Quote Originally Posted by Wolf Kanno View Post
The two things I love the most out of FFVIII was Squall and Laguna who had really good character development and both rank as some of my top heroes in the series. I feel when you focus the plot solely on Squall and Laguna and their relation to other people (basically ignore the Time traveling BS or the idea the plot is about the "Grand Romance" between Squall and Rinoa) then you can see how very strong the story really is. Its buried in a lot of crap, but these tales are where I feel the title really shines.

My other favorite thing was just the sheer ambition of the game. Following up the smash success of VII, Square easily could have copy/pasted and released VIII as a VII clone with better graphics and a different plot but instead they went in and decided to change the way we looked at RPGs and redefine the whole genre. Granted, I don't think VIII succeeded in this goal but I have to give them props for having the guts to do this. Stealing magic, Summons that act like equipment and skills? A sci-fi story told in what feels like a world not too far from our own (minus Esthar)? I feel VIII really tried to push all RPG conventions we thought of at the time and even if non of its ideas became new RPG staples, it did change how we thought about the genre.

I'm not sure if people who started in the PS1 generation can really understand what I mean here. The game was rather mind blowing for those of us who started in the 8/16-bit era's. At the time a lot of the genre was set in stone and I feel VIII made it ok to explore a bit more on what the genre could do.
I'd argue agains the whole, a world not to far from our own' statement, but it's really hard do, I just couldn't get that feeling from the game. It's probably because the people in it felt so far devoid of what people are like, the overall world just felt out of place?

Anyway, I don't get how you can like a game for it's ambition. What one should like it for is the end result, not what the game intended to become, especially when it fails.

I disagree on the not of Squall as well. I do with Laguna, but to a lesser extent.

My beef with saying you should focus on Squalls interactions with people, his interactions are the same across the board. It's always his distancing from people, in every case. Focusing on just that aspect of the story, you only see one side of squalls personality. For that matter, even in the grander scheme of things, you always see that side of his personality. Squall, and the rest of the cast, is painted as as extremely onesided characters. No matter how good the premise of a character driven plot it won't be good if the characters driving it are no good.

Now, Laguna is probably the best developed character in the game. YOu see multiple sides of his personality through his interactions with people, something I can't say for the rest of the cast. Which is sad, cause I found Laguna himself generally unlikeable regardless of this fact. Though perhaps had they given the rest of the cast the same though in a multi-layered personality, I'd be able to agree with your assessment.

Though my main reason for responding is mention that you do not speak for me, as I started on the 16 bit era, and FF VIII was far from Mind blowing, in every respect. (Except for graphics and Rinoa's hotness.)


The GF system had some decent Ideas to it, the ability to augment your character by combining him with a GF. However, the FF VIII system took it to far, making it like FF VII in the fact it didn't matter which characters you used, the GF's were what made them exactly what they were. If the GF's were used more like Augments, as the Guardians of Wild Arms 2 were, the system would have been much better.

However, I will give this game a few deserved props.


The first thing that comes to mind is a lot of the Music of FF VIII was remarkable. Not near a big a fan as eyes on me as most, but so long as I'm not paying attention to the words, it's a decent listen, but the rest of the game had much better music.

Another thing I liked were some character designs. Irvine, while not really fitting in well with the world, had a very awesome design I'd say. You'd see him and believe he was a Sniper, yet he manages to pull off a sort of old west-like look, which one wouldn't really associate with a sniper. Rinoa's outfit was also rather stunning as well.

And finally, the card game. I hate that damned thing with a passion, though had it not been for FF VIII starting that trend, we wouldn't be blessed with the amazingly deep and awesome cardgame of Xenosaga III.