Dom Robinson reviews
Final Fantasy 8
for PC CD-ROM
Distributed by
Eidos
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?
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.
Amazon.co.uk Widgets
DVDfever .co.uk - Est. February 25th 2000
As of April 2009, Blu-rays and DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TH-37PX80B
37" Plasma TV with a Sony BDP-1500 Blu-ray player and played through a Yamaha DSP-AX820 amplifier.
PC games reviewed by the editor are on:
Since Jan 2011: Intel Quad Core Dell XPS 8100, i7 CPU 860 @ 2.80Ghz, 8Gb RAM, nVidia GeForce GTS 240, Windows 7
Since Nov 2005: Intel Pentium D 830 3.0Ghz, 1Gb RAM, 128Mb nVidia GeForce 6700XL, Windows XP
Since Aug 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.66Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb GeForce4 MX440 graphics, Windows XP
Since May 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.6Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb ATI Radeon 9600TX graphics, Windows XP
Since Jun 2002: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, 64Mb ATI Radeon 8500LE
Since May 2000: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, Voodoo 3 3000 AGP
