Why Final Fantasy 8 is Better than Final Fantasy 7

by Howard Kleinman

I bought my Playstation to play Final Fantasy VII. I loved the FF series since the original was released in the states and it has been my favorite RPG series ever since. FF7 was an excellent game, and I felt justified in my purchase. It lacked some of the magic of previous FFs. I know now that what it lacked was not a midieval setting. FF6 was industrial revolution, and I loved it, FF8 was also high tech(though not as much so as FF7 except it Esthar.) What bugged me about FF7 were three things: 1) Its story was higly remiscent of FF6's and 2)Too much of the game was spent chasing the black caped man and 3) the Materia system.

When I say its story was too much like FF6's I am completely serious. Let me tell the stories of FF6 and 7 simultaneously. An evil empire (corporation) is draining life energy from espers (mako) and making genetic super soldiers through magitek augmentation (the Jenova Project). The first subject to under magitek augmentation (get infused with Jenova cells) is the game's ultimate villain, Kefka (Spehiroth). Kefka (Sephiroth) becomes a general in Emporer Gestahl's (President Shinra's) army and eventually kills his master. The heroes, the Returners (Avalanche), include a girl with a mysterious mystical background name Terra (Aeris), and former Imperial (Corporate) soldier, Celes (Cloud). Despite the Returners efforts, Kefka (Sephiroth) kills General Leo (Aeris) and destroys the world (summons a meteor meant to destroy the world.) Finally, Kefka (Sephiroth) is confronted, turns into an angel-like being and is destroyed by the heroes. The stories are just a little similar aren't they?

As for the middle of the first disc, well, that is pretty much self explanatory. First, you chase Sephiroth to go to North Corel and discover Barret's Origins, then you go to Cosmo Canyon and discover Red XIII's origins, then you go to Rocket Town and discover Cid's origins, then you go to Wutai and discover Yuffie's origins. Then you go to the Ancient Temple and discover Aeris' origins. Followed by the revelation of Cloud's origin as the beginning of the gaming getting back into high gear.

The materia system was simply unbalancing. All you really needed were the right combinations of materia and nothing could possibly defeat you. Knights of the Round, plus W-Summon, plus Magic Absorb equals total vicotry over everyone except the WEAPONS. Add mime to that combination, and there go the WEAPONS.

Now we get to FF8. Before I playd the game I was skeptical. After all, they were eliminating MPs and having GFs to summon that take no MP to summon. I'd heard that Squall is a total jerk. I'd heard that Nobuo Uemtasu had lost his musical touch. I decided that I would buy FF8 anyway, despite the fact that I believed it couldn't possibly remove the title of best PSX RPG that I had stamped on LUNAR: Silver Star Story Complete (Which is also a superb game in the FFIV tradition). At any rate, when I got home from college for a week and back to my PlayStation, I put in FFVIII and held my breath. Would it live up to the great SNES Final Fantasies? Was it just Eye-Candy? Could I figure out the junction system? Would I like Squall? During the first part of the first disk I was not that excited. I junctioned up Squall and Quistis and gave myself 30 minutes to beat Ifrit. It wasn't until I got to the invasion of Dollet that the game really took off. I'll admit that I was dissapointed with the overworld theme(probably the worst in the series since FF3j's), but the invasion sequence was just perfect. It reminded me a little bit of SAVING PRIVATE RYAN. I liked doing the undercover mission on the train where you had to enter passwords and evade the guards. I liked the parade sequence. I like the Laguna flashbacks. The strangest part of all of it was that I never worried about money, and I was using the auto-junction function so that I didn't have to try to be ultra sophisticated. I enjoyed playing the card game so that I could refine weapon parts. I enjoyed the whole feel of being part of an organization rather than just another rag-tag group of resistance soldiers. I even grew to like characters who I thought would be stupid like Selphie and Zell. I was so entertained by the whole sweep of the game, that when it became to difficult for me to progress with simple auto-juctions, I was actually ready to try junctioning. I wanted to look for items of the enemies to get doomtrain. I remember trying to get through the insanely difficult Deep Sea Research center to try and get energy crystals and Eden. By the time I had killed of Ultimecia and the Omega Weapon, I was ready to start the game over again, and leave my copy of Final Fantasy Anthology cold on my shelf. I got only around 3 hours into Final Fantasy V, whereas I must have spent over 50 hours playing FF8. It was too much fun for me to stop.

Maybe it was the fact that I had such high expectations for seven, and low ones for 8, but Final Fantasy 8 stands up there with IV, V, and VI as a pedestal of what console RPGs should be.