You love it or you hate it

[Irvine78]

ive been playing FF games for about a year now, and i wish i would have started much sooner. i have dawn of souls, IV-VI on my computer, VII-X, and tactics. guess i'm something of a fanatic. but FFVIII has been my favourite game i purchased, seconded only by the almighty FFVI.

VIII was so fresh. say all you want about its massive fanboy/girl base or whatever else...squaresoft sort of wondered off on this tangent and made this weird, dark horse game that people just bitch about most of the time because it was so sterilized and dry.

but look at VII. FFVII was sort of like the new guy at school who crashes through on a motorcycle with a huge sword and screams at the top of his lungs "YOU ALL LOVE ME BECAUSE I'M NEW" and all the shallow people instantly fall in love with him. it was a good game, don't get me wrong...but it had the misfortune of being the game that broke RPGs into america (that honor should have went to VI). so when VIII came out on this new tangent, everybody who really expected another game with cloud and sephiroth and materia was crushed.

[AkiraMakie]

so when VIII came out on this new tangent, everybody who really expected another game with cloud and sephiroth and materia was crushed.

Thank you! arigatou! arigatou! thank you thank you THANK YOU!!!!!!

man you hit the nail on the head. I cant stand it when someone puts up the arugment "ff8 was dumb, because first off all, the junction system was dumb and it didnt have materia!!@!@!!!!@!@!!!!"

that pisses me off to no end. Its like, materia was important to FFvii's storyline, just like junctioning had an accually point to the storyline of ff8. Too many people were expecting the same thing as ff7. And they were let down because it wasnt the same. I was one of those people that assumed ff8 would be just like ff7, seeing as i never had played Final Fantasy rpg's before then, but when i accually played ff8, i was throughly surprised. I loved it. Im glad that every game is different. The series would have never lasted if they had made 11Final Fantasy's that all revolved around the same storyline.

[crazybayman]

I agree. FF VIII was AWESOME. I actually liked the fact that it was a little darker, giving it a more serious feel.

Most final fantasy's do have a different system - FFVII's materia, which I like, FFVIII's Junctioning, which I really like, FFX's sphere system, which I really liked, etc......

The materia system was heavily included in the actual storyline of FFVII because it was basically Mako energy in a solid form. It was actually so much a part of the stoyline that if square included it in another FF, then it would have been tough to get away form FFVII's world and story line.

Say for instance they used the materia system in FFVIII......the game would have had nothing to do with FFVIII's story of the gardens and the sorceress, which would have been unfortunate. It probably would have ended up being close to a sequal (or maybe prequel) of FFVII. So i think its definitely a good thing that they didn't use the materia system again, although it was a great game, and a good battle system.

[smittenkitten]

FFVIII IS THE BESTEST!!!It changed my life forever *shows tear of affection* ............(sigh).....xXx..

[Vyk]

I liked that the Final Fantasys started to get darker and/or more mature. And though I wasn't fond of the junctioning and the actual NEED of GFs, that really didn't ruin the game for me. The characters personalities were so... I don't know. I related to Squall, and yet I hated him. What really bothered me though was the plot was very... political. And it seems to be a new trend for Final Fantasies. FF7 just took the same formula, tweaked it a bit, and gave it a steam-punk overlay. 8 took things in a completely different direction. And I think it was the same mindset that was used in 8 that made the FF Movie bomb. I'm sure FFT started the whole "lets play role-play polotics" but it wasn't mainstream. So I give credit to 8. But considering the FF and FFT worlds are about to combine (FF12). I fear for the future.

But for what it's worth, I do enjoy FF8. I just don't like the tracks it seems to have laid. Unfortunately.

[Big D]

I like FFVIII a lot. One heckuva lot, actually.
FFVII is still my favourite, but VIII's got a lot of great features and details that keep me coming back after all these years.

[nik0tine]

FF8 was my first time....




































































(SPOILER)Playing Final Fantasy that is!



I love FF8...

[rubah]

I probably like ff8 the best of any of them

But then again, very rarely do people attend forums for games they don't like. Which explains a lack of posts on my part in ff4 topics or the ff9 forumXD

[Apollo]

FFVIII is teh awesome!
(I hate talking like that)

[TheAbominatrix]

I really dont like FFVIII, and neither it nor VII was my first FF game. I knew what to expect (in general), and I didnt like it very much at all. I felt it was poorly excuted, had terrible character development, and focused too much on Squall and Rinoa, who I found extremely annoying to begin with.

That being said, I adore the card game and the overall gameplay is fun.

[Chris]

FFVIII is still one of my favorites, but I have hard time playing through it again.
Ultimately I feel like the reward for finishing the game was terribly
disappointing.

[Drift]

the ending was something to be desired for but i still reckon its one of the top FF endings since i personally can relate to the characters since they are human and not people with tails(zidane) or people that take drugs (cloud). also the ending shows them celebrating and being themselves albeit no voice (but still good) the ending does make you wonder who rinoa is with though... i know most of you will say its squall but i think it COULD BE seifer even though rinoa did rescue squall at the end, squall could've just walked away being the cold heartless guy he is

[Razo]

Final Fantasy VIII is awesome, I'm currently playing it at the moment for the first time (Disc 3, Entering Lunatic Pandora), and its great, particularly the storyline. The only thing that bugs me is the junction system, i hate the fact that one of the only ways to get magic is to draw from enemies its so time consuming and annoying,and the fact that you have a limit of magic, which in turn makes ure character weaker (if equipped) so you try not using that magic.. But then again there are other Final Fantasy games that have something annoying like that... (Final Fantasy X, even if u have an item that saves ure life u try not to use it in order to stock up for synthesis).
Otherwise a great game.

[rubah]

As far as I remember, the ending doesn't hint one bit about rinoa being with seifer.

[Masamune·1600]

the ending was something to be desired for but i still reckon its one of the top FF endings since i personally can relate to the characters since they are human and not people with tails(zidane) or people that take drugs (cloud).

There is no evidence in FFVII that Cloud or any other main character engages in drug use.

also the ending shows them celebrating and being themselves albeit no voice (but still good) the ending does make you wonder who rinoa is with though... i know most of you will say its squall but i think it COULD BE seifer even though rinoa did rescue squall at the end, squall could've just walked away being the cold heartless guy he is

Not really. Squall's "cold heartlessness" is less a function of personality than it is an outgrowth of the feelings of abandonment he subconsciously harbored after Ellone left the orphanage. Rinoa was critical to the change that we ultimately see in Squall. In any case, the game was written and marketed as a 'great love story', in which case Squall and Rinoa obviously end up together.

To return to topic, I myself am a big fan of FFVIII. It's not my favorite Final Fantasy, but it's up there. FFVIII is an incredible game, and one I've always enjoyed.