# If I told you Final Fantasy 8 was better than 7... **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [May 15, 2012, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-i-told-you-final-fantasy-8-was-better-than-7/622010 "2012-05-15T19:10:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![by-tor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/by-tor/32/266_2.png) [@by-tor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/by-tor)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2012, 11:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-i-told-you-final-fantasy-8-was-better-than-7/622010/41 "2012-05-17T11:31:54Z")
8 was awful. I liked 4, 5, 6, 7 and 9. 10 seemed like a whole different thing altogether and I gave up on FF after playing the first 20 minutes of it. ---
**Author:** ![WisdomofLife](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/34f0e0/32.png) [@WisdomofLife](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WisdomofLife)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2012, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-i-told-you-final-fantasy-8-was-better-than-7/622010/42 "2012-05-18T00:07:09Z")
Final Fantasy character designer Tetsuya Nomura claims that Squall was based on River Phoenix From > **[The Bouncer Team Talks About Its Mysterious Game - IGN](https://www.ign.com/articles/2000/09/22/the-bouncer-team-talks-about-its-mysterious-game)** > > At the Square Media Tour 2000 in Tokyo yesterday, we were given the… Q: Where did the inspiration for the characters in The Bouncer come from? It was rumored that the inspiration for Squall was based loosely on Tetsuya Nomura himself. Nomura: River Pheonix was the inspiration for Squall. Nobody understood it. In designing the characters for The Bouncers, I begun with deciding what kind of costumes the characters would be wearing and there are no correlations with any real people. I have to say this because people will start rumors otherwise. In the beginning of the interview Q: Where does your inspiration come from when you create characters for the games? A: Basically, most of my ideas come from movies and magazines, or I just create them in my head. It is kind of odd that Nomura says that “there are no correlation with any real people…” It could be possible that Nomura based some parts on Gackt. I wonder if Nomura or Squaresoft was having legal issues from copying Gackt’s image:dubious: or they were criticized or made fun of by FF fans for directly copying designs or styles from others instead of coming up with something original :D. So the denial of using real people. ---
**Author:** ![Balance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ccd318/32.png) [@Balance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balance)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2012, 1:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-i-told-you-final-fantasy-8-was-better-than-7/622010/43 "2012-05-18T01:56:56Z")
> [@Lynn\_Bodoni](#): > > I love Doomtrain, even if the animation is long, long, long. So very many status ailments to inflict! Also, hit Adamontoises (sp?) with Doomtrain when you want to abuse Angelo Search, and you’re golden for about as many hours as you want to leave the PS running. Those turtles are immune to the poison, but otherwise they are helpless, and you can let the characters twiddle their thumbs while waiting for the dog to dig up something. And when you’re done with that, you can have a snack. (Yes, I abused Devour, too. My characters ate a lot of tough turtle soup and evil cabbage.) ---
**Author:** ![Lynn\_Bodoni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e47c2d/32.png) [@Lynn\_Bodoni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lynn_Bodoni)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2012, 5:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-i-told-you-final-fantasy-8-was-better-than-7/622010/44 "2012-05-18T05:43:13Z")
> [@](#): > > It is kind of odd that Nomura says that “there are no correlation with any real people…” It could be possible that Nomura based some parts on Gackt. > > I wonder if Nomura or Squaresoft was having legal issues from copying Gackt’s image:dubious: or they were criticized or made fun of by FF fans for directly copying designs or styles from others instead of coming up with something original :D. So the denial of using real people. [URL=“[http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/editpost.php?do=editpost&p=15075427](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/editpost.php?do=editpost&p=15075427)”] I’ve looked at pics of both of them, and I think that Squall looks more like Gackt, especially the chin. And, of course, the earring. Neither River nor Gackt wears a Griever ring or necklace, though. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2012, 8:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-i-told-you-final-fantasy-8-was-better-than-7/622010/45 "2012-05-18T08:13:08Z")
> [@Astral\_Rejection](#): > > Now, how much will I get jumped if I say I liked FFX? I unironically enjoyed FFX-2. _fighting stance_ Come on if you think you’re hard enough ! > [@](#): > > 10 suffers from regrettable voice acting. Actually, it suffers from regrettable design decisions dictated by the game being fully voiced over. What happened was, Square painstakingly animated each scene (not just the FMV ones) so that the lips of the character models would precisely match what they were saying. In Japanese. So when the game was ported over, they had the same terrible choice as people have when they dub over movies: either read the lines normally, and have the dialog be out of synch with the actors’ faces ; or try and come up with lines that have the same rythm and sounds as people speaking a foreign language on-screen. In video games this is often fudged around through various means these days (either by having the mouth flaps not really matching any language even in the original, or by having the mouth flaps rendered in real time, or by re-doing them for the export), but the creators of FFX were extremely proud of how well they’d done their mouth flaps, couldn’t be arsed to do them all over again, and the camera focus was _always_ there. No fudging allowed whatsoever, because it would have been ridiculously obvious and distracting. So the voice-over actors were directed in a way that makes them sound like crap. The most notable of the bunch is probably Yuna, who often ends upspea king like she has a veryodds peech impedime nt. ---
**Author:** ![Astral\_Rejection](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/258eb7/32.png) [@Astral\_Rejection](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Astral_Rejection)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2012, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-i-told-you-final-fantasy-8-was-better-than-7/622010/46 "2012-05-18T13:51:32Z")
I didn’t know that! I guess I can’t lay all the blame at the feet of the voice actors, then. Even so, I think I would have found Tidus and Rikku annoying! ---
**Author:** ![Lynn\_Bodoni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e47c2d/32.png) [@Lynn\_Bodoni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lynn_Bodoni)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2012, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-i-told-you-final-fantasy-8-was-better-than-7/622010/47 "2012-05-18T16:07:45Z")
> [@](#): > > Actually, it suffers from regrettable design decisions dictated by the game being fully voiced over. Yes, that’s a good part of it. However, you can’t simply neglect the fact that Tidus was a whiny little bitch who had daddy issues, that Yuna was oh-so-noble and self-sacrificing (and also had daddy issues), and Rikku was a little brat who dogpaddled in the air. Auron was the only one I really whole-heartedly liked, with Lulu being second. > [@](#): > > What happened was, Square painstakingly animated each scene (not just the FMV ones) so that the lips of the character models would precisely match what they were saying. In Japanese. I think that Square put too much emphasis on animation and not enough on gameplay and plot. The grid sphere system was a fantastic concept, for instance, and if the rest of the game had been up to that standard I’d be one of its biggest fans. I also think that Square was more concerned about animation than with plot in the movie. Great animation. But where’s the plot? ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2012, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-i-told-you-final-fantasy-8-was-better-than-7/622010/48 "2012-05-18T23:53:52Z")
> [@Lynn\_Bodoni](#): > > Yes, that’s a good part of it. However, you can’t simply neglect the fact that Tidus was a whiny little bitch who had daddy issues, that Yuna was oh-so-noble and self-sacrificing (and also had daddy issues), and Rikku was a little brat who dogpaddled in the air. > > Auron was the only one I really whole-heartedly liked, with Lulu being second. Oh, absolutely. But that would still be true even if they had hired BRIAN BLESSED! to play Tidus and Shia LeBoeuf to voice Auron. > [@](#): > > I also think that Square was more concerned about animation than with plot in the movie. Great animation. But where’s the plot? Agreed, and that’s an ongoing trend. But hey, at least there’s a decent RPG hiding between the retarded costumes, somewhat aggravating characters and convoluted plot. Compare and contrast with FF XIII, the pro corridor simulation. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-i-told-you-final-fantasy-8-was-better-than-7/622010.md?page=2)