Even if you end up as the world's enemy, I'll be your knight.
Final Fantasy VIII was released on Thursday, 9 September 1999. Mainly for the novelty date: 9/9/99. Nine is a lucky number in Asian cultures. But I was lucky enough to get the game on Wednesday, 8 September because I preordered it. In fact, this was the very first Final Fantasy game I ever bought at launch.
I remember a few days before the game came out, I made a bet with a friend of mine from high school-Richard-concerning who could beat it first. There were three of us who were inseparable our sophomore year of high school (our first year of high school, due to overcrowding of the county’s four high schools), and our third was a guy named Chris (a different Chris). We were all in the band together. Richard played trumpet. Chris played alto sax and I played tenor. Chris and I went to the same junior high together. Richard went to another.
Anyway, we’d made a bet on who would beat it first. The only real rule was that we couldn’t cheat or exploit the console’s functionality (an easy thing to do with the PS1) in order to beat it. I don’t remember what the reward for the bet was, but it was something inconsequential. Something in the back of my mind (right now) is telling me it had to do with a girl. Asking some girl to prom, or something. I don’t remember. I mean, as much as it hurts my heart to say this, 1999 was a long time ago. Right?
Richard and I had only known each other about six months when the game came out. Had he known me as long as Chris had, he would have known my mother didn’t make me go to school on my birthday, which is 11 September. But because my birthday was on a Saturday that year, and the three of us were going out to dinner and a movie for it, my mom let me stay home a day during that school week.
I picked Friday, 10 September to do it. Two days after the game was released, I stayed home all day to play it. I’d made it all the way to the end of the first disc by Saturday afternoon. When my mother picked up the three of us, all Richard could do was stare blankly at me. The moment my mother was out of earshot, he called me a “f-cking a-hole.” I guess I deserved it, but it was one stipulation never agreed upon prior to making the bet. I thought it was hilarious.
However, Richard got the best of me in the end. I did not win the bet. Mainly because on Disc Four, the first boss fight level checked me almost as hard as the Marsh Cave in the original Final Fantasy. I had no idea what I was doing wrong, but it turns out I was too high of a level and my stats were way too low. This was before I learned how to manipulate the Junction system the way I do know.
The whole point is not to level your characters and Junction your status high with full stacks of magic, which kind of makes FF8 the “anti-RPG” in many ways. To be honest, this is the sole reason why so many people dislike the game, but I like it specifically for this reason; enough for it to be in my top five.
Regardless, Richard ended up winning the bet because I thought I’d done something wrong, so I started the entire game over. This was before the internet became prevalent in households and was still painfully slow, on top of the scarcity. Richard was connected to the internet, but I wasn’t yet. Neither was Chris. I honestly thought I’d made some kind of miscalculation based on my limited understanding of the Junction system. I made it all the way back to the point of the game where I’d been level checked in the first place and had just as many problems. Sad to say, I ended up cheating to beat it.
Chris never even came close to winning the bet. He had to share his PS1 and all the games with his younger brother Jonathan, who was just starting junior high that year. Who, by the way, beat FF8 before Richard or I did.
Like I said above, the Junction system is the main reason I enjoy this game. It’s possible to be so strong almost immediately after starting a new file, the equivalent strength of your party is about as strong as you should be halfway through the game. It just takes investing about five hours of work right at the outset: drawing magic from all of the enemies on Balamb Island, teaching your Guardian Forces skills early and turning enemies into Triple Triad cards.
Incredibly worth it, if you love abusing the magic system, but like I said: don’t level your party. The enemies level with you. The higher level you are, the higher level they are as well. By pushing your stats as high as they will go at each point in the story makes you nigh unbeatable. In fact, if you know what you’re doing, it’s possible to have close to 5,000 health by the middle of the first disc.
If you do everything right, by the end of the game, most of your characters won’t be higher than level 40, and makes the final dungeon and boss a breeze. Altogether worth it, if you ask me. I’ve beaten it at level 100 a couple of times before, and let me tell you, it’s one of the most challenging experiences you’ll ever have in an RPG. I only did it for the novelty. I will never concede this is the intended way to finish the game, the way a lot of people online do.
The characters, to me, are some of the best in the series. Not as strong as those in Final Fantasy VI, but pretty darned good. What makes FF8 unique is that it’s the only game in the series to build itself around a love triangle. A triangle among the characters Squall-Rinoa-Seifer.
At the outset of the game, Rinoa and Seifer are in a relationship. Squall is a loner, due to circumstances that shaped his personality early in life, but by the end, both Squall and Rinoa come to terms with Seifer’s actions and they also admit their feeling for each other. They become one of the few couples in the Final Fantasy franchise.
I think other than these two, Cecil-Rosa, Tidus-Yuna and Serah-Snow are the only legit pairings in the series. As much as I wish Zidane-Garnet was official (in the sense that they officially establish a pair bond before the end of the game and physically act on it, ie. kissing).
The interesting thing about the supporting cast of Zell, Irvine, Selphie and Quistis, is that each represent individual aspects of Squall’s personality that need to be shown. He’s bottled up his emotions for so long that the rest take on the role of a Greek Chorus. Instead of acting as his emotional crutch throughout the game, their continued presence eventually brings out Squall’s latent emotions and makes him the hero and lover he needs to be. Quistis teaches Squall it's ok to love and to be loved. Selphie teaches him that it's ok to be happy. Zell even teaches him that's it's perfectly acceptable to be angry and that you don't have to internalize your emotions all of the time. And finally, and I feel most importantly, Irvine connects Squall quite literally to his past. Each brings something to the table that reinforces who Squall is as an individual. This chorus aspect is beautifully done and another reason why I love this title as much as I do.
I’m reminded of a Shakespeare quote from Twelfth Night: “Conceal me what I am, and be my aid. For such disguise as haply shall become the form of my intent,” Act One, Scene two. Viola is asking for help to show who she really is. She needs the help of others to achieve self actualization. Squall is the same way.
Even non-playable characters, like Cid, bring out qualities in Squall that he needs. In Cid’s case, leadership. I still can’t help but find motes of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night in this game. “Be not afraid of greatness: some are born great, some achieve greatness and some have greatness thrust upon them,” Act Five, Scene three.
It's also interesting to note that the memetics of the game concerns itself with learning to trust, knowing that people will be there to back you up. That you don't have to be alone, and even if you feel that way, you really aren't alone at all. The denouement of the game even requires implicit trust in your allies in order for the party to find their way back home. Because of the way Squall's personality is initially shaped and terminally evolves into, this theme of learning to trust is summed up perfectly.
The Shakespeare doesn’t even end there. There’s more Twelfth Night in this tale (can you tell that Twelfth Night is my favorite? Well, and The Tempest). Rinoa has to patiently wait for Squall to come out of his shell in order to become the Knight to her Sorceress-almost to the point of being sick from the waiting. “She pined in thought, and with a green and yellow melancholy, she sat like patience on a monument, smiling at grief. Was not this love indeed?” Act Two, Scene four.
I could keep going on, but I really need to cut it off there, or I'll just keep on going on about the Shakespearean themes inherent in the story. In the end, this game is one of my absolute favorites in the series. I honestly can’t speak well enough for what it does right. A lot of the time, I tend to rate the games based on how much I enjoy the story or the gameplay mechanics, but this is one of the few titles where I enjoy both equally.
Me, Chris and Richard
Breakdown:
- Order played: 6 of 12
- Order completed: 3 of 12
- Place among my favorites: 3 of 12
- Number of times completed: 10+
- Versions completed: PS1
- Versions attempted: PS1
- Definitive version: PC re-release
- Favorite track: Trust Me
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