Final Fantasy VIII is a role-playing video game released for the PlayStation in 1999 and Windows in 2000. It was developed and published by Square as the Final Fantasy series' eighth title, the first title to consistently use realistically proportioned characters. The game follows a group who have joined the "SeeD" mercenaries and are trying to stop Ultimecia, a sorceress from the future, from casting a spell that compresses time. Playable characters include the duty-bound loner Squall, the outspoken and passionate young woman Rinoa, the patient instructor Quistis, the martial artist Zell, the cheerful airship pilot Selphie, and Irvine, a marksman looking for love. The music was scored by Nobuo Uematsu, a series regular, and in a first for the series, the theme music is a vocal piece, "Eyes on Me", performed by Faye Wong. The game was a commercial success and positively received by critics. Thirteen weeks after its release, it had earned more than US$50 million in sales, making it the fastest-selling Final Fantasy title before Final Fantasy XIII, a multi-platform release. The game had shipped 8.15 million copies worldwide by the second quarter of 2003. (Full article...)

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