As stunning as they were, some critics saw the game’s increased use of cinematics as somewhat tedious (especially the Guardian Force attack sequences). Gamasutra’s Kurt Kalata said it best back in 2008: “there’s a lot that Final Fantasy VIII does wrong, but there’s even more that it does right.” That, in a nutshell, is how the game was received for every person who enjoyed the game’s innovations, it felt as though there was someone else who despised them. Square continued to blend gameplay with anime-esque cinema throughout the incredible - if somewhat convoluted - narrative, and ultimately changed the way we saw Final Fantasy for the years to come. Final Fantasy VIII hits the ground running with what is still one of the most incredible opening sequences we’ve seen in video games, then built upon Final Fantasy VII’s innovations while also departing from a number of the series’ longer-held customs: it was the first Final Fantasy whose theme music included vocals, the first one to use realistically-proportioned character models throughout (as opposed to sprites), and the first to move away from the series’ traditional magic system. Square knew this, and it tackled the challenge by pushing the envelope even further. It was never going to be easy to follow the most successful Final Fantasy release of all time, especially considering its position as the second-best selling release in the Sony PlayStation’s history and the game that’s widely considered to have made the Japanese Role-Playing Game (JRPG) popular in the West. It’s only a slight touch of paint, but it didn’t take much to make Final Fantasy VIII even better

Final fantasy viii review