Saturday, December 7, 2013

Final Fantasy VIII on Steam

So since my favorite game just came out on Steam I thought I'd note a few things.

1) This version of the game comes with a "Magic Loader". It starts you off with a max stock of more than a few good spells. It's a cheat code but, tastefully, it only gives you some of the initial sets of spells that you'd grind for within the first five hours of the game or so, so no starting the game with, say, 100 Ultima.

Because that'd be broken right?! Trust me, I'm laughing just as hard as you are.

2) Spoony's Let's Play/Review of Final Fantasy VIII is far and away one of the worst pieces of games writing that yet exists. Frankly, it represents almost everything wrong with how games criticism has been done up until this point. When I take the opportunity to write more about the game (which I certainly will) I will write more about why I hate the review so much, but I will say right now that it has at least one grievous factual error.

3) This is one of those games much like Dragon Quarter or Resonance of Fate that's wants to be played a specific kind of way, and you gotta work with it or you're gonna waste a lot of time. For example, I can tell you right off the bat that six of the spells that the "Magic Loader" in this version gives you are absolutely useless as junctions in comparison even to other spells on that list, or spells like Water that become available nearly as soon as you turn the game on. (Honest to god, if you want to play FFVIII and feel "intimidated" by it, send me an email, I will speak to you personally on the subject.)

Anyway, Final Fantasy VIII is an awesome, awesome, unique game that everyone should play once, Squall is my favorite game character, and it's my favorite game of all time. I really, really want you to play it if you haven't before. And for $12? That's a steal. Look for more writing on FFVIII here on Haptic Feedback in the future, but not anytime soon. Too many ongoing projects, also a lot of personal reasons that I'll explain more in-depth when I write about the game.


- Austin C. Howe, Maryland, 2013

No comments:

Post a Comment