The Final Fantasy VIII Original Soundtrack, a compilation of all music in the game, was released on four Compact Discs by DigiCube in Japan, and by Square EA in North America.

The song's lyrics, written in English by Kako Someya, unveil the hopes of a night club singer for romance with a member of her audience.

Reviewers were generally pleased with the music, although several cited issues while comparing the score to previous games or looking at individual tracks.

[1][2] In regard to Final Fantasy VIII, Uematsu did not prefer to use multiple sources to find MIDI instruments—"I could be coming up with a great melody in the very moment"—instead using a Roland SC-88 synthesizer for the entire score.

He asserts that expressing the emotions he desires is more important than improving skills: "I think it will be a shame if we won't be able to cry as we play our own game".

[4] Near the end of the production of Final Fantasy VII, the developers suggested to use a singer, but abandoned the idea due to a lack of reasoning based on the game's theme and storyline.

[8][9] It received generally positive reviews from critics; New Zealand PlayStation magazine claimed Final Fantasy VIII has "one of the most memorable scores you will ever hear".

[10] Reviewers from multimedia news website IGN stated that much of the game's impact is owed to its "terrific" musical score, but were disappointed by "yet another" variation of the traditional battle theme.

[13] Lastly, Game Revolution wrote that "there are only a few tracks that really stand out", including "Eyes on Me", which it deemed a "clichéd, but beautiful love song".

[15][16] Adam Corn of SoundtrackCentral.com claimed the album shows similarities to previous Final Fantasy games, but asserted he was "not overly impressed with this one".

It also includes three unchanged tracks from Final Fantasy VIII Original Soundtrack; "Liberi Fatali", "Eyes on Me", and "Ending Theme".

[22] Neal Chandran of RPGFan was similarly impressed, saying that it was "a very good soundtrack" and that its tracks sounded "more beautiful than the original version".

[23] Robert Steen of SoundtrackCentral.com commended the performance, claiming "Shinko Ogata seems to be a very capable player" and noted that although the arrangements are similar to the original pieces, they "breathe new life into the songs".

[25] The lyrics, written in imperfect English,[26] unveil the hopes of a night club singer for romance with a member of her audience.

This resulted in the game's developers sharing "countless" artists, eventually deciding on Faye Wong, a Chinese vocalist.

[30][31] The song was popular among the video game community in the Western world, and brought Faye Wong to the attention of many who were not previously familiar with her music.

[32] In 2017, Brian Ashcraft from Kotaku described "Eyes on Me" as one of the most iconic songs of the Final Fantasy franchise, as well as one of the most commercially successful singles associated with the video game industry.

[36] In 2004, a Japanese-language version entitled "Summer Album" (夏のアルバム, "Natsu no Arubamu") with lyrics by Kazushige Nojima was included on Final Fantasy Song Book: Mahoroba.

A Video Game Symphony world tour from 2006 onwards, for which Nobuo Uematsu composed the opening fanfare that accompanies each performance.

[64] In the 2004 Summer Olympics, the American synchronized swimming duo consisting of Alison Bartosik and Anna Kozlova were awarded the bronze medal for their performance to the pieces "Fithos Lusec Wecos Vinosec" and "Liberi Fatali".