Finally Played This Game

I finally decided to give Final Fantasy VIII a shot, after avoiding it for 20 years. I have to admit I found it to be very mediocre. It took me a while to gain a proper understanding of the battle system. For the first half of the game, I pretty much won every fight with the use of my guardian forces. Without the fast forward x3 option on the remastered edition, I don't think I would have had the patience to tolerate the length of the summons.

I then started to question why my normal attacks and magic were only doing 100-200 damage maximum, until I realized that you become stronger with more magic stocked. I then spent about 3 hours drawing 100 of every spell, and then the game became ridiculously easy (with the exception of fighting Ruby Dragons, Ultima and Omega Weapon).

Overall, the story never really seemed to grab me. I was intrigued with the Laguna story, including really digging the Laguna battle theme (otherwise no tunes in the game really stood out to me, which is also unusual for a Final Fantasy game). So yeah, I played it, finished it (including defeating the super bosses), but was never enthralled with the game like I was with Final Fantasy IV, VI, VII and X.

I am just curious to know what other people's experiences were like with the game. Did you enjoy it? Find it mediocre? Dislike it?

I also played it quite late, and I played all the other games before, and my opinion is really close to yours. It took me a lot of time to understand the battle system, and the story is okay, but not great like most of the other FF games. Laguna's story was interesting, and I also liked Squall and Rinoa as characters, but the others were again okay, not memorable.

I love this game so much.

But yeah, the junction system. I love it, but I don't expect anyone else to. I did the same as you the first time around and just used GFs on everything until I hit a wall at disc 2. Of course, once you come to understand what junctioning does, everyone's first instinct would be to spend forever drawing troutty magic from enemies (which is also what I did the first time). This is probably the least efficient way of getting magic to junction to your stats. Using the GF refining abilities in combination with Card Mod yields better magic for time spent. Especially if you game the Triple Triad trade rules to get all your opponent's cards on every victory. You could have a virtually infinite amount of some of the game spells to junction before you even leave the Balamb region. This game is grindy, but it does give you a few different ways to get it done.

As for the story, I was a young teen girl eating up troutty YA fiction novels when I first beat this game, so of *course* I loved it.

The soundtrack is gorgeous. Blue Fields, Breezy, and Fisherman's Horizon are some of my favorite chill tracks.

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Originally Posted by Jessweeee♪

I love this game so much.

But yeah, the junction system. I love it, but I don't expect anyone else to. I did the same as you the first time around and just used GFs on everything until I hit a wall at disc 2. Of course, once you come to understand what junctioning does, everyone's first instinct would be to spend forever drawing troutty magic from enemies (which is also what I did the first time). This is probably the least efficient way of getting magic to junction to your stats. Using the GF refining abilities in combination with Card Mod yields better magic for time spent. Especially if you game the Triple Triad trade rules to get all your opponent's cards on every victory. You could have a virtually infinite amount of some of the game spells to junction before you even leave the Balamb region. This game is grindy, but it does give you a few different ways to get it done.

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Yep, the drawing 100 of each spell from an enemy is certainly as you said inefficient. And speaking of inefficient, it took me until about Disk 3 to realize I could junction multiple GF's to a single character. How embarrassing is that?

I also hit that "use GF for every attack" wall on Disk 2. I was just barely, and I do mean barely, able to win the boss battle at the end of Disk 2. It was enough to make me realize I had to do something different.

Also on Disk 3, I started to use some of the GF refine abilities. A bunch of them allow you to convert items to spells, but that typically costs money to buy enough items to do so. And despite hearing that Triple Triad is an amazing mini-game, I only attempted to play it a single time. I was still able to win some cards in battle (ie. from Bahamut), which allowed me to convert a Bahamut card to 100 Megalixers (I think). This was necessary to defeat Omega Weapon.

It's one of the weirdest levelling up/stats systems I've ever seen.

FFVIII is fun. It is oddly both over and underrated. Some people think it is the among the best, some think it is among the worst, but to me it is somewhere in the middle. Definitely a fun game, particularly the GF/junction system and Triple Triad. Drawing magic is a bore, but like Jessweeee said there are more efficient ways to do it. I thought the story got pretty ludicrous but FF games aren't really known for their super compelling stories.

I hated this game when I first played it but now I really want to give it another chance with a more open mind.

I enjoy VIII, it's just so unconventional. Like FFII it just serves as one of those entries that really throws you for a curve when you try playing through the whole franchise and I enjoy it for it. The writing... could be better but the game just works for me as an overall package. I can understand why some people don't like it as much as other entries but I do find the vitriol criticism it gets from parts of the fanbase a bit confusing.

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Originally Posted by Storm

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Originally Posted by Jessweeee♪

I love this game so much.

But yeah, the junction system. I love it, but I don't expect anyone else to. I did the same as you the first time around and just used GFs on everything until I hit a wall at disc 2. Of course, once you come to understand what junctioning does, everyone's first instinct would be to spend forever drawing troutty magic from enemies (which is also what I did the first time). This is probably the least efficient way of getting magic to junction to your stats. Using the GF refining abilities in combination with Card Mod yields better magic for time spent. Especially if you game the Triple Triad trade rules to get all your opponent's cards on every victory. You could have a virtually infinite amount of some of the game spells to junction before you even leave the Balamb region. This game is grindy, but it does give you a few different ways to get it done.

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Yep, the drawing 100 of each spell from an enemy is certainly as you said inefficient. And speaking of inefficient, it took me until about Disk 3 to realize I could junction multiple GF's to a single character. How embarrassing is that?

I also hit that "use GF for every attack" wall on Disk 2. I was just barely, and I do mean barely, able to win the boss battle at the end of Disk 2. It was enough to make me realize I had to do something different.

Also on Disk 3, I started to use some of the GF refine abilities. A bunch of them allow you to convert items to spells, but that typically costs money to buy enough items to do so. And despite hearing that Triple Triad is an amazing mini-game, I only attempted to play it a single time. I was still able to win some cards in battle (ie. from Bahamut), which allowed me to convert a Bahamut card to 100 Megalixers (I think). This was necessary to defeat Omega Weapon.

It's one of the weirdest levelling up/stats systems I've ever seen.

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One of the optional GFs from Disk 1, Brothers, yields a card after battle that turns into 100 dino bones, which turn into 20 quakes each with Diablos's refine ability. Junction to strength and the rest of the game is broken lol.

the game is very easy to break in the remaster for sure
just buy ultima at shumi village every now and again

I do enjoy breaking the game. :bigsmile:

I recently replayed this; I remember loving it as a child, but even then I thought it was one of the weaker entries of the series. I've changed my tune somewhat and have renewed appreciation for it, but I'm not too sure how much of that is due to nostalgia.

The junction system can be a little iffy at times, but once you hack it, it's great. When I was a kid I didn't understand it but as an adult it makes a little more sense to me. I think they could have done better to make things a little more user-friendly, though.

I agree with what others have said that hacking the junction system is one of the most fun parts of this game. Are there any other games that allow you to modify your stats in such a way?

The closest I can think of is Wild Arms 3 and even then it's a bit more balanced. Basically you equip summons and each one raises one of your stats and garners their special power. It is still possible to equip all the summons on your favorite character and watch their stats soar since I believe the stat upgrades are like fire spirit raises equipped characters strength by 25% type nonsense.

If this game hadn't followed VII I don't think it would have been viewed as being quite so divisive. VII really took the development of the characters to another level with every character getting some pretty good background information which allowed the player to get invested in them. Then VIII comes along and it largely focuses on just two characters and the rest of the cast is largely relegated to background player that is just there because they need a certain amount of characters in the party.

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Originally Posted by Del Murder

I agree with what others have said that hacking the junction system is one of the most fun parts of this game. Are there any other games that allow you to modify your stats in such a way?

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Disgaea does this with your equipment. :p

Currently playing the remastered version of this on PS4 to get the platinum trophy. I never did the Obel Lake and Pupu side missions. It’s nice seeing different parts of the game that I’ve played countless times!

I personally think it’s great. Though I do spend an extraordinary amount of time playing Triple Triad. I think I might prefer that to the actual game itself :D