Yes! I played this when I was 11. I loved it. I do fee the issues he brings up are valid but for one of the first FF games I played it was the perfect difficulty.
clament, play final fantasy 8 remaster and your done. pc, switch, ps4 and sutch boom battle speed x 3, and your good to go. random battles your tiard of them? turn them off.
Rinoa: "I liked having my mom hold me. My dad too, back when we got along." Squall: "I'm not your mom." Rinoa: "No, of course not... but I can still call you Daddy right?!"
i thought the mechanics worked like they did in ff7 and obviously square was like "no, squall and rinoa are perfect together" so the whole time i was like "this is awesome, wish you were quistis though" lmao
That thing with Rinoa's dog also happens in FF6. When I played, Shadow's dog Interceptor would occasionally run into enemies and OHKO them. And by occasionally, I mean every other damn battle! XD
Yeah, but the difference there (and why I'm ok with that and not VIII), is Interceptor actually runs to the enemy and attacks it, while in FFVIII Rinoa literally launches her dog like a missile.
It happened often, at least in the first half. Once you got to the World of Ruin, it did seem to happen less often, but that was likely because enemies actually have to target Shadow with physical attacks to get Interceptor to counter, and in the WoR, enemies tend to use magic more often than physical.
Rinoa has two types of Angelo abilities: the automatic ones that have a chance of happening in battle under certain circumstances, like Angelo Rush (a random counterattack that may happen every time Rinoa takes damage, similar to Interceptor's attacks in VI), and the ones she uses as Limit Breaks, like Angelo Cannon. Actually, another throwback to VI: when Squall and Rinoa are inside the Ragnarok, Rinoa can't use her Angelo abilities because Angelo is not there with them, just like Shadow doesn't have Interceptor when he joins your party at the Floating Continent.
lets see, cinemassacre? Nah. Somecallmejohnny? Not in the mood. Brainscratch, supergamingbros? Not right now. Whats this? A new Clement final fantasy upload? HOOK IT TO MY VEINS!!!
I like to think everyone has their own Final Fantasy VIII. A title they know is a mixed bag that not everyone enjoys, and even you have your criticisms toward how things were executed, but you still hold near and dear and would gladly return to or keep up with. For me, that's RoosterTeeth's RWBY. It's a hot mess, but I love it. And Sonic, too, but that's a whole other story that you're still covering.
In my case its not a game but a character. Morgana from Persona 5. I know this character has some unpleseant flaws. I myself could do a decently long rant of his nonsensical temper tantrum. There are good understandable reasons to not like this character. But I love this little fellow alot. He is the best companion I ever had in a videogame, my favorite Video game character and my second favorite animal mascoot character putting him even above the likes of Stich and Toothless and only surpassed by Nanachi. Despite his flaws I really love this little fellow.
@@notafbiagent473 Reg and Nanachi are my 2 favorite characters in fiction. Riko is atleast in the top 15. Overall Made in Abyss has an amazing cast of characters.
I have a lot of those personally, there's something special about the paradoxical perfect imperfection about such things that appeals to me. If I had to name one though it would be The Last Remnant, it's a completionists worst nightmare even by RPG standards and has performance issues and a much heavier reliance on RNG than most other games and for me at least it's kinda developed into a weird love hate relationship maybe it's nostalgia because it was one of the earlier RPGs I played as I was really getting into the series that makes me like it more than anything else and the hate part of the relationship is it's sort of become my White Whale that I promised myself to eventually 100% complete in its entirety before I kick the bucket. I do genuinely love the sensation of commanding an entire army and how pretty much every sidequest NPC can join your party and still feel unique and distinct as characters even if they aren't all created equal in terms of usefulness those are aspects of it that I absolutely unironically love, Baulson is best boi btw!
This has probably been the most interesting and well-put-together video in this series so far, and actually made me want to revisit this game to sort out my feelings on it... which is not something I've wanted to do for a very long time. Well, maybe I will. I have the Steam version, which I believe even has the chocobo Pocket Station minigame include. Just gotta patch in a music mod to replace those dull midi files with the original PS1 soundtrack and it's probably the best way to experience the game these days. One complaint I wish you'd mentioned, though, is how little things about the world are fleshed out. There's virtually no specific history to anything, even less so than Final Fantasy VII which at least gave you enough of a sense of things that you could fill in the gaping blanks its lore left in the world. But take, for example, NORG's race, the Shumi. They live clustered together in one village, you learn nothing about them, and apparently the Moomba are just... Shumi who transformed into dumb little animal people because... whyyyyyyyy? You also missed mentioning the Phoenix summon, which is called forth by using one of the game's rare Phoenix Pinion items and joins Odin and Gilgamesh as a random summon thereafter. It can, on very rare occasions, appear when you experience a party wipe, blasting the enemy with fire and reviving your party. But you have to manually summon him at least once to trigger it. Ironically, if memory serves, obtaining the Phoenix Pinion, or at least one of them, requires visiting the Shumi Village.
On a serious note though, I also feel compelled to give the game another shot. It was gifted to me from a dear friend a long while back, and it is the first final fantasy game I ever played. Sadly, my memory card at the time was destroyed (long story), and I never finished it (made it to near the end of disk 3). TIME TO JUNCTION THE SH*T OUTTA STUFF!!!!!
I love this game I beat diablos gravity is awesome I have a physical copy of 8 and PsOne classics of 8 and 9 I can't wait and Clement I'm jelous of u Ultima weapon on disc one I'll start a new game and beat diablos as early as possible I'm not a wimp I'll prove it
Here's a good compromise though. Do enough damage the first time you fight it and you'll get the AP for defeating it, then just avoid it from there on out. You'll get the AP for it, and you'll see the cutscene.
This game feels like a 2 season anime, where the big bad of the first season turns out to be working for an even bigger bad that was never once explained.
It’s like a really bad soap opera in my opinion. I hate soap operas for pretty much every reason i hate Final Fantasy 8. They’re almost never written well, are boring and slow, take the audience for idiots, the romances are typically never believable, and the characters aren’t particularly interesting with absolutely asine plot twists that come out of nowhere with no real thought or substance behind them. Final Fantasy 8 was a dire mistake in my opinion. It isn’t even saved by its gameplay, which is beyond atrocious. I’ve never understood how anyone could say with a straight face 8 is actually a good game. I think they’re either lying, really like bad games, have bad taste, are blinded almost solely by nostalgia or aren’t right in the head. I consider any of the Legend Of Heroes games what 8 should’ve been if the developers knew what to do when making this turd of a game.
@@Gamingnstuff131 Final fantasy VIII is demential. Soap operas are dumb. There is a thin difference. Usually dementiality is used in comedy, not in works that are presented as dramatic, but as in the warnings on the movies we don't watch on the websites we don't consult... Final Fantasy means: "In case the title, the trailer, and the cover didn't suggest that... we don't give a wooden cent about the story being coherent or the motives being plausible or predictable, we refuse to keep it simple, with the wrath of Momma Theresa. Oh, another thing, actually there will be a grain of coherence: in our work, Ninjas, secret agent, moles and swindlers in general, can do their job, though we feel like following the Rex Stout's rule*." *I think the name is made up. Actually i don't know if it has a proper name in literature. it can be stated like: In almost every mystery novel, in the set of suspects and witnesses and people able to provide cogent schedules and whatnot, there is a character way more despondent, suspiciously ambiguous, often needlessly outrageous than any other. That person is never the culprit.
@@Gamingnstuff131You’re complaining about a semi-convoluted Shounen type story that has a better soundtrack than your argument. You’re a douche for insulting people that like FF8, behind their backs. If you can’t wrap your head around people enjoying a simple ass love story, that has a few decent twists that aren’t the best, sure… but they aren’t the worst. It’s not 13. Stop trying to give FF8 fans CBT level insults, when you outright have something definitively worse.
I am in the same boat as you are. I like FF8, but there are some absolutely dumb shit in it that I really do not like. But the atmosphere, music, locations and side content are so strong, it makes up for the flaws, and there's just some indescribable quality that appeals to me. But I have to disagree with you in regards to headmaster Cid's appearance. He does not look like Robin Williams. He's the spitting image of Bill Gates ;)
Cid Kramer was easily the worst Cid. A candy ass who does practically nothing cool or important the whole game and just buggers off toward the end to be with Edea who was his enemy most of the game and for years before and just abandons the Garden for some teenagers to run it.
"Luck" has nothing to do with how many of any spell you get when you Draw. It's all in your MAG stat. The higher your MAG, the more you can Draw at a time. I don't know the math, but the system checks your stat vs the target's to determine if you're going to stock 1-3 or 7-9. Just prioritize everyone's MAG when Junctioning and it saves you quite a bit of time, and it'll only give you low numbers when Drawing from bosses.
I still unironically enjoy this game, and that's not just nostalgia talking. I remember the first time I saw it by, similarly, my cousin playing it, and I remember nights staying over with friends where we powered through parts of the game. One of my friends misread the names and insisted on calling Rinoa "Rhino." So that made the scene at the start of disc 2 where the guards are asking where she is rather... unique. It was one of the main reasons why I asked for a PS1, only getting a video store's copy of 7 later. Years and years later, an import purchase of Squall's necklace was one of the first things I would ever buy off of Amazon. (and for, like, ten bucks or something too.) However, through either a forgotten mishap of my younger years or a factory fluke, my fourth disc had a scratch on it that forbade the game from loading the screen past the area where the superboss spawns, forcing me to rent another copy just to be able to finally beat the game. One of many reasons I gladly paid for the game a second time on my PS3. Still don't like that the fourth disc locks you out of the rest of the world map, though. It's one of the only games that I allow to take up multiple slots on my memory card for as a result. One for the endgame, and the other to just mess around in the overworld. Overall though, I feel this game really shaped my tastes in art and media. The ballad of the Lion and Angel acted as a sort of gateway to my enjoyment of the more laid-back slice-of-life stories. (aaaand generally being shipper trash) Not in lieu of other kinds of stories of course, but I don't think i'd have come to like other games and shows that would further cultivate myself and my identity were it not for this game. Persona, Harvest Moon, Fruits Basket, K-On... yeah, one of those ain't like the other, but again, that's not meant to write anything else off at all.
Clement has done what Spoony could not: a review of FF8 that is funny, fun to watch, acknowledges both the good and bad, and it's not a biased pile of toxic sludge.
Not to mention very misinformative. If you look at his FF8, 10, and 13 reviews, some of his editing with the game footage of games was suspicious and tried to make the games look worse than they actually were instead of just showing actual bad stuff. P.S. sorry for the late reply.
@@StarforceOnAir What kind of editing with his footage did he do? How did he make the games look worse than they were? I'd like a few specific examples, please.
I hope Clement is at least able to enjoy it more than he expects. I've actually been irregularly returning to it and yeesh does it need to be shorter. Palumporum gets old fast.
Im playing FF13 right now, im at 54 hours, 12th chapter, holy fuck is this game LONG. And it feels about hundred hours longer considering how repetitive it is. And i feel like that even though i LIKE it. I cant imagine what its like if you hate it.
Drawing magic not a matter of Luck. The effectiveness of Draw depends on the user's Magic stat and the spell itself (the more powerful that spell is, the harder it is to Draw; Draw can even fail if your Magic stat isn't high enough).
@Gameslayer 9000 FFVIII was my first FF and unlike some others (*coughFFVcough*) I actually finished it pretty throughly. So yeah I had no personal problems with the drawing system either.
Yeah, if you want to optimise drawing early, your best approach is to draw once successfully in your first fight, junction that spell to your magic stat, and then as you draw that spell in the next fight, your draw rate will increase. On the other hand, there is some random variation in how many spells you'll draw with the same person drawing the same spell from the same enemy without changing your Magic stat, so there is a small amount of luck, though possibly no Luck, involved.
Probably as long as the hallway. Make no mistake about it. I do enjoy playing FFXIII. I enjoy playing FFVIII and FFX, despite my issues with the games. But that doesn't mean I won't acknowledge their flaws.
Malik Reeves if someone can spend over 4 hours unraveling the star wars prequels, then unraveling the ff13 trilogy doesn't seem out of the realm of possibilities.
I haven't l played this personally, but I've watched 2 full play throughs by different people, 1 blind, and 1 fully routed. And I got to say that the "balance" of the game probably took into account the assumption that you would take most of the game to figure out how the mechanics work and not abuse them until the end.
So far out of all the FF games I’ve played (7,8,9&10), this is definitely my least favorite. I see what Clement meant in how the game is weirdly compelling. The game was interesting to me upon beginning it, but then the repetitiveness just got to me and I was soon bored. I didn’t end up caring for the characters, I just constantly wanted to get a move on in an already slow paced game, and I gave up before I even finished disc 2. I wanted to like this game, but I just couldn’t. It’s a shame, but I’m glad I at least gave it a shot.
Yeah. I agree. I know FF2 & FF13 are far worst than FF8. But I never played them nor I never will. But FF8 is my least favorite I've played so far and it is the weakest of the PS1 Final Fantasy games. Doesn't make the game awful and there are few things I liked about the game; like the updated cutscenes & presentation and the OST kicks butt. But there are many design choices that felt really rushed and unpolished.
The Ragnarok is the fuckin' best (air)ship we've got in a Final Fantasy ever! FF7 is my favorite FF of all times by far, but this thing is much cooler than even the highwind in her final form!
Out of all of the FF games Square should reamke I think 8 should be the one. As you stated in this video, it it pretty clear that it is heavily flawed and I think that a remake would be beneficial and could really iron out all the wrinkles.
I agree. I want to give 8 another chance if they ever remake it as FF7 is at right now. And if the gameplay was alot better, we could have an better version of 8.
I agree. If the made the combat & weaponary system alot better, added more worlds & content and really reworking on the story without feeling rushed or having plot holes out of nowhere, than I would like it more.
Your final thoughts about Final Fantasy 8 are the exact same as my thoughts of the game. FF8 was my first and my favorite I enjoyed every minute of your video and thank you for putting up these type of videos.
I think Ultimecia, being a descendant of Rinoa and Squall or maybe even just somebody who inherits the ring makes more sense given the reason she need to time compress in the first place is because she doesn't exist in the present to kill. Plus it'd be kind of weird if she could possess herself from the past even more weird given she almost killed Rinoa while he was possessing Adel. It begs the question wouldn't getting a game over there actually result in the world being saved. Given the fact that that doesn't happen I choose to believe they didn't intend on implying she's Rinoa.
Yeah, but as Linkara would say, the fan theories about all that stuff are just that - FAN THEORIES. Not what the game tells you, which is NOTHING! As far as the game is concerned, she just comes out of nowhere with no explanation.
She doesn't come out of nowhere. She's been a constant presence since Edea was introduced early in the story. But even out of that context she's said to come from the future which means she's in someway connected to the past. He origins are a bunch of loose threads but those threads are all information that seem to be leading somewhere but never yeild any definitive answer. That's more than nothing. In fact most of these theories are just the next logical step based on the info given. Either way Ultimecia doesn't really need to be explained to be impactful. An antagonist can be anything from a person to a force of nature. Final Fantasy 8 is a story that focuses so heavily struggles and development of it's main character, so as long as the antagonist creates interesting conflicts for the protagonist then that's all that really matters.
Yet you only hear about her in the last act of the game after the plethora of convoluted plot points, many of which go nowhere (like NORG) and often feel like the writers honestly didn't know what to do with the characters.
As I said, if you ignore the story and the stupidity of the characters (seriously, their plan was literally to let Ultimecia compress time and have everyone just think really positively that everything would turn out ok), the game is almost presentable.
From what I've read, Ultimecia doesn't "have" the Griever GF when the fight happens. Rather, she draws it from Squall the same way you draw Magic/GF's from enemies. it's basically just a GF manifesting in the image of Griever since it's a very iconic creature/image to Squall
I'm playing this right now and uhhh sooo when does the gameplay become annoying? Cuz I love drawing magic. It's satisfying in a way simple grinding for exp never have been. Another thing nobody mentioned is what a goofy, lighthearted and tongue in cheek tone this game has. Squall complaining that Laguna talks to himself too much is SO funny. Galbedian soldiers constantly pull some wacky hijinks and basically every character is a real goofy goober.
I'm happy gunblades exist because when discussing them on youtube someone sent me a wikipedia article about them and I noticed something called RWBY. The rest is history. GFs are necessary? TFW no GF...
See drawing magic is a pain in the ass in FF8. But the thing is, if you're drawing magic in order to get spells...you're doing it wrong. Triple Triad really just does everything for you. Yes, it can get boring. However it's much faster to get the magic you need relatively early. Oddly enough, the best part about FF8 is that you don't really need to play FF8. Seriously, the game becomes harder the higher your level goes up since monsters scale to your levels. If you get the high level magic spells, junction them to your characters, and they are lower leveled, you'll steamroll through the game no problem. FF8 is up there with FF6 and Tactics as one of the easiest and most fun FF games to break.
k1dkur0 wtf tactics was hard as bballs for me, also your right about triple triad and many people who play the game dont seem to realize you can do that, why dont more people read the manual
Solid party for Tactics: Max out Ramza's brave and faith, make him a samurai or give him the Iaido skill to draw spells from swords for powerful AOE buffs or attacks. (I recommend doing the latter and making his main job a knight or dragoon for the armor/health benefits). Max out the brave on a monk and teach them dual wield. Hit like a truck twice, most story battles (besides bosses) become a non-issue as they won't survive an attack from this unit. Get a black mage and teach it quickness from Time Mage there's also an item that has auto-haste (or Ramza can cast it with one of the katanas). Enjoy spamming extremely powerful black magic. And then the last unit is just...Cid the Thunder God. This is basically all you will really need in the game. If you wanna do something fancy you can get a Samurai and lower its faith that way magic will hardly hit or do much damage to it. Teach your samurai blade grasp so now physical attacks will normally miss or do less damage, and now you a nearly impervious samurai. With this I'd recommend giving them some of the chemist abilities since the only real way to heal it is with items now.
@@TheD1995B What you say about Tactics is all true, except for one little thing -- the chance your overpowered party runs into the random Chocobo Justice League! Seriously, not sure if you lucked out and never ran into this battle, but I'm pretty sure it was tossed in there just to punish people who grind and overpower their party the way you suggest, since the random encounters are scaled to your party level. I was wandering the countryside, slaughtering everything and making the story battles an absolute joke, then it happened. My party stacked with monk/ninjas and calculators kept getting spanked by this encounter and I couldn't choose a different path. And I hadn't bothered keeping any earlier saves. I tried, I tried so hard. Must have tried beating them over 50 times! This was on the original PS version of the game too, so no fast forward option. That's MANY hours of agonizing losses. No chance. I was forced to reload a save from way back near the start of the game. Basically I had to start over. It was a traumatizing experience, I'll have you know.
I woke up, saw this on my recommended, and watched it while eating breakfast. I agree with every point in this video. FF8 is indeed a weird game that the community either loves, or hates. Me and my group of friends share the same mentality of "This game is fun to play and break". While the plotholes are indeed jarring and some plot details are completely missable, I can still confidently say that this is my favorite FF game, and recommend it with warning. Subbed ♡
ehm... you made a mistake there clement... you must BECOME a SeeD before 20... it doesn't mean you get kicked out at 20, just that you can't become one anymore if you're older than 20.
If you complete the card game side quest in Balamb, those people will be on the Ragnarok at the end of the game. They have the chance to use any card, depending on which member you challenge. You can also find the Card Queen in a very difficult spot to find on the Esthar continent. Also, FFVIII Bahamut has the best Bahamut animation to this day.
@James Brincefield the only thing which could top the ffx bahamut would be one sittingnon a throne (even though I lack then imagination on how they could pull it off without making the whole thing look ridiculous. But there is a reason i dont work as a character designer. If someone should've told me, that the best looking bahamut just stands there with arms crossed, I would've laughed.)
Really? KH has an extremely simple version of time travel, it can't even change the future, than again I still gave to play 3 so maybe they did something stupid after.
1:13:49 No, it's there. It's the only game to utilize the PocketStation outside Japan, where the PocketStation itself never left. 1:22:06 I believe the real reason you can't go back is because they ran out of disc space to hold all of those assets (towns, the NPCs, everything used during fights, basically A LOT of stuff) plus the huge ending.
Not my favorite Final Fantasy, but definitely the most nostalgic for me. FF8 was my first Final Fantasy and I did everything I could possibly do in that game, card games and all. Tempted to buy FF8 on Steam if only for that Chocobo World mini-game missing from the PSX version.
@@danielramsey6141 Not denying that. Also as side note I did have the same problem with FFX. Though FFXIII isn't for the blame here as everything until that game suck (it was dark era). Problem with FFXIII is that it actually was expected to be good, but it wasn't. It was definitive prove to some people that Square lost tough, not that it was victim of publisher ignorance. Though after that they actually did back to form.
All for the better. Spoony painted a bad picture for FF10 so when I played it I thought I was gonna hate the story and Tidus but I loved both. That is more my fault for not forming my own opinion, but both aspects are far from bad.
I hate 10 and then a couple of months later after playing the game, i found the Spoony review of the game. And he pretty much put my thoughts about the game into words. He may over exaggerate some things a bit too much, but he has a lot of valid points.
okagron A bit? He treated Tidus as if he was the one of the worst characters in gaming history. Besides, you watched the review after beating it while I watched his review first so I had a biased perspective before playing it. I personally felt as if he was way too harsh even if I agree with some of his points. I'm curious though what made you hate FF10?
PhantomStrider he is one of the worst characters in the franchise and is the primary reason why playing the Ratchet and Clank games makes me cringe now. But there are a lot of reasons to hate 10, the story is garbage of the highest order, the villains suck, everyone's a goddamn idiot besides Auron, the battle system is easily exploited, it's linear af (though not as bad as XIII where it was a literal straight fucking line), the final boss is a joke, the acting was old 80s and 90s anime level bad, and EVERYTHING associated with Blitzball. I'd rather play X-2, at least there I get to see Yuna's sexy ass in booty shorts and a tons of cleavage.
Yes it does. And I think a prequel would be sick too. "Final Fantasy VIII: The Sorceress Wars", giving us the events of Laguna, Kiros, and Ward's journey to find Ellone and take down Adel.
VIII is probably my favourite in the series alongside IV, simply due to multiple things. The soundtrack, the story and its characters, the setting and its graphics are the best things about these games. The gameplay of VIII is, to say the least, easy and repetitive. But I cannot help but love everything else about the game, especially Squall (who is my favourite protagonist of the whole franchise) and the piece of music playing at Balamb Garden.
The story is a hot mess of random ideas thrown together while the main characters misconstrue their own dialogue in a vain attempt to pretend it's all supposed to make sense.
Except their attempt to explain things in the game ends up contradicting other things they had already explained previously (such as the thing about GFs stealing peoples' memories; mentioned once then never again, and the ending contradicts that anyway).
Hehheh, I see...well they had nothing else going on for them and Laguna is naturally dumb, so of course he would come up with the idea to strive on through with the power of autism and friendship, it was a game made in the 90's, so them relying on optimism like that in a cheesy fashion feels natural, though not everyone is fond of this.
I could have forgiven the orphanage plot twist if it was explained that ALL the kids from Balamb Garden were from Edea's orphanage, and she used them as a means of creating her own child army. I mean, we know that a lot of adults died during the Sorceress War about 20 years prior, so it makes sense why there are so many kids without parents in FFVIII's world. So why not make the Garden an extension of the oprhanage? Why not show that Edea's morals might not have always been great (even before she was posessed by Ultimecia), because she was more interested in training kids to fight than actually looking after them. That would have made so much more sense to me.
Sue 99 But...that is what they did isn't it? Where did you think the guys with an orphanage full of kids got the kids to build their child mercenary army? If not the orphanage and kids they already had? That seemed like a big part of the orphanage reveal to me, I never considered that this wasn't exactly what happened. That's always been the impression I got from that storyline.
No, it doesn't fit since it is said that Selphie originally is from Trabia garden. Or do you mean that all the kids from all the gardens come from the same orphanage? Them it would still be a really big coincidence.
Push HP early on so you can keep your characters mathematically low hp and use limit breaks. Don't level, just get AP and spells and then run from the monsters. I would say exploring how you can exploit the game's mechanics is more fun than the game itself, but it even isn't. The story, the atmosphere, the sheer combination of things is so spaced out and fairytale like you'd think square enix were dropping acid when they developed the game.
Late I know, awesome vid, but a few errors: 1. Ellone is NOT Squall's sister, Raine took her in and hid after her parents were killed during the Esthar/Galbadia war, where Laguna served and got hurt and was found by Raine and was nursed back to health and met and came to love them both dearly. When Ellone was kidnapped by Esthar he went after her, and while he was gone Raine died birthing Squall and he was brought to the orphanage where Laguna had already left Ellone to keep her out of the clutches of Adele. The children grew up together, and Ellone was a bigger sister to all of them, but grew closest to Squall and her being sent with the white SeeD ship to stay hidden from Adel caused his abandonment issues to compound. All of this is stated in the narrative. 2. Ragnarok was one of the ships lost after being used to transport Adel into space, and it's not too far fetched it floted near the airstation. Sure, bit of deus ex going on, but it was in no way random it was there. Again, in the narrative. 3. You CAN visit shops and play TT after time compression via GF abilities and the CC. Sure, both involves side quests, but you're strongly encouraged by the game to finish both, many would want to collect all the GFs, and the CC is hinted at all over Balamb Garden. As such they both reward the player to go the extra mile. The CC also have all the rare cards, so you can refine them and win them back, hence encouraging you to use them as resources to increase your spells instead of only drawing magic. 3. The flasbacks are Ellone 'junctioning' Squall and co onto Laguna and company, and hence both our characters and GFs they have junctioned get exp/ap. Odine explaines how Ellone's powers work in Esthar, and it's impossible to miss. And she needs to know whoever she sends back, hence the orphanage. Sure, the kids all being at the there is again deus ex, but it's not too far fetched as there was a war going on, orphaning a lot of children. The most unbelievable factor to me is that they seemed to be the only kids there, and the contrivance to bring exactly Sephie and Irvine into it, the other 4 are explained in the narrative, they were all brought to Balamb by Cid after their adoptions didn't work out, not stated, but not hard to deduce since he and Edea were responsible for them. It is very sudden, sure, and not foreshadowed enough, but it isn't completely out of the realm of possibilities. Yes, this was my first FF, and I love it, can you tell? All in all, I love the vid, but I just thought I'd clarify a few things :) Ok, into IX, can't wait!
No argument there. It remains THE most memorable opening of the whole franchise to this day, if not one of the most memorable openings in all of gaming, and rightfully so!
Great video, but I don't remember ever grinding out draws from enemies - the draw points around the game let you get squall and chums to 9999 damage, and the difficulty seems about right without grinding because of the way enemies scale tightly to your level. I think if players are trying to mindlessly grind to level 99 (something they were maybe trying to dissuade), then maxing out junctions stats becomes more important as a result.
@@TARDISES Still you want to have an Effect Draw Character, because you need those sexy GFs! Those summon monsters need to be drawn from the bosses of these games, you need those bastards for a majority of shit in this game!
I didn't realize until probably my 8th run through this game that the number of magic you draw is tied to your magic stat. So many wasted hours of my life.
I hate to burst your bubble, but Balamb is apparently pronounced Ba-lamb.. like the animal.. Thanks, Gilgamesh, I preferred calling it the first way myself..
There’s a lot of mispronunciation in this video and by most people about FF8. Adel is pronounced like Adele the singer. Quistis is pronounced Keestis. Rinoa is pronounced like Quinoa but with an R. Ellone is pronounced El-uh-nay. At least he got Edea, Seifer, Ultimecia, and Irvine right, which are other ones I see everyone get wrong. He also got Quistis’s last name right at the beginning and Laguna’s last name right toward the end. So he got more right than most people, lol
As much as I want to rip on Clement for liking Squall, his reasons for it have merit. I don't like him much myself but don't care for the loner character type. But I can't say Squall is a complete trainwreck of a character. Much as I would like to.
I'm not saying you're wrong for not liking a character archetype by any means, but I do personally believe that the context of how the archetype is portrayed should be considered. Sure, Squall is a "lone wolf" kind of character, but losing a loved one at a young age like Squall did (as did I) can be debilitating. I immediately related to Squall when I first played FF VIII and I wasn't even 10 years old at the time. Hell, I'm over 30 now and I still have trust issues and social problems. Even as a guy who adores this game, it's my favorite in the series and my 3rd FGOAT, I acknowledge the actual plot has its fair share of problems. But to see Squall end the game in such a good place was heartwarming and I hope one day I can get to that point too. By all means, keep liking what you like. But I think completely dismissing Squall as a character just because he's a "loner character type" is kind of disingenuous.
From an artistic standpoint, this is hands-down, my favorite game in the seies. I think this game looks amazing (PS1 limitations aside). It's the first game in the series that truly took me and my imagination to another world that didn't remind me of anything I'd ever seen before in any medium, let alone in the real world, before or since, and it really added those elements of high fantasy that I'd always wanted to experience in a Final Fantasy game. The soundtrack is nothing short of glorious. Seriously, Liberi Fatali, the opening track of the game (once you begin a new game, that is) is so amazing that it was featured in the 2004 Summer Olympics. I love the character designs, the creature designs, the architecture and town designs, the vehicle designs; everything has such an organic look to it, and yet it's all so futuristic and technological as well.
I do have to admit that compared to a lot of the designs later down the line, many of the character designs are surprisingly restrained and relatively grounded. The big exception is Ultimecia, but that's one questionable design among a lot of pretty strong ones.
FF VIII is my 3rd. F.G.O.A.T. and my favorite FF. It is, for me, the most fun to play by a WIDE margin. It does have problems, but this is one of my most replayed games ever purely because of how fun it is to play.
oh FF8. I can't stand anything about this game, the story, characters, combat, the only things I can tolerate are the music and the graphics but everything else is just bad. I guess if you can somehow relate to squall then you might enjoy it more but I think without that connection, there's so little to latch onto.
And your not wrong, so far I'm replaying this game out of a past obligation, and Jesus Christ, this game feels like it was written by a 12 year old who thought including Moombas was a good idea!
I absolutely loved FF8. I beat the game with a whole bunch of my friends watching. All of us were high on mushrooms. The ending scenes where pockets of time were compressed and warped had us mesmerized lol. Ultimacia's final theme had us pumped as well. Plus, Quistis is the bestest of the Final Fantasy girls. 😍
Every single time that I play this game I get new things, new hints and new theories. Is such a weird, complete and bizarre game with all the time travel and magic stuff. Is one of my all time favs.
8 was my first Final Fantasy. It’s the game that actually got me into RPG’s. 8 always holds a special place for me, and is my 4th favorite in the series with 9 being my favorite. I haven’t gotten bored yet in a many pkaythroughs I’ve done of the game.
Is IX still coming? I get that one Final Fantasy a month is suicide, but I haven't heard much about the state of affairs of the FF Retrospective as of late. Take as much time as you need, if it's still coming.
Clem, save some stress this time too. Don't set a date for yourself or us for when it's coming until you're doing final rendering and even then give it a week knowing your luck with rendering and uploading.
I have yet to play this game, but I’ve made it a point to play and beat FFVIII this year. Great video, Clement! You reassured my want to play FFVIII. I like weird games and this game is definitely strange.
When I first watched it, it though the graduation dance scene was just flashy filler. But a few decades later, I see the subtext - and how so much of this game's plot is told via hints and subtext. When Rinoah first forces Squall to dance, he's mentally present, if only by coercion. Once he gets frustrated, he totally checks out emotionally, and dances purely from the mechanics he was trained in, as he explains after the dance. Once he detaches, he becomes the best dancer in the floor. The subtext here is that he can only excel, or even perform, if he's not emotionally present. He basically has to live his life in 'PTSD mode' to carry out any task. That's actually pretty deep.
That seems grim. I thought she just got him to relax finally? Rather than shutting down he just finally lapsed into what I like to call Neurotypical Mode
Squall's inner monologues in the Dissidia games are what make me liek the character. because unliek in FF8 where it's mostly really pessimistic depressing stuff, it's jsut him being snarky and thinking how dumb everyone's acting
Final Fantasy VIII was one of my first Final Fantasy games along with VII. It's also the game I replayed the most, the soundtrack is amazing, Squall's my favourite character in the series and while I feel that his love for Rinoa came out of nowhere and that his friends were complete assholes whenever it came to his feelings towards her, I still liked the supporting cast most of the time. Easely one of my favourite games to just play through, while obviously not being the one I consider to be the best Final Fantasy, that spot still belongs to Final Fantasy IX.
Agree. FF8 has many good things, shamefully overshadowed by major flaws. Opinion depend on if you can go around its weirdness and design issues. Because when it is good then it is really good. Also do you know theory regard Ultimacia?
Good to see this back! I'll admit... I never played Final Fantasy VIII. Personally I should get into playing that. But I truthfully look forward to when you cover Final Fantasy IX. That is my all time favorite of the PS1 era. IX was a tribute to the old school Final Fantasy and yeah, I want to play that big time.
Imho it's the worst one since II. Slow ATB battles, long cutscenes with little to nothing happening in them, annoying system where skills are tied to equipment, and annoying main character. Then again it's not as bad as X-2or XIII...
biggest plottwist: Squall is Lagunas Son. Rinoas Julias daughter. Laguna and Julia couldnt get together but loved each other. Their love is fulfilled through Squall and Rinoa and to top that, they express their feelings to eyes on me, a song Julia wrote about Laguna. This was the perfect moment for this song.
So... there is one aspect of the ending you didn't cover. After you beat Ultimecia, Squall finds himself into a white void whereupon he stumbles into Edea. Ultimecia, apparently clinging to life by a thread, passes her sorceress powers to Edea before dying. Then Cid shows up and Squall, knowing what's going to happen, tells Cid to create Balamb Garden and SeeD to combat sorceresses. In other words, you created a time-loop, just like in Final Fantasy 1. Whoops. Also, it wouldn't be me if I didn't talk about weird trivia, this time courtesy of Did You Know Gaming. Apparently, Final Fantasy VIII was translated using a Game Shark. Turns out Square of Japan didn't send text files to Square of America when time had come to localize the game in the west. And Square of Japan were kind of smug pricks about it, too. According to DYKG, Square of America asked them why they didn't get the text files, and their response was something along the lines of, "Oh, you need text files to translate the game?" Like, yes! We can't translate the text for the game if we don't have the files that contain all the text for the game in them! And apparently this was standard practice at the time. Speaking of translation, Final Fantasy VIII would apparently mark the point where Square would create an entire team or studio dedicated entirely to translation andor localization of their games, possibly in response to Final Fantasy VII's less than stellar translation, especially in Spanish territories. That's part of the reason why we now have Fire, Fira, Firaga, because it's a little more accurate to the original Japanese terminology. Now, I recently played remakes of some older Final Fantasy games on the PSP and GBA, and I can say with all certainty, boy howdy has Square come a long way since the dumpster fire that was FF4's original SNES translation and especially FF5 on PS1.
In my opinion, FFXII is the pinnacle of localization for this series. So much effort and care want to that process, especially in the voice acting departament, that did a phenomenal job in giving a game this theatrical feel, differently from the japanese version, which stood by the generic anime atmosphere.
Shade Knight It's strange though since 8 is clearly a huge step up in translation compared to previous games still. Theres no weird errors or random lines/onomatopoeia that 7 had. And more attempts at slang and humor and ended up working out very well for English standards.
Translation is not limited to the game's script, as you and many seem to believe. It encompasses a lot of things. Enemy names, attack names, items, menus, side-content. And this is where 7 and even Woolsey faltered the most. The Chimera, a staple monster of the series, was mistranslated as "Harpy". That is not a just a simple typo - that is completely wrong name. If you follow Kotaku's series Found in Translation about FF7, you will find that some nuances are lost in the translation. That's acceptable, as it's impossible to get a 100% perfect translation from Japanese to English, plus working with limited memories when English is not as terse a language as Japanese, so some corners will have to be cut. But, optional content like Gongaga and especially Yuffie are mistranslated with alarming consistency. And remember, this is only the English translation. The Spanish translation is an absolute disaster, and from what I can gather, the German translation isn't much better. If you care only for the main story, then yes, the translation if FF7 is passable. But, if you look at the entire product, then it becomes clear why Square developed their own translation department after this game, because it is not passable.
Kept us waiting huh? Glad to see more of these. As of this game I'm mixed about it. Of course, I'm excited for the next one, FF9 one of my favorites aside from 4 and 6.
HOW THE HELL DID SEIFER KILL ODIN IN 1 HIT? i had to fight that guy before in PSO2 (yes he appeared as a limited time boss cameo, complete with zantetsuken and everything), and he was a pain to kill. if he is the weakest character on 8... boy... if Squall apeared it would be impossible to fight against.
The ONE thing about this game that I will absolutely love is this: The story and characters. I love Squall's development of opening up, and finding love with Rinoa. It was just really precious. If I were to ever replay this game, it would be for that reason alone.
I’d suggest that you don’t. The story is terrible and the romance isn’t believable. It’s like a trashy teenage romance movie that’s really boring. Play any of the Lengend Of Heroes saga games, in particular the Trails Of Cold Steel games instead. I consider them what 8 could’ve and should’ve been if the developers didn’t have their heads up their asses.
The hate for 8 is simply the result of either... 1. The huge number of FF7 fanboys wanting more of the same and being disappointed because it was only their 2nd game in the series and they essentially wanted an FF7-2 2. People who don't know the game very well or haven't played very much of it letting other people's criticisms sink into their psyches without forming their own opinions about the perceived problems. At the end of the day, It's a very enjoyable RPG about orphan teenagers being conscripted into an army from a young age and going through the same psychological struggles many of us suffered from at that age. The battle system is easy to get your head around and makes it easier, if anything, later on in the game, which isn't a bad thing if you can't be bothered with all the grinding. Card game is the best in the series, hands down. I never saw it as 'the back sheep of the series'. It's in my top 5, definitely. People who claim it's worse than FF1, 2, 3 or 13 have a screw loose.
Honestly, I feel like there's a basic misunderstanding of things such as how the timber maniac magazines changes the Laguna sections or that the Temple of the Unknown King is meant to be confusing yet you blame reuse of textures instead. Then how you don't have to spend 22 minutes drawing. You're optimizing your character. You don't HAVE to do that, nor do you have to spend so long since you can transfer magic between chars cutting that draw time in half by giving the weaker characters some of the drawn magic. Also, Ellone is adopted and thus not directly related to Squall except by adoption. Also also, so much of what you said is accurate haha. There's really no defending the Ragnarok parts. Third also, it's Ultimekia. Her speech spelled differently but during all the Ultimecia sections because she NEVER uses a soft c but rather a k in her speech. This means it would be a hard c or k sound.
When i was younger, read 6 years old i didnt understand the draw system, now i do and......well its not perfect and It may be slow and grindy....but it is innovative and it is a way to give the summons more relevancy than being tactical attack nukes and meat shields, because you forgot to mention in the video that the summons have to charge an action bar before they attack and their HP shields their summoner until they attack and they can die and become unusable until you revive them....it was a way to make them feel part of the party.
5:50 When Squall traveled to the past to inform Edea about Gardens, SeeDs, and Sorcerer wars, she saw there was a huge bulge in his tight leather pants. Thus "SeeD" with the rock-hard capital "D" was born. The naming was Edea's idea. She likes big D's apparently.
Spends absurd amounts of time grinding draws Thinks FF8 is too easy because he spent the entire first act becoming completely optimal, unlike how he played all the others to this point God I remember loving the earlier episodes of this series but this was straight wack
