ScherzoPrime
Member
I'm somewhat of a latecomer to the FF Fandom. I played FFX around the time it came out, but truth be told I never completely beat it (I'm stuck on Jecht's Final Aeon on the PS3/PSV version and only up to Kilika in the PS4 one). Other FF met a similar fate; I made it to the final dungeons of FFXII, XIII, and IX only to peter out, and with VI I only made it as far as the World of Ruin.In fact, the first and so far only FF I've beaten is FFVII, which I started and completed in about a two week frenzy of excitement immediately following its remake's announcement last June. Despite my lack of nostalgia (I was only 5 when it came out originally), I was really impressed with the game, primarily its strong characterizations (Materia junctioning was pretty neat too)
It's with that background I've begun playing FFVIII.
I actually have played bits of FFVIII before over the years, as well as FFVII, through emulation, before finally purchasing both within recent years for the PSVita. My introduction to FFVIII was rather inauspicious, through Spoony's lengthy teardown of the game. But as I read up on it, mainly through wiki and through friends who've played it, it always sounded fascinating to me, even if the plot goes pear-shaped down the line. Most of that is due to...
SETTING
(Fanmade map: http://ms-06f.deviantart.com/art/Galbadia-Intelligence-Directorate-World-Factbook-352948855 ; some deviations from canon)
This may be a bit pedantic, but one of the weakest elements (to me) of FFVII was its worldbuilding. Midgar, off course, is this fantastically realized Dieselpunk setting, but ass soon as you leave it the first village you encounter is Kalm, a quaint pastoral mining town. And this is true for most of the world map; once you leave Midgar or Junon (and perhaps Costa del Sol), all the villages you run into are small and pre-industrial. There's really no need for such massive exploitation of Mako because so much of the world are small farming or mining towns that wouldn't have been out of place in an earlier Final Fantasy.
And obviously there's a reason for this; this was the first 3D FF after all. There's a 'throw everything against the wall and see what sticks' mentality, especially in creating 3D models. There is obviously an undeniable charm of fighting an evil robot house, but the end result is a rather haphazard setting
Now, I'm not going to claim that FFVIII has the most grounded setting, but there's a certain relatability, to both its geopolitics and society, that makes it the most 'realistic' of FFs (up until XV at least). There's something familiar about a military dictatorship (which ostensibly styles itself as a Republic) oppressing its neighbors while locked in a cold war with an foriegn power it treats as an existential threat. Child soldiers are still a somewhat silly concept (more on that in Characters), and the ultimate reason for why SeeD exists is dumb, but the factions as first appear make sense within the world the game has crafted. There's a much greater sense of cohesion here.
But even more impressive is how it tries to create a society that is familiar to ours. Certain aesthetics on things like buildings and vehicles veer towards the weird and overdesigned, but how people are presented living their lives and just, well, being people, goes a long way toward making FFVIII feel like a fully realized world.
CHARACTERS
Unfortunately, this is an area where FFVIII clearly lags behind VII. Whereas VII more than makes up for its haphazard setting with compelling characters, VIII in contrast centers around characters who feel comparatively less colorful and flat, at least so far. I understand what they are going with in Squall, especially contrasting his apathy and precociousness with Seifer's romanticism. But apathy is a poor substitute for Cloud's boastfulness, and create's a barrier that keeps the player for really feeling for him, even as he displays questions about what he's actually fighting/living for.
The rest of the cast so far has felt similarly undercooked. Quistis seems to be the Team Mom, a proto-Lulu of sorts in terms of a relatively young woman being placed into a position of authority. But where as Lulu's pressures are handled pretty subtly, Quistis's anxieties border on incompetence. At the point I am just at in the game, Quistis mid-mission decides to abandon her post to go apologize to Rinoa; which is flagrantly petty and unprofessional. Rinoa herself obviously seems to be a proto-Yuna (with maybe a little Tifa perhaps?), though I haven't gotten a good feel for her yet to be completely honest. Zell and Selphie have yet to rise above being an irritating spaz and klutz, respectively, and I find it doubtful that they ever will.
The point overall is there's a certain flatness so far to how the characters feel, especially in regards to FFVII. I think at least some of that has to do with...
WRITING
I heard that, following complaints about FFVII 'liberal' translation, FFVIII was the first FF where the localizers had access to the plot and characters while the game was in development. I don't know if this is true or not, but there is a definite difference in the tone of much of the dialogue. Not to oversell it, but there is definitely a more restrained feel to a lot of it. Not to say there still aren't plenty of silly moments, but overall there is less of a comic vibe to the proceedings.
Unfortunately, the lack of color does not come with a corresponding increasing in depth, or at least enough to compensate. There feels like there's overreach going on; that the creators want a more serious, grounded (can't really comment on the time shenanigans yet) narrative but don't know exactly how to go about it. There is a sense of a lot of ambition here that they are falling a bit short of, which is a shame, but obviously each game created is a learning process. I think it stands out to me though because it encapsulates a lot of my anxieties about FFXV; will Tabata and his fellow creative directors have the narrative and character writing chops to realize the realistic setting they're trying to create? That's an open question as far as I'm concerned.
And... finally...
DRAWINGGAMEPLAY
It's alright. I mean, that's how I felt about FFVII as well. Drawing is a little tedious, but the flipside people don't often talk about is that it eliminates the need for level grinding. I think it's a less elegant system than Materia Junctioning, but it's an interesting system it's own right. I'd be interested in feedback into how best manage my GF and Magic, as it's somewhat overwhelming. But the actual combat is completely acceptable, if slightly thoughtless. Compared to the long slog of grinding I'm facing down to complete Persona 3 though, the snappiness of encounters and short length of dungeons is rather appealing to me. So again, it strikes me as just fine, if unexceptional.
CONCLUSION
All in all, I'm somewhat less impressed by VIII than VII or IX. It lacks the strong characters that made those two games so memorable. But the setting, and snappy clip the narrative is going at combined with relatively minimal grinding, has kept me engaged with the game in a way that I feel compelled to keep playing, even if I know on some level the plot payoffs will probably be somewhat underwhelming. I still hold out hope that there might be more depth to the characters than generally acknowledged, but the hokey nature of some of the plot twists later on that I've been aware of dampen my confidence. Still, I've enjoyed the ride well enough so far, so I hope to beat it before XV releases, so I might compare it with this early stab at 'Fantasy based on Reality'.
It's with that background I've begun playing FFVIII.
I actually have played bits of FFVIII before over the years, as well as FFVII, through emulation, before finally purchasing both within recent years for the PSVita. My introduction to FFVIII was rather inauspicious, through Spoony's lengthy teardown of the game. But as I read up on it, mainly through wiki and through friends who've played it, it always sounded fascinating to me, even if the plot goes pear-shaped down the line. Most of that is due to...
SETTING
(Fanmade map: http://ms-06f.deviantart.com/art/Galbadia-Intelligence-Directorate-World-Factbook-352948855 ; some deviations from canon)
This may be a bit pedantic, but one of the weakest elements (to me) of FFVII was its worldbuilding. Midgar, off course, is this fantastically realized Dieselpunk setting, but ass soon as you leave it the first village you encounter is Kalm, a quaint pastoral mining town. And this is true for most of the world map; once you leave Midgar or Junon (and perhaps Costa del Sol), all the villages you run into are small and pre-industrial. There's really no need for such massive exploitation of Mako because so much of the world are small farming or mining towns that wouldn't have been out of place in an earlier Final Fantasy.
And obviously there's a reason for this; this was the first 3D FF after all. There's a 'throw everything against the wall and see what sticks' mentality, especially in creating 3D models. There is obviously an undeniable charm of fighting an evil robot house, but the end result is a rather haphazard setting
Now, I'm not going to claim that FFVIII has the most grounded setting, but there's a certain relatability, to both its geopolitics and society, that makes it the most 'realistic' of FFs (up until XV at least). There's something familiar about a military dictatorship (which ostensibly styles itself as a Republic) oppressing its neighbors while locked in a cold war with an foriegn power it treats as an existential threat. Child soldiers are still a somewhat silly concept (more on that in Characters), and the ultimate reason for why SeeD exists is dumb, but the factions as first appear make sense within the world the game has crafted. There's a much greater sense of cohesion here.
But even more impressive is how it tries to create a society that is familiar to ours. Certain aesthetics on things like buildings and vehicles veer towards the weird and overdesigned, but how people are presented living their lives and just, well, being people, goes a long way toward making FFVIII feel like a fully realized world.
CHARACTERS
Unfortunately, this is an area where FFVIII clearly lags behind VII. Whereas VII more than makes up for its haphazard setting with compelling characters, VIII in contrast centers around characters who feel comparatively less colorful and flat, at least so far. I understand what they are going with in Squall, especially contrasting his apathy and precociousness with Seifer's romanticism. But apathy is a poor substitute for Cloud's boastfulness, and create's a barrier that keeps the player for really feeling for him, even as he displays questions about what he's actually fighting/living for.
The rest of the cast so far has felt similarly undercooked. Quistis seems to be the Team Mom, a proto-Lulu of sorts in terms of a relatively young woman being placed into a position of authority. But where as Lulu's pressures are handled pretty subtly, Quistis's anxieties border on incompetence. At the point I am just at in the game, Quistis mid-mission decides to abandon her post to go apologize to Rinoa; which is flagrantly petty and unprofessional. Rinoa herself obviously seems to be a proto-Yuna (with maybe a little Tifa perhaps?), though I haven't gotten a good feel for her yet to be completely honest. Zell and Selphie have yet to rise above being an irritating spaz and klutz, respectively, and I find it doubtful that they ever will.
The point overall is there's a certain flatness so far to how the characters feel, especially in regards to FFVII. I think at least some of that has to do with...
WRITING
I heard that, following complaints about FFVII 'liberal' translation, FFVIII was the first FF where the localizers had access to the plot and characters while the game was in development. I don't know if this is true or not, but there is a definite difference in the tone of much of the dialogue. Not to oversell it, but there is definitely a more restrained feel to a lot of it. Not to say there still aren't plenty of silly moments, but overall there is less of a comic vibe to the proceedings.
Unfortunately, the lack of color does not come with a corresponding increasing in depth, or at least enough to compensate. There feels like there's overreach going on; that the creators want a more serious, grounded (can't really comment on the time shenanigans yet) narrative but don't know exactly how to go about it. There is a sense of a lot of ambition here that they are falling a bit short of, which is a shame, but obviously each game created is a learning process. I think it stands out to me though because it encapsulates a lot of my anxieties about FFXV; will Tabata and his fellow creative directors have the narrative and character writing chops to realize the realistic setting they're trying to create? That's an open question as far as I'm concerned.
And... finally...
It's alright. I mean, that's how I felt about FFVII as well. Drawing is a little tedious, but the flipside people don't often talk about is that it eliminates the need for level grinding. I think it's a less elegant system than Materia Junctioning, but it's an interesting system it's own right. I'd be interested in feedback into how best manage my GF and Magic, as it's somewhat overwhelming. But the actual combat is completely acceptable, if slightly thoughtless. Compared to the long slog of grinding I'm facing down to complete Persona 3 though, the snappiness of encounters and short length of dungeons is rather appealing to me. So again, it strikes me as just fine, if unexceptional.
CONCLUSION
All in all, I'm somewhat less impressed by VIII than VII or IX. It lacks the strong characters that made those two games so memorable. But the setting, and snappy clip the narrative is going at combined with relatively minimal grinding, has kept me engaged with the game in a way that I feel compelled to keep playing, even if I know on some level the plot payoffs will probably be somewhat underwhelming. I still hold out hope that there might be more depth to the characters than generally acknowledged, but the hokey nature of some of the plot twists later on that I've been aware of dampen my confidence. Still, I've enjoyed the ride well enough so far, so I hope to beat it before XV releases, so I might compare it with this early stab at 'Fantasy based on Reality'.
