Final Fantasy VIII - The least understood game in the entire saga

Final Fantasy VIII when it was released in 1999 on the first PlayStation left many people with different feelings, which would cause various reactions depending on the tastes of each gamer, some would see it as the best RPG game of this saga, others simply discarded it for simply not understanding it.

The truth is that FFVIII is very different from its predecessors in almost all its features, but this was not something that happened by chance, it was a decision made by Squaresoft and its team of developers, which originated from the success of Final Fantasy VII in the West. This is when the idea of creating a different FF was born.

Squaresoft wanted the next game in the franchise to be more relevant in the West, for this to happen they had to change the visual aspect of the game, to suit the tastes of gamers in that part of the world. This task was assigned to director Yoshinori Kitase who would make important decisions.

Among them was to choose several locations or monuments of different places in Europe, thus recreating more realistic scenarios, also take as references to actresses and actors for the creation of characters, as an example we can see Quistis Trepe, who has a huge resemblance to Nicole Kidman.

In the musical field it also had a very notable difference with the previous games, it seems that it was another composer, however, is the same Nobuo Uematsu who has worked on the Final Fantasy saga. In this title he had the particularity of creating the first song with lyrics in English, this would be called Eyes on Me and would be interpreted by the famous singer Faye Wong.

The song had an excellent reception for both the critics and the players, this would be the key that would open the doors to the songs performed in the Final Fantasy universe, that's why in every delivery from FVIII it would have some theme with lyrics, performed by a musical artist.

At playable level Final Fantasy VIII has points that make it different to the previous games, among them we can emphasize the difficulty in the battle, this will depend on the level that have the characters, since it will affect directly to the level of all the enemies, that is to say, if you are lvl 10 all of them will be lvl 10, this was made with the purpose of not spending hours phoning to obtain experience.

However, here they would implement something that many people did not understand because of how tangled or complicated it was to assimilate. In FVII we had the subjects that allowed us to use spells, which we could enhance as more experience points were accumulated in them, this in FVIII is completely different.

To be able to use Magic in this video game you must apply the technique of "magic extraction" which allows you to absorb these powers from any enemy you encounter, having as a limit 100 units of such magic, with it you can upload the attributes of your character through the system of links, a technique that completely breaks the video game.

For example, if you obtain 100 "Cure" magics and link them to your vitality, they allow you to abruptly raise your life limit in the game, no matter what level you are, allowing you to have a great advantage over any enemy. For such reasons we will spend most of the time getting the most powerful magic.

There are three ways to get them, the easiest is through extraction points, which we can see in several places, but these usually do not provide the best magic. The second way is through the technique "extract" that you can apply to any enemy and the last and most interesting is through a card game.

The card game is one of the most addictive mini-games you can get in the Final Fantasy saga, in fact, many games would later be based on its system. By challenging multiple players throughout the kingdom you can get really powerful cards with which you can ensure your victories. These cards can be turned into really effective items or magic.

The only defect that has the system of links of magic is that, if you spend some magic that you have linked to some attribute, this automatically will go down, so you should spend only those that you do not have linked, so your power will not decrease in full battle.

Finally, we have the argument, this although many do not believe it has an extreme level of depth, more than Final Fantasy VII, this is one of the reasons why not many went into his universe, because to understand perfectly his story must be played at least twice.

The first time we play, we learn all the mechanics of the game, which are not easy to assimilate, because the learning process is somewhat slow. In the second pass we will be familiar with the battle mode, this allows us to focus more on its excellent history, which I consider one of the most interesting of the entire saga.

Its history gives to make a new article where we can cover with totality each point of its argument, thus we will understand that they are the Seed, the witches, the gardens, the war of witches, the guardians of the force and many aspects more.

Final Fantasy VIII is an incredible game, full of battles with an epic atmosphere with transitions never seen before in any title of the saga. Despite being a game that not everyone likes because of its battle mode, it is still a video game that innovated in many aspects. Currently you can play a graphically enhanced version called Final Fantasy VIII Remastered available for PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One and Microsoft Windows.

Have you ever played Final Fantasy VIII? Tell me your opinion in the comments section.

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