The Garden Pictures The Logo A garden Squall Laguna Squall at sunset Screen shots Screen shots

   At 11:00 this morning, Squaresoft held a special E3 conference revealing new information about and pictures of Final Fantasy VIII. RPGamer was on the scene and has the following revelations about Square's next sure-fire masterpiece.

   The president of Squaresoft himself described Final Fantasy VIII's setting as "futuristic". However, from the movie shown so far (the same movie as was shown a few weeks ago at the Japanese conference), this should be no problem. Characters clearly visible in the movies were Squall, who moves extremely naturally and has a noticable gash across his forehead. Also visible in the CG scenes were the female character in the turquoise cape (and the love interest, to judge from the logo) and a mohawked male that looked about Squall's age. Laguna was nowhere to be seen.

   Battles are more impressive that ever before, with dynamic lighting and spell effects that seem to shink, grow, and morph before your eyes - not just flash on the screen then disappear. Enemies and characters looked far more dynamic and real that Final Fantasy VII - from the textures to the environments to the movement, to the spell effects, everything about the game screamed "100% of the Playstation's power." Particularly impressive was Leviathan, who now worms his way out of the ground, writhes powerfully, and summons a huge wall of water that stands tall before falling on the enemies.

   Sakaguchi is again producing and Uematsu is doing the music. Nomura is also again doing the character designs. A U.S. release was officially announced (did we doubt it?) with a fall / winter 1999 tenative release date. Parasite Eve will contain a disc with a gameplay movie (perhaps the very feature shown today), while Brave Fencer Musashiden will have a playable demo. The game looks to be Square's best yet!