The end of 2014 is soon upon us! So, as I did last year, I intend to relate to you, the ever-so gracious reader, five RPG's that I had the utmost pleasure and excitement playing this past year. Each day until Friday, a new game, and with each comes some history about the game itself, as well as thoughts about my own experience with the game. The role-playing genre in gaming is vast and engrossing, and as you can probably tell, I love talking about some my favourite ones! Consider this all a small Christmas gift to you wonderful folk (perhaps to distract you from my lack of reviews and other such silly things, because of my fervent procrastination...ahem)! So I do hope you check in each day, and I hope you learn a little thing or two!
But of course, on to the main event!
Today's game is Final Fantasy VIII on the original PlayStation. You may or may not remember my bits on Final Fantasy IV and particularly Final Fantasy VII from last year, but this is one that was bound to happen as well! Final Fantasy VIII was released in the West on September 9th, 1999, a full two years after VII, and was the fastest selling Final Fantasy game until only recently. As I hope I mentioned before, each Final Fantasy game, save for ones with a distinct "-2" in their title, are stand-alone entries with varying differences in core mechanics. Meaning, each game is it's own self contained story with its own gameplay focus. Yoshinori Kitase was once again given the task of directing the project, as he did with the two previous entries. The development of VIII aimed for a more realistic feel graphically, compared to the aforementioned VII, and the story was ultimately a noted departure from what fans knew, with a "school-days" feel and aesthetic, compared to the medieval or technological steampunk found before. The graphics received a substantial improvement in the way of character models: now, instead of a range of different character models between the overworld and combat like in VII, each character had one, fully-scaled model used across all situations. The stunning motion cutscenes returned, as did Nobuo Uematsu as the lead composer, and he brought with him another stellar soundtrack, complete with a chart-topping single sung by Chinese singer Faye Wong, "Eyes on Me." As if it needs to be said, I'll get to the soundtrack soon...
FFVIII received substantial improvements to presentation over its predecessor, and yet, it does happen to be one of the more controversial of the Final Fantasy games (well, when you don't count XIII...or the mobile games...or some of the spin off games...or the online games...). In the case of what makes it so mixed opinion-wise, I can see it being boiled down to two prime factors: the story, and the Junction system. Final Fantasy VIII is, at the end of the day, a love story. The great ballad of Squall Leonheart, and Rinoa Heartilly. It is not solely about them, of course, Squall and Rinoa are joined by school mates Zell, a martial-artist, Selphie, an expert of the nunchaku, Quistis, a teacher at their school Balamb Garden, and Irvine, an expert marksman. Their school, Balamb Garden, trains them and their peers to become members of SeeD, an elite group of mercenaries and soldiers, who are hired out to different locations of strife in the world. Through a series of random encounters, Squall meets Rinoa on a mission, and the two begin a relationship that encapsulates much of their respective motivations, and which further story events revolve around. The group also must contend with and learn about visions of a man named Laguna, who as it happens, has some relationship issues of his own.
The Final Fantasy games have always had romantic sub-plots, but to make an entire story revolve around one? It is unusual, especially for long-time fans. I'm sure it divides the fan base on whether or not they like the story...but for myself? I actually quite liked it! It was different, I'll give it that, but it was also not as strange or as thin as I was led to believe. Indeed, there are also plenty of other stories and sub-plots to be found in FFVIII that make it feel like like a familiar title. Squall is certainly a moody protagonist, but he's a character that I felt had some progression, even if it was more subtle. I won't spoil so much of the plot, but let it still be said that there were some great parts that had little to do with either Squall or Rinoa. In fact, the story of Laguna in particular might even be as good if not better than Squall's and Rinoa's! My one issue, however, is that the other supporting characters do not receive as much attention and backstory as I felt they should. That's a huge change of focus from other games, where other party members or characters usually receive a whole section of the game dedicated to their backstory. Those parts are still here, mind, but they're somewhat...lessened, mostly for the focus to be on Squall and Rinoa.
Now the Junction system, yes...a fascinating mechanic.
The Junction system is the "big deal" about the gameplay, which otherwise is quite similar to VII's, in that you have a party of three attack via the Active Time Battle system, with Limit Breaks also returning. The Junction system functions by allowing players to "equip" entities known as Guardian Forces, which are VIII's version of the famous "summons" the series is known for. GF's, like for example Ifrit or Shiva, grant either spells or abilities for the character, while also improving (or diminishing) stats, as well as being able to summon the GF itself. This extends to the use of magic, which also saw a significant change. Magic power/mana is gone, and is replaced by instead stocking different spells individually, acquiring them by "drawing" from different enemies. Basically, any character can use any spell, as long as they have the "Magic" ability from a GF, and any quantity of the spell in question, up to a maximum of 100.
It is, indeed, one of the most unique systems in Final Fantasy, and really any other RPG. It is also, however, one of the most confusing. Trying to learn the best combinations of spells and GF's, as well as constantly switching out certain combinations with different team members, is not only time consuming, but also heavily based on trial and error. That being said, I found it to be an extremely empowering system once I gathered more GF's later in the game, and the battle system is altogether quite excellent. As I said, Limit Breaks are back, and are once again wonderful. They are now randomly received at low health, can select from more than one depending on a character's given weapon, and now have a level of interactivity via timed button presses.
Time to talk about the soundtrack?
Time to talk about the soundtrack.
It's fantastic. It's amazing.
It might also be, in my opinion, one of the best in RPG history. In fact for a lot of people, it was better than the actual game! The hit single "Eyes on Me" is played throughout the game at various parts, and is a great companion piece. But the other incredibly popular theme from the game is the opening cinematic's score: "Liberi Fatali". Damn. There's "Don't Be Afraid," "Force Your Way," and "Maybe I'm A Lion." And oh man, come on, "The Man With the Machine Gun!" Uematsu, at the top of his game! Pure, orchestrated, good times.
Final Fantasy VIII, like VII, is a fairly sizable RPG, with my own total time around 60 or so hours. It follows the usual fair, with a vast world to gradually explore, as well as numerous side activities and quests. One of these is Triple Triad, which is a unique card game that you can play against various people throughout the game world. It's a surprisingly in-depth and elaborate game within a game, involving card-collecting that can also translate into the rest of the game by using certain GF abilities. Bit of a learning curve, but quite cool!
The world itself has some great designs, especially a certain late-game city. The cities and locales are quite extravagant, and still have that...well, that PlayStation feel of pre-rendered backdrops. Haha it's a bit silly, really, but I still think its an aesthetic that looks both unique and memorable! I do think FFVIII has aged a little better than VII, if only because of the character models, but those backgrounds (in both games) are intriguing to me on both a visual and graphical level. The way the game transitions between cutscenes and the game world is fun, if a bit rudimentary, in its own right.
I have a personal story about this game, actually. I'll preface this by saying that the events did occur rather late in the game, although I won't spoil much. At a certain point in the game, you gain opportunities to explore the ocean, and you may explore an off-shore platform in a corner of the map. This facility houses several floors, before extending to a massive underground cavern, that goes deeper beneath the surface. It is within this facility and cavern that you may face multiple enemies, some of which give you powerful Guardian Forces, items and magic spells. Save points are rare, so if you decide to brave the depths, you must be prepared. The prize(s) you can receive by defeating the boss at the end, however, make it very much worthwhile. After entering the facility, you must immediately face a boss, which I did. I was successful, so I left to save, and returned to proceed below. Within the facility, you must use units of energy to power up the various ways leading you the bottom. However, you are only given a set amount of units, and you need a minimum to face the end boss. After facing several more random enemy encounters, I reached a point where I had the opportunity to preserve some of my units involving a party member, Zell, smashing a jammed door. Thinking I'd need all the units I could get, I chose to do so. The door led deeper into the caverns, so I thought it would be a good idea to go and save the game, so I went back to the save point and overwrote the current save slot.
This would prove to be a significant mistake.
I returned to the entrance I had just opened, and proceeded down. Not two steps did I take before I was thrust into what I thought was a random enemy encounter. The encounter was against a set of enemies of which were not terribly difficult, but were time consuming to take out, and could leave annoying status effects on my party. Tough luck, I thought. I finished the battle, and took a few more steps before encountering another battle. I uttered a bad word. Battle complete, I continued down the steps. Just then, another battle. At this point, the madness was real. This was arduous, and ridiculous. I had barely moved around. What the hell was going on? I consulted a handy wiki to make sense of this crap, and was horrified to find out what I had done. By having Zell smash the door, I unknowingly changed the way monsters would appear in the cavern. Essentially, unlike the random encounters I faced every little while above the surface, every battle below here was scripted, and had to happen. And these scripted battles occurred almost immediately after one another, after I took several steps in-game. This was not a good situation, as I feared how long it would take to reach the bottom. And to seal my fate, I realized I had overwritten the save file that could have prevented this. The other save file I had? It was 20 hours previous. Not gonna replay all of that.
Well...shit.
I decided to do it. To commit. To brave the struggle and fight my way to the bottom.
It took me one hour. One hour to reach the bottom. If I had no enemy encounters, it could have taken me a couple of minutes to reach the bottom. But with all the scripted encounters? One hour. Oh, but we're not done.
At the bottom, there was no save point. At least, there was none I could activate. So this was it. Balls to the wall. All or nothing. This was where the fruits of my labour would be made apparent. The end boss is a creature known as Ultima Weapon. Yes, that is the name. It's a behemoth. It is an optional boss. And it is, I think, as difficult if not more so then the final boss of the entire game. Using the "Draw" command, a party member can extract from Ultima Weapon the single most insane, dramatic and powerful Guardian Force in the entire game, Eden. When I say powerful, I mean, freaking powerful. Seriously, watch that video.
The battle begins. I immediately lose party members left and right, and am only saved by some quick healing and resurrection. I felt like it would be a long process of slowly widdling away at the boss's health, all while making sure I can heal/resurrect party members. Ultima Weapon has an occasional attack that effectively decimates every party member, pretty much guaranteeing a death. The Limit Breaks are a saving grace to be sure.
But...he got me.
I lost the battle.
It had barely just begun.
In one gigantic attack, I lost everybody at once.
Game Over.
That was a defeat of the most enraging variety.
I was not going to give up, however, so I regrouped and moved around some Junctions, making some adjustments. I decided to immediately try again. Another hour, spent getting to the bottom.
A slightly easier trek, I must admit, since I had went and gained a few levels outside the facility before trying again. I also got a bit smarter with the Junctions, so that assuredly would have helped. I had a new strategy this time, focusing on different party members and different abilities. I proclaimed I would not lose again.
I do battle with Ultima Weapon once more. This battle is drawn out tremendously. Many close calls, but I was able to resurrect quickly, and keep some members with limit breaks. I did not have the other best Guardian Forces at the time, nor did I have other powerful spells, but I did have one thing: Squall's best weapon, Lion Heart. It allows for the best limit break, next to maybe Rinoa's, and can be a force to reckoned with when used after various effect spells...something I neglected the first time. It wasn't an easy battle, but between Speed, Limit Breaks, and some lucky heals...
I beat him.
I defeated Ultima Weapon.
Victory was mine...
That is, until I realized I had made a crucial error, and had forgotten to draw Eden from Ultima Weapon. I...was not happy. Not at all. I shut the game off for the day, and walked away. Of course, the next day, I had to try again. And so I did.
Everything I said previous? It applies once more. An entire hour of my day, dedicated to getting to the bottom, with no save points in between.
Yet again, the rumble calls to battle between myself and Ultima Weapon. Another hour spent getting here. I had won before, and I knew what to do. One close call at the beginning was not enough to deter me. Of course, I had not forgotten to draw Eden, and I did so at a cost of a turn, and a near death. Yet, I came back. And I let loose all hell on Ultima Weapon. And as if by some sheer poetic justice, I finished off Ultima Weapon for a SECOND TIME with Squall's limit break, Lion Heart. It was utterly, utterly epic. With the final swing of his limit break, Ultima Weapon was no more.
I had won.
And I had Eden.
That...was immensely satisfying.
I don't know if the other entries this week will take this long to read (or write, haha), but I hope you liked the story here. So...Final Fantasy VIII? I think it is profoundly underrated. An excellent game, that is perhaps overshadowed by its other fellow PlayStation entries. However, yes, I understand why this game has seen so much division over the last decade and a half. And yet, when I finally finished the game, it brought a wonderful sense of accomplishment and satisfaction. Something I was not wholly expecting, I will admit. I came into FFVIII with some middling expectation, but I found a quite surprisingly stellar game to be had instead.
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