Rebuttal to "Response to FFIII Critics"

by Andy Kraft

Final Fantasy VIII has come under criticism by even some of the series' most loyal fans, but with good reason, in my opinion.  Weave's editorial emphasized the innovations of the game, like the draw magic system and the gaurdian forces.  I don't have any real big problems with the magic system. So long as it's not like FF1's, I'm happy.  That's part of what made FF1 so hard.  It's usable, but I wouldn't want it in future FF games. For one thing, it's tiresome camping out in one spot drawing the same spell from monsters until you're full.  And the infrequent replensihing of draw points.

I did find it interesting that you could immediately use a monsters own spells against it, though.  As for the gaurdian forces, GFs, summons, whatever you like, I didn't have a problem with them either.  The common complaint with GFs is that the spell takes too long to finish up.  They wish there was a way to cut it short and get on with the game.  Personally I could do without that.  The summoning time is a deterrent from just using the gaurdian forces and forcing the player to actually use the game's system.  Especially since there is practically NO LIMIT to how many times you can summon a GF in FF8.  That's my only complaint with GFs.  It's way to easy for someone (admittedly, someone with enormous amounts of patience) to just plug away at enemys with and endless string of GF attacks.  At least in FF7, the most you could cast a summon spell was five times (and with Knights of the round, that was never necessary anyway).  But I can even overlook that, as there were easier ways to beat the game.  Which brings me to the junction system.

Pretty much everything in FF8 forces you to use the junction system.  GF summoning times, lousy level-up stat increases, and the fact that monsters level up with you, all force you to junction or die. There's no other way around it.  But then, you don't really need a way around it, since it's so damn easy.  Find the right spells, and junction them, and PRESTO! You're a walking god! 100 Ultima on your weapon can't be beat!  It wasn't long before I stopped using GFs because I dealt more damage in less time than them anyway.  Junctioning made things easy.  Maybe a little too easy.  The game as a whole wasn't very challenging at all.  A simple formula for victory: Meltdown,Aura,Renzokuken,Repeat.  For the "Ultimate" weapon *snicker* just throw in a holy war after aura.  Too easy. I never even managed to beat Emerald and Ruby weapon in FF7.  FF8 is even easier than FF7.  And the customization of characters isn't necessarily a good thing.

In older rpgs, you had to decide whether you wanted the big axe-weilding barbarian in your party for his stopping power, or the relatively weak mage for spells and healing.  But if you can teach your ass-kicking barbarian the same spells as the mage, why would you use that weakling?  Pretty much the only thing in FF8 that differentiate the characters is their limit breaks.  The same problem was in FF7, and to a somewhat lesser extent, FF6.  I think it was better when you HAD to put the black mage with crumby defense and hit points in your group in order to use Ultima or whatever. 

There is basis in the arguements that rpgs aren't as challenging anymore.  In fact, getting your butt stomped can be a good thing.  I love the satisfying feeling when I go back with a refined strategy and kick their ass, shouting obscenities at them as I watch their death animation :-).  Also on my complaints list is the fact that you had to make items from other stuff to get the best junk in the game.  You'd have to spend hours hunting down and playing cards and modifying items into a different item and then modifying THOSE items into a new item, etc.,etc.  That gets old.  That is probably the biggest reason I can't force myself to play through Star Ocean 2.  Crap like that only prolongs the playing time, which cuts down on replayability.  Who wants to play through a game again if they have to spend like 20+ hours collecing junk?  I used to play FF4 and 6 over and over because the games didn't take all that long to complete.

As far as story, goes, FF8 wasn't one of my favorites. I must agree with Weave that "simple" isn't quite the word for FF8's plot.  "Ill-conceived mess" is the phrase that comes to my mind.  But I don't suppose that's fair.  Actually, most of the story was okay.  The only part of story that I really consider worthy of the above phrase (flame-bait, I'm sure) is the last few parts, starting with the plan to defeat Ultimecia, and pretty much encompassing Ultimecia's plot.  Pretty much all FF villains have planned to become all-powerful and/or rule/destroy the world.  The ways they planned to do it were pretty straight forward.  Golbez, Zemus and Zeromus had those crystals.  Kefka had the Goddess Statues.  Sephiroth had Meteor. What did Ultimecia have? Time Compression. Who came up with all this?  As best I could decipher from the dialogue, time compression is where the past, present and future were all mushed together.  Why does Ultimecia want time compression?  To rule the world?  Judging by the SEED corpses scattered around her castle, I figured she was doing a pretty good job of that in her time.  You always seem to get a confusing mess when you try to put time travel into a story.  Even worse is Dr. Odine's plan to defeat Ultimecia.

How could he possibly come up with a plan based on a concept that should be at best theoretical?  How did he know if his plan wouldn't do something screwy, like destroy the universe or something?  Square should have increased the resolution on his character so maybe we could see the copy of "Metaphysics for Dummies" sticking out of his pocket. Also, I didn't really think the whole presentation of the "love" theme was that exceptional.  I thought FF7 did a much better job of it.  Tifa and Cloud weren't just "thrown together" as Weave put it.  Aeris was also in the mix too.  They had the whole love-triangle thing.  Cloud kinda had feelings for Aeris.  Even after she died, he didn't just fly to Tifa.  All through the game Tifa's in love with Cloud.  If you manage to get a date with her at the Gold Saucer you can see her frustration at her inability to express her feelings.  When Cloud's a vegetable, she stays to take care of him.  Towards the end, before you storm the Crater, they do "hook up" (this was subtle enough that I missed it my first time through) And in the end, Cloud reaches for the hand in the lifestream (which is meant to be taken as Aeris' hand) and wakes up to reality seeing he's got Tifa's hand.  There is also a difference in the characters in each scenario.  I pretty much thought Squall was kind of a jerk through most of the game.  I didn't like him that much.  For this guy who'd been aloof and generally unfriendly for most of the game to become mushy in an instant didn't seem that realistic to me.  Cloud, on the other hand, was a bit more likable.  Sure, he's a little rough, but it's evident throughout the entire game that he's not a bad guy.

Rinoa's personality annoyed me.  Her cutesy way of talking and hanging on Squall all the time. I prefered Tifa's self consiousness and frustration to Rinoa.  For the most part, didn't like any of FF8's characters as much as I did in previous games.  There wasn't as much reason to get attached.  They all had pretty much the same orphan history.  And you didn't have situations that centered around a single character individually.  In FF7, pretty much all of the characters had trial to get through that developed their charcter.  Barret had the fight with Dyne, Red XIII had his father.  I just didn't care that much about Squall and his gang.

It seems that since FF6 (or maybe before that even) there is a trend that every new FF game is first widely accepted by fans but then later downplayed as "not as good as the last one."  I would have preferred this would have stopped at FF8, but I really do think it wasn't as good as the last one.  FF9 will be out soon, so we can hope for that.