did u like the juction system? i fort it was cool i like the fact u had to get magic off enemys and didnt use mp...but then agen the materia in ff7 was pretty good. wot do u think?

I thought it was a novel idea, but flawed in the fact that it allowed you to become too powerful too quickly, yet provided only minimal benefits up until then.

As I recall.

yeah i liked the junction system.

i liked it but i liked the other ff systems better...

When I first played ff8, the junction system was hard to understand. but the more I played it, the easier it was for me to understand. So the junction sytem is kind of cool.

I didn't like it too much, like Charlemagne you became too powerful too early in the game. It had potential, but I think it was somewhat wasted.

the system was a brease, very original, ingenious and unique. i foun it was easy to costomise your charactors and had les restrictions as say in 7, but more than in 10 in which every charactor has the posability of learning every ability, technique, and skill(which would take a lot of time indeed). back on the subject, the juction system was great and seamed to go well with the game(some how).

Nah i hated the system it was too confusing and crap.

I would of preferd if you could just set skills like on star ocean 2 or materia like ff7.

How was it really any different from materia aside from the fact that it's harder to get?

It was quite different. No MP, you handle spells like items, remember? That's really a completely different system. Plus you could junction spells to attributes and such, there was nothing like that in 7.

They had a lot in common too. So you junction spells to your attributes. There's no fundamental difference between doing that and equipping materia to raise your stats. Basically, they just used spells in place of materia.

Materia levels up to grow stronger. Spells can be refined to make stronger ones. In both cases, they are changed into a superior form.

There's a limit to how many materia you can equip, as well as how many spells you can junction.

The differences between them are far more cosmetic than the similarities.

I had no problems with any systems. The only thing, I didn't like, was the drawing .... It was annoying sometimes. And if you used some of the magic, your stats have changed too. I didn't like that either (I hardly ever use magic anyway, so this wasn't a problem). But the junction system was still alright to me. ;)

Prak - I'd say the one major difference was when you cast magic, it could affect your stats (something on the mind of a lot of players), whereas in FFVII, you could cast magic without worrying about changing your stats. That, and that in FFVIII, the summon system was interconncted with the magic, whereas in FFVII, summons were just another form of magic.

P.S.: The junction system was okay with me. I understood how to use it and I liked how I could use to customize my characters.

But you did get an instant penalty on certain stats for equipping materia (adn the only reason for equipping a magic materia is so you can use magic), so in both cases, using magic has a downside.

THE JUNCTION SYSTEM IS RUBBISH.
Its really frustrating and stuff. The best system is the sphere grid or materia

Is useless spamming really that much fun?

Is it really too much to ask that people contribute to a discussion instead of throwing in their two cents and running away?

Is the pointless badgering of members of this forum so much fun, Prak? Last time I checked, nobody had knighted you, or modded you for that matter, so lay off.

the junction/materia systems do similar things, but to say that the differences are only cosmetic because of that is pretty silly. they do work in completely different ways.

But the effects are almost exactly the same. Only the methods of reaching those effects are different. I would call that cosmetic differences.

Would you say the difference between the two modes by whcih catalysis occurs simply cosmetic?

Well, would you?

If you would, that would be PRETTY CRAZY.

A real cosmetic change would be to just change the name and keep the exact same system intact. The methods of reaching the effects are pretty important from a gameplay perspective, so it's pretty hard to say the differences are merely cosmetic.

But my point was that aside from the drawing, the junctioning of spells was similar to the use of materia.

Thus, from that standpoint, the differences are mostly cosmetic.

Well, it isn't, it's quite different in a lot of ways - i.e., materia is weaponry dependant, materia only has a very slight effect on stats whereas junctioning can be fairly major, but you're far more resricted in spellcasting under the junctioning system.

etc.

Materia may only have a slight effect, but it adds up is you use several of them. You can only use one junction on a stat, so they balance out.

As for materia being dependent on weapons, junctions depend on your stats, so they both have to be attached to something and have basically the same effect.

The restriction on spellcasting inherent in the junctioning system is entirely determined by the player. If someone doesn't really care about their stats lowering, then they can use magic freely. It's sorta like that with materia. When you use a lot of magic (by equipping a lot of magic materia), you're sacrificing your stats.

Junctioning isn't dependant on your stats, you can use them either way, you don't have to junction, your spells are determined only by how many you have drawn from an enemy, with a hard limit of 99. That leads to different gameplay. You will have to keep on drawing the new spells from enemies, especially useful ones, or else you will just run out. In 7, materia allowed more or less unlimited use of these spells, without ever having to worry about supply, since you could always rest at an inn, or replenish MP. That's more than a cosmetic change, that leads to different gameplay. In fact, your second point is completely wrong, so maybe you should not compare the systems when you clearly have no idea how at least one of them works?

Also, the benefits gained from junctioning strong to middling spells in 8 simply doesn't compare to the minor restrictions imposed on them by materia use.

So in place of resting, you draw some more. Resupplying isn't that hard in either case. I would compare the stock of spells in 8 to MP in 7.

And when I said that junctions depend on stats, I mean that they're what spells get junctioned to, nothing more. I was comparing it to how materia has to be equipped on weapons. In both cases, they have to be attached to something in order to affect your stats. So how was my point completely wrong?

And of course you don't have to junction. You don't have to use materia either. In both cases, you'd be in for a rough game.

Resupplying depends on the spell, some of the later ones are very hard to come by, iirc.

It sounded like you were saying the use of spells was dependant on being junctioned. Your bad, but I'll forgive you. When I said that materia must be linked to weapons, I meant that limits the unique spells one character can have, whereas any character in 8 can have pretty much any spell, just not an awful lot of some of them. This is all assuming you play at a normal rate for the duration of the game, and don't go out of your way to have 99 of each spell all the time.

Anyways, like I said, the effects that materia and junctioning have on stats are quite different. It's a much bigger part of 8. Also, the way you use spells is changed by it, i.e., you have complete freedom in terms of giving each character unique spells in 8, but not in 7, yet the latter allows a lot more use of these spells, particularly the rarer ones, which are often in short supply in 8.

Simply put, it plays differently. Perhpas not to a major extent, but you couldn't play 8 in the same way you did 7, so it's hard to call the changes cosmetic.

It sounded like you were saying the use of spells was dependant on being junctioned. Your bad, but I'll forgive you.

How nice. Thank you.


When I said that materia must be linked to weapons, I meant that limits the unique spells one character can have, whereas any character in 8 can have pretty much any spell, just not an awful lot of some of them.

You're right about that, but you overestimate the impact it has on gameplay. No one is going to use that many different types of spells. In the end, the number of spells you'll actually use are pretty similar to the number you would have equipped in FF7.


Anyways, like I said, the effects that materia and junctioning have on stats are quite different. It's a much bigger part of 8. Also, the way you use spells is changed by it, i.e., you have complete freedom in terms of giving each character unique spells in 8, but not in 7, yet the latter allows a lot more use of these spells, particularly the rarer ones, which are often in short supply in 8.

In 7, the number of spells you can cast is still limited by your MP. That's why I say that the stock of spells you carry in 8 balances against it.


Simply put, it plays differently. Perhpas not to a major extent, but you couldn't play 8 in the same way you did 7, so it's hard to call the changes cosmetic.

But my argument never was that they play the same. My argument was that the effects are the same in the end. I called the differences in how you play to get those effects the cosmetic changes because they represent the surface of the system. Beneath it lies the major principles that are present in both games.

How nice. Thank you.

np!


In 7, the number of spells you can cast is still limited by your MP. That's why I say that the stock of spells you carry in 8 balances against it.

It's really easy to replensish HP, though, but drawing spells is more situational.


Well, obviously they are similar in the sense that they are a system that delivers the use of spells while simulataneously having an effect on various other variables within the game. That's pretty much the same from RPG to RPG, and of course, they're all fairly alike in concept, so if you want to look at it like that, there's never any great variance between them. However, it would probably be better to simply take these things in the context of each other, similarities and all. I mean, every iteration of a football game is largely similary to the last, in that football itself is not going to change, but it's the delivery - which is more than just purely cosmetic - that really matters.

But that goes into the realm of how you (as an individual) play the game, not the game's design. And since that would be a pointless argument, I'm not going there.

Anyway, there are other games that have been based on totally different concepts. FFX, for example, has no downside whatsoever for using magic, aside from the loss of MP. FFIX characters suffer no ill effects from having magic. Instead, it's balanced out by inate differences in their stats. FFVII and FFVIII are based on extremely similar principles, however.

That depends on how you play the game!

Skills and spells certainly have an effect on stats in IX, as there's the trade-off of whether you keep an older weapon/piece of armor equipped, thus lowering certain stats, or whether you just move onto the one with better stats and forget about the skill. I don't remember how X's worked.

They're all similar to an extent. But 7 and 8 certainly aren't surprisingly so.

Well, if we disagree completely after this long, neither of us is getting convinced by the other.

I suppose that in the name of peace, good relations, and spam prevention, we should just shake hands, let the people reading this make what they will of it, and get on with our day. :)

Agree to disagree?

I don't agree to that.

;)

Hey, Prak, here it is for you. The three major ways in which the differences between materia and junctioning were not cosmetic:

#1 Yes, you are right that materia do affect your stats sometimes. However, they oftentimes have a negative effect, whereas in FFVIII, junctioning magic I believe always creates a positive effect. Also, in FFVII, each materia doesn't really affect stats by more than a few points or more than 10 or 20%, whereas in FFVIII, you can junction a spell to a stat and see it shoot up by 100 points or more.

#2 In FFVII, you had to learn magic from materia. Especially with the larger spells, this could a long time. In FFVIII, you can draw certain magic spells as soon as you have a high enough magic stat (either through level or junctioning) and found enemies at the right EXP level, or used Tonberry's Level UP and DOWN abilities. This means that you could get powerful spells like Meltdown as early as Disc 1, and powerful stuff like Flare and Meteor by mid Disc-2.


#3 In Final Fantasy VII, mastered Materia were often worth a lot of money and could a be cash-cow later in the game, especially the All materia. In Final Fantasy VIII, excess magic is worthless. If you have any, it's probably best to shunt it off to a character you're not using, or just discard it.

prak is a idiot dont listen to him he acts like he knows everything but rele hes a dumb ass that digs him self into deeper holes!

Well don't give him an opening like that by posting a message with hardly any punctuation, bad spelling, and no capitalization!

I thought the junction system was cool, fun and much more understandable than other systems. The pro/con stats layout was much better at creating more applicable job roles for characters and was good for getting better stats at different times.

Dyne, who do you think listens to a prepubescent AOLer who doesn't respect other people enough to type properly? Go annoy someone else, you obnoxious little brat.


Agent0042...

#1: My arguments were mostly based on junctioning being a given and focused rather on the use of magic and the stat loss that occurs as a result, but I did cover that point. In a nutshell, you could equip several materia to raise a single stat, but you could only junction one type of magic to it. When you add together 2 or 3 materia, it basically has the same effect as a junction.

#2: In both cases, higher level magic becomes available as you progress through the game. Assuming you play both games essentially the same way, you will acquire new magic types at an approximately equal rate.

#3: Money is in no way related to the use of magic or stat changes. If you can connect the dots between them, go ahead, but I don't see how it has any bearing on this discussion.

When you add together 2 or 3 materia, it basically has the same effect as a junction.
Wow, did you actually play FFVII to that level? Did anybody? For the most part, I mostly just equipped materia as I saw fit and didn't worry much about how they affected my stats.

I happen to be very tactical about things like that, so I did pay a lot of attention to how my stats were affected.

i thought it was quite good once i got used to it

The junction system had potential but was flawed in a few ways. The first flaw is the fact that you become VERY powerful VERY quickly and the second is that the most powerful magic makes the most powerful juntion material so you are pressured not to cast spells.
Add to that the fact that Limit Breaks are WAY powerful in this game and are easy to execute you get battles where all you do is execute Limit Breaks over and over again...gets boring pretty quickly.


prak is a idiot dont listen to him he acts like he knows everything but rele hes a dumb ass that digs him self into deeper holes!

Dyne, who do you think listens to a prepubescent AOLer who doesn't respect other people enough to type properly? Go annoy someone else, you obnoxious little brat.
This made me fall over laughing. That's the spirit Parak, give it to him good!

--- Edited only to put quoted material in quote tags --- Agent0042

I liked it. It let you customise your characters quite nicely, which was dragged kicking and screaming away from you in ff9.. didnt especially enjoy being told zidane had to be a thief.

Didnt like it.. tastes sour. But junctions were great! You even avoided the clutter of the toolbar from ff7..

I liked ff8's junction system. like alhana, i had difficulty understanding it at the start but as i continue playing, it got easier. i just dont like the drawing of magic because it takes so long to collect many.

I liked ff8's junction system. like alhana, i had difficulty understanding it at the start but as i continue playing, it got easier. i just dont like the drawing of magic because it takes so long to collect many.

True, but I love it since you can finally customize you characters like in FF7 but more detailed. FFIX and on I didn't like as much since they already have characters for you like mage or warriors :( That's why FF8 is my fave overall :D

I didn't like the junction because you couldn't go buy protective gear, and your power depended on the magic you have equipped, as well as how many of it you have... plus, you have to junction a GF to use an item! If you give one character all the GF (though I try not to do that) and that character dies, nobody else can revive him. What's up with that?

Why would you ever give one character all the GF? Ever?

Why would you ever give one character all the GF? Ever?

I don't. My sis does. Besides, if you have too many GF equipped it's hard to decide which abilities you want to equip. I personally prefer materia any day.

I thikn it's the hardest to get the hang of. But when you have it's not that bad

I hated it. I thought it was the worst FF system ever and too complicated for FF.

At first, I didn't understand it. That was when I hated it. When I figured it out, it wasn't so bad, but I prefer other systems more. I didn't like drawing, so much, but hey, at least square tried something a little different, right? I thought it was a creative system, but not my favorite.

I didn't like it much until I got the hang of it. My favorite thing was junctioning certain spells to my attack that caused secondary damage. It wasn't my favorite system, but I didn't hate it.

At first I did'nt like it cuz it was confusing and too complex. But then I started getting the hang off it and was also glad that you could use GF abilites to refine magic from items and cards instead of drawing from monsters forever.