A hit and miss game, although it has some interesting new concepts for the series.
User Rating: 8.2 | Final Fantasy VIII (Platinum) PS
Final Fantasy VIII is, by the series' standard, and average game. However, an average game of a great series is still great. Although FFVIII's story is not on of the best of the series, it offers some interesting changes to the gameplay system, lots of amazing cinematics and, as always, a fantastic musical score. For the most part, the story focuses around Squall, the main character. It's typical Final Fantasy fare; some evil force is trying to take over the world and it's your job to stop them. It's not nearly as deep or engaging as FF Tactics, but it does have a few nice plot archs and memorable characters. The gameplay is mostly standard Final Fantasy. Get into a fight, kill monsters, get gil and experience, etc. The main differences between the gameplay in FFVIII compared to any other game in the series are the magic and junction systems. In FFVIII you can only acquire magic by “drawing” it from an enemy, or by refining it from items. This of course begs the question of who originally had magic, since the monsters you're drawing from must have drawn from someone else. A minor detail, but a glaring flaw to someone like me who appreciates details. The junction system is better executed, and more believable (as far as fantasy games are concerned), than the draw system. Guardian Forces, FFVIII's equivalent to summon monsters, may be junctioned to any character in order to give that character stat boosts and special abilities, such as being able to call a shop from anywhere on the world map, or being able to refine special magics from items. My biggest problem with the game was the poor pacing involved with leveling up. In my case, I had reached the final boss quite easily with most of my characters around level 40. To my annoyance, I had to raise my stats to about max before I made relatively easy work of the last boss. I always expect to have to build up my character's stats, but when that takes about 4 days time to accomplish I tend to get a bit frustrated. The graphics have been significantly improved since FFVII, especially with respect to the cut scenes. I can safely say these are among the best cut scenes of the period, including incredible opening and ending sequences. The ending sequence alone made me happy I had played through the entire game. The spell effects could have been more impressive in my opinion, although the summon sequences were above par for the FF series. During battles, little details such as one character animation beginning before another character's animation has finished add a more realistic feel to the game. As in any other FF game, the sound and music are impeccable. Nobuo Uematsu has once again created some nice musical themes which he uses variations of throughout the game. Also, the sound effects throughout the game are incredible, including those found during the GF sequences, and those accompanying magic spells. Although I've complained somewhat about this game, it's still a really good game overall. It seems the developers took a chance, failed in some places and succeeded in others. You have to at least give the game some respect for breaking new ground, since it's very easy to let an established franchise like FF stagnate into repetition.
