Prior to my purchase of it from the Playstation store a few days ago my experience with FFVIII was very limited with maybe a few hours played over friends houses and a little knowledge of the characters.

I knew the battle systema and levelling system were questionable but I gave it a shot and wow, I'm confused.... Junctioning??? i haven't the foggiest. In the tutorial Quistis raised her stats by loads with one magic add on thingy. When i do it I get nothing.

Depends on the kind of magic you junction. Some will raise the stat while others won't. Also, it matters on how much of that magic you have stocked. Example: junctioning Cure to your HP will vary depending on how much of it you have (if you have 100 Cure spells, the HP stat would be increased more than if you had 50).

hmm, I'll keep that in mind. I'm still only at the beginning really so i'll try and figure it out.

When I first played the game I didn't quite understand the system either. I think I fully understood it on the third disc so hopefully, it won't take you that long.

If you want, you can auto junction so you won't have to do it.

had to start again because my ps3 broke but wow, I am getting so into it. the story and characters are really incredible right now. Gameplay is good but I find myself drawing magic two or three turns every fight which can be annoying. Especially with Selphie who I'm using as a mage, if she uses magic she loses stocked magic? Will that lower her stats if the magic is junctioned to her? That would be annoying.

So far I've just been called to get the results from the seeD exam. I'm just under 3 hours in.

I've played FFVIII so much I know the junction system like the back of my hand. God I miss that game.

had to start again because my ps3 broke but wow, I am getting so into it. the story and characters are really incredible right now. Gameplay is good but I find myself drawing magic two or three turns every fight which can be annoying. Especially with Selphie who I'm using as a mage, if she uses magic she loses stocked magic? Will that lower her stats if the magic is junctioned to her? That would be annoying.

So far I've just been called to get the results from the seeD exam. I'm just under 3 hours in.

Yes, magic spells are consumable, and they are depleted with each one you cast. This includes spells you have Junctioned to stats, so yes, your stats will also decrease if the spell they're Junctioned to is depleted or used up.

Really, it becomes a case of either using magic how it's supposed to be used (that is, cast in battle), or more relied on only as a stat-booster and never cast in battle (I tended to opt for the latter except in a number of cases, like Cure, Protect, Shell, Regen etc).

Also, you can find magic out on the world map and in towns and dungeons by finding a draw point and 'drawing' the spells out, which is often preferential than trying to constantly draw magic from enemies, although the later is helpful in emergencies.

Finally, Selphie is a good choice for a mage, as her Limit Break utilizes magic (including a number of unique spells only she can use).

'The End'.
Shit works on almost everything.

what ya wanna do is learn the Refine abilities of the GFs. then you can convert items into magic, obviously the better the item, the better and the more the magic.

try putting a looooad of Death magic on the status attack when u get it ;)

'The End'.
Shit works on almost everything.

Wrong. It works on everything. Not almost ;)

Wrong. It works on everything. Not almost ;)
It didn't work on Odin, the final fight with Sephier, or the final form of Ultimecia.

I'm really liking the story but let me call bullshit a second. How the hell am I supposed to you mage, offensive or otherwise, if it depletes my stats???? I'm running super low on important spells like haste and full life, it's so frustrating to hesistate at using magic in case i need it for the next boss fight. Screw FFVIII's battle and level system.

BTW, I've just beat Seifer in Galbadia Garden and I'm 30 hours in, how long would you say I have left?

I'm really liking the story but let me call bullshit a second. How the hell am I supposed to you mage, offensive or otherwise, if it depletes my stats???? I'm running super low on important spells like haste and full life, it's so frustrating to hesistate at using magic in case i need it for the next boss fight. Screw FFVIII's battle and level system.

BTW, I've just beat Seifer in Galbadia Garden and I'm 30 hours in, how long would you say I have left?

I never used magic, I used GFs and attacks mostly. But if you wanna use magic without depleting your stats only use magic you can draw from the enemy. Don't use elemental magic that heals them though. There's Draw>Cast or Draw>Stock> then cast it yourself. Either way your magic should stay the same quantity.

Yeah I know but what if I want to cast haste on my party but i cant draw haste from the enemy. I could just not use it but in a tough boss battle it makes a huge difference.

Find an enemy that has it... farm the enemy.

On my first play-through of games, I usually don't have great stats or great magic, FFVIII was no exception. Not having Haste up just adds a little extra challenge to things.

As long as you can keep your party alive, you don't have to worry about shortening the battle with Haste.

You're not too far from the end now.

You have one of the hardest parts coming up, I say this because you sound as if your party is more or less in league with my first one I played through with (I usually just blitz through my first playthrough because I'm hooked to the story).

Lunatic Pandora will make you want to nerd-rage so much. Just take some time to see what you have, if you can junction anything to increase your party's perfomance on a whole and stay calm.

It has 4 bosses, of which the 2nd took me a lifetime to kill, I even got my friend round back in the day to aid me with battle tactics :D.

Once you're done with Lunatic Pandora, you're on the home-straight. Trying not to name names or anything, since I don't want to spoil things.

level up your GFs they can make magic from stones, time magic comes from Cerberus iirc. he's at the end of disk 2. The world is littered with haste draw points though.

Don't forget the game levels with you, so running from battle is fine.

It didn't work on Odin, the final fight with Sephier, or the final form of Ultimecia.

Obvious on why it wouldn't work with the final fight with Seifer. And it does work on Ultimecia too. Because normally you'll have to do some damage for her to start speaking towards the end, but when you use The End on her, she starts right then. Then any attack after that triggers what she'll say next until she's dead. So it works in a sense. If she didn't say anything at the end, then she would've just died.

Haven't tried it on Odin though...

Level grinding = drawing magic. Doesn't really matter, as they're equally tedious. But it's essential to Junction the magic yourself.

Fuck this game and Fuck cactuar. I just spent about 20 minutes in a fight with faggy prick cactuar and right at the end he ran, fuck that. After he hesistated I knew he could run so I summoned Leviathon because it was my strongest attack against him. He still ran. Fuck FFVIII.

FFVIII's battle system is quite unique, and if you've been a fan of how the other games work, it's understandable that you don't like it. Personally I think it's great, even though it makes the game way too easy imo (even on my first playthrough there wasn't a single enemy or boss that gave me trouble). It's just a little weird, but I think that it's VIII's strong point. DEFINITELY not the story. But if you like it that's cool.

Fuck this game and Fuck cactuar. I just spent about 20 minutes in a fight with faggy prick cactuar and right at the end he ran, fuck that. After he hesistated I knew he could run so I summoned Leviathon because it was my strongest attack against him. He still ran. Fuck FFVIII.

why did you even want to fight a cactaur? I just unload on it, then card it. I think you can berserk them iirc. prevents them from doing anything but attacking.

The jumbo cactuar because he is a GF

Oh jumbo Cactaur, hmm I never beat him, didn't really care too much about him.

The jumbo cactuar because he is a GF

Junction Water to Squall's elemental attack and have him do his limit break (Lionheart helps if you have it). Or Selphie's The End. I think it would work. Along with Doomtrain and Leviathan.

Should help things.

you need to up your stats with powerful magic. The best way (or easiest) is to have Diablos' No-Enc ability on, then walk around Island closest to Heaven/Hell while tapping X. these islands are littered with the powerful magics, like ultima, meteor, full cure, tornado. Junctioning these to ur stats boosts you alot. A lot of Death magic on Status-ATK makes you pretty much immediately kill any normal monster with just one attack. But yeah up them stats if you gonna tackle the big bads!

Nah, screw him, dont want him anymore. Plus Lionheart is tedious to get ive heard.

EDIT: As for the lunatic place. I found it really easy. Raijin and Fuijin were simple, i just used Quistis's fire breath a few times. As for the second boss, I had my first game over of the game :( However on my second attempt I breezed it. First I set Squall to have the Auto-potion ability, then when the battle began I summoned Cerberus with Irvine, then triple cast haste, shell and regen. Then I triple cast flares that I drew from him. I summoned GF's just before he used his really powerful attack (cant remember name) so my characters weren't injured. Then I just pounded away with flares I had drew from him while healing when neccessary. Didn't take too long. Seifer was easy as usual.

I tried Adel once but I knew I was going to lose so I just quit the game, any tips?

Not really. In disc 4 you can spend half an hour in one of the Islands and by that time you most probably will have the ingredients for the Lionheart. If you don't have them already. By that point you will at least have most of them.

From mugging or from drops at the end of battles? Which island is good for it?

Also can someone tell me good spells to junction and where to find them please. I've just read up on the final boss :(

Are you going to go for Ultima Weapon by the way? If not, remember to draw the GF Eden from Tiamat a lil later in the game.

Yeah, will do.

I'm really not looking forward to facing Adel again. It's bosses like that that make me give up. I think I'm just going to use cerberus and triple cast haste, regen and shell then spam renzouken with squall using aura. Problem is I have some good junctions like curaga for HP/Strength etc but not the best.

I can't really remember the Adel fight, other than it didn't seem to hinder me as much as the ones before it did.

But don't give up :), victory will be even more sweeter if she beats you a few times.

what's annoying me is this cactuar thing. I've just read that you can learn kamikaze from it which deals tons of damage (up to 60,000!) I could use that against Adel to win easily.

what's annoying me is this cactuar thing. I've just read that you can learn kamikaze from it which deals tons of damage (up to 60,000!) I could use that against Adel to win easily.

Except that whoever uses it will be gone. They can't be revived or anything until the battle is over. What I did to Adel was basically blast her with physical attacks and strong spells that only hit one target (because if Rinoa dies, it's game over). I also casted Regen, Protect, and Shell on Rinoa too because I'm just paranoid like that. I think. Been a while.

But I never really had any trouble beating her though.

Just completed it. Last boss was easy, just spammed triple flare, meteor, apocalypse and ultima at her while being buffed with haste, protect, shell and regen. Not sure about the ending though, was real good at first however I would have been more satisfied if Squall had died or even better if it was left a mystery. Stupid hollywood endings

What was with Rinoa anyway? she did that creepy finger thing about fifty times, was so lame. Oh and the ending theme. Wow. first words that come to mind when trying to describe it: Pitiful, cringe worthy, cheesy.

Okay now I'm just looking at the bads.

Scores:
Gameplay - 5/10
Story - 9/10
Characters - 8/10
Graphics - 8/10 (has that charm about it)
Sound - 3/5 (not as important as the others so the weighting is different)

Overall 33/45

Congrats!

I believe the ending is basically showing that Squall is on his own, but his "comfort zone" (basically, memories of Rinoa) is also being fizzled away, hence the distorted repeats. It is a lil confusing I must admit.

But not weird confusing like "How did Vivi procreate?" confusing ;).

Did you find Ultimecia's Castle fun? I found it to be one of the better ending areas. Especially the whole "You either defeat bosses or you go without X abilities" mechanic.

I really enjoyed the castle actually. Very fun and I liked the bosses.

I got that part of the ending what I didn't like was right at the end when it shows Squall and Rinoa together in the garden, it shouldn't have been a happy ending

I often used Meltdown, seemed to work on every char... after i acquired it of course. Seemed to weaken enemies... or maybe i just liked seeing them turn purple.

Meltdown is vital for the end boss.

I just spammed 'tipple', then had everyone cast regen/aura/shell/protect/haste.

The final battle went rather quickly.

I just beat squall up til his HP was yellow and used several holy wars. There was no use saving them. Rinoas limit break is good for that too.

Harkus, as cringeworthy as it is, the game's happy ending was just in keeping with FFVIII's very theme - i.e. it's a love story. Square designed FFVIII with the intention of luring more female players to the series, so they crafted FFVIII's story to better reflect that.

So, instead of an apocalyptic destruction of the world or half the party being wiped out, there was just instead a touching final scene of the main leads finally admitting their feelings for each other and acting on it. :)

To use a quote from a review of the game I read in an old issue of Official Playstation Magazine, which sums FFVIII up perfectly - "Think of it as The English Patient compared to FFVII's Armageddon."

In other words, sedate story, heavy emphasis on character relationships, and a happy, romantic ending. :)

I just hated that review on GameSpot where he states "It's a love story where the words 'I Love You' are never spoken", because he basically states before it the lengths Squall is willing to go to in order to save Rinoa.

Actions speak louder than words, yata yata. :P

I just think the ending would have been better if it wasn't so happy, it would still lure female players though. Think Titanic.

Ha ha loving this thread. Its certainly bringing back some memories.

Scores:
Gameplay - 5/10
Story - 9/10
Characters - 8/10


:seriously:

Doesn't each FF game have different themes? The only ones I remember is that FFVIII was indeed love, FFX was water, and I think FFVII was life. I can't remember exactly...

:seriously:

Unfortunately, I think he is.

Gameplay was better than a 5...and you didn't even rate the music!

Shame on you~