Final Fantasy VIII is one of the shorter Final Fantasy games. Despite this, playing through it took me the longest simply because I dreaded playing this game. Out of the Final Fantasy games I've played, VIII easily ranks towards the bottom of my list.

When I started playing I chose to ignore playing Triple Triad because I do not play Final Fantasy for cards. That was a huge mistake. By the end of disc 2 I was severely underpowered. Squall hit like a truck, but every single other character was doing chip damage. This is because without playing Triple Triad I was locked out of weapon upgrades, and I was lacking a ton of magic that you can mod from the cards. I understand having a fun card minigame for those who enjoy that, but I should not be weaker for not playing it.

After I looked up why I was so weak I realised that I HAVE to play the card game in order to have anything resembling a strong party. That is not good game design. I prefer how Final Fantasy IX handles the cards; A completely optional minigame. If I want to get on with the story and gameplay, I should be able to without getting handicapped for the entire rest of the game.

Drawing from enemies is a drag. It makes every battle where you see a new spell take ages as you draw 300 of it for every character. It doesn't help that theres always one party member who will only draw 0-5 at a time instead of 9. Then you have two members with 100 of the spell and one character still lagging behind with 50 of the spell. Without a defend or wait action, you are forced to either draw another spell you might not want, or if you are full on every spell for that enemy you simply have to kill them, stopping the slower member from stocking up.

The story is rather weak in my opinion. It starts off pretty slow with you at the Garden, and then doing the mission with Seifer. After that you do a gimmicky train section with Rinoa and after that is when things start to really happen. I won't go over the whole story, but a lot of it felt like filler. The only parts I liked were switching over to Laguna, the last half of disc 3, and disc 4. The game kind of gets crazy near the end and i was there for it. At least i wasn't bored anymore.

The music is a highlight for sure. Nobuo Uematsu knocks it out of the park as always. Some of my favorite tracks were; Man with the Machine Gun, Force Your Way, Eyes on Me, and Liberi Fatali. All of them were awesome and made playing the game just that little bit more bearable.

One thing I did like was how often the game would switch to an FMV animated background and let you retain control of your character. It felt awesome to be walking around these giant events happening all around you, and it would happen fairly often. Those fully animated cutscenes were a joy to watch as well. My favorite being Squall driving up to assassinate Sorceress Edea. Something about that was just so cool.

Normally I don't mention if I play a remaster but ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ is this a bad one. Square seems to have lost the source for the backgrounds so they look worse than they did on PS1. There is also no wide-screen. Basically the only things that make this game a 'remaster' are the new models for every main character, and some cheats like triple speed (thank god for that).

Character related spoilers: Seifer's character was terribly handled. One of the only things I knew going in was that Squall had a cool rival with a matching scar, so I was excited to see how it would play out. Well, near the ending you fight him, and then he just goes away. Later in the final cutscene you see him fishing. That's it? Seriously? Total waste of a cool character. He should have been involved in the final dungeon somehow. It wouldn't be too hard to write him in.

Overall, Final Fantasy VIII goes just above II and IV for my least favorites. Not the worst Final Fantasy, but certainly not the best. I wouldn't recommend this one to anybody but die-hard fans.

Final Fantasy VIII is one of the shorter Final Fantasy games. Despite this, playing through it took me the longest simply because I dreaded playing this game. Out of the Final Fantasy games I've played, VIII easily ranks towards the bottom of my list. When I started playing I chose to ignore playing Triple Triad because I do not play Final Fantasy for cards. That was a huge mistake. By the end of disc 2 I was severely underpowered. Squall hit like a truck, but every single other character was doing chip damage. This is because without playing Triple Triad I was locked out of weapon upgrades, and I was lacking a ton of magic that you can mod from the cards. I understand having a fun card minigame for those who enjoy that, but I should not be weaker for not playing it. After I looked up why I was so weak I realised that I HAVE to play the card game in order to have anything resembling a strong party. That is not good game design. I prefer how Final Fantasy IX handles the cards; A completely optional minigame. If I want to get on with the story and gameplay, I should be able to without getting handicapped for the entire rest of the game. Drawing from enemies is a drag. It makes every battle where you see a new spell take ages as you draw 300 of it for every character. It doesn't help that theres always one party member who will only draw 0-5 at a time instead of 9. Then you have two members with 100 of the spell and one character still lagging behind with 50 of the spell. Without a defend or wait action, you are forced to either draw another spell you might not want, or if you are full on every spell for that enemy you simply have to kill them, stopping the slower member from stocking up. The story is rather weak in my opinion. It starts off pretty slow with you at the Garden, and then doing the mission with Seifer. After that you do a gimmicky train section with Rinoa and after that is when things start to really happen. I won't go over the whole story, but a lot of it felt like filler. The only parts I liked were switching over to Laguna, the last half of disc 3, and disc 4. The game kind of gets crazy near the end and i was there for it. At least i wasn't bored anymore. The music is a highlight for sure. Nobuo Uematsu knocks it out of the park as always. Some of my favorite tracks were; Man with the Machine Gun, Force Your Way, Eyes on Me, and Liberi Fatali. All of them were awesome and made playing the game just that little bit more bearable. One thing I did like was how often the game would switch to an FMV animated background and let you retain control of your character. It felt awesome to be walking around these giant events happening all around you, and it would happen fairly often. Those fully animated cutscenes were a joy to watch as well. My favorite being Squall driving up to assassinate Sorceress Edea. Something about that was just so cool. Normally I don't mention if I play a remaster but holy shit is this a bad one. Square seems to have lost the source for the backgrounds so they look worse than they did on PS1. There is also no wide-screen. Basically the only things that make this game a 'remaster' are the new models for every main character, and some cheats like triple speed (thank god for that). Character related spoilers: [spoiler] Seifer's character was terribly handled. One of the only things I knew going in was that Squall had a cool rival with a matching scar, so I was excited to see how it would play out. Well, near the ending you fight him, and then he just goes away. Later in the final cutscene you see him fishing. That's it? Seriously? Total waste of a cool character. He should have been involved in the final dungeon somehow. It wouldn't be too hard to write him in. [/spoiler] Overall, Final Fantasy VIII goes just above II and IV for my least favorites. Not the worst Final Fantasy, but certainly not the best. I wouldn't recommend this one to anybody but die-hard fans.