Final Fantasy VIII

The more I write these reviews, the more I realize they are mere impressions and not constructive criticism at all. I should have noticed that earlier but I also wonder why you come seeking advice about a 10+ year old game that you may have played or may not care for, to which I will reply to the latter you should kinda care if RPGs are your thing. Moving on from the epic journey of Final Fantasy VII, the fans could only hope and ask for more. This time Squaresoft tackles their approach through the JRPG verse with a romantic story. Mind you, not one of the best although it was still done well in my opinion until the fan theories sparked around the topic of time travelling. Yes, Final Fantasy does get out of hand but at that time, there was no plan of a fabula nova crystallis universe so some people still had a head on their bodies.

Anyways, in FFVIII we start our story with Squall who was training in a military school alongside Seifer who already is hyped up as his rival and gives him an injury on his forehead. The next day Squall wakes up and the game quickly establishes the setting for us and Squall leaves on his First military school test that will determine his fate as a student in Balamb Garden.

 The game is overwhelming to accept all these rules surrounding all these characters but in comparison to the previous entry, I like the more contemporary setting which is a little relatable until you end up fighting monsters from the moon and travel through space and time and grab an airship from the middle of space and eventually overthrow the corrupted government ruled by a tyrant sorceress who is possessed by another sorceress from the past but has travelled into the future and could be stuck in the past because she cant move on and there is this other theory about Squall dying on the first disc and the following events are just in his head and how they may or may not have moved on from his existence and that shit gets outta hand and the fantasy part of final fantasy occurs more after the supposed Squall death and oh my god I just summarized the plot of the game in a paragraph oh and he falls in love with rinoua. There, you didn't see that one coming, did you? NOW GO PLAY THE GAME. Just kidding, this game has it all though, and the plot at times feels a little all over the place and out of the place at the same time. However, it does keep the player engaged and puts the players in the characters shoes except for some expository events in the dialogue that I felt was completely unnecessary such as the explanation of why characters use summons and that it makes them forget certain things from their past. That is not only a cheat for writers but it also is an excuse to get away with anything in the plot, that anything that will be added should be accepted with a grain of salt. The thing is, you don't need to explain certain things in your game especially when there never was a detailed explanation of monsters in the series to begin with. So why now?

Moving on from the confusing and yet engaging story, Final Fantasy VIII tries a new system that is quite daring for several reasons but to simplify it in the best possible way is that it's very approachable to players who are patient instead of the previous entries where characters learn abilities through leveling up. In fact, it is daring in almost every way because to be honest it is the most experimented and changed entry in the series in comparison to the previous games. There is the junction system where you get to draw magic from magic points on the map or from monsters. Magic can be consumed and casted from a character and each character can have up to a 100 casts of a spell. Now these spells can be attuned to a stat on your character screen based on the summon that said character is using. It's very overwhelming initially but turns out to be the most fun system and the best change I could use at the time after the materia system simply because if the player spends a great deal of time drawing magic from enemies early in the game or playing card games to turn some cards into items, these items can be converted to high level spells that can transform someone's HP to 6000 and he is still level 20. For me, that was overwhelming and I felt overpowered at the time.

The Final Fantasy VIII system is all about the GFs you have in your party

It really depends on which summon or "Guardian Force" you attune your characters to, and that affects which stat you can upgrade through spells. Some GFs are secret and can only be obtained end game and others you can easily miss if you don't extract it from a boss. It's very risky but rewarding at the same time. Let's not forget the limit break system where it changes from the limit break bar FFVII had to the high risk, high reward FFVIII uses, where the less HP the character has, the more chance a character can use his limit break. The higher your HP, the easier it is for you to fight using a limit break with a sorta safe health bar instead of lingering in a fight with 500 HP. All in all, I really found the system engaging and a lot of fun. The only boring part about it was spending hours early game drawing fire and blizzard spells using all three character slots or when I find a new spell halfway through a game only to leave my cursor on memory to draw even more spells..

The junction system allowed easier customization for which approach you want your characters to take, whether they are strong with only magic or strength or hybrid.

Limit breaks were a lot of fun because I consider them to be mini games within the battle system, which they sort of are. More limit breaks are accessible through newer weapons for the characters that are accessed upon weapon synthesis, mind you they are not very easy to obtain. I found it engaging how each limit break speaks for the character as stupid as it might be for some such as Rinoua's Angelo ability where she has to walk and "train" her dog to learn newer abilities or how you follow button prompts like a fighting game combo for Zell under a time limit. 

Like any other Final Fantasy, there is a lot to explore but the way I saw it, this entry is very linear and story focused for 60% of your gameplay time until the end where the paths allow you to access optional areas. There are optional areas to explore during the story focused events but they are minimal and are mostly relevant to GF acquisition or card games. The aesthetics are amazing here and each cutscene is something to behold. I am listening to the soundtrack while typing this and the music never got boring save for the battle theme which takes a while to get used to. 

All in all, Final Fantasy VIII gives you what you might expect from any Final Fantasy game. Great gameplay and ridiculous storytelling that sometimes goes a bit too far and still retains its charm. From a military school that eventually flies and sinks onto the ocean only to become a boat and fly again, to a romantic story similar to a Japanese soap opera, to a time travelling sorceress that possesses another sorceress that forgets the kids she raised who almost killed her a second ago. I know, very dramatic. As I have said before, there is a lot to explore at the end of the game especially when you obtain the airship, or should I call it a spaceship because it was in space? From chocobo exploration to malboro fighting to eventually fighting bahamut in the corner of the map. Literally. I'm sure you're an idiot if you missed this game by now and I'm sure you're  bigger idiot if you take its story too seriously, hence me spoiling it. Grab it on Steam and PSN if you are interested. Have a great day that is more meaningful than this game's plot. I've been Ahmed Jadaa here with another review of a Final Fantasy Game.