We’re introduced to the concept in snippets–the knight does the sorceresses bidding. When Seifer, the rival of player-insert Squall, defects to the side of the Sorceress Edea, it is under the guise of becoming her knight. Final Fantasy VIII breaks with that by immediately positioning the player as complicit with the teenage mercenary trade, and the critique extends explicitly into the game via a story about “the sorceress and her knight.” I don’t think there is any argument about the complexity of the pre- FF8 Final Fantasy games when it comes to morality: there are good guys and there are bad guys and there are very few greys in between. So which is the better choice? To decrease your potential, to work against the labor you have already done, or losing in the face of staggering odds?ħ. But no matter what, the enemy is going to hit you, and if you don’t cast the spell, you will lose the battle. If you want to cast a Cure spell, but you have it junctioned to hit points in order to have more life, then casting that spell decreases your maximum hit point total. Remember the junctioning system? Each character can only hold a limited amount of magic. Her name is Ultimecia, and she projects herself back in time via a machine that replicates a human being with time travel powers. I told you that to tell you this: the latter half of the game is spent countering the machinations of a powerful sorceress from the future. Squall and most of the main cast of Final Fantasy VIII are SeeDs, and halfway through the game everyone learns that the “real” reason that SeeDs were created is in order to curb the power of sorceresses, which are powerful magic users who occasionally become violent and oppressive political leaders. They are hired out to commit military operations all over the world. The Garden is a school that produces elite mercenaries called SeeDs. The junctioning system allows for every character to have maximum abilities in all categories if the player spends enough time collecting resources, refining items, and playing the in-game collectible card game. The general response to this system is that it wastes time and encourages “gaming the system.” Time is understood as a resource. The party draws Fire spells for the next ten minutes. One party member uses a spell to put the enemy to sleep. The party draws a Fire spell from the creature.
The most efficient and comprehensive way to gather magic is to draw it from enemies in combat.Īn example combat scenario: the party encounters an enemy. However, this is not the only way to get magic. There are “draw points” in the world–these are glowing purple fonts of magic that burst from the ground. Therefore every GF imbues an ability called “Draw” onto its junctioned partner. This system, like most systems, requires initial resources to make it work characters need the magic before they can equip it.
For example, a character will take a Thunder spell and junction it to their strength attribute, making them slightly stronger and increasing physical damage. Junctioning is magical bonding–the GFs imbue certain abilities onto the characters and allow them to enhance their physical and mental attributes by pairing magic spells to them. The characters in the game “junction” Guardian Forces (GFs) to themselves. Final Fantasy VIII is based around the junction system. A summary of the game’s story: a band of teenage mercenaries, in an effort to save those they love, defeat an evil sorceress from the future who seeks to collapse time and bend the universe to her will.Ĥ.
The point of FF8 could be summed up thusly: “Everything you love will be taken from you. There’s a LP of it here if you are so inclined.Ģ. Unlike those two articles up there, I’m not here to offer up vague words and then say “well, history should treat this game better!” I just want to talk about Final Fantasy 8 for a while. For more of that kind of thing, and a hopeful, reassuring paragraph, click here. As this very whatever article on Edgeputs it: “The standard line on the trio of PlayStation games is that VII is the godhead, IX the neglected gem, and VIII the red-headed stepchild.” It is generally remembered for being confusing and the system you use for powering up your characters, the Junction System, actively punishes you for using magic that you have acquired. Final Fantasy VIII is often derided as being the worst Final Fantasy game of the PSX era. Lets get the boring stuff out of the way.