Anyone agree?

Reason:Each character seems to bring more variety.

Irvine:His attacks are totally optional, but he can be useful against omega weapon, and is still useful at end game.He also has multiple ammos which provide multiple uses.
Zell:He is downright abusive if you know how to use him, because if you are fast enough, you can do more damage with him than squall.
Squall:His lion heart limit break doesn't always go off, leaving room for others in the team, but when it does, it does huge amounts of damage.
Quistis:her blue magic can be quite strong if you know what you are doing.She also has insta death moves which work well, and bad breath is worse in ff8 than ever.
Selphie:her limit break of multiple spells can be very useful.Full cure is very nice, and multiple curagas is also very nice.On top of that, the most ridiculously overpowered limit break ever in ff history:The end.

I partially disagree. To me the general situation with balance hasn't really changed that much. I think that the variety provided by the characters is only... what's the word... temporary (this could be said for a few titles in the saga, actually). I'm of the opinion that the equally wonderful and overpowered Junction System destroys what little variety is in VIII way too soon. Not going to mention the potentially useless level-up/grinding of the game.

You mentioned VII, implying that it lacks variety. I find such statement to be slightly unfair: if you took into account each character as a whole [Default Statistics, Kind of weapons used, Limit Breaks, Default Row used by them], every single one of them still followed a "pre-set path" while developing.
Same goes for X, too. With the standard Sphere Grid each character follows a specific path for most of the game. Sure, you get the chance to "drift away", but what would be the point in that?

By the end of these three game(s), if you took the time to train your characters and collect every weapon/skill/materia/whatever... The only element you have to tell them apart is the "Limit technique". They end up becoming palette swaps of the same killing machine.

EDIT
ROTFL! Pretty ironic that you are mentioning the characters' "Limit Breaks" [or however they are called in English], in order to support variety. I guess you've pretty much proved my point. The only thing you have to tell the characters apart, at a certain point, are "Limit Breaks". :)

EDIT #2
Talking strictly about Limit Breaks, even VIII isn't really balanced. The majority of Limit Breaks is of an offensive nature.

I partially disagree. To me the general situation with balance hasn't really changed that much. I think that the variety provided by the characters is only... what's the word... temporary (this could be said for a few titles in the saga, actually). I'm of the opinion that the equally wonderful and overpowered Junction System destroys what little variety is in VIII way too soon. Not going to mention the potentially useless level-up/grinding of the game.

You mentioned VII, implying that it lacks variety. I find such statement to be slightly unfair: if you took into account each character as a whole [Default Statistics, Kind of weapons used, Limit Breaks, Default Row used by them], every single one of them still followed a "pre-set path" while developing.
Same goes for X, too. With the standard Sphere Grid each character follows a specific path for most of the game. Sure, you get the chance to "drift away", but what would be the point in that?

By the end of these three game(s), if you took the time to train your characters and collect every weapon/skill/materia/whatever... The only element you have to tell them apart is the "Limit technique". They end up becoming palette swaps of the same killing machine.

EDIT
ROTFL! Pretty ironic that you are mentioning the characters' "Limit Breaks" [or however they are called in English], in order to support variety. I guess you've pretty much proved my point. The only thing you have to tell the characters apart, at a certain point, are "Limit Breaks". :)

EDIT #2
Talking strictly about Limit Breaks, even VIII isn't really balanced. The majority of Limit Breaks is of an offensive nature.

Thing is:In ff7, the limit breaks don't make that much of a huge effect on the game.Most of it at end game, is about how you combine materia, rather than personal abilities.

In ff8, each character's limit break sort of works as a variety of skills to use, and provide different uses.Look at rinoa's angelos skills.There is a variety of dog techniques which in itself can provide some uses.Angelo search and a skill for reviving and healing.Selphie's skill sets are sort of like lulu's, but she still retains her usefulness.She can give out free heals without using spells and insta kill bosses.These do provide variety of useful set of skills.The thing is:They aren't 100% needed, but sometimes having selphie was nice for the heals.

In FFX, the game became unbalanced in my opinion at endgame, because there was really no reason to bring lulu or auron or kimahri.Most of the time kimahri doesn't actually provide much use, but lulu and auron do.Its just that you can pass on all your skills and pretty much make them obsolete except for their limit breaks, and even then, its not really needed.There is good reason to bring rikku, cause her limit break brings alchemy which can fully heal everyone's hp and mp, and yuna because of anima's attack does HUGE damage, but why bring auron if you can have piercing skill and have someone with all of auron's abilities at endgame? early on:yeah all characters are balanced, but late in the game it seems broken.

FF7 suffers from the same things FFX suffers, but only far worse.You don't actually have to wait long before getting all the useful abilities, and everything comes down to limit breaks.Some of the abilities are nice, but they are completely optional.On the other hand:Why bring yuffie if you can have cloud and barret and even cait sith? All abilities are interchangeable, so all characters are the same.

Yours are valid points, too, but I honestly don't see VIII's Limit Breaks bringing all that variety to the game: stuff like Angelo's Skills, or Selphie's Spells.... Most of it could be "substituted" through Junctioning, Spells' drawing, and collecting Cards. You don't really need them, they become fancy/just-for-show crap. You get items to become temporarily invulnerable, you get spells, skills and items which recover your health fully, or again disable any negative status effect inflicted on your characters... In the end, only Renzokuken and Duel still have some purpose. There are workarounds to the rest.

The thing about junctions, is that they are either for stats,healing or casting meltdown.The limit breaks act as abilities since you are expected to have low hp, unlike in ff7 where you spend most of the time doing regular attacks and abilities from your materia, sort of like FFX, except that starts to really apply when you reach end game.You also can use summons for abilities as well, but otherwise:What abilities?

The problem is:Other than for healing or casting meltdown, using spells means your stats go down, because you use spells for stats.The only time that would work, is if you maxed out your stats by really playing the card game, but if you are too lazy, you will need every spell you have to make it count, and that means having a stack of 100 ultimas on each character for maxing out his or her stat.You also need the right spells for all elemental defense and all status protection defense, so it really seems like melee attacks really count far more than anything, especially limit break melee attacks.

I disagree. In VIII the characters might appear as though they have different abilities and uses in battle, but it really depends completely on how you play them and how you set up their junctions. Their stats are all pretty much identical, and other than their special limit attacks they all do pretty much the same things. You focus on those, but in other FF games some characters are built totally differently at all times.

Like X for example, now I've done some experimenting with the Sphere Grid and you can do different things with different characters if you want to (like making Yuna a kick ass damage dealer) but in general they all come to the table with different stats, different roles. White mage, black mage, warrior, thief etc you don't have that in VIII they can all play any role you want them to at any time, they can all carry cures, they can all carry offensive and defensive magics, they can all have the most powerful spells on their strength stat. You can choose to vary them, but that's entirely up to the player, the actual game doesn't give much variety.

Why would you do that? you then don't max out your stats.

FFX's balance is good early on like i said, but later on when you max your stats, most of the characters become just side characters.

FF8's limit breaks are actually really useful, like selphie's healing can be useful, and even quistis blue magic.The game actually gives you a reason to use her.Even her insta death move seemed to be effective vs regular enemies.

Well that depends how you're using the characters. For example, if you make Kimahri your white mage then you're going to need to use him.

I'm not saying FFVIII's limit breaks aren't useful (though the only ones I ever found a use for were Selfie's, Zell's and Squall's), but if the only thing making them different from each other is their limit break I wouldn't say they're that varied. And as someone else said, most of them are still all offensive attacks.

To me variation means a set of characters with different skills and abilities, which VIII doesn't give you unless you do it yourself. In X you would have to make an effort to get rid of variation in the characters, but in VIII you have to make an effort to give them variation.

Well that depends how you're using the characters. For example, if you make Kimahri your white mage then you're going to need to use him.

I'm not saying FFVIII's limit breaks aren't useful (though the only ones I ever found a use for were Selfie's, Zell's and Squall's), but if the only thing making them different from each other is their limit break I wouldn't say they're that varied. And as someone else said, most of them are still all offensive attacks.

To me variation means a set of characters with different skills and abilities, which VIII doesn't give you unless you do it yourself. In X you would have to make an effort to get rid of variation in the characters, but in VIII you have to make an effort to give them variation.

The problem is they are interchangeable.In ff8 its mostly magic that is interchangeable rather than abilities.In ff7 and FFX all abilities are interchangeable.
Generally speaking:FF4 ff6 and ff9 have more variety than ff8.FFX ff7 is like ff5 and ff tactics and ff3 nes:You make the team you want, instead of having unique abilities per each character.Irvine for an example can hit all enemies with his gun attack, and it is different from the rest in limit break.Most of ff7's limit breaks were pretty much just regular damage attacks, but you have multiple amounts of ammo with different use, giving a little more variety.

Example:Yuffie:her abilities aren't anything that great.Cloud's attack specialty is multi hit, like barret.Tifa is like zell making her a little different from the rest.The rest of the team are pretty much MEH! look at cid's attacks.Sure he throws explosives, but his attacks are pretty much just 1 special limit break attack doing damage once.

If i talk about FFX again, i'd be repeating myself so i won't go on.

Eeh, I really disagree. I feel like FFVIII's combat system is a mess, especially when you think about the junctions and drawing magic nightmares. The characters might have a varying variety of battle styles, but it's really not all that different than the variety that you see FFX. Arguably FFX has a *better* variety. FFVII was pretty opened about their characters being able to learn the same move typing, but they still remained fairly unique with their skills. The real potential of the character was within the limit breaks in that one. FFX also had some stunning limits. I feel like FFVIII's limits weren't all that special - the one that I can recall was really great was Selphie's slots.

The problem is they are interchangeable.In ff8 its mostly magic that is interchangeable rather than abilities.In ff7 and FFX all abilities are interchangeable.
Generally speaking:FF4 ff6 and ff9 have more variety than ff8.FFX ff7 is like ff5 and ff tactics and ff3 nes:You make the team you want, instead of having unique abilities per each character.Irvine for an example can hit all enemies with his gun attack, and it is different from the rest in limit break.Most of ff7's limit breaks were pretty much just regular damage attacks, but you have multiple amounts of ammo with different use, giving a little more variety.

But in VIII the characters don't have abilities at all, not unless you give them some. You know when you take all those junctions off? You're left with a blank slate, a character that is the same as all the others, they have no abilities other than attack, and you have to choose how to vary them if you vary them at all. X pretty much forces you to be varied, whether you choose to stick with the way the characters are initially set up or to interchange things. Yes they have different limit breaks, but being able to hit more than one enemy with an attack isn't exactly varied, some of Squall's limit breaks hit more than one enemy, so do Zells, and Selfie's.

I'd say pretty much any of the FF games has more variation than VIII with the exception of possibly XII. Because in FFVIII the characters are all a blank slate, that you can junction however you want, give them whatever abilities you want, and choose whether you're team is varied or not. As characters without the players input they are not at all varied. Most of the other games have characters whose stats are varied and who are naturally inclined to certain roles in the party.

But in VIII the characters don't have abilities at all, not unless you give them some. You know when you take all those junctions off? You're left with a blank slate, a character that is the same as all the others, they have no abilities other than attack, and you have to choose how to vary them if you vary them at all. X pretty much forces you to be varied, whether you choose to stick with the way the characters are initially set up or to interchange things. Yes they have different limit breaks, but being able to hit more than one enemy with an attack isn't exactly varied, some of Squall's limit breaks hit more than one enemy, so do Zells, and Selfie's.

I'd say pretty much any of the FF games has more variation than VIII with the exception of possibly XII. Because in FFVIII the characters are all a blank slate, that you can junction however you want, give them whatever abilities you want, and choose whether you're team is varied or not. As characters without the players input they are not at all varied. Most of the other games have characters whose stats are varied and who are naturally inclined to certain roles in the party.

Yes, the characters are nothing without junctions. The only thing that's unique for each character are their stats, limit breaks, weapons, and GF-compatibility. Other than limit breaks, they are essentially identical in that they're blank slates. You could say the exact same thing about X-2 and 12, though, too. In X-2, the characters were only distinct in core stats. In XII, the characters start out at different parts of the license board, but you can make any character learn anything.

However, I disagree that that means that there is no variation. I'd say it's the opposite. Let's look at FF-X. There, you have specific roles designated for specific characters. You can't really direct Yuna to be anything other than a white mage until a long way into the game, and even if you could, you wouldn't want to because she's the first one who learns Full-Life, Curaga, and Holy. You wouldn't take her into Tidus's portion of the sphere grid when she still had Mag+4 nodes and ability nodes to get. Where this spins out of control is FFXIII, where your characters can't explore anything outside of their specific roles artificially imposed on you by the game. At least in FFX, you can use return spheres, warp spheres, special spheres, etc. to move around the grid.

I think your complaint is that there isn't enough inherent variety between characters, that they all just blend into one generic type. But I like that style as much as the other. Again, going back to FFX, you're stuck playing it the same way each time. You have one black mage, one white mage, one character who can melee from a distance, one thief, etc. With FFVIII, you can make Squall a white mage, black mage, thief, warrior, statician, and anything in between. Basically, you have the breakdown of strict classes. And with that comes a ton of variety: you can pick whatever stats you want to increase. You can increase any combination of HP, strength, vitality, magic, spirit, speed, evasion, accuracy, and luck. You don't get that kind of freedom and variety with other games. The junction system also skews the stats to such a degree that each character might as well have the same base stats, assuming they're all the same level. So you're free to create whatever "classes" you want with whatever character you want. It doesn't get much more various than that! It's not the game's fault if all your characters end up being generic warriors. Now, I'll admit that the fact that you're dissuaded from actually using magic is a terrible design flaw, but whatever.

The game's variety rests in your ability to customize character stats and abilities, even though each character doesn't really "fit" any strict character class and is in fact totally interchangeable. I think this makes the game a lot more flexible and fun to mix up.

Yes, the characters are nothing without junctions. The only thing that's unique for each character are their stats, limit breaks, weapons, and GF-compatibility. Other than limit breaks, they are essentially identical in that they're blank slates. You could say the exact same thing about X-2 and 12, though, too. In X-2, the characters were only distinct in core stats. In XII, the characters start out at different parts of the license board, but you can make any character learn anything.

However, I disagree that that means that there is no variation. I'd say it's the opposite. Let's look at FF-X. There, you have specific roles designated for specific characters. You can't really direct Yuna to be anything other than a white mage until a long way into the game, and even if you could, you wouldn't want to because she's the first one who learns Full-Life, Curaga, and Holy. You wouldn't take her into Tidus's portion of the sphere grid when she still had Mag+4 nodes and ability nodes to get. Where this spins out of control is FFXIII, where your characters can't explore anything outside of their specific roles artificially imposed on you by the game. At least in FFX, you can use return spheres, warp spheres, special spheres, etc. to move around the grid.

I think your complaint is that there isn't enough inherent variety between characters, that they all just blend into one generic type. But I like that style as much as the other. Again, going back to FFX, you're stuck playing it the same way each time. You have one black mage, one white mage, one character who can melee from a distance, one thief, etc. With FFVIII, you can make Squall a white mage, black mage, thief, warrior, statician, and anything in between. Basically, you have the breakdown of strict classes. And with that comes a ton of variety: you can pick whatever stats you want to increase. You can increase any combination of HP, strength, vitality, magic, spirit, speed, evasion, accuracy, and luck. You don't get that kind of freedom and variety with other games. The junction system also skews the stats to such a degree that each character might as well have the same base stats, assuming they're all the same level. So you're free to create whatever "classes" you want with whatever character you want. It doesn't get much more various than that! It's not the game's fault if all your characters end up being generic warriors. Now, I'll admit that the fact that you're dissuaded from actually using magic is a terrible design flaw, but whatever.

The game's variety rests in your ability to customize character stats and abilities, even though each character doesn't really "fit" any strict character class and is in fact totally interchangeable. I think this makes the game a lot more flexible and fun to mix up.

I did already mention that XII also has very little variation in how the characters are set up. Really, I just don't think you can count variation that the player has to add, if it's the player making something varied when the game doesn't naturally do that then to me that's not variation in the game, that's variation in the players style.

You chose a bad example for X because I always take Yuna down Auron's path every single time and it doesn't take very long to get her on to it, she tends to get there by the time they reach Kilika Temple. She doesn't need to be the white mage of the party if you don't want her to be, and nobody else in the party has to stay in the role they begin in. There are clearly defined roles, and even if you take the characters down a different path they all stay very different to one another. You'd have to try very hard to make a party where all the characters have the same role. Unlike in VIII where they are all identical until the player chooses to make them different. The first time I played VIII I didn't add any variation to the characters, they were all basically warriors with cures in their inventory. And that's actually the simplest way to play the game, I have to put a lot more effort into making them different from each other whenever I replay the game.

I'm not saying I don't like the style. VIII is my favorite of all the Final Fantasy games, I love pretty much everything about it. But your thread is about how VIII has the most variety in the party, which I don't think is true at all. Do I think it gives you more freedom and control than other games? Absolutely, but I don't think that's the same as variation. The game doesn't give you variation, you have to put effort into making them varied, and it doesn't really get you much better results than if you don't. Compared to a game like X where you have to put effort into making the party not varied, there isn't really a comparison.

I did already mention that XII also has very little variation in how the characters are set up. Really, I just don't think you can count variation that the player has to add, if it's the player making something varied when the game doesn't naturally do that then to me that's not variation in the game, that's variation in the players style.

You chose a bad example for X because I always take Yuna down Auron's path every single time and it doesn't take very long to get her on to it, she tends to get there by the time they reach Kilika Temple. She doesn't need to be the white mage of the party if you don't want her to be, and nobody else in the party has to stay in the role they begin in. There are clearly defined roles, and even if you take the characters down a different path they all stay very different to one another. You'd have to try very hard to make a party where all the characters have the same role. Unlike in VIII where they are all identical until the player chooses to make them different. The first time I played VIII I didn't add any variation to the characters, they were all basically warriors with cures in their inventory. And that's actually the simplest way to play the game, I have to put a lot more effort into making them different from each other whenever I replay the game.

I'm not saying I don't like the style. VIII is my favorite of all the Final Fantasy games, I love pretty much everything about it. But your thread is about how VIII has the most variety in the party, which I don't think is true at all. Do I think it gives you more freedom and control than other games? Absolutely, but I don't think that's the same as variation. The game doesn't give you variation, you have to put effort into making them varied, and it doesn't really get you much better results than if you don't. Compared to a game like X where you have to put effort into making the party not varied, there isn't really a comparison.

Well the thing is:You kind of want to max out all those sphere grid areas, because you need them to beat the optional bosses, so you are bound to learn abilities just to be able to get all the stats in the end, and yes the overall melding in every character becoming identical is exactly what i mean in inherent variety between characters.In ff tactics though, there was more options for gameplay and actions.The problem is:With the class system of ff5, you end up with characters who become clones of each other.The only difference, is the limit breaks, and often they are the same in type of damage.

Well the thing is:You kind of want to max out all those sphere grid areas, because you need them to beat the optional bosses, so you are bound to learn abilities just to be able to get all the stats in the end, and yes the overall melding in every character becoming identical is exactly what i mean in inherent variety between characters.In ff tactics though, there was more options for gameplay and actions.The problem is:With the class system of ff5, you end up with characters who become clones of each other.The only difference, is the limit breaks, and often they are the same in type of damage.

I really don't count maxing out characters and optional end game stuff when I consider what a game gives you because in pretty much every game once you go past a certain point there's no strategy or anything because you 1 hit kill everything. Variation and choices kind of become redundant at that point.

I did already mention that XII also has very little variation in how the characters are set up. Really, I just don't think you can count variation that the player has to add, if it's the player making something varied when the game doesn't naturally do that then to me that's not variation in the game, that's variation in the players style.

You chose a bad example for X because I always take Yuna down Auron's path every single time and it doesn't take very long to get her on to it, she tends to get there by the time they reach Kilika Temple. She doesn't need to be the white mage of the party if you don't want her to be, and nobody else in the party has to stay in the role they begin in. There are clearly defined roles, and even if you take the characters down a different path they all stay very different to one another. You'd have to try very hard to make a party where all the characters have the same role. Unlike in VIII where they are all identical until the player chooses to make them different. The first time I played VIII I didn't add any variation to the characters, they were all basically warriors with cures in their inventory. And that's actually the simplest way to play the game, I have to put a lot more effort into making them different from each other whenever I replay the game.

I'm not saying I don't like the style. VIII is my favorite of all the Final Fantasy games, I love pretty much everything about it. But your thread is about how VIII has the most variety in the party, which I don't think is true at all. Do I think it gives you more freedom and control than other games? Absolutely, but I don't think that's the same as variation. The game doesn't give you variation, you have to put effort into making them varied, and it doesn't really get you much better results than if you don't. Compared to a game like X where you have to put effort into making the party not varied, there isn't really a comparison.

I think you misunderstood me. My example of FFX wasn't bad because it was exactly as you said it was. You do have to work to keep their roles from being different in X. But my point is that the game makes the choice of which character gets which role for you. The game decides that Yuna is a healer, Lulu a black mage, etc. By the way, how the heck do you get Yuna to Auron's part of the sphere grid by Kilika? Unless you use a warp sphere, or Lvl 2 key sphere, that's not possible. Or are you using the Expert/Advanced sphere grid from the PAL version? Because I've never played with that and I'm not talking about it.

http://static4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20100227155641/f__/finalfantasy/images/9/94/Final_Fantasy_10_Sphere_Grid.svg

I think we just have different ideas of the word variation or variety. The fact that you can mix up all the party roles and give them to anyone in VIII is, to me, an example of variety because no party members is molded into a single role. You have more potential for strategy in VIII. By contrast, X holds your hand and says, "Okay, this enemy (i.e. Garuda) can be blinded, so use Wakka!" or "This enemy (i.e. Flan) is an elemental that's resistant to physical attacks, so use Lulu!" That to me is only variety inasmuch as you're just using the applicable character on a particular type of enemy.

VIII's system, while easily exploited and tutorial-ized to death, doesn't really hold your hand. It has much more leeway in character creation, and if you mess up, you have to go back and figure out how to make it work. Now, indeed one can beat the game by making everyone a warrior with cure spells, but that's essentially beating a game by using only physical attacks and GFs. It's not the game's fault if you don't take advantage of the possibilities of making interesting party designations. You mention taking the simplest way, and yes, it is simple just to boost everyone's strength attributes. But, for example, you don't have Str-J on three GFs at the beginning of the game. So it's actually preferable to work with what you have and make a crafty team. That, to me, is variety. Yes, you the player have to do it, but I like that about the game: the onus is on you to make the party and if it's boring or if it doesn't work, you have only yourself to blame. If you compare your game a friend's, there's little chance that you'll both have the same setup.

Ah, yes I'm using the expert sphere grid. I didn't realise not every game had that version. In that version you all start in the middle and can go pretty much anywhere right from the start. I think you're right and we're just coming at variety from different angles. To me variety in a game is when the game gives me the variety in the party, not where I can choose how diverse to make it myself. Although, I do think you'd find X has a lot more variety with the expert grid.

The thing with VIII is that magic is never as powerful as physical attacks. The last time I played it I had a black mage, with the best possibly junctions for magic, and yet the damage from the magic was just never very high in comparison to the warrior of the party, which was really disappointing considering how much effort I put into making them a black mage in the first place. But I do love VIII's junction system, and I agree that it gives the player a lot of freedom to make their team diverse if that's what they want, I just don't think that freedom makes the characters themselves have variety, since they are essentially a blank canvass. All this talk about VIII has made me want to replay it though :)

To me variety in a game is when the game gives me the variety in the party, not where I can choose how diverse to make it myself.

I didn't realize that the expert grid has everyone starting off in the center. Then that does give you a lot of choices. And I think we just disagree on what we say as variety. I think that variety comes from the choices the game gives you, not the differentiation it gives you through the party.


The thing with VIII is that magic is never as powerful as physical attacks. The last time I played it I had a black mage, with the best possibly junctions for magic, and yet the damage from the magic was just never very high in comparison to the warrior of the party, which was really disappointing considering how much effort I put into making them a black mage in the first place. But I do love VIII's junction system, and I agree that it gives the player a lot of freedom to make their team diverse if that's what they want, I just don't think that freedom makes the characters themselves have variety, since they are essentially a blank canvass. All this talk about VIII has made me want to replay it though :)

Yes, there are unfortunately a lot of flaws with VIII's system. Magic does squat and you never want to use it anyway because of the time it consumes just to get it again. I too see the characters as blank slates (although to me Rinoa seems like a healer to me and Squall should be a fighter because of his accuracy, but that's just my opinion). And since the game doesn't advocate or reward any characters being magic-users, I also get trapped in the three warriors party. But I guess my point is the potential is there, and you can take advantage of it from the start if you want. I was almost done with a no-level-up playthrough but stopped on disc 3. Maybe I'll take another shot at it.

Ironically I didn't have a problem with using too much magic, because there's so much magic in the game and you only junction about eight of them. My problem was that using a Thundaga spell with my super black mage against an enemy weak to thunder still didn't give me more damage than just using my warrior did (Squall because of his trigger). Didn't stop me doing it, because I preferred making a strategy up rather than just having everyone the same. But really, it did seem quite pointless. I wish they'd made magic more powerful that way. Usually in Final Fantasy games black mages kick ass. XD I always do no-level playthroughs, so maybe this time I will actually gain a few lol

I don't know if you've played XII but I think you'd maybe enjoy it a lot, since like VIII's system it gives the player free reign to make the characters whatever they want. And the results are better than VIII's I would say.

Oh yes I've played XII a ton and I love its combat and character class style. Although it too suffered from problems. I don't usually do no-level playthroughs, and especially so with XII, as it would be a major pain in the ass.

If you want multiple classes, you are better off playing strategy games, because strategy games give you far more class options than straight out jrpgs.Example:FF tactics:Look at how many classes there are.would you really get bored with that many ways to kill an enemy? its also very entertaining to turn them into chickens and watch them run around.

The thing about ff8 is as you said:Magic is kind of badly done, and you end up stacking them to gain stats(until the very end of course) Because by then, you can actually start raising your stats permanently and creating a spell caster.I do like permanent classes, but when the permanent classes offer something new.I would love to see some new classes other than the standard ones used since the beginning with new spells and new ways to fight to beef up the combat.We have been using white mage black mage dragoon etc since the beginning, and we had the you can make your character into whatever class, but remember you have limit breaks since 7.That is actually cool, but the only issue, is the way they do it.FFX did add some new spells i think, and a brand new summon which is nice.That isn't the problem though.The problem is:At end game, you just end up spamming limit breaks and not really using spells that much on the boss.It seems like Square enix like to use difficulty in stupid ways too, like:Either really easy boss, or a cheap 1 hit death fest.This game has a few of those moments, but others are very very clever.Example:In ff8, all you do is spam limit breaks and use invincibility to prevent the insta 1 hit kill move that omega has.In FF9, ozma spams his cheap 1 hit kill move a lot.

I think i just defended FFX by saying that some bosses are actually cleverly done in strategy, not just some stupid 1 hit kill move like yunalesca form 2.She turns you into a zombie and then resurrect on you, or casts mega death on your whole team.The fight with Seymour.Seymour i admit is actually really cheap, because he spams 1 hit kill moves, and is extremely annoying.I think the later fights actually stop being as annoying with the 1 hit moves, and force you to customize to deal with the situation more, like:ribbons for dealing with evil oscars.

I just want to clear some thing up here. Offensive Magic is not useless to cast in this game. Here is why....

The magic damage formula for this game is as follows...

Magic Stat + Spell Power = Step#1
Step#1 * (265 - Target Spr) / 4 = Step#2
Step#2 * Spell Power / 256 = Damage

Damage is then either multiplied by 1.5 - 3 and/or rarely 4 in response to elemental weakness and such.

Using the above formula with 255 magic and Meltdown casted on foe or Doomtrain summoned of which both cause defenses 0 status, you will have Magic doing far more damage than plain physicals if they are triple or even double casted.

I'll use an example of how much damage Firaga would deal to a Snow Lion(2.5x damage from fire) under spr 0 used by a character with max magic. Firaga will deal ~6600 damage single casted, 13200 doubled and 19800 damage tripled. My final example will be the same character under the exact conditions using Meteor tripled. Single casted Meteor will deal 14000 damage 28000 damage double, and 42000 damage under triple! Compare this to the damage of only 5200 or so from physical damage non critical hit or 9999 if they hit weakness or critical hit or 8800 or so from Squall since his trigger only increases damage by 1.5 etc.

Here is a list of all the spell powers:
Fire, Blizzard, Thunder = 18
Meteor = 20(however as you know 10 meteors hit so it is overpowered)
Aero = 22
Fira, Blizzara, Thundara = 24
Water and Drain = 26
Bio = 30
Meltdown = 32
Firaga, Blizzaga, Thundaga = 35
Tornado = 38
Quake = 40
Holy and Flare = 48
Ultima = 80
Apocolypse = 120
Demi = Targets HP / 4 = damage(great for using on high HP enemies not immune to gravity like Malboro's especially tripled = 39997 damage.)

Two of my biggest deterrents in using magic in FFVIII are that, A. you have to restock every so often which is a major pain in the bum for forbidden magic, and B. that you have to sit through the same animations over and over again (especially with Triple). A lot of people also don't want to waste their Triple magic; yes you can use Cerberus instead, but again you have to sit through that animation every time. Plus, if you want to get the best effect, you would have to use Meltdown, which you again wouldn't want to waste, so you'd have to sit through the Doomtrain animation over and over.

There are so many faster ways to beat enemies quickly than using magic (junction Death to attack, keep Quistis in critical and use her Degenerator or Shockwave Pulsar, spam Eden or Cactuar, etc.). These are so often preferable that magic can be unnecessary in combat. Furthermore, the best spells on your list (e.g. Meteor, Holy, Ultima, Quake, Tornado, etc.) are the best spells to junction to stats, so you'd effectively be reducing your characters stats each time you use your good magic. Finally, using Demi three times against a Malboro would do 29,997 damage, not 39,997.

Side note: there's an interesting guide on Gamefaqs on abusing Meteor. Essentially what you do is equip Rinoa with only Meteor and any defensive spells to junction to stats (Cure, Cura, Curaga Life, Full-life, Regen, Esuna, Haste, Double, Triple, Protect, Shell, Float, Reflect, Aura). You can increase her magic stat by junctioning 100 Meteors to Magic, then equipping Mag+20%, +40%, +60%, and then Auto-Haste for good measure. Have Rinoa in critical condition at the start of the battle. In combat, have someone cast Meltdown or Doomtrain on the enemy, then have Rinoa use Angel Wing (immediately heal her with Recover after this). She'll only use the offensive spells in her inventory so she'll only use Meteor. Since she does more damage in this state (her magic stats increase about five-fold with Angel Wing even if her base Magic stat is 255), her damage output will be enormous. Boom: No wasted magic. Boom: Insane magic damage output.

Thanks for pointing out the error of the triple Demi damage, I hate when I make simple little mistakes. Yeah I can see why a lot of people would be detered from using powerful magic that they have junctioned. However, they can still plan some spells for junction and some for attack etc. I would do that exact thing, I would consistantly use attack magic in battles throughout the entire game and still have well planned out junctions. It was easier for me to do that considering I abused triple triad and had LOTs of extra Dino Bones, Black Holes, Water Crystals, Windmills, and Dragon Fins and the list goes on. So I always had plenty to restock my magic inventory.

At the end game scenerios all my characters have max stats without junctions besides spd(raised this by 16 for each character) and luck(going to do some work on this) anyway so magic is only there to be used anyway. The only spells I ever have junctioned end game are...

Spd: Triple and/or Haste.
Eva: Aero and/or Tornado.
Hit: Blind.
Luck: Aura.

Elem ATTK: None to variable with enemies weaknesses.
Elem DEF: Shell, Life, Full-Life, Protect.

ST ATTK: Pain on one character, Drain on another, Death on the last.
ST DEF: Usually Death, Break, Pain, Confuse, Berserk, Sleep etc.

This way I have aga spells, Flare, Holy, Ultima, Meteor, Tornado, Quake, Demi etc for pure offense.