This is the second preview, this is from the Gamefan magazine and written by EGGO . First Impressions of the Final Fantasy VIII Demo (packaged in with the import Brave Fencer Musashiden, now available): Warning! Possible spoiler material within. Proceed with caution. First of all, the CG that’s present in the demo just triggers screaming. "Oh my god!" "That’s not right...." "OhhhhHHHH!!!... anyone have a napkin?" you name it, and you probably heard it in the office after seeing the CG at the beginning and end of the demo. One of the new aspects brought to the Final Fantasy series is the near seamless transition from CG to in-game graphics at multiple points in the demo. The first of these is at the beginning, when a fleet of hovercraft is approaching an island base. Scenes of the boats skimming along are spliced with closeups of Squall’s face, as he flips a transparency over a map, showing the landing destination. As the boats crash onto the shore, the CG turns to game graphics as the loading doors open on the craft and your polygon characters run out. The music is still PCM, but good. We were cranking the sound, and when there wasn’t screaming going on, you could actually appreciate it. The music changed frequently from section to section to fight to fight. Don’t worry about memorizing the same battle theme over and over, because there’s music variety in most of the battles of the demo. Leviathan is the only "summon" spell available at this point (the famous sea serpent in the FF series). Gone are the materia from Final Fantasy VIII;VIII refers to summon spells as "Guardian Force" or "G.F." in the menu (Yeah!!! It’s all about G(ame)F(an), baby!). When Leviathan is summoned, a warp is formed and he slowly pours out of it like the liquid metal T1000 in Terminator 2. Once he takes full form and does his trademark staredown/scream, a mountain (yes, you heard me right, a mountain...) forms under him, pushing him up like Ramuh in FF7. From that lofty vantage point, the screen flashes white... and Leviathan shatters into a giant wave of water, which comes crashing down the mountain in polygonal glory, like tears from the eyes of ecstatic gamers. Seeing this spell alone will make you a believer. The way that water moves... you have to see it to believe it. The PlayStation shouldn’t be capable of miracles like this. FF8’s battles are still random encounters, complete with phase in screen (which rips from left to right, rending your TV with streaky lines, followed by the battle screen). The fights look like they take place in the actual environment your characters were last standing in, like Parasite Eve. The fighting menu in battle has the usual commands: "Fight," "Magic," "GF (Guardian Force)," "Item," and "Draw." Draw is another new feature present in FF8. When you select this command, your character will draw (suck up) a magic spell from the enemy you’re fighting. You can elect to either cast that spell now or stock it for use later. With continual use of the "Draw" command, you’re given a near-limitless supply of magic. As you know, the character graphics are full body (not superdeformed, and looking like Dangohead) in battle and on the world map (and your other party characters follow you around all the time, none of that merging into one character when walking around like classic Ffs), which makes the transition from map to battle to CG look that much more appropriate. The textures on the characters are amazingly well detailed, though a bit jaggy (the anti-aliased PC version of this game [if/when that comes out] is going to open many eyes). The overall look of this game is a visual improvement over Final Fantasy VII. The characters are still polys and the environments are still static and prerendered. Oh yeah, personal favorites Biggs and Wedge are in the demo as well (though Cid was nowhere to be seen). It took me about 45 minutes to play through the FF8 demo from beginning to end... though, it’s easy to lose track of time when playing FF8, so 45 mins is just an estimate. It is much longer than the FF7 demo that was available with Tobal earlier. Other demos on the preview disc are: an FMV scene from Another Mind, a dialogue adventure recently announced by Square, which showed a homely Japanese schoolgirl... and that’s it. There’s also a playable demo and CG intro to Ehrgeiz, the 3D fighter collaboration by Square and Namco. Of the three selectable characters, you can play as Cloud Strife from Final Fantasy VII. And don’t forget, Brave Fencer Musashiden (oh yeah, that’s the game I was buying...), is a first from Square, a real-time action RPG. We’ll be back Monday with a full review of the Final Fantasy VIII Demo and maybe we’ll even get around to playing some Brave Fencer too. Update More thoughts on the Final Fantasy VIII Demo When Waka came back from a weekend of playing the FF8 demo, he said, "I bet you didn't know about this..." and proceeded to drop jaws with a limit break/desperation move. If your character gets low on hit points (less than 100), his attack command will have a second option, which is to perform your desperation move. Squall and Zell both have one, but we haven't been able to find one for Rinoa. This last-ditch maneuver is similar to the Limit Breaks of FF7, though it's not called a Limit Break. Zell high jumps into the air, summons a fireball, dives through the enemy (like Ifrit in FF7), and crouches dramatically on the other side as the delayed explosion takes effect and blows up. Squall's is even more impressive. He goes into a frenzied barrage of four sword slashes, then lightning forms around him as he jumps into the air, the camera zooms in, the Gunblade starts to draw power, and he swings it in an arc which spreads a wave of flame behind it. Even better, the desperation move changes for the purple guy boss and the Black Widow. That's right, Squall has three different desperation moves (well, it's all the same one, but with three variations) in the demo alone. On the Black Widow, Squall jumps on its back, rams the Gunblade deep into it, then runs the entire length of the Black Widow, dragging the Gunblade along (like a horizontal version of Cloud's Climb Hazard Limit Break in FF7), and finally he does a backflip and comes down with a parting blow. Some notes on the Gunblade. When Squall is attacking normally, if you press R1 simultaneous with his slash, you'll get a critical hit (the controller will shake if you do it right) which does more damage. Also, during Squall's limit break/desperation attack, a meter will appear at the bottom left of the screen. There are triangles on the meter and a horizontal bar which fills as Squall starts attacking. You're supposed to press R1 whenever the meter gets to a triangle. If you don't time it right, you won't get the second part of Squall's desperation move, which is a treat. Other random thoughts that were lost in the tumult that was Friday... Enemies now have death animation, and your party characters have animation for being near death. For instance, Rinoa will fall on her backside and sit down if she gets dangerously low. And when reviving Zell from death with a Phoenix Down, he staggers to his feet like a drunken boxer. It's nice to see enemies crumple after casting Leviathan, and drawn out boss death animation is a welcome surprise from the "lightning cracking" fading away you're used to in the Final Fantasy series. All the characters and enemies are texture mapped. There is no gouraud shading present anywhere in the game. The small characters walking around the towns and their full size counterparts in battle all have gorgeous textures, adding a sense of realism to the game, as opposed to the cartoony feel of superdeformed characters. On Friday, I mentioned that the "Draw" command steals a magic spell from the enemy. Well there are no magic points to worry about in FF8. Every magic spell is treated like a scroll which you cast once, and it's gone. So when you open your "Magic" menu, every spell has a number next to it telling you how many times you can cast it. "Drawing" spells from the enemy and stocking them are how you replenish your dwindling magic supply. Final Fantasy VIII is the first FF which is Dual Shock compatible. Analog control lets you walk or run (though why you would want to walk is beyond me). But the crowning achievement here is the vibration (which you have to enable by hitting start during gameplay). When you summon Leviathan, the controller rumbles as the mountain rises beneath him. Talk about engrossing...
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