Final Fantasy VIII

[Grandor]

I think FF8 was great but it all depends on variety. FF is getting overated. You should try other RPG's as I said, Fable was a great one, I personally think. I liked FF8 because of Squall, mostly, and the junction system was better because it added customization. I liked the cinematic summons, they looked kool.

And for those who say Ultimecia came out of nowhere..she kind of did, the plot wasn't explained. But if you read more into it during the beginning it explains something about para magic and hyne being the creator of FF8's unamed world. It kind of does give you a background on the sorceresses, including Ultimecia.

@LightandMagic: They all didn't grow up their at the same time. They were sent their for different reasons.

Spoiler Alert: Laguna is Squalls father, and Ellone is his mother, although he calls her his big sister, because he doesn't know and thought of her as a sister.

Overall, it's preference. People can argue FF7 is the best, or 10, or 12. It doesn't matter really. You can't get everyone to like the same games you do.

 

[Ellie]

@Grandor: I completely missed that spoiler through the whole game, I only found out online afterwards. Obvious when I thought about it though.

Not the best one, but one of. Great game, great fun playing it.

My faves are probably...

1st: FFVII or FFX
2nd: FFVIII or FFIX
3rd: The rest

 

[coyotecraft]

Spoiler Alert: Laguna is Squalls father, and Ellone is his mother, although he calls her his big sister, because he doesn't know and thought of her as a sister.

I knew about Languna, but Ellone the mother? I'm sure it was Raine who died giving birth to Squall.

anyways I'll always like FFVIII for being my first rpg, but there are better ones out there.

 

[Zankoku no Yami]

Spoiler Alert: Laguna is Squalls father, and Ellone is his mother, although he calls her his big sister, because he doesn't know and thought of her as a sister.

Spoiler

WHOA! Okay, i knew about Laguna being the father... but Ellone being the mother? There is no way. Isn't she Laguna's niece or something?! I am pretty sure he was her uncle or at least, adopted one of some sorts.

Like coyotecraft said; Raine, would only make sense in this case. I always thought it was an illness that killed her, but yeah, that would actually make sense that she died giving birth to Squall.

That is one thing I wish they would have spent some time on instead of giving hints. I dont like to have to take guesses and ask a bunch of charaters at random points in the game to get the full story on things like that. Cuz most people will not even bother and will never know. Especially if you have no real reason to go around asking people things at odd points in the game. Like talking to Laguna at the end of the game; or even his two pals for that matter.

 

[Grandor]

My bad everyone, Ellone is not the mother. I haven't played the game in quite some time. Raine is the mother. I've made a confusion between the two.

It would be nice though, since Squall gets to meet Ellone, and he would finally get the reunion between him and his mother (if that were the case)

Yes, Raine died while giving birth to Squall and Laguna disappeared. That's why he was sent to the orphanage.

 

[Marcus]

I respect anyone who tries new things but new doesn't always mean good. Square tried something new... but in my eyes, they failed. I'm going to point out a few things that made FFVIII pretty terrible.

The Battle System
I hate grinding games but 8 was the king of grinding. Levels had little to no effect on your stats and everything was dependent on your magic. This meant either spending hours drawing spells from monsters or abusing draw points scattered about the game. The power of the summons and the fact that limit breaks could be FORCED by canceling a characters turn at low health mean most combat situations went by incredibly quickly. Even Ultima Weapon was ridiculously easy.

The Story Sucked

Square had a good thing going; political intrigue, espionage, assassination, and battle all involving minors who were raised in a military acadamy in feuding nations. Everything was a blast... and then you pop in the 2nd disc and it turns into an incredibly generic LOL ANIME experience where you must save the world from an evil bitch. It's like they added in the stupid orphanage plot device at the last minute and it just felt so rushed.

The Characters Sucked

Squall is too indifferent to be an effective main character. He doesn't even pass as an anti-hero. He's like the mutes that plagued early RPGs because he has no personality whatsoever, his dialog consisted of *SHOULDER SHRUG* and "MEH, WHATEVER" and he was just a detestable character. His generic anime coolness factor was one-billion but his personality changed little over the course of the game. Zell was shallow as fuck, Selphie was the generic PEPPY GIRL, Rinoa's lines were too awkward and forced, and that sharpshooter guy had the chance to be incredibly dynamic (he's a pretty boy womanizer who boasts a lot but has no spine) but once again 2nd DISC ATTACK SURPRISE HE NOW HAS LIKE 2 SPEAKING LINES.

Conclusion?

Playing Final Fantasy 8 felt like watching a movie made by several different directors. It began amazingly... then it completely shifted focus on each disc all the way to the end which was one huge, boring dungeon. It's like Square fired the entire team 1/3 of the way through and hired a bunch of inexperienced bums to finish it. FF8 could have truly been amazing but someone must have said "Hey, FF8 is turning out to be too realistic and gritty like Final Fantasy Tactics... let's pull a FF7 and make MASSIVE SWORDS AND EVIL SPELLCASTERS YEAH!!!! KICKASS SHALLOW CINEMAS AND EXPLOSIONS HOLY SHIT!!!111"

As far as I see it, Final Fantasy 8 was just too western so they had to make it more... "Japanese." It's a pretty shallow and ignorant thing for me to say but that's my only response to the game's sudden change in style and theme.

 

[Mega Flare]

The Battle System
I hate grinding games but 8 was the king of grinding. Levels had little to no effect on your stats and everything was dependent on your magic. This meant either spending hours drawing spells from monsters or abusing draw points scattered about the game. The power of the summons and the fact that limit breaks could be FORCED by canceling a characters turn at low health mean most combat situations went by incredibly quickly. Even Ultima Weapon was ridiculously easy.

ive never spent hours on drawing spells. most time ive spent drawing spells was 5 mins at the start to get 100 cures

 

[Marcus]

Your watch or sense of time must be pretty broken because it's impossible to draw 100 of anything when you only get 2-5 spells per draw. The more powerful spells only draw in singles and doubles so even if you had the cursor on memory it would still be impossible to draw that many for each character.

 

[Mist]

The game is ok, but I never really understood what motivated Ultimecia to do those things she did? I also really dislike the fact that the enemies level up along with your characters, kills the joy of leveling completely. The Junction-system is pretty complex and gives much freedom, but I still prefer the character development systems from the other games. Yeah, and Drawing gets boring really quick.

It's been such a long time since I finished it. Maybe I should pick it up again someday.

 

[Mega Flare]

Your watch or sense of time must be pretty broken because it's impossible to draw 100 of anything when you only get 2-5 spells per draw. The more powerful spells only draw in singles and doubles so even if you had the cursor on memory it would still be impossible to draw that many for each character.

Dude I said start of the game. Thats when you got to people, Squall and Quistis. And the low level spells you draw like 4-12 of. so really doesnt take so long. 5-10mins. Anyways i use items to get my magic.

 

[Diogo //Skyfusion//]

The problem with FFVIII was the poor execution. They had excellent story concepts, and the first disk rocked, but then everything after was poorly implemented and/ or tried to be too complex. The pace and narrative went downhill, the support characters were ignored after disk 1, the direction changed, etc. Basically, FFVIII's story suffers much of the same problems as FFXII's did, with the exception that at least FFXII's story managed to be coherent all the way til the end (although FFVIII never suffered from a lack of cutscenes). The romance was repetitive and poorly-written as well (Squall saves Rinoa 8 times in the game..wtf?), although the Laguna's romance with Julia and Raine rocked.

The same happens to the gameplay: Good ideas, poor implementation. The draw system is a decent concept that is extremely dull and repetitive in the actual game. The GFs were overpowered, magic was both underpowered and forced to be underused because of Junction, and with the Triple Triad mini-game you could have a party at the beginning of the game strong enough to defeat the final boss. In fact, the spells you get from redefining cards are so easily to be get and powerful that it makes drawing and GFs almost useless, but ironically, this poor balance only makes the game better/ less repetitive. (Because you don't have to waste the entire time drawing and spamming GFs...)

Fortunately, the team was able to drastically improve those technical aspects with FFX, for it featured one of the most well-paced, coherent and well-directed stories in the FF series, and one of the best implemented battle systems.

 

[Celes]

This was the first FF game what I've ever played with, and I love it! I can't understand why so much people cry for example "it's so difficult" or "the storyline's lame". This is stupid. For me the older and the newer FF games seem much more difficult. The FF VIII's world, music, characters, story etc. caused me a lots of happiness and tears.

What's your favourite soundtrack? Mine: Liberi Fatali, A Sacrifice, Fithos Lusec Wecos Vinosec, Ending, Find Your Way, Landing.

My favourite characters're Quistis, Zell, Irvine and Seifer.

Who's your favourite GF? My favourites are: Shiva, Ifrit, Eden, Leviathan, Diablos.

I'll ask a stupid question: it's about Squall's Lionheart gunblade. How can I get the required items for it (Pulse Ammo, Dragon Fang)?

 

[Luminier]

Gyawh... Why did you necropost this? Man, you didn't even add anything to the topic. Should I report this? I dunno.

Edit:
Meh, since it's up here, I might as well post my opinion.

I like it. It was my... either my third, or fourth RPG I've ever played. It was also the first RPG that I ever owned(as well as the first Playstation game I ever owned.). ...Come to think of it, I remember playing the demo way before I played any other RPG. I had so much fun with it, and this was before I even knew what RPG meant.

The drawing aspect could be a little tedious at times, but mostly, it was fun, and added additional challenge, and prevented you from just casting 'Ultima', until your MP ran out. I liked that.

Junctioning was a tad complicated at first, but after you get the hang of it, it adds an extra layer of, moreso than the materia system of FFVII. I enjoyed finding out that the next boss would be a whole lot easier if I junctioned 'Water' to my HP. Finding out which GF to use, as well as what spells to junction where, genius.

I loved the characters, too. Even though Squall was emo, he didn't take it to the extreme like Cloud did. I loved how all of the characters shared a secret, a secret that was unknown to them even. It was explained well, too. Not just some crappy throw-away. Rinoa, and Selphie kick ass.  :D

The story, was quite good, too. While I have a hard time remembering intimate details(my stupid friend scratched up my copy, too badly.  :'(), as I recall it was quite mind-blowing. At the time, at least. Although I usually dislike it when the 'real' final villain is revealed at the end like that(like FFIX, FFIV, DQVIII.), this time it was integrated better than usual, so it was fine.

All, in all, I still love this game!  ;D

 

[Achantion]

i'v played : 1 ,2,4,5,7,8,9,X,X2,XII, KH 1 , KH2 ..
(yeah i'm a fan )

and u think this is best order (1,2,4 i played on GBA and 5 on PS1)

1)FF2 was defenly best
2) followed by KH2
3)X also rocks the stage
4) 4 .. bit short but very cool
5) okay my faorites are gone ... next is FF1
6) KH1 was a nice expirience .
7)XII i axpected better (defeating the final boss witouth touching your conslole at lvl 35 is just lame
8)X2 then ... old grapcs and .. WHAT THE HELL !! what happened to rikku and yuna -.-
9)9 .. my first FF i played
10)5 ... its not as bad every1 says
11)8 is this ?? a final fanatsy ??? feels more like a movie .. that takes to long and thats lame on the stroty
12) 7 <-- i may be a fan but this one was just bad -.-

wel lets wait till abula nova crystallis appears .. FF wil retain there glory

 

[Loofah]

I actually found FF8's story to sort of jump around.... too much.... Like first squall is like "whatever..." and then all of a sudden Rinoah knows she is going to become Ultimecia, who for some reason wants to blow everthing up. Squall saves her and shes like *in a stupid "man putting on girls voice" voice* "oh thank you Squall lets totally be in love!" and then you get some random airship which isn't a thing like a spaceship because a freakin cowboy can pilot it!

well theres my rant for this thread, I thought FF8's first disk totally kicked ass though!

 

[Luminier]

Obviously, Loofah, you must've been drifting in-and-out of the game. Probably due to some drug-induced euphoria.

Seriously, though, if you'd paid attention, then it wouldn't seem jumpy.

 

[Achantion]

exept 5 no final fantasy sucks..
i played (and finished) 1,2,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,10-2,12 . and exept 5 what was the only bad one (c'mon you call that a story and character develpment) i personaly like ff2 the most , because of the battle system and .. wel being the most brutal if you get what i mean .
(also ff10-2 wasn't really good .. yuna and rikku totaly changed , theye did things theye wouldn't do .. and pain .. she sucked .. its good ff10-2 had such a great battle system els .. )

 

[Luminier]

exept 5 no final fantasy sucks..
i played (and finished) 1,2,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,10-2,12 . and exept 5 what was the only bad one (c'mon you call that a story and character develpment) i personaly like ff2 the most , because of the battle system and .. wel being the most brutal if you get what i mean .
(also ff10-2 wasn't really good .. yuna and rikku totaly changed , theye did things theye wouldn't do .. and pain .. she sucked .. its good ff10-2 had such a great battle system els .. )

If I may steal somehting from Des: Wut

Seriously, it's very difficult to read what you typed there.

(c'mon you call that a story and character develpment)

The first Final Fantasy had absolutely no character development.

 

[syphonmax]

Actually I've played all the FFs and FF8 turned out to be my favourite don't ask why I just think that it was the best FF ever made. I liked everything about it 

 

[Faggotry]

I loved this game, i got it off my cousin once he finished it and immedietly played it till the end the game was great in all aspects apart from the fact it wasnt like a FF game it was quite futuristic, still i enjoyed it moreso because of that, It was just also a great improvement on FFVII and had an awesome music score and great FMV's. People who bag it probably never played it.