Was It Any Good? : Final Fantasy 8

It was about one to two years ago I did a regular SW series where I took a bunch of games that were controversal because people couldn't decide if it was good or not and asked SW if they were good or not, and now realize I left this one out.

Seriously, I never truly found out what is it about this game that has so many people either calling it the worst or best FF game ever. Can someone tell me?

It's one of my favorite games of all time, and probably my favorite RPG of all time.

No it's not. It's my least favorite of the series and is the only rpg that I didn't bother to finish.

No it's not. It's my least favorite of the series and is the only rpg that I didn't bother to finish.

Seabas989

Yeah I thought it was pretty good back in the day when I played it. I was only about 13 or 14 years old then though.

Worst FF of the gen with some of the least charismatic characters of the series, a *terrible* spell system that turned things into a grind worth of an MMO, an utterly forgettable antagonist, and complete with a juvenile love story perfect for reeling in the pre-teens. May be my least favourite FF game ever, actually. I literally had to force myself to finish the bloody thing.

I love that game, is my favorite FF and i didn't play in the release date, i played it in 2004 if i'm not wrong.

Why i think is so good, welli liked the story and the gameplay a lot, and the graphics are terrific...for a PSOne game of course, besides, it really grab my attention, i don't think is the best game ever, or even the best JRPG ever, but i really like the game

my favorite final fantasy the guardian forces are sweet shiva is awesome im playing it on my psp

and squall ftw

[QUOTE="Seabas989"]

No it's not. It's my least favorite of the series and is the only rpg that I didn't bother to finish.

ChrisSpartan117

Well it's because I have been asked this many times so I'll be blunt:

• the charcters were forgettable
• the villains were forgettable
• the junction system was terrible and unbalanced
• drawing magic is annoying and a chore
• the gil/money syetem was also annoying because it requires you to take a test
• the summonings were not skippable
• Squall is about as likeable as a Mosquito
• the story is a mess
• I rather buy weapons then upgrade them
• magic collecting :? Seriously I use magic and then my character is weaker

Now granted the soundtrack, graphics, art design and overall presentation were great but overall the game was bad.

EDIT: Squall and Siefer has to be the worst "rivalry" I've seen in video games.

I liked the story in ff8 but thats about I think it my most hated ff game.

But my most favorite is ff9........ lol

I think it is a great game, but an average FF. The junction system was cool, but if you knew what you were doing and where to find good magic early it was too easy to break the game. That and drawing 100 of a spell sucked.

It was alright. The one thing I absolutely hated about it was the junction system and from the third disc on the story turned to crap.

Great music, great characters, great combat. But horrible story.

Probably my favorite Final Fantasy alongside VI.

I heard it was better than 7, but i've never played it.

7>9>8.

8 was good but far from perfect. The junction system was a terrible mess, and the whole draw magic for 90% of the game to become strong got boring fast.

Worst FF of the gen with some of the least charismatic characters of the series, a *terrible* spell system that turned things into a grind worth of an MMO, an utterly forgettable antagonist, and complete with a juvenile love story perfect for reeling in the pre-teens. May be my least favourite FF game ever, actually. I literally had to force myself to finish the bloody thing.

Boomshaffted

lol not ragging on you...but everything you hate about it is what I loved about it. Also love the part where you go back in time and play the hero before squall

[QUOTE="Boomshaffted"]

Worst FF of the gen with some of the least charismatic characters of the series, a *terrible* spell system that turned things into a grind worth of an MMO, an utterly forgettable antagonist, and complete with a juvenile love story perfect for reeling in the pre-teens. May be my least favourite FF game ever, actually. I literally had to force myself to finish the bloody thing.

bloodcord

lol not ragging on you...but everything you hate about it is what I loved about it. Also love the part where you go back in time and play the hero before squall

Agreed with you there. 8 was the first Final Fantasy I started, so it's got a special place amongst the others for me, even if it's not my favorite of the series. (that would be IX)

I did not think Final Fantasy 8 very good. There was a lot of aniticipattioncoming up to the game due to Final Fantasy 7 before itand the demo was amazing (it is how the game should of started) but I did not like the characters. Squall was indecisive, underdeveloped and just overall unheroic (liked him much more in Kingdom Hearts). I liked the concept of the gunblade but like the game itself, it was all style and no substance. I didn't like the romance in the story and the whole plot was just forgettable to me.

It's one of my favourite games of all time. In fact, it was my favourite game for most of my childhood. Even, now I don't really have a game I'd call my favourite, but if I did, there's a good chance it'd be FF8.

It's odd because I like all of the things people hate about this game. I liked the characters, the villians, the storyline. The draw system wasn't quite as good as the regular MP system, but when paired with the junction system worked quite well. I liked how it was a challenge to obtain weapons, especially the ultimate weapons for each character, I thought the GF/learning abilities was the best system the series has had, and finally, the card game. I loved the card game, so much so that I probably spent just as much, if not more time playing it than the actualy game itself. Best minigame ever.

This game aged very well unlike FF7 I played and beat the game last year and its the best FF game ever.

Hell yes. One of my favourite FFs and Aljosa's personal favourite. :3

It's on a par with FF6, awesome game. It does have some balance issues, but most RPGs do and the setting sucks you in. Perhaps still worthy of play if you missed it.

Hell yes. One of my favourite FFs and Aljosa's personal favourite. :3

Dystopian-X

Aljosa is my boy and all, but he has no more credibility concerning FF games, because of FFXIII. He hyped the game so high that I can never look at Lightning without thinking "aljosa"...and then he didn't even finish the game! That's like taking a small child to dinner, and the kid wont stop screaming "I want the big boy burger" over and over. You get the kid the burger and then he doesn't finish it. The kid should be forced to eat every bite, even if it makes him puke. ;)

I personally think FF8 is the best, up there with VI, VII, and X. Favortie part was the card game. Jesus, I put in about 40 hours into the card game only.

One on my favourite games of all time......

Its in the top 5 FFs for me. IX is still the best one.

Its fantastic.

Hell yes. One of my favourite FFs and Aljosa's personal favourite. :3

Dystopian-X

He told me XI was his favorite! :evil:

Anyway, never finished it (much like all the recent games I played) but it was fantastic from what I played.

Really? He told me XI was his favorite :(

I thought it was just just as good as FF7. Great musical score. Better story than most recent FF's for sure.

At the time I thought it was an awesome game. Awesome graphics and atmosphere. I went to replay it though and it was really easy and unbalanced and some parts progressed way too slowly and were boring. Still pretty fun though just turning enimies into cards and playing card games. I'd say it's still a great game but I prefer 6, 7, 9 and 10 to it

You know, for future FF games SE should really bring back the card game. I would buy the next FF instantly if it had a card minigame in it.

My favorite final fantasy game.

It had a more mature plot that was easier to relate to with lots of political issues and a mix of similar culture with sci-fi elements.

The school aspect was cool and some of the towns were nice.

There are a lot of memorable parts I can name.

The parts where you play as Squal's father in the past and experience a different point of view and more back story.

The part where you go into space and find the Ragnarok ship and have to fight the aliens.

The part where your garden school fights another garden school. There is one scene where you are hanging from a rope and must beat the soldiers off and the whole background is one big cg battle scene which at the time was mind blowing.

The first time where you try to kill the Sorceress and all the cool cg scenes in between.

The time where you had to infiltrate a train and you had to unlock the carts from each other but stay hidden on the top of the train while guards patrolled

The first time you get to the huge futuristic city.

The time where you got captured and had to escape a huge prison in the desert.

The time your team had to infiltrate a base as spies and stop the launching of some missiles.

The huge castle

And the ending movie where they show the viewpoint of a video camera being held by one of the students and everyone is together in a party and Zell is choking on hotdogs, and Irvine is hitting on women and making Selphie jealous.

I think a lot of people hated FF8 because they hyped it up too much after FF7 came out.

They also didn't take too much time to read into the story because it is written in a way where you have to piece everything together by carefully reading all the back story.

And some people think they are too manly to play a game with a love story, although I agree that Rinoa was a bit annoying at times.

Squal was a bit too depressed all the time but in real life there are many people like that. His life was not always hunky dory and he had a lotof responsibility shifted to him which was hard since he was anti-social.

Worst FF of the gen with some of the least charismatic characters of the series, a *terrible* spell system that turned things into a grind worth of an MMO, an utterly forgettable antagonist, and complete with a juvenile love story perfect for reeling in the pre-teens. May be my least favourite FF game ever, actually. I literally had to force myself to finish the bloody thing.

Boomshaffted

Final Fantasy 8, IMO, was terrible, mostly for the reasons that Boomshafted's already listed. I can't stress enough how utterly abysmal the Draw system was. Nothing like fighting in half-hour long random battles to build up your characters. (I'm not against random battles, in fact I think they're a cornerstone of all the great FF games. It's just that they drag out for SO long in this one). For me, FF8's craptitude is right up there with FF12, and the only good thing about it is that it paved the way for FF9, which turned out to be one of the Top 3 in the series.

One of my favorites in the FF series.