I'm playing through all of Final Fantasy, and everyone is invited (Playing Lightning Returns now)

[nataeryn]

The classic "crystal colors" are probably intentional as far as the Huge Materia goes, at least. You get Bahamut ZERO rather than a "Master Support" from blue, so I imagine it was a conscious decision.

Bahamut-ZERO was the only thing I got from those. haha. I got the one summon, and just assumed that was all they were for. Well, i'll take the accidental insight about crystal colors at least.

I'm sure I'm missing a ton of stuff in FF8 too. There's no gaps in my GF lineup, but there's a bunch of empty spots past Alex and I've pretty much stuck to the story, so there's got to be side stuff I've missed.

 

[gogglebob]

NORG is Cid's landlord and must be killed. There's nothing complicated about it.

 

[RT-55J]

I mean, yeah, but technically you never kill the dude. You just forcibly advance his lifecycle to the metamorphosis egg stage, and presumably sometime after the end of the game he finishes transforming into a Moomba (or perhaps something else?).

Now, whether or not Moombas are free of sin is another question entirely.

 

[Sarcasmorator]

his landNORG

 

[WisteriaHysteria]

despite the rather hackneyed writing in multiple spots

I'd be interested in an audit of FF8's original script versus the translation we got here in NA, and if that has anything to do with the perception of "hackneyed writing". The translations of Squaresoft games from that era was not the greatest, were often riddled with errors, and took far too many liberties with their 'localization' for my comfort. For FF8 specifically, I know that there was a lot of texture within just Squall himself that got lost in translation. There were dozens of instances where he would say/react/emote in some manner that all got reduced to a simple "Whatever" each time.

For my decades old memory of the game, I always thought that game's narrative was pretty inherently interesting and well written. A lesser game would have hit the player over the head with the revelation that Laguna was Squall's father, and yet FF8 had the restraint and narrative complexity to let the player come to that epiphany themselves without ever outright stating it to the player.

 

[nataeryn]

FF8 complete and i've read the thread.
This is another game I thought I would not like, but ended up really enjoying.
The mechanics were confusing at first. I just don't love that cards refine into items that refine into spells that junction to stats. The multiple steps result in me forgetting what cards are desirable and what items are useful for different things. I think my junctions were probably suboptimal, but nothing but the final boss was in any way challenging, so good enough was good enough.

The final boss battle took me two tries. Definitely harder boss than the last few entries. FF4 was the last time I had to try more than once to beat the final boss. However, I engaged with any side content the least of all in FF8, so I may have been missing some tools for FF8 as compared to previous entries.

The story was confusing, but thanks to reading this thread and watching some videos of some scenes, i picked up on things i had missed. The Laguna scenes set up a lot and I didn't put the puzzle together and had to go back and review those via an LP to realize how Laguna kept stumbling into all these critical moments in the backstory. Our characters save the world, but a lot of the action is driven by the personal connections between the characters, so I'm okay that I was a little confused about the world history and lore at times. Its not like the info was not there, i just didn't take the opportunity to explore enough to find it.

I thought the writing for the characters was really good. I think FF8 did credit to the ensemble by keeping most of the focus on the main story and the primary couple and not having little scenarios for every character. Everyone gets a chance to shine and or lead the team for a moment, but it all feels more connected to the main scenario. I feel like this cast works together better than FF7 or FF6. I would agree with Felix that Irvine is probably my least favorite. I also agree that the final dungeon was the best final dungeon so far, other than i wish the party switching mechanic worked like in FF6 where each team was on a different path and had to fight some of the bosses. I really liked Seifer and Laguna as the foils to Squall. I'm glad Seifer got to go fishing with his friends in the ending and I liked that they did not have him turn back to the good guys side at the end like say Golbez in a turn that feels too sudden or cliche.

I was pretty disconnected from gaming it the late 90s. I didn't have a playstation. I knew of FF7 because i had a friend who was obsessed with it, but I didn't know anybody who talked about FF8 or FF9. Graphically, FF8 is such a leap forward in the series and feels modern. There's moments of old tech accidental humor like Rinoa calling Squall's pixelated form the best looking guy at the dance. Despite those kinds of things, I think FF8 (especially the remaster) can sit comfortably next to FF10/12/13 in terms of presentation.

 

[WisteriaHysteria]

I thought the writing for the characters was really good. I think FF8 did credit to the ensemble by keeping most of the focus on the main story and the primary couple and not having little scenarios for every character. Everyone gets a chance to shine and or lead the team for a moment, but it all feels more connected to the main scenario. I feel like this cast works together better than FF7 or FF6.

I think this, combined with the world building, is why FF8 has been consistently 1A or 1B of my favorite Final Fantasies historically, next to 10. (And why in recent times, I favor 15 and 7R so much more than a lot of people.) The whole cast is very likable and they do a great job characterizing them and getting them to interact meaningfully with each other, the plot, and their environment. I think FFX does a better job objectively, simply because they had more time and budget and technical horsepower to make all of those things easier, but FF8 hit me perfectly right in the middle of my adolescent years to really leave a big impact. I've also got romance-appreciative tendencies, so this game - coming on the heels of FF7 specifically - just felt kinda healing and warm/fuzzy to play.

 

[FelixSH]

FF VIII has some extremely obscure side-content. I don't remember the details, but there is an LP on the LP Archive that does them all. In case it's not the one you consulted.

Did you miss Diablos, and the ability to stop random encounters? Generelly, did you level up normally? If you stay low level, the game is super easy, including the final boss (even though Ultimecia deserves to be the epic, hard boss battle she got).

The world and lore are just not the main focus of this game, and opt more as a scene for the characters to act out their stuff, I think. Which is a strong contrast to FF VII, where the world is an actual character. Not that VIII doesn't have any of that, but I feel like it's way less pronounced here.

 

[WisteriaHysteria]

The world and lore are just not the main focus of this game, and opt more as a scene for the characters to act out their stuff, I think. Which is a strong contrast to FF VII, where the world is an actual character. Not that VIII doesn't have any of that, but I feel like it's way less pronounced here.

FF8's world doesn't have literal agency/isn't a character in the same way as Gaia, sure. But I think it has a lot of character and there's tons of lore scattered all over the place that gives the whole setting a lot of personality. Be it the cinematic set-pieces that are still peerless in the franchise, (FF has still yet to top the Battle of the Gardens IMO) to the way each school has its own personality/vibe (to me - comparing it to my own life experiences - it's like the differences between University of California campuses) to the politicking between nations, to the little things like how magazines are the source of information/abilities for the characters. It's a world that feels lived in and connected versus a lot of games and many FFs where the setting can feel like a bunch of independent Mario zones vaguely connected by a world map or hallways.

 

[FelixSH]

Yes, I agree. I just think that the focus is not on the planet, the same way as in VII. It's essentially background, while the world is a character in VII.

Read my posts from when I played the game. I think I got a lot of details out of what we got. But it's just less of a focus here. That's all I'm saying.

I want to write more, but can't really make it sensible, so I'll leave it. Just saying, I'm not saying the world building in VIII is bad or weak.

 

[nataeryn]

FF VIII has some extremely obscure side-content. I don't remember the details, but there is an LP on the LP Archive that does them all. In case it's not the one you consulted.

Did you miss Diablos, and the ability to stop random encounters? Generelly, did you level up normally? If you stay low level, the game is super easy, including the final boss (even though Ultimecia deserves to be the epic, hard boss battle she got).

I did get Diablos right after Cid gave me the item. I did what they told me and saved my game and then tried it. Took me 2 tries to beat him just because I didn't know what to expect the first time. Squall ended up I think level 34. I remember i went into to Ultimicia's castle at 29 and I fought quite a few battles in the castle from all the running around. I only used Enc-None when exploring to get the layout of a dungeon, then i would turn it off again. I had all the GFs up to Alexander, but none after that.

In this particular game, i was really enjoying the main story and cast and the game was always pointing me the way to the next event and I never felt like I needed to stop and go do something to get more powerful. I did the Triple Triad Club thing where you play the different ranks of players. I never went to Shumi village or any of the Chocobo forrests. I saw a UFO once, but had no idea there was anything to that. I didn't pick up on any hints about a deep sea research station, so i missed that too. I talked to the Queen of Cards only one or two times.
The main side thing I did was Triple Triad. I got the Quistis, Seifer and Zell cards along with Ifrit and Diablos pretty early. I challenged most people i met. I eventually also got the Selphie and Edea cards along with both of the brothers and Quetzalcoatl and Cerberus. Beating Edea was the only time i had to save/reload a lot on Triple Triad. There's only so much I can do to play around Same/Plus when i can't see her cards. I will say its a testament to how good Triple Triad is that that card game was enough to satisfy my desire for side content all on its own.

All total it took me about 33 ish hours to roll the credits.