Current Events > I played ff8 and ff9 on gamepass recently and this is controversial probably

(+) Yeah! (+)

I like amarant's trance putting reraise and regen on the entire party with one spell is pretty sweet

UnfairRepresent posted...

The entire Trance system is a mess and the game would lose next to nothing if it was removed. It's like it was not playtested

feels like it was a reaction on how Limit Breaks from VII/VIII breaks the game especially on VIII, they purposely making it not as good. but they overdid t and making it really suck.
then X making Limit/Overdrive good again without breaking the game early.

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Trance system wasn't great but I'm OK with it not being broken as hell.

Meltdown - Aura - Renzokuken/Duel = Death to everything in FF8. Game over.

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Jeff AKA Snoopy posted...

Trance system wasn't great but I'm OK with it not being broken as hell.

Meltdown - Aura - Renzokuken/Duel = Death to everything in FF8. Game over.

Don't forget

1. Triggers with Low HP so you can just cycle turn skips and do LBs forever
2. Holy Wars/Hero lasts longer on Low HP

So you can literally make yourself invincible and spam Limit Breaks forever at the same and even the Weapon bosses will not stand a chance against you.

There's a difference betwen clever strats/exloits and just fundamental bad design.

FF9 has nothing in the entire game as badly thought as as FF8's mechanics and plots. Trance comes close and Necron is a worse final boss. But still

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Ricemills posted...

then X making Limit/Overdrive good again without breaking the game early.

Well except for Aeons, Grand Summon and Attack Reels >_>

When is the first boss in FFX that can survive the salvo being hit by the Aeon's overdrives?


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UnfairRepresent posted...

FF9 has nothing in the entire game as badly thought as as FF8's mechanics and plots. Trance comes close and Necron is a worse final boss. But still

If Necron was ever mentioned at all it would have been fine... but I don't know if it is mentioned even by Garland. I wish Garland was the final villain.

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Jeff AKA Snoopy posted...

If Necron was ever mentioned at all it would have been fin

I dunno. Even if he was mentioned at Olivert or something, he was just "insert thing Kuja can save you from here." it's a mess

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Agreed tc.

8 was still enjoyable to me playing it on gamepass. 9, even sped up, made me wonder how the fuck I ever liked that game so much back in the day.


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I'm rebeating FFIX right now (pretty far in, just did the four seals thing where the party splits into groups of two), and I'm enjoying it a lot, but yeah, it does have flaws.

Namely, it has no idea what to do with its cast at all. You could almost cut anyone that's not Zidane, Garnet, and Vivi without losing much for the main plot. Maybe Eiko too.

Freya gets a great arc early on, but then it ends quickly and she spends the rest of the game just kind of existing.

Literally none of the party ever care whether or not Quina is there. (Though that adds to their charm honestly, hilarious character)

Steiner is incredibly important early on, then just borderline stops getting dialogue. Sadly the game doesn't know what to do with him at all post-disc 2.

Amarant just joins too late. His plot is interesting, but it's mostly crammed into a few scenes and his really awkward mini-arc in Ipsen's Castle, which was just too rushed to be impactful.

Honestly, even Garnet isn't handled all that well. She has like four moments where she seems to grow, but then fails or gets bailed out by Zidane, only to feel useless and go through the same story beats all over again later.

Also, a lot of the guest characters really should have been fully playable, especially Beatrix and Blank. Probably Marcus too. All of them got a good deal of plot development (and probably honestly more than some of the main cast), and it felt like them not joining was pretty arbitrary.

I'd be interested to see a remake of FFIX eventually, and how it might rebalance the characters and their screentime a bit. In particular, I'd either have Amarant join way earlier, or have the subplot with him and Lani start significantly earlier with them both encountering the party multiple times before Am joins. And give Quina some sort of plot relevance.

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dotsdfe posted...

And give Quina some sort of plot relevance.

dotsdfe posted...

And give Quina some sort of plot relevance.

Strong disagree

Quina's entire character and presence to the game comes from the fact s/he doesn't give a shit about what's going on

Lose that and you lose a unique voice

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UnfairRepresent posted...

Strong disagree

Quina's entire character and presence to the game comes from the fact s/he doesn't give a shit about what's going on

Lose that and you lose a unique voice

Maybe.

But it'd be nice if they at least...spoke sometimes. Quina goes for large chunks of the game without any dialogue of anything, so at least give them a bit more to do, even if not some plot relevance or anything.

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dotsdfe posted...

Maybe.

But it'd be nice if they at least...spoke sometimes. Quina goes for large chunks of the game without any dialogue of anything, so at least give them a bit more to do, even if not some plot relevance or anything.

I like that though

not everyone needs to have huge personal stakes in the plot and world

People like Quina exist and she has a character arc

throwing in a son that Kuja kidnapped we need to rescue or long diatribes with Garnet about the way to rule would ruin the character

I think she's a great character.

Give more to Amarant and Freya, not Quina

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on a personal note i think dagger looks bad with short hair and wish it had stayed long
i understand it was a big character moment for her but i prefer the long hair
also she should have been able to equip daggers

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I feel that Final Fantasy X improved a lot on the negatives of 8 and 9.

Honestly, even 7 had its flaws with characters because a lot of them also feel like they're just...there...especially the optional ones.

At least 10 gave more personality to its characters where all of them had big roles and a voice in the game.

dameon_reaper posted...

I feel that Final Fantasy X improved a lot on the negatives of 8 and 9.

Honestly, even 7 had its flaws with characters because a lot of them also feel like they're just...there...especially the optional ones.

At least 10 gave more personality to its characters where all of them had big roles and a voice in the game.

I somewhat agree although even FFX falls into the trap where by the end half the cast aren't doing anything

Post Home Wakka doesn't do shit

Lulu has one optional bit with Yojimbo otherwise does nothing post Bevelle

I think they could have incorporated people better into the finale.

Then again they tried not having a solid MC in FF12 and people didn't like it

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Jeff AKA Snoopy posted...

Trance system wasn't great but I'm OK with it not being broken as hell.

Meltdown - Aura - Renzokuken/Duel = Death to everything in FF8. Game over.

Just because you can boil something down to broken doesnt mean its bad. NotR+WSummon, guess VIIs combat is trash. You found an optimal way to play and spammed it of course its going to be boring you're cheesing everything. 8 deservse a lot of criticism but none of it in the gameplay department...I blame spoony.

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ZeroX91 posted...

Just because you can boil something down to broken doesnt mean its bad. NotR+WSummon, guess VIIs combat is trash. You found an optimal way to play and spammed it of course its going to be boring you're cheesing everything. 8 deservse a lot of criticism but none of it in the gameplay department...I blame spoony.

Nah that's not fair

W-Summon and KOTR take a long time to earn and can only be used at the Endgame, they also still need prep to beat Ruby or Emerald Weapon

Exploits are fine in a single player game

Getting Squalls final weapon early in disc 1 is fine

FF8 is fundamentally badly designed

Limits that trigger due to low health, enemies that bet tougher if you level up so there is no benefit to leveling, gill comes from literally doing nothing

etc

These aren't late game exploits that come from prep and research, these are just terrible design choices below the standards of triple A games

FF8 is a fundamentally broken game, the combat is dumb and only works If the player intentionally handicaps themselves to be a good sport

Edit: I don't watch Spoony

FF8 is just a mess

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CouldBeAnAlt posted...

Yeah it's not as simple as ff8 because by then the dualshock had been created

Huh?

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i just learned there is a mod for the pc version of ff9 that seamlessly adds beatrix to the party
reworking her to fit in as a party member full time, she even gains levels.
and has unique dialogue in cutscenes to better incorporate her into the plot

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AllegraD posted...

Is this some kind of joke?

FF8 falls apart after the assassination attempt to end Disc 1. You start Disc 2 in that prison and it's like *turns off game*

Disc 1 definitely peaks and Disc 2 sucks but going into outer space was pretty bad ass. Time compression was bad ass too but so many things should have been done better.

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