I’ll try to portray my feelings on Final Fantasy VIII as accurately as I can. I’ve found though, that it is one of those games, where my opinion or justification for liking the game changes each time I play through it. I feel as I grow as a person, I get a different vibe from the game. I feel and see different things in it and I may find that where as I once related to one character in a previous play through, I now relate to a different one. I always come away from the game, irregardless what concepts I have taken from it this time around, feeling highly positive of it.

I think what I do like about VIII, is it feels far more relatable because it deals with concepts of coming of age, and a character roster that aren’t a collection of monkey-children, talking dogs, and plushy toys with streams of consciousness. It makes the party collectively more palatable in terms of understanding their underlying emotions. At least from a storytelling point of view; all these characters are in scenarios and react, for a fantasy game, in a relatively plausible way.

The personalities, which may be contradicted by a number of people on this message board, are richly embossed. There is only so much one can put into a video game, but I found all the characters pretty fleshed out. You weren’t simply playing an archetype. The reasons why the characters developed ways of communicating, or lack-there-of, are written and not just simply assumed. The only character I wasn’t too keen on was Selphie, who I can imagine, if voice-acted, would be a beta of Vanille from Final Fantasy XIII. Still, she doesn’t seem too out of place, even if I find mindless optimism inherently annoying, but then again, I’m a miserable bugger in real life - so take what you will from that. Haha!

Speaking purely for myself. Final Fantasy VIII was mostly a right-place, right time kind of thing. I was growing into adolescence, which was making me slightly more perceptive socially. I was very much influenced by the romantic-led storyline, as again, I was starting to take an interest (although I would never admit it) in girls. It was just a combination of elements coming together that made it a fun and enjoyable, emotive experience for me.

I do not have much to really say on the game mechanics, where a lot of criticism tends to be the focus of direction by a lot of naysayers for VIII. Unless a game is truly unplayable, I’ve never really taken much time to really consider game mechanics analytically. I don’t have that level of investment, understanding the functions of ingrained systems of operation. Hence, I never really write video game reviews, because I tend to look at the game as a whole narrative experience, how cerebral is the experience, rather than noticing if the game has tank controls or not. I’m not good at dissecting why this works, and this doesn’t from an aspect of gameplay. Although many people will read this, and say I am just as in the dark about good writing and storytelling! =P

Does the Junction system work or not? To be honest; I don’t really know…and I’ve played this game several times through to completion. And everytime I have played it; I go to the junction, click on automatic and set it to ‘Str’. I really don’t care. I guess I am not what you would call an RPG fan, because I am not a fan of micro-management, or reading statistics on items, imported from Microsoft Excel 97. Then again, I would argue the point that jRPGs are mostly adventure games with tagged on RPG battle mechanics.

Final Fantasy VIII isn’t well written, if we are judging it by literary standards. The characters are simplistic, because it is a video game. An early-period video game by contrast to this seventh-generation of cinematic gaming franchises. But for a video game of its time, I’d say that it stands out pretty remarkably; at least in terms of character development and the depth of the story being told.

Finally. The music is to die for.