Final Fantasy VIII

by SquareSoft

Product Details

• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B000040OEH
• Media: CD-ROM
• Release Date: January 26, 2000
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (129 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #9,512 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

Amazon.com Review

With its tremendous success, it's not surprising that Squaresoft and Electronic Arts have ported the mammoth Sony PlayStation role-playing game, Final Fantasy 8, to the personal computer. However, current personal-computer hardware obliterates the PlayStation's capabilities; although Final Fantasy 8 offers hours and hours of addictive role playing, its game-play graphics and sound effects aren't up to par with the PC's best.

Gamers dive into the role of Squall, a scruffy cadet of SeeD, which is an elite military unit formed to fight the war brought on by a nefarious sorceress. The game opens in The Garden, a collection of training communities for SeeD members, where Squall must perform several tasks before completing his enrollment. Squall encounters dozens of unique nonplayer characters during his journey (some of whom join Squall in combat), and while the dialogue sequences are mostly brief, the characters exude personality through posture and animation.

Despite Final Fantasy 8's inconsistent game-play graphics--spell and combat effects explode with color, but background art and character models lack detail--its cinematic movie sequences are nothing short of breathtaking. Game play consists of completing missions and exploring new places to advance the story line. Along the way, you'll battle a diverse bestiary of enemies using weaponry, magic, or Guardian Forces (immense creatures summoned to assist during combat). If you're looking for a massive, story-oriented role-playing game with the best cinematic sequences you've ever seen, Final Fantasy 8 won't disappoint. --Doug Radcliffe

Pros:

• Addictive game play
• Gorgeous movie sequences
• Epic-sized game world
• Dazzling spell and combat effects

Cons:

• Game-play graphics and sound appear slightly dated
• A console-game feel (no mouse support, etc.)

Amazon.com Product Description

More than a sequel to the top-selling Final Fantasy 7, Final Fantasy 8 is an entirely new story, following the adventures of Squall, a young military cadet. Aided by an unusual group of allies, Squall must deal with a desperate rival, a powerful sorceress, and his strange dreams.

Set in a world where magic and technology coexist, Final Fantasy 8 provides players with a variety of weapon, magic, and transportation options as they explore the vast game world. Maintaining the best features of its predecessor, Final Fantasy 8 allows those familiar with previous games to easily adapt to the battle, menu, and exploration controls, while providing unique story-line elements, features, and minigames to make for a breathtaking new experience. Characters and backgrounds take on a much more detailed, realistic look through enhanced 3-D graphics and are seamlessly combined with nearly an hour of stunning computer-generated cinemas.

See all Product Description

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

34 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Simply Amazing, January 16, 2000

By 

Carlo Esparza (Sacramento,CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Final Fantasy VIII (CD-ROM)

The graphics for this game are just too damn sweet!This is one thing you will hear alot about from this game,I recommend everyone who wants to buy an RPG for PC.

The only prob is that you need hella hardware just to get the damn thing working great.

Great Storyline and Gameplay make this a soild hit,please make sure you have alot of free time on your hands because this thing is Long as watching Private Ryan 30 times in a ROW! 90+ hours of great fun and excitement.

The only problem I have with it is that the backrounds are Pre Renered and are in LOW REZ,this would have made it A+ qaulity but the Lo Rez will get on your nerves.

A Sure Great a Solid Game,Your Money will worth it and Amazon.com has a great price for it too!

25 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Sets the standard, August 16, 2000

By 

Genesis Whitmore (Goldenrod, FL USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Final Fantasy VIII (CD-ROM)

Folks either love or hate this game, me.. I love it. I don't own a playstation so this was my only chance at playing this game which I'd been champing at the bit for since its release onto the PSX. Then it finally came out.

Every Final Fantasy game is different. They all take place in practically different worlds with different characters (except for a few recurring minor ones) but thet all have the same themes -- love, hope, destiny, and destruction. FFVIII follows the path of Squall, a young trainee trying to join SeeD, an elite mercenary fighting force.

The magic system is a bit difficult to master at first, but they help you as much as possible along the way and if it ever gets confusing you can always let the computer manage it for you. Spells no longer cost 'mana', and instead you simply draw a limited supply of them from points on the map or from monsters. New weapons are no longer purchased, but instead existing ones are upgrated with items you earn after battles or by stealing them from monsters.

My first impressions were that the polygon models looked a bit odd, and the characters were all very stereotyped. Squall was the grumpy quiet type, Zell was a hothead, Rinoa was the vunerable chick, Quistis was the bookworm, Irvine was the sentementalist, and Selphie was the ditz. But as I played through I found that the game only made me think that on the outside. These characters had desires, they had dreams, loves, and hidden secrets that made them what they were.

The game drew me in like a moth to a bulb. I wanted to find out what was going to happen next! I wanted my heros to win! I scrabbled along the numerous sub-quests and attacked every new plot thread that showed up.

Fourty hours or so later I finally emerged viceorious... and I wanted to play it again!

43 of 48 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Really good game, March 17, 2000

By 

Bot (Toronto) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Final Fantasy VIII (CD-ROM)

-CG Movies --its runs fine in Full Screen using low resolution but you would see pixelation. If you select the high resolution, you would get the fantastic animation but the sound would lag behind. So I guess if you want to play the game with high resolution movies, a Pentium II is necessary. The movies are just amazing to behold!

-Battle Screen: -on my machine the character animation is ok and the guardian forces is wonderful. The camera rotates flawlessly and appropriately. In the later part of the game the animation sequences just skips and stops due maybe because of my lack of memory of the 3d card that I have or the slow processor of my machine. Otherwise all the animation is perfect.

-Menu system: -well, I'm a bit disappointed. Its a bit slow. It takes about 2 to 3 seconds of response time after you hit the button to load the requested menu screen. Compared to FF7, this shouldn't be any problem because the graphics are loaded from memory not the CD-ROM! Electronic Arts didn't have time to bother to improve this interface. The setup is similar, I meant identical to the Playstation version and the colors are all washed out and the graphics are in low resolution. On top of that there is no 'quit' option. YOu have to press a combination of keys before you could reset or quit the game. Yechh!

-Music: -hey what happenned here! I could tolerate MIDI music but the composition and arrangements of the music doesn't compare to FF2,FF3(SNES) or FF7. The overworld music alone would want you to cover your ears and turn off your speakers. The most annoying thing though is when you try to move your characters around the room the music frequently skips.

-Sound: -with EAX on and 4 speakers, its awesome! You could hear every cutting blow of Squall's gunblade or the Guardian Forces' attacks and the booming spectacular explosions.

-Graphics: -well the 3D characters are amazing with motion captured movements but the backgrounds are just awefull in full screen. It looks like paper props and doesn't 'blend' in with the characters. They might as well put black and white pictures in the game. The only solution is to set the game in quarter screen or move away from your monitor to lessen the pixelation or better connect your video card to your tv if you have a tv output.

-Gameplay: -well its a mixed bag. You can't buy magic so you have to 'draw' them on enemies which to me is very tedious and slows the game. There are no treasures to be searched for stronger weapons or magical items. You actually have to collect items from enemies or shops to upgrade your weapons and gain new limit breaks which is essential to win the game. To some this might be ok but to me its again tedious since in some instances you have to fight rare monsters and to equip proper GF abilities to get the items that you need. The worse part is there's nobody in the game that gives you any hint to get some of these rare items! The customization of your character using GFs is a welcome addition but the drawing of magic is again necessary and trust me folks it is really tedious and boring while maxing out your stocks. I remembered drawing magic for 1 hour just fillup all my characters of one particular magic.

-Story: -the dialogue is quite good compared to other Final Fantasy series and there are some instances that you will just couldn't stop laughing at some of the humour in some scenes. The cutscenes, transitions movies are really well thought out and developed like a big budget interactive movie production. The 1st and 2nd discs are non-stop action sequences and really force you not to stop playing. You would be just amazed and realized how Square really put a lot of effort in the plotline. As for disc 3 and disc 4....I don't want to spoil anything so you have to be the judge. All I can say is the story of FF8 is a bit complete than FF7 since there is a resolution in FF8's ending than in FF7--its not open ended.

-Conclusion: I think FF8 is a remarkable PC game if you own the recommended system listed on the FF8 box. It has a great storyline, breathtaking GF animations and most of all an amazing CG movie scenes. You could forgive the MIDI composition but the only thing that rained on the parade is poor programming by Electronic Arts: pixelated backgrounds, poor control and horrible menu system. The complicated GF system also added some wrinkle on the game and bogs down the progress of the story.

One final note: you wont appreciate the story and the ending if you don't analyze the relationship between the characters closely and the sequence of events. I see a lot of people saying the story "suck" but that is not true at all. There are several themes in FF8 that when analyzed is really quite good. Final Score: 8/10