Final Fantasy VIII Preview

In keeping with the series' tradition, Final Fantasy VIII is not a direct sequel to VII, none of the characters are re-used, and the story is completely different. Nevertheless it carries on where Final Fantasy VII left off, meaning a griping plot, and graphics that wouldn't look out of place on the big screen, in short, another epic.

This time the story centres around a young man named Squall Leonheart, he is a student at the Garden, which is a prominent military academy. The story follows Squall and his friends, Zell, Seifer, Selphie, Quistis and Rinoa, and their battle against the evil sorceress, Edea. The story is never straight forward and features numerous twists and turns, of which I will not be revealing, well I don't know them, I want them to be a surprise for me as well. If you are at all interested in getting this game then I advise you not to read any plot spoilers, for they can ruin a great RPG, because the story is so fundamental to you being addicted to the game. One thing I will say though is that a main theme in the game is love. This is a bold move on the part of Square, as emotion, true emotions, such as love, anger and jealousy are rarely, if ever touched on in games. Sure you have games like Resident Evil and Silent Hill which scare you, but fear is easy to achieve, but getting you interested in a love story, now that, that takes skill.

The actual game mechanics are very similar to the previous Final Fantasy outings, that is the game being divided into different sections. There is the main exploring side to the game, where you wander around gorgeous pre-rendered backdrops, with your characters being depicted in polygons, who have a much more western look this time, than in Final Fantasy VII. The detail present in the backgrounds is simply mind boggling, over 200 artists worked on this game. It shows, the detail is crazy, the characters in the FMV, look amazing, stunning, this game is beautiful basically.

The other main part of the game is the battle screen, like Final Fantasy VII these battles are active time, and take place using a real-time 3D engine. Battles are a combination of weapons, magic and summonses, where huge creatures are summoned to wreck havoc on your opponents. However there are some additions to the battle system, a major new addition is the Draw system. This system is the way you get magic, you have to draw it from another object, this means that you have to be a bit more cautious, and think before using your magic. Another change is the summoned beasties, they now have their own health, and magic points, meaning that they are effectively members of your party. This means that the summoned monsters grow and get stronger as you advance in the game, rather than remaining at a fixed level as in Final Fantasy VII.

Final Fantasy VIII is going to be great, no doubt about that, the reception the game got in Japan was amazing, it sold at a crazy rate, and was critically applauded. This bodes well for the western release, and indeed the English language version of this game should be a classic, bar any major problems, or errors during the conversion period. The one problem I can see is with the language translation, if the story is translated well, it will be brilliant, but if it is done badly, then the love story could become laughable, and that would be a tragedy.