|
Post by Ex on Feb 25, 2022 11:40:40 GMT -5
Halving the encounter rate would feel about right. The Remastered version I'm playing allows the player to disable random encounters entirely. But that's too far the other way. A 50% reduction sounds about right. Battles in FF8 are rather slow, so coupling that aspect with a high encounter rate, the grind starts quickly - I was already feeling it in the Fire Cave. FF8 does allow the player to set the battle speed faster, but that only affects ATB wait times from what I gathered. The Remastered version allows the player to speed up the animations in battle, and the walking speed outside battle, by a factor of 3. Yet the 3x speed boost does not affect the music (it plays normally), menus, timer, or the in-game clock. So I'm liking the 3x speed boost when needed. There's actually a lot of differences with the Remastered version, but the core gameplay/design remains the same.
|
|
|
Post by Xeogred on Feb 25, 2022 12:12:13 GMT -5
I opted to emulate it because the character models stick out like a sore thumb to me, while as you theorize, they didn't have the old assets of the backdrops so they're still low resolution. Honestly I don't like how Kingdom Hearts / Disneyfied Squall looks in the remaster either. I can maybe post some more pics later to show what I'm looking at.
The weird thing about speeding up FF8's battles with the menu option, I don't think it's the Wait/ATB situation. Enemies will keep doing moves and I'll admit the maxed out speed makes it a little frantic sometimes, haha. But I'm keeping that maxed out. I never like maxing out Battle Message speed though. That's typically too fast in most JRPG's I've noticed with such an option. "X MONSTER DI..." what!?!
I utilized the speed up feature a lot in FF12-HD and honestly it made it way more fun, mainly just moving around those huge maps.
|
|
|
Post by toei on Feb 25, 2022 23:38:41 GMT -5
Yeah, Squall got a lot of hate back in the day, but for the most part I thought he was okay. It's the earnest sunshine types that annoy me. Ex I guess you don't need the Magic Lamp to get Encounter Half since you're playing the remaster, but the Magic Lamp has a nice challenging boss fight and it gives you a good GF too, so I'd still recommend fighting him once you're more comfortable with the gameplay. You get the lamp early on by talking to Cid right after he sends you on a mission. He stays right where he was at, so you don't have to go all the way to his office. The encounter rate seemed high to me too in the Fire Cave, and the battles slow. But as I discovered, battles speed up considerably once you start getting Str Up abilities and junctioning magic to your STR stats a bit later on - I literally reduced the number of turns it took to beat the average enemy by 2/3rds. The encounter rate also doesn't matter as much because dungeons aren't that common and you can rent cars to travel the overworld without fights, and you'll have plenty of money to do so before long. There are moments of crisis and all, it being Final Fantasy, but in many ways FF8 feels like a RPG vacation.
|
|
|
Post by Xeogred on Feb 25, 2022 23:51:28 GMT -5
Funny way to put it. I don't want to stall it for too long, but yeah I definitely plan to get back to it and finish this replay off. Think I was about 20 hours in and nearing the end of the 2nd disc.
|
|
|
Post by Ex on Feb 26, 2022 1:00:48 GMT -5
in many ways FF8 feels like a RPG vacation That's how FF10 is fairly often. I love that game's tropical island world. I'll finish it one day... - I'm still early on in FF8, but tonight I finished the part where you have to escape the mecha-crab in less than 30 minutes. I didn't think that part was great, but I enjoyed the rest of the scenario preceding it.
|
|
|
Post by Ex on Mar 7, 2022 0:39:26 GMT -5
As for FF8, I've got 4 hours invested in it so far. I haven't played it in almost a week though. So I wouldn't say it has managed to hook me yet, though I won't judge a 40 hour game by only 4 hours. I guess what I'm waiting on is the plot to kick into an interesting gear. I'm presently saved at the Training Center where you go on a mission with Quistis. We already defeated a T-Rexaur, but apparently that wasn't the real boss of this area. I'm hoping once I'm done with the Balamb Garden academy stuff, the plot will become more intriguing. But don't take this as me saying FF8 is bad, I'm not saying that. I'm lukewarm on it right now.
|
|
|
Post by Xeogred on Mar 21, 2022 20:10:42 GMT -5
I jumped back into FF8 tonight, just in time for the orphanage stuff... lol.
It was weird how I had to reconfigure my controller, even though it's still been plugged in all these weeks later. Weird.
|
|