Amnestic said:
And the magic system was shite as well, encouraging you to not actually cast magic you'd Junctioned so your stats didn't go down.
Noob. There's only two spells that are must-casts in FF8. Meltdown and Aura.
Meltdown could be refined from Mystery Fluids which are a dime a dozen, and Aura could be refined from Aura Stones, which in turn can be gotten from Hypnocrowns at 10 a piece. Given the only thing worth spending money on in the entire game other than mandatory train rides is Tents/Cottages (to refine Curaga spells so you can have 3000+ HP on disc one, thusly allowing Limit Breaks as your primary attack for most of the game) by the time you reach Esther to buy those crowns you can max out your entire team with Aura spells, and still have stones to spare. And every time you get your salary, that's 20 more castings.
I mean... you didn't actually spend your time -Drawing- spells did you?
But when you want to junction spells like Ultima and Flare to your stats so you're badass and strong and stuff, it encourages you not to cast them. Even Materia was a preferable system to junctioning and that was dozens of times more confusing to min/max. FF8's Junction system was simple, you could see the results plainly to maximise performance, but it made you less likely to cast certain spells (Ultima, Flare, Aura, Meltdown) if the enemy you were fighting couldn't have them be drawn.
But... you don't draw spells? And three of those four spells are -easy- to get.
You didn't refine much did you?
Oh, and I forgot how if you decide to get Odin pre-Disc 3 ending you lose him to the far inferior Gilgamesh, but if you get him post-Disc 4 starting you lose nothing and continue to benefit from his Zantetsuken ability.
Gilgamesh comes up more often tho. The instant death attack still occurs at the same frequency.
And don't even get me started on Ultimecia's Castle, one of my top candidate's for Worst Designed Dungeon. I mean, seriously? Shoving you in a castle full of boss monsters with all of your abilities locked up, only unlocking one per boss?
Screw that, that place was -awesome-. There was so much to do and see. Very well designed and intricate. And, again... Limit Breaks. You should use them.
It's crazy. Especially since if you don't do them in the right order some of the bosses are nigh-impossible and there's no hint as to what the 'right order' is.
The first one, then Limit break the rest.
And when I said "ability locked" I also included the save function. Yep, you either have to traipse all the way back outside the castle to save or gamble that you won't need to unlock a certain ability for the next battle and spend one of your precious unlocks on it.
There isn't a lot of save spots in Ulti's castle. So... you have the choice of the beginning... or the end. Save wasn't exactly a breaker here.
I enjoyed 8. It was a pretty game with nice ideas, a pleasant storyline with a likeable female lead, a good bit of humour and a different take on the technological style that VII brought, but my god was it flawed.
Although at least Triple Triad made more sense than Quadra Master or whatever FFIX's card game was called. That shit was retarded
Retarded, and utterly pointless. Triple Triad had a -use-.
