I have not been planning on writing about another Final Fantasy so soon, but here we are. Final Fantasy VIII has always been one of my favorites but whenever I tried to think about why, all I could remember was that I really liked Squall, the protagonist – I even cosplayed as Squall some 10-12 years ago (don’t look it up!). For better or worse, I decided to play it again on my recently refurbished VITA. I played the original PSX game from start to finish. And here we are. Apart from some scenes and key plot points, I have decided I will not be recapping the story of this 1999 game, primarily because it would drive me insane. I wish to write about some of its key elements, positive and negative. Word of warning, I did not have a good time playing VIII – it might seem I am too harsh on it; however, I believe that the character writing as well as the story is deeply flawed here. I will do my best to make sure that this post does not devolve into an incomprehensive mess.
The protagonist of the game is the already mentioned Squall Leonhart, a name like only the 90s can give us. Squall is very shy, introverted and does not like to express his emotions or even admit he has any – Hello, Dexter Morgan. He is like this, because when he was a little boy he has lost his sister, or so the game makes you think. He is a member of a specialized military academy called the Balamb Garden and is training to become a “SEED”. There are more gardens. The game never really tells you what does it mean or what it stands for, all you get is the simple explanation that in the world of VIII there are sorceresses and they are bad, and the SEEDs are trained to fight them. Ok, so similar to witchers or other monster hunters, then? Not really. There usually is just one sorceress and there are hundreds of SEEDs. Perhaps these sorceresses are that powerful. The students at Balamb Garden also work as mercenaries and various nations of VIII hire them for various political assassinations or wars. Ok? And why hasn’t anyone destroyed these Gardens, then? Since they pose a threat to everyone and anyone who can pay them and can shift political power so easily? The game never says. Alright, so back to Squall. Apart from being very introverted, Squall is also anxious and is always afraid of being alone – which he is because he constantly pushes people away, even though he has literal people fighting over him. Existentialism was the theme of IX and the fear of being alone is the theme of VIII. It is all rather bleak and serious.
The world of VIII also has a very distinct design – this is not a cyberpunk-ish setting like the one in VII or a high fantasy world of IX. Final Fantasy VIII is very futuristic with sleek curves, shiny walls and high-tech screens. If you can imagine it, it is here. You have flying buildings, nitro boosted motorcycles and dinosaur spaceships with power rangers. It is certainly unique and I would be lying if I said I didn’t like it.
As is standard, the music of the game is fantastic. It has beautiful and relaxing tones in the world map as well as in interiors, it has great battle and boss themes and eerie scary and ominous atmospheric music for its other serious scenes. It is great and I cannot praise it enough. If you ever want anything to listen to, anything atmospheric, just randomly pick any Final Fantasy soundtrack and hit play. Nobuo Uematsu is a master of his craft.
Another thing that is unique and you cannot find it in any other Final Fantasy game is the somewhat complex gameplay mechanic called the Junction system. In this game you collect magic from monsters and places in the world as if they were items and you can only carry 100 of any given magic. When you cast the magic, it depletes from your pool. However, you are mostly encouraged to stockpile it and then “junction” it to your various character’s stats for benefits and effects. This system is completely broken, because if you take some time to figure out which magic works best with which stat you can completely trivialize the game. This is not bad by any means! I have actually come to love it, because of how broken it is. After all this is a singleplayer game and personally I have always been a fan of fun over balance. Later you can learn to refine the magic from various items or monster parts, which makes the drawing (what you call collecting the magic in this world) that much easier. What makes junctioning possible are the GFs (it stands for Guardian Force). Just like in any other Final Fantasy (apart from XII), there are most of the usual summons – Ifrit, Shiva, Bahamut and my favourite Diablos. Honorable mention has to be Doomtrain, the Devil Thomas.
I mean, just look at this guy. Doomtrain is my spirit animal. Apart from allowing characters to junction magic to their stats, the GFs also work as actual summons that you can use in battle. Every GF has a unique animation and attack. Some even provide beneficial effects to your characters. Some are useless. You also level them up and train them in various abilities. It reminds me a little bit of Pokémon or Shaman King. And I love both franchises. If I were to pass judgement on the controversial junction system, it is a 10/10 in my book. I love it and wish it were used again in a future entry.
Final Fantasy VIII also has the best optional side content, a game inside a game the likes of Gwent from the Witcher III. This is also a card game and its called Triple Triad. As Squall, you collect various cards of monsters and famous (or infamous) characters and then you find NPCs that you challenge to a game. You can do this throughout the whole game – even during moments when the world is ending or an important character just died, it is hilarious. How does it work? Well, you have a playing board that is 3x3 spaces and you take turns with your opponent putting your cards into play. Each card has a different strength on each of its four sides ranging from 1 to A. Which side has a higher number automatically wins and takes over the other card. The player with the most cards wins the match. It is simple and addicting – and to be perfectly honest, if you like card games, it might be worthwhile to play VIII just for Triple Triad. Have I said that the music in VIII is fantastic? The song for Triple Triad is just perfect too.
Another aspect that I really liked were the visuals. I played the original PSX game from 1999 and it looked magnificent – and I do not mean just the graphics themselves, but the composition and set design of each scene. These were meticulously crafted to convey specific emotions and appeal. For me this has always been a subjective topic, since obviously we all like something different, but I never really cared about graphics, whether something looks realistic or is „just pretty“. But when I pause and gaze at what is in front of me and start analyzing it and it evokes various feelings in me, I know they did something right. Looking at Final Fantasy VIII is like feasting your eyes on a beautiful painting. The first visit to the highly advanced city of Esthar for example, is incredible. Other backgrounds are strikingly beautiful too.
Later in the game, there is one optional area that I really enjoyed, the Deep Sea Research Center. It is a mini dungeon, where you can acquire Bahamut and fight Ultima Weapon, the recurring boss from other Final Fantasy games. I liked it because it was challenging and reminded me a little bit of the Midlight Deep dungeon from the best game of all time, Final Fantasy Tactics.
I think that is enough with the positives, though. I praised the gameplay and its various systems, the beautiful music and stunning visuals. And for whatever reason, I like Squall. However, what really drags this game down into infamy is the absurd storyline and nonsensical plot. There is no reason in individually rating and describing the characters, because they are all terrible. The plot is predictable and boring – it does have impressive scenes that are highlighted by the visuals and music, however I believe that these were made before the story was even written. It is like when Zack Snyder creates an amazing storyboard for his movies, but fails at connecting these together. So, you have an impressive scene that does not make any sense.
I think it was in the middle of Disc 2 (there are four) where I completely gave up on the narrative. All six of the main characters, along with the secondary antagonist suddenly, out of nowhere, remember that they all come from the same orphanage where the main antagonist was their caretaker?! Not even Dallas had a twist this ridiculous. Of course, this does not go anywhere and serves no purpose.
Apart from the main theme of the game that is the fear of being alone, another very important plot point is the love story between Squall and the deuteragonist Rinoa, who really is the only other character that has any relevance out of all of them. The love story is incredibly cringeworthy and I felt embarrassed for these fictional people at every turn. Squall behaves as if he does not want any attention and does not want to be anywhere near Rinoa, who is constantly making very childish advances on him. She keeps referring to herself as the princess (she actually is) and to him as her gallant prince. Throughout the game, Squall consistently facepalms and expresses disdain and denial to Rinoa. No means no.
They are both supposed to be seventeen. I mean, I can hardly blame Squall for wanting to be alone when this is how you are bombarded every day. Eventually, Rinoa hounds him enough that he gives in and thinks he loves her now (?). I mean, I am no expert on troubles for those who romantically involved, but I think it is called coercion and it is a form of abuse. Squall is already mentally unhealthy, but Rinoa is there to persuade him that he in fact loves her.
Anyway, what is
the gist of the main story? There is an evil sorceress from the future that
wants to destroy all time everywhere. She works towards her goal by travelling
to the present to possess the sorceresses that are alive. For some reason, there
is another person called Ellone that can consciously manipulate time as well by
sending someone she knows into the past and it is implied she could do that for
the future as well. But wait! She is Squall’s long-lost sister whom he thought
had died! Or is she? No, she is his step-sister! Oh ok. The evil sorceress from
the future – her name is Ultimecia - possessed their caregiver from the orphanage
who also turned out to be the wife of Robin Williams, I mean this game’s
Cid, who is Squall’s headmaster. What a soap opera. There is more, of course.
Whatever… I played Triple Triad and worked on junctioning the best magics to my attributes. I breezed through these scenes and carried on. It is not until the end of Disc 2, when the love story actually becomes somewhat decent and I was rooting for Squall and Rinoa to be together. But what a twist! Rinoa turns out to also be a sorceress and Squall has to struggle with the fact that he might have to kill her, because Ultimecia might want to possess her next.
The level design is mostly terrible and unintuitive, too. What you do in almost every scenario is run around and are constantly bombarded by random encounters at every step, pressing all the buttons on your controller and hoping that something happens, sometime. You have no idea where to go or what to do and there are instances of absolute insanity, where you cannot progress the plot unless you do something absolutely specific. For example, you are supposed to go from town A to town B by train. You get the tickets, you board the train with your companions and… nothing is happening. You are stuck. What the hell? So, you figure alright, I have to talk to all of them, I guess. You do that, but still nothing is happening. No one tells you any clue where to go or what to do. The train is not moving, the game is not doing anything. You walk around the room, you slowly walk into every corner while you are hammering buttons, but nothing is happening. What the fuck, I felt that the game has broken and I would have to reload an earlier save. What turns out you have to do, is try to leave the train you just got on! Oh, how obvious, right? This happens way too many times for it to be a coincidence.
Other than the forced amnesia plot with the orphanage, the absolute worst part of the story are the sudden Laguna flashbacks. What are those, you ask? It is when the main cast who is in the middle of doing something, suddenly clutches their heads and falls down to the floor. Then you are transported who knows where and are put into control of a dude named Laguna and his two friends. These flashbacks serve no point to the story, are too long, too boring and they always try to be very funny which is in stark contrast to what is happening with Squall and Co. Who designed this? Who thought this was a good idea? I just cannot. What is this?
In a similar manner to John Marston from Red Dead Redemption, I really like Squall, but not because they are similar, but because both games have varied issues with their story and its pacing. There are times when Red Dead Redemption is incredibly boring and annoying, but I really like John and I want him to succeed, so I press on and do these tedious missions. I felt like that throughout most of Final Fantasy VIII, too.
There are a lot of instances where the game purposefully wastes your time where characters are forced to walk instead of run, in endless hallways with tons of enemies, mazes of various ways to go, but where every but one is a dead end and you have to backtrack to the correct one. If you do not know where to go, you are adding hours to your playtime. And this happens constantly! This is not a short game either – by just doing the main story, you will need 50+ hours. This is especially egregious during the later parts of the game, when the plot is running on fumes.
At the very end of the game, you travel into the future where Ultimecia supposedly resides and have to work your way through her castle to defeat her. Time compression is in full effect and it is described that all time is being pushed together and with the pedigree of stunning visuals in this game, I hoped this would have been represented somewhat in the backgrounds, but its not. Ultimecia’s castle that is supposed to be in the far future simply looks like a gothic castle. And oh my god!!! The final level is infuriating. I liked it at first, because being in the future while time compression is happening, you are stripped of everything and have to work your way through the castle defeating various bosses to unlock abilities like using magic, using items, being able to revive fallen characters or even to have the ability to save the game. I loved this as a concept! But it becomes very annoying, very fast, because the castle suddenly becomes the Spencer Mansion from Resident Evil 1 – there are puzzles, there are hidden keys and items, there are sudden ambushes and the worst enemy in the whole game – the backtracking. For hours, you are running around the castle opening locked doors and trapdoors, and at the end I was just exhausted and wanted it to end. Initially I wanted to compare it to Scooby Doo, but that would have been a disservice to an amazing cartoon.
What is ending like? It is fine. It is a happy end for everyone. The team defeats Ultimecia in her four phases that from a technical point were ridiculous and reminded me of the Bed of Chaos from Dark Souls, where you have to do certain things exactly or it is game over. The powerful sorceress is this ridiculous Lady Gaga impersonator with a bad eastern European accent where she pronounces every W with a V and every C with a K. Whatever, she dies and the universe is saved.
Final Fantasy VIII is the pinnacle of what could have been. The gameplay design is truly fantastic as is the artistic direction of music and visuals, but the story is an abject failure in my opinion. Would it have been better had it been 20 hours shorter? Sure, but it would still be bad. It pains me to no end, because for whatever reason I really like Squall and have always seen bits of myself in him, but this ain’t it, chief. 4/10 – play it for the card game or skip it.
