FINAL FANTASY VIII is the eighth main installment in the FINAL FANTASY series, developed and published by Squaresoft.

The gameplay makes a departure from many series standards. While it still uses the Active Time Battle system, it deviates from the series' traditional means of boosting a character's power via leveling, although levels are not completely abandoned as they were in FINAL FANTASY II. In addition, it does not have a Magic Point-based system for spell-casting. Instead, magic is collected, drawn, and created from items, and is used to power up the characters via the junction system.