A year after releasing what many consider the greatest game ever made, Squaresoft released their follow up title, Final Fantasy 8. Expectations were higher than ever, and this was a game that was, unfortunately, in the shadows of not just one of the greatest games ever made, but it was heir to one of the most celebrated and venerated RPG franchises in history. So, with expectations THIS high, anything less than pure perfection was bound to disappoint. And did it? Well, yes, it did let a lot of people down at the time of its release, mostly because gamers expected "Final Fantasy 7-2". But, is the game good by its own merit? Well, let's take a good look at it.
Is it an epic? No, but it's epic.
The game begins on the morning of the SeeD exams, tests given to the students of Balamb Garden which is sort of like a graduation exam, only in battlefields. Squall Leonhart, a young man aged 17, is poised to take the test, but he has sustained some injuries from a duel with his friend/rival, Seifer Almasy. After recovering a bit, Squall is assigned into a small three man squad for the test, alongside Seifer and a classmate named Zell Dincht, and headed by his homeroom teacher, Quistis Trepes, aged 18. Their task is simple: the town of Dollet is being invaded by Galbadia, a militaristic nation north of Dollet, so they need to go there and help with the defense.
During their mission, Seifer grows bored. He sees a bunch of Galbadian soldiers heading to the mountain, so he opts to follow them, dragging Zell and Squall along. Up the mountain is a satellite dish, the last one on the planet. They discover the Galbadians restoring the dish, for some purpose. After ambushing some soldiers, they meet up with a girl named Selphie Tilmit, who tells them that they have been ordered to return to shore and leave Dollet. Getting down from the mountain, and being chased by a giant mechanical spider unleashed by the Galbadians, the four young cadets manage to get back to the boats just in time to leave for their graduation. Except Seifer, who got disqualified for disobeying orders and endangering his peers.
That night, Squall meets a girl, and she invites him to dance. Since Squall is very antisocial, he refuses at first, but she persists. Eventually, not only is Squall dancing, but he's doing it like a professional!
The next day, Squall, Zell and Selphie are given their first mission as SeeDs (which are basically mercenaries with a dumb name). The mission: go to the town of Timber and help the Forest Owls remove the Galbadian occupying forces.
I have made clear what I think about "rebels vs empire" in a previous blog. I will not repeat myself.
But what a surprise, because it turns out that the person who made this contract with SeeD happens to be the girl Squall danced with last night: Rinoa Heartily! She and her group, the Forest Owls, have a plan: take the visiting president of Galbadia, Vinzer Deling, hostage and negotiate the departure of Galbadia! But, as they are about to capture the president, it turns out that he's a zombie decoy, and the real president is at the television station in Timber!
The four rush towards the station, still following the plan, when they catch the president's message to the world: introducing his new international diplomat, the Sorceress Edea. Unfortunately, Seifer goes all Rambo on the president, putting a sword to his neck, taking him hostage. However, Edea enchants Seifer, teleporting him and herself away...
Quistis catches up to the troupe, telling them that they have new instructions: assassinate the Sorceress. The five head to Galbadia Garden to get the sharpshooter that will be joining them. On the way, however, they suffer a hallucination. They share a dream, of a man named Laguna...
After waking up, they head to Galbadia Garden to get their sniper, a man named Irvine Kineas. (And when I say 'man', I mean some guy no older than 18) Squall and company head over to Deling City, where their assassination plan will take place. It is the night of the mission, and Sorceress Edea is having a parade in her honor. The plan is simple: Irvine will shoot her from a distance while the Sorceress herself is locked between two gates. However, there is a snag: Rinoa, who had her own plan to deal with the Sorceress, has been enchanted by her! Likewise, Seifer is acting as her bodyguard! The plan fails, and the five (minus Irvine) are arrested and thrown in prison...
However, Rinoa's father pays Irvine to bust her (and only her) out of prison! But by Rinoa's behest, Irvine assists the others in escaping as well. It is here that the company learns of a dark plot: Edea is planning on using Galbadia's missile technology to destroy Balamb Garden! The group splits up: Squall leads one group that will help evacuate Balamb Garden, Selphie the other group that will destroy the missile base.
Squall eventually discovers that Balamb Garden can turn itself into a giant ship that float on air! He activates the mechanism that does so, accidentally sending the Garden without a pilot into the ocean, where it drifts for a few days before landing on Fisherman's Horizon, a city in the middle of the ocean. The city is then attacked by Galbadia, apparently looking for a girl named Ellone. After Squall and his group drive them off, they find Selphie and her group, who have succesfuly destroyed the missile base.
A little while later, after some wild meandering, Irvine reveals a truth: Everyone (but Rinoa) grew up in the same orphanage, with Edea as their caretaker!
Yeah. This plot twist has some well deserved criticism, but more on that on a later blog entry.
Anyway, Cid Kramer, head of Balamb Garden, puts Squall in charge of everyone, because a 17 year old kid is most certainly the best choice to lead an army of adolescent soldiers and children being trained for war. Good grief.
So some stuff happens, and now Balamb Garden is at war with Galbadia. In one of the coolest moments in the entire game, the forces of Galbadia attack the flying Balamb Garden, while the students defend their school. Squall decides to end things once and for all, by attacking Edea head on! He, Rinoa, and some other person (player's choice) attack Edea, defeating her. But, it turns out that Edea was possessed by a Sorceress from the future named Ultimecia, who plans on bending all of space and time into a singularity!
Yes.
Also, Rinoa fell unconscious. So Squall, because he's a reasonable man, carries Rinoa on his back across the ocean (there were train tracks that span the entire ocean. It makes sense in context) to the technological nation of Esthar, where he hopes to heal her. Turns out, Rinoa gained Edea's powers after the Sorceress got defeated, and that is why she is unconscious. But Ultimecia uses Rinoa to open the tomb of another Sorceress, Adell. Ultimecia manages to revive and enslave Adell (who was evil to begin with) and take Rinoa hostage. Seifer's helping too.
After a while, Squall saves Rinoa and leads the party in an attack against Adell, Seifer, and Ultimecia. The group allow Ultimecia to begin her time compression, which they use to travel to the future and defeat Ultimecia once and for all.
Phew! What a story! There's a problem with Final Fantasy 8's story: there's two of them going on at the same time. The one I told, which is easier, is the story of a group of friends and allies who save the world from a malevolent witch from the future. This story is a bit wild, a bit confusing, and slightly nonsensical. But there's a reason for that: this story isn't the main story at all. No, the main story is about Squall growing up.
Squall, at the start of the game, is anti social, cold, somewhat stoic (but not as much as he'd like to be), and a bit uncaring about others. There's a reason for that: it's a psychological shield he put up himself to keep himself from feeling the pain of losing someone he loved. When Squall was 8, his older sister, Ellone, was taken from him. All his life, Squall lived in an orphanage, and suddenly, the person closest to his heart was taken away. Squall, in tears, swore to himself he'd never allow himself to get close to anyone ever again.
Spending his entire life running away from his feelings, Squall developed an icy persona, eventually enrolling in Balamb Garden, a school for turning kids into soldiers. Squall showed the school his skills, developing and sharpening his abilities as a cold, unfeeling soldier. It is this upbringing that stunted Squall's emotional maturing.
Squall's life is turned upside down the night he meets Rinoa, a girl who brings out the best in him. When he first meets her, she brings him out to the dance floor, taking him out of his shell. The next time they meet, Squall considers her annoying, useless, and inexperienced in the art of war. It takes a long time for Squall to warm up to Rinoa, but eventually, he does.
Squall also learns to trust in his comrades, and to call them his friends. When he finds Selphie and her group having returned from their mission in the missile base, Squall is relieved. This was the same guy who coldly told his teacher Quistis, when she bared her soul to him about her worries and woes, to "talk to a wall".
Squall's finest moment of growth is when he's floating in space, carrying Rinoa with him (she had been taken to outer space by Ultimecia to open Adell's Tomb, which was also in space). As he saves her, he just lets it all out. He tells her about himself, his worries, his hopes and dreams, and most importantly, how much she means to him. It's that moment when he finally lets go of the emotional walls he put around himself since he was a child.
Let me put it to you in images. This is Squall at the beginning of the game:
During their mission, Seifer grows bored. He sees a bunch of Galbadian soldiers heading to the mountain, so he opts to follow them, dragging Zell and Squall along. Up the mountain is a satellite dish, the last one on the planet. They discover the Galbadians restoring the dish, for some purpose. After ambushing some soldiers, they meet up with a girl named Selphie Tilmit, who tells them that they have been ordered to return to shore and leave Dollet. Getting down from the mountain, and being chased by a giant mechanical spider unleashed by the Galbadians, the four young cadets manage to get back to the boats just in time to leave for their graduation. Except Seifer, who got disqualified for disobeying orders and endangering his peers.
That night, Squall meets a girl, and she invites him to dance. Since Squall is very antisocial, he refuses at first, but she persists. Eventually, not only is Squall dancing, but he's doing it like a professional!
The next day, Squall, Zell and Selphie are given their first mission as SeeDs (which are basically mercenaries with a dumb name). The mission: go to the town of Timber and help the Forest Owls remove the Galbadian occupying forces.
I have made clear what I think about "rebels vs empire" in a previous blog. I will not repeat myself.
But what a surprise, because it turns out that the person who made this contract with SeeD happens to be the girl Squall danced with last night: Rinoa Heartily! She and her group, the Forest Owls, have a plan: take the visiting president of Galbadia, Vinzer Deling, hostage and negotiate the departure of Galbadia! But, as they are about to capture the president, it turns out that he's a zombie decoy, and the real president is at the television station in Timber!
The four rush towards the station, still following the plan, when they catch the president's message to the world: introducing his new international diplomat, the Sorceress Edea. Unfortunately, Seifer goes all Rambo on the president, putting a sword to his neck, taking him hostage. However, Edea enchants Seifer, teleporting him and herself away...
Quistis catches up to the troupe, telling them that they have new instructions: assassinate the Sorceress. The five head to Galbadia Garden to get the sharpshooter that will be joining them. On the way, however, they suffer a hallucination. They share a dream, of a man named Laguna...
After waking up, they head to Galbadia Garden to get their sniper, a man named Irvine Kineas. (And when I say 'man', I mean some guy no older than 18) Squall and company head over to Deling City, where their assassination plan will take place. It is the night of the mission, and Sorceress Edea is having a parade in her honor. The plan is simple: Irvine will shoot her from a distance while the Sorceress herself is locked between two gates. However, there is a snag: Rinoa, who had her own plan to deal with the Sorceress, has been enchanted by her! Likewise, Seifer is acting as her bodyguard! The plan fails, and the five (minus Irvine) are arrested and thrown in prison...
However, Rinoa's father pays Irvine to bust her (and only her) out of prison! But by Rinoa's behest, Irvine assists the others in escaping as well. It is here that the company learns of a dark plot: Edea is planning on using Galbadia's missile technology to destroy Balamb Garden! The group splits up: Squall leads one group that will help evacuate Balamb Garden, Selphie the other group that will destroy the missile base.
Squall eventually discovers that Balamb Garden can turn itself into a giant ship that float on air! He activates the mechanism that does so, accidentally sending the Garden without a pilot into the ocean, where it drifts for a few days before landing on Fisherman's Horizon, a city in the middle of the ocean. The city is then attacked by Galbadia, apparently looking for a girl named Ellone. After Squall and his group drive them off, they find Selphie and her group, who have succesfuly destroyed the missile base.
A little while later, after some wild meandering, Irvine reveals a truth: Everyone (but Rinoa) grew up in the same orphanage, with Edea as their caretaker!
Yeah. This plot twist has some well deserved criticism, but more on that on a later blog entry.
Anyway, Cid Kramer, head of Balamb Garden, puts Squall in charge of everyone, because a 17 year old kid is most certainly the best choice to lead an army of adolescent soldiers and children being trained for war. Good grief.
So some stuff happens, and now Balamb Garden is at war with Galbadia. In one of the coolest moments in the entire game, the forces of Galbadia attack the flying Balamb Garden, while the students defend their school. Squall decides to end things once and for all, by attacking Edea head on! He, Rinoa, and some other person (player's choice) attack Edea, defeating her. But, it turns out that Edea was possessed by a Sorceress from the future named Ultimecia, who plans on bending all of space and time into a singularity!
Yes.
Also, Rinoa fell unconscious. So Squall, because he's a reasonable man, carries Rinoa on his back across the ocean (there were train tracks that span the entire ocean. It makes sense in context) to the technological nation of Esthar, where he hopes to heal her. Turns out, Rinoa gained Edea's powers after the Sorceress got defeated, and that is why she is unconscious. But Ultimecia uses Rinoa to open the tomb of another Sorceress, Adell. Ultimecia manages to revive and enslave Adell (who was evil to begin with) and take Rinoa hostage. Seifer's helping too.
After a while, Squall saves Rinoa and leads the party in an attack against Adell, Seifer, and Ultimecia. The group allow Ultimecia to begin her time compression, which they use to travel to the future and defeat Ultimecia once and for all.
Phew! What a story! There's a problem with Final Fantasy 8's story: there's two of them going on at the same time. The one I told, which is easier, is the story of a group of friends and allies who save the world from a malevolent witch from the future. This story is a bit wild, a bit confusing, and slightly nonsensical. But there's a reason for that: this story isn't the main story at all. No, the main story is about Squall growing up.
Squall, at the start of the game, is anti social, cold, somewhat stoic (but not as much as he'd like to be), and a bit uncaring about others. There's a reason for that: it's a psychological shield he put up himself to keep himself from feeling the pain of losing someone he loved. When Squall was 8, his older sister, Ellone, was taken from him. All his life, Squall lived in an orphanage, and suddenly, the person closest to his heart was taken away. Squall, in tears, swore to himself he'd never allow himself to get close to anyone ever again.
Spending his entire life running away from his feelings, Squall developed an icy persona, eventually enrolling in Balamb Garden, a school for turning kids into soldiers. Squall showed the school his skills, developing and sharpening his abilities as a cold, unfeeling soldier. It is this upbringing that stunted Squall's emotional maturing.
Squall's life is turned upside down the night he meets Rinoa, a girl who brings out the best in him. When he first meets her, she brings him out to the dance floor, taking him out of his shell. The next time they meet, Squall considers her annoying, useless, and inexperienced in the art of war. It takes a long time for Squall to warm up to Rinoa, but eventually, he does.
Squall also learns to trust in his comrades, and to call them his friends. When he finds Selphie and her group having returned from their mission in the missile base, Squall is relieved. This was the same guy who coldly told his teacher Quistis, when she bared her soul to him about her worries and woes, to "talk to a wall".
Squall's finest moment of growth is when he's floating in space, carrying Rinoa with him (she had been taken to outer space by Ultimecia to open Adell's Tomb, which was also in space). As he saves her, he just lets it all out. He tells her about himself, his worries, his hopes and dreams, and most importantly, how much she means to him. It's that moment when he finally lets go of the emotional walls he put around himself since he was a child.
Let me put it to you in images. This is Squall at the beginning of the game:
And this is Squall at the very end, the one time the whole game where he smiles:
Final Fantasy 8 is different from its predecessors in that it's not an epic, it's a coming of age story about a young man learning to accept and embrace not only himself, but the people around him. The game, however, came out at a time where people weren't ready for something like this. At the time, the RPG was usually seen as an epic story about good guys and bad guys, about politics, mysticism, the works. And yet, here was a game that offered something different: a story where the entire "world saving" business takes a back seat to the story of a character. It's an inversion of what you normally, until that moment, saw in an RPG: while the usual fare was that the story carried the character, this time the character was carrying the story.
Although I detest comparing a work directly to its predecessor, this is a time where such a thing is inevitable. Final Fantasy 7 was an epic, a grandiose tale of heroism. Likewise, Final Fantasy 8 is also an epic, but told differently. Does that make FF8 inferior to FF7? Well, it depends on what you expect, and it must be admitted that FF7 caused expectations to be through the roof for FF8. And yet, I feel like the game deserves a chance to be defended.
This is where I get a little personal. FF8 was my third Final Fantasy, right after Final Fantasy 7 and Final Fantasy Tactics. I expected an epic, I expected a story that would blow me away. I saw the graphics and immediately knew I would love the game.
I was wrong.
I ended up hating the game. I hated Rinoa, I hated Selphie, and I ended up prefering the Squall of the first and second disc over the one that actually grew as a character. I was thirteen at the time, and thought of FF8 as a disappointment. But when I was 20, playing the game again, I finally appreciated what it was Square was trying to do.
Final Fantasy 8 is a story that demands cognitive knowledge for the player to understand it. It is a story that isn't for the gamer that wants clear cut good guys or bad guys, or that wants the villains to have clearly stated motivations. It's a story for the thinkers, and not the pretentious thinkers that believe themselves erudite because they figured out that "Jenova=Jehova" or "Aerith=Earth", or that managed to figure out that Kefka's final boss form is an allusion to Dante's Divine Comedy. This is a story for those that can read between the lines, because EVERYTHING in this story is, indeed, written between the lines.
It's a story told in subtleties. For example, there's Quistis' arc, that of a woman who was put in charge of students when she herself was only just becoming an adult. Quistis was 18 when she was made a teacher. At age eighteen, she is a year older than her students. She may have the knowledge to pass to her students, but she doesn't yet have the skills needed to actually deal with students like Seifer, who actually need a strong disciplinarian to reign them in. It is her failure to do so that costs her the job. This arc is all part of a much bigger theme, that of how we can't just throw young people into a situation just because they have the skills you think they'll need to survive.
That's actually what the game is really about: of how affected the youth is by careless adults. Squall himself is a young man who needed someone in his life to help him mature, help him understand what it meant to be an adult. In other words, he needed parents. But his mother died giving him birth, and his dad, well, it's Laguna, and he doesn't even know about Squall yet. Anyway, Squall grew up in an orphanage, and because his older sister was taken away, he developed a psychological shield around his heart. When Squall needed a guiding hand the most, there was no one, and so Squall became who he is.
It is telling that the two characters who are most 'normal' are Zell and Rinoa, the only two characters to have been raised by loving families. However, only Zell still has a positive relationship with his family: Rinoa's mother died when she was five, and she and her father drifted apart, to the point where she doesn't even talk to him anymore.
Kids need families. They need adults that can show them right from wrong, good from bad. But most importantly, kids need to be loved. No, people need to be loved.
That's what the game is truly about. People need to be loved, and at the same time, we need to love. We need to trust, we need to smile, we need to let our emotions out. We can't close ourselves off to the world, to other people, because we think it's easier that way. It's not easier, not for us, not for anyone.
If ever I believed FF8 to be the weakest entry in the series, I am glad to say, I changed my mind. I now believe Final Fantasy 8 to have one of the best, if not THE best story in the franchise, with only Final Fantasy Tactics to give it any competition for said position. It is a game that needs to be played, not just by every gamer, but by everyone. It is truly a masterpiece, and truly it's one of Square's finest games.
Squaresoft was at the top of their game when this title came out. Their very name became synonymous with top quality RPG, and seemingly they could do no wrong. Between 1994 and 2001, Squaresoft was truly the king of the RPG. With the 20th century coming to a close, the Final Fantasy franchise was one of the best selling franchises in the world. Tune in next time when we take a look at the game that signed off the Golden Age of Final Fantasy, as well as my personal favorite entry, Final Fantasy 9.
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