Final Fantasy VIII

Pack[ed] with stunning FMV, well-developed characters, and a touching story that revolves round the theme of love. [Nov 2001, p.46]

A work of Tolkeinesque proportions and not only the greatest RPG of our times, but one of the greatest games of all time. Wholeheartedly recommended.

My baby, my sweet, precious little FF8. How I love thee, let me tell the ways; Triple Triad, Rinoa, the incrediblly sweet and fresh magic system and Junction, the beyond jaw-dropping FMV's, Rinoa, the biggest surprise Air Ship yet in any FF..

Though complicated and with the occasional fault, it could be remembered as the greatest Final Fantasy game through the 32-bit era.

A must get for any serious RPG gamer. Looks great sitting next to Final Fantasy VII.

For all its depth, though, I quickly discovered that I had little control of the game after the early part of it.

A travesty. A mockery of the good name of Final Fantasy.

My personal best in the series. I played around 6 times on my PS1. Masterpiece

I think that Final fantasy 8 had things that are staples in new games but the new ideas felt watered down so to not stray away from the original FF format. Because of Final fantasy Vii"s success. So overall a 7/10 - coryinthecrib2

Final Fantasy VIII mejora el sistema de combate con respecto a FFVII en algunas ocasiones específicas, pero empeora en el sistema general de progreso que, como a muchos jugadores, me resultó tosco y poco intuitivo. El sistema de junction penaliza la experimentación natural y convierte el avance en una gestión innecesariamente enrevesada. Las animaciones están desbordadas para el hardware y resultan infumables en el ritmo de juego, especialmente en comparación con las de FFVII, que, aun más simples, poseen mayor carácter. La historia es sencilla y emocionalmente plana, sin la profundidad de otros títulos de la saga. Es, aun así, un juego complejo, con un mundo vivo e inmersivo, pero el protagonista es tan infantil que prefiero relacionarme con ese mundo desde otra óptica más distante.

Final Fantasy VIII is a game with many problems, and most of these problems lie in the very fundation of this game's Combat: the Junction System. The Junction System is made up of many different new Mechanics: GFs, GF abilities, Consumable Magic and Magic Junction. GFs and their abilities are great: Summons can now give new abilities or improve the Stats of the character they are linked to, essentially becoming a new form of Equipment. They are just great, anything negative to note about them. The problems arise with the last two: Consumable Magic and Magic Junction. Making Magic a consumable item isn't a bad idea at all: It can lead to a new layer of strategy tied to resource management. Magic Junction isn't a bad idea either: by linking a type of Magic to a Stat, that Stat raises, and different types of Magic have different results on different Stats. It can lead to satisfying situational equipment, keeping players on their toes. But now, if you take these two mechanics, Consumable Magic and Magic Junction, and mesh them together, suddenly enormous cracks start to appear: players will collect as much new Magic as possible from enemies to enhance their Stats as much as possible, leading to hours and hours of mindless, tedious collecting. And in battle they will always hesitate in using Magic, to avoid hurting linked Stats, or maybe even avoid battles entirely (which begs the question of why are we playing this game at all if we actively wish not to engage in fights). Maybe avoiding Combat isn't an option, like in Boss Fights, and we are forced to use Magic linked to Stats. This leads to a very boring process, after Combat, where we need to check if now we have any other Magic to increase the Stat again. As you can see, Consumable Magic and Magic Junction weren't a problem individually, but as soon as they're present in the same game they actively hinder each other, resulting in extremely anti-fun gameplay full of tedious farming, battles that discourage the player from using their tools and constant boring micromanagement. In this spectacular failure of a Combat System, players are basically incentivized to simply spam GFs since using them doesn't require any resource whatsoever (There are bosses that are challenging enough to be entertaining, but they're few and far between). So yeah, gameplay is pretty awful, but there's a pretty substantial amount of good ideas and concepts sprinkled here and there, which help make the overall experience a lot less terrible. Firstly, there are many instances where the turn-based combat takes an Action-esque twist: requiring the player to press a button with the right timing, or powering up GFs by repeatedly pressing a button, or a Limit Break that asks players to input combos of buttons quickly, and many more. These are all extremely cool ways to keep the player's attention high outside the menus and add a bit of Action to the mix. A shame that later Final Fantasy didn't develop this concept. The world-map is also just as beautiful and full of secrets as it was in the last installment, giving plenty of hours of content to dig in after the main story. Also the level of details of the backgrounds and the quality of the soundtrack are once again great. But arguably the absolute best thing about Final Fantasy VIII's gameplay is "just" a minigame: Triple Triad. This card game is just perfect: simple, yet challening. The possibility to collect and catalogue every card also adds a layer of collectionism to the mix, and even if you don't like collecting for the sake of it, you'll be able to convert cards into items, and rare cards turn into extremely valuable items, so there's something to gain from this fun minigame for every type of player. Almost every single NPC in the world can be challenged, always providing a fun diversion from the monotonous gameplay and... messy plot. I think it's time to talk about the story of FFVIII. The story of FFVIII is rich of incredible locations, tremendously fantastical concepts and creative ideas to potentially craft a story even better than FFVII. And yet all of it, every single thing crumbles under some of the worst storytelling and character writing I have ever seen. Plotlines that are introduced with great emotional impact only to lead absolutely nowhere, inconstistencies and plotholes too huge to be ignored, romance between characters that have no chemistry whatsoever, vital plotpoints completely left unexplained and lastly an ending that simply doesn't make any sense. This is the story of FFVIII. There are many well directed emotional and epic moments, but they can't shine properly or be as great as they could've been because they're still part of this jumbling mess of a plot. Or, in other words: FFVIII is a bad game and an even worst story. What saves it from being straight garbage are some very good gameplay ideas, the incredible beauty of its vast, rich world full of secrets, and its soundtrack

Final Fantasy VIII es el segundo peor Final Fantasy de todos después del After Years. Se maneja en hacer algunas cosas bien como el sistema de invocaciones y el de habilidades que en lo personal, creo que de todos los juegos es el mejor. Poder entrenar a tus invocaciones y que te protejan es algo increíble, al igual que como cualquier otro juego de la saga, la historia, gráficos y sonido son casi de 10. Sin embargo, los puntos negativos que hacen que este juego no se gane un sobresaliente son el imperdonable sistema de magias, incluso peor que el sistema de materia del FF7, los niveles escalados para los mounstruos, los exámenes seeds, combates lentísimos, el disco 4 en su totalidad y una batalla final que puede llegar a durar 1 hora literal.