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It starts off as wet as a puddle, with too much slop and sentiment, but you just know it’s going to improve. Flashbacks mix with dream sequences and character betrayals to provide more plot twists than the entire archive of Tales Of The Unexpected.

You genuinely care about the characters you’re playing and although Squall, the central hero, is a bit of an arse, you still get attached to him. And, if you don’t get out much – and you won’t once you start playing this game – then Rinoa and Selphie should provide fuel for your fantasies. Although admitting attraction to animated characters is not something we approve of. We’re not giving away the plot. If you want to know what happens, you’re going to have to be prepared to invest 50 hours of your valuable time repeatedly hitting the ‘x’ key on your keyboard.

Are we being a bit harsh on the gameplay? For the first ten hours of the game you can’t put a foot wrong. Battles are too easy and it’s impossible to wander away from the all-important storyline. Progress through the second CD and fights start to level out and you’re likely to see the ‘Game Over’ legend appear on your screen a few times. This uproots another problem: if you’ve played FFVII you will know that the summon spells take a long time to brew.

Fight someone powerful and you’re likely to spend half an hour watching the most OTT spells that the Japanese have ever invented. We’d have to repeat the line “it gets repetitive” about 1, times to get the point across properly.

Please: if you code a Final Fantasy IX, and we think you will, then let us escape from these time-wasters with a hot-key. If you want to sit through a minute batde that consists of 37 minutes of the same animation playing over and over again, then that’s your business, but we’ve got better things to do with our time.

Also gone are the humorous and surreal sub-games, such as the motorbike chase and the Chocobo race. Throughout the whole of the first two COs, the best we got was a quick round of ‘turn the wheel to open the hatch’.

To win you have to hit the ‘a’ key repeatedly for ten seconds. Talk about dumbing down. And these are two words that you’re going to be muttering under your breath if you’ve played any of the respected RPGs from the Black Isle stable – Planescape. Torment in particular. However, we’re well aware that there are a lot of people who like linear adventures and if this is you, then you cant do better than this.

And despite all the criticisms that we’ve levelled at the game, we were still strangely addicted from the moment the first risible strains of music started spewing from our speakers.

The quality of the graphics which are better than sex in places and the amazing storyline are the chief culprits, but Final Fantasy VIII goes beyond that.

The best analogy we can use is the elder relative that comes to stay at Christmas: you’re always willing to ignore the embarrassing bits because you love what’s underneath. With a cohesive, engrossing story line and graphics that raise the bar higher than ever before, Pinal Fantasy VIII will immerse gamers in the promised land of role-playing nirvana.

What’s new? Aside from hand-to-hand fighting capabilities, FFVIII introduces Guardian Force GF Cards, or spells, to give you an edge in your quest Also new for FFVIII are vehicles and trains that provide travel options other than your characters feet– but at a cost Furthermore, you’ll marvel at the daytime and nighttime settings that lend a long-absent note of realism to the Final Fantasy fantasy realm.

Just like FFVII, you’re allowed only three characters in your battle party, and each are armed with a unique weapon. FFVIII introduces a new combat system, however–you don’t have to mess with weapon, armor, or equipment menus. Instead, nearly every initial character-attribute is modified through the GF Card Junction system, which lets you tie magic stocks to your statistics.

The GF Cards must be equipped for your character to have any options during battle besides attack. These cards also give your characters various special abilities, which are built up using AP points as in Final Fantasy Tactics.

The only drawback is that the Cards are far too powerful early in the game, making it easy to win battles. During gameplay, the polygonal characters are almost completely integrated into the CG surroundings with only a slight drop in graphical detail.

Although the backgrounds are pre-rendered, they’re filled with excellent details and moving elements that make them more realistic-looking. Another cool touch the character weapons that visually change every time your attack level is upgraded. Plus, the music fits the action perfectly, from the rousing battle overtures to the beautiful melodies that underscore the dramatic dialogue.

Of course, we were right there to snag one of the first copies of the demo, and now we’re back with an updated preview of Square’s incredible new RPG sequel. First, some background on the story. Not much has been revealed yet, but here’s what we do know. There’s a strangely shaped building in the game that serves as a school for soldiers sort of like West Point–see issue , page The school is called Garden. Squall Leonhart, one of the game’s main characters and main character in the demo version is one of the trainees of the school.

It’s a private school for students between six and 19 years of age. If a student doesn’t pass the graduation exam at some point between the ages of 15 and 19, he or she will be expelled from Garden. Garden graduates are exceptional people, and possess the ability to use magic. An even harder goal than merely passing the graduation exam, however, is to become a member of SeeD, a special force that’s known around the world of FFVIII.

Highly capable trainees have a chance to try out for SeeD, and that’s exactly what Squall is hoping for. The demo itself titled “Escape from Dollet” contains only a very small portion of Final Fantasy Vlll’s gamepiay–no more than an hour or so at most. The demo involves Squall and two new characters, Zell Dincht and Rinoa Heartilly–all SeeD candidates–taking part in a mission from Garden with their squad leader, the mysterious Seifer Almasy.

Toward the end of the demo, they receive orders to withdraw from their mission and meet at the coast, which is when the timer kicks in just like in the FFVII demo , and they’re given 15 minutes to get the hell outta Dollet. Even though it’s rather short, the demo makes for a great teaser. The world graphics are beautiful, the animation is even better than it was in FFVII, and the game’s integration with FMV is remarkable–it’s nearly flawless.

The ending in particular is awesome. The in-game characters look much more realistic this time, though the texture mapping makes for some pixelization when viewed up close.

As we said in our last preview, you now see all party members at all times during the game instead of them just coming out during event scenes, as was the case in all previous FF games. Since the game supports Sony’s Dual Shock analog controller, you can adjust your characters’ walking speeds from a subtle tip-toe to a full-on dash, depending on how hard you press the analog stick. Vibration is supported too, both in and out of battle scenes you can turn it off if you wish, of course.

Even the music is excellent, though there’s not too much of it in the demo. Gameplay-wise, there are two new battle commands that have been revealed in the demo. Here’s how it works: In the demo, you have three party members the entire time who go into battle: Squall, Zell and Rinoa. Squall and Zell both have a “Draw” command in their Command Menu.

This allows them to “Draw” magic from their enemies and either “Use” it immediately, or “Stock” it for later use. In the demo, you can Draw as often as you wish, and there doesn’t seem to be any limit to how much magic you can carry or steal. This isn’t exactly a good thing, as you could just run around getting into random encounters to massively build up your stock of magic spells; but then again, this is only a demo.

We’re sure the final game will have some sort of limit to how this works to keep the gameplay balanced. Rinoa, on the other hand, has a command called “G. This seems to be the replacement for Summoning Magic, which has always been a staple of the FF series. Guardian Force acts much like a Summon spell did in FFVII–you select the command, choose a monster the demo version lets you choose Leviathan , and the monster comes and wreaks havoc on your opposition in an intense animation filled with blinding flashes of light and all sorts of incredible special effects.

You’ll be able to evolve your Guardian Force monsters as they gain experience, so they can grow and become more powerful throughout play. In the demo, Squall and Zell both get special attacks that become available after they take a certain amount of damage.

Zell’s is called Meteo Bullet, and it’s a pretty cool attack that does a huge amount of damage. Squall’s is called Renzokuken Sequential Sword Attack , and there are three different forms of it–each has its own special Limit Meter. On the meter are little triangles; as the meter fills up during the attack, you can increase the damage done by pressing Ri every time the bar crosses over one of the triangles.

This is similar to Squall’s normal attacks, which can be strengthened by pressing Ri just as his Gunblade cuts through an enemy. Unfortunately, that’s all we know.

No official word on whether or not anyone else will have a Limit Meter has been released so far. But of course, we’ll keep you updated. That’s all for new information this month. Be sure to keep checking back, because as new info is released, you’ll find it right here. In the meantime, enjoy the latest barrage of screenshots we’ve prepared for you. Aside from a few instances of graphical breakup and distortion during close-ups, FFYIII’s visuals remain con-sistendy spectacular.

All the characters and surroundings sport excellent details, and the rendered cinematic sequences–more plentiful than those in FFVII–are among the best ever seen on the PlayStation.

The character graphics also give the game a more grownup feel. Given that there are three other discs to come, the tale doesn’t even begin to take shape until the curtain falls on disc one. Another notable difference is the new combat system. Why bother learning spells by building experience points when you can steal them?

FFVIII allows characters to draw spells from enemies during combat and then cast the acquired spell immediately or stock it for later use. Of course, tougher enemies yield more powerful spells. While both games’ graphics and narratives are unchanged, rendered cinema cut-scenes have been added to help flesh out each title’s prospective story. The two-CD Anthology is slated for an early October release. On May 15 in Japan, Square unveiled to an enthusiastic press the latest installment in what is undeniably the most popular RPG series in the entire world.

Always careful not to reveal too much too early, Square has only released a few minor tidbits about the game so far, as well as some screenshots and information regarding the game’s first two main characters, Squall Leonhart and Laguna Loire. At the press conference in Japan, and then again at E3, they showed off a brief video of the game, showcasing mostly FMV scenes and some early battle sequences from the game, which according to Square, is currently about 20 percent complete. The scene then changed to seven fighter jets airships?

Afterward, we saw a fleet of huge ships forging through the sea. Standing on the deck of one of the ships was Squall, who checks out a map before suddenly dropping into a flashback sequence that shows him running through a desert, being chased by an armed vehicle. After this sequence, the video went on to show various battle scenes filled with flashy special effects , more FMV clips and a few in-game scenes. A couple of scenes worth noting were the awesome Leviathan summon spell which is shown wiping out a huge spider-like mech robot , as well as the aforementioned satellite tower unleashing a massive attack on unsuspecting opposition.

Needless to say, the video was impressive. When asked about the theme of Final Fantasy VIII, the game’s producer, Hironobu Sakaguchi, responded “There are lots of elements in the game, but one of the members of the team. Sakaguchi explained that he wants to pursue a more in-depth and detailed story line for FFVIII, and he’s seeking a more effective graphical expression for the storytelling.

He added that he hasn’t forgotten about the interactive elements that make it a video game, though. This too will help make the in-game characters look more like their FMV counterparts. And last but certainly not least, for the first time in the series, all of your party members will be shown on the field at the same time. No more will you have one guy walking around when suddenly three people jump out of him to start chatting.

Now everyone will be shown simultaneously, all the time. The best news of all at this press conference concerned the game’s release date. While it won’t be released in Japan until “sometime this winter” which basically means anytime before the end of the fiscal year next March , the U. Another demo–this time playable-will come bundled with Brave Fencer Musashiden when it is released in November. We’ll have our own playable demo on July 14 when Brave Fencer Musashiden hits Japan, so expect more coverage of what will surely become the most anticipated game of real soon.

Squall is a poker-faced, short-spoken man who carries a unique sword known as the “Gunblade. He’s a bit of a loner according to Square he has “little sense of comradeship for the people around him” , and he wears a necklace that bears a strange griffon-like symbol the same one that can be seen near the barrel on the Gunblade.

According to character designer Tetsuya Nomura, he wanted the character’s name to have the meaning of a passing shower, which is how he came up with the name Squall. His last name, Leonhart, was the name of one of the main characters from an earlier 8-Bit Final Fantasy for the Famicom which never came to the United States.

This isn’t the first time Square has brought back names from earlier games in the series Unlike Squall, Laguna is a man of heart. He knows love and respects his duties. According to Square, he’s an optimistic and vigorous person who enjoys the confidence bestowed in him by those around him.

Not much else is known about him yet, but we do know that he’s a former soldier who now works as a journalist. Apparently, Laguna and Squall, while both main characters, reside on different worlds. How their paths will cross hasn’t yet been revealed, but the idea of possibly playing with two entirely different characters from the outset is quite attractive. Whatever the case, we’ll know more on this as it develops. According to Nomura-san, the inspiration for the name Laguna came from none other than Laguna Beach, Calif.

Unless you are new to video games or have been living in a cave, chances are you have heard of the Final Fantasy games. This could very well be one of the most popular game franchises of all time.

I have a small confession to make, though—I have never played any of the past Final Fantasy games, so FF 8 is my first exposure to this world.

Do I think that all of the hype is justified? Not sure about that, but it is still a pretty amazing game. FF 8 is a four-CD romp through a huge world that develops characters like no other game that I have seen before. Great graphics, great music and a deep storyline are the highlights of this game. The CG is nothing short of amazing and I can’t wait to see what Squaresoft will be able to do with the next generation PSX, because what they have managed to squeeze out of the underpowered PSX will blow you away.

While I was playing through this game, I kept a detailed notes sheet next to me that I used to record things I liked about the game and things that I was not so crazy about. To be honest, my list of things that I was not so crazy about ended up almost as long as the things that I liked, but that does not mean that the game was bad.

I think that due to the enormous amount of hype associated with this game, I reviewed it with a much more critical eye than I would other games so as you are reading this review, keep this in mind. As I mentioned above, I have never played any of the Final Fantasy games. Most of them were made for bit consoles so I never had a chance to play them. For some reason, I never played it either.

For those of you who do not even know what type of games they are, let me fill you in: The Final Fantasy games are role playing games RPGs. From what I have read on the past games along with playing this game, I think it is safe to say that they all focus on great storylines and character development.

Since storyline has been a staple of the franchise, let’s start there. The game has received favourable reviews throughout the world from various publications such as Steam publication has given a score of 6 out of 10 to this video game. The game is based on a first-person perspective and allows the player to play the game on single play mode which is the best option for the players who love playing the game all by themselves.

The game supports several languages such as English, Italian, French, German, as well as Spanish-Spain for both the interface and subtitles.

The game provides several additional options for customizing the gameplay experience such as the difficulty level of the player into the game. Those additional options include the speed boost up in the game, random encounters being eliminated in the game; the players will obtain all the abilities and items. They can battle and also obtain all the cards and limit breaks. The player is tasked to mobilize the armies against other Nations so to prevent them from fulfilling their ultimate goal.

This video game provides amazing features to the players while playing the game. It is a single-player video game played only by a single player in the comfort zone of the home. It is based on action and adventure thus bringing in more challenges for the players while playing the game. The best part about this video game is that the players could play it on their phone, tablet, or even on TV. Now, if you have understood the gameplay of this video game in brief, we can move on to the list of features that this game provides to the player while playing the game.

A few of the significant features that this game proffers to the players have been mentioned below to provide an overall idea of the list of features that this game provides. This is best for those categories of players who like playing a video game all by themselves in the comfort zone of their home.

It is especially a good choice for the fresher who are completely new to the game industry and have no clear idea of how to play the game. The game provides amazing features to the players. But, apart from the others features, it has the best quality of graphics to proffer an amazing experience to the player while playing the game. The graphics are vivid and detailed with high resolution to enhance the experience and retain the interest of the players in the game.

The above-mentioned video game is based on action and adventure. For those categories of player who likes the adventurous video game, it is one of the best choices to start your day with. The action and adventure in the game bring in more challenges to the players thus luring them to play the game for hours and hours without a moment of distraction.

This video game has few instances of violence, mild blood, suggestive themes, mild language, and also the use of alcohol as per the ratings of ESBI. This video game is best for players up to the age of around 10 years.

 
 

 

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Sign in to add this item to your wishlist, follow it, or mark it as ignored. Sign in to see reasons why you may or may not like this based on your games, читать статью, and curators you follow. All Rights Reserved. You can use this widget-maker to generate a bit of HTML that can be embedded in your website to узнать больше здесь ff viii pc download customers to purchase this game on Steam.

Sign In. Home Discussions Workshop Market Broadcasts. Change language. Install Steam. Your Store Your Store. Categories Categories. Special Sections. Перейти на страницу Support. Community Hub. Square Enix. It is a time of war. Galbadia, a Global Superpower, has declared war on Dollet, ff viii pc download country whose training academy is home to two personalities: ff viii pc download hot-headed Seifer and the ‘lone wolf’, Squall Leonhart.

Both are equally at conflict with each other as their country is with Galbadia; to others, Squall appears lacking in team spirit, while Recent Reviews:. All Reviews:. Popular user-defined tags ff viii pc download this product:. Is адрес game relevant to you?

Sign In or Open in Steam. Requires agreement to a 3rd-party EULA. Languages :. English and 4 more. View Steam Achievements Includes 45 Steam Achievements.

Publisher: Square Enix. Ff viii pc download Embed. Add to Cart. View Community Ff viii pc download. About This Game It is a time of war. Both are equally at conflict with each other as their country is with Galbadia; to others, Squall appears lacking in team spirit, free download for win7 64 bit Seifer ff viii pc download the discipline of his rival. However, a chance encounter with the free-spirited Rinoa Heartilly turns Squall’s universe upside down; having thrived on discipline, Squall find the carefree Rinoa fascinating.

He also begins to dream that he is Laguna Loire, a Galbadian army soldier… Meanwhile, a sorceress manipulates the most powerful men in Galbadia. Will Squall and his party succeed in defeating this maniacal sorceress and saving their world? What part does the mysterious Laguna play? Привожу ссылку you can decide what happens next, as the greatest Role Playing Adventure of all time returns Fast-forward speeds vary by cutscene, but average about five times normal speed.

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Ff viii pc download. FINAL FANTASY VIII – REMASTERED Free Download

 
 

Like earlier releases in the Final Fantasy series, this role-playing title features well-developed characters and an epic storyline. Players follow the tale of a soldier called Squall, who must overcome both the hostilities of the enemy and his own dissuasion towards close emotional contact as he progresses with his comrades through through the ups and downs of the story.

Remaining faithful to the original console experience, little was altered as the game moved to the home computer and even the interface and graphics of this PC conversion are very similar to those of the original PS version. Square is always thought of as the trend-setter for RPGs, or at least as far as console RPGs go – after all, we’ve been treated to fairly little of their work, other than the previous Final Fantasy title, VII.

It was something entirely different, and, though having its faults, immensely entertaining for the sometimes excessively traditional PC RPG genre. Many diehard fanatics hated it for its lack of stat keeping, non-linearity, side quests and so forth, but a larger audience, one in excess of more than a million people, simply liked the game.

In my case, I would hesitate to name the single one thing that I liked about the game – though I could name a few that I hated; yet, I enjoyed it enough to play it five times over, the most times I’ve ever played any game. It goes without saying I was anxiously awaiting the release of the sequel though, technically, this can’t be called a sequel since it has absolutely nothing to do with FF7 – yet, it does have the next number in sequence, so we might as well call it that.

This time, Square didn’t wait a year to release a PC version: it has been naught but 4 months since the Playstation release came out in September of So how does this game measure up to the current, and past, successes and failures of the industry? Let us examine that in an intoxicating amount of detail, rants and praises that follow. First of all, allow me to warn you, the reader, about one thing.

If you happen to have played the PSX version, and deeply, innately hated the game for whatever reasons you may have, it would perhaps be best if you continued no further, and sent any hate mail based on the first paragraph here. After all, isn’t that how hate mail always works?

Based on the first three lines and ignoring the rest? I believe this review might ruffle a few feathers, but I write I could use the perpetually abused phrase “from the heart,” but I can’t begin to imagine the amount of jokes that’d generate in trg, so I’ll modify it somewhat “from the mind. Whatever the case may be, without further signal noise, let us proceed to the actual gist of the issue.

Though graphics don’t make the game, they represent a larger part of FF8 than of other games, so I believe that would be a good place to start. The character animation, detail of all the surrounding elements, gizmos and thingies, all the intricate detail, up to the decals and little screws of all the mechanical units and so forth is absolutely astounding.

People look incredible, too – hair animation, muscle animation, everything is unbelievable. I thought FF7 had amazing animations, especially in the well-known epic scene at the end of Disc 1 or during the Junon fight with the Weapon, but this beats it hands down.

I would normally not take screenshots of FMVs, but these were too amazing to miss, so I chose to forgo my usual preference for in-game-only shots. On a downside, and a very important one, Square doesn’t seem to understand how the PC world works.

We have had 3D accelerators for quite some time now, and by now a Voodoo 2 is pretty much standard. That also means that they could easily use x in the game – but you will never see that: the game always runs at x Granted, the spell effects are so unbelievably amazing that you’d think they might saturate the lower-end cards – but for one, I doubt that is the case, and two, I doubt anybody cares. What might be a more realistic reason, I fear, is that they didn’t want or understand that they should re-render all the backgrounds for higher-resolution PC graphics, and just stretched the lame PSX backgrounds; and that seriously detracts from the visual lushness that could’ve been experienced.

As well, FF8 doesn’t make use of antialiasing, and as such, when slower-motion things happen, such as your characters walking around and the like, you may notice quite a few jagged edges. The screenshots will portray that and amplify that , as well; though, I should say, it isn’t quite as apparent during the game, especially during spellcasting. Another area where SquareSoft is overstressing the gamers’ tolerance is the interface. A PSX doesn’t have a keyboard, we all know that. But I refuse to believe, no matter how convoluted and complicated the code, that in the 6 months that they spent “porting it” they couldn’t at least make the user be able to gasp!

Similarly, when you have a lot of spells in your inventory, it’d be pretty nice to be able to press a letter and have the cursor jump to the first spell with that letter. Also, staying true to the FF7 tradition, there’s no Load menu choice, so if you want to load an earlier save game you have to quit and reload. As well, it appears SquareSoft went on an interface pruning frenzy, and removed some elements, which are absolutely redundant, and no gameplayer would ever even really need – such as, for example, a Quit menu option.

I mean hey, who needs one? Works for me, by the way. Rare to see a game that properly switches to Windows apps. As we were taught in elementary school essay writing, ‘text should flow from paragraph to paragraph’, and this is a lame attempt at juxtaposing two paragraphs. Spellcasting in FF8 is a very mixed blessing. On the one hand, you’re unlikely to find anything this beautiful in any game out on the market right now. Water effects, fire effects, ice, lightning, non-elemental – all of those were lovingly worked on by the graphics artists and are absolutely stunning to watch.

However, the effect, unfortunately, does wear thin after a hundred or two castings. Some might actually start to hate it after three or four. Just to give you an idea, the animation of Shiva, the ice elemental, takes approximately 15 seconds to play out – while the animation of Eden, the most powerful Guardian Force in the game, takes a full 76 seconds. Of course, the more powerful the Guardian Force, the more likely you are to have a tolerance as to the length of the animation – but an option to shorten them may have been quite nice.

Same thing for movies: you cannot skip them, which can get to be quite a drag, especially for the intro movie though, again, it does look absolutely ILM [Industrial Light and Magic – the people who brought us all the Star Wars effects]. Though fortunately, once you discover the GF ability called ‘Boost’, it will entertain you endlessly, or for at least another couple of hundred castings, as you mindlessly smash the ‘A’ button to make your GF execute an additional points of damage. Next up on the list is the modified magic system.

To fill you in, in Final Fantasy VII, you would equip what was known as Materia the easiest parallel would be spells in traditional RPGs which would add certain capabilities to your character. Without going into too much detail, they would do things such as allow your character to heal himself, summon certain creatures, automatically retaliate when attacked without needing an extra turn, cast minor elemental spells, and so forth. In FF8, while the idea of having spells was kept, the way it was implemented was drastically changed.

Now, the main item in the inventory of any character is the Guardian Force or GF, as it is referred to in the game, and which is often cause for some rather amusing associations. There are many GFs in the game, but the main similarity in them is that they don’t come to you asking for wisdom and guidance, but you have to either defeat them or Draw them from your opponents – more on Drawing later on. That can be quite a drag, since you will often not think about drawing it from an opponent, but in general, appears to be a good system.

Drawing is new to Final Fantasy, and it works thusly. When you fight an enemy, whether a boss or a regular enemy, you can draw magic or a GF from him, and Stock it in your character’s magic inventory. You can then cast the Stocked spell using the Magic menu. The upside of this is that a character is not limited to the extremely low number of Materia slots like in FF7; on the other hand, drawing too much magic different kinds becomes extremely cumbersome in the sense that it’s absolutely impossible to find anything in the menu anymore.

As well, as you draw more of the junctioned magic, its effect will increase. As you play on, you might draw 40 more Fire magics from enemies, and that statistic will automatically rise with each new magic joined.

You aren’t only limited to drawing from monsters, too – often, you will run across Draw Points, which look like several intertwining pink streams, but they aren’t quite as frequent, and can only be used once, while the monsters can be drawn from indefinitely.

Unfortunately, what I said above doesn’t come in too useful, or at least at the beginning of the game. Why, might you ask? In the specific example that I gave above, it assumes that you execute a physical attack on your enemy, whether with a gun, a sword, a whip, a fist, or whatever else can inflict pain. In FF8, though, almost never at least at the beginning will you use physical attacks – simply for the reason that they don’t do nearly as much damage as they should to make them worthy.

Even with upgraded weapons, I don’t seem to be able to do over damage with the special ‘trigger’ move of Squall – and that, to bosses that have 16, HP or more.

Incidentally, in FF8, whenever you do happen to attack using your sword, you can virtually double the normal amount of damage that it inflicts if you press the trigger button E by default just at the right time – that is, when the blade just starts to touch the opponent. Another complaint that I have about normal attacks is that limit breaks are extremely hard to achieve.

Not cool. The story is where SquareSoft always shines, in the best of times and in the worst of times. The story of FF7 fascinated many and kept them glued to the screen of their TVs and their PCs for hours unend, battling the forces of evil, the Shinra, the Weapons, and all that bad stuff taken together. FF8 differs little: while I haven’t finished the game yet, so far, the story while not exactly out of a Hitchcock movie, where, to put it lamely, when someone opens a door you can’t be sure it’ll be opened all the way – much less about what’s on the other side is quite wonderful.

As many might know, the theme is based around love the “touchy-feely stuff” , and revolves around Squall, a newcomer to the ranks of SeeD, an elite for-hire mercenary force. Before we go on, however, allow me a quick sidetrack. Why is it that SquareSoft’s main characters are consistently named after weather effects? First Cloud, now Squall? And more, why does the adverse competing power always have a similar name?

First Sephiroth, now Seifer? Anyway, moving on. As the story unfolds, at a first glance, you see an arrogant young man, caring little about those around him, and brushing off any emotional approaches from anyone as irrelevant and ‘soft’.

But as the background of his childhood is revealed throughout the game, you realize that he isn’t an arrogant asshole, but rather nothing but a scared child, who lost his sister in early childhood and spent most of it searching for her, needing her guidance, protection and loyalty.

For those of you into Japanimation, think of Ikari Shinji – that was the first thing I thought of. So as he moves through the world of FF8, Squall realizes more and more that he isn’t alone, and he can’t be alone forever, and more and more does he go deep into himself, searching, looking for his real self.

His emotional problems are often revealed in quotes like ” Why doesn’t someone come and tell me what to do? That means I’ll be relying on others again It just so happens, as well, that he can’t meditate in peace, either – an evil sorceress didn’t see that one coming is trying to take over the world didn’t see that one coming , and he is more or less the only person that can save the world didn’t see that one coming , along with his ragtag band of friends and comrades.

Though, fortunately, they are significantly more articulate – the translation is much better than FF7 – and you will no longer see phrases like “Shinra’re the VERMIN for killing the Planet! So shu’up jackass! So, what else is in the game? This is the stuff-I-forgot department. First of all, the Card Game.

If you played Magic: The Gathering back in high school, you’ll probably think this is familiar. Well, it’s not, that’s what I thought too. But it is the best analogy: you have monsters, and you make them fight. Sort of like gladiators, but not quite. You have monster cards, of varying levels, and each card has 4 digits on it, aligned in a north-south-east-west fashion. There’s a board, on which the cards are laid, and depending on the rules of the game, there might be or might not be spaces that boost or retract from a card’s digits.