FF8 is GREAT but overstereotyped!

by John Pierceton

I recently grabbed myself a copy of FF8. I played it. I BEAT it. I loved it. A lot of people dislike it. Time to appraise it, I guess! It doesn't start out with much action. It introduces the characters in the beginning, and it starts slow. In FF7, the game had all the action, but the characters are introduced in time. Until then, the game was pretty close to "SUCKED". I liked FF8. Much books are like it. It starts slow, but begins to pick up when the characters are introduced. That's why so many people dislike it. They hate the beginning. But so many great books in the bookstore aren't read either! Many people read 1-3 chapters (which suck) and the next chapter makes the book worthwhile. I say that if you are going to critique something PLAY THE WHOLE THING!!!

FF8 had a great "Materia system". The "Junction system" was great, and it worked well. Most people just didn't take the time to understand it. A lot of people get the book in the store and are surprised that the max HP is 5000. WELL, YOU HAVE TO JUNCTION, MORON! The game is more difficult, and it presses you to get as many spells as possible so you can junction them. Which takes me to my next point.

FF8's way of getting spells is more interesting than just MP. Actually, it's a lot like materia. You suck the spell out of a critter or draw point, and you get to put it into reserve for later. The MP system is easy to understand, but hard to put into words. It all boils down to this: Each spell has it's own seperate MP. Weird, I guess, but it makes the game more interesting and difficult. I like that you can junction magic to abitities, and you have to. As I said, the game is more difficult that way, and then you have to get as many spells as possible from ENEMIES.

Enemies in FF8: Not as many, But if you play FF7, you will notice that the critters are all one level. If you go to sector 6 in the second disc, you don't get much expierence. But in the beginning it's a lot. Also, to keep this up, they have recreated some enemies, just giving them different names and colors. Dumb, just dumb. In FF8 you will always be fighting the same monsters as in FF7, but they are ALWAYS hard. Because the game averages your peoples levels together and then makes the monster that level, and then maybe more, maybe less. I find this most convienent. No matter where I am, the game is always hard. Good for boosting EXP.

Maybe I'm making more of a review than an editorial. Maybe I'm just bitching. But basically, I just want to say that the game is great if you actually play more than ten minutes of it. It's soundtrack wasn't that impressive, but the characters are more deep. (See the editorial by Mike Harnest called FF8 second to FF7) The story is great (FF7's sounded like it was made up as it went along), and the game is pretty good. The characters had more element than FF7. The game was more DIFFICULT. If anyone thought FF7 was hard, boy you are in for a bashing, haha.The summons are more than materia, and they are given HP so you can't just summon KOtR 3 times and knock out the end boss. The summons take time to summon. Until then, they are open to attack. Much, much harder. I loved this game, and on a scale from 1 to 10, 10 being godlike,I'd give it a 7. Soundtrack needed work, and the towns didn't have much to them, but the game is harder, the characters are more "real" and all that jazz. Maybe I AM just being a bitch, so if you ever dissaggree with me, need FF7 or FF8 help (there I go, showing off again), have questions about the editorial, OR if you aggree, my E-mail is FireFalc@hotmail.com Thank you.