Rating: 
Summary: Why, Why, WHY?
Review: Why did Square choose MIDI music to use with the PC version instead of MP3? Why do I have to DRAW magic from creatures instead of LEARNING them? Why can't I purchase any armor? Why do big boss battles turn into half-hour long summoned monster slugfests? Why do my weapons do so little damage, so a guardian force must be used? And lastly, why do the enemies have so many hit points that guardian forces must be used? Too many questions, too few answers. GFs are overemphisized WAAAAAY too much. In the other FF games, they are optional, but in FF8, they're MANDATORY to winning. One must equip a GF on a character just to use the otherwise BASIC options of Magic, Item, Draw, etc. Also, this is pretty much a DIRECT port from the Playstation to the PC, so other than improved graphics, there's not much to see, and I'm willing to bet that the music is much better on the Playstation. The saving grace of this game is the storyline and the movie scenes. You'll want to keep playing to see what happens...it's like a good novel, really. Hey, that's a good idea! Why not make a novel out of the game so we don't have to play it? You don't have to spend countless hours drawing magic from monsters, you wouldn't spend a lot of time playing the completely REDICULOUS card game, you wouldn't have to spend a lot of time walking around, AND it would be a lot cheaper! Buy it if you want a long-lasting game with a good story, but expect it to be 30% story watching and 70% walking around and drawing magic.
Rating: 
Summary: Really good game
Review: -CG Movies --its runs fine in Full Screen using low resolution but you would see pixelation. If you select the high resolution, you would get the fantastic animation but the sound would lag behind. So I guess if you want to play the game with high resolution movies, a Pentium II is necessary. The movies are just amazing to behold!-Battle Screen: -on my machine the character animation is ok and the guardian forces is wonderful. The camera rotates flawlessly and appropriately. In the later part of the game the animation sequences just skips and stops due maybe because of my lack of memory of the 3d card that I have or the slow processor of my machine. Otherwise all the animation is perfect. -Menu system: -well, I'm a bit disappointed. Its a bit slow. It takes about 2 to 3 seconds of response time after you hit the button to load the requested menu screen. Compared to FF7, this shouldn't be any problem because the graphics are loaded from memory not the CD-ROM! Electronic Arts didn't have time to bother to improve this interface. The setup is similar, I meant identical to the Playstation version and the colors are all washed out and the graphics are in low resolution. On top of that there is no 'quit' option. YOu have to press a combination of keys before you could reset or quit the game. Yechh! -Music: -hey what happenned here! I could tolerate MIDI music but the composition and arrangements of the music doesn't compare to FF2,FF3(SNES) or FF7. The overworld music alone would want you to cover your ears and turn off your speakers. The most annoying thing though is when you try to move your characters around the room the music frequently skips. -Sound: -with EAX on and 4 speakers, its awesome! You could hear every cutting blow of Squall's gunblade or the Guardian Forces' attacks and the booming spectacular explosions. -Graphics: -well the 3D characters are amazing with motion captured movements but the backgrounds are just awefull in full screen. It looks like paper props and doesn't 'blend' in with the characters. They might as well put black and white pictures in the game. The only solution is to set the game in quarter screen or move away from your monitor to lessen the pixelation or better connect your video card to your tv if you have a tv output. -Gameplay: -well its a mixed bag. You can't buy magic so you have to 'draw' them on enemies which to me is very tedious and slows the game. There are no treasures to be searched for stronger weapons or magical items. You actually have to collect items from enemies or shops to upgrade your weapons and gain new limit breaks which is essential to win the game. To some this might be ok but to me its again tedious since in some instances you have to fight rare monsters and to equip proper GF abilities to get the items that you need. The worse part is there's nobody in the game that gives you any hint to get some of these rare items! The customization of your character using GFs is a welcome addition but the drawing of magic is again necessary and trust me folks it is really tedious and boring while maxing out your stocks. I remembered drawing magic for 1 hour just fillup all my characters of one particular magic. -Story: -the dialogue is quite good compared to other Final Fantasy series and there are some instances that you will just couldn't stop laughing at some of the humour in some scenes. The cutscenes, transitions movies are really well thought out and developed like a big budget interactive movie production. The 1st and 2nd discs are non-stop action sequences and really force you not to stop playing. You would be just amazed and realized how Square really put a lot of effort in the plotline. As for disc 3 and disc 4....I don't want to spoil anything so you have to be the judge. All I can say is the story of FF8 is a bit complete than FF7 since there is a resolution in FF8's ending than in FF7--its not open ended. -Conclusion: I think FF8 is a remarkable PC game if you own the recommended system listed on the FF8 box. It has a great storyline, breathtaking GF animations and most of all an amazing CG movie scenes. You could forgive the MIDI composition but the only thing that rained on the parade is poor programming by Electronic Arts: pixelated backgrounds, poor control and horrible menu system. The complicated GF system also added some wrinkle on the game and bogs down the progress of the story. One final note: you wont appreciate the story and the ending if you don't analyze the relationship between the characters closely and the sequence of events. I see a lot of people saying the story "suck" but that is not true at all. There are several themes in FF8 that when analyzed is really quite good. Final Score: 8/10
Rating: 
Summary: Dont be afraid to buy it.
Review: After reading some of the rewiews below, i was a little afraid of buying the game,afraid to waste my money, afraid to play the game for ten minutes and then throw it to the trash. Finally i buy it, and i have to say that the game is absolutly awesome. The story is complex and keep you reading and reading the dialogs just to know more. The grafics, especialy the cutscenes are incredible (except maybe for the backgrounds, but they are not terrible). The junction system its not a pain in the head, the manual and the tutorial in the game teach you very well how to use it. My advice is that you dont be afraid to buy this game, i told you, you wont be dissapointed.
Rating:
Summary: This Game is Awesome
Review: This game is just awesome I had gotten Final Fantasy 7 for birthday. Which is a very awesome game and it is 3cds. A bad thing FInal Fantasy 8 it takes too much space and takes a strong 3d card. I got an computer early 98 and it wasn't strong enough. I love this game you get so stuck too it. Another bad thing is if you get really stuck your in trouble. I have 8 friends who talk a about and love it as much as me none of them hate it they think it's AWESOME. Also some of my friends got this game about 4 months ago not even done with cd2 out of 4cds but they play it alot and are not stuck.
Rating: 
Summary: Sorry Square
Review: I was anticipating this game since the ff7. I'm also sorry to say that it was the biggest let down i'v ever had. The game graphicly is astounding, the fmvs and charactor designe is spectacular. The mini pocketstation game was a nice touch, but thats where it stops. The game itself is losely strug together with no real central plot. The music is below par (except for the chocobo song)and often gets anoying durring play. The battles draw on and on litteraly. the draw magic system is horrible! most boss battles are spent drawing the magic from the enimies taking usually over 30 minutes. I never beat the game because i was too board by the final disk. If you really want a great RPG then buy Grandia, Lunar SSS or the sims. So in ten words or less: Square you could have done a lot better. *sorry for the typos*
Rating:
Summary: Don't Listen to Anyone Else but Me!
Review: I have read alot of these reviews, and most of the bad ones do not even have proper spelling, so listen to me. If you are familiar with role playing games, or are interested it becoming familiar, this is a good game for you. Final Fantasy is one of the longest running and best RPG series. The story in VIII is wonderful, with a huge scope involving love, hate, revenge, salvation, friendship and destiny. Some of the more popular RPGs, such as Baldur's Gate, do not have a tenth, or even a hundredth of the story in this game. Sure, there is not voice, so you will be reading alot, but is that so bad? If everything was a recording the length of the game would have to be cut back enourmously to make it all fit. The game does get a little confusing towards the finale, (time compression...if you gotta ask, you'll never know.) The backgrounds are low-res, but are still beautiful in their own right. I love this game, for it's enormous scope, it's length of play, (at least fourty hours to do enough to beat it), it's replay value, and it's interesting storyline. Anyone who doesn't like this game isn't human.
Rating:
Summary: Awesome
Review: I don't know what these people below were thinking, but this is the greatest RPG ever. The best graphics, sound, everything. That's all you need to know.
Rating:
Summary: Ok game
Review: this game was ok, the battels take to long and the graphics arent all what its cracked up to be.
Rating: 
Summary: not worth it
Review: this game spans 4 cd's. it stats off good but is vary deceaving. it has a poor system for battle. the system entails a GF-Gardian force system. much like that of a elemental calling. although it takes nothing from you hp or mp. infact you dont have magic points. any magic you heve is baught or drawm in battle from enemies. i made it about the third cd and found myself draging through it. it lost all its intrest at this point. i took out the cd and put the game away. the only good thing this game does now is collect dust so my baulders gate cd case stays nice.
Rating:
Summary: The BEST PC game yet!
Review: Final Fantasy VIII is the best PC game the world has seen so far! Get this game and you'll definitely see why everyone likes it. Plenty of great movies and gameplay.
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