i just got FFVIII as an early birthday gift and, even though its linear, i actually quite like it, its quite fun and the battle system can keep you on your toes against certain bosses
FFVIII?
Beware, what I'm about to say is kind-of spoiler-ish. And I wish someone had said that in an earlier post because I hadn't played the game 2 weeks ago when I first read it.
I just completed it this morning. I enjoyed the game as a whole, I thought it had a good balance of gameplay and cutscenes. If you think 4k is a lot for the next crystal, it now costs me 60,000.
I liked the battle gameplay, fast and enjoyable to watch. Though for the better part of the first 9 chapters I just spent forever pressing "auto-battle, auto-battle, auto-battle". It gets a bit more complex the closer you get to the end.
The story was interesting at
first and ended very well (though I was upset by this), but it felt like it was missing something for me. That big reveal that usually happens 3/4's of the way through the game just wasn't there. You learn Lightning's real name passively before a boss and it doesn't feel like a big thing at all. Also something Barthandelus says after the first time you beat him made me cringe with "I've heard this before" crapness. I was LOVING the story until that point. Another character reveal about Fang and Hope the first time you play as Fang was great though (about Fang and Vanille) - I wasn't expecting that one.
You are allowed almost no degree of customisation until chapter 9, when you can finally configure your party (which is fine, I spent a lot more time from chapter 9 onwards than I did leading up to it) however, it's still extremely linear. The removal of towns makes you feel like you're living to walk and fight, walk and fight.
A feature I liked is the "kind-of" new game plus. When you finish the story, you save it, and if you load that save, its back before the final boss (though they all still appear in "Enemy Intel"). Which is necessary because you only get the final Crystarium expansion after beating the final boss. This is the best time to do all the side-quests on Pulse.
The game itself doesn't really open up till Chapter 11, and in my opinion, there isn't that much content beyond the main story, even with the optional areas. I quite like the Cie'th Stone sidequest though.
The ending was as emotional as any other FF game (bar XII - that game had almost no emotion whatsoever) but the story itself felt a bit messy towards the end.
The game is quite solid though and extremely enjoyable. I was gutted by the ending so I can only infer that I must have bonded with the characters and story a bit more than I realised. Which is a good thing. My favourite character is Fang, by far. Barthandelus pissed me off but I did feel actual fear the first time he transformed, I found it quite shocking. And I don't like Sazh.
That may seem like a bit of a long list of things I didn't like about the game but there were a lot of good points too. This is already tl;dr so I won't outline the good ones here. It definitely doesn't beat any of my favourites but the story and battle system far exceeds XII. The graphics are EFFIN FANTASTIC.
My score (which probably means nothing to most of you)
Story: 8/10
Battle System: 9/10 (if the party leader gets KO'd, it's game over. This enraged me a few times)
Voice Acting: 8/10
Outside Battle Gameplay: 7/10
Music: 4/10
Overall - 7.2/10. Personally.
. Really annoying at times. Why should it be a challenge to open a friggin door? </offtopic>
:-o