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Post by Xeogred on Feb 20, 2022 20:39:16 GMT -5
toei: What was your usual Command/Ability setup for your characters in FF8?
I'm usually rocking:
Squall: Draw GF (if I seriously need AOE damage, but I still only have two GF's on him) Item
Load him up with all the STR bonuses.
The other two: Draw Magic GF / Item
Squall does insane melee damage so that's all I really want him to do. When I replayed FF7, it was easy to supplement Magic over Summons. But it's kind of annoying how good the GF's are in FF8. I say that because their animations are so freaking long. Nowadays I just want to use them once to see the flashy animation, but never really want to do it again haha. But magic isn't that fun or special to use in FF8, plus I always feel an incentive to not use them much because of the limited mechanic. I'll always Draw + Cast from enemies if it's ideal. Protect/Shell is crazy good in this game though, so I use that along with Haste a lot.
Maybe it's not ideal to have everyone have Draw all the time, but eh it's an easy way to mass stock up on whatever.
I think you mentioned this earlier or in your review, but Quistis' Limit Break thing being Blue Magic has to be one of the strangest ideas of them all in this game.
I am starting to laugh at whatever the heck my hatred over Rinoa was about. She's been pretty fine and I kind of like her look, along with Angelo's stuff being better than some other Limit Breaks. But her attack animation seems the longest... so that takes a point off. lol, I usually mirror her Junction with Selphie and have them be more of a mage. Then Quistis/Zell are kind of a mix, but still attack more than not. I swap Squall's stuff with Irvine whenever needed.
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Post by toei on Feb 20, 2022 21:14:54 GMT -5
I never used GFs after the first couple hours, because I didn't want to sit through them. So my commands were Attack Magic Draw Item (I think you can add a 4th with an ability?)
Later someone would get Mug instead of Attack, and I'd switch out Item for Recover or Treatment for some of them, because those are very practical abilities (basically free high level healing).
Squall's fully STR up with Ifrit. By midgame, Haste became a must for every boss battle. Eventually I was able to boost Zell's power up a bit and make him a decent attacker (Irvine was his replacement when necessary) while also serving as magical support, and for pure magic, either Rinoa or Selphie. Sometimes I'd use Quistis kind of like Zell. Late game, Double and especially Triple made attack magic a very strong option - eventually it completely overtakes Squall for dealing damage, but it's a little tedious to sit through. My final lineup was Squall-Zell-Rinoa, in those roles.
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Post by Xeogred on Feb 23, 2022 1:19:54 GMT -5
FF7 battle theme > FF8 battle theme
FF8 boss theme > FF7 boss theme
Haven't played FF8 in a few days though. And Elden Ring's gonna kill it... but I plan to finish this FF8 run even if it takes me awhile.
What's everyone else playing?
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Post by Ex on Feb 23, 2022 1:22:40 GMT -5
What's everyone else playing? With DS behind me now, I plan to start FF8 myself tomorrow. Which means I will be starting a game for this month's theme within this month. But I won't be finishing it before this month's end. I hope that I find FF8's quirks charming as opposed to irritating.
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Post by Ex on Feb 23, 2022 16:31:41 GMT -5
Any of you FF8 players ever try this mini-game?:
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Post by Sarge on Feb 23, 2022 16:50:20 GMT -5
Nope. Always wanted to, though. I remember the VMU/PocketStation stuff being a big deal... or it felt like it for a bit, anyway.
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Post by Xeogred on Feb 23, 2022 19:41:17 GMT -5
Nah and I kind of sighed when I saw it in the menus the other day. "History lost" is all I could think. Is there anyone in the world that can still get this to work? I'm big on games preservation and stuff like this is impossible to archive in a way... damn lol.
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Post by Sarge on Feb 23, 2022 21:17:15 GMT -5
There are PocketStation emulators. Apparently MAME even supports it.
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Post by Ex on Feb 25, 2022 1:56:51 GMT -5
Well guys I started FF8 proper tonight. Put two hours into it. That's hardly enough to start calling any shots, but some quick thoughts... Indeed this is a very chill and mature JRPG, so far. The Junction system represents a considerable learning curve. Squall doesn't annoy me, unlike many other male FF protagonists do. The encounter rate seems kinda high. The plot isn't batshit (yet). The OST is great. I've enjoyed what I've played so far. Also, I'm doing this version: It allows the player to speed the game up by 3x, and disable random battles. Graphically it just looks like if you used ePSXe or DuckStation to "up'res" the polygonal characters/enemies/objects. Does nothing for the backgrounds though. I think Square lost the original high definition art for the prerendered backgrounds, so SQEX just increased the background size via stretching, then ran a smoothing filter over them. Not ideal, but the best they could do cheaply. The game does play in native 4:3 aspect ratio though, which is for the best.
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Post by Xeogred on Feb 25, 2022 10:26:36 GMT -5
The Headmaster Cid will eventually give you a "Magic Lamp" item. Save somewhere and use it to trigger a boss fight with a GF. If you beat it, that GF has Encounter Half which I've been using ever since. It's made this replay a lot better.
You can then even learn to NULL encounters entirely, as toei mentioned earlier I believe. But yeah I think that would be too far and make it pretty boring. So halving the encounter rate has been good to me.
I hope you play the card game, I love it haha.
I've been digging Squall too. I did back in the day, but his emo attitude works for the most part. This kind of personality is hit or miss for me nowadays but yeah, he's cool.
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