Alas, I did. I gave in to the hype about FF8, and I pre-ordered a copy. I anxiously awaited it's arrival, hoping to be there and get my freebies (oooo... a t-shirt woulda'been cool...). The fated day arrived, I brought home my prize, plugged it into the PSX, grabbed my housemate, and we both plunked down on the couch to bask.

Drool time.

We'd seen the opening FMV any number of times; stood in the way of customers who were buying something while we watched it on a big screen at Electronics Boutique. And now, now we could drool in the comfort of our own home. We even let it play twice over, just to enjoy the graphics.

And then we made the mistake of starting the game.

The graphics were scratchy - no other way to describe them. Sure, FF7 had SD polygon characters, but at least they were smooth looking. Scratchy, pixelated graphics look like shit on an old tv like mine. But, being intrepid FF explorers, onwards we went.

The colours on the dialogue boxes were hard to read, and the response options were really stupid. From the opening scene, Squall came across as an insensitive jerk. (You might argue that Cloud was, but really, that was a player's choice to make him respond that way. You could have him buy the flower from Aeris, etc. A rant for another time: "In Defense of Cloud Strife.") And the switch between nice smooth graphics as Quistis was introduced, and the scratchy ones once her "intro" was over, was really annoying. It only served to emphasize how scratchy the graphics were.

Okay, fine. Graphics I can get used to. The colours weren't customizable (another irritation), but I could learn to live with them. Onwards.

I played to about half way through disc two, taking almost a month to do so. In the first month after I bought FF7, I'd beaten it twice, and was (then, and am still) playing it. A month, of thinking, "well, I bought this game, I really should play it... maybe the plot will get better... maybe the characterization will improve... maybe it will actually become interesting OR understandable... (FF7 wasn't always understandable, but at least it was interesting while it was confusing.) maybe...." It didn't happen. The game never caught and held my interest.

Why?
Well, let me condense. The big four problems: plot, the enemy, characterization, and "the theme".

1) The plot.
There was no cohesion to the plot. There was always a constant feeling of "what are we trying to accomplish and why?" that I have never encountered in previous FF games. The point of FF8 (if there was one) kept changing too many times. There was no overall driving force to it, no sense of urgency or deep commitment from the characters. After all, as Squall would say "It's not that I don't care.... I just don't care." And if your "hero" doesn't care, and "you" are supposed to be the hero... why bother?

Final Fantasy stories have traditionally been about saving the world and working together as a team. FF8 was about obsessive relationships, and moody teenagers. Really, it was more like a cross between Beverly Hills 90210, and a Robert Jordan book, where more and more plot lines kept getting dragged in with none of them getting resolved.

2) "The Enemy."
Who was the enemy in FF8? why were we fighting them? I think this changed at least three times by the time I gave up on it. If there is no clear sense of who the enemy is, there is no strong driving force to defeat him/her.

In FF7, it was obvious that Sephiroth was mad, but it was also possible to develop a grudging respect, and perhaps even a little sympathy for him. And even if you couldn't, at least there was always the driving force of "defeat Sephiroth, save the Planet." Plus there were the Turks. Supposedly they were working for the enemy Shinra, but they helped you out (if you helped them out -- ie, the Yuffie/Elena/Corneo scenario), and they were damn cool. The shades, the suits, the attitude; it was hard not to like the Turks. The Turks and Sephiroth gave you good, solid reasons to keep playing, keep fighting.

By comparison, Fujin and Raijin were lame. They came across as mindless drones bowing and scraping to the whim of their bully leader, Seifer. And as for Seifer himself, I don't think anyone has ever done such a good job of capturing the schoolyard bully in a game. Unfortunately, this makes for a very pathetic opponent.

FF8 just had an entirely random feel to it. Maybe it was supposed to be full of plot twists, but there has to be a coherent plot before you can twist it in surprising ways. FF8 was just too random.

3) Characterization (or, rather, lack of character development)
Squall is an insensitive jerk. Worse than that, he is totally self-absorbed, and the gamer is forced to "listen" to his self-absorbed comments constantly. He doesn't care about anyone, and shows absolutely no character growth. And then he becomes completely obsessed with Rinoa while she's comatose. This is NOT healthy folks. I don't care how you try to pass it off as all his deep concern that he can't otherwise express. He becomes obsessed. And if you've ever been in, or known someone in, a relationship with a guy as obsessed and self-absorbed as Squall is, you know it's bad news.

Rinoa, for her part, is an annoying tease who spends far too much time baiting Squall and posing like Aeris. She seems to have stepped straight out of an episode of 90210 (and to complete the all-American look, she comes with a dog!). She is pouty and petulant and just generally annoying.

Laguna is a ditz. How he ever got anywhere in life is beyond me. The man had absolutely no maturity for his age. Kyros was cool, but the man had no bones (rather like that two-headed zombie thing you have to fight in the basement of Shinra mansion *shudder*). And the third guy... whatever his name was, was a walking stereotype of the lumbering idiot (all brawn, no brains).

For that matter, most of the other characters were stereotyped as well. (Granted, so was Barrett in FF7, but that's not the issue here.) Zell was obviously a hybrid skateboarder/surfer-dude, with the air-headedness to match. Selphie was your average bubble-gum popping teeny-bopper, tolerable in the way Alicia Silverstone was in Clueless.

4) "The theme."
Supposedly (according to Square), this is "Love." One problem: there is no true love in this game. There are a lot of unhealthy, obsessive relationships of the kind that our society passes off as "love" on a daily basis, but no real love.

I could go on about this at great length, but most people don't want to hear it. North American society is so conditioned to accept the kind of unhealthy, obsessive relationships that pop singers (like the Backstreet Boys: "doesn't matter who you are, where you're from, what you've done, as long as you love me"), and TV (Melrose Place, 90210, and no, I don't have more recent examples because I quit watching TV two years ago), promote that no one thinks twice about it being brought into a game.

Relationships take communication, and the only communicating Squall does in the game is with himself.

Odds'n'Ends

So, you get paid for being a SEED, but there's nothing to spend the money on. Why bother trying to attain a higher rank when there's no obvious point? Really, with the junction system, you never have to really fight a battle -- all you have to do is summon your junctioned monsters and let them fight for you. Or draw and cast magic. Much more effective than trying to wield that gunblade. (Which was a totally impractical weapon, not to mention bad physics.)

And while I'm mentioning summons... the animations took WAAAAAYYYY too long. Like, "put your controller down and come back in five minutes" too long. They really broke the flow of the battle.

Having to upgrade the weapon you had, rather than buying new ones, was an okay concept, but it was freakin' hard to find the monsters who had the bits you needed to upgrade. And on top of that, you had to buy the magazines. Why bother. I really missed not having armor, too.

The draw and junction magic systems were... interesting, but nothing I got overly attached to. The card game was addictive. I played more hours of cards then roaming the world. Which doesn't say much for game play in general, but that's the point of this rant.

The short end of the rant:

It's not that I don't care, it's just that, by the middle of disc two, I didn't care! The thought of two-and-a-half more discs of Squall's attitude (and being forced to "listen" to his attitude and his incessant internal monologue), the wandering plot, the obsessive, unhealthy relationships... it made my stomach turn.

I traded FF8 in for Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete, and have been much the happier for it. Maybe it's a "simpler" game, but simple pleasures are often sweeter.

I'll take the "simple," old-style RPG over this modern, FF8-style shmuck any day. Give me content, not hype.

And a footnote: I rented Final Fantasy Tactics recently. FFT is a kickass game! The graphics are a wicked blend of 2d and 3d -- the range of movement and expression on the characters is amazing! Wish I had bought FFT instead of FF8. It's got plot, graphics, character development, strategy -- in short, it's a true RPG.

Lifestream

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Nibelheim Library

Planet ~ D&D

Observatory

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Launch Pad

Tattoos

The Nexus