Somewhat of an LTTP as well.
The last time I played FF8 was in 2001ish. First Final Fantasy, never got past the first disc, never even got to timber actually.
Not out of any particular feelings to the game, it just got stolen with a lot of other ps1 games I had (RIP Rayman 2 and Spyro 3).
Got the game and a ps2, along with a lot of other old ps1 games. played those, but not it.
But had some off time, decided what the heck and booted it up and decided to go at it.
But enough about backstory, might as well get into the game proper.
Gameplay:
It's, well it's really hard to define how I feel about FF8's battle system. It had some of the basic trappings of ATB that is fairly common to the series as a whole.
It had attack, it had magic, it had items, it had limit breaks. All fairly basic, nothing too worrisome or difficult but then you got into junctions, and never had I experienced such a controlled chaos as what I experienced with Junctioning and the guardian forces. It was odd to see forms of attacks effectively become essentially currency for other skills and Summons play a kind of warped materia role with the 'choose the skill you want' role.
GFs(Summons) were such oddities. They provided essentially all of your skills, different skills, acted as shops, synthesizers, status manipulators. They were so quirky. In fact I rather liked a lot of it, (though drawing was a drag)
Story:
Never before have I gone from enjoying a game's story so much to becoming so disappointed between discs.
I'll start by saying. I really enjoyed FF8 disc 1 and 2. Comparatively I loath disc 3 So I've decided to separate my impressions between them
I've not reached disc 4 yet, so who knows, maybe it'll be 3 for 4 in terms of discs
Disc 1 - 2
I liked the overall premise and execution that most of the cast, personalities aside were guns for hire. I enjoyed the largely military and ideology driven narrative of the story.
I found it interesting that the conflict between Edea(Ultimecia) and the party wasn't a situation of personal strife. Edea was a target they were hired to remove and that largely defined their conflict. Like Squall had stated.
It wasn't a matter of it being good vs. evil. Edea just didn't mesh with the goals of people who paid the party's paychecks, so she had to go.
And that's a thing I actually want to sit on and discuss, SeeD as a mercenary institution. It was enjoyable, there were a lot of moments wherein the plot really hammered in that it was a job first and ideology second.
Scenes like Xu complaining that Balamb did too good of a job that they couldn't milk dollet's purse for another week and Squall telling Rinoa that his team didn't give a damn about Timber's occupation situation beyond the terms of their contract and that it was just as likely that they could be paid to be on the other side once the job was done really stuck out.
It really painted a picture that personality quirks and designs aside, the entire playable cast outside of Rinoa, were largely amoral.
And then there were the ops themselves. I adored the Dollet Mission, the constant moments of protocol and seeing various plans, both plausible and ridiculous put forward. It always felt like the cast was just segueing from one mission to another with varying reasons for why they were somewhere.
The whole situation of the attempted assassination of Edea was brilliant to me, just from the logistics standpoint and the whole hindsight realization that the cast and their garden were quite liberally being used by Galbadia's army as disposable scapegoats should the mission go south.
Well that's enough about the military themes of FF8. Now for the ideological.
Ideology that I can best describe as Squall vs. Seifer, Squall vs. Rinoa and most importantly Squall and Laguna
Squall vs. Seifer: Black and White, Brown and Blonde, Reserved and Crass, Distant and Passionate.
They're opposites in every sense of the word. Even their limit breaks I've heard are, in japanese, representations of opposing styles. And I found the juxtaposition between the two an interesting dynamic. Squall was reserved, dispassionate, an asshole in a snarky sort of way who valued himself above others and never cosigned to a belief. Seifer in contrst was a bully, vocal, unbelievably antisocial, but he believed in things.
Where Squall never had faith in anything other than himself and what could be prove, Seifer believed in dreams, he was an optimist to counter Squall's pessimism. An idealist as opposed to Squall's realism. It was genuinely interesting to see that sort of reversal of antagonist and protagonist. To know I was playing a guy who saw the world as it was, opposed by a guy who saw the world as it should be. And what's more to realize that neither end of the spectrum was portrayed in a positive light. Seifer was a dick, but Squall was just as much so and both were considered flawed in different ways.
Squall and Rinoa:
This situation is some ways similar to Squall and seifer in terms of personas clashing, but I always felt that beyond that, it was more a distinct clash of the reasons that people fight.
Squall represented the paycheck. He was a soldier, he didn't care for the cause he fought for, he didn't consider the people or the fall out. His goal was the mission and everything else was secondary. Teammates, ideals, friendships, good vs. evil, it never actually mattered to him. He was a soldier, he did the job, he got paid.
Rinoa on the other hand was the activist. She was the freedom fighter, the bleeding heart. For her conflict was a means to an end, but not the end itself. She put value in her allies, she had faith in doing the right thing. She believed that you should only fight for a cause that you believed in.
Squall and Laguna:
This one's probably the most interesting as it shows the lives of two soldiers. And in many ways reveals a very interesting dynamic between father and son. Laguna was a klutz, a loser at best and in many ways ended up in situations that most wouldn't call favorable, and yet he was his own person. For all his failures and all his mistakes. Laguna was always able to define himself, to portray a personality and position that got him through life.
Squall on the other hand was always concerned with others. He let his relationships define how he was and what he did. He became an island and yet for all of the isolation he desired, others always in some way or form affected him, and significantly at that.
And that at its core is what I loved about the first two discs
Now for my dissatisfaction
Disc 3:
Love triumphs over all, including the cast, story and reason.
I don't like Rinoa and Squall as a couple. Not from a personal disdain from either character or that I don't believe they could work, but because the theme of their romance eclipsed everything else and effectively left many more interesting things to die as a result. I consider Quistis' character arc and Irving's as well casualties of this situation, likewise much of ultimecia's threat was eclipsed by the reason of Squall's rapidly pushed forth love of rinoa. Ultimecia had in essence become a complement to the romance, rather than a narrative in and of herself which greatly diminished how much you could care for her by the time it was time to throw down.
Now I could have accepted this shift in tone if the game had laid the groundwork for it in any reasonable way, but it didn't. Squall jumped forward by leaps and bound into loving rinoa and likewise for her, when previously, they couldn't stand each other. Wherein Squall had been on a rather believable progression from complete distant asshole pushing others away, to a reserved guy who was still kind of an asshole, but actually valued the people around him, the shift from disc 2 to 3 seemed to push his progression from point D to point Y with no bridge in between. Squall was passionate and emoting in ways he had no real right to, for a woman he'd previously was not all too fond of, and not in the way of Seifer's death getting under his psychological shell and causing him to have a brief breakdown.
Well that's my impressions thus far. I'll update along with impressions of the party when I finish
The last time I played FF8 was in 2001ish. First Final Fantasy, never got past the first disc, never even got to timber actually.
Not out of any particular feelings to the game, it just got stolen with a lot of other ps1 games I had (RIP Rayman 2 and Spyro 3).
Got the game and a ps2, along with a lot of other old ps1 games. played those, but not it.
But had some off time, decided what the heck and booted it up and decided to go at it.
But enough about backstory, might as well get into the game proper.
Gameplay:
It's, well it's really hard to define how I feel about FF8's battle system. It had some of the basic trappings of ATB that is fairly common to the series as a whole.
It had attack, it had magic, it had items, it had limit breaks. All fairly basic, nothing too worrisome or difficult but then you got into junctions, and never had I experienced such a controlled chaos as what I experienced with Junctioning and the guardian forces. It was odd to see forms of attacks effectively become essentially currency for other skills and Summons play a kind of warped materia role with the 'choose the skill you want' role.
GFs(Summons) were such oddities. They provided essentially all of your skills, different skills, acted as shops, synthesizers, status manipulators. They were so quirky. In fact I rather liked a lot of it, (though drawing was a drag)
Story:
Never before have I gone from enjoying a game's story so much to becoming so disappointed between discs.
I'll start by saying. I really enjoyed FF8 disc 1 and 2. Comparatively I loath disc 3 So I've decided to separate my impressions between them
I've not reached disc 4 yet, so who knows, maybe it'll be 3 for 4 in terms of discs
Disc 1 - 2
I liked the overall premise and execution that most of the cast, personalities aside were guns for hire. I enjoyed the largely military and ideology driven narrative of the story.
I found it interesting that the conflict between Edea(Ultimecia) and the party wasn't a situation of personal strife. Edea was a target they were hired to remove and that largely defined their conflict. Like Squall had stated.
It wasn't a matter of it being good vs. evil. Edea just didn't mesh with the goals of people who paid the party's paychecks, so she had to go.
And that's a thing I actually want to sit on and discuss, SeeD as a mercenary institution. It was enjoyable, there were a lot of moments wherein the plot really hammered in that it was a job first and ideology second.
Scenes like Xu complaining that Balamb did too good of a job that they couldn't milk dollet's purse for another week and Squall telling Rinoa that his team didn't give a damn about Timber's occupation situation beyond the terms of their contract and that it was just as likely that they could be paid to be on the other side once the job was done really stuck out.
It really painted a picture that personality quirks and designs aside, the entire playable cast outside of Rinoa, were largely amoral.
And then there were the ops themselves. I adored the Dollet Mission, the constant moments of protocol and seeing various plans, both plausible and ridiculous put forward. It always felt like the cast was just segueing from one mission to another with varying reasons for why they were somewhere.
The whole situation of the attempted assassination of Edea was brilliant to me, just from the logistics standpoint and the whole hindsight realization that the cast and their garden were quite liberally being used by Galbadia's army as disposable scapegoats should the mission go south.
Well that's enough about the military themes of FF8. Now for the ideological.
Ideology that I can best describe as Squall vs. Seifer, Squall vs. Rinoa and most importantly Squall and Laguna
Squall vs. Seifer: Black and White, Brown and Blonde, Reserved and Crass, Distant and Passionate.
They're opposites in every sense of the word. Even their limit breaks I've heard are, in japanese, representations of opposing styles. And I found the juxtaposition between the two an interesting dynamic. Squall was reserved, dispassionate, an asshole in a snarky sort of way who valued himself above others and never cosigned to a belief. Seifer in contrst was a bully, vocal, unbelievably antisocial, but he believed in things.
Where Squall never had faith in anything other than himself and what could be prove, Seifer believed in dreams, he was an optimist to counter Squall's pessimism. An idealist as opposed to Squall's realism. It was genuinely interesting to see that sort of reversal of antagonist and protagonist. To know I was playing a guy who saw the world as it was, opposed by a guy who saw the world as it should be. And what's more to realize that neither end of the spectrum was portrayed in a positive light. Seifer was a dick, but Squall was just as much so and both were considered flawed in different ways.
Squall and Rinoa:
This situation is some ways similar to Squall and seifer in terms of personas clashing, but I always felt that beyond that, it was more a distinct clash of the reasons that people fight.
Squall represented the paycheck. He was a soldier, he didn't care for the cause he fought for, he didn't consider the people or the fall out. His goal was the mission and everything else was secondary. Teammates, ideals, friendships, good vs. evil, it never actually mattered to him. He was a soldier, he did the job, he got paid.
Rinoa on the other hand was the activist. She was the freedom fighter, the bleeding heart. For her conflict was a means to an end, but not the end itself. She put value in her allies, she had faith in doing the right thing. She believed that you should only fight for a cause that you believed in.
Squall and Laguna:
This one's probably the most interesting as it shows the lives of two soldiers. And in many ways reveals a very interesting dynamic between father and son. Laguna was a klutz, a loser at best and in many ways ended up in situations that most wouldn't call favorable, and yet he was his own person. For all his failures and all his mistakes. Laguna was always able to define himself, to portray a personality and position that got him through life.
Squall on the other hand was always concerned with others. He let his relationships define how he was and what he did. He became an island and yet for all of the isolation he desired, others always in some way or form affected him, and significantly at that.
And that at its core is what I loved about the first two discs
Now for my dissatisfaction
Disc 3:
Love triumphs over all, including the cast, story and reason.
I don't like Rinoa and Squall as a couple. Not from a personal disdain from either character or that I don't believe they could work, but because the theme of their romance eclipsed everything else and effectively left many more interesting things to die as a result. I consider Quistis' character arc and Irving's as well casualties of this situation, likewise much of ultimecia's threat was eclipsed by the reason of Squall's rapidly pushed forth love of rinoa. Ultimecia had in essence become a complement to the romance, rather than a narrative in and of herself which greatly diminished how much you could care for her by the time it was time to throw down.
Now I could have accepted this shift in tone if the game had laid the groundwork for it in any reasonable way, but it didn't. Squall jumped forward by leaps and bound into loving rinoa and likewise for her, when previously, they couldn't stand each other. Wherein Squall had been on a rather believable progression from complete distant asshole pushing others away, to a reserved guy who was still kind of an asshole, but actually valued the people around him, the shift from disc 2 to 3 seemed to push his progression from point D to point Y with no bridge in between. Squall was passionate and emoting in ways he had no real right to, for a woman he'd previously was not all too fond of, and not in the way of Seifer's death getting under his psychological shell and causing him to have a brief breakdown.
Well that's my impressions thus far. I'll update along with impressions of the party when I finish
