Has the move to realism sucked all the Fantasy, and the fun out of this installment in the series? You'd better read on
The sequel had a lot to live up to, but instead of giving us more of the same, the developers wanted to make it as different a possible. Instead of a giant tyrannical empire/corporation toppled by a ragtag group, FINAL FANTASY VIII is told from a 'school days' perspective. In various Gardens, students are taught how to fight, Final Fantasy style. The game's all-human cast of characters, realistic in-game models, and setting that echoes the real world shows this entry in the series tries to be as different from its predecessors (and specifically its direct predecessor) as possible, various FF concepts are introduced further into the game such as airships and fan-favourite monsters.
The narrative is one of a Final Fantasy games' biggest points, and VIII tries to be a story of two characters falling in love in the midst of it all. Although they are great set-pieces such as a possessed character wrecking an orbital moon base to free an evil Sorceress from her prison and a carnival that tingles with sinister energy and otherworldly visuals, the game is more interested in the main characters reflecting on their angst. And that's the story covered, basically, well what you experience in the game. The flashbacks you don't experience and the events in-between then and now are much more interesting, but it's best to Wikipedia that. The back-story of the villains is interesting, it's a shame you're not SHOWN much of it in game.
To complement the slow pacing of the story, Nobuo Uematsu's score is a lot slower, lacking the catchy distinctive beats and hooks from previous titles. The score is very well written, though focuses more on slow, beautiful love melodies rather than adrenaline pumped themes. That said, when the Boss Battle theme kicks in, it's a great rush. Graphically, its the best FF to date (I'm reviewing this as if it was at the time) featuring very human and realistic (if skinny) character models and improved monsters.
SquareSoft, being, well, SqaureSoft decided that with each new Final Fantasy title, there had to be some equipment, battle system, magic boosting gimmick that changed with each game. Final Fantasy VIII is no exception, but this time, lots has been changed and it has driven a wedge between Final Fantasy fanboys.
Inventions such as the job system and ATB have been revolutionary in RPGs and all sprout from Final Fantasy games being creative. In VIII, Square tries to make character customisation streamlined, and instead of collecting various weapons, armour, accessories and the like, everyone's magic, stat upgrading and elemental affinities are in one menu. Summons (Espers, Aeons, Eidolons etc.) are know know as GFs and must be equipped to your character to grant them access to magic and commands. Magic must be drawn (extracted) from enemies or draw points around the world, you can either cast magic in battle or equip it to stats to enhance them. Levelling up GFs to learn new abilities allows more stats to be junctioned and the type, power and amount of magic effect how much the stat goers up by so 100 Cures junctioned to HP is better than 3 Curagas. Casting magic that has been junctioned also reduced said stat, while drawing more magic that had been junctioned will increase said stat in the midst of battle. Characters only get about 4 weapons each, and instead of buying them, you need to go through the tedious process of finding junk to get these weapons from the junk shop. Oh and you need the right magazines too, these are hidden, stupidly.
In that paragraph there are two of the game's biggest drawbacks. GFs and Drawing. GF stands for Guardian Force and they are your summons in this game. Many fan favourite return and you get to fight some of them to obtain them, and you get to level them up. Sounds great right? Well in battle, GFs are about the only attacks that do decent damage as physically attacking and casting offensive magic does not do much damage, so battling this way will take forever. GFs too, take forever, their attack animations take 2-5 minutes EACH time, you can't skip them, and trying to power them up by bashing square is difficult. Drawing magic is the process of extracting it from enemies, this too takes FOREVER. The alternative is turning enemies to cards, and then refining them into things you refine into spells. It's stupidly convoluted and because the game is horrendously badly balanced, gameplay is definitely the weakest point of this game and for an RPG; FFVII has basically crucified itself.
The only other way of dealing decent damage is by abusing Limit Breaks. These involve keeping your characters at low HP and cycling your characters until the options come up. Then you get a button bashing minigame to achieve more hits, its fun for a while but like GFs, become tedious. Most of the sidequests in this game are quite tedious as well. There's nothing good to do with Chocobos unless you have a Japan exclusive Pocket Station. The big sidequest is Triple Triad, a card game, the game itself is decent, although looking for players is tedious and the rules change too often, just to confuse you.
Triple Triad is a good summary for the entire game as whole. It's simple, core gameplay is fine but because layer after layer after layer of depth has been added, it has become confusing and far less fun than it should be. In its defence, FINAL FANTASY VIII had a big name to live up to, and you can't blame to Square (to an extent) for wanting to make a game than isn't exactly the same as its forbear; although it's too try-hard and it shows.
Graphics: Technically highly impressive, suffers from bland areas (9)
Sound: Well written score, if not instantly catchy and hummable(8)
Gameplay: Goes too far in wrong direction, confusing system (6)
OVERALL: It isn't completely broken, but its shoots itself in the foot with story, balance and tone. 7.5/10