So my last playthrough of FFVIII kinda ended in failure. It was a hubris/challenge run where I used pseudo-Job Classes by only Junctioning to certain stats. For instance, Squall was my Warrior and could only Junction Str and Vit while my other two party members were mages. Obviously they both Junctioned to Mag and Spr but one was a Black Mage and the other was kinda just everything but attacking - White Magic, Support Magic, Status Ailments, etc.. Anyway, I lost because I insisted on leveling up those Ruby Dragons in the Deep Sea Research Facility to 100. That...didn't end well.
Anyway, I gave up not just because of that, but becaus eI was bored. I was tired of limiting myself. Even by doing this, the story bosses were a joke. I purposefully even only used the worst Junctions most of the time but nope, still no problem.
And then I found FFVIII Requiem, a difficulty and re-balance mod.
The person who made it said that Triple Triad would no longer be breaking the game - it would be the only way to even survive. Now, having never once grinded with the infamous card game, I was worried. I had never been good at it when i tried it before. However I soon began to cackle like Emperor Palpatine at the UNLIMITED POWWWAHHHH. It's easier to get Curagas than Curas! And what moron thought of 1 Mesmerize Blade for 20 Regens? They aren't really uncommon cards. I had 300 Regens to slap on my party's HP before I knew what I was doing. Blitz'es are also easy to come by and one of them equals 20 Thundagas. I think next to Mesmerize/Regen my favorite has to be Grendel/Doubles. I got 300 of those pretty easily too. I am at the start on Disk 2 and my game time reads 30 hours. (and it's really much more of that if you count all the resets and the time I spent on the Dollet Communication Tower boss...Elvoret or whatever. I hadn't gotten Card Mod yet when I challenged him and he kept kicking my ass) I'd say at least 15 of those hours were Triple Triad grinding. It's probably more like 20 hours.
Anyway, like I said, it's a difficulty enhancer too. That's why I made my first ever game recording (well of me playing a game) to show you all. Now, I beg your pardon for the quality being terrible. You will see some slowdown and even that's with the settings lower than they could be. Anything better and it be twice as slow. I know it may not look pretty but I love this game and wanted to try and show it off is all.
That's Lvl 34 Squall, Lvl 16 Irvine and Lvl...maybe 20 or 21 Rinoa. All 100 Regen for HP, 100 Tornado's for Squall's and Rinoa's Mag and I have 60 Triples for Irvine's Str. Edea had about 20,000 HP... I forget what level she was.
Now, having replayed this fight over and over and over again to try and record it, you gain an appreciation for game AI. In my second run she used Ultima, Tornado and then another Ultima. Needless to say I died. It's almost as funny as my second time against Seifer he immediately started teh battle with Flare which one-shotted the Shell-less Squall. Then in another battle he never even used Flare at all but just kept attacking.
You might not be able to tell due to bad quality but Squall has the Punishment. i could have gotten the Lionheart but I didn't want to. Punishment looks way cooler. I wasn't even aiming to get it - 20 hours in and just about to head for Timber, I happened to stop by the Balamb Junk Shop and boom, I had all the necessary items for it. I did get Selphie's Strange Vision though. I'm only one Force Armlet away from getting Rinoa's best weapon but hell if I know where to get those. Someone said you can get them from Level 30+ Forbiddens in the Tomb of the Unknown King but I never ran into them even though I stayed a while to grind. (The Encounter Rate there is super frickin' low) Irvine has the Bismark.
But yeah....I think I know why the story sucks so bad. My brain hurts from trying to remember all the Card Mod items and in turn all teh uses for these items. I'm pretty sure they spent 96% of development time setting all that up and then someone said "the game's coming out in a few months and we still don't know what it's about."
I have never made full use of this system before and I must say it's thoroughly addictive.
So...there you are. I intend to try and beat the game, all the way up to Final Ultimecia with her 1,000,000 HP. Or it's close to that...900K-something. I'm having a lot of fun and this will tide me over until next month and maybe even then some if I continue at this sluggish rate.
P.S.
smurf Random. Who thought of that? And I still have no idea how to abolish it.
04-29-2014, 01:32 AM
Forsaken Lover
Well a lot has happened since I last posted... Figure I'll update just to kinda swagger about.
Just beat Ultima Weapon. No idea how much HP he has in the mod...a poster on the Insane Difficulty forums estimates around 300K.
My Setup:
Level 100 Squall- Spd+20%, Spd+10%, Auto-Shell, Auto-Haste
Level 100 Rinoa- Spd+20%, Spd+10%, Auto-Potion, Auto-Haste
Level 100 Quistis- Spd+20%, Spd+10%, Auto-Potion, Auto-Haste
Squall with 99 Ultima's from Shumi Draw Point and farming Energy Crystals from Ruby Dragons.
Rinoa with 100 Ultima's from Dark Matter.
Quistis is kinda just there as healer/buffer.
Naturally I wanted to go in there with HP+40% but that was a waste of an ability slot. Everyone has around 6,000 HP and with Shell that's enough to let you comfortably survive Ultima 2. With my 100 X-Potions I got from Gil Farming via making Mega-Potion recovering 5,000 every time Quistis or Rinoa got hit, we were pretty much always safe.
Except from Light Pillar of course... Bleh. I got him down to 40,000 HP on one try and he did LP three times in a row. That's when I decided I should try out those Phoenix Pinion things. I had 4,000,000 Gil stocked up so I just used Call Shop to the Esthar Item Store, bought Mega-Phoenixes and refined them into Pinions, and repeated until I had 100 Pinions. I think they will save you from game over? Luckily it never came to that but they were great for reviving my other two party members when they died a few times due to that damned Light Pillar.
But yeah, as you can tell from my setup, speed was the key. You need to keep all three characters alive and make them as fast as possible. I wanted to give them Mag+30% to try and make things go faster - since Ultima was only doing at most around 3,000 a hit so even with Triple each character wasn't doing more than 10,000 - but it's not worth it. You need to be constantly reviving people.
Towards the end, he'll stop using Gravija and his other magic and just sword attack spam and Light Pillar. Even with Auto-Haste and Triple junctioned to Spd plus Spd+50%, he still got two sword attacks in a row before I could do much. Luckily Auto-Potion saves the day.
Yeah...it was long and very challenging. VIII's Ultima Weapon is one of my favorite superbosses. It looks awesome, it has a great introduction, and the music chosen for the boss fight is perfect. Now that it was actually difficult, it's the best.
05-02-2014, 03:23 PM
Forsaken Lover
I DID IT! I DID IT! I DID IT! I BEAT HER ASS! 2,000,000 HP ain't enough, Ultimecia. Nah-nah!!!
Sure it was like on my tenth attempt but I did it.
I switched it up a bit, making Rinoa just my ultimate damage dealer. Expend 3>1, Ultima to Mag-J, Mag+30%. I put Meteor on her HP-J and got her to 9999 by forsaking two ability slots to HP+.
Thank God I learned about how to induce Vit 0 though with Quistis' Acid. Thanks to that, Rinoa was doing 8000 a hit with Ultima and Squall 4000 with Flare.
I admit, I got worried when she blew away both Rinoa's Ultima and Flare but hey! I still had 100 Holy left over and no more need to worry about protecting against Death!
Speaking of which, Griever blew away Quistis' Death Status Defense pretty early so i was worried about that during the Ultimecia-Griever fight. I had Squall on Auto-Potion this time around which is a great way to buy time for Limits after Great Attractor or Hell's Judgment. I was worried about that since it meant he'd never get a Limit but Quistis and Shockwave Pulsar did the job just fine most every turn. 13000-20000 every time with a few measly 8000's here and there.
Phew...i woke up today and said I'd beat her and i did. Took me about an hour-and-a-half (last form with its 900,000 HP took 40 minutes all on its own) I am very happy and proud of myself.
05-04-2014, 12:33 AM
Forsaken Lover
Assuming no one else ever responds to this, I'm gonna make one final post, as my own "Tips For Newcomers" thing.
1. PLAY TRIPLE TRIAD. GET CARD MOD QUICK! That dragon thing at the top of Dollet Communication Tower will annihilate you if you do not.
2. DO QUEEN OF CARD SIDEQUEST AS FAST AS POSSIBLE AND GET IRVINE CARD IN FH. You have no idea how essential three Auto-Hastes will be for a lot of the boss fights. You won't need it for the final stretch but for most of Disk 2 and 3, it's a lifesaver.
3. Always have Protect and Shell up in boss fights. Always.
4. The only way to get Vit 0 in this game are: Quistis' Acid, Quistis' Bad Breath and Angelo Strike. It's a lot easier to get Vit 0 with Acid. I never used it until the final boss fights but it be nice to have. However if you're close enough to death to get Limits off in this version, you're probably dead anyway.
5. If you are having trouble with the Oilboyles, a Tri-Face is a very rare encounter in that final area of the MD Level. If you're a high enough level, as I was, you can draw Flares from it and help increase your HP a bit while getting a powerful attack spell. Tri-Face will wreck you though so you'll need to Sleep it if you want to draw 300 of them.
