In a place where the world it not what it seems..in a time that only a fantasy can make your dreams come true.
Before i get to the plot and the gameplay of Final Fantasy VIII i think it would only be fair to cover the experience levels and how they work in this game. Like the past Final Fantasy games EXP is awarded after battling and defeating enemies, who are predominantly encountered randomly. In previous games the amount of EXP you would need would get higher as you got more levels. So to get to level 2 you might say need 200 EXP then level 3 might need 300 and so on....In Final Fantasy VIII you always need 1000 EXP to get to the next level...be it at the start of the game the middle or the end the amount of EXP you need per level stays the same.
Not only that but the enemie's levels around the world, furthermore, scales depending on the average level of the active party, as opposed to most RPGs where enemies from previously-visited locations in the game are often weak and easily defeated. This is not the case for all of them as some enemies do not receive level-scaling, and remain at static levels. Higher-level enemies are capable of inflicting and withstanding significantly more damage, may have additional special attacks, and carry additional magic spells, allowing for Junctioning bonuses which themselves far exceed the bonuses imparted by level-gain.
Not only do you yourself become more powerfull as you gain levels in battle you also gain Ability Points for your Guardian Forces (FF8's version of a summons). These points are automatically allocated to special abilities that Guardian Forces can learn. When a Guardian Force has learned an ability, that ability becomes available for any character who that junctions the GF or the character party, as is the case with field abilities. These abilities allow characters to attack more efficiently, refine magic spells from items, receive stat bonuses upon leveling up, access shops remotely and use additional battle commands. So in alot of ways this is a very differant Final Fantasy.
Now with that out of the way i do belive it is time to cover a little of the story and maybe throw a little of the gameplay in there as well. Final Fantasy VIII is set on an unnamed fantasy world with one moon. There are five major landmasses, with Esthar, the largest, covering most of the eastern portion of the map. Galbadia, the second-largest continent, lies to the west, and contains many of the game's locations. The northernmost landmass is Trabia, an Arctic region. Positioned roughly in the middle of the world map lies Balamb, the smallest continent, the island on which the game begins.
The six main protagonists of Final Fantasy VIII are:
Squall Leonhart:
A loner who keeps his focus on his duty to avoid vulnerability.
Rinoa Heartilly:
An outspoken and passionate young woman who follows her heart in all situations.
Quistis Trepe:
An instructor with a serious, patient attitude.
Zell Dincht:
A martial artist with a passion for hot dogs.
Selphie Tilmitt:
A cheerful girl who loves trains and pilots the airship Ragnarok.
Irvine Kinneas:
A marksman and consummate ladies' man.
There are also temporarily playable characters who include Laguna Loire, Kiros Seagill, and Ward Zabac, who appear in "flashback" sequences, and antagonists Seifer Almasy and Edea Kramer.
With the people of the game out of the way it is time to cover a little of the plot. The game begins as Squall duels with Seifer in a training session outside the Balamb Garden military academy. If you can call it a training session as it soon turns into a near realy fight. Meanwhile, Galbadia invades the Dollet Dukedom, forcing Dollet to hire assistance from the Balamb Garden branch of "SeeD", Garden's elite mercenary force. As a final examination for its cadets SeeD uses this mission as well as helping out Dollet. Quistis, Squall passes the mission's prerequisite and is grouped with Seifer and Zell. Seifer disobeys orders and abandons his team, forcing Selphie to accompany Squall and Zell for the duration of the mission. After the mission, SeeD halts the Galbadian advance; Squall, Zell, and Selphie graduate to SeeD status, while Seifer is disciplined for his disobedience. During the graduation party, Squall meets Rinoa, whose personality is apparently the opposite of his. When assigned with Zell and Selphie to help Rinoa's resistance faction in Galbadian-occupied Timber, Squall learns that a sorceress named Edea is behind Galbadia's recent hostilities. Under orders from Balamb and Galbadia Gardens, Squall and his comrades-now joined by Rinoa, Quistis, and Irvine-attempt to assassinate Edea. However, the sorceress thwarts the attempt, and the party is detained. During the attempt, Squall's party also learns that Seifer has left Garden to become Edea's second-in-command.
This is the build up to the start of the game as it is all set out you will have to play the game to find out more about the story of Final Fantasy VIII. For now i am going to cover a little more of the gameplay. Like in the past Final Fantasy games number eight consists of three main modes of play: the world map, the field map, and the battle screen. The world map you use to navigate freely across a small-scale rendering of the game world. To do this the player can go by foot, car, Chocobo, train, and airship. The field map consists of controllable 3D characters overlaid on one or more 2D pre-rendered backgrounds, which represent environmental locations such as towns or forests. The battle screen is a 3D model of a location such as a street or room, where turn-based fights between playable characters and CPU-controlled enemies take place. The interface is menu-driven, as in previous titles.
Then there is the Junction system. This is a battle system based on summon-able monsters called "Guardian Forces", abbreviated in-game as "GF." Assigning or junctioning a GF onto a character allows the player to use battle commands beyond Attack with the main weapon, such as Magic, GF (to summon the junctioned GF and have it perform an action), and Item. While previous Final Fantasy titles provided each character with a limited pool of magic points that were consumed by each spell, in Final Fantasy VIII, spells are acquired or drawn either from enemies in battle, Draw Points distributed throughout the game's environments, or by refining items and cards. Spells are then stocked on characters as quantified inventory (up to 100 per spell and limited to 32 distinct spells per character) and are consumed one by one when used. Characters can also junction these spells onto their statistics-such as Strength, Vitality, and Luck-for various bonuses, provided the character has junctioned a Guardian Force.
This was a move away from past Final Fantasy games where the summoned creatures would only realy be used for a single devastating attack during battle. In a way the junction system also acts as a substitute for armor and accessories used in previous titles to enhance the characters' statistics. Moreover, where earlier titles required weapons to be equipped and tailored to the character, each major character in Final Fantasy VIII features a unique weapon which can be upgraded, affecting its appearance, power, and Limit Break.
Speaking of Limit Breaks i do belive i should cover a little of these as well. In Final Fantasy VIII characters have unique special attacks. These attacks are called limit breaks. The availability of Limit Breaks depends on a character's current health-a Limit Break is more likely to be available to a character with low health. The magic spell Aura increases the probability of Limit Breaks appearing, regardless of a character's remaining hit points, while various status afflictions can prevent Limit Breaks. The limit breaks where also differant as they had interactive elements to complement Limit Break animations. These interactive sequences, which vary between character, weapon, and Limit Break range from randomly selected magic spells to precisely timed button inputs. Successfully completing an interactive sequence increases the resulting attack's potency.
Final Fantasy VIII came out on the playstation one in japan on February 11, 1999. In north america on September 9, 1999 and in PAL regions on October 27, 1999 It also came out on Windows PC's in north america on January 25, 2000. in europe on February 18, 2000 and in japan on March 23, 2000.
The System requirements are:
Minimum:
Operating system: Windows 95/98.
CPU: Pentium 200 MHz.
Memory: 32 MB.
Hard drive space: 302 MB of free space.
Graphics hardware: DirectX 6.1 compliant card with 8 MB RAM.
Sound hardware: DirectX 6.1 compliant card.
Recommended:
Operating system: Windows 95/98.
CPU: Pentium II 366 MHz.
Memory: 64 MB.
Hard drive space: 302 MB of free space.
Graphics hardware: DirectX 6.1 compliant card with 8 MB RAM.
Sound hardware: DirectX 6.1 compliant card.
If you spend you time at all playing games and you enjoy playing Turn based RPGs and you have not yet played this one. Then you realy should look this one up. It came at a time when they where a big deal and in alot of ways they still are. So hunt this one down i am sure you will enjoy it as much as i have.