Actually a pretty good game. The controls felt really clunky at first and the beginning was a slog, but the game slowly grows on you with its cast (most notably the Bonnes), the music (especially in town and the later dungeons), and the fun dungeon exploration with all sorts of items and treasure to find. Eventually the game peaks with a super cool final boss and some interesting revelations, and I'm surprised that I actually really want to see where it's going. I'm also amazed at how good this game (a 1997 PS1 game) looks, holding up perfectly even to this day.

HUGE step up from X5, X6 and X7, but that's not saying much. Stage design was generally alright (besides Central White and Dynasty, those sucked). Bosses were still pretty braindead with weaknesses.

Character switching was implemented pretty well; I found that I switched between Zero and X (my two characters of choice) way more than I thought I would. On that note, while I did feel like Zero was weaker than he was in the PS1 games, upgraded X felt pretty strong.

It's neat that the navigators are actually helpful this time around, first time in the series where I actually wanted to hear from them.

The chip system was pretty cool, but backtracking for items and upgrades was still a slog, and they really needed to take it easy with some of those metal prices.

Overall, X8 is the very definition of a weak 7/10; not much about it is offensively bad, but it is merely the bare minimum of what could be considered "good". I'd almost go as far as to say that it's positively soulless! The game definitely doesn't approach the level of quality that X1, X2, or X4 had, but it was fun nonetheless.

There's something relaxing about booting up the game, and jumping into a run without a care in the world. No routing, no resource management, no spellcard practice, just good old-fashioned random dodgin' and shootin'.

That is, until Stage 7 and onwards, where the game slaps you in face and ridicules you for your SHEER naiveté, thinking you could play an entirely random STG without consequences. Some days, you'll barely stumble through Aya/Medicine and Komachi with 2-3 lives intact, and then you'll be greeted by Eiki and her literal TAS evasive abilities. And as she jumps in, out, and WITHIN reality to weave though WALLS of bullets, she'll make sure to send you patterns that would make Remilia blush. Oh, and did I mention that the first round is essentially unwinnable? God help you if you didn't bring an extra life.

Of course, on other days she and the rest of them will be nice and turn off the ultra-instinct after two minutes. Such is the nature of PoFV.

Suspend your disbelief for a moment, and imagine if someone came to you with a revolutionary new idea: eating food. They sell you on the concept with the promise of wonderful vitamins and nutrients and tastes that'll please your various taste buds. You're excited to try it, on the frontier of a new dawn, and then they give you the first food ever: a rock. After trying it, I don't know about you guys, but I would've beat the budding visionary senseless and concluded that eating food was a fool's endeavor.

It's kind of like that with Pong. We are so lucky that they didn't just scrap the entire concept of video games after this garbage came out. Yeah yeah it was a different time and they didn't have the same capabilities blah blah blah. Don't care, this game is terrible. It's so boring that scientists probably distilled it's essence for use as one of the main ingredients of Nyquil.

But on the other hand, god bless the individuals that saw potential in this mind-numbing snoozefest, and saw that video games could be bigger, better, and more imaginative than scuffed table tennis. Without them, we wouldn't have Valkyrie Profile.

You remember that one part, shortly after beating Yuyuko's last spell card? As you sit there, reflecting on your journey, the horrors of Stage 4, Youmu's wild ride, and Yuyuko's tough as nails spellcards, some weird poem shows up:

"Remembering the melancholy of human existence
Even ghosts stray from the path of righteousness"

And then BAM, guess who's back, ready for more? Motherfucking Yuyuko, cutting through your reprieve with one last desperate stand: 66 seconds of WAVE after WAVE of beautiful danmaku. With no recourse, you hold on for dear life, dodging on pure adrenaline-fueled instinct, so as to justify the efforts and prayers of the last 30 minutes; all against the backdrop of the absolutely JAMMING remix of Border of Life.

Yeah, I fucking felt that.

I can see why people love this game so much. The environments are beautiful, the music is wonderful, and the story is engaging all throughout, thanks to an interesting premise (grand adventure across time) and brilliant pacing. However, the gameplay was very unremarkable (which bordered on boring by the time I finished the Dream Devourer questline), and I only cared about half of the playable cast (Frog, Magus, and Marle). But at any rate, Chrono Trigger is still a great JRPG. I will never ever forget visiting Zeal for the first time. I'd highly recommend it to anyone, especially those looking to get into the genre.