FFVIII (FF8) Remaster
Announced at E3, and scheduled to be out before the end of the year:
I'm unapologetic in my love for FF8, but bar widescreen, controller support and updating the models and backgrounds, I wonder what else, if anything, they might improve.
It's its own thing, not 7, and not 9.
I think it's worth experiencing, having some very good character arcs and a unique leveling and combat system (Essentially, you gain power by hoarding spell cards and linking them with stats. You do NOT want to grind out levels for power gaming, because enemies level up with you and gain new abilities as they do so.)
So this came out on Tuesday, and I'm currently on disc 3.
Have to admit, that while I had forgotten just how much I loved this game, I also never realised how ridiculously deep it is. Not just in terms of gameplay (junctioning and how gfs relate to each other etc), but in terms of how many sidequests there are that you can completely miss that give you good rewards.
An example is one of Zell's best limit breaks (if not his best), being available through a completely missable romance side-story.
I know a lot of people don't like junctioning or how magic is more finite in this game, but I haven't had many problems with it. At least, they aren't problems to me, and as long as you have something decent on your Magic stat, drawing really doesn't take that long from my pov.
I did kinda break the game, sadly. I spent a lot of the early game playing cards and card modding, so by the time I reached Edea on disc 1 I was somewhat OP with Squall.
As far as this being a "remaster", the only really big changes are the character/enemy models, which have been spruced up, and the fact that it's now running on modern systems. A fair amount of the triple triad art has been either changed or updated too. The game is still in 4:3, and the backgrounds haven't been prettied up either. I'm on PC so I'll naturally just mod it, but for those on console... Yeah. They use the original score rather than that awful midi one too, which is nice. And it is a beautiful score to boot.
Originally posted by SquallX
Didn’t even see this thread, and 8 is my all time favorite.
Originally posted by -Pr-
👆Still top-three for me even after all this time.
Yes, and yes. FFVIII introduced me to Final Fantasy, and, along with Pokémon Red and Blue - to JRPG's in general.
It's between VII and VIII for my all-time favorite video game. Glad to see this remaster drop for gamers in this current generation.
I always looked at the GF junction system as making your characters into powerhouses through magic superpowers rather than "shucks, I can't use magic cause it's linked to my stats." I just focused on attacks/limit breaks, items, and summons, rather than having a party of a couple of physical brawlers, a white magic user, and a black magic user (whether through magicite/material in VI and VII or classes in games like I or V).
Strategy was always either attack/eventually aura >>> limit breaks or summon GF's till the enemies fell. I enjoyed VIII's battle system just as much as any other FF game sans the class-based stuff of V and especially Tactics.
Anyways, I look to forward to perhaps one day reuniting with Squall and Rinoa. Loved their romance and the sweeping epic that is FFVIII.
I can't say that I've done it myself, but I have read that if you build their stats right, you can go in to the late-game with weak magic in your junctions, leaving your high-level stuff free to actually cast. I'm going to try that on my next playthrough, which I plan to start today, seeing as how I finished the game yesterday.
Loved it, but it was jarring to see such nice character models placed against such old, low-quality backgrounds (by modern standards at least). PC mods can't come soon enough.
Funny how they censored Siren and made Rinoa look less asian, but apparently Ultimecia's techno-boobs don't warrant a pass from Square's committee.
Originally posted by SquallX
Did you get addicted to triple triad again Pr?One thing I would have like square to do, is to make FF8 triple triad into an online game just like CD Project Red’s Gwent.
I played it mostly before going to Timber to get a ton of refined items, but after that I kind of tapered down some. I did do the cc quest and the queen quests though, as I wanted to get all the cards. Once I had Squall and Odin (who I left til disc 4), I just refined everything and went and killed Ultimecia.
This playthrough, though? Oh, it's gonna be a marathon.
And yeah, they really haven't capitalised on it. It's fun in FFXIV though, I will say that.
Originally posted by Kazenji
They also had her cleavage covered up apparently, From the picture's that i've seen looks about the same as the original to me just in better quality.
It does look different to me, I'll admit, but it's more a feeling of... If they just did any one of those things, it wouldn't be a big deal. But when you change a bunch of things at once in your games, it tends to be more noticeable as a pattern.
And, to be crass, it's not like Rinoa was known for her cleavage in the first place. She's no Lulu.