The endless fight about FF8

[zidane747]

Seeing as how this is one of the most hated FF's(probably THE most....thanks ECM ), and there are about 2 people that like it on these boards(besides me, and Despair), I would like to have a discussion about it. For me, it's a fantastic RPG, with a marvelous story and great music. All around, it's amazing. Tons of people didn't like it, and even more hated it. Now, let's discuss why did you hate it or love it.

[Captain Vegetable]

I actually dig it. Edea is the Best. Boss. Ever.

[EThugg]

It's crap. The story sucks, the characters are all gay, and that draw crap made combat worse than any other FF (if that's possible). The onbly FF that's worse is FFX, because it adds gay voices to the mix. Burn FF8, Burn!

[MechDeus]

Tell you what, I'm just going to say I love the battle system in FFVIII, really enjoyed Junctioning, and found that portion fun as hell despite how broken it is (even now Limit Breaks aren't as abusable as they were in this game). I liked stealing spells from enemies, and thought some of the designs were really good (the Ragnarok is one of the greatest "airship" designs ever).

However, after the last FF battle, I'm kinda worn out for discussing this series at the moment. But you at least now know what I liked about, ne?

Oh, and it also offers one helluva quote I still use to this day for taunting people, "Now you suffer death beyond death!" I mean, what the hell is that supposed to mean?

[Swirly]

I didn't like the game by disc 3 because it was boring. That's right, it was boring. Every time I went into battle, I feel asleep. The game was beautiful and the story was okay.

[NeoZeedeater]

I like FFVIII a lot. I played through it once but I won't go through it again.

The game is artistically beautiful which is its greatest attribute. The ending is one of the best I have ever seen.

It's too bad the game has a horribly unbalanced battle system where you use nothing but summons, I hate every character in the game, and the story is completely forgettable.

[MechDeus]

Originally posted by NeoZeedeater
It's too bad the game has a horribly unbalanced battle system where you use nothing but summons [...]

Now here I have to contest you. The battle system is unbalanced, but not because of summons. Learning Juctioning is the key to doing well, the better you are at that the less you'll use summons. I played through FFVIII twice (had nothing else to do when I went through the second time) and didn't use a summon once. There was no need, because of how powerful my characters were (usually far stronger then the summons, and certainly faster) just from creating spells and Juctioning them (remember, levelling up affects nothing).

The other broken area of the battle system is the monster level compared to yours. I dumbed down the end of the game my second time through because I purposefully didn't use a few characters for as much as I could so I ended up with a few characters at level 99, and a couple others in the low 20s. This threw off the monsters levels, and made my life a little easier.

[Punky Skunk]

It isn't as simple as good or bad, like or hate for me. It's good and bad, I like some of it and hate other parts:

Pros:

-I like junctioning. I thought it was original and fun, even if a bit tedious (but what part of RPG battling isn't tedious?).
-Guardian Forces were a work of genius. A huge leap from the summons of previous FFs.
-Triple Triad is the most addicting game within a game I've ever played.
-As usual for FF, the soundtrack is fantastic.


Cons:

-The game switched characters on you WAY TOO MUCH. I disntinctly recall having to set up my characters' junctioning and GFs too frequently. It became ludicrous.
-Unlike my feelings towards FF7, the world seems very randomly generated. Some things seemed really out of place, like trains and cars as major modes of transportation when there are floating cities?
-I like buying new weapons and equipment. Enough said of that.
-The characters were overall very lame and annoying. The story was preposterous ("SPOILER" specifically the orphanage thing, truly laughable).

That's about it. More cons than pros, hence why I sold it, but it isn't without its merits.

[FirstBlood]

i don't see how anyone could think that this game had a great story... the whole orphanage thing was absolutely terrible... the love story was completely boring... and the charcters showed no emotions, ever (especially Squall and Rinoa, who should have been showing the most emotions)...

i mean, who the hell was Quistis? "look at me! i'm your teacher at the beginning... i guess i'll stay in your party and never say anything!"... and don't get me started on Selphie (the worst character ever, in any game...)

from what was supposed to be a story focusing mainly on love... there is only one scene where that i can remember where i actually, how do you say, "felt the love", and that was the space scene where you have to save rinoa. but other than that, there wasn't a single moment where i "felt the love"... the love story was stronger in both FF7 and FF9

the music was also terrible, pretty much continuing the random-midi crap that was found in FF7 (although One-Winged-Angel kicks ass...)

as for the draw/junction system, i guess it was decent, partially because you could beat most every battle without giving a damn as to what you junctioned to what. which brings up another point: too fucking easy, i mean, i can only remember dying during the final dungeon, but that was when i fought ultimacia without releasing all of the seals...

sure, it did do a few good things. Indrocuing Triple Triad was pretty cool, although the version found in FF9 was vastly superior. And i thought Irvine was a somewhat interesting character... and Seifer was pretty cool. But other than those two, the rest of the cast was terribly bland, and unemotional

so, in conclusion, i think FF8 is the worst Final Fantasy i've played, but not the worst RPG of all time (... shadow madness... *vomit*). It could have been much better had Square taken the time to think up some good characters and a better story... sure, the game was gorgeous... but that can only get you so far. i was supremely dissapointed after FF7

[MechDeus]

I hated Triple Triad. As soon as I realized there was something similar in FFIX, I immediately avoided it in FFIX as much as I could. I felt it could've been a great game against actual human opponents, but I really didn't like it against the puter. I do have some actual cards of it laying around somewhere, though nowhere near enough to actually play against someone.