Final Fantasy VIII: 1.6 Decades Later, How Has Your Opinion Changed?

[Nz17]

On September 9th, 1999, FFVIII launched. It was the highly anticipated follow-up to the mega-popular Final Fantasy VII. However, FF8 is in many ways the most divisive mainline game in the series. How have your opinions changed about it in all these years?

Personally, the only things I liked about FFVIII were the music, the card game, Selphie, and the cut-scene videos.

[celerystalker]

Within a week of its release, a customer at the FuncoLand I was working at traded it in with their whole PS1 setup to buy a Dreamcast, so I picked up that used copy at the end of my shift for $28, which was a nice little markdown for the time. I hadn't been a fan of VII, but had yet to sour on Square, as I loved Xenogears and liked Parasite Eve okay (side note, Parasite Eve was the game I always used to test PS1 systems people traded in. If it could run the Parasite Eve opening movie without skipping, it was in decent working order). I put it in when I got home, and... yep. Hated it. Junction was annoying to me, and syphoning off magic from enemies? No thanks. To me, it marked the end of the series' relevance as a must-buy, and the beginning of Square tinkering with their best franchise to the point where it is now unrecognizeable. Still have that copy, though.

[Tanooki]

I never gave the game more than 30minutes tops. I had read up on it in the time and how they did this screwball setup with how fights, items and magic on the whole were handled and I didn't like it from how it was done so I avoided it. One day stuck at a store for awhile a retail kiosk had the game in it, full release, not some demo. I decided to see if it was drama in print or not, ended up in some town where I picked it up. It looked for the time ok enough with the FF7 again like background static art with the 3D people which were less blocky/ugly too. I took my time into the menu to sniff out what that last person had, buttons and all that and went outside. Yup, argh. I couldn't wrap my head around just how annoying that was and couldn't stand it. It still stands as the worst FF game I've ever bothered to grab a controller to try out. The only FF games I haven't have been X2, 11, 12, 13-3, and 14 since I didn't have the systems at the time or wanting nothing to do with a pay by the month MMO.

[Daria]

I have never played it.

[bb_hood]

I love triple triad, but the main game is kinda boring and there is too much story/dialogue.

[Wraith Storm]

I love AND hate Final Fantasy 8. The game has so many awesome ideas and so much potential, but a lot of it was implemented very badly.

First off, the graphics and music are top notch. Some of the best graphics I have ever seen on the PS1 along side what I feel are some of Uematsus most memorable compositions. What really drew me in however was the unique world and setting, the characters and the story. There are so many scenes in the game that have really stuck with me through the years. Even the flash back scenes with Laguna and Julia i found intriguing. Yes they could be annoying and it felt very diverting, but I couldn't help but wonder who these people were and how they relate to whats going on.

Then there was the overall story. I thought it was an awesome idea but terribly written. Some of the small plot twists i found ludicrous, amateur and lazy. Most of which could have been solved with a better writing.

I also thought the idea of enemies leveling up along side your own characters was quite interesting. It was the first RPG i ever played that did this. It was a simple unique idea that was complicated by the draw/Junction system. I was half way through the game before i realized you don't want to level up your characters, only their GFs. Draw/Junction was such a cool idea on paper but it was sooo tiresome and horribly implemented with magic conversion and endless menu after menu. It took me something like 84 hours to beat the game and probably half of that was spent drawing magic and junctioning abilities.

Final Fantasy 8 is a game covered with warts, but underneath is a lot of really great stuff. Most people just don't find it worth the effort to dig that deep. I know I certainly didn't the first couple of times.

Why remake Final Fantasy 7? It's already a classic. Why not a FF8 remake! Iron out all the issues and finally realize its potential.

[Haoie]

I've always liked it! It was my 2nd game on the PS1 [got it in 2003]. I played this before FFVII, so my opinion wasn't like the typical.

[PizzaKat]

I loved that card game. The story and game itself was awesome.

[starsoldier1]

I disliked the Draw system, the story was dull, and characters didn't feel unique enough from one another. This game started my hate for the Final Fantasy series.

[Guntz]

I've never played FF8 either. I don't even own a PS1.

[Tanooki]

It's on Steam along with 8. Stupidly still no 9 up on there, the only really excellent FF on the old PS1. Then again it wasn't converted to computer like the other 2 were.

[lendelin]

Here it goes....a shameful statement which is sufficient to be crucified on every game forum:

I liked FF 8 more than FF 7.

I just liked it. The story, its plot and twists, the battlemechanics, even the draw system. I have only one negative memory about FF8: I never defeated Ultima Weapon, the optional bad boss at the very end when everything was over.

The game isn't as good as FF9, 10, or even 12, but it is a very good game without having great moments. One of my favorites, FF9 and even more so FF12, have these brilliant moments at times, but I enjoyed the FF8 game. I must have at least 100 hours in this game, I could look it up, but I'm afraid have even much more.

I haven't looked at it in more than a decade, so I don't know what I'd say about the game today.

[o.pwuaioc]

I didn't like FFVIII or FFVII, but I was a bigger fan of the 16bit RPGs.

[eskobar]

FFVIII is poorly balanced and that makes it the worst of the series, obviously not counting FFXIII . The music is great and the premise was great, it had incredible potential that was wasted in the love plot. Triple Triad was awesome, I played it in real life with a very small community that rose on my hometown, because Mexico has been always good customer of japan and wizard of the coast card games.

Technically FFVIII was impressive as the pocketstation implementation. Despite of my negative comments, I played the game all over with all secrets and saves of 80 to 100 hours a few times, it has very attractive elements and Eyes on me was a very good song, don't care if this makes me look a bit homo

[Peonpiate]

I played and beat it back in the 90s. I remember finding it to be pretty boring overall, with the junction system as tedious. Oh and this is the last FF game where you couldnt skip the summoning animation scenes, so everytime you would use one you had to sit through a 30 second+ movie, which really sucked as some of them were overpowered early on. I also remember the difficulty scaling wasnt perfect [square was using this game to pioneer it at the time], if you got to high of a level and didnt augment your spells correctly, then even some trash mobs could one shot your party with spells [which seemed to scale far more than on a 1:1 basis with your level]. The one part of the game i remember being VERY well done were the two or three dream sequences in the game, where you played as 3 different characters from their point of view in the past, its as though the developers themselves felt bored with the characters and main story line they created, and yet found this small alternate atmosphere fun to design. The card game was very fun, square could take that and release it as a Android/Iphone networked game with some updates and sell it for a cheap price.

Edit- My opinion has not changed on the game. Its still boring overall, but thats not to say it was or is a bad game, its just a ok game but it couldnt stand on its own today [unlike IMO FF6 or FF7]. The real issue with FF8 imo is that Square/Final Fantasy was put up on such a high pedestal in the 1990s-early 2000 that expectations for this game were immense - and this game seemed to have been the one to have caused that pedestal to begin crashing down. Id liken it to the expectations of a new Zelda game today, people expect alot [and Nintendo seems to still deliver surprisingly though].

[LaughingMAN.S9]

I never got to beat it back in the day because when I finished disc 3 and went to put in the final disc I accidentally dropped it on the floor, as I rolled my computer chair back to see where it had gone, I heard the most horrible sound in the world....a loud cracking crunch as I just rolled over and destroyed my disc 4 lol.

What I remember from back then was how super into disc 1 I was, I beat that in almost 1 sitting, I was blown away, I loved the story and the squall/seifer rivalry, the potential quistis/squall/rinoa/seifer love parallelogram, the music and graphics, but hated with a passion the whole gf concept, drawing magic and especially zell. Fuck zell. Him and selphie are in my eyes the worst final fantasy companions in the series history tied only with the entire cast of everyone who isn't the black guy in final fantasy 13.

Fast forward about 10 years and I pick it up again along with a strategy guide. This time I discover very early on how easy it is to break the game and I contrary to everyone else here, Love it for that. Beat all the secret bosses like they were level 1 random encounters. Breezed through every fight I ever had, outside of star ocean 2 and maybe tales Of Destiny 1, Ive never been a fan of grinding. Anyway, I still love everything I loved before and up until the start of disc 2 I would have put it at least on equal ground with ff7 in terms of story. Then shit falls apart and I'm forced to keep playing as boring ass Laguna, a side story that in my eyes goes nowhere, the story also picks up a few "inconsistencies" to put it nicely and the end game resolution isn't as satisfying as I would have liked but overall I still rank ff8 highly flaws and all. I love it, I put it ahead of ff9 and since I never beat 6, put it ahead of that as well.

Ff8 is to this day my 3rd favorite ff game behind 7 and tactics. I don't think the level of hate this game gets is deserved, I totally get why people would put other final fantasies like 6,7,9, and 10 ahead of it but it doesn't deserve some of the vitriol i see levied at it I see on forums and message boards. People treat it like it killed their sensei and burned down their dojo. Ff8 holds up well in 2015 imo and is one of the best in the mainline series and rpg's overall on any system. More people should revisit it free of bias.


....Also


Triple Triad Son!!!

[calgon]

Absolutely beautiful set pieces and character design

The complete, unequivocal masterpiece of Uematsu's career

Terrible, terrible writing

The last FF I cared about or played

[Zama]

Final Fantasy VIII was the first FF game I started out with It really left quite an impression on me with the storyline, and realistic atmosphere. It was also the game that got me involved in using tactics, and strategies of being ready, and well-equipped on other games years later I remembered being stuck on Disc 4 with the first boss fight at the start as I overused the Guardian Forces, and my overall stats were pretty low. Luckily, I have all the GF abilities unlocked, and equipped the Darkside and Counter ability to Squall, and the Revive ability on Selphie. Irvine was on double duty with Limit Breaks when in the yellow as well as being equipped with the Recover and Defend ability. After some effort and timing, I eventually overcame it