Squaresoft made Final Fantasy VII. It garnered a ton of attention, got people who didn't even play rpgs to try it, and wet the appetite for the follow up. The game came out, and I bought it launch day, all those years ago. I forgot about this game until Janus reviewed it and I started looking at other posts here on VIzzed.

A funny thing happened. I noticed a distinct lack of lower grades for FFVIII. I'm the odd man out here, as this is a game I didn't like. Its not my least liked Final Fantasy game, but its really close.  I think this game needs to be taken to task on some things.

Now, this review is like comparing Pixar movies. Some people will love one, and there might be a few that people are kinda "EH" on, but on the whole what the company does is very good and respected. And here I represent the Devil's Advocate for this game. This is a Squaresoft game, and they know this field so well, this is not a horrible rpg game. Its a lackluster Final Fantasy game in my opinion, though. It fails in key areas to me, and I just can't see past that to give it a great score.

Some key elements of Final Fantasy return, of course there is a Cid. There isn't an airship per se, but you do get to fly something in the air. The limit breaks and summons return. The summons are now GF, Guardian Force, and they now can have a minigame where you push a button while the long cutscene play to deal extra damage.

The big changes are:

There is no money in this game from killing monsters - you are paid a stipend from SeeD, as an employee.

The monsters are near about your level at all time. There is no point to go back to earlier areas to grind, unless you want spells unique to that monster. 

There is no magic spells. Huh?? Well the monsters have them, you have to get them from the monsters. Read about it later. I can feel my blood pressure going up just thinking about it, but its too early. 

Graphics: 9
Make no mistake, Square noticed people LOVED their cg from FFVII - and they added more in this game. In fact, sometimes the summons took 3 times as long as previous (thats good .. or bad, as they are unskippable). The biggest change was they took away the Super Deform look they've used forever and popeye arms of FFVII and made it realistic. Real human bodied characters at last! This game looks gorgeous for when it was released. 

There is one key scene I remember. Towards the end, you scuffle with an enemy soldier on a suspended line WHILE A whole detailed battle goes on in the background. Its short but it blew me away.
Although to shine a bit of a negative light on why it didn't get a 10, I don't really like the character designs. Zell, Quistis and Selphie in particular. Zell is dressed like he's ready for Blitzball, wild hair and the only one rocking shorts, but hes 2 games too early. Quistis herself is a nice character, but her color palette and teacher look are very dull. Selphie.. is wearing her kid sister's clothes and acts like shes a clumsy ditz. Get to work Selphie, fighting to be done.


Sound: 7
Sound is subjective. I'm sure many people love the soundtrack. This one I wasn't so sold on. Give me Liberi Fatali or Ultimecia's Castle any day. Love em.  But other than that, I couldn't find many tracks I could say I loved, and thats unusual for me considering Square's track record for soundtracks. The looming mystery of Find your way is nice, but Balamb Garden, the music that plays at your mercenary academy, is halfway to lullaby. This isn't bedtime music! The battle music to me wasn't as catchy as past versions. Laguna's battle music I did like a lot. However you seldom control him for long. The signature "All Eyes On Me", no thanks.

Maybe there's beauty in this beholder I don't get. I have tried listening to the music again, but nothing other than what I mentioned grabs me. It might be the new, more modern setting for the world (space travel), or just something I cannot get into. Your mileage may vary.


Addictiveness: 3
Square had the radical idea for this version to not give you spells to learn, but spells to take. You have to steal - or draw them from the monsters or bosses, would give you a certain one. And you could cast those- or stack them onto your character like armor - and it would give you special abilities based on how many copies you have.

This was so tedious and stupid to me, I almost quit playing it several times. You end up playing the longest battles of attrition with so many encounters -it felt like bad padding to the game. Case in point. You want a fire spell. Oh look, this dog creature has it. Draw a bunch of them for one character. Now your 2nd. Now your 3rd. Might have taken awhile to get them all the way to 100 copies. Now you equip it to your stat, so you get a big boost. You can't use them as spells (even though they are), because using them diminishes the value. So you end up getting a whole separate stack just to be able to use in fights! Thats just one spell, imagine how many more to get.

NOW REPEAT THIS FOR EVERY NEW AREA. As spells become more powerful, you are constantly switching out weaker ones and getting enough copies for three players. All so you can be at peak performance so when a boss comes, you can hold them off while you drain THEM of spells too. Its just a vicious cycle.

You also have the fact the characters aren't very likable. This to me is the last cast of Final Fantasy I'd want to be stuck in a liferaft with. You have Squall, so emo its painful to watch, so unsocial he has "..." for most of his lines, but then you see the other characters and start to see why. We have Zell, who just talks about hot dogs all day like some kind of freak, and Irvine, a concrete jungle cowboy you need for one specific moment, he is hyped up right before you get him - and then he pretty much shows how he can't help you. Fun! Nearly every one of them is just ... uughh, even poor Quistis, who like Irvine just sort of fades off from relevance in the story the further you go on. Rinoa is the only shining spot, the only one to me who felt like a real FF character, and sadly she isn't one of the starting people. You have to slog through the game to get to her. And thats what this game felt like, a giant endurance test.


Story: 4
There's... something going on here. I wish I could tell you what, or that I cared. You starts as Squall, an agent of SeeD, a world-wide mercenary program. Squall has a bitter rivalry with colleague Seifer, a guy who also has a scar on his nose. A country breaks out into war with another, and your group gets all shuffled around, then some kind of sorceress is thought to be behind things. Weird rich alien guy lives under your school? Something about space? Love? Then time-travel? Its just.. honestly, its hot mess. I am leaving so much out, including boring segments with a strange guy named Laguna whom you play as for brief segments, and when it was all over, I was like, why did I play as him? Was he really that important?


Depth: 8
The combining of spells and mastering of GF will keep you busy for hours. Its super detailed and considering it affects your performance and stats, very important to learn. There is a strangely addictive card game also, although at first it seems daunting. You don't get a lot of equipment to fool around with, its all in the junction your GF and spell abilities. Every level up is done at 1000xp, and sometimes, you have to think strategically if you want to go up a level, because that means the monsters go up with you. If you are quite comfortable killing the bosses around you now, you might want to hold off on grinding. A lot of secret GF and things to uncover!


Difficulty: 7
Given you have some control over what level the monsters are, this game could be easy, it could be hard. You using weak spells while they blast you with Fireaga all bad. The limit breaks try to balance out somewhat,, and Squalls and Rinoas are obscenely powerful. So is Irvine's if you get the right stuff. The spell hoarding is instrumental to making the way easy for you, and the sooner you adapt to the draw system, the better off you'll be. The fact some spells are so rare you only get them from one-time bosses is a letdown. Hope you don't regret letting the boss almost kill you to draw Carbunkle!


Overall: 6.8
A serviceable rpg. But thats not what I expect from a Square game. To me, if this was a Pixar game, its the Cars 2, a game with a plot so muddled and inconsistently plotted, I doubt wikipedia could make it clear. The draw system is a nightmare of a time-sink, and the bane of this game for me. And the characters, they may be the most realistic yet up to this point in the series history, but never have I had the misfortunate of watching such a ragtag, unfun cast (save for Rinoa). Fortunately for me, Square changes the universe for every version of Final Fantasy, so I never had to come here again.

I know how lame this is going to sound... but you know what made me open this thread?  When I saw 'squares' in the title, I thought you were giving Spongebob Squarepants a nickname, and I thought "Man, there's a review I've got to read!" LOL  But since I got here, I decided to read your review anyways.  

Final Fantasy games aren't any I would play simply because I don't play games which contain magic. However, your review is really well done.  There are a couple of places where your paragraphs don't have an extra space between them, but it's not a big deal since most of your review is separated.

Also, I do like reviews in which someone doesn't like the game. It's not that I want all games to be bad, but I feel like some writers try to make every game sound great because they think that's what a review is.  You've exemplified that writing reviews is NOT about 'selling' a game.  It's awesome that you can give props to the company itself while not being impressed with this particular game.

I didn't understand what you meant about having to get two stacks, but that's probably more so my fault than yours.  It sounds horrible even without understanding it though.

Singelli : The two stack thing? Let me see if I can explain it better. I'll use a Spongebob reference for you.

Lets say you are Plankton and find a machine that dispenses Krabby patties, and you can press a button monotonously to gain a couple at a time. Unfun, but neccessary. You need at least 80 patties. Then after you do that, you use them to make clothes.  Then you have to press a single button for minutes for another 80 to 100 so you can learn the formula. Making two stacks, one to wear, one to use. And you do this for each time you meet a monster in this game.

Its boggling how the very thing you need in this game, the magic, is also used as an.. armor of sorts. So you can't touch it, or else you're taking your defenses down.

endings :  This was like..... the best post ever. You so made my day with the Spongebob reference. haha.  I think this will be my favorite post for a long, long time.  ^.^

Spongebob worked for me, because I understand what you were saying now.  XD

I do think that sounds very silly indeed.  Why would the designers of the game do such a thing?  It seems so completely pointless and unnecessary. :/

Also, just a side comment here, but two places still need an extra line between the paragraphs.  Paragraph 2 and 3 need to be separated ("A funny thing happened..." and "Now, this review...").  The same goes for the paragraphs that start with "Sound is subjective." and "Maybe there's..."

Oh wait.. I see another, so I guess I lied. lol  Under Addictiveness:  "This was so tedious..." and "NOW REPEAT THIS..."

(sorry for being so nitpicky... )

It may not be like Final Fantasy V and VI but at least they made up for it with IX

Gabe Puratekuta : And I like they (until recently) Square tried to stay away from revisiting worlds.  A time before DLC. All FF games tend to be quite encapsulated and unique, like a snowflake, haha.

I don't know, personally, I think VIII was one of the best games in the series.

I didn't have the issue with the drawing thing (It's not the most economical way to play, I discovered on my own).

I'll quote my own review, so excuse me for a moment.

"The drawing system sucks at first, but once you learn to refine magic, it's like drawing only exists to bring in the GF's (summons) to your side. And trust me, drawing from every enemy to see if they have something you want or need is actually a pretty good idea. If you don't draw, you can't get the most powerful GF in the game, Eden, which is gotten from one of the superbosses."

While drawing is mundane (at first), it serves a purpose besides adding magic to your repertoire. If I'm being honest, I barely used magic the entire game, using the magic almost purely for junctioning and boosting my characters stats. Using magic felt rather pointless, because not only did it tend to do less damage than straight up attacking by the mid game, it also wasted your precious stacks you could have instead used for junctioning.

I can understand why people dislike it, but I'm surprised more people hadn't learned there was a second way to get magic in the game besides drawing it. This is the world so many people ignored. I'll note, all of this is readily available to all players in the game, basically from the start. I am very OCD when it comes to knowing my menus in a game, so I found it on my own in short order.

As for the story, that's another beauty in the eye of the beholder thing you talked about for the sound. I personally loved the story, and while... off at points (fighting the alien under the school was the low point for me), for most of the story it was a total hit.

A lot of the problem with the story is a LOT is open to interpretation, which I'm pretty sure was intentional. Very little is "clear" about the story. Almost all of it requires you to go outside the box, and think about everything in context to the rest of the story.

For example, we'll look at Laguna, and the events that transpire with him. We know this is in the past, and by the end of the game, we know WHY we're being sent back (Ellone wants to change the past, so she sends Squall back blah blah blah, you know this part).

But we're never really "told" who Laguna is, are we? At some point in the end game, we meet Laguna face to face, and very little really happens to close up that end and give us that crucial bit of information. Instead, we are left to wonder for ourselves.

The below is likely a spoiler, so anyone who hasn't finished the game should probably not look at this.



Put simply, Laguna being Squall's father is the only thing that makes any sense. If they aren't related, then playing as Laguna only gives us a very rough backstory about what is transpiring in the world. I didn't think of the Laguna segments as "boring" but I did think there were too many of them. They came too suddenly, and would have broken my immersion if it wasn't for the fact that I suspected early on the connection between the two.

Everything else, about outerspace/love/etc... that's near the end game, and when the world starts to go to hell. It's usually true to form for a Final Fantasy game to start things off normally, and then toss a WTF at you.

Below are spoilers for FFVI-IX.



My point being that while "crazy" it's really no crazier than what the other games have done, but they took a more literal turn with things. And again, many of the things that happen are (in my opinion, intentionally) left to your interpretation of the events. Some theorize Squall died when the Sorceress hit Squall with that ice spell, and the rest is his subconscious fighting frantically. This is one interpretation you could have.

It's a beauty in the eye of the beholder thing for sure.

At any rate, that's just my opinion.

legacyme3 : Yes, I saw your review when I was looking for one for this game that more mirrored my own experiences.  I also know of the refining, as using Irvine's Limit Break needs bullets...

But everything is just so needlessly complicated in this game. If magic is so noticeably weaker, wouldn't playtesting reveal that to the developers? Why isn't it just some form of materia/gear and just stop the whole delusion of magic having two uses? Its just silly.
 I personally used quite a few of Diablo's spells, but again, mileage may vary. I won't argue if someone should play final fantasy strictly as a melee game.

Even the refining system to me is not a real answer,  as each group of items is learned from a different GF. Why? Why not just have refining be a store in towns and bring stuff to it? Aren't we already collecting magazines and trying to understand this plot? You'll still need an Aura Stone anyway to get Aura, so why make us jump through more hoops?  You need X amount of spells to make a noticeable difference in your stats, you need X GF to be able to craft the spells you need.

I think we will agree to disagree.  Except on NORG, totally jumped the shark moment.

endings :

I think playtesting knew magic was too weak to make a difference, and they expected other gamers to draw the same conclusions that they did, that magic was not a viable battle strategy. It's hardly new to a JRPG for magic to have little to no effect, and to be used for things other than fighting.

They left it in as an option, I feel, because there are a few uses for magic throughout the game in terms of combat, though you need to have the right spell and against the right enemy (I may be off base here, I haven't played VIII in a good long while, but I think I vaguely remember the spells being able to target multiple enemies, which would likely have been the primary use of magic).

When I played, I mainly used a combination of strong GFs that were linked closely to each character (the one thing I hate most about FFVIII, despite it being an otherwise fun experience, was having to rejunction everything when the party splits and rejoins, and it just becomes a mess.) and strong attack boosts through combining items to make better ones.

It's definitely a more "technical" Final Fantasy game than any that preceded or came after, and I think there's good reason why it's unique in this sense. I personally liked VIII because it actually made me think about what I was doing, and made me work for the result I wanted. VII, IX, X... etc, all of those games are good and bad for various reasons, but they were so cookie cutter and easy to play that there was no challenge in playing those games without adding personal rules (like no upgrading my weapon, etc).

You mentioned this in your review, but I liked how the game basically punished you for grinding. It's so different, I can't help but like it.

legacyme3 : LOL punishing you for grinding?

Farms items and spells for hours to optimize 3 characters. That kind of sounds like grinding.

endings :

Grinding for levels and acquiring items through the course of the game are two very different things.

I never once had to "grind" for the items I needed.

I was able to acquire them through normal gameplay, without "engaging in repetitive tasks to accomplish a specific result".

legacyme3 : Well. Lets see. Wikipedia says "Grinding is a term used in video gaming to describe the process of engaging in repetitive tasks during video games."

Wikipedia also says farming is a related term, yet seems to merely distinguish what your aim is.  XP or Loot. If its related, does that mean it "kind of sounds like grinding?

Totally understand you did not mind the parts I felt were horrific padding with numbers.

I wasn't farming for ingredients, I gave that up and was just pulling from enemies. Item 'farming' was no fun, that is why I didn't do it. As dull as the draw was FOR ME, it was simpler to just stock up in a fight, though no less monotonous. It was grinding for me.

If you have a problem with the way I wrote the review, thats cool, just tell me. But I just don't like this game, and thats my honest review.

endings :

I don't have a problem with your review.

As I stated, I just disagree, and that's personal opinion. I just chose to try to explain the things you did not like or seemed confused about.