Unappreciated Fantasy

Final Fantasy VIII - the most unappreciated Final Fantasy. But why? After the juggernaut of FFVII, it seemed like nothing short of the second coming of Jesus could compare to the masterpiece that preceded VIII. It had the same futuristic setting, but the characters were made to look more realistic. The graphics were much better overall, and the characters had similarly charming personalities and flaws.

The biggest polarizing aspect for fans was undoubtedly the Draw system. Instead of MP, you would Draw your magic from enemies. Harder enemies = stronger spells. You could then fuse your magic to your stats, making you resistant to fire, for example. If you wanted mega-stats, you would simply draw magic from enemies, over and over and over and over. Some people dug the customizable potential it afforded, most people hated the repetitiveness.

My favorite part (and biggest time suck) was the Triple Triad card game. You could play cards with pretty much everyone in the game, winning cards when you win, and losing cards when you lose. It was supremely addictive, and it was one of the main reasons I never actually finished the game. I was too obsessed with getting every card... way more fun than Pokemon. They tried to recreate the card mini-game experience in FFIX, but it just didn't have the same soul. It became too random, and felt more like Risk than a card game, where a lucky roll of the dice could mean a small army destroys a much bigger army 300 style. You can still play the Triple Triad card game online here.

Final Fantasy VIII was also one of the very, very few U.S. games that was PocketStation compatible. Remember that thing? Sony's first foray into the handheld market was this Tamagotchi-esqe monochrome VMU. It never came out stateside, but I imported one just to play it with FFVII. (I thought it would work with Street Fighter Alpha 3, too, but they took that compatibility out in the localization... jerks.) You plug the PocketStation into your memory card slot and download the game onto it. You could play this mini-game, called Chocobo World, I think, to level up your Chocobo summon to god-like status. It was pretty simple. You'd cruise your chocobo around a giant square world map to certain points where you'd battle a cactuar by pushing the buttons really fast, leveling up as you did. At level 50, you see a cutscene and your summon would become stronger. At level 100, my PocketStation glitched and I didn't get the 2nd cutscene. But you can't level up any higher... so I stopped playing my PocketStation. Thanks, Japan.

So why didn't people care about VIII? Squall was a cool character, a lot less whiny than Cloud and a snazzier dresser. There was a love story, and it worked well and kept you playing. Sure, the way you made money was kind of weird... You pass all the tests at the beginning of the game, then you never have to worry about money again. You just get it automatically every few minutes just for having a high "rank." They were multiple choice tests, and you had to get them all right, but simple memorization and persistent test re-taking eventually led you to the top rank. Or you could find the answers in PSM. Either way works. But Final Fantasy VIII is not seen as a masterpiece by many, even though it improved on VII in nearly every way. Was it the release date? The same day as the doomed Dreamcast? Maybe Sega should have been more worried about that... the graphics were pretty much the same quality as the 32-bit PlayStation at the time. Oh well. Who knows?

Another first time

I won my PlayStation in a bingo game.

The youth center in the place I grew up had weekly bingo. For $2 you could play ten cards in a row, with increasingly better prizes. They ranged from a bucket of candy to CD's to pogo sticks to the granddaddy of them all, a brand new Sony PlayStation. It was the final game and you had to blackout your card in less than 55 called numbers. The amount of numbers that could be called increased each week, guaranteeing that it would be won eventually. I won it. I jumped up and down yelling "BINGO!" and even had my picture taken and stapled to the wall. I was the envy of my school.

It came with one controller and a demo disc. Luckily, it was early December. Guess what I wanted for Christmas? That's right: Crash Bandicoot and Ridge Racer - the best early PlayStation games.

Now I have hundreds of PlayStation games and my interest has carried over into the new generations and will continue to grow for the rest of my life. My dad wished I would have gone outside or something instead of living in my fictional digital worlds... too bad I won a PlayStation. My life has never been the same since that fateful night.