I have always been a staunch defender of Final Fantasy VIII. I love its broken junction system, the exceptional card game Triple Triad, and the central story of Squall and Rinoa. Not everybody is as enlightened as I am, though. Ever since its release in 1999, the game has been overlooked and underappreciated, often because it faced the impossible challenge of following Final Fantasy VII. But one site is here to set the record straight and shout the praises of the oft-derided eight entry. It is the aptly titled Final Fantasy VIII is the Best and it is the best.
The site came into existence on February 23, with an inaugural post titled ‘FF8 fucking rules.’ The first post simply reads “eat my ass.” I was made aware of the site from Critical Distance’s “This Week In Video Game Blogging” roundup. There have been 14 more articles posted to the site as of writing. While the first post may give readers the impression this is entirely a joke, subsequent articles show that this is much more than that. The second post is a detailed analysis of the song “Eyes on Me,” which serves as a central love theme for characters Rinoa and Squall. The article explains that despite the mess that is, “Eyes on Me” still works as an emotional representation of the characters’ journey.
Articles on Final Fantasy VIII is the Best go back and forth between joking posts and deeply critical works teasing out the game’s meaning. One day the site will grill Rinoa for her bad posture, and the next it will do a deep dive on the critical landscape at large through the lens of how Final Fantasy 8 has been reevaluated in recent years. One of the most recent posts recounts the years-long joke a magazine pulled on one of its readers, and the ending genuinely made me scream out loud because of how wild it is. Final Fantasy VIII is the Best is a weird love letter to a weird game.
Which is the point, as noted by site creator Phil Salvador, who also happens to be the Library Director for the Video Game History Foundation. At the bottom of Final Fantasy VIII is the Best is a message that reads “You can just make a website and nobody can stop you.” Click that linked message and it brings you to a sort of mission statement/explainer of the site. Salvador lists several reasons for starting it, including as a means to beat writer’s block and because he “thought the domain name was funny.” He also writes:
There’s another part to this, which is that I want the internet to be weird. I’m writing this in February 2024, and over the last year, I feel like we’ve seen the open web degrade at an alarming rate. Google’s search algorithm has been moving hard in favor SEO mill content and eCommerce, and the rise of LLM AI has produced the information equivalent of grey goo. With these two things combined, it feels like we are leaving behind the idea that the web can be personal or a place for expression or fun ideas. It’s becoming a slurry of interchangeable anonymous Content, and we’re used to the idea that the real creativity happens on Twitch, Discord, YouTube or other closed spaces.
Final Fantasy VIII is the Best is a personal outlet and love letter to a complicated game but also a living, breathing example of how genuinely special the internet can be. As Salvador points out, this is more important than ever, as now it seems like the powers that be want to continue to monetize and min/max the internet without any care for the content on it. I want to see sites like this for every weird game ever made, because it’s a great reminder that anybody can find something to love in even the most flawed pieces of art. I know I am already considering making a Gravity Rush fan site. And you can do the same. You can just make a website and nobody can stop you!
