5 Reasons Why Final Fantasy VIII Is One of the Best FF Games

No Need to Grind

Most JRPGs feature a traditional leveling system, where you’ll gain experience points from defeating an enemy to level up. As you level up, your characters get stronger, allowing them to be better equipped to deal with tougher challenges ahead. That’s completely unnecessary in Final Fantasy VIII, though.

In fact, level grinding in Final Fantasy VIII can be counterproductive, and just make the game that much harder for you.

FFVIII’s foes will scale to your level, meaning that the more you level up, the stronger your enemies will be as well. And that applies to bosses, which can quickly spell trouble if you don’t have the right GF or magic loadout to deal with them.

Depending on the kind of JRPG fan you are, this may or may not be good news. However, the fact that you don’t need to grind at all to beat the game makes Final Fantasy VIII one of the more palatable and easier games to beat in the FF series.

Junction System

While there’s no level grinding involved, Final Fantasy VIII can still get pretty deep with the innovative Junction system.

This was one of the more controversial aspects of the game back when it first released, but personally I’ve found it to be a rather fun way to strengthen your characters to the point of being OP.

FFVIII’s Junction system seems complex at first, but really all you need to know is that equipping GFs (or summons) to your characters allows you to junction magic to your stats to increase them.

So for instance, a GF with the Vit-J ability lets you junction magic to your Vit stat. And as GFs learn more J abilities, you get more stats to junction magic to.

Next, you need to start hunting for powerful magic for junctioning purposes. These can be obtained from enemies, draw points, or refining cards into magic. Get a bunch of powerful spells, level your GFs a little bit, junction all those spells to your stats, and you’ll be unstoppable.

It’s a very game-y system that rewards you in incredible ways if you put the time into it, and is what makes Final Fantasy VIII feel so distinct.

Triple Triad

Speaking of cards, I’m sure you’re already well aware of this, but Final Fantasy VIII features the best card game to ever exist in video games. Call it hyperbole if you want, but we all know it’s the truth. Gwent who?

Triple Triad’s basic rules are simple. Every card has four number values. Place them on the mat, and if your card has a higher number than the enemy card adjacent to it, you flip the enemy card for it to join your side.

At the end of the nine-card round, the player with the most number of flipped cards wins.

It’s easy, but Triple Triad gets increasingly challenging when you start playing around with regional rules and getting more high risk/high reward cards.

Triple Triad completely blows FFIX’s Tetra Master out of the water. It’s so good that it even got its own online tournament in Final Fantasy XIV.

The Characters

While the actual story of Final Fantasy VIII continues to be divisive even among fans, the characters themselves are absolutely delightful.

Squall, in particular, undergoes a tremendous development arc as he evolves from the awkward emo boy who pushes everyone away into someone who actually learns to open up to his own friends and rely on them.

Then there’s the lovely supporting cast that never fails to bring a smile to your face, whether they’re scraping a musical performance together as a band, or Rinoa’s making fun of Irvine and kicking him down some stairs for acting so cool.

There are tons of flavorful character moments in Final Fantasy VIII that are iconic at this point. Selphie’s tumble down the hill comes to mind, as does the mini side plot about how good Balamb Garden’s hot dogs are.

It Has the Best Soundtrack

Okay okay, so I know music is entirely subjective, but honestly, Final Fantasy VIII actually has the best soundtrack among the single-player FF games and it’s not even close.

It has the most consistently good soundtrack; you could pick any random track from the score and it’d be near impossible to dislike it.

Shuffle or Boogie is the quintessential FFVIII track because of the sheer number of hours you’ll inevitably dump into Triple Triad. Maybe I’m A Lion is, hands down, the most badass boss fight music you’ll hear in the series.

And let’s not even start on the Latin-sounding main theme, which, by the way, isn’t actually Latin at all.

The lyrics Fithos Lusec Wecos Vinosec from Liberi Fatali is an anagram of the other two main themes of the game, Succession of Witches, and Love. And it just so happens to sound Latin, which feels oddly appropriate for the game.

Final Fantasy VIII’s soundtrack has a very distinct vibe, especially when compared to the usual sweeping melodies you’d associate with Uematsu’s work in the early FF games.

Many of the themes are still beautifully and traditionally melodic, of course, but it also feels like one of the more experimental soundtracks in the series, featuring a varied of mix of instruments to create a unique soundscape.