Let's set aside for a moment the enormous monster that will be Final Fantasy VII Rebirth. to want Final Fantasy VIII a very belated happy 25th birthday to you. Yes, you read it correctly. Exactly twenty-five years ago, hundreds of thousands of Japanese players found out what lied beyond the still gorgeous-looking beach (sorry, American fans—September is your anniversary).Yes, the Junction system gave us an unfair advantage. Yes, the monsters' leveling system was really stupid. Yes, at times the plot became a little too crazy for our '90s sensibilities. Yes, the main character is difficult to like, but only if you give up on the game before the magic of character growth happens.
The fact that it is a different game from Final Fantasy VII is, however, the gravest offense of all. Nevertheless, I contend that it has some of the most clever worldbuilding I've ever seen in a video game.
I'll bring up a film to demonstrate it
.Twitter recently made fun of a guy for titling The Last of Us Part II. the List of Schindlers of gaming, and then went on to make fun of TLOU's director, Neil Druckmann, for clinging to that compliment for dear life. It was exquisite.Positively comparing games to movies devalues movies in and of itself since it suggests that only a select few amazing movies can match the power of movies.The game in question is Final Fantasy VIII, but if there's one film we should compare it to, it's The GodfatherPart II. The most apparent explanation is that both arrivals had the biggest shoes to fill in their respective franchises. More significantly, however, let's examine how each handles their story. The storyline of FFVIII will always cause controversy among series viewers, but it shouldn't be told that way.
Corleone Squall
Not only is The Godfather Part II regarded as one of the best movies ever made, but it's also one of the few sequels that has the potential to be better than the original. However, because of its more unconventional approach to storytelling, which many criticized as "incohesive," Part II didn't do well with certain reviewers at the time of its publication.The criminal lord Don Victorio Corleone passes the mantle to his son Michael Corleone in a chronological tale told in The Godfather. While Part II keeps up with Michael's life, it also includes a number of flashbacks that explain how Don Vito started his criminal family. One of the earliest prequels in movie history, and maybe one of the greatest, is the story of the two Corleones (which is, incidentally, Italian for "Lionheart").On the same note, Final Fantasy VIII follows Squall Leonhart, a juvenile soldier whose name is an English pun meaning, well, you get the idea. Squall uses a creative story technique to relive significant events in the life of a guy called Laguna.The frequent switching back and forth between these two characters and their different eras didn't sit well with many fans. But the Laguna flashbacks provide a special chance to develop the game's universe by doing rather than explaining. This is one area where the game never lets up.Even if the most of Laguna's flashbacks provide fascinating details about the game's universe, it's difficult to ignore the one in which he plays the Sorceress' Knight in a questionable film production, which leads to an unintentional battle with a real dragon.
Squall learns about Laguna via these occurrences, but players also learn about the universe and some of the key narrative beats of other enigmatic characters in the game. Yes, the dragon battle is a joke, but astute viewers will notice that Seifer, Squall's adversary, is motivated to join SeeD and pursue his own goal of being a knight by Laguna's film performance.More significantly, we see early on that Squall's inability to get along with others stems from his early abandonment. After a significant event, Squall and Laguna eventually cross paths. Squall knows now that Laguna is his father. Rather than a furious tirade or an emotional moment, Squall just doesn't think highly of him.Squall is more than capable of facing off a genuine dragon by himself, yet he has this seeming coward in front of him who can't even nurture a kid. Fortunately, the flashbacks reveal to Squall and us that Laguna used cunning to achieve the game's ultimate goal in the past: thwarting a future sorceress who was ready to destroy the whole planet.The last in-game interaction between Laguna and Squall leaves players guessing about their future together, in contrast to most other games where players walk through a reunion scenario that gives them a feeling of closure.And that's fantastic! Players have all the information they need at that point. Squall is entitled to the privacy to decide whatever he pleases on this matter.Final Fantasy VIII Remastered is available on the PlayStation4, PlayStation5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, Steam, and Nintendo Switch.