not the greatest, but far from the worse
Written: Mar 15 '01
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Product Rating:
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Pros: good graphics, long time to beat
Cons: GF junctioning can be confusing, GF animation is long.
The Bottom Line: it's not the best RPG, it's not the worse RPG. if you are a beginner I whould recommend Pokemon, or FF7 over this one.
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| tommy_lop's Full Review: Final Fantasy 8 for Windows |
I got FF8 as a birthday present for my 18th birthday. I went install it on my PC has soon has I got home; here is what I thought of it.
Story:
You are Squall Leonard student at Balamb garden; a military school for trading seed. Only the top members of seed know exactly what Seed is. Squall's first mission will go to Timber to help Rinoa in her war for Timber's freedom from Galbidia. It doesn’t take long before Squall realizes that he may be over his head when a sorceress called Edea takes over Galbidia. To make matters more confusing Squall and his friends often go unconscious and they always wind up in the shoes of a Galbadian solder named Laguana Lori.
Graphics.
The graphics are a mix bag in the PC version. While the characters look very good, especially compared to the all the polygon characters in FF7. They look and move like there human, also the places look real. Has for the downside of it comes with the PC version only, or so I heard. The graphics are very pixelated and blurry with most PC graphic's card.
Another problem with the graphics comes with long cinematic scenes whenever spell's are cast. Especially when you have to use something-called GF (guardian forces; creatures which give seed's there magic power) the GF attack animation’s usually last about a minute to a minute and a half. This may not seem like an awful long time, but you will have to call on GF more then a dozen time's in a few of the boss battles. To keep you from getting totally board they let you boost your GF by pressing buttons on the controller, but it's still mind numbing boring to watch the GF attacks over and over again.
GF Junction.
To use GF's you will have to do something called Junctioning to a character. Each GF can learn abilities to which you can junction to, like mug for example. You can also junction spells for your attack and defense, for example you can junction it so your attacks will have thunder attack on them, and make yourself immune to earth magic to. This comes with two major disadvantages though.
1st disadvantage is that it's really confusing, and even though the game has several tutorials they just help make it more confusing. The game also has an auto junction to; it automatically sorts spells and junctions out. Unfortunately if you rely on it in later levels of the game; it's just a guarantee that you will get a severe butt whooping later in the game.
2nd disadvantage is that it makes none of the playable characters truly unique. In other words with the right spells and junctions you can make Rinoa exactly the same has Squall with the exception of there limit breaks.
Spells
The way you get spells has it's upsides has well has it's down sides. You get spells by drawing them from opponents from battles. The advantage to this is that you can use attack spells without having to worry about having enough MP for heal spells. The down side to it is that it comes a pain to find really powerful spells later in the game. The more powerful the spell is the harder it is to find an enemy that has it, and even if you do find one they may end up kicking your butt with the same spell your are seeking. Another problem is that you are going to need to draw a lot of spell's, and all though you can hold quite a few spell's, you will find it a pain having to shift thorough all your spells in order to find the right one. This will become even more frustrating once you get into the battle system.
Battle system.
The battle system is time based just like FF7, there is a bar on each character and when it fills up then you can attack. Unfortunately unlike FF7 the enemy's move way faster. This is a bad thing because you are going to find many sources of frustration when an enemy kills off your team that is low on HP; while your looking thorough all the spells you have collected for a cure spell.
Limit breaks.
The limit breaks should have stay the same has FF7, if you get hit you fill a bar on top of the screen. When it becomes completely full you can use one of your limit breaks. Instead they have it when your health gets down to the yellow; an arrow appears by the attack button, then you get to choose a limit break. The good side to doing it this way is you can use it several times in a row. The bad side is that you have to keep your characters at low health in order to use them (there is a spell that makes it so they don't have to be extremely low on HP). It also doesn’t always appear if you are low on health, causing you to keep on hitting the skip button until you get it; in the mean time the enemy's will keep picking off your party members; while you wait for the limit break to appear.
Would I recommend it to a friend.
If my friend was an addict to RPG's and was all ready a major fan of Final Fantasy the answer is yes. If my friend was new at RPG's or was looking for a way to get into the FF series I would recommend FF7 to him instead.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
tommy_lop
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Member: tommy
Reviews written: 962
Trusted by: 119 members
About Me:
Ran over a grandma, punched a kid, and still diden't get a PS3. (just kidding.)
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