Final Fantasy VIII - opinions?

[DLPB_]

Are you joking?  Lacking in game play?

-Minigames:  Bike, sub, snowboard for starter.  3 major minigames that 6 doesn't have of ANY kind
-Materia system, and finding materias.  Each with a new ability that you can even get working with extra effects.  Mastering materia.
-Super bosses
-ultimate weapons (like venus gospel)
-Breeding chocobos
-Chocobo racing
- Fort Condor mini game
- Enemy Skills
- Mansion safe
-Riding train, secret codes, huge materia
-Wallmarket and honeybee manor
- Battle Arena
- Roller coaster mini game
- Wutai side quest


What exactly does VI have compared to that?   It has nothing of the sort like it.  It is just grind and find with VI, something every RPG does.

 

[Armorvil]

-Minigames:  Bike, sub, snowboard for starter.  3 major minigames that 6 doesn't have of ANY kind

My bad, I meant RPG gameplay.

-Materia system, and finding materias.  Each with a new ability that you can even get working with extra effects.  Mastering materia.

To which FFVI would reply : Magicite system and finding Espers. Each with magics to learn, a special attack unique to each Magicite, and stat bonuses at level up. I agree, though, that the Materia system is much more interesting than the Magicite one.

-Super bosses

In FFVI, and especially FFVI Advance, you got many optional dungeons and bosses in the World of Ruin. In the original, you still have Doom Gaze, Atma, the Brachosaur in the dinosaur forest, and the 8 Dragons. I admit they're not as interesting to beat as Ruby or Emerald, but there are more bosses throughout the course of the game.

-ultimate weapons (like venus gospel)

Atma/Ultima Weapon, the Illumina/Lightbringer, the Valiant Knife, the Stunner, the Pearl or Aura Lance, the Scimitar, the Fixed Dice, (etc.) all say hi. And this is without counting the new weapons from FFVIa.

-Breeding chocobos
-Chocobo racing
- Fort Condor mini game

This goes in my above point about non-RPG gameplay features. Plus, the Fort Condor mini game is expensive, and given the crappy awards, is entirely useless.

- Enemy Skills

FFVI has three kinds of Enemy skills : Strago's Lores / Blue Magics, Mog's Dances, and Gau's Rages. Gau's Rages are even a game inside the game.

- Mansion safe

One optional boss leading to a secret character ? FFVI has that, too.

-Riding train, secret codes, huge materia

Riding train ? You must be thinking about FFVIII. Or if you're thinking about timed events, FFVI has some too. And FFVI also has secret codes (like figuring out the time in Zozo). Are we gonna list every little thing like this ?

-Wallmarket and honeybee manor

Imperial Banquet and Imperial Base ? The wounded soldier in Mobliz ?... ...come on now, this is getting a little ridiculous.

- Battle Arena

Colosseum !

- Roller coaster mini game

My point 1.

- Wutai side quest

Narshe's sidequest ? Ancient Castle ? Cyan's Dreams ? Ebot's Rock ? Gogo's Den ?

What exactly does VI have compared to that?   It has nothing of the sort like it.

Yup, nothing at all obviously.

It is just grind and find with VI, something every RPG does.

Sounds like RPGs aren't your thing then, if, for example, you prefer to play snowboard, Road Rash or a chocobo race. The fact is that FFVI has more diversity in its cast (14 characters versus 9), with unique abilities and desperation attacks, and more diversity in the equipments. In FFVII, weapons and armors are just upgrades of previous ones, with rare exceptions. More power, more materia slots, and that's all. In FFVI, you can equip boomerangs, daggers, swords, katanas, brushes, spears, ninja knives, claws, staves, shields, helms, hats, clothes, armors and relics - while in FFVII you can't make Cloud use a spear, and are limited to an armlet and an accessory.

This is, among other things I already listed in my previous post, what I mean by more gameplay. Gosh, I can't believe I had to defend FFVI when I stated in my above post that I prefer FFVII these days. FFVII's snowboarding is nice and a fresh distraction of course, but if I want to play snowboard, I boot up Cool Boarders or something, not a RPG.

 

[DLPB_]

No in VII there are lots of little things going on:

Resuscitating Priscilla, driving the train to stop ir crashing, punching in codes, junon tv ratings march.  Things that brighten up the game.  In VI it is all grind and grind more.  It isn't anywhere near the same level.

 

[Armorvil]

I don't know about you, but when I decide to play FFVII, it's not because I look forward to reviving Priscilla (on the contrary, I can't help but sigh the whole process), to punch in various codes, or to participate in the Junon march.

I'm not saying it doesn't brighten up the game, as you say, but the main gameplay element still is the battle system and everything that revolves around it (leveling up, materia, equipment, the party members, the "dungeons", etc). And on that point, FFVI has more meat on the bones.

FFVII beats FFVI on the Materia and Limit Break systems, while VI beats VII on all the other battle-related subjects. For example, you don't have a boss that requires you to kill your own party members to be defeated, in FFVII. It's almost always the basic "deal damage and heal when necessary" from beginning to end.

I admit though, that all the little things you list perhaps contribute to make a richer gaming experience overall, and this may be why I like FF7 better now. True, FF6 shoves its battle system down our throats a little too much. It didn't bother me 10 years ago, but now it does.

EDIT:

Just remembered about the status effects, too. FFVI has many more. You have the "No MP=Death" status, the "human" status (some weapons deal double damage to humans), Float, Zombie, MagiTek (sorta), Image, Clear, Freeze, Life3, and Terra's Morph status. And most don't go away after a battle.

You also have weapons that cast magic spells when used as items or when using the Fight command, randomly thrown weapons (that you don't lose once thrown ^^), accessories that cast Safe, Shell or both when your HP is low, the Genji Glove that allows you to dualwield or the Gauntlet that allows you to hold a weapon with both hands, the Jump command, a powerful weapon that might break after each use, Golem's Earth Wall effect, 1000 Needles, the Dischord spell that halves the target's level, the Rippler spell that exchanges statuses, enemies that alter their elemental reactions thanks to the WallChange spell, the ForceField that eliminates one random element from the battlefield, and the Quick & X-Zone magics.

Sadly, FFVII doesn't have all that. Hence why I felt -with good reasons- that it is a downgraded FFVI. My dream would be to insert all these features back into FFVII 

 

[xLostWingx]

Mods yay!

That is all.

 

[BlitzNCS]

You don't have a boss that requires you to kill your own party members to be defeated, in FFVII.

TL;DR rest of post/thread, but doesn't ruby weapon count as one of those?

 

[DLPB_]

TL;DR rest of post/thread, but doesn't ruby weapon count as one of those?

Why is that even a talking point

 

[Armorvil]

:-[

 

[DarkFang]

Mods yay!

That is all.

This.

But you can mod VI too so, whatever.

 

[Armorvil]

The funny thing in the Wrexsoul battle though, is that you need to kill the "right" party member during the battle, for the boss to appear (as opposed to having to kill your party members before the boss fight, in Ruby's case). It should be doable through AI editing in FFVII, but don't ask me how (Bosola, NFITC1, Gjoerulv or Titeguy might know, though).

 

[DLPB_]

That translation looks way off.  That is more Aleksoul or somthing....

 

[Armorvil]

That translation looks way off.  That is more Aleksoul or somthing....

It's been a while since I played FFVI Advance, but according to Djibriel's FAQ (the FFVI bible), they still translated his name as Wrexsoul. So maybe it is a good translation (or, highly unlikely : they considered it was as legendary as spoony bard & co, so they kept it in).

Or, if you're just joking, I'm afraid I don't get the joke

 

[DLPB_]

It is no joke... and that definitely is not the correct translation.  The kana does not fit it at all.  What it is, I dunno.  That first bit could be any number of things Alek, alec, arek, arec, etc etc.

アレクソウル (Arekusouru)

アレク Areku.  Cannot be Wrex.  It is impossible.  I would assume Wrex soul would be uurekusu souru or just rekusu souru

http://www.thinkbabynames.com/meaning/1/Arek  I would go with Arek... But I can't tell what it is.

 

[DarkFang]

アレクソウル - Arekusouru

Beat me to it.

 

[DLPB_]

ソウル

is soul for sure   At least.  L spiro says they definitely intended Ale at the start.

perhaps they just didnt have the space for what they intended.  Certainly not wrex though or rex.

 

[Armorvil]

I see, thanks for the info, both of you. Does Alek/Areku/... mean anything ? Because I kinda understand why they went with Wrexsoul. Wrex = wreck; Wrexsoul being a soul-destroyer monster preying on Cyan and all that.

 

[DLPB_]

Well that is the thing... it certainly will mean something to the author and is possibly pulled from some sort of myth.

http://www.thinkbabynames.com/meaning/1/Alek

One thing is sure.  It isn't wrex or rex, because if it was they would not have started it with an A among other problems.

See it could also be a pun.  They could have used the su from the areksu to become the x.  So for example Alexoul.  or somethin silly that doesnt work as well with english.

If I had to go with hand on heart, I would say it is taken from Alexander and is Alek Soul or Alex Soul or Alexoul.

yeah Alex is just 1 extra kana, I think they were just playing about with it, so I would definitely go with the above 3.  Well that was a nice diversion.  Also goes to show you how the English localisation refuse to change it even when blatantly wrong...

At least they changed Atma weapon LMAO.

 

[Furzball]

I still have to say FF8 is my favorite final fantasy. I've always been a fan of the confusing time travel storylines lol.

As for gameplay, meh, I play alot of games where the gameplay sucks (LIFELINE) but the concept or story are interesting. Problem is, after seven I really didn't like the fact that I had to collect screws and stuff to make weapons. So I said "screw that" and played through the whole thing and beat it on original weapons. Something not really to be suggested in FF7 or 10. But is entirely possible with stat boost in the junction system. Real life version you could take a plastic butterknife, junction a good ifrit and you have a dang nuke. Not to mention all the magic and items that help.

And I'm a bit of a sap for love stories. This one is abit too... easy and straightforward. No matter what Cloud gets rinoa. At least in FF7 you got to choose your date. Personally I liked Quistis (maybe it's cause of the whip and the whole young maturaty thing). Rinoa is abit of a switchbitch in my opinion. As soon as she breaks up with Seifer she goes hitting on Squall. I have don't blame Seifer for being a douche to Squall in the game.

And triple triad. Dang the only thing I wish to mainly change with that is the annoying music. Otherwise it's easy but challenging enough to have fun. Heck I just waste time on my psp playing it in balamb even before going out to get ifrit.

And Laguna is the most irresponsible parent I have ever seen.

wait... why did I like this game again?
Innocence of youth. I was young enough when it first game out that I didn't think of all these things. Back then it was sappy love story, graphical eye candy, and pretty music. Sad to say I even used "eyes on me" as a final in drama class. Yes I'm a guy, yes i know it's a girls song, but I had it memorized easily enough.

 

[Adhira]

Here i go breaking my lurking vow, but this thread is pretty nice considering what fan discussions about which FF is the best usually turn out to be in other places~

My all time favorite FF, RPG and game is FFVIII. As others said, the main fault of its battle system is being too exploitable, and the Aura > Meltdown > Renzokuken combo allowing you to plow through every possible endgame challenge with ease.

I heard lots of people complaining "you have to spend an hour drawing 100 of every spell at the start", while that was obviously not necessary and plain exploiting of the drawing system. There are just too many ways to gain an unfair advantage in the game, ultimately spoiling the whole experience.

My favorite features of VIII are the scenario (the world), Nomura's excellent designs (The Ragnarok... i still dream about it at night) and my idol's, Kazushige Nojima's writing. (It admittedly loses focus near the end of the game, though)

Considering the opinions i heard across the years, the FF8 gaming trend often goes this way for people who actually don't get to hate the story and characters instantly:

first playthrough: don't understand junction and GF leveling immediately > underpowered near the end > fail to finish
late playthrough: through gaming + guides > overpowered > lose interest near the end

Between the two examples one usually sees the ending once or twice.

Had i the time and resources to rework VIII like people are seemingly starting to do with VII, i would definitely:
- nerf or remove Meltdown
- remove the "hidden" drawing points on the two lv100 islands
- slightly increase the enemy levels (or simply increase level variance across common enemies)
- give all enemies a limited amount of spells that can be drawn in one fight and limit drawing effectiveness to SeeD Rank
- add a few drawing points to the world
- make more stats open for junction in the start (more "J [skill]" abilities)
- make the GF learning trees all visible from the start (or make an in-game tutorial about them...)
- increase APs necessary to learn Tier 2 and especially Tier 3 spell crafting skills
- slightly decrease the output of spell crafting

This way you will have fewer spells of the same kind and weaker junctions at the start (no more having more HP than bosses), being still able to craft your spells from items thanks to GF skills as you go on.

At the very least i think the duel at the end of the first disk should be actually difficult for the player...

In conclusion, i believe the ideas behind FF8's battle system were as good as the ones behind FF7 (if not better), but the balancing and the easy exploits ruined them. With the proposed fixes the various spell crafting skills would become more useful in the course of the game and the increased difficulty would make combat more enjoyable.

After all, remember how many times you used tier 2 spells in VIII. Probably not many as you could easily craft 100 tier 3 spells from items by the time they started to appear on monsters.

 

[xLostWingx]

I think that if one were to do a factor anaylsis of FFs and people's preferences - There would be three main factors (excluding personality of course):

1.  Age when played
2.  First FF played
3.  Other FFs played

I played VII when I was 12.  It was the first FF I played, and I hadn't heard of FF before then.  Now, 12 years later, it is still my favorite game.  First, it is a great game, but second, the factors of my life at that time were certainly signifcant influences.  Like a previous poster said, "...innocence of youth..." FFVII was probably great for those of us who were 11-13, and it was our first FF.  Had I played VIII before VII, then perhaps my preferences would be much different that they are today.  I imagine literary background could be a major factor as well.  I read hundreds of books before I ever played an RPG.  Before then, I played shit like Sonic, and Gran Turismo, and Tekken.  So...idk, its just interesting, from a Psychological perspective, how FFs become different individual's favorite FF.