Board 8 > I am replaying ff8 for the first time in over 20 years. (Spoilers)

(+) Yeah! (+)

I probably won't keep up with this but decided to play the remaster since I have had it for awhile and uh

Wow the main cast is just as unlikable as I remember early on. Except quistis I like her more than I remember liking her.

Also as I am an old man now I have sympathy with everyone having to deal with squall whereas before I sympathized with squall. Kind of an interesting turn around.

I do like how when you strip away the overarching conflict the main cast is just a dumb bunch of teenagers trying to find their way in a world with unexpected responsibility. Squall included. And I like how unlikable they are for that reason, strangely.

The older I get the more I empathize with pre-Rinoa Squall <_<

Game is still the best, Squall is still the best

pretty good game in retrospect

still second tier FF

Disc 1 still and I have junctioned curaga to hp

Boy 3k+ hp atp feels like a lot

Honestly, last time I played, I had more sympathy for Squall having to deal with those idiots than with everyone having to deal with Squall.

I sympathize with Watt more than anything. Stomach pain is a bitch

pjbasis posted...

I sympathize with Watt more than anything. Stomach pain is a bitch

That's zone

Remember when Squall took mortal damage at the end of disk one and the rest of the game was just a dream before he died

The end of disc 1 pops off so hard lol. The whole assassination plot line with its twists and turns is wild tbh

SirChris posted...

That's zone

FUCK

SHINE_GET_64 posted...

Remember when Squall took mortal damage at the end of disk one and the rest of the game was just a dream before he died

'Mortal damage' my butt. Look closely and it's a generic upper chest/lower shoulder hit that fictional characters survive all the time

I actually just played through this myself for the first time and finished it today.

It was okay, but as I'm typing this up I'm having trouble thinking of any positive elements except Squall. So maybe I didn't like it very much lol

skullbone posted...

I actually just played through this myself for the first time and finished it today.

It was okay, but as I'm typing this up I'm having trouble thinking of any positive elements except Squall. So maybe I didn't like it very much lol

Laguna is great tbh

Yeah Laguna sections are good and disc 1 is great before it goes into cuckoo territory. But the party is awful and I did not like junction or 99% of the battles being won by using Mad Rush or spamming limits.

Wow, someone used Mad Rush

That's why this game is great

8th grade gym class my best friend and I spent the entire period everyday just discussing how to break the Junction system

I replayed it last year for trophies and liked it less than I remembered

I really don't like the 3D models on 2D backgrounds style of the PS1 era games

It's even more jarring in the remaster.

Also I played the entire game on 3x speed with the remaster and I think the battles would have been unbearable otherwise. Whenever I turned it off everything was going so slow. Final playtime was like 22 hours (I did not do many side quests or triple triad).

MZero posted...

I replayed it last year for trophies and liked it less than I remembered

I really don't like the 3D models on 2D backgrounds style of the PS1 era games

The glory days of RPGs

Also FFVIII battles are pretty quick, especially compared to something like FFIX, sounds like you've just been spoiled by modern amenities

Man there's nothing like finally being able to junction to Speed and you can get your next turn before your current turn is even over

I think the remaster port has some frame rate issues on some PCs. I had to download a fix just to get normal framerate outside of battle but maybe it didn't fix battle. Watching battles online they look a lot smoother than what I saw seeing. I swear the battles were like 15fps before I switched to 3X speed.

Either way I'm not exaggerating when I say that I beat 99% of bosses by drawing first to see if they had anything new and then casting Mad Rush. Some bosses in the final dungeon obviously required more finesse but I was just putting my controller down for every other boss.

Forgot disc 2 started with torture holy shit lol

Just going for it huh ff8

...Flower.

I played this for the first time a couple years back and thought the cast was pretty likable (unfortunately most of them aren't very interesting beyond that). If anything I don't think I'd have found Squall nearly as believable when I was a teenager myself.

(I agree Quistis is the best though. God I wish the game remembered she existed after the first couple hours.)

Game is much more about character dynamics and chemistry than whatever else is going on. As a result it doesn't have a top tier moment like most other FF but I find it enjoyable the whole way through. They're all decent at worst.

Junction system is pretty hit or miss. It's breakable as f*** so obviously flawed but the idea is fun.

Triple Triad is probably the most enjoyable FF minigame to date, which says a lot about the others, but it's quite fun until some terrible rule spreads.

FF8 felt like it wanted to be MGS at times

How much Triple Triad have you been playing?

It's easily my favorite PS1-era FF mini-game. More longevity than Chocobo Racing/breeding and objectively massively more fun than boring ass Tetra Master
.

The one thing that ruins FF8 for me is when you know how the junction system works it removes all of the challenge. The enemies levelling up with you thing adds to that as well.

party was definitely a weak point of ffviii. thought the battle system was pretty fun though and enjoyed the graphics (switch remaster). i think i didn't use much 3x while i did that more for ffvii.

The Junction system being easily breakable is a pro, not a con

No encounter makes this game so much more fun. Thank you diablos for making all my dreams come true.

The encounter rate in this game is horrific lol

It's not that bad, pretty standard encounter rate for a JRPG of that time

I can't even remember what the standard encounter rate was since I rushed Enc-None from the moment I got Diablos.

Leonhart4 posted...

The glory days of RPGs

the dark days tbh

the SNES and PS2 eras were much better!

Leonhart4 posted...

It's not that bad, pretty standard encounter rate for a JRPG of that time

The issue is it is counter productive to level up in this game

Anyway I like selphie a lot more than I did previously tbh.

SirChris posted...

The issue is it is counter productive to level up in this game

Nah, that's a myth. It's only counterproductive if you're bad at junctioning.

Leonhart4 posted...

Nah, that's a myth. It's only counterproductive if you're bad at junctioning.

I mean I am blitzing through the game so fair enough.

More specifically, leveling is counterproductive if two things are true (and both must be true):

A) You're not junctioning aggressively and chasing down strong magics.

B) You don't have the Stat Up abilities, which makes leveling pure upside.

If either one is true, level all the way, it's worth it. Higher level makes it so you get stronger junctions so you stay very well ahead of the power curve, too. There IS merit to staying at base level for disc 1 and a chunk of 2 just to minmax, but it's wholly unnecessary.

SirChris posted...

The end of disc 1 pops off so hard lol. The whole assassination plot line with its twists and turns is wild tbh

SirChris posted...

Forgot disc 2 started with torture holy shit lol

Just going for it huh ff8

Such a phenomenal stretch. Disc 2 also has that great moment where Squall flies in from nowhere to save Zell at the prison.

God, I love that game.

ctesjbuvf posted...

Game is much more about character dynamics and chemistry than whatever else is going on. As a result it doesn't have a top tier moment like most other FF but I find it enjoyable the whole way through. They're all decent at worst.

Opening cinematic is a top tier moment, without question.

Squall/Rinoa in space and Squall breaking Rinoa out of the Sorceress Memorial are standout moments as well.

ffviii has great moments surrounded by bizarre long stretches and a fair amount of tedium

FFVIII is one long great stretch of character development

Yeah disc 2 so far is pretty banger for the most part after disc 1 ended on a high note. First 90% of disc 1 is just a chore though imo

Leonhart4 posted...

FFVIII is one long great stretch of character development

Absolutely. Squall is the soul of the game. The reason why I love FFVIII so much is because of how Squall-centric it is.

I found leveling to be pointless through the whole game. You got enough AP from bosses to unlock enough mod abilities to get decent spells, and by the middle of disc 2 you could access the desert and fight Cactuars for AP (and no EXP) to unlock the rest of the mod abilities to get the best magic. I grinded to level 100 at the end with the stat up abilities to cap everything, but I'm not even sure that was worth it over fighting things at base level with top level junctions.

The bit after norg just makes no sense narratively and none of it is how real people talk to another. It's just so brutal in comparison to some of the moments in ffx and other ff games

I won't compare to xiv because that's not fair but yeah norg and after is just such rushed and disjointed story telling

Good time to mention that ff8's soundtrack is fucking incredible.

1 guess why I said that at this point in the game lol

Fisherman's Horizon baby

The norg theme