kingcomrade
Kingcomrade
I was re-playing FF6 on an emulator when I summoned Alexander and thought to myself: You know what, the summon animation for this, my favorite FF summon dude, was really cool in FF8. I ought to play that game again. I remembered liking it.
The biggest impediment to enjoyment is loading times. You have to change scenery so much in this game, and so quickly, and with such slow load times that you spend so much time looking at a black screen while the PS hums and chirps. Not to mention that the random battle rate is somewhere around 80%. One of the Guardian Forces has a No Random Battle ability which frankly makes the game much better. Because of level scaling this doesn't really bother me at all.
The game mechanics need to be mentioned. I think the junction system combined with the enemy level-scaling system is possibly the worst system of combat/character mechanics ever. It's ridiculously powergamer-oriented. I discovered that you could refine Curaga (the highest level of cure) from cheap, common Tents and then junction it to the HP state for 3000+ hit points at around level 10. Basically I've not faced a challenge yet as level 17 Squall with 4500+ hit points who does 2-3000+ damage per attack due to strength junctions from refining other high level spells. I can defeat bosses in two or three "rounds." When I switch junctions from one character to another their current HP (around 600, typically) stays the same while their maxHP goes through the roof so I can use the Limit Breaks at effectively normal HP nonstop.
The Magic Draw system is also terrible. You would think that level scaling would eliminate the whole "levelling-up" issue but instead you have to farm magic from enemies in order to junction them to become powerful. I don't like it but you feel like you're being sold short if you don't. The same with the card game, since cards are easy to get in large numbers once you have a few powerful cards to win every match with I've played that silly minigame over and over to refine cards into items and magic.
Then there is the issue of "secrets." Frankly there is no way in the world some of this would be discovered without official guides released. I read stuff on GameFAQs where I think to myself, "Now how in the hell was I supposed to know to do that. Not even a hint was dropped."
The story so far (I don't remember it from when I last played it) has been blah. I think FF8 is the one where Square really decided to be as obnoxious and retarded as possible when it came to characters. I do get a kick out of having the only two characters you can name (Squall and Rinoa) being AssFace and PaStwrt. Gunblades are stupid. I don't know who came up with this idea but I hope they're ashamed of themselves. Of course, most FF games after 5 ought to be fought out with guns, but there's the Japanese for you. On the other hand, one main character does use a submachinegun and looks fairly cool doing it.
The CGI, of course, is great, as are almost all the special effects and animations. I haven't gotten to Alexander yet but most of the summons are cool, however I rarely use them at all since they take forever (a theme in this game) and uber-junctioned AssFace can deal with everything. He doesn't even need healbots.
I'm going to stick with until I get to see the Alexander animation. Grfxhore yes. Then I'll probably quit and try Chrono Cross.
PS wtf is a fatsistochalon?
The biggest impediment to enjoyment is loading times. You have to change scenery so much in this game, and so quickly, and with such slow load times that you spend so much time looking at a black screen while the PS hums and chirps. Not to mention that the random battle rate is somewhere around 80%. One of the Guardian Forces has a No Random Battle ability which frankly makes the game much better. Because of level scaling this doesn't really bother me at all.
The game mechanics need to be mentioned. I think the junction system combined with the enemy level-scaling system is possibly the worst system of combat/character mechanics ever. It's ridiculously powergamer-oriented. I discovered that you could refine Curaga (the highest level of cure) from cheap, common Tents and then junction it to the HP state for 3000+ hit points at around level 10. Basically I've not faced a challenge yet as level 17 Squall with 4500+ hit points who does 2-3000+ damage per attack due to strength junctions from refining other high level spells. I can defeat bosses in two or three "rounds." When I switch junctions from one character to another their current HP (around 600, typically) stays the same while their maxHP goes through the roof so I can use the Limit Breaks at effectively normal HP nonstop.
The Magic Draw system is also terrible. You would think that level scaling would eliminate the whole "levelling-up" issue but instead you have to farm magic from enemies in order to junction them to become powerful. I don't like it but you feel like you're being sold short if you don't. The same with the card game, since cards are easy to get in large numbers once you have a few powerful cards to win every match with I've played that silly minigame over and over to refine cards into items and magic.
Then there is the issue of "secrets." Frankly there is no way in the world some of this would be discovered without official guides released. I read stuff on GameFAQs where I think to myself, "Now how in the hell was I supposed to know to do that. Not even a hint was dropped."
The story so far (I don't remember it from when I last played it) has been blah. I think FF8 is the one where Square really decided to be as obnoxious and retarded as possible when it came to characters. I do get a kick out of having the only two characters you can name (Squall and Rinoa) being AssFace and PaStwrt. Gunblades are stupid. I don't know who came up with this idea but I hope they're ashamed of themselves. Of course, most FF games after 5 ought to be fought out with guns, but there's the Japanese for you. On the other hand, one main character does use a submachinegun and looks fairly cool doing it.
The CGI, of course, is great, as are almost all the special effects and animations. I haven't gotten to Alexander yet but most of the summons are cool, however I rarely use them at all since they take forever (a theme in this game) and uber-junctioned AssFace can deal with everything. He doesn't even need healbots.
I'm going to stick with until I get to see the Alexander animation. Grfxhore yes. Then I'll probably quit and try Chrono Cross.
PS wtf is a fatsistochalon?