There's one big aspect of FF8's story that often gets ignored, or rather, overlooked, but it's so essential to the narrative that understanding it makes every outlandish fan theory obsolete. I'm talking about the role of fate in FF8. Even the opening theme of the game, Liberi Fatali, which translates to Children of Fate, refers to this. The unspoken storyline of FF8 is that Squall was destined to kill Ultimecia - not because of some prophecy, but because it had already happened and would happen again due to time compression allowing them to essentially time travel. Squall defeating Ultimecia in a distant future and then returning to the past to tell the tale had cemented the battle and its outcome as a constant in the timeline, and what is more, a well-known historical fact. The story of the evil, time traveling sorceress Ultimecia, who plunged the world into war, attempted to compress time and was slain by the brave SeeD. Ultimeica was known across generations as the evil time-traveling sorceress before she was even born, fate had quite literally condemned her to become the villain we see in the game. it's quite possible that Ultimecia wasn't even her real name, but after years and years of SeeD persecuting sorceresses in an attempt to prevent the fabled Ultimeica's rise to power, one sorceress ultimately snapped and said "You want Ultimecia? I will give you Ultimecia." So that's when time compression comes into play. It's a really bizarre idea on the surface, but considering that Ultimecia is fully aware of the fact that she's fated to be killed by SeeDs, and because she's afraid of that, perhaps in her eyes, the only way to escape her fate was to take control over time itself. Of course, ironically, her attempt to compress time is what would eventually give Squall the means as well as the motivation to go after her and kill her, thus fullfilling both of their destinies. Ultimecia refers to Squall as the "legendary SeeD", which may seem random at first, but once you understand that in Ultimecia's time, Squall is indeed just that, the legendary SeeD who defeated the most powerful sorceress, it makes perfect sense. What she means is, "so you are the legendary SeeD destined to kill me". Garden was established not to fight just any sorceress, but specifically Ultimecia. Why? Because Edea and Cid were the only two people who knew what was going to happen. They knew that the orphans they were taking care of were destined to face a powerful sorceress in the not-so-distant future. Edea gained that knowledge from Squall directly when they met during time compression. The orphans were indeed children of fate, and Garden was established to prepare them for the day they would have to save the world from the sorceress. That's basically all, and as I said above, understanding this part of the story really does take away the need to come up with some crazy fan theory in regard to Ultimecia. It's literally all there and it makes sense once you have the whole picture, the only problem is that it's buried so deep within the subtext, most people probably miss it.
One thing about this, fate and destiny are not synonyms. Fate is predetermined, nothing you can do to change it. Destiny depends on your choices made to fulfill your potential or not.
Another thing that makes Squall a child of fate is the fact that the dream sequences tell Squall his immediate future. That he is so like his father, that they share the same lives. Laguna meets Julia and shortly Squall meets Rinoa.
Reading your comment made me smile; it's so rare to find someone else who relates to Squall and isn't afraid to admit it. One of the (many) reasons I love 8 is that it was the first game in the series to have characters who felt like real human beings, as opposed to heroes in a cliched fantasy novel. And I've been playing the series since the first, and for me anyway, that made all the radical changes of 8 extremely impressive and fascinating. Not only are the characters fundamentally different from the ground up, but so is every aspect of traditional RPG mechanics aside from the ATB system. I just found the whole thing to be so intensely refreshing, both emotionally and mechanically, after playing so many JRPGs that never strayed too far from the norm (I hadn't had the pleasure of playing the Shin Megami Tensei series at that point). And all of that was clearly exactly what the developers were trying to do. So I've always seen the criticism of 8 as lacking merit in most cases, because it either comes from people whose first JRPG was 7 and/or people who barely played it and just jumped on the bandwagon once they heard a bunch of other people saying they hated it. I don't think it's possible to do a good-faith critique of 8 and not come away with mostly positives. Even the batshit-insane story, which is definitely the weakest facet of the game, is so full of sincere emotion and events that are so resplendently rendered that one cannot help but watch in awe as it all unfolds, even if one is laughing at it half the time. That's another thing I don't get, people who can't enjoy something if any part of it feels silly to them, regardless of how amazing the rest is. When I play 8, I simply get extra enjoyment from the parts that can be laughed at, while also continuing to take them seriously and be emotionally engaged with the story. And for all the parts of the game that can be laughable, I'm not ashamed to admit that the ending always gets tears in my eyes; again, what's the point of such a thing at all if you can't allow yourself to be swept up by it? And of course, the music is the best of the PS1 games by a wiiiide margin; as are the graphics, to me. I think the battle graphics and summons are more impressive in 8 than in 9, due to a combination of one less player character, and vastly better art direction. I honestly can't stand the almost blizzard/wow aesthetic that 9 used, it makes every town look like part of Disneyland or something... lol, that was the negative shock game for me, after the clean, beautiful magical realism of 8.
Final Fantasy VIII is very underrated in my opinion. It's a great game with a great story. That opening is so iconic and wonderful. I prefer the older style of the characters to the the newer remakes. The older style with the dimmer eye color adds an exotic hybrid style of wonder and fascination to the characters that draw me in more. The modern versions where they emphasize the blue of the eyes took away much of the charm of the characters. I wish they wouldn't have done that and only made the graphics with upscaled resolution.
@Vivec's Vassals nope not even close to 7s shadow all because they made squall so bland and interesting that who even cares then you throw in a pretty bad magic system when you break it down and a card game that.....is better than the game itself
I agree, it is underrated. It's not that the magic system is bad, it's just so damn exploitable... Learn healing magic refinement, buy some tents, turn them into vitaga, et voila, you got 5000+ HP, while you and the enemies are still below level 15. So you don't have a need to heal and can spam limits endlessly... It's the only real gripe I have with the game.
I disagree-- I think it's not "underrated"; it's a perception problem. There's a huge number of people who think FF8 is the best Final Fantasy game - but fans of the other games refuse to believe it.😑
@@martinroner5688 I agree. I do think it’s underrated because of the push behind FF7 and FF13, at least if we’re speaking long term. Short term, FF8 had an amazing turn out after FF7. I think you used the perfect adjective for the magic system, exploitable. Although I don’t necessarily care for the grinding a lot of final fantasy games require, all monsters should’ve had stat minimums and not based off Squall’s level.
Ff8 is great up to the Garden's fight which was one of the biggest highs in FF. Then it just.... slowly declines. Story pace slows, gameplay kinda dulls..just kinda goes bleh. So sad but hey got gunblade in FFXIV so worth
This was my first final fantasy as well as my first jrpg. And it's still one of my favorite ff's. Thank you for making this video and reviving all the good memories.
Thanks for collecting this! This is a game that doesn't deserve the hate it constantly gets (largely because of a different video review series that's aged about as well as milk in the sun) but also has plenty of interesting elements to dissect & criticize, and your series on it was the best study of it. Glad to have it all in one nice chunk. EDIT: Oh God, I just realized that Esthar's rocket system is a reference to how the rocket is launched in Georges Melies' Trip to the Moon. After TWO DECADES, it finally clicked. And like all "it was all a coma dream/dying hallucination/drug haze" theories, I HATE "Squall is dead". It's just so shallow & dark for darkness's sake, and like you said, the whole "these fantasy elements are proof it's a dying dream" thing is just an arbitrary line where the people behind it have decided to draw suspension of disbelief.
spoony is now a washed up loser has been with no career. FF8 is still going strong with a remaster that sold absurdly well and it still is the best selling FF game outside 7, tied with FFX.
the dead Squall fan "theory" is more of a contrarian thing said by people with bad media literacy, I remember backlash that claimed Seifer is the cool dude Rinoa should be with (when his ENTIRE character is being a poser, that's his thing, and he's WAY more sympathetic when you accept that he is a wannabe with inferiority complex). @@dotto87 there were two waves of FF8-hatedom, one after release by overprotective FF7 fans and another after Spoony's review. It was very mature and thoughtful take on the game, for example naming the dog, Angelo, "АnаI" to get funny attack names. Totally classy!
Finally, a four hour long review video on this accursed platform which doesn't consist of nitpicking and repeating the same point over and over. I don't agree with a lot of this, especially questioning the lunar physics in a game where you launch your dog at monsters, but it's pretty darn good overall.
@@genyakozlov1316 Yeah, I grimaced and rolled my eyes when Kim said that. That comment just made me sigh "First time experiencing the fantasy genre, huh?"
Kim your content is invaluable. I played this back in the day and put it down mid way through disc 2 because I didn't like it, though I couldn't put my finger on why. This video articulates exactly why. Excellent work, you deserve far more attention.
I appreciate your honest and thoughtful exploration of this massively underrated game. this game is so widely misunderstood and thus hated by the FF community at large, and its really unfair that it is because it has a lot of great things going for it. Squall arguably has the greatest character arc of any FF protagonist and he really grows as a person and character throughout the story. its always really upsetting when people just dismiss him as a whiny emo loser. sure the plot may have some big holes in some places but the story is ultimately a character study of a boy becoming a man and learning to open up and accept others into his life, to not push people away out of fear of being hurt, and learning to love someone special to him. at its core, FF8 is a romance, and a good one at that.
I played through the game many times and I hate squall despite loving the game. His character is completely shallow as is Rinoa. He needed more moments early game where he isn’t totally rejecting everyone around him and being a douchebag in order for most of the audience to get behind him including me. Im glad others appreciate the character
I can't say enough just how valuable these series are for people like me who just never will have the patience to play these games myself but still want to know as well as if I had. I get exactly what I want from the game without all the frustration I feel while playing RPGs.
It's nice but honestly you don't get the full experience without playing it yourself. Snippets of music and scenes without the context having room to breathe is a poor replacement for being fully absorbed in the atmosphere. If it was anywhere near as good, none of us would bother playing games, we'd just watch videos like this.
I feel like you should play it at least once to get the full context it would make it soooo much more impactful, ik rpgs are frustrating especially turn based ones, but that time to grow with the characters and develop a connection with them is important.
Got through first hour of video, that's literally the part where the story got real good by me? The parade and everything and they GET Squall finally and try to help his issues instead of taking him for granted. I got like, opposite opinion on everything from you here (except that I adore Selphie too)... Also I found Squall, Irvine AND Zell likeable. I couldn't stand Quistis and Seifer. Rinoa being a "rebel princess" kinda explains everything else, both her competence and brattishness, she's LITERALLY LEIA AT THIS POINT. Her fights with Squall is basically Han Solo dynamics though our sniper is the scoundrel type and Leonhart is closer to Anakin but yeah... this is HEAVILY influenced by Star Wars story with very similar tropes and characters. So lead couple fighting because they destined for each other is a bit of a cliché, but how could people miss the tension? Squall is Rinoa's second crush and it's the end part of disk one where she looks at Seifer and understand she grew out of him completely and now loves Squall. Their triangle just doesn't have convenient "HE IS MY BROTHER" reveal, thankfully, otherwise this is original trilogy and yes, it goes IN SPACE soon for people who didn't get the other nods. We just really needed two droids for a party, Selphie can be Chewbacca anyway. P.S. Disc 2 has most memorable dialogue about war as you go through Balamb under occupation then Trebia after it's been missiled. Playing that as a kid was uneasy, would be doubly hard now during the real war... I work with some people from destroyed cities and some from occupied ones... It's all very horrible, even if place where I am is mostly spared asides from occasional air raid alarm. I think people miss the whole WAR theme of this game, FF7 and 6 also go into that of course.
The memory loss is important in the end though. All Squall had to do to go back to his time was remember the spot he and Rinoa promised to meet up at. That's all he had to do. But he forgot that, got lost in time, created SEED, and forgot Rinoa, leading him to get forever lost in time if Rinoa hadn't came back to save him.
Real talk I fell asleep on the sofa watching Austin Eruption and woke up an hour into this. I went to bed but then spent the most of my Sunday watching this in pieces for a deep dive in what I feel is a misunderstood FF. It has great bits and poor design and I think you did it justice. Best fatigue induced channel exploration I've ever had. Subscribed
I which there was a sequel. To see how the war transformed the world. Especially because of the trauma resulting from 3 sorceress in a row (Adel, Edea under Ultimecia, and Ultimecia herself), the way Galbadia and Estar got ravaged, the Lunatic Pandora being back on earth. There is room for a lot of drama.
Arguably, we kind of got similar in the game already. We get to see some of what the world was like during Adel's war through Laguna and then explored it fully throughout the rest of the game.
This was my first Final Fantasy game that I played when i was 13. I can't exactly explain it in words, but at the time, it was so magical, and the storytelling left such an indelible mark that to this day, I've yet to find a story that has captivated me the way Final Fantasy 8 did. Thank you so much for taking the time to create this. I enjoyed every minute of it, and was able to relieve the delightful time I had during my teenage years through this video. Also, at @2:27:00, when you said "Irvine is free to f*** off," I laughed so hard!
On your point about the what ifs regarding Rinoa and Ellone not being together in space. You have to remember that Ultimecia is a sorceress from the future. She already knew ahead of time what would occur after possessing Rinoa. So she already knew that they would both meet in space and that she'd be able to use it as an opportunity to possess Adel. Throughout the game, the characters basically play straight into her hands, because she already knows the actions that they are going to take. The only thing that's unclear to her is the outcome of the final battle against her.
@@sladey21 Because that is where everything converges, during the final part of the battle. You cannot see what lies beyond the convergence because, well, there is nothing after the convergence. Imagine combining all of time and timelines into a singular point and you and your foe are battling at the furthest end of the new timeline. She can't see what wasn't there before. Anything after the compression is an unknown factor. It is destined to always turn out the same way though. One of the tragedies is that she can't see that but so much else. It is just out of view. If she COULD see it, then surely she would try something else.
Final Fantasy VIII holds a special place in my gaming heart as it was the first installment I experienced in the series. I adore the soundtrack, composed by Nobuo Uematsu, for its ability to enhance the storytelling experience. Eyes on Me, in particular, stands out as my favorite game theme, a poignant ode that elevates the emotional depth of the narrative. Visually, Final Fantasy VIII is a masterpiece, seamlessly blending fantasy and futuristic elements. The graphical prowess of its time is still appreciated today, showcasing the timeless artistry that defines the Final Fantasy series. The innovative Junction system adds layers of strategy to the gameplay, intertwining seamlessly with the narrative. It's not just a game mechanic; it's a dynamic element that adapts to your choices and shapes the journey uniquely for each player. And if-like me-you just go through the game normally, and slowly learn how it works, you don't break anything until much later when it's more appropriate. The narrative delves into the complexities of its characters, offering a rich and layered storytelling experience. The plot twists, character arcs, and overarching themes leave a lasting impact, making the game more than just a momentary escape. Eyes on Me may hold the title of my favorite game theme, but the haunting allure of One Winged Angel, Sephiroth's character theme, captures a different essence. It's a symphony of darkness, an embodiment of the antagonist's enigmatic nature that lingers in the mind long after the game is put down. And then there's Triple Triad, a mini-game that transcends its label. Its simple yet addictive mechanics and the thrill of collecting and refining a deck create a microcosm of strategic gameplay within the larger narrative. In essence, Final Fantasy VIII is not just a game for me; it's a profound journey that intertwines storytelling, visuals, gameplay mechanics, and musical composition into a seamless, immersive experience that I still go back to every time and enjoy.
As a kid when this came out and I played, all I knew was: Squall is relatable to me, I would have totally made out with Quistis, and hitting stuff with a gunblade was amazing… no matter how ridiculous the handling must have been. Who knew this game has a story to tell 🤣
This was a great trip down memory lane, thanks! It's crazy how much of the second half of this game i completely forgot. I always thought 8 had its own charm, and i actually preferred it over 9, which I probably underrated. I would love to see you do a similar video for 9!
@@Skellotronix Saw that when I was in Japan, at a store called Geo, and immediately picked it up. Saw it referenced in BGM files for so many years, there was no way I wasn't picking something of that magnitude up, haha!
The magic “scan” gives some neat flavor text for pretty much all the bosses and enemies, even some for repeat ones and PARTS or small minions of bosses as well, and the characters, but there is no library or compendium option, so you can’t read them or look back on them anywhere in the game, so once you see it, it’s gone, which is a bummer, as I feel the scan descriptions are pretty interesting
This game was made back when gaming company make some of the game mechanics ambigious to sell their official guidebook, which is why this game left a very bad taste in my mouth when i found out later on that leveling up is a boon in this game.
@@wahidpawana424 This game also came with a mini guidebook even just telling you how to deal with the game up to the Dollet part. I seemed to have lost it unfortunately, I don’t know how
@@wahidpawana424 A boon is something that is beneficial. Leveling up is not beneficial for easing the difficulty, although in my opinion as long as you don't go intentionally grinding for levels, leveling up doesn't really cause any problems of being underpowered even if you're not maxing out on spells. And in any case, you could just card every enemy you come across too.
@Vivec's Vassals Are you sure? I could have sworn pandemonium had wind item refinement and I do recall “float” being something you could get “Scan,” I don’t recall an item refinement so neat
@@tical2399 Nope, there's actual, objective, factual stuff wrong with it. Just one example - he says Ultimecia turns up 'out of nowhere'. For his FF7 review, he said Cloud 'wasn't at Nibelheim'. He makes silly mistakes because he's not paying attention. It's fine he doesn't like the game (it's not my favourite either), but the problem is it's all through the lens of fanboyism for Final Fantasy 6 with him. Kim's review is astonishing in its' depth and nuance. It's a completely different league to Jared, and with 8 in particular that stings solely because of how often people go for the lazy low hanging fruit with it.
@@tubey84 It's easy to miss stuff. It's even easier to miss stuff and get facts crossed when your target videos are 20-30 minutes. Kim doesn't place a limit on the length, so there's no worry about constantly cutting stuff out. Projared doesn't have the audience that listens to the 4 hour videos... if he made one it would get a fraction of any traction.
@@Easelgames I agree it's easy to leave stuff out. I don't expect a vid to be as comprehensive as Kim's to be good. However, getting things outright wrong is another matter.
Very fair review! FF8 was literally the first RPG I _ever_ played... even before I knew what D&D was! Imagine being a teen in the early 2000s who had never played an RPG before seeing that opening cutscene for the first time: that's a memory that's going to stay with me forever! Of course, when I got it on Steam as an adult and played back through, I found that a lot of the criticisms people had were legitimate, but I also found new reasons to love the game (the Laguna segments hit _way_ different). Also, I never minded the junction system. It was a bad system for someone who had never played any RPGs before, but coming back to it years later with many more RPGs and Final Fantasy games under my belt, I love it more than ever, because I like to min/max, but I dislike being over-leveled. So a progression system like FF8's, where skill advancement is de-coupled from character advancement, is right up my alley.
Funny enough, FF8 was my first RPG as well, yet I had no issue understanding and utilizing the Junction system - TBF, it makes a lot more sense than the traditional systems, even 20 years and FAR more JRPGs under my belt. Of course, I can understand the flaws in it and see a few ways to improve it, but even so while it does break tradition it remains one of the best systems I've ever experienced.
i think some also miss the point that they are 17-18 year old kids fighting a war. Squall is a flawed character but who wouldn't be. he's been abandoned by his sis, his father, and because of that doesn't open up to anyone
He’s also the most competent in the group, which pushes him towards being a leader, along with Cid’s heavy scale on the thumb, since he’s kinda known how it would end the whole time. Squall learning to properly lead people through his father’s eyes in the dreams is kind of a chef’s kiss too.
I like that. It's unconventional, but honestly he acts like a lot of kids do, especially ones with emotional scars. Some people have said he's kind of a representative for socially awkward people and introverts, I kind of agree.
@@crazyfourvideo It's crazy how many people play FF8 and don't understand any of the character dynamics. To this day I still have no idea how so many people play FF8 to its ending and come away from the game having no idea that Laguna and Raine are Squall's parents.
I don't understand the criticism. I started with 7, absolutely loved it. Then 8 blew me away as well. The best 2 entries in the series by quite a margin in my opinion
I started with 8, then got 6 and 7, I feel all three are very epic and similar enough (main girl is one of last surviving members of some ancient magic lineage, there's a bunch of steampunk'ish sci-fi elements without going overboard, focus on narrative and not on jobs, summons equippable by everyone, character-based limit breaks on damage etc.)
Romantic Dream isn't actually a mistranslation, it's just used in a more archaic sense in that Seifer's dream is the romanticized ideal of being a Sorceress' Knight, like the romanticized view of chivalry, more like the D'artagnan Romances by Dumas than a modern romance novel or romantic comedy
Yes there's an entire genre of Romanticism in literature and it usually is filled by Squall-looking guys dressed in black looking over cliff edges and brooding... Poets like Byron, Shelley, Coleridge wrote romantic poems about sailors lost in the sea and sand blowing around ruins of a Pharaoh's statue... Look up paintings by Caspar, Goya and Blake. That's Romantic art, though in Seifer's case, I assume he refers to older concept of chivalric romance by likes of Chaucer and Petrarch, but ends up kind of a Cervantes' Don Quixote...
i fell in love with this game once i saw the opening fmv on my PC. Really the quality of the FMVs really got me hooked. And the songs like Liberi Fatali and Eyes on me. Eyes on me actually was an audio cd track you could listen to in your normal cd player. The PC version back in 1999 was of a much better image quality than the PS1 version btw. Same is true of the PC Version of FF7. I also really liked the plot twist of Edea not being the real enemy. And these FMVs again, when the garden suddenly starts to fly or the Esthar reveal.. absolutely stunning. Yeah the story really goes pretty crazy but the heart of it is a really touching love story. Listening to your review i was surprised of your positive conclusion in the end. You actually told me stuff about my favorite FF game that i did never figure out myself. I always got my spells from drawing not refining. You also opened my eyes on the broken game mechanics. You missed a really cool fmv by killing the mechanic spider in your seed exam btw. Definitely an interesting review and well worth the time to watch it. Thanks for your efforts.
Loved your video! One thing though: My theory why squall is chosen to be the leader of the group and eventually the gardens as well… Well, edea and cid created seed because of what squall said in the end. So they knew squall was suppose to be the leader and the one who would vanquish ultimacia in the end. Even though he didn’t wanted to be a leader it was his destiny.
This was a really fun watch. FF8 was the first Final Fantasy I ever played (and maybe even the first RPG,) so I definitely have a different view on it. It's nice to see a fresh take from someone who hadn't tried it until recently. One little thing I noticed with the production, though. There were quite a few parts where you seemed to have left in multiple consecutive takes of the same line. I'm not sure if that was in the videos when they were released individually, but it was definitely in this version, and a bit odd to hear. It's still a totally enjoyable watch, though.
Thank you ! This makes so much sense. The fact this scene comes before it is revealed that 1) Irvine knew Edea at the orphenage 2) he was the only one to remember it, made this scene unlogical to many people, and damaged Irvine perception among players. The problem was very few people tryed to come back at it once the game finished and to take into accont theses facts.
@@Alangevine Definitely people's biggest problem is playing it once (often not to the end) and never revisiting earlier scenes with prior knowledge. There's A LOT of foreshadowing, including Squall's entire character arc and their relationship dynamics with Rinoa explained in microcosm of that one dance... or his name AND Laguna's name being meaningful and the loud guy being calm and the silent one hiding thunder, Seifer literally LARPing as Squall's destiny without realizing that, so much stuff you see on replay.
FF8 has many secret flavor details that would be appreciated in better games that have more positives to them, it makes me like FF8 more, but a lot of the hidden stuff is either very cryptically hidden, isn’t that big of a deal in the long run, and others times punishing as a joke Like there’s this “Instructor Aki” you can see by talking to certain students on the second floor, do it enough times and the pay off is getting your Seed rank reduced by one By collecting Timber maniacs, you get small changes to Laguna flashbacks like Laguna realizing he’s talking to much to Julia, Ward becoming a party member in the Ruby Dragon part, or Laguna getting a cramp at the crystal place. That old key in the Crystal place, pays off all the way near the almost end of disc three, and that’s if you do it properly and in that area you can access two doors, one contains a draw point, and one gives Quistis access to the Ray bomber move that mech spider back in dollet used If you go into a library as zell many times you get a scene with some girls asking zell what things he likes, and if you answer right, in the Battle meter (Also something you can miss and only get if you talk to cid again after leaving garden then going back in before going to Timber) there’s just some text change in relationship If you kill the Mech spider, you can bypass the FMV of it getting destroyed on the beach, and you can bypass it by hiding in the bar right before you get to the point that triggers it It’s cool to see these things, secrets to discover, but you have to ask yourself if it is worth it or it’s needlessly hidden, but that flavor does add like-ability to a game
That is frkn amazing quality content!!! Just discovered your channel. I could watch those kind of videos everyday before I go to sleep. Amazing work buddy! Hyped for FF7. 8 Was my first one, thanks for the memories!
I always thought the "Disciplnary Committee" was meant to be a joke. Like, Seifer, Raijin and Fujin get in trouble so much that everyone mockingly calls them that.
This game is underrated. It was my fav ff game in my childhood but for some reason and the junction system which i didnt like i actually liked 7 and 9 better now as a adult, they were just more fun to play but ff8 will always have my fav storyline in the entire series easily. Definitely a classic
I think a lot of ppl miss the fact that as a time paradox Ultimecia has access to information on the past, so she can use that to help manipulate events. Also the reason Squall gets forced to be leader is b.c Squall informs past Edea about SeeD and him being their leader.
Watching this has gotten me to start playing Final Fantasy 8 again (this time with the Crystal mod!) I love Final Fantasy 8. It was the first Final Fantasy game I ever really owned, and I played the hell out of. I really love the characters, I like the gameplay and how it heavily rewards experimentation and game knowledge. I love how ridiculous and bizarre the story can get. I even love Triple Triad. ...like, at first before the rules get really hard to follow. This will always be my favorite Final Fantasy game. Objectively, it's probably not the best. Final Fantasy XV obviously looks better. Final Fantasy X had better gameplay. Final Fantasy VII I'm told has a better story. But all of VIII's elements together make it my top pick for all of Final Fantasy.
Ff8 is so breakable. And that's why it's my favorite. Other games try to stop you from breaking them, but it's a choice. And I like it. Let me have fun! Other people don't have to screw up their game, and I should be allowed to
"Nobody puts FF8 in the middle of their list" I do o-o;;; I like the systems but not big on most of its characters (the ones you control more specifically) which is why it sits in the middle for me too, not enough to hate or love so really shouldn't be dead last or that high for me. As weird as this will be to hear I will put it above 10 any day tho.
I don't understand, the part where you go down into the basement was amazing to me, who cares about the dungeon? What made that part so cool was the building questions about why is there all of this down here, why are there huge fuel tanks and the excitement starts building about "can the Garden move?" Then you find out what the garden actually is, it was mind blowing for me
I feel like Zell is a better character as the story progresses. He shows agency in Esthar, remorse from Seifer at Galbadia Garden when he thinks he is dead, and he is shown to actually have skills such as metallurgy and historical knowledge at certain points. Not a top tier character by any means, but he does seem to have more than a mere hot head.
he was awesome with weird technology. they're bunch of points are you straight up need him in the party to do secret stuff because he's a gear head. when i was a kid i thought he might have autism because he's supersmart and hyper focussed but really socially awkward.
@@pennyisdreadful that's pretty cool, what kind of secret stuff and situations are some of them? I don't think it is as deep as autism, and I find him more prone to his own emotions than being awkward. I could never wrong, but I found him quite well adjusted in many social situations
With the "Squall is dead" theory, the bit that doesn't add up for me are all the bits Squall isn't in, such as the Zell segment in Disc3 while Squall went to space. Squall wasn't there, so how was he dreaming it? Even if it was a totally made-up dream sequence based of stuff people had told him, he'd still have been in it. Maybe there is some hand-wavy explanation of how that works, but I'm not seeing it (but again that is real-world logic on a JRPG). And, as an aside, the Adel/Rinoa fight is actually easy if you know what you are doing. Rinoa and Adel are considered different targets, so (1) avoid all AoE stuf (GFs, AoE limit breaks, AoE magic, etc) and (2) target Rinoa with heals/regens - being a different target it won't heal Adel and buys you plenty of time to beat Adel. Supposedly you can Undeath-status Rinoa to stop Adel absorbing her health, but I didn't get that to work.
I feel the whole Squall is dead theory is just shippers trying to claim Rinoa/Seifer despite his entire character only making sense when he's a wannabe sorceress knight while Squall is the real one. Squall/Rinoa dynamics are classic, it's the Han/Leia thing where she's a rebel princess and he's a cynical antihero and a handsome rogue. People who need a whole "it's just a dream" to explain them bickering and then warming up somehow missed the ENTIRE romance genre, where most relationships are like that. It's like, cliched. Especially when you get to space and it just reeks "oh look, a Star Wars tsundere romance IN SPACE".
So I’ve never played FF8 or looked anything up. When you got to the Griever fight I literally thought, “oh…that means Rinoa is Ultimecia since she knew about the whole ring/lion thing. Great video btw!
9:07 Wait what? Squall's second most famous quote is GO TALK TO A WALL. They actually show it when you summon him in WOTV. Yes, Squall rebuffing Quistis pretty brutally is one of most memorable things about him. And someone who... has literal groupies in school... being flirty, is background noise at this point.
OMG I ALWAYS THOUGHT THAT WAS WEIRD! Biggs and Wedge being mentioned in Star Wars when I played FF games first. I'm glad to know it's actually a reference lol
What a fantastic review, really wanted to replay this game but couldn’t invest the time into it again. This game for me is so nostalgic it brings back all the childhood memories and hours spent playing the game. I actually love the game but your synopsis of it is spot on you point out all of its flaws perfectly and highlight all that it does well. I personally love the musical score and I must say I like Irvine 😂. Your review was excellent new subscriber earned 🙌🏼
In my case I was one of those people who played it younger than 12 and I thought it was a terrific game. At the time I didn't get what all the fuss was about or why FF8 got the most hate of its peers during that era. I had no issues figuring out the junction system and thought it was a really solid and complete story. Game was a joy to play from start to finish.
Golden age of great games. I recall getting this & the brady guide on its release as a kid, completing it & feeling accomplished. It was only years later when I played it on the psp, acquired every little bit of inventory, became extremely OP & felt like it should to be damn near invincible as only a true classic rpg can provide.
Regarding the whole Irvine issue. Some of the reasons why he never spoke up or did anything could be attributed to him feeling left out and to some degree ignored by the group. Since he was at Galbadia (as the only one seemingly) he would have been alone in that sense. Furthermore when linking up with the group, he's further isolated in the sense that no one remembers him. I chalk his not saying anything then up to him feeling like the friendship they had at the orphanage was unimportant to Squall and Co. Or they just forgot and he was like "fuck it, fine I don't know you either I guess" from feeling alone all the years previous. He's still a douche yeah, but I don't think him not saying anything can be at least somewhat explained.
I'm glad FF8 wasn't as well received as FF7. Yes it's unfortunate, but our expectations needed to be set in reality. This was a trip down memory lane, especially since this was the first Final Fantasy Game I played through.
This is one of the best deep-dives I've ever watched on this wonderful game. You even caught that Laguna is Squall's father. However you did miss the only potential "Smoking Gun" for Rinoa being Ultimecia. In the final FMV when Squall is trying to picture Rinoa's face, there's a brief flash of Ultimecia's face rendered over Rinoa. It happens so fast that you'd basically have to pause the sequence or slow it down to catch it. There are tons of screenshots of it online. It's an interesting theory, but if it's true I think that's basically Square's subtle way of affirming it. Such a masterpiece of a game...flaws and all. Thank you for taking back on this nostalgic journey.
I don't think that can be used to connect Rinoa with Ultimecia, and the reason is the memory loss that was panned beforehand as meaningless. Due to his longtime use of the GFs (likely Shiva, since it's implied that Raijin had Quezalcoatl but due to an unmentioned mistake had it taken from him and made available to Squall) his memory is already pretty scrambled, and getting lost in the Time Compression only made this worse - hence the distortions happening all around him. Even though he's trying hard to force himself to remember Rinoa, his most recent action of defeating Ultimecia kept forcing itself to the forefront. With that said, it was because he could remember fragments of these memories that Rinoa was able to find him and rescue him from the Time Compression.
Ultimecia also looks nothing like Rinoa. Like literally, in the very same game, Edea looks VERY similar with black hair, round cheeks and high arched thick eyebrows and nobody says Rinoa and Edea are the same... also Tifa AND Garnet use very similar designs, that's Tetsuya Nomura's version of Saberface. Yes the one person people claim Rinoa IS doesn't have the same design and looks unique... at least nobody says Rinoa is Adel?
this has only been brought to my attention recently, but apart from the more real-world inspired locations in FF8, Squall is apparently visually very heavily based on River Phoenix. More so with the original visuals, which I prefer, although the remastered models do highlight their youth (which I think is an important character detail, often missed) a bit more than the originals. Seems so obvious now.
This is such a great review! Also you made me realise a couple of things that never really clicked with me when I was younger. 1 being just how big of a jerk Irvine really is. As bad as the writing is in 8 at times (and it’s horrible) I still love the world. Ultimecia is one of my favourite villains in any story and I wish she was expanded on a little more (be it that she was locked into a time loop where people were destined to hate her, hence her being evil from the onset).
When you were tearing into the GF/memory loss bit, I started thinking of that comic panel where there’s a board of people offering suggestions for something and the one guy who offers the sensible solution gets thrown out the window and I imagine the “sensible” solution being Irvine had a childhood crush on Selphie and his longing for her sustained his memory of her since the orphanage. He recognized her later, but kept mum when she and no one else recognized *him.*
I like how there are numerous side games based on FF7. Not a single thing for FF8 apart from cameos in Dissidia. I always loved that theory that Ultimecia is somehow a future transformed version of Rinoa after Squall dies. If only the story of FF8 could be more expanded upon and refined.
I honestly think FF stories are their best when they still are somewhat "grounded". FFVIII Disc 1 is brilliant, root-level inspection to its world and mixture of school-life and military. It is same time familiar and unusual. However as the game progresses its world kinda gets sidelined by its somewhat abstract time-travel plot with some loose character development. There are still interesting moments but it just does not grab one from the balls since it is already clear fantasy. Perhaps it is just my preferences but "destiny" theme just does not really hold much substance to me by itself. It can easily to just become one handwave to excuse some plot devices. I must also admit that Squall, while not the most interesting character, is still pretty unfairly taken as emo. If anything he seems to be opposite of emo. People seem to think folks should always be so open about their feelings or let them dictate their perspectives. Out of all characters he seems to be most aware that he is part of military organization while others still seem to think they are just in some high-school trip. He has adjusted himself to that military discipline and honestly the game could have played more with that aspect. The game kinda force-feeds the narrative that Squall is somewhat wrong in taking this job as business. I guess the reason Squall seems to get some flak is that the story does not seem to demonstrate Squall's stiff-upper-lipness as dedication to the job but just as some teenager quirk.
I always took it as squall was trying to act like what he thought the perfect soldier was. Which is essentially a mindless drone but highly skilled professional who always gets orders done as perfectly as possible. But when push came to shove his true nature as a leader peaked out. Which is partially why the other characters trusted him. Quistis saw this when elone got attacked in the training center. Zell and selphie saw this when he took charge after seifer ran off during the test. It, ironically, was this act that held the team back in disc 1 and it wasn't until the missile incident where he dropped this that things started turning around.
@@jesseherman5540 Perhaps. It could be more grounded Cloud situation. The story could still have used more of that aspect and make Squall more actively strive towards his image. It also does not help that other characters are TOO immature for the job that Squall gets flak for not trying to be their mother hen for them. Squall seems to be the "observer" type character who doesn't outright try to change everything but eventually decides to take more active role to things. I think this all falls down to that "destiny" stuff. Instead of making Squall some destinied hero, he eventually grows into that leadership role. Now it just feels kinda forced and while ending gives context to Squall's role, it also kills some potential during the journey. If prophecy had been more vague and many others were striving for that "legendary Seed" role, Seifer being one of them, Squall had been more like a dark horse and make the end seem more earned than Cid just kicking Squall directly to the role.
@@Yurikon3 yeah. There are a lot of parts of this game that could have been handled better. Honestly the story in general isn't handled the best after the battle of the gardens and I feel that is Part of why this games so polarizing. I personally wish the other characters would have gotten more development as well.
@@jesseherman5540 Crimson tear and many world lore elements were very interesting and would have earned more to be used than the whole Ultimecia gig. At least Ultimecia could have tied more strongly to world's lore.
Funny thing is, the gf memory thing WAS touched on in quistis's class in the very beginning. You just missed it. In the computer terminal where you get your first two GFs. Also it seems at this point of the video where you're discussing the big reveal that you didn't make the connection that the reason Irvine couldn't shoot Edea wasnt his incompetence, it was because he knew who she was to him. And he didn't tell people right away because at first he didn't realize why they were behaving the way they were. And then later after figuring it out it was a combination of not knowing how to bring up "hey guys we are actually childhood orphanage buddies" and waiting for the right time. The events of the game up to this point had only been a few days after all. Also you wouldnt have been able to cheese the Edea fight with Carbuncle if you remembered it. Shed have just cast reflect on herself and bounced her spells off that onto you. EDIT: You addressed Irvines shooting scene literally seconds after i hit play again lol. This game definitely could've been better with the foreshadowing of its main twists. But the Irvine thing didn't bother me as much.
One of the things I didn't like Renoha was she suffered from "I'm a party member but barely in the party" syndrome, that drives me off the wall. If you want me to like a character, let me use them!
I own every single ff game except the online ones .. ff8 was so fun for me much more than ff7 for me .. Laguna was supposed to have such a bigger story but allot of it was cut due to disc size from the time but I was always hoping for a prequel series for the game The director of the game has said squall was his son (which is obvious for us) 😳 but that got cut also
2:17:35 the answer to your question is that Squall needs to be the knight who protects the sorceress... that's his role. Disc three is when he is willing to go... to the moon and back. For her. Opening hinted at that too.
I consider this the apex of the series on the PS1, just as I consider 1 and 6 the apexes of their respective generations. People always talk about 9 as though it's this nostalgic love-letter to older fans; that's certainly how it was advertised. And yes, the systems are fundamentally pretty simple, closer to something like IV with all the predefined character classes, than V-VIII where there's a degree of control over how your characters grow. It is one of my most beloved in the series, along with 6 and, arguably, 1/4/5/10/12... but 8 is tied with 6 for my favorite of the series. I pretty much love everything they did with it, the vast freedom the player has to make the game easier or harder based on how they play and whether they exploit certain system is a huge part of what makes it genius to me, it's like a serious JRPG take on the first time anyone played a Souls game, with everything intentionally different than all previous games in the series, and, again, the apex of what could be achieved graphically on the PS1 hardware. The FMV's with controllable action scenes and battles taking place over them as they played, a real achievement for the PS1, way cooler than anything in 9. Just think about the FMV train sequence, an iconic but also minor part of Disc 1: in 9 it would be a train you see the interior of while it rattles and the windows simulate the movement...which would be fine if it wasn't in the game immediately following the best train sequence in the series, after being on a big roll with the Phantom Train, the Midgar Avalanche Transport System, and the glorious insanity that was 8's train challenge. Here's why I love 8!!!!!!! : * Difficulty is controllable from within the game, how you play is that important. So there's a ton of replay value, a fun time to be had trying to go low level and see how absurd it is, and a truly glorious time going to level 99 and fighting Eden, Omega Weapon, and all 4 of Ultimecia's forms, getting to fight one of the most challenging yet fair final bosses in any JRPG, which at 99 will feel like a fair fight if you use Auras and Meltdons and Holy Wars etc., lol. * The aesthetics are bar-none the best of this style (as opposed to pure 3D) created for a PS1 game. The art direction and character design are equally subdued and realistic-feeling, while still being utterly gorgeous. So many backgrounds are bucolic, calming, heartwarming... while the characters themselves, for perhaps the first time since FF2, are wearing essentially subdued modern normal clothing. The music, the soundtrack, is just as beautiful if not vastly moreso: it represents Nobuo Uematsu's Swan Song before he mainly supervised other composers or collaborated like 10. That credits music is pure genius. And I don't care what you think of me, Eyes on Me is pretty as hell, and while maybe an older me would have dismissed it, the 17 year old who played his was simply enchanted by it, and blown away by the ending. * The characters are the first, and arguably only, in the entire series to speak and think and behave like actual human beings, each with their own complex traumas, emotional hangups, and complex, even contradictory motives. The only other JRPGs I can think of off the to of my head that do that are Shadow Hearts 1+2, and Matsuno's TRPGs if those count. The main character particularly is possibly the most divisive thing about the game, with extroverts and anyone expecting a hero like Chrono or Locke going to be very disappointed. However if you are at all an introvert, struggle in group social situations, find social conventions and traditions easy fodder for ridicule, etc, then you may find yourself laughing quite a lot at Squall's observations and perspectives and how he talks to women, etc. * This is by a wide, wide margin the most complex game in the series, and arguably in the entire genre, if we exclude T/SRPGs. Triple Triad alone is the best side game ever in a JRPG. Junctioning, Guardian Force abilities and growth... when I replay most FF games it's basically the same thing each time. But VIII gives you so many organic choices about how to play it, that substantially affect the difficulty and style of play.
9 *is* a nostalgic love letter to fans lol. People don't just say that, the game drips with it. 8 was never meant to be that, it was wilfully its own ornate scifi-fantasy beast. 8 and 9 are two of my favourite games ever, no need to knock one down to support the other.
TH-cam randomly played this video for me and i couldnt be more thankful. first off, excellent video! I love these long format deep dives into games. I reallyt appreciate how you explained the ways to use the junction system and get OP early on. I bought ff8 whenit came out on switch but have yet to play it. just so many games. but i might give it a go now. i played as a kiddo and never got super far. but now im sure i can kick ass and 100% the beast. even if i decide to cheese it haha. Liked, and Subscribed!
out of all ff i've played personally, which would be 7,8,9,10, 10-2, 13, it's 8 that had most relatable - humanlike characters that i actually hated at the start but grew so fond of at the end. I'd argue about gameplay being broken by the game possibilities, in 2000's guides weren't a huge thing yet, you'd rarely go into a game and look for a guide right away, perhaps if you got stuck, but for the most part breaking the game was a reward for your ingenuity and curiosity. Also ff8 probably had most storyline characters that were developed and really part of the world for longer than 1 chapter of their existence to be left behind gathering dust, cid, laguna, kiros, ward, general carway, fuijin and raijin, even ze doctor, for comparison in ff7 we could call up bugenhagen and perhaps the turks, and in ff9 we have buena vista crew and beatrix as well as cid, these recurring developed characters add up a ton of immersion and ff8 has ton of them. And as i can totally agree with criticism of dungeons that are often just time wasting segment, i find everything else about this game enjoyable, and also more relatable scenery was very welcomed between steampunk 7 and medieval fantasy 9
Deling City's big archway is straight up called L'Arc de Triomphe in the French localization. So there you have it. Also with what you said about splitting the party in disc 2: if you bring Zell and Irvine back to Balamb with you, the character who shows up to guide you to the game's critical path is Zell, offering a session at the training centre. Dude literally asks Squall for a gym date. It's awesome.
Would love for you to do another run through but with the Succession mod. The creator tried to fix the plot holes and make things happen for more organically. Including changing Cid’s character to be more what you would expect. This is an awesome review - incredibly detailed and I appreciated your analysis of the characters. I couldn’t help chuckling at your repeated insults about Irvine because yeah, same.
Squall IT'S NOT YOUR FAULT IT'S NOT YOUR FAULT IT'S NOT YOUR FAULT IT'S NOT YOUR FAULT IT'S NOT YOUR FAULTIT'S NOT YOUR FAULT IT'S NOT YOUR FAULTIT'S NOT YOUR FAULTIT'S NOT YOUR FAULTIT'S NOT YOUR FAULTIT'S NOT YOUR FAULTIT'S NOT YOUR FAULTNOTYOUR FAIULT NOTYOURFAULT
Funny thing is u can get Odin before the radio tower event in Timber and Seifer will cut him down there and u can get Gilgamesh much earlier in the game
Great doc/review mate, like really good. I originally played FF8 back in the late 90s I think. It was my first and favourite FF8 until I played FF10 and then originally went back and played the original FF7. The game is far from perfect, but still.. I love it with all its flaws. THis was an overall awesome video and bought back a lot of Nostalgia - thanks for your effort.
I loved the far future setting of final fantasy 8, it was a big change from the medieval knights and wizards story of previous games but I think it was handled well. Also loved the character design, enemy designs, story and yes even the combat. I really hope 8 gets the next major remake and that square doesn't completely fuck it up being... square Enix and not square soft...
TBH they had airships since forever, FF6 was leaning into Steampunk and FF7 was already full of techno sci-fi stuff, 8 just took things further (and then X and 13 were taking futurism up to 11.) Like First Final fantasy had D&D magic system, elves and dwarves, the series got a long way from cliché fantasy to experimentation (and Tactics universe is my second-fav after VIII).
thank you for this vid. 2 things I am compelled to mention: 1) Whoever decided to gatekeep the game from stupid idiot 10-year old me by requiring the player to fast travel from a garden terminal to progress can get wrecked. I straight up just returned the rental defeated because I had no idea that the game was forcing me to do that and couldnt progress. It was sad. 2) 10 year old me thought Liberi Fatale is the best song on the planet. It ruined me (along with MMX games on SNES). From that point on there was no hope for me to have musical tastes that aligned with what was popular, I still remember calling the local CD shop and asking them if they had the FF8 OST and the "wtf" reaction from the clerk who had no idea was I was talking about. I remember not understanding how audio worked and trying to play this song in a speaker while recording it as a WAV file to burn onto a CD
Squall gets a lot of flak from series fans but I think he is one of the more fleshed out characters in the FF games. Most people describe him as a whiny emo teen and that's what he really is at the start, he's a teenager after all, but his is a coming of age story. We read his inner thoughts throught the game and see how he is forced to face his issues and insecurities as responsibilities pile on, to become a leader for his peers, opening more to others, finding love and connecting with his past. Sure the game has a lot of rough edges but it is a fun ride all the way and one of the most ambitious games on the PS1 catalog.
There's one big aspect of FF8's story that often gets ignored, or rather, overlooked, but it's so essential to the narrative that understanding it makes every outlandish fan theory obsolete. I'm talking about the role of fate in FF8. Even the opening theme of the game, Liberi Fatali, which translates to Children of Fate, refers to this.
The unspoken storyline of FF8 is that Squall was destined to kill Ultimecia - not because of some prophecy, but because it had already happened and would happen again due to time compression allowing them to essentially time travel. Squall defeating Ultimecia in a distant future and then returning to the past to tell the tale had cemented the battle and its outcome as a constant in the timeline, and what is more, a well-known historical fact. The story of the evil, time traveling sorceress Ultimecia, who plunged the world into war, attempted to compress time and was slain by the brave SeeD. Ultimeica was known across generations as the evil time-traveling sorceress before she was even born, fate had quite literally condemned her to become the villain we see in the game. it's quite possible that Ultimecia wasn't even her real name, but after years and years of SeeD persecuting sorceresses in an attempt to prevent the fabled Ultimeica's rise to power, one sorceress ultimately snapped and said "You want Ultimecia? I will give you Ultimecia."
So that's when time compression comes into play. It's a really bizarre idea on the surface, but considering that Ultimecia is fully aware of the fact that she's fated to be killed by SeeDs, and because she's afraid of that, perhaps in her eyes, the only way to escape her fate was to take control over time itself. Of course, ironically, her attempt to compress time is what would eventually give Squall the means as well as the motivation to go after her and kill her, thus fullfilling both of their destinies.
Ultimecia refers to Squall as the "legendary SeeD", which may seem random at first, but once you understand that in Ultimecia's time, Squall is indeed just that, the legendary SeeD who defeated the most powerful sorceress, it makes perfect sense. What she means is, "so you are the legendary SeeD destined to kill me".
Garden was established not to fight just any sorceress, but specifically Ultimecia. Why? Because Edea and Cid were the only two people who knew what was going to happen. They knew that the orphans they were taking care of were destined to face a powerful sorceress in the not-so-distant future. Edea gained that knowledge from Squall directly when they met during time compression. The orphans were indeed children of fate, and Garden was established to prepare them for the day they would have to save the world from the sorceress.
That's basically all, and as I said above, understanding this part of the story really does take away the need to come up with some crazy fan theory in regard to Ultimecia. It's literally all there and it makes sense once you have the whole picture, the only problem is that it's buried so deep within the subtext, most people probably miss it.
Final Fantasy and its time loops, even since the very first game...
I like think think of Squall at about 9 or 10 and Edea realises "He's that time traveller"
One thing about this, fate and destiny are not synonyms. Fate is predetermined, nothing you can do to change it. Destiny depends on your choices made to fulfill your potential or not.
@basil I don’t know if you read this or came to it in your own, but it touches me none the less that I’m not alone.
Another thing that makes Squall a child of fate is the fact that the dream sequences tell Squall his immediate future. That he is so like his father, that they share the same lives. Laguna meets Julia and shortly Squall meets Rinoa.
i love ff8 so much and honestly i'll never relate to any ff character more than squall, i love that awk lil man
Yeah in love the music in Winhill and Fisherman Horizon.
Reading your comment made me smile; it's so rare to find someone else who relates to Squall and isn't afraid to admit it. One of the (many) reasons I love 8 is that it was the first game in the series to have characters who felt like real human beings, as opposed to heroes in a cliched fantasy novel. And I've been playing the series since the first, and for me anyway, that made all the radical changes of 8 extremely impressive and fascinating. Not only are the characters fundamentally different from the ground up, but so is every aspect of traditional RPG mechanics aside from the ATB system. I just found the whole thing to be so intensely refreshing, both emotionally and mechanically, after playing so many JRPGs that never strayed too far from the norm (I hadn't had the pleasure of playing the Shin Megami Tensei series at that point). And all of that was clearly exactly what the developers were trying to do. So I've always seen the criticism of 8 as lacking merit in most cases, because it either comes from people whose first JRPG was 7 and/or people who barely played it and just jumped on the bandwagon once they heard a bunch of other people saying they hated it. I don't think it's possible to do a good-faith critique of 8 and not come away with mostly positives. Even the batshit-insane story, which is definitely the weakest facet of the game, is so full of sincere emotion and events that are so resplendently rendered that one cannot help but watch in awe as it all unfolds, even if one is laughing at it half the time. That's another thing I don't get, people who can't enjoy something if any part of it feels silly to them, regardless of how amazing the rest is. When I play 8, I simply get extra enjoyment from the parts that can be laughed at, while also continuing to take them seriously and be emotionally engaged with the story. And for all the parts of the game that can be laughable, I'm not ashamed to admit that the ending always gets tears in my eyes; again, what's the point of such a thing at all if you can't allow yourself to be swept up by it? And of course, the music is the best of the PS1 games by a wiiiide margin; as are the graphics, to me. I think the battle graphics and summons are more impressive in 8 than in 9, due to a combination of one less player character, and vastly better art direction. I honestly can't stand the almost blizzard/wow aesthetic that 9 used, it makes every town look like part of Disneyland or something... lol, that was the negative shock game for me, after the clean, beautiful magical realism of 8.
@@jedgrahek1426 yeah, i love the beautiful cutscenes and music on FF8, and i always relate to Squall and Laguna.
yup
Agreed, but also …whatever…
Final Fantasy VIII is very underrated in my opinion. It's a great game with a great story. That opening is so iconic and wonderful. I prefer the older style of the characters to the the newer remakes. The older style with the dimmer eye color adds an exotic hybrid style of wonder and fascination to the characters that draw me in more. The modern versions where they emphasize the blue of the eyes took away much of the charm of the characters. I wish they wouldn't have done that and only made the graphics with upscaled resolution.
@Vivec's Vassals nope not even close to 7s shadow all because they made squall so bland and interesting that who even cares then you throw in a pretty bad magic system when you break it down and a card game that.....is better than the game itself
I agree, it is underrated. It's not that the magic system is bad, it's just so damn exploitable... Learn healing magic refinement, buy some tents, turn them into vitaga, et voila, you got 5000+ HP, while you and the enemies are still below level 15. So you don't have a need to heal and can spam limits endlessly... It's the only real gripe I have with the game.
I disagree-- I think it's not "underrated"; it's a perception problem. There's a huge number of people who think FF8 is the best Final Fantasy game - but fans of the other games refuse to believe it.😑
@@martinroner5688 I agree. I do think it’s underrated because of the push behind FF7 and FF13, at least if we’re speaking long term. Short term, FF8 had an amazing turn out after FF7.
I think you used the perfect adjective for the magic system, exploitable. Although I don’t necessarily care for the grinding a lot of final fantasy games require, all monsters should’ve had stat minimums and not based off Squall’s level.
Ff8 is great up to the Garden's fight which was one of the biggest highs in FF. Then it just.... slowly declines. Story pace slows, gameplay kinda dulls..just kinda goes bleh. So sad but hey got gunblade in FFXIV so worth
ff8 is probably my favorite game from my childhood
My personal favorite Final Fantasy game!
good taste ;-)
@@mothcub Why thank you!
It’s alright and I def love 8, but it’s no 9 🪄
@@HolyClownFuckarus K
@@lexnoil lmao ok 8 is my fave too!
This was my first final fantasy as well as my first jrpg. And it's still one of my favorite ff's. Thank you for making this video and reviving all the good memories.
Same here. My first FF, and one of my favorite ones, along with XII and IX.
My first was FF4 for the SNES :) that's a good one :)
Also my first! my favorite as well
Same
Same! I know it has its problems, but I still love it
Thanks for collecting this! This is a game that doesn't deserve the hate it constantly gets (largely because of a different video review series that's aged about as well as milk in the sun) but also has plenty of interesting elements to dissect & criticize, and your series on it was the best study of it. Glad to have it all in one nice chunk.
EDIT: Oh God, I just realized that Esthar's rocket system is a reference to how the rocket is launched in Georges Melies' Trip to the Moon. After TWO DECADES, it finally clicked.
And like all "it was all a coma dream/dying hallucination/drug haze" theories, I HATE "Squall is dead". It's just so shallow & dark for darkness's sake, and like you said, the whole "these fantasy elements are proof it's a dying dream" thing is just an arbitrary line where the people behind it have decided to draw suspension of disbelief.
spoony is now a washed up loser has been with no career. FF8 is still going strong with a remaster that sold absurdly well and it still is the best selling FF game outside 7, tied with FFX.
Hi. I know you made this comment ages ago but I’d like to know, what different video review series are you referring to?
@@dotto87 ^ Same! I'd really like to know! ^__^
I hate this game without watching the angry review channels of yore
the dead Squall fan "theory" is more of a contrarian thing said by people with bad media literacy, I remember backlash that claimed Seifer is the cool dude Rinoa should be with (when his ENTIRE character is being a poser, that's his thing, and he's WAY more sympathetic when you accept that he is a wannabe with inferiority complex). @@dotto87 there were two waves of FF8-hatedom, one after release by overprotective FF7 fans and another after Spoony's review. It was very mature and thoughtful take on the game, for example naming the dog, Angelo, "АnаI" to get funny attack names. Totally classy!
That awful prison break sequence where you said "imagine going the wrong way here and having not saved?" - that was me! I was of course, furious.
Us*
Same, I feel your pain...
Finally, a four hour long review video on this accursed platform which doesn't consist of nitpicking and repeating the same point over and over. I don't agree with a lot of this, especially questioning the lunar physics in a game where you launch your dog at monsters, but it's pretty darn good overall.
@s a 😂
Lol ❤
Еананаакнаааааннананан
@@genyakozlov1316 Yeah, I grimaced and rolled my eyes when Kim said that. That comment just made me sigh "First time experiencing the fantasy genre, huh?"
I loved this game. It is and will always be my favorite game of all time. This started my love for games and my love for final fantasy!
Kim I loved this. Please do a Final Fantasy 9 review.
Yea 9 needs more love
Yes do it Kim! 9 is the best
Second!
agree
You make criminally underrated documentaries Kim. I honestly wish your videos would receive more attention. Time to enjoy this video!
Yes, this, especially GTA series, I'm watching it at least once a year, it's so good.
Totally agreed.
Now I don't have to play the damn game.
@@FredFuchs77 brt
Lm pmnmnj j km on l lm pnn o lm kn
Dam this is the best game documentary I have ever seen man. Glad you are getting back to this type of content.
How on earth do you bring yourself to script, record and edit such enormous videos? You're a bloody marvel, Kim!
it's a compilation of older videos. to be fair it;s still long, but yeah it's old content bundled
. y 😊
Ĥĥ
Ĥ
Kim your content is invaluable. I played this back in the day and put it down mid way through disc 2 because I didn't like it, though I couldn't put my finger on why. This video articulates exactly why. Excellent work, you deserve far more attention.
I appreciate your honest and thoughtful exploration of this massively underrated game. this game is so widely misunderstood and thus hated by the FF community at large, and its really unfair that it is because it has a lot of great things going for it. Squall arguably has the greatest character arc of any FF protagonist and he really grows as a person and character throughout the story. its always really upsetting when people just dismiss him as a whiny emo loser. sure the plot may have some big holes in some places but the story is ultimately a character study of a boy becoming a man and learning to open up and accept others into his life, to not push people away out of fear of being hurt, and learning to love someone special to him. at its core, FF8 is a romance, and a good one at that.
Well said. People who call squall an emo picked up the game for an hour and then dropped the controller never to finish
I played through the game many times and I hate squall despite loving the game. His character is completely shallow as is Rinoa. He needed more moments early game where he isn’t totally rejecting everyone around him and being a douchebag in order for most of the audience to get behind him including me. Im glad others appreciate the character
I agree, great follow up to FFVII.
Also, seeing these graphics again, I love them. The characters are a bit janky, but the backgrounds and cut scenes are beautiful.
@@josephshepherd6968 was still leagues ahead of ff7 and it's horrible character models lol
I can't say enough just how valuable these series are for people like me who just never will have the patience to play these games myself but still want to know as well as if I had. I get exactly what I want from the game without all the frustration I feel while playing RPGs.
Take a week off work and commit to a playthrough. You won't be disappointed.
It's nice but honestly you don't get the full experience without playing it yourself. Snippets of music and scenes without the context having room to breathe is a poor replacement for being fully absorbed in the atmosphere. If it was anywhere near as good, none of us would bother playing games, we'd just watch videos like this.
I feel like you should play it at least once to get the full context it would make it soooo much more impactful, ik rpgs are frustrating especially turn based ones, but that time to grow with the characters and develop a connection with them is important.
Got through first hour of video, that's literally the part where the story got real good by me? The parade and everything and they GET Squall finally and try to help his issues instead of taking him for granted. I got like, opposite opinion on everything from you here (except that I adore Selphie too)... Also I found Squall, Irvine AND Zell likeable. I couldn't stand Quistis and Seifer.
Rinoa being a "rebel princess" kinda explains everything else, both her competence and brattishness, she's LITERALLY LEIA AT THIS POINT. Her fights with Squall is basically Han Solo dynamics though our sniper is the scoundrel type and Leonhart is closer to Anakin but yeah... this is HEAVILY influenced by Star Wars story with very similar tropes and characters.
So lead couple fighting because they destined for each other is a bit of a cliché, but how could people miss the tension? Squall is Rinoa's second crush and it's the end part of disk one where she looks at Seifer and understand she grew out of him completely and now loves Squall. Their triangle just doesn't have convenient "HE IS MY BROTHER" reveal, thankfully, otherwise this is original trilogy and yes, it goes IN SPACE soon for people who didn't get the other nods.
We just really needed two droids for a party, Selphie can be Chewbacca anyway.
P.S. Disc 2 has most memorable dialogue about war as you go through Balamb under occupation then Trebia after it's been missiled. Playing that as a kid was uneasy, would be doubly hard now during the real war... I work with some people from destroyed cities and some from occupied ones... It's all very horrible, even if place where I am is mostly spared asides from occasional air raid alarm. I think people miss the whole WAR theme of this game, FF7 and 6 also go into that of course.
Selphie talking to the kids in Trabia is one of my favourite moment in FF history
The memory loss is important in the end though. All Squall had to do to go back to his time was remember the spot he and Rinoa promised to meet up at. That's all he had to do. But he forgot that, got lost in time, created SEED, and forgot Rinoa, leading him to get forever lost in time if Rinoa hadn't came back to save him.
I didn't even consider all of that. I thought it was just a consequence of their prolonged exposure to the Time Compression.
...what?
@@Mrniceguy2209 what
I😮😮😮😮 ewwwwww wawa you 😮 was wawa EA when you et😢r was was EA was even 😮on my e we😮😮😮w😮we
Real talk I fell asleep on the sofa watching Austin Eruption and woke up an hour into this.
I went to bed but then spent the most of my Sunday watching this in pieces for a deep dive in what I feel is a misunderstood FF.
It has great bits and poor design and I think you did it justice.
Best fatigue induced channel exploration I've ever had.
Subscribed
I which there was a sequel. To see how the war transformed the world. Especially because of the trauma resulting from 3 sorceress in a row (Adel, Edea under Ultimecia, and Ultimecia herself), the way Galbadia and Estar got ravaged, the Lunatic Pandora being back on earth. There is room for a lot of drama.
Arguably, we kind of got similar in the game already. We get to see some of what the world was like during Adel's war through Laguna and then explored it fully throughout the rest of the game.
This was my first Final Fantasy game that I played when i was 13. I can't exactly explain it in words, but at the time, it was so magical, and the storytelling left such an indelible mark that to this day, I've yet to find a story that has captivated me the way Final Fantasy 8 did.
Thank you so much for taking the time to create this. I enjoyed every minute of it, and was able to relieve the delightful time I had during my teenage years through this video.
Also, at @2:27:00, when you said "Irvine is free to f*** off," I laughed so hard!
On your point about the what ifs regarding Rinoa and Ellone not being together in space. You have to remember that Ultimecia is a sorceress from the future. She already knew ahead of time what would occur after possessing Rinoa. So she already knew that they would both meet in space and that she'd be able to use it as an opportunity to possess Adel.
Throughout the game, the characters basically play straight into her hands, because she already knows the actions that they are going to take. The only thing that's unclear to her is the outcome of the final battle against her.
But why is that the only thing unclear but she knew everything else?
@@sladey21 Because that is where everything converges, during the final part of the battle. You cannot see what lies beyond the convergence because, well, there is nothing after the convergence. Imagine combining all of time and timelines into a singular point and you and your foe are battling at the furthest end of the new timeline. She can't see what wasn't there before. Anything after the compression is an unknown factor.
It is destined to always turn out the same way though. One of the tragedies is that she can't see that but so much else. It is just out of view. If she COULD see it, then surely she would try something else.
Final Fantasy VIII holds a special place in my gaming heart as it was the first installment I experienced in the series.
I adore the soundtrack, composed by Nobuo Uematsu, for its ability to enhance the storytelling experience. Eyes on Me, in particular, stands out as my favorite game theme, a poignant ode that elevates the emotional depth of the narrative.
Visually, Final Fantasy VIII is a masterpiece, seamlessly blending fantasy and futuristic elements. The graphical prowess of its time is still appreciated today, showcasing the timeless artistry that defines the Final Fantasy series.
The innovative Junction system adds layers of strategy to the gameplay, intertwining seamlessly with the narrative. It's not just a game mechanic; it's a dynamic element that adapts to your choices and shapes the journey uniquely for each player. And if-like me-you just go through the game normally, and slowly learn how it works, you don't break anything until much later when it's more appropriate.
The narrative delves into the complexities of its characters, offering a rich and layered storytelling experience. The plot twists, character arcs, and overarching themes leave a lasting impact, making the game more than just a momentary escape.
Eyes on Me may hold the title of my favorite game theme, but the haunting allure of One Winged Angel, Sephiroth's character theme, captures a different essence. It's a symphony of darkness, an embodiment of the antagonist's enigmatic nature that lingers in the mind long after the game is put down.
And then there's Triple Triad, a mini-game that transcends its label. Its simple yet addictive mechanics and the thrill of collecting and refining a deck create a microcosm of strategic gameplay within the larger narrative.
In essence, Final Fantasy VIII is not just a game for me; it's a profound journey that intertwines storytelling, visuals, gameplay mechanics, and musical composition into a seamless, immersive experience that I still go back to every time and enjoy.
As a kid when this came out and I played, all I knew was: Squall is relatable to me, I would have totally made out with Quistis, and hitting stuff with a gunblade was amazing… no matter how ridiculous the handling must have been.
Who knew this game has a story to tell 🤣
Quistis is basically "I'm hot for teacher" personified.
@@LordMalice6d9 aka Anime Trope 4923. The spicy mothering teacher is a trope as old as time.
@@BlueZirnitra At least for once she's nice size F+ bust.
FFVIII is my favorite in the series, and the thing I think pushes it past the competition is that world map music. It's such a vibe
This was a great trip down memory lane, thanks! It's crazy how much of the second half of this game i completely forgot. I always thought 8 had its own charm, and i actually preferred it over 9, which I probably underrated. I would love to see you do a similar video for 9!
Play the remastered version ; they made siphoning magic from enemies so much quicker. Makes it really enjoyable and satisfying now
Went back to this a couple of years ago on an emulator and 100%-ed it. Great game, fantastic music.
Music so good I had to buy the 4 disc collectors edition OST haha
@@Skellotronix Saw that when I was in Japan, at a store called Geo, and immediately picked it up. Saw it referenced in BGM files for so many years, there was no way I wasn't picking something of that magnitude up, haha!
@1:32:30 I always pick instruments that lead to the Irish jig and that leads to rinoa and squall having a pleasant conversation with no arguments 🥰
This is a thing? Lol after 25y and 20+ playthroughs I still learn new things.
The magic “scan” gives some neat flavor text for pretty much all the bosses and enemies, even some for repeat ones and PARTS or small minions of bosses as well, and the characters, but there is no library or compendium option, so you can’t read them or look back on them anywhere in the game, so once you see it, it’s gone, which is a bummer, as I feel the scan descriptions are pretty interesting
This game was made back when gaming company make some of the game mechanics ambigious to sell their official guidebook, which is why this game left a very bad taste in my mouth when i found out later on that leveling up is a boon in this game.
@@wahidpawana424
This game also came with a mini guidebook even just telling you how to deal with the game up to the Dollet part. I seemed to have lost it unfortunately, I don’t know how
@@wahidpawana424 Squall most likely gets to level 100 first, and since the others often switch in and out of the party, they remain lower leveled.
@@wahidpawana424 A boon is something that is beneficial. Leveling up is not beneficial for easing the difficulty, although in my opinion as long as you don't go intentionally grinding for levels, leveling up doesn't really cause any problems of being underpowered even if you're not maxing out on spells. And in any case, you could just card every enemy you come across too.
@Vivec's Vassals
Are you sure? I could have sworn pandemonium had wind item refinement and I do recall “float” being something you could get
“Scan,” I don’t recall an item refinement so neat
Compare this to ProJared's travesty of a 'review' and it's chalk and cheese.
This is professionalism. Love it Kim.
Nothin really wrong with PJ's review unless you take issue with the fact that he seems to not like it as much.
@@tical2399 Nope, there's actual, objective, factual stuff wrong with it. Just one example - he says Ultimecia turns up 'out of nowhere'. For his FF7 review, he said Cloud 'wasn't at Nibelheim'. He makes silly mistakes because he's not paying attention.
It's fine he doesn't like the game (it's not my favourite either), but the problem is it's all through the lens of fanboyism for Final Fantasy 6 with him.
Kim's review is astonishing in its' depth and nuance. It's a completely different league to Jared, and with 8 in particular that stings solely because of how often people go for the lazy low hanging fruit with it.
@@tubey84 Meh, Kim's is fine, Jared's is fine too. I got no problem with either.
@@tubey84 It's easy to miss stuff. It's even easier to miss stuff and get facts crossed when your target videos are 20-30 minutes. Kim doesn't place a limit on the length, so there's no worry about constantly cutting stuff out. Projared doesn't have the audience that listens to the 4 hour videos... if he made one it would get a fraction of any traction.
@@Easelgames I agree it's easy to leave stuff out. I don't expect a vid to be as comprehensive as Kim's to be good. However, getting things outright wrong is another matter.
Very fair review!
FF8 was literally the first RPG I _ever_ played... even before I knew what D&D was! Imagine being a teen in the early 2000s who had never played an RPG before seeing that opening cutscene for the first time: that's a memory that's going to stay with me forever!
Of course, when I got it on Steam as an adult and played back through, I found that a lot of the criticisms people had were legitimate, but I also found new reasons to love the game (the Laguna segments hit _way_ different). Also, I never minded the junction system. It was a bad system for someone who had never played any RPGs before, but coming back to it years later with many more RPGs and Final Fantasy games under my belt, I love it more than ever, because I like to min/max, but I dislike being over-leveled. So a progression system like FF8's, where skill advancement is de-coupled from character advancement, is right up my alley.
Funny enough, FF8 was my first RPG as well, yet I had no issue understanding and utilizing the Junction system - TBF, it makes a lot more sense than the traditional systems, even 20 years and FAR more JRPGs under my belt. Of course, I can understand the flaws in it and see a few ways to improve it, but even so while it does break tradition it remains one of the best systems I've ever experienced.
i think some also miss the point that they are 17-18 year old kids fighting a war. Squall is a flawed character but who wouldn't be.
he's been abandoned by his sis, his father, and because of that doesn't open up to anyone
He’s also the most competent in the group, which pushes him towards being a leader, along with Cid’s heavy scale on the thumb, since he’s kinda known how it would end the whole time.
Squall learning to properly lead people through his father’s eyes in the dreams is kind of a chef’s kiss too.
@@Gusto3791 so who was Squall's father again?
I like that. It's unconventional, but honestly he acts like a lot of kids do, especially ones with emotional scars. Some people have said he's kind of a representative for socially awkward people and introverts, I kind of agree.
@@aerisgainsborough2141 Laguna
@@crazyfourvideo It's crazy how many people play FF8 and don't understand any of the character dynamics. To this day I still have no idea how so many people play FF8 to its ending and come away from the game having no idea that Laguna and Raine are Squall's parents.
Quistis's Degenerator limit break is one of the best movies as it warps any monster away and very rarely misses 😁
I don't understand the criticism. I started with 7, absolutely loved it.
Then 8 blew me away as well. The best 2 entries in the series by quite a margin in my opinion
I started with 8, then got 6 and 7, I feel all three are very epic and similar enough (main girl is one of last surviving members of some ancient magic lineage, there's a bunch of steampunk'ish sci-fi elements without going overboard, focus on narrative and not on jobs, summons equippable by everyone, character-based limit breaks on damage etc.)
Falling asleep to this tonight because I’m going to play the remaster on PS4 starting tomorrow.
Romantic Dream isn't actually a mistranslation, it's just used in a more archaic sense in that Seifer's dream is the romanticized ideal of being a Sorceress' Knight, like the romanticized view of chivalry, more like the D'artagnan Romances by Dumas than a modern romance novel or romantic comedy
Yes there's an entire genre of Romanticism in literature and it usually is filled by Squall-looking guys dressed in black looking over cliff edges and brooding... Poets like Byron, Shelley, Coleridge wrote romantic poems about sailors lost in the sea and sand blowing around ruins of a Pharaoh's statue... Look up paintings by Caspar, Goya and Blake. That's Romantic art, though in Seifer's case, I assume he refers to older concept of chivalric romance by likes of Chaucer and Petrarch, but ends up kind of a Cervantes' Don Quixote...
i fell in love with this game once i saw the opening fmv on my PC. Really the quality of the FMVs really got me hooked. And the songs like Liberi Fatali and Eyes on me. Eyes on me actually was an audio cd track you could listen to in your normal cd player.
The PC version back in 1999 was of a much better image quality than the PS1 version btw. Same is true of the PC Version of FF7. I also really liked the plot twist of Edea not being the real enemy. And these FMVs again, when the garden suddenly starts to fly or the Esthar reveal.. absolutely stunning. Yeah the story really goes pretty crazy but the heart of it is a really touching love story.
Listening to your review i was surprised of your positive conclusion in the end. You actually told me stuff about my favorite FF game that i did never figure out myself. I always got my spells from drawing not refining. You also opened my eyes on the broken game mechanics. You missed a really cool fmv by killing the mechanic spider in your seed exam btw. Definitely an interesting review and well worth the time to watch it. Thanks for your efforts.
Loved your video!
One thing though:
My theory why squall is chosen to be the leader of the group and eventually the gardens as well…
Well, edea and cid created seed because of what squall said in the end. So they knew squall was suppose to be the leader and the one who would vanquish ultimacia in the end. Even though he didn’t wanted to be a leader it was his destiny.
This was a really fun watch. FF8 was the first Final Fantasy I ever played (and maybe even the first RPG,) so I definitely have a different view on it. It's nice to see a fresh take from someone who hadn't tried it until recently.
One little thing I noticed with the production, though. There were quite a few parts where you seemed to have left in multiple consecutive takes of the same line. I'm not sure if that was in the videos when they were released individually, but it was definitely in this version, and a bit odd to hear. It's still a totally enjoyable watch, though.
1:57:20 I’m pretty sure it’s relatively common knowledge that Irvine hesitated to shoot the Sorceress bc he did recognize her
Thank you ! This makes so much sense. The fact this scene comes before it is revealed that 1) Irvine knew Edea at the orphenage 2) he was the only one to remember it, made this scene unlogical to many people, and damaged Irvine perception among players. The problem was very few people tryed to come back at it once the game finished and to take into accont theses facts.
@@Alangevine Definitely people's biggest problem is playing it once (often not to the end) and never revisiting earlier scenes with prior knowledge. There's A LOT of foreshadowing, including Squall's entire character arc and their relationship dynamics with Rinoa explained in microcosm of that one dance... or his name AND Laguna's name being meaningful and the loud guy being calm and the silent one hiding thunder, Seifer literally LARPing as Squall's destiny without realizing that, so much stuff you see on replay.
FF8 has many secret flavor details that would be appreciated in better games that have more positives to them, it makes me like FF8 more, but a lot of the hidden stuff is either very cryptically hidden, isn’t that big of a deal in the long run, and others times punishing as a joke
Like there’s this “Instructor Aki” you can see by talking to certain students on the second floor, do it enough times and the pay off is getting your Seed rank reduced by one
By collecting Timber maniacs, you get small changes to Laguna flashbacks like Laguna realizing he’s talking to much to Julia, Ward becoming a party member in the Ruby Dragon part, or Laguna getting a cramp at the crystal place.
That old key in the Crystal place, pays off all the way near the almost end of disc three, and that’s if you do it properly and in that area you can access two doors, one contains a draw point, and one gives Quistis access to the Ray bomber move that mech spider back in dollet used
If you go into a library as zell many times you get a scene with some girls asking zell what things he likes, and if you answer right, in the Battle meter (Also something you can miss and only get if you talk to cid again after leaving garden then going back in before going to Timber) there’s just some text change in relationship
If you kill the Mech spider, you can bypass the FMV of it getting destroyed on the beach, and you can bypass it by hiding in the bar right before you get to the point that triggers it
It’s cool to see these things, secrets to discover, but you have to ask yourself if it is worth it or it’s needlessly hidden, but that flavor does add like-ability to a game
That is frkn amazing quality content!!! Just discovered your channel. I could watch those kind of videos everyday before I go to sleep. Amazing work buddy! Hyped for FF7. 8 Was my first one, thanks for the memories!
I always thought the "Disciplnary Committee" was meant to be a joke. Like, Seifer, Raijin and Fujin get in trouble so much that everyone mockingly calls them that.
This game is underrated. It was my fav ff game in my childhood but for some reason and the junction system which i didnt like i actually liked 7 and 9 better now as a adult, they were just more fun to play but ff8 will always have my fav storyline in the entire series easily. Definitely a classic
I think a lot of ppl miss the fact that as a time paradox Ultimecia has access to information on the past, so she can use that to help manipulate events. Also the reason Squall gets forced to be leader is b.c Squall informs past Edea about SeeD and him being their leader.
Watching this has gotten me to start playing Final Fantasy 8 again (this time with the Crystal mod!)
I love Final Fantasy 8. It was the first Final Fantasy game I ever really owned, and I played the hell out of. I really love the characters, I like the gameplay and how it heavily rewards experimentation and game knowledge. I love how ridiculous and bizarre the story can get. I even love Triple Triad. ...like, at first before the rules get really hard to follow.
This will always be my favorite Final Fantasy game. Objectively, it's probably not the best. Final Fantasy XV obviously looks better. Final Fantasy X had better gameplay. Final Fantasy VII I'm told has a better story.
But all of VIII's elements together make it my top pick for all of Final Fantasy.
Ff8 is so breakable. And that's why it's my favorite. Other games try to stop you from breaking them, but it's a choice. And I like it. Let me have fun! Other people don't have to screw up their game, and I should be allowed to
Watched this entire thing over the span of two days
Well done
"Nobody puts FF8 in the middle of their list" I do o-o;;; I like the systems but not big on most of its characters (the ones you control more specifically) which is why it sits in the middle for me too, not enough to hate or love so really shouldn't be dead last or that high for me. As weird as this will be to hear I will put it above 10 any day tho.
I was unaware that Shockwave Pulsar broke the damage cap! I knew Eden did but not SP! Thanks!
I don't understand, the part where you go down into the basement was amazing to me, who cares about the dungeon? What made that part so cool was the building questions about why is there all of this down here, why are there huge fuel tanks and the excitement starts building about "can the Garden move?" Then you find out what the garden actually is, it was mind blowing for me
I feel like Zell is a better character as the story progresses. He shows agency in Esthar, remorse from Seifer at Galbadia Garden when he thinks he is dead, and he is shown to actually have skills such as metallurgy and historical knowledge at certain points. Not a top tier character by any means, but he does seem to have more than a mere hot head.
he was awesome with weird technology. they're bunch of points are you straight up need him in the party to do secret stuff because he's a gear head. when i was a kid i thought he might have autism because he's supersmart and hyper focussed but really socially awkward.
@@pennyisdreadful that's pretty cool, what kind of secret stuff and situations are some of them?
I don't think it is as deep as autism, and I find him more prone to his own emotions than being awkward. I could never wrong, but I found him quite well adjusted in many social situations
With the "Squall is dead" theory, the bit that doesn't add up for me are all the bits Squall isn't in, such as the Zell segment in Disc3 while Squall went to space. Squall wasn't there, so how was he dreaming it? Even if it was a totally made-up dream sequence based of stuff people had told him, he'd still have been in it. Maybe there is some hand-wavy explanation of how that works, but I'm not seeing it (but again that is real-world logic on a JRPG).
And, as an aside, the Adel/Rinoa fight is actually easy if you know what you are doing. Rinoa and Adel are considered different targets, so (1) avoid all AoE stuf (GFs, AoE limit breaks, AoE magic, etc) and (2) target Rinoa with heals/regens - being a different target it won't heal Adel and buys you plenty of time to beat Adel. Supposedly you can Undeath-status Rinoa to stop Adel absorbing her health, but I didn't get that to work.
I feel the whole Squall is dead theory is just shippers trying to claim Rinoa/Seifer despite his entire character only making sense when he's a wannabe sorceress knight while Squall is the real one. Squall/Rinoa dynamics are classic, it's the Han/Leia thing where she's a rebel princess and he's a cynical antihero and a handsome rogue. People who need a whole "it's just a dream" to explain them bickering and then warming up somehow missed the ENTIRE romance genre, where most relationships are like that. It's like, cliched. Especially when you get to space and it just reeks "oh look, a Star Wars tsundere romance IN SPACE".
So I’ve never played FF8 or looked anything up. When you got to the Griever fight I literally thought, “oh…that means Rinoa is Ultimecia since she knew about the whole ring/lion thing.
Great video btw!
9:07 Wait what? Squall's second most famous quote is GO TALK TO A WALL. They actually show it when you summon him in WOTV. Yes, Squall rebuffing Quistis pretty brutally is one of most memorable things about him. And someone who... has literal groupies in school... being flirty, is background noise at this point.
OMG I ALWAYS THOUGHT THAT WAS WEIRD! Biggs and Wedge being mentioned in Star Wars when I played FF games first. I'm glad to know it's actually a reference lol
What a fantastic review, really wanted to replay this game but couldn’t invest the time into it again. This game for me is so nostalgic it brings back all the childhood memories and hours spent playing the game. I actually love the game but your synopsis of it is spot on you point out all of its flaws perfectly and highlight all that it does well. I personally love the musical score and I must say I like Irvine 😂. Your review was excellent new subscriber earned 🙌🏼
This game was made for a younger audience, all the people I know that love this game played it at 12 or younger.
In my case I was one of those people who played it younger than 12 and I thought it was a terrific game. At the time I didn't get what all the fuss was about or why FF8 got the most hate of its peers during that era. I had no issues figuring out the junction system and thought it was a really solid and complete story. Game was a joy to play from start to finish.
Golden age of great games. I recall getting this & the brady guide on its release as a kid, completing it & feeling accomplished. It was only years later when I played it on the psp, acquired every little bit of inventory, became extremely OP & felt like it should to be damn near invincible as only a true classic rpg can provide.
I still have the Brady guide to this game 😎 looks a little used but it’s awesome
I love how Selphie just absolutely adores trains. Puts a smile on my face whenever I remember those first few hours of gameplay.
🎵 Train 🎵 Train 🎵 Take us away 🎵 far away 🎵
I think Selfies lost GF was probably Doomtrain! It is on point lol
Squall is an ISTJ and Rinoa is an ENFP.
The remastered fast forward feature is soooo amazing for this game makes drawing a quick as hell.
Regarding the whole Irvine issue. Some of the reasons why he never spoke up or did anything could be attributed to him feeling left out and to some degree ignored by the group.
Since he was at Galbadia (as the only one seemingly) he would have been alone in that sense. Furthermore when linking up with the group, he's further isolated in the sense that no one remembers him.
I chalk his not saying anything then up to him feeling like the friendship they had at the orphanage was unimportant to Squall and Co. Or they just forgot and he was like "fuck it, fine I don't know you either I guess" from feeling alone all the years previous.
He's still a douche yeah, but I don't think him not saying anything can be at least somewhat explained.
2:52:35 why did he started sounding like C-3PO 😂😂😂
I'm glad FF8 wasn't as well received as FF7. Yes it's unfortunate, but our expectations needed to be set in reality.
This was a trip down memory lane, especially since this was the first Final Fantasy Game I played through.
FF8 on PC is still my favorite; I don't know why, but I did enjoy it a lot.
I could never beat Edea at the end due to her one hit kills (I somehow didn’t have anything to combat this) and I ended up giving up
hell yeah thanks for the video
Final Fantasy VIII is a GREAT game, with all its flaws and weaknesses.
I would recommend people watch Resonant Arc's 5 part deep dive into the game. Those guys are so passionate.
This is one of the best deep-dives I've ever watched on this wonderful game. You even caught that Laguna is Squall's father. However you did miss the only potential "Smoking Gun" for Rinoa being Ultimecia. In the final FMV when Squall is trying to picture Rinoa's face, there's a brief flash of Ultimecia's face rendered over Rinoa. It happens so fast that you'd basically have to pause the sequence or slow it down to catch it. There are tons of screenshots of it online. It's an interesting theory, but if it's true I think that's basically Square's subtle way of affirming it. Such a masterpiece of a game...flaws and all. Thank you for taking back on this nostalgic journey.
I don't think that can be used to connect Rinoa with Ultimecia, and the reason is the memory loss that was panned beforehand as meaningless. Due to his longtime use of the GFs (likely Shiva, since it's implied that Raijin had Quezalcoatl but due to an unmentioned mistake had it taken from him and made available to Squall) his memory is already pretty scrambled, and getting lost in the Time Compression only made this worse - hence the distortions happening all around him. Even though he's trying hard to force himself to remember Rinoa, his most recent action of defeating Ultimecia kept forcing itself to the forefront. With that said, it was because he could remember fragments of these memories that Rinoa was able to find him and rescue him from the Time Compression.
Ultimecia also looks nothing like Rinoa. Like literally, in the very same game, Edea looks VERY similar with black hair, round cheeks and high arched thick eyebrows and nobody says Rinoa and Edea are the same... also Tifa AND Garnet use very similar designs, that's Tetsuya Nomura's version of Saberface. Yes the one person people claim Rinoa IS doesn't have the same design and looks unique... at least nobody says Rinoa is Adel?
Squall is my favorite protagonist out of all the rpgs I've played ❤❤
whatever
this has only been brought to my attention recently, but apart from the more real-world inspired locations in FF8, Squall is apparently visually very heavily based on River Phoenix. More so with the original visuals, which I prefer, although the remastered models do highlight their youth (which I think is an important character detail, often missed) a bit more than the originals.
Seems so obvious now.
This is such a great review! Also you made me realise a couple of things that never really clicked with me when I was younger. 1 being just how big of a jerk Irvine really is. As bad as the writing is in 8 at times (and it’s horrible) I still love the world. Ultimecia is one of my favourite villains in any story and I wish she was expanded on a little more (be it that she was locked into a time loop where people were destined to hate her, hence her being evil from the onset).
When you were tearing into the GF/memory loss bit, I started thinking of that comic panel where there’s a board of people offering suggestions for something and the one guy who offers the sensible solution gets thrown out the window and I imagine the “sensible” solution being Irvine had a childhood crush on Selphie and his longing for her sustained his memory of her since the orphanage. He recognized her later, but kept mum when she and no one else recognized *him.*
I like how there are numerous side games based on FF7. Not a single thing for FF8 apart from cameos in Dissidia. I always loved that theory that Ultimecia is somehow a future transformed version of Rinoa after Squall dies. If only the story of FF8 could be more expanded upon and refined.
I honestly think FF stories are their best when they still are somewhat "grounded". FFVIII Disc 1 is brilliant, root-level inspection to its world and mixture of school-life and military. It is same time familiar and unusual. However as the game progresses its world kinda gets sidelined by its somewhat abstract time-travel plot with some loose character development. There are still interesting moments but it just does not grab one from the balls since it is already clear fantasy. Perhaps it is just my preferences but "destiny" theme just does not really hold much substance to me by itself. It can easily to just become one handwave to excuse some plot devices.
I must also admit that Squall, while not the most interesting character, is still pretty unfairly taken as emo. If anything he seems to be opposite of emo. People seem to think folks should always be so open about their feelings or let them dictate their perspectives. Out of all characters he seems to be most aware that he is part of military organization while others still seem to think they are just in some high-school trip. He has adjusted himself to that military discipline and honestly the game could have played more with that aspect. The game kinda force-feeds the narrative that Squall is somewhat wrong in taking this job as business. I guess the reason Squall seems to get some flak is that the story does not seem to demonstrate Squall's stiff-upper-lipness as dedication to the job but just as some teenager quirk.
I always took it as squall was trying to act like what he thought the perfect soldier was. Which is essentially a mindless drone but highly skilled professional who always gets orders done as perfectly as possible. But when push came to shove his true nature as a leader peaked out. Which is partially why the other characters trusted him. Quistis saw this when elone got attacked in the training center. Zell and selphie saw this when he took charge after seifer ran off during the test. It, ironically, was this act that held the team back in disc 1 and it wasn't until the missile incident where he dropped this that things started turning around.
@@jesseherman5540 Perhaps. It could be more grounded Cloud situation. The story could still have used more of that aspect and make Squall more actively strive towards his image. It also does not help that other characters are TOO immature for the job that Squall gets flak for not trying to be their mother hen for them.
Squall seems to be the "observer" type character who doesn't outright try to change everything but eventually decides to take more active role to things. I think this all falls down to that "destiny" stuff. Instead of making Squall some destinied hero, he eventually grows into that leadership role. Now it just feels kinda forced and while ending gives context to Squall's role, it also kills some potential during the journey.
If prophecy had been more vague and many others were striving for that "legendary Seed" role, Seifer being one of them, Squall had been more like a dark horse and make the end seem more earned than Cid just kicking Squall directly to the role.
@@Yurikon3 yeah. There are a lot of parts of this game that could have been handled better. Honestly the story in general isn't handled the best after the battle of the gardens and I feel that is Part of why this games so polarizing. I personally wish the other characters would have gotten more development as well.
@@jesseherman5540 Crimson tear and many world lore elements were very interesting and would have earned more to be used than the whole Ultimecia gig. At least Ultimecia could have tied more strongly to world's lore.
Funny thing is, the gf memory thing WAS touched on in quistis's class in the very beginning. You just missed it. In the computer terminal where you get your first two GFs.
Also it seems at this point of the video where you're discussing the big reveal that you didn't make the connection that the reason Irvine couldn't shoot Edea wasnt his incompetence, it was because he knew who she was to him. And he didn't tell people right away because at first he didn't realize why they were behaving the way they were. And then later after figuring it out it was a combination of not knowing how to bring up "hey guys we are actually childhood orphanage buddies" and waiting for the right time. The events of the game up to this point had only been a few days after all.
Also you wouldnt have been able to cheese the Edea fight with Carbuncle if you remembered it. Shed have just cast reflect on herself and bounced her spells off that onto you.
EDIT: You addressed Irvines shooting scene literally seconds after i hit play again lol. This game definitely could've been better with the foreshadowing of its main twists. But the Irvine thing didn't bother me as much.
Time to watch this all again! Thanks Kim!
One of the things I didn't like Renoha was she suffered from "I'm a party member but barely in the party" syndrome, that drives me off the wall. If you want me to like a character, let me use them!
I own every single ff game except the online ones .. ff8 was so fun for me much more than ff7 for me ..
Laguna was supposed to have such a bigger story but allot of it was cut due to disc size from the time but I was always hoping for a prequel series for the game
The director of the game has said squall was his son (which is obvious for us) 😳 but that got cut also
2:17:35 the answer to your question is that Squall needs to be the knight who protects the sorceress... that's his role. Disc three is when he is willing to go... to the moon and back. For her. Opening hinted at that too.
they essays are amazing, the detail you put into each of them is dissertation level. bought ff8 for the switch as i never completed it on the ps1.
I consider this the apex of the series on the PS1, just as I consider 1 and 6 the apexes of their respective generations. People always talk about 9 as though it's this nostalgic love-letter to older fans; that's certainly how it was advertised. And yes, the systems are fundamentally pretty simple, closer to something like IV with all the predefined character classes, than V-VIII where there's a degree of control over how your characters grow. It is one of my most beloved in the series, along with 6 and, arguably, 1/4/5/10/12... but 8 is tied with 6 for my favorite of the series. I pretty much love everything they did with it, the vast freedom the player has to make the game easier or harder based on how they play and whether they exploit certain system is a huge part of what makes it genius to me, it's like a serious JRPG take on the first time anyone played a Souls game, with everything intentionally different than all previous games in the series, and, again, the apex of what could be achieved graphically on the PS1 hardware. The FMV's with controllable action scenes and battles taking place over them as they played, a real achievement for the PS1, way cooler than anything in 9. Just think about the FMV train sequence, an iconic but also minor part of Disc 1: in 9 it would be a train you see the interior of while it rattles and the windows simulate the movement...which would be fine if it wasn't in the game immediately following the best train sequence in the series, after being on a big roll with the Phantom Train, the Midgar Avalanche Transport System, and the glorious insanity that was 8's train challenge.
Here's why I love 8!!!!!!! :
* Difficulty is controllable from within the game, how you play is that important. So there's a ton of replay value, a fun time to be had trying to go low level and see how absurd it is, and a truly glorious time going to level 99 and fighting Eden, Omega Weapon, and all 4 of Ultimecia's forms, getting to fight one of the most challenging yet fair final bosses in any JRPG, which at 99 will feel like a fair fight if you use Auras and Meltdons and Holy Wars etc., lol.
* The aesthetics are bar-none the best of this style (as opposed to pure 3D) created for a PS1 game. The art direction and character design are equally subdued and realistic-feeling, while still being utterly gorgeous. So many backgrounds are bucolic, calming, heartwarming... while the characters themselves, for perhaps the first time since FF2, are wearing essentially subdued modern normal clothing. The music, the soundtrack, is just as beautiful if not vastly moreso: it represents Nobuo Uematsu's Swan Song before he mainly supervised other composers or collaborated like 10. That credits music is pure genius. And I don't care what you think of me, Eyes on Me is pretty as hell, and while maybe an older me would have dismissed it, the 17 year old who played his was simply enchanted by it, and blown away by the ending.
* The characters are the first, and arguably only, in the entire series to speak and think and behave like actual human beings, each with their own complex traumas, emotional hangups, and complex, even contradictory motives. The only other JRPGs I can think of off the to of my head that do that are Shadow Hearts 1+2, and Matsuno's TRPGs if those count.
The main character particularly is possibly the most divisive thing about the game, with extroverts and anyone expecting a hero like Chrono or Locke going to be very disappointed. However if you are at all an introvert, struggle in group social situations, find social conventions and traditions easy fodder for ridicule, etc, then you may find yourself laughing quite a lot at Squall's observations and perspectives and how he talks to women, etc.
* This is by a wide, wide margin the most complex game in the series, and arguably in the entire genre, if we exclude T/SRPGs. Triple Triad alone is the best side game ever in a JRPG. Junctioning, Guardian Force abilities and growth... when I replay most FF games it's basically the same thing each time. But VIII gives you so many organic choices about how to play it, that substantially affect the difficulty and style of play.
9 *is* a nostalgic love letter to fans lol. People don't just say that, the game drips with it. 8 was never meant to be that, it was wilfully its own ornate scifi-fantasy beast.
8 and 9 are two of my favourite games ever, no need to knock one down to support the other.
Anyone who's actually self-aware could tell that quistus is the unlikeable one. She's constantly using squall as a dumping grounds for her bs.
God Lord Kim. This is like the godfather trilogy. Can't wait to enjoy this.
It was made years ago tho..
TH-cam randomly played this video for me and i couldnt be more thankful. first off, excellent video! I love these long format deep dives into games.
I reallyt appreciate how you explained the ways to use the junction system and get OP early on. I bought ff8 whenit came out on switch but have yet to play it. just so many games. but i might give it a go now. i played as a kiddo and never got super far. but now im sure i can kick ass and 100% the beast. even if i decide to cheese it haha. Liked, and Subscribed!
out of all ff i've played personally, which would be 7,8,9,10, 10-2, 13, it's 8 that had most relatable - humanlike characters that i actually hated at the start but grew so fond of at the end. I'd argue about gameplay being broken by the game possibilities, in 2000's guides weren't a huge thing yet, you'd rarely go into a game and look for a guide right away, perhaps if you got stuck, but for the most part breaking the game was a reward for your ingenuity and curiosity. Also ff8 probably had most storyline characters that were developed and really part of the world for longer than 1 chapter of their existence to be left behind gathering dust, cid, laguna, kiros, ward, general carway, fuijin and raijin, even ze doctor, for comparison in ff7 we could call up bugenhagen and perhaps the turks, and in ff9 we have buena vista crew and beatrix as well as cid, these recurring developed characters add up a ton of immersion and ff8 has ton of them. And as i can totally agree with criticism of dungeons that are often just time wasting segment, i find everything else about this game enjoyable, and also more relatable scenery was very welcomed between steampunk 7 and medieval fantasy 9
Deling City's big archway is straight up called L'Arc de Triomphe in the French localization. So there you have it.
Also with what you said about splitting the party in disc 2: if you bring Zell and Irvine back to Balamb with you, the character who shows up to guide you to the game's critical path is Zell, offering a session at the training centre. Dude literally asks Squall for a gym date. It's awesome.
Would love for you to do another run through but with the Succession mod. The creator tried to fix the plot holes and make things happen for more organically. Including changing Cid’s character to be more what you would expect.
This is an awesome review - incredibly detailed and I appreciated your analysis of the characters. I couldn’t help chuckling at your repeated insults about Irvine because yeah, same.
They change Cid to be more Robin Williams?
Squall IT'S NOT YOUR FAULT IT'S NOT YOUR FAULT IT'S NOT YOUR FAULT IT'S NOT YOUR FAULT IT'S NOT YOUR FAULTIT'S NOT YOUR FAULT IT'S NOT YOUR FAULTIT'S NOT YOUR FAULTIT'S NOT YOUR FAULTIT'S NOT YOUR FAULTIT'S NOT YOUR FAULTIT'S NOT YOUR FAULTNOTYOUR FAIULT NOTYOURFAULT
Funny thing is u can get Odin before the radio tower event in Timber and Seifer will cut him down there and u can get Gilgamesh much earlier in the game
I dont know if it's an accent or a speech impediment, but your narraration is so endearing. You have a very relaxing way of speaking.
Great doc/review mate, like really good. I originally played FF8 back in the late 90s I think. It was my first and favourite FF8 until I played FF10 and then originally went back and played the original FF7. The game is far from perfect, but still.. I love it with all its flaws. THis was an overall awesome video and bought back a lot of Nostalgia - thanks for your effort.
I loved the far future setting of final fantasy 8, it was a big change from the medieval knights and wizards story of previous games but I think it was handled well. Also loved the character design, enemy designs, story and yes even the combat. I really hope 8 gets the next major remake and that square doesn't completely fuck it up being... square Enix and not square soft...
TBH they had airships since forever, FF6 was leaning into Steampunk and FF7 was already full of techno sci-fi stuff, 8 just took things further (and then X and 13 were taking futurism up to 11.) Like First Final fantasy had D&D magic system, elves and dwarves, the series got a long way from cliché fantasy to experimentation (and Tactics universe is my second-fav after VIII).
This is my favorite final fantasy it was the game that introduced me to the series.
thank you for this vid. 2 things I am compelled to mention:
1) Whoever decided to gatekeep the game from stupid idiot 10-year old me by requiring the player to fast travel from a garden terminal to progress can get wrecked. I straight up just returned the rental defeated because I had no idea that the game was forcing me to do that and couldnt progress. It was sad.
2) 10 year old me thought Liberi Fatale is the best song on the planet. It ruined me (along with MMX games on SNES). From that point on there was no hope for me to have musical tastes that aligned with what was popular, I still remember calling the local CD shop and asking them if they had the FF8 OST and the "wtf" reaction from the clerk who had no idea was I was talking about. I remember not understanding how audio worked and trying to play this song in a speaker while recording it as a WAV file to burn onto a CD
The first time I played FF8 I got to level 80 on disk one
The game was literally impossible to finish
Squall gets a lot of flak from series fans but I think he is one of the more fleshed out characters in the FF games. Most people describe him as a whiny emo teen and that's what he really is at the start, he's a teenager after all, but his is a coming of age story. We read his inner thoughts throught the game and see how he is forced to face his issues and insecurities as responsibilities pile on, to become a leader for his peers, opening more to others, finding love and connecting with his past. Sure the game has a lot of rough edges but it is a fun ride all the way and one of the most ambitious games on the PS1 catalog.
Glad you gave Spoony a nod. Loved that review back in the day.
Yeah shame we know so much about how he treats people now.