FFVIII : Love It Or Hate It?

Love it or Hate it?

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Personally, I didn't think that anything would top VII, and then VIII went and proved me wrong with the very next release.

The step up in graphics, the lovely sound-track, personally I adored the characters, the scope of the story, the in-game innovations like 'draw' and 'junctioning', along etc, all contributed towards a remarkable game.

To be honest, while I still go back and play VI, VII, IX and X occasionally, VIII is the one that I spent most time on.

Personally, I think it's a shame that we never really got anything to supplement VIII in the same way that VII did. VII's always seen as the poster-child for the franchise, but VIII, for me, is equally as worthy.
 
I absolutely LOVE Final Fantasy VIII. The gameplay is very confusing and slow at first, admittedly, but I quickly found that the draw system was an extremely manageable, and highly detailed, way to power up your characters. I still find the system easier to manipulate than the overrated Materia system of Final Fantasy VII.

The story is pretty great as well, but the game does lack the ever-present suspense of Final Fantasy VII; you will find yourself utilizing more of the side material in this game than in Final Fantasy VII, which is a good thing; the game feels like it has a lot "breathing room" and you don't feel like you are always caught in the middle of world shaping events. The game feels very relaxed even if it isn't really all that relaxing to play.
 
I really wish I could totally love this game but I can't :mad:

FFVIII was beautiful in terms of imagery and sound. FMVs were always awesome, monsters and GFs were wonderfully designed, and towns and other locales still stand out in my mind years after playing the game (balamb garden, lunar base/ragnarok, lunatic pandora, ultimecia's castle, list goes on). Characters had depth to them and were enjoyable, but the dialogue at times had a tendency to get a little overdramtic.

I actually loved the story concept, but I agree that it could have been executed in a much more captivating way.

Anyways, that being said, the battle system sucked. GF's and the whole drawing thing was a bad idea. The junctioning system was cool at first, but it got boring quickly. I feel like these things hindered the whole concept of strategy in battle. I wish some sort of job-system kind of thing was implemented into this final fantasy.
 
Final Fantasy VIII. YAWN. As soon as I got into the heart of Disc 3, it went down hill.

When I played through the first two discs, I thought it was pretty good. The story was interesting and most of the characters were tolerable. I did not like Squall. The silent, unsure type is not my type of hero. I did think that the situations were dealt with realistically. Like when Irvine could not shoot Edea. Probably the most likely human response to not take a life. Even though you walk the world destroy millions of creatures and enemies in you path. Hmm, odd? I specifically remember having Irvine in my party and killing tons of soldiers and he didn't say a thing. Weird.

Any way, I got to Disc 3 and that was the roadblock. Aimless wandering and fighting and the struggle to find Ultimecia, blah, blah, blah. Edea was a better villain than VIII's final boss. At this point, I found the game to be extremely easy. All you do is Draw Magic to the max, equip it to the stat that increases STR the most and I just creamed everything. And the spells were ridiculous! Aura, a spell that GIVES A CHARACTER THEIR LIMIT BREAK. Card Refine Bahamut into 100 Megalixirs pretty much ensuring me that I'm healed for the whole game.

Then the Ultimate strategy to beat anything in the game. Irvine + Aura + AP Ammo = Destroy anything in VIII. VIII was one of the easiest Final Fantasys because it gave you so many advantages. I just couldn't take it seriously once I found out how to whisp through everything.

VIII was not one of the best, but not the worst.
 
Love It of course!

Mod Edit: Please put a bit more effort into your posts. Tell us why you love the game. Thanks.
 
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I love it!

FF VIII is one of my fav FF's. I love the visuals, and the music is probably the best of the PS1 FF games, maybe even the PS1 and PS2 combined... i love FF XIII's music ;P

The Junction system is even more of a love/hate thing though :( I love how if you get 100 of a spell your stats can skyrocket if you appoint them wisely, but it sucks that you essentially can't use that spell if you need to but aren't in an area to get more of it. The thing that pissed me off most about it though was that whenever you changed location or time(i never understood the whole laguna/squall thing) your guardians are ALL unequipped and i never remembered which guardian went with each character.

The story I loved at the beginning. just the idea of being students instead of a "chosen hero" really appealed to me(prob because I was a sophomore in high school when i first played this) I still liked the story over all but it got less and less interesting when it was all about Rinoa this and Rinoa that.

Overall, I really liked FF VIII and if you'll excuse me I need to go replay it now.
 
I don't know about loving or hating it, but yeah I definitely felt let down after playing VII, and waiting for VIII to come out. Even the TV ads, sigh...

Basically:
1)The draw/junction system. It's an ok idea and pretty cool actually, until you end up drawing 100 spells from something. Or, you could always cardmod or item mod, have fun spending hours gathering.A good idea, but badly implemented

2)the card game. Again, a pretty cool minigame idea, but it got old really fast

3)the characters and the story. Annoying kids, to put it blunt. That silly love story and the plot that held little water was disappointing.


I did enjoy it overall, but this one could have been done much better.
 
Neither, I was pretty indifferent to FF8. Whenever I try and play it these days I manage to get about half an hour in before I get bored and switch to FF9.
 
I enjoyed it. I wouldn't totally say that I loved it, because it had a few issues, but it was still a good game. I did seem to find myself wandering around like a lost puppy quite a bit during the first part, since I hadn't played it yet, but I quickly found where to go, and what NOT to do when I got there.
 
I love it, it was my first ever FF. Some of the characters I didn't really like, but I loved the overall story and the junctioning system.
 
I would say I love it ;)
well, why would I come here if I say no?

FFVIII is my first love, and Squall is also my first love, umm.. maybe the last also, lol

OzDok> huh? why so? did you play it on and on?
 
Final Fantasy VIII was my first FF. I even played the Demo for it that came with Brave Fencer Musashi.

A lot of people don't really like it, but it was pretty much my entry into the genre of RPG gaming and just loved the game in it's entirety. I don't particularly hold it in my highest regards of great games, but I definitely enjoyed it - especially the music.
 
L said:
Final Fantasy VIII was my first FF. I even played the Demo for it that came with Brave Fencer Musashi.

A lot of people don't really like it, but it was pretty much my entry into the genre of RPG gaming and just loved the game in it's entirety. I don't particularly hold it in my highest regards of great games, but I definitely enjoyed it - especially the music.
Click to expand...

yeah, totally agree with you :ryan:
it's my entry to know another RPG, too~
 
for me laguna and co saved this game character wise. the reason being I loathed squall and that sort of puts things off to a bad start when you hate the main character! lol I also disliked zell a little bit. and I sort of wanted square to have done deformed characters again or maybe cell shaded. the graphics were a bit marmite for me overall at times.
that said I thought the location design ,art and animation was amazing, side quests were amazing ,music was amazing! I've got a lot of time for the ff8 universe. just one without squall would be good :D
 
Squall was kind of a jerk but he got better as the game went on, at least Zell was better than Tidus....sort of.
 
People dont like Squall because of his personality but honestly since when is trying to mind your own business and live an easy going life considered being foul? Squall just wanted to keep to himself without other people getting involved. Sure he softens up later due to certain events but I really dont get the hate for him seeing as he acted like any 17 year old teen. If I were him I'd behave similarly to most situations he was put in.

I liked this game. This along with tactics were my first rpg games ever so I loved Almost everything about it. I will say though that the backstory of the characters felt lazy and disappointed me.
 
^ A lot of people these days just label a character as Emo and then dismiss them, its annoying. All Final Fantasy characters should be took for what they are and why.

I've just started playing like a week ago and its fun so far, the story is very meh right now, all that's happened is armys invading other countries for fun.

The junction system is cool I guess but sometimes it just gets on my nerves, you have to draw shit loads of magic to keep in good form.
 
When I first played FFVIII it was meh. I didn't like how long it took for the screen to fade out when switching areas (still don't but you get used to it) and you did almost no damage at all. And drawing at the beginning was such a pain along with the junction system being extremely confusing. Fast forward to mid disc 2. I have 99 Tornadoes equipped to my HP :awesome: and a bunch of other high leveled magic so I can actually do damage. Along with finally being able to get another weapon. Right now I'm looking for this one enemy so I can get a part for the Ultima Weapon :hmmm: But it's been over a year since I played it because I let my friend in Salem borrow it and I haven't seen her since then. I'll get it back eventually :P I really like VIII the junction system is unique and the GF's actually do something (especially when you rapidly ram the square button during the cutscene involved). I guess I love it :yay:
 
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