Led by Squall Leonhart, a group of young mercenaries are drawn into conflict involving a sorceress from the future named Ultimacia who aims to compress time itself. The story of Final Fantasy VIII was first told 20 years ago today when it released for the PlayStation on February 11, 1999 in Japan.
Final Fantasy VIII wasn’t the first entry of the series to use 3D graphics and pre-rendered backgrounds, but it was actually the first to use realistically proportioned characters throughout the whole game. It was also the first to break tradition of using MP (Magic Points) for casting spells.
The game was also the first Final Fantasy to feature a vocalized main theme with “Eyes on Me.”
Final Fantasy VIII released for the PlayStation 1999 followed by a PC release in 2000. It has since then been re-released as part of the PSOne Classic for PlayStation 3, PSP, PlayStation Vita. It released on Steam in 2013 when the company released its last known total sales figure of 8.5 million copies across all platforms worldwide.
