Say what you will about Final Fantasy VIII, but it sure was a beautiful game when it was released. Though the backgrounds still look nice even if you play it on the PlayStation 3 and PC, they don’t hold up as well as they once did. Thanks to one dedicated fan however, we can see what this game would look like if it got an HD remake.
These images were created by Scott Honeycutt who is a 3D Game Environment Artist. Here is his description of how the images were created:
“Fan art based on Balamb Garden from Final Fantasy VIII made by Square-Enix. Models, UVs and baking in 3ds Max, textures made with Photoshop and Quixel suite, render and materials in Unreal 4. This is a game environment art portfolio piece made of low poly models with normal maps applied, and it uses a physically based rendering setup with metallic and roughness values.”
Although I’m not the biggest fan of this game (why do I have to steal magic from enemies and use it to level up???), I did enjoy its visuals. If Square-Enix were to ever remake Final Fantasy VIII (or FFVII and FFIX) then they should use Honeycutt’s images as a baseline. They’re incredible.
Check out the full sized images in the gallery below.
Source: Scott Honeycutt on ArtStation
