Criticism of FF8

by Dean Chan

If this offends ff fans I apologize before hand. I'm one myself, but I think ff8 is a let down. I'll now get to the point.

First of all is the removal of treasure chests. The reason why we go on sub quests or into dungeons is because there is often nifty treasure to be found. Whether the treasure is a cool weapon, strong armor, or nifty materia it doesn't matter. However, in ff8 all we get are "draw points." You just get a random spell, which has a limited amount of uses because you can't learn it. What's worse is that the spell can only be used a certain number of times.

Next is the realism. Sure the characters are realistic, but half the fun of playing the ff series is to see characters with funky hairdos. The characters in ff8 are too realistic. They are too down to earth and therefore boring and uninteresting. One reason why Cloud is so well liked is because of his hair. I'm sick of hearing ff7 so i'll use ff2 (american.) Look at Cecil. Even he had better hair than Squall. For one thing, what person who is alive today has white hair?

Next thing I would like to comment on is personality. Seifer is a self-centered arrogant bum. Cloud was arrogant, but he knew when to stop and had that cool pose to finish of a statement. All Seifer has is a gunblade slashing frenzy which accomplishes nothing, but make him look demented.

My final criticism is Squall's Gunblade. I have to say it is innovative and powerful. But, when, in ANY of the ff series has the main character had a gun!? The gun breaks tradition and is just lame. How does Squall manage to hurt the enemy when he fires the shot? The blade is still pointing upwards when you fire, the bullets have no way of hitting the target. Unless of course if the gun shoots shrapnel. In which case, Squall would be severely injured as well. Also, the main character is usually a well balanced character with physical attacks being only 2x as powerful as his attacks. Squall-there is no kind way to put this-is a weakling. He does around the same damage as Rinoa! If you are going to mention the gun, see above. If Squall is so @#$% weak, he should be made a girl. The females in the games traditionally have stronger magic attacks and weaker physical attacks. Squall is not only horribly unbalanced he also appears to have no emotion.

All in all, I was rather disappointed at the demo and what the demo shows will be in ff8.