I Like Final Fantasy VIII ask me questions.

[GabeZhul]

I have a good question that'll test your knowledge actually. What's the easiest way to get overpowered as early as possible?

Drawing magic, sadly. Short of that, there's playing the card game and gaining the card mod ability as early as possible, so you can gain access to new equipment (and by extension, new limit breaks) as quickly as possible. Once you get lion heart only a handful of enemies in the game will still pose any kind of credible threat to you.

Sadly, FF8 took FF: tactics' approach to enemy levels. All creatures in the game level as you do, except, their stats grow faster. 8 even takes it a step further. Even the bosses level with you, so the more you grind, the harder the game becomes, unless you do it after you get GFs with the "[stat name here]up!" skill and "Passive skills x 4" abilities

though it occurs to me that the way you phrased your question implies that there could be a trick I've forgotten about... which is likely. I last played through FF8 in 2009, after all. XD

It is possible to get squalls final weapon in disk 1 as well though it is a major grind to source the materials.

Yup, I actually did that once. Say what you will, the ability to find new and innovative ways to break the game was one of my favorite parts of FF VIII. Just to name a few:

-Grind the fishes on the beach for AP right at the beginning of the game and use it to max out your starting GFs. Do it enough, and on the SeeD exam mission you can actually kill off the giant mechanical spider boss (repeatedly) for obscene amounts of AP points (good for getting Siren up to speed as well).

-Get Quezacotl's Card Mod, then play Triple Triad for a few hours against the receptionist at the Garden's gate. He can sometimes drop stuff that can be refined to high-level magic (or intermediaries), like Tornado, Quake, or the ever-useful Pain.

-Speaking of Pain: Get a 100 stack, junction it to St-Atk, breeze trough most of the encounters using only normal attacks.

-Meltdown is your best friend: Seriously, it's a spell that's not that hard to get through Triple Triad and it inflicts Vit0, which takes even the bonus bosses down a notch. My favorite usage of it is against the Giant boss in Ultimecia's castle that is supposed to be nigh-invincible without Gravity spells. Drop a Meltdown on him and then you can hack him apart with normal attacks while he keeps telling you how your attacks are weak. Fun times.

-Gaming Triple Triad: Talk to the Queen of Cards in Balamb. Each time you challenge her, she changes the winning rules. See what the next rule would be. If it's not 'All', cancel out and challenge her again until it is. Congratulations, from now on you get your opponent's entire hand when you win.

-Gaming Triple Triad II: By repeatedly challenging people to duels and refusing when they want to use local rules, after a while they stop asking and use your rules instead. Once they do that, EVERYONE in that area uses your rules as well. Congratulations, you can now use Balamb's 'Open' and 'All' rules for the rest of the game to rob your opponent's blind.

-Gaming Triple Triad III: Beat all the Triple Triad club members in Balamb Garden. Then after the time compression you can go around the map to find Ragnarok (your cool airship) and they will be there as well. Challenge the club leader to win the Gilgamesh card from her. Refine it into 10 Holy Wars (it's a Hero spell that works on the whole party at once!), then challenge her again and win another one! Rinse and repeat. Congratulation, now you are in invincible juggernaut of hax.

-Getting the ultimate weapons for the characters can be done even without first learning about it from magazines. Get Squall's Lion Heart (will require a lot of Triple Triad and Mugging with Diablos). Combine this with:

-Limit Break Scumming: Keep Squall's health in the yellow, then start cycling through the characters during battle. Each time you get back to Squall, there is a chance his Limit Break will trigger. Have him at 1 HP and with an Aura on, and there is a ~80% Chance you will be able to use Lion Heart on every turn.

There are more, but let's leave it at this. Ahhh... Good times.

 

[GabeZhul]

I like FF8 a lot. It kickstarted my interest in computer based RPGs.

The GF's causing amnesia isn't very well explained. In the beginning when they send you to the computer to download your first GF's, you'd think amnesia would be something they'd warn you about. Maybe they don't have consumer protection laws.

That was the only thing I didn't get about the game.

At that point Balamb Garden was still under the management of NORG, who just wanted to have his disposable child-soldiers for hire to be as powerful as possible. Yeah, the amnesia part was really lacking in foreshadowing (though some of Irving lines change a lot in hindsight because of it) but it actually works in context.

snip

Basically the source of the confusion is that it's not the actual "power levels" that are being transferred, but the power of 'The Sorceress' which, as far as we can see, is to be able to cast extra-powerful spells without the need of GFs or stockpiling magics. To make comparison, it's like one person passing down the ability to read to another; they learn to read, but that doesn't mean they inherit the knowledge of every book their teacher had ever read.

Sadly, FF8 took FF: tactics' approach to enemy levels. All creatures in the game level as you do, except, their stats grow faster. 8 even takes it a step further. Even the bosses level with you, so the more you grind, the harder the game becomes, unless you do it after you get GFs with the "[stat name here]up!" skill and "Passive skills x 4" abilities

That's actually not true. Bosses have a level cap that is about ten levels above what you are supposed to be at the time you fight them if you play normally. Normal monsters have no such level cap, but then again, taken how many ways there are to break the balance of the game, does it make any difference?

 

[FalloutJack]

I Like Final Fantasy VIII

It's YOU! My arch-nemesis from...somewhere!

*Gets a closer look*

Errr...no, we've never met before. However, we are indeed on opposing sides! I have played numerous Final Fantasy games (1, SOME of 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, and 13, plus original Tactics), and only FF8 brings on the HATE for me! (FF4 seemed bland, but it wasn't terrible.) This is an opportunity...I must not pass up! I played through this game twice - once legit and once cheating like hell - and I just didn't enjoy it. I realize you did and frankly, I'm glad SOMEONE did. However, since you decided to go open forum, I have to open the floodgates.

Here's how I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna rant and rave, and if you see anything in there that's answerable from your perspective, you just lemme know. Let's get this party started...

Spoiler: Characters

There's more to the problem of Squall than emo behavior. He is a block of wood. Since, in Japan, "..." means an awkward pause to fill in where you are basically staring and saying nothing, this means that our boy doesn't even react to shit. He'd be a better character if they had written in "WTF?" instead of "...". This is lampshaded by savvy comedians like the ever-popular Uncle Yo. Other times when he IS talking, he is various levels of TOO emotive and not enough. Dem Guardian Forces aren't just eating away at his memories. They're making him completely unstable...like the rest of the cast.

Let's see here... Zell? No restraint...on anything. (We all remember that train-punch felt by the conductor from a passenger car.) Selphie? Bubbly with little or no common sense. Quistis? No confidence and no good at her job(s). Rinoa? Clingy, irritating, and ALSO no common sense. (Oh yes, getting the Sorceress to put on that magic-disabling device will be like belling a cat, surely! I groaned.) Irvine? No guts, no glory. All talk, little performance. I felt their dialogue and performance as characters was terrible, and the villain cast is just as guilty, like with Seifer the impulsive dickhead moron who's a real Karma Houdini somehow, along with his wannabe ganger and robot-acting-human posse. And Edea is possessed, so her character is essentially being puppeted by our Giant Space Flea From Nowhere and Goddamn Boss, Ultimecia! (But there will be more on her later.)

Strangely, I had little complaint about the cast from the past, except of course that Laguna was freaking out over being mentally poked by forces outside his control. If the game had been about them, about a trio of haphazard war veterans trying to get by in life and deal with some of the plot of the game (which I'll also be getting to), the character end of this would've been more entertaining. Since part of the game's current events deal with stuff that Laguna set into motion, Squall's situation feels like it's catching up to the actual story. How much more fun would it have been to take part in Laguna's ride to presidency? Most of the time in these games, the heroes remain pretty damn humble. They don't become president or royalty or someone important unless they were always that important. Ah, but now we're getting onto the next bit...

Spoiler: Story and Plot

So, the story goes that our hitherto-unseen villain of the future, the Sorceress who pretty much controls the world in the future, has this problem where she's prophesized to be destroyed by the organization effectively bred to kill practicioners of magic such as herself, SeeD. So, she goes and reaches back in time with her temporal-reachy-backy device to poke into the minds of receptive individuals to go and bring forth the compression of time which - presumably - stops history and therefore the flow of events that would lead to her demise.

Uhhh, problem. Lots of them.

First, take about every single argument against changing your own history and then set it aside on a table. They're there and we know they're there, but we don't need to explain them anymore adequately than Doctor Who or Back to the Future has. Time travel and history-changing be hazardous in many ways. Details not need going into EXCEPT for the more-specific problem. In no way did this lord of an advanced future with all her magic and technology even deem to consider that her time-jaunt to tweak people around was actually causing her demise, and that doing nothing would have assured victory. Because...messing with time travel allowed people to experiment on the effects and figure out the problem, and that somehow the great-and-powerful sorceress living many years AFTER the effects of everything couldn't see this coming!

It boggles the mind. This is after ignoring the problem of paradoxes and how you might be affected by changes in your own timestream if you're still in it, because obviously a wizardess did it and negated THOSE problems. The issue is that everything against Ultimecia that she was worried about was started BY her and that the best way to assure her dominion FOREVER was to be completely unexpected by not allowing anyone to have foreknowledge of her existence! This is about as bad as finding out first that Seifer was going to be put to death (YES!), and then finding him later, completely unharmed...which is bullshit. He committed a capital offense. In fact, he kept screwing everything up and received NO consequences, and he wasn't even brainwashed or controlled by anyone. He was just a dick with a poorly-designed weapon.

I really didn't think much of the 'nearly every character came from the same orphanage' bit either. That was forced and covered up pretty badly. What? You mean there's NO evidence from childhood to present day for ANYONE that these people actually knew each other? Even amnesiacs find evidence of who they are and what they forgot, even if their current self can't find a connection to it. And nobody in the WORLD knows anything about Edea or anything surrounding her at all? Well, apparently Cid knew, but his answer appeared to be sending his brain-damaged teenagers with attitude into battle. Not maybe warning the entire country of Galbadia that MAYBE her intentions are not pure! But then, it seems like nobody objected to the President getting killed on-stage, so maybe they're all just Too Dumb To Live.

Except Biggs and Wedge, who survived for once.

Spoiler: The System

Any of it. All of it. Drawing magic seemed like a cool idea at first, but it became tedious and irritating, especially drawing GFs who you couldn't use even in the battles you pulled them from!. Binding them to stats? Ugh. Losing strength in something because you casted a spell? Ugh. Junctioning GFs, magic, commands, etc.? Ugh. Unskippable tutorials for ANY of this? Groan... ALL Junctioned GFs, commands, magic, and so on that were carefully setup previously now suddenly UNDONE during the course of the game for ANY REASON? RARGLE BARGLE! This is forced and tedious and I hate it! I hate time limits too, but that's a side-complaint next to messing up my stuff!

Weapons! I hate gunblades. The only gunblades that have the right to exist are ones like Lightning's that change about so that they actually look like they function properly as both. We have guns with blades ON them in real life. They're not used quite like this. Galbadian soldiers carry guns AND blades separately! What's wrong with that? Oh, and let's talk about Limit Breaks. First, there is a stigma that we, the Zero Punctuation watchers, hate and it's called Quicktime Events, which in this case is "Press X to not suck at Limit Breaks". Appalling. Limit Breaks emerged out in Final Fantasy 6 as a secret surprise desperation move that happened automatically if you had low HP. You didn't have to do anything for them. For FF7, they were developed into a decent system that worked. Once again relying on the low HP and having to make a minigame out of it is painful.

Speaking of painful, how's that leveling going? Oh wait, there's practically no point in leveling at all, because everything ramps up with you. Not as in you fight progressively stronger monsters like climbing stairs. You and they are basically running in place, and the only way to gain an edge is all the junctioning BS and item refinement and messing about. Not gameplay, not strategy, not basically training your characters into becoming super-soldiers like everyone else does in RPG land. It's all alchemy and pokemon. You NEVER get any better than the beasties from the FIRST enemy areas, or anywhere else. And WHY are there giant dinosaurs inside of an academy?! I hate that there is not only something that nuts there, but that even if I DO kill it in the early game...its death is basically meaningless. I can't skyrocket over the next pathetic enemies because I'm maybe the ultimate dinosaur hunter. That's wrong on many levels.

Spoiler: Our Villainess

So...I've already established that this badly-accented woman caused her own problems. That is, this entire horrible chain of events and brain-damaged youth soldiers coming to kill her was caused entirely by her own actions and resources. We all know the game's a time loop, and time loops aren't even outside of Final Fantasy's pervue, since...the FIRST game pulled that off with Chaos. I really hate Ultimecia, though. Even her name is bad. (The main badguy of FF5, Ex-Death, is also bad, but he was both cool AND it's a mistranslation, as he was suppose to be Exodus.) But it's not just her character that's bad, but other things like...how she comes out of frigging NOWHERE, the same problem Zemus/Zeromus had in Final Fantasy 4. The previous three games showcased our villains nicely. I don't even like Kefka, but he was characterized. LAVOS has more character than Ultimecia, and he doesn't speak english!

All that isn't even as bad as her battle. Remember, this is after having to go through everything I mentioned above. This is after slogging through an entire game that pretty much does not award your efforts for that mega-slog. There's no satisfaction that you have created an elite group of badasses who can take on anything, because everything followed your level along the way. Because Square wanted to top their last few multi-stage final bosses, they invented this four-stage (or five, if you include the part where part right before the last one where some of Ulti-Griever has fallen apart) battle, which...was just one long un-exciting work. The whole game feels like work, and this is even MORE work. And I checked. No matter what you do, no matter how good you are, Ultimecia always has stupid-ridiculous amounts of HP for no goddamn reason. Let's break it down.

Firstly, sorceresses are NOT tough. They are glass cannons. It shouldn't have taken as long or as much effort to exhaust her enough to bring forth her OWN Giant Space Flea From Nowhere, Griever. I know we did the thing where we actually named this bastard mid-game, but some kinda' note in the future stating "Oh god, our forces were crushed by Griever! DAMN YOU, LEONHART!" might've helped. A tiny bit of REAL foreshadowing would've gone a long way. So, he slaps us around and GF gets beaten. He's tougher, sure. And now, they merge. ...fuck. I can understand why that might be bad normally, but their asses are kicked at this point! Where's the power coming from? Yu Yevon never became more powerful than the Aeons he possessed, not without time and effort, like everyone else. Exodus possessed alot of things, but they were only marginally stronger because of his black magic. How's THIS work? The Giant Space Flea From Nowhere has mounted one of its own kind and has thus divided by zero!

Okay, so we beat that until it starts falling apart and then we destroy it entirely, remembering of course that each successive stage here has had more HP than the last. So, Ulti-Griever EXPLODES. Is she dead? NO! Why? I don't know! If the time-compressor was engaged to create ANY of this mess, or that it's suppose to give her godly powers AFTER getting her ass multi-kicked, it's not mentioned. Some kind of timey-wimey thing is going on to make her final form, and I know that both Chaos and Lavos did it better and deserved it more. I can forgive Necron of Final Fantasy 9 more than this. He's even LESS-EXPLAINED, but it's pretty easy to accept that he's a death god summoned to the heroes' plain by Kuja wrecking the all-important soul crystal. I can get behind that. I can't get behind this sorceress. I'm a writer by trade and my first, second, and third impressions say no.

I say no to alot of this game, and I put it through the trials to make sure. One GOOD thing about it, though? The music.

I haven't gotten out a good FF8 rant in a LONG time. Thanks for that! The truth is, I'm more of an Atlus fan, but Final Fantasy got me my start on video game RPGs, so naturally I've got opinions on it. Final Fantasy 8 was over-hyped and under-made. I'm sure you've got about a million things to say from the other side of the fence. Let 'em rip.

 

[MiskWisk]

Why the hell did they think those monster level mechanics were a good idea?

 

[Barbas]

I Like Final Fantasy VIII ask me questions...

Oh, all right then. A proper question: If you had to choose between Lightning or Tidus for a roommate, who would you choose? Also, how does A Realm Reborn fare in your ranking system?

 

[Roboshi]

The only thing you didn't get?
And this question goes out to you too OP, does this mean you "got" the fact that Irvine never mentions or displays any reaction to being reunited with the people he grew up with (and remembers) or never brings up the fact he might have some trouble killing the woman who raised them?

((Note been a looong day today, so gonna work through these bit by bit.))

Well at that point, Irvine was trying to keep his whole "Lone ladies man" thing and was probably expecting them to react themselves. When that didn't happen he probably assumed they had just forgotten naturally (Do you remember everything from being 9 years old?) or didn't really care. Irvine only brought it up later when it became relevant to the plot.

 

[AgedGrunt]

It gets a lot of "meh" from most fans I've been around, pretty sure that's due to the narrative, but is actually really fun and well-designed.

But even though I sunk a small portion of my youth into playing it through, I couldn't follow the darn thing and the protagonist made me feel ok with that.

My question is: could you explain the story in the length of a Twitter post?

 

[FoolKiller]

Yeahhh, I bet they just wanted an excuse to go into space. The space parts were pretty great, to be fair. The main thing that just stops me replaying it as often as I replay 7 or 9 is just the characters though. They're not really likeable. Any of them!

I have a good question that'll test your knowledge actually. What's the easiest way to get overpowered as early as possible?

The quickest cheap way is when you finally get to travel. As each experience level is not scaled so every 1000 XP you gain a level, your best bet is to go to the island closest to hell on the western side of the map and use Quistis ability Degenerate on the big T-Rex things. Forgive me if the info is a bit rusty, its been more than 15 years since I last played it.

PS... save scum when you're there. You can just as easily get wiped out on that island

 

[Saltyk]

My biggest problem with FF8 is the draw system. It takes so long to draw 100 magic spells. And you need 100 if you're really wanting to buff your stats to stand a chance against the game's monsters, since they level with you, but are stronger. And because using the magic will also reduce your stats, there is no incentive to ever cast any spell, since you can junction fire into your attack to take advantage of elemental weaknesses and items to heal.

Sure you can heal Zell with Cure, but that will reduce your max HP...

Take out that, and I actually kinda like the game. I don't mind the more insane elements (it's Final Fantasy) and the story isn't bad. Also, it has the single best opening cinematic in video games.

Monty Oum even paid homage to it in Dead Fantasy.​

 

[Roboshi]

Holy Moly what a snip

Well gotta say at least you're giving me something to work with, I';; try to address all your major points but forgive me if I miss anything;

Characters-

Well you started with a tough one, as often characters are the most subjective.

Squall is a character that simply shut himself away from the world, offering little to the world because he expects nothing back and why would he? He's lived most of his life away from others because he fears abandonment again (as is sometimes the case with people who have been trough any orphanage system in the real world). however you seem to forget his "..."s are often repaced with his inner thoughts as he comments on the event around him and things people say. Squall does learn over the course of the game to open up though and his "..."'s become much fewer and far between with him making little jokes with the rest and eventually becoming a proper leader to his team with his love story between him and Rinoa as the catalyst.

Zell I just love, and I'm pretty sure his train punch was a little reference to another well known monk from the past. Quistis is a classic example of the person who ended up overstreching and taking themselves one step further than their abilities (as is often the case in the business and academic world) but she at least acknowledges this and pretty much demotes herself to a SeeD leading to her later joining your party. Irvine I like to call the failed ladies man, a guy who puts up a front because he's been affected in much the same way as squall just that his method of dealing with it is the opposite, putting on an act and trying to surround himself with admirers, Seifers method was to dream of glory and fame just like the movie he watched as a kid (it's revealed Lagunas Movie inspired Seifer to be the sorceresses knight). Oh and Seifers posse were just joke characters I'd have thought the speech independents were pretty telling of that.

Story-

Your story problem seems to mostly be a problem with the villains plan and how it would affect causality. Well it totally destroys causality and that's pretty much the point.

Ultimecia doesn't want to alter history in her favor, she wants to get her conciousness as far back in time as she can get in through Adel, Rinoa and Ellone and compress time until there is no such thing as past present or future and causality will not exist. She says it herself that she wanted to crush time into a thing only she could survive making herself the god over all time.

Mechanics-

Limit breaks based on different mechanics aren't Quick time events. It's become a weird trend to refer to everything with a button prompt as a QTE, but a QTE is button promts within a cutscene where failure results in a game over or significant sotry failure. While Squalls limit is more like a rythmn game, rinoas is a luck based draw, Zells is a timed combo game, irvines uses items to fire shots, selphies is aother luck based one but with the option to reroll over and over and quistis is selecting blue magic. none of which are QTEs.

Limit breaks in FF8 employ the risk rewards strategy of keeping yourself weak to use them while the enemy could wipe you out very easily.

And the gumblades oh boy the gunblades, people love to hate on this thing, whle cloud happily carried around a piece of heavy scaffolding. Well lets get one thing out the way, it doesn't fire bullets, the revolver part is to generate a blast that causes the blade to vibrate causing more damage to the opponent. It's not just a gun + sword though that was what the image it was obviously going for. Is it practical? No! But as I said earlier, if you wanted 100% practicality in your weapons, I wouldn't recommend a Fantasy game.





((Really sorry having to stop there, will probably come back to your past for other parts))

 

[Roboshi]

you explain the story in the length of a Twitter post?

Witch from future wants to crush time and be god, defeat her psy-puppets, kill her.

 

[FalloutJack]

((Really sorry having to stop there, will probably come back to your past for other parts))

Uhh, I'll wait 'till you're done. This promises to be interesting, I think.

 

[Roboshi]

Believe it or not, I do remember the people I was raised with. If me, my brother and my sister went to different schools when we becames teenagers I'd be pretty fucking confused if they didn't recognise me a few years later, and I'd definately say something about it.
Plus it never becomes relevant to the plot, the plot twist itself isn't relevant to the plot. They just say "hey looks like we grew up together" half way through the game. It has no effect on the plot, it doesn't change any of the dynamics between the characters, it's pointless.

Final Fantasy 8 used to be my favorite itteration of the series but after realising what a mess the narrative is, it fell far from my top spot.

Well I suppose each person's different there, I mean I can barely remember what my best friend from my old school looked like.

But if I remember rightly, Irvine brings up their past when they're inspecting the ruins of the garden Selphie came from, and the subject of their family ties comes up as they prepare to take on Edea on the offensive. I'd say that would make the fact she was their nappy relevant.

 

[RJ 17]

because if every loop happened in the same universe time would have been compressed before the game even began. This would mean that your entire experience of the game is just one run of this unending cycle.

That's pretty much all there is to it, actually. The ending is just showing how Matron became Edea in the first place, she inherited her Sorceress powers from "A sorceress from the future"...that was Ultimecia after getting her ass kicked by the party. The power isn't compounded, it's simply transferred.

So yeah, the entire story/events of FF8 is/are absolutely pointless due to the world being stuck in an endless time-loop.

 

[Roboshi]

That's pretty much all there is to it, actually. The ending is just showing how Matron became Edea in the first place, she inherited her Sorceress powers from "A sorceress from the future"...that was Ultimecia after getting her ass kicked by the party. The power isn't compounded, it's simply transferred.

So yeah, the entire story/events of FF8 is/are absolutely pointless due to the world being stuck in an endless time-loop.

Well the ending is actually the time loop breaking, the ultimecia-Edea part is just making sure there wasn't a paradox.

 

[Auron225]

I wanted to like FF8 more than I did. Squall wasn't the best protagonist, the whole orphan twist was kinda stupid and I found the main party members very forgettable.

On the other hand, Laguna and Rinoa were brilliant characters (esp. Laguna), I did like the plot overall and I really liked the freedom allowed when it came to the story such as who to send where and...

Spoiler: Spoilers I guess?

...the possibility of Rinoa dying multiple times throughout the story

.

The thing which haunts me though, and is stopping me from ever re-playing it, is (you guessed it) the forever stupid Junctioning system. Call me thick, but I could never get to grips with it. Maybe I wasn't "doing it right" - I imagine there were ways to exploit it but it just seemed broken to me. I somehow ended up with a Level 100 Squall by the time I reached the final boss, and since this game had the twisted reasoning to level her up with Squall, it was the hardest version of it I had to beat. Many of her attacks were capable of flooring my whole party and the only strategy I had which was even making a dent in her monstrously high HP was to keep Squall alive and Aura'd, using his limit break over and over and over and over again (hoping for Lionheart). It took over 19 Lionhearts for her to finally die. That was NOT a fun fight.

Oh yeah, the question.

If you like FF8 OP, I'm guessing the Junctioning system didn't bother you so much. How the hell does it work? I think the only way I'd ever replay this game is if I had a guide (holding my hand throughout the story) telling me exactly how to junction my party as I go through the game.

 

[RJ 17]

Well the ending is actually the time loop breaking, the ultimecia-Edea part is just making sure there wasn't a paradox.

How is the time-loop broken when it restarts at the end, thus preventing the paradox? As I said: Edea originally became the sorceress because a dying sorceress from the future granted her the sorceress powers. That dying sorceress was Ultimecia, after getting defeated by the party. So she executes her failsafe: travel back in time and grant her powers to Edea, thus closing the time loop and ensuring that the events of FF8 will continue to repeat.

The only way the time loop is broken is if Ultimecia isn't allowed to go back and grant her power to Edea.

 

[Roboshi]

If you like FF8 OP, I'm guessing the Junctioning system didn't bother you so much. How the hell does it work? I think the only way I'd ever replay this game is if I had a guide (holding my hand throughout the story) telling me exactly how to junction my party as I go through the game.

Okay the funny thing is the tutorial is a little dry so most people don't pay it much attention.

-Junction GF's to your party members
-your GFs will have abilities called Junct-Str or something like that, that allow you to junction your stock of magic to a stat.
-Stockpile up a good magic type (feel free to experiment with all the spells) for the best result collect full 100 of any spell (there are abilities that cn turn items into magic if you hate drawing)
-Go to the magic juntioning page, and you will find some stats have a white line rather than a grey line, these can have magic attached
-junction the magic to the stat and it will get a boost

Best example would be 100 full-lifes junctioned to HP will give you max health at even low levels.

There are 3 pages of stats to use; Base stats, elemental stats (ie making your defence or attack elemental) and status attack stats (I always got 100 sleep and junctioned them to status effect attack for a basic attack that causes sleep in most random encounters)

 

[Roboshi]

Well the ending is actually the time loop breaking, the ultimecia-Edea part is just making sure there wasn't a paradox.

How is the time-loop broken when it restarts at the end, thus preventing the paradox? As I said: Edea originally became the sorceress because a dying sorceress from the future granted her the sorceress powers. That dying sorceress was Ultimecia, after getting defeated by the party. So she executes her failsafe: travel back in time and grant her powers to Edea, thus closing the time loop and ensuring that the events of FF8 will continue to repeat.

The only way the time loop is broken is if Ultimecia isn't allowed to go back and grant her power to Edea.

Ultimecia still dies, so the events of FF8 still happen and the main cast survives.