Final Fantasy 8?

[tacoX]

After I beat FF7, do you suggest I start to play final fantasy 8? Or go and play some other games... (Breath of Fire 3, Star Ocean 2)...

[BlueCube]

I personally hated FF8.. never finished it because I lost interest. Star Ocean 2 was great though.. Had the main guy, Claude, up to level 120+ (There's no level ceiling).

[NonGayMan]

You should go with FF9. I didn't really like FF8.

[!King_Amazon!]

FF8 was ok, but kinda stupid. I actually played it all the way through though, the ending is killer. The game itself sucks though, but the story is cool.

[Raziel]

There was no story!! Seriously. Try and folow that game's plot logically from beginning to end, and it makes NO SENSE. The graphics were really pretty. That was the ONLY thing FF8 had going for it. Taco, play ANYTHING but that game!

[tacoX]

Lol; well it looks like I will be playing starocean :). Btw if you dont own that game, its a great game! I suggest you get it now... itd prlly be cheap...

I have heard roumors of 3rd story coming to america soon....

[Raziel]

I've seen it in a few places, but it's always a little more expensive than I want to spend. I've also heard that it's really, REALLY long. I like long games, but people have told me I'd be looking at 100 hours of gameplay. I'm not sure I have the patience.

[I)ark_Phoenix]

FF8 isn't THAT bad... but you might wanna skip that to the end if u have no other games to play with... FF8 is the same as all the other games... same battle mode(but not the junctions and upgrades) its just the story wasnt AMUSING but its really not that bad... after i finish FF7, i might start another round of FF8... and you never know, u might even like the game taco. So i suggest you try it out for those of you who says that FF8 is the worst FF game ever.. well, they barely have ANY DIFFERENCE... same rpg, its not like the other ones are GODLY and FF8 isnt... if u say FF8 sucks, all the FF games suck for you cuz FF8 is totally similar to all the other games in the series.

[!King_Amazon!]

Only thing about FF8 I didn't like was you dont equip armor. Instead, you junction magic with your GF's but if you know what your doing this can make you godly. I think the main thing that ruined the game for me is that I had just bought a gameshark and the game was so boring I wanted to get through it quick. The graphics kick ass though, so does the music. The story is OK, the ending battle takes forever though.

[I)ark_Phoenix]

find a new strategy for the last battle man, I beat Ultimacia in total of 5 mins... no more than that. Junctioning system was pretty cool i say, but the graphics kinda sucked... but the graphics for the cut scenes kicked. The story really sucked compared to all the other games in the series and I loved the music in FF8... ONE THING I hated about the game... was that they had the quantity for magics... they just abused the whole use of MP

[Raziel]

I din't like the game AT ALL. The term "story" doesn't even work when trying to describe that game's horrible, disjointed sequence of events. The Junction system SUCKED. It made magic completely useless (except Aura). The Limit system made Limit Breaks completely useless (unless you used Aura). Every fight in the game involved the player summoning a GF and just waiting for the enemies to die. Oh, and the whole "enemies level up while you do" thing made the actual process of "leveling up" completely unnecessary. So, why would they even allow you to gain levels in the game if there was no need for it? The game was TERRIBLY planned, poorly executed, and just plain boring.

[I)ark_Phoenix]

heh, you know I've never thought about the game that DEEP. In fact, I never think DEEP when it comes to games... cuz well, they are video games.

[Raziel]

It's not that I had to look hard for the game's glaring flaws. If I looked deep into the game, I'm sure I could figure out all kinds of ridicluous reasons to dislike it. The reasons I have listed are all things I ran into while casually playing through it. I just thought it was a poor Final Fantasy game.

[I)ark_Phoenix]

Ok, for once, can we talk about FF SERIES THAT PEOPLE LIKE?! Enough talk about FF8...

[Raziel]

Sure, that's fine by me, but this thread is concerned with FF8. I was just giving my opinion.

[Medieval Bob]

Have you played through FF4 and FF6? (2 and 3 America) I'm doing FF5 right now.. it's not near as good as 4 or 6, but it's decent. If not, I would strongly reccomend downloading a SNES Emu and the Roms. I'd tell you to go buy the games, but they are *very* hard to find for sale, or to rent since SNES games aren't kept stocked in rental stores very much anymore.

I haven't played FFX because I don't have a PS2 and I heard mixed opinions of it...
But I would have to say, of all the FF games I've played - FFLegends1,2,3, FFMysticQuest, FF4,FF5,FF6,FF7,FF8,FF9 - that FF4&6 are BY FAR my favorites. I've played through FF2 three times and FF6.. oh several many times.

[Raziel]

I played through about five or six hours of FF5, and just got bored with it. FF4 was the first Final Fantasy game I ever played (back in '91 or '92), and FF6 is just MINDBLOWING. I've played through 4 probably five or six times, and 6 maybe six or seven times.

[Dark Dragoon]

FF8 doesn't suck, everything thinks it does because they wanted another FF7. If you actually did pay attention, you would realize the story. Why the hell in the name of god did you even summon a GF after you've gotten to the half way point of disk 1? You can do much more damage than them after half way past disk 1 (except Diablos), and if you don't level up, you can't kill Omega (Terra Break owns all, like to see you take 9000 dmg at lvl 10), you can't get past Griever (Shockwave Pulsar goes up to 65000 damage). Also limit's dont suck you crazy person. Zell can do up to 1000000, Squall can do up to 250000,Irvine can do up to 250000, and Selphie can kill anything instantly (The End). Quistis has best defensive spell (Big Guard), and if you have the PC version, if you abuse the chocobo world bug, you can do 62000 dmg with Shockwave Pulsar as soon as Galbadian Garden (disk 2) not to mention that if you power up the chocobo, he can do 65000 early also, plus not to mention Friendship (unblockable 3/4 dmg loss), and all the other cool stuff on it. If you stuck Omega vs Ruby or Emerald, Omega would kill them both. Terra Break does up to 12000 in ONE turn, and the other 2 chumps can only do 9999 in 1 turn, also Omega can do Megido Flame, sets hp to 1, meaning he can whip anything from FF8 and lower (possibly higher) as long as they dont have invincibility. Also if you couldn't finish this game, you have no patience whatsoever. I beat this faster than FF7, and I found it more fun, because Omega is far FAR harder than ruby/emmy. Not to mention doing a low level game is fun, and watching the godliest summon ever is fun (Doink... TONBERRY RULES!!!11!!1!1 lol). Did FF7 have better cinematic's? Only 2 (Junon Cannon decapitating Sapphire Weapon, and Sister Ray piercing through Diamond Weapon's armor), but FF8 has the coolest one out of the 2, with the Ragnarok attacking the Lunatic Pandora, I mean, cmon, who could hate a kickass dragon spaceship that even makes noises, has a main cannon, 2 machine guns, and 2 powerful claws, it could destroy the highwind easily. And if you want to go with FF7 group vs FF8 group, FF8 wins. Multiple hitting attacks, able to do limits before the FF7 group, and able to do 9999+ damage attacks, not to mention The End, instant death to the FF7 group. Best FF7 could manage is the cheap combo of Final Attack + Pheonix with Counter + KoTR, MP Turbo + Master Summon, and Sneak Attack + KoTR. And if you would do that, FF8 could go uber cheap with holy wars, and The End, or Chocobuckle/Shockwave Pulsar. 1 last thing, FF8 has one thing FF7 can't do with a gameshark.... use Omega and Ultima Weapons as members in battle, plus a weird gumby like creature that has japanese writing on it.

[BlueCube]

Originally posted by Dark Dragoon
FF8 doesn't suck, everything thinks it does because they wanted another FF7.

No. I disliked FF7 as well (though not as much). I was hoping FF8 would be another FF6. It sucked, thereby making it NOT like FF6.

That, and I don't have the patience to sit there for hours to suck out a monster's Cures.

On an unrelated topic, does anyone else think that the name "Firaga" sucks compared to Fire 3? I LIKED Fire 3.

[Dark Dragoon]

If you want to know, Fire 3 has always been Firaga in the jap versions. Also Merton=Meltdown, after being roughly translated of course. Yeah FF6 was cool, but damn dude, doom gaze was the only thing that made it annoying. Randomly appearing, the jackass is... well, a jackass. I know he is a jackass because once when I had first rented the game, I was busy screwing around flying like a crackhead at 11:55 pm or so, since I didn't know what to do. But of course, full moon outside the window, and the moment the clock struck 12, I heard the evil little battle music buzz (scared the hell out of me, I had the sound down low, and wasn't expecting it), I was wondering "WTH?", and there pops up the evil jackass himself, Doom Gaze. Proceeds to kill me with Aero, making me afraid to use the airship for too long, and randomly kept attacking me when I was trying to get further, sometimes over Thamasa, then over Narshe, even 3 times as soon as the airship comes out of the ocean when you first get it. But one thing I don't get about him, is when fighting him, and you run/he runs/he dies, you randomly move to a different area on the world map. The Thamasa incident moved me over Ebot's Rock, but still, he's a damn jackass. Not to mention he looks like some fucked up bat-fish creature. FF6 is a great game, even with some things people haven't noticed yet (no one knows theres actually several Guardian's protecting the Imperial Castle at Vector, proof:when you walk up to there when your supposed to go to the Magitek Factory, you see 2 Soldiers hop onto a weird platform like thing, which brings you into a fight with the first Guardian (version 1, appears first in the enemy list, has byte0 set, giving it invincibility. anyways notice how there are several more platforms like it around the castle, guess emperor gestahl was a little too worried :D ).

[Raziel]

Who the hell cares if Squall's Limit Breaks do 20 million points of damage? Just because the numbers are super high doesn't mean jack shit. When almost all of the enemies in the game have 400 billion HP, it doesn't really matter. The game SUCKED. They turned magic into a completely useless feature. You don't want to use spells because if you do it lessens the stats that the spells are Junctioned to. Limits only become useful once you have the Aura spell, and even after that with half of the characters (Selphie, Zell, Squall) it's a random guess as to which Limit the character will use. Unless you feel like memorizing Zell's ridiculous attack patterns. I reiterate, THE GAME SUCKED. They focused far too much on the game mechanics, and not nearly enough on story, world design, and character development.

[I)ark_Phoenix]

Ok, for Dark Dragoon, all I can say is that, we ARE NOT comparing by their CHARACTERS, LIMIT BREAKS, DMGS, ENEMIES AND MOVIE CUTSCENES... we are comparing them by how the game was designed and the story to it... GRAPHICS ARE NOTHING in any of the FF games cuz i mean, look 6 has CRAPPY graphics and ppl still like em alot. Its all story and the gameplay... and the game isn't automatically better because the characters in the game are capable of causing higher dmg and beat FF7's character in many ways... but if you would play FF7 careful enough, who knows, you might find a strategy to beat FF8 characters.

and as for Raziel, FIRST ONE HUGE MISTAKE you've posted about magics in FF8, was that they reduce ur stats when you use the magics... the answer is... NO! Yes your stat actually does reduce into a much crappier stat but it doesnt during battle... obviously Square wasnt THAT dumb but since the stat differ from the amount of the magic you have, they had to make it so that your stat reduce to a crappier one AFTER the battler you've used the magic in. Then you would go find the monster you got the magic from or the draw point to refill your magic... and all the good magics, you don't really need to use in any of the battles except the last battle... you would just hit with everything youve got since it doesnt save the game with your magic/items all used up.
Also, limit break werent totally useless in the game not because of the magic Aura, but an item called Hero or Holy War... Thats how I beat Ultimecia really easily... I would let her use Hell's judgement on me, so that i drop to 1HP then i would use either Hero or Holywar to make my characters invincible... and then i would HAMMER AWAY WITH LIMIT BREAKS... since they appear when u are in low HP.
Zell's limit break, is fairly easy to remember... well at least it was for me. Selphie's limit isnt RANDOM GUESS... but yes its random pick, you would just do a redo and keep going until u get wut u need or want. Magics, they are AMAZINGLY USEFUL against bosses for instance Meltdown, thats something u should always use on a boss at the start of the battle, Aura it helps u get limit breaks while you are at near full health, Ultima, which does amazing amount of dmg on Ultimecia ESPECIALLY with Cerberus or Magic called Triple or Double and of course, our healing magic, Curaga.

And as for you all, I say that FF9 was the best FF game ever :)

[Raziel]

Originally posted by I)ark_Pheonix
as for Raziel, FIRST ONE HUGE MISTAKE you've posted about magics in FF8, was that they reduce ur stats when you use the magics... the answer is... NO! Yes your stat actually does reduce into a much crappier stat but it doesnt during battle... obviously Square wasnt THAT dumb but since the stat differ from the amount of the magic you have, they had to make it so that your stat reduce to a crappier one AFTER the battler you've used the magic in.

I didn't say it lowered your stats in battle, I said it lowered your stats. I thought that implied I meant AFTER the battle, but I was wrong. Sorry for not being more specific.

Originally posted by I)ark_Pheonix
And as for you all, I say that FF9 was the best FF game ever :)

I agree with you there!

[Dark Dragoon]

There's basically no strategy what-so-ever after getting KoTR, all it is, is summon, mime,mime,mime, ect.,ect. If my stuff doesn't seem to make a point, im pretty sure the FF8 board from gamefaqs.com would jump in and give me a hand. BTW, no monster ever has had 400 billion, and no way in hell can squall do 20 million. Lets see now... based on what I can gather, people prefer the easy route of just repeatedly selecting mime rather than having to actually make sure you dont die.

Yeah I've played FF7 a lot, but basically all I can find is just KoTR. Ultima is basically useless seeing as you can get KoTR before Ultima, making everything else a waste.

Now for FF8, Doomtrain is the most useful summon no doubt, all status ailments, including vit0 (meltdown affect). But, even with all the limit breaks, and invincibility, its possible for Omega to strike you down immediately.

FF6...well, its good. But sadly, its flaw comes from Kefka only having 64000 hp, meaning 8 Ultimas=Death, or 1 X-Fight=Death, or Quick spell + Gembox=2 turn death. Of course, if your playing the rom, the real fun comes from the Super Atma patch, the evil super charged monster can annihilate 95% of the possible groups, even WITH ultima and X-fight. Now, if you try to even use those, hes whacks you up with Hyperdrive to each char, meaning instant death. Plus he doesn't have the Kefka weakness, he has a whopping 16,000,000+ HP, and he can even heal himself.

So, flaws are:

FF7=KoTR
FF8=Holy War + magic (but seriously why even use it?)
FF6=Final boss only has 64000 hp.

And if you want to go ragging on character development, most of Cloud's history has ALREADY HAPPENED. Plus Aeris is THE most stupid FF woman ever with her oh-so-smart quip about "This man are sick". I mean damn, she sounds normal up to that point, and far after until she gets stabbed, which she doesn't even try to move from,but that 1 stupid mistake ruins her. Now to bring up the weirdest story flaw, WEAPON. It says it was made to kill Jenova, yet they weren't used because Jenova was "subdued". Now cmon, the planet cannot be that damn stupid to let Jenova live after what it caused, when WEAPON has the power needed to remove it forever, preventing a lot of pain to the planet. Also about Cloud. It shows Zack getting whacked by Sephiroth, and he's in SOLDIER. Cloud gets IMPALED by the masamune, and yet managed to toss sephiroth over the catwalk and into the mako below. And thats before cloud gets the jenova cells injected.


FF6 doesn't give any story on Shadow, theres supposed to be 7 dreams, but only 5 can be seen. No info on gestahl,or kefka. Not to mention how kefka managed to neutralized the esper's powers while destroying 3 INDESTRUCTIBLE Guardian's at the same time, while also managing to kill them all in mid-flight. The funny thing is that it doesn't explain how Kefka and the Emperor got past Atma Weapon, which was pre-guarding them during the cinematic atop the floating continent after you get to the airship near Thamasa.

It seems Raziel hasn't played FF8, but most chars have the needed info explained.


Too tired to put any more info up.

[Raziel]

I've played FF8 up to the last hour or so of the game, and I got sick of it. Squall is a COMPLETELY UNLIKEABLE character, the story is fragmented and badly written, and the world it takes place on is bland and poorly designed. I don't give a rats ass about battle strategies and which summon is the most effective in a fight. I play the game for the characters, the story, and the art. FF8 was SORELY lacking in all three areas.

My "400 billion HP comment" was sarcasm, dude. Calm down.

And FF7's story flaws are due to an EXESSIVLY POOR translation. FF8's story flaws are due to EXESSIVELY BAD writing.

[Dark Dragoon]

Give examples of how the story is fragmented, and badly written. As for the world, thats not true. Multiple islands, a research station, missile base, spacestation, various terrain areas featuring forests, deserts, ice, plains, and mountains.


The story isn't fragmented in my view, as it gives whats needed as it comes up (i.e. why they go to dollet, why they are to assassinate edea,ect.,ect.). As for it being badly written, that ONLY applies to disk 4, since you either roam around a sealed off world, or go into some messed up castle to finish the game (or screw around with omega). Up until then, the story is fine.


The art is very good in various areas. Battleship Island's energy core that contains Bahamut for example. While outside the core, you see the core in the background with those weird symbols, and when you go inside the core, you see the symbols rotating around the battlefield. Next is the Lunatic Pandora. You see the Ragnarok attacking it from afar, then you see it up close, and if you think the Ragnarok is poor art, nothing could be good enough for you. However, the best example is the Lunar Cry. You see rinoa being controlled flying out to unlock adel's seal, then the lunar cry happens, taking adels prison thingy and plunging it inside the lunatic pandora, while the monsters impact the area near esthar, making esthar basically ruined, and making the sky above it pinkish.

The only story fragment I can think of is the paradox the game creates after you defeat ultimecia. You see squall wandering around confused, and is trying to remember rinoa. Then he manages somehow to wind up in the past, where he sees young squall with edea talking to ultimecia. Now that creates a paradox, because if young squall saw adult squall, he would want to be like him, creating a convient time loop where effect comes before action. Also that brings up the point of why didn't ultimecia go back to then, and slay all the kids in the orphange, protecting her from them forever, since it would kill the group, edea, and cid, removing SeeD forever from existance.

[Raziel]

The story was so badly fragmented because so many of the game's objectives came OUT OF NOWHERE. I haven't played the game in quite some time, so I don't remember many specific examples. The whole "orphanage" thing and the "GF's make you forget" crap was COMPLETELY out of the blue, and pretty lame to boot. The unveiling of Ultimecia's "master plan" was horribly underplayed and the plan itself was just retarded. The Lunatic Pandora and the Lunar Cry were both, once again, totally out of nowhere. The explanation of what the Lunatic Pandora actually was and why the hell it even exists was only partial, and very poorly conceived.

The art in FF8 sucked because almost every area in the game looked identical, in my opinion. It was either a ruined industrial area or a shiny sparkly futuristic cityscape. There was NO VARIETY. The best example I can give you is that shitty town built onto the train tracks in the middle of the ocean. It's a ruined industrial area surrounding a big metal dish. Wow. And what exciting piece of the town is placed in the center of the dish? The mayor's house. I've seen some lame design concepts in my day, but that one takes the cake.

On top of all of this, the simple fact that the game wasn't a fantasy game at all, but a sci-fi game COMPLETELY contradicts any purpose in naming it FINAL FANTASY. I repeat this once again: the developers focused more on the battle mechanics and the "stats" side of the game than they did on the story, characters, and art.

[I)ark_Phoenix]

Holy shit guys, alot of info from you all, but do you actually take time to read all this to reply? lol... wow I'm impressed about how you guys all these info to protect one game and the other.

Why don't YOU guys ask for Chruser to mod YOU guys as well, since this forum is going pretty damn well since the whole Zelaron forum started.

THANKS TO ME OF COURSE! :)

[Raziel]

I'm really not interested in being modded, but thanks for the compliment Phoenix!

[I)ark_Phoenix]

Anytime. Just keep that up man, its helping alot.

[Dark Dragoon]

If modded means muted/banned, no thanks. But if it means what I think it means, I don't know.

[I)ark_Phoenix]

modded doesnt mean muted/banned...