The Spoony Experiment

Final Fantasy VIII Review: Part 08

by Spoony on February 4, 2009 · View Comments

Bite-sized version available here.

Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in!

Welcome to the long-awaited resurrection of my review of Final Fantasy VIII: the game that has plagued my existence for years.

Production Notes

  • This will probably be the last time you’ll see the “Break Me” intro in its current form. I’d like to update it to include new moments from my latest reviews.
  • If you’re wondering about my t-shirt, it’s similar to the one worn by Matt Damon early in the movie Dogma.
  • “I AM A MAYUNN!” is a reference to Linkara’s brilliant series of videos called Atop the Fourth Wall, hosted on That Guy With The Glasses. You should definitely check him out if you haven’t already. I probably should have given him a credit at the end– an oversight for which I apologize.
  • This is the first ever use of chromakey in my videos, and I’ll be the first to admit it’s very amateurish in execution. My room is a poor place to set up a green screen, and proper lighting is nearly impossible. Hopefully soon I’ll have some more room to maneuver, maybe get myself a studio!
  • Fu Manchu was supposed to be wearing a Chinese-style wig, but unfortunately I went cheap and bought one of those wigs-in-bags things, which is always a horrible idea whenever you’re dealing with hair more than a few inches long. I don’t know why, but when I tried the wig out, it was little more than a matted, greasy lump.
  • It was deceptively hard finding good Election 2008 video. I’m still amazed I was able to find anything related to Dave.
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  • seepo1456
    how much do you want to bet that half of those people pissed off at you and writing comments, if not more, were the ones who love to cosplay and draw sick FF porn.
  • scrumpmonkey
    surely you not knowing about the interacies of the magic system is a result of the unintuitive badly designed, badly taght and ass backwards rtatergy guide driven nature of the game. Even then there is every other flaw with this bag of wank. I mainly duck out of playing JRPGs because how stuck they are in so many inherent flaws that needed exist, FF8 is a compendium of the wider flaws of this whole genre and especially of the FF series thereafter
  • melissia
    I somewhat enjoyed FFVIII (that is to say, I thought it was "okay" when I was in my early teens when it came out...), and yet I have to agree with this. I barely got around to finishing it because it just kept dragging on and on and on, and the characters I just... didn't care about. And though I was able to ignore all of the metaphysical BS involved in the game, I thought it was too complicated, whatever happened to just leveling up, or maybe just giving me points I could give to my characters in a more traditional style?

    And whatever is wrong with normal swords, be they Longswords, Katanas, or Rapiers, that nobody seems to use them anymore in these games?
  • A valid point. How DO clear-as-day villians get into positions of power?? Frickin' morons. Lol
  • bauzi
    I first thought that you are exaggerating. Nobody needs 100 spells, but in the end there is always a truth in rants: You do draw magic for hours and hours and it's pointless! There might be some usefull spells for cureing or this scanning stuff, but all those element spells are just weak.

    Why should I harvest tons of spells when it's way more effective to mow down everything with your GF, because it's faster, easier and doesn't cost you a lot of energy. All the people who bragged about multiple playthroughs point out one thing: The gameplay is dumb. You can specialize in one sort of attacking schema and you win, making the rest of the taktics absolutly pointless and obsolete. It surely never drives you to make tactic decisions or something. Press button until you win =/

    When I realized that I surely can't skip those stupid GF animations which drives me nuts with all those damn random fights. Oh and with those cowboy boy there was another stupid character approaching. If this Zach guy isn't annoying enough -.-' and the story didn't became any better at the beginning of the second disc.

    My conclusion? Why do I even played this stupid shit! So I quit after the beginning of disc two.


    Calling all the fans stupid might be a little to far, but they surely shouldn't be blind fanboys and girls just because there is Final Fantasy in the title.

    Oh and... Please review the movie Advent Children. Please do! I beg you! This movie has nothing to offer than really nice graphics and fight scenes, but the rest was super crap! The only purpose of the movie (and the dumb jesus like ressurection of Sephirot) had the only purpose to give fangirls new material to masturbate. And what was up with those three random enemies? They came out of nowhere, wanted to do whatever, because of whatever. What a bullshit character design!

    Ah let's close this comment with something nice: Really great reviews of FF VIII. It shows the fanboys that they should activate their brain.
  • The devil can turn his own card into a hundred black holes? Oh wait, I'm sorry, "blacgoles." One hundred "blacgoles"
  • Do you really have open with you saying we suck? I was enjoying this review until you insalted us, the fans. Don't you think that's... um... harsh?
  • Epic Cardboard
    So, if Insano is president, who's this Barack Obama guy I keep seeing on TV?
  • Tavish Fleming
    "This world is made of...love and PEACE!"
  • D.W.
    I voted for Insano then obama.
  • Xarlaxas
    That election video was. . . beautiful beyond belief. I'm saddened though that I'm only the 2nd person to notice the Ultima 8 music used in the background, such wonderful music, makes me want to convert it to MP3 so I can listen to it on the move. . . .

    Much love to the Spoony one. <3
  • KumaKun
  • Richter
    I have no problem with Gilgy save when he replaces Odin. CURSE YOU GILLLLLLGGGYYYYYY!!!! *Shakes fist*
  • Malus
    Don't... Bash... Gilgy...

    Actually when all is said and done I am surprised it took well over 250 comments on this video and many more comments on the videos before to have this flame war start up. I much like the saying "each to there own".

    I HATE this game with a deadly passion mostly for what the spoony one has said so far. I hated the draw system, I hated the money system in this game. Even after getting better ways to get magic witch dealt with items and cards by then I had screwed myself with the card system that I couldn't stand it. I understood the weapon system.... doesn't mean I cared for that specially since I got to far and couldn't even make lionheart witch just urked me more. I felt like I was being dragged through the story line. Oh and Cody before you come and smite me and say I have not played through it all I have played through 99% of the game having being stuck at the stupid castle... witch is a complaint in of it self and probably the reason I gave up... oh look I screwed myself by unlocking things in the wrong pissing order...

    That is my opinion. All in all I thought it was a bad game. I am entitled to that opinion. As Cody is entitled to his. The ones I hate are those who bash on the others opinion. Now I will agree that Spoony's bashing was probably drawn out by all the bashing by people like Cody, but at least even that was funny. Cody... your just irratating x.x

    Okay I have said... typed a mouth full... and am going to run with life intake if I so can help it
  • Richter
    Also! (Yay, more of my ramblings to ignore! XD) Another reason I didn't finish was cus I was still pissed over loosing Odin to fuckin' Siefer. Seriously, what the hell man, Odin was full of "fuck you" and Siefer just kinda went "lol, no." And that wasn't what pissed me off the most! What got to me was how long I SPENT getting Odin right before all that, only to lose him and get Gilgy as a replacement.
  • Richter
    Seriously, I'm not entirely sure which is funnier. Spoony, or the massive hate war going on in this comment board, especially how so few people take both sides of the arguement into consideration. For me, personally, the game kept my interest off and on for a few months, mostly because I hated spending so much time Drawing. Which, apparently, you barely need to do. Unfortunatly, most gamers, myself included, had no idea that you could skip over it. Unless you had a guide or two in front of you that you read to be able to play this game to the max, your first reaction would be to draw as much as you can. And why would you do that? Well, because you want to be freakin' tough, right? And most people don't know they can skip this because they either wont get a guide at first, (they wanna beat it legit) or they don't want to risk getting their asses handed to them by a boss.

    On top of all that, I fail to understand how people can get so worked up when someone bashes on a character they like. Look at me, I'm a HUGE fucking fan of Richter Belmont. HUGE. I will prattle on ENDLESSLY about this guy. But lots of people downplay him, diss him and just tell me flat out that he sucks compared to the other Belmonts and whatever the hell the other family is. Morris. But I don't rage out and start spouting out profanity like I was a six year old who found the Big Book of Cussing. I'll get mildly annoyed and debate it, but I sure as hell don't go into a frenzy. But hey, that's just me. Maybe I'm too calm to understand, and some people just have shorter tempers. Whatever.

    The plot of the game was okay. A lot of the stuff seemed rather absurd, but I didn't question it too much, since it IS a fantasy game. You can't really argue against a die-hard fan about realism in it, since you can't counter the "It's magic" clause. You could argue about the magic itself, I suppose, like why you don't see spells meant for fixing said problems, but that seems kinda pointless. The fact that half the cast IS annoying as hell doesn't help the fact too much. Zell and Selphie need Ritalin, Squall needs some Prozac, and Siefer needs a swift kick to the rump. I still USED Zell, since he made me laugh, and I use Irvine, just cus he can crank out serious hurt with his bullets. And Squall, because he's the Main Character.

    The whole thing seemed kinda convoluted, despite being alright. A lot just seemed to happen at random, or was just thrown at your with little elaboration as to why it was happening. Hell, it would have been more tolerable if Squall ...'d a bit less.

    But I dunno, Maybe the ending made the game perfect. I never finished it, since I stopped right after jumping through the space time vortex thing. I realized I couldn't finish making Squall's final weapon while in there, couldn't find a way out, and got pissed. I was heavilly underleveled, mostly due to relying on big junction spells, and didn't feel like taking the effort to unlock all my abilities again.

    But whatever. I've rambled far too much, and I highly doubt anyone lasted past the second paragraph. TLDR: Most people don't think before having fan-rages.
  • LiK
    hahaha, love this stuff. thanks again for pointing out all the flaws with this horrible game.
  • Master Seijin
    You know, if Edea is really possesed by the spirit of Ultamicia, then there's now need for Squall and the other quiefs to be going on this gay adventure with fucking telepathic time travle and shit. No, what they really need to do is call the Ghostbusters! No sniper, just have the Boys in Grey come in and hose down Edea with mood slime and then trap Ultamicia before she can jump into another vessle and cause any real trouble. 1 simple phone call.

    BUT NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
  • armass
    Cody seriously just give it up really. Ur starting to sound like a madman there. Spoony hates the game, I hate it, many other people hate it, SO FUCKING WHAT?! It's not the end of the world, but to you it seems to be.
  • td260
    i love the fact that right before he says "is this even legal" Fu man chu is playing PHOENIX WRIGHT, AN ATTORNEY GAME!!! it's just funny.
  • wow cody....you just made what I said true for all to see...btw jackass you just also spelled "your" wrong (tour)...and you also made two WHOLE comments on the same point over and over again...I think that if you have only one thing to say then say it once and leave it at that,and plus cody most of us that enjoy his pain is because some of us (like me) liked the game but also hated some parts in it,Spoony one is just showing those that loved the whole game...(Like you)...that there are some parts,in the game,that would drive a sane human (unlike you) to go bat shit for a few seconds...then continue because we just have to see the ending after everything the game has put us through. Fusa out...
    P.S. Me-> (>0.0)> ==|counter bash|==|>t(X.Xt) <-Cody
  • now if I am not mistaken The guy Called "Aro2220" who was just bitching about how Spoony rolls at 1:51 spelled Fantasy wrong (Fantays).....that just goes to show how some Idiots think that they can hate on someone else without making themselves look stupid....it just amazes me...I mean if ya don't like the vid don't comment,and if you see everyone and there mother has already pointed out what you were going to say then stay quiet,Know what I mean?
  • Millie
    Dude... I have to give you so much credit on this review cause it was 100% damn near perfect and I just enjoy the fact that one of your goals is to destroy those damn fan boys hopes and dreams. I was actually in your second part of this review.. or third with all the comments about drawing magic they called you a noob and shit WTF im glad you filled in the gaps for them by telling them the alternatives sucked just as much. You should NOW do some reviews on FF9 and 10 those arent as bad of games like playing wise but you could do a shit load on the stories im sure and are you thinking of doing one for the MMORPG FF11?
  • John
    Seriously, this whole series is great and I've been following it for awhile. But coming back and watching this episode, there are two parts that are just hilarious. First of all, your delivery on "No smartass, those are boats. Shut up." is absolutely perfect. As is your face after that weird UFO battle.

    Brilliant.
  • maul93461
    That's total bullshit. You still have to draw magic quite a bit even if you refine items. And turning monsters into cards is another pain in the ass method for getting magic and items. The fact of the matter is that getting magic in this game is a pain in the ass. Spoony don't listen to these people. I played the game all the way through once. It took me over a year to do it. The fucking game is tedious as all hell. But for some sick reason I actually enjoyed it. I must like pain I guess............o.O
  • Amayirot Akago
    The Moai Head UFO combined with the X-Files music and your confused expression was sheer brilliance.
  • Arik
    That's why America in real life never let's anyone under 18 join the military. Can you imagine some terrorist demorallizing a 16 year old by saying. "You think you're a man. BUT you're only a boy." Just like the sorceress demoralized Seifer who before was a bad ass kid. Thank god Final Fantasy 8 is a fantasy.
  • Lucan
    Wha wha wha wha wha WHAT?

    HE WAS GOING TO ASSASSINATE HER WITH A FUCKING SAWN OFF SHOTGUN?

    MOST ACCURATE WEAPON IN THE WORLD HURRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

    Oh, and that's another thing: THAT MOTHERFUCKER IS HUGE! It COMPLETELY defeats ANY advantages a sawn-off would give you.
  • Marjan
    Heh, playing Wanted Dead Or Alive during Irvine's intro scene made it 10x more impressive than it actually was, AND it reminded me that I loved this song so now I'm gonna download it and listen to it on repeat on my computer ^_^
  • Dr. Insano 2012.
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