Final Fantasy 8. Another classic from the golden era of PS one. But for some reason this one is usually referred as a dark horse in the series. I do not know why though? What people didn’t like? Futuristic setting? Teenage angst? Time traveling shenanigans? Junction system? Probably it was junction system. Whatever don’t let those lies discourage you from enjoying this game. This is a great game that should be used as example of good jrpg. Just like FF9 it has the three main components of a great jrpg and those are: great gameplay, banging OST and CG cut scenes and pre-rendered backgrounds.
And as it was in FF9 I will not spoil the plot and I’ll just tell you about the premise. So in the near future world there are mercenaries’ schools called “gardens”. Kids there are taught how to fight, summon guardian force, use magic and of course they learn political situation in the neighbor countries. But what kid would want to know about the last one when you have first three? Did I mention that teachers there are hot smokin’ babes? Anyway we are going to as Squall Lionheart student of Balamb Garden. He’s so non-conformist that he wears leather jacket instead of cool uniform, he was goth before it was cool. You’ll never hear someone says word "Whatever" as much as he does. In reality Squall is anti-social and a little bit autistic. I mean many teenagers tend to be like this in their rebel phase. Sorry, I’m drifting off again. Anyway, Squall must be a second or third year student since he’s experienced enough to be deployed on dangerous missions that could easily cost him his life. But that is only half the bad situation. Not only we need to invade the neighbor country sea port to graduate. We also need to do it with our rival Seifer in our squad. And Seifer is… he’s a bit of a twat and he’s been how you say it in English. He was held back a year several times because he never listened to the instructors and he failed every practice exam. I don’t remember why he wasn’t kicked out there must be a good reason for it. And of course there is also Zell, hyper active teen with ADHD who can’ sit on his bum for five seconds. Our poor teacher is going to have a hard time dealing with us. By the way her name is Quistis and she a bombshell. So get his we are in military invasion, there are enemies who are armed to their teeth with guns and magic and have battle robots. And there are only 3 of us, one is an apathetic nihilist the other is hyperactive ADHD surfer dude and last one is a ticking time bomb. I can’t spell “recipe for disaster” any clearer than this. Guess what happens? Exactly as you think, Seifer decided to ditch us and go slice enemies somewhere else. At least we got reinforcement. The reinforcement is one ditzy teenage girl named Selfie who wield nun chucks as her weapon while enemy use gunblades. That’s not the end, you’ll soon be hit with a timer but that’s where I stop. Rest is up to you.
Gameplay. Once again just like in FF9 there are many activities in this game to do. Battles are nearly the same as it was before and after but with some unique features. For example in this game we need to build our battle menu because there are way too many options and by default you only have “attack”. How do we it? There will be a long ass tutorial on how to do it. I’ll give you a short version. First of all we need Guardian Force, without them we can’t have any abilities. When we assign one or more GFs to one of the characters we can pick from a menu other command options. The basic options are items, magic and draw. First two are easy to understand but what is a “draw”? One of the reasons why adhd people do not like this game. Draw command let us ability to steal magic from the enemies. That’s right we do not have MP in this game we have spell slots. I do not remember maximum amount of different magic that we can equip but is quite a lot and it won’t be an issue unless you are a hoarder like me. But do not fret, draw is not the only option to get magic spells. You can also covert magic stones and other items into spells. There are also draw spots, those are spots that look like small pink fountain, you approach them and draw magic out of them and they will refill after some time. For other commands passive and active you need to look at your GF’s skill list. From there you need to assign which skill they would learn, after that just battle and receive AP to fill the bar. After you learn a skill you are free to put it on your command list. Just don’t forget to assign another skill to learn. Do not worry yourself if you do not like a skill in the GF’s list you can make your GF forget it with an item and then use skill item to make your GF learn that skill. And since there are only 6 playable characters only 6 GF’s need to know the basic commands.
Hold on. What is a Guardian Force? It is a legendary mythical monster that you bind to your will. It will help you to get stronger, it will broaden your horizon so wide that you’ll forget your past. There are quite a big number of them and most of them are missable. Don’t worry all the missable ones are obtained by drawing them from boss enemies. So always check for new magic to draw from your enemy.
Junction system. I’ll try to explain this system as short as possible. You use to attach your magic slots to your attributes, status and elemental attack and defense. There are a lot of menus but it’s easier than it sounds plus there is auto junction option. When your elemental defense is over 100% you will absorb the element and you’ll be healed by it. If you have 100% for a blind defense status you are immune to blind debuff. If you have 100% silence on your status attack you will inflict silence status with every hit on your enemies unless of course they are immune to it.
What else, there are also mini games and card game, I forgot to mention in my FF9 review it has a card game too. Card game is a very big part of this game that can be completely ignored unlike in FF 9 where you are required to play at least 1 match. The game called “Triple Triad” and I will explain the basics of it. You need to have at least 5 cards to play. Match is played on a 3 by 3 field where you take a turn to place a card on it. You card can attack and defend in 4 directions. Both attack and defense are portrayed by the 4 numbers on your card. They are positioned in a cross shape each number for each side. Numbers go from1 to A, A is the highest stat your card can have. There are also elemental element of your card and elemental place on the battlefield. It works like this if you put card with an elemental on the elemental square and they share the same elemental your card will get +1 boost in all direction if not then -1. There are also different rules on wining and other conditions, but I won’t tell about it.
Let’s move to your equipment. This game does not have equipment as items. You’ll be using the same weapon as you start with but you can upgrade it. It’s bit tedious and inconvenient thing. First of all you need to find an appropriate weapon magazine for your weapon. From there you’ll learn what upgrade your weapon can have and list of items that are required for said upgrade. Then you need to find upgrade shop. Each weapon has like 4 upgrades and they are needed for the new limit breaks. Each limit break is a mini game that can help you to turn tide of the battle in your favor. Personally I love Zell’s limit breaks the most since he’s a monk just like Sabin and his techniques are very similar and have similar inputs.
Salary. What? What salary? Did you forget that you a military mercenary? You are on a payroll. Lowest wage you can have is around 6000g per time tick. But you can increase your rank. First of all remember that first mission in the sea port town? That’s how you get your initial rank after that you can increase your rank as well as your salary by taking a quiz test. So you can rise your wage to like 40 000g or something I do not remember it well sorry.
That’s a lot to handle isn’t it? But don’t worry you’ll learn just fine, I believe in you. Lastly I want to talk about the OST why? Same reason as FF9 OST by Nobuo Uematsu. You guessed it banger on a banger, baby. Final Fantasy was famous for having the best OST in the jrpgs all thanks to Nobuo Uematsu. And If I’ll be honest with you the best OST era started with FF3 and ended on FF9. Yes FF10 good OST but not as banging as FF3 to FF9. This is a must play game, do not skip it, it is one in your life experience.
