Customer Reviews

Final Fantasy VIII

5 star:		(78)
4 star:		(18)
3 star:		(14)
2 star:		(9)
1 star:		(10)

 

 

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!

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!

-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

Before writing, I wanted to see how other reviewers liked this game. Most of the complaints are on hardware issues, the others are comparisons between the PC version and PSX (uh, why?) Anyways, I run this on a P266 with a Voodoo II just fine.

Basically, I spent most of this past weekend stuck in front of the computer thanks to this extremely addictive and involving game. I finally finished the first CD and am already giving this game a big thumbs up. Best part is I have three more CD's to go.

The game is *very* beautiful. The cutscenes are incredible and you jump in and out of movie scenes so much it's almost like it's part of the game. In fact, the last time I died was because I thought I was watching a cutscene when in fact it was part of the game.

The cons - music (ughhh...) a very important requirement for me personally. Lame midi music, just like the PC version of FF7. Almost bad enough for me to drop it to 4 stars. Also, the guardian force spells are beautiful to watch, but become tiring after the thousandth time. The problem is you have to summon these creatures over and over to defeat particularly difficult monsters. Gets tedious. Lastly, the help files and instruction manuals give you the basics, but don't get into the more advanced functions of the game. I'm still unsure what many of the spells and commands do.

However, these negatives don't take away from the fact that this game is as fun to watch as it is to play. Squaresoft really has developed a flagship title that is unique in many ways and has yet to be duplicated by any other maker. The game is actually very linear (think of Rebel Assault), yet for some reason it leaves the player feeling much more involved and satisfied at the results. Think of being part of an epic movie.

One CD down - 3 to go... can't wait!

Derek

Final Fantasy 8 is probably the most well-designed game I have ever played in my life. It was quite the GPA killer in late '99, with layer upon layer of gameplay -- from the fun sideline Card and Chocobo games, the dual-worlds that you explore, the infinitely configurable Junction/Draw system, and the interesting characters that you got to watch interact. It was the Playstation's finest moment, to be sure, and as a long time fan of the series, it confirmed my sense that Final Fantasy just keeps getting better with each installment.

When you buy this game for your PC, all that will still be true, but unfortunately the shortcomings of the conversion from the Playstation to the desktop might irritate you.

The music was meant to be rendered using the Playstation's MIDI instruments, and I haven't heard a shred of authenticity in PC MIDI's attempt to emulate the original sounds thus far. The graphics are limited to 640x480 because of the Playstation's 320x240 resolution, and that limits the detail in the 3d-rendered characters. The sad thing is, they only limit it to this resolution because they didn't re-render the static 2d backgrounds that the 3d characters walk around on, so yes, you traverse around onscreen on a 320x240 graphic that is simply stretched to full screen (and it looks very, very pixely).

The controls were originally designed for the Playstation, too, and while it didn't matter to me much since I have a Gravis Gamepad Pro (Good buy) which is modeled exactly after the Playstation's controller -- the bizarre remapping of controls that I imagine will become necessary for PC owners will no doubt cause some head-scratching. Because few joysticks sport the 10-buttons needed to play FF8 - you will likely be left having to make choices regarding what buttons you want left on your joystick, and what you want to leave on the keyboard. (The must-haves on the joystick, if you're intersted, should be: Accept, Cancel, and Menu)

There are, however, advantages to having the PC port over the playstation. The CG movies -- which are now a crowning jewel in the Final Fantasy series -- were all re-rendered in the new resolution, and they are nothing short of absolutely breathtaking. So one is left wondering -- If Square was willing to shell out the dough for rerendering the CG movies -- how come they didn't rerender the music and 320x240 backgrounds?

I don't know what these people below were thinking, but this is the greatest RPG ever. The best graphics, sound, everything. That's all you need to know.

For all those who are thinking of buying this game I have a few helpful hints for you... If you have a regular pentuim (like mine), make sure that you have at least 32 megabytes of RAM, or... the game will move really slow. For the 3d accelerater, a voodoo 2 or higher works just fine. If you have a lower version of the accelerater the game just won't find it and you'll have an error saying "video accelerater not found", and the game won't run. The graphics are great and the music is a typical quarter note sound. The storyline is very similar to FF7, which is why this game is so great. I am a huge fan of FF7 and now... FF8!

The PC version of 8 is ff done right! From the demo i can tell that it runs better than the psx and will way better graphics (thanks to 3d acceleration). I haven't played it yet (don't have a psx) but i've already ordered my copy!

Also, for those complaining about the sys requirements...the demo ran great on my 200 Mhz Pentium MMX with 64 megs of ram (and a RivaTNT card)

I have read alot of these reviews, and most of the bad ones do not even have proper spelling, so listen to me. If you are familiar with role playing games, or are interested it becoming familiar, this is a good game for you. Final Fantasy is one of the longest running and best RPG series. The story in VIII is wonderful, with a huge scope involving love, hate, revenge, salvation, friendship and destiny. Some of the more popular RPGs, such as Baldur's Gate, do not have a tenth, or even a hundredth of the story in this game. Sure, there is not voice, so you will be reading alot, but is that so bad? If everything was a recording the length of the game would have to be cut back enourmously to make it all fit. The game does get a little confusing towards the finale, (time compression...if you gotta ask, you'll never know.) The backgrounds are low-res, but are still beautiful in their own right. I love this game, for it's enormous scope, it's length of play, (at least fourty hours to do enough to beat it), it's replay value, and it's interesting storyline. Anyone who doesn't like this game isn't human.

I got started on the RPG video game trail when I was a young lad playing Super Mario RPG: The Legend of the Seven Stars on my Super Nintendo (also from Squaresoft/Square Enix.) Since then I've played many, from Final Fantasy VII to Shadow Hearts: Covenant to Xenosaga Episode II: Jenseits von Gut und Bose. But the one game out of all of the RPGs that I played never affected me in the way that Final Fantasy VIII did.

At first I found it a bit confusing. The Junction system baffled my mind until about six hours into the game, and occasionally I was given a lot of overworld freedom without enough of a description of where I should be going, leading to frustrating games of Trial and Error.

But I remember seeing the graphics at the time and being floored. I thought they looked photorealistic, and while they look slightly dated today, they haven't aged badly.

The real meat of the game comes from its story though. At first it seems fairly cliched. Quiet mercenary hero, stirrings of an oppressive military regime, damsel in distress, etc.....But soon I was shown the most complex, diverse world I've seen in a game other than The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind.

The characters all felt truly human; I was attached to them like no other characters in a game. I felt their pain, I felt their happiness. Even the seemingly stereotypical evil rival of the main character, Seifer, inspired sympathy from me.

In an effort to make the all the characters seem tied to each other, though, Squaresoft made some things feel a bit convoluted during the middle.

But all in all, the game captivated me. The story felt real and right to me, and I couldn't have been more satisfied with the ending.