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.
FFVIII would be a fantastically more enjoyable game if the mechanics were literally the exact same, except presented through a modern UI made to display on a 16:9 large screen that can show all your spells at once and multiple characters on the same page, with no input delays in the menu.
FFVIII would be a fantastically more enjoyable game if the mechanics were literally the exact same, except presented through a modern UI made to display on a 16:9 large screen that can show all your spells at once and multiple characters on the same page, with no input delays in the menu.
The FFVII Remake was fine, and FFVII Rebirth was interesting, but neither truly rose above the original - outside of visuals, anyway. A FFVIII Remake in the same style, however, if it covered the entire game and not, say, just to the end of Disk 2, probably would be better than the original, both because FFVIII is genuinely inferior to FFVII in terms of quality, and because, unlike FFVII, FFVIII was designed with a number of sensibilities that are much closer to how modern games are designed.
I think they'd need to remake it from scratch if they were doing a FF8 remaster. From memory they lost the PS1 original data copies - it's why every release since has been based off the first PC port.
Ehh. I don't think that's my personal experience, at least. Even with all the difficulty I had with FFVIII, I think I enjoyed it more than VII, and had a more thorough appreciation of it. Though from various things I've read since (most of which probably were in or came from this thread), I think a lot of that may be down to the translation and how much it harmed my ability to engage with the game or indeed understand what was going on. It probably also didn't help that I only played VII after VIII, and I think indeed after IX, so instead of of experiencing the graphics as amazing, they felt like a clear downgrade.
So, the text wasn't very good at pulling me in, the graphics weren't very good at pulling me in, and while the battle system may have been better than VIII's, a: I'd still call it worse than IX's, and b: I'm much less interested in the battle system than the world and story (communicated by the text and graphics) anyway.
Whereas, sure, VIII's battle system, as I repeatedly blindly blundered past way after way I could have broken it and instead actively made things more difficult for myself, was pain, the rest of the game pulled me in enough that I still pushed through all the way to the final boss. The game made a strong aesthetic impression, I liked the trains, I liked the moving Gardens, I felt like I knew what was going on and was interested in the lore, etc. I don't recall whether I even got to the final boss of VII, and if VII had been as difficult as VIII was for me and nothing else changed, I rather doubt I would have.
Some of that might just be my own preferences and the order I experienced things in, though -- and particularly, my impression is now that VII was significantly better in the original Japanese than the English translation I played. I think this thread, reading about how much the text was mangled and seeing so closely someone enjoy engaging with the battle system as much as Omicron did, really helped me understand the previously baffling fact that VII got so wildly popular.
I feel like you could shave a whole lot of annoyance out just by allowing you to save certain junction set ups to some kind of template system that can be quickly selected when you change characters, yeah.
erm sorry sweaty but fps doesn't matter when you're just using menus, now excuse me while i play almost any modern AAA game- OH NO
(so hey remember that thing I said during FF7 about how the game cut off 1/3rd of the screen so the ps1 had to render less in order to free up the resources to have snappy smooth 60fps menu inputs because the devs understood that that's really important in your menu-based videogame which subsequent rereleases then ruined)
I feel like you could shave a whole lot of annoyance out just by allowing you to save certain junction set ups to some kind of template system that can be quickly selected when you change characters, yeah.
Maybe it would help if spell inventories belonged to GFs instead of characters, so spells stayed junctioned while swapping GFs around? There would have to be some accommodation for cases where you equip two GFs with the same junction to the same character, but it seems like that could work.
If the thing that has spells junctioned to its Strength is Ifrit rather than Squall, it would be functionally the same at the end of the day but with less hassle.
My first was either 10 or 12 - I can't remember precisely which, since that was when I played most of my games via rentals and both of them came from some knockoff blockbuster - and I would call 12 my favorite overall.
Oh, same here - you might notice I've often said that FFVIII is my favorite, I'm also just admitting that, from an objective standpoint, it's not as well structured and solid as FFVII. I just happen to either like the defects that it has or be willing to overlook them, but I know they are there.
Oh, same here - you might notice I've often said that FFVIII is my favorite, I'm also just admitting that, from an objective standpoint, it's not as well structured and solid as FFVII. I just happen to either like the defects that it has or be willing to overlook them, but I know they are there.
The realization that just because something is bad doesn't mean you can't genuinely enjoy it is an important one.
... And one that, frankly, the Internet discourse has done a lot of damage to. Digimon Digital Card Battle is not a good game by any remotely objective standard, but it is my favourite.
I feel like you could shave a whole lot of annoyance out just by allowing you to save certain junction set ups to some kind of template system that can be quickly selected when you change characters, yeah.
As was discussed, the easiest way to fix most of the issues with the junctioning/magic system is to assign junctions/spells to party slots rather than characters. So Ifrit is junctioned to Party Member 1, and when the party changes because of flashbacks or plot, whoever becomes the new Party Member 1 gets Ifrit junctioned automatically. Same for spells.
This would allow you to do the busywork once and otherwise play uninterrupted. The only hurdles remaining are the rare cases where character specifics actually matter, such as Meteor Rinoa.
Oh, same here - you might notice I've often said that FFVIII is my favorite, I'm also just admitting that, from an objective standpoint, it's not as well structured and solid as FFVII. I just happen to either like the defects that it has or be willing to overlook them, but I know they are there.
Eh. I don't know.
...Though I realized in thinking over how to elaborate on that that the comparative evaluations I was using in that thinking completely discounted most of the actual game mechanics. So. Yeah, if you were including the game mechanics in that statement, which it seems likely you were, maybe a lot of that is just bias on my part.
("So obviously we can shove the battle systems and minigames to the side as essential unimportant, since they both just present different forms of obstacles to enjoying the game, and once we've done that we can compare..."
Not so fast, Reese. )
Omegahugger said:
The realization that just because something is bad doesn't mean you can't genuinely enjoy it is an important one.
edit:
...Actually, thinking further on this, I wonder if this way of thinking is part of why I so completely failed to break the game? I didn't expect the battle system to be fun, and so on noticing how not-fun it was, I didn't take that as a sign I wasn't engaging with it properly and look further into the details, I just nodded and grimly powered through.
...The only JRPG battle system currently coming to mind, in fact, as something that I really, actively enjoyed (there may be others, but this is the one standing out) is the ship battle system in Skies of Arcadia Legends. Not the normal battle system in that game, that was another thing to power through but, thanks to abundant free time as a kid and a lack of level scaling, something I eventually ground to the point I had a party basically invincible to everything, but I remember being disappointed there weren't more ship battles. Interesting. I wonder what was so different about that?
I realized in thinking over how to elaborate on that that the comparative evaluations I was using in that thinking completely discounted most of the actual game mechanics.
I mean, even if we set the gameplay aside, I'd find it hard to say that FFVIII is better than FFVII. I like it more because I prefer teenage romance to psychological drama, but that's just taste - from a narrative standpoint, crafting a compelling psychological drama is harder than crafting a romance.
And, while FFVII is a psychological drama whose faltering moments are minor, FFVIII is a romance that occasionally sacrifices other elements of the plot to make itself work, and can nevertheless fail to work due to plot-unrelated gameplay failure (like sending Rinoa at the Missile Base with Selphie or failing to properly arrange the music for the concert) undermining itself. That does matter.
Plus, character-wise, it's very hard to say that the cast of FFVIII is more interesting and/or more strongly characterized than the FFVII cast. Even the best characters in VIII (Squall, Rinoa and Selphie) have very stiff competition in their equivalent from VII (that'd be Cloud, Tifa and Yuffie), and the rest really can't keep up, at least among the protagonists.
FFVIII does wins on the spectacle side of things, but it's not like that's a slam dunk - FFVII has plenty of cool moments too, and often it integrates them better into its plot.
So... that's why I say that, objectively, FFVII is better than FFVIII in my mind, even if I personally like FFVIII more - I only replayed FFVII to completion twice, whereas I've lost count of how many times I've gone through FFVIII.
I think where FF8 just towers over its previous competition is in visuals. There is absolutely no contest between it and VII in terms of which game looks best despite using the same hardware. 1999 saw some historical game releases (Silent Hill, System Shock 2, Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater, Donkey Kong 64, Resident Evil 3), but VIII's tableau-like composition and use of pre-rendered background and realistic character models already gives it a massive edge during gameplay, and when it comes to FMVs there is simply nothing that had ever looked like the Dollet Landing or the Lunar Cry, and there would not be again until until the year after, when Square would just Do It Again with IX.
The Super Death Nightmare Optional Dungeon From Hell
DISCLAIMER: This is very late in the game to start experimenting, but I decided to avail myself of one of the less basic options provided by the emulator I'm using: a CRT filter. This is intended to bring the image closer to what it would have looked like on a TV at the time of the game's release, rather than the way it is rendered on a modern LCD screen. This is supposed to have certain desirable properties, like a certain 'artistic blur' that makes the characters looks less sharp and pixelated than they have so far. Will it work? I don't know; you tell me. In addition, the CRT filter I'm using creates some details that reflect an old screen, like the way the image curves slightly. It's not particularly intrusive during play, but it's certainly a little strange looking at the still screenshots. Please compare previous updates and give me your feedback as to whether you think it's worth continuing to play it with such filters on.
Last time on Final Fantasy VIII, we did a bunch of cleanup work, harvested some materials, obtained two new GFs. Judging by the spacing of the Guardian Force tab, there are now two GFs left in the game.
Today's update is about how we acquire both of them.
First off - as was pointed by readers, because the world is a sphere but the map is a square, the 'corners' of the map, while visually as separate as possible, actually all connect to a single point, a point that is precisely opposite to Fisherman's Horizon which sits in the center of the map. The two 'poles' of the planet. There should be something interesting there, right?
Behold! A half-sunken industrial ruin! What could this mean, I wonder? Well, it has an airport, so we can set down and find out!
Gosh, that's a cool setting.
As soon as we set foot there, provided that Zell is in the party, he chimes in with useful information, fitting the role the game has built up for him where Zell looks like an airheaded jock but is actually a walking encyclopedia of neat facts about the world.
Rinoa: "Guys, what is this place?" Zell: "...Hey, I know this place!" Zell: "Know-It-All-Zell to the rescue again, baby. Ready for a little storytime, Squall?" Squall: ["Let's hear it."]/"Forget it." Zell: "Okay, here it goes. This island's most likely that mobile research facility." Squall, mentally: "(Huh?)" Zell: "A.k.a 'Battleship Island.'" Squall: "...So what did they research?" Zell: "Basically, they were tryin' to develop a draw system like ours. They probably traveled all over the world to gather different energy and materials for their research." Squall: "....." Zell: "I dunno how the heck it ended up here. I heard they did some hardcore research here. They even used GF for experiments. To science geeks, it was treasure island." Squall: "....Hmm." Zell: "What? You think I'm BS-ing?" Squall: "No…" Squall, mentally: "(Maybe I should give this guy more credit.)"
That's really interesting stuff! I really wish we had more insight into the science of GFs, paramagic and drawing, because it's clear it's supposed to be important to the background of the setting and not just our characters but it's very vague. The fact that Battleship Island was roaming the seas and experimenting on GFs to figure out how to Draw, which means, implicitly, that they couldn't just obtain that knowledge from Dr Odine or Balamb Garden, this is proprietary technology that's somehow being kept a secret. How does that work? Wish I'd know! Interesting worldbuilding element, though.
So let's enter this facility.
Squall, mentally: "(...What is that blue thing?)" Rinoa: "What is that light?" Zell: Watch that light! There's something resonating!" Squall: "...Let's check out the core. We might find out more about it." Ominous voice from within the facility: "The blue light leads all to death. Turn back…"
Well, that sure is spooky! We're definitely not heeding that warning though, so let's check out this glowing core whose light keeps pulsating strangely.
The instant we step forward, we hit a combat encounter.
The Anacondaur has a lot of HP, but the Blood Souls that surround it are the more annoying one, as they have a lot of status effect inflicting magic and I haven't properly upped Squall's status defenses back after focusing on Quistis for the Malboro ordeal. Still, it's an easy fight, in no small part because I Junctioned Doomtrain to Rinoa, and Doomtrain…
…is incredibly effective at shutting down enemies with multiple status effects. Most notably, once an enemy is asleep, they will stay asleep until struck by a physical attack. Magical damage does not wake them up, which makes spamming GFs at them an easy win.
Keep that in mind because this is secretly key to this entire update.
Once that encounter is over, we take one other step forward, and instantly get into another encounter.
Aw c'mon.
Well, it's at least an opportunity to rob that Bomb of some Meltdowns, although that's a risky proposal - Bombs have a Suicide move which deals enough damage to OHKO its target. No matter; we power through. Then we take another step, and run into another random encounter. What the hell?
At least once we kill the next Anacondaur, we get to take a few more steps without issue, which is nice. We get to go, like, one entire yard without another encounter.
It's taken me a solid five minutes to cross from the start of the room to here.
Then when that's done, another step, another encounter. This is the highest density of random encounters I've met in the game and I don't get it. It doesn't matter, though. With the power of love and Doomtrain on our side, we carve through one encounter after another, until, finally, we make it to the pillar at the core.
Woo!
…
Anyway, I will later find out that all these lines at the start of the room weren't just various flavorful manners of saying 'something super cool and hella deadly is in that pillar, go get it,' they were actually supposed to hint as to the pulsing of the pillar's light, because this entire sequence is a game of Red Light, Green Light where you're supposed to advance when the light is dim and stop when it glows, because any step taken while it glows will trigger a random encounter.
Aherm. Well. Like my father always says, when you don't have a head, you have legs.
Once we reach the pillar, we get some ominous dialogue. "So you wish to challenge me…" it says, to which we can only answer, "It's not our will to fight," which is a filthy lie, what do you think I'm here for?
In answer, the game triggers a miniboss encounter.
This is the Ruby Dragon, which you may remember from the fourth Laguna flashback. Last time, we didn't really get to see much of the fight, as Kiros's Limit Break promptly annihilated it.
Unfortunately, that was like twenty levels ago, and because FF8 uses level scaling, this means the beast has actually grown stronger since then. Furthermore, Ruby Dragon has a special AI that makes it so it only uses its most powerful attacks against a full party, so the two-man team of Laguna and Kiros was effectively fighting a nerfed version of the Ruby Dragon.
On the other hand, this newly powered up dragon has Meteor in its Draw List, so I kind of really want to drag the fight out… Thankfully, there is a solution. Ruby Dragon is not a full on boss - and it does not have boss immunities.
One Doomtrain later, the dragon is asleep. We spend the next several minutes fast-forwarding through two hundred Meteor draws (unfortunately Rinoa has Treatment equipped instead of Draw so she can't take part), then Draw-Cast Meteor and GFs until it's dead. Not a very exciting fight, but at least a safe one.
The light of the pillar asks if we beg for mercy, so of course we tell it to fuck off, leading into another Ruby Dragon fight.
Ruby Dragon isn't immune to gravity magic either, so Diablos's summon deals 9,999 damage every time, and Doomtrain keeps the beast sedated all the while, so it's another breeze.
Following this, the pillar asks again, "Damned imbeciles. Why do you wish to fight?" and we can answer "For the sake of protecting something" or "None of your business." The first leads into another Ruby Dragon fight, so Doomtrain, Diablos, repeat. Once we've won… We are dumped back to the same question about "Why do you wish to fight." Hm. We try "None of your business" and that's… another Ruby Dragon encounter? No matter, you know the drill: Doomtrain, Diablos…
…ah.
So here's the thing. If you'll recall, when we select a Summon, there is a brief charge-up time, during which the summoner's HP bar is replaced with the summon's, like so:
During that window, damage taken by the character is inflicted on the GF instead. I had completely forgotten about this system because, in these sixty hours or so of game, it has barely been relevant even once. But it's relevant now. It takes Rinoa about one turn to summon Doomtrain, during which the Ruby Dragon is liable to strike her, and over the past three encounters, it's been getting some damage in… And I cannot heal that damage mid-fight. Cura spells only target the character even when cast during summoning, and GF healing items are only usable outside of battle, and we have not had a break between GF fights.
This means that this time, when the dragon gets in another hit before Rinoa can summon Doomtrain, that is enough to KO the GF. And that means I now have to fight the dragon fairly.
It goes poorly.
The Ruby Dragon's Breath attack, dealing non-elemental damage in a wide range, with Squall being tough enough to only take 2000-3000 damage while Zell is at one point struck for over 6000 damage. Basically, the move is always strong enough to kill Rinoa, and Squall and Zell need to be at full health to survive it. Unfortunately, I've never had to deal with Breath before, so I'm slow to adjust to the threat. By the time Squall is done raising his teammates before healing himself, the dragon goes in for another Breath, and it's TPK.
Annoying.
Thankfully, we have the quicksave function of the emulator, otherwise we'd be having to fight those three Ruby Dragons all over again. Instead, we just have to redo this one. And how do we deal with the threat of Breath? The answer is the same it's always been: Doomtrain.
It's really simple. Instead of triggering Summon the moment Rinoa's turn comes up, I simply wait for the Ruby Dragon to make its move. That way, Rinoa takes the damage, then goes into her summoning stance, and Doomtrain comes out before the Dragon has time to go again, neutralizing it. This is an interesting quirk enabled by the ATB system that wouldn't be available in a turn by turn battle, although it's not going to change my preferences in the matter.
Once the Ruby Dragon has been defeated… We're back at the "Why do you wish to fight" question.
Hm.
Yeah so it turns out there was a third hidden option we could select, hidden except for a random dot. Why? Fuck you, that's why.
This secret answer, it turns out, is "It's our nature…"
Squall, mentally: "(It's our nature… There is no real reason… Maybe we were born… only to fight.)" Ominous voice: "I see… interesting…"
Cue boss music.
We fight Bahamut in what seems to be the inside of the pillar, a vast dark space filled with screens.
Bahamut: "I am… Bahamut" Squall: "The great GF… Bahamut." Bahamut: "...GF? I…? Using my powers… It is you humans… I fear…"
Once again, we're getting some tantalizing GF-related dialogue that doesn't go on long enough to get anywhere. Squall has clearly heard the name Bahamut before; he seems to know it as a GF, which suggests that the dragon king is a figure of legend. But the way Bahamut is surprised by the reference to him as a 'GF' seems to suggest he's heard of this concept before, but he fears humans using his power? We won't get more than this, unfortunately.
As a fight, Bahamut is… Well.
Remember that Gilgamesh card that refines into Holy Wars?
Holy War turns the entire party invincible for several turns. This gives us ample time to get in some free damage without having to worry about the dragon's attack. I start with probing its defenses using Doomtrain and Diablos; it turns out Bahamut is immune to most, but not all status effects. Most notably, Blind and Vit-0 tank its accuracy and defense. Unfortunately it's also immune to gravity damage, so we have to pass on Diablos's 9,999 damage. Not that we particularly need it: Once its defenses are down from Vit-0, Rinoa's Meteor hits for 1,300 damage per hit, ten times. That's 13,000 damage for you folks at home, easily breaking the 9,999 boundary. Bahamut has 51,000 HP, so just five casts is enough to bring him down. On the fourth cast, I actually decide to hold back; I want to see Mega Flare for myself, and my invincibility just went down. So I decide to just… wait.
This act of wild hubris nearly costs me the fight. But only nearly. Squall and Zell both make it through with less than 300 HP - and that's all I need. We raise Rinoa, heal her up, and she casts the final Meteor.
Sorry, I'm not super into that Jesus stuff.
The fight is over, and we claim the King of GF, Bahamut. When we return to the dungeon, the pillar of light has been utterly destroyed, leaving a hole in the floor.
Bahamut: "Another path to your destiny awaits… You are indeed an interesting one. Brimming with passion…"
Bahamut immediately brings power to the table with Ability x 4, which allows a character to have up to 4 passives, and Forbidden Magic Refinement, which allows us to refine ultimate spells, although the rates at pitiful - one Ultima Stone refines into 1 Ultima, and we have acquired a mere 4 of those in the game so far. We'd need some kind of massive source of Ultima Stones for it to matter, but how likely are we to get that?
Anyway, that's all we can do here. I try to approach the hole in the ground, but we can't do anything with it or interact with it in any way, so all that's left is to leave the dungeon.
…
OF COURSE NOT, YOU IMBECILES. DO YOU NOT UNDERSTAND HOW FF8 WORKS BY NOW!?
What we have to do here is of course leave the dungeon, interact with another character, then turn around and head back to the dungeon.
There is now a giant mass of cables sticking out of the hole in the ground and a save point that wasn't there before!! Of course!! That just makes sense!!! Why would anyone not expect this!!!!
I love that Rinoa's reaction here is to head to the window to watch the fish swim by.
We climb down the tangle of wire and metal, and find ourselves in the underwater section of the level. Zell notices a strange terminal, and Squall goes over to investigate, leading to another overcomplicated and unnecessary subsystem.
I'm not going to bother explaining, it's- No, you know what, I'm going to explain it because it serves no purpose but to be annoying. Here's how it works: We have 20 units of steam. On each level, we have the choice to spend one or more steam units to open the path to the next level down. Depending on how much steam we spend, we will open a different level, as indicated by which of the three yellow lights on the door turns on.
Once at the end, if we don't have enough steam left, we can't open the door to the next section.
If we don't have enough steam, we have to walk all the way back up to do it right. The thing is, there is no reason to actually 'spend' more steam than we have to. The system is bullshit! None of the rooms we can enter has variable rewards, or indeed any reward at all, so the correct move is to always spend the least amount of steam possible, for which there is no cost or drawback! The system is just there to offer the opportunity to screw ourselves over with no gain!
Also we wipe to a random encounter.
What happened here is that I wasn't careful enough because we were running into so many random encounters that I started fast-forwarding through them all, and got caught out by an enemy that I accidentally Berserk'd, and I accidentally Berserk'd it because the auto-junction function removed the status effect I had junctioned to Zell's attack and replaced it with Berserk. This accidentally made the enemy much stronger and by the time I realized it I was getting my ass kicked. And this is why you should never trust the auto-Junction function.
Still, at least it's an opportunity to just do the whole run down again without having to get back up and do it the correct way this time, by spending the least amount of steam except for one room where we can open a side door to a 'steam room' where we can get some free steam.
Once we reach the bottom with enough steam, Zell offers to take care of the machine himself. He boasts that people call him 'The Machine' when it comes to mechanics. He then proceeds to absolutely fuck it up until steam starts blowing out of every joint in the machine, before saving the day with quick thinking, by which I mean percussive maintenance, by which I mean he punches the machine and that causes it to stop misbehaving and the door to pop open. It's a fun skit. Squall reflects that 'The Machine' is more like a 'Fighting Machine,' and we proceed.
Oh hey, it's that classic, Ancient Ruins At The Bottom Of The World. We're looking at some kind of ancient architecture; judging from the steel wall outside, it seems like Battleship Island parked itself above these ruins, constructed a giant waterproof structure around them, then drained the water. These are likely Centra ruins - they wouldn't be the first ancient place built to contain some powerful monster that we've run into. The Centra are a little unusual among Final Fantasy Ancients in that their demise was historically very recent and seemingly total (we have yet to meet a 'last Centra' type character) and that they don't seem to particularly move the plot; I'm sure we'll eventually learn that it was them who built the Crystal Pillar or buried Hyne on the moon or whatever, but so far they've mostly been guys who happen to have been very advanced and now are dead.
…you know, we still don't know why the sea base was abandoned. It seems like it's just been sitting there for years, abandoned to the elements, with vegetation growing over the metal and parts of the structure sinking underwater.
I suspect that they dived too greedily, and too deep, and we're about to find out what they unearthed.
…or, well.
'About.'
First we have to go through The Gauntlet.
Behemoth is back, and stronger than ever.
You see, what these ancient ruins has is unavoidable encounters. By which I mean encounters that look like random encounters, but (having had to reload and go through this twice) they're actually fixed; they trigger on specific floor tiles, cannot be avoided with Enc-None, and cannot be run away from. They must be defeated in order to progress.
And boy, they're a doozy. It starts with three Tri-Face encounters on the top floor of the ruins; they're dangerous mainly because they can inflict Confuse. Then we move on to Grendel and Imp duos, where Grendel functions as a powerful physical attacker while Imp casts status effect magic. As long as we don't sleepwalk through them, both of these are fine… But then the Behemoths start coming in, and they cast Meteor, which hits hard enough to threaten the party.
What Squall's status immunity sheet looks like after I grab 100 Pains: 100% immunity to poison, blindness, silence, stop, confuse, and… Zombie for some reason? Yeah I'm removing that and putting Berserk in instead.
Taking on all these fights would be exhausting and take forever, so I just summon Doomtrain on turn 1 every time, then use Diablos to beat up my now-helpless opponent. It's a cheap move, but it's not like it's taking part of some obscure mechanical feature to break the game, I am literally using my newest summon.
There's just one problem.
This motherfucker.
Do you remember earlier, when I said that the Ruby Dragon's Breath attack was enough to always KO Rinoa and that Zell and Squall needed to be at full health to survive it? Well, that was one endgame dungeon ago. Back then, Squall was lv 64, Rinoa lv 52, and Zell lv 42. Squall is now lv 77, Rinoa is lv 65, and Zell is lv 57. They've all gained more than ten levels, in one dungeon. (This has left all the other characters completely in the dust; Irvine is lv 30 and Selphie lv 31, I have no idea how I'll ever get them back up). Which, because of the way the game handles scaling, means that our enemies are now stronger.
Considerably stronger. Strong enough that Breath is always an instant TPK, even at full health. And Ruby Dragon likes to use Breath as its opening move, before I get to go. If this happens, there is no recourse. It's instant game over. This happens at least twice. Furthermore, even if the Ruby Dragon does decide to not open with Breath, its single target attacks are strong enough to kill Doomtrain before the summon is complete.
The way to deal with this is by just… Praying that Ruby Dragon won't use Breathe on its opening turn, and have Rinoa wait until it completes its first attack before starting the summoning. Thankfully, that's not too onerous, and once Doomtrain has hit, the dragon is just a free Meteor Draw Point.
But there are several Ruby Dragon encounters on the way. That's several chances of a Breath TPK. At least I have quicksaving so I can reload before each individual encounter, but playing with traditional save points… Yeesh.
But eventually we beat them all and move past.
Right into a Back Attack by two Iron Giants who kill the entire group with a single attack.
I am in hell. This is the Bad Place.
It's not like these encounters are difficult in a traditional sense. I mean, they are when fought 'fairly;' the problem is that because fighting 'fair' involves the risk of a random TPK out of nowhere, I can't afford to do that. So I just Doomtrain through everything, and the chief challenge is to play timing games to avoid GF damage before Doomtraining. This makes the game incredibly swingy in an unpleasant way, where victory is determined by whoever gets to hit first. There is actually a GF ability called Initiative which could guarantee that I do go first, but it's not equipped to any members of this party, and going first is actually dangerous because it increases the odds of taking Damage; really what we want here is to go second.
This doesn't always work - sometimes I have to deal with Doomtrain going down. In that case, I have a backup: I have Junctioned 100 Deaths to Zell's attacks, so his basic attack always has a chance to instantly kill an enemy. The chance is labeled 100% but is actually opposed by an enemy's own stat so it's not a guarantee success, but it's high enough that it folds several battles a few turns ahead of schedule. Other than that, it's Meteor + Diablos all day every day.
The Iron Giants aren't immune to Sleep either, so we dispatch them and move on to what I believe may be the first enemy asset reuse I've seen in the game so far, which is genuinely impressive:
Elnoyle, a recolor of Elvoret. Its level appears set to 100, which means it's pretty tough. Unfortunately, its instant death resistance is pretty low, and it perishes nearly instantly to Zell's punches.
And with this, we have reached the bottom.
At the bottom of the ruins, we find a lake, a computer terminal, and some kind of steel cable connected to the machinery above. We actually need 10 steam units to proceed, which means that it is possible to have gone through the entirety of the ruins, with their lethal fixed encounter, only to find out that you never had enough steam to finish in the first place.
I swear I just want to talk to the FF8 devs. I just wanna talk to them. I just. Wanna. Talk to them.
But it doesn't matter. It seems very obvious at this point that I should prepare myself for a challenging boss fight, but I'm tired, so I just quicksave and rush into it and figure if it's too tough to tackle as I stand, I'll just turn off for the day and reload before the fight to do some actual prep.
Then we trigger the terminal, and the whole facility starts to shake. The machinery above sets into motion, pulling the metal wire back. Alarms blare, red lights flash, and a recorded voice over warns, "Excavation resuming… All except the leader must take shelter."
Squall: "The rocks are… resonating…? The air's pretty heavy…"
Cue boss music.
Oh, baby. The Ultima Weapon is back. Third game in a row - it's definitely here to stay. And, if you look, that sword it's wielding? It's the Ultima Weapon, as in Cloud's ultimate sword from VII. Very funny sight gag.
And it looks like it has a superboss-like status. The game tauts it as "the strongest, ultimate monster." What is its origin? Who cares? It's there, so we must fight it.
The Ultima Weapon decides to set the tone of the fight by slamming its dick on the table with an opener called Pillar of Light, which deals 9,999 damage that cannot be reduced (except by one specific trick) and thus always kills its target, in this case Rinoa.
This is, in truth, an unfortunate decision.
What the Ultima Weapon doesn't know is that I play a lot of card games.
The Gilgamesh Card can be refined into 10 Holy Wars. I used one against Bahamut. That leaves me with 9. I don't need 'tactics,' I don't need to take this fight seriously, all I need is to press the Funny Button and make my entire party invincible and then take Pillar of Light on the chin, smile and ask for more.
The Ultima Weapon's Draw list includes Regen, Dispel, Ultima, and a new entry labeled 'Eden.' There is a 100% chance that this is the game's final GF, so we immediately grab it, then grab a bunch of Ultimas, summon Doomtrain (the Ultima Weapon is immune to all status effects, except Vit-0), then spam Meteor.
I actually waste a lot of time figuring out that Invincible makes characters immune to status effects including positive ones; I try to set up Meteor Rinoa early in the fight and am surprised to see Aura miss. Even after the first Holy War wears off and I cast Aura before reapplying it, I have the unpleasant surprise to find out that Angel Wing is itself a status effect, meaning Rinoa is 'immune' to it while invincible. Awkward!
Ultimately this doesn't matter. Meteor deals 14,000 damage per cast without Angel Wing and I am, once again, literally invincible. This isn't a fight.
The Ultima plays out a long and particle-heavy destruction sequence which has it first explode, then vanish into motes of light. Victory. Our reward? 100 Ultima Stones and the Eden Card.
But that's not the real reward. This is:
The roster, complete.
Eden brings in Speed, Evasion and Hit Junctions, Luck+50%, Darkside, and the ability to refine GF-boosting items as well as a special ability that allows Triple-cast spells to only consume one cast. It's powerful, although how powerful will depend on how much use we can actually get out of that refine ability, I think.
…
That's kinda cheap though, isn't it?
I spent most of VII complaining about the game being too easy. And here, I got so frustrated with FF8's mechanics that I made it easy for myself by first abusing Doomtrain against all the minibosses, and then abusing Holy War against the Ultima Weapon. But this would actually be a challenging fight if I faced it seriously!
In order to be true to myself, I must take on the Ultima Weapon without invincibility.
This turns out to be incredibly easy.
For a while now, I've decided to go against the common wisdom of how to handle character Junctions. Previously, I had three "packages" of GFs and spells that were character-agnostic, so that I could just swap them over whenever my party got shuffled. This, however, was actually extremely tedious because of how frequently such swaps are and how inconsistent the transfers can be (like during the Laguna flashbacks, which break Junctions). In frustration, I decided to test out a method suggested by @Egleris, where I assign each character a certain number of GFs and then do not touch it ever. And this has been less frustrating. It's seriously lowered the burden of constantly swapping characters. The feelings that all these GFs that aren't currently in the party are 'missing out' on AP and XP has been pretty annoying, and it's cut down on the amount of Junctioning I can actually do, which is one of the reasons why I'm having trouble with high-end monsters.
It's also the power limiter that is the only thing keeping me in check. If I take the Ultima Weapon seriously and come at it without a cheat item but 'merely' with my full power, junctioning the entire GF roster across my party of three, well… Look at these numbers:
With a combination of Ultima, Meteor, and stats-boosting Abilities like Str+60%, it is possible for me to push each character to the maximum stat they care about. I can give Squall Str 255, the maximum possible rating. Rinoa can have Mag 255, and Zell 9,999 HP.
The fight opens with Rinoa's ATB gauge full thanks to Initiative. I have her summon Doomtrain, but the Ultima Weapon opens with one of its most powerful moves, Gravija - the first appearance of that spell, the most powerful Gravity magic; it reduces HP to 25% of its current total. Needless to say, the first round, in which all my characters are at full HP, is the worst possible time to be hit by it. Because the damage is calculated based on character HP but inflicted on a GF if one is being summoned, it kills Doomtrain instantly. Not that it matters. Doomtrain is only a convenient means of applying Vit-0 - Squall's Meltdown can do the same. The Weapon's Pillar of Light takes out Zell, which is unfortunate, but I have a stack of Full-Life this is the perfect opportunity to use - he is raised at full health immediately. Meanwhile, Rinoa casts Haste, then Aura on herself, then on the next turn Angel Wing becomes available, and it might as well be over. The only thing that could save the Ultima Weapon is a Pillar of Light targeted at Rinoa specifically, and the AI isn't smart enough for that kind of decision. When Rinoa goes next and casts Meteor, she deals just under 7000 damage per hit, ten times. Meanwhile, Squall's basic attack can hit for over 8000 damage. Two Meteor casts and a couple of attacks from her boyfriend seal the deal.
The Ultima Weapon is dead again, and it wasn't even difficult.
This, however, isn't the same kind of 'not even difficult' as we had in VII. I complained in VII that the complexity and tactical depth of the Materia system was more frustrating than anything because the game was so easy any effort to make clever use of Materia ended up feeling like pointless overkill. That is the opposite of what's happening here! This easy victory against the Ultima Weapon is a reward for engaging with and mastering the system. I could walk into this fight with a poorly optimized set up and a strategy that amounts to "Press attack or cast Ultima and heal as needed when taking damage" and get my shit absolutely rocked. Using passive Abilities to boost my stats to maximum level then setting up Meteor Rinoa to obliterate the enemy with Squall as an extra source of damage who can cast Full-Life and Zell as an Item user with maximum HP who can bring back everyone if he's the last man standing is a successful strategy that makes use of the system. It's not the only one either! I could instead have summoned Cerberus to give everyone Triple and then cast Meteor, or I could have Squall use Darkside so he's dealing 9,999 damage with every hit, Haste and 100 Triple junctioned to Speed so he's just firing off these attacks faster than the Ultima Weapon can act.
This crushing victory is a reward for getting every GF and building up stores of high-value spells. It is gratifying, and I have enjoyed it. It's a shame that there are all these other ways in which the system is so frustrating.
But now the Ultima Weapon is vanquished twice, and we are free to go.
Woooo!
Now, of course, I want to take a look at the animation for our two new summons, Bahamut and Eden. However, their animations are so long and so complex (Eden clocks out at a whopping minute and a half) that using screenshots is unfeasible, so I will instead link YouTube videos.
Bahamut is whatever - frankly I think VII's Zero Bahamut animation was better. Eden, though.
That thing is insane.
Hey, what if I just, like, imprinted occult imagery on the face of the planet and then nuked half a hemisphere in order to propel you into another galaxy, where you will explode and form a black hole?
This is bullshit on par with Sephiroth's Supernova, but on the player's side this time. Insane.
More importantly, however…
Look at Eden's model, and look at Balamb Garden. They kinda look like each other, don't they? That's not just me?
Eden… Garden… The connection between the 'Gardens' and 'Eden' is implicit, but I have no idea what to make of it. Was Eden constructed by the Centra as a precursor to the shelters that would become the Gardens? I don't know. Hard to say.
Before we depart, since Zell is in the party, we might as well check something out. There's supposed to be a scene we can get if we rest at the Balamb Hotel with Zell in the party, so let's just zoom over real quick. We head there, pay a pittance for the room, everyone goes to bed and wakes up in the morning…
…and Zell is gone.
Squall suspects he may have decided to head to his house, so we go downstairs, and there…
It looks like the girl with the pigtails has finally found the courage to make her move.
Library Girl with a Pigtail [That's the actual name the dialogue box gives her]: "Zell, I really wanted you to read this. I'm glad I found you here…" Zell: "Well, like… um… hmm… I'm not the kind to read books and I don't like sittin' around all quiet, either…"
[The girl laughs.] LGwaP: "Haha… I… ow. Tha… hy… cked… ou… th… ook…" Squall, mentally: "(Huh? I can't hear what they say.)"
The whole discussion goes on like this, with the words garbled. It must have been hell for the translator. You can sort of make out what they mean; here for instance she is pretty clearly saying "Haha, I know. That's why I checked out this book." It's harder to parse "Ea… ime…ell…time…en…you…ead…ook." It ends with "When you read the book," but I can't make sense of the first half. Then, "Please think of me, even if it's a little." And after that, I think, "It would be enough to fill my heart"? Then "Sorry, I had to tell you! Take care of yourself!" and then she gets embarrassed and escapes the scene.
It's a cute moment, and it gives that (entirely missable) subplot about the library girl some closure. We don't know if Zell returns her feelings, but hey, she's managed the closest we'll get to a confession, and whatever happens after that, happens… Even though we couldn't really hear it.
…
You know this is the second time I've seen a piece of Japanese media get weird about making a confession inaudible? The first one is, of all things, in Sonic X. At the end of the show, after spending its entire runtime helplessly pining after Sonic, Amy Rose asks him up front if he actually does love her. Sonic replies… and the sound cuts off so we can't hear what it is. Is that a trope? Is there a third data point so we can make a pattern out of it, or is it just a thing that happens to be in both FF8 and a Sonic animated adaptation?
It's strange.
When Squall approaches him, Zell is a little flustered, says he was waiting for us, and rejoins the party… And brings with him the third issue of the Combat King magazine.
Okay, Pigtail Girl really does have his number. Extremely funny.
That was a cute scene, and a good place to call it here, I think. The Deep Sea base was definitely challenging in a way previous games often weren't, but I'm not sure I like the way it was challenging, and level scaling is largely to blame. There is now a 44 level differential between Squal and the lowest level party member, and a solid half of that was just from this one dungeon. The very idea of tackling it without Doomtrain sends a shiver down my spine.
There are a couple of sidequests left in the world that I'm aware of, but I think they're even more optional than all this was. We have all the GFs in the game; we could grind for the components of everyone's ultimate weapons but, as we've seen, I can get Squall to hit Strength 255 even without them. If I do any further content I'll try to keep it to a brief overview at the start of next update, because it's time to move on with the plot.
Thank you for reading.
Next Time: Might we finally meet President Laguna!?
There is now a giant mass of cables sticking out of the hole in the ground and a save point that wasn't there before!! Of course!! That just makes sense!!! Why would anyone not expect this!!!!
Hey, what if I just, like, imprinted occult imagery on the face of the planet and then nuked half a hemisphere in order to propel you into another galaxy, where you will explode and form a black hole?
Hey, at least the biblically-accurate cyberangel has the common courtesy to warp the fabric of spacetime to put the enemy above itself, so the superlaser doesn't backstop against the planet you're all standing on. Just some random other galaxy, who cares.
You know this is the second time I've seen a piece of Japanese media get weird about making a confession inaudible? The first one is, of all things, in Sonic X. At the end of the show, after spending its entire runtime helplessly pining after Sonic, Amy Rose asks him up front if he actually does love her. Sonic replies… and the sound cuts off so we can't hear what it is. Is that a trope? Is there a third data point so we can make a pattern out of it, or is it just a thing that happens to be in both FF8 and a Sonic animated adaptation?
You know this is the second time I've seen a piece of Japanese media get weird about making a confession inaudible? The first one is, of all things, in Sonic X. At the end of the show, after spending its entire runtime helplessly pining after Sonic, Amy Rose asks him up front if he actually does love her. Sonic replies… and the sound cuts off so we can't hear what it is. Is that a trope? Is there a third data point so we can make a pattern out of it, or is it just a thing that happens to be in both FF8 and a Sonic animated adaptation?
The only thing that comes to mind is NGE where Gendo's reply to Ritsuko is muted. It is commonly held that he's saying her work was invaluable and that he loved her. Though there's a whole lot of extra stuff surrounding that scene that doesn't remotely apply to FF8 and Sonic. EDIT
Hey, at least the biblically-accurate cyberangel has the common courtesy to warp the fabric of spacetime to put the enemy above itself, so the superlaser doesn't backstop against the planet you're all standing on. Just some random other galaxy, who cares.
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