should I use a walkthrough or just rawdog it?
https://beforeiplay.com/index.php?title=Final_Fantasy_VIII
>>12293247The answer is the same for all RPGs.Blind playthrough first, then use a guide if you still feel like the game is so good it demands a 100% playthrough (you won't).
>don’t use a full walkthrough but check for missables before playing in case I want to 100% it later
>>12293276I like to play with missibles lists just so I don't waste time searching for things that aren't there, playing step by step with a walkthru sounds terrible though, like watching a longplay but with extra steps
>>12293247>just rawdog it?How about rawdog life and stop playing video games and browsing 4chan?
>>12293314I already won that game
If you follow everyone's "advice" you're going to be stuck for three hours before you even get Ifrit because they want you to grind cards to be "optimal". That's nonsense and it's going to halt your progress of the game. I did beat this game last year and I think that in order for you to actually enjoy playing the game you should: >read all tutorials because they're there to explain how the system works, not to waste your time. >draw occasionally but don't bother 100-stocking. Draw from bosses often though because some have new GFs. You want those. >just keep moving forward with the story, don't worry too much about stats or grinding. Nothing is too hard to beat>the Queen of Cards is a trap, don't trust her unless you really really want that Quistis card.>You get out of Triple Triad as much as you put in. If you don't play it doesn't matter but if you like it you'll get some nice rewards. >use a guide late game to get the missing GFs and what they can do to help you for the final dungeon>you'll also probably want to use the guide for the following locations: >the big blue shiny place>when the big thing flies overhead>the confusing place Other than that, it's fine.
I beat this game in the dark ages before the internet and without a guide>b-but I bet you didn't 100% it!yes, and?
>>12293367>before the internetwe had the internet in 98, prakesh.
>>12293247>manually assign GF learn abilities to RF (refine) when you get themThere, now you don't ever have to bother drawing magic because the game will shower you with items that refine into high-level magic.Also>manually assign GF abilities to Junctions (STR-J, HP-J, MAG-J, etc)Basically the game will try to funnel you into the most useless trash abilities by default like SUM MAG+ or GF HP+ when you want to get actual useful shit.
>>12293247You don't need to folow a guide, just know a few things:1) enemy levels scale to yours so junctions are far more important than leveling. You don't need to stay low level, just don't bother grinding for exp2) some bosses have gfs you can draw from them and if you forget to do it you'll have to play through the entire game until you get another chance and that will gimp you hard. If you look up anything, look up gfs and make sure you don't miss any3) the gfs learn the most useless abilities by default. As soon as you get one go into the menu and switch to something useful like magic refining, card mod or any unique ability. Fuck summon magic, you don't need it
It's a game made for Japanese middle schoolers and highschoolers.If you can't beat a blind playthrough of it that says more about you than the devs
>>12293247rawdogthere's something evil about a game that has an entire point by point, "you haven't read this section" indicator during an optional school tutorial section...but it's the most convoluted system in the franchise of others you can pick up and play with minimal understanding
>>12293557The Japanese version is even worse bullshit because they force you to grind massive amounts of AP just to get basic junctions like Status-J and Element-J. They reworked a lot of the ability trees to give you actual useful things that constitute the game's main gameplay features for all western releases of FFVIII so you can actually engage with the gameplay for a sizable chunk of the run length.You can have Status-J and Element-J in the JP version by disc 2 or so (while playing "normally" and not AP grinding, just getting AP from a normal amount of encounters and bosses), but at the cost of foregoing literally everything else, including Refine abilities.It's actually a wonder no one ever back-ported these updates into FFVIII-JP or made an "International" version that includes those updates, because they really change the way you approach the game in a significant way.
I just can't take ff8 seriously because every time they say gf I think they're talking about girl friends
>putting 2 hours of just raw technical text about game mechanics as required reading right at the start of the gameWHAT WERE THEY THINKING
>>12293754I was so hyped for this game after playing the demo but then it released it felt like I was playing a homework simulator
>>12293740
>>12293867due to limit breaks being busted, that's virtually peak performance
>>12293247I need to replay that one. I still have my PS1 save but its been a few years I've played it.
>>12293440it's funny to think that the early ff8 guides on gamefaqs are older than many people that use this site
>>12293247The only thing you need to know about playing FFVIII is that as soon as you start the game, press X.You start the game in the classroom in front of a computer terminal. That easily missed and entirely optional computer terminal has the basic tutorials explaining to you how the entire combat system works, and is the main reason you see people online hating on FFVIII.
>>12293247I played it blind. Only thing I wish I knew was the usefullness of refine abilities from GFs.
>>12293920>and is the main reason you see people online hating on FFVIIIi thought it was because the story was meandering and the characters were boring and the romance was shit
>>12293247If your IQ is above 110: a walkthrough will make your playthrough worseIf your IQ is below 110: you won't enjoy the game either way
>>12293579I've never heard about this. Why is it not on TCRF? How much AP difference are we talking about?Also>Some Guardian Forces can be re-obtained in Ultimecia Castle if the player missed them. This is not possible in the Japanese version.Damn they were robbed.
>>12294093>>12293579Also, Chocobo World can let you earn items that teach GF abilities, so it's possible they reduced the AP count to take into account the fact that players couldn't do that.
>>12294093Take Siren, for example:>starts off with ST-ATK J in the international editions>not only does NOT start with ST-ATK J in the JP edition, but it is gated behind MAG+20% and MAG+40%, meaning at the minimum, you have a 180AP grind, which means in order to get ST-ATK J and start junctioning ANY statuses to attack, period, you have a minimum of 340AP.>This is assuming you knew that they were gated behind the MAG+'s to begin with>This is assuming you're not a smart player who goes for the 90AP worth of RF skills first thingWhich is fucking hilarious to me, because it's not like junctioning elements or states to attack is broken in the early game since it is balanced by the availability of magic up to that point. So it makes 100% perfect sense why they give it to you for free and EXPLAIN/ENCOURAGE its use with the (newly added, not in the JP game) tutorial about defeating a T-Rexaur using junctioned sleep.And this is JUST SIREN. Other GFs have similarly rebalanced progression for their Abilities which make them more usable/mechanically engaging early on (again, fundamentally balanced by the fact that you are always at the mercy of magic availability).
>>12293247You should play a good game instead.
>>12293314no u
>they just let you infinitely farm cards that can be immediately refined into high end magics that junction to inflate your stats to absurdity right at the start of the gamewhat the fuck? in just a couple of hours of a retarded card game it's like if you had grinded to level 99 in the first mako reactor in ff7
>>12294203>what the fuck? in just a couple of hours of a retarded card game it's like if you had grinded to level 99 in the first mako reactor in ff7It's always people like you who read three lines from a guide and don't play the game, who make dumb comments like this. I've done the card thing, in fact I did a no lvl up run way back in the early 00's before it was cool to do so and before there was a single guide on the subject, and getting enough cards to "be the equivalent of lvl99 in FF7" takes a lot more than 2 hours.For starters, the card availibility at the start of the game is extremely poor. You are not getting strong cards in the first couple hours, unless you grind for HOURS and HOURS just to get 10 cards one of one kind that let you get ONE item that will get you TEN units worth of one particular strong spell. That's without even mentionning you have to acquire the Refine Card and "turn item into spells" abilities in the first place.
>>12294203It's more than that, because it's also like getting good weaponry, because FF8 did away with equipment itemization, a fun part of RPGs that rewards exploration and questing, for boring spell slotting and card conversions and AP grind.
>>12294221You forget the part where you need the abilities to junction your spells to your stats or learn new combat abilities, which would be the equivalent of getting new gear in a more classic system, and you're not getting that in the first couple hours either. Those are spread throughout the game, including what you call rewards for exploration and questing with optional GFs to find like Cactuar, Bahamut, Tonberry or Doomtrain, which in turn let the player learn new awesome abilities.
>>12294209>just to get 10 cards one of one kind that let you get ONE item that will get you TEN units worth of one particular strong spellActually they give you 20 charges of a spell. Since you don't even know the basics it's pretty obvious that it's, in fact, you who has no idea what he's talking about. A couple hours is all it takes to turn Squall into a literal god so you can just hold down x to win every battle.
>>12294093>Why is it not on TCRF? Because that website is a pedotroon central which at one point hosted actual child porn on their official Discord server and will permamently ban your IP address if their website's embedded malware detects that you've ever been browsing KF or /pol/ in your browser history?
>>12294235https://guides.gamercorner.net/ffviii/refine/It goes for 5 to 20 for the common items, not counting the special ones, so I was averaging (but 10 is a thing too).>to turn Squall into a literal god so you can just hold down x to win every battle.Even if that were true, you're already moving the goal post, because that's a huge step down from "equivalent to lvl99 in the reactor of FF7". Arguably you don't even need to grind anything to "spam X to win".
>>12294093>Why is it not on TCRF?that would require someone who edits the wiki to actually play the JP release instead of just copy-pasting info from other sites and chat logs
>>12293247You don't need a guide to finish it, but you do to 100% it, back in those days Square made games to also sell guides.
>>12293920I don't think they let you leave garden without getting the GFs first
>>12294241oh for sure bro. hey you wouldnt happen to be assmad for getting banned from their server yourself, would you?
>>12294243>Abyss Worm (1 = 1 Windmill = 20 Tornado with T Mag-RF)>Snow Lion (1 = 1 North Wind = 20 Blizzaga with I Mag-RF)>Ruby Dragon (10 = 1 Inferno Fang = 20 Flare with F Mag-RF)>Blitz (1 = 1 Dynamo Stone = 20 Thundaga with T Mag-RF)>Hexadragon (3 = 1 Red Fang = 20 Firaga with F Mag-RF)dude, just stop posting, it's embarrassing, you clearly have no idea what you're talking about
>>12294541You're not getting any of those in the first 2 hours of the game. Not even with cards.
>>12294234I didn't forget in any way, those slots and abilities are tied to GFs acquisition, and GFs are tied to long pointless summon animations and so cannot be created by the developers willy nilly, and AP grinding which is fundamentally less interesting than finding a cool armor in a corner of a dungeon or doing a quest for a cool accessory. FF8 is comprised of a lot of gimmicks that don't trump the system they were replacing, it's just that gimmicks are very impressive to those who don't think deeply.
>>12293247Why would you say “raw dog” unless you’re a disgusting furry nigger
>>12294979it's a sex haver thing, don't worry about it
I really, really hate the draw system. It turns finding new spells into a massive chore as now you're basically incentivized to sit there and suck out 100x copies every time you find a new spell. Imagine a traditional equipment-based game but the only way to acquire equipment was to steal it from enemies in combat with a 1% chance, that's the FF8 progression system.
>>12293343saw someone playing it on twitch, first playthrough and his chat was already telling him how to minmax and he had only just gotten Ifrit. Checked again later on, he dropped the game, shockerGame is so easy that kids brute forced it with just spamming GFs and people still obsess over not leveling and shit
yo everyone in this game looks like they got down syndrome
>>12296382
>>12295326You can refine magic from items, cards, and other magic. You don't have to draw.
>>12295326You can just use cheats to set all your spells to 100 counts instead of mindlessly grinding like a retard.
oy vey...
Every single character in FF8 is insufferable, without exception.
Is Laguna canonically a giant or are beds in the FF8 universe comically tiny?
>>12293557>>12293579yeah but as a japanese highschooler you might only play this game and maybe have a campaign on gran turismo going for 2+ years and you hardly even play during the summer.
>>12293247The only walkthroughs I'll ever use for JRPGs are missables lists. Most of these games are fucking linear why would you need a full walkthrough
>>12296927honestly it's probably a pain in the ass to get scaling and perspective even remotely consistent between the prerendered backgrounds and 3d characters
>>12298205The 3D walk mesh that is mapped to the background should automatically correct for perspective
>>12298205It was too hard for the mappers to do their jobs :(
>>12298218even if you automatically generate collision shit from the render models, it's still rendered using a different renderer from whatever the psx hardware is doing, there's no one single way to do a projection matrixcase in point, the image in the post I quoted is completely fucked
>>12296927I've always loved these models, they remind me of The Sims
>>12298205I played FF7 recently and there were definitely several maps where the characters appeared to be standing at an angle relative to the background. The chibi style characters kind of masked minor scaling issues at least.
rinoa bangs that dog, doesn't she?
>>12293262That is a gangsta website I had no idea existed.
>>12295326>Imagine a traditional equipment-based game but the only way to acquire equipment was to steal it from enemies in combat with a 1% chanceIXfurries... we've been called out....
>these clients aren't paying us very much>so we're going to send 3 of our newest mercs that we spent a decade training out on their own>on a mission to kill the president of the largest militant nation on the planet????????????????????????????????
>>12298401Angelo is in fact a girl
>>12298420Cid knew this was going to put Squall directly in the sights of the sorceressAnd he knows the prophecy Edea told him that Squall is the one to defeat herIts all according to keikaku
selphie looks like the kind of girl who thinks that poop smells good
>>12298585Your mother has the same hairstyle, huh?
This is canon.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fa5gcYA8xf8
>IWILLNEVERLETYOUFORGETABOUTMEwhat did rinoa mean by broadcasting this globally for 17 years straight?
wtf this is extremely problematic
>>12298826Something tells me that the shemale soliciting 17 year old boys for sex isn't going to make the cut for the remake.
>>12298842>ff8>remake
I feel like FF8 would be infinitely more playable if Shiva just started off the bat with an Exp Freeze ability. Even trying to avoid battles you still exp too fast if you're not running from fights, and god help you if you try to collect drops for weapon upgrades.
>>12293247If it cost every image, video, link, ad, music file, pop-up and every piece of bullshit on fandom in exchange for one long text file on any video game I would take the faq every time
>>12299124Low level runs arent even fun, theyre more of a chore than playing normally.I like killing a variety of monsters in rpgs
>>12299172It's not about doing a "low level run". Enemies in FF8 scale with your level, to out-scale them you need to keep your level low until you get abilities later on that give you increased stat growth on level ups. I mean, the game is massively undertuned so it doesn't really matter, but it's still lame to punish the player for just playing normally.
>>12299270>scale with your levelhate games that do thisif you don't want levels trivializing your game then just don't put levels in the gameI bricked my first fft run decades ago and I'm still mad about it
you don't need to know EVERYTHING but you definitely need to learn how the junction system worksthe game does an awful job at explaining it
>>12299352>the game does an awful job at explaining itbro, did you even spend 3 hours reading all the text on the computer at the start of the game?
>>12299270From another perspective the scaling enemies keeps battles fresh and interesting. Enemies learn new abilities at lvls 20 and 30.I've done low lvl (beat game at lvl 11) runs and they are boring since it's just the story and the forced encounters are easy at low level. I have the most fun battling about 80% of encounters and levelling up as much as possible. It does not "punish you" for levelling as even without cheese starts you can easily still out scale enemies with at least mid level junctioning, even without doing card stuff. That's just something people who haven't tried playing the game parrot on the internet.If you just want to reach the end screen as quickly as possible then you misunderstand RPGs.
>>12299270technically you can wait until later on then exploit the infinite gil crafting shit and craft enough stat boosters to cap out all your stats anyways
Why are there so many random NPCs in wheelchairs in this game? Was this SE's first dive into DEI?
>>12300931one of the students in garden is in a wheelchairnigga wtf this is a boot camp for mercenarieshow you planning on passing the seed examineyou gonna challenge ifrit to a debate?
>>12300964the wheelchair guy is at galbadia garden, and maybe he's just resting off an anaconduar bite or something
>"the fate of the world relies on this mission">abandons post to go have some girl talk>mixes in with the crowd>mission was supposed to happen at 20 o'clock>it's now 26 o'clockno wonder she got fired from her professor job
>>12300964You don't really think an army in cyberfantasy world just needs ground units, do you?They've gotta have planners, people to work the comms, some equivalent to HR, medics, computer technicians, etc. For example there are the two computer guys getting stuff back up in destroyed Trabia garden.
>>12301341Whoever wrote FF8's script clearly has no idea how sniping works. The entire point is you just shoot them with no warning.
>>12301363>leave the mission up to a bunch of greenhorn fresh grads from your elite military program>they fuck shit up because they're greenWow
>>12301356logically you would assume any support personnel like that would attend a traditional academy and then be hired on as contracted employees and not attend a curriculum designed to train field agents in the usage of gfs and magic especially given the side effects
>>12301341i think 26 is the minutes and 37 is the seconds tho
>>12294114L Mag-RF on a Tent was like 50 Curagas, wasn't it? Junction that to your HP and you might never even see a Limit Break.
>>12301356"All SeeDs are combat specialists."The game has a tutorial and a lore encyclopedia built into the menu. Then again, only Balamb Garden actually produces SeeDs, Trabia and Galbadia have to send their best students to Balamb for their final training, and Galbadia Garden mostly produces elite troops for the Galbadian Army. Even the washouts from Garden are highly valued as mercenaries and officers. Unrelated but also straight from the menu subscreens, Garden only accepts students between 5-15 years old, and only allows SeeD qualification between 15-20 years old, and everyone ages out of the program at 20, regardless of SeeD status. So they're all elite child super soldier mercenaries, god damn this game was so fucking cool when I was in eighth grade and bitching about the ways it wasn't like VII. We used to tease the Pokemon tards about how easily a GF could wreck all 151 in one shot.
I'm honestly kind of shocked that Squaresoft took all that cred they built off FF7 and threw it away on this steaming pile of behemoth dung. What were they thinking?
>ze missiles are coming!>>but I am le tired>then have a nap but then EVACUATE LE GARDEN
how did they expect people to solve this puzzle without a guide?
>>12301637>L Mag-RF on a Tent was like 50 Curagas, wasn't it? Junction that to your HP and you might never even see a Limit Break.Wrong. You described one of the BEST ways to see a Limit Break in FF8.Final Fantasy VIII "Limit Break" Requires:● Critically Low HP>Current HP MUST be ≤ 30% Maximum HP>This only allows a CHANCE of Limit Break triggering>Higher chance/frequency of triggering when Current HP ≤ 1% Maximum HPor● "Aura" status activeJunctioning huge numbers of Curaga (as compared to other amounts or types of magics) will SKYROCKET your chance of getting a Limit Break, assuming you keep your current Critical HP.
>>12303534FF8's limit break system was retarded. You'll never even see one unless you intentionally game the system to force them.
>>12303546NTA but you didn't read his post. Since limit break is based on HP percent, prioritizing HP junctions means it's more likely you'll get limit breaks since the HP they start showing up at is higher. I'd hardly call "not healing fully all the time" to be "gaming the system."
>>12303587What part of "unless you intentionally game the system to force them" don't you understand?
>>12303546>I only want to experience a fighting game's rare(r) features when it's ENTIRELY SAFE FOR ME!>Expecting me to try anything new, risky, or otherwise outside-my-safe-zone is bad game design!Critical HP Limit Breaks was fun. In the low chance you survive what could have killed you, and you maintain aggression, you get rewarded with some of the coolest attacks in the game. And, if you're intelligent/experienced with its parameters, you might get to see the game's collest attacks a lot.
>>12303597No, Anon, what don't you understand?Junctioning Curaga to your HP Stat will triple, quadruple, sextuple your maximum amount of HP at zero cost to your defenses. You just, straight up, get HUGE amounts of directly noticeable HP added without any change whatsoever to damage that you've been experiencing in battle.Zero change in damage. Zero.HUGE more HP.Zero damage changes. Zero.Junction Curaga. Huge HP. Zero damage change.You get the same amount of damage, and what used to be "almost killed me" becomes laughably shallow "didn't make a scratch" to your new enormous Curaga HP tank. "I could take that same hit, like, 6 more times, now. Wow. Junctioning Curaga to my HP was a GOOD choice!">"Limit Breaks" never happen if you play it normally!>You have to FORCE the system to get Limit Breaks!Limit Breaks are "Critical" attacks.Limit Breaks meet DECADES of what the established definition of "critical" means.And >>12301637 "Junctioning Curaga to your HP" has the OPPOSITE effect of "never even see a Limit Break."Can I help you some more?
>>12303598What are you even talking about? It's a retarded system. Enemies will never even bring you into the yellow unless you force the situation. And once you're there you can just force limit breaks infinitely by spamming triangle, all with 0 danger.It's a system where playing like a normal person you'll probably never even see a limit break while creating a cheap meta where you can spam nothing but limit breaks.
>>12303614>Enemies will never even bring you into the yellow unless you force the situation.To be clear, Enemies ALWAYS bring you into "the yellow."It's their entire purpose in a battle; cause damage to your character! Enemies will try over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and again to do more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and damage to you!The idea you claim as truth that>Enemies will never even bring you into the yellowis flagrantly wrong. The complete antithesis of Enemies' purpose.>...I mean in one hitTurns out "multiple attacks" from "multiple enemies" in "multiple battles" exist and you're outright lying to yourself and everyone around you, for what seems to be a petty dislike for FF8. Yes, petty. And ignorant.>FORCE THE SITUATIONJust like "using Heal" is not "forcing the situation?"You enter every battle, always, at maximum HP... and that didn't require any "force" or choices from the player (like casting Cure, using a Tent or lodging in a Hotel)? But that's not "force?"But "junctioning Curaga HP!" THAT's "force!" ???
>>12299124>>12299172>>12299270Gaining a few levels doesn't hurt you that much in the long run, unless you're planning to max stats using Stat Up bonus abilities. What will hurt you is mindlessly grinding excessive levels without setting up your junctions correctly.
>>12299270As you said, it doesn't matter. I was a kid when the game came out, had no idea about any of its hidden systems and still beat it easily. Putting stuff in there for min/max autists to fret about whilst simultaneously making it completely irrelevant is based, because it wastes their time on two different levels.
>>12303737FF8 is weaksauce for minmax autists, all the systems are super obvious in how to optimize them. I do agree that the level scaling is completely not worth worrying about.
being forced to play ff8 on real hardware without fast forward sounds like a form a torture
You are not supposed to stand in the battle spamming draw. Only draw GFs from set bosses:>Siren from radio tower boss>Carbuncle from lion-lizard statue>Leviathan from the fat yellow jew hiding in the machine>Pandemona from Fujin when fighting her and Raijin in Balamb Hotel>Alexander from Edea when Gardens fight>Eden from Ultima WeaponIn GF menu you can choose abilities which the GFs learn. If left default, they first learn useless GF HP up and GF Mag up skills. At the end of the list are refining abilities. Learn them to make spells from items. Learn also Card Command and Card refining. Even if you don't play cards, the cards can be won from and made from enemies and refined to items and turned into spells
>>12303879>You are not supposed to stand in the battle spamming drawand yet the game not only allows you to do so, it rewards you for doing so
draw should've just been a way to unlock new spells and then just use a normal mp system after that
>all of your plans rely on the assumption that your enemies are totally incompetent>they always work out
>>12303890Nope, actually you get better spells faster and with less effort by simply refining the items and cards
ff8 characters confirmed know they're characters in a video gameit's canon
Despite decades of operation, the Gardens have never produced a SeeD of note prior to Squall & Co.
>>12303876It wasn't bad, because I did no grinding.
IRVINE NO SHE'S LIKE 3 YEARS OLD
>leave nothing for the enemysquall going scorched earth
>>12293247Use GPT (thinking model) to gently nudge you on best approaches, especially for this game, whose mechanics are a MESS.
>>12293247This is the one RPG that rawdogging will ruin your fun.
>>12304570>squall they're killing the padawans>SAVE THE HOT DOGS
>"uhhh, gfs cause memory loss">*me equipping every single gf at the same time and summoning them over and over*finally... peace
Why is Squall gay?
>>12306112anon she's his sister
>>12306114>NBRyeah on second thought he did the right thing
cid be like>squall there's a debt collector in the basement I need you to deal with him!>squall I drunk drived into a town I need you to take responsibility for this!>squall I accidentally went to war with a nuclear superpower so I'm making you leader of garden now!and the entire time his not-gf is constantly nagging at him about keeping his emotions bottled uptrue ending should be squall just shooting up garden with his gunblade
>>12306147Zell>Squall, Rinoa fell off the Garden, you gotta save her!Quistis>Squall, they're killing the children, you have to save them!Irvine>Squall you cold bastard, you're just going to save the kids and let Rinoa die?!
Unlike in most FFs, this game has you start off ridiculously weak if you don't interact with its mechanics. You don't need to interact with them all, just equip GFs and junction the most basic spells you get from the first enemies. That's all it takes to be at the normal baseline for an RPG. This single "inconvenience" has filtered thousands who still to this day can't imagine not pressing attack to win without setting up their party. Shit, in VII you start off one-shotting enemy units and the forced encounters don't even require healing and it doesn't even let you interact with the mechanics at that point.
>>12306147>>12306152Sometimes it feels like the other party members exist just to nag at Squall, when they're not actively fucking something up and need Squall to save them.
>>12306160Squall is basically just that quiet guy that wants to be left alone that everyone takes advantage of because he never tells anyone to just fuck off. His entire party and even the adults just delegate everything to Squall and absolve themselves of any personal accountability, then blame every problem on him and judge him to his face after the fact based on how things turned out. Then while he's carrying the responsibility for literally the entire world he has a bitch like Rinoa trying to mold him into her ideal personality so he can be her Seifer surrogate.
>>12306167>squall shows 0 romantic interest in rinoa>she constantly leverages the contractual terms put in place by the retard cid to force squall to pay attention to her then says shit like "you're only paying attention to me because of the contract, aren't you?">timber's independence? huh?perhaps the most realistic woman to ever appear in a JRPG
>>12304691Other way around
edea>so you're the legendary seed destined to defeat mesquall>what is she talking about>my gunblade finger hurts>I wish I was home playing video gameseven his enemies just keep making up weird expectations for the guy
>>12306274squall>I wish I was playing Triple Triad with that running kid>I wonder if those hotdogs are as good as Zell says they are
>>12306167>Squall>wants to be left alone
>but none of us even knows anything about music!>*every member of the party is immediately shown to be proficient at 8 different instruments*
edea>squall, I don't have much time left, I have to tell you how to save the world before I'm possessed againsquall>WANT TO PLAY A CARD GAME?!
>>12306449God I hated that card game. If I wanted to play a card game I would've bought Yugioh, not play a half assed minigame in a jrpg. Plus you have to reload a million times to get rulesets that aren't completely broken. Plus you have to invest tens of hours or just read a guide to even find out who has what cards. Plus the shitty quests associated with it. Plus the computer simulating perfect strategies 10 steps ahead when you have rulesets like open+plus.
>>12306517Oh yeah, also the AI slowing to a fucking crawl as soon as there are any rules added on.
I remember hating Squall when I was younger, thinking he was an emo asshole. Now that I'm older, I actually sympathize with him, more than anything because he's the only one in that fucking game that is both competent and clear-headed, even though he certainly has his issues. Also, and I know it's not really relevant because it's from a different game series, I like that he's the most reliable FF character in Kingdom Hearts 1 and 2. He's always on top of shit and actively helps you any way he can.
>>12306545I know it's really on the nose, but I found it interesting how KH aged up Squall, then aged down Seifer, yet both characters still felt about right.
>>12306554lol yeah now that you mention it, they made them look their mental age, didn't they? I never noticed that until now.
squall wtf do you expect your talking to a corpse
>>12306582Didn't he tell that to Quistis when she tried to open up to him?
>hey sleepyhead, ya wanna play some cards?
>squall, you can't just draw pictures of your friends on notecards and give them all As, that's not how cards work!
squall you retarded motherfucker you're trying to walk across the atlantic ocean it's like 4000 miles bro
squall...he's dead...and your cards are inside of your space suit...
>>12293247Read everything in the terminal in the classroom, there's a detail in there that's important to the plot later on.
>>12307119Note that doing this won't make the plot less dumb in any way.
>>12306212Playing it like a normal game makes it extremely fucking gay.>overleveled enemies ruin combat>cross-pollenated rules ruin TTFF8 fans are tinkerers who also like the dogshit harry potter story.
>>12307104The devs hallucinated when making FF8
>>12307217I didn't even notice the level scaling when I played it at release. I simply didn't enjoy it because it was so easy and the characters were unlikable.
One thing nobody brings up is how fucking dumb the SeeD written tests are. Fucking studying for more gil in a Final Fantasy game is ridiculous.The problem with this game is that they really had no one on the team saying "Hey, we need to think about these gimmicks we are stuffing in a little more, are they actually fun?"
>>12307234From what I understand, they had very ambitious plans for FF8 and wanted to make it absolutely massive and jam-packed full of stuff and new concepts. They bit off more than they could chew, though, and some of the more experimental stuff in the game ended up pretty half-baked and poorly implemented and/or balanced.
>>12307234FF has always been gimmicky in some way.
>>12307227The enemies scale less drastically than you do. However, it still makes gaining levels bland and unsatisfying. Why even have levels if they don't bring joy?
>>12307236It turned out exactly how you'd expect when you try to reinvent the wheel in every aspect of your game with no real thought. If you're going to experiment, you actually need to be good first. The people involved in FF8 did not have the talent.>>12307238They turned it up to 11 with FF8, but yeah, gimmicks and chasing the new is what is killing their series.
>>12307236I think Square was flush with unexpected wealth at the time and ended up going WAAAAY beyond their grasp. A lot of ambitious but unpolished products.>ff8>xenogears>spirits within
>>12307242I didn't even notice it.But levels are pointless more because of Junctioning, the progression is very "stiff" overall due to it and the lack of equipment. You are absolutely right in that they shouldn't have even had levels though.
>>12307249FF8 and Xenogears were one thing, but Spirits Within truly was Square getting high off of their own farts.
>>12307251>levels are pointless more because of JunctioningObviously, that was the intention, the issue is that they left a bad leveling system in the game.
>>12307258Yes, Spirits Within broke the back of the company, and it NEVER recovered.
>>12307251The levels tell the game what tier of spells and items to make available from enemies and what tier you should reasonably have junctioned to deal with them. The only other way to do this would be to tie it to story progression flags, but this would be much worse in practice and even easier to break since keeping your levels low at least requires some interaction with using the Card command Their systems currently work together in the best way they possibly can. Keep in mind these games were made in a year and couldnt just scrap entire systems to start over like they are allowed infinite time ans budget to now. I would rather get experimentation with some misses rather than generic safe crap or 10-year dev cycles
>>12307260It's not simply bad, it's irrelevant. Virtually unnoticeable.
>>12307260Once you get the Bonus abilities, leveling can be perfectly viable and you dont need to hunt nearly as much magic or play cards since you dont need to jack your stats with junctions as hard.I dont think anyone really uses them though. In fact, nobody really uses any of the abilities in favor of the one single TT strat.I get its the easiest and most OP, but damn its not nearly as fun.
>>12307267I mean, you do notice it. You notice that levels don't give you a significant advantage.
>>12307265>enemies determine draws>draws determine player strength>story progression determines available gfs>levels determine enemies>cards bypass levelsThese are all laterally moving systems, they don't actually add or change anything or create interesting decisions, there's no real experimentation more half-hearted palette swapping. Having it entirely based around cards would've been interesting. Progression in a linear RPG should just be tied to the story, this isn't an open world game.
>>12307273FFs have never been "make your own fun" games. You *can* do that in other FFs, but it seems like FF8 fans enjoy it because it's specifically *that* kind of game.Fuck SE for ruining the series with half-baked ideas.
>>12307276They do determine your max SeeD rank and how much you get paid for running around in a game where you don't really need much money.lol
>>12307279FF8 seems to be in the same boat as 2 and 11 as a lost SaGa game
>>12307284Not at all, it's very AP grind based which isn't unusual in FFs.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fa5gcYA8xf8
I found the secret good ending on disc 3 without using a guide
>>12307884>Ice on Me playskino
\Why do people use "rawdog" for everything now, it's weird and randomly sexual
>>12307893it's been about 15 years, anon
>>12307893they ran out of hot dogs in the cafeteria so zell told them to just bring him the raw dogs from the backit's been an inside joke in balamb ever since
>>12307897> zell told them to just bring him the raw dogsfucking asians man. gross.
>>12294291>oh for sure bro.Xkeeper literally banned anyone from browsing the site if you came via a backlink from KF or 4chan. He only relented after traffic tanked.
every secret in this game is just you running around spamming the circle button trying to click on invisible things
squall, I...
>IT'S MA'AM!
why not just exploit time travel to abort ultimecia before she's born
crusty hotdog ending pretty much sums up the game
>>12308667holy zells got a peach booty
So did the writer actually say that Ultimecia wasn't Rinoa or did he just make some vague japanese style statement that was translated as such? Not that it really matters, corporate could've just retconned it after it was written. The story just doesn't make sense thematically or logically if Ultimecia isn't Rinoa, plus it wouldn't even be a proper era-appropriate convoluted FF storyline, it'd just be back to comically evil super villains like from the NES era of FFs.
>>12310679the statement was from Yoshinori Kitase who 1) wasn't the writer, just a producer and 2) later retracted that statement and basically said idk lolanyways ultimecia literally chained her fucking floating castle to the flower field that squall said he'd be waiting for her at
>>12310709>literallyIt's sad how little you guys get about the imagery due to this sad theory. Those chains aren't things she created, they are created by the party to access her castle and prevent the time compression.
>>12310823There's no "imagery" involved. Ultimecia's castle is a physical location that exists in the future, accessible by the party because of time compression. Time being compressed doesn't invent things that don't exist.
>>12310839>still doesn't get itHow does the party reach the castle, anon?
>>12310843Time compresses. Space and time break down, sending Squall & co to random places and times all over the world. Through the power of plot magic they get shit out at the old orphanage just as it merges with the future. There are dead bodies of future SeeD all over the place indicating some failed attempt by future humanity to defeat Ultimecia. Squall comments on this so they're not "imaginary". The party then walks up one of the many chains anchoring Ultimecia's castle to the area.No hallucinations involved or required to explain any of it.
>>12310853>autism>doesn't understand what imagery means in the context of a visual mediumNo, what's the actual method that they use, what does Laguna tell them to do.
>>12310861Please post your reasoning that the physical locations which exist in the game world do not actually exist. It's not indicated anywhere in the game dialogue. There is no reason to believe that a sorceress would not own a floating castle in the context of FF8.
>>12310868You aren't answering my questions. I won't answer yours.You simply don't get it, too low IQ.
>>12310874Got it, you can't even substantiate your own head canon.
>>12310878You haven't haven't substantiated yours, you don't get to dodge my question and pretend this is a strictly physical story.>Through the power of plot magicWhat exact power?>one of the many chains anchoring Ultimecia's castle to the areaWhich areas? Why 8 chains?You are literally too low IQ, that's why you've latched onto someone else's theories in order to alleviate your confusion.
>>12310879>8 chainsThere's at least 10. At least count properly if you're going to make up weird head canon derived from numbers.
>>12310880Why are the chains at the orphanage? Who did Ultimecia possess first?Why is my head canon bad and yours good?
ultimecia's castle was built on the remnants of balamb gardenyou can see the wreckage of balamb's ring on the beachthat's why her castle flies and why it has to be chained to the ground since it can't be controlled anymore
>>12308832hyne was confirmed a man but was called a sorceressadel is of unconfirmed age but believed to be ancientadel and hyne both have 4 character namesadel is hyne
>>12293247You will unironically need it for Ultimecia Castle. And probably other time based dungeons as well.
>>12310929eh, the only thing I couldn't figure out in the castle was the organ thing, which I looked up later and was apparently>just mash everything at once lolwith nothing even hinting that was the solution as far as I could tellnot that it matters because it was optionalthe painting puzzle was too obvious with all the Xs Is and Vs
>>12310932>just mash everything at once lolIf you perfectly perform Eyes on Me you get true ending where Ultimecia regains her memories of being Rinoa and Squall becomes her knight. Present Rinoa has to wait a thousand years for the timeline to playout but then her and Squall are reunited and can finally bang. They also send Gilgamesh through the dimensional rift to save Aeris.
>>12310937>doesn't revive General Leo0/10 shit ending
maybe I'm a moomba
>>12308667>Ultima Weapon plays a full deck of only itself
>>12310679>writerFF8 was written by Nojima who never commented about the story. Whatever anyone else at Square says is irrelevant and should be taken as superficially as any random player's opinions. FF8 in particular was especially vague on details even for a FF game, obviously intentionally. It's the complete opposite of FF7 where virtually every single plot point is explained in autistic detail and the ones that aren't don't really matter.You play as Squall and you only know as much as Squall knows. Moon monsters? Crystal pillars? Centra? Sorceresses? Some faggot named Hyne? Whatever.
FF8 never happened. Squall died in the opening cutscene when Seifer shoots him in the head. It was all a dream.
>>12313197Squall is dead is the most retarded fan theory, the entire game is already foreshadowed on disc 1plus if you're going to imply that someone is dead then you'd have the ice magic pierce their heart and not their right shoulder
>>12313304If Squall isn't dead then why does he have a coffin in his room? Why is his fursona named Griever?
there's not a single toilet in balamb garden
>>12315723That's what the quad is for.
>>12315723This is explained in game. When you junction a GF it consumes all waste products as pure energy.
>>12315847No way, fag. They would still need toilets for visitors, janitors, secretaries, etc.
>>12315875No, they just junction the public GF for a couple minutes and they're good.
>>12315723I seem to remember Zell or Raijin riding their hoverboard into girl's toilet
>>12315904Unless that's some obscure dialogue box or something, the hoverboard is shown in use exactly once as Zell rides it in front of the school. Its existence is then promptly forgotten and never mentioned again.
>>12315910the hoverboard left a deep impression on squall and after edea kills him during the parade and he's hallucinating the rest of the game his brain merges the hoverboard with garden itself to create a hoverschool
>fly Balamb over Galbadia city>dump the septic tanks>repeat this every few months
>>12313593>coffinI'm pretty sure that's his gunblade case, not that it's ever used or relevant to the game in any way. Not sure how an orphan afforded to get all of his equipment customized with his fursona.
