Final Fantasy VIII on PC

• Price: £39.99
• Players : 1

System Requirements (recommended) :

• Windows 95/98
• Pentium 200 Mhz (PII 266 Mhz)
• 32Mb RAM (64Mb)
• 8-speed CD-ROM Drive
• 300Mb HD space (600Mb)
• DirectX 6.1 (included on CD)
• Fully DirectX 6.1 compatible sound card and video card
• 3Dfx Voodoo 2 and equivalents for accelerated graphics

Final Fantasy VIII is the continuation of the saga which first began on the Nintendo NES, then moved to the Super Nintendo. The latest installment appeared on the Playstation before Christmas and now it’s the turn of the PC. The game comes on four CDs, plus an extra CD to install the game with.

At the forefront of a rising tide of violence brought on by Galbadia’s war declaration is a SeeD cadet named Squall Leonhart. Serious to a fault, Squall has earned himself the reputation of being a lone wolf.

A chance encounter with the free-spirited Rinoa Heartilly, however, turns his universe upside down. Having thrived on discipline, Squall finds Rinoa’s carefree attitude fascinating. Yet there is no time to ponder these thoughts, for the job of dealing with the sorceress behind Galbadia’s irrational hostility has fallen to SeeD and Squall.

In this game, you will take on the roles of Squall and Laguna to advance the story. At times, Squall is known to fall into a ‘dreamlike’ state. It is during there periods that he encounters Laguna.

What destiny awaits these two characters?
At what point does the story between the two cross?
Who is Laguna?

What is graphically impressive this time round, is that instead of moving a little character around the screen as in Final Fantasy VII, you get to move them around as you would move yourself. Given the fixed camera position, this is akin to something from the Resident Evil series. Beware though – you’ll need at least a Voodoo 2 graphics card to get the best out of this game.

I was not as impressed with the sound this time round. Apart from basic atmospheric sound effects and standard noises during battles, there’s an annoying twee tune that never ended while I was running about town.

Aside from the cursor keys for movement, all the keys used are the nine centring around the ‘S’ key. Takes a while to get used to them, but aside from that everything’s as you’d expect.

Overall, I didn’t get into this game as much as I thought I would, although the graphics problems probably didn’t help. There is a seemingly endless amount of FMV at the start and the tutorial was enough to put me to sleep. However, big fans of the series are bound to snap this one up.

Final Fantasy IX is surely on its way very soon. Soon enough, there’ll be more of these than “Now That’s What I Call Music” albums…

Overall: 2½/5

This review was on Freeloader.com before it closed.

Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 2000.