FINAL FANTASY VIII

Best FF ever. Play it and if you judge it on the junction system, you are a fool.

beast mode

This is the second best Final Fantasy, second only to FF7 and far superior to FF9 and beyond.

I played this some 25 years ago and had a blast. But lost track of an item at the very end and never finished.

As for THIS iteration:
1: Expect controller issues! NOT using Steam Input seems to work best for me but still has issues of wrong prompts (B1-10 instead of PS or Xbox prompts). Using a PS4 controller. R2 is Pause. Just saying.
2: You NEED a Square Enix account.

A timeless classic RPG and one of my personal favorites behind Final Fantasy VII. The junction system is an interesting take on the way you build up your characters and unlocks levels of gameplay that were unheard of when the game released on the PS1. Great nostalgia game.

I really love this game, but I don't recommend getting it on steam. Just play it on the PlayStation. The awful MIDI soundtrack, that they've used instead of the original PS1 tracks, is so terrible and jarring and completely distracted me from feeling any kind of nostalgia and kinda ruined it for me. You CAN use mods to get the original soundtrack, but you shouldn't have to.

save the world as teenagers and fight a witch

I think this is one of the best Final Fantasies. I believe this version of the game can be sped up to help deal with the grindy sections of the game.
High Comfy Factor.

Remember to upgrade your weapons and junction high level spells to your stats or you will get curb stomped.

Nothing wrong with the game other than just getting stuck in places for no reason. I am stuck after the fight with the spider during the seed test because my keyboard or controller will not agree to sleep at the hotel. I am stuck at the dumbest fucking place in the game because i cant confirm or exit the conversation. While every other button worked, including all the Fkeys, losing all of my progress up to that point because I couldn't save is fucking stupid. Fuck this game.

17 year old mopey and apathetic asshat is hired to save existence, gets bitches and cracks a smile or two along the way.

yes

An amazing and truly underrated installment for Final Fantasy

My favourite Final Fantasy game of all times until the end of time.

Firstly, I feel it's important to know, this game crashed on me 8 times at different points, and every time it was caused by using the trigger command on Squall's gunblade.
I don't know if the HD remaster solves this problem, but if you're dead set on trying this game, I would recommend you try that version instead to possibly avoid this issue.

FF8 is one of the most frustrating games I've ever decided to finish.
Having completed FF6, FF7, and wanting to play FF9, I felt it would be wrong to leave this one unfinished, even though I didn't enjoy most of the experience.

FF8 is infamous for its controversial mechanics for a reason. Without getting too deep into it, enemies get stronger when you level your party, making leveling complicated/scary, and magic/summons are equipped to a party member as their main means of gaining stats.
There's also no MP, magic is gained and used up like ammunition.

Most of your time will be wasted just readjusting your party as the game constantly demands.

The story was also disappointing, only a couple of characters feel like they really get time to shine, and the ending wasn't satisfying.

I would only recommend this game to people who love grinding and don't mind having to refer to guides a lot.
Know that there are missable things in this game, and things that will make the game a lot harder depending on the order you do them/how you do them. It's rough.

I love this game, It was the 1st FF game I ever played on the PS1.

---{ Graphics }---
☐ You forget what reality is
☐ Beautiful
☑ Good
☐ Decent
☐ Bad
☐ Don‘t look too long at it
☐ MS-DOS

---{ Gameplay }---
☑ Very good
☐ Good
☐ It's just gameplay
☐ Mehh
☐ Watch paint dry instead
☐ Just don't

---{ Audio }---
☑ Eargasm
☐ Very good
☐ Good
☐ Not too bad
☐ Bad
☐ I'm now deaf

---{ Audience }---
☐ Kids
☐ Teens
☑ Adults
☐ Grandma

---{ PC Requirements }---
☐ Check if you can run paint
☑ Potato
☐ Decent
☐ Fast
☐ Rich boi
☐ Ask NASA if they have a spare computer

---{ Game Size }---
☐ Floppy Disk
☑ Old Fashioned
☐ Workable
☐ Big
☐ Will eat 10% of your 1TB hard drive
☐ You will want an entire hard drive to hold it
☐ You will need to invest in a black hole to hold all the data

---{ Difficulty }---
☐ Just press 'W'
☑ Easy
☐ Easy to learn / Hard to master
☐ Significant brain usage
☐ Difficult
☐ Dark Souls

---{ Grind }---
☐ Nothing to grind
☐ Only if u care about leaderboards/ranks
☐ Isn't necessary to progress
☑ Average grind level
☐ Too much grind
☐ You'll need a second life for grinding

---{ Story }---
☐ No Story
☐ Some lore
☐ Average
☐ Good
☐ Lovely
☑ It'll replace your life

---{ Game Time }---
☐ Long enough for a cup of coffee
☐ Short
☑ Average
☐ Long
☐ To infinity and beyond

---{ Price }---
☐ It's free!
☑ Worth the price
☐ If it's on sale
☐ If u have some spare money left
☐ Not recommended
☐ You could also just burn your money

---{ Bugs }---
☑ Never heard of
☐ Minor bugs
☐ Can get annoying
☐ ARK: Survival Evolved
☐ The game itself is a big terrarium for bugs

---{ ? / 10 }---
☐ 1
☐ 2
☐ 3
☐ 4
☐ 5
☐ 6
☐ 7
☐ 8
☐ 9
☑ 10

I want a remake

Final Fantasy 8 has a steep learning curve because it throws out everything you know about standard JRPG character progression. Level grinding actively harms your party because enemies level up with you. Instead, you have to figure out how the Junction system works if you want to make any progress, and it's composed of three parts:

1. Draw, which you use on enemies or at certain locations, lets you learn new magic like Float and new Guardian Force (GF) summons like Carbuncle. Magic like Cure is a limited resource in this game, you can have up to 100 copies of each spell. There is no MP system.

2. Junction, which connects your magic and GF to your character's attributes like Health and abilities like No Encounters (I'm so glad you can switch off random encounters with this ability).

3. The GF themselves, who must level up and learn new abilities so that your characters can use them. However, level grinding is bad, so leveling up your GF is a double-edged sword.

As you may have guessed by now, the Junction system is completely unintuitive. Worst of all, you have to manually set your character's abilities in the menu or all they can use is the Fight command.

This doesn't make any sense to me. Why does Squeenix want you to micromanage each character like you're populating an Excel spreadsheet? I spend more time in the menu than I do playing the game. I would not mind spending time there if the menu was colourful, animated and exciting to look at, like the Sphere Grid in FFX. However, the menu is boring to look at and boring to use in FF8.

The only reason I recommend this game is because Rinoa called Squall a meanie, which he is.

The absolute love story of the century RAGHHHHHH!

I've played this game since 1999, and I finally bought it on steam. I think this is one of the best games ever made, and I'll die on that hill. The junction system makes the game incredibly fun for returning players, and creates a very unique system for first timers. The story (although admittedly convoluted near the end) is deep and rich and the characters are fantastic. Squall's development is natural and relatable, and him and Rinoa's relationship is a great romance. The world is huge (especially for it's time) and the replay value is immense. 10/10 stars.

Makes you sign in to a SQ account to play

Still a great game!

Absolute classic.

My personal favorite <3

rinoa.

The great soundtrack and setpieces just don't make up for the amount of bullshit that this game makes you go through. It's so close to being great but just barely falls short in just about every way possible.

Classic.

This is probably the most unique Final Fantasy games I have played.

Now, I'm not saying it's a really good game. I think it's a good game, and a good Final Fantasy game. When I play a Final Fantasy game, the thing I want most is a good story, and FF8 delivers a good story.

Honestly, I really enjoyed the story of this game. If I had a list of all the games I have played and rank them by story, it would definitely land in the top 25. But despite how much I love it, there are so much aspects of it that make no sense!

There's an entire storyline where you play as a different party to the main party. In fact, the main party dreams about these events all at once. These are events that happened around 20 years ago, and while it explains why this happens, there is nothing Squall and party can do to help change the past. It explains key events, definitely, but it just feels so weird to do it this way.

Another aspect is memories. The party of this game are forgetting a lot of their memories about their childhood. But this is something that comes out of no where near the end of the game, and really feels like it was tagged along there for shock value.

A lot of things are unexplained in the story. That works for better or worse depending on the situation. There are a lot of whacky things that happen in this story, like the main party going to space for like an hour or so. But there is a lot of great story moments as well.

When it comes to characters, the main character, Squall, feels a lot like a husk. You are a stand-off~ish guy and even though a lot of girls are throwing themselves at him, he's just like "whatever." and brushes it off. He just feels like he is going through the motions and that other people in the story are much more important. However, there are some brilliant characters like Quistis, Irvine and Seifer. I also really liked Sorceress Edea for a lot of the game, but my opinion of her changed as the game approached its climax.

When I got to the ending, and the final cutscene started playing, I was shocked. I was genuinely stunned by what I saw. I was thrown for a loop and amazed that was how the story ended. Now, the interpretation of the ending that I thought happened, is honestly one of the most debated topics in Final Fantasy, but it's not something I want to spoil, I just definitely recommend playing it and seeing for yourself.

So, as a Final Fantasy game, this one hits. It has a great story, music, and even a fantastic card game. That being said, I did get the odd crash when I was playing Triple Triad, I'd say there was about a 5% chance my game would try play Triple Triad. That's only because there is a lot of grinding for cards if you are trying to beat this game at Squall's initial level.

You see, in terms of gameplay, this game has a very unique system, called the Junction system. It means most of your powers is not based on the character, but by the Guardian Forces they use (which are basically summons characters can use.) It means you can beat the entire game without levelling up, and because of the level-based scaling this game has, it makes the game easier because of it. However, this is probably the most confusing part of FF8, something that won't be an issue if you use a guide but if you are going into it blind, please give it some research.

The music is again, spectacular. My favorite track is probably 'Boogie or Shuffle', which is a good thing because the song plays whenever you are playing Triple Triad, which probably took up a good few hours out of my playthrough.

Overall, this is good game. Great, but flaws story. The combat system is something you are NOT going to understand, so please look into it before trying out the game. Music is fantastic as well and I really enjoyed exploring the world Final Fantasy 8 has to offer.

It's a good game, but it probably shouldn't be your first Final Fantasy. Nevertheless, I recommend you give it a try.

can you play triple triad to the final boss instead of fighting normally

Controller Support Public Service Announcement

Saw some folks having trouble with this.

Open Steam Big Picture Mode.
Navigate to Final Fantasy 8.
Select the Controller icon.
On the Final Fantasy VIII Controller Settings page that opens,
select the rectangle beneath Current Button Layout.
On the next page, move from the Templates list over to Community Layouts.

Select a layout appropriate for your gamepad and enjoy.

Alternatively, you may use the Edit Layout button on the previous page, in conjunction with the Input listing in the Keyboard tab of the FF8 Launcher to create your own layout.

Do I recommend the game? I'm not certain cause I've only owned the game for over a decade and haven't gotten around to it cause of my backlog but my crippling Final Fantasy addiction says I do and that I'm not being held hostage at all.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HkOA_HAVoqU

Do I recommend the port? I always recommend playing on original hardware but if you don't have a PS1 and a disc copy then I do suggest you mod the FMVs and get the PS1 music.

Or you could just buy the Remaster. Unless, you're cheap, like I am.
Or you could buy it twice. Unless, you're insane, like I am.

I have it 3 times.

Cause I already owned the PS1 version on my perfectly working PS3.
I'm broke. What the hell am I doing paying good money for the same game multiple times.
Why did I buy Grand Theft Auto 5 five times? Why must I gotta catch 'em all?

Well, that's insanity for ya: some days it just doesn't pay to chew through the straps in the morning.

What were we talking about?

Oh, right! Enjoy your controller.

Thanks for your time.

its a good game. pretty close to the playstaion version

Forgot I had the launcher open as I looked around for some way to make the gamepad.. the CONSOLE GAMEPAD work for a CONSOLE PORT.

Yeah, it doesn't work with a gamepad. What a masterpiece of coding.

FF8 is my ultimate comfort game. If I could be buried with a single game, this is the one I'd take with me.

25 hours in! Guess where I am in the story?
That's right, in Balamb fighting Zell's mom!

Absolute classic

Can't eat. Can't sleep. Only Triple Triad.

(I would recommend getting mods for the backgrounds and PlayStation music - Tonberry, Angelwing, Rose and Wine - they're super easy to get, switch the ratio to widescreen, and enjoy. The gameplay is super unconventional for this franchise, but one you "get" it you sort of have a blast)

This game is always so funny because people don't seem to understand the junction system at all and claim its too difficult. If you gave a monkey your controller it could accidentally assign spells to boost your stats and make the game a cake walk. Fantastic game made even easier with the ability to give yourself all of the spells to junction without farming them.

เกมเวอร์ชั่นดั้งเดิม แต่ยังเล่นได้สนุก

I love FF VIII. Or at least I did on the PS2. I downloaded the game to relive old memories, and the game was fine until I tried plugging in a controller to my computer. It crashed and now I can't get it to do anything. Have reset all settings, but as soon as I try to load or start a new game, nothing happens and am kicked back to the "start menu". Any assistance that others have found to make this work again would be mega-appreciated...

great game

This game does not work with a controller in 2025

One of the best JRPG's ever made, after FFVII. Hoping for an eventual remake and a comeback of Triple Triad.

One of my favorite Final Fantasy games. Still good.

Final Fantasy 8 is my 2nd favourite final fantasy, after 6, and I have fond memories of playing it during my teens. I just wanted to revisit and have some nostalgia and with the mods current on the marketplace it was a good time to revisit for something slightly different. Laguna's involvement in the story is peak fun and i've left a save in Winhill with Kiros for some explorative fun!

This is the Final Fantasy that I love the most. The Junction system is really great. I love the Guardian Forces. There are a ton tp find and enjoy. Drawing Magic is great too.

The original game is great, this port is not good, mostly the midi music, and in the map you will find annoying that the UV mapping are screwed and the shadow of the character are screwed too (because 8bit pallete is not supported by drivers for some time, but... no fix in this game). I think its a lot better to just use an emulator and run the PS1 version than this. You can improve graphics a lot better in emulators than this bad port does, for example, FSR shader on retroarch improves the PS1 tittle a lot... Not to mention that the controller support are really bad in this port too, if you, like me, don't like to waste time, you'll need to import something on the steam controller config to make your controller work with this. Maybe it would be better to buy the remastered version than this really crappy port...

... Whatever.

they make you sign in to play an offline game and the controller I've used for other final fantasy games doesn't work.

nostalgia hits hard as you relive Squall’s journey

10/10 MUSIC