6 replies to this topic

[Waker]

Oh my god that guy is coming out of her?!?!

One of the more realistic games in the FF series in my opinion. The scenes of Fisherman's Horizon remind me of old Japan, Asia and the 70s, the old days. Zone having stomach cramps, Zell rushing to the cafeteria for hot dogs, Irvine being a crotchety pervert, and lots of old people. A personal favorite, defiantly.


At the moment watching my little sister (not Suzuki) play through FFVIII again after she found the PS1. In the same room. The bedroom. Bunk beds. So I'm lovin' it. Lovely memories coming back.

Some FFVIII trivia and spoiler (disk 4):

Spoiler

[Xu] unwittingly survives the Time Compression along with the CC group members when the Time Compression took place. Wanting Squall to play the card game against the CC group members, they boarded the Ragnarok airship and somehow survived, perhaps because of their passion to challenge Squall.

Edited by Waker, 22 June 2010 - 09:48 AM.

[Xylox]

This is my favorite Final Fantasy of all time. Reading this thread brings back memories for me. The many plot twists and the character developments of everyone were really nice.

[Valor]

Though the world of FF8 is interesting, I feel this is one of the weakest Final Fantasies in terms of story and gameplay. It was a backwards step from limit breaks in Final Fantasy VII, drawing magic was tedious, and the difficulty of the game was pretty much nonexistent. Plus no game that i can think of actually rewards you for NOT leveling up aside from FF8. Meh. I like the game but it is not very high on my list.

[Secret Igshar]

A personal favorite, defiantly.

You sicken me.

Anyway, I never got too far in this game, as opposed to every other FF, mostly due to how god damned boring it is. Battles are either too easy or impossibly impossible and there is no middle ground. Drawing Magic takes effing forever and having any less than 100 of a given spell at any time is kinda sorta silly if it can be helped, considering that maximizes the potential of that spell when junctioned.

Oh, that's another thing. There's no magic system in the game. At all. No one in their right mind is going to actually CAST Fire Magic when they can JUNCTION it to Zell's attack and watch him OHKO fucking EVERYTHING without wasting those valuable resources which you would end up wasting turns in shitty normal fights just to restock your Fire spells... When you get upgraded spells (WOO FIRA) your first instinct is OH WHAT DOES THIS JUNCTION WELL ON rather than OH LET ME BURN SOME NOOBS. I mean, seriously. When I got my first batch of Fira, I drooled over the fact that Zell's Strength score improved quite noticeably when he junctioned that instead. It was a very limited resource, and every cast of it would only have made Zell's offensive attack weaker.

I can honestly say I only know spell animations because enemies cast the spells on me.

Maybe I'm just bitching too much about a game which I know is very good, since every Final Fantasy game is extremely good. Maybe I'm just ticked off because I play Final Fantasy games for the characters and their interactions with each other and growth because of the bonds they make and the FFVIII cast doesn't really have much depth to it... Yes, Irvine wrestles with the idea of killing someone (even though he's a sniper and he's about to shoot someone who is COMPLETELY EVIL) but still. They all have unique personalities, yes, but not a single one of them outside of Zell made me actually give a damn about them. Quistis disappears from the story and I didn't miss her. Seriously, if you can just drop a main character into the background and not lose something in it, that's terrible to my tastes.

I dunno. Never got attached to the characters at all, so I never could bring myself to see the game through to its conclusion. It didn't appeal to me in any sense. :\

[Waker]

Igshar tag teaming with his bro Valorto diss FFVIII

You two are just devious.

Though the world of FF8 is interesting, I feel this is one of the weakest Final Fantasies in terms of story and gameplay. It was a backwards step from limit breaks in Final Fantasy VII, drawing magic was tedious, and the difficulty of the game was pretty much nonexistent. Plus no game that i can think of actually rewards you for NOT leveling up aside from FF8. Meh. I like the game but it is not very high on my list.

Indeed the worlds are interesting. And the story seems to go loopy after the first disk. I don't understand the gameplay comment as it is the same format as previous FF games, though Iggy elaborates on the comment.

I don't know about FFVII's limit breaks, but who can't love Zell's Duel, Irvine's trigger shots, or Squall's KH-like reaction command renzokuken?

drawing magic was tedious

Because stealing magic makes as much sense as this vapor chi called aether which is used to make magic. Eh I still have to agree with you here. You have to spend a lot of time gathering each magic spell (if you're a noob at refine). Still the premise of limited casts is sexy is it not? You don't even have to use all 100 of a spell in one battle.

For difficulty you could have searched for the Weapons and secret GFs; done the chocobo quest and triple triad. But on this point I agree as well. It seemed that even though the monsters leveled up with you they had the same difficulty. All you needed was to dish out major damage via aura>limit break lionheart or ultima/holy/third tier magic/GF/normal attack am I right?

You sicken me.

You know what I mean. Know matter how hard I try FFVIII will always be at my top five list of bideo games.

tl;dr

What is magic system? Please educate my newborn mind. The only explanation for it is that there is nothing to encourage you to use magic. Even with all junctions maxed, there are few spells you can use that wouldn't make you weaker. There should have been something to block this effect or make each one separate.

FFVIII seems suckier than I thought it was. But I still love it for its collectimania theme and nice soundtracks/backgrounds. I like how it gives each location a reason to exist or at least for the player to be there and one that isn't vague. And the variety of items and fun side comments and clips, sweet moments, and also easter eggs.

That said, did anyone ever get Cloud as a secret GF summon?

[Secret Igshar]

I don't know about FFVII's limit breaks, but who can't love Zell's Duel, Irvine's trigger shots, or Squall's KH-like reaction command renzokuken?

He was referring to the fact of how frequently you could pull it off. Get Squall to yellow health and spam triangle. Eventually it'll pop up. Use it, everything dies. In FFVII, you take damage to increase a Limit Gauge. When it fills, you can activate your Limit Break.

For difficulty you could have searched for the Weapons and secret GFs; done the chocobo quest and triple triad. But on this point I agree as well. It seemed that even though the monsters leveled up with you they had the same difficulty. All you needed was to dish out major damage via aura>limit break lionheart or ultima/holy/third tier magic/GF/normal attack am I right?

I will say that the system of Junctioning was very interesting and in-depth for sure. I will also say that if I want to play a fun Chocobo side quest OR a fun card game, you won't catch me playing FFVIII. Chocobo Hot and Cold from FFIX and Tetra Master (also from FFIX) are vastly more enjoyable than the equivalent side quests of FFVIII.

Every FF game eventually falls into a rut similar to that, so it's not a strike against FFVIII that it falls into it as well.

What is magic system? Please educate my newborn mind. The only explanation for it is that there is nothing to encourage you to use magic. Even with all junctions maxed, there are few spells you can use that wouldn't make you weaker. There should have been something to block this effect or make each one separate.

Magic System is casting spells to fight enemies. In FFVIII you don't cast spells. Evar. If you cast a spell, you lose points in your stats. For example, say you have Break junctioned to your Status Attack. Why would you cast Break rather than attack with that 100% Petrify added effect? Silly. Casting magic is just stupid in FFVIII, since casting a spell causes you to become weaker in your stats due to the in-depth junction system. The fact that each character can only hold a certain amount of different spells leads further into this, since you can't have many extra spells outside of those you have junctioned. Also, why would you ever cast magic when every character can smack an enemy for more damage than they can do by casting magic?

When I play Final Fantasy games, I very much enjoy having a mage on my team who slings spells at the opponents near constantly rather than attacking them with their weapons. That's also a reason I never really played FFX, since I was never too fond of Lulu. >_>;

[Valor]

You two are just devious.

Thank you?

I don't understand the gameplay comment as it is the same format as previous FF games, though Iggy elaborates on the comment.

They took some risks what with the GF compat/Health and the new menu system that is like Command Materia on Steroids. I loved that part of it because there were some really awesome ability combinations you could put on characters but none of that matters when you can cast Aura on yourself and spam the hell out of triangle until renzokuken or duel comes up. Also, penalizing the player for leveling up while throwing tons of random battles at you with the need to collect items from said enemies to be able to craft new weapons which in turn allow you to have better limit break performance (for Squall or ammo for Irvine) is kind of obnoxious. I like junctioning magic, but once you get access to high tier magic for everyone even this is dumb because your characters are super maxxed out. End of my FF8 game I had two characters level 100 - Squall and Zell. Both are beasts when it comes to combat. No one else is even close. Quistis loses her awesome after the first disc, Irvine is damn good with Pulse ammo but I HATE his character, Selphie is good for Fullcure, but aside from that I rarely use a lot of her limit magic, and I despise Rinoa. And that's the extent of your characters. Awesome. Three characters I can't stand and one that I forget even exists (Quistis). I digress.

I don't know about FFVII's limit breaks, but who can't love Zell's Duel, Irvine's trigger shots, or Squall's KH-like reaction command renzokuken?

The limits are cool but in FF7 for example you need to build up a gauge from getting hurt to be able to unleash a limit break. The higher tier the limit break the more damage you need to take. In 8 you can cast aura and get a limit break at full health. That's garbage. Pure garbage. You can spam triangle and thusly spam limit breaks instead of needing any sort of strategy against enemies. That's something I don't like. In 7 I save my limit breaks early on for use against bosses, picking off large chunks of health at the start, or even felling one in two attacks (LOL AIR BUSTER I'M LOOKING AT YOU).

Why try and incorporate strategy into the battle system of a game with custom command list and then shit all over that with magic you can't use and limit breaks you can use whenever? Aura is very rare, I know, but the very fact that it exists is insane. Double and Triple are also nearly game breaking. Thank you Cerberus.

Still the premise of limited casts is sexy is it not? You don't even have to use all 100 of a spell in one battle.

Not really that sexy. I really never used magic very much since so many GFs come with Elem-J. I just junction 100 Thundagas to Squall's attack and deal elemental damage that way. Most of the magic you'd WANT to cast you usually have to have junctioned in order to have epic tier stats. So you either have decent stats and casting triple, or an insane attack stat. I dunno. I still enjoyed this aspect but it feels so restricting.

For difficulty you could have searched for the Weapons

Did it.

and secret GFs

Did it.

chocobo quest

Did it.

triple triad

Did it, spread fucking horrid rules, gave up, refined everything

But on this point I agree as well. It seemed that even though the monsters leveled up with you they had the same difficulty. All you needed was to dish out major damage via aura>limit break lionheart or ultima/holy/third tier magic/GF/normal attack am I right?

Enemies weren't the problem, it's just like oh, I need to deal with this enemy having an additional spell because I leveled up whereas the level 1 player doesn't have to. This is probably the easiest game EVER to do a level 1 playthrough of, which is horrible. You can get unsane stats from magic junctioning while fighting the WEAKEST POSSIBLE enemies, where as leveling up and junctioning same magic allows you to keep up with the enemies. See the difference? :\

That said, did anyone ever get Cloud as a secret GF summon?

Wut.


This is not to say I did not enjoy final fantasy VIII or that I hate it. Far from it. It's actually fun despite its shortcomings but I can't allow people to say it's one of the best of the series when in all reality it is not. It's the weakest of the PS1 final fantasy trio/quartet.