User Rating: 8.9 | Final Fantasy VIII (Platinum) PS
I will now go back 4 years and review this game for what it was back then. Gameplay: Let `s start with the battle system, because it is there FF8 lacks the most. The battle system is very advanced but also very simple. I mean in the beggining of the game you have normal attacks and many magics to choose from, but you don`t use them anyway because they are to weak. The only thing you use is the GF:s (Summon monsters). And it takes about one minute to summon the damm monsters, so these summon sequences gets really boring after a while. But the more you play the more you will get use of the magics and then it can be really fun and tactic to play. The fun factor in FF8 is great, not as great as FF7 thought. Graphics: The graphics in FF8 is almost perfect, It is very realistic, the character design, enviorments, FMV:s and the camera angels are top notch. There isn`t anything much more to say about the graphics exept that Squaresoft has done a brilliant work here. Sound: The sound effects is very good, FF standard you can. And the music is as good as you would expect from nobou Umetsu. Even if the music isn`t as good as it is in for example FF6 and FF7 it has still many songs that you really want to here again and again and again. Umetsu should be happy with his work here. Value: There is a lot to do here i can say. The actual game is about 40 hours gameplay (It shouldn`t be longer). And there is a lot of big and small sidequests that you can spend a lot of time with. FF8 also have a very funny card playing mini game that I spend several hours with. But I can`t give this game a 10 in value because it has extremly low replay value. Tilt: The story in FF8 is very well made and the orginality is high to. But as a sequal to FF7, I think FF8 is a bit of a dissapointment. Even if it is a great RPG and worthy of my collection, it is not even near as good as FF7 was. Last comment: I am sorry for any wrong spelling that I may have caused.
