I found myself with a free weekend, and so I decided to download and play the freshly released Final Fantasy VIII on the Playstation Network. I thought $9.99 sounded like a good deal for over 40 hours of entertainment. (I was right!)

The download really isn’t any different than the 9-9-99 American release of the game. You even have to change disks still. (Although they are digital.) The coolest thing about these downloads is that you can play them on your PSP if you have a large enough memory card. (About 2 gigs in this case.) Playing PS1 games on a portable system has always been a dream of mine, and it seems to be finally realized.

While I think FF VIII isn’t my favorite in the FF series, I think it’s definitely one that has always stuck with me. I was at the age that I was more excited about this ones release than probably any before or after. There’s actually a story that goes along with how excited I was for this game.

I started out by playing through the demo probably 20 times. And I thought it was the most amazing looking game I had ever seen. (I thought the spider at the beginning was so cool. Though going back through again it lost some of its enchantment.) I picked up my copy first thing in the morning the day it came out. I ran back to my car, and threw the game on the passenger seat then drove home, (maybe a little fast.) I jumped out of the car the second I got to my house because I was so excited to play. Then I went around to the passenger side to grab the game, only to find it was locked. No problem I thought, and I went for the key. But I found in my rush it was also left inside. I shot a hopeless glance to the lock on the drivers side, only to see it was locked tight as well.  There wasn’t a spare key, and I was literally standing at the window looking at the game on the passenger seat calling to me. I refused to go inside without the game! This was war!

I thought about breaking the window, because I really didn’t have the money for a locksmith anyway. But I calmed down and did the reasonable thing and called one. An hour later I was still waiting for him to arrive, and I thought this was a pretty good reason to just break the window again. And I even got as far as formulating the way I was going to do it. I had a hammer, a towel, and I thought I wouldn’t miss the little window in the back that much anyway. Or at least I wouldn’t miss it as much as I was currently missing Final Fantasy VIII. Minutes before I shattered my car window, the locksmith came and liberated the game from the car.

I still often wonder how much of a blunder it would have been if I had actually went through with it. But honestly I don’t think I learned my lesson at all, even to this day when I’m picking up a video game I find myself in the same type of rush. But it was never quite so bad as it was with Final Fantasy VIII.

Going back and playing this again was a treat. The battle system is a little sketchy, as it’s really easy to exploit, but the last dungeon is difficult enough to make the system merit worthy. The game doesn’t look amazing, and it doesn’t help that I have an HD television, but the story and gameplay are fun enough to get me to see past all that.

Along with having one of the most difficult end bosses in the entire series, this game also offers the hardest Battle in the entire series against a creature called Omega weapon. And is one of the few FF games where you can level all the way up to 100. One thing I love/hate about this game, is the card system. I think it’s fun (once you have some decent cards.) but it takes up so much time and feels like such a waste when you reflect on what you had just been doing. In either case this is a solid game, I think the story is one of the best told in any video game ever, and if you haven’t played it yet, I would say it’s about time!

Download this bi-otch on the Playstation network today!