Final fantasy viii review update#
Final fantasy viii review series#

Perhaps more troublesome than its plot is its unusual mechanics, however. The main character is intentionally obnoxious in the first half of the game, and thatвЂ™s an aspect of the plot that often doesnвЂ™t sit well with people. The cast is a bit smaller than the installments sandwiching it, and their more grounded nature (thereвЂ™s no one like Cait Sith or Quina in this lot) ends up pushing a lot of the character work into pure coming-of-age drama stuff. It makes some decisions with its plot that I personally donвЂ™t really care for, but I could make that argument for most Final Fantasy games. Like the other black sheep ( Final Fantasy 2 and Final Fantasy 13), itвЂ™s both easy to understand its reputation and nevertheless love the game.

Final fantasy viii review series#

Getting beyond the port quality to the game itself, Final Fantasy 8 has found itself as one of the black sheep of the series for a number of reasons.

Final fantasy viii review update#

Given the price being asked, I do wish Square Enix would have handled things a bit more elegantly at launch, regardless of update plans. If you got on fine with Final Fantasy 7вЂs mobile version in particular, youвЂ™ll probably be fine with Final Fantasy 8 Remastered. It looks good and it runs well, falling somewhere between Final Fantasy 7вЂs largely untouched visuals and Final Fantasy 9вЂs extensive work. Indeed, the noticeable difference between the higher-resolution characters and the backgrounds is that much less noticeable on the smaller screens of most mobile devices. Things like controller and iCloud support are apparently on the way, but as of right now you have to use the somewhat careless touch controls. At the moment, you have no choice but to deal with it. Anytime the shoulder buttons come into play, this approach shows its disadvantages.

A trifle when itвЂ™s on a shoulder button, but less intuitive when itвЂ™s a virtual button sitting up in the corner of the screen. SquallвЂ™s gunblade involves a well-timed R2 press to deal extra damage. The way the virtual buttons are laid out also makes some Final Fantasy 8-specific elements more awkward. ItвЂ™s not that this is a bad thing, but it does feel a bit underwhelming after the extra care put into Final Fantasy 9. ThereвЂ™s an auto-save feature, andвЂ¦ well, thatвЂ™s about it. A pause button brings up a menu with a few features you can tweak, including the cheats, the color and opacity of the control overlays, and a choice between an analog stick or eight-directional dpad for your virtual movement. You have your button overlays, and everything is done through those virtual buttons. Basically, it feels like the game is running in an emulator shell. Final Fantasy 8 Remastered is more like Final Fantasy 7 mobile than Final Fantasy 9 mobile, IвЂ™m afraid. I had already gone through this remaster when it hit the Nintendo Switch a year and a half ago, so this run through the mobile version was more of a check to see how it made the transition than anything else. Better late than never, right? I wonder how long weвЂ™ll have to wait for Final Fantasy 10? A question for another time. Then last week, IвЂ™m checking the App Store for the new releases and, pow, Final Fantasy 8 Remastered ($10.99) is sitting right there. I thought Square Enix wasnвЂ™t going to do it for whatever reason. Perhaps it was just a bit behind on mobile?Дў020 passes, nothing. But no, no such luck on mobile that year. Oh, I see! 2019 is the 20th anniversary of Final Fantasy 8! Square Enix, you sly dogs. Hm, maybe in 2018? No, that ended up being Final Fantasy 15 Pocket Edition. Instead, we got the original title Final Fantasy Dimensions 2. Perhaps that was the hold-up with Final Fantasy 8? At the time, I thought weвЂ™d see the eighth game arrive in 2017. Unlike the previous game, this felt like it was rebuilt for the hardware. Well, we did get a Final Fantasy game that year, but it was the rather impressive port of Final Fantasy 9.

Indeed, it felt like something running in an emulator, but it was still cool to see such a huge game hit our little screens.ДЇollowing this pattern, it would seem logical to think that Final Fantasy 8 would arrive in 2016. In 2015, the big moment arrived: Final Fantasy 7 came, albeit with fewer changes than the previous iOS releases. 20 saw the fifth and sixth games arrive, bringing us to the edge of the PlayStation era of the series. ItвЂ™s been roughly eleven years since the first two games in the series dropped on iOS, and as the years passed the others came. Square Enix has made some tasty salad of porting its Final Fantasy games to mobile for a very long time now.