Boy Band Heroes Or: Why FF8 Doesn't Suck

by Langus

I. The Story

Most often criticized in FF8 is the 'horrible' story. Or even the absolute lack of story.

In actuality FF8's story is rather involved and extensive. The problem is, instead of revolving around the world, as in other games, FF8's story focuses on Squall and Rinoa, and the growth of their relationship. It has great potential, but falls on it's face at the end.

I think this is primarily due to the repeated insertion of 'Deus ex Machina' at the end. Repeatedly, the player is bombarded with such literary devices. The re-appearance of Laguna as President of Esthar, Adel's existence, Ultimecia, Ellone's abilities, The Orphanage...

I think that the reason the story falls flat at the end is that it's resolved through the use of suddenly introduced elements, the 'Deus ex Machina' again, rather than tying up the threads that have been running through the plot. This means of conclusion makes one feel jilted... Spending over forty hours on a game to get a contrived ending is rather disappointing.

< gaiden > I find it interesting that people will continually criticize FF8 for this, but always fail to mention FF4, which suffers from the exact same failings in terms of story. < /gaiden >

So, criticism of the story is warranted to some extent. However, one cannot find flaw with the whole due to the failure of a part and be truly fair to the whole.

II. Battle/Junction

The second main point under everyone's skin seems to be the battle/junction system... It's surface simplicity and repetiveness.

Well, the persons making that argument probably never used any commands but Junction -> Magic -> Auto -> Attack in the Status Screen, and probably never used anything but 'GF' in combat.

In all truth, the junction system is one of the deepest gameplay systems I've ever seen. Surpassed only by SO2's Item Creation system, and FFT's Battle Mechanics (Hah! I got FFT in here anyway. Betcha thought I wouldn't. *g*). It does, however, require actually putting some time, thought, and effort into setting up your chars. As opposed to the equipping of previous FF games, one has to make a conscious decision of how they want the character to work, and what to put where to do that.

< gaiden pt 2 > I should point out that the Auto Junction feature was added to the North American release, presumably because the Squaresoft people didn't think that we were able to fully utilize and accept the way Junction works. I love reading all these flames, and how we continually 'prove' their prejudices. < /gaiden pt 2 >

With regards to the battle... Well, in terms of time, GF's are probably the -least- efficient means of doing damage in terms of time. In the amount of time it takes to summon and Boost Eden, a properly junctioned squall could go five or six times, each doing ~9000 damage. If I recall, a fully boosted Eden does ~20000.

9000 * 6 = 54000 > 20000
9000 * 5 = 45000 > 20000
9000 * 4 = 36000 > 20000
9000 * 3 = 27000 > 20000
9000 * 2 = 18000 < 20000

As you can see from the table, Squall would have to get in only two hits to do less than Eden does, and that's in the time it takes Eden to summon. That requires his speed to be about, uhm... 3? And that's not counting the rest of the party...

III. Draw

"I hate this game. You have to sit and draw for -hours-."

I don't remember who said it, but I've seen that before... And it's absolutely untrue.

To be effective, you only have to draw a couple times each random battle... Between that and refine abilities, a regular party should be fine for junctionable material. Even moreso if you pile all your spells and GFs onto three characters instead of spreading them out amoung all six.

You only have to sit and draw for hours if you want your party to be insanely overpowered... But how is that any different form running around in circles for hours to level up in the other FFs. That's how you get insanely overpowered in those games... How are these two different?

IV. Squall

Everybody hates Squall...

Well, actually, I kinda do, too. The guy's a moron. Quistis was crushing on him, he blew her off. As opposed to Rinoa, who's just... blah. Well, I suppose there are valid in character reasons. Quistis didn't have the tenacity and the indomitable spirit Rinoa did, and so can't win Squall's block of stone... err.. excuse me, Squall's 'heart.'

However, Squall at least grows throughout the game... He changes from a hard-hearted moron who doesn't care about anything to a slightly-chilled-hearted moron who cares about Rinoa. Okay, so it's just a little bit of development. But at least it's development!

Okay. That section was a bit of a reach...

V. Boy-band heroes.

Again, someone, I forget whom, made a comparison to boy-bands... Welll...

That's the 'style'! They're called 'bishounen', and they're everywhere in Japanese pop culture. Animes, Video Games, J-Pop... That doesn't mean you have to like it, but, geez, at least compain about it in everything it's in, and not just FF8. :P

VI. I'm running out of ideas so I think I'll stop now.

[See section title]