Fox
08-25-2005, 10:17 PM
I know theres a good things and bad things thread floating here, but this is something I want to say.
There has been a lot of mixed feeling about FF8. There have been people thinking: Is it really a Final Fantasy?
From the begginning, it is visible that Squaresoft tried to break out of the traditional Final Fantasy story and plot, battle system and so on, but that seemed to be the worst thing to have done.
On it's own though, FF8 was a brilliant game, something that should have been commended, rather than shunned. It recieved a lot of positive and negative critical acclaim and reviews from people, but it is mostly seen in the eyes of the true Final Fantasyer as 'The worst in the series'.
I'm now going to pick apart each aspect and critisise or praise it in certain ways, so:
Storyline: I found the storyline dis jointed and very complicated, and it wasn't thought out very well. Things seemed to happen out of the blue, and overall the story was rather amateurish, especially for Squaresofts standards, although, since FF7's story was great, they did have a lot to live up to. It flowed, but it just didn't really fit, it was all over the place and even upon replaying it, I still hadn't a clue what was going on. Even the sense of romance and conflict, those themes are present, yes, but they don't fit into the game very well.
Characters: The characters were quite well thought out, their personalitys and over exaggeratedly made obvious. Selphies Bubbilyness, Quistis' sarcastic, almost oblivious nature, and Squalls shut out emo personality is evident through dialog and so forth, but overall, for me, the chatacrers did not develop, as such, more 'changed half-way through'. In 7, you see how Cloud goes through the game, trying to work out why he is who he is, why he does what he does, and what is going on in his head, trying to find out what the right thing is to do, and after the death of Aeris, he seeks revenge, and becomes a more aggressive person through that. In 8, after everyone says 'OMG SQUALL j00 r so shut out, talk to us plz', he starts trying to be open, but there is not much sufficient change in his personality for the player to get involved in the story.
Graphics/FMVs: I combine these two for one reason. Squaresoft combined these two elements to great effect. The back ground would change and suddenly, you could still see everyone, but the background was in FMV, and these transitions were totally seamless and perfect, which added a lot to the game, personally, I think in graphics terms, 8 was the most impressive, because it all was seamless. In game graphics were also very well done, though their blinking was rather strange, they shut their eyes for too long, which was odd. But overall they were well drawn.
A fact I'd like to raise here that I have heard somewhere, I think it's a fact anyway. FF10 was the first in the series to actually use 3D characters. In the previous games, the characters were drawn bit by bit, each rotation and each motion. This is not as time consuming as you would think, owing to the fact all those backgrounds had to be done, all the monsters and so on. And these animations were plonked onto these backgrounds and given boundarys.
The battle screens were not as pretty as 7s, everything looked out of proportion, but the 'area you are in is the battle screen' stayed the same, where the backgrounds would relate to the place you were.
So it is evident the Graphics are not one of it's bad points.
Battle System: k. They screwed up here big time. The draw system was very poor, the magic system sucked overall, having a stock of magic was a bad idea, the MP system works a lot better. The Junction system was a failure and really irritating. Why they did this? God knows. The ATB is there, that's fine, their new invention still present after it's introduction back on the SNES. The Limit Break system was okay, though Aura didnt work at all, not for me anyway. I'd have to wait until they nearly died. And this against bosses was not effective, and Limit breaks were 'a last resort' instead of 'a powerful allie'. The item system hasn't changed since the first games, nothing odd going on there.
The world map: Very well done this time around, although they should have made the places bigger. Wouldn't you be scared if a giant squall was lumbering towards your hometown?
The screw up: The leveling up system. This is a major screw up. Yes, it works, yes it does its job, but it's all wrong. Ok, i'll explain. you play through the game, and look, youve played about 60 hours and your on the final boss. You get owned. WHy? You are only level 49. See, the monsters level up as you do, so level 50 monsters will be on the map if you are around that level. They cheated. They said 100 hours of gameplay. 40 hours of that is gameplay, 10 is storyline, 10 is bosses, and the rest is leveling up at the end for 40 hours to beat the finla boss. 40 HOURS. The story was far too short to level up sufficiently during the course of the storyline, or they screwed up the numbers on the level system so you dont level up fast enough. And to top it all off, the final boss had a stupid amount of HP and it goes on and on. Ultimecia, Ultimecia something or other, Greiver, Greiver and Ultimecia, Final Ultimecia. It's pointless and very annoying. Sephiroth had 3 forms, one of which was too easy to beat. (I one time purposefully lost in that fight, it is possible.)
FF8 was the odd one out because it was popointless, the story didnt work, it was again 'human based', and it had no 'fantasy' per sei in it, it was just the future, and strage alien creatures invading earth and stuff. As a game it stands well, it could be improved vastly, and a sequel could be made, as the story is left a big crash landed in the dust, but I don't think it will be, and a movie? No. It wouldn't work. It'd be the spirits whithin all over again. That was not final fantasy at all, but I won't bother going into that just now, wrong forum as well. ^-^
Well, if you have read this all the way to the end, I praise you, this is one hella long post.
Discuss what I have said and your views on FF8's 'wrongness' and 'un final fantasyishness' (<-Cool word! Unfinal fantasyishness!)
There has been a lot of mixed feeling about FF8. There have been people thinking: Is it really a Final Fantasy?
From the begginning, it is visible that Squaresoft tried to break out of the traditional Final Fantasy story and plot, battle system and so on, but that seemed to be the worst thing to have done.
On it's own though, FF8 was a brilliant game, something that should have been commended, rather than shunned. It recieved a lot of positive and negative critical acclaim and reviews from people, but it is mostly seen in the eyes of the true Final Fantasyer as 'The worst in the series'.
I'm now going to pick apart each aspect and critisise or praise it in certain ways, so:
Storyline: I found the storyline dis jointed and very complicated, and it wasn't thought out very well. Things seemed to happen out of the blue, and overall the story was rather amateurish, especially for Squaresofts standards, although, since FF7's story was great, they did have a lot to live up to. It flowed, but it just didn't really fit, it was all over the place and even upon replaying it, I still hadn't a clue what was going on. Even the sense of romance and conflict, those themes are present, yes, but they don't fit into the game very well.
Characters: The characters were quite well thought out, their personalitys and over exaggeratedly made obvious. Selphies Bubbilyness, Quistis' sarcastic, almost oblivious nature, and Squalls shut out emo personality is evident through dialog and so forth, but overall, for me, the chatacrers did not develop, as such, more 'changed half-way through'. In 7, you see how Cloud goes through the game, trying to work out why he is who he is, why he does what he does, and what is going on in his head, trying to find out what the right thing is to do, and after the death of Aeris, he seeks revenge, and becomes a more aggressive person through that. In 8, after everyone says 'OMG SQUALL j00 r so shut out, talk to us plz', he starts trying to be open, but there is not much sufficient change in his personality for the player to get involved in the story.
Graphics/FMVs: I combine these two for one reason. Squaresoft combined these two elements to great effect. The back ground would change and suddenly, you could still see everyone, but the background was in FMV, and these transitions were totally seamless and perfect, which added a lot to the game, personally, I think in graphics terms, 8 was the most impressive, because it all was seamless. In game graphics were also very well done, though their blinking was rather strange, they shut their eyes for too long, which was odd. But overall they were well drawn.
A fact I'd like to raise here that I have heard somewhere, I think it's a fact anyway. FF10 was the first in the series to actually use 3D characters. In the previous games, the characters were drawn bit by bit, each rotation and each motion. This is not as time consuming as you would think, owing to the fact all those backgrounds had to be done, all the monsters and so on. And these animations were plonked onto these backgrounds and given boundarys.
The battle screens were not as pretty as 7s, everything looked out of proportion, but the 'area you are in is the battle screen' stayed the same, where the backgrounds would relate to the place you were.
So it is evident the Graphics are not one of it's bad points.
Battle System: k. They screwed up here big time. The draw system was very poor, the magic system sucked overall, having a stock of magic was a bad idea, the MP system works a lot better. The Junction system was a failure and really irritating. Why they did this? God knows. The ATB is there, that's fine, their new invention still present after it's introduction back on the SNES. The Limit Break system was okay, though Aura didnt work at all, not for me anyway. I'd have to wait until they nearly died. And this against bosses was not effective, and Limit breaks were 'a last resort' instead of 'a powerful allie'. The item system hasn't changed since the first games, nothing odd going on there.
The world map: Very well done this time around, although they should have made the places bigger. Wouldn't you be scared if a giant squall was lumbering towards your hometown?
The screw up: The leveling up system. This is a major screw up. Yes, it works, yes it does its job, but it's all wrong. Ok, i'll explain. you play through the game, and look, youve played about 60 hours and your on the final boss. You get owned. WHy? You are only level 49. See, the monsters level up as you do, so level 50 monsters will be on the map if you are around that level. They cheated. They said 100 hours of gameplay. 40 hours of that is gameplay, 10 is storyline, 10 is bosses, and the rest is leveling up at the end for 40 hours to beat the finla boss. 40 HOURS. The story was far too short to level up sufficiently during the course of the storyline, or they screwed up the numbers on the level system so you dont level up fast enough. And to top it all off, the final boss had a stupid amount of HP and it goes on and on. Ultimecia, Ultimecia something or other, Greiver, Greiver and Ultimecia, Final Ultimecia. It's pointless and very annoying. Sephiroth had 3 forms, one of which was too easy to beat. (I one time purposefully lost in that fight, it is possible.)
FF8 was the odd one out because it was popointless, the story didnt work, it was again 'human based', and it had no 'fantasy' per sei in it, it was just the future, and strage alien creatures invading earth and stuff. As a game it stands well, it could be improved vastly, and a sequel could be made, as the story is left a big crash landed in the dust, but I don't think it will be, and a movie? No. It wouldn't work. It'd be the spirits whithin all over again. That was not final fantasy at all, but I won't bother going into that just now, wrong forum as well. ^-^
Well, if you have read this all the way to the end, I praise you, this is one hella long post.
Discuss what I have said and your views on FF8's 'wrongness' and 'un final fantasyishness' (<-Cool word! Unfinal fantasyishness!)