Final Fantasy VIII: The Most Underappreciated Game

In my opinion Final Fantasy VIII is the most underappreciated game in the series.

VIII of course is the game after VII. VII was an incredible hit and really brought a new sense of creativity and capabilities to the series. With such great innovation and and even more solid and dramatic storyline it set expectations for Squaresoft's next installment high.

The expectations for VIII were unbelieveable, and I felt that Sqaure met them in every possible way and it takes only a bit of thickheadedness and ignorance to fail to realize this.

VIII featured one of the most epic storylines. It's a realistic sci fi storyline that doesn't feature any world threatening magic spell, no device capable of any mass destruction, but simply a defunct line of Sorceress geneology and an unusual ability to experience the past when linked to a special individual.

The concept of time compression I do not want to say is realistic, but it provokes very intersting metaphysical thought of the possibility that time has more than one continuous flow. Almost as if to say our current human experience may not be all that is going on in the totality of the cosmological world. It's brilliant! We can be in the present, our relatives could still really be existing in the past, and our children could be existing in the future. Only we don't have the possibility to understand or experience such a thing as three distinct flows of time. Final Fantasy VIII however does give us a way to comprehend this.

The characters are among the very best in the series. There's no supernatrual hero who shoulders the load easily, there's to jaw dropping female with fantastically excenuated features. There's just real people put into an extraordinary circumstance. The way they respond to it is a pleasure to watch.

I don't feel I need to say anything about the gameplay, but the Junction system was the most intellectually free way in any Final Fantasy game to develop a character, and the GFs played an integral role in that. Rather than just being some summon magic to call in battle, they really meant something to the characters. I thought the signifigance of their role in both character development and having a role in the characters in the story was an excellent move by square.

All this is supported by the best soundtrack to grace the series.

In my opinino this game is the most underappreciated in the series, and had it now stood in the shadow of the giant we know as Final Fantasy VII, we'd be seeing sequels and movies to make this game just part of a very pleasant experience for fans.

I actually thought the characters and story for this game were better than 7. I didn't like materia so i favor the gf system. I like 8 better than 7, so i don't think it's underappreciated except by people who fall in line with hype and don't make functional decisions. Still, I would not take it over ten.

Well, we all know whatyou think of X Jimi.

And we all know that I just really wanted to make the first thread in this forum!

lol yeah you love this game too much ^^

I love the characters and the story in VIII, and the thing with GF's is awesome ^_^

this game was the ff tht took the gfx to the next level.... this1 is one of my fav.... the story n the character design was nearly if not as good as FFVII...

minox2109 wrote:

this game was the ff tht took the gfx to the next level.... this1 is one of my fav.... the story n the character design was nearly if not as good as FFVII...

On this we can disagree.

Firstly about the characters. Squall is a much stronger character than Cloud. Not only is Lionheart a better limit than Omnislash, but Squall has strength of character where he could shoulder his friends and not to mention all of Balamb Garden and get them all the best outcome through his own abilities. Cloud was dependant upon his friends, and was so weak in character, he might as well have summoned meteor himself when he handed the black materia to Sephiroth.

The relationship between Squall and Rinoa was in my opinion much more authentic, and it thankfully cut out the the "emo" "Tifa doesn't look at me enough" aspect.

As for the story, VII had an impressive story, but I don't attribute much of that to Sephiroth, I attribute that to the Shinra where the game put across an environmental message concerning things like the Mako Reactor. When they eventually dropped this element from the game, I was really disappointed.

VIII was able to bring in a realistic political aspect through the Galbadian dictatorship, showing the deception and tyranny of Vinzer Delling, and the unrelenting commitment to Edea's orders by the Galbadian military. The whole concept of the Galbadian dictatoship was really a message of how dangerous a tactic it is when the public buys into the fear a leader offers it. I think this is relevant even today in America.

To support that you can look at the Esthar Nation's abstention from political affairs from the most part to show how the greater power in the world really wants no part of bullshit politicking.

VIII is just a brilliant game, and had it come before VII I think it maybe even more well received than VII, this is assuming nothing is subtracted from it's perfection.

The Junction System was one of my favorite gameplay elements in the game. I always challenged myself to find the best magic to get the best results with my Junction abilities. I wished that they would've transfered it to the other games.

Yet when Squaresoft merged with the other company to become Square-Enix their games did degrade but that is a totally different arguement..

I found VIII a lot more superior than VII in the story line. VIII had one of the greatest love stories behind it and also just an all around great stroyline..

This game was my favorite and shall always be my favorite...espcially the arguement of Is Laguna really Squall's father..me and my friends always go head to head on that one..

(which he is btw...look at the signs in the game)

Yes Leon, the signs are obvious. What I think is so interesting about the relationship is that Laguna's love for Julia was really fulfilled through Squall and Rinoa. It almost makes me think Square was trying to send a message about geneology.

Rinoa is obvious the child of Julia and General Caraway. Squall is never directly related to his parents being an orphan, but you'd have to think that Raine's child Ellone wasn't called Sis by Squall with no meaning at all. It's very reasonable to believe that after Laguna went on his quest to Esthar to find Ellone that Squall ended up at the orphanage after Raine's death. Where's a lovely young boy to go at a young age with a missing father and a dead mother, well the orphange wouldn't be all to strange of a guess.

jesus christ..you are just like my friend David in everyway...even teh smoke weed part lmao

he always wins the FFVIII arguements >>

VIII definately has its obsessors. It probably has more distinctive die hard fans than any other game in the series. That's one of the benefits of it being so underappreciated, it has a definate underground fanbase that a more popular game like VII doesn't have.

Yea i should get david on here and let you and him go head to head about it..it would be freakin cool to see xD

FFVIII 4 LYFE

Go right ahead, it's not like new members aren't welcome here, especially now!

Vincent, looking at minox post, i don't think he disagrees with you. I just don't think he worded the end right.

As for the storyline, as it compares to 7, it's much better.
Cloud is too emo for me, and vincent and cait sith's characters are a bit too over the top with what the story was doing and the world around them.

Hey don't argue with 'lossy.' I agree. ff8 was a great game, but ppl don't appreciate it as much as they should. (Squall is awesome! He could kick Cloud's ass hands down)

(we need an edit button lol)
Cloud is not emo! Neither is Squall...Why do you ppl think these things?

I disagree. I believe tactics is the most underappreciated FF game. Tactics is a great game. One of the best FFs ive ever played. And to prove my point that it is more underappreciated than 8 is the fact that there is no FF section in the forum for tactics.

I think that the problems with Tactics is more so that it is undiscovered because it is not a numbered Final Fantasy game, so people forget it exists.

However I think that in regards to overall game quality versus appreciation VIII is more underappreciated because it is a better with less appreciation. Tactics is a good game with poor appreciation, but it isn't as good as VIII.

Is Tactics as good as VIII? No way, not in terms of having an exploratory environment, character abilities, graphics, and even its strong storyline pales in comparison to VIII.

Is Tactics less appreciated than VIII, you're right in absolute value, but you're wrong when the difference is made between how good the game is and how strongly it is appreciated. Tactics doesn't deserved to be loved as much as VII, VIII, VI, and other games because its quality just doesn't match what those games have to offer.

Ill talk more about this in a week or so when i play 8. I am buying it off of my friends at school. He is selling me ff7 and 8 for $15! Best deal ever...if he accually brings it.

That's a damn good deal if the games actually play!

Yeah it is, he said he wanted 25 at first but i pursuaded him down to 15 hehe...I want 7 because my copy doesnt work anymore and i cant find 8 anywhere in stores. i was going to buy them both on amazon but now i dont have to spend a bunch of money to get them

I bought VIII and IX on Amazon for 20 bucks a pop. My copy of IX stopped working, and my copy of VIII is quite scratched, and VIII is a game I must play if I desire to with absolutely no setbacks.

Well VIII is the only FF that i have really played. why haven't i played others? i don't know, i never was a big console person and i never kept up to date, but now i really really want to play X and X-II but i also want to play all of the golden oldies.

I love VIII with a passion, it has such a great story line and its everything i could have hoped with a FF.

sorry but i find VIII very good,look it came out 1999,and i can say that its 1 of the first games of 19 century with so awesome digital graphics^_^

1999=20th century, but that is a great point.

and andrew, would you like a fftactics section? i was expecting it to go in the compilation part and maybe get 1 or 2 threads lol. it is rather undervalued. but in relativity, i see vincent's point. though i feel 8 gets a lot of love from people who have actually played it.

oh, I just noticed this thread was here again XD

I really liked VIII. I actually liked it on par with 7, and it came close to DoC for me. I liked how you ould equip the gf's to any char at any time, as long as that person was good, the gf made them phenominal. alas, I only msde it to the 2nd disc, and I cant find it now T.T

I really liked VIII.