Final Fantasy VIII - Worse or better?

[Masamune]

I actually didn't really care for it back in the PS1 days (mainly because the others were so much better), but now that I seen how much worse things can get with the more modern ones... I'm enjoying it quite a lot. ? So imo it still doesn't beat games like 6, 7, 9, & 10, but it's far better than 13-2, LR, & 15 (that last one being the steaming pile that made me lose faith in the series). ?

 

I also feel the same way about FF12.

[HeroFangGhetz]

8 is the Jackie Brown of the FF series. Good overall game, but it is overshadowed by it's predecessor. And i must be the only 13 fan here (mind you the gameplay sucked, but i enjoyed the characters and story). FF8 on the otherhand, i enjoyed the story and characters more than 7, which i feel is overrated to high heaven. Gameplay wise, the Junctioning, drawing and dynamic leveling system did deter me, but I like to think Square was experimenting and trying to break away from tradition, which didn't work as FF9 went back to the basics.

[ExHaseo]

I don't like to group the 2D games with the 3D games. So I'm not counting 6 or below in this. 

 

I still consider 8 to be the worst of the 3D FF games. It's debatable on whether 13 is worse though. I personally find 8 to be worse. Since the issues with 13 don't make it unplayable or frustrating, just boring. But I could understand the opposite.

 

Anyway, 8 is literally a broken game. The draw mechanics aren't fun and lead to either unnecessary grinding just to cast magic, or having to flail through the story without magic. And then either you abuse the junction system and break the game, or it's ridiculously hard. It just wasn't balanced very well. Basically, they tried something new and it didn't work. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing. Trying new things is good, but they also don't always work out. This is one of those games where it simply didn't work out. I was really hoping with the remaster they'd do more balancing and changes to the actual gameplay, like they made it sound like they were doing. But they didn't. They just slapped on cheats so people couldn't really complain about the balancing issues and called it a day.

[FireFoxie]

I love FFVIII, but that could be because it's the first game in the series I ever played. Back when I was a teenager I loved everything about the game. The story, the characters, the world. 

 

The battle system took some time to get use to and I had a hard time figuring out the junction system. Once it clicked and I understood it, I had so much fun experimenting with all the magic and abilities. 

 

I'll admit, I don't really like drawing magic from enemies. It's a little time consuming and after you're done, it makes you not want to use magic. I kinda skipped over the draw command and instead used spoils from battle to get magic using the GF abilities. Which saved me a lot of time. 

 

Even after playing a lot of the other games in the series after VIII, I still really like it and to this day remains one of my favorites. Even though it has some flaws, I feel it still has the heart and soul of Final Fantasy which sadly a lot of the entries after XII kinda lost. IMO, I think people are a little too hard on this game. 

Edited September 10, 2019 by FireFoxie

[TerminusCross]

^

Aye, I played this way long ago and am far enough now to remember that getting magic isn't so bad. It sucks at first because you end up spending so much time drawing it but soon enough, you can mod a whole bunch of stuff, aaaand if I remember right in the end of the game there are hell and heaven islands with some useful magic to draw. Using GF abilities is way faster, making the battles quicker and more fun. Just need to give the game a little chance.

[MMDE]

2 hours ago, TerminusCross said:

^

Aye, I played this way long ago and am far enough now to remember that getting magic isn't so bad. It sucks at first because you end up spending so much time drawing it but soon enough, you can mod a whole bunch of stuff, aaaand if I remember right in the end of the game there are hell and heaven islands with some useful magic to draw. Using GF abilities is way faster, making the battles quicker and more fun. Just need to give the game a little chance.

 

It's all about drawing the correct few magic from certain enemies and bosses. Take your time, make those boss battles with Ultimate spells and whatnot last for half an hour or more. Then just kill the boss with normal attacks. The problem is not drawing magic for a little while, the problem is how you shouldn't use the magic afterwards, and how OP you are through only attacks. How enemies scale with your rather linear leveling, how you're level 100 on disc 1 or 2, and I think it affects what drop they have.

[TerminusCross]

Junk attacks? What's that? Normal attacks? Ok. I never use magic, I understand that much. Except for stocks of Cura I keep, and use out of battle. Not too far in right now, I'm at Balamb Garden while it's being attacked, so there's not much cool magic I can find so far for my junctions that I don't already have. I remember a lot of them being in the end, can't wait for those few spells that boost two stats at once. That WAS a thing, if I should recall right and proper? Looked it up in the game's help menu, seems right.

[MMDE]

16 hours ago, TerminusCross said:

Junk attacks? What's that? Normal attacks? Ok. I never use magic, I understand that much. Except for stocks of Cura I keep, and use out of battle. Not too far in right now, I'm at Balamb Garden while it's being attacked, so there's not much cool magic I can find so far for my junctions that I don't already have. I remember a lot of them being in the end, can't wait for those few spells that boost two stats at once. That WAS a thing, if I should recall right and proper? Looked it up in the game's help menu, seems right.

 

Junk attacks? Junction maybe? Junction the best magic for massive stats improvements. Some rare enemies and bosses have some really strong magic spells that affects your stats a lot. When you encounter these, just drag out the battle and draw until you max out your party with that spell. If you know an upcoming boss have spells you want, and your usual characters have max of the spells, maybe give it to other characters to get maxed out with everyone. For example, I went all the way down to Ultima Weapon (a super boss), lots of strong enemies, no saving. And there I made sure I drew max out of every spell it has (only 3, as the 4th was set to the best GF in the game, so that's one draw). I think it has spells like Full-Life, Ultima, and maybe Hastega? I can't remember, this is just from memory.  But these spells, pretty much no other enemy in the game has them, and they're like the best, so gotta draw it all. That's a lot of draw actions, where I basically just stayed alive, not using magic at all, just items. Finally killed it with attacks and limit breaks.

 

Don't use magic in this game tbh, you're just wasting your stats. GFs are great, especially when you boost them (press square fast as you summon, but gotta learn them that ability). So it's all about attack and GFs. Every time it's your turn you got a chance to get "limit break", it's way more likely with low HP and some item called something like "hero" or "tear" or something.  With low HP, you can just spam cancel your attack, and you'll instantly get a new chance to get "limit break" instead of attack. Just gotta stop when you get the limit break.

 

Battle system is quite broken tbh. Enemies are supposed to level up with you, and the xp needed to level up is constant, like 1000XP or something. There's some ability to consume enemies into perm stat increase, and I think there's morph into items that does the same. And you can get perm stat upgrades on level up with certain GFs' abilities.

Edited September 19, 2019 by MMDE