Introduction

Welcome to this wonderful little Final Fantasy 8 shrine. Here you should find all the info needed to complete the game- and even some extras to top it off! Have fun!

The story

Official game description: "While calm in appearance, the serenity that blankets the world is merely a curtain over the turmoil that threatens to surface...
An unprovoked attack against a neighboring country, an assault by a strike team deep into enemy territory, and a declaration of war against the world plunges a previously peaceful existence into bitterness and chaos. Thrust into the ensuing madness is a young man named Squall Leonhart, a cadet in the Garden military academy of Balamb. A lone wolf by the standards of others, Squall's relentless drive to become the best leads him into SeeD, an elite mercenary unit. His final test as a graduating cadet of SeeD is to settle the growing hostilities between the neighboring countries of Galbadia and Dollet. What was already a confusing set of events takes a turn for the worst when Galbadia begins its invasion on the rest of the world. For Squall, the turmoil of the world around him is nothing compared to the turmoil inside of him; his encounter with a free-spirited young woman named Rinoa Heartilly has turned his well-ordered universe upside down. As an intense man who thrives in the regimented discipline of the military academy, Squall finds Rinoa's carefree attitude fascinating. Yet there is no time to ponder these thoughts, for Galbadia's irrational hostility has been linked to a sorceress named Edea, a powerful magic user. The job of dealing with this new threat has fallen to Squall and the rest of SeeD. Focused on this new task, they can only ponder what the future will hold."

A full coverage of the story can be found in the ffcompendium (www.ffcompendium.com) right here. Attention: it may spoil the game for you!

The game

Stats

Final Fantasy VIII was published for the PSX by Square in Japan 02/11/99, Europe 09/29/00 and by Square EA in North America, 09/09/00. The PC version came out in december '99. The soundtrack was composed by Nobuo Uematsu, and the official artwork (some of which you can see on this page) was created by Tetsuya Nomura and Yoshitaka Amano (concept artwork). FF8 is a strict 1- player role playing game.

PC keys - PSX keys

Since most of you probably use the PSX version, I decided to write all the info given in this shrine on "which key to press" in PSX- buttons. In case you're using the PC version though and are just too desperate to know which keys on earth I am talking about, I wrote a small conversion table. (For my reference, too. because I'm using the PC version, and everyone bugged me to write the shrine with PSX keys. Rar!)

Battle and Junctioning system

The battle system doesn't differ much from the previous Final Fantasy games. An action bar fills, once it's done, you have the option to attack an enemy with several different kinds of attacks. One party cannot consist of more than three members now, though. Another new feature are the GF- abilities and the junctioning- system. Your summons, called Guardian forces, can be assigned to any of your characters and enable them to use abilities the GFs learned after gaining enough AP after battle. GFs also have HP now, which replace your character's HP during battle, which can be very convenient when you're low on HP. Hm, so what else is new... Money isn't gained from battles anymore, you automatically gain a salary- its amount depends on your SeeD- level which can be raised by completing SeeD- tests or performing well in battles. Also, weapons are no longer found, and equipment itself now completely doesn't exist anymore: instead, each character has a standard weapon which can be upgraded in weapon shops once you found the corresponding weapon magazines and required updating items.
Last but not least, one thing has changed entirely: the magic system. Instead of having MP, spells are "drawn" from monsters or drawpoints, so you have a certain amount of spells which you have to renew. Along with the GFs, they can also be junctioned to the characters to raise your stats. More details to that can be found in the magic section.