Final Fantasy VIII

Final Fantasy VIII​ (ファイナルファンタジーVIII, Fainaru Fantajī Eito?) is a console role-playing game released for the PlayStation in 1999 and for Windows-based personal computers in 2000. It was developed and published by Square (now Square Enix) as the Final Fantasy series' eighth title, doing away with magic point-based spell-casting and the first title to consistently use realistically proportioned characters.

The game's story focuses on a group of young mercenaries who are drawn into an international conflict, and seek to protect the world from a sorceress manipulating the war for her own purposes. The main protagonist is Squall Leonhart, a 17-year-old loner and student at the military academy Balamb Garden, who is training to become a "SeeD", a mercenary paid by the academy.

The development of Final Fantasy VIII began in 1997, during the English localization process of Final Fantasy VII. The music was scored by Nobuo Uematsu, series regular, and in a series first, the theme music is a vocal piece, "Eyes on Me", performed by Faye Wong. The game was positively received by critics and was a commercial success. It was voted the 22nd-best game of all time by readers of the Japanese magazine Famitsu. Thirteen weeks after its release, Final Fantasy VIII had earned more than US$50 million in sales, making it the fastest-selling Final Fantasy title of all time. The game has shipped 8.15 million copies worldwide as of March 31, 2003.[2]

The game was later made available on PlayStation Network in Japan as a PSone Classics title September 24, 2009. It was made available for the PlayStation Network in the US on December 17, 2009. It will be made available in Europe on February 4, 2010.