One man's psychotic rage towards Final Fantasy 8

[opethfan]

Before anyone bitches about characters, play FF12.

Here's a rundown of each:
Vaan: I want to be a sky pirate! I hate the empire!
Fran: The mist! The mist! The mist!
Ashe: I must free my people from the empire and be queen! (dictatorship for dictatorship, eh?)
Penelo: Teeheehee, be careful Vaan!
Basch: I will protect you Ashe. (He isn't too bad actually)

But Balthier's freaking awesome. He's actually got some personality and attitude. Why did they lump him with these other low-rent, stereotypical characters. Most are about as deep a broken paddling pool.

BTW, I like FF7 and 8, 9's good too, but the battles are far too slow, especially if you've only got 1 character in play, such as during the hunt thing in Lindblum.

[Mozgus]

Oh, you mean like the MAIN CHARACTER in Chrono Trigger who doesn't say a damn thing and therefore has no character whatsoever?

Mute Lead Characters are actually my favorites. I get to fill in the blanks. Thats kind of the point.

[marurun]

Well, sometimes the mute main character works. It's my opinion that in Chrono Trigger it doesn't. Square never really did learn to do that very well.

[kinn]

Before anyone bitches about characters, play FF12.

Here's a rundown of each:
Vaan: I want to be a sky pirate! I hate the empire!
Fran: The mist! The mist! The mist!
Ashe: I must free my people from the empire and be queen! (dictatorship for dictatorship, eh?)
Penelo: Teeheehee, be careful Vaan!
Basch: I will protect you Ashe. (He isn't too bad actually)

But Balthier's freaking awesome. He's actually got some personality and attitude. Why did they lump him with these other low-rent, stereotypical characters. Most are about as deep a broken paddling pool.

BTW, I like FF7 and 8, 9's good too, but the battles are far too slow, especially if you've only got 1 character in play, such as during the hunt thing in Lindblum.

Its quite funny when you put it like that!

I recently played through FF12 and I thought it was a great game but the characters did'nt do it for me except for Balthier of course. Is it done intentionally to dumb the characters down? For the mass market or something?

[Cyberxion]

I was never a huge fan of the game, not really being into RPG games in general (Lack of an attention span, I suppose...), but I did watch while my best friend played through it years back, and it was fun enough to watch. Good times.

[Mozgus]

Somehow I forced myself back into FF8 and beat it. I just hate not finishing things. They haunt me forever until I do.

Anyways worst ending ever. I'm not fucking joking. I completely feel ripped off and my entry price was free. Despite the story on discs 3 and 4 being complete shit, I kept assuming everything would come together nicely at the end, but no. Squaresoft seriously needs to hire someone with actual writing talent. Who the hell wrote Chrono Trigger? I'm guessing that dude left them long ago.

I mean 7's story was good overall. 9's story was pretty meh, but I didn't really hate it. 8 however, starts off promising, and then fails so hard that you check your ass for possible rape. It's 24 hours since, and I still feel angry about it. I could have spent those 50 hours differently.



Enjoy the awful, inappropriate music and the cheesy adobe premiere filters. There's your payoff.

[Gamerforlife]

Before anyone bitches about characters, play FF12.

Here's a rundown of each:
Vaan: I want to be a sky pirate! I hate the empire!
Fran: The mist! The mist! The mist!
Ashe: I must free my people from the empire and be queen! (dictatorship for dictatorship, eh?)
Penelo: Teeheehee, be careful Vaan!
Basch: I will protect you Ashe. (He isn't too bad actually)

But Balthier's freaking awesome. He's actually got some personality and attitude. Why did they lump him with these other low-rent, stereotypical characters. Most are about as deep a broken paddling pool.

BTW, I like FF7 and 8, 9's good too, but the battles are far too slow, especially if you've only got 1 character in play, such as during the hunt thing in Lindblum.

Can't say I agree completely with that. Fran actually has an interesting story about leaving her village and her traditions because she wants to live a life of freedom. This makes her a pariah to her people, but naturally draws her to Balthier who has also left his life of responsiblities as a judge to be a Sky Pirate. Interestingly enough, Fran does not believe that her sister I think it was should follow her example. She is conflicted about abandoning her people's way of life. I think everyone can sympathize with a character forced to decide between doing what is expected or her, and doing what she WANTS.

I didn't really like Vaan and Penelo much, but Vaan does seem to influence Ashe's decisions throughout the story and is sometimes the only one in the group she can talk to. They've both lost someone, and kind of bond over that. The losses influence much of their actions.

I like Ashe, she has to decide how best to use her power and in the end, she makes the right choices and avoids the corruption that comes with power. Some of this is thanks to Vaan's influence

Basch is more than just "that guy who protects Ashe". He is an outcast, a man in search of redemption and twice in the story, he is forced to look at how he chooses to live his life when confronted by people close to him who challenge his actions. Basch is fascinating because of how he always sticks to his beliefs, making him stronger than his brother and his friend, the betrayer

And yes, Balthier is cool, everyone knows that. A bit TOO cool, the writers were not very subtle in trying to make him the favorite character. I mean he gets so many of these movie hero type lines I had to role my eyes a few times

Not the greatest FF story ever. I'd certainly agree, but let's not oversimplify it.

[migo]

Honestly, I don't have an hour to sit through a negative review of a game I already know I like. I liked FF8 as much as FF10, and I haven't noticed any problems. It had some quirks but it got really fun once I figured them out.

[Randy_Marsh]

Didn't watch the guy's review. Anyway, FF7 was my first Final Fantasy and it is still one of my favorite games. There's so much stuff to do. So many minigames. Secrets to unlock. A cool story that, while serious, has lighthearted moments. A friend of mine had a Japanese playstation and imported 8 when it came out. Since none of us knew Japanese all we really did was watch the FMV intro over and over and drool. So when it finally came out in the US I quite possibly had higher expectations than I had ever had for a game before. Then I played it.

It's not bad. It's quite good. It's just not as good as 7 was. There's just less fun. It takes itself too seriously. The draw system is ridiculous. It was just too 'meh'.

i stopped playing FFVII cuz i couldn't figure out that minigame where you have to defend the mountain from invading troops. the stupid part is, that game is OPTIONAL! but i couldn't figure it out so i just got mad and quit the whole game like 20% or so in. i'm stoopid:(

[marurun]

I don't think you're stoopid. The idiotic mini games have always pissed me off. They may be optional, but the game still expects you to want to play them. And they are usually poorly designed.