Final Fantasy Viii What did you all think of it?

[MysticWaters 0]

I loved FFVII alot... well I haven't played it for ages but I remember having loads of fun with it way back.. FFVIII is cool and the graphics are way better that 7 but not so much the storyline..I can't wait until FFVII Advent Children comes out~ ^^

[Dynasty 0]

The gameplay is the reason why the game baffled me. On one hand, the gameplay is rather fresh from the last two games that have stuck mainly to conventional RPG battles and this game throws in some unique twists in the Junction system. On the other hand, there is so much responsibility and complexity to the Junction system that it doesn't flesh out the battles like it should and leaves you flippant about taking it seriously. The decision to give the Guardian Forces a HP count makes them superior to use the characters themselves and in turn, makes combat repetitive. I also didn't like how using magic was implemented in a way from 'drawing' them from random places - the MP system was sorely missed for me.The junction system basically overules levelling up from battles. I found this extremely difficult to learn. Okay, you junction magic to each attribute such as strength, attack, defense, speed etc. For instance, if you were fighting say, Shiva. Junctioning fire to your attack will give you a fire attack therefore giving you a higher one. If you were fighting an earth enemy, junctioning earth magic to your defense will give you a higher defense rate. Depending on the amount of magic you have, it's done in percentages, the more magic you junction, the more damage is reduced or increased. What is more important is that magic can be junctioned to boost your HP. Using higher refined magic such as Ultima and Flare will improve it even more. This is practically essential for bosses. This adds to the extreme challenge of the game, which some will consider an improvement for Final Fantasy VIII. Another aspect is the GF expanding importance in this game. GF's (Guardian Force) are your summons in the game which all have their own abilities in order to assist your characters offside battle. They level up just as much as your characters, except even faster to acquire abilities they can learn. They need AP to do this. And they can learn abilities by setting them to do so on the GF screen in the menu. Such abilities occur from learning to refine magic out of items to having battle options such as making it available to even further boost HP, MP, the damage they can cause or even turning your enemies into cards. It's varied and useful, but very different. This is one of the particular thing I felt awkward about.As for battles, your party of three can fight in the same way the previous game did. You can attack, use magic, use items or use GF's. There will be rare times when you can use commands such as "Kamikaze" when you learn the ability for instance. Acquiring magic comes from either draw points (where you can sap magic into a character's inventory) or drawing them from enemies. GF's are acquired this way also. It saves a lot of bother in times, but also get's frustrating that you might not have the right magic you could have if you had normal MP. The bad thing about the battles is that you'll most likely use the GF's constantly because they have their own HP meaning you can use them more than once. It makes the battles a lot easier, and more repetitive.Weapons can be levelled up by buying weapon magazines to find out the model type then gaining the items to refine them. The items usually come from defeated monsters. I found this annoying and very hard to come by some of the items, and virtually without them, attacking damage is pathetic and futile. This means that some battles can become so repetitive that you can be rendered to using GF's constantly and boringly, it brings the appeal down.Another apsect I didn't like was the fact that to achieve a limit break, you either had to use an aura spell or be near to death. And then the limit break could turn out to be ineffective and weak. However, the concept of some of the limit breaks for some of the characters were uniquely designed. Rinoa has the most useful as her dog can intervene in fights and selflessly attack the enemy. While Selphie has the most powerful in "The End", where she can eliminate some bosses in one hit with it.

[Daehawk 0]

Final Fantasy VIIIMy Rating: 10/10I loved the story in all the Final Fantasys and the designs of the characters. It will always be very captivating and keep people comming back for more. The way things always play out in the end is the same, but worthwhile. You become of course the hero and get the girl ^_~.