Review by Lagunathemoron

"Final Fantasy VIII has come to PC! but is it worth buying?"

Final Fantasy is no doubt, one of the best seris of all time, along the lines with Monkey Island, Mario and Zelda. Recently, Square have been doing their Final Fantasys for PSX and PC, and the eighth installment is out for PC. Many fans have told me, that this is the ''Blunder'' of the seris...I am sorry but I am with the ''many'' fans. but the game is still decent.

Story - 5 : The storyline has got more holes in then a swiss cheese which had a machine gun spinning and shooting in the middle of it! Thats what most people agree, I do as well. well..anyway.... The story starts off with Squall Leonhart and Seifer Alamsy, ''training'' near their school in Balamb. The school is called a garden, and is a school of the future, which is well presented. Squall gets a scar from training and awakes in the nurses imfirmary. He see's this girl before meeting up with his teacher, Quistis Trepe. Squall is going to become a true mercenary, known as a ''SeeD'' and is sent to the local fire cavern to retrive a Guardian Force (Summon Monster) Ifrit.

After that, Squall, Seifer and another young man called Zell Dincht are sent on a mission to help Dollet from under attack, this is part of the SeeD test. After the SeeD test, Squall meets up with a girl called Rinoa Heartilly, who changes his life forever.

That is a small portion of the story, there is a lot more to come, and plenty of holes which are going to emerge later on, but it is okay-ish.

Graphics - 8.5 : The graphics in the FMV's are proper outstanding! Watch all the polygons move in all their glory. The graphics are not all that bad during Feild and Battle mode, but the characters faces seem a bit... ''smudged''. The backgrounds and Locations are detailed, but not as detailed as FFVII's. What is bad, been on the PC version is the world map graphics. Their ugly, look at PSX's Balamb Garden, then look at the PC's version, you should spot a bit difference.

Music and Sound - 9 : I like the music and sound in this game. Anything in the game, which is supposed to make a noise, makes a noise. This is from footsteps to cars. The music is a bit cheesy, and great, its worth buying the Soundtrack for these tunes. There two songs in the game, first been Liberial Faitail or something along the lines, and the other been ''Eyes on Me'', which is the biggest talked about Final Fantasy song.

Gameplay - 5 : The gameplay isn't as good as past Final Fantasys, like FFVI for instance. The control on the field works good, but the game can freee on PC, and you might need a patch.

The new system, known as the Junction system has to be the worst magic system which has been in Final Fantasy. It is soo confusing, and you'll be lucky to understand it within the first few days of playing the game on you're first run.

Random Eccounters make a return, and are welcome, but these can easilly be turned off after about the 5th hour of play, by equipping Diablos ''Eccounter-non'' ability. If you don't have that, you can always fire a ''expensive'' car.

You do not get money by slaughtering enemys in this game, you have two choices to get some cash. 1) Sell things or 2) Take SeeD tests to increase you're SeeD ranking, and get you're salery, this happens about every 20 minutes, and you might only get 5000GIL if you are an avarage player.

Another diffrence, is that you do not buy weapons and armor. In fact, abolish armor altogether, as you can't get any, and you must find spare peice to upgrade weapons.

Final Fantasy VIII introduces a Card Game. This card game works simply, you have a 3X3 board, and must play cards with numbers on each side down. if a number beats another number, you win a card.

There is no point in leveling up in this game. Enemys level up with you. so if you fight the final boss at loevel 100, the boss will proove very difficult. if you fight the final boss at level 15, it will be easy. it all comes to junctioning you see.

Replaybility - 3 : Final Fantasy VIII has a good gameplay hours, but once you play through once, you should leave it gather some dust.

Overall - 6 : The oddball of the Final Fantasy seris....out for PC. I think you should buy it, if you don't own the PSX version, or if you are desperate for a turn based RPG on PC.

Reviewer's Rating:   3.0 - Fair

Originally Posted: 06/30/01, Updated 06/30/01

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