People who complain about drawing magic do not know how to play FFVIII

[Roto13]

On a website that is not this one, someone posted a review of Final Fantasy VIII. One of their complaints was that they hated drawing magic from monsters over and over and over again.

I don't do that. I draw magic from monsters at the very beginning of the game so I can have some Blizzard spells handy when I fight Ifrit.

After that, all of my spells either come from draw points or, more often, refining items or other spells. I also kick all kinds of ass so I'm doing something right.

Discuss how right I am.

[CimminyCricket]

I think I drew magic from monsters when I really wanted a magic I didn't have a draw point for nearby, but otherwise, you're right.

[Gamblet]

This is what I usually do:

At the beginning of the game I draw Fire, Thunder and Blizzard from monsters for 3 characters. After that I progress through story and gain the refining abilities.
Annoying at first, but worth the effort.

[Mirage]

This post discusses how right the OP is.

[Jessweeee♪]

Well I'd say you're pretty right. Drawing magic in battle over and over again like many describe is like the FFVIII version of grinding to level 20 before the first boss. (Because if you actually did that in FFVIII the boss would be tougher and your stats would be trout because no magic to Junction.)

My personal drawing habits are like this. Draw some Scans and Blizzards for Ifrit, draw at least once each battle until the GFs learn how to refine stuff (and I make sure they learn early on), draw like crazy if and only if I come across a spell that's difficult to refine.

[Hollycat]

This post discusses how right the OP is.

I'm not repping you.

Pretty much after Timber, I never draw from monsters again except to get GFs.

[Sephex]

Still doesn't fix the story.

(SPOILER)Stop. Calm down. Yes, every FF game has story problems. I just feel that this one suffers more than other ones.

[BG-57]

I have no problem with drawing as part of the magic system, although you have to plan ahead to get rare magic like Pain. Rather it's the way the game discourages you from casting junctioned magic since it decreases the stat boost. The game pressures you into hoarding and stockpiling magic and never using it.

You can get around that by stat maxing using Devour, but there's no incentive since no enemy is so strong that stat maxing is necessary.

[ReloadPsi]

Getting all the abilities and items still entails a lot of grinding and farming, but it's a bit less boring at least. Well, for me; I have enough OCD to spend hours dicking around in menus and actually somewhat enjoy it.

And I claim to like games. Shameful :P

[Mirage]

I have no problem with drawing as part of the magic system, although you have to plan ahead to get rare magic like Pain. Rather it's the way the game discourages you from casting junctioned magic since it decreases the stat boost. The game pressures you into hoarding and stockpiling magic and never using it.

You can get around that by stat maxing using Devour, but there's no incentive since no enemy is so strong that stat maxing is necessary.

You can always make sure that your attack magic isn't junctioned. You should be able to get high enough stats anyway

Also, no enemy requiring stat maxing has never stopped people before .

[BG-57]

By endgame I have many spells stockpiled but the most useful spells tend to junction the best. Additionally I tend to junction several GFs simultaneously to each of the active party member, so a lot are tied up in junctions.

I get around the casting problem by using a lot of GF attacks in the beginning and then by endgame the maximized junctions make the party nearly unstoppable in melee.

I actually tried for about five hours of mugging Cactuars to refine into Spd +1 before I got sick of the tedium. With Auto-Haste and Initiative equipped it's not even necessary.

[Mirage]

Well there is no reason to use spells anyway, when physical attacks are as good as they are. The only spell worth using is meteor with frenzy-rinoa.

[Wolf Kanno]

^ Yeah, that's m,y feeling, the real incentive to not use magic in VIII for me wasn't the stat decrease (it's not like refining and drawing don't make that easy) it's that the magic's damage algorithm is pretty poor so even with high stats you're barely doing the type of damage you could have been doing in previous games with the spells. Only Rinoa makes magic worthwhile beyond stat boosting which I always felt was the real weakness of the system since they made using magic beyond Cure class, Meltdown, and Aura mostly obsolete for damage and support purposes.

I honestly really like the concept of drawing magic though, I can't quite explain it other than it feeds into my thieving desires I have as well. I just felt that it made battles more interesting and I like getting magic spells in-battle as opposed to twiddling with menus and waiting to to get the appropriate amount of AP to unlock a new level in abilities. I use to be pretty bad about getting 100 each every battle, but in later playthroughs, I do Chrono Trigger Builds where every character gets one element that usually goes along with their magic type. So Squall is Ice, Quistis is Lightning, and Zell is Fire in the early chapters. With this set up, I usually have everyone draw a little of the spell types and then after battle I merge them over to the character I plan to use the element with.

[ReloadPsi]

Something that did occur to me though is that the spells that need to be refined from far rarer items do mean you have to do a lot more farming, when it might actually be worth your while to just go on a mad drawing spree from a monster that has it.

Which takes longer: refining Meteors from items or drawing them from ruby dragons?

[Jiro]

Just do a combination of both and you barely even notice the effort.