to considerations for its overseas popularity. As it seemed that Squaresoft spent million dollars to have Faye Wong to sing it. But overall, a solid track close to perfection.
Gameplay
here is where all the main innovations come in. Gone are the old days of fighting monsters to build levels in order to beat a boss. In FFVIII, the monsters "level up" along with you. Gaining levels is not even important in FFVIII unless you acquire GF(Guardian Force)s with special abilities to increase a stat with each level up. Guardian Forces are the creatures you can summon similar to the "Summon Materias" in FFVII, and "Espers" in FFVI. They each possess great powers(Eden, the last GF you could acquire, can cause up to 140000 points in damage!).
Also you wont be needing "gils" or "Gs". Money is almost at a "none" issue in FFVIII. Plus you do not recieve gold anymore after each battle. Instead, you are paid salary-based according to your SeeD rank. Throughout the game you will have several chances at improving your SeeD rank, or simply take the written test.
You also will not be buying new weapons or accessories anymore. Weapons are now "upgraded" with each piece of special item you get. And for several characters, special weapons meant the unlocking of a special attack.
Other than that, you still have your regular ship-type vehicle to control, your regular cars you can rent from stores(kind of like chocobos), as well as actual chocobos you can ride. But perhaps the most innovative idea in the vehicles is that you have to actually fight enemies in sequences in order to take over your airship, the Ragnarok.
The improvement over all to the gameplay has rendered the game somewhat easy. Especially towards the end, where you can just unleash Squall's desperation attack(souped up version of the Omnislash with a finisher), and combining powerful GFs such as "Doomtrain" and "Eden", it will make short work out of even the end boss for the game. Once again the overly powerful summoning monsters has taken issue in the game. In FFVII, Knights of the Round is considered extremely potent and hindered with the game's challenging level somewhat, as well as the increasingly powerful Limit breaks.
Lasting Appeal:
This game is not really designed for lasting appeal. The decisions you make throughout the game don't really matter much as they are in no way related to the game's plot. The decisions you make is merely going to effect your "SeeD" rank, which you can always bring up by taking the test in tutorial.
The Triple Triad mini-game has spawned a generous following in Japan, complete with its own web site as well as actual card game coming out.
Overall, the game doesnt really have much lasting appeal. Once you beat it, there really isn't any other way to beat it again. You will see the same ending again if you beat the game time after time.
At the end:
As far as the overall game feeling goes, there couldn't be another more complete "cinematic" experience in a video game. FFVIII played a lot more like a playable movie rather than a game. The difficulty factor was almost "none" and there is really no point in repeating the game after you've played it through. However, it is the best to play it through at least twice, so you could master everything there is about it.
Throughout the Final Fantasy series, the best one is still the legendary FFVI. It blended story with graphics(for its time) as well as superb sound to capture the crown. What Final Fantasy VII lacked, FFVIII delivered. But out of what FFVIII has delivered, several good elements from FFVII are missing. While this game is still the undisputed RPG of the year, RPG of the century goes to its predecessor FFVI.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
fallen_lord_34
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Reviews written: 2
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