Final Fantasy VIII, the second Final Fantasy game on the PlayStation, expands upon its predecessor in many ways. The core development staff remains, with Hironobu Sakaguchi producing, Nobuo Uematsu composing and arranging the score, and Tetsuya Nomura providing the character designs. The main story revolves around Squall Leonhart, a young member of the military group SeeD, who must begin a dangerous mission against an evil witch, Edea. Along the way, he meets Rinoa Heartilly, a young girl on her own mission. The battle system focuses around Junctioning, a Guardian Force to your character, and the skill of assigning abilities. The Guardian Forces are the popular Summon creatures found in previous games. Magic is used by drawing it from the opponent, then storing it for later use. The graphics are fully 3D in battle, though the backgrounds everywhere else are pre-rendered. The game features over an hour of FMV and fills four discs.
