Visually stunning, but characters are too stereotypical. (Final Fantasy VIII (PS))

Member Name: raeny

Product:	Final Fantasy VIII (PS)
Date:	26/11/08 (7 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Beautiful graphics, especially during battle sequences. The opening movie is A++

Disadvantages: I ended up hating most of my characters, and the Laguna story got a bit tiresome after a while

This was the first Final Fantasy game I played, and I really liked it the first time round - it was exciting, moving, and the FMVs were gorgeous.

I recently went back to it after playing most of the rest of the Final Fantasy series and was sorely disappointed. I found the characters rather flat and boring, and Squall's monosyllabic answers and distaste for the entire human race gets unbearable fast - and this, coupled with stereotypical support characters (brash hot-headed guy, cutesy innocent girl, heroine-type girl, lady-charmer cowboy) sometimes makes you want to just throw down your controller and let them get killed in battle.

Now don't get me wrong. Visually, the game is stunning, and spells and summons have really been given a new lease of life in this game. However, the change to realistically rendered characters instead of polygons lets the game down, because landscapes are so huge, you spend lots of unnecessary time just running from one side of the screen to other, and navigating the world map becomes a nightmare.

I couldn't finish my second play-through, and entertained myself with playing Triple Triad every opportunity I got.

Summary: Worth playing through once if you have a high tolerance for silly character dialogue.