Man, with every "in between updates Omi cries about the gameplay design of FFVIII" post, I dread the final assessment of the game more and more when it reaches the Gameplay section.
Let's Play Every Final Fantasy Game In Order Of Release [Now Playing: Final Fantasy IX]
- Thread starter Omicron
- Start date
- Let's Play
FF8 is a great game to watch or read a Let's Play of.
Playing it can be an enjoyable experience with a guide, or a natural disinclination to fighting more random encounters than you absolutely have to.
Trying to do a... not exactly completionist, but at least touching on all of the optional content run like Omi is doing? Salutes all around, you brave, dumb hero.
Playing it can be an enjoyable experience with a guide, or a natural disinclination to fighting more random encounters than you absolutely have to.
Trying to do a... not exactly completionist, but at least touching on all of the optional content run like Omi is doing? Salutes all around, you brave, dumb hero.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
maybe if you levelled more you could survive it
Entropy Judge
Recurring Bouts of Misanthropy
I mean, at least the game does give you tools to counteract things like this - Initiative, to make sure you can do something first, Auto-Shell (if it's magic damage you're concerned about), Defend.
Egleris
Vagrant Dragon
- Location
- Italy
Now you have me curious - I suspect I know which monster that one is, but there is a number of possibilities, so I'm looking forwards to which one in particular this is.
Also! I remember another thing that I should have pointed out in my list of things to check out:
Also! I remember another thing that I should have pointed out in my list of things to check out:
So, this is done by sleeping in Balamb Hotel with Zell in the team. However, the exact results here will depend on how many of the pigtail girl scenes you saw in the Garden, and I don't really know how many of the scenes (most of which requires visiting the Library with Zell in the group, but some of which only can be found if you visit the Library without Zell in the group, and then of course there's the permanently missable ones like when you were controlling Irvine) you managed to get.
- Location
- Amman, Jordan
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
The problem with Final Fantasy is that every new entry into the franchise brings new gameplay elements, and it feels like a slot machine. Some are like FFV's Job system, a complete joy to behold once you've gotten the hang of it. Some are like FFVI's Magictite are so broken they shatter game balance. Others are like FFII, where nothing makes any goddamn sense and it's more an exercise in frustration and seeing how far you'd go to create a good combat team. FFVIII isn't a complete mess like II was, but the "enemies level with you" bit can be a pain to handle. If there were a Brave Sword vs Chicken Knife choice in FFVIII, I'd imagine everyone would go Chicken Knife every time, leaving Brave Sword playthroughs for exploiters and completionists.
Dude, a Final Fantasy game having a Point Of No Return isn't a spoiler, it's a tradition. You'll note I never said where it was since that would have been a spoiler.
- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
i conquered the optional super hell nightmare dungeon and all i got was this lousy GF
Zap Rowsdower
Ex-cultist vagrant
- Location
- Bright lights, big city
- Pronouns
- He/Him
--Person who really hates that the super-annoying cliched dating app he used actually did the trick
- Pronouns
- He/Him
- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
- Location
- Lake Wobegon
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
Om nom nom.
Once or twice?
- Location
- Fabulously Rainbow Ireland
I guess now is as good a time as any to point out that just like how FFVI was an Opera and FF5 was a "saturday morning Cartoon", FF8 is pretty implicitly a Romance of Chivalry and that's why all this weird random fantastic stuff just exists in this mil-sci-fi plot setting along with the idea of Sorceresses and their Knights.
It also 100% explains why Squall and Rinoa have the kind of dynamic they do (along with some of their characterization as well) given just what Romances of Chivalry were considered as back in the day
"This" GF? Oh no looks like you'll have to redo it all over again because you seem to have missed the second GF you could only draw from the boss of the "super hell nightmare dungeon"
- Location
- Land of the Midday Sun
If it's the enemy I'm think of, they become stupid if one of your party members is KO. Not very useful if you're already done the dungeon, but maybe it will be useful for the future.
Once the the over/under chances are calculated, we start taking bets on if he considers the gameplay worse than FF2's.
I get the feeling that it's not necessarily worse than FFII's systems... but the fact that it's so much more complicated to juggle, and in a generally longer game, makes it much more of a hassle. At worst in FFII you just fall back to good ol' "great you grind weapon, you grind two or three attack magics, you cast cure and esuna" and you've got 90% of the game figured out. Meanwhile FFVIII becomes spreadsheet simulator as you bounce around magic stacks and junctions and GFs, sometimes the story wants you to swap parties repeatedly so you have to switch all those junctions and hope they switched properly, and then if you don't know which items refine to which cards for big stacks of magic (or can't be bothered to farm said cards) then you occasionally just run into "oh, this new enemy has a spell I want, time to press the Draw command for 20 minutes straight".
When it all works, it can make for a pretty cool system, but when it doesn't then it can become a serious hassle, and that's before getting into the whole "enemies level scale with you so now leveling brackets might just spontaneously kill you whoops".
- Location
- Not your place of residence
Also, FFII's gameplay being as bad as it was in the NES era is a lot, lot less excusable than FFVIII's gameplay being as bad as it is in the PLAYSTATION ERA.
Edit: FFII came out in 1988, FFVIII came out in 1999, to be exact. FFII is worse IMO in terms of actual gameplay, but it has a much, much better excuse to be as bad as it was.
Edit: FFII came out in 1988, FFVIII came out in 1999, to be exact. FFII is worse IMO in terms of actual gameplay, but it has a much, much better excuse to be as bad as it was.
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- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
This is actually a tricky question to answer, for many reasons but one of them is that FFII took me, like, two weeks to finish, and FF8 has been going since... Jesus Christ... Eight months. Good god. Anyway, that changes a lot of the weighing of the respective qualities and merits of each game - just how much time I have to spend with them, for good and for ill.
Egleris
Vagrant Dragon
- Location
- Italy
Does it? FFVIII has a lot more to offer than FFII did, in terms of things that you can enjoy in the game other than the gameplay. And, while I fully agree that FFVIII gameplay has a lot of issues (I've pointed out many of them myself, in fact), I still find that there's plenty that is enjoyable about it, if approached in a more experimental manner.
But then, I probably am one of those people with a mind made for spreadsheets that Omicron mentioned.
Speaking of which! How many people here realize how much fun can be had customizing their GF? I think we're at the point where this can be done now, so I'll explain how it goes - putting it under spoiler for length, or in case somebody wants to try and figure that out for themselves.
What you need to do this is the Amnesia Greens that are sold from both Pet Shops, but it's better to have access to Tomberri's Familiar (which is most easily done once you can fight the Cactuar for easy AP) and to the Esthar Pet Shop, because that's where some of the useful things are.
Once you have access to those, the Esthar Per Shop has the junction scrolls for HP, STR, VIT, MAG, SPR and SPD; using these will teach a particular GF a specific junction ability, which allows for creating paired GF that you assign to a character so that they have all the junctions covered with just a pair, letting you have all six characters with their own setup that covers every stat, instead of having to combine things.
Of course, using Amnesia Greens is to be done with care, as there are plenty of abilities that, once forgotten, cannot be learned again: J-HIT, Darkside, any and all Refine abilities, Boost, Enc-None and more are all things that you cannot learn again once forgotten, so you must not ever forget them.
However, there's still plenty of room to customize things. Each GF has the Item, Draw, Magic and GF commands; if you keep two GF always paired together, then you don't need both of them to have all of those abilities, and the Pet Shop sells item that teach them back if ever necessary. Similarly, the Elemental and Status defense abilities are redundant with each other - once you learn Elem Def x2 on a certain GF, you can then delete Elem Def without worry, and if you learn Elem Def x4 on that GF, then Elem Def x2 can be removed as well. Once Diablos learns Enc-None, keeping Enc-50% might be superfluous; I'd be careful about that one, because Enc-50% cannot be taught in any way, but it's worth keeping in mind as an option. And some GF you might want to never summon; for those, keeping the GF HP +10% /Sum Mag +10% and similar might well be pointless as well - I generally don't delete them, but it's an option if one is really pressed for space, as all of those can be re-taught if necessary.
I will let people speculate on the fact that GF, which delete the user's memory, can be trained best by deleting their own memories, as something to consider, in terms of thematics.
Anyway, to make an example, let's say, once I have a dozen or so GF and can actually split them around, I want to pair Ifrit with Siren; Ifrit has J-HP, J-STR, Elem Atk, Elem Dif, and Elem Dif x2, while Siren has J-Mag, Status Atk, Status Def, and Status Def x2. Normally, these two are a combination that is missing any defensive options, and also has no real support abilities other than Str and Mag boosters and bonuses; so you'd want the person with them to have another GF, or to swap junctions around for better coverage.
However, with Amnesia Green, we make Siren forget her Magic, Draw, Item and GF commands; we also ensure she's learned Status Def x2 before deleting Status Def, and then with Ifrit we ensure he has learned Elem Dif x2 before deleting Elem Dif. This gives us five free spots on Siren's learn sheet, plus one on Ifrit's; more than enough to teach Ifrit J-SPD while teaching Siren J-VIT and J-SPR - in fact, we still have three free spots on Siren's sheets. If we're late in Disk 4 and have access to specific items from Card Mod, we can use those extra spot to fill up Siren's options with extra support abilities, say AutoProtect, Med Data or Cover, depending on where we want to go, and have it all covered by just two GF. And of course, the Def x2 can be forgotten if you have enough of the items that teach the Def x4 (those are Selphie's and Doomtrain's cards).
Also, since we're very unlikely to ever summon either Ifrit or Siren, we can already focus on the character who has them as their only GF not having to set the GF command, giving us more freedom to build them for a different purpose.
There is still some distribution issues to consider; Rosetta Stones are super-rare, for example, and J-HIT cannot be taught so you only have the three GF who teach it and no others, meaning you'll want to spread the GF who have Ability x3 and J-HIT around, but for most of the rest, this system lets you create the perfect GF for the build you want - something that FFV Job System and FFVI Magicite, the two system upon whom FFVIII is building, didn't really allow. It can be a very interesting and fun thing to do, designing your own character builds, it's just that it's not something the game ever explains to you, and which it actively gets in the way of by allowing every GF to be junctioned to a single character.
Well, anyway, that was me explaining one of the many way I have fun with this system in a way most other FF (and certainly not FFII) never allowed, and why the game is my favorite despite my acknowledging that it's objectively a mess and a worse game overall than FFV or FFVII - there is a level of freedom here that is as interesting to me as the Materia system was, only unlike FFVII, in this game it actually matters, even if not as much as I would like.
Once you have access to those, the Esthar Per Shop has the junction scrolls for HP, STR, VIT, MAG, SPR and SPD; using these will teach a particular GF a specific junction ability, which allows for creating paired GF that you assign to a character so that they have all the junctions covered with just a pair, letting you have all six characters with their own setup that covers every stat, instead of having to combine things.
Of course, using Amnesia Greens is to be done with care, as there are plenty of abilities that, once forgotten, cannot be learned again: J-HIT, Darkside, any and all Refine abilities, Boost, Enc-None and more are all things that you cannot learn again once forgotten, so you must not ever forget them.
However, there's still plenty of room to customize things. Each GF has the Item, Draw, Magic and GF commands; if you keep two GF always paired together, then you don't need both of them to have all of those abilities, and the Pet Shop sells item that teach them back if ever necessary. Similarly, the Elemental and Status defense abilities are redundant with each other - once you learn Elem Def x2 on a certain GF, you can then delete Elem Def without worry, and if you learn Elem Def x4 on that GF, then Elem Def x2 can be removed as well. Once Diablos learns Enc-None, keeping Enc-50% might be superfluous; I'd be careful about that one, because Enc-50% cannot be taught in any way, but it's worth keeping in mind as an option. And some GF you might want to never summon; for those, keeping the GF HP +10% /Sum Mag +10% and similar might well be pointless as well - I generally don't delete them, but it's an option if one is really pressed for space, as all of those can be re-taught if necessary.
I will let people speculate on the fact that GF, which delete the user's memory, can be trained best by deleting their own memories, as something to consider, in terms of thematics.
Anyway, to make an example, let's say, once I have a dozen or so GF and can actually split them around, I want to pair Ifrit with Siren; Ifrit has J-HP, J-STR, Elem Atk, Elem Dif, and Elem Dif x2, while Siren has J-Mag, Status Atk, Status Def, and Status Def x2. Normally, these two are a combination that is missing any defensive options, and also has no real support abilities other than Str and Mag boosters and bonuses; so you'd want the person with them to have another GF, or to swap junctions around for better coverage.
However, with Amnesia Green, we make Siren forget her Magic, Draw, Item and GF commands; we also ensure she's learned Status Def x2 before deleting Status Def, and then with Ifrit we ensure he has learned Elem Dif x2 before deleting Elem Dif. This gives us five free spots on Siren's learn sheet, plus one on Ifrit's; more than enough to teach Ifrit J-SPD while teaching Siren J-VIT and J-SPR - in fact, we still have three free spots on Siren's sheets. If we're late in Disk 4 and have access to specific items from Card Mod, we can use those extra spot to fill up Siren's options with extra support abilities, say AutoProtect, Med Data or Cover, depending on where we want to go, and have it all covered by just two GF. And of course, the Def x2 can be forgotten if you have enough of the items that teach the Def x4 (those are Selphie's and Doomtrain's cards).
Also, since we're very unlikely to ever summon either Ifrit or Siren, we can already focus on the character who has them as their only GF not having to set the GF command, giving us more freedom to build them for a different purpose.
There is still some distribution issues to consider; Rosetta Stones are super-rare, for example, and J-HIT cannot be taught so you only have the three GF who teach it and no others, meaning you'll want to spread the GF who have Ability x3 and J-HIT around, but for most of the rest, this system lets you create the perfect GF for the build you want - something that FFV Job System and FFVI Magicite, the two system upon whom FFVIII is building, didn't really allow. It can be a very interesting and fun thing to do, designing your own character builds, it's just that it's not something the game ever explains to you, and which it actively gets in the way of by allowing every GF to be junctioned to a single character.
Well, anyway, that was me explaining one of the many way I have fun with this system in a way most other FF (and certainly not FFII) never allowed, and why the game is my favorite despite my acknowledging that it's objectively a mess and a worse game overall than FFV or FFVII - there is a level of freedom here that is as interesting to me as the Materia system was, only unlike FFVII, in this game it actually matters, even if not as much as I would like.
Also, as I mentioned farming Cactuar for AP, I want to point out that this is best done by giving Selphie her Strange Vision weapon (so she has 255% accuracy, like Squall), and then giving the third party member Diablos (or another GF with J-HIT) and Junction 100 Triple to that character's HIT; that will give anybody other than Zell 255% accuracy too, so this way you can have every person able to always hit the Cactuar. Then you want Water on Elem Atk for extra damage, and all forms of extra speed you can (Initiative, J-SPD, AutoHaste if available) to strike before the Cactuar can run. With this kind of build, you can average 60 AP per fight, which makes mastering all abilities of all GF a matter of half an hour of grinding.
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- Pronouns
- She/They
Oh yeah that's got to be a big part of it - when something like FFII has mechanics or whatnot that are boring or annoying or grating, you can at least suck it up and get on with it, whereas here, every little issue in VIII has had so much more time to outstay its welcome.
Kuja
I'M A SQUIIIID
- Location
- AZ
- Pronouns
- He/Him
In some fairness, the FF8 playthrough has been disproportionately disrupted by life events interrupting the game, although the length of a "modern" JRPG is always risking that to some extent.
...but in fairness, the FF8 playthrough has also been disproportionately disrupted by fucky-wucky happening inside the game. I haven't kept a running tally but it seems at least once an update Omicron has been running afoul of...something. Deaths caused by the system removing junctions. Deaths caused by surprise level-ups from the monsters. Reloading caused by missing a major draw from an enemy (see: the Great Leviathan Caper). Reloading so as to not miss a story beat. Restarting the minigames. Saying no to triple triad three times to get the ruleset changed.
When you get down to it, FF2 had one flaw - the leveling system was ass. Unfortunately for FF2, the flaw was big enough that it hangs over the entire mechanical side of the game like a Sisyphean boulder waiting to be pushed. FF8 by contrast has multiple interlocking systems that each have their pitfalls and just one of them crashing into the others at the wrong moment can shove the player into the proverbial dumpster.
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E.I.G.
Robo-Bird
- Pronouns
- It/They
Honestly, part of the issue with 8 really is that they pushed the boundaries at every opportunity.
... resulting in each of its aspects going just a bit too far for the others to keep up.
The story is the most impressively told yet, with a massive amount of extra lore and moving pieces, grand visual spectacles, and a rather deep love story. That unfortunately cuts up the gameplay awkwardly and causes constant party shuffles due to plot events.
The art of the world is vibrant and incredibly detailed, with massive displays that show off how big the places of the world are wonderfully. In a way that makes travel between locations a massive slog due to the size and frequency of location spots.
The gameplay is a number of unique and intricate systems that allow for great customization and thoughtful planning of combat. That unfortunately is made clunky by all of the menus it takes to actually set it up.
Every part of the game goes all out, and none of them can handle the other parts going all out.
... resulting in each of its aspects going just a bit too far for the others to keep up.
The story is the most impressively told yet, with a massive amount of extra lore and moving pieces, grand visual spectacles, and a rather deep love story. That unfortunately cuts up the gameplay awkwardly and causes constant party shuffles due to plot events.
The art of the world is vibrant and incredibly detailed, with massive displays that show off how big the places of the world are wonderfully. In a way that makes travel between locations a massive slog due to the size and frequency of location spots.
The gameplay is a number of unique and intricate systems that allow for great customization and thoughtful planning of combat. That unfortunately is made clunky by all of the menus it takes to actually set it up.
Every part of the game goes all out, and none of them can handle the other parts going all out.