When I see these dispiriting worlds, the feeling that wafts over me is the same incensement as when I spot a wallet chain on a grown adult, or a T-shirt emblazoned with a blazing skull. For me, each game heralds a garish assault on the eye – great screwy screenfuls of too-muchness that drown any sense of subtlety and style. For those people, I am sure, Final Fantasy VIII represents a delirious cocktail of archaic futurism: European domes and towers spliced with swooping skyways and airborne galleons. I am, however, aware that my own tastes in this matter will be considered heresy by the millions who await each installment of Final Fantasy with the hot-blooded zeal of a fanatical sect.

Now, by my count, I have just given you five reasons to strongly dislike Final Fantasy 8. Think Hogwarts, but instead of wands the students wave pistol swords. But despite its futuristic sparkle, it’s given over to creaky customs – duelling with swords, for one, but also starchy school uniforms, common rooms, and dormitories. He attends Balamb Garden: a preppy school, comprised of glass spires and glittering waterways, that looks like a crashed space casino. And his face is tastefully marked by a scar – won in a duel, no less, in which he wielded an enormous kitchen knife with a gun grip at the hilt. His hair looks as though a hawk had been frozen mid-flap and landed on his head.

The hero of Final Fantasy VIII is called Squall Leonhart.

Final fantasy viii