Revisiting Final Fantasy VIII (kudos to Spoony Experiment)

[Darth Joker]

On-line video game reviewer Spoony recently teared into Final Fantasy VIII, and with a vengeance.

http://www.spoonyexperiment.com/category/final-fantasy-viii/

He did such a number on this game that I thought it might be interesting to re-visit it here on CBR. What I find most astounding (given the huge, massive plot-holes of FF VIII that Spooney brought up) is how FF VIII managed to get a 9.5 review from GameSpot. :eek:

So... apparently, Spooney and GameSpot (back when they first reviewed the game) are of two entirely different opinions on the game. Who do you think is closer to the truth?

[Genma:TheDestroyer]

Y'know, I absolutely *love* the beginning of the game. Wandering around playing cards with the students, taking tests to increase my rank, speculating future missions and hanging out.




It's when the epic, world-shattering stuff started showing up, with Rinoa along for the ride that I started getting irritated. I wanted to go back to the feeling of the initial hours.


Dump the flashbacks, dump the maze of memory problems and false backgrounds , and let me go back to being the young, elite merc who gets involved in Garden politics and shenanigans as much as he runs sorties and annoys Quistis. Then every once in a while you can drops bits and pieces that hint at the greater scheme of things.

[Jmacq1]

Y'know, I absolutely *love* the beginning of the game. Wandering around playing cards with the students, taking tests to increase my rank, speculating future missions and hanging out.




It's when the epic, world-shattering stuff started showing up, with Rinoa along for the ride that I started getting irritated. I wanted to go back to the feeling of the initial hours.


Dump the flashbacks, dump the maze of memory problems and false backgrounds , and let me go back to being the young, elite merc who gets involved in Garden politics and shenanigans as much as he runs sorties and annoys Quistis. Then every once in a while you can drops bits and pieces that hint at the greater scheme of things.

Like...FF meets Harry Potter meets Bully?

[Alex]

On-line video game reviewer Spoony recently teared into Final Fantasy VIII, and with a vengeance.

http://www.spoonyexperiment.com/category/final-fantasy-viii/

He did such a number on this game that I thought it might be interesting to re-visit it here on CBR. What I find most astounding (given the huge, massive plot-holes of FF VIII that Spooney brought up) is how FF VIII managed to get a 9.5 review from GameSpot. :eek:

So... apparently, Spooney and GameSpot (back when they first reviewed the game) are of two entirely different opinions on the game. Who do you think is closer to the truth?
I think gamespot reviewed it at a very particular point in gaming history where square could have taken a dump in a box, sold it for 50 bucks, and game reviewers would have given it a 9.0.

[Sixa]

Would someone explain the link to me about the link as I cant view the webpage to due my slow dial-up connection(plus with crappy comp).

I am pretty surprised when you said Gamespot gave the game rating a 10.Seems a bit too far in my opinion.

I remember writing an extensive review on the other site on this game,the highest I gave it was 8.I finished the game with rather un-satisfied feeling and with certain flaw in the games.

I agree with the poster who said that the introductory was good/excellent.But it starts to fall right after your first mission.Some of the plot creativity was a hit and miss.Some were cheesy and some were brilliant.

I do understand some reviewers for giving it below 8(Although I won't do that as I love the game nevertheless).I actually like the other characters other than the 2 main protagonist.Sadly,most of the cut scene time were given to Squall and Riona.

The 3 soldiers scene(what's their name again?) which are playable for certain period/intermission are also interesting.I actually love the system,where you could switch to another storyline/another set of characters.

Some of the side quests/item hunting seems redundant to me as their offer no change to storyline or no dialogue/no cut scene/no inside story towards character..It's kinda like:
if you wanna do it,do it.But I can tell you it's boring

After Final Fantasy 8 though,Square releases FF9 which in my opinion.........ONE OF THE BEST FF OUT THERE!!!.
Yes.the graphic may look cute or chibi to you.Graphics may not be cutting edge,perhaps not up to everyone's taste.

But the plot,character story-teling,suspense,turn-based battle system,the active time event/bosses are all GREAT!!!!

So yeah,in summary FF9 improves what when bad in FF8 and adds in the positive FF8 stuff.

[metr0man]

This is an underrated and somewhat misunderstood game. I'll go so far as to say that if the exact same game had come out 5 years later, it'd be thought of more positively, it was kind of ahead of its time in many ways.

One thing that hampered it was clumsy storytelling. In my 2nd time through i noticed tons of story points, time paradoxes towards the end, etc that flew over my head the first time.

The Garden vs Garden battle, and that mission where you have to go assassinate the witch, are two FANTASTIC game/cinematic blend set-pieces.

I loved the whole 'campus' atmosphere too. If you think about it there are a lot of Hogwarts parallels. Even Seifer is very Malfoy-ish.

[titanfan]

I will always jump in on the Final Fantasy VIII HATRED bandwagon. To me, it is easily the worst in the series, and one of the WORST GAMES OF ALL TIME. Between the nonsensical storyline, horrid draw system, irritating card game, and unlikeable main characters (I'm talking about you, Rinoa), it was absolute torture to play and I only finished it because I'm a completist. To this day, my hatred for this game stands. I will never go back and give it another chance.

It sucks that FF9, one of the *best* of the series had to come out after this stinker. Sales of that game weren't very good from what I understand and Square determined that it was due to the old-fashioned ness of the game itself. My theory is that a lot of casual gamers didn't even try it because 8 sucked so bad.

I think gamespot reviewed it at a very particular point in gaming history where square could have taken a dump in a box, sold it for 50 bucks, and game reviewers would have given it a 9.0.

Yeah, pretty much. From what I remember, I certainly wasn't alone in my hatred at the time.

[Sixa]

It sucks that FF9, one of the *best* of the series had to come out after this stinker. Sales of that game weren't very good from what I understand and Square determined that it was due to the old-fashioned ness of the game itself. My theory is that a lot of casual gamers didn't even try it because 8 sucked so bad.


I somehow have to agree to this point of yours.
Up till this day,lots of casual/hardcore rpg gamers I know don't recognize the brilliant masterpiece of Final Fantasy 9 which came out after a year/or two after FF8.

However,it never occurred to me(not that I am really sure) that FF8 was the cause of this.So the part of your message that I quoted can be an interesting point/reference for future use or debate.

[Yun Lao]

Although this was my first Final Fantasy and rpg game, period, I will admit that FFVIII was a subpar game. I pretty much ignored the junction system and card game since I couldn't quite understand either, and the story quickly evolved from a futuristic (well kinda futuristic) school of mercenaries to a love story/making the loner not one. Despite all these problems, I still enjoyed it enough to continue with the series.

As for whether or not the game was good or bad --much like the question on which game was the best of the series-- depends on who you talk to.

[theSuperAlbino]

FF8 was easily one of the worst, it's still better then FF2 and 3.

[Lester C.]

I haven't played the game since it was released, but I remember enjoying the hell out of it. My only problem was that Final Fantasy 8 was my first experience with level scaling games and I got my ass kicked. I had to restart my game and play though without power leveling as I was getting slaughtered by T-rexes.

[Alan2099]

This is an od one for me. I hated Squall and Rinoa, finding them extremely dull, shallow, and annoying characters that everybody would bend over backwards for. I HATED the junctioning and draw system and never got the hang of it. The plot was full of holes and when it wasn't, it just felt plain stupid, and the last boss came out of nowhere.

That said, there was quite a bit likeable about the game. Zell, Irvine, Sefier, Quistis, Selphie, and the Diciplinary Committe were rather entertaining chracters. Laguna and his gang were just awesome and fun and the world itself seemed rather interesting, even if it didn't always seem to make sense.

To rank it, I'd give it two-maybe two and a half stars. Tops.

[JCAll]

I liked the story and some of the characters, and Seifer had one of the best moments in the series, but there's very little else to like about it. The junction system meant you couldn't use macic. The mini games were annoying (hanging from a helicoptor...hate) expicially compared to 7,9&10. The whole last disc was designed so you couldn't explore anymore. And the card system was amazingly fun...until "Random" killed the whole damn thing.

I actually have some version of the card game on my PC, where I can chose the opponents, the rules, collect the cards, and tell "Random" to go the hell