Hey Dragon, You Can Have Her: Final Fantasy VIII

[SavingPrincess]

There seems to be quite a bit of jRPG hate in the world. I have a theory as to why this is:

Let's say you had a friend tell you about this rock concert they went to. It was one of the best concerts ever, the lights were awesome, the stage was amazing, the music was perfect; everything just seemed to come together in some magical way. Excited because you've never seen a rock show before, you look up when the next tour from this band is coming; the only problem is that the lead singer, the guy who started everything, left the band and they're touring on an album they'd written and released after said breakup; oh, and everyone in the band has switched instruments. Still, in the history of this band, no matter what members they've interchanged (except the singer) they've rarely put on a bad show and have developed a huge cult following. So, you see that the band is coming to your town and you plop down your $49.99 for a ticket, drive there, find parking, walk in, take your seat and get ready for the show.

What you end up experiencing however, is a cluster of sappy half-hearted emo love songs and hours of needless repetitive rhythm tracks.

You leave completely confused as to what the fuss is about, and with good reason. Up until now this band had garnished very little attention from the world outside of Japan and only did occasional tours in your country, and after having seen this show, you don't feel as if you were missing much at all. This one single experience has turned you off the entire genre and you'll never look back.

This is what happened for western cultures with the release of Final Fantasy VIII (that's 8 for you non-Romans). Hot off the heels of the jRPG that made everyone sit up and take notice (Final Fantasy VII), Final Fantasy VIII's chance to knock the ball out of the park was unavoidable. It would be a hit, it would be the best Final Fantasy to date, and it would show the world just what they were missing.

Then it all went wrong... horribly wrong.

Here's a quick list of the obvious problems first because they're not the REAL problem, which will be discussed in a moment:

• - Disjointed overall story arc
  - Totally unremarkable inconsequential supporting cast
  - Boring and distant villain(s)
  - Guardian Force, Junction, and Draw systems were all horribly implemented, unbalanced and exploitable
  - The Draw system broke what it means to be a video game and turned it into a mindless chore (not even a grind, an outright chore)

Now, here's what actually went wrong. In the house of Final Fantasy, artistic positions seem to operate more like jobs on a corporate ladder. There's the producer, director, artists, writers, designers, and so on. Now, it's rare from an artistic standpoint, to find a great writer who is also a great director, or to find a great concept artist that would make a good producer, and that concept is what broke Final Fantasy's back.

Up through Final Fantasy VII, the Final Fantasy projects have always been closely watched over by series creator Hironobu Sakaguchi. During the creation and production of Final Fantasy VIII however, Sakaguchi was hard at work on Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within and only served as a distant "Executive Producer" role leaving the direction solely to former writer Yoshinori Kitase, who was a writer and co-director on Final Fantasy VI and VII. With the writing position vacant so that Kitase can focus on directing, Kazushige Nojima, who was newly brought onto the Final Fantasy VII team as a "scenario writer," took over the job of lead writer coming up with the story and characters for Final Fantasy VIII and having much of the creative control over the game as a whole. Nojima had said he wanted the protagonist to be "quiet" and "reserved" and "like Cloud" but with the ability to "hear what the character is thinking."

This amounted to the "emo-ness" of Squall, the protagonist from the game, and with scrutinizing eyes of the world focused on this genre, the stereotypical jRPG "emo-tagonist" was born.

Then there's Tetsuya Nomura. Nomura was the character designer for Final Fantasy VII, VIII, X, X-2 and XIII and replaced Yoshitaka Amano as the lead series character designer in that position with the exception of Final Fantasy IX & XI. Before that however, Nomura was hired on at Square as a "debugger" for Final Fantasy IV, was "promoted" to the "monster designer" for Final Fantasy V, then "promoted" to "graphic director" and "minor character designer" for Final Fantasy VI before taking over as lead-character designer for Final Fantasy VII. With Nomura having even more creative control over the art direction of Final Fantasy VIII than the previous title with Amano completely out of the picture, coupled with the PlayStation maturing graphically and SquareSoft having more experience with the hardware, Nomura was able to more realistically portray his ideal for the Final Fantasy protagonist and because of the success of Final Fantasy VII, went completely unchallenged.

Again, with all eyes looking on the release of this highly anticipated title, this helped solidify the androgynous male-protagonist stereotype that exists today.

Going down the list of developers involved in this title, you will see that everyone sort of "moved up a step." The seemingly only case that goes against this is the ever impeccable Nobuo Uematsu who wrote yet another brilliant musical score as he has done for the entire series up to Final Fantasy XI in which he only did select themes (so, yay for musicians writing music. It's what we do).

What this ultimately amounts to is a ton of inexperienced experience. While most of the team were used to working on Final Fantasy titles in the past, for many crucial key roles, the experience was new to them. Couple that with the fact that Papa Sakaguchi was MIA working on various other projects, and what you have is the first Final Fantasy that didn't really feel like a Final Fantasy.

Many, many people loved Final Fantasy VIII for what it was, but what it was left many Final Fantasy series fans questioning what direction their beloved series was going to take. The commercial success of Final Fantasy VIII was not indicative of its quality or reception, as most people bought it simply because of the title alone. In story, design, art, theme and system, it was a vast departure from those leading up to it.

It can be (and will by me) be argued that Final Fantasy VIII is a bad game; but at the very least it can be argued that it was a bad Final Fantasy. Kitase and Nojima stated that they wanted the "opposite" feel of the previous title in that Final Fantasy VII had a "light coming from darkness" theme to it, so instead started everything all cheery and drove it into the dark. It could also be said that they were going for the opposite of Final Fantasy VII in that Final Fantasy VII was a good game that had a good story and was fun to play... and they were going for the opposite of that.

They succeeded.

... and if you want me to go in depth on WHY the story and mechanics of the game were "bad," I will happily do so; but be forewarned, if you love this game I will make you cry... so you might just want to love it in private.

-SP

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

I was a rabid Final Fantasy fan until VIII. I even made it all the way through VII despite disliking Cloud's attitude, because seriously, there always seemed like there was a reason behind it, so I could forgive him a bit. But Squall? Squall, I detested. He was the main reason I couldn't keep playing beyond two hours and ended up returning the game to Blockbuster early. Sure, the weird minigame mechanics threw me off too, but when every word the main character speaks makes me want to curbstomp his brains out, what point is there for me to keep playing a story-based RPG?

I haven't played a Final Fantasy game since. Sure, part of that was from my transition to PC gaming, but still. VIII did a wonderful job of turning me off of the series.

 

[daleious]

I highly enjoyed your theory looking to become a Producer myself i can see how the collective vision could of been lost, being a i suppose "fanboy" of FFVII (If thats the right term for thinking its one of the best games ever made then so be it) i never quite understood how FFVIII was held in such high regard even being called the best FF by some, having it as a kid i always thought it started well but seemed to lose the plot a bit.

Its Like you said with the draw system i remembered not Drawing Alexander from Edea at the end of the 2nd disk and had to do it all over again which seemed like a pretty broken design. I would like to hear more depth on your take of the bad story and mechanics ^^, I always thought the story between Squall and Rinoa was kinda SIGH and i was more intrested in the side characters.

Its safe to say that FF8 span a wide negative effect just look at Tidus.

[Edit - First Post i actually thought deserved a comment since 2008 ;>]

 

[Random Argument Man]

I actually enjoyed FF8. Granted, it's not the best Final Fantasy. However, I felt an genuine reward after all that grinding.

My main problem with the story was the fact that they didn't not explain the world around them. I beated 4 through 9. All Final Fantasy except 8 took the time to explain the world. 8 just focused on the characters, the present events and the love story.

It's maybe why we never knew who the last villain was until the end. I had to read a book about Final fantasy 8 to know her motives. We never knew why Galbadia attacks everyone. We don't know about the GFs. We don't know much.

 

[Therumancer]

It's been a while since I played Final Fantasy VIII. I will however say that I believe this was actually one of their better and more successful games despite the criticism. I thought most of the cast of the game was fine, even Zell (to an extent). Irvine struck me as just kind of being "there" though. My big problem with the game's storyline happened with the giant "we were all children in the same orphanage together..." reveal which... was pushing things (though it did tie up more than you might think).

Truthfully every Final Fantasy game has legions of haters, VI, VII, VIII all have them to various degrees. It wasn't until IX with it's "back to the basics" approach that I began to see any real bile beginning to be thrown. While "X" was pretty well praised it seemed to have entire cults of hatred being formed around Tidus and Wakka (I thought Wakka was okay, but didn't care that much for Tidus), then of course you've got X-2 which I feel failed due to the end of the story (Final Mission) not being released in the US (with the fact that they weren't going to release it being made clear just in time to cause people to wing their discs against the nearest wall wondering 'what's the point of a story that doesn't conclude?'), XII had probably the biggest hate-fest of all given the fact that it involved an androgynus hero who looked/dressed like he was on his way to star in a gay porn production of "Aladdin" in the back of some Gypsy's van.... and of course an overly beringed "sky pirate" named Balthier who looked like he would be the Gypsy-Producer who owned the van. When I say this, keep in mind that I am aware that neither chracater is gay (far from it), however the way these guys looked and some of the turns of phrase would probably have gotten the hosts of "Queer Eye For the Straight Guy" to flee in terror because this would be too flaming even for them. Rupaul would look at these characters and say "okay, that is going too far".... you get where I'm going here? There is such a thing as "WTF were they thinking character designs.


At any rate, I won't say Final Fantasy VIII was a bad game, I think it was even pretty good for the series. It however had the bad fortune of being made in the shadow of "Final Fantasy VII" which went from being a mere game into an international pop culture phenomena, with statues, figures, movies, prequels, sequels, and spin offs all being created due to it's immense popularity. It was simply a hard act to follow, and it was even harder when it was more current.

As far as the Draw system goes, I didn't think a lot of it myself to be honest, however I don't think it was as bad as people make it out to be. Sure it WAS time consuming, but this was when RPGs were still very grind tastic (and that was not a bad thing), it basically gave you something else to pull from fights aside from exps and loot. Since I was fighting that much anyway, I really didn't notice that much when I played it (as odd as that might sound).

Just my opinions of course. But then again I've always liked Quistis Trepe, she's pretty much my favorite blue mage, and honestly, the whip-wielding sex bomb teacher was one of my childhood fantasies (sssh, don't tell anyone).

 

[SavingPrincess]

I would like to hear more depth on your take of the bad story and mechanics ^^,
[Edit - First Post i actually thought deserved a comment since 2008 ;>]

Wow thanks!

Okay well here 'goes:

There are five, exactly five characters that mattered in the storyline of Final Fantasy VIII, those were Squall, Rinoa, Seifer, Laguna and Edea... that's it. Every other character in the game had literally zero effect on the overall plot. You could have interchanged them or removed them all from the story entirely and it would have had little to no effect on the story as a whole. This is the first Final Fantasy game to do this. (You could make the argument that Laguna's wife was important, but I don't consider her a "character".)

What this means, is that all the other characters, Quistis, Selphie, Zell (who makes me want to punch babies while wearing gloves that consist of other babies strapped to my hands), Irvine, Laguna's sidekicks, Seifer's sidekicks et. al. were totally inconsequential to the plot and nothing but filler.

The rest of the story itself felt forced and unimportant. I didn't "hate" the bad guy nor was I entertained by them. The humor in the game was all unintentional which basically means instead of laughing when you're supposed to, you end up laughing at the game at inappropriate times because of its absurdity.

Then there's the "dual story" aspect between Laguna and Squall. Holy crap was that disjointing and broken. Like, I get how they thought they were being clever, but there's something called "execution" that needs to be taken into account. Disjointing is fine as long as it's done right. The mid-game twist in Final Fantasy VI was disjointing, but it was done correctly. The Laguna sequences left me scratching my head, and I found myself reloading a save prior because I thought I'd missed something. THAT means it's broken.

I won't get into how I feel about Squall because it's purely opinion; suffice to say he annoyed me to no end and was a total letdown the moment the opening cutscene went away.

On that note what the HELL is with the opening cutscene? What kind of school lets their students cut each other's faces open and burn each other while fighting in a dangerous wasteland? Seriously?

This leads me to the idea of "look what we can do!" That's all Final Fantasy VIII was; one giant pose for the camera. It's obvious the development team had a TON of ideas and tricks to show off in this game... the only problem is that there was also supposed to be a game underneath it all and it kind of got lost in the shuffle. The imagery in the game lent little to (if not distracted from) the storyline; the dialogue was even more shallow than usual and was either poorly written or poorly translated (the easy way to tell this is strip out all the names before each line in a scene with four or more main characters talking and see if you can tell who's saying what). The "conflict" aspect of the story, which all great Final Fantasy titles have been about took a huge backseat to the love story which felt forced and unrealistic.

-- on that note, when did Final Fantasy start focusing on love stories? Most of the pre-3D games have had love elements in them but served more of a "give this character depth" mechanic than having it be the main storyline. Think of the Cecil/Kain/Rosa thread from Final Fantasy IV or the Locke/Celes/Rachael element from Final Fantasy VI. Even in Final Fantasy VII, the love was a mechanic to push the character forward even if the love interest was nowhere to be found... this is another thing that Final Fantasy VIII broke. (Final Fantasy XIII looks a bit more promising in this regard as I'm not seeing two main characters that can be in love without causing it to turn some censor-y heads)

Notice how I haven't even gotten to the mechanics of the game yet? Let me know if you want me to continue.

 

[Onyx Oblivion]

Oh god. 8 was my favorite. 7 isn't even all that great.

That's just "t3h best gaem evar" because it was so many people's first...

 

[tzimize]

Well...this is just one of those we all have arseholes posts, or was it opinions?

To me FF8 will always be VASTLY superior to FF7, even FF9 was more enjoyable than 7. When I think of 7 I think of insane grinds (knights of round table materia oh my god), a good fighting system and a less than stellar story with one of the most overrated villains ever. I enjoyed FF7 a LOT, but the ending of it just failed me and ruined it for me.

FF8 was AMAZING. The battlesystem was not as deep as 7, but more enjoyable (to me) because of more limit breaks from Aura. The Summons also had a superb part to play in the story, and its part of what made it amazing. The cast of FF8 is dull, but lets face it FF8 is a story about 2 people, Squall and Rinoa. The rest was just tag-alongs (with a possible exceptions of the amazing side-story about Laguna). FF9 had the best cast of the 3, a story that to me was more interesting than #7 and a great finish of the FF run on PS. It also has one of the most endearing and amazing companions I have EVER seen in any rpg: Vivi.

I cannot understand how you can say FF7 has a better story, but truth be told it been so long since I've played them both I remember best the end. And the ending of FF8 is unparallelled (- or + a few l's).

I still have my saves from PS1 and I regulary pull out my PS2 to play the ending of FF8, its that awesome.

That being said, FF9 was the last good jrpg I played and I think I might have outgrown them. The melodrama and clumsy dialogue and TERRIBLE TERRIBLE english voice acting makes the games seem amateurish and childish in comparison to masterpieces like the Mass Effect games. But that is an entirely different discussion altogether...

 

[Batfred]

Oh god. 8 was my favorite. 7 isn't even all that great.

That's just "t3h best gaem evar" because it was so many people's first...

You stole my comment... AGAIN! But yeah, I actually thought that 8 was better than 7 becuase I didn't like te silly cartoon graphics when I knew that the technology existed to move away from that into (what was at the time) near movie like cut scenes where the gameplay didn't look all that different. it was a long time ago remember, we were impressed then.

With 8 in contrast to 7, the mini games were better, the music was better, the hentai is better, The explore ship was better, there was no Yuffie, no one said "..." and you couldn't get the stupidly overpowered Knights of the Round which spoilt the last battle by making it too easy.

 

[Joshroom]

FF8 was an odd one for me. Because of when I got my playstation I actually played FF8 before I played FF7, and so maybe I enjoyed it more because my opinions hadn't already been coloured by playing what is arguably a more superior game.
Saying that, even playing it fresh faced I noticed a lot of flaws. While the cinematics where absoloutly stunning, I tink I actually preferred the blocky, cartoony graphics of Cloud and co over the in game grapics of 8. FF7's graphics leant it charm; while FF8 was trying for more realistic and so when the characters dresses flowed through their bodies it was all the more noticeable and jarring.
Squall still ranks as one of the worst FF leads in my head; and that's saying something because I have an almost venomous hatred for Vaan and Tidus. Its the fact that he spends the whole game doing and saying all the wrong things; till you hust want to reac into the screen, smack him around and sout "Why So Emo!"

Oh and, I'm interested what your take is on the mechanics if you wanna carry on.

I would like to hear more depth on your take of the bad story and mechanics ^^,
[Edit - First Post i actually thought deserved a comment since 2008 ;>]

Notice how I haven't even gotten to the mechanics of the game yet? Let me know if you want me to continue.

 

[tzimize]

"Squall still ranks as one of the worst FF leads in my head; and that's saying something because I have an almost venomous hatred for Vaan and Tidus."


I found Squall to be stupid, but also ok. He's a teenager after all (I hope), they tend to be less than smart. Vaan I just didnt manage to care about, nor the story of #12 so I didnt even finish the game. Tidus was tolerable, but the voice actor made me want to strangle anyone in my near vicinity, and the voice actor.

Edit: I see I still have some stuff to learn about quoting. :\

 

[Marsell]

Well...this is just one of those we all have arseholes posts, or was it opinions?

To me FF8 will always be VASTLY superior to FF7, even FF9 was more enjoyable than 7. When I think of 7 I think of insane grinds (knights of round table materia oh my god), a good fighting system and a less than stellar story with one of the most overrated villains ever. I enjoyed FF7 a LOT, but the ending of it just failed me and ruined it for me.

FF8 was AMAZING. The battlesystem was not as deep as 7, but more enjoyable (to me) because of more limit breaks from Aura. The Summons also had a superb part to play in the story, and its part of what made it amazing. The cast of FF8 is dull, but lets face it FF8 is a story about 2 people, Squall and Rinoa. The rest was just tag-alongs (with a possible exceptions of the amazing side-story about Laguna). FF9 had the best cast of the 3, a story that to me was more interesting than #7 and a great finish of the FF run on PS. It also has one of the most endearing and amazing companions I have EVER seen in any rpg: Vivi.

I cannot understand how you can say FF7 has a better story, but truth be told it been so long since I've played them both I remember best the end. And the ending of FF8 is unparallelled (- or + a few l's).

I still have my saves from PS1 and I regulary pull out my PS2 to play the ending of FF8, its that awesome.

That being said, FF9 was the last good jrpg I played and I think I might have outgrown them. The melodrama and clumsy dialogue and TERRIBLE TERRIBLE english voice acting makes the games seem amateurish and childish in comparison to masterpieces like the Mass Effect games. But that is an entirely different discussion altogether...

your goddamn right its better!
point on why 7 was NOT better than 8.
Aeris dies, they dont use a pheonix down. DERP!
The junction and draw system made the grind go by alot faster.

 

[JoJo Bizzaro 7]

I would like to hear more depth on your take of the bad story and mechanics ^^,
[Edit - First Post i actually thought deserved a comment since 2008 ;>]

Notice how I haven't even gotten to the mechanics of the game yet? Let me know if you want me to continue.

Oh, please do! This is the smartest thread I've been on!

 

[jthm]

the hentai is better

Yeah it is!

Ahem, I always preferred 8 too. The music was some of the best in the series to date, the cutscenes were awesome, the battles (provided you customized properly) were great and most importantly, the card playing minigame was more addictive than crack. Personally, I didn't even mind the Junction system, once you get the hang of it and remember to use it in battle.

Man, I think I'm going to go replay the game again... Oh wait, no. God of War tomorrow. I'll replay it in a week or two. Still, I'm going to go listen to my soundtrack.

By the way, an earlier comment made me wonder this. Do we really need to have everything explained to us in order to enjoy it? I'll grant you that Ultimecia was a bit of a mindfuck, but by that point I didn't even care anymore. I spent a while leveling my awesome characters and building my terrific deck of cards and damned if I cared who I was going to use them on, so long as they got used. But back to point, Hannibal Lecter was much scarier before Hannibal Rising (talking books here) was published. Last House on the Left (movies now, original 1970s version) was disturbing precisely because the criminals had no real motive. None of the FF games explain why Odin or the other summons want to show up and kill shit for you (okay, except 10). I submit that game doesn't have to explain the world to us in order to be enjoyable.

 

[Crimson_Dragoon]

Worst plot twist ever.

Spoiler

Oh, we're all from the same orphanage but we've completely forgotten about it because of some arbitrary reason seemingly made up on the spot. What's this? Guardian Forces give you selective amnesia. So why didn't Squall remember all this BEFORE he got his first GF? And why have we been traveling with a guy (Irving) who knows the truth but for absolutely no reason has decided not to mention it?

Add to that the system is so broken and exploitable, not only was I able legitimately to beat the game at level 13, but I had an easier time than someone who would have been at level 99.

 

[jthm]

Aeris dies, they dont use a pheonix down. DERP!

Because we only had like 80 of those motherfuckers stocked up! Cloud might need them later!

 

[Random Argument Man]

I've never actually played a single Final Fantasy game myself, but I hear that VII is the one to get, and thankfully it seems to be on PC. Might pick that up when I can.

The thing about Final Fantasy is that each entry feels different. Even if you're told that FF7 is the one to get, you should consider checking the others too. Although, the PC entries will limit you to only 7 and 8 unless you're a bad person and use emulators.

 

[Marsell]

Aeris dies, they dont use a pheonix down. DERP!

Because we only had like 80 of those motherfuckers stocked up! Cloud might need them later!

As opposed to now!?