Final Fantasy VIII has a somewhat turbulent history with me. It wasn’t a game I particularly cared for, and I cemented that opinion for years after playing it. But a recent trend of my gaming has been to revisit games where my initial impressions fell short and ascertain whether or not my opinion has changed.
I’d done this for a number of titles, some I warmed to and others I liked a lot less. But I still held Final Fantasy VIII in a negative light with very little interest to play it. What changed my mind was when I realized my introduction to the game was really, really underwhelming and unfair.
Just a bit of backstory – yes I was a Nintendo kid, but I played a lot of PlayStation at friends’ houses. One day my buddy calls me up and he’s telling me about FFVIII and how the summons are so cool. I head to his place to check it out and as it turns out my first impressions of FFVIII are of sitting in his basement watching him summon Guardian Forces again and again and again and again and again. And again and again and again. And again. And I was completely turned off.
I watched him play FFVIII on a number of ocassions, and he never deviated from this strategy. It was made worse when he had late game GFs with more involved sequences. He tried to justify it by showing me how to jam on the square button to boost damage, but I wasn’t convinced. I started to nitpick everything, and really couldn’t stand the flow of battle as it was presented to me.
But the thing is – he didn’t have to play like this. Final Fantasy VIII actually gives you a plethora of options for party building and actions. The junction system is very powerful (maybe too powerful) and right up my alley. The game is exactly as hard as you want it to be and you are rewarded for putting the effort in. But I think as kids, maybe my buddy didn’t want to look into that and I was too put off to care.
The Guardian Forces, GFs, are summons but honestly I only ever summon three: Cactaur, Doomtrain, and Cerberus. They are a system that promotes spammy play, but rewards thoughtful play. When you summon a GF they tank hits for you, then perform their ability at the end of a countdown and elaborate animation.
However, the GFs that you junction to a character will give that character access to certain abilities and skills that really boost that character’s potential. Some abilities let you junction magic to stats, skyrocketing your abilities. Where the only equipment you earn are weapons, this is where you customize your stats. You can make yourself immune to instant death spells, absorb ice magic and deal fire damage. There are many possibilities and if you put the time into junctioning then you honestly become a little too strong for the game. But again, that requires time and planning so there’s the tradeoff.
Junctioning magic makes you a bit hesitant to cast from your stock of spells, however, since you can only hold 100 instances of any given spell, and the more instances you have the stronger the junction. I really didn’t like the Draw system at all as a kid, but I like the dynamic now between potentially weakening yourself or using a spell to get out of a scrape. While you don’t NORMALLY get super powerful junctions early in the game – with enough planning you can (through the card game for instance), though some of the best spells are a real hassle to get even at endgame.
At the end of the game, my main party had Auto-Haste, Auto-Protect, and Auto-Shell available and enough slots to use them (and then some). My junction set-up ate through the final dungeon and afforded me the capability to learn the superboss. And I didn’t even really try to optimize, I’m sure there are some truly terrifying set-ups. Even so, I had gone a bit overboard but that was my choice, and I enjoyed the journey getting to that point.
But it’s interesting that so much leveling and stat fiddling can be a detriment to the player. Where enemies level with you in Final Fantasy VIII, grinding is discouraged. I didn’t run from or avoid battles, but I tried to keep improving myself through junctions and upgrades as I went along. I actually like the enemy levelling system – keeps old enemies and areas interesting and relevant with changing drop rates and draw options. And most enemies do have a cap, so if you keep on your toes you won’t get overwhelmed. I think this feature gets so much flak because some folks can back themselves into a corner if they level indiscriminately.
The other thing that gets a lot of flak is the plot, and I agree – some of it is pretty flakey. Some explanations and events read like simple conveniences – there just for the sake of a reason, but not necessarily a compelling reason. But the overall plot and the revelations of where you go in Disc 4 and all of the weirdness it entails? I’m down with it. This is Final Fantasy mate, and the series is steeped in strangeness. How many endgames dip into a kaleidoscopic cosmic realm? FFVIII does get progressively more bizarre as the game goes on, famously so, but it’s still par for Final Fantasy. The problem with FFVIII’s plot progression is that it sometimes feels slapdash. But overall I enjoyed it, and I rolled with the silliness when it was present – perhaps it even helped my enjoyement throughout?
Of course it’s character driven, and FFVIII has a fairly tight group. The main concern is Squall, who some people write off as an outright prick. Squall does come across as standoffish. However he’s just a different kind of character and there’s only a couple of situations that I found him legitimately prickish. And as for being too serious at times? SeeD is a military organization, that’s not out of the ordinary at all. He actually does have a lot of character development, it’s just mostly internal.
The characters are alright though. They do fill in typical roles, and while most were likeable there were a few I was mostly lukewarm to. Quistis and Irvine were far and above my favourite characters, well established and deomonstrated growth and useful in battle too.
Minigames. You know, FFVIII has a few minigames or special events throughout and they’re pretty cool. But I have to give mention to Triple Triad. Now I played through FFIX prior to FFVIII and didn’t care for its card game, Tetra Master, at all. But Triple Triad? I love it. Not only is it really fun, but you can modify the cards into some really sweet kit. It can get frustrating when some of the worse rules spread to your region (such as the random rule) but with some effort you can rectify that. Be forewarned that if you want the full benefit of Triple Triad that it’s a pretty deep rabbit hole. But it’s a lot of fun.
Though the game is dated visually, it still looks okay by virtue of the art direction. The characters are not overwrought but they are distinct – they still look pretty good because of it. And the enemies have some pretty solid designs, again standing the test because some of them are very distinct. And I need to mention the music – it’s a bit touch and go but some of it’s outstanding. The Man With The Machine Gun and The Salt Flats – great stuff. There’s some great energy in this soundtrack.
So my intitial reaction to FFVIII was a poor one. It was presented to me in a way that really turned me off, and over time that’s what I took as my canon. It has a better reputation now, I wasn’t alone in my reception 15 years ago as I’ve heard negativity surrounding this game since launch. However it’s clear that playing it for myself (and myself alone) and being allowed to explore its options and play as I see fit that it’s actually a pretty solid game.
See, I like games to try new things – I just save my kudos for when they’re done well. And I can admit my shortsightedness with this game. It’s not perfect and it’s definitely not for everyone – it’s not a traditional Final Fantasy set-up and if you don’t like its systems you won’t enjoy playing the game, full stop. Similarly divisive are FFII and FFXII. I feel it’s important to allow long standing series to try something new, to either fail or thrive with it, because otherwise series stagnate.
I really enjoyed my time with Final Fantasy VIII. It’s not my favourite FF, but I’m definitely glad I went back to it.
Congrats on finishing this one!
Yes, I have to admit… I’m guilty of the same thing.
When I first played VIII, I was 12 or so and I kept summoning and summoning over and over again. It does lessen the enjoyment of the game a lot. Later on, I finished it without summoning a GF at all and stay at as low of a level possible. Not that hard when you understand how the GF’s abilities work and getting the best magic to junction to stats.
It’s unfortunate that some people have the misconception of having to repeatedly summon GFs in battle to win when you don’t need to use them at all for that purpose. I really like that you can turn off random encounters and running away is done right. No “You cannot escape.” bullshit that really pisses me off in other games. 😛
Anyway, VIII was my first FF. I tried it blind. Rented it without knowing anything about it (Literally nothing). It’s still my favorite FF and one of my favorite games and for me, it’ll probably remain that way.
I know Squall’s personality often makes people go into some mad nerdrage (probably the biggest reason for the polarization of opinons) whenever VIII gets brought up and that’ll remain forever, but it never bothered me. I always thought some of the “prick” instances were pretty amusing, but it’s only for around the first half or so of the game and there’s a reason for the loner/coldness as mentioned in-game… whether or not you agree with it. Could be summed up as more or less just not wanting to get close to someone because he might lose them as was the case in the past. But, regardless of personality (could be a mute), I like Squall so much just because I think he looks cool.
The music is pretty great, yes, but that could be said of all the first 10 FF games. Which is best is subjective as every other ‘best’ thing.
I don’t even like card games (mostly because I can’t be bothered to learn them and the randomness of them) that much, but I do like Triple Triad’s gameplay. Just be better if I didn’t have to soft-reset so much.
But anyway, glad you that you liked it!
For the record I don’t hate summons or anything like that, and the animations are pretty cool. It just seemed too on rails to me I guess. Where my first Final Fantasy was on the NES, team building and character specialties and optimization were my jam by then. And it exists here, just not how it was presented to me.
About Squall, I think it’s easy to get frustrated with him because you _want_ to see his changes take hold and you _want_ to see things work out for him. As an introvert, however, the desire to change doesn’t always translate into the action of changing. And honestly, sometime sit felt like the rest of the party was like “Oh you’re smiling, never thought I’d say that day you arsehole!” Not in so many words, but there were a few reactions I couldn’t blame him, ha ha.
I do like the options the game affords you and a low level game sounds like fun honestly – I’ll have to try that if I pick it up again. Certainly all of the tools are there, and it would be interesting to see how encounters and survivability change at that level.
The animations are pretty cool, but they’re too long (some especially) to keep using again and again throughout the whole game.
Yeah, some of the things that invoked ellipses and facepalms were deserving.
Actually, I don’t think the difficulty changes that much as long as you use GFs and magic about the same as previously. It may actually be easier low leveled.