Final Fantasy VIII Review

Great review for a game many people seem to hate (This isn't like FF7 this game sucks!)..You have now made me wanna Turn on my ps3 and play FF8,good job

I like the interpretation here, Final Fantasy 8 as a mind trip! Looking back I think of it as weird RPG experiment more worthy of a single play through and study...it's less of a play-over-and-over-again masterpiece. You have the removal of weapon and armor shops for the most part (What to spend your money on???), restocking magic like it's a single use item to put in your inventory, buffing summon spells with button presses, a card game of notorious difficulty, not to mention a certain spell combo near the end which gives you limits and shields you from all damage. Plus you can level up to 99 in the very first training area?

As far as RPGs go, it does seem to be rather moody and mental in terms of game-mechanics. Chances are it's the first Final Fantasy to go over the edge and had some influence on FF9 needing to be a "return to the old school form."

the battle system is made to be abused by those who feel they have to, or bypassed by those who don't. it is very, very odd. i beat this game in 25 hours, but many people take 50 just because of this discrepancy.

i could reach deeper in examining that, but i think i'd lose readers! interesting game to study, though.