Daedalus1942 said:
PhiMed said:
I don't really have a favorite. I've enjoyed almost all of them immensely.
Your assessment was that the flaws were minor.
That's a completely subjective statement.
For the record, I'm capable of ignoring a few minor flaws (a la your completely random FFIX straw man argument), but I found the flaws in VIII too numerous to ignore. Also, a completely incomprehensible story (even by FF standards) is not a minor flaw. It's a fatal one.
An example of my problems with the story: "There's a mysterious force that has nullified all the long distance communications on the planet for decades, so an elite military program decides to go to the BIGGEST RADIO TOWER IN THE WORLD to see if they can turn it on, because NOBODY EVER TRIED TO DO THAT BEFORE." If that's not masterful storytelling, I don't know what is.
Your assessment was that it's "better than alot (sic) of the crap game companies charge top dollar for nowadays".
That's also completely subjective, but I would agree to a point.
The difference is that most of the games to which you're referring won't be hailed by a tiny group of people ten years from now as the greatest of all time.
That type of veneration is what has transformed my mere irritation to absolute hatred.
As for me being an imbecile, I'll agree that I'm an imbecile bitching about a game if you'll agree that you're a fanboy turd nugget who got his nuts all up in a bunch because somebody had the audacity to question the quality of a ten year-old collection of ones and zeroes.
That's the start of the story for the first disc. It progressively gets better, and you're completely ignoring that fact.
For instance at first you think Edea's the Antagonist, only to find out she's related to Ultimecia and on your side. She was also your guadian in the orphanage where you grew up, along with zell, irvine, seifer, selphie, rinoa and everyone else. Seifer's gone AWOL to join Ultimecia as he believes in some great romantic quest. Ultimecia revives her sister, and uses Seifer for her own devices.
The world gets caught up in the great Time Compression, you find out the Guardian Forces caused you to develop gaps in your memories and that you've known all your party members since you were little.
The story got alot better, and you're just picking at it for it's minor flaws.
I'd like to see you come up with a better storyline for a game.
Not to mention the card game was actually a fun sidequest that you wanted to complete. All the sidequests were very original, challenging, but enjoyable and very well put together. I'll bet when you played it you forgot to draw all the GF's out of the bosses, and failed to even reach Ultima. That's why you're bitter and twisted. Oh and way to go, trying to channel Yahtzee -.-
For it's time, it was a top-notch game, and it deserves all the praise it still gets.
The one gripe about that game for me was the completely arbitrary and almost pointless section fighting those aliens on the Ragnarok in the 3rd disc.
All the things you just said about the story are perfect examples of the idiotic plot devices and horrible storytelling I found rampant in this game. It doesn't get better. It's gets much, much worse. "Everyone's got amnesia, so it doesn't have to make sense" is the kind of intelligence-insulting crap that makes producers of other media forms look down on video games. You must love all M. Knight's movies, because he uses the same tactics. "Here's a plot twist that makes no sense, but it's completely unexpected, so that means it's good." No, it doesn't, it means it's not a cohesive story, and Steven Speilberg will always be right about games not being a good media for storytelling as long as these types of trends continue.
I didn't recount the entire story, because I feel it starts out silly but tolerable, then descends into the depths of self-indulgent fecality. I wouldn't hate it so much if it didn't take itself so seriously. I can enjoy a crappy story that doesn't love itself, but I much prefer a legitimately good story. This one is neither. It's one of the worst-constructed stories I've ever seen in any format, and it resulted in me spending most of my time rooting for Sephie and Zell to die, Squall and Seifer to get knocked over like the cardboard cutouts they were, and for Quistis to get nude. Whether I can come up with a better story is immaterial because I'm a surgeon, not a writer. That being said, I still guarantee you that I could go to a writer's workshop for two weeks and emerge capable of at least writing a more coherent story than this absolute atrocity.
Now, I did beat the game, but I find it completely hilarious that you're attempting to insult my video game expertise by saying I suck at Final Fantasy VIII. There's no skill to any Final Fantasy game, man. I like them, but they're not skill-based games. Any retard with a strategy guide can beat them without breaking a sweat.
You really need to stop making statements like "it's a fun sidequest that you wanted to complete". I didn't want to complete it. I thought it sucked, and I'm really irritated that all the Final Fantasies since have felt compelled to include some stupid mini-game that you're forced to play at some point. I hated the fact that the only way to get enough of some of the items you need to upgrade your weapons was through this stupid game, and a lot of other people feel the same way.
"Good for its time" and "one of the best of all time" are not the same thing. For example, I'll agree that the visuals in this game were beautiful for its time, and some of the CG still kind of holds up. But the gameplay, story, and sidequests were terrible, regardless of time period. You've just got to accept that while pretty much everyone who's ever liked a Final Fantasy game likes VII, a lot of people hate VIII, IX, X and XII (I didn't include X-2, because I haven't finished it and I don't know a single adult male who likes it).
You're free to continue your fanboydom (I guess this is me channeling Yahtzee? I'm not sure what the hell you were talking about there), but just keep in mind that a lot of people hate your favorite game, and will always hate your favorite game. I could talk all week about the problems I had with this game, because it was such a letdown after VII, it was three times the price of every other game available on the market at the time, its fans are the loudest and touchiest of any fanbase ever, and I found the story to be insulting to my intelligence. There are people that hate my favorite game, too. When I see their posts in forums, though, I usually just go to another one. So while you may dislike me for my opinions, you're the little douchebag who saw a random comment in a forum and decided to pick a fight.
