Finally beat Final Fantasy VIII
by
, 03-25-2020 at 07:24 PM (13082 Views)
Hello everyone,
I'm here to catch you up on my journey through the Final Fantasy series! I've beaten it about 2-3 times before on PSX & PC. My PC playthrough is actually what led me to this forums. Playing them 10+ years apart had piqued my curiosity on FF8's plot and I came here to look for answers. I think after some time I was satisfied and I took a hiatus from the forums. It wasn't until I got into streaming that I decided to record myself playing through all the Final Fantasy titles (mostly in sequence) and now I am finally at Final Fantasy IX!
So, like my previous entries I'll talk a little bit about my experience, and what I've done in the game.
For this play through, I played the Remastered version which gave me some neat functions to speed up my play through which I used quite generously. These functions are 3X speed, Max HP/ATB/Limit Breaks, and no battles. For a majority of the game I left the MAX function off when fighting bosses and used it to speed level my GFs/Characters. I wanted a decked out squad for end game and then at some point during Ultimecia's Castle I just gave in and abused the functions to breeze through the bosses to unlock functions in the castle. I only fought Ultimecia without any assistance and considered that my "playthrough".
Okay, enough of that. Just a friendly reminder that there may be spoilers for people who haven't played through Final Fantasy VIII yet.
Music
I really like the Final Fantasy VIII music. I think its great and it adds a lot to the game's atmosphere and crazy story.
Mechanics
Junction & Magic system: I didn't mind it as much but I think the 3X Speed and understanding the game before my play through definitely helped. I played at a pace where I wasn't too strong until DISC 3. By DISC 3, I had powerful spells junctioned to my characters and a lot of AP built up developing battle abilities, passive bonuses, and junctioning against my enemies. Towards the end before the final fight against Ultimecia, all of my characters were decked out with the strongest spells and abilities.
Mini-games:
My favorite mini-game would be the Timber mission where you travel along the trains to disable the carts. The other mini games where you fight on a paratrooper jet engine was fun and the Laguna sequence where he fights a big ol' dragon. Unfortunately, I didn't do the Chocobo quest for Final Fantasy VIII, but I might be tempted to look at a 100% guide or define my own 100% guide and try to do everything again.
Story
I really liked the stories in Final Fantasy VIII and my most favorite story arc would be Laguna's dream world sequence. I think I cried at the ending where you see Laguna at Raine's grave. Can you imagine that? I'm not sure what made it so powerful for me or if I might be going through something. It just really resonated with me.
To FF8's credit, I think pulling off a saga with time travel is really difficult to do right. Some of the ideas going on in 8 felt really childish at times. For example, like to reach Ultimecia, Laguna instructs them to all think about a place they feel "good" things (paraphrasing). It kind of takes away from the magic the sorceresses use in the game. However, as much as I could follow, I really thought the time compression thing tied it together in a way that made it complete for me.
Ah, this whole things a mess but I really enjoyed FF8. Now onwards to FF9.
Sorry about my inconsitency.
Hope everyone has a good day.