>SQUARE SQUARE SQUARE SQUARE SQUARE SQUARE SQUARE SQUARE SQUARE SQUARE RESET FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF
Anyone else think this feature was fucking stupid? Unless you had a tubro controller it was a fucking chore.
I think the fact people actually fough by summoning GFs over and over again was fucking stupid especially when fighting by using physical attacks and limits break was always better (not to mention faster) way to fight.
Anyway anyone else think that overly long attack animations popularized by FFVII was fucking stupid and something that really should NOT have become a norm in JRPGs? At least the spam square button to do little more damage thing in FFVIII gave you something to do while wacthing that pointless hourlong attack animation...
Yes it was.
However here is something to consider.
I never use summons in battle past dollet. FF8 is my all time favourite game.
I know several people who played through the entire game using GFs as their main form of attack. They hated the game.
Thus I submit to you: do not use summons. It makes the game experience significantly better.
>>2797851
I think Eden's summon was something like over a minute and a half. If not Eden, I remember a FF8 summon taking forever.
>>2797858
>I remember a FF8 summon taking forever.
As opposed to FFVII's Knight of Round and FFIX's Ark which are just as long if not longer? However I really have to give FFIX props for having an option for shorter summon animations which really should have been there in FFVII and FFVIII.
I dunno, I thought it was extremely easy to avoid the rest even when I was 11.
I also haven't summoned a single GF in my last 5 or 6 playthroughs of the game.
>>2797857
>I know several people who played through the entire game using GFs as their main form of attack. They hated the game.
Speaking of this I really think Adel should have been fought much earlier on so people would be called out on solely relying on GFs to fight and be forced to start thinking of other ways to fight than summoning GFs over and over again.
>>2797857
good post. in my last playthrough i mostly only used GFs early in the game and during a few boss battles. it speeds the game up and is more fun than spamming summons all the time.
ff8's gameplay is very underrated by babbies who think you have to draw magic all the time and don't understand how to junction properly
>>2797881
Heh, I remember when I was 12 or 13, a couple of kids couldn't beat Adel and asked me helped because I was the FF8-go-to guy at the time. Obviously their strategies mostly consisted of GF spamming....
But honestly, I think the down side of using GFs wasn't big enough. They're supposed to be able to faint and not be used again, except really, they have too much HP, they should have had a lot less.
Also, the more you use a GF, the more time it will take you to summon other GFs; but the problem is that it goes both ways and makes the GF you use the most summon faster, so the down side becomes an upside.
Honestly, GFs can be considered 'broken'. Now though, if that was the only thing about the gameplay which was 'broken'.... But for me all that was also part of what made the game good. You can't make the deepest system of the entire franchise, the one which gives the player the most choices and possibilities, and have it balanced through.
In the franchise, good balance is associated to simple gameplay system. FF4 is balanced. FF4 also doesn't give you a SINGLE choice on the entire system past the fact that you can buy a new armor every two towns or so.
FF9 is more balanced than 8, but less than 4. It also gives more choice than 4, but a lot less than 8.
>>2797894
You are seriously acting like junctioning is anything but "put something on STR". Fucknig tripe-a baby.
>ff8
>one character deals 138 damage
>next does 184
>next deals 9999, several times
>monster still alive
>it isn't even a boss and it's taking a fuckload of time to kill
what is this, I don't even...
>>2797932
Monsters leveled with you IIRC
>>2797936
I know, but why?
What kind of sick motherfucker though of making the game harder the more you try to improve your characters instead of the opposite?
It doesn't make sense, why even level up
>>2797865
FFIX didn't have an option for shorter summons so much as the first time you use a summon, you get the long animation, then most every time after that it's the short animation, with a random chance of getting the long animation depending on some variable I forgot. Equipping the Boost ability (which you don't get until very late into the game) makes it show the long animation always.
The game that actually gave you the option between long and short animations was FFX.
>>2797932
>>2797936
>>2797945
People make level scaling in FFVIII a way bigger deal than it really is. Yes, the monsters level with you but as a result they also have better stuff for you to steal, draw or to get as drops easily allowing you to keep up with them. that said you don't gain anything better from enemies after hitting level 40 so at point leveling up becomes pointless and something that doesn't reward you in anyway but why does everyone need to level up to lv. 100 anyway? If you simply play through the game normally you should be able to finish the game in early 30s so "game punishing you for leveling up" should never be a problem to begin with.
I for one am for anything that reduces level grinding in RPGs as I already had more than my share of it from RPGs from the 80s and early 90s I played when I was a kid.
>>2797945
That's kind of the point. You DON'T level up unless you want the better stuff to steal or draw that they would have at a higher level. Instead, you get powerful magic and Junction it to your stats.
>>2797851
You're a fucking retard. Those overly long attack animations were a gift from god cause I could get up and make some chocolate milk while the game was playing itself.
>>2797972
>you become strong
>enemies become stronger because of that
>"but don't worry, they drop better stuff so that you can get even stronger to keep up with them"
>return to first step
it's not grinding. A lot of other final fantasy games didn't have this rollescoaster retarded system and weren't hard enough to require grinding in order to beat the game, but with that said, grinding was a tedious act that required extra effort to make the game easier. In FF8 grinding is shooting yourself because you are putting effort into making the game harder. It even feels like there is no point into getting stronger
>>2797981
taking 5 minutes to finish a battle with a common enemy from the overworld is inexcusable
>>2797851
That's the realization I had about almost every FF game. Very few have much difficulty in them. It's just a matter of stacking on the most physical attack damage or exploiting glitches via spells. (Vanish+Doom)
>>2797831
it was fucking annoying personally.
i always used short summons and never used it.
i actually never used summon command anyway and just relied on abilities provided by GF.
i never understood the appeal of overly long summon animations where half of universe is blown up to deliver ~4000 dmg to characters placed in tiny area on one planet.
>>2797993
>exploiting glitches via spells. (Vanish+Doom)
look at this fucking casual that cheated and never played hacks that fixed the glitch
>>2797945
>I know, but why?
It's a lazy way of not having to balance areas in a game. In theory if enemies level with you then a game will stay at a consistent difficulty. In practice it just kills any sense of character progression.
>>2797998
agree
>>2797987
You know what? This here is the reason FFVIII is my favorite out of the PSX FF games: In FFVIII you can get Enc-None ability that gets rid of all those random encounters that take 5 minutes for no fucking reason very early on making the game much more tolerable to replay than the other ones.
>>2798008
>getting rid of combats makes the game more tolerable
and also pointless
>>2797994
yeah Eden, if you did it right was OP but you can do just as much damage, probably more by fighting normally in the same amount of time.
>>2797985
>A lot of other final fantasy games weren't hard enough to require grinding in order to beat the game
Let me guess you never played the NES FFs, any of the non-casualized versions of FFIV or any pre-5th gen RPGs other than Final Fantasies?
Also speaking of retarded systems what do you think about FFII's stat gaining system?
>>2798025
I did, I played and finished every FF game save VIII and II. Currently I'm playing FFXII, zodiac system
I don't like II system because it rewards non-intuitive actions/gameplay and ends up requiring petty exploits, but I prefer it to 8
>>2797894
Ah yes, the second issue with the battle system. Everyone assumes you need to draw 300 of every magic the moment you find it, but it's much more sensible to draw a few every fight or refine them using stuff from shops or cards.
The other argument I've seen against the battle system is that junctioning is too complex. Personally I think it's probably on a par with the other final fantasy games, 1 and 4 excluded as their battle systems are very straightforward.
As I said, FF8 is my all-time favourite game, but I don't think it's perfect. The gf summons are clearly flawed. They should be more powerful but characters can only summon one every few battles or something. The draw system should have been for learning spells, not casting them. The junction system has some very easy early game abuses (cure refine tents maybe?) and the 'do a quiz to get more cash' system, whilst fitting the scenario, is painful, especially as some of the questions are very ambiguous. They should have had enemies give money with perhaps a bounty system or something to encourage people to hunt down rare enemies.
Oh wait I forgot a complaint. People say that leveling is pointless because enemies level with you. Well, this means there's no level grinding and I never really struggled with any part of the game to the point where I was like 'oh man I wish I could go away and level up'.
>>2797858
It was eden. It's not even a fun animation.
>>2797851
3D animation in general (and its slowness) has wrecked a number of games, and voice clips have done their share too
yes, the 3D Final Fantasy games are major examples of this
a few of the summon animations have real character (Anima in FFX, holy crap) but many of them are just garbage conglomerations of spectacular explosions, and they all go way way way way too long
but also, normal attacks and medium-strong special moves go on way too long. it's just bad designers padding out their work and/or roleplaying as moviemakers
>>2797865
FFIX should not be commended for efficiency in this regard; it had slooooow battles, even if you used no summons at all
>>2797851
One of these days I'll do a long summon and see how many other games I can beat before it ends.
>>2797923
i see people complainining about having to junction their strongest spells all the time. it's not necessary at all. if you junction something like ultima or meteor you're an idiot desu
>>2798017
not really, unless you like constantly fighting monsters during puzzle-y parts of the game where it isn't the point e.g. the deling city sewers, tomb of the unknown king
>>2798112
the magic transfer system is kind of a mess imo. never liked having to switch magic between characters, if you don't refine enough then your magic gets spread pretty thin.
>tfw no laguna spinoff game about his adventures with ward and kiros
>>2797851
>tfw can't Summon a GF
>>2797993
The games are more challenging when you don't look up how to break it on the internet before playing.
>>2797831
dat midriff man
unf
>>2797857
Cerberus is the exception.
>>2797981
Honestly, the only place I felt the game rewarded you for being leveled was at the beginning of disk 2 the flying prison guards had pain to junction, which was super rare. Otherwise you'd basically have to wait till the final dungeon for it.
>>2797985
>>2797985
>>2797972
Except that it's not as simple as you guys make it out to be.
When you're low level, chances are you will almost never draw 9 magics per draw. The higher your level is, the more magic you'll get out a single draw until you are sure each draw gives you 9.
Also your stats gradually grow when you lvl up, I mean the base stats; and that's without even mentionning the stat boosts which can lvl'ing up even more worth it.
Also magics and drops are kind of exponential, meaning that at low lvl you get some basic magics, and at higher lvl you get the upgraded versions of those PLUS new magics.
Also don't tell me you can get those magics without level up. I know you can, I did a no lvl up run. It takes HOURS and HOURS and HOURS of card playing to get a substancial number of the tons of magics that you could easily get just by lvl up.
Finally, unless you abuse the fuck out of the system, no lvl up means no AP. No AP means no teaching your GF new junctions to unlock meaning you're going to remain weak as fuck, or at best, strong but only at a couple of stats per character, and you don't get to junction HP and STR to everyone until much later on in the game and/or with tons of AP.
So stop saying the game "punishes" the player for lvl'ing up. It's not true. All the things I mentionned (and probably more) make it totally worth it to lvl up.
The game punishers players who suck at it. If you play the game, lvl up, and suck at the junction system, haven't even figured out you can turn drops into magics, haven't read the toturials, haven't tried to learn cool shit to your GF and your strategy consists of "GF spamming" and "keep Squall at low health", then yes, the game will punish you.
If you play the game by its system, and use even only half of the shit at your disposal, you'll always have a heads up on monsters, no matter how much you lvl up.
>>2799142
>So stop saying the game "punishes" the player for lvl'ing up. It's not true
>No real stat boosts
>It only makes the enemies scale stronger
Yeah no.
I stopped using GFs the moment I realized I could just keep everyone at how health and spam their limits. Which is about, uh, at the start of the game.
>>2799134
>When you're low level, chances are you will almost never draw 9 magics per draw. The higher your level is, the more magic you'll get out a single draw until you are sure each draw gives you 9.
The amount of magic you get by drawing is more linked to your magic stat than your level, a level 1 character with magic stat around 120 would always get 9 magics per draw from any enemy in any circumstances. Sure levels give a boost to your base stats but if you insist on drawing for magic simply make sure you have a semi-decent magic stat and you should get 9 magics per draw most of the time.
>>2799457
Try unjunctioning your shit at a high lvl and you'll see that you'll draw a great amount anyway. Not at a low lvl, not to mention that chances are you'll be able to junction to a lot less stat types at low lvls.
Are you sure the magic stat influences draw?
I thought it was the spirit stat.
And a quick check on FAQs and I see it mentioned nowhere.
>>2797851
There were a few bosses that made them necessary, plus early on when you're first starting they're ridiculously useful.
>>2797857
When you get to that point junction 100 "death" amgic to el/at for instant one-hit kills of everything but bosses. It makes it easy as it can possibly get.
>>2799474
Oh yes. Zell (the weakest magically) has the worst draw success while Rinoa and Quistis (the strongest magic users) have the most successful draws.
i almost never used summons except for the start of the game.
pretty much invincible after the seed exam
i'm crazy autistic for junctioning
idk but shiva was pretty hot, best part of ff8 imo.
>>2799474
low magic resulted in lower draw amounts or drawing magic would simply fail. i remember this quite well because i would always put all my stats into str and nothing in magic
>>2799514
yeah, something about her animation and color palette is pretty iconic of ps1 era graphics to me personally
>>2798778
Spells, which you could either draw or refine cards to items to xyzmagic school, can be applied [junction xyz, ability learned from a GF] to a stat like HP/STR/MAG/SPD, Ailment resistance, or Elemental resistance. There's also junctions for weapons(Ailment/Elemental) as well.
Each spell (up to 100 may be stored) has it's own bias, so a spell like Life or Full Life really helps in the HP department but not so well else where, whereas Ultima is close to best anywhere. Think of it like up to 100 mage robes being equipped at the same time.
If you wish to min/max, since the monsters level up with you(stronger magic becomes available this way for you to draw, not required), it would be best to Card(AP, no XP) or Run(no XP) from most encounters. Equipping certain spells to your weapons help you land critical damage or soften blows for when you need to Card an enemy (low hp required).
>>2799514
Siren wasn't bad either, and I'm sure I wasn't the only one who knew the perfect timing to pause the game in battle in order to see Selphie's pants
>>2799309
This. Junction good spells to your HP and you can stay in critical HP while still being safe. Congratulations, you've broken FFVIII.
How did people not figure this shit out? I've literally watched a 10 year old figure it out with zero instruction from me.
>>2799474
Yes it's the magic stat I believe.
This is why you have one character be the 'draw monkey'. Near the start of the game only one person can junction mag. Make it your highest Mag companion (I don't like squall being draw monkey). Junction their mag with the best spell you have. Each battle, they draw. When they hit 100 of a spell, they transfer it to another character until you have 100 of each spell.
Don't bother drawing more spells than you have stats to junction though, because that's a waste of everbody's time.
Only retards who didn't understand junction ever used summons.
>>2801406
>Only retards who didn't understand junction ever used summons.
This was me. I got that cure would junction best by boosting HP but not that 100 cures was better than 1. I figured the way to upgrade was by using cura then curaga. So I junctioned a pitiful amount of each spell to my stats (however much 1 use of draw got for me) and pretty quickly had to lean entirely on summons.
This continues until I reach adel. After being stuck on this fight I obviously did what any shit rpg player would do. Lots of grinding. This also fails to help but eventually I have learned a bunch of summon abilities and am getting notifications after fights of "you have 100 of x item so you can not collect anymore". One of the abilities I got was "item to magic" so I poke around my items thinking I can stock up on curagas and then get back to grinding. Gave all my guys 100 curagas, got into a new fight and shit myself when I see I now have 9000+ health.
>>2797831
>>2798757
Shiva is sexy as hell. Im sure this would get censored if it was release on a modern console.
>>2801559
Siren too. Dat bush.
>>2797831
>actually using GFs
It doesn't make your rank go down for nothing.
