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I've been listening to FF8 music on youtube tonight and it's making me feel so nostalgic, I just felt the need to make this blog and show my absolute love and appreciation for this masterpiece of a videogame.
I have to say, regardless of how much dislike there is for FF8 compared to all other FF's, this is one of my top 3 favorite games of all time, if not my most favorite.
Everything about it is so amazing. I love the setting/world it's set in. Something just clicked with me, with the futuristic, but yet not too sci-fi theme. I also really loved the entire story. There's a lot of stuff that is really subtle that you don't even pick up on until you go and read about it on the internet, like the whole + Show Spoiler +Ultimecia/time compression thing with Rinoa possibly being Ultimecia from the future. If you haven't read about that, go look for it and read about it, it's pretty awesome :D
There are so many defining parts of this game that I remember when I first played it. Everything about it was so magical and spectacular. All of the diverse locations in the game were so fantastic and had such strong moods/settings to them. Things like the place where you get Odin and fight the Tonberry King, that place was so surreal and creepy! The Deep Sea Research Center where you get Bahamut and then later go back in further underground to find Ultima Weapon and get the Eden summon from him. I really loved Timber and Dollet, too. I loved the small town setting of them, and being on a secret SeeD mission in Timber, it was all so awesome. ^_^
And the music, my god the music! It is some of the most amazing music I have ever heard. Every single song, no matter how little it was used in the game, is SO amazing and well made, and fits every location and scene perfectly. One of my lesser known favorite songs EVER is called Silence And Motion. It's the song that plays while you are in Esthar (before you go up into space). It's so quirky and epic at the same time. (Here's a link to the song).
The main reason why I love this game so much and I get so nostalgic every time I hear its songs or think about it is the fact that it was one of the first RPGs I ever played. To quote someone else, to sum up exactly how I feel: "This game defines my childhood. The music is the pillar that holds everything together to make me so emotionally attached to FFVIII, along with the story, graphics and everything else." I remember getting a Playstation + FF8 for my birthday in November, right around the time when the game first came out, and I spent every day after school playing it all the way up until christmas. I remember even one day, I was so sick with the flu, and had such a high fever, that I couldn't even make it to school. I had to stay home, and my mom's rule was that I couldn't play videogames when I was sick. So all day I was so sad that I couldn't play and I was so bored. But then as a present to make me feel better from being sick, my dad went to the store on his way home from work and bought me the FF8 Strategy guide. It made me so happy. ^__^ I read it the rest of the night since I couldn't play, haha.
I really wanted to articulate this a lot more in terms of why this game is so amazing, but I am really tired and can't. ): For anyone who loves this game though you should talk about how amazing it is in here and we can talk about it! I'm thinking about maybe starting to play it again once I have more time after the class I'm taking right now.
FF8 IS AMAZING.
  
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16935 Posts
I completely agree. FF8 was my favorite out of the entire series.
I especially loved when Squall rescued Rinoa in space 
Also Eyes on Me is an amazing song :D
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I think FF7 is abit better! But FF8 is right up there, an amazing and enjoyable game idd!
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Well... I honestly hate FF8, and think it is one of the worst RPGs I've played. However, the Setting of FF8 was good (especially in the beginning), and the music was good as well. However, there were just too many things about the game that made me dislike it.
Like, I couldn't stand the characters. They more or less swapped out "character development" with "personality disorders", IMO. Squall was way too emo, and his emotional change when Rinoa got hurt or something (when he basically carried her on his back all the way to that really futuristic country) just made me give up on his character. Speaking of Rinoa, she was probably the most annoying character in the game.
I really didn't like how the plot progressed, beyond probably like the first quarter of the game. Especially with the stuff about GFs.
Last but not least, I hated the gameplay mechanics. First off, you are more or less punished for leveling up in the game. As you gain levels, so do your enemies, and when enemies gain levels, they learn new spells and stuff. So its easiest just to never level up at all, and to run from most battles.
Junctioning was an incredibly broken system. First, think about my last point. If I don't level up, my enemies don't level up. However, if I go into a battle, and simply sit there and waste my time drawing magic until I can draw no more, or need no more, I can make all of my characters extremely powerful compared to all the other enemies in the game. You just draw magic, run away, junction.
Speaking of magic, they basically turned magic into a different type of item, which I didn't like >_>
Later on, it seemed like you were too dependent on either Summoning GFs, or Limit Breaks. Like I'd go into a boss fight, and either Limit Break the entire thing, or just bombard the boss with summon spells.
All this said, alot of the things I dislike about the game, I've found that people who do like the like it for those very reasons. This is a very love it or hate it game, so even though I disagree, I respect your opinion on it. FF4 best Final Fantasy game tho IMO
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@Sentenal, I think one of the main reasons I can overlook so many of the actual battle/junction/gameplay troubles of the game is because at the time I didn't have much experience with RPGs in general, so I had nothing to compare it to. That's probably why I didn't mind it at all. ;P And the story/setting/music just completely overwhelms any flaws that it had in general, at least for me.
I do agree Rinoa was the most annoying character though! Haha. Zell, Irvine, and Selphie were my favorites. : ]
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On November 14 2009 19:10 sumi wrote:
@Sentenal, I think one of the main reasons I can overlook so many of the actual battle/junction/gameplay troubles of the game is because at the time I didn't have much experience with RPGs in general, so I had nothing to compare it to. That's probably why I didn't mind it at all. ;P And the story/setting/music just completely overwhelms any flaws that it had in general, at least for me.
I do agree Rinoa was the most annoying character though! Haha. Zell, Irvine, and Selphie were my favorites. : ]
Those 3 were my favorites as well, or at least the ones I had the least problems with. Irvine was an alright character (my favorite of the bunch), but I wish they did more with his character in the game.
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I don't how anyone can dislike this game. I played it when I didn't even know a single english word and still finished it thanks to my brother's walkthrough. But my favourite is still FFIX (reason for my username), took me 4 fucking years to complete without a walkthrough till disc 4 when I first knew about the internet's existence.
I'm gonna play FF7, 8 and 9 again when I upgrade my onboard video card to a 4670.
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FF9 was very good, my favorite PSX RPG.
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FF8 had some amazing music, and a storyline that was quite complex (deep) compared to other games before it. On top of that, the characters were very well developed. In that sense, it was a really great game. However, I think it had an abysmal battle system. Having to spend time stealing magic from enemies, the junctioning garbage for your stats, how you obtained item upgrades, limits being linked to low health but still somewhat random...there were just so many things that were frustrating to play with. If only there was a version with the same storyline and a battle/magic/item system that was less annoying. While the materia system in FF7 was amazing, I would even have been happy with a simple system like that of FF4.
Storyline: FF8 -> FF7 -> Chrono Trigger -> FF4
Battle System: FF7 -> Chrono Trigger -> FF4 -> FF8
Characters: Chrono Trigger -> FF8 -> FF4 -> FF7
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FF7 > FF8 > * >>>>>> AIDS >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Hillary Clinton > FFX-2
Don't know where FF3 (FF6 in Japan) goes because I never played it, but people say it's really close to FF7 in quality, either a little better, a little worse, or just as good.
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I'm actually watching the Galbadia Garden vs Balamb Garden fight from Disc 2 on youtube at the moment now. So epic *__* haha.
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<3 FF 3, 7, 8, 9, and 10.
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That's funny, I've had FF8 music on playlists for years. (Not all this but a lot of it)
1 - Liberi Fatali
3 - Blue Fields
8 - The Landing
12 - Never Look Back
14 - Breezy
15 - Shuffle Or Boogie (lol awesome to play Triple Triad to :D)
16 - Waltz For The Moon
17 - Tell Me
18 - Fear
19 - The Man With The Machine Gun (Orchestral or not, this is badass :D)
20 - Julia
23 - Timber Owls
24 - My Mind
25 - The Mission
26 - Martial Law
29 - Succession Of Witches
30 - Galbadia Garden
31 - Unrest
32 - Under Her Control
33 - The Stage is Set
34 - A Sacrafice
35 - Fithos Lusec Wecos Vinosec
36 - Intruders
37 - Premonition
39 - Fragments of Memories (Orchestral or not)
40 - Jailed
41 - Rivals
42 - Ami
43 - The Spy (Awesome retro feeling)
45 - Movin (Again.. lol)
47 - Drifting
49 - Fisherman's Horizon (I love this song, again orchestral or not lol)
50 - Odeka Ke Chocobo [+]
51 - Where I Belong
52 - The Oath ( :LSJDF lol orchestral or not)
55 - Love Grows (orchestral or not)
56 - The Salt Flats
57 - Trust Me (god damnit there are too many good songs XD)
58 - Silence And Motion
59 - Dance With The Balambfish (orchestral)
61 - Residents
62 - Eyes On Me (lol I love this song by faye wong XD)
63 - Mods de Chocobo (Come on, any chocobo song is awesome)
64 - Ride On
65 - Truth
67 - Compression of Time
68 - The Castle (... I'll just not say anything more after this until the end!)
69 - The Legendary Beast
70 - Maybe Im a Lion
71 - The Extreme
72 - The Successor
73 - Ending Theme
74 - Overture
Good god, I actually went through and listened to the entire sound track (not every bit of every song but enough to remember which I loved) and this is the list is I compile. Even the ones that didn't make it weren't blatantly disliked, I just tried to prune the list as best as I could. GOSDJFL this game had the perfect music at every point lol. And yeah, FF8 was my favorite.
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Vatican City State1650 Posts
FF8 fucking sucked so much. The character development was so forced and utter shit. RPGs first and foremost is supposed to give its gamers a REASON to care about them... but man the pathetic piece of shits that were Squall and Rinoa, and the utter idiocy that was the romance, as well as the whore Selphie, all combined in a story that a 3 year old could write... FF8 is the series that really turned me off from ever playing japanese rpgs seriously again. And looking at the character designs for the following ff series, I quit not a moment too late.
Good riddance.
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ff8 is my favorite ff too. perfect music!!
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(the lurker unburrows)
yeah, ff8 has to be my favourite ff as well!
storyline wise, i think it just beats 7 and 10 (partly because it has a sweet and happy ending lol). oh, and there are so many memorable scenes, like the dance, the space rescue, squall's promise etc. and i thought ALL the characters were interesting in their own way.
gameplay/battle wise, i think is its only weak point. the drawing, junctioning, gf, are unique and adds a few dynamics to the battle, but really got repetitive for me. materia in 7, the grid/overdrive in 10, gambit/license in 12, i thought are ideas that are more fun to play around with. the card playing was definitely very fun tho (better than blitzball by a mile)
music wise, there is no competition. ff8 stands head and shoulders above the rest. it took me 70 hours to put down ffx (so many extra side quests), but even after that there are only about 10 songs that i found memorable. whereas i can enjoy listening to almost every track on the ff8 soundtrack (which i had to pay $50 for because they dont sell them in aus and i had to get it shipped. but its so worth it...) and each ff8 play through only takes 40 hours for me. every song is unique and beautifully put together. there's a few that shares a melody but even they are arranged to feel different.
i played 4 and 6 as well, but it was too long ago that i dont remember what they are like...
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final fantasy 13 comes out in 32-33 days!! im so excited!
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Russian Federation1381 Posts
Playstation 1 era was the golden age of jrpg. FF7,8,9 were all incredible games.
It's all about atmosphere and soul, and these games have plenty of that especially 8. I don't remember much about the plot, but definitely remember how it felt to play the game.
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Hell Yea. FF8 and FF9 are my absolute favourites. I was so impressed by FF8 as well, consider the difference in looks between FF7 and 8. And I believe FF8 began production just as 7 was being launched. I feel like Square came really far with FF8.
Also can't really stand the trash that is FF10. I hate that game, FF12, I'm pretty ambivalent to really. It's enjoyable, but not really a game I want to play through again. I know I've done atleast 5 clears of FF8 and 9 respectively. Also, all the female characters in FF8 had big tits. Can't rule that out.
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XII was the only one I thought was average. All the rest were incredible in their own way.
I actually always preferred IX, but maybe thats just because getting a perfect save in IX was so hard and I'm all about random FF challenges :p
The plot of VIII is amazing when you first start out, cause your characters really feel pretty insignificant to the overall flow of the plot, and then when you play through it a few times and finally work out the really complicated time loop system and the way that Ultimecia is probably Rinoa, the plot becomes alot more interesting.
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