About
Reviews (1)
02 May, 2009
Final Fantasy VIII Review
This was the first Final Fantasy I ever played. I was hooked on the game by playing the demo, covering the SeeD test portion of the game, and had to buy it as soon as it came out. This game has plenty of action to keep players interested as well as plenty of comic relief to ensure things don't get too heavy. At its heart FFVIII is a love story, which must be remembered if you are going to be able to follow some of the crazy twists in the plot line.
This game also has some of the best visuals of any original PS game, in game as well as CG cutscenes.
FFVIII has caught some flak for its draw magic system where individual spells need to be drawn out of the enemies that carry them where they can then be stored for later use or cast immediately, instead of each character learning a spell and using mp to cast it. This process can be tedious at times, but the junction system makes taking the time to gather 100 of each spell much more rewarding than just learning a spell and using mp to cast it.
The Junction system allows each character to junction Guardian Forces (Summons) to the character and inturn gain special abilites, like junctioning magic to individual stats increasing there stregnth, the ability to steal, avoiding random battles, and other Final Fantasy staples like the Ribbon.
Final Fantasy veterans may be turned off by this system but the Junction system really just replaces buying and equiping armor and accesories with special abilities. For any gamer that enjoys the RPG genre FFVIII, as well as every other Final Fantasy, is a must play. For those Final Fantasy vets that have thumbed their nose at FFVIII in the past should give it another try and enjoy the gameplay and story of this PSone classic.