final fantasy viii and it's predecessors

[Rand Al'Tor]

Hmm...guess I'll see if we can all calm down. First of all. I prefer VIII. this doesn't mean VIII is 'better' or VII 'worse' it juts means VIII meets my needs better then VII. (though I have lesspressing needs in a video game that I find in VII more then VIII) I'll see if I can adress the points Psyhotic raised. (if he hasn't gives up on us eighties. Hey, we could call FFVII fans seventies and FFVIII fans Eighties....and we could have secret handshakes....and member cards....Booyaka! oops...euh...no I'm really not a FFVIII haracter excaped, honest! (careful Selphie!)

Anyways, I think FF8 is the worst Final Fantasy. Pure and simple. I dislike descriptions of this game such as this board's description which goes a little something like this "The most captivating and emotional FF expierience yet"

I would disagree with your captivating comment in any case. FF VII was really interesting, but it was with VIII that I was constantly looking forward to what was gonna happen next.

I'm sorry, but that is just... wrong. For example, the "big evil" in this game is Ultimecia. Do they give us any reason to feel hatred towards her? She wants to compress time! oh the naughty woman! Squall and Rinoa are all but do I really care? No! Am I made to care? No!

Well that's a personal thing isn't it? Plenty of people do are, to the point of discussing it here and writing loads of fanfic on it, so SS has succeded in getting a few people (including me) touched didn't they?

The story? Yeah, that was *soooooooo* great. Not. I felt as if the makers had loads of little ideas, and decided to through them all in. Which ideas? I hear you cry. Well, The whole idea of Garden, the whole idea of Esthar, the whole evil sorceress from the future thing and the whole base in space thing, to name but 4. Whereas in Final Fantasy VII, the majority of the plot was all circulating around a common point.

Actually, one could claiml the story could have done with a bit less. (one of the reasons I would LOVE a sequel. Plenty of things still uncovered) OTOH, perhaps that an be onsidered a boon. Unlike VII, that finnishes off things rather nicely, VII still leaves a world in GREAT turmoil, with plenty of myusteries still in effect. And if you believe, like me, in the R=U theory (and Rinoa: I'm afraid I'm not gonna believe you on your word. If you are certain you have undeniable evidence, the mods ain't peeking in my Private Message Archive) there IS a central thing in the plot. As the title song goes, 'the succesion of witches/sorceresses.'

The characters? I think Square worked so hard to try to give them personalities, that they just made them all moronic posers who just made me think "Pass me the sick bucket" OK, I accept this game has a Fantasy setting, but there are humans in this setting. Humans have personalities. I have never met people with personailities like the ones in 8 - nobody is that extrovert (or inrovert in Squall's case)

Heh, people an be surprisingly extreme. I mean, who would believe a president like Bush in a movie and yet...AUCH *gets hit in the head with a hammer by the 'no political debate'-faerie.... Anyway, I'd say that VII is in a bit of a glass house situation there. Vincent? Okay, the guy has style, AND a cool background, but when it comes to overdone Angst, he's got Squall SERIOUSLY beat (of course, nothing wrong with LIKING a character with the angst piled high into the sky) Selphie is cheerful yes, but then, Yuffie is so insanely untrustworthy and arrogant.

Backgrounds for VIII haracters ARE limited...And I was a bit 'oh did they HAVE to do that?' when they all came from the sameorphanage.. But what has been DONE with that background, I like.

Thing I like about the characters in VIII is that they interact more. In VII I had a bit of a feeling that I was travelling with a lot of, admittedly, interesting characters who just hunbg togetehr because they all hated ShinRa. The VIII gang is a team, with it's own likes and dislikes under the surfae. Also, the characters in VIII might have lacked background, but they had way more dialogue then VII, where it was mainly Cloud (and Tifa and id for a while) who were doing the talking. Still VII was a WHOLE improvement on VI in that departement. I'm not really so terribly impressed by VI BTW.

Junction system? Well, that was just a whole stupid idea. It basically made combat in Final Fantasy VIII extremely tedious. In order to become powerful, you have to spend ages drawing magic from your lovely enemies. You just sit there pressing the same commands over, and over. Now, this also causes another problem - you now don't want to use magic because you
A) Don't want to become weaker
and B) Really don't want to have to draw a damn thing again.

Granted. But as I'm not the type to really be busy with maxing my characters, that doesn't really bug me as much as it could.

Physical attacks until you get powerful magic like Ultima(which won't happen for a loooooooong time) do as much damage as a feather duster. So, you are forced to rely on GFs in combat, making it extremely repetitive. On top of all that, the GF sequences are horrendously long, and accuse me of being blind, but I for one didn't see a "shorten GF animation"

Granted AGAIN, and they learned from that in their next games (GO SQUARESOFT) Still, if you do the whole 'boring drawing' thing, you SHOULD be able to finnish keeping your GF's nicely in your head eating memories of all your cherished loved ones.

[PhoenixAsh]

Okay I think pretty much the opposite. The fighting stuff was brilliant, almost everything in the menu screen was almost perfect, from cards to modding to junctioning to GFs etc.

Ultimecia was a waste of time unless you follow R=U (which I do so I like it).

Everyone growing up together is just painfull. The characters were also a bit too extreme, I mean yes seven had extreme characters, but it had normal ones too.

VIII also wrapped everything up way to nicely, I mean it could have done with a little ribbon or something. A sequel would annoy me because it would mean screwing with the characters again which would just be cruel.

So all in all, great battle and menu system, but the plot was a bit too simplistic. It gets my vote for second best FF.

[Phil]

junctioning confused me........
Materia= easy as pie

[darkchrono]

Ok I will list a few of the major plot holes in VIII that made me lose alot of interest in it.


1. Why in the world did they have the newly named Seed Squall become the leader of an entire Garden within a couple days. That really made no sense. Like the only reason they did that was because he was the main character of the game.

2. Why was Quistis stupid enough to abandon her post in the assasination attempt just because she thought she had hurt Rinoa's feelings. Would someone in real life in the army risk the ruination of an entire mission just because they thought they had hurt the feelings of somebody they had only known for what a day or so. (Which is all Quistis and Rinoa had known eachother.)

3. The whole deal where they grew up in the same orphanage does not even need to be discussed.


4. The whole GF gave me memory loss thing seemed like kind of a copout for explaining to the players why there were no backstories. Saying there were no backstories because they simply couldn't remember because the GF's gave them memory loss.

5. The horrible villian development does not need to be discussed either.


That is all I will list now. Also when you said that you felt that the VII characters were interesting. Yet you felt that they were only with eachother for their hatred of Shinra.

They were brought together because of a common goal. And while you may say that Yuffie, Vincent, Cid, and Cait Sith were kind of their just to fill a little bit of space. Without having deep roots or attachments to the others. The four main characters though were different.

Barret and Tifa chosingly fought together. And Cloud was brought in by Tifa. And Aeris was brought in by Cloud.That their forms a solid group of friends.

Which is exactly how groups of friends are formed in real life. You have a couple people who have been friends for awhile. And others are brought in by particular individuals of the group already formed and the group becomes larger.

So Cloud, Tifa, Barret, and Aeris formed the inner circle of the group. While Cid, Vincent, Yuffie, and I suppose Cait Sith formed the outer circle of the group. A very realistic reflection of how groups are in real life.


And how can you say that anybody besides Squall and Rinoa really cared for eachother in VIII. That group was brought together because they were told they had to be together. They did not come together through choice. Were the characters in VIII really bonded through a common goal. Or were they just following the orders that they were given choosing not to show what their real opinions were.

So in my opinion, VII is the game in which the characters showed that they really cared for eachother. And that they were all together because of a common goal. Their bonding with eachother was not artificial like it very well could have been for the characters of VIII.

Just view it like this. The VII characters were like a bunch of friends who hung out together because they were all people who had alot in common.

While the VIII characters were together because their teacher assigned them to work on a project together for school. While they may learn to enjoy being around eachother. They were not necessarily the choice of each to be partners with.

[Kuja124]

So Cloud, Tifa, Barret, and Aeris formed the inner circle of the group. While Cid, Vincent, Yuffie, and I suppose Cait Sith formed the outer circle of the group. A very realistic reflection of how groups are in real life.

You forgot Red 13

[BG-57]

My thoughts about FFVIII compared to the others:

Characters: I liked them a lot, particularly Quistis, Squall, and Edea. Their designs were well done and had interesting personalities. I suspect that FFVIII comes the closest in the series to the feel of a shojo (girl's) manga, where the emphasis lies more with how the characters feel than what happens. Granted, not everyone's cup of tea. I don't mind the plot holes because I like the tone of the story.

Drawing: it was a nice change of pace from MP. It wasn't collecting common magic that was annoying, so much as collecting rare magic from bosses (like Pain, Ultima, etc...), since I wanted everyone in my party to have 100 of the rare types and some characters draw much more slowly than others (like Zell).

Junctioning: confusing at first, but rearranging and switching junctions feels about as complicated as switching materia around. Magicite required far less juggling. The nice thing was with a large stock of magic, boosting stats with junctions felt like a puzzle.

GF: Nice touch that they can level up and get hurt. I just wish Square would wake up and make them playable characters! I like the look of GFs in this game better than any other FF, before or since.

Triple Triad: I ignored this game the first playthrough, now I'm completely addicted when I play FFVIII. Many a night at 1 AM I would mutter...just one...more...card.

Environment: Castles are nice and all, but it's fun to play in cities and towns that look modern. I felt the same way about the places in FFVII. If Dollet existed, I'd move there.

Earning Money: The only element I truely hated about this game. The SeeD ranking system punishes you for straying away from the storyline too long by demoting you. I love the option to spend hours hacking up my party if I want to so that was irritating. I much prefer getting money from the slain monsters, even if it makes no logical sense.

Music: Simply beautiful. I love the opening theme and anything involving Edea.

Despite the drawbacks, it's my favorite FF game in the series.

[Kuja124]

Junctioning: confusing at first, but rearranging and switching junctions feels about as complicated as switching materia around. Magicite required far less juggling. The nice thing was with a large stock of magic, boosting stats with junctions felt like a puzzle.

You see that's the part I did not like. I understood the Junctioning. But I did not like that all the characters you got could do that. It took away the fun of getting a new character. I mean in FF6 yeah the characters could all use magic and summons. But you never needed to really give them magic. The same thign with FF4, FF9, FF1, and FF5.

I don't like haveing all my characters doing the same thing and all beign able to use magic

GF: Nice touch that they can level up and get hurt. I just wish Square would wake up and make them playable characters! I like the look of GFs in this game better than any other FF, before or since.

FF10's summons are much better. You can use them in battle much longer.

[Psychotic]

A) Don't revive dead threads that are dead, I'm no mod but it's just naughty

B) Why compare FF's to FF's? Once I started doing that, I began to dislike FFVIII, as shown on page 1. It's because of comparision that a game has now been ruined for me because I began to look for faults. Don't freaking do it if you don't want a game ruined. I now have FF8 ruined for me, hence why I can only criticise.