The heart and soul of what a good Final Fantasy should be about!
Although most installments are independent stories with various settings and main characters they often feature identical elements that define the franchise. While VIII is no exception, you will find the identical elements less of a nuisance than you might think.
The premise - you are Squall, a cadet training to be a soldier, although the game doesn't put it quite that way. The story's domino effect cascades after you receive the order to assassinate Sorceress Edea. But it's never as simple as that.
One of the biggest differences that sets VIII apart from others of its ilk is the way characters progress and strengthen over time. Experience and "levelling up" do still play a role, but it takes a back seat to the Junction system. It is actually possible to finish the game at level 7, gaining no level ups whatsoever.
First, some definitions. FFVIII has three main game modes. World Map, Dungeon/Town Map, and Battle Mode. Battle Mode (or whatever your favourite word is for this) is the type of screen you see when you fight a monster, for example. It could be human too. This is where most of the action takes place.
Town maps and Dungeon Maps typically take the form of a fixed camera shot of several areas. The background and stationary objects tend to be more artistic and easy on the eye than the moving objects, which are typically the residents, people or monsters, taking the form of slightly pixellated sprites (that looked more like a cluster of pixels the more they receded into the distance).
The World and Dungeon Maps (and some towns and cities under siege) are subject to Random Encounters, a common feature of Final Fantasy games. While travelling somewhere, you will suddenly stop and find yourself on the Battle Screen. In VIII, this changeover is signified by a colourful swirl and a whooshing noise.
Funnily enough, by holding L1 and R1, you can flee almost all the basic fights and encounters.
Unfortunately you'll find you wont get far without Summons. Here they are called Guardian Forces, and while they can be hugely entertaining as free roaming forces, once overwhelmed they are rather silent entities. Take a GF, bind it to one of your characters (ie Squall). Each GF has its own list of skills and abilities, but the common ones are Magic, GF, Item, and Draw.
GF is self-explanatory, it basically means Summon. What probably has you puzzled is Draw.
Use Draw in Battle Mode and it selects an enemy of your choice. The action functions much like a drain - taking magic spells from the enemy and giving them to the character that cast Draw. There are a finite number of spells in the game, and you can only hold 100 of any given type of spell. In and of themselves the spells are actually better off left in your inventory, only good for an emergency (such as Cure, Life, Full-Life).
But here's the best bit. Spells can be junctioned to your statistics. Think of them as equipment for your stats. And different spells work best with different stats. You are limited to what can be junctioned to what stat, based on your GF's abilities (Abbreviated by HP-J [Health Points], Str-J [Strength], Spr-J [Spirit]). Each spell can only be junctioned to one statistic at a time, so its important to check new enemies for new spells to Draw, and change the spells around to figure out what can get you the maximum bonuses.
Typically only found on the special GFs, there are also these abilities:
Elem-Atk-J
ST-Def-J
Abilityx3 (or 4)
Elem (or ST)-Defx4
Mag+60%
Spd+40%
Vit Bonus
Auto-Haste
These are among the best of the best of the GF abilities. The first four are junction abilities, allowing junctioning of magic to (as listed) Elemental Attack, Status Defence. The x3 or x4 bonus applies to the lower four abilities in the above list. Three or four of these is always better than two, which is the default. Percentage-based stat increases really shine when the stat is linked to powerful spells.
Perfectionists will slaver at the sight of any ability followed by the word "Bonus", as this translates to +1 to that stat every time you level up with that GF currently equipped to that character. I know I made heavy use of them late in the game, when I saved all my levelling until I had a vast array of Bonus abilities linked to my three main party members.
But there are so many different, enjoyable ways to play, there is no "wrong" way to do it.
The story is rich with complicate characters all dealing with their own failings. The dialogue and translations are to be applauded, the characters easily identified if all you could see was text on a black screen. When you finish a disc and you get the prompt to insert the next, you wont be able to swap them quick enough. That's how good the cliffhangers are.
FFVIII is the first in the series to tote a vocal theme - "Eyes on Me", performed by Faye Wong. It, as well as the entire soundtrack, is remarkable to behold, boasting powerful moody tunes and instrumentals, giving the whole game a sense of individuality and uniqueness, setting it apart from the rest in a way none of the others in the franchise have quite been able to do. Granted, you wont like all the tracks, but chances are you will like some.
I've gone into some depth about the Junction system and Magic, so it's only fair I share a bit about other aspects of the core of Battle Mode. There are six main playable characters in the game, with Squall Leonhart being the main protagonist. The others are Quistis, Rinoa, Zell, Selphie and Irvine. Hardly notable spoilers. There are three other characters that fit best under a "?" category too - Laguna, Kiros and Ward.
Amazingly, they all use different weapons. Variety is the watchword - fists/kick-boxing, blaster edges, gunblades, nunchaku, whips and shotguns. As a bonus, during the animation for Squall's attack with the gunblade, you can manually fire the gun's trigger during the slash. With practice this becomes second nature, giving a little boost to your attack.
Each character has their own form of limit break too. These special moves may become available when a character is at low health. If a character is at critical health and you can't select the limit break, often just cycling your character selection through the active party in battle will get it to appear. These special moves may involve button mashing to get in as many attacks as you can before a timer runs out (Zell), or (Rinoa) having your pet dog rush in from the side and do anything from providing temporary invincibility to digging up a random item.
Coming back to an earlier point now - why would you want to finish the game at level 7? It's not as foolhardy as you might think. The first and most important point is this: enemies and monsters and even bosses scale their level with that of your team. This means if you level the hell out of your team at the start of the game, you could play the whole game with everyone at level 99. A few exceptions remain at static levels, but for the most part there is no need to level up.
Getting to a late stage in the game at a low level also makes the XXX-Bonus abilities of the GFs even more valuable.
Should you ever get hold of a working Pocketstation, you will be pleasantly surprised. Not only does the device function as a memory card, but it can also house your chocobo from FFVIII. Transferring the chocobo to the Pocketstation sends it to a minigame, whereby it hunts for treasures of different rarities, and fights monsters to get more powerful. The treasures can be exchanged back to the PS2 for in-game items. Some of the items are super rare, and come in useful for teaching GFs new abilities. It is possible to erase GF abilities if they double or triple up with each other. By the end of the game you could have up to three or four GFs junctioned to each playing character. Interestingly, the Pocketstation can be set to automatic too, so the chocobo can be free to hunt for items without the need for constant supervision. Just be sure to check it once in a while to make sure he didn't die - I believe it needs to be awakened manually when this happens.
Weapons can be upgraded a limited number of times each, depending on the corresponding weapons magazines you find in the game. Upgrade components are often rare, but not hard to get once you know where to go. There is no armor or accessories to speak of, but junctioning compensates for this adequately. A good number of worthy sidequests are available, most of them towards the end of the game, but one stands out in particular.
Triple Triad!
This is a card game with a difference - the cards you get can be transformed into items once you get a certain ability. The basics involve starting with a 3 x 3 grid, and each player choosing five cards from their collection. Cards are square in shape, and each edge has a number, depending on what card it is. If you place a card beside an opponent's, the numbers are compared, and if the placed card is higher than the opponent's, it becomes yours for the moment. After all nine places are filled, whoever has the most cards wins, and you get to choose a card from the opponent's collection to keep.
The rules become ridiculously complicated by disc 3 and 4, but there are tricks to stopping bad card rules from spreading to other continents. It may also take a bit of hunting to track down those super rare cards. I had my Pocketstation so I kept my collection right to the end. Some cards are irreplaceable.
That was a very large review. Perhaps my largest yet. I hope it was useful and not too confusing for you - I know the Junctioning concept isn't easy to grasp at first, especially if you don't have the game out in front of you. Reflecting on it now, it might be easier to just read the manual.
Either way, one thing is certain. This game has enough new and interesting ideas to keep you entertained for hours upon hours. It may not have the popularity of FFVII, or the character detail of the next-gen consoles, but it's heart and soul are in the right place, and nothing beats that warm fuzzy feeling you get inside when you see this game through to the end.