Facebook – Top 100 FAVORITE Video Games: 99

99: Final Fantasy VIII (PS1)
Developer: Squaresoft (NOT Square-Enix!)
Year: 1999

In general, the problem I’ve heard people have with this game is that it wasn’t Final Fantasy VII. That’s fair. The game was a drastic shift in tone and gameplay from the previous title. Gone are the super-deformed looks, the serious-yet-light-hearted affairs of the world, and the grandiose bad guys wearing ridiculous outfits and wielding dumb-as-Hell… oh, well, actually, that part IS there. Just, you know, not as blatantly strange as people like Sephiroth and/or his mother, Jenova.

VIII takes place in a more “modern” setting (if you can consider a world with flying fortress schools and giant spider mechs as “modern”) than its predecessor, and – as such – it features characters who look like human beings. Square had hoped to bank on this by having human looking characters experience human emotions and, thus, draw in human players just a bit more. They miffed the whole thing up, though, by having the two primary male protagonists be the most emo-tarded characters in FF history. And, as always, that’s saying a lot. Especially when one considers the series’ history.

Yes, of course I’m talking about Squall and Laguna, two of the dumbest, most depressing characters to ever grace an FF title. These jokers run around, generally whining and moaning about how much life sucks and how much they hate people, how love is dumb and inaccessible, and how great they think they are. Of course, they’re balanced by an awesome cast of peripheral characters, key amongst them being Irvine and – the ever-so-drool-worthy – Rinoa. But I won’t waste time here talking about erections I’ve had because of her pointy, polygonal curves.

The game play itself, though, is the real heart and, at the same time, one of its marketing flaws. After VII’s incredible and critically praised “Materia” system, FFVIII went a different route with its draw and junction systems. In this game, you give each character a set number of “summons” (GF’s in this game) and then you steal magic from monsters or draw spots in the game and junction them to attributes between the characters and their summons. This allows for ridiculous boosts in strength, health, defence, and magic power, possibly early enough in the game to make it a cakewalk. If you know what to assign and where to find it, by level 50 you can be stronger than every monster you could possibly come across. While this is fun at the start, when you can plow through wave after wave of monsters with ease, the game starts to get stale, really fast.

Nobuo Uematsu again brings a score to the game that is both memorable and fitting, mostly because of the fantastic “Sorceress’ Theme” and Laguna’s battle theme (“Man with the Machine Gun?”). A card game, some great boss battles, a trip to outer space, some quality Squaresoft CG, and a dog you can name anything, yielding hilarious results when it comes to attack names make this game solid, enjoyable, but less than stellar.

All in all, Final Fantasy VIII offers RPG fans a wide storyline with stock characters and some dumb Japanese video game stereotypes, all of which make for a fun game, in the end. Is it as good as its predecessor? Clearly, at #99, the answer is no. But one must wonder what the gaming world would look like if VIII had come before VII. Would we all think the opposite was true? Probably not, really, because – in the end – Final Fantasy VII didn’t have Cloud and co. squaring off against a sorceress from the future bent on combining all of time into a single moment for… some… reason…

Classic Moment:
Toss up on this one between the really cool battle aboard Ragnarok, fighting honest to god ALIENS in a Final Fantasy title, or all the stuff that takes place on the space station around the moon, with the aftermath being depicted in full CG glory. For some reason, there is something awe-inspiring about billions of monsters creating a living bridge of themselves and using it to climb from the moon to Earth. I don’t know why something that stupid and bizarre is so cool in my opinion, but lord or lord is it cool.

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Added September 29, 2016
I’ve only finished this game once. I’ve come close two other times, but only managed it the one time. If they put it on PS4 with the speed boosts and stuff like FFVII, I’ll buy that, immediately.
Also, maybe its old age and maybe its being in a solid relationship, but there is something extremely cringe-worthy about speaking about Rinoa like that.

Facebook – Top 100 FAVORITE Video Games: 100

100: Xenosaga – Episode 3: Also Sprach Zarathustra (PS2)
Developer: Monolith Soft
Year: 2006

To start this list off right, I’ve elected to go back only a few short years, back to a time when I worked for Toys R Us as a means of making a little extra cash. Dining on bowl after bowl of dry Fruity Pebbles, alone in my room, I worked my way through the first Xenosaga game in relatively no time at all, until I was eventually forced to secure the second and – in the end – third and final title in the trilogy. After a dip in overall storytelling/gameplay quality during the second act, I found the last game in the series to be a move back in the right direction.

Upon understanding that they were required to wrap up four games’ worth of content in one final, two-disc title, the developers left a little of the plot to exposition and compiled threads and truncated others. So, while we do get some insight into the evil alien race and their plans, we are left to wonder what their role in the series really was. At the very end of the series, we find ourselves (and our characters) faced with a new antagonist, one that had been present from the very first game, but one we feel unprepared to tackle in one game. In the end, the reveals are interesting, the characters change and change again, and the ending leaves enough hope for a future for these characters and their universe.

The storyline isn’t the only thing that got a facelift since the second game, though. The battle system is once again revamped and altered, this time for the better. Gone are the odd and awkward chain combos and what have you, replaced with a more standard-fare turn-based fighting system. Powers, upgrades, experience points, and – of course – money. In Episode 2, of course, shops had been done away with, but they make their fateful return here, in the third game, a welcome re-addition, seeing as how treasure-chest hunting gets old fast. Money + shops = better, more streamlined character customization. It is a fact.

On top of that, the visuals still stand up in comparison to some games. Are the edges as rounded? No. Are the textures as detailed? No. But stack this game up against FFXIII and you’ll see that video games out of Japan haven’t really moved forward all that much.

But the reason I come into a great RPG is for one thing: characters. And the Xenosaga series has them in spades. Of course, since the last game in the series appears first one the list, and the first game will – of course – be featured much higher on said list, its difficult to talk about these characters in a way that makes them accessible for people that haven’t played them at all. As such, I will simply mention that the VA’s from Episode 1 (those for Shion and KOS-MOS bearing the most importance) have returned, after an alarming absence in the second game (another of the many reasons Episode 2 is not only subpar, but not featured on this list at all). Having consistency for a character is very important, as it allows for the characters to breath into the franchise some believability. Much needed.

All in all, this game did what it could to wrap up a very complex, convoluted, and overly Christian-themed (one of the final CG movies in the game is a flashback in which Jesus Christ – I shit you not – is featured, and one of the characters is revealed to be the soul and body of Mary Magdalene. Why? Oh man, what a time I’d have trying to explain that to you…) series, and it pulled it off well enough. The battles were intense, the music (which I didn’t really note upon) is stellar, the voice work and character development is above average, and the visuals are awesome. Now that the PS2 is on its last legs, its as good a time as any to buy some used copies of this trilogy and run through them over the course of month.

Just watch out for hour+ long cutscenes. They happen. Often.

Classic Moment:
The series has four, solid-color henchmen that run certain things throughout the game, referred to as the Testaments (the four: Black, Blue, Red, White). Near the halfway point of the third game, the Black Testament is neigh untouchable by our heroes. Try as they might, they are bashed down with little effort. Until a repaired KOS-MOS enters the fray. Armed with newfound strength and ability, she takes the Black Testament apart within seconds. Beaten and battered, the Black Testament retreats and the hero party celebrates. Just another kickass moment in the history of “Why KOS-MOS is way better than most characters in most games.”

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Added September 29, 2016
Oh God, the 100 Games list. A long and arduous process and one that had more highs than lows, for once.
An interesting start, this game would absolutely no longer be present if I made a list, today. Too many Undertales and Witchers.