Average Rating: 
Rating:  - Interesting changes for the latest of long-running series
Out with the old, in with the new. This is what Square decided to do with their equip, money and magic systems, above other things. Money is given out as a salary based upon your SeeD rank. Magic is drawn from enemies, and you can't buy weapons or armor. In fact, money plays a very small role in this game. To use your summons (Guardian Forces in FFVIII), you must junction them. The plot takes several intersting twists (which I will not mention). The game features many interesting and incredible side quests and sub games. Triple-Triad, the card game which can be played throughout the game, is better than a lot of full featured games for the playstation. You can become a card shark and beat little kids. No need to mention the graphics, you probably have already heard about that from eight million people. Basically, Final Fantasy VIII is well worth the price, even for those who do not regularly play role playing games.
Rating:  - Almost...
Square got really ambitious, I think, when they developed Final Fantasy 8. They had (as usual) a great storyline, and decided to take a somewhat more dramatic angle on it. The characters are easy to relate to because they're students, like most of the people who will end up playing FF8. The FMV animations are exceptionally good, and a few of the music tracks are -really- good, but the game lacks consistency and suffers from too much character micromanagement. Also, the story moves at a jerky pace that often left me wondering, "What do I do now?" And frankly, the random battles suck and chocobos are too hard to get.The main downfall of the game is the junction system. Although it ended up serving as the rough basis for what is used in FFX, in 8 it was a system requiring a lot of time devoted to 'drawing' magic from monsters or draw points. This magic is the main factor in how strong your characters are, so you don't have much choice. For some reason, Square decided that parties would no longer gain experience from battling boss monsters. This riled me a little bit, because I do not enjoy random encounters. However, the monsters in 8 level along with you. The bosses, of course, don't. The 'Guardian Forces' that allow characters to junction magic can be summoned with devastating attacks, but I hesitate to use them because the summon animations are roughly 30 seconds long each. They're cool the first few times, but give me a break, and give me a way to skip them, please. Finally, the sub-game of 'Triple Triad' is very well done and adds an additional way to acquire hard-to-get items. However, it too is very time-intensive and the hard-to-get items aren't that important in the first place. The major pluses for this game are few but strong. Squall, the main character, and Rinoa, the love interest, are both realistic characters with believable depth. And the time-shifting and multiple parties/identities is a pretty damn cool idea. Play this only if you are an FF fanatic. You'll never, ever, finish it otherwise.
Rating:  - good, but not as good as FF7
After finishing Final Fantasy VII on the PC I was immediately interested in what was going on with FF8. I waited with much excitement, and actually purchased a playstation largely for this game alone. In the end, the game was enjoyable, but didn't live up to FF7. I can remember last year when i played 7, I would spend my whole study hall figuring out materia combos to beat the notorious weapons. I was obsessed with it. I was not nearly as involved in FF8. I think I've narrowed it down to a few reasons: 1)Although there is a lot of character development, there are no deep ties to the plot. The characters are only weakly associated with Edea, who isn't even the main antagonist. In FF7 on the other hand, Cloud went through some very intense self-discoveries that further motivated him to stop Sephiroth. It truly made you want to rid the world of him. 2)Let's face it: no matter how awesome the GF's look, the sequences take far to long. I never even used Eden, the best Gf, because it was just too time consuming(around 2 minutes?). 3)Although the new junction system involves more "character customization", it just doesn't give you the variety of effects that were present it FF7. 4)The world seems very empty compared to FF7. Where are all the villages? I found these to be a very enjoyable part of FF7.Well, I hope that helps a little. FF8 is still an awesome game, and I recommend that you get it, but just don't have too great of expectations.
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