Another Shot (VIII)

I've been replaying some of my more... hated titles in the series and come up with some new end results lately. Over a year ago I replayed XII in full and hated it. V I gave a replay eariler this year and loved it, the same with VII. Now there are still a few titles to try again and I think I should give VIII another look.

When I first fully completed VIII I was about 14-15 years old and rage filled with testosterone and peach fuzz. So for most of the game I was very bored and I hated more than 3/4 of the cast of characters. When I get back to my appartment next week, I will start a new file from beginning to end and attempt to try most (if not, all) there is to do in VIII unless I get bored with it.



I can't remember a whole hell of a lot of shit for this game so I'll be posting here if I get a little stuck in some areas. I don't trust gamefaqs half the time.

I mostly recommend having Draw for the majority of the beginning and trying to attract as many powerful attacks as you can so you can junction better stats.

...but you knew that already. Hope you enjoy it second time around buddy.

Yeah just draw a crap load of magic from every monster you find. It gets a little boring in that department but in the long run you'll need it ^^

Yeah, I still remember drawing magic *shudder*.
And the stupid fucking card game to get super fucking important battle items.

I'll mainly be paying attention to the story so my grinding won't start until mid disk 3.

Just remember to Draw the GF's aswell that are unlocked from certain bosses.

lol Triple Triad isn't needed to get items, only the easy way to get Hero's Drinks for invincibility. my whole time playing FFVIII i never once used triple triad cards to get something

I did it early on because I remember Quistis and the Seifer cards got me something good and it made plowing through random encounters easier.


Why did VIII and IX do the stupid fucking card games? At least in VIII, it was a side game. IX FORCED you to play it. It sucks if yer playing a speed run because you have no good cards!

I actually enjoyed IX's card game, good ol time

The Cap'n wrote:Why did VIII and IX do the stupid fucking card games? At least in VIII, it was a side game. IX FORCED you to play it. It sucks if yer playing a speed run because you have no good cards!

Agreed, however I found the card game in VIII more enjoyable then the one in IX, perhaps because you have a choice to play or not in VIII.

RYCloud92 wrote:

The Cap'n wrote:Why did VIII and IX do the stupid fucking card games? At least in VIII, it was a side game. IX FORCED you to play it. It sucks if yer playing a speed run because you have no good cards!

Agreed, however I found the card game in VIII more enjoyable then the one in IX, perhaps because you have a choice to play or not in VIII.

I agree too ! I hated both.. Especially the VIII's one.

But I sucked at it as well, so maybe that's why xD

So I started a file yesterday. Drawing is fucking RETARDED. I spent about 2 hours drawing a shit ton of magic (100 of pretty much everything I came across on the world map for both Squall and Quistis). I got Shiva to learn Ice Refine and turned all those fish fins into Water spells so my stats rose to shit. I check gamefaqs and it says that the shorter the ammount of time left when you fight Ifrit, the more your SeeD level rises. So I select 10 mintues,get to Ifrit at like 6-5 mins on the clock, beat the shit out of him till he had like 60 HP left, waited until the clock hit 10 seconds and killed him. He fucking says he'll join me, I'm all happy and shit. GAME OVER SCREEN. FUUUUUUUU-

What's worse is the last time I saved... was after giving Selphie the stupid fucking tour so I could remember the fucking school grounds...

lol, cracks me up, never cared for VIII, tried to hard to improve upon VII

That damm timmer in the beginning cave is a pain in the ass. Next time you grind remember to save just outside.

In fact it might be a good idea to try and figure out when the timmer moments are coming up, that way you know where to save. (I would tell you but I can't remember a lot of them (I know the tower where you get Odin is one of them))

I think that you might be over doing it with the drawing and .....if you keep it up you might end up hating it so just relax and have fun.

lol i think this could be said for any game, but save often lol.

Yeah, I agree ^^ I think my first run through turned out exactly the same as that. Same said for other GF's too >.<

Saving's for FAGS!!!!

"TOO LONG;DIDN'T READ" AHEAD FOLKS

So I just cleared Timber and I'm on my way to Galbassia Garden and get to "enjoy" Irving joining my party...


So far, the story has not impressed me too much. There's no new feelings for it either, it's just blugh right now. I've had no new hilarious "Cap'n's a Retard!" moments since the Fire Cavern. I calmed down on drawing so much but I still make sure I draw some good spells before some areas. The Junction system is so fucking complicated and annoying but when you get a set spell to 100 and juntion it to a stat, I don't need to bother with anything for a while. In fact, fighting monsters in this game isn't like "SPAM WITH MAGIC AND COOL ABILITIES BATTLE OVER" but more take your time, learn your enemies and be careful because the monsters level like you do. The game seems very tactical. You must know what spells you want to junction, which GF should you give a character, what abilities you want equipped. It's annoying to draw magic and junction it to a character but the game wants you to take your time and get ready for the next area because without good magic and junctioning the right stats you're FUCKED. The Junction system is still cheap. I already have Firaga and Curaga junctioned, my stats are a little too high for some of these enemies. Guarenteed that my stats will be at maximum when I get the Ragnarok and fly to the Islands of Heaven and Hell to draw magic.

Of the characters, I'm getting a new found love for Quistis. I never noticed how fleshed out of a character she was until now. Granted, she's a bit of a whore who's trying to get porked by the biggest social retard on the planet but I'm enjoying her character. And Selphie is a lot funnier than I remember. She's actually a bit of a smart ass, I like her a lot more than I remember. Zell is still the loud mouth I remember and he's very fleshed out in character because he has shown he can be a hot head and very stupid then down right depressed for things he's done (Like blab to President Deling they're from Garden). Squall is still the annoying asshole I remember. Squall seems to fit with the cast however when he's in his "period mode" so it's good contrasts between him and the other characters. Squall alone is such a naggy little shit that it's hard to listen to him. I'd forgive his asshole moments more when he's in a group. On his own he's a fucking pain in the ass. The only character who has no redeeming qualities so far is Rinoa. I forgot how much I hate her. Just a needy little shit. I don't even think she has that much of a change for the rest of the game from what I remember. She just stays that way throughout. But the characters seem really fleshed out and real. Even conversations between each other feels real but everything is just like I'm watching a Soap Opera. A really boring soap opera with interesting characters. It's a little like VI. Although the main story is not that great, it's characters are what makes the game. Laguna is still my favorite character from this game but I never realized how boring Kiros and Ward are. I mean, it was a huge mistake of putting these two characters with Laguna because he steals the show EVERY TIME. Kiros and Ward also seem too much alike. Maybe I'll get a feeling for their characters again later because the flash back has only happened once so far and there were a good ammount of them later on.

Now as the main story/world goes, it's not that great in my mind so far. I still remember some of the stupid "Time Compression" garbage and the world of VIII seems so backwards when there's all this technology around. VIII has this really technologically advanced world yet people are so stupid. Why did it take 17 years for a live broadcast to be shown when people have fucking elaborate battle technology and seem to be economically strong? Is it that hard to make a news broadcast? Maybe I need to see more of the story but I feel the people of this world are really REALLY stupid. I also need to know some of the Sorcerress shit. I know Galbadia fought in a war against... Ester(???) who was led by Adel who was a Sorcerress at the time and Deling seems to make a big deal of Edea like everyone knows her but do the people of this world know Edea? I guess it's just scary for people to hear that a Sorcerress is joining a very powerful army to take over the world.

But the thing is the Sorcerress doesn't seem to fit this world. Everything seems to be running on machines and what not. It's really close to our own world. Sure there's magic, but it's more of a special ability than a major impact on the world like in every other Final Fantasy. I understand powerful militaries. I understand flying school grounds. I understand a city powered entirely by TUBES. But I can't seem to grasp the idea that there are Sorcerresses who can make grown men and women vomit in fear. I still think I need more time with this game for the story. Maybe things start becoming clear when Ultimecia is finally mentioned. Until then, the story just seems confusing and needlessly complicated... like it's junction system BAZING.

I've gotten all the GF's I can so far. I got Siren from Elvoret and I got Diablos as soon as I was handed the magic lamp. So far I've got each character junction as so.

Player One (Squall/Balance Character): I've got Squall in the middle of everything. He's got a good balance of Magic and Strength making him good to fight anything anyway. He's got Shiva and Siren junctioned with Sleep as his Status Attack so every enemy he hits falls asleep. His Defense might be his best stat because I got Shiva to learn Vit+20% so he can take some blows.

Player Two (Tank): I junction the second character (Usually Zell) with Ifrit and Diablos. His/Her Strength is through the roof and the only other stats involved are Magic and I think HP so he can dish out and take a punch. I switch the Elemental Attack and Defense every so often. Right now I think he's got Blizzard as attack and Fira as defense because I'm fighting some monsters who use Fire a lot. Diablos is learning Mug and the forrest around Timber has monsters that give a shit ton of AP. Fucking 2 Anaconduars give 8 AP a battle and every Fish thingy on the beach is worth 3 AP and they show up in groups of 2 or 3. Mug should be fully learned before I get to Deling City which is good because I want to upgrade weapons.

Player Three (Mage): This character (Selphie and Quistis usually) just has Quetzicoatwhateverthefuckthunderbird junctioned and I'm thinking of Junctioning the Brothers or Carbuncle when I get them. I think the Brothers were good with HP and Carbuncle was defense and countering. Carbuncle might be good for my tank. Has a lot of magic to use in battle and uses GF more than my other characters.

I will be honest the character interactions are the only thing that keep me coming back to this title. The story as you mentioned is complicated as hell, and as soon as I feel like I've got the hang of it something else is mentioned and screws with my head further.

Perhaps Square just aren't as good with time travel plots, I mean with X I understand it's not really time travel but still can't work out how a dream of a person from a fake reality can be brought to life by a giant machine that's soul purpose is to destory and kill to protect said fake reality.

But look at Chrono Trigger, that was a Time based story and it was amazing! Square tried to do the time travel thing again but they failed big time with this game. But of all the FF's, X really does have the stupidest fucking story in the series. Everything about it's main story (not including characters) is fucking dumb. VIII has at least good characters to take away from it's retarded story but because X intergrated the retarded time travel/dead people into Tidus and Auron's character, it really fucked the game over as a whole.

Hint: I'm sure u figured this out, don't ever put sht on squalls hit stat, its already maxed out

^^When I said Square I meant the development team who work on the FF series (obviously as a slightly educated guess as most gaming companies do have different departments focus on certain series (SEGA for example has a division which focuses on the Sonic games and a division that focuses on movie hero games)). On a side note I need to play Chronos Trigger.

FFX is good story wise but I agree with the time travel mainly because it doesn't actually seem like time travel at the end, the fake zanarkand is composed of memories of a load of fayth held together by Sin and Yu Yevon. That makes me believe that Zanarkand is within Sin but then comes the confusion of how does Auron use Sin to travel to Zanarkand within Sin to watch Sin destroy Zanarkand?

Or maybe I forgot something (it's been ages)