I think everyone who played VIII at a young age and enjoyed their experience fantasized about living in that world and going to Balamb Garden.

Me: "Wow, how much longer can these reviews get?" Clement: "Hold my maple syrup."

I'm glad you mentioned the Robin Williams cameo

That thing with Rinoa's dog also happens in FF6. When I played, Shadow's dog Interceptor would occasionally run into enemies and OHKO them. And by occasionally, I mean every other damn battle! XD

You had to have played it when it first came out to understand the magic of it. Playing it now wouldn't do it justice. 90s masterpiece

I still unironically enjoy this game, and that's not just nostalgia talking. I remember the first time I saw it by, similarly, my cousin playing it, and I remember nights staying over with friends where we powered through parts of the game. One of my friends misread the names and insisted on calling Rinoa "Rhino." So that made the scene at the start of disc 2 where the guards are asking where she is rather... unique. It was one of the main reasons why I asked for a PS1, only getting a video store's copy of 7 later. Years and years later, an import purchase of Squall's necklace was one of the first things I would ever buy off of Amazon. (and for, like, ten bucks or something too.) However, through either a forgotten mishap of my younger years or a factory fluke, my fourth disc had a scratch on it that forbade the game from loading the screen past the area where the superboss spawns, forcing me to rent another copy just to be able to finally beat the game. One of many reasons I gladly paid for the game a second time on my PS3. Still don't like that the fourth disc locks you out of the rest of the world map, though. It's one of the only games that I allow to take up multiple slots on my memory card for as a result. One for the endgame, and the other to just mess around in the overworld. Overall though, I feel this game really shaped my tastes in art and media. The ballad of the Lion and Angel acted as a sort of gateway to my enjoyment of the more laid-back slice-of-life stories. (aaaand generally being shipper trash) Not in lieu of other kinds of stories of course, but I don't think i'd have come to like other games and shows that would further cultivate myself and my identity were it not for this game. Persona, Harvest Moon, Fruits Basket, K-On... yeah, one of those ain't like the other, but again, that's not meant to write anything else off at all.

Man these vids deserve more views than they get they are amazing

Rinoa: "I liked having my mom hold me. My dad too, back when we got along." Squall: "I'm not your mom." Rinoa: "No, of course not... but I can still call you Daddy right?!"

I like to think everyone has their own Final Fantasy VIII. A title they know is a mixed bag that not everyone enjoys, and even you have your criticisms toward how things were executed, but you still hold near and dear and would gladly return to or keep up with. For me, that's RoosterTeeth's RWBY. It's a hot mess, but I love it. And Sonic, too, but that's a whole other story that you're still covering.

"Luck" has nothing to do with how many of any spell you get when you Draw. It's all in your MAG stat. The higher your MAG, the more you can Draw at a time. I don't know the math, but the system checks your stat vs the target's to determine if you're going to stock 1-3 or 7-9. Just prioritize everyone's MAG when Junctioning and it saves you quite a bit of time, and it'll only give you low numbers when Drawing from bosses.

I haven't l played this personally, but I've watched 2 full play throughs by different people, 1 blind, and 1 fully routed. And I got to say that the "balance" of the game probably took into account the assumption that you would take most of the game to figure out how the mechanics work and not abuse them until the end.

Every single time that I play this game I get new things, new hints and new theories. Is such a weird, complete and bizarre game with all the time travel and magic stuff. Is one of my all time favs.

This was the time when GF was not associated to girlfriend and Selphie doesn't mean self photo shot.

I can only imagine the amount of rants to come, once we get to Final Fantasy 13.

lets see, cinemassacre? Nah. Somecallmejohnny? Not in the mood. Brainscratch, supergamingbros? Not right now. Whats this? A new Clement final fantasy upload? HOOK IT TO MY VEINS!!!

This has probably been the most interesting and well-put-together video in this series so far, and actually made me want to revisit this game to sort out my feelings on it... which is not something I've wanted to do for a very long time. Well, maybe I will. I have the Steam version, which I believe even has the chocobo Pocket Station minigame include. Just gotta patch in a music mod to replace those dull midi files with the original PS1 soundtrack and it's probably the best way to experience the game these days. One complaint I wish you'd mentioned, though, is how little things about the world are fleshed out. There's virtually no specific history to anything, even less so than Final Fantasy VII which at least gave you enough of a sense of things that you could fill in the gaping blanks its lore left in the world. But take, for example, NORG's race, the Shumi. They live clustered together in one village, you learn nothing about them, and apparently the Moomba are just... Shumi who transformed into dumb little animal people because... whyyyyyyyy? You also missed mentioning the Phoenix summon, which is called forth by using one of the game's rare Phoenix Pinion items and joins Odin and Gilgamesh as a random summon thereafter. It can, on very rare occasions, appear when you experience a party wipe, blasting the enemy with fire and reviving your party. But you have to manually summon him at least once to trigger it. Ironically, if memory serves, obtaining the Phoenix Pinion, or at least one of them, requires visiting the Shumi Village.

If you complete the card game side quest in Balamb, those people will be on the Ragnarok at the end of the game. They have the chance to use any card, depending on which member you challenge. You can also find the Card Queen in a very difficult spot to find on the Esthar continent. Also, FFVIII Bahamut has the best Bahamut animation to this day.

The only sad thing about killing X-ATM092 (the spider robot) yourself: you don't get that awesome cutscene where Quistis guns it down. :(

Balamb garden theme reminds me of lonely Saturday afternoons.

My second favorite Final Fantasy Setting The whole radio punk about it is amazing

1:13:49 No, it's there. It's the only game to utilize the PocketStation outside Japan, where the PocketStation itself never left. 1:22:06 I believe the real reason you can't go back is because they ran out of disc space to hold all of those assets (towns, the NPCs, everything used during fights, basically A LOT of stuff) plus the huge ending.

Esthar is basically MCU Wakanda minus the Africans, spears, and Vibranium.

8 was my first Final Fantasy. It’s the game that actually got me into RPG’s. 8 always holds a special place for me, and is my 4th favorite in the series with 9 being my favorite. I haven’t gotten bored yet in a many pkaythroughs I’ve done of the game.

The ONE thing about this game that I will absolutely love is this: The story and characters. I love Squall's development of opening up, and finding love with Rinoa. It was just really precious. If I were to ever replay this game, it would be for that reason alone.

"I am NOT A BOY!" "I AM A MAN!" (punch!)

I woke up, saw this on my recommended, and watched it while eating breakfast. I agree with every point in this video. FF8 is indeed a weird game that the community either loves, or hates. Me and my group of friends share the same mentality of "This game is fun to play and break". While the plotholes are indeed jarring and some plot details are completely missable, I can still confidently say that this is my favorite FF game, and recommend it with warning. Subbed ♡

The Ragnarok is the fuckin' best (air)ship we've got in a Final Fantasy ever! FF7 is my favorite FF of all times by far, but this thing is much cooler than even the highwind in her final form!

Your final thoughts about Final Fantasy 8 are the exact same as my thoughts of the game. FF8 was my first and my favorite I enjoyed every minute of your video and thank you for putting up these type of videos.

This game feels like a 2 season anime, where the big bad of the first season turns out to be working for an even bigger bad that was never once explained.

10:15 - Yes, that's our villain for the game, Seifer: the man with the insults of a seven-year-old. No wonder he's never passed the SeeD exam.

Drawing magic not a matter of Luck. The effectiveness of Draw depends on the user's Magic stat and the spell itself (the more powerful that spell is, the harder it is to Draw; Draw can even fail if your Magic stat isn't high enough).

Clement has done what Spoony could not: a review of FF8 that is funny, fun to watch, acknowledges both the good and bad, and it's not a biased pile of toxic sludge.

Mr Clement, I come back to this video every once in a while, its so much fun, best 93min on ff8

5:20 - It is a really good cutscene. It's almost more like a trailer than an introduction to the story.

These Final Fantasy retrospectives you're making are amazing! They couldn't be long enough. Keep at it. You have a big fan here.

Yes! I always look forward to these. Thanks for putting these out dude. on a different note. not only are these videos an interesting final fantasy retrospective. But also an interesting retrospective on clements perspective on video games and how that changed as he got older

Well, you're a positive person, so it makes sense you kinda like it. Wish I could be like that. Squall reminds me of Shadow.

I love these videos I can't wait for 9 that was my favorite when I was younger keep it up Clement

FF VIII is my 3rd. F.G.O.A.T. and my favorite FF. It is, for me, the most fun to play by a WIDE margin. It does have problems, but this is one of my most replayed games ever purely because of how fun it is to play.

Ending the video with the victory theme was a really nice touch.

Really well done, clement. This one feels professional, accurate, and well-delivered. Keep it going, great content

This game has one of the most epic and emotional endings ive seen in my life

Excellent video Clement! Been waiting for this one for a while and it was absolutely worth the wait! Can't wait for the future Final Fantasy reviews.

I have always found that this is a game that people enjoy proportionately to how much they enjoy learning and exploiting the junction system and card game.

Great video, but I don't remember ever grinding out draws from enemies - the draw points around the game let you get squall and chums to 9999 damage, and the difficulty seems about right without grinding because of the way enemies scale tightly to your level. I think if players are trying to mindlessly grind to level 99 (something they were maybe trying to dissuade), then maxing out junctions stats becomes more important as a result.

Came back to watch this again because of it's getting a remaster

This series is such a treat! Keep being amazing!

Well written, edited, and paced! I thoroughly enjoyed this!

I absolutely loved FF8. I beat the game with a whole bunch of my friends watching. All of us were high on mushrooms. The ending scenes where pockets of time were compressed and warped had us mesmerized lol. Ultimacia's final theme had us pumped as well. Plus, Quistis is the bestest of the Final Fantasy girls. 😍

From an artistic standpoint, this is hands-down, my favorite game in the seies. I think this game looks amazing (PS1 limitations aside). It's the first game in the series that truly took me and my imagination to another world that didn't remind me of anything I'd ever seen before in any medium, let alone in the real world, before or since, and it really added those elements of high fantasy that I'd always wanted to experience in a Final Fantasy game. The soundtrack is nothing short of glorious. Seriously, Liberi Fatali, the opening track of the game (once you begin a new game, that is) is so amazing that it was featured in the 2004 Summer Olympics. I love the character designs, the creature designs, the architecture and town designs, the vehicle designs; everything has such an organic look to it, and yet it's all so futuristic and technological as well.

another great retrospective, extremely insightful, you covert every part of these games, i can't wait for final fantasy IX, my favorite, keep the great work

Wow man. Never thought I’d sit through a video this long but it was worth every second. Amazing work.

8 was my fave. Squall is the ishh 🤙

I think Ultimecia, being a descendant of Rinoa and Squall or maybe even just somebody who inherits the ring makes more sense given the reason she need to time compress in the first place is because she doesn't exist in the present to kill. Plus it'd be kind of weird if she could possess herself from the past even more weird given she almost killed Rinoa while he was possessing Adel. It begs the question wouldn't getting a game over there actually result in the world being saved. Given the fact that that doesn't happen I choose to believe they didn't intend on implying she's Rinoa.

First time I played this, I saw Laguna being Squall's dad coming from the first flashback.

I love this video mann! Binge watching all them videos.

I love 8, but 9 is my overall favorite JUST for the music. And Vivi. VIVI FOREVER!

1:18:30 the legend makes his return

I personally really like the scene where they get promoted ahead of Seifer and he still is man enough to applaud them

When I first watched it, it though the graduation dance scene was just flashy filler. But a few decades later, I see the subtext - and how so much of this game's plot is told via hints and subtext. When Rinoah first forces Squall to dance, he's mentally present, if only by coercion. Once he gets frustrated, he totally checks out emotionally, and dances purely from the mechanics he was trained in, as he explains after the dance. Once he detaches, he becomes the best dancer in the floor. The subtext here is that he can only excel, or even perform, if he's not emotionally present. He basically has to live his life in 'PTSD mode' to carry out any task. That's actually pretty deep.

Love it or hate it, you have to admit, this game has the most kickass opening of the entire series.

Glad that you're feeling better Clement I can't wait for the let's play of Twinsanity and your redo of the mega man games

These FF videos remind me of another channel I love called The Geek Critique. I can listen to you guys talk about video games forever. The analysis, jokes, real life experience bits, I just love it. Cheers Clement

I thought yours was a spot-on retrospective. You just convinced me to finally play through it again, and i havent played it since 1999

this needs a remake like 7

Out of all of the FF games Square should reamke I think 8 should be the one. As you stated in this video, it it pretty clear that it is heavily flawed and I think that a remake would be beneficial and could really iron out all the wrinkles.

This is amazing. YES I’ve always said the Robin Williams shout regarding CID! FF8 is my all time favourite and always will be, I was 12 when I first played this, almost 20 years ago and I’m still reading fanfics on these guys! Major nerd for FF8 and proud of it! The characters were the most relatable to me! Love this vid, never forget this game!

I remember when the game came out in 1999. I didn’t own a PS so I wasn’t in the know. But I had friends how loved FF7 and we’re very hyped. They counting down the days, it finally came out and it was a resounding thud. I remember that was the feeling at launch.

I have yet to play this game, but I’ve made it a point to play and beat FFVIII this year. Great video, Clement! You reassured my want to play FFVIII. I like weird games and this game is definitely strange.

at long last, really interested to hear more about this divisive game

Holy shiit its finally here! Been waitin on this one for a long time! These vids are the best!

The Ragnarok scene still gets me 20 years later!....the song was great. I loved this game, yes compared to other entries it was easy but it was such a fun game to play. As for the final stage of Ultimica, Quistis' White Wind is far better than bothering with Mega Elixirs

Final Fantasy VIII was one of my first Final Fantasy games along with VII. It's also the game I replayed the most, the soundtrack is amazing, Squall's my favourite character in the series and while I feel that his love for Rinoa came out of nowhere and that his friends were complete assholes whenever it came to his feelings towards her, I still liked the supporting cast most of the time. Easely one of my favourite games to just play through, while obviously not being the one I consider to be the best Final Fantasy, that spot still belongs to Final Fantasy IX.

You don’t know how much I love this game! I love it so much 2nd after FF6! The story, the characters, the environments, the GF, drawing and refining magic, equipping unique command skills. I love how different this game tried to be from others in the series (FF2 was also different). Triple Triad is amazing except for when you accidentally spread around unwanted rules then it’s a hassle to get rid of certain rules. Squall is my spirit character I love him so much, I can always relate to him. Zell is such a cool rocking dude with a unique limit break mechanic I really like and I wish I had a close friend just like him. Selphie is my favorite girl, I was shocked her name is the same term as taking a picture of yourself and in 1999 too! I love how strong and intimidating she acts in times of confrontation. I love how the Garden itself is able to float and move around as a way of transportation and driving your own rental car was cool too, and omg the Ragnarok is the best Airship in all of Final Fantasy capable of space travel with a kickass theme song. Overall I love the whole Soundtrack of the game, Eyes on Me and the Ending which always gets me because (more spoilers) Squall smiles at Rinoa in the end cutscene🙂☺️☺️ And it’s something that he hardly does in the game.

alright clement, here's a little something us FFXIV players picked up for the gunblade, the gunbreaker job basically explains that the ammo is used for explosive rounds when the trigger is pulled doing more damage than normal, in other words, it's made to break guns, hence gunbreaker. so yeah, there's the real reason for the trigger on a gunblade, it's a really big and sharp boom stick, and in FFXIV, the job has allot of fans, i should know, i'm one of em.

The FF videos you do are my favorites! So well done!

Kept us waiting huh? Glad to see more of these. As of this game I'm mixed about it. Of course, I'm excited for the next one, FF9 one of my favorites aside from 4 and 6.

Not my favorite Final Fantasy, but definitely the most nostalgic for me. FF8 was my first Final Fantasy and I did everything I could possibly do in that game, card games and all. Tempted to buy FF8 on Steam if only for that Chocobo World mini-game missing from the PSX version.

Amazing video Clem! Looking forward to the next entry :D

Great video dude, keep em coming.

2:29 oh so this is basically the Sonic Adventure 2 of the FF series?

I could have forgiven the orphanage plot twist if it was explained that ALL the kids from Balamb Garden were from Edea's orphanage, and she used them as a means of creating her own child army. I mean, we know that a lot of adults died during the Sorceress War about 20 years prior, so it makes sense why there are so many kids without parents in FFVIII's world. So why not make the Garden an extension of the oprhanage? Why not show that Edea's morals might not have always been great (even before she was posessed by Ultimecia), because she was more interested in training kids to fight than actually looking after them. That would have made so much more sense to me.

Happy 5th anniversary to my favorite (and most rewatched) Clement Remembers Final Fantasy video! Technically, the FF5 video was my first one from your series, but this is the one I enjoyed watching the most; it also motivated me to give FF8 another try after so many years. Thanks for these videos, Clement!

broski, that intro gave me goosebumps right before you said that it gave you goosebumps. That freaking piano note and timpani roll at the end. Daaaaaaaaaaaaamn

VIII is probably my favourite in the series alongside IV, simply due to multiple things. The soundtrack, the story and its characters, the setting and its graphics are the best things about these games. The gameplay of VIII is, to say the least, easy and repetitive. But I cannot help but love everything else about the game, especially Squall (who is my favourite protagonist of the whole franchise) and the piece of music playing at Balamb Garden.

I am in the same boat as you are. I like FF8, but there are some absolutely dumb shit in it that I really do not like. But the atmosphere, music, locations and side content are so strong, it makes up for the flaws, and there's just some indescribable quality that appeals to me. But I have to disagree with you in regards to headmaster Cid's appearance. He does not look like Robin Williams. He's the spitting image of Bill Gates ;)

When you played the gardens theme I just closed my eyes and felt the hell out of that.

Fantastic review and WELL worth the wait.

See drawing magic is a pain in the ass in FF8. But the thing is, if you're drawing magic in order to get spells...you're doing it wrong. Triple Triad really just does everything for you. Yes, it can get boring. However it's much faster to get the magic you need relatively early. Oddly enough, the best part about FF8 is that you don't really need to play FF8. Seriously, the game becomes harder the higher your level goes up since monsters scale to your levels. If you get the high level magic spells, junction them to your characters, and they are lower leveled, you'll steamroll through the game no problem. FF8 is up there with FF6 and Tactics as one of the easiest and most fun FF games to break.

Good to see this back! I'll admit... I never played Final Fantasy VIII. Personally I should get into playing that. But I truthfully look forward to when you cover Final Fantasy IX. That is my all time favorite of the PS1 era. IX was a tribute to the old school Final Fantasy and yeah, I want to play that big time.

I can't believe it's been 4 years. Time is going so fast. Thankfully these videos are timeless.

another amazing video, well worth the wait

The story caught me so hard as a teenager, went for an epic quest to find my own Rinoa back then. Well I still kinda am on that quest as women are certainly different irl than portrayed by Japanese introverts *but oh well* , FF8 is finally getting a remaster!

See you guys in 2019 for Clement Remembers Final Fantasy! (IX)

All the credit to you man! this was really good.

Love 8! Squall and a story don't speak to me! IT SCREAMS TO ME!

When i was younger, read 6 years old i didnt understand the draw system, now i do and......well its not perfect and It may be slow and grindy....but it is innovative and it is a way to give the summons more relevancy than being tactical attack nukes and meat shields, because you forgot to mention in the video that the summons have to charge an action bar before they attack and their HP shields their summoner until they attack and they can die and become unusable until you revive them....it was a way to make them feel part of the party.

I'm happy gunblades exist because when discussing them on youtube someone sent me a wikipedia article about them and I noticed something called RWBY. The rest is history. GFs are necessary? TFW no GF...

Such a fantastic video! You basically disintegrated the whole game into one big review, mentioned EVERYTHING this game contains, also being very uncommitted and your speech is great, too. I watched it because I wanted to refresh my memories about this game which was the first of the FF-series I played back in 2001. Thanks to you now my flashbacks are back into a whole one so that I also could judge about this game again. And what to say? I basically agree with almost everything you criticied but also praised! Fantastic job, dude and I'm looking forward to further videos from you! ^_^

10:03 Seifer: Stop that... it’s annoying! ...Chicken wuss!!!