Final Fantasy Chat

[tr0nic]

It really is one of the most impressive runs for a flagship series in video game history. I gotta say though, in those four games, VIII is a total black sheep. I'll argue with anyone any day that it is easily not the best one. On the one hand, it has some of the coolest min maxing you can do in an FF game, on the other the capacity to softlock your save is kind of insane. And then there's a good chance the player gets totally addicted to just playing Triple Triad and forgets the story altogether, which happened to me during my first playthrough and then I ended up softlocking my damn save.

I probably should have prefaced that by saying very few people would actually say VIII was the best! It is a bit sloppy in places but I still think it's really good and has some great qualities. Reminds me a bit of MGS2 in that when I went to play it I had either read a lot of people saying they didn't like it or had friends that said it. Has a very ethereal feeling to it that I haven't gotten from many (maybe any) other FF game so far, maybe excepting FFIV but it still feels quite different.

The world of VIII is really unlike any other FF game, for sure. Both very grounded, yet totally out there and fantastical. IX is partially my personal favorite because it feels like a peak for the old school NES/SNES Final Fantasy aesthetics; VII and VIII really stand on their own in terms of unique visual design. And I harp on it because I bricked my own save KNOWING FULL WELL what I was supposed to do to prevent this before going into the endgame stages. And even though I did not junction my shit correctly, I still gotta say that the junctioning system is addicting in its own right, it's like VII's materia system on crack. A Japanese video game being utterly unforgiving for minor mistakes though? Unheard of.

VIII is fucking class, and I will defend it to the hilt every single day.

Despite all my frustrations w VIII (self-inflicted, not paying enough attention to the GameFAQ), it's actually the game that made FF click for me. I realized VII is kind of on a weird pedestal for FF fans when I think of how much more compelling so much of VIII is in comparison. Squall Leonhart has the cool factor that Cloud was trying to have; hot take, I know.

Sigh, I guess I’ll have to try VIII next.

DO IT.