All Things Reconsidered

Remembering the Orphan: Final Fantasy VIII

[27 May 2009]

Warts and all, the ambitious push to expand video game storytelling found in Final Fantasy VIII deserves a closer look at this too-often neglected franchise entry.

By Jack Patrick Rodgers

Is there any videogame out there that’s more in need of a critical reevaluation than Final Fantasy VIII?  Despite strong sales when it first released in 1999, the game is considered only a minor entry on both sides of the Pacific. Most reviews in the US were only mildly positive and bemoaned that the iconic characters of Final Fantasy VII had been replaced with a group of sensitive teenagers, while a 2006 poll in Japanese gaming bible Famitsu revealed that Final Fantasy VIII was only the sixth most popular installment of the series.  More grudgingly liked than truly loved, it’s the red-headed stepchild of the franchise.  And that’s a shame, because upon closer inspection, the game is an excellent work of entertainment that occasionally aspires to becoming art.

A little history is in order.  The Final Fantasy series began in 1987 when the first installment was released in Japan (its ironic title is a reference to the near-bankruptcy of its developer, which assumed the game would be their last project).  Its creators hit on a winning formula to make role-playing games more palatable to the masses: they dumped the complexity of Dungeon and Dragons in favor of more streamlined gameplay, allowing players to spend less time improving their characters and more time immersed in the story.  Of course, for a game on the 8-bit Nintendo system, a complex story consisted of little more than stock fantasy clichés—a princess in peril, an evil warlord, a quest to save the world, etc.—but at a time when most console videogames had the entirety of their plot explained in the instruction manual, it was almost revolutionary.

cover art

Final Fantasy VIII

(Square Electronic Arts; US: 7 Sep 1999)

The franchise continued to crank out sequels as its storylines grew more complicated, although not necessarily any deeper (thankfully each game had its own self-contained story and a new cast of characters, which kept the series from becoming any more convoluted).  When Final Fantasy IV was released in 1991 for the Super Nintendo system, the plot felt like The Lord of the Rings as hastily rewritten by Charles Dickens. The games were still relying on the same generic fantasy elements, but they were now in the service of a storyline filled with shameless amounts of melodrama, personal betrayals, and unexpected connections between the main characters.

The series made another quantum leap in 1997 with the release of Final Fantasy VII, the first entry to become a best-seller in the US.  That game took full advantage of the hardware of the Sony Playstation, using 3D graphics to create a more fully realized world, and the larger storage capacity of CDs to tell a Byzantine storyline that spanned over 50 hours long.  Yet for all its progress forward, the game still seemed like a hodgepodge of different styles that never amounted to a satisfying whole.  Its aesthetics were a blend of Tolkien-esque swords and sorcery with Japanese anime and cyberpunk dystopia, while its storyline was now half melodrama, half plot-heavy comic book with the occasional stab at social commentary—the game contained references to genetic engineering and corporate corruption, but it never really went anywhere with these topics.

By contrast, Final Fantasy VIII knew exactly what it was trying to be: a coming-of-age story built on the metaphor that growing up is a long, dangerous journey.  What’s even more interesting than the game’s attempts at plausible character development and thematic depth is the fact that it’s part of a larger trend.  Final Fantasy VIII was released only two years after Buffy the Vampire Slayer debuted on television and the first Harry Potter novel was published in England.  What all three works have in common is their use of fantasy as a rich, multi-layered allegory for adolescent pain.  Their success paved the way for other genre crossbreeds like Pan’s Labyrinth (childhood fears as nightmarish creatures), Battle Royale (high-school rivalries as ultraviolence), and Veronica Mars (high-school backstabbing as film noir), but while Buffy and Harry Potter have been frequently championed, Final Fantasy VIII has been mostly forgotten.

As the game opens, the protagonists are students at Balamb Garden, a sort of cross between Hogwarts and a military academy.  And while the storyline quickly leaves Balamb Garden behind for a globetrotting journey, the school feels like a fully realized place rather than just a starting point thanks to a number of lived-in details.  It has its own intranet, which contains information on school policy and a blog (updated throughout the game) that chronicles the personal life of one of your traveling companions.  Talk to several of the students and you’ll find that they’ve formed a fan club honoring the Garden’s hottest female professor.  And the school includes several areas—a student hangout, a cafeteria, a library—that have little use in terms of gameplay, but exist to show that the designers spent the time to make you want to explore the place.

The first time you enter the school’s courtyard, the action slows down and the camera glides past the main characters to show a dozen students chatting and walking to their next classes.  It’s that kind of detail that makes Balamb Garden, like Hogwarts, feel both exciting and oddly cozy.  It’s a place that feels like you could actually visit—and more importantly, would want to.

There’s also the matter of the game’s distinctive visual style.  The first five installments of Final Fantasy borrowed freely from the medieval fantasy epics of Tolkien and his imitators, creating a landscape of fortified kingdoms, bucolic villages, and monster-infested dungeons.  The next two games mostly followed this template, but added their own touches: the world of Final Fantasy VI seemed more pre-Industrial than medieval, while Final Fantasy VII added a dismal metropolis straight out of Blade Runner.  The series clearly wanted to establish its own look rather than resorting to pastiches of other works, but it wasn’t until Final Fantasy VIII that it managed to get it right.

Balamb Garden is the epitome of the game’s unique style: a massive, colorful building shaped like a mountain, with an illuminated halo-like structure hovering above it.  It’s a marvel of futuristic design that apes neither the bland sterility of Star Trek or Minority Report, nor the towering, baroque architecture of Blade Runner or Metropolis.  The Garden looks almost organic, something both man-made and a part of the natural environment.  The rest of the game’s cities and locations might not be equally as memorable, but they’re all inspired by a mix of imagination and different architectural styles from throughout history.  Consider Deling City, which contains Parisian landmarks (it has a structure that bears a curious similarity to the Arc de Triomphe), an Asian-style shopping arcade, and an Edwardian mansion, and is host to a Madri Gras-like parade organized by the city’s fascist government in honor of their new leader.

If Final Fantasy VIII were merely a triumph of aesthetic design, it would make for an atmospheric videogame but a thin storyline.  Instead, the game subverts the usual fantasy narrative: it starts off as an epic adventure and slowly reveals itself to be a character study.

Like so many RPGs, a devastating war casts a long shadow over the characters of Final Fantasy VIII and puts much of the plot in motion.  But rather than a centuries-old conflict that has become the stuff of legend, the world war of this game ended little over a decade ago, and the game touches on the volatile politics and human toll that have been left in its wake. 

Horrified by the devastation they’ve witnessed, a kind-hearted couple decides to establish a home for children orphaned by the violence.  One of these children is Squall, the game’s protagonist, who is never adopted and instead moves directly from the orphanage to Balamb Garden, which trains young men and women to join an international peacekeeping force that works to prevent future bloodshed.  Squall’s abandonment—first by his parents, and then by his friends who leave the orphanage one by one—teaches him not to trust or rely on other people.

Melodramatic?  On the surface, sure.  But Squall’s introversion is vividly depicted through a number of small, believable details.  The game provides a running voice-over (if you can call it a voice-over, since it’s in text bubbles) of Squall’s thoughts, and the disconnect between what he says and his internal confusion over what people want from him is revealing.

Squall’s frustration at dealing with others comes to a head in an extraordinary scene early on in the game.  He and several other graduates of Balamb Garden have been assigned to help a resistance cell fighting against a dictatorship.  As they plan their next move, they receive word that Seifer, one of their former classmates, has been executed.  Stunned by the news, the group takes turns trying their best to remember Seifer as a decent person.  Quistis says she doesn’t have “any good memories of him,” then insists “he wasn’t really a bad guy.”  Zell swears revenge despite having been tormented by Seifer, and Rinoa, lost in her romantic memories of their time together, seems to be imagining a different person entirely.  Only Squall is heartless enough to realize the truth: Seifer was a bully who made their lives miserable and his death was largely the result of his own recklessness.

Intentionally imagining someone to be a good person because they’re now dead is, of course, a complete lie—a very human failing, but also a necessary one that protects us from our own feelings of despair and nihilism.  It’s a defense mechanism that takes some of the power away from death, even at the expense of what we know to be true.  Squall’s inability to participate in this group fantasy shows just how much he has hardened his emotions.  He is too critical to accept these lies and too disparaging of Seifer to think of him in a positive light.  His ability to keep both other people and his own feelings at an arm’s length might make him stronger, but it also makes him seem coldly inhuman.

The game twists the knife further when Squall realizes that if he were to die tomorrow, everyone would eulogize him as a cheerful, likeable guy, cementing the fact that they don’t know him at all.  Upon understanding this, he storms out of the room, while the rest of the group is puzzled as to what’s come over him.  Too cynical to join their group fantasy, yet still dependent on the opinions of others in order to determine his self-worth, Squall is trapped in the singular hell of feeling alone in a crowd.

Moments like this illustrate Squall’s troubled mindset, but the game also manages to capture some more universal emotions.  In the world of Final Fantasy VIII, people are able to cast magic spells by utilizing mythical beasts called Guardian Forces, although it’s rumored that doing so can damage one’s memories.  At one point, Squall’s party reaches the site of a recent battle, and one of his traveling companions casually drops a bombshell on everyone else: they’re all orphans of the previous world war and grew up at the same orphanage, but their memories of their time together have been erased by the Guardian Forces.  The childhood friends that Squall can only dimly recall are in fact his new companions for this mission.

It’s a terrific, resonant metaphor: the experience of warfare stole their childhood innocence and is slowly turning them into soldiers who have no purpose except the next battle.  More than that, it’s a commentary on how the responsibilities and pressures of adulthood can cause us to forget who we once were. Anyone who has ever rediscovered a childhood memento and found old memories flooding back can sympathize with characters who are amazed at how much they’ve forgotten.

This plotline reminds me of some of the best work of Buffy the Vampire Slayer-creator Joss Whedon, who proved himself a master of using fantasy as an allegory for real-life pain (consider the unforgettable episode in which Buffy sleeps with her boyfriend and accidentally transforms him into a soulless monster).  Indeed, Whedon suggested that he might be a fan of the game in a 2007 interview with The Onion’s AV Club in which he stated that his new favorite musical genre was YouTube music videos of Final Fantasy VIII.  Frustratingly, the interviewer failed to follow up on this, but it’s not hard to imagine Whedon being a fan of a story about a group of teenagers dealing with life and love while battling monsters.

Another fascinating subplot involves a series of strange dreams that Squall and the others keep having about a man named Laguna Loire, a journalist-turned-soldier who fought in the earlier war.  Squall watches with somewhat amused detachment as Laguna flirts with a torch singer during shore leave, gets injured and recuperates in a small town, and is eventually captured by the enemy.  When the two meet face to face in the present, Squall learns that Laguna is his father, who disappeared after the war ended in order to become a political leader in a distant country.  Unlike most RPGs, which pump every event and strange happening full of cosmic importance, Final Fantasy VIII keeps its focus deeply personal: in the end, the cryptic dreams are revealed to be nothing more than a son’s attempts to understand his absent father.

All of this character development and emotional texture might sound great, but the game does admittedly suffer from two giant flaws.  Final Fantasy VIII is considered the black sheep of the series largely due to an idiosyncratic battle system that forces the player to steal spells from enemies and then junction them to the characters’ stats in order to make them more powerful.  In layman’s terms, the game asks you to spend a lot of time robbing enemies before attacking them and punishes you for casting magic spells (usually the quickest and easiest way to win fights) by gradually making your characters weaker after each usage.  I think the Junction system probably takes less time than traditional level-building, but I can understand why it struck most gamers as incredibly tedious.

The game’s other shortcoming is harder to dismiss: the English translation is passable at best, terribly awkward at worst.  Given the sheer volume of text in a 50-hour storyline, it’s probably too much to hope for something that feels more literary (like Alexander O. Smith’s superb translation for Vagrant Story in 2000), but some conversations border on nonsensical.  When a character suddenly starts laughing even when nothing funny is happening, it’s clear that some of the details are getting lost in translation.  The dialogue still makes it possible to follow the plot, but it’s difficult not to wonder if the original Japanese script had a little life or poetry to it.

It’s telling, then, that the single best part of the storyline is purely visual and doesn’t involve any dialogue or text whatsoever.  The game’s ending consists of a 15-minute computer-animated sequence that pushes its melodrama to operatic heights and blends it with an avant-garde surrealism—and it works beautifully. Final Fantasy VIII sets up this conclusion by explaining that its protagonists must travel to a dimension outside of space and time in order to confront the game’s true villain, and that the only way to return to the real world afterwards is to focus on a reassuring place from one’s memories.

For Squall this proves incredibly difficult.  He wants to imagine a vast field of flowers where he promised Rinoa they would meet after the final battle, but he finds it impossible to remember what she looks like.  He recalls scenes from earlier in the game, but every time her face appears blurry and indistinct.  As Squall becomes increasingly desperate to remember the woman he loves, the montage of prior scenes begins moving faster and faster, the clips rushing by at a frantic pace.  He finally thinks back to a moment in which Rinoa almost died, and for the first time her face is completely visible.  Squall’s body fades away into the light.

What’s remarkable about this sequence is that it doesn’t bother to explain exactly what’s going on.  Gamers will hopefully understand that this rapid-fire montage represents Squall’s fevered imagination and that the shock of almost losing Rinoa causes him to snap out of his delirium, but the game doesn’t spell this out in any way.  If a mainstream Hollywood movie trusted its audience to handle a wordless, four-and-half minute segment like this, it would have been hailed as an extraordinary achievement.  But since Final Fantasy VIII was merely a video game, nobody noticed.

The ending continues on for another ten minutes, and while it’s more conventional in its style, its substance focuses on everyday character moments over plot twists or explosions: Laguna Loire visits the tombstone of his wife and remembers proposing to her. The students of Balamb Garden hold a celebratory party.  The world was briefly faced with total destruction, but life goes on.

Is Final Fantasy VIII, then, proof that videogames can reach the level of high art?  Unfortunately, no.  Its storyline is simultaneously convoluted and formulaic, and most of its 50-hour quest is spent on repetitive battles and puzzle-solving rather than character development.  But it’s fascinating to see how even a well-worn formula can allow for strange, beautiful environments, thrilling scenes, and even flashes of insight into human nature.  Final Fantasy VIII might have sold itself to gamers as just another epic adventure to save the world, but its depictions of loneliness and love still linger long after the memories of flashier games have faded.

Final Fantasy VIII Music Video - "Miss You" by Sweetbox
 
Bookmark and Share

Jack Patrick Rodgers is a freelance writer based in Philadelphia. His work has been published in Slate, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and Geek Monthly. You can follow him on Twitter at RestlessJack or contact him via email at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).

Related Articles

Square: The Mike We Like Remixes

By Quentin B. Huff

01.Nov.06

There are many of us who still enjoy listening to Michael Jackson. Unfortunately, this release doesn't accentuate what we like about his music.

Final Fantasy Tactics Advance

By Michael David Sims

02.Mar.05

The characters are the most unintentionally shallow and unlikable bunch I have ever seen assembled.

 
Comments

Final Fantasy VIII may not be high art, but its a great game.

Final Fantasy IX on the other hand is pure, unadulterated sheer genius.

Comment by Steiner from England — May 27, 2009 @ 10:10 am

That was excellent and really helped me understand my weird reaction to the game years ago. System drove me bonkers, kept playing because the plot was interesting.

Weirdly, I also rank it as one of the hardest Final Fantasy games just because I fought the last boss seriously underpowered (didn’t feel like doing all that drawing and junctioning). Very epic fight when your entire plan is getting Squall to do his limit break and everyone else keep him alive.

Comment by L.B. Jeffries — May 27, 2009 @ 8:42 pm

This was the most amazing piece of writing I have ever read about Final Fantasty 8, and even thought I haven’t read many others I am sure that if I had it would still be the best.

FFVIII was for some strange reason my personal favourite even thought everyone else seemed to dislike it. Now I cam see what it was that kept me coming back over and over. In the face of a seriously counter-intuitive battle system and dodgy translations I kept coming back to it’s wonderfully personal themes - not to mention the best music of any of the FF games, in my opinion.

Thanks again for this great piece. =)

Comment by Ben Abraham from Sydey, AU — May 28, 2009 @ 4:57 am

So glad it’s not just me! FFVIII is severely underrated, but it’s my favourite. When I see people complain that it’s “a load of teen-angst emo crap”, they rather miss the point: of course it is, but, y’know, so’s The Catcher in the Rye*. Done well, it’s about part of human life, growing up. I’d say the vast majority of us acted like emo jerks in our teens, so anyone who really can’t handle seeing that depicted maybe has some self-hatred issues to work out. ;)

Comment by Kateri — May 29, 2009 @ 5:55 am

I can see where people would refer to it’s visual style and storytelling as emo, but I never thought of it that way. I’ll admit, when the game came out, I didn’t quite get it. It’s story was so detailed that it was difficult to decide which details to commit to memory. My love for FF7 and the expectations I had in regards to the story prevented me from seeing 8 for what it is… an extraordinary experience.
The music alone is worth the price of admission. The Junction system to me is the greatest rpg battle system out there. It allowed for the most insane amount of character customization, micromanaging virtually every stat in the game using an intricate system of checks and balances to derive statistical values from various sources all controlled by the player. The draw system, while to some may seem tedious, I find to be most excellent, since you are rewarded by a permanent stat boost each and every time you draw a junctioned spell. I could go on, but I’ll save Junction 101 for someone else. I wish the Junction System had been implemented into more final fantasy games. Junction > Materia > Job

Comment by Ronald from MS — June 15, 2009 @ 1:47 am

Absolutely brilliant read, the game is one of the best in the franchise. My personal favourite, I’m very glad to see someone who appreciated what the game tried to do, well done!

Comment by Voa — June 16, 2009 @ 2:50 pm

Excellent piece. FF8 is my favorite of the Final Fantasies, but when I first played it in 1999 I HATED it. It took a second play through a year later to fully appreciate it. Once you get a hang of the junction system, it becomes addictive and fun. Also, FF8 has the best cut scenes/set pieces of any FF, IMHO. Edea’s parade and the attack on the Garden at the end of Disk 2 are amazing, and they still impress. (I re-played it a few months ago. It still holds up!)

Comment by Schmorge — June 16, 2009 @ 3:21 pm

I love this article. Final Fantasy VIII has long been my favorite game of all-time and I do consider it to be the second best game of all time (FFX being first) and I hate how it gets no recognition whatsoever. It’s soundtrack is probably the best of any Final Fantasy and it’s story is so compelling. The cut scenes were so well done and while you were playing through you had to admire it. It’s a classic tale of growing up and dealing with war as a teen fighting in it. It’s a character study, and hopefully many people will read this and realize that.

Comment by Curtis D. from Maryland — June 16, 2009 @ 3:53 pm

— PopMatters sponsor —

FFVIII came into my possession due to a mix up with the insurance company who sent me the wrong game after I was robbed.
I grew to love this accidental game simply for its beautiful style, haunting melodies and all round awesomeness, I am deeply ashamed of the disregard this game gets and yet very happy to be part of an elite group of fans.
I would welcome a graphical remake so that this game could be portrayed in true HD splendour and give people a chance to experience it with the benefit of hindsight, fingers crossed.

Comment by Christopher Birchenough from Rochdale UK — June 16, 2009 @ 4:09 pm

Yeah, I agree, terrific piece, Jack.  Reading about that scene where Squall storms out of the talk about Seifer took me back to in exactly the way you discuss.

Do you think Triple Triad might be a positive commentary on kid’s collector trends, like baseball cards or pokemon?  Consumerism is so often derided or satirized in video games—and not that I’m defending it—but FFVIII rewards you for it in this instance.  On top of that, I never understood why the best cards had the character’s faces on them, but in this context, do you think it’s showing how deeply personal these card games can be in a very literal way? 

On the other hand, is it consumerism if you have to painstakingly win the cards one at a time from every yahoo you come across?

Comment by Krones from Cleveland — June 16, 2009 @ 4:22 pm

Excellent piece on an excellent game—I remember my frustration at the derision of FFVIII in favor of VII, when it seemed obvious to me that the level of story telling achieved in VIII was far superior. It’s comforting to hear that I’m not the only one who has long felt this game was never given the respect it deserved.

Comment by Wyatt — June 16, 2009 @ 4:31 pm

FF VIII was my first FF game.. so I may be biased but it’s my favorite mainly for the style and storyline.  These were my early teen years too so I was very emotionally invested to the relatable storyline and characters.  I was actually more upset over Rinoa getting sick than Aerith dying.

I played FF VII right after and while I loved materia, I was so disappointed by the ending after watching FF VIII’s cinematic master piece.

As for the draw system, I’m generally not a magic user, my biggest complaint was I never got Siren because I didn’t know to draw her from one of the earlier bosses.  I didn’t really take advantage of the junction system either.  If you’re a magic user, I could understand your dislike of the junction/draw system and its micromanagement.  I used GFs throughout most of the game though, which I can understand being pretty lame just sitting there watching CGI.  I loved the limit breaks and how all the characters felt different rather than just empty slots though.

Just seeing the box art gives me memories that I never felt again, one of those things where it was just that time in your life.

Comment by cd — June 16, 2009 @ 5:11 pm

While I think this article is wonderfully written, I tend to disagree with the overall quality of Final Fantasy VIII. As a fan of the series since its American genesis, I have to say that behind the original Final Fantasy (which is retroactively nearly unplayable) I think of Final Fantasy VIII as the series low point, and certainly the low point of the more modern iterations.

While your article raises a few salient points about the relationships between Siefer and Squall and Laguna’s significance, you leave out or gloss over several glaring flaws in the game. The most stark which is, to my mind, the presence of All Eyes on Me as the emotional centerpiece for the game. This song represents an abysmal low in a series generally regarded for its aural quality. Bringing saccharinity to new heights, this song turned my stomach like a Snickers bar battered in icing and deep fried in Karo syrup. I just looked it up on youtube, and yes, it’s just as bad and unimaginative as I remember it. It’s so tooth-rottingly sweet that even fans of Celine Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On” are likely to enter a diabetic coma just from listening to it. And don’t even get me started on that crappy thumping techno track used for Laguna’s random encounters.

Also, your description of the Junctioning system is purposefully cursory. Junctioning was a terrible implementation of a terrible idea. So I’m clear, I personally believe Junctioning to be the crystalization of a scientifically executed plan, masterminded by a man who hates gamers. It was created to terrorize Final Fantasy fans. In every Final Fantasy random battles are a perfunctory evil, and we as gamers go through the motions because no one has thought of a better way to represent the increasing competence of our digital avatars. Rather than streamlining this process, however, Final Fantasy VIII turned every encounter into an excruciating foray into endless, pointless, mindless repetition. What’s the point of having 100 hundred Ultima spells if I have to leave them junctioned at all times to my attack stat? Or I could decide tp use them and experience diminishing returns on my normal attacks. In this sense, both using and not using your spells represent a sort of punishment. Neither is preferable.

Also a problem is the final set piece of the game which centered around a journey into another dimension. Rather than being an inspired story development, I think, if we have the conceit to look at the man behind the curtain, we realize that the whole time compression thing was inspired more simply as an excuse to eliminate disc swapping (that would be caused by visiting old towns and thus old art assests) because of the amount of video contained on the last disc. This, coupled with a last minute badguy who inexplicably replaces “c’s” with “k’s”, culminates what up to that point had been a nearly incomprehensible clusterfuck of whining, cloying love cliches, and Evangelionesque sci-fi techno babble.

Anyway, I don’t mean to inveigh to harshly on this wayward, woebegone title (God knows it’s received enough ire). Your article was a great read and much more cogently written that the title it reveres. Good on you for carrying the torch. Someone has to I suppose.

Comment by James DeRosa — June 16, 2009 @ 6:14 pm

Very nice review… FF8 is in my top 3 personally.

Comment by Rob — June 16, 2009 @ 7:56 pm

You sir, have hit the nail in the head.

Oddly i restarted a new game on it 2 days ago (pc version with controller, PS version disks are…. unuseable now :/  )

personally, i never saw what was so hard about the junction system… draw/refine magic, attach to a attribute for stat increase, better spell = higher stat increase, hp restoring spell junctioned to HP = spell gives health a big increase, it ain’t rocket science!

storyline was a little messed up, disk 3…. but if you stop and think it makes sense.

Character Development was interesting to watch play out, and made you like and feel with the characters (one bad thing (IMO) squall, one second a VERY bad dancer, suddenly starts dancing like he’s been doing it for years >.< )

My favourite things in the game?
1) Intro Movie!
2) Seeing the ragnarok for the first time
3) Ragnarok/Lunatic Pandora Scene
4) Catchy flying theme (do dodo do….)
5) Eyes On Me Scene

...3 outta 4 are the ragnarok…

Comment by Shades — June 16, 2009 @ 8:13 pm

I also was a big fan of this game (and coincidentally, I was just thinking yesterday about how I was playing it around 10 years ago).  The opening montage/trailer-type thing is still one of the most intense I’ve seen for a video game.  I am a bit skeptical that all of the critiques and metaphors that Mr. Rodgers describes were intentional by the game designers, but I was pretty blown away that the primary message of this video game to its teen male audience was “it’s important to openly share your feelings with your friends”.  I was also on the edge of my seat that after Squall shows his love for Rinoa by walking across an ocean with her on his back, and then going into _outer space_, that you then almost lose her for good if you can’t beat a mini-game where you catch her falling body in space.  Powerful stuff.

Of course, when he’s finally reunited with his (now conscious) love after all these ordeals, he won’t even give her a hug.  Jerk.

Comment by Jake — June 16, 2009 @ 8:47 pm

— PopMatters sponsor —

I appreciate this article a lot. I played VIII when I was only 14, so I didn’t really grasp a lot of the themes. But, I only knew that I enjoyed the characters, the music, the gameplay, practically everything about this game.

FFVIII is definitely an underrated game, but I think people just don’t get the underlying tones to a lot of what’s going on. I also think you explained the 15 minute cinematic at the end beautifully.

While I understood a little of what was going on at the time, it makes so much more sense now.

Reading this article has made me want to pick up the game again and I shall. :)

Comment by Natasha from Los Angeles, CA — June 16, 2009 @ 8:53 pm

My first RPG was Chrono Trigger and till this day it is by far my favorit game of all time. FF 7 was the first of the final fantasies that i have played and i thought it was over rated. FF 8 in my eyes was a masterpiece and my second favorit RPG of all time. I have been preaching this game for years and this article is every thing i have been saying and more. Thank you for giving a the game justice and hopefully it will inspire others to try the game them selves.
P.S. I love the junction system. If done correctly you can make you character virtually invonrable. It just takes some figuring out.

Comment by Edgar from El Paso, TX — June 16, 2009 @ 9:37 pm

In FF6, Espers were a huge part of the game and the storyline.
In FF7, materia, the lifestream, were a central theme.
In FF4, people just used magic, no explanation needed!
In FF8…you are walking along when you are told GFs STOLE MA MEMORIES!

What the hell?

It’s so out of left field, so incredibly contrived and inane that it kills any semblance of plausibility the game had left.
Does anyone want to be reminded exactly how many times before that moment GFs were referenced in a story context?
Anyone?

Comment by contrived from contrived — June 16, 2009 @ 10:21 pm

FFVIII has been my fave Final Fantasy game and in my top ten favorite games of all time.

I get picked on constantly for it since it’s not FFVII and thus, not the popular choice.

Fantastic article. I make sure to send FFVIII doubters towards this article!

Comment by Jessica Chobot from IGN — June 16, 2009 @ 11:01 pm

I love the way Balamb Garden was created. The atmosphere, the students, the technology etc.. Makes me wanna be there in real life. Makes me wonder what it’s like to be in the Final Fantasy 8 universe. When I played Mass Effect, the Citadel reminded me of Balamb Garden, so I think when they re-make FFVIII, it would also feel much like the Citadel but with students / cadets in it instead of aliens. VIII has deeper characters, you’ll feel a more personal connection with the characters and not just Squall alone, pretty much like with Cloud in VII. The characters where all well introduced with their own CGI, and the song “Eyes On Me” by Faye Wong was really really touching and it feels right with the mood of the player at the ending. When Rinoa got sick, I got really bothered because I felt that Rinoa was someone in my life, not Squall’s. And at the ending I felt it was my mission not Squall’s. It really made me role play—play Squall’s role - a SeeD, a friend, a lover. I’ve got no problem with the Junction /Draw system whatsoever but in case they do remake FFVIII, maybe they should remove it for the sake of those who prefer a simpler approach to the combat system. And I immediately understood what they were trying to show at the ending because I kinda felt the same way Squall did(I’m really a geek no?) I just hope they would re-make VIII, my fave FF ever. The story and characters were all superb, but yeah what you wrote is right about the other stuff in the game that kinda prevented others from fully understanding much more appreciate the depth of FF VIII.

Comment by Zyn from Quezon City — June 17, 2009 @ 12:36 am

This is an excellent in-depth analysis for a most misunderstood black sheep. Some people just don’t get it. Behind the emo and angst lurks a heart and soul. Thanks for “drawing” it out :P

Comment by Kelvin — June 17, 2009 @ 12:57 am

This has always been one of my favourite games and I could never understand why others didn’t appreciate it or even like it. Sure the magic thing took a while but levelling up to level 100 took longer which some insisted on doing. The junction system was a bit confusing but once you learned it there was infinitely more reward. I have always stood firm on the point that this game had the best story (in spite of some of the time travelling business).

However I will make the point that FF9 was the most fun to play infrequently.

Thank you for such a good review of my favourite game.

Comment by Madcol from Ireland — June 17, 2009 @ 4:14 am

I never usually comment on articles like this, but that was incredible, nice one! Will pass link on.

Comment by hotdog963al from UK — June 17, 2009 @ 6:31 am

— PopMatters sponsor —

This article was very timely for me because I just finished my first play-through of VIII about two weeks ago.  I bought the game the day it came out, played about 1/3 of the way through it and got sidetracked.  Since, I have picked it up three separate times and had to start over each time because I found that if I tried to pick up where I left off, I couldn’t clearly remember what was going on.  I seemed to always be distracted with something more engaging like Xenogears.

IMO there were two things holding VIII back from being truly great.  First and foremost, and I know this is going to sound shallow, the equipment system was terrible. It was obvious that the developers were trying to challenge players to think in new ways about character abilities and attributes with the Junction system, but not being able to check out the newest weapons an armor at the newest locales really hurt my enjoyment of the story progression. Sure, you could upgrade your weapon if you randomly found the right collection of items, or buried your nose in a strategy guide to find out which baddies dropped what, but that was more frustrating than satisfying.  Most of the concepts were too unintuitive to be appealing to the less obsessive of us.

The second major shortcoming of VIII was the way the story was told.  The story itself was easily on par with the best of the series, but it was told in fits starts and subtlety.  For example, if you missed about two to three lines of dialogue, you might never understand the relationship of Laguna to Squall. This is a very Japanese method of storytelling, and I can respect that.  I am the last person to champion the westernization of a piece of Japanese culture, but it made it difficult to understand just the same.

Where this game really shines is in CG and music, so I can see why FFVIII music videos on YouTube would be such a draw.  This was some of Uematsu’s greatest work, IMO only X comes close to it. And though it might be commonplace nowadays, the CG in VIII was very impressive, detailed, and thorough for its time.  What I mean by “thorough” is that the animators took the time to make the scenes complete, with background details and animations, unlike a lot of CG at the time which focused on a single character or object and left everything else bland and uninteresting.

I really enjoyed your insightful article; sorry I couldn’t help but throw in my own 2 cents worth.

Comment by Samson — June 17, 2009 @ 7:31 am

What a wonderful piece of work you have written here.  I remember playing Final Fantasy VIII all the way through back when it first came out.  I was probably 14 years old.  I was in it for the pretty artwork and music.  I never really did get the story….  now that I think of it, I don’t get the story for VII, VIII, or IX… 

I am glad that you did spell out the ending the way you did.  Now if someone could just explain to me the whole “Ultemicia is Rinoa” thing, I’d be set.

Comment by blasianFMA from Memphis, TN — June 17, 2009 @ 10:24 am

Look, I’m glad that the author enjoyed FF8 as much as he did, but his self-indulgent wankfest was pretty tiring after a few paragraphs. The article was overflowing with compliments to a game and described specific instances where typical angsty teen drama was lauded as an “extraordinary scene”. I mean Twilight has as many vague looks with outcast emotional teens. Sure, the author has no qualms comparing it to good stuff like Buffy or Harry Potter, but Squall could have just as easily been lifted from Twilight and shopped at hot topics. Get off of the pseudo-intellectual high horse and play the game for what it was, another installment of Final Fantasy that met with mediocre acclaim but was well done and utilized more of the ps1’s power than FF7. Even the reference to Buffy was weak (considering I consider those early seasons of Buffy as the lame years). If he enjoyed those seasons of Buffy, then his taste in media is put to serious question.

Comment by Ted — June 17, 2009 @ 10:45 am

Final Fantasy VIII has also been a persoanl favorite of mine and I get drawn in each time I play it (though I have sadly never finished it). Another point that I believe to be interesting in terms of Squall’s chracter is how he is forced to be a leader of first his SeeD squad then later the whole school. He doesn’t want to be a leader because he has seperated himself from people for so long but still secretly cares for the friends and place he has called home most of his life. Its when he starts pening himslef up to people he shows the leadership qualities that Quistis and Headmaster Cid knew he had all along.
Final Fnatays VII is definetly a very deep story, and has personally some of my favorite characters in any gmae I have played, Zell being my personal favorite). I also enjoyed Selphie’s ironically dark humor. And the irony of when Squall calls his own dad a moron (My little brother and I cracked up so bad.) While some games I can play once and thats it I coudl probably always enjoy Final Fnatasy VIII for a long time. Thank you for your article Jack, It has helped plenty of fans get a frehs look at one amazing game.

Comment by Steven from United States — June 17, 2009 @ 10:51 am

Man, I hadn’t thought deep about this game in a while. I guess I was about 13-14 when this came out and its one of those games that holds a special place.

I remember some of the fights from this game being ABSOLUTELY brutal, though. The giant spider robot at the beginning of the game (probably because I hadn’t really figured out the combat system yet), the Cactuar boss who did 9999 damage per attack, the King Troll/Jawa?, and the final boss.

Good times! Thanks for the stroll down Memory Lane.

Comment by James from United States — June 17, 2009 @ 1:34 pm

Every since I first completed FF8 it would always be my favourite, the story was superb and the characters wonderfully flawed. Even though I did get a lot of the underlying themes, this touch up was fantastic, so I applaud the author. Also FF9 was pure boredom, and though the story was ok, the characters were incredibly dull, with the exception of Vivi of course.

Comment by Kalem from Australia — June 18, 2009 @ 2:03 am

Always loved Final Fantasy 8 more than any other and I always felt like the only one who appreciated it at times. It has an amazing art style and probbably the best love story in any game to date.

Thanks for writing this you exspressesd more than I ever could myself.

Comment by Zain from London — June 18, 2009 @ 11:46 am

FF8 was always my personal favorite.  It’s a great blend of so many things, though the last disc and much of the third disc feel a bit tacked on even though there are very critical moments.  The first two discs play out so wonderfully, and had it ended at disc two, I would’ve been completely satisfied assuming all the loose ends were tied up. 

Emotionally, the game certainly does resonate excellently with teenagers and young adults, I was in my early teens when I played through it and beat it for the first time, so it had a lasting influence on my impressions of Japanese RPGs.  As for the Junction system, I do like it, but it’s biggest problem isn’t the magic draw and junction part, which I think is a excellent in it’s strategic fashion, but magic is utterly useless, since you rely on your GFs in harder fights, and with so many GFs to equip, you don’t have to worry about losing your GF summoning ability.  I found it absolutely unecessary to force players to have a GF in order to do anything other than attack and I think item didn’t require GF junction.  Sure it was a plot device to force the characters in the game to use their GFs religiously and therefore explain their memory loss, but it was a very limiting factor in varied battle gameplay, except for basic grinding. 

My memories with FF8 don’t really rest with the battle system, but with the character interaction, emotion, the story, and the settings.  They made the game very different from the others, and as much as people hate him, I like Squall’s character from a story standpoint, and he in many ways is a stand in for some of us and our own feelings.  I hold so much more nostalgia for FF8 than any other, however this is also due to it being the first Final Fantasy I ever really played.

Comment by Moebius1aic from Texas — June 19, 2009 @ 9:38 pm

— PopMatters sponsor —

What a lot of people didn’t see in the game that I, as well as many others, the author of this article included, was the sense of the WORLD that this game had. Only Final Fantasy XII even came close. This game had a fully realized and geographically normal world complete with logical formations and continents, and not the hodgepodge world maps and locales that have plagued Japanese RPGs since the beginning of time. Especially after Final Fantasy VII, where the only towns that actually felt like towns and not lifeless cardboard cutouts were the Golden Saucer, Costa Del Sol, and Midgar.

Dollet felt like a quaint Bostonian-type harbor town, whereas Balamb town was its quieter counterpart. Deling City was a beautiful example of nightlife, Timber was a large town that thrived on the train junction in town. Winhill was an idyllic village in the middle of nowhere…the list goes on.

VIII also had character development not seen since IV and V (VI had very sparse character interaction and was limited to like, maybe TWO scenes per character in the entire game), which, as you mentioned, was plentiful due to the fact that whenever you weren’t on a mission, you could find your squad doing random things in Balamb Garden.

VIII was a great game, but a lot of people weren’t (and still aren’t) ready to accept it for what it is.

Comment by Crys — June 20, 2009 @ 6:56 pm

I COMPLETELY AGREE WITH THIS AUTHOR!

Finally somebody who understands, Final Fantasy VIII indeed has been the first RPG game I have played and yes this probably effected why it is so special to me. But ever since that game I search for a new one that would be at least a little bit as warm and interesting as this one.

I love the music, I think it’s the best FF music score to date.

The characters are all memorable unlike in VII, FFIX and X…

The world I think is the most detailed and interesting from all the FF games to date. Heck in FFX there even no proper city… why you could you know go from time to time… shopping or doing some other activity’s…

The world here really seems free and open… and I hope that Square will turn back to this formula. I hated the ” long road” approach by FFX. Where you walk, walk walk… but theres even nearly not a single memorable place out there…

And god Tidus was stupid… and he was a lead character…

Yes, the game was not perfect, yes the battles and random encounters where often driving me crazy and some of them (as in most FF games) were just too long… but in the end the story and the world made it up for me. I was reading every line of the story with a great joy.

Eh I want a full remake of this game on Playstation 5. Yes, 5!

P.S.

This article has been linked on Kotaku, generating massive comments there too…

Comment by Alexander from Tbilisi/Georgia — June 22, 2009 @ 6:18 am

Personally VIII is my favourite final fantasy, and always will be. I have an VIII themed tattoo.

The story, and characters touched me more than any of the others in the series, and I actually preferred the fighting system, and card mod abilities to materia.

As for it being the black sheep, I wouldn’t exactly say that. If anything it’s only the black sheep out of VII, VIII, and IX. XII was panned, XI was panned, X-2 won’t even be mentioned by true fans, and a majority of people that have played the big three haven’t played V, VI, IV, III, II, or I.

VIII will always be my favourite. I only hope they port it to psn so I can play it on my psp.

Comment by Hyperion from Balamb — June 24, 2009 @ 4:24 am

I think that the translation was at least better than that of FFVII.
The shabby FFVII translation highly damadged the atmosphere and made some discussions either   incomprehensible or highly missleading.
even though the translation wasn´t as catastrophic as the one of FFVII, i can understand that it still damadged the atmosphere quite a bit.

Comment by nroejb from Germany — June 24, 2009 @ 9:34 am

I’m going to try to keep this as short and sweet as possible. FFVIII was my first Final Fantasy game. I remember the first time playing it was the first time i visited my father (I lived with my mother for 10 years and now live with my Grandparents.) Honestly I consider it to be one of the best things he gave me… although he didn’t actually give me his version, he turned me on to the series and, ultimately, the world of video games. To this day I still can not think of a better entry into this “world” this game is simply amazing. I fell in love with it when I first played it because it was fun and it looked cool (hey, I was like 7 lol.) However, after playing it a second time after I actually owned it, I realized there was so much more going on, I realized that it was an entire world where I could go and live someone else’s extraordinary life and get away from my screwed up one. Finally, on my third time playing it, after years of playing many other games of many other genres I realized that I was still in love with it because it was truly one of the deepest, most incredible, and ultimately most fun games I have ever played. I am currently on my fourth play through, and I realize that I always have loved this game and I definitely always will. Sorry that that wasn’t as short and sweet as I wanted it to be.

Comment by Brenden Paquette from Kenosha, WI — June 25, 2009 @ 8:26 pm

Hey! Great article! Your writing is very good too.

I was talking to my friend about my favorite Final Fantasy(s) a few weeks ago. Here’s how I feel about FF8:

Like
- the protagonist (my favorite of all the FFs)
- character design (appearance, outfits, personality)
- romance (alright, I admit I liked it)
- themes (military academy, young adults growing up)
- setting (the Gardens, cities, architecture)
- music (very memorable)
- story

Dislike
- battle engine
- pacing (cutscenes vs fighting vs dungeon crawling vs city exploring)

You know, at the end of the day, a Final Fantasy is a game. Game makers need to make their games FUN, otherwise gamers won’t enjoy the experience. I never beat Final Fantasy 8 because it was a bit long and it wasn’t fun to play. I would have preferred watching Final Fantasy 8 as a movie because it was just not as fun to play as Final Fantasy 7.

Comment by FF8 Fan — July 1, 2009 @ 1:43 pm

This was my first Final Fantasy game, and my first video game.  I guess that is one of the reasons it is so special to me.  I loved it, although I never understood that the flashbacks of Rinoa in the final cutscene were Squall trying to remember her.

Comment by Ryan from Canada — July 20, 2009 @ 2:53 pm

One of my most hated of the Final Fantasies when it came out, it has had legs with me, growing in fondness over the years. Still, I found the Draw system generic and unexciting. Moreover, I fought the last battle and had little trouble by simply using the Armageddon Fist method.

Comment by DAISHI — July 26, 2009 @ 11:33 pm

— PopMatters sponsor —

Your review is partly horrible.  There are more people that love ff8 than there are who hate it.  The only people who DO hate it either have no tast in epic storytelling whatsoever or they’re just ff7 fanboys.  FF8 haters will never amount to anything.

Comment by Cody from Baltimore — August 31, 2009 @ 10:15 am

Great article.. FF8 is, IMO, one of the most under-appreciated games in the franchise (along with FF6), and ranks #3 on the Top 5 list of my favorite FF games (surpassed only by FF9 and FF10).

Concerning the article itself, my rememberance of the game’s storyline (it’s been about 6 months or so since I last played it) is that the dreams featuring Laguna and Co. are a lot more significant to the plot than simply being part of Squall’s internal struggle. Yes, they end up leading to his reunion with his father, but they’re also part of the story since they lead him to Ellone, which also leads him and his friends to their eventual final battle with Ultimecia.

I also don’t see the flaws in the Junction system; yes, it’s a bit ‘out there’ for FF, but I think it works well within the context of the story, and for the world that FF8 is set in.

Comment by DigificWriter — October 19, 2009 @ 10:56 am

Your article was a refreshing boost to a tiring day.  FFVIII was the first FF I played and what sparked my love for RPGs in the first place.  As soon as I saw Squall running around Balamb Garden, I was hooked for life.  All the people who complain about the junction system (and the difficulty, of all things) are shallow gamers who only want games they don’t have to actually understand. 
  To this day, it is one of the hardest FFs, but that makes me think it’s actually worth playing.  The plot is deep and compelling (although I admit the orphanage might’ve been too far) and we were literally on the edge of our seat the entire end cut-scene.  Then after the credits it shows everything but him.  That was masterful.  (The entire time my brother was groaning in melancholy, “He’s dead. He’s dead”).  The love story is one of my personal favorites. (although Rinoa is a spoiled brat)
  Squall turned out to be the perfect leader.  1. Everyone looked up to him like a mentor.  2. He was able to encourage an entire school of troops in the midst of battle. 3. and he assumed the mantle of responsibility he was always meant to have. (He does care)  I’d say more about the story, but most of it has been said.
  In contrast, FFVIIs story never impressed me and both my brother and I rejoiced when Aerith finally died. (Although Tifa is awesome) To be blunt, the entire story, in essence, was “save the trees”, and the main character, Cloud, had a complex with himself. (Sorry all FFVII fans out there, but I’m trying to be honest)
  One more thing that everyone forgets to mention is that Squall is the second most popular FF hero on the planet. (There’s a guy named Piano Squall for Pete’s sake.) Kingdom Hearts focuses twice as much on him as on Cloud and he’s always seen as the wise, introspective leader (He’s my favorite FF character of all time.)
  In the spirit of FF this would be my hands-down, all-time favorite.  The story is captivating, the CGs were literally “the pinnacle” of their day, and the whole gameplay-story package should, in my opinion, be the very top in the gamers hall of fame.  It’s place in favorite games of all time might narrowly be tied for first with another title bearing the FF name, the other FF “orphan”, Final Fantasy Tactics, a truly remarkable game.  (But that’s a review for another day.)

Comment by Saeryn from China — October 20, 2009 @ 9:39 am

Add a comment

Please enter your name and a valid email address. Your email address will not be displayed. It is required only to prevent comment spam.

Remember my personal information

Notify me of follow-up comments?