A tale of a military wannabe & his Oriental gal-pal
Written: Mar 25 '01 (Updated Nov 09 '01)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Nice graphics.
Cons: Corny storyline.
The Bottom Line: The inventor of the gunblade ought to be clubbed over the head with a baseball bat.
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| Shampoo-Girl's Full Review: Final Fantasy VIII for PlayStation 1 |
The overwhelming popularity of FF7 must have left the folks at Square in a pretty optimistic mood, not to mention putting a few extra dollars in everyone's pockets. Being one of the most critically acclaimed RPGs of its time, FF7 set the standards to which all other PSX RPGs were to be judged against. The graphics, although primitive by today's standards, were considered cutting edge during its heydey, some 4 years ago in 1997. It looks as if Square had everything going for them.
Eager to please their millions of fans, they had let their guard down by churning out what was to be their greatest mistake - Final Fantasy 8. Using FF7's success as a slingshot to boost sales, FF8 sold over 2 million copies in Japan within its first week of release & close to 500,000 within the same amount of time in North America. Anticipating this to be a good sign, little did they know of the huge number of complaints they were about to recieve at the hands zillions of irate gamers worldwide.
The majority of RPG fans who were in it for the graphics had no objections to the horrible gameplay while others who were looking for plot & depth were deeply disappointed at what was supposed to be the greatest RPG of all time. Many of us were taken in by the hype fanned by Square's massive advertising campaign aimed at persuading us gamers to fork out a hard-earned $50 in exchange for a poorly made RPG that's worth no more than a rental. Those prime-time ads on TV sure had me fooled. Some of you other fans might have remembered that commercial which looked more like a preview for a movie than an ad for an RPG.
Coming from Square, you'd expect the game to have at least 1 good point, right? Yep, that's right. Just 1 good point - graphics, and that's about it. Other aspects including its plot, gameplay & even its battle engine sucked so bad to a point where you'd wish you could bash everyone at Square over the head with a club. Let us now start off on a positive note beginning with the graphics.
Graphics
FF8's strongest point which fooled millions of gamers into thinking that this was actually a good game. The blockish 3D environment in FF7 were given a million-dollar face-lift by the miracle guys at Square's graphics department and lo & behold, everything here looks 10 times better than it did in its prequel, although it still doesn't quite compare to the ones you get in FF9. The in-game character animation was still very puppet-like despite the fancy graphics and all. The quality of FMVs are as great as ever, which sort of explains why the game takes up so much space. Two-thirds of its CD content is probably made up of FMV sequences alone. All that nice graphics are not without its complaints though. Certain gamers ( like yours truly ) found it somewhat difficult to navigate the characters on screen. The nature of 3D makes it a challenge to locate hidden areas which could easily be spotted in old-school 2D RPGs.
Music
This is where things start going downhill. Composer, Nabuo Uematsu who did an outstanding job with FF6 had let his skills deteriorate with FF7, finally hitting rock-bottom with FF8. Personally, I enjoyed the World Map theme in every FF installment to date, however, due to Uematsu-san's less than perfect performance on FF8, I am making this a rare exception to the rule. Many of the tracks failed to hold my attention and as a result, I had no emotional connection whatsoever with the game.
Plot
Going further downhill, we arrive at another overwhelmingly negative aspect of the game - its plot. The storyline, which is the cornerstone on which all good RPGs are built upon is poorly concieved with no central focus in its direction. A gripping introductory FMV depicting a then un-scarred Squall in a gunblade battle against his arch-rival Siefer failed to mask the emptiness that was about to rear its ugly head upon starting the game. Even from the beginning, controlling the self-centered Squall was like a chore since I felt most of the stuff he had to accomplish at the Balamb Garden was pointless anyway ( so why bother? ).
OK, let's go into plot details here. The main character, Squall is a senior at a military school called the Balamb Garden. Although this sounds like the name for a kindergarten, it's actually a classy boot-camp where brats like Squall are sent to learn a thing or two about the military. Graduates from this prestigious academy are entitled to become a member of SeeD, FF8's answer to the Navy Seals. Shades of FF7 are recycled with the introduction of Rinoa & her rebel force known as the Forest Owls. It's like throwing out Barret from FF7 & putting a petite Oriental girl in charge of the whole operation. See the similaraties?
Hoping to rid the world of the evil Galbadian Kingdom, Squall teams up with Rinoa & company along with several others he finds along the way. Later in the game, what was supposed to be a love triangle developing between Squall, Rinoa & Quistis is quickly thrown out the window after Squall, being the ignorant prick that he is, rejects both their advances. ( virgin alert! )
I heard Squall finally hits it off with Rinoa, although I didn't quite make it to the end as this game was too much of a bore.
Gameplay & Battle Engine
What's there to be said about the gameplay that hasn't been already mentioned by others? In a word, it sucks. Everything is extremely tedious & chore-like. Running from one town to another was fun in previous RPGs, but not here. Why not you may ask? Well, firstly, in an attempt to remodel the tried & true MP & armor system, some idiot at Square had the not-so-bright idea of doing away with both these formats, replacing them with the ridiculous 'draw' system & throwing out the armor.
I found the absence of MP a huge annoyance as I would have to waste several turns during battle to 'draw' out spells from the enemies. Given the already tedious, unavoidable CG sequences during summoning, battles are dragged on further with turns being wasted at drawing out magic, some of which I found were pretty useless. The battle engine is further flawed with the introduction of the extremely confusing junction system.
As I have never fully understood the workings behind the system, you'd have to forgive me for the poor explaining job I'm about to give. This poorly designed system allows you to 'junction' your spells to certain character stats to raise abilities during battle. Guardian Forces junctioned to a character will trigger several other commands which can be used in a fight as well. This is important as correct junctioning is the essence to winning tough battles. If the junction system wasn't enough to tick you off, the weapons upgrade process would definitely be the last straw for all you angry gamers out there. Basically, you are stuck with the same weapon throughout the game. Changing the attack power on your weapon requires an upgrade and this in turn forces you to go 'Indiana Jones' on the world map in search for that missing part needed for the upgrade.
Points of interest ( more of Shampoo's senseless b!tching )
1. Somewhere during the game, Squall dreams he's Laguna, a Galbadian soldier on a mission. Could this be a sign indicating a relationship of some sort? Heck No! You see, I had a dream too in which I was Britney Spears being chased down stage by a bunch of zombie fans. So does this mean I'm related to Britney? No again!
2. Rinoa, whose last name is 'Heartilly' appears to be of Oriental descent. Shouldn't her last name be something like Chong, Lee, Sakazaki or maybe even Huang ( ahem! )?
3. The gunblade would have been a great asset during the American Revolution, replacing the bayonet. Too bad no one had thought of it back then.
Conclusion
This is one game that should be avoided at all cost, especially if you're a fan of old-school RPGs. Those of you who hated the overly futuristic setting in FF7 should also steer clear of this Squaresoft nightmare. The level of technology present in FF8 is no different that the one found in the previous installment with the ever popular computer screens & motorized vehicles making a comeback despite the initial protests with FF7.
The stupidest weapon of all time is introduced in the form of the gunblade which is a hybrid between a sword & a pistol. What gave the idea for the designers to come up with such a weapon is beyond my understanding. One thing's for sure, I know I'm not the only one who thinks that this weapon is the absolute dumbest thing ever seen on the PSX. Thank God we did not have to put up with it in FF9. I guess Square had learnt something after all. Overall rating: 2 stars ( out of a possible 5 ).
Recommended:
No
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Shampoo-Girl
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Member: The Big Shampoo
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