Yeah, lol, same here.
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The music. End of story. It has the best soundtrack in the entire series. Let me see how many awesome tracks I can name off the top of my head...
The Castle, The Extreme, The Stage is Set, Ami, Only a Plank between One and Perdition, Shuffle or Boogie, The Landing, The Legendary Beast, Premonition, Under Her Control, Fisherman's Horizon, Waltz for the Moon, Mods de Chocobo (best Chocobo theme in the series!), Don't be afraid, Force your way, ... you get the point.
Triple Triad is also one of the best minigames in the series. I actually made a custom board for it and recreated every single card and played some games with my brother.
Not sure if you guys have seen this yet, but here you go!
How NOT to play Final Fantasy VIII - YouTube
Start is kinda slow but give it time.
Final Fantasy VIII has the best leveling up system in the series along FFX, but I prefer FFVIII style more. GF system is great that alows you to customize it's leveling system how'd you please and every character can control GF as you please. Story is fantastic as well the characters.
Final Fantasy VIII is my second favorite Final Fantasy, and is very sentimental to me. Here are the main things I love about it, though most people may dissagree with them.
1 Squall and Rinoa are two of my favortite Final Fantasy characters ever. I can relate to Squall, and I find Rinoa to be the kind of person I would be friends with in real life.
2. Final Fantasy VIII is very romantic, which is something I've been interested in since I was a child. I ship Squall and Rinoa, and aside from the problem that most storylines have (there's no real way of knowing how long the game takes, so it looks like they meet and then fall for each other) I found their love to be very realistically handled. I know people dissagree, but that's how I see it.
3. The music, like all FF games I've played is beautiful; Eyes on Me is a very memorable and heart-warming song for me.
4. I found the Junction System to be fairly easy to use, especially after playing Final Fantasy VII, as the Materia System was ultimately the same thing once the surface is scratched.
5. Here is where everyone will most likely dissagee, but I loved the Orphanage Twist. Many people say that it wasn't really foreshadowed, but from what I saw, it was - it was just that they foreshadowed subtly, so as not to give away too much - I actually noticed a lot more hints towards the orphanage (how characters reacted to things, the things they said, the way they said them, etc) after replaying it, that I missed when I didn't know what they were hinting to; I currently call this Hindsight Foreshadowing, but there's probably a TV Tropes term for it (The Sixth Sense and Final Destination 5 also do this - they have twists, that are hinted at throughout, but you don't really notice them until you've already been shown the twist). Also, I've always liked the idea that one could have a connection or a bond with their friends before they know who they are, or something. It is always something that has meant a lot to me.
6. Like with Final Fantasy VII (my actual favorite) it combines the fantasy world with the more real world perfectly, in fact some of the earlier locations (Timber, Dollet, Balamb, etc) actually look like they could be real places in our world.
7. That said, I liked how the made the game very close to our world in spirit (I even did a thread on it once), by which I mean most of the towns are formatted like ours, the game's world has magazines, websites, and the like which make the world look more realistic, but also help us (reading the magazine tells us what items we need, or gives us hints to things, and the websites were just fun to look at, but also became useful at times) there's probably more that I'm blanking on.
8. The Garden's, especially yours were excelent locations. I mean come on, going to school would have been a lot better if it had been like the Garden, right? Well, I always thought so as a kid anyway...
9. So many awesome moments that will take too long to list (but one day I will if you want me to).
To be honest, as biased as it may sound, the perfect RPG for me would be all the best parts of the FFVII format, and the FFVIII format used to their fullest.
I actually did pick VIII over VII, because:
1. VIII was savvy enough not to spam, "Squall, Laguna is your daddy", while VII got, "OH MY GOD, THEY KILLED AERIS!" "YOU BASTARD!"
2. VIII has a nice intertwining side story in Laguna, while VII has a headache in the form of Wutai.
3. VIII has a junction/draw system that beefs up stats, while I'm not qualified to mention about Materia.
When Squall's battle menu does this:
_______
Attack >
Magic
GF
Item
_______
That's why I love Final Fantasy VIII.
(SPOILER)"REN ZO KU KEN!!!"
I played this game so much that I can perform triggers, in both regular attacks and limit breaks, with my eyes closed.
Maybe that tells you how much I love it. XD
I absolutely looooove listening to the piano version of "The Castle". I think it's pure genius.
Fuujin is one of my fav characters of all-time. Next to Irvine and Cid Highwind. Oh yeah. I like Selphie too.
The piano collections and orchestral arrangements for the music in this game are so good. Silence and Motion (I think that's the name) is kind of weird in the piano version though. Doesn't really sound like the song in the game.
Glad to see this thread, maybee :D
This is an excellent game for a lot of the reasons already mentioned. It has a really well developed and realistic world. I love my fantasy as much as the next guy, but this felt like a world I could go to. The locations were so fantastic.
It has, hands down, the best FMVs of the series. Just, no, no contest. Garden Battle is the most kickass thing ever. Final Fantasy X has my favourite individual FMV (sliding down chains into Bevelle, hell yeah ma'fugga) but FFVIII has consistently the coolest things going on.
Music, comedy, characters, everything. It was a truly awesome game that cops a lot of flak due to not being a rehash of FFVII.
There are problems with the game, but there are problems with all games.
Best mini game ever and the best final boss battle in the entire FF series.
...AND it has the, by far, most badass-looking versions of Ultima Weapon and Omega Weapon. :greenie:
Matter of fact, I think I know why this is...Cloud's Omnislash is a spectacular and cathartic moment for FFVII, but the animation of it is kind of hard to characterize...limited? It's all jumpcuts from before the swing, to after the swing.
Renzokuken, on the other hand, really shows that the money made from FFVII was put to good use...Squall's much more realistic animations, combined with the sound effects, just do such a better job of giving you the impression that he's beating this enemy into a pulp with EXTREME prejudice. The fact that you get to be the activator, by pulling the trigger, is just the perfect icing on this mayhem cake.
Renzokuken also adapts to the enemy Squall is fighting, which is just the best.
Zell, Laguna, and Irvine are awesome.
...and Moombas. Gotta love 'em. I suppose I enjoyed some of the music as well.