Final Fantasy VIII: Remastered – A solid trip down memory lane

What my 30 year old brain experienced

Just like every 30-ish gamer (or self-proclaimed gamer) myself, we have tons of game backlogs waiting for us to experience and have our kid inside be on the wheel for once in a while. And just like every gamers out there, we’ll be able to pick something up but after a month – or worse a week – something happened and we went on our lives forgetting about how we swear on our lives that we’ll stick to it and finish at least the main story of the game.

Well, it proved that Final Fantasy VIII really hits something inside me. As I’ve mentioned, it’s a solid trip down memory lane. From the characters themselves and the sound tracks, oh boy! I can’t get enough of it. It may or may not have some psychological explanation, but something inside me is craving to relive my childhood and this game just hits the spot! Even in the office I had a whole Final Fantasy VIII soundtrack downloaded from Youtube to play it out during the entire day. It acts as my binaural beats for focus up until now.

Squall’s Emo head and developments

When I first played it, my teenager brain just looks at Squall as the cool dude who doesn’t care about anyone else or anything else but the mission! his mental health! himself! He’s very cool and very strong, his clothes fits him, the scar! God wish I could just act like him and look cool, but his attitude will only work if you also have his face. haha! Just look at his thought processes about the world and those around him. Pretty cool right?

But as my 30 year old brain, looks at him now, I’m not sure if his first attitude in the game will make him likeable as to have everyone unanimously wants him to be their leader. After Rinoa goes to sleep at the end of Disc 2, it’s time for his development to take over. Not sure if his coolness went up for everyone, but his mindset changed to Rinoa-first before everything. And this is where Squall-Quistis tandem went down to the drain. I wonder who’ll Quistis end up with given that Final Fantasy VIII is a love story all along. I love Quistis 😉

Does Final Fantasy VIII deserves a Remake?

Well, who doesn’t want to see Rinoa, Quistis, Selphie and the others on an advanced graphics? They are simply gorgeous, bet Tifa and Aerith fans will be split up on who’s the fairest of them all. haha. Seriously though, now that I understood how the junction system works better – making magics commodities – and Summons a necessity to give that 9999 damage? I’m not sure if it’s the best system there is, but it will be hard to change that system since part of the story is making use of, or relying on the Summons/GFs for a lot of times. It’s how the story justified the memory loss of the SEED squad.

Instead of a game remake, I think a movie will justify it first if a game can follow through a remake. A movie like the Advent Children (not live action!)