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Fainaru fantajî VIII (1999)
Worst... game... ever.
Final Fantasy VIII can be summed up in one sentence.
"Gosh, I wish I were Final Fantasy VII."
Final Fantasy VII simply did things right. Wonderful plot. Awe-inspiring music. Believable, empathy-worthy characters. So the characters were collages of blocks, balls, and strange polygons. That's fine, because they still managed to convey an epic plot and a world of tragedy.
Final Fantasy VIII, as stated, wants to be Final Fantasy VII. The only trouble is, it entirely fails to do this.
Plot: One of the good things about Final Fantasy VII is that there didn't *have* to be a romance plot. There was as much romance as you, the player, read into it. But at no point does any character say anything concrete. Thus the player is left to his/her own imagination, and we all know that's where the best story takes place. Final Fantasy VIII tosses this right out the window. What picture is in the backdrop of the logo? Characters hugging. *Which* two characters hugging? Go look yourself. I'm not writing a spoiler. It's completely obvious, right from the start, that *THESE* two characters are going to fall in love at some point. Hence, the plot of Final Fantasy VIII: "Here, you're a mercenary. This character and this character are going to fall in love. Here, kill some things while you wait."
Music: I don't even remember the music. It was probably fine, as with all Final Fantasy music. (Even the comical synthesized opera of FF6. Shades of Charlie Brown's teacher.)
Characters: Right from the beginning, you've got Squall. Unspoken motto: "Oh, I wish I were Cloud." Look at him. Squall is Cloud as a teenager, broken down to his most basic elements and then exaggerated. Really Big Sword: Squall couldn't handle one of these. So what does he have? A slightly smaller sword. But this one's *original!* It's got a *gun* in the *blade!* The only other person who uses a similar crazy sword is his archrival - right back to Sephiroth! Bad Attitude: Cloud had his reasons for keeping everybody at arm's length, as anyone who played Final Fantasy VII to its conclusion would know. Cloud is that most wonderful of character types, the Tragic Hero. Squall wants to be Cloud but is entirely unable for the reasons that A) Cloud has a reason to be Cloud, B) being Cloud would make Squall very obviously a piece of recycled crap, and C) being Cloud would make Squall the most compelling character in Final Fantasy history, and since Squall is Squall, that would be impossible. Hence, Squall is a bad retread. Read: he sulks, broods, sulks some more, broods yet more, holds everybody at arm's length, and tries to be laconic throughout most of the game. Having no actual reason to do so means Squall comes off as nothing more than a pouty post-adolescent. (MINOR SPOILERS FROM HERE ON OUT) The other characters of this poor excuse for a game are no better. The personality and background of almost any one of them could have been explored much more deeply. Quistis is easily written off as the long-suffering admirer from afar. Handled properly, this could have been as compelling, if not moreso, as the main romance plot. The rest of them are cardboard cutouts: Zell's the classic anime-style Headstrong Brawler (he could have been so much cooler). Selphie's the bouncy ditzy chick. Irvine's the American gunslinger stereotype - as well as a gigantic throwback to Vincent Valentine, combat-wise - who could have been romanticized to no end, had he had dimensions numbering beyond two.
I rest my case, but only because I might be near 1,000 words and I'm not counting. Final Fantasy VIII is as close to dime-novel trash as Final Fantasy can possibly come. My advice? Don't go near it. Dig out a copy of Final Fantasy VII and get a taste of a *real* plot with *real* characters, or move on to Final Fantasy IX or X, both of which do a decent job of atoning for this mistake.
Fallout 2: A Post-Nuclear Role-Playing Game (1998)
Fallout meets humor
Taking place many years after the original Fallout, Fallout II places you in the gecko gut-stained boots of your own descendant. For your withering tribal village, you seek a Garden of Eden Creation Kit, a miraculous and fabled gizmo issued to the Vaults (surprise, surprise), intended to miraculously terraform the Earth and recreate civilization. You, who automatically earned the status of Chosen One due to your lineage, get to take a spear and the treasured Vault 13 jumpsuit, and go find it.
My dry description aside, I haven't played any RPG that had the same strange appeal and lasting quality. Fallout redefined RPGs with its post-apocalyptic gunslinging gameplay, now Fallout II takes the redefinition and makes a whole lot of fun of it.
Though it retains the ragtag, gritty backdrop of Fallout, the sequel takes itself *far* less seriously and keeps an attitude of upbeat, perky cynicism combined with silliness throughout. Movie quotes and inside jokes abound, from "The Wizard of Oz" to "Austin Powers," from Macbeth to Mike Tyson. Everywhere you go, somebody's got a snide comment that is a reference to something, somewhere. I've learned more movie lines from Fallout II than from movies themselves. It's a cross-section of American pop culture, to be sure.
The graphics have changed little from the original Fallout, but it's hard to mind, because nothing was really wrong with them in the first place. The music is unobtrusive and always appropriate, it truly evokes the wandering-the-dusty-wastelands feel the Fallout universe has always intended to have. Sound effects are roughly the same but effective as always, lots of very nice, appetite-inducing sounds of gunfire and its effects. The voice-acted characters are enjoyable as ever, and your choices for responses in dialogue are sometimes so side-splitting that you'll have just one more reason to save your game before talking to *anybody*. ("Hey! I worked hard to earn the 9 Perception and Intelligence required to reach this dialogue node! Who are you calling a moron?!")
Despite the fact that there are almost no changes in the interface, Fallout II has enough adventure, storyline, and lung-destroying humor to keep both fans of the original game and newcomers playing, and almost certainly multiple times, because there are many things you will miss on the first go-round. To fully appreciate everything Fallout II has to offer, you'll have to go through it a few times with different characters - which, by the end, will feel like a very, very good idea, because Fallout II is every bit as good as the original, with a delightful new pretension towards cynical humor to boot.