Shut up dullard. It gets really annoying correcting someone that played the game vanilla once 20 years ago, that has 0 in PER and can't properly analyze a damn thing, and yet thinks he knows everything.
Here are the results of what it actually does in summary, from someone with experience, not your retarded knee-jerk interpretation of a changelog:
-Lowers attack power, meaning things that actually cost resources/have a limit (magic/items/gf) are more important and you can't just spam it to victory like vanilla. Furthermore, most of the good drawable magic in battle is for most of the game held by bosses, which are tough and one-time encounters, so you can't sit there drawing forever.
-Fights are tough, especially bosses, so you must continually adapt how to setup your characters and engage deeply with the systems.
-Limit break cheese is no longer nearly as viable - aura doesn't give you limit breaks. Enemies hit hard so you can't just leave your characters low HP and spam away always. In addition to nerfing things like degenerator. What little cheese that remains is factored into the difficulty balance, and is no longer cheese as a result.
-Level scaling is mostly no more. The end result of this SHOULD be self-explanatory but, well...
-GF summoning is not the win button it once was. They get killed. A lot. You will be reviving/healing them, a lot. Even new strategies come into play like summoning a GF just to take the damage of an attack and die in place of the character that summoned it. A sacrificial shield. They also cannot be adequately healed in combat so the clock is ticking for these support fighters.
-All items are given more worth as a result of tougher enemies, PC nerfs etc. And attrition of items apply. All magics. All GFs. All resources. All systems. Everything is important.
-Junctioning magic to stats grants less of a boost. It's no longer the win state it was vanilla, especially since combat is harder across the board, so it doesn't need the same level of attention you still attribute to it ("muh infinite magics is such a problem!!!"). Besides, drawing magic endlessly is playing the game wrong anyways. Both items and cards grant lots of magic, as well as draw points in the world of varying kinds (visible, hidden but can be revealed, perma-hidden).
"[it doesn't do stupid unnecessary things like] Changing the junctioning system so it doesn't just give your entire party identical stats."
Hardly an issue. For 95% of the game, you do not have anywhere close to identical stats. That's only right at the end once all GF and their abilities, as well as lots of high level magic are obtained. Furthermore even at this end game scenario, it's no longer a game of who merely has the best stats like your primitive JRPGs, but who has the best [insert 20 other variables] instead. Yet another thing is ALL stats, including elem and status defense are now of greater importance, and there are only so many types of high level magic, so even at the very end you must pick and choose which stats get the best magic junctioned, resulting in different stat builds. Even at the very end.
The end result is a deeply enjoyable, highly strategic, multi-layered experience. All systems and elements of gameplay come together and you need to factor everything, as it should be.
As for any negative responses on the page, most people are dumb casuals like you. Of course they can't handle a hardcore FF. There is less grinding than say FF10 and 12 (ultra grindy games which I don't enjoy much), except for the final optional super boss (omega) which I just ignore. Though even then it's probably still less than the FF10/12 ultra grind.
As for the card game, yup it does become important. Mandatory? I'm not certain, but probably. However it doesn't demand hours upon hours. What you largely need is a some of the rare 20 cards for refinery. That's all you need to aim for. Anyways, not a bad thing. It's very fun and gameplay should exist with meaning and relevance to the overarching experience, not there for shits and giggles. At least in a hard mode anyways.
FF8 isn't bad because the enemies have low stats
Yes it is. With enemies that hit harder, GFs actually die. PCs actually are at threat of dying and can't just be left at low health to spam limit breaks. All resources are sapped more. You must adapt to encounters more via party setup. And more. Duh.
With this mod, FF8 becomes one of the most strategic and in-depth RPGs available. And it does so with fairly straightforward and sparse changes. So many choices, so much strategy, constantly evolving. It's really, really good.
Just stick to kiddie dead simple FF4, eh.
