After the success of Final Fantasy VII on the PlayStation in 1997, Square Co. Ltd immediately set out to make the next game in the series. For this instalment they decided to take things in a new direction. The game focused more on a central love story than on saving the world and the art was altered so that the characters look more realistic. Some people were looking forward to it and some people thought it would spell certain doom for Final Fantasy. Nevertheless, in 1999, Final Fantasy VIII was released, and it became the quickest selling Final Fantasy game of all time (though VII remained the overall best selling). Was it good? GRAPHICS – This game looks amazing for the PS1. This is mainly down to the use of Prerendered backgrounds (where they make the background in 3D software, but turn it into a 2D image) which are almost seamlessly integrated with full motion video cutscenes. It’s games like this which gave the Nintendo 64 a run for its money. SOUND – This game is considered to have one of the best soundtracks of any game. It was composed by Nobuo Uematsu, who worked on the previous Final Fantasy games. This game took a new approach to the music. Uematsu scrapped individual character themes, instead opting to have themes for emotions. This was done in earlier games too but it’s a lot more noticeable here. The game has 2 songs which can be considered Main Themes. Liberi Fatali is a Latin choir piece which plays through the game’s amazing opening, and was used to represent the USA’s swimming team (along with FITHOS LUSEC WECOS VENOSEC, another song from the game) in the 2004 Summer Olympics. The other main theme is Eyes on Me,...