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When I see these dispiriting worlds, the feeling that wafts over me is the same incensement as when I spot a wallet chain on a grown adult, or a T-shirt emblazoned with a blazing skull. For me, each game heralds a garish assault on the eye – great screwy screenfuls of too-muchness that drown any sense of subtlety and style. For those people, I am sure, Final Fantasy VIII represents a delirious cocktail of archaic futurism: European domes and towers spliced with swooping skyways and airborne galleons. I am, however, aware that my own tastes in this matter will be considered heresy by the millions who await each installment of Final Fantasy with the hot-blooded zeal of a fanatical sect. Now, by my count, I have just given you five reasons to strongly dislike Final Fantasy 8.
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Think Hogwarts, but instead of wands the students wave pistol swords. But despite its futuristic sparkle, it’s given over to creaky customs – duelling with swords, for one, but also starchy school uniforms, common rooms, and dormitories. He attends Balamb Garden: a preppy school, comprised of glass spires and glittering waterways, that looks like a crashed space casino. And his face is tastefully marked by a scar – won in a duel, no less, in which he wielded an enormous kitchen knife with a gun grip at the hilt. His hair looks as though a hawk had been frozen mid-flap and landed on his head. The hero of Final Fantasy VIII is called Squall Leonhart.
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